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3.2.1 Marauder/Sentinel Insight: Annihilation/Watchman Rotation Design Philosophy


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Hey everyone,

 

Continuing our threads that lend insight on recent design changes, we will be sharing some of our Annihilation/Watchman design philosophies and offering perspectives from our extensive internal testing of the new Annihilation/Watchman rotation.

 

Annihilation/Watchman Rotation Design Philosophy:

 

  • A Responsive and Reactive Rotation: Following our design philosophy of making the Annihilation/Watchman Discipline the most challenging and potentially rewarding Marauder/Sentinel Discipline to play and player feedback that the current Live Annihilation/Watchman Discipline is “boring,” “predictable,” and “easy to play,” we have designed the new rotation to require the use of a varying priority system, rather than a predetermined rotation that fits neatly within some set duration of time, in order to maximize damage output. Players will need to rethink how the rotation plays and respond carefully to each situation to get the most out of the new Annihilation/Watchman Discipline. This design lends itself to a visceral playstyle, which will see a successful Marauder/Sentinel reacting instinctively to each combat situation as it arises. This playstyle should appeal to players that prefer variance over predictability in their combat experiences.
     
  • Never Underestimate Force Rend/Force Melt: From the beginning, Force Rend/Force Melt was designed to be a longer-lasting, damage-heavy DoT ability, and this has not changed with the new rotation design. Force Rend/Force Melt packs quite a prolonged punch and feeds your Rage/Focus regeneration and self healing. Making sure that it is active on any targets that will last for 15 or more seconds is essential to maximizing damage output. Due to its longer duration, it is also an easier DoT spread than Rupture/Cauterize.
     
  • Never Overestimate Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw: Some abilities are only designed to be used situationally. For example, as an Annihilation Marauder/Watchman Sentinel, you are only intended to use Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw in multi-target situations, while its damage is boosted by Pulverize/Mind Sear, and/or when stuck at a long distance from your enemy target.

 

 

Cheers, all!

John

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As I already said, with this change you'll need to up the resource generation and, perhaps, buff the Searing Sabre passive. The latter is my wish ONLY. But in a priority system, you are going to need to do something about resources or the damage IS GOING to SUFFER.

 

Anyhow, I personally like what you are doing. It'dbe better(imo) if Cauterise ticked twice(every 3s) during the 6s. It'd dominate every other DoT in damage per interval that way. A thing it should do imo.

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Making Annihilation/watchman the most difficult and most rewarding discipline doesn't seem to fit with a dot spec discipline. You want to make it reactive and needing to monitor the effect of the dots and reach to them rather than have a rotation.

 

However that doesn't seem to work with what players of annihilation want or with their play style. I don't personally play this discipline but from the feed back nobody seems happy with what you are doing.

 

Rather than have a dot spec class as the one that requires the player to be most reactive make it one of the fast paced disciplines the one that requires the player to react to the situation. Combat/Carnage fills this roll well with gore and fast paced attacks with vicious throw and devastating blast rather than managing dots in some way to make that reactive.

 

It appears as it stands you are trying to force a round peg into a square hole which nobody wants.

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:rolleyes: How about you get rid of your stupid 3 DoT design philosophy for this spec and change Force Rend / Melt to be a replacement for something else?

 

Annihilation never played like a full DoT spec pre 3.0.. why are you making it so now?

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Haha we just got told to "learn to play."

 

You guys are playing this class all wrong. First part of the rotation is instead of clicking play when you get to the character screen, you hit DELETE. Then you create a new character that is a Bounty Hunter/Trooper. :rak_03:

Edited by OMGITSJAD
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A Responsive and Reactive Rotation: Following our design philosophy of making the Annihilation/Watchman Discipline the most challenging and potentially rewarding Marauder/Sentinel Discipline to play and player feedback that the current Live Annihilation/Watchman Discipline is “boring,” “predictable,” and “easy to play,” we have designed the new rotation to require the use of a varying priority system, rather than a predetermined rotation that fits neatly within some set duration of time, in order to maximize damage output. Players will need to rethink how the rotation plays and respond carefully to each situation to get the most out of the new Annihilation/Watchman Discipline. This design lends itself to a visceral playstyle, which will see a successful Marauder/Sentinel reacting instinctively to each combat situation as it arises. This playstyle should appeal to players that prefer variance over predictability in their combat experiences.

Did you really just say you want a rotation that plays like Pre-3.0 Watchman, yet you don't want to implement pre-3.0 Watchman. Because that is *********** hilarious.

Edited by Emperor-Norton
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Hey everyone,

 

Continuing our threads that lend insight on recent design changes, we will be sharing some of our Annihilation/Watchman design philosophies and offering perspectives from our extensive internal testing of the new Annihilation/Watchman rotation.

 

Did your internal testing show the proposed changes represent a significant DPS loss?

 

Player PTS testing and modeling showed the changes you are looking to implement result in a significant DPS loss compared the the live version of the Discipline.

 

  • Never Overestimate Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw: Some abilities are only designed to be used situationally. For example, as an Annihilation Marauder/Watchman Sentinel, you are only intended to use Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw in multi-target situations, while its damage is boosted by Pulverize/Mind Sear, and/or when stuck at a long distance from your enemy target.

 

This reality further reduces our DPS as a buffed DST/TST is one of our top damaging abilities even in single target damage.

 

How do these changes reconcile with the stated goals of the Discpline here?

 

Annihilation/Watchman: High Rotation Difficulty, High Sustained and Low Burst Damage

 

We are no longer the highest sustained damage spec; Combat/Carnage will surpass us. And, the changes to the DoT durations were meant to increase our burstyness.

 

OK, that's the extent of civility I can manage right now...

 

Read on for my raging rant:

 

 

This is f***ing stupid. Your philosophy is at such odds with the what the forum community desires. The community widely asked for a 2.10 playstyle which featured a proc-based Rupture/Cauterize. Incidentally, this was "...the most challenging and potentially rewarding..." playstyle people wanted, not the f***cked up cacophony of chaos that 3.2.1 is. This is without a doubt the most insulting and irritating yellow post I have ever read on the forums.

 

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Wow. This is probably the biggest hit in the face possible to anyone playing Sent/Mara. Now you're trying to explain us how to play our class.

You are hopeless.

We gave you feedback, you ignored it. But not only that - you also mock us now. Must be fun. That's even better than heal 2 full.

 

We don't want what you gave us with 3.0. We don't want Force Rend/Melt. We don't care if we "shouldn't underestimate it". This is utterly ridiculous. Do you think we wouldn't KNOW that the ability is important? What kind of statement is this? We know Force Melt is important and shouldn't be "underestimated". Because you FORCED us to use this **** ability.

Nobody wants it. Nobody wants another DoT. Nobody wants your 3.0 Sentinel changes. Your fkd up DoT-spread idea, that ruined PvP and is entirely unbalanced, because it's so different for all classes. Your changes fkd the class over, even changed the playstyle of Watchman completely, took all PvP viability away and you refuse to acknowledge it.

You guys have no clue what the community wants even though we spoonfed you, again and again and again and again and again.

We posted about 300 pages of suggestions since 3.0 in various PTS threads. And you ignored it. You do your own thing, because you're stubborn and refuse to admit you're wrong. We give you suggestions, you do something entirely different. By now there's only two explanations: You have no clue how to develop MMO balance. Or you simply don't care. It's probably the latter.

Edited by DynamiCtagez
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John..heres the thing mate,

 

Force Rend/Melt is ugly and a horrible DOT....I don't like applying it , it ruins the fluency of Anni/watchman rotation.

 

A Dot that lasts longer than 10 secs isn't something that you care about much..there's no love for that ability.

Apply it forget about it ''oh here its going to drop off meh I suppose I better put it back on meh''

Sure it has benefits but I dont look at the new ability and think ''woo force rend ..wave my hand every 15/18 secs even though I have 2 sabers , to apply a dot..that does small damage over a long *** time.

Trust me I only use it in operations.... in dailies I never touch it.

 

And Dual/Twin Saber throw is the opposite.

Great move. Great animation. Look forward to using it..Hell I want to use it more. Blend Force rend into Dual saber and I'd be the happiest marauder in the galaxy.

 

See the differences...moves we want to use and moves we 'have' to use..the one we have to use you say don't underestimate I don't like it. The move you say don't overestimate I do like. There lies the problem.

 

Rotation wise ...yes its boring and predictable and ugly oh so ugly....did I mention ugly?

Pre3.0 is what most want if not the very vast majority.

Rupture with proc at least.

And Rend/Melt meh hate it so much....

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from our extensive internal testing of the new Annihilation/Watchman rotation.

 

You should stop wasting money by paying people to test this stuff nobody wants and revert to 2.10. Just sayin' (for the dozenth time).

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So instead of actually improving our largely unwanted and uninspiring 3.0 ability, you make it even more convoluted, package it with poor focus upkeep and slap a "l2p" sticker on it. GG devs. Edited by Trogusaurus
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Getting a proc for an ability we're not supposed to use except in special circumstances is...mind blowing.

 

Also, this relegation of our level 51 ability, which is supposed to be a big deal, to a purely circumstantial ability is disheartening. So Watch/Anni only use it if the situation calls for it AND they have the proc. Combat/Carnage only use it if they need resources or their target is 11-30m away and Leap/Charge is on cooldown. And Conc/Fury? They never use it. Yay! Go level 51 ability!

 

But what's even more mind blowing is this:

Following our design philosophy of making the Annihilation/Watchman Discipline the most challenging and potentially rewarding Marauder/Sentinel Discipline to play...

 

What, exactly, is the reward? It lost dps with these changes, and there's been no mention where that's going to be recovered. Coupled with the fact that it's not the highest parsing spec and, what, we get a spec that's the hardest to play and rewarded with mediocre damage?

 

And no one wanted this. How hard is it to understand that player appreciation was at the highest for this spec in 2.10? Really, that outside of Fury (then called Rage), it was the highest for the whole AC in 2.10. Why are you so hellbent on NOT giving the players what they want?

 

And though I love dev communication, these last two posts have read a lot like, "Look, we read your feedback. Even understood it. But we don't give a ****. This is our game. We do what we want. Learn 2 play, scrubs."

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:rolleyes: How about you get rid of your stupid 3 DoT design philosophy for this spec and change Force Rend / Melt to be a replacement for something else?

 

Annihilation never played like a full DoT spec pre 3.0.. why are you making it so now?

 

Annihilation never played like a full DoT spec pre 3.0.. why are you making it so now?

 

YES YES YES YES YES!!!!

 

Prior to 3,0 it was quite analogue to Vigilance. Where Vigilance was a hybrid spec that focused more on DD, Watchman was a hybrid spec that focused more on DoT. But it was a HYBRID SPEC! Give us our hybrid spec back!

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Hey everyone,

 

Continuing our threads that lend insight on recent design changes, we will be sharing some of our Annihilation/Watchman design philosophies and offering perspectives from our extensive internal testing of the new Annihilation/Watchman rotation.

 

Annihilation/Watchman Rotation Design Philosophy:

 

  • A Responsive and Reactive Rotation: Following our design philosophy of making the Annihilation/Watchman Discipline the most challenging and potentially rewarding Marauder/Sentinel Discipline to play and player feedback that the current Live Annihilation/Watchman Discipline is “boring,” “predictable,” and “easy to play,” we have designed the new rotation to require the use of a varying priority system, rather than a predetermined rotation that fits neatly within some set duration of time, in order to maximize damage output. Players will need to rethink how the rotation plays and respond carefully to each situation to get the most out of the new Annihilation/Watchman Discipline. This design lends itself to a visceral playstyle, which will see a successful Marauder/Sentinel reacting instinctively to each combat situation as it arises. This playstyle should appeal to players that prefer variance over predictability in their combat experiences.
     
  • Never Underestimate Force Rend/Force Melt: From the beginning, Force Rend/Force Melt was designed to be a longer-lasting, damage-heavy DoT ability, and this has not changed with the new rotation design. Force Rend/Force Melt packs quite a prolonged punch and feeds your Rage/Focus regeneration and self healing. Making sure that it is active on any targets that will last for 15 or more seconds is essential to maximizing damage output. Due to its longer duration, it is also an easier DoT spread than Rupture/Cauterize.
     
  • Never Overestimate Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw: Some abilities are only designed to be used situationally. For example, as an Annihilation Marauder/Watchman Sentinel, you are only intended to use Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw in multi-target situations, while its damage is boosted by Pulverize/Mind Sear, and/or when stuck at a long distance from your enemy target.

 

Cheers, all!

John

 

TL/DR "Stop trying to make suggestions on how to change this class, we don't take you seriously"

 

thanks for the laughs John, normally I get my laugh supply from funnyordie.com ;)

Edited by JSitruc
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This post makes me happy I swapped off this game. Everyone who plays a Marauder literally just got told "l2p." This is quite possibly one the biggest slaps in the face I have ever seen. As someone who spent time in helping classes get a nice flowing rotation I can say that this right here makes me not want to help class balance/rotation issues if I ever started playing again.

 

Thanks for the read while in transit and good luck crawling out of this hole.

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This post makes me happy I swapped off this game. Everyone who plays a Marauder literally just got told "l2p." This is quite possibly one the biggest slaps in the face I have ever seen. As someone who spent time in helping classes get a nice flowing rotation I can say that this right here makes me not want to help class balance/rotation issues if I ever started playing again.

 

Thanks for the read while in transit and good luck crawling out of this hole.

 

QQQQ - Start getting ready for Heroic Blackrock noob

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Lol we just got our very own heal to full post. Better all go L2P I guess

 

[*]Never Overestimate Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw

 

This is so stupid its funny, do actually realise how hard this hits a single target when procced? I will give you a hint, its that hard you aint gonna delay using it for long. I.e. if your dots are up and annihilate is on cooldown you will mostly be hitting this keybind rather promptly.

 

Continuing our threads that lend insight on recent design changes, we will be sharing some of our Annihilation/Watchman design philosophies and offering perspectives from our extensive internal testing of the new Annihilation/Watchman rotation

 

Did your extensive internal testing show it will now get owned by carnage? Or are you just so piss poor at playing the ACs that you didn't see that? Maybe you guys need to L2P

 

Following our design philosophy of making the Annihilation/Watchman Discipline the most challenging and potentially rewarding Marauder/Sentinel Discipline to play and player feedback that the current Live Annihilation/Watchman Discipline is “boring,” “predictable,” and “easy to play,” we have designed the new rotation to require the use of a varying priority system

 

How can it be the most potentially rewarding when you just tanked our dps? I can't agree this a varying priority system pre 3 Carnage was this is just a cluster ****. Our old rotation was a varying priority system and pretty much everyone liked that why don't you give us it back if that is what your are trying to achieve? You know making your player base happy is kind of your job. Telling us all we noobs and need to L2P does not make us happy.

 

And eh doh we know we need to keep rend up do you think we are all stupid or something?

 

I shan't post anything else as I will just get banned.

 

PS This crap makes me seriously consider wther I should keep subbing

Edited by WheresMyWhisky
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Annihilation/Watchman Rotation Design Philosophy:

 

A Responsive and Reactive Rotation: Following our design philosophy of making the Annihilation/Watchman Discipline the most challenging and potentially rewarding Marauder/Sentinel Discipline to play and player feedback that the current Live Annihilation/Watchman Discipline is “boring,” “predictable,” and “easy to play,” we have designed the new rotation to require the use of a varying priority system, rather than a predetermined rotation that fits neatly within some set duration of time, in order to maximize damage output. Players will need to rethink how the rotation plays and respond carefully to each situation to get the most out of the new Annihilation/Watchman Discipline. This design lends itself to a visceral playstyle, which will see a successful Marauder/Sentinel reacting instinctively to each combat situation as it arises. This playstyle should appeal to players that prefer variance over predictability in their combat experiences.

 

It's true that I like dynamic rotations. Pre 3.0 the proc system on Cauterize took care of that. You had to adjust your rotation and resource management to react to proc or no proc. Which was fun and rewarding.

 

The dynamic in the last PTS build is: "I never have enough resources for the highest priority abilities, so I have to chose the lesser evil...."

 

While this is dynamics, it's certainly not fun.

 

 

 

Never Underestimate Force Rend/Force Melt[/u]: From the beginning, Force Rend/Force Melt was designed to be a longer-lasting, damage-heavy DoT ability, and this has not changed with the new rotation design. Force Rend/Force Melt packs quite a prolonged punch and feeds your Rage/Focus regeneration and self healing. Making sure that it is active on any targets that will last for 15 or more seconds is essential to maximizing damage output. Due to its longer duration, it is also an easier DoT spread than Rupture/Cauterize.

 

I take it your aiming for making Force Melt / Rend the "head" of the rotation instead of Merciless / Annihilate. That's an obvious idea and I tried it. Thing is: If you align the rotation for Melt, you never have two consecutive GCDs in which you don't have to either reapply a dot or use Merciless / Annihilate, which are all stronger abilities than Master Strike. Thus the most effective way of playing a Force Melt-rotation is clipping Master Strike after one GCD. You said you changed Sage's Dot spec, because you didn't want abilities to be clipped for max DPS. I can assure you that you will be seeing every Watchman / Anni player clip every Master Strike except the first two in the opener. I know this is max DPS and it's what I will advise people to do in my guides.

 

 

Never Overestimate Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw[/u]: Some abilities are only designed to be used situationally. For example, as an Annihilation Marauder/Watchman Sentinel, you are only intended to use Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw in multi-target situations, while its damage is boosted by Pulverize/Mind Sear, and/or when stuck at a long distance from your enemy target.

 

I don't estimate DPS. I measure DPS per activation when I test stuff and when I play it in raids. And both the current live build and 3.2.1 PTS have the following priorities in DPS per activation (measured for a single GCD) on single targets:

Force Melt / Rend

Overload / Deadly Saber

Merciless Slash / Annihilate

Cauterize / Rupture

Double Saber Throw / Twin Saber Throw

Dispatch / Vicious Throw

Master Strike / Ravage

Slash / Vicious Slash

 

So if your goal really is for DST/TST not to be part of the single target rotation, the current builds just don't work like that.

 

 

DPS in current build is 350 less than live. Mind you that the difference between Dummy DPS and real encounters will go up, too, because of the shorter dots. If DPS and rotation stay like that, it literally makes no sense at all playing Watchman in PvE. I can already do better dps than Watchman 3.2.1. on my lesser geared Vigilance Guardian. On a fun rotation with an elegant playstyle that is. Plus heavy armour. Minus inspiration, but in that build, even that's not a valid argument anymore.

 

 

But: Not all is lost. Oofalong has outlined how the current build can be made to work and he will surely explain again, if you're inclined to adjust the build accordingly before it goes live. With more resources available we can design a rotation that works on the Dummy and will have the dynamics you're aiming for in PvE and PvP encounters, since the shorter Cauterize/Rupture will change its place in the rotation after breaks in fights that are caused by boss mechanics / opponent movement anyway.

 

Also, if you push resource management, DPS will go up automatically. I implore you to go this route

 

 

You are about to use a build with a rotation that lacks both resources and GCDs for all the relevant abilities. (That has a talent that shortens the Cooldown of Force Leap, though it can't ever be used that frequently.) Playing it doesn't feel dynamical and engaging, it feels like total chaos and managing something that's bad by design. It's no fun, it doesn't do enough DPS.

 

 

Even if I wasn't very disappointed with what I've been reading here on the forums in the last 6 months, there's just no factual reason why anyone should play 3.2.1. Watchman / Annihilation, it just does not make sense in this build.

 

If you push 3.2.1 DPS up, but not resource generation, it would make sense as a contribution to a raid group, but it wouldn't be fun.

 

If you push 3.2.1. DPS up and also resource generation, the spec would be ok for both.

 

If you go back to a playstyle similar to 2.X., Watchman / Annihilation will be viable, competitive and fun to play. Which I assumed would be what you guys are aiming for.

 

 

If all that doesn't convince you, I'd encourage you to form a HM group among your team and try to play Coratanni HM on 3.2.1. Watchman / Annihilation and be honest with yourself wether the criteria you just posted are met by that experience.

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It would have been really interesting if this could have been posted before you closed PTS so people could actually test it this way. it's been said over and over again, but whats once more? There needs to be more communication FROM THE DEV team while PTS is up so that REASONABLE and GOOD changes can be made. Also, it would be nice to avoid anymore L2P posts.

 

Hey everyone,

 

Continuing our threads that lend insight on recent design changes, we will be sharing some of our Annihilation/Watchman design philosophies and offering perspectives from our extensive internal testing of the new Annihilation/Watchman rotation.

 

Annihilation/Watchman Rotation Design Philosophy:

 

  • A Responsive and Reactive Rotation: Following our design philosophy of making the Annihilation/Watchman Discipline the most challenging and potentially rewarding Marauder/Sentinel Discipline to play and player feedback that the current Live Annihilation/Watchman Discipline is “boring,” “predictable,” and “easy to play,” we have designed the new rotation to require the use of a varying priority system, rather than a predetermined rotation that fits neatly within some set duration of time, in order to maximize damage output. Players will need to rethink how the rotation plays and respond carefully to each situation to get the most out of the new Annihilation/Watchman Discipline. This design lends itself to a visceral playstyle, which will see a successful Marauder/Sentinel reacting instinctively to each combat situation as it arises. This playstyle should appeal to players that prefer variance over predictability in their combat experiences.
     
  • Never Underestimate Force Rend/Force Melt: From the beginning, Force Rend/Force Melt was designed to be a longer-lasting, damage-heavy DoT ability, and this has not changed with the new rotation design. Force Rend/Force Melt packs quite a prolonged punch and feeds your Rage/Focus regeneration and self healing. Making sure that it is active on any targets that will last for 15 or more seconds is essential to maximizing damage output. Due to its longer duration, it is also an easier DoT spread than Rupture/Cauterize.
     
  • Never Overestimate Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw: Some abilities are only designed to be used situationally. For example, as an Annihilation Marauder/Watchman Sentinel, you are only intended to use Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw in multi-target situations, while its damage is boosted by Pulverize/Mind Sear, and/or when stuck at a long distance from your enemy target.

 

Cheers, all!

John

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