Maybe it's just me. I'm still relatively new to the game, especially PVP, after all, but I'm posting today because there seems to be a rash of posts on the so-called lack of balance between classes. Is it really so? Are there classes that are really that superior to others? Classes that suck so bad that they are useless? My inclination is to believe that a player's skills weighs far more than the particular abilities of a class, simply based on my own experience. The more I play, the better I get, and I'm occasionally blown away by the output of a player with the same class who's got 2-3 times more damage than me.

Same goes for healing over dps. It's easy to see who's got practice and who's new. Why blame the classes when the problem is lack of (I'll be nice here and won't say skill) practice? I don't think I've seen a class that does not require good management to master - evidenced by the variety of results you see in matches.

Some of the classes are overtuned right now, but it depends on what part of pvp it is. Right now juggs carry solo ranked. Yesterday I held my own 3v1 on my jugg. Saber ward up for a bit and got low, Endure pain + medpac gave me full health, popped an adrenal, got low popped enraged defense, got full health again throw in saber reflect in there for some "lol stop killing yourself" fun and ya..... By the time I used ED I had already killed two players.

In 8v8 jugg is just ok. 2 mins on enraged defense so they are still tanky but nothing crazy like in solo ranked.

Team ranked....no many bring dps juggs

1v1 duels? Good luck.

Madness sorc and assassins? Ya they are just a bit too ridiculous right now....Especially madness sin with all the utility they have now.

PvP forum is a hive of declarations that such and such a spec is utterly worthless and has been for a long time.

Outside of ranked most class/spec combos are workable if not powerful and inside ranked things are so polarised it'd be difficult to create a meta where one or more specs weren't considered free kills.

Don't worry too much about it. PvP'ers have an exaggerated reputation for crying but they DO cry plenty.

Outside of ranked most class/spec combos are workable if not powerful and inside ranked things are so polarised it'd be difficult to create a meta where one or more specs weren't considered free kills.

What makes Ranked so different? I've been sticking to unranked, since I'm still only middle of the pack, working on managing my resources properly so I can keep inching upward in the damage chart.

What makes Ranked so different? I've been sticking to unranked, since I'm still only middle of the pack, working on managing my resources properly so I can keep inching upward in the damage chart.

For one thing, the margin of error is considerably smaller. You mess up a rotation in 8 v 8, you have 7 other teammates that you can count on to pick up the slack. Mess up in ranked and you, or a teammate is going to go down.

Or, if you're being focused, those classes with better defensive CDs or escape mechanisms are going to last longer in ranked arenas. In 8 v 8 those issues are lessened simply because there are far more people to draw someones attention if you are playing a class whose DCDs and escapes are lacking.

What makes Ranked so different? I've been sticking to unranked, since I'm still only middle of the pack, working on managing my resources properly so I can keep inching upward in the damage chart.

The nuances of objective play versus deathmatch mostly. In addition to what's already said.

Example

Concealment operatives have good damage but ***** defenses alongside stealth.

In objective PvP this means they can pick their battles, somewhat. Single people out and solo cap off nodes occasionally. They also make good node guards even if an assassin might be more "optimal".

In ranked it makes them the obvious first target to focus down because they are squishy and you cannot afford to let them deal their damage. Stealth is almost a non factor since they can't afford to stay out of the battle for any significant length of time or their team will be out-damaged.

A scenario where you could die, respawn and run back and the same fight could be going on leads to very different priorities than a 1-death per round game. worth mentioning a long warzone game could be 30mins. The absolute longest an arena can be is 15 with most being MUCH shorter.

The gist is in ranked pvp being a little bit underpowered in some area (offense,defense, CC etc) quickly feels like being VERY unpowered in that area because it goes under the microscope.

The nuances of objective play versus deathmatch mostly. In addition to what's already said.

I see very little difference, in 8's dps tunnel while ignoring their healers. In ranked its the same, first team to lose a healer or anyone really most likely loses.

cant see why people hate arenas/deathmatch when thats literally all they do in regs.

Some of the classes are overtuned right now, but it depends on what part of pvp it is. Right now juggs carry solo ranked. Yesterday I held my own 3v1 on my jugg. Saber ward up for a bit and got low, Endure pain + medpac gave me full health, popped an adrenal, got low popped enraged defense, got full health again throw in saber reflect in there for some "lol stop killing yourself" fun and ya..... By the time I used ED I had already killed two players.

 

In 8v8 jugg is just ok. 2 mins on enraged defense so they are still tanky but nothing crazy like in solo ranked.

 

Team ranked....no many bring dps juggs

.

No offense to you as im sure you're a good player but those guys weren't. Unless your team was filled with juggs they should have left you alone. Attacking through ed is dumb to say the least. Not to mention 3 good players ain't losing them one good one. I mean I merc PTs on my sorcerer healer but that dont mean its universal. Ya feel me.

Also its not that teams dont bring dsy juggs because theyre bad, there's just better comps to bring for strict dps.

My opinion on class balance is;

Snipers - Their damage is fine. Though, they are far too squishy and become mind-numbing in arena because you melt so fast.

Concealment Operative - Finally a buff in damage, but sadly the knockdown was removed which is a pretty big nerf. Not only that, but they are pretty squishy aswell. Would be nice to have an instant heal (like Sorc and Merc do in their DPS trees). Not only that, but Assassin essentially does the same thing, but far better.

Operative Healing is fine, Mercenary and Sorcerer need more instant cast heals though.

Juggernaut needs their enraged defense to be un-usable in stun and have it's healing reduced drastically.

Inquisitor DoTs need to be cleansable.

My opinion on class balance is;

 

Snipers - Their damage is fine. Though, they are far too squishy and become mind-numbing in arena because you melt so fast.

Concealment Operative - Finally a buff in damage, but sadly the knockdown was removed which is a pretty big nerf. Not only that, but they are pretty squishy as well...

Operative Healing is fine, Mercenary and Sorcerer need more instant cast heals though.

Juggernaut needs their enraged defense to be un-usable in stun and have it's healing reduced drastically.

Inquisitor DoTs need to be cleansable.

Sure - but these sound a lot more like fine tuning a class' abilities. My main is a Sentinel and I just started playing an Operative, levelling in PVP. I decided a squishy healer/dps would be interesting. Three things strike me. In the week I've been playing it I level faster; I top the charts at healing, and output almost as much dps as with my sentinel. Operatives seem simpler to play than sent/mara, at least in the first tier, I guess I'll see when I reach 55.

So could it be that BW is consciously maintaining different tiers of classes, some with easy to manage rotations, others more complex to master - make more people kind of happy with no one truly satisfied?!

Some of the classes are overtuned right now, but it depends on what part of pvp it is. Right now juggs carry solo ranked. Yesterday I held my own 3v1 on my jugg. Saber ward up for a bit and got low, Endure pain + medpac gave me full health, popped an adrenal, got low popped enraged defense, got full health again throw in saber reflect in there for some "lol stop killing yourself" fun and ya..... By the time I used ED I had already killed two players.

 

In 8v8 jugg is just ok. 2 mins on enraged defense so they are still tanky but nothing crazy like in solo ranked.

 

Team ranked....no many bring dps juggs

 

1v1 duels? Good luck.

 

Madness sorc and assassins? Ya they are just a bit too ridiculous right now....Especially madness sin with all the utility they have now.

So you would seem to favor Madness Sorc/Sin over Jugg then?

So you would seem to favor Madness Sorc/Sin over Jugg then?

I don't favor anything. I play all classes.

I don't favor anything. I play all classes.

Three points:

The skill curve of a jugg is the sequential usage of its defensive cds while continuing the standard rotation. There is no comparison of the skill level required in a 1 vs 1 against another class.

The skill curve of a sin requires circumstantial usage of its abilities. If a sin is hit is dead. One may try to hit a full cds jugg but the T2K is incomparable with any other spec.

Juggs among no other spec use the uncleansable madness dots to heal themselves .

fascinating Aetideus would you mind going into more detail then

I'm taking away from your post that you feel a Jugg is easier to play because of its defensive nature and the assassin is harder to play due to the classes fragile nature.

So I pose the question (to keep the discussion on topic with the OP) if that's true then certainly EVENTUALLY the assassin would get through those defenses and secure the win based on what others have posted in the thread already.

fascinating Aetideus would you mind going into more detail then

 

I'm taking away from your post that you feel a Jugg is easier to play because of its defensive nature and the assassin is harder to play due to the classes fragile nature.

 

So I pose the question (to keep the discussion on topic with the OP) if that's true then certainly EVENTUALLY the assassin would get through those defenses and secure the win based on what others have posted in the thread already.

My post was regarding the skill cap, but to your hypothetical case I would say that one could never know and it is up to the individual players. It is not a Merc against a Jugg.

(I assume it is more important that the regs and solo q are infested by unskilled h2f than a 1 vs 1 between experts)

Long post inc

Speaking in a general sense, skill > class/spec is a very true statement. However there is some room for wiggling on the matter. For instance, let's say that a madess sin goes up against a rage mara. I can't really think of any way that the mara is going to be winning that fight. Annihilation? That's a huge IF; you might pull it off if you play amazingly and counter everything the sin does, but I'd bet that the sin will still win. Carnage? Same situation. Unless you can bait being whitebarred while the sin's deflection is gone, you're probably going to lose.

That's just one glaring example, though. In the current meta I'd personally say that the only class/specs that are too powerful (in order):

1. Madness (both AC's)

2. Pyro PT

3. Vengeance Juggernaut

Madness because of the uncleansable dots that, with deathmark, tick pretty hard. Combine that with the massive damage on FL and the fact that it's spammable and snares (sorcs) or the proc for assassinate (sins) and the damage output is just all in all too much. I personally thing sorcs are worse than sins, just for the fact that they can do it from range and when you manage to get close, they have Fadeout to just run away and, outside of stuns, you literally can't stop them.

Pyro was too powerful before it got the crazy 35% dot damage buff, with that buff it's just stupid. It's laughably easy to play, can put out ungodly amounts of damage with the ability to time its burst so that it all hits at once, has good sustained damage even after that burst is gone, and has near godmode with all cooldowns ready.

As for Veng, my only complaints are the root on ravage that, when combined with the ability to use the move while CC immune and the cooldown reset, is too much. That, and enraged defense. I'm of the opinion that healing cooldowns are stupid in the first place, and if it were up to me I'd have given juggs a flat damage reduction cooldown, maybe something that reduces damage taken by 50% (or some other rather high reduction) for a short duration, like 4-6 seconds. I'm not really sure how I'd go about that particular move, but I just think it's too strong in its current form, especially in a dot heavy meta where often times you can't do anything to stop the jugg from healing nearly his entire health bar with one button press.

Anyways, that's my thoughts on the matter.

Same goes for healing over dps. It's easy to see who's got practice and who's new. Why blame the classes when the problem is lack of (I'll be nice here and won't say skill) practice? I don't think I've seen a class that does not require good management to master - evidenced by the variety of results you see in matches.

You DID say "skill."

I'm personally offended.

Long post inc

 

Speaking in a general sense, skill > class/spec is a very true statement. However there is some room for wiggling on the matter. For instance, let's say that a madess sin goes up against a rage mara. I can't really think of any way that the mara is going to be winning that fight. Annihilation? That's a huge IF; you might pull it off if you play amazingly and counter everything the sin does, but I'd bet that the sin will still win. Carnage? Same situation. Unless you can bait being whitebarred while the sin's deflection is gone, you're probably going to lose.

 

That's just one glaring example, though. In the current meta I'd personally say that the only class/specs that are too powerful (in order):

 

1. Madness (both AC's)

2. Pyro PT

3. Vengeance Juggernaut

 

Madness because of the uncleansable dots that, with deathmark, tick pretty hard. Combine that with the massive damage on FL and the fact that it's spammable and snares (sorcs) or the proc for assassinate (sins) and the damage output is just all in all too much. I personally thing sorcs are worse than sins, just for the fact that they can do it from range and when you manage to get close, they have Fadeout to just run away and, outside of stuns, you literally can't stop them.

 

Pyro was too powerful before it got the crazy 35% dot damage buff, with that buff it's just stupid. It's laughably easy to play, can put out ungodly amounts of damage with the ability to time its burst so that it all hits at once, has good sustained damage even after that burst is gone, and has near godmode with all cooldowns ready.

 

As for Veng, my only complaints are the root on ravage that, when combined with the ability to use the move while CC immune and the cooldown reset, is too much. That, and enraged defense. I'm of the opinion that healing cooldowns are stupid in the first place, and if it were up to me I'd have given juggs a flat damage reduction cooldown, maybe something that reduces damage taken by 50% (or some other rather high reduction) for a short duration, like 4-6 seconds. I'm not really sure how I'd go about that particular move, but I just think it's too strong in its current form, especially in a dot heavy meta where often times you can't do anything to stop the jugg from healing nearly his entire health bar with one button press.

 

Anyways, that's my thoughts on the matter.

Vengeance is the only of those three I'd consider barring overpowered, for your reasoning and others.

Madness needed to be buffed because sorcs were too easy a target. I don't however, think the dps specs for Sorcs require any more buffing but we'll see where they land when the changes go live. They're still relatively easy to shut down without a team that can support them and it takes a lot of skill to truly master the class. The only reason people think Madness is overpowered is because of the Skill to Class differential. 90% of sorcs are mediocre players who rolled a hard-to-master class because they thought it'd be easy after seeing what skilled players [like that guy above me] can do.

Pyro seems overpowered because any numbskull can make it put out ridiculous damage, but it's balanced because those same numbskulls will get stunlocked and die. Powertechs have two cooldowns [energy shield and Kolto overload], and Pyro has a third that is rendered next-to-meaningless in PVP [chaff flare]. Kill 'em before they're smart enough to load kolto, or between it recharging [roughly 45seconds of constant focus], and it's just as easy to take them down as it is for them to top the damage board. The DoT reduction is needed because dots can't be mitigated. The fact that the other two trees don't have it really really really sucks. DoTs ticking for more while in execute range is the closest thing Powertechs have for an execute, which the other two tankable classes have in their dps and tank specs. Pyro is the most well rounded and balanced spec for the class, perhaps for any class, but it has its limitations just like every other spec in the game, sans Vengeance. While I main a powertech, I try to play pyro as little as possible on the offchance that I'm playing DPS, so you can take my opinion as a bias, but let that not negate its validity.

TL;DR:

Skill > Class, yes.

Some classes are better than others, yes.

Those better specs still require skill to perform well.

Vengeance is the only of those three I'd consider barring overpowered, for your reasoning and others.

 

Madness needed to be buffed because sorcs were too easy a target. I don't however, think the dps specs for Sorcs require any more buffing but we'll see where they land when the changes go live. They're still relatively easy to shut down without a team that can support them and it takes a lot of skill to truly master the class. The only reason people think Madness is overpowered is because of the Skill to Class differential. 90% of sorcs are mediocre players who rolled a hard-to-master class because they thought it'd be easy after seeing what skilled players [like that guy above me] can do.

 

Pyro seems overpowered because any numbskull can make it put out ridiculous damage, but it's balanced because those same numbskulls will get stunlocked and die. Powertechs have two cooldowns [energy shield and Kolto overload], and Pyro has a third that is rendered next-to-meaningless in PVP [chaff flare]. Kill 'em before they're smart enough to load kolto, or between it recharging [roughly 45seconds of constant focus], and it's just as easy to take them down as it is for them to top the damage board. The DoT reduction is needed because dots can't be mitigated. The fact that the other two trees don't have it really really really sucks. DoTs ticking for more while in execute range is the closest thing Powertechs have for an execute, which the other two tankable classes have in their dps and tank specs. Pyro is the most well rounded and balanced spec for the class, perhaps for any class, but it has its limitations just like every other spec in the game, sans Vengeance. While I main a powertech, I try to play pyro as little as possible on the offchance that I'm playing DPS, so you can take my opinion as a bias, but let that not negate its validity.

 

TL;DR:

Skill > Class, yes.

Some classes are better than others, yes.

Those better specs still require skill to perform well.

At the very least madness sorcs need the snare on FL removed. They already have a regular slow, a root, a knockback, and a sprint with immunity to movement impairs during it. A slow on their ranged spammable attack is kind of obnoxious at this point. As for Pyro, I'm going to have to disagree about the balanced part. I'm speaking from a strictly "all cooldowns ready" stance, and I really don't think any class (barrings tanks, for obvious reasons) should be able to pop "everything" and be able to sit there under massive focus fire and, not only not die, but still put out ridiculous amounts of damage (the same argument goes for a veng jugg as well, but we're both apparently in agreement there). And yes, if the Pyro pops everything he only gets 8 seconds of this "godmode", it's still annoying that it's a thing at all.

Now I admit I am a bit biased. Pyrotechs are a dime a dozen on TEH (seeing less than 2-3 per WZ is a rarity anymore) and that is a contributing factor to me being fed up with them, it also just bugs me that a Pyro can accomplish with the press of a few buttons and barely any thinking at all, something that takes a lot more thought on my mara to do. I suppose that is probably a fairly unfair comparison, seeing as how mara's aren't exactly the greatest thing ever, but I think it has enough validity to stand. Kolto for Pyro just seems too powerful, and while you are correct in that it's one of their two only "real" cooldowns, I think that it's the main reason they're OP, which goes hand in hand with enraged defense for vengeance.

Or, if the survivability isn't to be touched, the damage should. BW seems to like the "you can't have burst and sustained" thing, but that's exactly what Pyro has and I can't think of another spec in the game that has amazing burst and (thanks to the 35% dot buff) pretty good sustained. Now it's not the best sustained damage ever, but it's pretty good considering that the primary focus of the spec is burst damage, and that's something that I think just doesn't make sense when you look at other specs who have either burst or sustained, but not both. Pyrotech just seems to be the spec that someone who wants this game to be on ez mode should play.

Before you ask, I don't have one at 55. I leveled one up to aroud 45-46 via PvP and I got so bored that I deleted it. It was just too easy for me to enjoy. Half the time I could basically fall asleep at my keyboard and do well, hell, I even felt confident 2v1'ing almost anyone so long as all my cooldowns were up. Granted yes, it's midbies and often people there aren't exactly the brightest, but even so the spec was still far too easy, and I personally think that a large part of that easiness is because of the OPness of the spec, although I doubt you and I will agree on that.

-snipped for length-

If a powertech pops everything at once, he's an idiot who can be stunned through the duration of his shield and then killed once kolto is done since they have literally nothing left after that. They can buy time with adrenal and medpac, but if a pyro PT is dumb enough to pop shield and kolto then they've probably wasted one of those, too. The difference between a skilled player and someone wanting the game in easymode is the proper usage of defensives, especially when they're so limited in that area. Both AP and Pyro have good burst and sustained, really. The difference is that Pyro just requires railshot to be available while AP requires constant melee range.

The fact that you killed your PT makes me sad. Did you try the other two specs? AP is crazy fun and a true challenge to play with all the DoTs against us and nothing to counter them, and an absolute need for situational awareness. Against all ranged it's about as frustrating as playing a mara, except no leap makes it worse. Speaking of leaps, if you ever re-level a PT, try playing tank and you'll find a new reason to be annoyed by juggs that, even in a mediocre player's hands, are better than you.

Talking about "skill" in SWTOR pvp is a bit silly, really. It's by far and away, without a single shred of doubt, the most simplistic and dumbed-down "competitive" multiplayer game I have ever encountered.

I think you misspelled Wildstar.

IMO over powered comes down to one main thing, how well do you preform to how much effort you are putting in. For a class like pyro, I took my PT (a character which I had not played in over a year and was in half arkanian and half partisan tank gear) went into warzones and I pulled 450+k dmg in 6 consecutive warzones and only had 2 where I did 300k all with fairly low deaths, around 8 per. This was a spec that I had never played(only tanking on the time I had played him) and I preformed very, very well considering gear and experience. Compare this to a lightning sorc, a class which left in the hands of a very good player will destroy someone is much harder to play so it balances out because the amount of time and effort you have to put in is comperable to power. Obviously there needs to be some specs that are very "noob" friendly but the reason why I would have a problem with a spec like pyro is because

1. It has ridiculously high damage to begin with

2. It has very high burst and very frequent burst

3. It's rotation is very simple

4. It has strong(and short cd) defensive abilities

5. Has high utility

6. It suffers from no positional requirements or not being the first to engage.

7. Fairly hard to kite

Specs I would say are over powered are

1 madness both classes

2 pyro pt

I don't really count juggernauts as OP because it is just 1 skill that makes them really strong and that is easy to fix(by adding a lower DR to power) I mean honestly most people laughed at juggernauts before the change and they were deemed "unviable" for ranked before

Also the way the meta works is if there is an influx of a certain fotm class then classes with a counter start to seem op while those that dont start to seem up.

With the influx of fotm juggs its not surprising that the next class to become fotm is a kiting dot class that has an easier time dealing with mdps.

It will constantly change as class make up adjusts. Stealth burst is likely to be the next fotm to deal with kiters.

If a powertech pops everything at once, he's an idiot who can be stunned through the duration of his shield and then killed once kolto is done since they have literally nothing left after that. They can buy time with adrenal and medpac, but if a pyro PT is dumb enough to pop shield and kolto then they've probably wasted one of those, too. The difference between a skilled player and someone wanting the game in easymode is the proper usage of defensives, especially when they're so limited in that area. Both AP and Pyro have good burst and sustained, really. The difference is that Pyro just requires railshot to be available while AP requires constant melee range.

 

The fact that you killed your PT makes me sad. Did you try the other two specs? AP is crazy fun and a true challenge to play with all the DoTs against us and nothing to counter them, and an absolute need for situational awareness. Against all ranged it's about as frustrating as playing a mara, except no leap makes it worse. Speaking of leaps, if you ever re-level a PT, try playing tank and you'll find a new reason to be annoyed by juggs that, even in a mediocre player's hands, are better than you.

I tried AP around level 30 and didn't much care for the feel of it, but of course it's sub-45, so take that with a grain of salt. Anyways I doubt I'll ever touch the class again. The time I spent with it was amusing at first in lowbies, then it just got plain boring because I was playing pyro and it was easy. I barely ever play my jugg for the same reason, and the only reason I've not deleted him is because I'm hoping smash gets buffed so me and some friends can run around with 4 smash jugg premades with the guild tag <Super Smash Bros> for lulz