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Cell Charger Changes


Eshalant

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I've been following the community news "Class changes and balance in Game Update 1.3" and I would appreciate it if someone could explain the reasoning for the following...

 

We’ve spent a lot of time playtesting and investigating the concerns of the community, and while Commando/Mercenary damage is largely on target, prior to Game Update 1.3, resource management made performance streaky and a little too unreliable.

 

We’ve made the following changes to the Commando/Mercenary for Game Update 1.3 to improve resource management and simplify stack upkeep for Gunnery/Arsenal specs:

 

Cell Charger/Terminal Velocity has been redesigned to passively restore 1 energy cell/vent 8 heat every 6 seconds.

 

Right now Cell Charger generates 1 ammo on critical hits with rounds and full ammo every 3 seconds. My critical chance is currently ~30% without the smuggler buff (35% with). Applying a little basic probability...

 

I have a 57.75% chance of generating an ammo in 3 seconds and a 82.15% chance in 6 seconds OR LESS. (This is only on single hit 1.5sec cast rounds only; the probability goes up if you consider the use of full auto)

 

In short, some 80% of the time I would expect to be worse off with the new Cell Charger change. This means I will be using hammer shot MORE OFTEN and "Curtain of Fire" will proc full auto LESS OFTEN.

 

I'll admit that some of the other changes appear to be slight buffs to damage, but my worry here can be summed up in one short thought...

 

Isn't this exactly the opposite of improving resource management and making damage less streaky?

Edited by Eshalant
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Parses by some of the best Commandos and Mercs disagree with you. For the top end of the community, it is a zero sum game, no change. However it is a significant buff in both PVP and for Commandos who are leveling and getting their gear setup.

 

It achieves exactly what they wanted, made ammo management less RNG dependent.

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Have a look at how it works out.

 

For anyone interested 1 ammo every 6 seconds vs current system....

 

Lets say you have 35% crit rate

+1% tech crit from cunning

+15% from set bonus

 

= 51% crit rate on grav

 

So in 6 seconds you have two chances to gain 1 ammo = (100*(1-(49*49))) = 75.999% chance to gain 2 ammo

 

So the current system is: 1.52 ammo every 6 seconds.

The requirement is to be casting non-stop which requires you to root yourself.

 

The 1.3 system is: 1 ammo every 6 seconds.

The requirement for that is to do whatever, spam grav, run about, still 1 ammo per 6 seconds.

 

Of course when I say 1.52 ammo every 6 seconds I mean if you cast grav at exactly the right time for it to work... Otherwise you've cast it too late and wasted time or too early and need to do another cast of another 1.5 seconds.

 

1.3 will be a lot easier and you really don't have to do a goddam thing for it to regen perfectly.

Edited by Gyronamics
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Which brings us right back to the PVE v. PVP effects. As people have stated, you have the ability to remain (for a very large portion) stationary to get the most out the pre 1.3 cell charger. Frankly you posed nothing new except doing the actual math.
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Which brings us right back to the PVE v. PVP effects. As people have stated, you have the ability to remain (for a very large portion) stationary to get the most out the pre 1.3 cell charger. Frankly you posed nothing new except doing the actual math.

 

Are you fishing for least constructive post award? Making a non-point to say that you don't think something new is being said?

 

If you actually read and comprehend you'll understand that the requirements of the current system and the inability to actually place your procs exactly when the internal CD finishes mean that replacing with a fixed and reliable system is much better to work a rotation around.

 

And that it isn't actually worse than the current system in terms of ammo returned. Surely you have logs which you can examine?

 

Do you really think you regen ammo faster than 1 per 6 seconds on the current system?

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Faster than 1 per 6 seconds, nope can't say that I can, I can say I could still recover more ammo over the length of a fight through pre 1.3 in PVE than post 1.3 in PVE (you could agree given the numbers you provided). Focusing purely on 6 seconds then yes, your return will be better post 1.3, however when you focus on a fight as a whole (lets say against an elite or a champion) then you would be gaining more ammo pre 1.3. As I said in my previous post, it is not often we cannot remain stationary to do our thing so we benefit more from pre 1.3 than post.

 

My previous post is in response to your post making your opinion sound like staying stationary with gunnery is just a ridiculous concept and even in PVE we should be moving about every few seconds making regular use of cast time and channeled skills worthless.

 

EDIT: re-reading my previous post I do realize I came off as a dick, however I stand by my basis and wanted to point out I really was appreciative of the math part.

Edited by Luceon
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Faster than 1 per 6 seconds, nope can't say that I can, I can say I could still recover more ammo over the length of a fight through pre 1.3 in PVE than post 1.3 in PVE (you could agree given the numbers you provided). Focusing purely on 6 seconds then yes, your return will be better post 1.3, however when you focus on a fight as a whole (lets say against an elite or a champion) then you would be gaining more ammo pre 1.3. As I said in my previous post, it is not often we cannot remain stationary to do our thing so we benefit more from pre 1.3 than post.

 

I have tested this in PTR and I am not seeing the nerf.

 

Ammo regen over the course of a 10 minute fight is consistent with Gunnery now. On Live it is hit or miss and requires the use of many more Grav Rounds to achieve the same numbers I am seeing on PTR. This may be due to the bug that prevents Cell Charger from working with Full Auto, but in no way, shape, or form is this a nerf. I think what got me was the consistency and making us no longer dependent upon the RNG in order to facilitate Ammo regen.

 

Now I am not in full Campaign gear, but I am at about 32/37% crit without buffs and I am not using the Alacrity build that Aerro suggests. However it appears that due to a reduction in crit on better gear in favor of power, that this is a godsend to those gearing up with Campaign gear.

 

To get some math out of the way, let us look at a snapshot of a rotation.

 

Full Auto > Grav Round > Grav Round (Full Auto) > Grav Round ( Full Auto) > HiB > Demo Round

 

This is the default rotation for 1.3, which is comprised of at minimum 7 GCD and at most 8 GCD or 10.5 seconds to 12 seconds.

 

With Cell Charger working the old way, this gives a minimum of 3 chances to proc Cell Charger and Maximum of 4 chances. However we have to note that if Cell Charger doesn't proc early in the rotation that we might not get a chance for a second or third internal cooldown due to the way the shots stack. On Average you will regen 2 from Cell Charger with a 50% crit rate, but it will never be consistent. In 1.3 it is always 2 Ammo regened no matter what, which means that a Curtain of Fire proc can never hurt your Ammo Regen from Cell Charger.

 

No matter how you slice it, this is a buff or at minimum a quality of life improvement. I cannot find the nerf here.

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Well I did not once say it was a nerf, I was just trying to point out that there is a down side to one aspect of it. I have never had a problem with spamming grav round despite most people claiming it's cheap (we are a ranged class, we need some attack to rely on just like any other, we can't use HS to build ammo (focus), grav is simply our buff builder) and criting (can be streaky) is average (for some reason it works more evenly when I am alone in an area but gets crazy when other players are around, been like that since December for me). I mostly am able to keep up with gaining some crazy ammo due to my use of grav round and I do mostly PVE. Of course I won't fight against the change, it isn't a bad one, but I have (and some others) focused on crit rate for ammo regen.

 

Another way to look at it is change is hard. As I said I have been playing since December (and a little beta) so I am rather stuck in a mind set, especially since BW decided to change the ammo regen rates.

Edited by Luceon
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I have tested this in PTR and I am not seeing the nerf.

 

Ammo regen over the course of a 10 minute fight is consistent with Gunnery now. On Live it is hit or miss and requires the use of many more Grav Rounds to achieve the same numbers I am seeing on PTR. This may be due to the bug that prevents Cell Charger from working with Full Auto, but in no way, shape, or form is this a nerf. I think what got me was the consistency and making us no longer dependent upon the RNG in order to facilitate Ammo regen.

 

Now I am not in full Campaign gear, but I am at about 32/37% crit without buffs and I am not using the Alacrity build that Aerro suggests. However it appears that due to a reduction in crit on better gear in favor of power, that this is a godsend to those gearing up with Campaign gear.

 

To get some math out of the way, let us look at a snapshot of a rotation.

 

Full Auto > Grav Round > Grav Round (Full Auto) > Grav Round ( Full Auto) > HiB > Demo Round

 

This is the default rotation for 1.3, which is comprised of at minimum 7 GCD and at most 8 GCD or 10.5 seconds to 12 seconds.

 

With Cell Charger working the old way, this gives a minimum of 3 chances to proc Cell Charger and Maximum of 4 chances. However we have to note that if Cell Charger doesn't proc early in the rotation that we might not get a chance for a second or third internal cooldown due to the way the shots stack. On Average you will regen 2 from Cell Charger with a 50% crit rate, but it will never be consistent. In 1.3 it is always 2 Ammo regened no matter what, which means that a Curtain of Fire proc can never hurt your Ammo Regen from Cell Charger.

 

No matter how you slice it, this is a buff or at minimum a quality of life improvement. I cannot find the nerf here.

 

My initial thoughts reading the change were that it would be a slight nerf and would only serve to make our damage reliably hit the low end of what it's hitting now. My lack of faith in Bioware's ability to balance things with a modicum of competence contributed to this.

 

That being said, let me say thank you for posting your findings. You mentioned earlier that your experience has been backed up by other well geared well played commandos. Could you provide a link to these parses as well as post your own results on the PTS vs Live? I'd just like to see some hard data for myself.

 

Either way, I already feel much better about the change than I did a few days ago, though I wish they'd set the time to coincide with the regen rate we'd have if Cell Charger was working properly with Full Auto.

 

In the meantime, bring on the charged barrel changes!

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Aerro is pretty much the authority on Arsenal Mercs, and I trust his opinion explicitly.

 

Check out this thread, it has a lot of information, but they cover Cell Charger on the last page.

 

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1117292-Arsenal-Bounty-Hunter-Are-YOU-Doing-It-Right

 

The buff here actually comes from being able to divert stats from Crit and into Power. Optimizing your gear for PVE is going to be essential if you want to play with the big boys. Lock your Crit in at 35% not an ounce higher, Surge at 75% nothing more, then dump the rest into Power. You also want Accuracy at 100%, but this is less a requirement for Commandos than for Mercs since we do not get misses from offhand weapons.

Edited by azhrione
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Are those stats buffed (i.e. the 35% crit rate)? If I recall right he aims for 30% unbuffed and then a switch to power which has some merits I agree. As for surge, the only stats that compete with surge are accuracy and alacrity. I'm at 77% surge now with BH mods and 101.93% ranged accuracy. I suppose once 1.3 hits I'll need a tad more accuracy to make up for the loss from target lock, but assuming I didn't, I don't know that I really feel comfortable with putting alacrity in there. Thoughts?

 

I've perused that thread before, though not recently, so thanks for that. As I said, you've already helped me assuage a lot of my doubts regarding the Cell Charger change =)

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Are those stats buffed (i.e. the 35% crit rate)? If I recall right he aims for 30% unbuffed and then a switch to power which has some merits I agree. As for surge, the only stats that compete with surge are accuracy and alacrity. I'm at 77% surge now with BH mods and 101.93% ranged accuracy. I suppose once 1.3 hits I'll need a tad more accuracy to make up for the loss from target lock, but assuming I didn't, I don't know that I really feel comfortable with putting alacrity in there. Thoughts?

 

I've perused that thread before, though not recently, so thanks for that. As I said, you've already helped me assuage a lot of my doubts regarding the Cell Charger change =)

 

Don't worry about his Alacrity builds, they're pretty advanced and I am not convinced they're worth losing 20% ArmPen on Full Auto and HiB yet.

 

77% is pretty much a hard cap for Surge, and you're wasting points putting it in there.

 

Since there is not, to my knowledge at least, a Crit/Power enhancement that leaves us with balancing between but there are Crit/Surge, Acc/Crit, Power/Surge, Acc/Power enhancements. Most of these you are going to want to be Acc/Crit until both are capped, then Power/Surge until Surge is capped. At that point you want to use whatever item budgets the most power, which I believe ends up being Acc/Power.

 

Doing this right takes a lot of grinding and a guild willing to let you min/max for minimal gain. It also depends on getting a hold of hard to find loose Armor and Mod improvements. Not to mention needing to get crafted crits of the Campaign armor, good luck!

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Don't worry about his Alacrity builds, they're pretty advanced and I am not convinced they're worth losing 20% ArmPen on Full Auto and HiB yet.

 

77% is pretty much a hard cap for Surge, and you're wasting points putting it in there.

 

Since there is not, to my knowledge at least, a Crit/Power enhancement that leaves us with balancing between but there are Crit/Surge, Acc/Crit, Power/Surge, Acc/Power enhancements. Most of these you are going to want to be Acc/Crit until both are capped, then Power/Surge until Surge is capped. At that point you want to use whatever item budgets the most power, which I believe ends up being Acc/Power.

 

Doing this right takes a lot of grinding and a guild willing to let you min/max for minimal gain. It also depends on getting a hold of hard to find loose Armor and Mod improvements. Not to mention needing to get crafted crits of the Campaign armor, good luck!

 

Meh most of my min/maxing atm involves ripping out BH mods as I get the comms and putting them into Rakata gear. My first two power/surge mods went into my belt/bracers.

 

Off the top of my head, I think that the Power/Acc mods had the same power as the Power/Surge mods, that is 41 power, which is why I'm darned if I know what to do about balancing accuracy and surge. After 1.3 it won't really matter though since I'll actually want accuracy to make up for the 3% hit I'm about to take, and yeah the DR from surge is why I was probably going to shift to rounding out the rest of my BH set for the armorings rather than buy a ton of BH med-tech boots just for the power/surge enhancements (or whichever piece I end up farming for crit/surge or crit/acc enhancements to flesh out the high endurance enhancement BW insists on saddling us with).

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