BioWare,

Across many posts, Vanguards and Powertechs alike are displeased with the changes to their class. Its not that the range of our abilities is being shortened, its that we are left without the abilities other melee classes possess. I'm specifically referring to the "gap closer" abilities like leap, stealth and sprint.

According to several developer posts, the issue with Assault Vanguards and Pyro Powertechs is their ability to stay at a 30 meter range. Clearly this was an unintentional playstyle, and while some players may choose to play at ranged, most players understand the class is intended to be a close-quarters combatant.

The 30 yard range of Assault Plastique and Incendiary Round allowed an Assault Vanguard to begin their damage rotation from a distance as they begin to close the gap between their target. By removing this range, the Vanguard must walk toward their target a significant distance before they can begin damage. Unlike other melee classes, in the current test patch, an Assault or Tactics Vanguard is unable to quickly close the gap to their intended target.

A popular debate among players is that the Vanguard does not need an additional ability because they have Harpoon. To this I protest primarily because the Harpoon ability 1) adds Resolve and cannot pull a target with full Resolve, 2) many bosses and NPCs in the game are immune to Harpoon's pull and 3) this ability causes a high amount of threat to the target, something a DPS Vanguard does not want. Harpoon is a crowd-control ability, not a gap closer.

To this issue I and many others propose that all Vanguards and Powertechs receive Storm and Jet Charge, respectively, as a base ability.

To replace the talent in the Shield tree, I would recommend an additional effect be added for tanking Vanguards (i.e. a moderate AoE ability or a short stun).

BioWare, please consider the implications of the proposed changes to Vanguards and Powertechs in the current 1.4 test server patch. If you want us to be a melee class, if you want us to face the same dangers as a melee class, then give us the ability to jump into the fray - literally.

- Azhandra Rycar

50 Vanguard, The Ebon Hawk server

This sounds like something that could happen in the farther future, but not by 1.4. This is too game changing and BW would have to completely rebalance the class. Plus I think having this now would probably make Tactics/AP a little OP with movement and utility capabilities along with their new buff to FT damage and survivability. BW will most likely let this go and let it play out. Remember the outcry people had on the changes to the Assault/Pyro, which I believe was much bigger than this.

This change will force Assault/Pyro players to become more tactical on how they approach their enemies. Using more LOS or moving more with group instead of lone wolfing it as much. Basically with the 1.4 changes, with Assault/Pyro you will less likely make it into combat than Tactics and especially Shield, but if and/or when you do, you hit them harder and faster than almost all other classes. Plus you still can kite all the actual melee classes since your attacks are mostly 10m range. Tactics will allow you to get into combat easier than Assault, but most of the time, less damage will be done.

I'm not in full support of this by all means, I'm skeptical, but none the less I see the thought process behind it and how it can balance out the Vanguards/Powertechs overall.

Well said. A gap closer would be awesome, for Assault. Shield spec has it in its tree, and Tactics gets a 15% movement speed buff, all the time. Assault we had a gap closing rotation, but now we all know now that we have a large hole 20m long that we can't do much in.

Also, Storm animation needs to be re-worked (running on thin air is weird when jumping down a cliff or up one) Rocket Boost, or Leap do not suffer from this.

I hope with the level cap increase and new abilitties that they seriously re-work all vanguard/powertech trees. Not to the point where we don't recognize them, but to polish them up.

I really hope as well that vanguards on whole have some of our base skill attack animations (stockstrike, explosive surge, mortar volley, etc.) improved. As it is right now we are extremely lackluster compared to bounty hunters' and the AC powertechs. When the game goes free to play no one will want to play the class that uses same animations as pve mobs. I really don't feel special playing my vanguard and I have 30+ days on him...

I really should have created my own post, cause this went way off topic of the OP's...

Vanguards lets all hope 1.5 brings some of what we want.

To replace the talent in the Shield tree, I would recommend an additional effect be added for tanking Vanguards (i.e. a moderate AoE ability or a short stun).

Personally, I think the better solution would be to provide VGs with an additional CD to offset their overt lack of one compared to the other tanks: Guardians get 3 or 4 real tank CDs (depending on your interpretation and spec, Focused Defense can be considered a tank CD), Shadows get 3, and Vanguards get just 2 (Smoke Grenade is a CD in the same sense as Kinetic Ward since it's normalized to be even with the omnipresent tank acc debuffs). Providing another real survivability CD to replace Storm would be quite useful to balance that out a bit.

BioWare, please consider the implications of the proposed changes to Vanguards and Powertechs in the current 1.4 test server patch. If you want us to be a melee class, if you want us to face the same dangers as a melee class, then give us the ability to jump into the fray - literally.

The logic behind providing Storm now that VGs really aren't effective at range has a lot of credence. Every melee class other than VGs has a mechanism by which to close into melee either at the start or shortly after the start of a fight: Shadows and Scoundrels have Stealth and high movement speed CDs (Scoundrels are finally getting this second which has been cited as one of the reasons why Scoundrels tend to do poor DPS in ops) while Knights have their leap (which allows then to reengage as well as start fights in melee). Until 1.4, Vanguards didn't need a closer because they weren't crippled at ranges beyond 10m. Now that the only thing that VGs will really have going for them is HiB and Hammer Shot, they can't even really be particularly effective even for setting up for melee. Ergo, the need for a closer is relatively important. Of course, if it were baseline, since VGs aren't completely useless at range, I wouldn't expect the developers to want Storm to be of the same caliber as Force Leap (it's only a bit worse as it stands now insofar as it doesn't provide any resources but is otherwise identical). If I were in charge of it, I would have its CD increased from 15 seconds to 20 seconds when I made it baseline (and change Static Surge or Charge! such that it reduces the CD by 2.5 seconds per point so that tanks wouldn't experience the change appreciably).

So, in short, give Storm to everyone but change it's base CD to 20 seconds, replace the Storm talent in Shield Spec with a new survivability CD to bring VG tanks up to the same survivability CD grade as the other tanks (potentially a CD that increases your Shield/Absorb and allows it to apply at a diminished capacity against Force/Tech powers), and tweak one of the two Storm dependent talents to decrease the CD on Storm down to its current CD. I wouldn't even expect it to be all that hard honestly.

Those changes were created because of that opener you spoke of: The highest Burst dps opener in the game that was devestating in PVP. It was performing too well because you'd get the massive burst at range, then another massive burst when your target was in close.

Closing 10 meters is really not that hard.

I appreciate all the support so far with this proposal! Thank you.

Those changes were created because of that opener you spoke of: The highest Burst dps opener in the game that was devestating in PVP. It was performing too well because you'd get the massive burst at range, then another massive burst when your target was in close.

 

Closing 10 meters is really not that hard.

According to developer interviews at GamesCon in Germany, the developers wanted to put the Vanguard more in "harm's way" by pushing them into the melee. If they're already fighting to get into melee/10 meters, why not just give them the necessary tool to enter into that zone? As it stands, from a PvE standpoint, progressive ops guilds will favor other DPS classes who have gap closers.

With regards to your burst argument: Marauders, Sentinels, Shadows, Assassins, Scoundrels and Operatives also have high burst damage trees. All of them require them to be within close proximity to the target. Hammer Shot is a poor excuse for a gap closing opening rotation when classes like Operative open up with a high damage attack followed by a 3-second stun and additional high damage attacks.

And its not closing 10 meters, its closing 20. 20 meters is a long way, especially considering all the slows, roots and stuns various classes have.

Reduce the CD of harpoon or make it unaffected by resolve.

 

Giving storm to all vanguards is simply a game breaker. Huttball is a horrible leap fest as is.

 

P.S. As gimped as it may be, hammer shot with a potential snare is also considered to be a tool to close gaps.

A pull unaffected by resolve would be as you call it "a game breaker."

a leap for every 15 secs that interrupts and stuns for 3 secs on top of that.

The leap immobilizes. It does not stun.

I like this idea.

I would go as far as suggesting that Harpoon/Grapple and Storm/Jet Charge be swapped in terms of availability. In other words:

1) At level 22, instead of training Harpoon/Grapple VG/PTs would be training Storm/Jet Charge.

2) Harpoon would be available as a 21-point skill in the Shield Specialist/Shield Tech tree.

(NOTE: This would be no different to what already happens with Sith Assassins/Jedi Shadows who also only get their Force Pull ability as a 21-point skill in the Darkness/Kinetic Combat tree.)

I also like Kitru's suggestion that the CD on Storm/Jet Charge be increased from 15 seconds to 20 seconds baseline and Charge!/Jet Speed would be reworked to also lower the CD on Storm/Jet Charge by 2,5s per point. (On that same note, the 2 skills that currently depend on Storm/Jet Charge (namely Charge!/Jet Speed and Static/Flame Surge) would no longer be tied to the new Harpoon talent.)

This would, I think, help with Bioware's vision of VG/PTs being melee fighters while still providing the Tank specialization with the ability to pull in stragglers while tanking.

I would really like to see this happening. Especially now...

I like some of the ideas posted here. I will continue to protest against Harpoon as an effective gap closer, however. Remember, this ability needs to perform in both PvP and PvE environments and that bosses are immune to Harpoon pulls. Therefore, Harpoon should not be considered a effective "gap closer" but rather a CC ability.

Also, think in terms of teamplay. If anyone's played a Knight or a Warrior, you've surely been in this situation: you leap to a target only to have it Harpooned/Grappled away from you.

Reduce the CD of harpoon or make it unaffected by resolve.

 

Giving storm to all vanguards is simply a game breaker. Huttball is a horrible leap fest as is.

 

P.S. As gimped as it may be, hammer shot with a potential snare is also considered to be a tool to close gaps.

And that would definitely not break the game, at all.

Therefore, Harpoon should not be considered a effective "gap closer" but rather a CC ability.

I consider Pulls to be positioning utilities on par with Knockbacks. They're not really CCs in the traditional sense, and they can be used for much the same purpose (a Guardian that does leap>push>leap properly accomplishes much the same thing as a Pull). Their value is in forcing a target to go where you want them to go, as opposed to closing a gap. Generally, it's impossible or highly difficult to reposition a target without using a repositioning tool. Leaps are, explicitly, gap closers. That's all that they can be used for (except maybe as an additional interrupt) and, honestly, it would just be strange for the developers to have a melee class that *doesn't* have an effective gap closer when they've readily admitted that a melee class without a gap closer isn't effective (that's the explicit reason for the Scoundrel DPS buffs).

One of two things happens with a class: you're either ranged capable (which is what DPS VGs *used* to be) or you have a gap closing ability. The changes in 1.4 are removing the former, to keep the AC in line with developer intent, but not making up for it with the latter. Basic foresight and logic would indicate that it's a change that will need to happen eventually. The question is, honestly, whether they'll do it before it becomes a problem on the live servers.

A high burst class that can pull a target every 45 secs, a snare that can be procced from 30m and guaranteed to proc at 10m, and what you guys are proposing is to add a leap for every 15 secs that interrupts and stuns for 3 secs on top of that. If that doesn't sound game breaking then I suggest you clean out your ears.

Pretty sure the sane people are proposing that the pull and leap be swapped. Leap becomes a base class skill, pull becomes the tank tree skill. That gives every Vanguard/PT a 15sec gap closer and the tank specs a 45sec pull. It puts the class in line with the other classes that have a jump and a pull.

I wouldn't be concerned about the snares. Guardians and Sentinels get a guaranteed, AoE 50% snare that can be kept up full time for a far lower resource cost, and with zero CD. I don't see why it's fine they can leap in every 15sec and lock everyone near them down with a 50% snare but it would be OP for a VG/PT to leap in and lock one person down...with a weaker snare...at the expense of spamming one skill and blowing all your resources.

Swapping the leap and pull brings some more sanity to Huttball too. If you don't spec as a tank, like Shadow/Assassins, you can't spend the match pulling people in to hazards.

Lastly...Storm/Jet Charge does not stun anyone for 3 seconds. It interrupts any current action and immobilizes the target for 3 seconds. That's rather different from a 3sec stun, and it's the same functionality as you get on Force Leap. To be fair though the immobilize effect should be reduced to 2 seconds if the skills were swapped to bring it in line with the equivalent Force ability.

I consider Pulls to be positioning utilities on par with Knockbacks. They're not really CCs in the traditional sense, and they can be used for much the same purpose (a Guardian that does leap>push>leap properly accomplishes much the same thing as a Pull). Their value is in forcing a target to go where you want them to go, as opposed to closing a gap. Generally, it's impossible or highly difficult to reposition a target without using a repositioning tool. Leaps are, explicitly, gap closers. That's all that they can be used for (except maybe as an additional interrupt) and, honestly, it would just be strange for the developers to have a melee class that *doesn't* have an effective gap closer when they've readily admitted that a melee class without a gap closer isn't effective (that's the explicit reason for the Scoundrel DPS buffs).

 

One of two things happens with a class: you're either ranged capable (which is what DPS VGs *used* to be) or you have a gap closing ability. The changes in 1.4 are removing the former, to keep the AC in line with developer intent, but not making up for it with the latter. Basic foresight and logic would indicate that it's a change that will need to happen eventually. The question is, honestly, whether they'll do it before it becomes a problem on the live servers.

I'm in love with this poster. That is all.

A high burst class that can pull a target every 45 secs, a snare that can be procced from 30m and guaranteed to proc at 10m, and what you guys are proposing is to add a leap for every 15 secs that interrupts and stuns for 3 secs on top of that. If that doesn't sound game breaking then I suggest you clean out your ears.

I suggest you look at the content you are quoting before following it up with a plea to multiple people.

I am talking to you, addressing your suggestion of having a pull that would not be affected by resolve. Your suggestion completely goes against the design philosophy of resolve, to make thoughtful use of your crowd control abilities. With this suggestion, the pull would become and ability that does not require a meaningful decision.

With a no resolve pull:

If you are specced into No Escape you could root them for the 3 seconds that talent allows. If they have no resolve prior built up, you could stun them for 8 seconds after pulling them with the help of another player. Players full on resolve alone would never be free from the thought of getting pulled; not safe from hitting that guy off the node in civil war, not safe from scoring that point in huttball, etc.

As far as the inaccuries in your post:

"Leaps" root, they do not stun.

The pyrotech powertech snare can only be applied a maximum of 3 times consecutively. To apply it three times you must have CGC proc off a ranged attack type (HIB, Hammer Shot, Full Auto) then follow it up with an Ion Pulse, then another Ion Pulse. If you use Ion Pulse to apply the snare it will only apply 1 more time from using Ion Pulse unless you let the entire CGC dot fall off the target.

This thread is right on the money and is something BW needs to resolve before they put in the nerfs. It simply comes down to all melee classes in the game have a guaranteed gap closer with the exception of against cover classes. Harpoon, while a nice ability, is not guaranteed as a gap closer. It often is unuseable because of full resolve, anti cc abilities like assasins have or even hold the line equivalent, and often bugs out due to geography blocking a pull correctly or general lag. If BW wants to force VGs and PTs into melee range that is fine but they need to then provide a full proof gap closer against non-cover classes with a similar CD to force leap and maybe even speccable options to improve it.

Worst case scenario they need to be able to let harpoon CD be similar to force leap and unaffected by resolve. This is the easiest fix without messing with trees or changing a ton of programming I'd think. But obviously that would cause other issues (mainly in huttball) and as previously pointed out is not a full proof gap closer thanks to bugginess. So the most obvious solution is making storm baseline as originally proposed. Since we already have harpoon maybe make the CD greater then force leap so it can't be used as often... an average that would allow harpoon and storm be used the same number of times over a period of time as a force leap could be used perhaps?

I don't know, but the concern and point the OP has is valid. Whether those opposed want to listen or not.

Only one tree lacks gap closing utility.

I'm not sure what your point is.

The tree in question (Assault Specialist/Pyrotech) is the one that has had the range reduced, on Incendiary Round/Missile and Assault Plastique/Thermal Detonator, from 30m to 10m. All others have not suffered any change in the range of their abilities.

What is being proposed here is that *all* Vanguards have a gap closer.

Only one tree lacks gap closing utility.

Tactics' smattering of movement speed increases are not the same as "gap closing utility". I define a "gap closer" as an ability that allows a character to get back into melee range after being knocked back a reasonable distance within 1-2 GCDs. A 15% increase in movement speed at all times and 1 second of 30% increased movement speed that doesn't stack with the 15% passive movement speed (so it's really more of a 13% increase because 115% becomes your new baseline) isn't a "gap closer". Passive increases to movement speed are general utility and/or ground effect avoidance benefits. The most you could claim is that Hold The Line is a "gap preventative", which is only effective when you can predict, with a very small margin of error, when you're gonna get hit with a knockback.

My main is a Shadow and I spend a lot of time talking with other Shadows. None of us would make the audacious claim that Misdirection (15% increase to movement speed) is a replacement for Force Speed (the Shadow gap closer). It's a minor QoL benefit. Nothing more.

As such, your claim is pretty much entirely wrong. The only VG tree with gap closing utility is the tank spec.

I consider Pulls to be positioning utilities on par with Knockbacks. They're not really CCs in the traditional sense, and they can be used for much the same purpose (a Guardian that does leap>push>leap properly accomplishes much the same thing as a Pull). Their value is in forcing a target to go where you want them to go, as opposed to closing a gap. Generally, it's impossible or highly difficult to reposition a target without using a repositioning tool. Leaps are, explicitly, gap closers. That's all that they can be used for (except maybe as an additional interrupt) and, honestly, it would just be strange for the developers to have a melee class that *doesn't* have an effective gap closer when they've readily admitted that a melee class without a gap closer isn't effective (that's the explicit reason for the Scoundrel DPS buffs).

 

One of two things happens with a class: you're either ranged capable (which is what DPS VGs *used* to be) or you have a gap closing ability. The changes in 1.4 are removing the former, to keep the AC in line with developer intent, but not making up for it with the latter. Basic foresight and logic would indicate that it's a change that will need to happen eventually. The question is, honestly, whether they'll do it before it becomes a problem on the live servers.

Tactics' smattering of movement speed increases are not the same as "gap closing utility". I define a "gap closer" as an ability that allows a character to get back into melee range after being knocked back a reasonable distance within 1-2 GCDs. A 15% increase in movement speed at all times and 1 second of 30% increased movement speed that doesn't stack with the 15% passive movement speed (so it's really more of a 13% increase because 115% becomes your new baseline) isn't a "gap closer". Passive increases to movement speed are general utility and/or ground effect avoidance benefits. The most you could claim is that Hold The Line is a "gap preventative", which is only effective when you can predict, with a very small margin of error, when you're gonna get hit with a knockback.

 

My main is a Shadow and I spend a lot of time talking with other Shadows. None of us would make the audacious claim that Misdirection (15% increase to movement speed) is a replacement for Force Speed (the Shadow gap closer). It's a minor QoL benefit. Nothing more.

 

As such, your claim is pretty much entirely wrong. The only VG tree with gap closing utility is the tank spec.

Couldn't agree more.

So, the OP is right on the money when pointing out the problem with this nerf w.r.t. gap closing. Both Assault *and* Tactics vanguards will become trivially easy to kite. They won't have a guaranteed snare or root, they won't have a ranged stun, they won't be able to proc any serious damage from outside 10 meters, and they will have no way to get close to a target.

Unfortunately, just adding Storm/Jet Charge would be a serious balance change in PvP. Think about Huttball. Giving yet another class the ability to leap between levels would be absolutely game changing, especially given the vast numbers of (largely awful) vanguards/powertechs we see running around the servers today (thank you, FOTM). So, I honestly don't think this can (or should) happen.

The best thing I can think of is a speed boost of some sort. This could come in the form of a modification to Charge that makes it only work on a single level as a base ability, talented to work over any level (in the Shield tree). Give it a 20 second base cooldown and you just put Vanguards exactly on par with kinetic Shadows in terms of gap closing and repositioning.

The other way they could go is something really tricky, which would be a proc off of periodic damaging effects that increases speed significantly. This would be harder to balance (and harder to use), but it would certainly solve the problem for Assault vanguards (not so much Tactics). Basically, the way this would work is you would Hammer Shot your heart out (assuming you're stuck at range) until you get the burning proc (which also procs the speed boost). Then you mash the speed boost (which would also have to break snares) to close on the target while firing HiB.

The nice thing about the speed proc is it resolves the number one complaint people have with Assault vanguards: they burst too quickly. This is (honestly) a valid complaint. I know how to shut down an assault vanguard, and I can (and have) 1v1'd them down, but I have absolutely no tools (as a shadow!) that allow me to negate that initial burst unless I'm actually staring them straight in the face as they close on me, and even then I have to blow a cooldown on a cleanse. Relegating the gap closer to a proc on the ability you're already using at range imposes a (RNG-moderated) delay on the initial burst, giving someone a bit more time to react and at least identify what is about to kill them.

If someone attempts to kite you while still dotted, you won't even have to worry about hammer shot, since the proc will already be up. Thus, you should have no trouble sticking to someone once you get up on them (modulo some cooldown on the speed boost ability above and beyond the proc).

The downside to this is a) it's very difficult to balance, b) it's RNG-dependant, and so often going to be down when you need it most, and c) really only good for Assault.

Overall, I think the best approach would be to hand out Storm as a base ability, but restricted to on-level and on a longer cooldown. Talent the ability in the Shield tree to allow it to act as a true jump and reduce its cooldown to current levels. Thus, Shield vanguards would be unaffected, while all other vanguards would get a gap closer slightly superior to Force Speed (since it is targeted and uninterruptable).