Why the consular/inquisitor nerf to force wave?

You sure you thought it was 30m? You realize that 30m is the max range of all sage/sorc attacks, that would be absolutely insane. You could clear an entire battlefield with that range. You had to be thinking of a different number.

Agreed, I can't stand when people use knockbacks against groups of adds, unless they're well aimed and actually condense the group instead of spreading it out. But that rarely happens, it's usually some healer (especially since knockbacks can be specc'd to heal) or derpy DPS who wanders over and ends up knocking the adds all away from the tank and/or DPS. As a tank that means I can't get aggro on them anymore from my AOEs, and end up losing a few to the healer/DPS. As a DPS that means that my big AOEs also can't hit, and we have to single target down what was perfectly a condensed group.

That might be true but then I played a BH and a sniper both which have 360 degree knock-backs that were better than what the sage had since they could pick up points to increase the knock back range.

It was a nerf to sages where others got to keep a simple skill that did teh same thing if not better.

I never understood the need for the nerf.

I friggin' *hate* the randoms that treat the KBs as if they were heals/damage powers instead of what they *actually* are: utility.

I've met so many random Sages that act as if Force Wave were their only/best/most useful AoE heal, completely ignoring that they've got Salvation *and* how Force Wave is a pretty terrible heal from any perspective. The "KBs also heal" talents made me facepalm *so* hard when I saw them because I knew it would only make them use the KBs that many of them *already* overused and used poorly even more often.

For DPS, if a Sage even *thinks* of using Force Wave as an AoE damage ability, they should be taken out to the shed and shot. Shadows, on the other hand, have so little AoE that I can understand the thought process ("it's one of our two default AoE abilities that deals damage") even if it is *still* completely terrible as an AoE damage ability. As a Shadow DPS, you have to just admit that you have completely negligible AoE damage capability and move on: your "AoE" is either single targeting stuff down or multi-DoTing (depending upon spec).

I actually love the change! I solo about 99% of the time and so I find that sometimes it's a nice trick to have. Before the change, I just about never used it, because that would mean I'd also break the stun I had on the gold elite.

It's not a problem pushing a full group of mobs either. Two steps back and I'm still able to get them off of me.

First of all: i never quite cared for force wave, the only thing that still rubs me wrongly is the change they did to the project animation.

Now then to the actual reply:

If i recall correctly it went something like this (words are a bit off, but fairly certain thats what they said):
They increased the range but made it a conal 180'ish push in front of you to make its utility as an escape skill more usefull.
Translation: We dont know that running away means turning your back on someone, so now you have to jump midair twist 180 degrees, use force wave, turn another 180 degrees and keep running)

On a side note, trooper & sniper aoe knockback is still 360 degrees, but well atleast you can interrupt them before... oh wait... no you cant.

Funny thing is that inq's could interrupt consulars as well with their knockback.

WTB old project (or current legacy project) animation for current project.

The issue is that they somehow found it hard to 'insta activate' things vs the animation it had so they decided to change it all up.

It's a no cost insta cast aoe heal without healing limitation, it's damn usefull in ops/boss fights.

Seriously? You thought FW/OL was pushing people back at sniper range? You couldn't have been using it much. The range was much smaller. Could I say if it was 8m or 5m? Probably not, but it was no more than 10m for sure, and the pushback was weak.

That was the whole point of the change. They replaced a weak, short-range pushback with a medium/strong pushback focused in a single direction. This is described well by:

This.

When I first heard of it, I was worried that they had just cut the area by 66%. Actually playing it was a different experience. The old version mostly just pushed mobs outside melee range. The new version gives them a good toss and doesn't require you to be right on top of them. The cone isn't terribly small, so it can be used for things like marking a whole mob-group (to prevent kill-stealing) without rushing into the middle of them like an idiot or tossing a few stragglers into an AoE field.

The only down-sides I've found is that the push is actually a bit stronger than optimum for Shadows/Assassins. It's not uncommon to hit a target with this and have them pushed outside the 10m range of most of your ranged abilities. Before the change, I was using it as a weak interrupt, since I could hit it and immediately hit Lightning/Throw. The new versions tosses many mobs too far. This is easily adapted to, however, by simply running forward while using FW/OL. You'll usually be in range by the end of the GCD. The second down-side has mostly disappeared by now: Until I (and others) had adjusted to the new range/toss-distance, the ability could screw up some battlefield management efforts, either by waking up CCed mobs who wouldn't have been in range of the old ability, or by tossing them off ledges and having them do whatever buggy non-lethal-fall behavior that area used.

I suspect the reason that it was removed was indeed part of a PvP balancing effort. At that point, trying to backstab a Sage/Sorc was difficult to say the least. With a 360 pushback on short cooldown, they could push an attacker back as quickly as an attacker could close the distance again. It gave skilled Sage/Sorcs very few weaknesses.

Changing the ability gave them a minor weakness from behind, but gave all the Consular/Inquisitors a better utility ability for leveling, and supporting a play-style that actually matched the light-armor/force-user style.

i think you're missing the point of force wave.

knocking people out of being grouped up means no AOE. as someone who plays a dps, a tank, and a healer, i can say that any person who runs in and uses their knockback to break up a pack of grouped mobs is just hindering the group's ability to take them down.

The point that I was making was that the current skill has it's uses and works pretty well for PVP. The old skill was iconic for the class and really only worked fairly in PVE.

So, they could have keep the old skill the way it was, including the animation, disabled it in PVP, and then added in the current skill under a different name that could be used in PVP.

That way players would not have lost their iconic ability and animation...worried about folks using both in PVE situations that might overpower them? Put them on the same cooldown.

If a solution is needed (I think so but that is speculative naturally) This is what I would suggest they do.....

1) Leave the current ability as it is, but change it's animation to a instant push animation instead with one hand.
2) Create a new ability with the old animation, timed to fire when the animation ends, with a reduced range 360 knockback like original ability was in the first place. Disable it in PVP (simply make players immune to it). Place it on the same cooldown as the current animation.

This would give players back the old ability with the iconic "fire when completed" slam animation, under a different name, and it could not be abused in PVP. You would have a choice as to which one you want to use...so everybody wins.

Agree, very much so. It is more focused, greater outward range, more useful now to me.

Give it a try, OP. Short learning curve, big benefit overall.

I don't intend this as a personal insult, but this is pretty bad game design.

Why do we want the old version? Is it better in PvE? It's a weaker directional push. It's only advantage is in explicitly breaking up grouped mobs, which is very rarely useful. In most cases, you'd want to group mobs tighter, and for that, the new version is slightly better. In PvP, it gives you some backstab prevention and a quick-cooldown annoyance/deprivation usage (when a pair of Sage/Sorcs hang out in a tunnel), which you already concede to disable.

So, why do we want it back? Why are we creating PvE and PvP versions of an ability.... forcing players to swap abilities based on situation?

Because of the cooler animation? Seriously?

That's not a good way to design games. Requesting a cooler animation is fine. Just ask for that. Making copies of abilities with specific situational usage... no... that's just an example of why most people here aren't designing games.