Why Smash Should Not be Nerfed

I've never called for nerfs to any class before, and I played madness sorcerer until the bubble-stun nonsense. In fact, I've asked for other DPS classes to get a buff, including scoundrels, in this very thread.

Good scoundrels on top teams used to do field-respec on offense all the time in ranked. Also, sentinels used to reroll to combat for Civil War and Huttball. So no, I don't think Smash is as much of a faceroll in a ranked situation as you think it is - maybe it is an issue in regs, where people don't know how to kite, LOS, stun, focus fire or basically move away from a Smasher.

^ this.

In 8man ranked, the Smasher had one of the most difficult roles. It had to simultaneously:

-pressure backline
-CC backline
-peel for healers at your backline when needed
-objective capper/interrupter (a guardian should be directing the fight, but when he's got his hands full, the smasher needs to step in) (try to stealth cap inside Novare Coast everytime your force camo is up)
-primary target caller
-be lightning quick when doing a hardswitch on a target that is nowhere close to you
-primary first responder to side nodes

On top of keeping track of all of the above, your team expects you to be top 3 damage in all games (following your gunslingers who would probably be top), and also never die.

All the while the other team is stunning you, rooting you, kiting you, flashing you, damaging you, pushing you away from your healers.

Super easy stuff.

Its OP with a healer sure but why attack a mara with a healer still standing and you can stun a mara before he even pops it and he'll die because at that stage he'll have nothing.. Personally i'd rather have something akin to shroud then UR. Force camo and rebuke are way more important to me then ur. Force camo basically does the same thing if you have a healer btw everyone drops your target and you can get healed to full since u are taking no dmg..

Smash is faceroll to play compared to the other mara specs in pvp. The main "difficult" aspect of it is that once people realise you are an op smasher everyone will focus you so you have to play a little bit smart with cds. I play carnage/combat quite a lot because i enjoy it but being stunned in that spec usually screws with your burst big time. While being stunned for me in smash usually just gives me a little time to look around to see where people are stacking to get a nice big smash off. Infact sometimes people will just stack right next to me when i'm stunned and i get a smash off without even moving.. Usually still have the stacks and autocrit buff after stun ends too. No joke.

smash fanboys still on their crusade to maintain their op status? Yeah go, explain everyone how smash is balanced cause no 4 sec stun pls make my cyro granade channeled and gimme autocrit aoe demo round / HSM, but that would be op, or?

^This

Oh please please.... I want auto crit AOE Demo round. gimme...please. I will even give up my cryo grenade for that.

Well sure Smash isnt such faceroll in old 8v8, because teams will have your hard counter (which i think is actually even a bit more OP than Smash, but that can really be a perception issue) in snipers. And yes out of utility reasons on some maps or phases of match combat might have higher utility. Still it seems like an unwritten low of competitive PVP that you have to have Smash Sents/Maras and the melee dps spots. I am not talking about tanks or healers respecing, i am talking about a proper melee DPS spot in ranked. Even Smash Guardians wouldnt get it, since they dont have as good cooldowns. You are at the top of the melee DPS food change, have the highest and most reliable burst and about the best survivability. Yes you are a pure DPS class, but this spec dominates.
I dont say it is easy to play as it often claimed, it just has a relatively easy base rotation and resource management to other classes and specs and that your job in ranked is more than just kill red and can be very demanding is out of question for anybody with a sane mind, but it remains that the spec in combination has major advantages when it comes to DPS above all but maybe snipers. Healing 2 Full, LOS and vanish effectively mean a DPS loss in ranked. It is fine when a healer or tank respecs DPS when needed in a situation, but most of the time this class wouldnt be chosen for the DPS spot (yes there are well known exceptions).
And I think you already saw every class would love to have a autocritting, damage increased, AOE attack on relative low CD, that can in principle be avoided but a lot of time hit to quickly to be effectively countered (you need to have targeted the smasher before he leaps basically) combined with the CDs(and it is not like Smash, is your only hard hitting attack).
If you general point is major class balance on a larger scale, I think most people would be with you. Despite playing one, i think Operative healers are OP (in PvP at least, but they are not immortal:P ) and I think something needs to be done about Snipers. How this all is done, is big big question and I think the frame you set with your initial post and the apologetic sound attitude that seems to linger in you replies (i really mean no offence), make this discussion hard at this place.

this is the kind of post that infuriates me. smash is an instant. if he leaps to you and you punt him, he still has time to get back and execute a fully buffed, instant smash. you cannot avoid smash when YOU are the target. stuns don't outlast the smash window anymore than a punt does. you'd have to unload all of your cds just to *maybe* prevent dmg from ONE smash. that is utterly impractical. they can sort of be kited, except they can apply crush/oblit from 10m and enrage/leap from 30m. finisher is good from 10m. kiting will mitigate dmg from any class, but it's fairly ineffective against smash (only mitigates filler), pyro (only prevents rocket punch), and to a lesser extent, deception (a couple 10m attacks, sprint & tons of cc).

spread out = realistic

kite = yeah right

smash is easy to play, but so is pyro and gunnery. that's not really a fair beef against any spec in this game. I think it's stupid...really really short-sighted...to make an ability with that much burst an aoe instant.

You just confirmed my post. I mean really, camo already gives you a full *********** reset on a 45 second cooldown.. why do you need another on a 1 minute cooldown? That's ridiculous.

And as I said before, I can die during a Shroud. You cannot die during UR. The two are completely different abilities that cannot possebly be compared to one another.

The fact that you have 2 full resets just amplifies how OP the class really is. You never have to fall back, stop doing damage for the sake of survival. Not untill you are out of cooldowns. That's ludicrous.

Assasin crying about smash monkeys makes me just /facepalm...
Maybe worse its just sniper crying about smashers...