EDIT: Possible solution by Veyl:

 

 

First of all, I'd like to start by saying that I don't usually open new threads. I look up whatever problems/questions/issues I have in the forum and post my opinion/question there. This time however, I am really confused by the lack of mentioning of the problem, which is making me think that maybe this was just a bug for me.

 

I was doing Terror from Beyond Hard Mode with my guildmates last night and we got to the 3rd boss, Operator IX.

(For those of you that haven't yet seen or reached that boss, at 4 specific points during the first phase of the fight, the dps need to quickly burn down 2 Data Cores each time. The data cores are essentially big computers, placed on the sides of the room that, until the aforementioned phases, are protected by shields and therefore cannot be hit.)

 

For some reason, which I really hope is a bug or an oversight, Bioware has decided to make the Madness/Hybrid's Deathfield NOT do ANY damage whatsoever to the Cores nor add the 20% more damage to our 10 next DOTs' hits as it normally does.

 

Now this can be either one of two things

 

• 1. Bioware made a mistake letting a bug that had been noticed on the PTS ( http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5162241 ) through to the live servers, in which case all I'd like is a confirmation that it is indeed a mistake/bug which will eventually be fixed. Or, even simpler, I was bugged.
   
  
• 2. It's supposed to be like that
  

 

If it's the second, I'm beginning to seriously doubt that Bioware has any idea whatsoever about the abilities of each of their classes. I know people don't usually read long posts, but I like to make my point as clear as possible as to why this is completely wrong.

1. Deathfield, unlike Orbital Strike and Death from Above which according to the link above also do no damage to the Cores, is IN our rotation. It is not a filler ability, it's not an ability that we use from time to time to do more damage to a pack of mobs. And not only is it in our rotation, it is also our hardest hitting ability that also makes our DOTs do more damage.
    
   
2. If for some reason they wanted to make aoe abilities do no damage to the cores (which I quite frankly don't get - it's not like the cores are close to the rest of the adds in the area or that any sane person would use them for maximum single-target damage), then they should have made Force Storm do no damage. THAT is our version of Death from Above or Orbital Strike, not Deathfield.
    
   
3. Once again, we are being "punished" for being in the aoe/dot damage tree. That was also the case on the second boss of Explosive Conflict when you couldn't use your hardest hitting ability because the shield would go down and you'd wipe. But that was a different story because it was the player's decision not to use the ability or at least to use it wisely as far as possible from the center of the shield. It did damage, you just knew it wasn't the right ability to use. And I'm not even going to mention all the times that you can't use your deathfield because of the CC'ed adds all over the place...
   

 

I really hope this is a bug and I hope even more that this was a bug just for me and that other people did not run into it. Otherwise - and I speak for myself alone here - this is the final blow in a class that has been treated poorly since the first 1-2 patches and is struggling to be considered useful for anything other than its healing spec.

 

As a final thought, this is about one fight and one phase of that fight. But it's about more than that. It's about how Bioware sees Madness Sorcerers and their effort - or lack thereof - to make them a desirable or needed DPS class for endgame PVE.

 

Thanks for reading this.

Edited October 27, 2012 by TheNahash

Everything worked fine on my Sorc. Sure you weren't hitting the wrong data core, did it have a big orange shield on?

Everything worked fine on my Sorc. Sure you weren't hitting the wrong data core, did it have a big orange shield on?

 

LOL. Can you imagine?

No, of course I wasn't hitting the wrong data core. And it's not something that never happened before. If you take a look at the link I posted in my first post, you'll see that it also happened on the PTS.

 

I have still not received a response from Customer Service, neither here nor to the ticket I opened, which is really annoying, but I did watch some videos of Madness Sorcs on youtube using their Deathfield successfully on the Data Cores, so I just HOPE this was just a bug that was either fixed or only happened in my instance for some reason.

Edited October 5, 2012 by TheNahash

I can confirm that death field has no effect on the data cores. After reading this thread, I went dps and did the fight as a madness assassin, and I had to take death field out of my rotation while attacking the cores, which seriously annoyed me. When you use DF on a core, it takes no damage, acting as if it wasn't hit with anything.

I can confirm that death field has no effect on the data cores. After reading this thread, I went dps and did the fight as a madness assassin, and I had to take death field out of my rotation while attacking the cores, which seriously annoyed me. When you use DF on a core, it takes no damage, acting as if it wasn't hit with anything.

 

Actually, it works... just not every time

It seems that if you click on the Core and place your Deathfield exactly where the circle beneath it is, 90% of the time it will work normally. However, some of my Deathfields still didn't work, even though I could've sworn I placed them exactly on top of the circle.

 

Since the only responses I got from CS were not helpful at all - they said they couldn't give information about "anything that hasn't been posted on the official site"- I'm still unsure whether this is intended or just broken.

 

Although, at this point, I'm pretty sure it's a bug. I can think of absolutely no reason why they'd do that on purpose.

Okay, first things first - speak for yourself on orbital strike and death from above - both are in my rotations - orbital strike usually only on bosses, but death from above on EVERYTHING.

Okay, first things first - speak for yourself on orbital strike and death from above - both are in my rotations - orbital strike usually only on bosses, but death from above on EVERYTHING.

 

I just wrote a pretty big answer to this which for some reason bugged (SUPRISE!) and was not posted.

 

I'm too bored to write it again, but it is my understanding that (according to Noxxic and MMO-Mechanics' guides for Bounty Hunters) DfA is NOT normally in your rotation and should only be used when dpsing down multiple targets. Maybe OS is indeed useful but I still don't know how cost/damage efficient it is when you try to dps down a single target as fast as you can with a 3sec cast that does damage over 9 secs and has a 60sec cooldown.

 

But even if, for argument's sake, we consider them useful, both these abilities have 60sec cds and -like our Force Storm - are pure damage, they do not buff the rest of your abilities.

Deathfield is our hardest hitting AOE or single target ability

It is used on cooldown, which is 15 secs. I can cast 4 DFs for one of your DfA/OS

Deathfield, if specced (there is no point in not speccing), makes our next 10 DOT ticks hit 20% harder, therefore our overall damage is dependent on Deathfield.

 

However, my point was not that your abilities should be crippled and ours should not. They are just not the same.

And it's obviously a bug since it does work, just not if you cast these abilities anywhere but exactly on top of the circle beneath the Core.

 

I'm still unsure as to why you would comment on that or why you would prioritize that as "first things first" and not ask BW to fix it for all of us, but whatever.

Delete Edited October 12, 2012 by TheNahash

Hey.

 

"Glad" it's not only me having this problem. Death Field works from time to time, never when I place it exactly under. It happen to work better when I place it on the sides or in front, half inside. So either it's a bug that it works, or it's a bug that it doesn't work.. I hope it's the latter.

 

Have you gotten any other information about this issue? Like talked to a GM about it or something?

Hey.

 

"Glad" it's not only me having this problem. Death Field works from time to time, never when I place it exactly under. It happen to work better when I place it on the sides or in front, half inside. So either it's a bug that it works, or it's a bug that it doesn't work.. I hope it's the latter.

 

Have you gotten any other information about this issue? Like talked to a GM about it or something?

 

Nope.

Unfortunately they just replied with the enigmatic "if something is not mentioned on the official site, we can't help you" -without even telling me WHERE on the official site I'm supposed to look to see if it's mentioned or not - and I just try to align my Death Field with the circle beneath the Cores as much as possible. It doesn't work every time, which makes me think that it's just a bug not that many people have noticed so they are keeping it in the down low, but anywhere else I've tried (sides, front etc) didn't seem to work at all for me.

 

After all, why would they care? How many PVE DPS sorcerers are left anyway... especially Madness sorcs.

Edited October 18, 2012 by TheNahash

 

After all, why would they care? How many PVE DPS sorcerers are left anyway... especially Madness sorcs.

 

I am! And yeah I found this really annoying. I just use shock now instead of DF. Not worth the waste of time in dps for it not to work reliably and the time lost trying to place it. And even then when you think you placed it right, and it does nothing.

After all, why would they care? How many PVE DPS sorcerers are left anyway... especially Madness sorcs.

 

Have to be at least a few... we cleared HM TfB again with a madness sorc in our group last night.

Hey guys.

 

My sorc and a madness assassin was testing this Deathfield Issue. We found that if you death field the back right corner it would always hit the core as it should. Using deathfield directly on the core majority of the time resulted in nothing. (No deathmarks, etc).

 

So. Drop that deathfield on the back right corner.

Thanks for the tip, but I already switched to lightning because of this bug. I might well switch back to madness if this issue is addressed properly.

Hey guys.

 

My sorc and a madness assassin was testing this Deathfield Issue. We found that if you death field the back right corner it would always hit the core as it should. Using deathfield directly on the core majority of the time resulted in nothing. (No deathmarks, etc).

 

So. Drop that deathfield on the back right corner.

 

Thanks for the update on the issue, Veyl. If you don't mind, I'll just put this in my original post just in case anyone is looking for a working solution.

Edited October 27, 2012 by TheNahash