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Engineering / Saboteur Set Bonuses and Tactical Items


EricMusco

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Hey folks,

 

Following our Onslaught announcement at SW Celebration we want to start diving into feedback right away. I want to use this thread to talk about Tactical Item effects and Set Bonuses for Engineering and Saboteur Disciplines. Our goal for set bonuses is to introduce new bonuses, and potentially with even new sizes so you can mix and match. Tactical Items are a new item type that is meant to be build defining and most likely to directly impact how an ability works. For inspiration here are two completely made up Chain Lightning Examples:

  1. Chain Lightning now does all of its total damage to only one target, and no longer jumps.
  2. Chain Lightning now jumps even more and does additional damage to secondary targets.

 

That would allow you to take a standard ability and allow it to be modified to fit your playstyle. Please use this thread to brainstorm ideas and make as many recommendations as you would like! For context:

  • Tactical Items: These should modify one of your Advanced Class/Discipline abilities to work differently. The goal is for you to use the ability in situations you previously wouldn’t (more often, against specific targets, etc)
  • Set Bonuses: These should be focused on the broader “kind of tools” your class uses, but not specific abilities. Some examples are sets that center around bleeds, force damage, lightning, shields, cover, and so on.

Set bonuses, tacticals, both, let us know what you would like to see. I may not respond frequently in this thread but know that I am going to be compiling everything and sending it over to the team.

 

-eric

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Tactical Item: Engineering Discipline

 

Explosive probe:

 

(Shockwave) Explosive Probe receives a (15/20?)-meter blast radius. Damage dealt increases further from the center.

(Shrapnel) Explosive Probe places a bleed on its target, dealing X damage for X seconds.

(MIRV) Upon exploding, Explosive Probe releases three secondary grenades in X radius, dealing X damage and releasing 2 additional grenades each.

(Timebomb) Explosive Probe detonates after 10 seconds, dealing massive damage to the target and all enemies within 5 meters.

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Topic: Engineering / Saboteur Overall Identity

 

OK, so before setting out some ideas about set bonuses and tactical items, it seems important to make sure that each class keeps part of the flavor that makes it unique no matter what gear/tactical item is equipped.

 

For me, Engineering / Saboteur is all about adds. Good on bosses, great at bosses and adds. This means AOEs. So tacticals and set bonuses should enhance that focus. I can imagine decimating adds using several unique builds.

 

1. AoE Burst Focus - Demolitions Expert: This build focuses heavily on AoEs and burst damage. It's not about single target at all. This build is about mowing down groups of adds ASAP. It excels where there's lots of enemies, and falls behind on single boss fights.

 

2. Huge AoE DoTs - Crazy Bomber: This build sacrifices burst damage to increase the radius of its AoE DoT fields. At almost 2X the size of normal AoEs, the Crazy Bomber's flames can engulf massive amounts of enemies. This build excels where there are large groups of enemies with medium to high health pools (think the Queen fight).

 

3. Balanced Single Target/AoE Damage - Gun for Hire: This build is very close to what we have now. It has a good balance of combined single target and add damage tools. Tactical items for this build revolve around boosting base damage of either single target / AoE abilities, but do not change their effects. This lets players decide on a (30/70 or 70/30 mix of boss vs. add damage).

 

4. Single Target with minimal add damage - Shocking Awesome: This build grants bonuses when abilities are used against single targets. The abilities continue to be the same (single/aoe) and may feature slightly smaller AoE circles than normal. When orbital strike is used against a single enemy, for example, it receives a large damage bonus. The idea is that this build performs very well in single target boss fights with a maximum of two-three adds. Three-four or more adds causes damage to split and lower significantly.

 

5. Delayed damage - The Spy: This build revolves around converting the majority of AoE abilities to delayed damage abilities and channels, with significantly increased damage to match. The idea is heavy risk for heavy reward. Time bombs, exploding grenades, fire traps that deal much more damage when enemies activate them by walking into them, etc. The spy spends time creating a symphony of pain, and then sits back to watch his handiwork.

 

6. Sniper Off-Tank - The Irresistible: You guys said to go crazy, so why not? I think creating an actual tank-tank would probably too much work, but why not have a battle tank/controller designed for add control? The Irresistible has excellent AoE CC/Root/Mez abilities designed to keep adds immobile. His wild card is a gravity bomb that draws adds in and groups them close together for faster dps. An AoE reticle taunt keeps adds off of dps. The tradeoff? As an off-tank, this build lacks the pure defensive tools of true tanks and the pure dps of offensive builds.

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I have played a saboteur gunslinger for years, love the class and spec, but, the rotation has always felt odd though, I have spent many hours trying to get a perfect rotation and not become energy starved while dealing the best dps I can. I have thought long and hard about what changes I would like to see, so here goes.

 

Set bonuses:

Incendiary grenade deals more damage and lasts longer up to 15s.

Cool head's cool down is reduced, and the energy gained by cool head is increased to 75% of total energy.

Two shock charges can be active at any one time. Damage dealt to the primary target is replicated on secondary target for 50% of the total damage. Must be within 40 yards.

AoEs gives a stacking damage bonus to all abilities. one AoE = 1%, two AoEs = 2%, three AoEs = 3% increases damage for 10 seconds. (So if you have just hit a target with XS freighter flyby, incendary grenade, sweeping gunfire, for 10 seconds after your dps is increased by 3%). Refreshes every time you cast an AoE, once maximum stacks of 3 is achieved, cannot be refreshed by further AoEs untill the buff expires.

Cool under pressure heals for more

 

Tactical items:

Reduced energy cost of dots.

Incendiary grenades radius is reduced by x amount, but spreads vital shot and shock charge to all in the AoE

Cooldown on Explosive charge and sabotage reduced. This will make the slingers rotation smoother.

Hightail it removes debuffs

Scrambling field's shield reserve utility increases healing to 5% of total health every second over 20 seconds.

Surrender becomes <tactical retreat> reducing ranged and melee damage by x amount and tech and force damage by x amount and increasing armor by x amount.

Explosive charge now drops contingency charges on all targets affected by incendiary grenade.

 

As every sniper and gunslinger uses ballistic dampeners I would like to see it baseline for all specs :)

I really think flourish shot should be merged with leg shot, it would be far more useful this way.

Edited by Darthanimus
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Tactical Items:

 

I wish I thought of this before all of my other posts, but a cool Tactical Item would would allow you to use an ability from another one of your skill trees. So a Carnage Mara would have a tactical item allowing it to use any one of Annihilation's or Fury's skill tree provided abilities such as Rupture (like in the old days) and Furious Strike. Of course, each Tactical Item would be tied to just one ability: one for Furious Strike, one for Rupture, one for Annihilate, etc. It would probably have to be limited to DPS specs only being able to grab an ability from a DPS tree to prevent and DPS from gaining a healing/tanking ability it shouldn't have. So no Juggernaut DPS grabbing Invincible from the Immortal tree (they may love to have that in PVP though since they kinda melt in the current meta), or no DPS Sorcs grabbing Innervate from the Corruption tree. Of course, Tanks and Healers kind of get the short straw here, but I don't think we need hybrid builds to come back personally. Lastly, the properties of the ability would have to be altered slightly so it can fit into whatever spec you are playing. For example, Rupture in Annihilation is a DoT that lasts 9 seconds. If you were to put that into Carnage, you would likely have to lower the duration to 6 seconds so it can fall in line with the rotation of that spec more seamlessly.

 

Explosive Probe now has an 8m AoE radius around it's original target when it explodes. In addition, when Explosive Probe deals damage to a target affected by Corrosive Dart, it spreads Corrosive Dart to all targets within 8m.

 

Increase non-critical damage by X% and decrease critical damage by Y%.

 

Plasma Probe and Orbital Strike are now single target DoTs that last twice as long and deals increased damage. (gets rid of the AoE placement which is great in fights where a boss as to move a lot. The increased duration may not need to be added to it honestly, but it would allow you to free up some energy for a filler, in the case of Plasma Probe at least, not that you really need it though. Granted, more Orbital Strikes would be great since I currently have to use it with Target Acquired (because of the energy restoration from the 4pc) and Adrenaline Probe off cooldown.

 

Set Bonus:

 

2pc: Dealing main hand critical damage while Target Acquired is active reduces its cooldown by 5 seconds once every GCD. In addition, critical damage during Target Acquired allows Takedown to be used on a target regardless of its remaining health and causes Takedown to consume no energy.

 

4pc: Dealing damage with Explosive Probe reduces the cooldown of Laze Target by X seconds. (would probably need to be 10 seconds or so to match the current 6pc)

 

6pc: Dealing Damage with Explosive Probe increases the damage of your next Series of Shots by X% and causes Series of Shots to consume no energy. (I'm not sure what would be a good percent honestly. Maybe 15% give or take 5%. The energy reduction is to make up for the lost 4pc. The increased damage effect may need an internal cooldown. Not Sure honestly. Probably would need an internal cooldown on the energy effect as well.)

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Link to Main Forum Post with Google Doc of Failure's Set Bonus and Tactical Item suggestions

 

ENGINEERING/SABOTEUR

 

Tactical Suggestions:

  • Covered Escape drops all of its bombs on the first target you pass through and increases the bomb damage by 50%.
  • Orbital Strike now finishes the damage of Plasma Probe. This effect cannot occur more than once every 20 seconds
  • Orbital Strike now applies cluster bombs per tick of Orbital Strike

 

Set Bonus:

  • 2 set - Increase the stack of cluster bombs by 1
  • 4 set - Target Acquired’s cooldown is reduced by 15 seconds, and grants 15 energy
  • 6 set - Increase Electrified Railgun’s stack limit to 4.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I would like a tactical item that allows sabotage to be used on targets in stealth bringing them out. I will explain why.

 

Being a stealth class in ranked is insanely overpowered. Basically all a stealth class has to do is vanish and heal, rinse and repeat, its so overpowered that if you are vs an oper or sin all they have to do is pop up and vanish a few times till you're dead hardly a test of skill. This is felt more among classes that cannot heal up in combat. The use of stuns to prevent out of combat healing would be used too.

I have been playing the game long enough to know that sabotage used to bring enemies out of stealth but, they all had tantrums and threw their toys out of the stroller and got the ability changed to what it is today. You have to trust me when I say many many players are sick of stealth classes including maras getting infinite health and energy pools while we the non stealth get to wait around for them to leap out of no where chain stun us and win because the game is so biased to stealth classes. Stealth classes have had their FOTM status since launch, its about time ranked was balanced, properly, not just meaningless token changes. As far as im concerned ranked is very broken.

 

If you don't believe me about stealth classes look at the many vids of stealth classes over performing in regs and ranked. How is it that an operative can stop 4 other players from capping in alderaan, novare, etc, whilst avoiding being killed, it isn't skill, cause I dont play stealth classes and I can do the same with ease.

 

If I was a gunslinger/sniper/commando/merc I would totally invest in and research anti stealth technology, come on, lets get some changes to mix it up.

 

Please give us meaningful tactical items, that matter in in various settings.

Edited by Darthanimus
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Focused Targeting: Incendiary Grenade and XS Freighter Flyby are now single target abilities that apply a dot each which deal 10% increased damage from their normal AOE damage. Shock Charge will still stun if they’re affected by the Incendiary Grenade dot.

 

Search and Destroy: Plasma Probe and Orbital Strike are now single target abilities that apply a dot each which deal 10% increased damage from their normal AOE damage. Interrogation Probe will still stun if they’re affected by the the Plasma Probe dot.

 

Electrified Dispersal: Shock Charge will deal less damage but now sends out a electrical burst 6m around the target for every tick the AOE damage does the normal damage of Shock Charge.

 

Suppression Probe: Interrogation Probe will deal less damage but now sends out a electrical burst 6m around the target for every tick the AOE damage does the normal damage of Interrogation Probe.

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Tacticul item

Engineer snipers deploy a walker onto the battlefield that attacks enemies with a base health of 35k and dmg output of 5k dmg per blast

EMP discharge blows the enemy up

Fragmentation grenade knocks the enemy down

Countermeasures cloaks you

you can now deploy 2 orbital strikes at once

supressive fire now deploys auto turrets on the battlefield that allows you to do dmg while doing something else

(similar to plasme probe) (Similar to Captain Plasma's ability in Battlefront 2)

Entrench automatically knocks back enemy targets by 10 meters whenever they get close and the knockback resets every 6 seconds

diversion reduces accuracy by 75%

Ballistic shield automatically stuns all enemies within the diameter during the duration

Ballistic shield makes the enemies take 50% more dmg

Ballistic shield decreases enemies accuracy by 45% when they within the diameter

Ballistic shield automatically deploys diversion

Orbital strike roots all enemies that are caught within the diameter

Series of shots is now an aoe channeled ability, the range is 5 meters wide and 30 meters long

Anyone caught within the channel target are slowed by 50%

Edited by Delani
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  • 2 weeks later...

Some cool ideas for effects (can be tactical/set/amplifiers what the team thinks is best):

 

- Entering Entrench deploys a set of Scatter Bombs around you. Scatter Bombs also reduce accuracy by 50% for 3 seconds.

- Reduces the cooldown period of Explosive Probe by 3 seconds.

- Explosive Probe and its Cluster Bombs can be ignited by your Frag Grenade, Plasma Probe and Orbital Strike. If this happens these effects deal 25% increased damage.

- Your Frag Grenade applies a stack of Cluster Bombs on its primary target, and if it critically strikes a stack of Cluster Bombs on all targets it hits.

- Interrogation Probe has 4% increased chance to critically strike per stack of Electric Railgun. Additionally, Electric Railgun can now stack to 5 times.

- Interrogation Probe now lasts indefinitely.

- Interrogation Probe is no longer restricted to only one target. Interrogation Probe costs 5 additional energy for each Interrogation Probe already active.

- Each time your Interrogation Probe, Plasma Probe or Explosive Probe critically strikes, the cooldown of EMP Discharge is reduced by 1 second.

- Adrenaline Probe and Shield Probe have 2 charges.

- Orbital Strike deals up to 50% additional damage at its epicentre.

- Orbital Strike pulses an additional 2 times.

- Orbital Strike has a significantly increased radius.

- Countermeasures reduces accuracy of all nearby enemies by 90% for 3 seconds.

- Flashbang affects all enemy targets with 5 meters.

Edited by Kameki
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