Dear Bioware,

Could you please give us the justification of nerfing the already most gimped class in the game into the ground?

I agree that commando could in some instances be pretty strong when the game just got out and noone had any clue what was going on.. When the game progressed, and people became battlemasters, geared out and started to explore other classes than their own and what made them tick... It just became blatantly clear that merc/commando is not a strong class. By far the weakest 1v1 AC in the game. Any class with interrupts can beat them if they know what theyre doing. Even in the so called "PvP"-spec theyre 100% dependent on channeled/casttime abilities to do any damage to speak of.

Even the very simplistic healbuild is based upon very easily interruptable abilities to do healing.

Trying not to whine, just trying to understand. It would be much appreciated if you could enlighten your merc/commando community regarding this, cause to most of us that have played the game to valor 75+ these overall nerfs across the board to a class that is already everyones favorite gankingtarget due to their incredible squishyness/lack of defensive CDs and how easy they are to shut down, simply doesnt make any sense.

You can find out all that info here. If you are looking for answers to questions just use google or use the search function on the forums. Most can be found fairly easy. Good luck....

Source: http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-march-23rd-2012

Niktika: Can you please explain some of the reasoning behind the healing nerfs? It almost seems like every healer is up in arms regardless of their class.

Georg: Sometimes it's hard to hear this, but the change to healers you're referring to was, quite simply, a result of them being too good. When one healer is close to target performance and the others aren't, it's natural to think that the logical course is to buff the underperformer and leave the over-performers alone. I want to dispel that notion and explain why it isn't always possible.

All specs for all roles have a target performance. This is what drives the balance of the game: soloing, Heroics, PvP, Flashpoints, Operations... everything. When those targets aren't hit, we can't just ‘bring everyone up’ to the highest performer without negatively impacting the balance of the game and creating unsustainable inflation in our combat system. Frankly, it's also a lot more work to change all end game content in the game to compensate for an over-performing role than to bring the role back in line. The hard but simple truth is that Sorcerers and Sages had better Force management than we intended (e.g. a well-played Sage was almost incapable of running out of Force) and Mercenaries and Commandos were significantly over target in their healing performance.

After considerable testing, we're more confident than ever that all healing roles are both closer to target performance and closer to one another than ever before, leading to a much tighter balance on end game content. The community will be able to confirm this using the new combat logging feature in Game Update 1.2.

I know trying to ‘sell’ a downwards adjustment (AKA nerf) to anyone affected is like selling the need for a tax increase to people. When you are on the receiving end of it, you're not going to be happy about it. It may appear massive to you, even if the overall impact is limited. You likely won't care that it's 'for the greater good of the game' and, if you decide to disagree with our action, there's little we can do to sway you.

Based on the feedback brought to us so far from testers playing on PTS along with metrics and combat logs gathered from our guild testers, we are going to make additional adjustments before Game Update 1.2 is promoted to the live servers. For example, we reopened the internal debate about having an in-combat resurrect ability for Mercenaries/Commandos based on PTS feedback regarding the new Operations, in light of the higher utility value this ability brings to the table in 1.2. We're listening to your feedback, too, and rebalancing some of the changes made to healing based on data gathered from PTS. Look out for a future update to PTS for more details.

Here is a relevant quote from a DarthHater interview with Georg Zoeller.

Georg: It’s very hard to balance a game on theory. We like to take a measured approach, watch what is actually happening in the game, and not meddle with you every week. Because everyone will have a feature of the week and, in many cases, the counter to that develops organically in the community in no time. There’s no reason for us to interfere, but if we see something that warrants interference, then we will have to act. 1.2 is one of those cases where we can go across the board, we can look at things, and we can rebalance.

 

Tracer Missile is a community favorite, and I can flat out state that if you pull the Tracer Missile stun on a skilled player, you are not going to live. It’s not working. Alright, if you know how to use interrupts, we see people stand there and they die. But that said, it is also dangerous to have people in a state where they can have a fairly decent DPS rotation with almost no effort. That isn’t good long term for them either. It is boring and it doesn’t add as much combat adrenaline as we want. So we did some changes there to rebalance that particular tree to move a bit out of the Tracer Missile, and require you to be more active in your combat style to achieve that kind of effect. You can call that a nerf. I call that housekeeping.

Source

Here is a relevant quote from a DarthHater interview with Georg Zoeller.

 

 

 

Source

What's amusing about the last part of that quote is that I already used Unload, Heat Seeking Missile and Rail Shot along with the occasional Rapid Shots to keep my heat down when I don't crit. Any Arsenal spec'd Merc worth his salt does.

Their changes have done nothing to move me out of using Tracer Missile anymore than I already do. The entire Arsenal tree revolves around Tracer Missile. It debuffs, buffs, and produces procs.

At what point does any of their changes move away from the usage of Tracer Missile? It doesn't. Why use Power Shot when you have Tracer Missile? Power Shot doesn't refresh the debuffs, doesn't refresh my buff, and certainly does not vent heat on a crit.

Whatever Zoeller was on when he said that, I want some because I want to be that disconnected from reality.

Most gimped class in the game? The merc/commando along with the sage/sorc were the ones that every other class forum kept on calling op (not saying they were or weren't, I am just summarizing the theme that seems to reoccurring in the other class threads). The most gimped class in the game probably goes to operative dps.

I find it funny that every class that got a nerf is saying that they are completely useless now, and the classes that didn't get touched, or got some buffs are saying they are still too weak. Apparently every class in the game is useless now if you look at the pts forums.

Dear Bioware,

 

Could you please give us the justification of nerfing the already most gimped class in the game into the ground?

 

I agree that commando could in some instances be pretty strong when the game just got out and noone had any clue what was going on.. When the game progressed, and people became battlemasters, geared out and started to explore other classes than their own and what made them tick... It just became blatantly clear that merc/commando is not a strong class. By far the weakest 1v1 AC in the game. Any class with interrupts can beat them if they know what theyre doing. Even in the so called "PvP"-spec theyre 100% dependent on channeled/casttime abilities to do any damage to speak of.

 

Even the very simplistic healbuild is based upon very easily interruptable abilities to do healing.

 

Trying not to whine, just trying to understand. It would be much appreciated if you could enlighten your merc/commando community regarding this, cause to most of us that have played the game to valor 75+ these overall nerfs across the board to a class that is already everyones favorite gankingtarget due to their incredible squishyness/lack of defensive CDs and how easy they are to shut down, simply doesnt make any sense.

Play Imperial in PvP for a week and you'll know why Commandos got nerfed.

Play Imperial in PvP for a week and you'll know why Commandos got nerfed.

Commandos and Mercenaries are the same class...

Georg: Sometimes it's hard to hear this, but the change to healers you're referring to was, quite simply, a result of them being too good. When one healer is close to target performance and the others aren't, it's natural to think that the logical course is to buff the underperformer and leave the over-performers alone. I want to dispel that notion and explain why it isn't always possible.

Well, basically thats exactly what they are doing. They are adjusting the game to the underperformers. Only very bad players are not able to beat a merc/commando in its current state.

Yes, I rip through bads/undergeared players like theyre paper. I utilize all my skills to the fullest, but still most classes if played correctly can beat a merc and theres simply no way for a merc to counter that as we dont have the tools available atm.

Yes, commando/merc is a pretty easy class to play. Among the most simpleton classes of any MMO Ive ever played. But is that a reason in itself that we should also be the worst class?

I would welcome the gimp in every way if we just got compensated for this by giving us some more depth in the class. Like an interrupt, some sort of getaway/vanish/sprint whatever, way shorter CD on tech override (10 sec)/reactive shield (1min). But as it is, they gimp damage, gimp survival, gimp resourcemanagement and give nothing back.

Why? What sort of testing resulted in this? Because very few of the PvP community above BM can understand this. Me least of all.

^^^

100% correct

Play Imperial in PvP for a week and you'll know why Commandos got nerfed.

The Commando was nerf because it was the great enemy of the empire in warzones. Funny the Sith Sorcerer not nerf, and no class is strongest in warzones, is seeing that Bioware CLEARLY enjoys the classes of the Empire. It's almost ridiculous. Leave slower and weaker the best of the Commando attacks. RIDICULOUS. I'm seriously thinking about going back to wow. What stupidity.

Why not nerf the heal bioware in warzones? It is absurd as a healer can heal a player being attacked by 2 or 3 enemies! And as a tank class can hit more than one class in wz? You should adjust this!

Sith sorcerer is an appeal! Nerf this!

BW relies very, VERY heavily on ingame data collection. What that means is that the subclasses are balanced based not on how well the CAN be played, but on how well they ARE being played by the current player base.

And while one can at least partially understand BW's reasoning here, that approach is going to fall flat on its face once ranked wz PvP starts. Then it will become apparent how the top PvP players are going to flock to certain subclass builds and ignore others.

The downside for the player base is that it will be politically untenable for BW to make class balance adjustments in the middle of Season 1. So the current class (im)balances are here to stay for at least 4-5 months. There's a reason why all the top players have Marauders in development.

tracer spam specd i usually get around top damage in wz's with cent gear and 2 champ weapons. im looking foward to the nerf, which is really a buff. Then, when i get top damage, people will know its skill and not me just playing an op class.

Furthermore, the operative/scoundrel is the worst ac for pvp atm.