This is the only class change that really bothers me; Flyby is hardly overpowered, only time I hear people talk about it they say it's been nerfed into obscurity anyway, but it's still fun.

 

Both mirror abilities are really characterful IMO, like force choke or flamethrower, even ACs that don't need them as part of a rotation should still have access to them because they're too iconic to take away - Orbital Strike is even the agent's heroic legacy ability! On top of which, having a big AoE that also stuns standard / weak is really nice for missions / dailies, and gives me time to pick off enemies before they focus me down.

 

I watched the smuggler stream and they said it was removed for "thematic" reasons, which I took to mean they just don't want smugglers doing good AoE damage, we're strictly single-target now, which doesn't bother me, but in that case reduce the damage it does for scoundrel, don't remove it completely? It just removes a big part of the class character that's existed since launch...

 

Can anyone convince me this was necessary?

Edited November 30, 2014 by MozOTheUndercity

Problems are the 30 meter range, the extended area and the repeated ticks not fitting in with a class that is supposed to deal damage at a range of 4 to 10 meters. As someone whose favorite characters are Operative healer and Scoundrel scrapper, good riddance and may we get something worthwhile for our role that wont take too much effort for too little return to balance instead.

Losing the explosive probe and orbital strike made my lethality operatives way less fun to play and it really, REALLY hurts the damage burst. It feels really weak now.

A full Op healer would never use orbital strike in an operation or in pvp, but for pve and basic leveling it was one of our handiest aoe's. Losing it simply makes it harder and slower than it already was to level, and just enjoy solo content. I try to take game changes in stride and not complain much...but as far as this one goes, im rather pissed off.

I completely agree that these should have been nerfed at most. Removing them was probably the single most annoying/frustrating thing i've found in all the class abilities so far, and i have 10 characters, covering every spec, between both sides. (not like that is unique, just mentioning it, for the purpose of stating that ive now seen every spec in 3.0)

I'm not sure where all the love for this ability comes from. Was on my slinger specced Sab, and even then, the ability is little more than a light show.

I'm not sure where all the love for this ability comes from. Was on my slinger specced Sab, and even then, the ability is little more than a light show.

 

For me, its not the specific skill that they took away (although it did look awesome), its the fact that I just lost 30% of my DPS abilities, and just about ALL of my ranged and burst dps. I get that we are supposed to be a melee class, but usually there is some sort of dps compensation for having to be in melee range.

 

With where our heals are right now (not the fluff AOE, I mean our single target & burst), we aren't going to be doing much DPS in operations anyways while we try to keep everyone alive. But doing dailies and general questing while heal-specced is omg so boring. I ended up switching to a dps spec because I was tired of using my base attack when my two decent skills were on CD, which meant that I couldn't que for pvp as a healer.

 

Overall I agree with the sentiment of the OP. Playing in Sawbones is a lot less fun.

Leveling as a healer sucks with out orbital and explosive probe. On the other hand in ops i wont have to deal with dps asking me to help dps unless its auto shot cause i rarely am in melle range and am usually between range and melee so myrecup nanotec can get 4 people if possible Edited December 3, 2014 by masstershake

I used to use Orbital Strike and Explosive probe all the time as a healer, helped a lot in PVE like daily's and such.

 

Now I have to send Kaliyo in, tag everything with Corrosive dart and then try to keep kaliyo up the entire time with barely any heals (Since they are nerfed into the dirt). I think Frag grenade should give us some sort of bleed damage, or apply corrosive darts damage if you are specced as a healer, or even refresh corrosive dart, to at least help with our dailies and PVE.

 

Then they shouldn't complain about the range, since the frag grenade isn't as big an explosion radius.

I was enjoying the new changes overall until I logged on my Imperial Agent, this ruined the fun for my agent, was bad enough when they took away the hilarious knockdown effect that was for Hidden Strike back in the day and now Operatives lost OS....really? *** was the point and their reason from what I read is complete B.S. Now whenever I ambush from stealth and a bunch of adds join the fight I got no AoE, save for the grenade or the frontal cone attack of Carbine Blast which I never used that much. I use to call in a strike quickly stealth and ambush an elite while the OS took out the mobs around it...once my sub runs out I'll be sure to never activate this class again and just stick to the ones they didn't fubar, thanks Bioware. Edited December 4, 2014 by Devako

Dang it, I JUST leveled an agent during 12x XP. Got to use orbital strike all of about three times before it was removed. I've been watching agents for a while now, going, man I wish I could do that. Well, at least I have the legacy ability.

A full Op healer would never use orbital strike in an operation or in pvp, but for pve and basic leveling it was one of our handiest aoe's. Losing it simply makes it harder and slower than it already was to level, and just enjoy solo content. I try to take game changes in stride and not complain much...but as far as this one goes, im rather pissed off.

 

actually it prevents cap in a really efficient way, since it's fire and forget, plus it's a nice precast in hard dps checks (brontes droid phase)

I haven't had the nerve to activate my L55 Operative healer since the upgrade, but my SW still has legacy Orbital Strike.

 

I'm guessing that's because I haven't changed my agent, right?

 

So, if OS will be gone when I respec her, does that mean I lose my hard-won legacy reward? Or not? Either way, it's really jacked.

 

Or did Bioware sub in some other thing for Agent's legacy power?

You still get to use OS during Heroic Moment. It's a legacy ability for Agents, not just Operatives, so you get to borrow it from Snipers now and again for nostalgia.

You still get to use OS during Heroic Moment. It's a legacy ability for Agents, not just Operatives, so you get to borrow it from Snipers now and again for nostalgia.

 

OK, thanks. As I said, I haven't touched my agent since the upgrade, except to steal her credits.

You still get to use OS during Heroic Moment. It's a legacy ability for Agents, not just Operatives, so you get to borrow it from Snipers now and again for nostalgia.

 

Oh sure now if they would only fix the dàmn bugged HM stuck with 20 min CD and 60 sec duration that's been complained about and reported for months. Seems Bioware likes to entirely remove shít from the game instead of "fixing" it lol.

I missed it at first on my Operative Healer- but after awhile [and after upgrading Kaliyo to lvl 55 gear] - I really don't miss it now. I just had to adapt my combat style to what I used in Wow on my Rogue - CC's and try to take out each target one by one.

I missed it at first on my Operative Healer- but after awhile [and after upgrading Kaliyo to lvl 55 gear] - I really don't miss it now. I just had to adapt my combat style to what I used in Wow on my Rogue - CC's and try to take out each target one by one.

 

That may work against groups of weak enemies or out-leveled ones, especially when you have superior gear.

 

Against a pack of mobs with strongs or elites in them, your health bar may melt away while you're busy dispatching them one by one. A mix of melee and ranged mobs is particularly dangerous.

 

If the CC-ed target is too close to the group you're fighting, you can't use grenades or Blaster Volley, or your comp's AoE attacks.

 

Scoundrels have been gimped with 3.0, in both DpS and healing. Fights are now harder and take longer.

Exploding probe is a huge loss, why the hell would you remove one of the operatives best and most fun skills? I really don't feel like playing operative anymore its just not as much fun.

Yeah, losing sabotage charge and orbital strike really further ruins sawbones's dps in addition to all the healing nerfs (which I agree mostly affects leveling, but it also helped for pvp). Scoundrels don't have the defenses of other classes, so the extra mobility and damage helped to make up for it.

 

Regarding AOE, scoundrels do have blaster volley still, but after dusting off this ability to see if it can replace orbital strike, it is absolutely terrible: does negligible damage (even with the new AEO buff), can only be cast with an UH (thus can't use half the time), and you can't tell what it will hit or not (no area of effect shown the ground).

The fun is gone for me, I have little desire to log on my operative and scoundrel. I loved sab charge and flyby on my sawbones, it really was the only spec I enjoyed on scoundrel. Lethality( ruffian now) always felt weird and scrapper...I can't stomach the punching stuff which just seems too silly to me.

 

I have other toons though. I've been playing them. My Op and Scoundrel will see little if any play.

Our losses isn't a dps matter. That has been balanced with the current rotation for dps specs. The HUGE loss is function and utility.

 

No orbital means NO AREA DENIAL. This is a massive pvp loss.

 

No Explosive Probe means a spike damage loss at 30m range. For a class with no ability to level change like with a leap or recall this is again a HUGE loss for pvp.

 

Our Utilities are largely made up of core abilities gutted from pre-3.0 and now offered to use again like balls on a platter. Go look at the powertech utilities ... it is like a smorgasbord of bonus abilities with 2 that are like getting 2 more DPS abilities.

 

Fragmentation Grenade is effectively single target now against players and non-standard mobs. The passive allowing aoe on everything is so minor it may as well not be there. It's purpose at being a grenade is gone.

 

It is the global loss that affects us with this change. Losses not easily seen. Are we effective? Perhaps. BUT WE ARE NOW BORING AND BLAND BIOWARE!

 

Does anyone playing concealment even notice when Volatile Substance goes off? It's like I hit a button and a few seconds later a damage goes off that could have come from anywhere. It is lackluster and boring and 10m just makes "just another button to hit in our rotation". Honestly we play more like a marauder which is why I hate that class with a passion. Hit buttons 1,2,3,4,5,6 repeat. There is a reason I typically play open and adaptive rotation classes. Now Operative is nothing more than hit 1,2,3,4,5 ... BORING.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Tamanous

That may work against groups of weak enemies or out-leveled ones, especially when you have superior gear.

 

Against a pack of mobs with strongs or elites in them, your health bar may melt away while you're busy dispatching them one by one. A mix of melee and ranged mobs is particularly dangerous.

 

If the CC-ed target is too close to the group you're fighting, you can't use grenades or Blaster Volley, or your comp's AoE attacks.

 

Scoundrels have been gimped with 3.0, in both DpS and healing. Fights are now harder and take longer.

 

True. What I see is they changed op healer to a wow rogue with healing abilities. If the crap hits the fan, I just hit Cloaking Screen and run away..or just die and realize I need to either change tactics or get some help in this MMO.

I'm on the fence about it. I miss it, Orbital Strike, but now I'm having to think a little bit about how I'm going to approach a group of mobs as a concealment Operative. And... as I get closer to 60, I'm finding I do like the new play style for concealment. It requires more skill in general. Edited December 8, 2014 by Rafaman

I'm on the fence about it. I miss it, Orbital Strike, but now I'm having to think a little bit about how I'm going to approach a group of mobs as a concealment Operative. And... as I get closer to 60, I'm finding I do like the new play style for concealment. It requires more skill in general.

 

To be fair, orbital strike was useless against mobs that weren't normal or weaker. And if you have trouble with a group of regular mobs... you may wanna upgrade your gear or something, Laceration if it crits will usually one-shot most regular mobs.