Class changes and balance in Game Update 1.3

I beg to differ, it all depends. If a shadow/sin has put his skill points in his tanking tree and the other said "heavy armor user" is a heavy but scaled DPS then yes a shadow/sin should be on par or equal too. I have never seen anyone , save the early levels starting out, say shadow is the greatest tank or the easiest to tank with so it's not in fact better than any tanks standing in upper tier armor classes , to say so is just hating. They are the easiest to learn to use effectively , Hince the large numbers of them, but that's only early on that it gives you any kind of edge.

BW designed shadows as tanks, not just dps, they did this knowingly. For a light class toon to tank it needs excellent mitigation , which shadows have after 1.3 pve mitigation will not allow shadows much of a role in a party, claim them OP all you want, they are a very versatile class and clever players play them well, but their damage is mediocre at best , it's their durability that made them useful in parties, DPS rolls will be filled by bigger hammers kudos for "garaging " shadows/sins with 1.3. I will still use mine to terrorize PVP though, it's just sad to see a class lose it's roll. I hope they offer class resets to those who ask, should be possible through CS, would be the right thing, they won't be tanks anymore.

I think ultimately the changes to sin are fine for PvP, though I do not think they went far enough with harnessed darkness and its mirror. Really needs to be interuptable at the very least, damage reduced to go along with the healing reduction might be a good idea as well.

The change to armor bonus from dark charge will hurt sin tanks in PvE unnecessarily in my opinion. Hard enough to tank as a sin, the nerf to armor in my opinion will remove us from being a viable option for anything but emergency/off tanking.

The guy who is in charge with balancing classes dont have any clues how some of classes work...take mercenary as exemple we waited so long for a fix and all we see is more nerfs...you guys really need to get an mercenary and start play it in pvp because you really make more ppl sad and less subs for your company too...i will be 1 of those 1 who wont sub anymore...Mercenary class is broken.... Unload is not working on full auto....and 90% is getting also bugged and the char will stay fixed on the dead...and this is not the only 1... our class is the only class who is getting intrerupted not only 1 single spell but the entire rotation if we get intrerupted. our surviving is broken too take any other class in game and check there is no other class who is broken like mercenary.,.you guys still buff up Force users and you espect us to reroll all on same op classes? learn to balance before this game will die
The problem with Arsenal is that it take way too much time to reach our DPS potential while other classes have it all in the instant.
from pvp point:
1. Still no change to survivability against melee, no change to constantly beeing interupted, or otherwise getting your skills chain interupted by other kinds of cc.
2. Still no escape abilities to get away from melee, once you get a melee player on your, their on you until either one of you are dead, 90% of the time its you.

Assa Tanks will have the lower damage mitigation by far, their avoidance (defense) and shield abs is useless in pvp and MOST bosses. Our CD don't reduce all damage type like the other tanks.
Bioware, you have no idea what-so-ever of how things work in your game....

If you go with this changes, then you have to give CDs that actually work in PvE and PvP and something to compensate the difference in the damage reduction.

I honestly felt that Shadow Tanks needed more armor, not less, and am shocked to see this nerf. The healing factor against OPS bosses is nice but really only comes into play when damage is low and the healer can keep up anyway, or maybe on flashpoint or general pve enemies. Shadow Tanks are already noticeably more squishy to burst damage from bosses and I'm suspecting this nerf will push it past the limit of acceptability.

I also feel like even if they felt a nerf was needed, this one was extreme. This was in no way game breaking, so trying a smaller nerf to start with would have been SOOO much better than this, which is potentially class breaking.

Very nice read and thank you for insight in how changes are made.

As a healer though (sorc), i couldnt help to feel a bit dissapointed.

I could have swear i read on some interview that they were gonna look into the useability of healers.

lol.. 1.3 Kaon hard mode barely playable with 3Rakata/2Columi geared ShadowTank..
Great job BioWare!..
You have invented new party composition for Raids - 1 «Tank», 3 healers (2 dedicated for Tank), 4 DPS..
Sure such raid will lack DPS output and can`t be done for HardMosde ops.. But who cares? Thats PvP game! Oh, wait.. PvPeers are still leaving this game cause of boresome PvP..

I see that you are encouraging people who are like to Tank in PvE to leave Sin/Shadow class and go level Jugg/PT, but no, thanks..

I appreciate your hard work BW_Team and want make a gift of appreciation from me - canceled Sub as 1.3 goes live...

Why were there so many? Because of the stealth.
Not because they were better then other tanks, but simply because of the stealth.

^this
I know, it's just my opinion... But I am surprised how the developers actually manage to make class balance of this game only worse with every patch.

The shadow/assassin tank problem wasn't really a survivability problem, it was survivability AND their damage output, so a wise decision would be to apply an effect for defensive stance, something like "Damage dealt to players reduced by 15%", this way dealing with those tanks in dps gear. It shouldn't be very hard to implement, since the expertise mechanic is there and it wouldn't hurt assassins/shadows in PvE. Now with the changes you made, you forced tank assassins/shadows to use dps gear in pvp, basicly making those true tanks in tank gear not viable for pvp.

While removing "on use" adrenals/relics which provide a damage increase from the game might look like a good idea, there are actually advanced classes that rely on burst, like deception assassins, concealment operatives and their republic counterparts. This change will hurt them badly, since the entire idea behind those specs is to deal large amount of damage in few gcds, while their target is incapacitated (stunned/knocked down). Removing that extra damage from relics/adrenals during the burst will affect a lot on effectivenes of those classes.

Operative/Scoundrels changes.. You really need to cripple even more the survivability of the class that has the less mobility, less defensive cooldowns and less utility? Really?

And lastly, marauders/sentinels really need to be toned down. Maybe, instead of checking metrics, run some tests on how well marauder/sentinel heavy teams actually perform? Or should they be able to chain root and chain use predation/bloodthirst? Not to speak of Undying Rage/Guarded by the Force + medpac/healing.

So, you're extremely knowledgeable about the one tank class/counterpart you don't play... why am I not in the least surprised?

Your faith in Bioware's ability to take note of, and respond positively to, playtest feedback, is touchingly naive.