Why Smash Should Not be Nerfed

I'll keep that in mind. wait. no. I won't. you're basing your argument wholly around one subset of pvp (4v4). the vast majority of players who pvp (at all!) have always and will continue to do so in a mixed queue. that's 8v8 + 4v4. you want to argue that balance should be made around the top tier and not the median/mean player? ok. that's fine. that's entirely different, however, from doing so around arenas.

How in the world are people missing the most obvious and basic distinctions here? A sniper is a RANGED DPS CLASS so please stop comparing the two like they're equal! A sniper isn't being focused, stunned, rooted, pushed away from healer, isolated, etc. In a ranked game the sniper will never take the amount of DPS that a Smasher does. If it wasn't for the Smasher's DCDs, the Smasher would be the single highest killed character in the game. Other than a healer, no other target is being focused as much as a smasher. The reasons for this are simple. They are in your face. They are separated from the tanks, ranged DPS and healers. Tab-targetting also targets by default the nearest target. Also, people tend to have tunnel vision so they'll use their CCs and DPS abilities on the target that is in their face.

The sniper gets to do its relatively weaker burst from a safe range, while also dropping down awesome AOEs that are larger in size than Smash (smash has only a 5m range), compare that to sniper which has 30m range. In many a ranked game between top teams, the snipers are bar none the highest DPS class. Sure, they may not have the "on-demand Smash" that everyone is complaining about, but they're doing a lot of damage output with little focus. And it's not all splash damage either. You can't say that a sniper who did 200-500K more damange in a single WZ was simply dishing out "minor splash damage" - 200-500K extra damage in a WZ by a single player is a HUGE amount of damage which needs to be healed and mitigated and adds a HUGE amount of pressure to the other team.

Also, 2-3 smasher can't "immediately create a ring of AOE death." They have to have leap up. They have to avoid being CC'd or rooted. They have to avoid being slowed and kited. They have to avoided being pushed back. They have to avoid being killed first when the entire enemy team decides to global you. And if you get globalled, you pray you have your DCDs up so you can run back to your healer to be healed, and then you can leap back in, and then again avoid being pushed back, avoid being CCd and slowed. And maybe you'll get your 3 stacks of singularity up, and THEN you can pray that the enemy team decides to just stand around in a gaggle and let you smash them at will. But more likely most of them will spread out and your puny 5m range Smash will only hit 1-2 targets.

Awesome fun.

In 8v8s smashers are even less of an issue because good gunslingers will always balance the smasher. In 8v8s the "meta" never involved taking more than 2 smashers, and for good reason because all of the other classes had amazing utility (stealth, pulls, pushes, friendly leaps, hunker down, roll, respec, better AOE such as orbital strrike) which smasher never had.

no. they cannot. wait. are you talking about now or PTS? because your response to me was about PTS. no respec. you're picking whatever argument suits you best to discredit the person you've quoted. it cripples your argument. pick one. are you talking about life in 2.4? if so, then why are you saying ppl can respec at a whim? are you talking about live atm? then why are you bringing up pillar humping in arenas?

Because people are talking about 8v8s AND Arenas. 8v8s are gone in 2.4 yet someone brought them up and told me to stop talking about Arenas. Field respec in que is gone I know. But you can't completely discount the fact that you can still respec and have the luxury to respec PRIOR TO QUE to change your team composition as needed. Yeah sure I can roll another class and gear him up, but that is something only the "hardcore" players would have. Casual players don't have multiple geared PVP ready toons and they will be at an implicit disadvantage if they can't respec.

And my previous point still stands, that even without field respec, there are a lot of crazy utility skills that other classes have. Pulls and pushes, taunts, ranged DPS, better CCs, etc., which smashers don't have. A lot of the Smasher's utility is further reduced in Arenas because you don't have those big "mid fights" anymore, trans/predation doesn't mean much, difficult to take advantage of force leap because targets usually are too close.

And since there are no more objectives, healers and ranged DPS aren't forced to stay relatively close to a certain location, allowing them to kite at will, and there are a lot of boxes/pillars in Arenas which make it even harder for a slowed, CC'd, rooted Smasher to do any DPS.

Those Smashers who are just plain average in 8v8s have proven to be completely worthless in Arenas as there are so many more opportunities for talented healers and ranged DPS to completely neutralize them, precisely because there are no objectives which restrict your area of movement. I always laughed when we came up against triple smash teams in Arenas. All you have to do is avoid their initial burst, throw a grenade, spread out and kill their healer and it's game over.

That's assuming that the Smasher isn't CC'd, rooted, kited, slowed, pushed, and while rooted, the targets simply spread out and walk away from you. The sniper may need a bit more build-up, but that process is a lot less likely to be interrupted and the sniper can freecast at will.

Why isn't anybody acknowledging that while the "on-demand" DPS of a Smasher is in theory great, in practice, the rotation gets interrupted like none other? And even when you get it off, good players will have spread out by the time you're ready to smash?

http://www.twitch.tv/eliteduelist/b/447155980

Watch that at 3:30. Twas the first day of PTS only game we lost that day, and it was against a team that had a sniper, assasin, only 1 smasher and healer. The assasin and sniper were absolutely deadly and completely neutralized me. Our team, which was face-rolling double/triple smash teams, got face-rolled by a team with only one smash. Hrm...that balance...

Also, please take a look at that stream and tell me how many times you see me getting off massive smashes compared to the number of times I can only smash 1 or 2 targets and those for 4-6K each. The latter are the vast majority, and that's IF I can get my smash off. As you can clearly see, as soon as I get in close for a smash, the other team disperses or I'm CC'd so I can't get my smash off. Which is why I could careless if they nerfed smash so that it only hits 2 targets max since that's what's going to happen in Arenas anyway

Why are you still fighting about this or even posting here for that matter??

Your class/spec wont get a nerf its pretty much a fact... lol

everyone who has ever played this game could log in to the forums make a thread saying nerf smash and nerf mara's it could have 234523423429347u329847923789 posts on the thread and they wouldn't nerf it one bit.

Pretty sure bioware already said they have no plans to change anything relating to the mara/sent class so your fine you can keep on smashing your class will NEVER be none viable.

as said before Uncle Austins got your back and New york city's BACK, elite!!!!!!!

Cuz I'm at work and I'm bored and couldn't play SWTOR yesterday :P Also, this is one of the best chances that we smashers have had in recent months to set the record straight!

To be honest, I get told every single day in-game that my class is OP and it's a bit annoying.

I may just start playing my Sorcerer or Gunslinger again. A free-casting gunslinger is so much worse than a smasher.

Scenario 1:
Healer: this smasher's on me I need a peel
(team peels and either wrecks the smasher so he has to bust his DCDs and run back home or simply CCs him and then everyone walks away - problem solved)

Scenario 2:
Healer: this gunslinger is tearing me up!
Team: he's tearing us up too!
(smashers try to leap to him but they can't because of hunker down, so they walk very slow to him and just as they are about to smash they get pushed back - team decides it's better to LOS the gunslinger instead).

Yeah you should, perhaps then you could share an unbiased opinion. Oh wait, you won't.

And I don't blame you, why would anyone play a weaker class/spec?

Eliteduelist, I think I speak for everyone here that you're a complete *********** idiot and should just shut the **** up.