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Concealment, Backstab and sustained damage.


Sutaka

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One of the greatest challenges for a Concealment Operative is being able to justify your spot on a Operations/Rated Warzone group. Let's face the reality here, players who can do well with Concealment will do far better with other specs/classes. Our burst AND our sustained damage is far below our DPS compatriots, and it seems so far that Bioware are content with doing nothing to change that.

 

I would like to propose and idea that should at least help to mitigate the staggering difference between "us" and "them".

Specifically, reverting Backstab to the way it was in 1.1 (Lower damage, 9 Second CD and 0 Energy).

The 9 second CD will significantly help boost sustained damage for Concealment, as we would have a higher uptime on the DoT and armour penetration from Acid Blade.

 

The change would also help to make the Operative skill rotation less clunky, so that Energy isn't wasted on Overload Shot or using the pea-shooter that is Rifle Shot. Now that's not to say we shouldn't use Rifle Shot, but that we shouldn't be forced into using Overload Shot/Rifle Shot when Energy is at a reasonable level but our tech moves are on cooldown.

 

If you have any other ideas for helping to close the gap, please do post them and hopefully we can give the devs a thread with several good ideas to tinker with.

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Suggestion for sustained dps...

 

Make Acid Blade a high-tiered ability that enables a stackable Damage Over Time effect (say five ranks) , that only triggers with critical knife strikes. The dot could have a mild amount of damage per rank and once triggered would last for an 8 second duration.

 

This Stackable DOT would die with the target, thus preventing pvp OP'ness, but at the same time would circumstantially and inevitably increase Operative Concealment spec DPS.

 

With the additional chance for bleed crits, you can see how this suggestion I've made could solve a lot of the current problems.

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Maybe you just don't know a good rotation. I pull 1200 on an operations dummy and that's in pvp gear as I don't pve (no I'm not going to post charts for verification). Pve rotation is about energy conservation and making the most of keeping tactical advantage up. You use OS and your "pea shooter" in between BS and Shiv to fill in the gap. Maybe more research and using the MOX parser might help you out. Out of my 5 50s, I only beat that out as a marauder on the dummy, which is just an overpowered class to begin with.
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Maybe you just don't know a good rotation. I pull 1200 on an operations dummy and that's in pvp gear as I don't pve (no I'm not going to post charts for verification). Pve rotation is about energy conservation and making the most of keeping tactical advantage up. You use OS and your "pea shooter" in between BS and Shiv to fill in the gap. Maybe more research and using the MOX parser might help you out. Out of my 5 50s, I only beat that out as a marauder on the dummy, which is just an overpowered class to begin with.

 

Wow. Good rotation. Use fillers. K. Sounds ingenious. Thx.

 

Seriously tho, all classes rely on gear. Operatives especially.

I just think having a stackable dot triggering with knife crits would be sweet.

Wishfull thinking tho.

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Wow. Good rotation. Use fillers. K. Sounds ingenious. Thx.

 

Seriously tho, all classes rely on gear. Operatives especially.

I just think having a stackable dot triggering with knife crits would be sweet.

Wishfull thinking tho.

 

Yeah, thoughts on somebody learning to play their class better and thus, solve the inherent problem, are retarded but your calling for a DoT in a tree that is clearly burst damage related aren't? Especially when the next tee over (Lethality) is clearly designed for DoTs and sustained damage. Not my fault nobody plays it, but review the abilities and then get back to me.

 

Acid Blade is in a tree that is burst dps, which still can pull amazing dps if you know your rotation. I am a pvper and can tell you that I wouldn't want to see Acid Blade changed into a DoT just to make you happy so you don't have to spec into Lethality.

 

Every class has "fillers" that they have to use in between their best abilities, we don't live in a perfect world. My suggestion is to learn to keep up Tactical Advantage, keep your best abilities on cd (meaning use them when they are available) and use your "filler" abilities as best you can while managing your energy. You want to keep your energy at it's most replenishible rate, which is 6 energy per sec, rather than going ******* with overload shot and dipping too low on energy, thus crippling you to where your energy only regens at 2 or 3 a sec. Knowing the basics really does help a person out and make them learn the boundaries of their class. Not my fault you don't wanna do it the hard way and learn it yourself, so you come here and say that an Acid Blade overhaul would solve the world's problems...

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Maybe you just don't know a good rotation. I pull 1200 on an operations dummy and that's in pvp gear as I don't pve (no I'm not going to post charts for verification). Pve rotation is about energy conservation and making the most of keeping tactical advantage up. You use OS and your "pea shooter" in between BS and Shiv to fill in the gap. Maybe more research and using the MOX parser might help you out. Out of my 5 50s, I only beat that out as a marauder on the dummy, which is just an overpowered class to begin with.

 

http://i.imgur.com/hvSiB.jpg

 

This is my best pass with pvp gear on the boss combat dummy. I'm still underpowered in WZs and operations.

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The problem is not the DPS on dummy. Actually the problem is that Bioware most probably tested Operatives ONLY on dummies.

The dummy won't move, won't react, won't do massive AOE, won't hurt you so you have to pull back.

Just say you pulled back to avoid an AOE from a boss and you need 2 seconds to return on it.

Two seconds for a Marauder are a Leap and 3 global cooldowns on boss.

For the ranged classes are 4 global cooldowns on boss.

For us are 4 global cooldowns that we can fill only with a skill (Dart or Grenade) and 3 Rifle Shots.

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Yeah, thoughts on somebody learning to play their class better and thus, solve the inherent problem, are retarded but your calling for a DoT in a tree that is clearly burst damage related aren't? Especially when the next tee over (Lethality) is clearly designed for DoTs and sustained damage. Not my fault nobody plays it, but review the abilities and then get back to me.

 

Acid Blade is in a tree that is burst dps, which still can pull amazing dps if you know your rotation. I am a pvper and can tell you that I wouldn't want to see Acid Blade changed into a DoT just to make you happy so you don't have to spec into Lethality.

 

Every class has "fillers" that they have to use in between their best abilities, we don't live in a perfect world. My suggestion is to learn to keep up Tactical Advantage, keep your best abilities on cd (meaning use them when they are available) and use your "filler" abilities as best you can while managing your energy. You want to keep your energy at it's most replenishible rate, which is 6 energy per sec, rather than going ******* with overload shot and dipping too low on energy, thus crippling you to where your energy only regens at 2 or 3 a sec. Knowing the basics really does help a person out and make them learn the boundaries of their class. Not my fault you don't wanna do it the hard way and learn it yourself, so you come here and say that an Acid Blade overhaul would solve the world's problems...

 

Whoa now. Don't get so sore. You gotta admit the concept of a dot stacking with multiplie STAB wounds clearly makes more sence.

 

Hence the term Bleeds.

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if you want to increase sustained damage the answer is not Backstabb, its Lacerate.

 

there are couple things that would not only remove the clunkyness of the rotation, but also put the D back into DPS for concealment ops.

 

1. remove the 10 second lockout of triggering collateral strike on lacerate

optional: or make collateral strike trigger on every critical hit of lacerate instead of flat 50% every 10 secs

-> 10 seconds lockdown is too long with the current "average time to kill"

2. allow collateral strike to generate a TA always or on critical hit (not only on poisoned targets)

-> when not opening with Hidden Strike we are short on TAs, we need to be less stealth dependent for sustained

optional: allow Shiv to generate 2 TAs on critical hit (would also help Lethality)

3. Change Meticulously Blades to increase the critical damage of Lacerate instead of Sever Tendon (*** was this there anyway?)

4. increase Acid Blades Armor Penetration back to 50%

optional: make Acid Blade two fold: 30% for us only for 15 seconds as is, but also 20% on the target for everyone (group utility) while the DOT ticks

 

Yeah, a lower cooldown on Backstabb would be nice, but the improvements should be made on the Concealment skills mainly (middle and final tiers), otherwise Lethality and Medicine Ops would become stronger too, which might, at least for the healer, not be that wise.

 

You know Lacerate with Collateral Strike is decent DPS when BS and HS are not an option or on Cooldown. This is the main attack, but TAs are limited (so its back to pew pew in between Shiv/Lacerate). But with collateral strike Lacerate is only okay, tending toward "meh", it should proc more often than once in 10 seconds.

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