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3.2.1 Marauder/Sentinel Insight: Self Healing and Set Bonuses


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Hey everyone,

 

Concluding our threads that lend insight on recent Marauder/Sentinel design choices, we’re continuing with a discussion regarding Annihilation/Watchman self healing changes and a discussion on improving set bonuses.

 

Hungering/Merciless Zeal Changes:

 

The new design for Hungering/Merciless Zeal is intended to drastically improve the self healing potential of Annihilation/Watchman players depending on their offensive involvement and multi-target coordination. On a single target, the HPS has been slightly decreased. This is by design to counterbalance the vastly improved self healing provided by DoTing multiple targets. With the new Hemorrhaging Smash/Burning Sweep Smash/Force Sweep cooldown reduction, spreading DoTs is easier and more fluid than on Live. This should drastically increase the self healing and DPS potential of Annihilation/Watchman players combating multiple targets.

 

Set Bonus Improvements:

 

We also want to take this opportunity to ask the Marauder/Sentinel community about expanding the ability trigger options for the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus set bonus. At present, only Ravage/Master Strike can trigger the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus. To allow for greater rotational flexibility across all Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines, we want to discuss the potential to add additional abilities as trigger activators. At present, we are considering adding Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw to the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus trigger. What are your thoughts on this? We want to reduce the rotational constraints of some set bonuses, and felt that this was an appropriate opportunity to discuss strategies with you all.

 

Thanks to all for the constructive feedback. Please feel free to share your perspectives on the proposed changes outlined above. We will continue to monitor and test thread feedback as we move forward.

 

Cheers, all!

John

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No. Spreading DoTs isn't fluent on Maras.

3 Focus cost for DoT-sprad, no range, pathetic diameter and damage, not part of single target rotation and a 6second DoT to spread? No, no, no, no, no. Let me give you an example: Serenity has a DoT spread with a laugable cost, good damage, INSANE diameter and 10m range, as part of their single target rotation AND an additional improvement with Death Mark that also applies to ALL targets affected. Do you see how dumb that sounds in comparison to ours? How ridiculous? Care to explain what led to this decision?

 

Nobody asked for DoT-spread. You gave us DoT-spread, but it is the most awful mechanic in PvP. By introducing a 6 second DoT (which is a step in the right direction, don't get me wrong) you led this change ad absurdum.

Using DoT-spread with a 6second DoT, with a 3 Focus cost and a DoT-spread that has the most pathetic diameter and is not part of the single target rotation is NOT viable. Not in the slightest. Never (at least in PvP).

 

Either change this concept completely (by giving us a bigger diameter and removing the focus cost on our spread), or remove the spread and give us more single target DPS instead, like the class used to be.

 

Regarding heals: This is one of the few cases, where I would say at least you tried. It is not the most awful thing ever, but you are homogenizing classes. Why? Who asked for that? Right, nobody. I'm sure most of us don't want the same self-heal that Sages and Shadows have. We want to keep our unqiue mechanic. It was incredibly fun and fluent to use both PvP and PvE. Heal on crits was unqiue. This is also a NERF for every scenario in which we can't spread DoTs. Given our pathetic DoT-spread, it is actually a straight up nerf, because we will never be able to keep up a constant DoT-spread in PvP. And nobody spreads DoTs in endgame PvE when you're hitting a single boss. Even if it's useful for killing adds that's literally the only benefit it has.

Watchman is a single target spec. Please give us heals that don't require us to DoT up multiple targets.

 

Please give us back our 2% selfheal on crits, like it used to be. Nothing else needed in regards to self-heals.

Edited by DynamiCtagez
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*snip*

Set Bonus Improvements:

 

We also want to take this opportunity to ask the Marauder/Sentinel community about expanding the ability trigger options for the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus set bonus. At present, only Ravage/Master Strike can trigger the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus. To allow for greater rotational flexibility across all Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines, we want to discuss the potential to add additional abilities as trigger activators. At present, we are considering adding Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw to the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus trigger. What are your thoughts on this? We want to reduce the rotational constraints of some set bonuses, and felt that this was an appropriate opportunity to discuss strategies with you all.

 

Thanks to all for the constructive feedback. Please feel free to share your perspectives on the proposed changes outlined above. We will continue to monitor and test thread feedback as we move forward.

 

Cheers, all!

John

 

You just told us we were only supposed to use Dual Saber Throw / Twin Saber Throw on multiple targets, and now you want to impart more importance on the ability? I do not understand this logic.

 

Also, you previously said:

 

Following these Annihilation/Watchman rotation changes, we realize that there is a slight loss in DPS potential and want to take this opportunity to give you all the chance to voice where you would like to see this DPS returned. We will survey these posts in the coming week to assess your perspectives, and implement a DPS buff in the next PTS patch based on your feedback. Take this time to voice your opinions and state your reasoning. You have a chance to affect the rotational evolution of your class.

 

There was no DPS buff to speak of in any of the 3.2.1 PTS patches, all of the changes you are making reduce DPS.

 

So I have to ask if this latest request is just another opportunity for you to blatantly ignore feedback while ostensibly pretending to care?

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John I don't know where you are getting your data from but AOE is far more difficult on a mdps than on a rdps and far far more difficult if you have to keep using a single target attack to build res courses to fuel aoe attacks.

 

My Merc has death from above and sweeping fire, the latter which I can pretty much spam.

My Sage has ground quake which I can spam.

My operative has rapid fire or whatever its called that used to need tactical advantage but seems to be 15 energy now which I can just spam.

 

All of the above are possitional so I can place them to catch as many of the enemy mobs as possible. When the aoe is centered around me and I have to be avoiding circles or death or chasing mobs or getting into position its much harder. All the while building resources I just don't think you understand how this plays.

 

As for the new set bonuses they are worse than what we had, For carnage spec having the 6 piece bonus only benefit vicious throw which needs to be on a proc or the target under 30% health to use makes it less than optimal. It would be much better to see a proc that benefited massacre or devastating blast. Though I would much prefer an across the board improvement to dps.

 

Given the placement of Mara/Sents in the ranked leaderboard

 

http://www.swtor.com/leaderboards/sentinel-marauder

 

would it be possible to comment if mara/sents in general are performing as designed and that the combat team do not believe that they should be able to make it into the top 100? Eric came and told us that Mara/sents were the best class in PvP and their involvement almost guaranteed a win is this still the case? Or is it fighting against a team that has a mara/sent in it that almost guarantees a win?

 

Cause I was just in a raid group with my carnage spec Mara as part of a guild run and it wasn't fun. I'd happily take your advise on learning to play cause as it stands working as hard as anyone else and having to be carried by the rest of the team is getting old. And nothing we have seen in the 3 posts today makes me think anything is going to change.

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You just told us we were only supposed to use Dual Saber Throw / Twin Saber Throw on multiple targets, and now you want to impart more importance on the ability? I do not understand this logic.

 

I think you've been parsing that statement wrong. How I read it is "Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw should be used against multiple targets OR when you have the Pulverize/Mind Sear buff OR when you are further than 4m from your target OR when any combination of the above are true."

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So I have to ask if this latest request is just another opportunity for you to blatantly ignore feedback while ostensibly pretending to care?

 

Yes. Just like in the Sorc thread from a few weeks ago.

 

I'm honestly amazed they didn't steamroll ahead with the healer changes too. I guess 1 out of 3 isn't bad. :rolleyes:

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Dot spread is nice and all, but I went with this class because it was high sustained single target dps. Are we doing a 180 on that philosophy, and if so why?

 

This. Nobody asked for a ****ed up DoT spread mechanic that would be broken if it would be stronger (see Shadows) but is entirely useless in its current state for PvP.

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why did you force anni into the dot spreader template? nobody wanted it, and it's pretty plain at this point, everybody hates it. anni was always the highest single target dps against real bosses. the cost of this was no viability in pvp and weak dps in any target switching environment. AND EVERYBODY LOVED IT! it wasn't broken before, but since 3.0 the only conversations anybody have about it are how to fix it, when is it going to be fixed, why are the proposed fixes so lame... why....?
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Set Bonus Improvements:

 

We also want to take this opportunity to ask the Marauder/Sentinel community about expanding the ability trigger options for the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus set bonus. At present, only Ravage/Master Strike can trigger the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus. To allow for greater rotational flexibility across all Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines, we want to discuss the potential to add additional abilities as trigger activators. At present, we are considering adding Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw to the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus trigger. What are your thoughts on this? We want to reduce the rotational constraints of some set bonuses, and felt that this was an appropriate opportunity to discuss strategies with you all.

 

I like the idea of adding TST/DST to the 6pc trigger list. That'll give the other specs a little reason to use it, and take some of the demand on using a 3 second channel during which we can't move (hint #1: to make TST/DST acceptable as our level 51 ability, have it build 2 focus for all specs, not just Combat/Carnage; hint #2: allow us to move while channeling MS/Ravage).

 

I would also like to point out: since you kept Ardor/Relentless as a 30 second cooldown, it's going to be pretty bad in PvP for Combat/Carnage (basically, a straight nerf, since keeping that up as often as possible is probably more important than the Alacrity boost for 6 attacks). Since Combat/Carnage will most likely continue using Transcendence/Predation in lieu of Zen/Berserk, could you also have the damage bonus from the 4pc bonus trigger on Transcendence/Predation? It'd be a nice band-aid fix for PvP until more dramatic maintenance is done on the class.

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I played anni from launch till 3.0. I rarely post but will usually do one with my opinion whenever one of these "feedback" thread comes up. My question is why would any of the community members who put in a lot of time and effort (emperor,oofalong,ethelon etc) bother giving you any feedback at all? The anni rotation thread was full of ideas on how to bring the spec back to a place where the majority of the community would be happy and you completely ignored them. Not only that you gave us our own "heal to full" response telling us to basically l2p, in what was one of the most condescending yellow posts i've seen. My enjoyment in the game has been waning and today's mara posts may just be straw that broke the camels back for me.

 

To all those dedicated mara/sents who put in the time on the pts and gave the devs excellent feedback, i thank you. Sorry all that hard work was in vain. All we can hope for now is this group to be replaced with a dev team that actually delivers what the community wants.

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we are considering adding Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw to the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus trigger.

 

This should of been the trigger to bonus from the beginning

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why did you force anni into the dot spreader template? nobody wanted it, and it's pretty plain at this point, everybody hates it. anni was always the highest single target dps against real bosses. the cost of this was no viability in pvp and weak dps in any target switching environment. AND EVERYBODY LOVED IT! it wasn't broken before, but since 3.0 the only conversations anybody have about it are how to fix it, when is it going to be fixed, why are the proposed fixes so lame... why....?

 

The viability in PvP was actually very high (if played right), before the self-heal nerf down to 1%. Other than that I fully agree. Care to listen Bioware? No? Oh well, didn't expect anything elese.

Edited by DynamiCtagez
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Hey everyone,

 

Concluding our threads that lend insight on recent Marauder/Sentinel design choices, we’re continuing with a discussion regarding Annihilation/Watchman self healing changes and a discussion on improving set bonuses.

 

Hungering/Merciless Zeal Changes:

 

The new design for Hungering/Merciless Zeal is intended to drastically improve the self healing potential of Annihilation/Watchman players depending on their offensive involvement and multi-target coordination. On a single target, the HPS has been slightly decreased. This is by design to counterbalance the vastly improved self healing provided by DoTing multiple targets. With the new Hemorrhaging Smash/Burning Sweep Smash/Force Sweep cooldown reduction, spreading DoTs is easier and more fluid than on Live. This should drastically increase the self healing and DPS potential of Annihilation/Watchman players combating multiple targets.

 

An again Bioware Austin shows they have no freaking idea that what they did was a massive nerf to selfhealing. Try to Dotspread on a Watchman Sent as of 3.2.1. an still do DMG......guess what.... IT IS IMPOSSIBLE! YOU HAVE NO FREAKING RESOURCES!!!! WE TESTED IT WE TOLD YOU AND YOU ARE TELLING US TO L2PLAY! Ah, there is no anger ther is only peace. Srry for the rage it is the 3rd "l2play" post from a dev to an enraged customer in under 4 hours. Might care to give us a Video Tutorial for the Rotation with Video Proof that you can clear ToS Hardmode with a 192 equipped Raidgroup containing a Sentinel Watchman. I don´t think you can and don´t dare to fake some statistics again like in the "Sents are fine in PvP" post.

 

 

Set Bonus Improvements:

 

We also want to take this opportunity to ask the Marauder/Sentinel community about expanding the ability trigger options for the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus set bonus. At present, only Ravage/Master Strike can trigger the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus. To allow for greater rotational flexibility across all Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines, we want to discuss the potential to add additional abilities as trigger activators. At present, we are considering adding Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw to the Weaponmaster’s/Challenger’s Critical Bonus trigger. What are your thoughts on this? We want to reduce the rotational constraints of some set bonuses, and felt that this was an appropriate opportunity to discuss strategies with you all.

 

 

Oh just shut up, you are asking for constructive feedback and you will ignore it like last time you asked for it. What about us having an option to "influence what happens to Watchman" post in 3.2.1. PTS? Well we didn´t as you ignored our Facts and calls and just created some nice brown pile of soft stuff with a mild unpleasent smell. Here is my feedback leave the setbonus as it is before you break even more stuff and get to implementing what we all demand for the next Live Patch.

 

Thanks to all for the constructive feedback. Please feel free to share your perspectives on the proposed changes outlined above. We will continue to monitor and test thread feedback as we move forward.

 

Cheers, all!

John

 

P.S.: We can talk about constructive feedback when you invite the major contributers of the Class into an open unfiltered Conference that can be viewed by everyone, I personally am fed up this you telling us we are wrong at not having the balls to talk to us directly. I for one have interest in improving the class, but I have not interest at posting feedback that can be ignored.

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I dont think that Watchman needs DoT spread. I like(d) the spec being considered a great single target spec. If anyone wanted a spec that had better AoE, it was recommended that we re-spec to Focus (or whatever that was renamed to). However, if you insist, then can we have the DoT spread with TST?

 

As for the self heals, I feel it's fine if we just get it from a single target as well. No need to change that.

 

Finally, adding TST to the set bonus is a good idea. TST is an awesome animation and deserves to be used.

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Starting to get the feeling that a certain livestream comment by Eric last year regarding "nerfing Sent/Mara class" based on a pvp match was more than just conspiracy.

 

When 3.0 dropped, it was very obvious that the class would be in trouble by something as simple as the fact that Dual Wield Mastery became restricted to only Combat, which should've become a baseline ability like the Guardian's Single Wield Mastery with the new Disciplines tree, since any decent Sent/Mara spec'd into that talent in the tree pre-3.0 in all three specs. And I have to ask, has the "miss rate" of the OH Saber gone up, because since 3.0 I notice a lot more misses (both in game and then from reviewing parses) from the OH than before 3.0? I think this also deserves some comment by the Dev Team considering that it is a DPS loss as well and further nerf to a class that HAS TO WIELD TWO SABERS! :) And while my Vigi Guardian kinda thanks you for the extra defensives...my Sentinel is asking "where's the love?"

 

I cannot address the other issues as well as Oofalong, Nortan, Atlanis and others already have in these three threads, so I won't but to say that I agree with them wholeheartedly, on every point. But I will add one thing - Using Sweep/Smash as the DOT spread instead of TST further gimps this class, in relation to other classes (aside from Guardians, of course) due to range. If the Devs are looking at using TST as the "proc" to the 6 piece set bonus, then change the DOT spread to TST. Either that, or tell the Combat Team to STOP creating boss encounters that require ads to be moved AWAY from the damn Boss. Otherwise, it is a completely useless latent ability, and thus a further nerf to the class's viability in Ops.

 

Finally, I also agree with posters in the previous 2 threads posted today on this topic but will add a bit to it: Being "schooled" on how to play a class that a lot of us have played since the launch is disheartening at best, and outright belittling of your customers and mocking our passion for this class at worst. I still had hope that Sents/Maras could be saved...but if this is the response that the community is to receive from this point forward (a community, I would remind you, who has provided you anywhere between 30 to 60 pages of feedback per thread upon request since 3.0 dropped, that has seemingly been consistently ignored), then it truly tells me the intent of the Devs is to drive people away from this class to once and for all remove it from the game. I might be overreacting, but the response given us today tells me that I (we) haven't reacted strongly enough.

 

Bring some Fruit and Eggs to a Cantina to share with the board :D

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I think you've been parsing that statement wrong. How I read it is "Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw should be used against multiple targets OR when you have the Pulverize/Mind Sear buff OR when you are further than 4m from your target OR when any combination of the above are true."

 

Hmmm, I have re-read this many times now. I still stand by my interpretation that "...while its damage is boosted by Pulverize/Mind Sear..." is an adverbial phrase modifying DST/TST's use in multi-target situations as opposed to your interpretation of it as an item in a list as indicated by the oxford comma.

 

Consider the first part of his post :

 

Never Overestimate Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw: Some abilities are only designed to be used situationally.

 

Right now, the situational use of DST/TST is when it is buffed by Pulverize/Mind Seer. (If you know you will be out of melee range in the next 18s it's even better to use it then.) In practice, the buff has an 18s limit and the ability has an 18s CD. Since these align, we use the ability on CD. Thus currently it is used rotationally, not situationally.

 

Also, consider the previous points in John's post: Doing away with a static rotation and Embracing Force Rend/Melt. These ideas are contentious. Thus, I believe John was presenting three contentious ideas rather than 2 contentious ideas and 1 widely and already understood idea.

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While I don't play a Marauder/Sentinel right now and have nothing constructive to add to this conversation, I did want to take a second to issue MAJOR kudos to Bioware on including the community on this one. Don't know if it's happened before, probably has, but this is what I love to see between a game company and its player base. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside :)
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Dictated by PvP, how will this help me in ops?

 

None of these changes help in PvP, stop blaming PvPers. There are plenty of suggestions that help both PvE and PvP but they all got ignored.

Edited by DynamiCtagez
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While I don't play a Marauder/Sentinel right now and have nothing constructive to add to this conversation, I did want to take a second to issue MAJOR kudos to Bioware on including the community on this one. Don't know if it's happened before, probably has, but this is what I love to see between a game company and its player base. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside :)

 

Oh please. These posts are nothing more than a poor attempt at PR....and I say poor because all it has done is piss everyone off and PR because they NEVER have any actual conversations with the community. They make theses posts and let them go for 60 pages without ever replying to them.

 

We never know what the hell they are thinking until we see patch notes and NONE OF IT includes anything from the constructive posts given to them. They literally made a bottom tier spec even worse and they don't even *********** realize it. Its clear as day that they think that the specs rotation functions fine and that the dps is fine but yet make a post talking about the rotation that SCREAMS "I' have never played this class for more than 20 minutes."

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Oh please. These posts are nothing more than a poor attempt at PR....and I say poor because all it has done is piss everyone off and PR because they NEVER have any actual conversations with the community. They make theses posts and let them go for 60 pages without ever replying to them.

 

We never know what the hell they are thinking until we see patch notes and NONE OF IT includes anything from the constructive posts given to them. They literally made a bottom tier spec even worse and they don't even *********** realize it. Its clear as day that they think that the specs rotation functions fine and that the dps is fine but yet make a post talking about the rotation that SCREAMS "I' have never played this class for more than 20 minutes."

 

Ahh, I interpreted Calligan's post as sarcastic. If it was not, then I 100% agree with you.

Edited by oofalong
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