So you're implying that 4 Marauders popping BT back to back is needed to complete the end game HM ops?

What about the groups that have completed this content without having a marauder in the group at all?

So you're implying that 4 Marauders popping BT back to back is needed to complete the end game HM ops?

What about the groups that have completed this content without having a marauder in the group at all?

I never said you need 4 maras. I just argued that is gives an unfair dps advantage with no downside in current content.

Ps. It would be more efficient to stagger the BT's. ~1/min.

OH NO!

There might be ONE group out there that has 4 marauders, and they can clear an ops 30 seconds faster than those that don't have 4 marauders.

that's unfair! TO THE FORUMS!

OH NO!

There might be ONE group out there that has 4 marauders, and they can clear an ops 30 seconds faster than those that don't have 4 marauders.

 

that's unfair! TO THE FORUMS!

You're missing the point. Allowing known imbalances to exist within the game can potentially be a drawback later on. As has been mentioned, if there does exist an encounter in which the only constraint in the fight is raid damage, you bring 4 snipers and pop their shields. You bring classes that can offheal if a fight requires more healing than 2 healers can do. You bring bloodthirst if you need to work around a dps threshold.

So many people seem to be focusing on the idea that the OP wants Marauders nerfed horribly. This doesn't sound like an issue that many people are running into, but this sets a bad precedent. To me, this is less about nerfing one class and inspiring and cultivating class diversity. There is no reason to bring diverse classes to a raid. None of the content is hard. You can beat all of the content in the game with any group composition without trouble. However, you're rewarded for bringing certain classes over other classes. And not in unique situations. All the time.

What if Bloodthirst was made to impact the entire raid instead of their party and instituted a 150s group lockout? What if when they made this change they instituted other changes? Agents were desired at the beginning of the game for their crit buff (also yay for unique class buffs everyone has). What if Operatives had a raid wide buff that increased Critical Hit (and or Surge) by 15% for 15 seconds? Maybe dps assassins get something similar to the tank mark, but that increases damage by some %. Or increases defense. Or increases resource regeneration. Maybe just flat alacrity? What if Powertechs had a raid wide utility that say...put Energy Shield on everyone that increased defense by 20% for 15s? I don't know, let the developers try to think of unique raid utility buffs for the other classes.

You all seem to be arguing against making any changes to any classes because you think people use these raid utilities as a crux, but if they ever made hard content then yes, these raid utilities would vastly decrease the desirability of other classes. When all the classes have useful raid utility, that's called balance.

As I've said the entire time: I don't want to nerf Marauders. I want to bring melee dps classes into a balanced ratio of damage and utility. Why can't we add some unique raid utility for other classes?

Give one example where this global cooldown would this would nerf maras' "utility in the other fights".

I don't have to prove that. The only reason a raid wide CD is being proposed is because there is a fight with a tight enrage timer and someone got the bright idea that a 4 Marauder team would be able to do it easier then any other comp. What my previous comment was designed to point out is the very fact that this has not been brought up before. I am sure almost none of you EVER did NiM Firebrand and Stormcaller in 16 man before it was nerfed...........from experience, THAT was a tight enrage timer. Tell me why none of us that where progressing in that fight got the bright idea to come to these forums and complain about the fight being easier with 6 Marauders?..........I will also point out, that every who has done that fight respects it for what it is and asked for more fights of that caliber.

I never said you need 4 maras. I just argued that is gives an unfair dps advantage with no downside in current content.

 

Ps. It would be more efficient to stagger the BT's. ~1/min.

Let's talk about unfair dps advantages...........more specifically ranged dps, As ranged you have 10x the uptime on boss. If you are a Sniper, your raid single target and AoE is far superior to any other class. Not to mention the ease of target swapping........I guess we should give melee classes the ability to attack from 30 meters away?...oh wait, I am sorry.....35meters away (since that is the sniper range).

The only way you can achieve that "true balance" you guys keep whining about is to have EVERY class the EXACT same class.......go play CoD or something if you want that.

Snip

To be quite honest, waaaay back around 1.2 my guild and I were discussing some sort of Synergy between classes in regards to group buffs. I would actually be a proponent of that. Something along the lines of the class using X ability (Normal Spec dependent ability, Turbulence, Plasma Probe, Merciless Slash, Force Exhaustion, etc) to apply a buff to another type of ability. It would bring a nice synergy between classes in operations.....however, is probably a bit to much to add to the game at this point.

I am sure almost none of you EVER did NiM Firebrand and Stormcaller in 16 man before it was nerfed...........from experience, THAT was a tight enrage timer.

My raid group is actually pretty humble since we clear the content to enjoy it, but since you brought it up several of the posters in this thread were US firsts in EC, TFB, and S&V.

The only way you can achieve that "true balance" you guys keep whining about is to have EVERY class the EXACT same class.......go play CoD or something if you want that.

Not true. Class design is part of the balance. Content is the other part. If you honestly do want class balance, support threads like this so the designers see that players think range classes have an unfair advantage. If there were mechanics that limited range advantage in fights, that would reduce the ridiculous uptime range classes have. I don't know if it was a purposeful attempt at this or not, but the Styrak fight forces players to close to within melee range (at least one per mob). If that mechanic were to reflect damage to range attackers instead of just making the people who do play melee run to the mob while the ranged still sat at range it would help diminish the range advantage.

To be quite honest, waaaay back around 1.2 my guild and I were discussing some sort of Synergy between classes in regards to group buffs. I would actually be a proponent of that. Something along the lines of the class using X ability (Normal Spec dependent ability, Turbulence, Plasma Probe, Merciless Slash, Force Exhaustion, etc) to apply a buff to another type of ability. It would bring a nice synergy between classes in operations.....however, is probably a bit to much to add to the game at this point.

So instead of taking ideas to the development team and forcing them to at least hear out your ideas, you're just going to give up? It's too much effort to add class utilities, class synergy, or expand upon the game after it's released. **** it, let's just stack snipers who sit in a group at 35m with 100% uptime and complain there's not enough [hard] content.

This just sounds like laziness on your part, or the general concept people have toward individual interaction with the government. It may take a lot of work and effort to get your ideas into the system and actually try to improve the game you play, but to me that's way more important than my comment about sitting snipers at range for all the fights. I still laugh when I remember that apathy got the GPA scale and mascot at my university changed by 12 people (out of 15,000) because no one opposed them. The hardcore raiders are a minority, but obviously you have no problems posting on the forums all day. Why not use those threads to the advantage of trying to implement changes you want?

...

 

So instead of taking ideas to the development team and forcing them to at least hear out your ideas, you're just going to give up? It's too much effort to add class utilities, class synergy, or expand upon the game after it's released. **** it, let's just stack snipers who sit in a group at 35m with 100% uptime and complain there's not enough [hard] content.

 

...

Just as a comment, I've seen many threads on class balance that I would consider useful and valuable.

Unfortunately, Ifrit started this thread off on the wrong foot with a sloppy, lazy, 3-sentence post that made exaggerated claims about the state of Maras. It was this extremely poor agument at the beginning that resulted in quite a bit of inbound criticism, muddying the waters of this discussion. Any merit in the idea of balancing Bloodthirst was swallowed in the noise of bad logic.

I would suggest, if this aspect of the Bloodthirst balance is important to you, start a fresh thread with plenty of raw data, reasoning and a well-though-out solution.

My raid group is actually pretty humble since we clear the content to enjoy it, but since you brought it up several of the posters in this thread were US firsts in EC, TFB, and S&V.

I believe I was specific to the 16 man portion. That fight was different and that was what I was highlighting. Let's see, MoX, FriendlyFire, Ace, Level Capped, Chosen, Carange and Messores (Minus my guild) are the ones to see that fight that ran progression on it. Soooo, I believe I saw someone from MoX posting.....who else was part of a 16 man guild for it?

Not true. Class design is part of the balance. Content is the other part. If you honestly do want class balance, support threads like this so the designers see that players think range classes have an unfair advantage. If there were mechanics that limited range advantage in fights, that would reduce the ridiculous uptime range classes have. I don't know if it was a purposeful attempt at this or not, but the Styrak fight forces players to close to within melee range (at least one per mob). If that mechanic were to reflect damage to range attackers instead of just making the people who do play melee run to the mob while the ranged still sat at range it would help diminish the range advantage.

So, now instead of making fights melee friendly you choose to make them melee ONLY fights? Remind me how that is balanced.

Now, sure I can agree that class and content design goes in to making a game balanced. However, to use 2 of the 50 fights in the game (only counting different difficulty modes for current ops) or 4% of the fights is NOT justification to change one ability on one class that is assumed to be OP for sake of balance.

Do you see what I am getting at as far as balance? There are always holes.

 

So instead of taking ideas to the development team and forcing them to at least hear out your ideas, you're just going to give up? It's too much effort to add class utilities, class synergy, or expand upon the game after it's released. **** it, let's just stack snipers who sit in a group at 35m with 100% uptime and complain there's not enough [hard] content.

 

This just sounds like laziness on your part, or the general concept people have toward individual interaction with the government. It may take a lot of work and effort to get your ideas into the system and actually try to improve the game you play, but to me that's way more important than my comment about sitting snipers at range for all the fights. I still laugh when I remember that apathy got the GPA scale and mascot at my university changed by 12 people (out of 15,000) because no one opposed them. The hardcore raiders are a minority, but obviously you have no problems posting on the forums all day. Why not use those threads to the advantage of trying to implement changes you want?

I believe that would be a discussion for another thread....not this one . But let's explore this a bit more............

Just spit balling here off the top of my head:

8 different AC's

8 different Synergy abilities to start

24 different Synergy abilities if you do it according to spec

Now balance those.......................

After balancing those, implement them into boss fights.

Balance all old fights to new implementations to avoid OP posts (like this one)

..........................now how much time did it take to implement 2.0, with new class balance and abilities. How about how much money? Furthermore, how much profit would be made off implementing the system above? This isn't the government, this is a business......

I will repeat my statement: If other melee classes want more utility, then it's only fair you give Marauders the ability to have a spec for healing or tanking.

Then I will say that that is a retarded statement. The ability to respec is not raid utility per se, and can be matched by any marauder who simply levels another class. Once an assassin or vanguard or operative is filling a DPS slot, they can only be considered from the view point of what they bring to the table as a DPS. Respeccing is nice, but not significantly different from just leveling an alt since in order to tank you need a completely seperate set of gear, and even for healing you need to change up quite a bit.

That being said if you really want to be able to respec tank or heals, I personally don't have a problem with that. Let that change be made, except I suspect that you don't really want that. I suspect you just want justification for why you should continue to have the best utility, and in my opinion that dog don't quite hunt.

The problem is why should you ever bring another melee DPS besides mara unless there aren't enough maras or ranged DPS (for the record I should say here that my main is commando DPS, so I'm not asking for more utility for myself per se)? Melee is a huge liability in a lot of fights. Giving an incentive to bring the others in DPS roles is not a bad idea.

I mean lets face it, once everyone's DPS is roughly equal to the point where you can take 10 skilled DPS at random regardless of class and meet the DPS check, then the question becomes who makes the fight easier? Ranged make the fight easier by being able to seriously reduce the amount of raid damage they take by virtue of being ranged. Anything which reduces the kill time, such as armor breaks and bloodthirst/inspiration, makes the fight easier by making mistakes more forgivable and reducing the amount of time people have to make mistakes. Bloodothirst/Inspiration is particularly useful on every fight with a soft enrage mechanic requiring the raid to push out significantly more damage in a short window than during the rest of the fight . Defensive buffs like Sniper shield or phase walk healing aura make the fight easier. Transcendence/Predation makes the fight easier when there is some reason to traverse a distance as quickly and efficiently as possible, obviously this is true of any speed buff as well.

Right now that doesn't matter so much but if and when they release difficult content these things are the difference between winning and wiping. At this point maybe you don't take that operative DPS or that Shadow DPS because really what are they bringing to the table besides damage which can be matched by other classes?

An armor break is actually a very nice raid utility, but since they don't stack anymore, once you have one you don't really need another (though I feel this does bring up a big problem with stacking 4 maras in 8 man if you don't have guardian tanks).

I do propose that bloodthirst/inspiration should become a raid wide as opposed to a group wide buff. This would be an undeniable buff to the ability. I also propose the 5 minute debuff on the raid preventing them from being able to benefit again for 5 minutes. This is mostly to prevent bringing an overabundance in 16 man and turning DPS checks into pure cheese. This would still give the 2 high DPS burn phases at the beginning and end of a fight. To completely preserve the status quo perhaps make it a stacking debuff where you aren't locked out until the second. While a theoretical nerf, would anyone actually consider this a practical nerf? Is any raid group currently stacking 6 maras in two raid frames for 3 inspires? I honestly just want to make inspire mechanics easier without constantly worrying about whose in what group, and cherry picking the two DPS who aren't gonna get an inspire. But that kind of buff would need some kind of balance to prevent cheesing. Or leave it as it is. I just want everyone to get inspires =/

That being said, are we seriously all that opposed to other melee classes getting some kind of buff to utility which increases group DPS? Was the phase walk DPS buff for balance or infiltration really that horrible? I don't want a nerf to sentinel. I'm always in favor of buffing other classes by giving them something unique and useful. Not bringing <class> should mean giving up something. Not necessarily something you absolutely need, but something you miss.

Right now you can clear any content not using any Sentinels/Marauders. I still miss inspire when I don't have it, if for no other reason then it makes the big yellow numbers bigger. Back before legacy buffs I missed having a smuggler in the raid because of the drop in crit rate (remember when bringing someone from each base class gave a benefit?). We could still beat bosses without it, but you'd be a fool to say you didn't care if you had it. Perhaps even, as suggested, allowing different classes to synergize, kind of like how armor buffs used to stack, but maybe more clever than that.

You guys worry that a lockout on getting more than one inspire in a 5 minute period would make people say "why bring more than one mara?" and I would say that's perfectly valid. But let me counter that with "all things being equal, why bring even one operative or a shadow DPS?". Yes yes player > class, but as an abstraction why bring them? DPS? All classes can do good DPS. Why else?

I believe I was specific to the 16 man portion. That fight was different and that was what I was highlighting. Let's see, MoX, FriendlyFire, Ace, Level Capped, Chosen, Carange and Messores (Minus my guild) are the ones to see that fight that ran progression on it. Soooo, I believe I saw someone from MoX posting.....who else was part of a 16 man guild for it?

I'm not going to lift the anonymity from anyone. Not everyone brags about what happens in game or starts threads out with their MMO Resume. Killing a boss doesn't mean your opinion is more important. Be glad that the weight of an argument isn't determined by raid experience with classes, or you'd be forced to accept my opinion. Although, I guess I haven't dps'd any operations with my assassin. I should do that to complete my resume.

So, now instead of making fights melee friendly you choose to make them melee ONLY fights? Remind me how that is balanced.

I used an example of one aspect of a single phase within one boss fight. Reflect damage would only hurt you if you damaged the mob from range. With Force Speed and the Sniper Roll, the only ranged class that would be forced to run next to a mob would be a Mercenary dps. Once they got next to the mob, they could dps. This doesn't make the entire fight melee only. It's simply an example of one way they could remove the perpetual advantage of ranged classes, which is essentially what you said was not possible, which made balancing classes impossible. There are ways to do it, as I mentioned with class design and raid mechanics.

This isn't the government, this is a business......

I mentioned that hardcore raiders were a minority, so losing my subscription (and potentially other hardcore raiders as well) probably doesn't matter that much to BioWare. That doesn't mean you shouldn't make an effort to improve the game. I'm probably wasting my time. Everyone seems to fight trying to change anything because "that's just the way things are." For a guy whose signature includes a Sniper (best ranged dps), Marauder (best melee dps), Assassin (tank that can ignore mechanics), and Sorceror (super hard healing, especially on the meters), I'm not surprised you don't want anything to change.

My raid group is actually pretty humble since we clear the content to enjoy it, but since you brought it up several of the posters in this thread were US firsts in EC, TFB, and S&V.

 

 

Liar if this was true it'd be in your profile and IRL resume. Imma go talk to my MoX friend and prove that you're a fraud

I'm not going to lift the anonymity from anyone. Not everyone brags about what happens in game or starts threads out with their MMO Resume. Killing a boss doesn't mean your opinion is more important. Be glad that the weight of an argument isn't determined by raid experience with classes, or you'd be forced to accept my opinion. Although, I guess I haven't dps'd any operations with my assassin. I should do that to complete my resume.

Killing a boss doesn't make my opinion more important, experienceing THE tightest dps check in this game to shed light on the fact that none of the people that experienced that cried for a nerf because the only way to beat it was to stack marauders (This fight was never beaten by stacking marauders, mind you.) does.

I used an example of one aspect of a single phase within one boss fight. Reflect damage would only hurt you if you damaged the mob from range. With Force Speed and the Sniper Roll, the only ranged class that would be forced to run next to a mob would be a Mercenary dps. Once they got next to the mob, they could dps. This doesn't make the entire fight melee only. It's simply an example of one way they could remove the perpetual advantage of ranged classes, which is essentially what you said was not possible, which made balancing classes impossible. There are ways to do it, as I mentioned with class design and raid mechanics.

Either way you cut it, why wouldn't I bring just melee for that fight? I think that is the most efficient way to do it because it is. No point in bringing ranged. Please re-balance abilities and fights! Didyouseewhatididthere?

I mentioned that hardcore raiders were a minority, so losing my subscription (and potentially other hardcore raiders as well) probably doesn't matter that much to BioWare. That doesn't mean you shouldn't make an effort to improve the game. I'm probably wasting my time. Everyone seems to fight trying to change anything because "that's just the way things are." For a guy whose signature includes a Sniper (best ranged dps), Marauder (best melee dps), Assassin (tank that can ignore mechanics), and Sorceror (super hard healing, especially on the meters), I'm not surprised you don't want anything to change.

Yeah, if this is about me I also have a Vanguard, Scoundrel, Juggernaut and Merc.......I believe that makes it all the advanced classes in the game

There is a difference between fighting for something and asking for pigs to fly. I mean, we should just take the best features from every MMO, FPS and RTS game and put it all together in one, right? That would be a perfect game..........right?

Killing a boss doesn't make my opinion more important, experienceing THE tightest dps check in this game to shed light on the fact that none of the people that experienced that cried for a nerf because the only way to beat it was to stack marauders (This fight was never beaten by stacking marauders, mind you.) does.

 

 

 

I agree this kid is dumb, kid is indeed a fraud. I talked to moxboss and he said he kicked him for numerous reasons but highlighted lack of skill as the main reason

I never said you need 4 maras. I just argued that is gives an unfair dps advantage with no downside in current content.

 

Ps. It would be more efficient to stagger the BT's. ~1/min.

Re: the entire Marauder/sentinel debauchery in this thread..

meh

as long as you dont NEED 4 maras to down end-game content, i think its fine. With that aside i think the devs should focus more on making the NiM version live up to Heroic raids in WoW. Nim operations are targetted towards the raider raiders right? NiM ops definitely do not have to be clearable in 2 days upon release.

My face = this thread. Could only read up to page 4 lol

This thread reminds me of how bad the community of this game is. Almost makes me want to play WoW again.

As it is currently, there is absolutely no reason to use any composition of classes besides 4 marauders for HM operations. Not only is their dps excellent, but with 4 mara's the group can roll "constant" bloodlust to maintain max group dps. The best solution is to put bloodlust on a global cool down for the group analogous to battle rez.

You know what if you want to bring 4 sents into an op go right ahead. It is however advisable to bring 2 melee and 2 ranged for many reasons. The first is that commandos/gunslingers bring a raid wide armor debuff. Second is that TK Sages and Sab. Gunslingers are the aoe kings. While I know that sents have some aoe capabilities, TK Sages will NEVER run out of force and we can spam the **** out of force quake. Also when we force quake we almost always get a Tele wave proc which is even more aoe damage. Sab. Gunslingers are pretty much all AOE and have many ways to get energy back fairly quickly. Also on a personal note, I find inspiration (w/e the sith equivalent is) makes things too easy. The content is already easy enough even on HM; why make it easier? I run an 8 man HM ops group with the following dps and we do just fine:

Tanks: Shadow and Guardian

Healers: Commando and Sage

DPS: Guardian, Scoundrel, Commando, and Sage

The last reason is that melee always take more damage due to so many conal and frontal boss abilities. In 8 man ops, both tanks can just guard the melee (if only 2) and make things easier since most of the time a really skilled sent (which believe it or not is hard to find) will pull more aggro than a ranged.

Without any inspiration we have never hit enrage timers even in 66/69 gear in HM S&V when it first came out. All I can say is that it is personal preference so what you want to do is up to you. It doesn't hurt to diversify though.

As it is currently, there is absolutely no reason to use any composition of classes besides 4 marauders for HM operations. Not only is their dps excellent, but with 4 mara's the group can roll "constant" bloodlust to maintain max group dps. The best solution is to put bloodlust on a global cool down for the group analogous to battle rez.

Please clarify how making a Sentinel or Marauder use 1 GCD every 5 minutes for Inspiration "fixes" the problem?

As it is currently, there is absolutely no reason to use any composition of classes besides 4 marauders for HM operations. Not only is their dps excellent, but with 4 mara's the group can roll "constant" bloodlust to maintain max group dps. The best solution is to put bloodlust on a global cool down for the group analogous to battle rez.

Hey noob, my raid team cleared all content last night without a marauder. I think you should just look into being like us and using classes with other raid utility. We used a sorc/sniper/PT/jugg and between the snipers DMG reduction bubble, the sorcs off healing, the PT's taunts and juggs taunts/reflective dmg we made that content look like a joke.

Keep your BT we used raid utility to the fullest!!!

Hey noob, my raid team cleared all content last night without a marauder. I think you should just look into being like us and using classes with other raid utility. We used a sorc/sniper/PT/jugg and between the snipers DMG reduction bubble, the sorcs off healing, the PT's taunts and juggs taunts/reflective dmg we made that content look like a joke.

 

Keep your BT we used raid utility to the fullest!!!

but...but.... those that use 4 marauders get an advantage!!!111

/sarcasm

Bioware agrees

I actually think this is a more limited buff specially for 16-man OPs, you are forgetting that bloodthirst no longer stop marauders from building fury, earlier it was a dps loss if you had multiple marauders affected by bloodthirst.