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Class Changes: Innovative Ordnance Mercenary / Assault Specialist Commando


EricMusco

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Hey folks,

 

Below you will find the currently planned Class changes for Innovative Ordnance and Assault Specialist coming in Game Update 5.3.

 

Note: All changes below are currently in development and are subject to change before being released.

 

Mercenary

Innovative Ordnance

  • Reduced the critical damage bonus given by Ordnance Expert from 30% to 15%
  • Reduced the burn damage of Incendiary Missile by 10%
  • Reduced the bleed damage of Serrated Shot by 12%

 

Commando

Assault Specialist

  • Reduced the critical damage bonus given by Assault Trooper from 30% to 15%
  • Reduced the burn damage of Incendiary Round by 10%
  • Reduced the bleed damage of Serrated Bolt by 12%

 

DevNotes: We adjusted Ordnance Expert / Assault Trooper to reduce the burst damage potential of the discipline, which also lowered its overall DPS. However, that change alone was not enough to bring the discipline down to its target DPS, so we reduced the periodic damage of two key abilities as well. The cumulative effect of these changes is that both the burst damage potential and sustained damage potential for Innovative Ordnance Mercenaries / Assault Specialist Commandos have been reduced by a fair amount to bring them down to their target DPS.

 

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Running the numbers on a 10,150 parse of mine real quick (so could be off). Looks like a 220 DPS loss from the dot damage change and a 300 DPS loss from the crit bonus reduction. Bringing that parse to about 9,630.

 

I guess my only confusion is that Deception is supposed to be of similar DPS Target of IO But right now I can do 10k on Deception and it's not getting touched. So a few possibilities exist. 1) I messed up the math, super possible and likely. 2) Over-nerfing IO. 3) Deception will get hit in the future (like 5.4). 4) Reaper's Rush utility and maybe even Phantom Stride in general are not taken into considering for measuring Deception's DPS (kind of like how BW doesn't consider clipping for Carnage).

Edited by Hellhog
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Hey folks,

 

Below you will find the currently planned Class changes for Innovative Ordnance and Assault Specialist coming in Game Update 5.3.

 

 

 

With all these changes to DPS, I would like to see a couple of things:

 

1. What is the actual Target DPS that is attempting to be achieved? Also, in what gear ratings. I would suspect the target dps is in full 248, but that's not been said, afaik. I am not looking for a hypothetical number, but the actual one that you are striving for.

 

2. What is the expected DPS to down various Veteran bosses. For example, Veteran Styrak in Scum and Villainy?

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"Hey guys we adjusted the DPS for another spec"

Why do you guys consistently forget that resource management is also a key issue for all Disciplines? It doesn't matter how much damage we do if we run out of energy in 1 minute.

 

Here, I'll quote myself from an earlier thread, since the current AS/IO rotation costs a net 29 energy cells/heat unless you replace the two non-critical Charged Bolts/Power Shots with Hammer Shots/Rapid Shots:

Innovative Ordnance/Assault Specialist has DoT-spreading and severe resource management issues; have Collateral Damage/Explosive Dissemination additionally cause Fusion Missile/Plasma Grenade to activate instantly and spread both the Serrated Shot/Serrated Bolt and Incendiary Missile/Incendiary Round DoTs to affected targets. Moreover, either reduce the heat/energy cost of all of the following abilities by 5:

  • Explosive Dart/Sticky Grenade
  • Power Shot/Charged Bolts
  • Fusion Missile/Plasma Grenade
  • Incendiary Missile/Incendiary Round
  • Thermal Detonator/Assault Plastique
  • Serrated Shot/Serrated Bolt

or introduce additional heat-venting/energy cell-refunding passives.

More generally:

  • Take Responsive Safeguards/Echoing Deterrence from Mercenaries/Commandos and give it to Powertechs/Vanguards, and impose a rate limit on the healing granted of once per second. Their current DCD selection is abysmal for a class that has a tanking Discipline.
  • Entirely remove and replace at least two of the following: Trauma Regulators/Trauma Stabilizers, Kolto Surge/Adrenal Surge, and Energy Rebounder/Reflexive Shield. (I’d rather Mercenaries/Commandos didn’t have 4 lives, thanks.) Additionally, if Trauma Regulators/Trauma Stabilizers remains, reduce the healing granted to 1% of maximum health per stack.

Resource management is a thing, and it is vitally important. You of all people ought to know that.

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merc/mando class getting shafted

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.

.

.

love it, poor FOTM rerollers :D

 

Implying there is a single fotm reroller who plays IO.

Actually this is sad, we see the destruction of a class because of BioWare's incompetence.

I have no idea why are you happy. There are people who play this class since forever, and will most likely quit, after the devs brought the class to the bottom of all dps specs.

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"Hey guys we adjusted the DPS for another spec"

Why do you guys consistently forget that resource management is also a key issue for all Disciplines? It doesn't matter how much damage we do if we run out of energy in 1 minute.

 

Here, I'll quote myself from an earlier thread, since the current AS/IO rotation costs a net 29 energy cells/heat unless you replace the two non-critical Charged Bolts/Power Shots with Hammer Shots/Rapid Shots:

 

Resource management is a thing, and it is vitally important. You of all people ought to know that.

 

Resource management is not hard in rotation at all. Even if you don't do the heat ramping rotation, in both possible rotations (marisi/fascinate or veldix/radleywalters) there are 2 filler spots, just don't power shot (or TD for the m/f roation) in those fillers if you don't have the heat. It's that simple. Lowering nearly every ability by 5 heat is ridiculous. I'll agree the dot spread sucks. But if you're smart about it all, it's very doable. Really, all they would need to do to greatly improve sustained aoe is move the dotspread to one ability instead of having it tied to two separate ones.

 

Edit: I'm not siding with BW on the nerf. I still think it sucks that it's getting nerfed but it is what it is. At the same time, I agree utilities need a change but that's clearly not getting touched in 5.3 (my opinion is that trauma reg has to go). But I think the IO rotation (whichever of the 2 you may use) is more than sound and because of its staticness fairly simple to do. I mean, it can practically be macro'd. My biggest beef is that with its heat costs not dissipating at the rate Arsenal does, that having dotspread in a non-priority based rotation tied to 2 separate abilities sucks and moving it to one would be a nice change of pace.

Edited by Hellhog
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Resource management is not hard in rotation at all. Even if you don't do the heat ramping rotation, in both possible rotations (marisi/fascinate or veldix/radleywalters) there are 2 filler spots, just don't power shot (or TD for the m/f roation) in those fillers if you don't have the heat. It's that simple. Lowering nearly every ability by 5 heat is ridiculous. I'll agree the dot spread sucks. But if you're smart about it all, it's very doable. Really, all they would need to do to greatly improve sustained aoe is move the dotspread to one ability instead of having it tied to two separate ones.

True, but it just really rubs me the wrong way to ever have to resort to autoattacks. Imo you should only have to do that if you screwed up the rotation.

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I'm not a big merc player, so my judgment may be off on this. Critical damage reduction was important since the burst damage of the spec was way bigger than most of the other DoT spec in the game. ^^

 

For the bleed/burn damage reduction, I still wonder if this is enough or not. :p

 

Like most people said on the madness/balance post : the changes weren't appropriate for high-level content (sorcerer aren't capable of doing Master mode Operation for example, even with the changes that were brought in ^^ ).

Here the issue doesn't apply since merc are clearly ok with every kind of high level content but hey, it would help with community feedback to know what was used to decide these changes and how did you test them. :D

 

Conclusion for me : changes seems nice for a spec that did way too much damage when played somewhat correctly but it would help to have some info on how these changes are tested (what kind of content / if a specific rotation was used during the test / some numbers that indicates if average target dps was reached). :D

 

Oh, and since someone already asked for it, I'll ask again : What is the exact target DPS for I.O. Merc ? :p

Edited by supertimtaf
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Yes on serious note as someone who plays AS Mando in raids along with a Balance Sage here is more constructive feedback:

 

1.) I am fine with your "target dps" whatever it is as long as all classes are actually balanced around it. I did not like the "carry me" mentality which developed in 5.2 which developed in hm/Nim raids when certain classes pulled godly numbers when other classes where simply for technical reasons sub-par or underperforming. Hell, I switched to mando although I enjoy sage more visually because it was simply much better since 5.0 hands down. I only wish you would rebalance dps on all specs at once and not in stages as 5.3 looks like it will just continue the imbalance in a different way.

2.) for io merc/ as commando the same resource management issues apply as on balance sage/ madness sorcerer. The resource management could be a made a little bit more force/energy neutral or forgiving. IO mercs can't really aoe as they quickly run out of ammo in sustained fights if they try. Madness sorcs just run out of focus after 2 minutes (not 5! minutes) when executing optimal rotation. That does not encourage "good" sustained dps really.

 

Yeah not really much to add. Address the resource management of this spec please.

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Implying there is a single fotm reroller who plays IO.

Actually this is sad, we see the destruction of a class because of BioWare's incompetence.

I have no idea why are you happy. There are people who play this class since forever, and will most likely quit, after the devs brought the class to the bottom of all dps specs.

 

don't care if there are people who play this class since forever, everyone knows mercs/mandos have been broken since 5.0. changes like these are bound to happen. they still have ridicilous defense CD's , so this class isn't completely useless...for now.

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don't care if there are people who play this class since forever, everyone knows mercs/mandos have been broken since 5.0. changes like these are bound to happen. they still have ridicilous defense CD's , so this class isn't completely useless...for now.

 

For the pvp scrubs. For the rest of us it is.

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Gotta say, not a fan of character nerds in general. I understand why they do it because a lot of players learn their classes quickly and spend time studying rotations, specs and other things.... it does seem to hurt the casual player or raid group who has to spend the time making sure they know everything there is about his or her player character... I was ok when 3 of 4 dps knew their class and could carry the 4th dps... 1 healer or tank could carry the other... seems Bioware is trying to eliminate this to some extent...
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That's too much of a nerf. Amazes me how the diffculty of playing a spec isn't taken into consideration as DPS potential. I.O. is a very fun and rewarding spec to play, but suffer in fights where you have to swap target and aoe a lot. The rotation is so static and unforgiving that it's not worth the trouble in a lot of fights.

 

I couldn't agree more on what posters before me said about a single ability that could spread both dots. Would really help it's aoe potential, making it a better all around spec.

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maybe innovative ordonance needed a dps nerf due to PvE (the 30% crit bonus was too strong obvisously) but this spec is the most difficult for energy mangement.

 

and again, like sorc madness, nothing is changed for this...

 

so now the spec is clearly dead. (at least for pvp)

Edited by Thaladan
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Eric what is the gear rating that all the targets have been set based on?

 

1. Recommend 20% for the crit adjustment, as this proc is a key portion of overall sustained damage

2. I respect that energy management is a key part of IO, but no plans to adjust heat costs alongside the reduction in damage for serrated and incendiary? I would l like to see something here, even if it is only 2-3 heat taken off the top

 

All in, these nerfs are not going to shy me away from maining IO, since I started playing it near the bottom of the pile anyway.

 

I hope you keep in mind that for all the changes you are making to DPS that you are HEAVILY considering defensives for RDPS who are going to have 5-10% damage gap to melee classes. You are going to destroy PVP balance if you don't cover this accordingly.

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