I ask this because right now I have not heard of any guild that has successfully beaten HM encounters like Firebrand & Stormcaller without having at least one Marauder/Sentinel in the group. Every video of a successful kill that I have seen has had one or more of these classes present. My 8man HM ops team has hit the enrage timers a few times in our currently unsuccessful attempts at this fight and it is starting to look like we might have no choice but to reform our team to make room for a Marauder for the Bloodthirst buff.

I would expect some of you will post here saying that sure these encounters can be done without this buff and that may be so, but it seems to me that not having this buff on your ops team is a rather large disadvantage.

I offer two changes to Bloodthirst/Inspiration that I think would balance it out a bit:

1. Expand the availability of the buff to another class. The logical choice here would be the Sniper/Gunslinger as it is the only other pure DPS advanced class. This would increase the desirability for a class that already suffers from the lowest use by players of all the classes. It would also make it easier for an operation team to have this buff available, especially in 8-man groups that may not have a Marauder/Sentinel present at all.

2. Only allow this buff to benefit a player once every 5 minutes. This would have to be accomplished by adding a debuff to all players who received the buff to begin with, something that would work much like the debuff you currently get when a battle rez is used. This would prevent the massive benefit a raid team can currently enjoy if they stack a bunch of Marauders on their team. This would also seem to be a necessary addition if you were to enact my first suggestion above of doubling the number of classes that can bring this buff to a raid.

If you were to add these two changes then more diverse raid groups would have an equal chance to benefit from this powerful buff while also ensuring that it can't be abused to oversimplify a challenging encounter.

We have sucessfully cleared 3/4 HM denova without a Sent without any issues using no Inspiration, but now coming to the final boss I can see where we are at a massive disadvantage with it.

There are so many nuke phases where if you miss it its a whole wipe.

This buff is literally the only reason to bring the class to a raid. While you are attempting to offer solutions to make groups more diverse I fear that in doing so you will actually limit the viability of this class, making groups more streamlined.

If you give bloodthirst to a sniper, for example, groups would be encouraged to double up on snipers and forgo marauders completely. Melee dps is naturally handicapped by splash damage mechanics; they need something to make them PvE viable.

This buff is literally the only reason to bring the class to a raid. While you are attempting to offer solutions to make groups more diverse I fear that in doing so you will actually limit the viability of this class, making groups more streamlined.

 

If you give bloodthirst to a sniper, for example, groups would be encouraged to double up on snipers and forgo marauders completely. Melee dps is naturally handicapped by splash damage mechanics; they need something to make them PvE viable.

I keep going back to the idea that became so popular in that Game Which Will Not Be Named: "Bring the player, not the class"

My intent here is to address the balancing of a buff that can affect the success or failure of an entire operations group. We should not be filling a raid slot only because of a buff that class brings. I would much rather be able to bring a highly skilled player of a different class than be forced to bring someone of a very specific class.

If what you say is true about the buff being the ONLY reason to have Marauders and Sentinels in a raid group then Bioware has other issues to address with that class beyond the Bloodthirst/Inspiration buff and the proper fix would have to involve a lot more than changes to just this buff to correct that.

I'd would rather not have this discussion focus on whether or not Marauders and Sentinels bring other value to a raid beyond this group buff. Let's please focus on how we can help balance out this buff for raid groups with different class compositions who may currently be struggling with enrage mechanics due to this disadvantage.

Couldn't the same be said about the +5% crit buff that a Smuggler or Agent brings?

You really can't compare this buff to the class buffs. The Bloodthirst/Inspriration buff is provided by only 1 out of 8 advanced classes per faction. The class buffs are provided by BOTH ACs of that class so that is already twice as many chances to get each of those buffs. In addition, due to legacy the chances are even higher to get a specific class buff since each player can provide the class buff of their alt characters that are at least past chapter 2.

So in general the odds are far higher that you will have access to a specific class buff than there are for having the Bloodthirst/Inspiration buff available.

I ask this because right now I have not heard of any guild that has successfully beaten HM encounters like Firebrand & Stormcaller without having at least one Marauder/Sentinel in the group. Every video of a successful kill that I have seen has had one or more of these classes present. My 8man HM ops team has hit the enrage timers a few times in our currently unsuccessful attempts at this fight and it is starting to look like we might have no choice but to reform our team to make room for a Marauder for the Bloodthirst buff.

 

I would expect some of you will post here saying that sure these encounters can be done without this buff and that may be so, but it seems to me that not having this buff on your ops team is a rather large disadvantage.

 

I offer two changes to Bloodthirst/Inspiration that I think would balance it out a bit:

 

1. Expand the availability of the buff to another class. The logical choice here would be the Sniper/Gunslinger as it is the only other pure DPS advanced class. This would increase the desirability for a class that already suffers from the lowest use by players of all the classes. It would also make it easier for an operation team to have this buff available, especially in 8-man groups that may not have a Marauder/Sentinel present at all.

 

2. Only allow this buff to benefit a player once every 5 minutes. This would have to be accomplished by adding a debuff to all players who received the buff to begin with, something that would work much like the debuff you currently get when a battle rez is used. This would prevent the massive benefit a raid team can currently enjoy if they stack a bunch of Marauders on their team. This would also seem to be a necessary addition if you were to enact my first suggestion above of doubling the number of classes that can bring this buff to a raid.

 

If you were to add these two changes then more diverse raid groups would have an equal chance to benefit from this powerful buff while also ensuring that it can't be abused to oversimplify a challenging encounter.

1. You will have to give something new or something from another AC to Mara/Sent to compensate. Like people are saying, this buff is one of the very few reasons you take this AC to operations.

2 The ability itself has a 5 minute cooldown so this is a moot point =/.

Imo, from an 8 man perspective yes having a Mara/Sent in your ops is a huge benefit because your entire dps squad is going to get the buff. If you are a 16 man guild then taking 1 Mara/Sent is going to be lackluster because only that group of 4 is going to benefit, so in total you would need more like 2-3 Mara/Sent for a 16 man ops.

I would agree with what others have said, melee dps already doesn't get brought very often because they take more damage and because of certain mechanics have less uptime on target. If they gave the buff to someone else, ranged at that, they would never get brought to ops runs, period. As of right now, op states that they don't even have one.

And bring the player not the class? While that sounded good in on paper for wow, it lead to alot of people not getting raid spots. Alot of top guilds went all range dps except for the tank. I was there, I had a assination rogue and a fury warrior that nobody in the guild wanted to bring with. The only action my warrior got was when I decided to tank the raid. My poor rogue was always over looked, even thou going into firelands he could do 25-28k dps on good fights.

You want the buff? Bring the player who is actually playing the the class then.

2 The ability itself has a 5 minute cooldown so this is a moot point =/.

I don't think you understand my reasoning on this second part. Right now if you have 2 marauders in a group then you can benefit from this buff twice as often. This gets more and more overpowered the more Marauders you bring. The debuff would prevent that from happening as a balance against there potentially being more people in your raid who can bring the buff.

I would agree with what others have said, melee dps already doesn't get brought very often because they take more damage and because of certain mechanics have less uptime on target. If they gave the buff to someone else, ranged at that, they would never get brought to ops runs, period. As of right now, op states that they don't even have one.

 

And bring the player not the class? While that sounded good in on paper for wow, it lead to alot of people not getting raid spots. Alot of top guilds went all range dps except for the tank. I was there, I had a assination rogue and a fury warrior that nobody in the guild wanted to bring with. The only action my warrior got was when I decided to tank the raid. My poor rogue was always over looked, even thou going into firelands he could do 25-28k dps on good fights.

.

You are assuming that we made a conscious choice to not have a Marauder on our team. This is not the case. We picked a set of skilled players who enjoy each other's company. We really did not make any choices for class beyond the usual needs of tank, healers and a set of 4 dps. The problem is that we can't do this in reality because the game is effectively penalizing us for not have that one advanced class on our team. This is the part I have a problem with -- we shouldn't be forced to bring a certain class, we should be able to bring any class that fits the proper role of tank, healer, dps and choose our friends and skilled players to fill those roles.

I fully understand the argument that says no one would ever choose Marauders if the buff was available elsewhere, but again as I said before that shows a much larger problem of class balance at the core. This is actually the biggest issue with BOTH of the two pure DPS advanced classes and I could argue that right now it is even worse for snipers. Snipers do not offer anything to a raid that cannot already be done as well or better by Mercenaries and Sorcerers. And on top of that Sniper is the least played of all the advanced classes. Bioware needs to address the issues with both of these classes to ensure that both of them can be desirable for use in operations.

You want the buff? Bring the player who is actually playing the the class then.

So what you're saying here is I need to tell one of my friends to sit out so that we can recruit a new stranger who plays that class just so our raid team can be successful? It shouldn't have to be that way.

Couldn't the same be said about the +5% crit buff that a Smuggler or Agent brings?

I bring this buff with my consular, and my trooper. Legacy is cool.

I don't think you understand my reasoning on this second part. Right now if you have 2 marauders in a group then you can benefit from this buff twice as often. This gets more and more overpowered the more Marauders you bring. The debuff would prevent that from happening as a balance against there potentially being more people in your raid who can bring the buff.

 

 

 

You are assuming that we made a conscious choice to not have a Marauder on our team. This is not the case. We picked a set of skilled players who enjoy each other's company. We really did not make any choices for class beyond the usual needs of tank, healers and a set of 4 dps. The problem is that we can't do this in reality because the game is effectively penalizing us for not have that one advanced class on our team. This is the part I have a problem with -- we shouldn't be forced to bring a certain class, we should be able to bring any class that fits the proper role of tank, healer, dps and choose our friends and skilled players to fill those roles.

 

I fully understand the argument that says no one would ever choose Marauders if the buff was available elsewhere, but again as I said before that shows a much larger problem of class balance at the core. This is actually the biggest issue with BOTH of the two pure DPS advanced classes and I could argue that right now it is even worse for snipers. Snipers do not offer anything to a raid that cannot already be done as well or better by Mercenaries and Sorcerers. And on top of that Sniper is the least played of all the advanced classes. Bioware needs to address the issues with both of these classes to ensure that both of them can be desirable for use in operations.

 

 

 

So what you're saying here is I need to tell one of my friends to sit out so that we can recruit a new stranger who plays that class just so our raid team can be successful? It shouldn't have to be that way.

I want to agree with you, cause I see your point, it sucks. I just can't help thinking about all the enhancement shammies that never got to raid again after Mages got time warp. The only thing a shammy was going to do from that point on was heal and if we didn't need a healer, to bad for the shammy. It sucks, I feel ya. Just not sure it would go better any other way.

I would agree with what others have said, melee dps already doesn't get brought very often because they take more damage and because of certain mechanics have less uptime on target. If they gave the buff to someone else, ranged at that, they would never get brought to ops runs, period. As of right now, op states that they don't even have one.

Thats excatly the point, they dont bring a melee dd to their raids cause they know that a range dd is 100 times better than a melee dd. Now they realize that having that buff would be a nice to have thing and ask that a range dd is given something equal. Sorry but I am totally against that. Playing a melee dd myself I know how hard it is, most of the boss encounters are much easier if you are a range dd. You stay out of aoe effects, you dont get pushed back etc.

The point is giving that buff to another class will make the marauder/sentinel obsolte. Its already that way. Look how many range dds you have in a raid and how many melee dd. Even in the 50er hm fps, a range dd is mostly taken.

We've done it, yeah. We did a full clear (hm) on Thursday with the following setup:

Tanks: Shadow, Guardian

Healers: Sage, Sage

DPS: Commando, Commando, Commando, Guardian

Not our optimal setup but we usually run 16 man, we were just light on Thursday. We usually run with two Sentinels in our 16 man runs. Still, definitely possible. Would we have killed the bosses a bit faster with a Sentinel or two? Sure. Would it have mattered? Nah.

I do agree with you about the buff though. It needs a Bloodlust syle debuff to prevent multiple uses (which I'm certain it will get) but sure, I think Snipers should get it too. I mean why not? So long as they don't actually[/b] start tuning fights around Inspiration it's' all gravy.

This is actually the biggest issue with BOTH of the two pure DPS advanced classes and I could argue that right now it is even worse for snipers. Snipers do not offer anything to a raid that cannot already be done as well or better by Mercenaries and Sorcerers.

right... what about that big shield snipers have? Maybe they should give that shield to some other ac class aswell... Bloodthirst/Inspiration only benefits your group (max 4 people), where the ballistic shield benefits everyone in the raid if they stand within the range. -20% dmg for 16 people in raid is imo far superior to a 15% dmg and healing buff to only 4 out of 16 people in a raid.

I think Snipers should get it too. I mean why not? So long as they don't actually[/b] start tuning fights around Inspiration it's' all gravy.

why not? cause I dont get their shield.

Thats excatly the point, they dont bring a melee dd to their raids cause they know that a range dd is 100 times better than a melee dd. Now they realize that having that buff would be a nice to have thing and ask that a range dd is given something equal. Sorry but I am totally against that. Playing a melee dd myself I know how hard it is, most of the boss encounters are much easier if you are a range dd. You stay out of aoe effects, you dont get pushed back etc.

You completely ignored what I said in my posts. I never said we don't bring any melee dps, all I said is we currently do not have a Marauder. I also said that we did not fill our raid slots based on class, or even ranged vs. melee distinctions at all, we simply chose 4 DPS who were friends and skilled people behind the keys. What you have done is taken the part where I say "we don't have a Marauder" and are twisting that to mean "we don't want any melee" and this is not the case in my raid.

We are 4/4 HM EC. Yes a Marauder should be in your roster.

1) Their damage output potential is very high. (Our current one hits 1600 DPS, where our average raider hits 1200-1300 DPS)

2) Predation is very useful for Gift of the Masters (Warlord Kephess HM encounter)

3) Bloodthirst is an essential buff for burn phases / general raid dps.

Ideal DPS group would have only 1 melee, and that being a Marauder for listed reasons.

This buff is literally the only reason to bring the class to a raid.

This. This buff is a nice perk for a class that would otherwise probably be left out of most ops groups in favor of ranged DPS if the guild has enough people to pick and choose the most optimal setup.

If things are so tight that inspiration is literally the deciding factor between winning and losing, you're just undergeared for the fight. Gear up better so that your entire raid DPS is doing more base damage and you won't need inspiration.

This. This buff is a nice perk for a class that would otherwise probably be left out of most ops groups in favor of ranged DPS if the guild has enough people to pick and choose the most optimal setup.

 

If things are so tight that inspiration is literally the deciding factor between winning and losing, you're just undergeared for the fight. Gear up better so that your entire raid DPS is doing more base damage and you won't need inspiration.

... Everyone who says that the only reason to bring them is for the buff is wrong. A well played Marauder blows everyone else out of the whatever as far as DPS is concerned. It's not even a contest. Sure, if your DPS can't handle moving out of colored circles then yeah, bring all ranged, but if you have a competent team and 3 or 4 good Marauders, your RW DPS goes through the roof.

Our raid composition:

Allen - Commando DPS

Likeaboss - Shadow DPS

Murda - Sage Healer

Nevets - Vanguard Tank

Simple - Sage Healer

Sylvand - Commando DPS

Terric - Gunslinger DPS

HM kills:

... Everyone who says that the only reason to bring them is for the buff is wrong. A well played Marauder blows everyone else out of the whatever as far as DPS is concerned. It's not even a contest. Sure, if your DPS can't handle moving out of colored circles then yeah, bring all ranged, but if you have a competent team and 3 or 4 good Marauders, your RW DPS goes through the roof.

Only if your melee dps is way overgeared for the encounter. The fact is, when melee has to dodge an AOE, they usually have to stop attacking to do so. When ranged has to dodge an AOE, they can keep on going with virtually no downtime.

Only if your melee dps is way overgeared for the encounter. The fact is, when melee has to dodge an AOE, they usually have to stop attacking to do so. When ranged has to dodge an AOE, they can keep on going with virtually no downtime.

Do Gunnery spec Commandos or Sharpshooter Gunslingers not ring a bell?

Also haha, Sentinels really slow down while moving all the time. Or not.

Bloodthirst/Inspiration is not required for raiding, but its nice.

And if you're only bringing Marauders/Sentinels for Bloodthirst, you're missing something - they are the best dps class in game atm.