PTS Closing? What happened to Merc/Mando changes Eric Musco??????

OK, Merc DPS in general has been fixed. Lets move on. Merc heals. Eric Musco, any word please? I tested all three healing clases (and merc is the only level 50 I have on live which has a healing tree) and it is significantly weaker than the other two. Honestly if you stat right your numbers can be on par with the other two, but merc heals heat management still needs some help. Just add a simple skill like operatives have, like "Rapid Shots critical hits vent (1/2) heat while Combat Support Cylinder is active." A two point skill, a simple fix, a dramatic effect.

I spent a lot of time leveling my mercenary. He's currenly rotting in the garbage because of how bad merc heals are. I already have sniper as my main rDPS, so there isn't any point in respeccing him either.

Although I am simply ecstatic that we actually have a dev post. Like really really impressed. This is not at all what everyone was worried about. It is cool that you closed the build up, but where are the mobility problems. The biggest of which is a lower cd on electronet. Also, in all honesty we will still have to do more grav rounds to proc full auto. So we'll still have problems with interrupts. Honestly why does it seem the devs simply refuse to give us an ability with temorary interrupt immunity? It's not going to make us OP. It will simply allow us to actually be viable in pvp.

fixed? whoa now partner, lets not get ahead of ourselves. there is still not even a semblance of interrupt resistance available to Merc DPS. we are still bound to casting endless amounts of tracers. the only thing that changed was the TM -> HSM burst combo now only takes 2 GCDs, rather than 4.

the whole class still needs help. one change did not suddenly fix everything wrong with Arsenal Merc. hopefully this is the first step to making Merc more viable. if its all we're getting, the class is still gonna lag behind.

And I'm sorry you got that we wanted 'god mode' out of other posts. I can assure you the actual and obvious requests behind our posts were something different, but I have a feeling reality is in the backseat to you trolling your fellow forum members.

It's ok.

You would benefit from not assuming. Take a step back and not take the god mode comment as an attack on the validity of merc DPS concerns.. It wasn't meant as one. It was clearly meant to put the fix into perspective: a relatively minor change that makes a big deal in PvP, but it wasn't god mode.

Stop being paranoid. If anything, my post was in agreement with that there is still more to be done. Sheesh.

I can succeed in half-warhero half-recruit on my merc's Arsenal spec. There is a valid point behind the PvP Arsenal complaints but the fact is that half of the merc players are bad and use this as their excuse for underperformance. The good players will come out on top, regardless of class.

Believe it or not, there is onl one 'best class'. Fixing Arsenal does not mean making it the best class. There will always be a best and there will always be a worst. Just because the class you play isn't the best does not mean Bioware should make it so.

Giving Merc Arsenal an ability which prevents interupts for a certain time is literally giving them 'god-mode'. If there's one thing I hate, it's bias. Balancing does not mean making your class overpowered. It's keeping all of the classes at the same general level. Perhaps this has not been mentioned to you yet. When we refer to balancing, we are talking about balancing each class against the others, not balancing the class you play against your apparent inability to play the class to its full potential.

Merc Arsenal is already fixed for PvE now, as of the recent changes. It is still slightly unbalanced for PvP. There's a few good ways to improve their PvP capabilities without changing PvE very much. Interupt immunity is not one of them. I personally recommend making the... uh... whatever it's called, that Powertech speed boost ability (which I believe is also immunity to interupts, but that doesn't matter too much) available to mercs as well. The point of ranged DPS is not to give them buffs so they can turret and not have to move at all. There's a specific class for that: sniper. The rest of the classes should have ESCAPE abilities, NOT immunity abilities.


Regardless, I really don't care much about Merc DPS. I don't plan on using it so it doesn't affect me very much. I would very much appreciate a dev response to my above post, regarding Merc Heals.

I'm a little touchy right now, because no, this relatively minor change will not make a big deal in PvP. It really won't. As I've already said, the demo round change means about 1k extra damage in limited situations. That's nice, but it is so far from a fix, it'd be hilarious if it wasn't sad.

I'm also pissed because right now people are virtually falling over themselves to fellate the devs for communicating, whilst admitting that this actually doesn't fix us - in the hope that we'll get another scrap from the table soon. Hah!

Have we learned nothing?

This is it. The nerf to pyro, and the tweak to arsenal is IT. This is all we are going to get for many many months. We're done. Forget about any further changes. Forget about any dreams of running ranked with the big bad marauders and co. It's over. The state of class balance on the PTS now is essentially what it'll still be 4+ months down the line after the expansion goes live.

A little overly dramatic for a video game, wouldn't you agree?

The language? The factual basis of my statement? Which bit bothers you?

Any chance that, in addition to what's planned, Power Shot could be modified to add stacks of Tracer Lock as well? It already grants Power Barriers and Barrage, so it's not like there's precedent. But right now, there's still no reason for a Merc not to mostly spam Tracers the same as it is on live, that I can see.