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Bubble stun doesn't need a nerf

STAR WARS: The Old Republic > English > PvP
Bubble stun doesn't need a nerf

Jadescythe's Avatar


Jadescythe
02.04.2013 , 10:58 AM | #51
Quote: Originally Posted by tacito View Post
Couldn't we find a point of effectiveness for stun bubbles that lies inbetween "nobody ever uses that crap" and "I can't move a single inch without being stunned again"? Pretty please?

I understand that sorcs like to have useful utility. I understand that, in a 1on1, there are ways around the bubble. But in their current form, those bubbles are not fun.

The stun works on everyone. Even if you carefully stand outside of the stun radius of your designated target, someone else next to you has his bubble popped. You're stunned now.

The stun is applied when you cancel the buff. Even if you go in for some attacks, then want to pop the bubble from a distance. your target just clicks off the buff while you're close. You're stunned now.

Related to above: You can cancel buffs while stunned or mezzed. So the bubble is actually a CC useable while CCed. For everyone on the team.

The lockout is... well. Long for a health preservation mechanism. But incredibly short for a 3 second stun.

The bubble stun is the only stun in the game (as far as I know) that doesn't respect the rule of "200 resolve per second of stun". Instead, it's half that much. So you can theoretically be stunned for 13 seconds instead of 8.

Oh, and players who have the stun bubble usually also have the 5 second root on their knockback applied. I'm not the best player in this world, so maybe it's just me. But on my operative, going against bubble stun + normal stun + rootkick, this makes me want to commit senseless acts of violence to local wildlife. On other melee characters, it's "only" incredibly annoying. A warzone with stun bubbles all over the place and 2 or 3 sages with root-enhanced knockback is essentially turn-based. Once had a warzone with 4 rootkick and bubblestun sages and 4 smashers. That was about as much fun as flossing with barbed wire, gotta tell you.

I don't know how to resolve this situation. I just know that it's about as interesting as going against operatives at launch. You're stunned every other second, and then you're dead.
The fact is, I don't think there is a common ground or compromise to this ability. Having it on the caster only negates the lost abilities of going that high in Lightning. Increasing the resolve it fills will provide too much of a punishment and teams won't use the ability anymore. Changing the percentage so you never know if it's going to pop is too RNG based and will more likely than not get the sorc killed and have the invincible mara stunning people.

Having the ability trigger on the caster only continues to provide the protection that it was intended to give to the user. There just have to be some other changes made to other abilities in each tree or to shared abilities overall to make the class offer utility in some other way. I've mentioned options before, but perhaps changing something like force slow to a root rather than a snare could help with kiting melee classes and offer more utility in a more enjoyable way.
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LarryRow's Avatar


LarryRow
02.04.2013 , 11:01 AM | #52
Quote: Originally Posted by Jadescythe View Post
This is probably the most extreme indirect re-nerf in history though. The reason this spec was never a problem before is that running it meant the other team would be at full resolve pretty much non stop. What made this ability relevant was the nerf to resolve. Prior to the 1.4 update, if you had a couple bubbled opponents near you, you would hit full resolve as they all popped. Because of the removal of overlapping stuns, now you still just fill up for the time you are stunned, not going white barred.

Since the stun is not controlled by the caster, there is no way to determine who will get hit by it and having it fill half resolve means that teams will inadvertently be making most melee unable to be CC'd quite often. It would be the same as removing the ability completely because you won't be able to use other abilities to control the enemy when you actually need them.

TL;DR a nice thought, but far worse for sorcs than just making it only work on the caster
This is not correct, and it's bad logic to boot.

The spec was never a problem because the mez was unpredictable and usually broke on damage, essentially giving free resolve. Note that it was a 3 second mez with 300 resolve. Now it is a 3 second stun with 300 resolve. The resolve was not appropriately adjusted. This is a bug (one that Bioware is reluctant to fix to because they don't want to piss off sorcs again. Last time they got a justified nerf, all the lazy bad ones left the game because their class was no longer op - better for the game imho).

Anyway, the upshot of the broken resolve on the bubble stun is that the risk to spamming bubbles is very small compared to the reward. High chance to cause an aoe stun, small chance to cause white bars. But whenever anyone suggests fixing the resolve on it, someone always says, "But you will white bar the whole other team!" Yes you will, if you mindlessly spam bubbles. However, if you apply bubbles skillfully, with some actual thought, then it won't be such an issue.

Clicking off the bubble obviously needs to go as well.

And lastly, there needs to be a very obvious visual indicator that distinguishes a stun bubble from a normal one. I don't mind having to change my approach to a fight when I see a stun bubble, but I want to know if it's necessary.
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tekhiun's Avatar


tekhiun
02.04.2013 , 11:03 AM | #53
Quote: Originally Posted by Jadescythe View Post
I agree that Force Speed is one of the biggest advantages of sorcs, but against any warrior AC, leap is on a shorter CD and as long as they wait until FS is over, they'll just catch right back up. If they leap in then FS is awesome, but any decent player will save leap for when you get away. It's far more likely you will be Force Slowing them, cleansing their snare and trying to stay at 4-10 meters if you don't get a peel. From here I'd much prefer having some instant heals since they will catch me immediately after stopping. So I'm pretty much spamming Static Barrier and Resurgence unless I really have to heal someone up in which case I'm probably blowing KB, stun, or mez to buy some time.
I think it really depends how you do it, if you force speed to the middle of nowhere, then yes you prolly gonna get pulled or leaped. But if you do it when you are hugging a pillar or near one you have a very good cover to self heal and kite.

But think the issue here is not sorcs and more ops heals, I specially think that the free heal below 30% health is too op , would be nicer if it was a 30% chance of it not costing a TA or removing the self heal buff on the shield probe.
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AdrianDmitruk's Avatar


AdrianDmitruk
02.04.2013 , 11:06 AM | #54
Quote: Originally Posted by tacito View Post
Couldn't we find a point of effectiveness for stun bubbles that lies inbetween "nobody ever uses that crap" and "I can't move a single inch without being stunned again"? Pretty please?

I understand that sorcs like to have useful utility. I understand that, in a 1on1, there are ways around the bubble. But in their current form, those bubbles are not fun.

The stun works on everyone. Even if you carefully stand outside of the stun radius of your designated target, someone else next to you has his bubble popped. You're stunned now.

The stun is applied when you cancel the buff. Even if you go in for some attacks, then want to pop the bubble from a distance. your target just clicks off the buff while you're close. You're stunned now.

Related to above: You can cancel buffs while stunned or mezzed. So the bubble is actually a CC useable while CCed. For everyone on the team.

The lockout is... well. Long for a health preservation mechanism. But incredibly short for a 3 second stun.

The bubble stun is the only stun in the game (as far as I know) that doesn't respect the rule of "200 resolve per second of stun". Instead, it's half that much. So you can theoretically be stunned for 13 seconds instead of 8.

Oh, and players who have the stun bubble usually also have the 5 second root on their knockback applied. I'm not the best player in this world, so maybe it's just me. But on my operative, going against bubble stun + normal stun + rootkick, this makes me want to commit senseless acts of violence to local wildlife. On other melee characters, it's "only" incredibly annoying. A warzone with stun bubbles all over the place and 2 or 3 sages with root-enhanced knockback is essentially turn-based. Once had a warzone with 4 rootkick and bubblestun sages and 4 smashers. That was about as much fun as flossing with barbed wire, gotta tell you.

I don't know how to resolve this situation. I just know that it's about as interesting as going against operatives at launch. You're stunned every other second, and then you're dead.
I can kind of see what you're saying. I've seen ops not pay attention to the status of my lockout bubble and laughed as the following happened:

1) Op opens with hidden strike when my bubble is up but after the lockout expired. I'm knocked down, he's bubblestunned.
2) I reapply bubble as soon as I get back up. Operative pops bubble, gets stunned again.
3) I sprint away. Op combat stealths, hoping to finally get his opener.
4) I manage to hide around a corner and elude the operative long enough for lockout to expire and for me to bubble myself again.
5) Operative finally finds me. Steps 1 and 2 repeat for a grand total of 4 consecutive bubblestuns on operative. Meanwhile, my team finally notices that I could use a peel, the operative already blew his stealth, and I point and laugh while operative gets splatted.

But.

I already must give up the AOE heal to get the root on knockback. Which I need very badly with the 3 or more melee hunting me down at all times, thank you very much. Without the root, the knockback is literally useless as melee can either leap back or simply walk back to me at full speed (no doubt while they have me either snared or rooted).

"But you have a slow!" Yes, but it is NOT aoe. It is not spammable, and it doesn't have 100% uptime like what some other classes get. If I have 3 melee on me, I can only slow one of them; my knockback is utterly useless against the other two without that root. This is why I said that other classes get their CC baseline, but sorcs must spec into theirs.

Meanwhile, there is practically nothing between innervate and AOE heal worth taking for PVP in the healing tree, and since I MUST get at least electric bindings (root) in lightning to have any survivability at all, I now have leftover talent points that are relatively useless when spent in heal tree, because there's not enough for AOE heal. So what's the only viable thing I can do with the leftovers? You guessed it, spec bubblestun.

If you want one less bubblestunner in warzones, give me the root on knockback, baseline, and let me go full heals while still allowing me the ability to kite (without those I'm trying to run away from leaping right back to me, cuz I have them rooted).

It really is that simple. We're expected to be the healing class that kites with speed, yet we have to stand still to heal. Therefore, we have to go hybrid so we can make our enemies stand still as well, and thus kite properly.
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RougeBeaver's Avatar


RougeBeaver
02.04.2013 , 11:10 AM | #55
Get rid of the ability to be chain-rooted by multiple consecutive leapers, then let's talk about nerfing bubble stun.
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Jadescythe's Avatar


Jadescythe
02.04.2013 , 11:10 AM | #56
Quote: Originally Posted by abhaxus View Post
Prior to 1.4 it only affected the caster, not the target that was actually bubbled. When you cast the bubble on someone and it got popped, anyone near YOU got mezzed, not the person attacking them. That was the reason I didn't run it despite running hybrid in 1.2-1.3 (for the force effusion cooldown reduction on force speed, and for the KB root).
Like you said, I didn't use it in my hybrid builds either, so you may be correct. The patch notes don't say anything about changing that particular aspect of the ability, however.

Backlash: The blindness effect caused by this skill no longer breaks on damage. The visual explosion effect now plays on the correct target.
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MusicRider's Avatar


MusicRider
02.04.2013 , 11:13 AM | #57
Bubble stun is a bad ability that takes away the fun when everyone is running with one. Sage healers are fine, and it's scounds/ops healers that need some kind of nerf. The smash, pyro pts, tank/dps hybrids, broken tk tree, fluff damage of balance dps sages, etc are issues that have been discussed a gazillion times in a gazillion other threads with a gazillion suggestions and are tottaly separate issues from bubble stun. Just look them up.

Tankqull's Avatar


Tankqull
02.04.2013 , 11:17 AM | #58
Quote: Originally Posted by Cretinus View Post
You're repeating my edit, so I don't understand why you say that it doesn't solve the problem?
because alot of the sorcs/sages will go full healing leading to the same situation as now - bubblestun canceled everywhere as it is now. the problem aint the fact that you can have it on everybody but beeing able to cancel it on your own stunning every one arround you.

DOCSMonkey's Avatar


DOCSMonkey
02.04.2013 , 11:18 AM | #59
Quote: Originally Posted by AdrianDmitruk View Post
That only trades one problem for another.

As others have said, a sorc's ONLY usefulness in RWZ is the bubblestun. Take away the ability to bubblestun the team, you take away the sorc's only team utility (except in huttball where the friendly pull is relevant).

RWZ will go right back to two operative healers, and only operative healers. Sorcs will no longer have a place at the table, which is why OP is telling the mass QQers to suggest an alternative buff to take bubblestun's place.

Personally, I think this is almost exactly like the pre-1.2 QQ about sorc healers, when melee derptrains QQed that sorcs were too hard to kill before they found their interrupts. People who knew how to utilize interrupts effectively could still kill healers, but for most of the QQers, it was a l2p issue. Unfortunately, Biofail listened to the mass QQ and gutted the class, and that whooshing sound you all heard was the sound of a million sorcs crying out in terror, then suddenly silenced when they all unsubbed. Literally.

Which is why sorcs were given the bubblestun in the first place--to try to band-aid the class.

Now, the pre-1.2 cycle repeats itself. Melee is too lazy to apply a root, step back, and apply a 10m saber throw or force stasis to pop the bubble, so they QQ when they expect to be able to leap, derpsmash, and get stunned because of their own stupidity. And melee is too impatient to let ranged pop the bubble, too. L2p issue.
This!
On my BH PT I simply look for the bubble and take my time to range pop it with either ED or RS. I see way too many people just head on attack everyone and get annoyed when they get stunned- it's a simple matter of patience and strategy.
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abhaxus's Avatar


abhaxus
02.04.2013 , 11:20 AM | #60
Quote: Originally Posted by Jadescythe View Post
Like you said, I didn't use it in my hybrid builds either, so you may be correct. The patch notes don't say anything about changing that particular aspect of the ability, however.

Backlash: The blindness effect caused by this skill no longer breaks on damage. The visual explosion effect now plays on the correct target.
You may be correct, in the notes it says:
Backlash: The blindness effect caused by this skill no longer breaks on damage. The visual explosion effect now plays on the correct target.

Maybe it did work on the target and not just on you, but the visual was incorrect. Either way, as a mezz, it didn't offer me any more survivability than the other tools I was specced into, so I left it alone. A mezz gives me maybe one extra second to get away if I'm lucky (what sorc being attacked isn't going to try to cast affliction on the attacker as they try to escape?)
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