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The Current State of Lethality AoE and a Couple of Suggestions to Fix It.


validatio

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As it stands right now, Lethality's AoE is still plagued by the dot-spread bug but I came to realize that even if this were to be fixed our AoE rotation would still feel clunky to use. Noxious Knives has no interaction with the dots other than for spreading dots and Frag Grenade is in an awkward position as it has no interaction with the flow of the rotation. The proposed changes below will solve both of these problems.

 

Okay, so the suggestions that I have for Bioware regarding the state Leth Op's AoE are as follows. Can we get the same dot-spread as Virulence snipers? I know they want to promote us using Noxious Knives but keeping it as our dot-spread means we are still tied down when it comes to AoE situations. We need to be more versatile. I propose that they change Lethal Proliferation so that it increases Noxious Knives' damage against dotted enemies by 7.5% for each dot active as well as baking the Virulence Sniper's dot-spread into the passive as well. This way we get a much more reliable means of spreading our dots AND Noxious Knives will be on par with Sweeping Slash and other spammable melee AoE abilities. When combined with the Imperial Weaponry utility of course. As well as interacting with the dots themselves. Because as it stands right now Noxious Knives is one of the worst AoE abilities in the game damage wise.

 

Toxic Haze was a welcome addition IMO, it finally gives us a chance to spend our TAs for something other than single target. But we do not have a ranged AoE TA generator.This is where Fragmentation Grenade comes in. It deals decent damage and has no interactions with the AoE but it makes for a great filler over Noxious Knives' current state. If something could be done to promote us using Frag Grenade as a filler with the proposed changes above it would be greatly appreciated. Possibly as a universal AoE shiv for both dps specs. This way we will have a form of TA generation for AoE when it damages 2+ targets (in order to avoid single target exploitation). We already have holo traverse and stim boost for extra ST generation. I always found single target abilities being in an AoE rotation to be extremely silly and lazy. It's "Area of Effect Damage" not "AoE damage with a bit of single target sprinkled in".

 

The AoE rotation with the proposed changes will look like this: While moving towards the trash pack apply Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade and then follow up with a Frag Grenade for a Tactical Advantage. Once you are in range throw down your Toxic Haze and begin to spam Noxious Knives. Hit Frag Grenade whenever it's off cooldown and throw down TH whenever it's up. All that's left is to reapply your dots when necessary. And there you have it, a solid AoE rotation with a smooth flow.

 

Lethality's been my main for PvE for almost a couple of years now. It is also my favorite discipline in the game :). The current AoE rotation feels extremely clunky and frustrating to use at times. The proposed changes here would increase performance by allowing us to be more mobile when moving from trash pack to trash pack. In turn it also eliminates the dot-spread bug in one fell swoop. So take it from a veteran of the spec and fix this jumbled mess.

 

Edit: Changed Noxious Knives' damage bonus from Lethal Proliferation from 12.5% per dot to 7.5% per dot bringing the total damage bonus when combined with Imperial Weaponry up to 40% instead of 50%

Edited by validatio
To make the subject matter more coherent and easier to understand
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  • 2 weeks later...

I've heard a couple years ago that they didn't want operatives to have 30m dot spread. Note that the other melee dot classes (pyro, hatred) have essentially 10m range, whereas the warrior dot specs only get 4m range on spread. It makes sense. Personally I don't think giving operatives 30m dotspread would make them OP, and making corrosive grenade only 10m and then having it still spread...might neuter the spec i wouldn't know; I only ever play it in pvp. Toxic haze might not be a bad dot spread, since it's got a massive 8m radius, but we all know how Death Field used to be super easy (too easy) to spread with. Did they ever nerf death field's radius to 5m? I forgot.

 

In my experience a ranged TA generator isn't needed. I always have enough TAs and on absolute emergencies I have stim boost.

 

Come to think of it, none of the 6 agent disciplines *really* use frag grenade. Engineering gets a free one everyone once in awhile and their grenade sucks right? Engineering should have kept full damage on all targets. So trash.

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As it stands right now, Lethality's AoE is still plagued by the dot-spread bug but I came to realize that even if this were to be fixed our AoE rotation would still feel clunky to use. Noxious Knives has no interaction with the dots other than for spreading dots and Frag Grenade is in an awkward position as it has no interaction with the flow of the rotation. The proposed changes below will solve both of these problems.

 

Okay, so the suggestions that I have for Bioware regarding the state Leth Op's AoE are as follows. Can we get the same dot-spread as Virulence snipers? I know they want to promote us using Noxious Knives but keeping it as our dot-spread means we are still tied down when it comes to AoE situations. We need to be more versatile. I propose that they change Lethal Proliferation so that it increases Noxious Knives' damage against dotted enemies by 7.5% for each dot active as well as baking the Virulence Sniper's dot-spread into the passive as well. This way we get a much more reliable means of spreading our dots AND Noxious Knives will be on par with Sweeping Slash and other spammable melee AoE abilities. When combined with the Imperial Weaponry utility of course. As well as interacting with the dots themselves. Because as it stands right now Noxious Knives is one of the worst AoE abilities in the game damage wise.

 

Toxic Haze was a welcome addition IMO, it finally gives us a chance to spend our TAs for something other than single target. But we do not have a ranged AoE TA generator.This is where Fragmentation Grenade comes in. It deals decent damage and has no interactions with the AoE but it makes for a great filler over Noxious Knives' current state. If something could be done to promote us using Frag Grenade as a filler with the proposed changes above it would be greatly appreciated. Possibly as a universal AoE shiv for both dps specs. This way we will have a form of TA generation for AoE when it damages 2+ targets (in order to avoid single target exploitation). We already have holo traverse and stim boost for extra ST generation. I always found single target abilities being in an AoE rotation to be extremely silly and lazy. It's "Area of Effect Damage" not "AoE damage with a bit of single target sprinkled in".

 

The AoE rotation with the proposed changes will look like this: While moving towards the trash pack apply Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade and then follow up with a Frag Grenade for a Tactical Advantage. Once you are in range throw down your Toxic Haze and begin to spam Noxious Knives. Hit Frag Grenade whenever it's off cooldown and throw down TH whenever it's up. All that's left is to reapply your dots when necessary. And there you have it, a solid AoE rotation with a smooth flow.

 

Lethality's been my main for PvE for almost a couple of years now. It is also my favorite discipline in the game :). The current AoE rotation feels extremely clunky and frustrating to use at times. The proposed changes here would increase performance by allowing us to be more mobile when moving from trash pack to trash pack. In turn it also eliminates the dot-spread bug in one fell swoop. So take it from a veteran of the spec and fix this jumbled mess.

 

Edit: Changed Noxious Knives' damage bonus from Lethal Proliferation from 12.5% per dot to 7.5% per dot bringing the total damage bonus when combined with Imperial Weaponry up to 40% instead of 50%

 

I think one possibility is to either allow the acid grenade or the toxic haze spread the corrosive dot and bring back acid blade animation to concealment.

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  • 3 weeks later...
I've heard a couple years ago that they didn't want operatives to have 30m dot spread. Note that the other melee dot classes (pyro, hatred) have essentially 10m range, whereas the warrior dot specs only get 4m range on spread. It makes sense. Personally I don't think giving operatives 30m dotspread would make them OP, and making corrosive grenade only 10m and then having it still spread...might neuter the spec i wouldn't know; I only ever play it in pvp. Toxic haze might not be a bad dot spread, since it's got a massive 8m radius, but we all know how Death Field used to be super easy (too easy) to spread with. Did they ever nerf death field's radius to 5m? I forgot.

 

In my experience a ranged TA generator isn't needed. I always have enough TAs and on absolute emergencies I have stim boost.

 

Come to think of it, none of the 6 agent disciplines *really* use frag grenade. Engineering gets a free one everyone once in awhile and their grenade sucks right? Engineering should have kept full damage on all targets. So trash.

 

Haven't been playing in a while due to some RL stuff but anyway, let's address some comments.

 

Edit: I just found out that our dot spread has been changed to Toxic Haze while I was away. Please disregard this first paragraph but I will still leave it up if you want to see what I wrote anyway.

 

The thing that Bioware needs to realize about lethality's Dot spread is that is still riddled with bugs. in order to get a proper spread you have to apply your dart to the enemy that's behind your main target and even then it's not guaranteed. Noxious Knives has always been a clunky means of spreading dots since it was introduced. They tried fixing it before and only made the problem worse. It's an absolute nightmare to use it in any form of multi-target situation in PvE. This is why I'm suggesting they give us the sniper's dot spread. Even if they had to lower the range of our dot's from 30m to 20m to compensate I'd be okay with it.

 

That's also why I suggested the frag grenade change. Even if they had to lower it's range as well I could deal with that. It has no interaction with the rest of the AoE rotation aside from just existing. It's almost as if AoE was an after thought for this spec. In an Operation scenario Lethality suffers immensely in any form of multi-target encounter and wasting Stim Boost on a trash pack isn't exactly wise because I may need it for a boss fight later down the road. I'm not asking to be on the top of the damage charts, I just want have some consistent AoE.

Edited by validatio
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