Hey folks,

 

Below you will find your top 3 returned, with answers. Thanks!

 

-eric

 

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1: PVE

 

1). And finally, we added some more survivability to Revitalizers/Surprise Comeback, because many players felt that the skill was simply not worth taking.

 

2). We feel that Operatives/Scoundrels are currently in a pretty good place for endgame PvE content, as their raw healing and damage output is higher than that of many other classes – so currently, the idea is that what Operatives/Scoundrels may lack in group utility, they make up for in their raw ability to heal or deal damage. In a distant future update, we will be adding some group utility for Operatives/Scoundrels in exchange for some of that raw healing and damage, but we are not yet ready to discuss the details of these changes.

 

2: PVP

 

3). We are committed to evaluating and improving all of the classes and specializations that do not perform well in PvP. Ideally, we would like for every specialization to be viable in PvP, but realistically, one of those specializations for each advanced class will always be regarded as the “best” choice for a given activity (such as leveling up, endgame PvE, or PvP) in the game by players. For example, many current Operative/Scoundrel players might tell you that the best choice you can make in PvP as an Operative/Scoundrel is to be a healer, and our internal data would also back-up such a claim.

 

4). We are not yet certain that the improvements we have made for damage-dealing Operatives/Scoundrels will be enough, but we will continue to monitor their performance in PvP and continue to improve them, if necessary.

 

3: Wildcard - Quality of life:

 

• 5). The cover defenses will not be making their way back to Operatives/Scoundrels any time soon, because cover does not encourage the envisioned style of play for Operatives/Scoundrels.
  
  
• Reliably leaving combat after a precise amount of time is a problem that has plagued stealth classes for a while now, but hopefully we can fix the issue or find a much more reliable way of dropping combat in PvP.
  
  
• It is unlikely that Operative/Scoundrel set bonuses will be improved any time soon because Operative/Scoundrel damage and healing output is already quite high, and improving the set bonuses would only put them even further ahead of the other damage dealers and healers in the game.
  
  
• We are still looking into addressing the "roll-freeze" bug.
  
  
• The issue with the last healing tick for Revitalizers/Surprise Comeback not occurring should be resolved as of Game Update 2.8.
  
  
• We can probably return the Hidden Strike/Shoot First knock down animation for weak and standard enemies in PvE.
  
  

 

We have some pretty big changes planned for Operatives/Scoundrels in the more distant future, but we cannot discuss the details at this time. For the near future, we will be monitoring Operative/Scoundrel performance in PvE and PvP and making any needed improvements as we can.

Honestly at this point in time i have just lost all hope of ever having a viable dps scoundrel/Operative in pvp ever again.

We have some pretty big changes planned for Operatives/Scoundrels in the more distant future, but we cannot discuss the details at this time[/Quote]

We have heard it all before. We have been blueballed since 1.4 and have been told changes will come, but all we get is changes that is always minor and poorly executed . The changes done in 2.8 changes NOTHING in terms of pvp viability , and if you had opened our thread on PTS you would have known this.

 

I cannot really answer the pve part of the answer , since i rarely raid anymore. The 30% aoe damage reduction is obviously a very nice buff , but iam not sure about revitalisers(The talent in itself is very weak). Pve dps scoundrels have atleast an easier time in regards to moving points around in the tree , seeing as they dont need root from hidden strike or the root from sever tendon.

I so hate to double up on questions but here goes

Minor side note, you may wish to give the teams a heads up there is an issue with the Acid Blade 30% Armor pen buff.

Acid Blade = 15 sec duration (*Applied via Backstab + Hidden Strike etc.)

Backstab = 12 sec CD.

This allows a 3 second window to ensure Operatives can maintain 100% uptime.

The glitch is that even using the 3 second window for reapplication, your follow up Backstab although it reapplies the Acid Blade armor penetration buff clipping/resetting the already existing Acid Blade buff; Does not actually make use of the already existing armor pen buff and mine Drops in ~4k damage everytime this happens.

EG of rotation and effect: *Stealth - Hidden Strike - Buff Applied *(Rotation)* Acid Blade - Backstab (Because of hidden Strike application buff used = 7kish backstab) *(Rotation)* Acid Blade - Backstab *Maintaining 100% uptime of Acidblade) = reapplication of Acid Blade Clipping previous buff ~1-2 seconds = 2.3kish Backstab

With 100% uptime 2.3k'ish Backstabs should not be happening, same with the dps losses on Shiv + Laceration; these numbers end up being lower then the tooltip for each ability.

http://www.fryingtime.com/?filename=combat_2014-06-11_03_00_39_446414.txt#03_06_35_699000

Small Fryingtime log provided to help , I understand you folks may not use Fryingtime, but it is a lot more user friendly then other logs available.

Feel free to post your ideas in this thread on how you would like to see the Lethality/Dirty Fighting skill tree improved in the future (for both PvP and PvE).

I will take this opportunity; my suggestions will be made from a PVE standpoint, since I don't PVP at all.

- Fatality: Change the trigger chance from 20/40/60% to 33/67/100%

- Toxic Regulators: Change the effect so that DoTs don't tick on targets affected by any sleep effects, not just your own.

- License to Kill: Expand the talent, adding the following: Sever Tendon has 50/100% chance to generate TA

I will take this opportunity; my suggestions will be made from a PVE standpoint, since I don't PVP at all.

 

- Fatality: Change the trigger chance from 20/40/60% to 33/67/100%

 

- Toxic Regulators: Change the effect so that DoTs don't tick on targets affected by any sleep effects, not just your own.

 

- License to Kill: Expand the talent, adding the following: Sever Tendon has 50/100% chance to generate TA

Good ideas

a class that does not have the highest damage capabilities

Really? Take a look at Torparse: 4 out of the 8 top parses on a dummy come from Ops / Scoundrels. (And most of the others are Gunslinges / Snipers using Scatter Bombs, which need to be nerfed.)

Scoundrels / Ops can do high amounts of burst and sustained damage if they survive.

Survivability issues aside, if Scoundrels / Ops were given more group utility for PvE, most Ops groups would choose only them. Who would you rather choose: a class with high DPS and average utility (what you are asking Ops to be) or one with average DPS and average utility (most other classes?)

(Note: Scoundrels / Ops do need some buffs for survivability still. I haven't played with the 2.8 survivability buffs though to see if they are enough for the middle tree.)

3). All the healers and all the tanks are viable for ranked play, juggernauts and power techs over assassins and mercs and Ops over sorcs, but all are viable and it all comes down to personal preference and group make up.

Some Sage Healer players would doubt that. Especioally when it comes down to an Arena.

I admnit, though, that more hardoce PvP players do not believe Gunslingers to be viable for Ranked PvP, either (my main char is an Gunslinger, and I have read enough times that they do not want the Gunslinger class in Ranked Arena).

Survivability issues aside, if Scoundrels / Ops were given more group utility for PvE, most Ops groups would choose only them. Who would you rather choose: a class with high DPS and average utility (what you are asking Ops to be) or one with average DPS and average utility (most other classes?)

I agree to that. Most OPs I'm participating with my Gunslinger have *several* Gunslingers or Scoundrels - but on the other hand almost *never* any damage-oriented Sage ...

The devs seem to think into an similar direction (bold printing by me) :

It is unlikely that Operative/Scoundrel set bonuses will be improved any time soon because Operative/Scoundrel damage and healing output is already quite high, and improving the set bonuses would only put them even further ahead of the other damage dealers and healers in the game.

In a distant future update, we will be adding some group utility for Operatives/Scoundrels in exchange for some of that raw healing and damage,

so currently, the idea is that what Operatives/Scoundrels may lack in group utility, they make up for in their raw ability to heal or deal damage. In a distant future update, we will be adding some group utility for Operatives/Scoundrels in exchange for some of that raw healing and damage, but we are not yet ready to discuss the details of these changes.

Hey look at that. Confirmation that you are now nerfing dps because of utility. You hardly need to answer the sniper questions now since it'll just be variations on this theme for each. I'm sure others that are significantly more eloquent than I am will go into great detail about why this is a terrible idea. In the meanwhile I've got some silver medals to earn in veteran dungeons over in Wildstar.

Feel free to post your ideas in this thread on how you would like to see the Lethality/Dirty Fighting skill tree improved in the future (for both PvP and PvE).

[pvp perspective] Lethality survivability can be decent at times, but it has some serious flaws:

- Too much survivability is on the gcd (roll + kolto infusion), making it so you lose way more output from trying to survive than most other specs in the game. You already said that you're considering making Unnatural Preservation for sorcs off gcd for this very reason, and the truth is even sorcs have a breeze compared to lethality operatives when it comes to spending gcds on survival. I'd say make the Quickening proc also make kolto infusion off gcd (at least when used on yourself if you're afraid of too good offhealing).

- Most survivability is heal based (shield probe and kolto infusion), and as such don't scale with how much damage you take. This results in lethality having passable sustained defense (albeit at the cost of a lot of gcds, as mentioned above) but horrible burst defense. Shield probe and infusion don't really need to change, but if you're adding defenses, make sure they are percentage based and not heal based.

- On the topic of burst survivability, 30% damage reduction while stunned would go a long way.

- Toxic Regulators: Change the effect so that DoTs don't tick on targets affected by any sleep effects, not just your own.

[/i]

This would be a godsend in pvp as well, especially arenas.

Re: the OP… Apparently the developers have changed their DPS balance philosophy. Again. I officially give up on trying to understand what they're doing in that department. To be clear, I'm specifically referring to the damage-vs-utility tradeoff that they seem to imply, which is a highly short-sighted design philosophy that misses the number one job of a DPS: doing damage.

- Too much survivability is on the gcd (roll + kolto infusion), making it so you lose way more output from trying to survive than most other specs in the game. You already said that you're considering making Unnatural Preservation for sorcs off gcd for this very reason, and the truth is even sorcs have a breeze compared to lethality operatives when it comes to spending gcds on survival. I'd say make the Quickening proc also make kolto infusion off gcd (at least when used on yourself if you're afraid of too good offhealing).

Shield Probe says "hello". Off the GCD already, more healing than Unnatural Preservation (for a DPS sorc), and half the cooldown (for Lethality).

- Most survivability is heal based (shield probe and kolto infusion), and as such don't scale with how much damage you take. This results in lethality having passable sustained defense (albeit at the cost of a lot of gcds, as mentioned above) but horrible burst defense. Shield probe and infusion don't really need to change, but if you're adding defenses, make sure they are percentage based and not heal based.

Actually, Lethality has fantastic sustained defense, it just requires a lot of micro-management to get the most out of it. Relative to the sustained DPS levels in PvP (i.e. very low), Shield Probe is straight-up OP. You're absolutely right though that burst defense is where Lethality is lacking. Evasion helps, but only against certain classes (basically just Ataru sentinels and DoT sages). Hopefully they still plan to rectify this situation.

Looks like my "joke" answers were pretty close to the mark after all

I fully expect the answers to be as follows:

 

1 PvE: We listened to all you guys and we've decided to buff your survivibility! We feel these changes will be enough to get you in to a raid spot so we wont be looking to add anything else in the foreseeable future but don't worry! We pay close attention to all over our metrics and we'll do everything we can to balance the classes.

 

2 PvP: We believe that operatives are viable in ranked arena, in fact they make up a large number of the top players in the world. With these new changes other specs will become more prevalent and you can look forward to more exciting pvp content in 2019. We don't want to commit to any promises because we want to see how these changes play out first of all but don't worry! We pay close attention to all over our metrics and we'll do everything we can to balance the classes.

 

3 Wildcard: We're constantly working on bug fixes and we'll be sure to look in to these particular ones you mentioned. Set bonuses are only there to give flavour to a class rather than provide a substantial benefit but don't worry! We pay close attention to all over our metrics and we'll do everything we can to balance the classes.

To KBN

Roll is a great ability, i think we can all agree on that one of the main problems i have with it is that it is on the same GCD as all of our damaging/heal abilities. This means that you need to use 2 GCDs in lethality to get the relatively low heal off and then you can start fighting back. Shield probe is a roughly 4.2k shield is lethality while using the healer 2 set bonus and roughly 3200 in concealment with the healer 2set and with the low CD on it, it is an Ok skill, but to be fair unnatural preservation has the ability to crit as well and ive seen crits for over 7k with no relics active in conq gear. With it now being off the GCD i would say that it is a superior ability to shield probe because of that fact because you can now couple it with static barrier which blocks for more damage than SP and has a very similar lock out. I would personally love for roll to be on its own GCD such as acid blade so you can do something like roll to stealth with out having to wait the GCD for it. I agree with you with not knowing what theyre doing with to balance utility and damage, i would give up abit of sustained(100 or so points) for better utility or survivability because as i have said in other posts and such that we can only 1v1 most classes every 2 minuets and if there is a second person there it is a total loss, unless you out play them so terribly.

Looks like my "joke" answers were pretty close to the mark after all

That's what I thought as I read them.

 

Shield Probe says "hello". Off the GCD already, more healing than Unnatural Preservation (for a DPS sorc), and half the cooldown (for Lethality).

Sure, but now you're comparing ability versus ability when you should be comparing the whole toolsets of the classes (or at least specs) against each other. Just add in Force Speed versus roll and things are already skewed in favour of sorcs. In my experience (which admittedly is limited to yolo on both scoundrel/operative and sage, as I have only played team on other classes) both classes have ways to deal with focus, but my sage loses far, far less output from it. In fact, it is probably best for your team if a properly played balance sage is the one to be focused, because it loses very little from being focused compared to every ranged and most melee specs in the game (before the patch anyway; it might be different now that more emphasis is added to TKT - I haven't been able to play since it went live). Telekinetics is another story, but the reason it loses output from being focused is in very little part because of gcd demanding defenses.

Actually, Lethality has fantastic sustained defense, it just requires a lot of micro-management to get the most out of it. Relative to the sustained DPS levels in PvP (i.e. very low), Shield Probe is straight-up OP. You're absolutely right though that burst defense is where Lethality is lacking. Evasion helps, but only against certain classes (basically just Ataru sentinels and DoT sages). Hopefully they still plan to rectify this situation.

That "fantastic" sustain is dependent on just how much output the other team puts out, and how the damage is spread. Against proper hard swapping sustained survivability means close to nothing compared to burst defense. Against any properly executed strategy that involves a semblance of focus - no matter how simple - sustained survivability is just unused potential. Heal based defenses on short cooldown relies too much on them always being used on cooldown to full effect. If those terms are not met, the "fantastic" part of "fantastic sustained" falls apart. As far as pvp goes, sustain only shines against a pressure comp or bad opposition.

some ideas for survivability though debuffs and such from another thread(not all my ideas)

1) I would love to have the devs give an opinion on the possibility of either an 20-40% alacrity debuff or some sort of healing debuff to our target on hidden strike / back stab / acid blade. (alac debuff means we get our hits off faster than opponents if coupled with stim boost it would make a significant difference. Alternatively you could make the jarring strikes ability give an accuracy debuff for X amount of seconds)

2) I would like an indication from them if they feel healing / cross-healing in pvp is working as intended, or if they are looking into a way of toning down the ability of 2-3 healers to heal indefinitely without having energy issues. Especially operative healers.(giving us survivablity though healing would be nice but hard to balance i assume, not making the heal too strong or too weak so on and so forth)

3) I would like the devs to consider making BOTH infiltrate and especially counter measures useful in pvp - I suggest perhaps counter measures causes all players to instantly loose target on the operative (interrupting any ability being cast on them - although they can be re-targeted again afterwards) (i would like to extrapolate on this idea for lethality in particular, making it so that counter measures would force the target that we are targeted on to untarget us would be a nice little interupt to the fight for the enemy and would allow us to be "slippery" and giving us an upper hand in fights at times if used correctly. possibly bound to counter strike/dirt trickster)

(for the use of inflitrate/smuggle it would be nice if on the escape plan/smuggled defense talent to make it useable out of stealth and give it either a debuff to all enemies in the radius or a buff to all allies inside of it to increase something such as defense chance.)

4) If Devs want us to be "slippery" a possibility of a 20% reduction to stun duration on concealment operatives (either countermeasures cooldown [usable while stunned] or inherent high in the concealment tree), or the ability to use cloak screen while stunned and making it cleanse all roots, or even shield probe while stunned.(class homogeneity here but yeah)

5) Increasing the accuracy debuff on flash powder to 30%

6)Swap the alacrity buff in lethality for the damage reduction buff in healer tier 2(both 2 point talents and would benifit all specs)

7) revitalizers now heals 10% up front and gives a 2/3% heal every second for 15 seconds

8) make counter measure/surrender shorten the duration of stuns by 50%(possibly bound to counterstrike/ dirty trickster)

I kind of wish they'd tone down "evasive imperative" in the medicine tree. Essentially if the operative is constantly being attacked, they'd have evasion on CD every 22.5 seconds.

As on the other hand, darkness assassins, while having a similar ability, don't benefit as much from it.

I also think "durable meds" is making it too easy for healing ops as well. Back before the "surgical precision" nerf, I had suggested that they get rid of reducing the cost of "kolto probes" from "durable meds". That way their energy management would be smarter, instead of people just spamming "kolto probes" without consequence.

Re: the OP… Apparently the developers have changed their DPS balance philosophy. Again. I officially give up on trying to understand what they're doing in that department. To be clear, I'm specifically referring to the damage-vs-utility tradeoff that they seem to imply, which is a highly short-sighted design philosophy that misses the number one job of a DPS: doing damage.

 

 

 

Shield Probe says "hello". Off the GCD already, more healing than Unnatural Preservation (for a DPS sorc), and half the cooldown (for Lethality).

 

 

 

Actually, Lethality has fantastic sustained defense, it just requires a lot of micro-management to get the most out of it. Relative to the sustained DPS levels in PvP (i.e. very low), Shield Probe is straight-up OP. You're absolutely right though that burst defense is where Lethality is lacking. Evasion helps, but only against certain classes (basically just Ataru sentinels and DoT sages). Hopefully they still plan to rectify this situation.

I now have a very long list of classes that require rebalancing due to the philosophy change.

What will it be bioware? You make your move.

As for survivability, what if they just flipflopped from defending melee/ranged attacks into defending against Force and Tech? It still allows for counterplay, just makes it way more useful...

Or allow it to defend against Ranged and Tech but not Force and Melee? Just trying to work something out that allows for counterplay?

Could be partially to do with the loading of the questions but nothing in that post was terribly exciting to me.

It all seemed to just be a summary of what was said in the suggestions thread and a number of non-committal statements. About the only tidbit of interest is the utility-dps trade-off bit and the possibility that we might be getting some group utility someday.

The set bonus commentary has me depressed honestly. They've been so bad for TWO YEARS and it's just clear BW think that's ok. Our raw dps/hps being in a good place is not an acceptable answer. Set bonuses don't have to buff those. Of the set bonuses anyone cares about (the 2-sets) half of them are survivability for gods sake.

You could buff survival, interrupt potential, group utility ANYTHING. It's ridiculous that I don't care about my 4-set as an operative. Running 15% shiv crit on my healer because "why not" is a sorry state of affairs.

I suppose at this stage I just need to hope that 3.0 is a significant revamp (a few classes need it not just us) and that our utility-numbers trade-off in the works is something a bit more inspired than a tacked on pseudo-sniper shield or bloodthirst coupled with an output nerf.

As a PVE player, my 2 cents:

Lethality:

- increase dot crit chance

- dot restore 3 energy instead of 2

- remove the RNG from the talents

Concealment:

- Backstab do not needs to be behind the target (this would be AMAZING).

- Reduce the cost of Shiv by 4

We are committed to evaluating and improving all of the classes and specializations that do not perform well in PvP. Ideally, we would like for every specialization to be viable in PvP, but realistically, one of those specializations for each advanced class will always be regarded as the “best” choice for a given activity (such as leveling up, endgame PvE, or PvP) in the game by players. For example, many current Operative/Scoundrel players might tell you that the best choice you can make in PvP as an Operative/Scoundrel is to be a healer, and our internal data would also back-up such a claim.

.

Speaking from a perspective of someone who only plays concealment.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like we were just told we should heal or flat out give up on ranked, or perhaps WZs in general. We don't need to be the "best" option.. that was never stated as a request. We just need to be 'an option'. Considering that question was avoided.. not looking good.

The words "We are not yet certain" used to describe Concealment's situation shows that the combat team really doesn't understand our current situation. If they did, they would know that the recent changes, while a good step in the right direction, will not change our status. We're nowhere near viable, despite our high damage ( and that's if we get lucky with our crits). The ability to survive just isn't there.

In light of that, the rest of the post really just looks like lip service. We've all heard the "We've got exciting changes in the future." line before. Either the combat team has given up on concealment, or just doesn't care anymore. One can argue that they are justified in doing so. The direction the class has taken has caused many people to leave the game/switch to other classes. Operative/scound forums are practically devoid of life. Multiple class reps have quit and I doubt snave will give it another go (he really shouldn't bother after what happened with the original submissions.) Not enough people play the spec to warrant the combat team investing time or effort into fixing an incredibly hard class to balance properly. There wont be any further Dev responses to this thread I bet. People's excellent suggestions will not be looked at or considered. There wont be any dialogue, and I doubt there will be any major changes until the level cap has increased.

I am not the kind of person to be all negative.. but this doesn't leave me with a lot of confidence for the future. I want to play concealment, not re-roll. And it seems like we've got a long time to wait before anything is going to change. And quite frankly, I bet many of us have better things to do than wait.

Firstly thank you Eric for taking the time to post the answers to our questions, it seems the timing was thrown off by a few things, but it is good to have them anyway...

What I got from reading your post regarding PVP was this. 'Operative healers are overpowered in pvp so we cant risk buffing concealment because healer uberness already rubs off on you guys anyway and besides you should be healing your team as an operative otherwise you are a baddie."

please pass on my hopefully more constructive than condemning reply.

Dearest Devs, the operative community is dwindling because you fail to separate operative healers and dps. There are so many ways to fix concealment and lethality and to make healers slightly more killable at the same time without hurting them in pve. We keep giving you guys suggestions (those of us who care enough to bother - which I have only recently become a part of because I am so surprised how much of a ghost town operative forums is) and you just keep ignoring them and flat out ignore us. The lack of communication from you guys to us compared to other classes is disheartening to us (yes even a concealment operative has feelings - even if you cant see them without stealth scan).

Allow concealment to debuff healers ! it doesnt touch pve - give us a reason to get behind those laughing *****es and back stab them ! "Ouch that really hurt AND BROKE MY CONCENTRATION now i have to recast my heal / nuke...."

"oh **** he suprised me from stealth now I am slow to react because of the DEBUFF"

"what's that hidden strike debuffed one of my TA's ! noooo ! I can only probe myself 3 times in a row now ! - oh wait i just remembered i dont need it with my double hots and cross healing..."

C'mon there needs to be that OH **** moment when a concealment operative bursts out of stealth and hidden strikes you, not an "oh, jolly good, he is trying again - now I have to stop sipping my tea long enough to.... /knockback /stun /mezz /forcepush /rollbang /shroud /electronet /Seismic granade /just plain heal through

The only time this happens now is when a concealment operative opens on a person after the just got spiked by the deception assassin who just poped out of stealth before the operative....