Hello everyone

 

I have been playing an Assault Vanguard and a Powertech since launch. My experience is that this class has two big issues: It's too boring and it's too stong. That's why I decided to take a look at the talents and see where improvements could be made to make the class more fun and balance its damage.

 

I'm using the names of PT spells in this thread. In order to help republic players to understand which spells/talents I'm refering to, I will use http://www.torhead.com.

 

IMPORTANT: I am aware that these changes might result in too much damage. Because of that, damage of rail shot and maybe even Thermal detonator should be reduced.

 

Problem nr. 1: High burst potential from 30 meters as melee class

 

In order to counter this we need to take a look at the spells that make it possible for the PT to dish out 5000-8500 damage in 3 attacks from 30 meters range.

 

1. He opens with: http://www.torhead.com/ability/7aOweR2/incendiary-missile
   
2. Then throws his grenade: http://www.torhead.com/ability/fc2Kvfv/thermal-detonator
   
3. And last but not least, he fires his deadly Rail Shot: http://www.torhead.com/ability/gHOfwK1/rail-shot
   

 

As we can see, all these attacks have a range of 30 meters. But it's only one attack that makes this all possible: Incendiary missile. Why? A good PT would never throw his grenade without a guaranteed +9% damage of http://www.torhead.com/ability/bUvbdAY/rain-of-fire to get the most out of his burst. Furthermore he can't even rail shot if there's no dot up.

 

So how do we counter this? Easy - In my opinion, only mercenaries should be allowed to have incendiary missile. After all they're supposed to be the ranged class. The only way a PT should be able to get a dot on a target from 30m range is by spamming rapid shots (which is basically the auto attack). This way he has only 16% chance to proc CGC each time he shoots.

 

Since spamming Flame Burst for a GCG proc is viable but stupid, we'll add a new talent and remove Incendiary Missile from the PTs Talent tree alltogether. The new talent is a fire shield (can be compared to an assassins Dark Ward: http://www.torhead.com/ability/3X6mJje/dark-ward). This spell will make incendiary missile AND Bursting flames http://www.torhead.com/ability/aq7NUQX/bursting-flame obsolete.

 

Sweeping flame (or any other suitable name)

Cost: 25 Heat

Duration: 1 minute, cooldown 30 seconds

Radius: 10 meters (Like Flame burst)

Has effect on enemies within radius: Increases chance to proc GCG by Rocket punch, Rapid Shots and Flame Burst by 50%.

A flame pulses from the shield every 5 seconds, dealing XXX amount of damage to all enemies within 10m radius of player (Does not hit players affected by CCs that will break if damaged)

 

This will stop the flame burst spam to some extent and will make the PT more of a melee class. XXX amount of damage should replace the dps lost by removing incendiary missile. Should not be too much because it's not used too often in PvP.

 

Problem nr. 2: Those Rail Shots are hitting too hard

 

What makes rail shots so incredibly strong are two things: High armory penetration and the +30% critical hit damage it gets from Firebug http://www.torhead.com/ability/x209ZN/firebug.

 

Of course, we can't just take away the armor penetration because PTs are meant to be Tank killers. We can however make it harder to get the amount they have now (90%). And because the damage IS too high, Firebugs critical hit multiplier of Rail Shot should be lowered to 7.5% / 15%.

 

We will remove the 30% armor penetration of http://www.torhead.com/ability/drw28YQ/superheated-rail and, since we made http://www.torhead.com/ability/aq7NUQX/bursting-flame obsolete with change for problem nr. 1, we will just introduce a new talent.

 

I call it Revealing stab. It's a melee attack (4 meters range) on an 10 sec cooldown. As with most other PT attacks it should benefit from the +9% dmg from http://www.torhead.com/ability/bUvbdAY/rain-of-fire and should also get the +50% chance to trigger CGC from the talent I posted in problem nr. 1.

This new talent increases armor penetration of Rail shot by 10% each time you use it, effectively stacking up to 3 times. The effect should last 15 seconds.

 

Revealing Stab (or any other suitable name)

Heat: 20 (subject to discussion)

Cooldown: 10 sec (Maybe 8 would be more appropriate - would have to be tested dps wise)

Melee, Range: 4meters

Should do around 1200 damage noncrit (IMPORTANT: Kinetic) + Will probably have to reduce Rail Shots damage even further to not make this spec do even more damage (Which is not what we want).

Increases Armor penetration of Rail Shot by 4/7/10% each time used, stacks up to 3 times, lasts 15 secs.

 

 

What I hope to achieve with these changes:

 

• Less of a dumbed down spam of boring abilities (especially flame burst)
  
• Reduced dps because of new heat dumps
  
• Generally reduce dps of Rail shot (Important) and make it so rail shot does not have the full potential when the fight just starts.
  
• Furthermore a PT should act as a melee class thus should not be able to burst down targets effectively from 30 meters.
  

 

 

Of course, this post is open to suggestions, please - let's help BioWare make this class and the game as a whole more enjoyable. Thank you.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Owynyo

shameless bump.

No one is replying because this is just silly.

Also the amount of ap is 72% not 90.

Its not just adding two numbers (simple additive).

 

Otherwise see post above, sry.

 

Starting with your first topic naming the pt as a melee class.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Twor

The game as a whole needs to slow down some. The current 'blow them up before they blow you up' model is just flat out boring and getting an extra crit can win you any fight in an environment like this. Of course if DPS goes down healing needs to go down by a corresponding amount, though I think you can chop DPS by 10% off some classes without even touching healing at this point because top DPS is well ahead of healing right now.

this entire post is dumb.

 

PT Pyro is only OP against bad players.

 

interestingly, there's A LOT of bad players that let a pyro get close to you, which results in them dying.

 

see, the giant gaping hole in your scenario on why PT Pyro is so powerful, is that they can chain spam flameburst to snare you and trigger free railshot.

 

guess what happens against a good player though?

 

incendiary missile hits? followed by a grenade? and a railshot? oh damn! a pyro has me in his sights, time to move.

 

oh damn, pyro can't close the gap. jeez, now he has no range to flame burst, no rocket punch, so he's gotta wait 15 seconds for railshot again. very threatening guy chasing me while hitting auto-attack!.. OH NOES1!!

 

god forbid, that person actually has a ranged snare/root (which all ranged have).

 

in summary, Pyro is OP vs. bads, just like snipers are OP vs. bads, or marauders vs. bads, or operatives vs. bads, or assassins vs. bads.

 

wait, let me summary it better: anyclass > bads.

Edited July 16, 2012 by oredith

this entire post is dumb.

 

PT Pyro is only OP against bad players.

 

interestingly, there's A LOT of bad players that let a pyro get close to you, which results in them dying.

 

see, the giant gaping hole in your scenario on why PT Pyro is so powerful, is that they can chain spam flameburst to snare you and trigger free railshot.

 

guess what happens against a good player though?

 

incendiary missile hits? followed by a grenade? and a railshot? oh damn! a pyro has me in his sights, time to move.

 

oh damn, pyro can't close the gap. jeez, now he has no range to flame burst, no rocket punch, so he's gotta wait 15 seconds for railshot again. very threatening guy chasing me while hitting auto-attack!.. OH NOES1!!

 

god forbid, that person actually has a ranged snare/root (which all ranged have).

 

in summary, Pyro is OP vs. bads, just like snipers are OP vs. bads, or marauders vs. bads, or operatives vs. bads, or assassins vs. bads.

 

wait, let me summary it better: anyclass > bads.

 

pretty easy to say bads over and over. The fact of the matter is that PT/Vanguards are being re-rolled into all over the place because it is stupid easy to put out insane damage numbers with them. Also, if your current target leaves your range (30 meters is pretty long range yo) just switch targets and put stupid easy lol damage on them until they die instead.

And, a geared PT only needs their targets in range for 3-5 GCD for them to be dead, 1 or 2 GCD if there is good focus happening.

 

Way to go OP, get some ideas up in there about how to make the PT fun to play instead of spamming the same OP abilities over and over. (Yeah, I have a vanguard, and it easily out-performs my other damage AC which is commando by a wide margin)

pretty easy to say bads over and over. The fact of the matter is that PT/Vanguards are being re-rolled into all over the place because it is stupid easy to put out insane damage numbers with them. Also, if your current target leaves your range (30 meters is pretty long range yo) just switch targets and put stupid easy lol damage on them until they die instead.

And, a geared PT only needs their targets in range for 3-5 GCD for them to be dead, 1 or 2 GCD if there is good focus happening.

 

Way to go OP, get some ideas up in there about how to make the PT fun to play instead of spamming the same OP abilities over and over. (Yeah, I have a vanguard, and it easily out-performs my other damage AC which is commando by a wide margin)

as a PVE tank who got bored with raid (there's nothing to do), and VERY RECENTLY picked up PvP (i was valor rank 8 last week, currently 52 in BM gear now). I feel like i'm in a decent position to refute this claim.

 

nothing dies in 3-5 GCD unless there's a big gear gap, and when talking about how to balance, we should ALWAYS be talking about people equipped in comparable gear.

 

so if you're saying that an equal gear pyro can burn down a target in 3-5 GCD, i'm calling BS, because I have not been able to do that in any of my matches except on people in recruit gear.

 

your argument of "if the person runs away, the pyro will just pick someone in melee" is a ridiculous argument. great, now I can go up against the jugg/marauder/assassin that is INTENTIONALLY meant to be the rock to my paper? no, a pyro is meant to take out the easy pickings.

 

this is what i mean by bads. if you can't figure out what the rock / paper / scissors roles are, it's no wonder you're having problems.

 

again, pyro is ONLY strong if you let them play their game.

 

if you take them out of their game (root / snare), then they are completely useless and unthreatening.

No one is replying because this is just silly.

 

Logical arguments like the OP will be received with disdain by people like this.

 

The bottom line is, only a few Powertechs will have the integrity to admit the class' strengths (damage) and shortcomings (linear rotation and lacking in excitement).

 

Most people are just having too good of a time being misconstrued as a good player, supported by the powerful spec.

 

For what it's worth though, the post was a good read.

So all you did was just lower the damage, the crit and the range on 3 abilities and try and call it burst melee. Flame burst, rail shot and reign of fire are fine as it is imo.

as a PVE tank who got bored with raid (there's nothing to do), and VERY RECENTLY picked up PvP (i was valor rank 8 last week, currently 52 in BM gear now). I feel like i'm in a decent position to refute this claim.

 

 

im callin bs on that you cant jump that much valor in one week, anyway even if you did you just admited you have only been pvping for a week, please leave our forums and go to the carebear pve/raiders forum, everything you say is invalid.

Logical arguments like the OP will be received with disdain by people like this.

 

The bottom line is, only a few Powertechs will have the integrity to admit the class' strengths (damage) and shortcomings (linear rotation and lacking in excitement).

 

Most people are just having too good of a time being misconstrued as a good player, supported by the powerful spec.

 

For what it's worth though, the post was a good read.

 

The classes weaknesses have been mentioned in countless threads already. You missed to mention them.

Logical arguments like the OP will be received with disdain by people like this.

 

And people like Frosty here like to whine and complain about Powertechs all day long because he still hasn't figured out how to counter them. He's convinced himself that other classes require more "skill" to play.

 

im callin bs on that you cant jump that much valor in one week, anyway even if you did you just admited you have only been pvping for a week, please leave our forums and go to the carebear pve/raiders forum, everything you say is invalid.

seriously? i barely even pvp. i get in 4-6 in the morning, and maybe 10 at night - and i am definitely getting that much valor rank.

 

maybe your view is skewed because your pvp queue takes more than 1-2 minutes?

 

if you want to dispute the actual content of what I said, I welcome it, but trying to invalidate me because i've only pvp'd for a week? please.. that's the weakest argument ever.

 

i bet you think the pvp armor you wear means you have more skills too, right? which is the worse pvp'er? the guy who has only pvp'd a week and has gained enough valor / MVP votes / etc to get BM gear? or the guy that took a month to get it?

Edited July 16, 2012 by oredith

And people like Frosty here like to whine and complain about Powertechs all day long because he still hasn't figured out how to counter them. He's convinced himself that other classes require more "skill" to play.

 

 

hahahaha i owned him a couple weeks ago on my vanguard and a hour later he made a post about nerfing pt.....id like to thank myself for that rage post.muhahaha

seriously? i barely even pvp. i get in 4-6 in the morning, and maybe 10 at night - and i am definitely getting that much valor rank.

 

maybe your view is skewed because your pvp queue takes more than 1-2 minutes?

 

if you want to dispute the actual content of what I said, I welcome it, but trying to invalidate me because i've only pvp'd for a week? please.. that's the weakest argument ever.

 

i bet you think the pvp armor you wear means you have more skills too, right? which is the worse pvp'er? the guy who has only pvp'd a week and has gained enough valor / MVP votes / etc to get BM gear? or the guy that took a month to get it?

 

shhhhhhhh.......isnt there a flashpoint or ops you should be doing?

And people like Frosty here like to whine and complain about Powertechs all day long because he still hasn't figured out how to counter them. He's convinced himself that other classes require more "skill" to play.

 

 

I haven't spoken much about the class for a time, as the community was very blatantly awoken to the class as a prevalent issue in balance (even a number of Powertechs themselves).

 

You, however, still reside in every thread about Powertechs relentlessly dismissing the opinions of many by throwing around the question of 'skill'.

 

Try posting something semi constructive, or simply wait for the inevitable nerf and watch me shower in tears.

The classes weaknesses have been mentioned in countless threads already. You missed to mention them.

 

DId not understand what you meant by this, at all. Sorry.

DId not understand what you meant by this, at all. Sorry.

i'll break it down for you.

 

go duel a powertech, the rules are, he has to stay at 30m and not allowed to close to melee.

 

come back with your results.

 

this would also be great at addressing the OP's thesis of "pyro has too much burst at 30m".

hahahaha i owned him a couple weeks ago on my vanguard and a hour later he made a post about nerfing pt.....id like to thank myself for that rage post.muhahaha

 

What is this rubbish? Who are you and what happened to your education? There are only approximately three Assault Vanguards on my server who play competitive PVP, all of them seem literate... so I don't think any of them are you.

Edited July 16, 2012 by TheGreatFrosty

i'll break it down for you.

 

go duel a powertech, the rules are, he has to stay at 30m and not allowed to close to melee.

 

come back with your results.

 

this would also be great at addressing the OP's thesis of "pyro has too much burst at 30m".

 

I'm not sure how I got pulled into a melee V range discussion here, but in defense of the OP, he said they had too much burst at range for a MELEE CLASS.

 

He is right. People attempt to justify class' burst by claiming it is melee. It isn't.

Op is theorycrafting too much. No sane developer will alter so much in a single class. Even sorc, sniper and asassin changes were less than this crap.

I'm not sure how I got pulled into a melee V range discussion here, but in defense of the OP, he said they had too much burst at range for a MELEE CLASS.

 

He is right. People attempt to justify class' burst by claiming it is melee. It isn't.

a pyro has "too much burst" every 15 seconds.

 

how about we compare that to every ranged class that have an escape every 15 seconds too?

 

rock , paper , scissors.

 

i swear, this concept is so foreign to people.

I'm not sure how I got pulled into a melee V range discussion here, but in defense of the OP, he said they had too much burst at range for a MELEE CLASS.

 

He is right. People attempt to justify class' burst by claiming it is melee. It isn't.

 

yes but the pt is NOT a melee class Noone said that beside the op.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Twor

a pyro has "too much burst" every 15 seconds.

 

how about we compare that to every ranged class that have an escape every 15 seconds too?

 

rock , paper , scissors.

 

i swear, this concept is so foreign to people.

 

Seriously struggling to follow the flow of your argument, maybe it's just me.

 

Railshot can only be done every 15 seconds? Not have its cooldown reset on a 6 second internal CD?

 

What do you mean by 'an escape'? What escape does say, a gunslinger or commando have? And on a 15 second cooldown?

 

I'm not trying to berate you, I'm just confused.