To summarize the PVP community's concerns:

- where are deception assassins on this list? death knell is overperforming ludicrously in pvp.

- you nerfed the wrong tactical for concealment operatives. volatile strike is the one that's broken (game breaking burst every 15 seconds; give the autocrit a cooldown or something.)

- why did you nerf enduring bastion? the problem with lightning is damage not survivability. after neutering dark heal and unnatural preservation (heal scaling AND we can't take the reduced CD util in ranked anymore) with 6.0 this feels unnecessary.

- nerf the duration of buffed polarity shift all you like (as I mentioned, the problem is damage) but please don't tighten the window to use it. gathering storm is gimmicky enough as it is and very often results in wasting a crucial survivability tool in service of damage. if there were any alternative set bonus for sorc dps it would be one thing, but as it stands...

let me know how I did.

Hey folks,

 

Dev note: The healing changes below are part of ongoing balance changes to bring healers to their intended targets. Expect more healer changes and additional targeted class changes in a future update.

 

-eric

Can we get some sort of idea what you think 'intended' targets are for all three healers? Tanks are getting hit harder and while sorcs were more or less fine without just needing a better tactical, all except one healer class is effectively healing for less than last expansion. If you're buffing sorc/sage healer's bubbles (which might be a step in the too much direction) compared to simply buffing their force surge chance.

Operatives/scoundrels, for example are balanced in all but our burst (the loss of auto crit for Injection set bonus) and we can compensate for that somewhat- we've always been in a precarious position and are incredibly fragile to being broken either way. But even with periodic restoration or medtech- we are effectively healing less of the health pool in PvE compared to DTPS and that's before you touch PvP. Same goes for sorcs. The only healer overperforming is merc/commandos- mostly for that one tactical. All that needs to be done is to tweak that tactical because as always, whenever you break a healer having energy requirements, you break the healer.

But outside of that- healing got a broad nerf bat in 6.0 and I feel like we should know now what your thoughts are- is one healer branch overperforming, or are the other two underperforming or are you sort of nuts and think healers healing for less of a health pool need broad nerfs 5.x style?

Sorcerer

• Enduring Bastion (after Force Barrier) now absorbs roughly 18% less damage
  
• Update to the Gathering Force 6pc set bonus: Using Force Speed now reduces the active cooldown of Polarity Shift by 5 seconds (down from 10 seconds). The duration of Polarity Shift is now increased by 5 seconds (down from 10 seconds) and requires Polarity Shift to be used while Force Speed is active.
  

Corruption

• Sustaining Darkness now heals for roughly 12% more
  

Gathering force nerf and Enduring Bastion nerf affects Corruption sorcerer.

We need a buff not a nerf.

Give us back the Roaming Mend + 1 tactical please.

Also how about you nerf Rocket fuel Vapor before you nerf sorcs?

What is this? With all do respect but why are you nerfing Lightning and killing madness?

You know that all you need to do to bring sorcs dps to "good" spot is only to increase CD of force speed to 25 seconds... that's all balance done.

Why sins are not addressed while deception is literally broken and overpowered as hell?

BTW you guys nerf wrong tactical for operatives... you know that right?

So if you wanna balance class maybe first ask peoples who's playing your games on certain classes what need to be done to made really class balance...

Are you seriously? Why BW so hate Sage/Sorc class as DD?

This class was in top of DD classes only in Vanilla, after 3.0 and disciplines it was always less than AVG, after 6.0 same situation and you wanna nerf this? Why?

And problems with TK/Lightning? Ok, let's nerf all DD specs, GS set. Balance/Madness: what are we doing wrong?

And still no defs. Return me normal absorb numbers from Force armor/Static barrier. In beginning of the game HP was 15k, absorb from Force armor 3.5-5k, 20-30% like shield probe of smuggler, and smuggler's ability still absorbs normally, but bubbles absorbs from patch to patch lesser and lesser and almost useless now, maybe only flash bubble in PvP can be useful, but only effect from flash, not as def ability. That's why modern heals almost forgot about using bubbles.

Okay, nerf GS but give alternative, i hate this set because I must use FS on cd, it's one of the best mobility skills and with this set i can't it use when i need this ability, or do all sets on other classes with inconvenient sets, like buff to sniper only after roll, buff to opers only after roll, not just like now Established Foothold, almost classes must do nothing for good DMG, but sorcs must use mobile ability for damage? Why are you kidding us? WE must use some stupid buffs like this and we are not even close to top damage dealers.

PvP. Are you seriously? How about Established foothold and Marksman spec? 23/35 seconds they are immune to CC and interrupt, it works as intended? Or sin burst, you wanna watch duel between sorc and sin in deception? it would be like this: sin uses shroud and immune to everything that can do sorc for 5 seconds, and after this 5 seconds sorc have 50% HP, after this restealth with 2 seconds of shroud, situation can repeat with tactical for 2 restealthes and after that sin still have 100% HP, sorc have maybe little bit more than 20%, sin still have almost from his arsenal of CC and def abilities, nice picture BW.

And what about Sage/Sorc heal? Yes, they deserved nerf, but not like this, all tacticals useless, and it can't normally heal in PvE/PvP. Yeah, and with heals you nerfed DD specs in PvP, before 6.0 I needed to use Benevolence/Dark heal 5-6 times for heal myself for full HP, but now I must use it much more times and after that i have no HP and no force. And few years sorcs in face to face battle is free frag for all, especially madness/balance, give us something or return normal numbers of bubbles. About kite and roots, in good times I can use roots for make distance before me and melee, now melee always in their distance, not mine, because all melee have many distance cutters and have immune to CC or roots.

And about using Polarity Shift/Mental Alacrity when we using FS, how do you imagine that? Maybe sniper must use his buffs in roll? I wanna see it. More changes, more stupid decisions and SWTOR will die faster.

Hey folks,

 

In addition to the Alderaan Stronghold and story update in 6.1, there are also a host of class changes coming. Below you will find a list of the Class changes you will find in our next PTS build that are planned for 6.1 later this week. The list includes changes to classes and any of their items as well. Dev notes will be in italics below for each change to give some context.

 

Dev note: The healing changes below are part of ongoing balance changes to bring healers to their intended targets. Expect more healer changes and additional targeted class changes in a future update.

 

Empire

Inquisitor

Sorcerer

• Enduring Bastion (after Force Barrier) now absorbs roughly 18% less damage
  
• Update to the Gathering Force 6pc set bonus: Using Force Speed now reduces the active cooldown of Polarity Shift by 5 seconds (down from 10 seconds). The duration of Polarity Shift is now increased by 5 seconds (down from 10 seconds) and requires Polarity Shift to be used while Force Speed is active.
  

Corruption

• Sustaining Darkness now heals for roughly 12% more
  

-

Powertech

• Reduced Meteor Brawler Firefall damage by 25%
  
  • Dev note: Meteor Brawler’s Firefall affect was doing more burst damage than intended overall and so it is being reduced.
    

  [*]Fixed an issue where Veteran Ranger set bonus was not getting a benefit from Power Loaders

  [*]Update to the Veteran Ranger 6pc set bonus: Each Shoulder Cannon rocket has a 75% chance to trigger an additional rocket. When Shoulder Cannon is put on cooldown, it applies Autocannon to you for 60 seconds, firing a rocket at your current target whenever you deal damage. This additional rocket can fire once every 10 seconds.

  • Dev note: The Veteran Ranger set was intended to be the more sustain-focused set for Advanced Prototype discipline, and we realized it was underperforming in that regard. We have slightly modified its functionality to improve its effectiveness and give more consistent damage.
    

Advanced Prototype

• Energy and Kinetic damage buff from High Energy Gas Cylinder increased to 5% (up from 3%)
  
• Power Bracer damage buff increased to 10% (up from 5%)
  
• Blood Tracker damage buff increased to 5% (up from 3%)
  
  • Dev note: Advanced Prototype was underperforming in DPS output, so we slightly increased their passive damage bonuses in the above three changes.
    

  [*]Powerlode tactical now increases Energy Burst’s crit chance by 100%

  • Dev note: We noticed this tactical wasn’t getting a lot of use and was extremely situational, so we’ve added an auto-crit aspect to it to solidify it as the burst tactical choice for Advanced Prototype players.
    

-

Operative

Concealment

• Acid Lash tactical now increases Acid Blade damage by 60% (down from 100%)
  
  • Dev note: Concealment Operatives with the Acid Lash tactical are doing a bit too much damage and so we are reducing the benefit of this tactical.
    

Lethality

• Synox Shots now increases Toxic Blast’s damage by 75% (down from 100%)
  
  • Dev note: Lethality Operative’s Toxic Blast was becoming their highest priority ability with this tactical and changing their rotation in a way we did not intend. Because of this, we are reducing the damage buff given by the Synox Shots tactical while ensuring it remains a competitive choice.
    

 

Republic

Consular

Sage

• Enduring Bastion (after Force Barrier) now absorbs roughly 18% less damage
  
• Update to the Gathering Force 6pc set bonus: Using Force Speed now reduces the active cooldown of Mental Alacrity by 5 seconds (down from 10 seconds). The duration of Mental Alacrity is now increased by 5 seconds (down from 10 seconds) and requires Mental Alacrity to be used while Force Speed is active.
  

Seer

• Soothing Protection now heals for roughly 12% more
  

-

Vanguard

• Reduced Meteor Brawler Ionfall damage by 25%
  
  • Dev note: Meteor Brawler’s Ionfall affect was doing more burst damage than intended overall and so it is being reduced.
    

  [*]Fixed an issue where Veteran Ranger set bonus was not getting a benefit from Charged Loaders

  [*]Update to the Veteran Ranger 6pc set bonus: Each Shoulder Cannon rocket has a 75% chance to trigger an additional rocket. When Shoulder Cannon is put on cooldown, it applies Autocannon to you for 60 seconds, firing a rocket at your current target whenever you deal damage. This additional rocket can fire once every 10 seconds.

  • Dev note: The Veteran Ranger set was intended to be the more sustain-focused set for the Tactics discipline, and we realized it was underperforming in that regard. We have slightly modified its functionality to improve its effectiveness and give more consistent damage.
    

Tactics

• Energy and Kinetic damage buff from High Energy Cell increased to 5% (up from 3%)
  
• Riot Augs damage buff increased to 5% (up from 10%)
  
• Triumph damage buff increased to 5% (up from 3%)
  
  • Dev note: Tactics was underperforming in DPS output, so we slightly increased their passive damage bonuses in the above three changes.
    

  [*]Powerlode tactical now increases Cell Burst’s crit chance by 100%

  • Dev note: We noticed this tactical wasn’t getting a lot of use and was extremely situational, so we’ve added an auto-crit aspect to it to solidify it as the burst tactical choice for Tactics players.
    

-

Smuggler

Scrapper

• Acid Lash tactical now increases Flechette Round’s damage by 60% (down from 100%)
  
  • Dev note: Scrapper Smugglers with the Acid Lash tactical are doing a bit too much damage and so we are reducing the benefit of this tactical.
    

Ruffian

• Synox Shots now increases Sanguinary Shot’s damage by 75% (down from 100%)
  
  • Dev note: Ruffian Smuggler’s Sanguinary Shot was becoming their highest priority ability with this tactical and changing their rotation in a way we did not intend. Because of this, we are reducing the damage buff given by the Synox Shots tactical while ensuring it remains a competitive choice.
    

 

Bug Fixes

These fixes are happening because we noticed a discrepancy between Gunslinger and Sniper.

Gunslinger

Dirty Fighting

• Fixed an issue where Dirty Blast’s DoT from the Exploited Weakness tactical was dealing more damage than intended
  

Sharpshooter

• Fixed an issue where the Agitating Energies tactical was refreshing Vital Shot and ticking its damage more often than intended
  

Again, these changes will be on the next PTS build which we are targeting to be online before the end of this week. Share your thoughts on the above changes in this thread.

 

-eric

Where is removal of double vanish from assassins? Where is slight nerf to bludgeon Tactical item? Where is slight nerf to marauder camouflage reset? Where is nerf to dps specs using guard(and this is really overpowered especially in ranked games with healers because cross guard provides a huge advantage over team who doesn't have cross guard)? Come on you guys missed so much

Hey folks,

 

 

Bug Fixes

These fixes are happening because we noticed a discrepancy between Gunslinger and Sniper.

Gunslinger

Dirty Fighting

• Fixed an issue where Dirty Blast’s DoT from the Exploited Weakness tactical was dealing more damage than intended
  

Sharpshooter

• Fixed an issue where the Agitating Energies tactical was refreshing Vital Shot and ticking its damage more often than intended
  

Again, these changes will be on the next PTS build which we are targeting to be online before the end of this week. Share your thoughts on the above changes in this thread.

 

-eric

You call these "bugg fixes"? No fix to bugged vents on mandalore arena, no fix to holotraverse teleporting player straight to 1 kilometre, no fix to operatives roll which can root operative for all match until any sorc pulls bugged operative, no fix to instant kill of juggs and marauder on force charge usage (especially on mandalore arena near stairs), no fix on pt jet jump going on cd but not doing the jump so pt just remains on same place.....you aren't planning to fix serious buggs in pvp, are you?

Literally none of these changes address any of the balance concerns of 6.0. Who the hell is working on the combat team? Have they ever played pvp?

 

You're nerfing sorcs before nerfing assassins? You think that acid lash is the problem tactical for concealment operatives? It's absolutely absurd.

 

If these changes go live like this, you've just further solidified that you haven't a clue how to balance classes for pvp. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.

 

 

 

In what universe is lightning overperforming compared to deception sins and concealment ops?

Lightning needed small nerf because it was overperforming everything except sin and oper. Literally in ranked: sin>oper>lightning sorc>mara>sniper>merc etc. Yet why not nerf the most powerful and king deception and concealment specs is a big mystery

Zero of these changes are for pvp. These seem to be strictly Dxun HM class balancing fixes for some reason.

RIP Acid Sheath sustained (maybe). Time to dust off my Tactics VG

I mean, at this point I'm pretty sure BioWare forgot that Madness is a spec...

You are taking one of the worse DPS specs (Madness) and nerfing it further just because Lightning is OP.

The Polarity Shift set bonus worked very well on Madness as the prolonged duration actually made Polarity Shift much more desiderable. And also: removing the 10s time window between using Force Speed and PS just makes it unnecessarily inconvenient, there is no real benefit or nerf that I can see from that. Weird flex but ok.

I remember you guys once posting something about target dps along the lines of:

melee DoT - 105% target dps

melee burst - 100% target dps

ranged DoT - 100% target dps

ranged burst - 95% target dps

Now I dunno what the your team is thinking when you're balancing classes, but last I checked Lightning was Ranged Burst and Madness was ranged DoT.

But hey, at least we have Volt Rush

Lightning needed small nerf because it was overperforming everything except sin and oper. Literally in ranked: sin>oper>lightning sorc>mara>sniper>merc etc. Yet why not nerf the most powerful and king deception and concealment specs is a big mystery

Sure. I could live with a small lightning nerf if it meant that deception sins and concealment ops got nerfed a lot harder first.

I think it is time to separate pve and pvp abilities from the characters. Maybe then you will quit nerfing sorcerers for pvp playing. Frankly, it is past time especially for those of us that don't play pvp but continue to get characters nerfed because of pvp.

This has been an ongoing theme with BW and characters. Instead of separating abilities you nerf them. Yes, I know it probably not an easy fix but I think it is something that needs to happen so pve players don't have to suffer because of pvp players or the other way around.

I think it is time to separate pve and pvp abilities from the characters. Maybe then you will quit nerfing sorcerers for pvp playing. Frankly, it is past time especially for those of us that don't play pvp but continue to get characters nerfed because of pvp.

Bioware is almost certainly nerfing sorcs based on pve concerns, not pvp concerns. You have it backwards here. They shouldn't even be bothering to "balance" like this for pve, other than fixing the gunslinger bug which was warranted.

Ionfall is not getting an auto crit or a super crit from superheated fuel, while firefall is. Please fix this.

I don't know if the team is aware but this is true and should be fixed with the next patch.

Inquisitors do not need a nerf to their class set, if anything madness needs a buff. This is gonna wreck it even more.

 

And not addressing sin burst issues what is going on?

 

Also, looking at GS set and adjusting it down without looking at Established Foothold is a bad idea.

This ^^^^ But Bioware's track record is, especially when they have gone as far as making a yellow forum post, is that they either don't bother with or are dismissive of further forum feedback.

Lightning needed small nerf because it was overperforming everything except sin and oper. Literally in ranked: sin>oper>lightning sorc>mara>sniper>merc etc. Yet why not nerf the most powerful and king deception and concealment specs is a big mystery

They didnt need a nerf, the classes/specs BW forgot existed needed a buff. Especially Madness Sorcs and Rage Jugs. Lord forbid that another ranged class other than sniper can top DPS.

requires Polarity Shift to be used while Force Speed is active.

Another massiv nerf of the mobility tool Force Speed and thats quiet i thight window to activate polarity shift.

Good god, a snotty volunteer could do a better job than this.

Im baffled that deception is not getting adjusted. Or those pesky operatives either. SMH.

Minor thumbs up for AP getting some love (is that gonna be passive 100% crit chance for energy burst, or only when we use poweryield?).

And how many months did it take u guys to realise that sniper gunslinger r not doing the same damage? Jesus christ, i guess slinger slinger ... slinger x20 on the leaderboards was not obvious enough. Ur level of incompetence is asinine. U do not deserve a salary for this shoddy work.

So about bug fixes when are you gonna actually fix warmonger utility and not gonna lie about it.

Also when i check proposed class changes and you guys are really have no clue and give no hope as always. They had 3 months think about their stupid ideas they implemented in 6.0 but as always they forgot to think and make some minor changes thet will not fix a thing.

The sorc changes are half-baked; more adjustments need to be made to prevent the class from getting neutered to a ridiculous extent. I agree that current Polarity Shift uptime is excessive for PvP, mainly because it provides massive boosts to kiting, burst, and interrupt prevention. But keep in mind that 6.0 Sorc DPS is actually pretty low without Polarity Shift--especially in PvE--and the Gathering Storm set bonus helps players compensate for this issue. Plus, Madness is currently under-performing even with the overpowered Polarity Shifts.

 

If the developers are going to (rightfully) nerf Gathering Storm, then they need to compensate by buffing certain abilities and passives; otherwise, both specs will struggle to hit 22k dps while all other ranged DPS specs are eclipsing 23k. I suggest the following changes, in addition to the set bonus nerf, to help balance things properly:

 

Sorcerer:

(1) Increase the damage of Affliction by 20 percent. (This will negate about half of the dps loss from the Gathering Storm nerf, while also giving healers a much-needed boost to their off-DPS in PvE.)

 

Lightning:

(1) Decrease the damage of Chain Lightning by 10 percent. (Thanks to Elemental Convection, Lightning Sorcs have insane output during cleave situations in PvP; this nerf will help take the edge off. Chain Lightning will still be more damaging than a Lightning Bolt, so the rotation will be unaffected.)

(2) Chain Lightning's root and snare effects can only occur once every 9 seconds. (The root spam caused by Elemental Convection is an absolute killer for melee at the moment.)

(3) Increase the Shock bonus perk to 85 percent, up from 35 percent. (This will compensate for the nerfs to Gathering Storm and Chain Lightning. When paired with Recklessness, Shock will complement Thundering Blast nicely. Plus, the move isn't reliant on the RNG nature of Forked Lightning procs, which is part of what makes Polarity Shift so strong for Lightning in the first place.)

 

Madness:

(1) Increase the damage of Force Leech and Force Lightning by 10 percent. (This will help to further negate the Gathering Storm nerfs while also giving Madness a much-needed boost to its single-target DPS.)

 

Changes like these will help Sorcs absorb the massive DPS loss caused by the changes to Gathering Storm, while also mitigating the excessive cleave of Lightning and buffing the lackluster single target DPS of madness.

^^^ Devs please read. This is the direction you should take. Thanks Hoppin..

The sorc changes are half-baked; more adjustments need to be made to prevent the class from getting neutered to a ridiculous extent. I agree that current Polarity Shift uptime is excessive for PvP, mainly because it provides massive boosts to kiting, burst, and interrupt prevention. But keep in mind that 6.0 Sorc DPS is actually pretty low without Polarity Shift--especially in PvE--and the Gathering Storm set bonus helps players compensate for this issue. Plus, Madness is currently under-performing even with the overpowered Polarity Shifts.

 

If the developers are going to (rightfully) nerf Gathering Storm, then they need to compensate by buffing certain abilities and passives; otherwise, both specs will struggle to hit 22k dps while all other ranged DPS specs are eclipsing 23k. I suggest the following changes, in addition to the set bonus nerf, to help balance things properly:

 

Sorcerer:

(1) Increase the damage of Affliction by 20 percent. (This will negate about half of the dps loss from the Gathering Storm nerf, while also giving healers a much-needed boost to their off-DPS in PvE.)

 

Lightning:

(1) Decrease the damage of Chain Lightning by 10 percent. (Thanks to Elemental Convection, Lightning Sorcs have insane output during cleave situations in PvP; this nerf will help take the edge off. Chain Lightning will still be more damaging than a Lightning Bolt, so the rotation will be unaffected.)

(2) Chain Lightning's root and snare effects can only occur once every 9 seconds. (The root spam caused by Elemental Convection is an absolute killer for melee at the moment.)

(3) Increase the Shock bonus perk to 85 percent, up from 35 percent. (This will compensate for the nerfs to Gathering Storm and Chain Lightning. When paired with Recklessness, Shock will complement Thundering Blast nicely. Plus, the move isn't reliant on the RNG nature of Forked Lightning procs, which is part of what makes Polarity Shift so strong for Lightning in the first place.)

 

Madness:

(1) Increase the damage of Force Leech and Force Lightning by 10 percent. (This will help to further negate the Gathering Storm nerfs while also giving Madness a much-needed boost to its single-target DPS.)

 

Changes like these will help Sorcs absorb the massive DPS loss caused by the changes to Gathering Storm, while also mitigating the excessive cleave of Lightning and buffing the lackluster single target DPS of madness.

Yeap this is very important post from Hoppin, and I just plain don't understand how the bioware devs can be targeting Sorcs over other classes right now from either a PvE or PvP perspective.

If madness = 0% (target dps) it should be competing and close to virulence sniper (not bugged dirty fighting) or IO merc.

Highest virulence parse (not bugged dirty fighting mind you)

24942 dps on 6.5 mil http://parsely.io/parser/view/468511/0

Highest IO merc parse 6.5mil

24366 dps on 6.5 mil http://parsely.io/parser/view/471581/0

Highest madness parse 6.5mil

23070 dps on 6.5mil http://parsely.io/parser/view/467615/1

...like I get variance in quality of parses but even the "averages" show madness lagging over 1K dps bellow the other two ranged sustain specs if not even more by 1.5K. And all these 3 specs have built in cleave in rotation (aoe damage) so they should be parsing the same.

And the force speed change is just a half baked idea that makes no sense, imagine needing to roll as a sniper just before hitting entrench to activate the set entrenched offense bonus or have to rocket out as a merc to get the power surge buff on their 6 piece set.

So.... just so I have this straight...

You are going to nerf Sage/Sorc across the board by nerfing the set bonus... when balance is statistically the 5th worst class in the game right now?

So... if you are so worried about TK/Lightning being so overpowered, why not nerf stormwatch, and leave the set bonus alone so that balance doesn't turn to complete ****?

Or is that too hard for you all to do?

Finished my testing and edited post #8 to give feedback on the Meteor Brawler set bonus change.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9813724#post9813724