I know it isn't official, but a nerf that great is overkill. And I'm not just saying it just for Orbital Strike. But on ANY damage dealing ability. In all my years of gaming, I have never seen an ability nerfed by that much in one swoop. I'm hoping it doesn't fly, but if it does, I think that will be a world record for damage nerfs.

There should be a 62% output nerf to operative heals.

it as well recieved a 25% dmg increase due to a 25% reuse timer reduction.

and i do not find it inproper, that skill does by far to much dmg. up to 6.5k per tick and up to 4 ticks is way to much for an AoE ability.

with that nerf its an aoe that is able to deal up to 10-12k to someone in its area wich is still enough. and no longer a smash on steroids^^

What I don't get is the silly cast time. I have never understood why it had a 3 second cast time. Any sane person either interrupts or simply moves out of the way of the orbital strike.. You only ever hit scrubs with it.

 

BTW, the reason for the changes is because people in "pve" were using it for an unintended DPS boost in their rotation.

Edited January 10, 2014 by JackNader

it as well recieved a 25% dmg increase due to a 25% reuse timer reduction.

and i do not find it inproper, that skill does by far to much dmg. up to 6.5k per tick and up to 4 ticks is way to much for an AoE ability.

with that nerf its an aoe that is able to deal up to 10-12k to someone in its area wich is still enough. and no longer a smash on steroids^^

 

LOL! Too much for static AoE with huge telegraphs and 60 sec cd?

I miss my old Death from Above and now this!

 

Yeah huge "buff" for operative and snipers...

 

with that nerf its an aoe that is able to deal up to 10-12k to someone in its area wich is still enough. and no longer a smash on steroids^^

 

Enough for what?

Edited January 10, 2014 by Glower

it as well recieved a 25% dmg increase due to a 25% reuse timer reduction.

and i do not find it inproper, that skill does by far to much dmg. up to 6.5k per tick and up to 4 ticks is way to much for an AoE ability.

with that nerf its an aoe that is able to deal up to 10-12k to someone in its area wich is still enough. and no longer a smash on steroids^^

 

It couldn't be a pvp related nerf. I mean it has a 3s base cast time, a 1 min CD, a giant "HEY, don't stand here" wind up animation, and a delay after the cast before the damage even starts ticking. Unless you're chain CC'd there's really no excuse for taking all of the damage.

 

Smash is a much bigger AoE offender in pvp, and it's untouched.

There should be a 62% output nerf to operative heals.

 

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/good-good-let-the-butthurt-flow-through-you.jpg

 

On topic, this is a pve adjustment, they've told us as much before. They didn't like orbital being used on cooldown for single target dps, which it was being used for by almost all operatives and snipers. Which is a little silly (commentary about rage goes here but I digress)

 

In pvp orbitals an area denial. Giant green hexagon, cast time. Whenever I use it I basically expect no one to actually be damaged by it really. I use to to either hide in from melee or to stop a node being capped for 12 seconds which it will still do just fine.

 

I'm ok with change. I'd like more of it more frequently for all the classes to be honest. Damage nerfs suck but it's not the end of the world.

Edited January 10, 2014 by CaptainApop

BTW, the reason for the changes is because people in "pve" were using it for an unintended DPS boost in their rotation.

 

^^This

Wow. Seems all the data mined stuff is correct except the official notes don't have the actual percentage change.

There should be a 62% output nerf to operative heals.

 

Yeah healing could use a nerf not damage lol failware.

Well the patch notes are up and it doesn't give a number on what the nerf was too damage. It just says reduced activation time, cooldown, energy cost and damage of orbital strike.

Seriously I don't care its an aoe cast and forget ability, its more so a nerf to pve over pvp. If anything its used as an area denial in pvp or you cast it ontop of yourself with hunkerdown. Not like sniper and slinger dps is going to be broken because their aoe cast and forget ability got nerfed boo hoo:rolleyes:. Edited January 10, 2014 by Lalainnia

Flashbang, Orbital Strike, Root/Snare/etc.. (all from range/cover).

Of course it's beatable/avoidable but it's not a given vs a decent sniper nevermind one who has another character providing cc/snare support (like another sniper or any number of other classes that know what's going on).

this nerf is just too extreme, and the lower cooldown is not a good thing. It would have been better to just do a smaller damage nerf and possibly a longer cooldown, now for pvp with that lower cooldown it will be an aoe spamfest with that ability. The damage should not have been nerfed so much like that. Hopefully this is not official and hopefully it does not come to pass, hopefully to deal with the ability they nerf damage by, lets say, 10 percent and give it 5 to 15 extra seconds on the cooldown instead of doing a severe damage nerf and reducing the cooldown making it more possible to spam it on nodes.

 

And as if dps scoundrels needed any more nerfs!

Edited January 10, 2014 by Sangrar

Seriously I don't care its an aoe cast and forget ability, its more so a nerf to pve over pvp. If anything its used as an area denial in pvp or you cast it ontop of yourself with hunkerdown. Not like sniper and slinger dps is going to be broken because their aoe cast and forget ability got nerfed boo hoo:rolleyes:.

 

Yeah I honestly hate that when they hit hunker and cast OS on top of them.

Edited January 10, 2014 by cycao

GG bioware in nerfin most less popular class in game.

 

Hope you will happy in growed population of fotm sorcs...

Seriously I don't care its an aoe cast and forget ability, its more so a nerf to pve over pvp. If anything its used as an area denial in pvp or you cast it ontop of yourself with hunkerdown. Not like sniper and slinger dps is going to be broken because their aoe cast and forget ability got nerfed boo hoo:rolleyes:.

 

And of course there is the obligatory he must be whining poster. Congratulations. Anyways. As I said in the OP, my issue isn't about it being a nerf to OS. My concern is about them nerfing it by that much (if it is actually nerfed that high cause patch notes don't say) to any damage ability in one stroke. 20-30% max. I can see. But over 50% in one patch? That is too high. That is the issue I have with it. Not that OS is getting nerfed.

GG bioware in nerfin most less popular class in game.

 

Hope you will happy in growed population of fotm sorcs...

 

You're not even trying anymore.

Seriously I don't care its an aoe cast and forget ability, its more so a nerf to pve over pvp. If anything its used as an area denial in pvp or you cast it ontop of yourself with hunkerdown. Not like sniper and slinger dps is going to be broken because their aoe cast and forget ability got nerfed boo hoo:rolleyes:.

 

You do understand there is a AOE spec right? It has the worst single target dps out of all the specs and with this nerf it is barely worth it for the survival. This nerf makes orbital do 2-3k damage over 12s with a 2.5s cast it doesn't matter how many times you can spam this it isn't worth it since you won't ever get every hit to tick and ambush has a base damage of 4-5k with a 2.5s cast and up to 55% armor pen In most specs. This was made real because of the hybrid but it broke the hybrid and engineering. Eng will just have to exploit to get its dps now glad to know bioware really wants that.

In the engi tree for pvp, you won't be able to use the shorter activation time because you need be entrenched to get it off. With the activation, you fail/interrupt waaay too often if you aren't entrenched. Really a bit surprised at the change for engineering tree unless something else gets a bit of a pop it becomes EVEN MORE of a utility class. I really always thought of it as a utility tree and I can hang in there numbers wise on dps, but this makes it one step more in that direction which won't help get more players to an already underserved spec.

Ya, nerf OS, that's the ticket. Who says Bioware doesn't balance their classes. Glad you guys got right on that. Was a game breaker for sure. Edited January 10, 2014 by MotorCityMan

PTS is up:

 

2.5 http://i.imgur.com/MiBrRyz.jpg

2.6 http://i.imgur.com/cSFRH4M.jpg

 

38% aka. 62% reduced damage.

 

Damage reduced from 10.282 to 3.912

 

This is in the sniper forum - pretty crazy one patch change.

This change have no sense pvp-wise. Snipers/slingers need buff in survivability, not any kind of nerf.

In the engi tree for pvp, you won't be able to use the shorter activation time because you need be entrenched to get it off. With the activation, you fail/interrupt waaay too often if you aren't entrenched. Really a bit surprised at the change for engineering tree unless something else gets a bit of a pop it becomes EVEN MORE of a utility class. I really always thought of it as a utility tree and I can hang in there numbers wise on dps, but this makes it one step more in that direction which won't help get more players to an already underserved spec.

 

Even with entrench I don't think many people would waste that time on a piss poor AOE that plasma probe would out dps when they have other things to use like snipe+fragnade which would do more damage in a shorter time frame.

This change have no sense pvp-wise. Snipers/slingers need buff in survivability, not any kind of nerf.

 

Good lulz.