To help with Answer 2, why not simply modify Hydraulic Overrides to provide 100% damage reduction for the first second after activation, 50% for the next 3 seconds and then normal again for the remaining duration.

This would allow you to exit the area fast and without as much damage.

The only other suggestion would be instead to increase the speed of Hydraulic Overrides to Force speed levels for faster extrication.

I found the answer to Question #1 about Gunnery frustrating, in that it didn't address the 2.7 changes to the tree at all. What was the purpose of changing Curtain of Fire procs and altering HiB costs if not to "bring Gunnery up to par with other top-performing sustained damage specs"? I assumed this was the intended effect of the change. Those of us who play gunnery assumed that this meant our spec had risen to the top of the To-Do list, and were excited to see the attention, but as the OP states, PTS testing has shown that the dps increase is marginal. It appears to have made FA procs predictable (thankfully), but not to have brought the sustained dps numbers up enough to make the spec desirable for any fights except Draxus and Brontes, where rapid target switching is necessary.

Long story short, it doesn't make sense to say "We'll address it eventually," right as you're releasing a patch that ostensibly was supposed to address this exact issue.

Having really adopted to Commando play in the past three months I must say that increasing defenses is a definite. In ranked play it is tough to perform unless you are allowed to free cast. And to use one specific PvE scenario...

During the Brontes fight when dealing with balls my Commando is at a distinct disadvantage. My Sentinel, which I main, is able to dive in with GBTF. My Shadow is able to use Resilience to also eliminate the ball. My Commando though only has Reactive Shield which will not help me survive much before the 15 stacks. I believe providing an 'endure' skill is essential and would be unique. And on that note it should be applied to Adrenaline Rush. I don't feel the skill as is is super useful so providing another ability to it that allows you to survive any attack no matter the damage(outside of instakill moves like Overcharge Beam from Brontes and Zero's and Golden Fury's own death beams.

So just to detail if you have Adrenaline Rush active any hit that would bring you to 0 instead brings you to 1 and on top of that the actual healing mechanism of Adrenaline Rush fights to get your health back up. So in essense what this does is give you a second wind without giving you much life to actually use with it thus it doesn't end up overpowered. You still need heals to save you and if your opponent is good they'll still be on you to finish you. With an ability like this I can confidently dive into one of Brontes' balls just like my other classes can without dying. Of course it would not reward dumb players because your healers might not be able to instaheal you if you foolishly use it.

What do you more practiced Commandos think?

Edit: Oh and limiting it to Commandos might be necessary? I'm still leveling my Vanguard so I can't speak confidently there.

Hey folks,

]We are aware that Gunnery/Arsenal is lagging a bit behind some of the other “ranged turret”, damage-dealing skill trees and bringing its sustained damage up to match that of Assault Specialist/Pyrotech Commandos/Mercenaries is on our “to-do” list. That said, giving Vanguards/Powertechs and Shadows/Assassins at least one skill tree each to provide competitive sustained damage in Operations is currently much higher on our “to-do” list, because Commandos/Mercenaries already have one skill tree that puts out excellent sustained damage in Operations.

[/Quote]

I still fail to understand how a simple change like reducing ammo cost of HiB to zero would take longer than 30 minutes.

How hard can it be? Just get in there and change the ammo reduction to HiB of the Special Munitions talent. Thats six numbers for Mandos and Mercs total.

 

Also, why on earth didnt you bring up Gunnery with 2.7 if you knew the spec is lagging behind? Why do you introduce all this changes (which are great and go in the right direction) when you know it wont be enough? I fail to understand why you dont reduce the cost of HiB even further or go with a less than 8 sec internal cd on Curtain of Fire if you changing it anyway.

And if you fear it would be too much, whats a test server for if not to test things?

 

 

• Regarding alacrity, we want it to be a useful stat – *especially* for classes that use many abilities with activation times, like the Commando/Mercenary. One of the things we would like for alacrity to do in the future is reduce rate-limits. While we research that possibility, we will make up that sustained damage loss elsewhere for the classes that have many abilities with activation times. [/Quote] Uhuh. This is very simple: No matter what you do, alacrity will never be a usefull stat for sustained dps unless it influence all ammo regeneration (Chell Charger...). So researching in this direction might indeed be a good idea. ...

Having really adopted to Commando play in the past three months I must say that increasing defenses is a definite. In ranked play it is tough to perform unless you are allowed to free cast. And to use one specific PvE scenario...

 

During the Brontes fight when dealing with balls my Commando is at a distinct disadvantage. My Sentinel, which I main, is able to dive in with GBTF. My Shadow is able to use Resilience to also eliminate the ball. My Commando though only has Reactive Shield which will not help me survive much before the 15 stacks. I believe providing an 'endure' skill is essential and would be unique. And on that note it should be applied to Adrenaline Rush. I don't feel the skill as is is super useful so providing another ability to it that allows you to survive any attack no matter the damage(outside of instakill moves like Overcharge Beam from Brontes and Zero's and Golden Fury's own death beams.

 

So just to detail if you have Adrenaline Rush active any hit that would bring you to 0 instead brings you to 1 and on top of that the actual healing mechanism of Adrenaline Rush fights to get your health back up. So in essense what this does is give you a second wind without giving you much life to actually use with it thus it doesn't end up overpowered. You still need heals to save you and if your opponent is good they'll still be on you to finish you. With an ability like this I can confidently dive into one of Brontes' balls just like my other classes can without dying. Of course it would not reward dumb players because your healers might not be able to instaheal you if you foolishly use it.

 

What do you more practiced Commandos think?

 

Edit: Oh and limiting it to Commandos might be necessary? I'm still leveling my Vanguard so I can't speak confidently there.

If you're playing Gunnery, disregard this, but if you are playing Assault (I don't think you mentioned above) you can pop diversion right before exploding your ball (in the 15-19 stack range) and give yourself a fighter's chance to resist the explosion damage. It's only ~1 in 3 chance of working (~30% defense, depending on how your talent the rest of your points) but it does occasionally help.

I agree it's not a "cheese" like resilience, or saber ward, or even a perfectly measure roll, but when you get lucky, it works just as well.

If you're playing Gunnery, disregard this, but if you are playing Assault (I don't think you mentioned above) you can pop diversion right before exploding your ball (in the 15-19 stack range) and give yourself a fighter's chance to resist the explosion damage. It's only ~1 in 3 chance of working (~30% defense, depending on how your talent the rest of your points) but it does occasionally help.

 

I agree it's not a "cheese" like resilience, or saber ward, or even a perfectly measure roll, but when you get lucky, it works just as well.

I use Gunnery for that fight, but that is a good suggestion. Ever since 2.7 changes were announced I jumped back to Gunnery just to get used to it again. I'll try that next time I do that fight. First suicide droid might be a slight issue, but should be performing just as well.

Thanks for the super answers devs! If I had to make a suggestion on Gunnery/Arsenal ammo/energy management it would be to tie the cost reduction to a current proc or add another 100% proc that is just for reducing the ammo cost. For example, each stack of Charged Barrels/Target Lock reduces the cost of the next High Impact Bolt/Rail Shot by X amount. Another idea, Curtain of Fire/Barrage now also reduces the cost of the next Full Auto/Unload by X amount. If you're adding a new proc maybe each Demolition Round/Heatseeker Missiles has a 100% chance of making the next Grav Round/Tracer missile free, or reduces the cost of the next two Grav Rounds/Tracer Missiles by X amount.

As for increasing current defensive cooldowns my first idea would be to look at Reflexive Shield/Energy Rebounder as it's currently very lackluster. There is also the idea of augmenting Adrenaline Rush for Commados, but I'm not sure what that would look like.

Thanks for the super answers devs! If I had to make a suggestion on Gunnery/Arsenal ammo/energy management it would be to tie the cost reduction to a current proc or add another 100% proc that is just for reducing the ammo cost. For example, each stack of Charged Barrels/Target Lock reduces the cost of the next High Impact Bolt/Rail Shot by X amount. Another idea, Curtain of Fire/Barrage now also reduces the cost of the next Full Auto/Unload by X amount. If you're adding a new proc maybe each Demolition Round/Heatseeker Missiles has a 100% chance of making the next Grav Round/Tracer missile free, or reduces the cost of the next two Grav Rounds/Tracer Missiles by X amount.

 

As for increasing current defensive cooldowns my first idea would be to look at Reflexive Shield/Energy Rebounder as it's currently very lackluster. There is also the idea of augmenting Adrenaline Rush for Commados, but I'm not sure what that would look like.

I'm actually surprised Curtain of Fire doesn't reduce the cost of Full Auto. Seems logical.

Hey folks,

 

Here are your top 3 answers, returned from the Combat Team!

We are aware that Gunnery/Arsenal is lagging a bit behind some of the other “ranged turret”, damage-dealing skill trees and bringing its sustained damage up to match that of Assault Specialist/Pyrotech Commandos/Mercenaries is on our “to-do” list. That said, giving Vanguards/Powertechs and Shadows/Assassins at least one skill tree each to provide competitive sustained damage in Operations is currently much higher on our “to-do” list, because Commandos/Mercenaries already have one skill tree that puts out excellent sustained damage in Operations.

 

As far as getting a new ability is concerned, that is not likely to happen outside of an expansion to the game.... Our first step is to observe how Commandos/Mercenaries perform after they receive the changes coming in the 2.7 update. After analyzing this future data, we may find it necessary to take actions that further improve the Commando’s/Mercenary’s defensive capabilities.

 

That'll do it for the Commando/Mercenary answers. Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

What's the deal with that 1st answer? You guys are restricted to working on only one class every few months or something? What the heck do Vanguard and Shadow issues have to do with our problems exactly?

And as for this second reply...are you serious? We get shafted on our reply because 2.7 doesn't come out for another week?! When do we get our follow-up then? This is ridiculous guys...YOU set the deadline. YOU had the original delay. Cash followed YOUR rules...and then gets burned on his question? That's weak...VERY VERY weak.

Let me also remind you that GSF and Housing are called "Expansions".

Uhuh. This is very simple: No matter what you do, alacrity will never be a useful stat for sustained dps unless it influence all ammo regeneration (Chell Charger...). So researching in this direction might indeed be a good idea. ...

This is not necessarily true and as an alacrity commando user, that does fine with dps (I tend to have to be guarded because it increases my threat generation in correlation with me shooting moves faster) in hard mode DF and DP, I would have to disagree with you. Having it reduce rate limits would have a positive effect on dps in general. In regards it would immediately reduce the rate limit of the new COF proc and the rate limit on assault as well since we already get 4% alacrity on both specs as they already are. To be honest I would rather it increase your overall energy pool by a certain number per percent than affecting the ammo regenerations in the skill trees. Why? because not all specs have those regeneration skills in their tree and this would alienate the people that love those specs from benefiting from that addition. If alacrity is to be changed in any way it has to be beneficial to everyone so that people may consider it over or in conjunction to surge!

Having said that, does alacrity currently benefit overall dps? Not really. However I see the current and potential benefits of it with my commando over my Vanguard since 2.0. While I only played around with alacrity a bit on my Vanguard before completely dropping it, I decided to continue getting more on my commando. I did it because I loved seeing all my abilities shoot off faster and heck even my regeneration is noticeable; while casting my next move it has gained a nice increase. And if I screw up my rotation and blast off too many moves I don't have to sit there hammer shooting as much as I would if I didn't have alacrity. Given, that is still a few seconds difference, but that can matter in some fights.

I think having it affect rate limits (or internal cool downs? I'm not sure if they are just talking about procs at this point of time) can be a positive influence with alacrity. Though it might not be enough to make people like it. To take it further it really needs to have a positive effect on dots as well. While it does seem to make some dots tick faster this might be an illusion while casting moves faster. But with moves like Electo net you might not want it to be a few seconds faster in PVP situations because that is less time those people are slowed or locked out from the oh-****-bubble.

Overall I am happy with these answers. We now know that the devs are aware of these issues, and what some of their plans are down the road.

As far as modifying an existing ability to work as a disengage, I suppose increasing the speed boost of HtL some will fulfill that role, tho not how I think it needs to be done. Hopefully in the next full expansion, the devs realize how important such an ability would be to this class and choose to add a real disengage.

The difference would be that with HtL you are eating up time while running away. A real disengage is instant (just like Sniper/Slinger's), and provides a couple of seconds of breathing room to get off cast/channeled abilities.

The update to the stealth ICD on Plasma Cell has me disappointed to say the least. That sucks.

I am unhappy with the response to whether or not we can see a root in a spec that desperately needs one.... Roots dont impact Resolve, the devs should be getting rid of Resolve based CC and switching it over to non-resolve based CC. Being able to still use abilities is a huge difference.

I do like that we will hopefully see Plasma Grenade added to some of the bonuses in Assault. Will make it actually worth using.

Called it

You didnt call anything..... you trolled the crap out of my thread with zero constructive posts of any kind. Still waiting on the list of what you thought the questions should be, or would you have prefered me to submit 'Hey devs everything's good here! We dont need any help of any kind!'"?

On the issue of increasing defenses, why not buff up the decoys absorption talent in gunnery? Have it give 5 charges that last 10 seconds and absorb all kinds of damage. Two auto attacks would be all it takes to counter this but if you didn't you could blow your entire high damage rotation and get nothing for it.

Gunnery is not the only spec that gets played in PvP. It needs to be something that is base-line so that all specs have access to it.

As far as modifying an existing ability to work as a disengage, I suppose increasing the speed boost of HtL some will fulfill that role, tho not how I think it needs to be done. Hopefully in the next full expansion, the devs realize how important such an ability would be to this class and choose to add a real disengage.

 

The difference would be that with HtL you are eating up time while running away. A real disengage is instant (just like Sniper/Slinger's), and provides a couple of seconds of breathing room to get off cast/channeled abilities.

Crazy idea, what if Diversion/Chaff Flare made you untargetable by enemies and gave you an AOE damage reduction for X seconds? Any enemy targeting you would lose the target and be interrupted if they were channeling/casting anything on you. For PvE it'd be a stronger threat dump, closer to Force Camo than Surrender. I know it sounds insane, but it'd be unique!

Also, don't take the bait Cash.

Crazy idea, what if Diversion/Chaff Flare made you untargetable by enemies and gave you an AOE damage reduction for X seconds? Any enemy targeting you would lose the target and be interrupted if they were channeling/casting anything on you. For PvE it'd be a stronger threat dump, closer to Force Camo than Surrender. I know it sounds insane, but it'd be unique!

 

Also, don't take the bait Cash.

How would this play with Degauss? Would it be only for Gunnery/Combat Medic, or would you create a threat dump that makes you untargetable, DR and 25% defense chance for Assault?

This is not necessarily true and as an alacrity commando user, that does fine with dps (I tend to have to be guarded because it increases my threat generation in correlation with me shooting moves faster) in hard mode DF and DP, I would have to disagree with you. [/Quote] Using alacrity instead of surge hurts your dps atm. Which doesnt matter in DF/DP hc since the dps requirements for those bosses are loughable.

If you have a different experience you dont play the spec close to perfection.

 

Having it reduce rate limits would have a positive effect on dps in general. [/Quote] No it wont. More alacrity just results in more hammershots per minute since it doesnt influence Cell Charger.

The limiting factor of a Gunnerys rotation is not attacks per minute, its ammo. As long as we are forced to use auto attacks in our rotations as is, you cant cram in more costly attacks by increasing cast speed. All the time advantage you gain will be offset by the need for at least one more hammerhsot per minute.

To make it useable you will have to make alacrity ammo neutral.

Those were very good answers. Everything was at least addressed, and in a pleasant manner as well.

Good job, class rep.

Crazy idea, what if Diversion/Chaff Flare made you untargetable by enemies and gave you an AOE damage reduction for X seconds? Any enemy targeting you would lose the target and be interrupted if they were channeling/casting anything on you. For PvE it'd be a stronger threat dump, closer to Force Camo than Surrender. I know it sounds insane, but it'd be unique!

 

Also, don't take the bait Cash.

Interesting idea, but Im not sure how that meshes with the current talented effects for Diversion/Chaff Flare.

If you made the first 3s of Diversion to have this anti-target effect, and then extend the duration maybe another 6 seconds that applies the secondary effect (Combat Medic could use a talented ability on Diversion).

Here's another crazy idea: Combat Medic gets a talent that makes Diversion reset the cooldown of Reactive Shield.

Using alacrity instead of surge hurts your dps atm. Which doesnt matter in DF/DP hc since the dps requirements for those bosses are loughable.

If you have a different experience you dont play the spec close to perfection.[/Quote]

 

If you read my whole post you would see that I agreed with you on this front. I know it is hurting my dps to have all the alacrity but I'm also not gimped on surge as I've at least hit 70% and my accuracy is at 100%. The reason I have so much is due to distributing two enhs and augments. Yeah I am aware that it is not the best set up for overall dps. I'm saying I don't have a problem while running more alacrity.

 

No it wont. More alacrity just results in more hammershots per minute since it doesnt influence Cell Charger.

The limiting factor of a Gunnerys rotation is not attacks per minute, its ammo. As long as we are forced to use auto attacks in our rotations as is, you cant cram in more costly attacks by increasing cast speed. All the time advantage you gain will be offset by the need for at least one more hammerhsot per minute.

To make it useable you will have to make alacrity ammo neutral.

 

Ummm, no? I don't have problems with my ammo as either a Gunnery or Assault commando with as much alacrity as I'm running, which is at 9.9% at the moment, and I have the possibility of the extra 3% in the medic tree. I can allow my ammo to get below the 60% point and not worry that I have to hammer shot because I'm gaining more ammo back with my alacrity and it is a bonus whenever the Cell charger activates. I agree that it needs to be more ammo neutral and that's why I suggested the increase capita of ammo with each percent of alacrity. The current set up is not great if I flub but that is true if I'm using alacrity or not. And in 2.7 your point on alacrity will be verified because I do have to worry about hammer shooting more in that but I also saw a higher percent increase in dps than other people have been saying.

 

Again, is alacrity great right now? NO. Please read the rest of my post as I'm trying to find ideas on it being overall useful. And yeah if alacrity lowered the proc rate limit ( hell we already have 4% in the trees already that is *free* alacrity) that means you might be able to get that COF proc down to 6seconds again (though doubtful if it was a 1:1 ratio), which means less time using grav round.

 

Edit for clarification on why I think it affecting cell charger is a bad idea: The Devs have stated that they want to find ways for alacrity to be useful for everyone. Doing a fix on cell charger only affects one spec and in turn is a selfish fix. Having it affect all of those types of abilities while not a bad idea is also a negative fix because specs like Assault Spec do not have those abilities in their tree. If they just added more regeneration per alacrity percent to make it pool neutral for all specs that would be a great fix, but so far that doesn't seem their goal even though I would prefer that over my per capita increase suggestion. Having it reduce rate limits or proc rates would be a universal addition to alacrity that would in turn allow alacrity to be useful for a lot of classes instead of just one. However it really doesn't feel like enough of an addition to alacrity because it might not affect those rate limits enough to make a difference. The combat team has a problem here that they are trying to work out that is to affect alacrity for everyone. It's not an easy fix.

Interesting idea, but Im not sure how that meshes with the current talented effects for Diversion/Chaff Flare.

 

If you made the first 3s of Diversion to have this anti-target effect, and then extend the duration maybe another 6 seconds that applies the secondary effect (Combat Medic could use a talented ability on Diversion).

 

Here's another crazy idea: Combat Medic gets a talent that makes Diversion reset the cooldown of Reactive Shield.

Oh now that would be an interesting one. Particularly with the talents to increase healing received and interrupt immunity in the tree. This would mesh particularly well. I like it.

Had an interesting thought earlier about the disengage that would also give some utility. Introduce an ability call it something like Intercept allowing for a Commando to sprint to an ally with 15m? (up to change) at the cost of taking that target's next hit. Would give a disengage, require some skill to use effectively and would allow for some interesting tactical decisions regarding using this ability either to rescue an ally or potentially get yourself killed if used incorrectly. Anyway, just a thought while I was taking a break from writing.

IHere's another crazy idea: Combat Medic gets a talent that makes Diversion reset the cooldown of Reactive Shield.

45s cooldown that makes the healer interrupt immune, take less damage and heal more on self?

45s cooldown that makes the healer interrupt immune, take less damage and heal more on self?

Theres a reason I said it would be crazy

An idea that someone who cant post asked me to post: What if some kind of life-steal mechanic was added to some of Commando's cast/channeled abilities to reward it for actually getting those abilities off?

There is a 6-second rate-limit on applying the Plasma Cell/Combustible Gas Cylinder burn with ranged weapon damage. This rate-limit is not an error, but the tooltip for Plasma Cell/Combustible Gas Cylinder needs to be updated to reflect this rate-limit. It is intended that your first attack on an enemy target be Incendiary Round/Missile (should you want to ensure that your target has a burn before “going to town on them” with other abilities) – the cost of Incendiary Round/Missile was lowered post-2.0 to help with this.

I don't suppose there's a rationale behind this, is there? Assault Specialist Vanguards can proc Plasma Cell on 5 targets at once for 21 ammo WITHOUT ANY RATE LIMIT, but we don't even have the option of multi-DoTing with Hail of Bolts. I know, melee classes get to do some things that ranged class don't because they're dependent on being close to their target, but this is just a little ridiculous. We can put Plasma Cell on TWO targets at most every six seconds, since both normal procs and the use of Explosive Round have 6-second rate limits.

Not to mention, the Vanguard has a 100% chance to proc Plasma Cell with Stockstrike and a 60% chance to proc with Ion Pulse, which is THEIR FILLER ATTACK, again with no rate limits in sight. So basically, the Assault Specialist Vanguard is CONSTANTLY PROCCING Plasma Cell, but the Assault Specialist Commando can only keep one target DoTed up without spending large amounts of ammo tossing out Explosive Round every few attacks.

I think I understand WHY it's necessary to limit the procs to some degree; the Commando uses a lot of multi-hit ranged attacks which could give them slightly more extra damage from the initial tick of Plasma Cell if it procced three times from one Hammer Shot. To this I say "fix the issue with the Pyrotech Mercenary getting an extra Combustible Gas Cylinder tick from Rail Shot and then we'll take you seriously".

My suggestion? Either allow Hail of Bolts to proc Plasma Cell off the rate limit, or get rid of the rate limit entirely but only allow Plasma Cell to tick at most once per second (so that a flurry of procs from Hammer Shot will only produce that initial tick once). Or you could put a rate limit on the Vanguard's ways of proccing, but it's not like they need a nerf at the moment.

Not every ability in the game receives synergistic bonuses from the skill trees. Assault Specialist/Pyrotech was not originally designed to specialize in area attacks, thus you will currently notice few boosts to area attacks within the skill tree. That said, our goal to give all skill trees better area attack options (but not so much better that you want to use your area attacks in single-target situations) allows for some improvement to Plasma Grenade/Fusion Missile. We can probably tack it onto a few of the skills in the Assault Specialist/Pyrotech skill tree. Hail of Bolts/Sweeping Blasters might also benefit from this treatment.

Just out of curiosity, I went and checked the list of base abilities (ones you don't spec into) to see which ones don't have any synergies in any skill trees (not counting pure utility abilities like threat drops). I came up with: Leg Slash (Sentinel), Blaster Volley (Scoundrel), Illegal Mods (Gunslinger), Neural Surge (Vanguard), Flurry of Bolts (Smuggler), Mortar Volley (Trooper), and Sticky Grenade (Trooper). Honorable mentions go to Hail of Bolts (Commando, 9% damage increase to burning targets for Assault Specialist), Electro Net (Commando, 6% damage increase for Gunnery), Sweeping Gunfire (Gunslinger, 15% damage increase for Saboteur).

I am glad to hear that classes are being given slightly better options for AoE. (This is big news for Shadow/Assassin DPS IMO.)