We all now, PVE class balance is all over the place. Burst ahead of DoT specs, ranged ahead of melee. In hope that a dev get lost and stamble upon this thread I'd like to talk about class balance. Now, bare in mind this is stricly for PVE and doesn't take PVP into account nor is it intended to take it into account.

This class balance hasn't been created by me, but by Aelanis. He has a lot of insight about every specs in the game and helped me a lot with this (he basically did all the work because I don't have nowhere near as much knowledge he has about the game).

This is theoretical DPS on dummy, but also take into account everything that can help in a live raid. I've also taken some assumption in what some specs should be able to do.

I've based the DPS number on live Annihilation for the 1st place.

 

+2.00% 7068 DPS- Assasin Hatred - Shadow Serenity

• - : Melee, sustained, light armor, almost no ranged options, few active defenses, and the worst passive mitigation in the game (self-heals)

+1.80% 7054 DPS - Marauder Annihilation - Sentinel Watchman

• + : Raid buffs, good defenses

• - : Melee, sustained, next to no ranged options outside of gap closing, medium armor, need to stand still to channel every so often

+1.60% 7040 DPS - Operative Lethality - Scoundrel Ruffian

• + : Raid buff, good active defenses, stealth rez with no cooldown, dispell

• - : Melee, sustained, medium armor, weak ranged options, bad AOE

+1.40% 7026 DPS - Powertech Pyrotech - Vanguard Plasmatech

• + : Good AOE, heavy armor

• - : Melee, sustained, need to stand still to channel

+1.40% 7026 DPS - Juggernaut Vengeance - Guardian Vigilance

• + : Heavy armor, strong active defenses

• - : Melee, sustained, need to stand still to channel. The only DPS class that can really reasonably survive tanking for a few seconds (other than Rage)

+0.50% 6964 DPS - Sorcerer Madness - Sage Balance

• + : Ranged, raid buff, combat rez, dispell

• - : Sustained, low passive defenses, almost non existent active defenses, and the worst passive mitigation in the game (self-heals)

+0.30% 6950 DPS - Sniper Virulence - Gunslinger Dirty Fighting

• + : Ranged, sustained, incredible survivability in general

• - : Sustained, requires multiple channels to achieve full damage

+0.10% 6935 DPS - Marauder Carnage - Sentinal Combat

• + : Raid buffs, good burst and AoE, good passive and excellent active defenses

• - : Melee, need to stand still to channel every so often

+0.00% 6929 DPS - Assassin Deception - Shadow Infiltration

• + : Decent passive defenses, burst

• - : Melee, light armor, highly situational active defenses and rotational use of stealth both make it hard to perform off-roles (including stealth rezzes)

+0.00% 6929 DPS - Mercenary Innovative Ordnance - Commando Assault Specialist

• + : Ranged, good mobility, raid buff, combat rez

• - : Sustained, mediocre passive and active defenses

-0.10% 6922 DPS - Operative Concealment - Scoundrel Scrapper

• + : Good passive defenses and extremely strong active defenses, burst, raid buff

• - : Melee, rotational stealth removes ability to really use the stealth rez

-0.20% 6915 DPS - Sniper Engineering - Gunslinger Saboteur

• + : Ranged, semi-sustained, excellent all-around defenses and some incredible AoE damage

-0.30% 6908 DPS - Powertech Advanced Prototype - Vanguard Tactics

• + : Strong burst, highly mobile, decent passive defenses and heavy armor as well as hydraulic overrides as a melee

• - : Melee, lack of strong active defenses, no real ranged option since 4.5 nerf

-1.10% 6853 DPS- Juggernaut Rage - Guardian Focus

• + : Burst, pretty mobile, incredible active defenses, heavy armor, off-tanking capability, multiple gap closers

• - : Melee

-1.10% 6853 DPS- Marauder Fury - Sentinel Concentration

• + : Burst, pretty mobile, good active defenses, multiple gap closers

• - : Melee

-2.00% 6790 DPS- Sorcerer Lightning - Sage Telekinetics

• + : Ranged, burst (burst should not be too strong though), highly mobile, good AoE, decent passive defenses, raid buff, combat rez, no force management

• - : Light armor, bad active defenses

-2.10% 6783 DPS- Mercenary Arsenal - Commando Gunnery

• + : Ranged, very strong burst, highly mobile, not-awful passive defenses, raid buff, combat rez

-2.20% 6777 DPS - Sniper Marksmanship - Gunslinger Sharpshooter

• + : Ranged, burst (should be the best in the game), very strong passive and active defenses

• - : Not very mobile

 

As you can see, defense and raid utility plays a role to balance the damage. It's probably not perfect, but I think it's a fair balance where no specs is clearly inferior to the others. Everyone has something to bring to a raid and, I think, that's what make a balance good. And every specs are within 5% as Bioware want it (you could argue that they stated they wanted Annihilation 1st DPS, but as you can see it has more things to bring on the table compared to Hatred hence why it's 2nd)

Now, if you have something you disagree, feel free to say it here in a polite way. I'm not closed about discussion and really want to hear about every constructive criticism. Together we could make the best class balance.

 

Bant has run his simulation based on this proposed balance.

 

You can see all the details here

 

 

 

 

 

The results are the following

 

Rank: DPS +-Error (% vs Average) Imperial Discipline || Republic Discipline

01: 7089+-228 (+2.26%) Assassin - Hatred || Shadow - Serenity

02: 7051+-191 (+1.72%) Marauder - Annihilation || Sentinel - Watchman

03: 7039+-158 (+1.54%) Operative - Lethality || Scoundrel - Ruffian

04: 7034+-201 (+1.47%) Juggernaut - Vengeance || Guardian - Vigilance

05: 7016+-191 (+1.20%) Powertech - Pyrotech || Vanguard - Plasmatech

06: 6965+-211 (+0.47%) Sorcerer - Madness || Sage - Balance

07: 6950+-107 (+0.26%) Sniper - Virulence || Gunslinger - Dirty Fighting

08: 6947+-153 (+0.21%) Sniper - Engineering || Gunslinger - Saboteur

09: 6942+-146 (+0.14%) Marauder - Carnage || Sentinel - Combat

10: 6927+-378 (-0.07%) Assassin - Deception || Shadow - Infiltration

11: 6923+-230 (-0.13%) Mercenary - Innovative Ordinance || Commando - Assault Specialist

12: 6921+-325 (-0.16%) Operative - Concealment || Scoundrel - Scrapper

13: 6912+-311 (-0.29%) Powertech - Advanced Prototype || Vanguard - Tactics

14: 6865+-222 (-0.97%) Marauder - Fury || Sentinel - Concentration

15: 6839+-306 (-1.35%) Juggernaut - Rage || Guardian - Focus

16: 6793+-207 (-2.01%) Sorcerer - Lightning || Sage - Telekinetics

17: 6788+-265 (-2.09%) Mercenary - Arsenal || Commando - Gunnery

18: 6780+-307 (-2.20%) Sniper - Marksman || Gunslinger - Sharpshooter

Edited July 5, 2016 by LudhaninRolgge

We all now, PVE class balance is all over the place. Burst ahead of DoT specs, ranged ahead of melee. In hope that a dev get lost and stamble upon this thread I'd like to talk about class balance. Now, bare in mind this is stricly for PVE and doesn't take PVP into account nor is it intended to take it into account.

This class balance hasn't been created by me, but by Aelanis. He has a lot of insight about every specs in the game and helped me a lot with this (he basically did all the work because I don't have nowhere near as much knowledge he has about the game).

This is theoretical DPS on dummy, but also take into account everything that can help in a live raid. I've also taken some assumption in what some specs should be able to do.

I've based the DPS number on live Annihilation for the 1st place.

 

+2.00% 7068 DPS- Assasin Hatred - Shadow Serenity

• - : Melee, sustained, light armor, almost no ranged options, few active defenses, and the worst passive mitigation in the game (self-heals)

+1.80% 7054 DPS - Marauder Annihilation - Sentinel Watchman

• + : Raid buffs, good excellent defenses

• - : Melee, sustained, next to no ranged options outside of gap closing, medium armor, need to stand still to channel every so often

+1.60% 7040 DPS - Operative Lethality - Scoundrel Ruffian

• + : Raid buff, good active defenses, stealth rez with no cooldown, dispell

• - : Melee, sustained, medium armor, weak ranged options, bad AOE

+1.40% 7026 DPS - Powertech Pyrotech - Vanguard Plasmatech

• + : Good AOE, heavy armor

• - : Melee, sustained, need to stand still to channel

+1.40% 7026 DPS - Juggernaut Vengeance - Guardian Vigilance

• + : Heavy armor, strong active defenses

• - : Melee, sustained, need to stand still to channel. The only DPS class that can really reasonably survive tanking for a few seconds (other than Rage)

+0.50% 6964 DPS - Sorcerer Madness - Sage Balance

• + : Ranged, raid buff, combat rez, dispell

• - : Sustained, low passive defenses, almost non existent active defenses, and the worst passive mitigation in the game (self-heals)

+0.30% 6950 DPS - Sniper Virulence - Gunslinger Dirty Fighting

• + : Ranged, sustained, incredible survivability in general

• - : Sustained, requires multiple channels to achieve full damage

+0.10% 6935 DPS - Marauder Carnage - Sentinal Combat

• + : Raid buffs, good burst and AoE, good passive and excellent active defenses

• - : Melee, need to stand still to channel every so often

+0.00% 6929 DPS - Assassin Deception - Shadow Infiltration

• + : Decent passive defenses, burst

• - : Melee, light armor, highly situational active defenses and rotational use of stealth both make it hard to perform off-roles (including stealth rezzes)

+0.00% 6929 DPS - Mercenary Innovative Ordnance - Commando Assault Specialist

• + : Ranged, good mobility, raid buff, combat rez

• - : Sustained, mediocre passive and active defenses

-0.10% 6922 DPS - Operative Concealment - Scoundrel Scrapper

• + : Good passive defenses and extremely strong active defenses, burst, raid buff

• - : Melee, rotational stealth removes ability to really use the stealth rez

-0.20% 6915 DPS - Sniper Engineering - Gunslinger Saboteur

• + : Ranged, semi-sustained, excellent all-around defenses and some incredible AoE damage

-0.30% 6908 DPS - Powertech Advanced Prototype - Vanguard Tactics

• + : Strong burst, highly mobile, decent passive defenses and heavy armor as well as hydraulic overrides as a melee

• - : Melee, lack of strong active defenses, no real ranged option since 4.5 nerf

-1.10% 6853 DPS- Juggernaut Rage - Guardian Focus

• + : Burst, pretty mobile, incredible active defenses, heavy armor, off-tanking capability, multiple gap closers

• - : Melee

-1.10% 6853 DPS- Marauder Fury - Sentinel Concentration

• + : Burst, pretty mobile, good active defenses, multiple gap closers

• - : Melee

-2.00% 6790 DPS- Sorcerer Lightning - Sage Telekinetics

• + : Ranged, burst (burst should not be too strong though), highly mobile, good AoE, decent passive defenses, raid buff, combat rez, no force management

• - : Light armor, bad active defenses

-2.10% 6783 DPS- Mercenary Arsenal - Commando Gunnery

• + : Ranged, very strong burst, highly mobile, not-awful passive defenses, raid buff, combat rez

-2.20% 6777 DPS - Sniper Marksmanship - Gunslinger Sharpshooter

• + : Ranged, burst (should be the best in the game), very strong passive and active defenses

• - : Not very mobile

 

As you can see, defense and raid utility plays a role to balance the damage. It's probably not perfect, but I think it's a fair balance where no specs is clearly inferior to the others. Everyone has something to bring to a raid and, I think, that's what make a balance good. And every specs are within 5% as Bioware want it (you could argue that they stated they wanted Annihilation 1st DPS, but as you can see it has more things to bring on the table compared to Hatred hence why it's 2nd)

Now, if you have something you disagree, feel free to say it here in a polite way. I'm not closed about discussion and really want to hear about every constructive criticism. Together we could make the best class balance.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Please excuse the many spelling errors I will undoubtedly make =]

 

Firstly, let me just say that my response is not meant for flaming or trolling. As I have some issues with your proposal of balance of the classes. I respect the purpose of your proposals, but it's the application of it I find questionable. Please do not take my disagreements as a slight to, that's is not intended and you have every right to your opinions

 

 

I can understand wanting the class you play and prefer to be the best, who wouldn't that?

 

Respectfuly the 'balance' of classes as you have drawn up, not only would it not bring balance to the classes, it would actually make the balance worse.

 

It's very hard to take seriously a balance change where in the two pure dps classes are religated to such sub-par status as to make Snipers and Marauders pointless to play [i know you included anni on the top, but there are two other specs and class balance cannot be achieved when you ignore the other specs.

 

Essentially what you are saying is you think the game would better off wherein sneaky cowardly assassins are better warriors than Snipers and Marauders who's sole purpose is directed to combat. It's like saying a Ninja is a better in your face warrior than the samurai. It simply makes no sense.

 

Simply put, and there may be some who disagree, Snipers and Marauders should rule to roost as it were in terms of DPS output and ranking. You want to send Marauders right back into the hell of 3.0 where no one wanted Marauders in the New Operations [TOS/Rav]. We finally get some love after 4.0 and it wasnt that long ago, and everyone wants to nerf them because they want their class to be the best.

 

Assassins and Operatives - the sneaky ***** classes [i love Opertatives, they're useful as hell]- you think should be the best dpsers? In addition to being able to swap roles whenever the hell they want giving them infinately more utility than a pure dps class. Yes the Operative healer should be out dpsing pure dps classes and have their heals/off heals to keep them going long after the corpses of Snipers and Marauders are littering the battlefield.

 

Juggs and Sorcs - You propose that Juggs [spec sensitive] should be better dps than Marauders? Lets give them all their great defenses make harder to kill and make them at the same time do better dps than Marauders and Snipers.

Better armor, better defenses, better utility because they have the option to switch roles. - Please don't say that people would still want Marauders despite the fact that their dps is subpar all because they want bloodthirst. We had Bloodthirst during the hell days of 3.0 too, they still didnt want us.

 

Sorcs - Again they can switch roles whenever they like and even in DPS spec they still have their offheals, Where as Carnage and Fury Marauders have their one medpac they could use during the entirely of the fight. DPS speced are also ranged so they have much better uptime compared to marauders. Sorcs are not warriors, they are gandalf. I have nothing against them and I think they should definately have their due, but behind the pure dps classes. I think they should be the best healers/support and their dps should be reflective of even in dps spec they still have off heals, god bubbles, and teleportation.

 

Once again Powertechs would be regaining their DPS monstrosity - I cant say they are not warriors, i have no problem with them being high on the DPS chart, they should be because now more than ever they are melee classes. But once again, they can switch roles.

 

For the record I do not play a Sniper, I play a Marauder, as things stand right now Marauders are in a good place and they are exactly where they should be in the pecking order, and even still i'm a big supporter of Snipers being raised up once again and have their DPS reflective of their pure dps status. I gain nothing by advocating that, I make the point only to demonstraite that I am not just being partial to the class i love and play.

 

I 'm somewhat perplexed by the notion that any fair, reasonable and impartial consideration of class rankings would not be okay with the two pure dps classes being the 'best' dps classes. I simply cannot phathom the justification, where you are supposedly trying to come up with ideas to balance the classes and than you want to make the pure dps classes subpar. How is that balanced?

 

No self heals. Medium armor despite the fact that Marauders must be up in the bosses face [so to speak] the whole fight, cannot tank, cannot heal, cannot rez, cannot sneak, cannot God bubble, dont have to be killed twice [juggs], cannot disappear when things get hairy ;heal up in safety [during the fight] and than come back having left the other melee having to deal with the enemies down a man, cannot stun, cannot teleport, cannot dirty rez, cannot put adds to sleep,ect ect.

 

Simply put, you have no consideration for those who opted utility for that little extra steam behind their punch.

 

I have no issue with the non pure dps classes getting some buff to damage to bring them a bit closer to the pure dps classes. I'm not saying that Snipers and Marauders should a wide margin in dps compared to the other classes. I'd be fine with Snipers and Marauders only having 2 or 3 percent dps comparitvely. Even 1 percent. Becuase anything less than that is just a slap in the face. Juggs should come up right beind Snipers and Marauders [for the simple fact they are sith Warriors as well.

 

In DnD, who does more damage, the fighter or the theif?

 

Who would more likely win a fight against each other, a ninja with virtually no armor to speak of [just like assys and sorcs] or the Knight in full plate mail armor

 

I do understand that people want their due, and im all for it, but there is absoluetly no legitimate justification for a sneaky Assassin who in certain specs is required to stab the enemy in the back, should be greater warriors than Marauders and Snipers who have dedicated their whole reason for being to combat, war, and destruction.

 

Assys need some love in pve dps, theres no question at all about that and I am all for it, but the day Marauders come behind Assassins, Operatives and to a lesser extent Juggs in the dps pecking order, I'll hang up my sabers for good and leave the game. Mercs/Powertechs should definately be on the higher side of the sprectrum as well. How you figured that Assys should come before Annihilation is beyond my comprehension.

 

Carnage/Combat, its literally spelled out. COMBAT.

 

Pure DPS Classes. I don't know how it could be made any more clear.

 

I hope some of the other classes on the lower end of the sprectrum get an appropriate buff to dps.

If the highest possible DPS is what some one is looking for than they should play a Sniper or a Marauder.

That was what I was looking for, thats why I chose a Marauder.

 

You're not seeking balance when you religate the pure dps classes below the non pure dps classes. It would just be plain unfair, and a slap in the faces of all those who choose a pure dps class because they wanted to be able to reach the heights of DPS.

 

The DPS difference margins between the classes [even pure dps] should not be extreme, but it should take into account all the options the classes have at their disposal. You can't have everything. Greater utility and adaption options must have a trade off.

 

 

I'd be intrested to see the thoughts of others on this subject. If nothing else i think your post and subsequent responses could be a good springboard for such future considerations of the classes by BW. Clearly you are genuine in your desire to bring the classes closer in comparison to each other and I appluad the destination you seek even if not the "road" you've chosen to get there.

 

Be well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Please excuse the many spelling errors I will undoubtedly make =]

 

Firstly, let me just say that my response is not meant for flaming or trolling. As I have some issues with your proposal of balance of the classes. I respect the purpose of your proposals, but it's the application of it I find questionable. Please do not take my disagreements as a slight to, that's is not intended and you have every right to your opinions

 

 

I can understand wanting the class you play and prefer to be the best, who wouldn't that?

 

Respectfuly the 'balance' of classes as you have drawn up, not only would it not bring balance to the classes, it would actually make the balance worse.

 

It's very hard to take seriously a balance change where in the two pure dps classes are religated to such sub-par status as to make Snipers and Marauders pointless to play [i know you included anni on the top, but there are two other specs and class balance cannot be achieved when you ignore the other specs.

 

Essentially what you are saying is you think the game would better off wherein sneaky cowardly assassins are better warriors than Snipers and Marauders who's sole purpose is directed to combat. It's like saying a Ninja is a better in your face warrior than the samurai. It simply makes no sense.

 

Simply put, and there may be some who disagree, Snipers and Marauders should rule to roost as it were in terms of DPS output and ranking. You want to send Marauders right back into the hell of 3.0 where no one wanted Marauders in the New Operations [TOS/Rav]. We finally get some love after 4.0 and it wasnt that long ago, and everyone wants to nerf them because they want their class to be the best.

 

Assassins and Operatives - the sneaky ***** classes [i love Opertatives, they're useful as hell]- you think should be the best dpsers? In addition to being able to swap roles whenever the hell they want giving them infinately more utility than a pure dps class. Yes the Operative healer should be out dpsing pure dps classes and have their heals/off heals to keep them going long after the corpses of Snipers and Marauders are littering the battlefield.

 

Juggs and Sorcs - You propose that Juggs [spec sensitive] should be better dps than Marauders? Lets give them all their great defenses make harder to kill and make them at the same time do better dps than Marauders and Snipers.

Better armor, better defenses, better utility because they have the option to switch roles. - Please don't say that people would still want Marauders despite the fact that their dps is subpar all because they want bloodthirst. We had Bloodthirst during the hell days of 3.0 too, they still didnt want us.

 

Sorcs - Again they can switch roles whenever they like and even in DPS spec they still have their offheals, Where as Carnage and Fury Marauders have their one medpac they could use during the entirely of the fight. DPS speced are also ranged so they have much better uptime compared to marauders. Sorcs are not warriors, they are gandalf. I have nothing against them and I think they should definately have their due, but behind the pure dps classes. I think they should be the best healers/support and their dps should be reflective of even in dps spec they still have off heals, god bubbles, and teleportation.

 

Once again Powertechs would be regaining their DPS monstrosity - I cant say they are not warriors, i have no problem with them being high on the DPS chart, they should be because now more than ever they are melee classes. But once again, they can switch roles.

 

For the record I do not play a Sniper, I play a Marauder, as things stand right now Marauders are in a good place and they are exactly where they should be in the pecking order, and even still i'm a big supporter of Snipers being raised up once again and have their DPS reflective of their pure dps status. I gain nothing by advocating that, I make the point only to demonstraite that I am not just being partial to the class i love and play.

 

I 'm somewhat perplexed by the notion that any fair, reasonable and impartial consideration of class rankings would not be okay with the two pure dps classes being the 'best' dps classes. I simply cannot phathom the justification, where you are supposedly trying to come up with ideas to balance the classes and than you want to make the pure dps classes subpar. How is that balanced?

 

No self heals. Medium armor despite the fact that Marauders must be up in the bosses face [so to speak] the whole fight, cannot tank, cannot heal, cannot rez, cannot sneak, cannot God bubble, dont have to be killed twice [juggs], cannot disappear when things get hairy ;heal up in safety [during the fight] and than come back having left the other melee having to deal with the enemies down a man, cannot stun, cannot teleport, cannot dirty rez, cannot put adds to sleep,ect ect.

 

Simply put, you have no consideration for those who opted utility for that little extra steam behind their punch.

 

I have no issue with the non pure dps classes getting some buff to damage to bring them a bit closer to the pure dps classes. I'm not saying that Snipers and Marauders should a wide margin in dps compared to the other classes. I'd be fine with Snipers and Marauders only having 2 or 3 percent dps comparitvely. Even 1 percent. Becuase anything less than that is just a slap in the face. Juggs should come up right beind Snipers and Marauders [for the simple fact they are sith Warriors as well.

 

In DnD, who does more damage, the fighter or the theif?

 

Who would more likely win a fight against each other, a ninja with virtually no armor to speak of [just like assys and sorcs] or the Knight in full plate mail armor

 

I do understand that people want their due, and im all for it, but there is absoluetly no legitimate justification for a sneaky Assassin who in certain specs is required to stab the enemy in the back, should be greater warriors than Marauders and Snipers who have dedicated their whole reason for being to combat, war, and destruction.

 

Assys need some love in pve dps, theres no question at all about that and I am all for it, but the day Marauders come behind Assassins, Operatives and to a lesser extent Juggs in the dps pecking order, I'll hang up my sabers for good and leave the game. Mercs/Powertechs should definately be on the higher side of the sprectrum as well. How you figured that Assys should come before Annihilation is beyond my comprehension.

 

Carnage/Combat, its literally spelled out. COMBAT.

 

Pure DPS Classes. I don't know how it could be made any more clear.

 

I hope some of the other classes on the lower end of the sprectrum get an appropriate buff to dps.

If the highest possible DPS is what some one is looking for than they should play a Sniper or a Marauder.

That was what I was looking for, thats why I chose a Marauder.

 

You're not seeking balance when you religate the pure dps classes below the non pure dps classes. It would just be plain unfair, and a slap in the faces of all those who choose a pure dps class because they wanted to be able to reach the heights of DPS.

 

The DPS difference margins between the classes [even pure dps] should not be extreme, but it should take into account all the options the classes have at their disposal. You can't have everything. Greater utility and adaption options must have a trade off.

 

 

I'd be intrested to see the thoughts of others on this subject. If nothing else i think your post and subsequent responses could be a good springboard for such future considerations of the classes by BW. Clearly you are genuine in your desire to bring the classes closer in comparison to each other and I appluad the destination you seek even if not the "road" you've chosen to get there.

 

Be well.

 

I don't really agree that "pure" DPS classes should be at the top automatically. Balance should look at what specs bring to the table as a whole meaning DPS, survivability and utility and currently assassins suffer on all of those categories.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Please excuse the many spelling errors I will undoubtedly make =]

 

Firstly, let me just say that my response is not meant for flaming or trolling. As I have some issues with your proposal of balance of the classes. I respect the purpose of your proposals, but it's the application of it I find questionable. Please do not take my disagreements as a slight to, that's is not intended and you have every right to your opinions

 

 

I can understand wanting the class you play and prefer to be the best, who wouldn't that?

 

Respectfuly the 'balance' of classes as you have drawn up, not only would it not bring balance to the classes, it would actually make the balance worse.

 

It's very hard to take seriously a balance change where in the two pure dps classes are religated to such sub-par status as to make Snipers and Marauders pointless to play [i know you included anni on the top, but there are two other specs and class balance cannot be achieved when you ignore the other specs.

 

Essentially what you are saying is you think the game would better off wherein sneaky cowardly assassins are better warriors than Snipers and Marauders who's sole purpose is directed to combat. It's like saying a Ninja is a better in your face warrior than the samurai. It simply makes no sense.

 

Simply put, and there may be some who disagree, Snipers and Marauders should rule to roost as it were in terms of DPS output and ranking. You want to send Marauders right back into the hell of 3.0 where no one wanted Marauders in the New Operations [TOS/Rav]. We finally get some love after 4.0 and it wasnt that long ago, and everyone wants to nerf them because they want their class to be the best.

 

Assassins and Operatives - the sneaky ***** classes [i love Opertatives, they're useful as hell]- you think should be the best dpsers? In addition to being able to swap roles whenever the hell they want giving them infinately more utility than a pure dps class. Yes the Operative healer should be out dpsing pure dps classes and have their heals/off heals to keep them going long after the corpses of Snipers and Marauders are littering the battlefield.

 

Juggs and Sorcs - You propose that Juggs [spec sensitive] should be better dps than Marauders? Lets give them all their great defenses make harder to kill and make them at the same time do better dps than Marauders and Snipers.

Better armor, better defenses, better utility because they have the option to switch roles. - Please don't say that people would still want Marauders despite the fact that their dps is subpar all because they want bloodthirst. We had Bloodthirst during the hell days of 3.0 too, they still didnt want us.

 

Sorcs - Again they can switch roles whenever they like and even in DPS spec they still have their offheals, Where as Carnage and Fury Marauders have their one medpac they could use during the entirely of the fight. DPS speced are also ranged so they have much better uptime compared to marauders. Sorcs are not warriors, they are gandalf. I have nothing against them and I think they should definately have their due, but behind the pure dps classes. I think they should be the best healers/support and their dps should be reflective of even in dps spec they still have off heals, god bubbles, and teleportation.

 

Once again Powertechs would be regaining their DPS monstrosity - I cant say they are not warriors, i have no problem with them being high on the DPS chart, they should be because now more than ever they are melee classes. But once again, they can switch roles.

 

For the record I do not play a Sniper, I play a Marauder, as things stand right now Marauders are in a good place and they are exactly where they should be in the pecking order, and even still i'm a big supporter of Snipers being raised up once again and have their DPS reflective of their pure dps status. I gain nothing by advocating that, I make the point only to demonstraite that I am not just being partial to the class i love and play.

 

I 'm somewhat perplexed by the notion that any fair, reasonable and impartial consideration of class rankings would not be okay with the two pure dps classes being the 'best' dps classes. I simply cannot phathom the justification, where you are supposedly trying to come up with ideas to balance the classes and than you want to make the pure dps classes subpar. How is that balanced?

 

No self heals. Medium armor despite the fact that Marauders must be up in the bosses face [so to speak] the whole fight, cannot tank, cannot heal, cannot rez, cannot sneak, cannot God bubble, dont have to be killed twice [juggs], cannot disappear when things get hairy ;heal up in safety [during the fight] and than come back having left the other melee having to deal with the enemies down a man, cannot stun, cannot teleport, cannot dirty rez, cannot put adds to sleep,ect ect.

 

Simply put, you have no consideration for those who opted utility for that little extra steam behind their punch.

 

I have no issue with the non pure dps classes getting some buff to damage to bring them a bit closer to the pure dps classes. I'm not saying that Snipers and Marauders should a wide margin in dps compared to the other classes. I'd be fine with Snipers and Marauders only having 2 or 3 percent dps comparitvely. Even 1 percent. Becuase anything less than that is just a slap in the face. Juggs should come up right beind Snipers and Marauders [for the simple fact they are sith Warriors as well.

 

In DnD, who does more damage, the fighter or the theif?

 

Who would more likely win a fight against each other, a ninja with virtually no armor to speak of [just like assys and sorcs] or the Knight in full plate mail armor

 

I do understand that people want their due, and im all for it, but there is absoluetly no legitimate justification for a sneaky Assassin who in certain specs is required to stab the enemy in the back, should be greater warriors than Marauders and Snipers who have dedicated their whole reason for being to combat, war, and destruction.

 

Assys need some love in pve dps, theres no question at all about that and I am all for it, but the day Marauders come behind Assassins, Operatives and to a lesser extent Juggs in the dps pecking order, I'll hang up my sabers for good and leave the game. Mercs/Powertechs should definately be on the higher side of the sprectrum as well. How you figured that Assys should come before Annihilation is beyond my comprehension.

 

Carnage/Combat, its literally spelled out. COMBAT.

 

Pure DPS Classes. I don't know how it could be made any more clear.

 

I hope some of the other classes on the lower end of the sprectrum get an appropriate buff to dps.

If the highest possible DPS is what some one is looking for than they should play a Sniper or a Marauder.

That was what I was looking for, thats why I chose a Marauder.

 

You're not seeking balance when you religate the pure dps classes below the non pure dps classes. It would just be plain unfair, and a slap in the faces of all those who choose a pure dps class because they wanted to be able to reach the heights of DPS.

 

The DPS difference margins between the classes [even pure dps] should not be extreme, but it should take into account all the options the classes have at their disposal. You can't have everything. Greater utility and adaption options must have a trade off.

 

 

I'd be intrested to see the thoughts of others on this subject. If nothing else i think your post and subsequent responses could be a good springboard for such future considerations of the classes by BW. Clearly you are genuine in your desire to bring the classes closer in comparison to each other and I appluad the destination you seek even if not the "road" you've chosen to get there.

 

Be well.

 

Balancing should not take the whole class into consideration, just each specs. Yes marauders and snipers are only able to DPS, but that doesn't change how they are affected by balance. You can't put a marksman sniper in the top dps spot just because it's a class that only can do DPS, it'll brake balance since it'll have all the advantage of burst and ranged while doing more damage than every melee dot. And taking other roles a class could do doesn't render that more balanced. What about assassin who don't play tank or sorcs that don't play heals ? Should they be forced to play something they don't want/like or stick to a subpar DPS just because their class can do more than one thing ?

How do you put hatred over anni? It has way more 10m ranged abilities, and no channels to worry about. Also the anni rotation's a lot more complicated than hatred, which is piss easy. I also don't agree with where you put deception. It's above innovative ordenance? Wth is that? IO has way harder rotation and is sustained. Also engineering, which has to have stationary targets for full damage is below virulence?? Carnage above fury, even though the devs said the exact other thing?

 

These are the things that stood out to me, but it's pretty decent overall.

Edited June 10, 2016 by AdjeYo

How do you put hatred over anni? It has way more 10m ranged abilities, and no channels to worry about. Also the anni rotation's a lot more complicated than hatred, which is piss easy. I also don't agree with where you put deception. It's above innovative ordenance? Wth is that? IO has way harder rotation and is sustained.

 

Raid utility, both Marauders and and Mercenary have a lot more raid utility than a sin (which a none).

But as you may have noticed, IO and Deception are exactly at the same level. I put one on top of the other just because I had to.

 

Also engineering, which has to have stationary targets for full damage is below virulence??

 

As I said, I'm not an expert with some classes. I'll take a look at Dulfy to read even more on those two particular specs and may swap them.

 

Carnage above fury, even though they said the exact other thing?

 

Who said what ? If it's BW, as you saw I'm sometimes going against what they said (Anni for example) for different reasons. The main reason I put Carnage ahead of Fury is because Fury has one more gap closer making it more mobile.

 

These are the things that stood out to me, but it's pretty decent overall.

 

Thanks

Raid utility, both Marauders and and Mercenary have a lot more raid utility than a sin (which a none).

Thanks

 

I still can't get behind hatred on top, anni has a lot more complicated rotation, and a looooooong windup time. It takes 20 gcd, or 30 seconds to get your anni cooldown short and ready to do maximum dps. And I do still believe deception simplicity plus stealth means it should be a bit lower on this list.

I still can't get behind hatred on top, anni has a lot more complicated rotation, and a looooooong windup time. It takes 20 gcd, or 30 seconds to get your anni cooldown short and ready to do maximum dps. And I do still believe deception simplicity plus stealth means it should be a bit lower on this list.

 

But what would be the point to bring a sin to a raid if it do more damage since every other class has something more to bring ?

 

And Anni would only be 14 DPS behind. The ramp up time and the rotation complexity is what makes it second despite the amazing raid utility it has.

Edited June 10, 2016 by LudhaninRolgge

But what would be the point to bring a sin to a raid if it do more damage since every other class has something more to bring ?

 

And Anni would only be 14 DPS behind. The ramp up time and the rotation complexity is what makes it second despite the amazing raid utility it has.

 

Stealth rez, the ability to do decent damage from 10m range, a taunt, cheesyness from shroud, damage reduction on AoE taunt and a spammable dotspread. It has plenty of things to bring to a raidgroup, not as much as some characters, but definitely not nothing. In addition it's fairly simple to play, oh and a selfcleanse that you don't have to use a heroic utility to get. Phasewalk can help certain mechanics, bombs on walker's come to mind, a lot easier and quicker. Though admittedly, sorcs have it now as well.

Edited June 10, 2016 by AdjeYo

Stealth rez

 

Deception used its stealth rotationnaly so stealth rez is not even an option. Hatred can though, but it's not the easiest thing to pull off and it totally gimp the damage you'll be doing. So you probably are better to stuck it because you probably wont beat the enrage (in NiM that is)

 

the ability to do decent damage from 10m range

 

So has a marauder, I'm pretty sure the 10m damage a marauder can do are approximately the same a sin

 

a taunt

 

Tanking a NiM boss with light armor is not even an option

 

cheesyness from shroud

 

The same goes for Undying Rage

 

damage reduction on AoE taunt

 

5% DR, not that really impressive. I don't see anyone taking a sin instead of a PT or a guardian for the AOE taunt cheese

 

and a spammable dotspread

 

Ok, you got this one

 

It has plenty of things to bring to a raidgroup, not as much as some characters, but definitely not nothing. In addition it's fairly simple to play, oh and a selfcleanse that you don't have to use a heroic utility to get. Phasewalk can help certain mechanics, bombs on walker's come to mind, a lot easier and quicker. Though admittedly, sorcs have it now as well.

 

As you can see, the raid utility a sin has is not that great. Sin don't have raid buff nor a raidwide speed buff.

Deception used its stealth rotationnaly so stealth rez is not even an option. Hatred can though, but it's not the easiest thing to pull off and it totally gimp the damage you'll be doing. So you probably are better to stuck it because you probably wont beat the enrage (in NiM that is)

 

 

 

So has a marauder, I'm pretty sure the 10m damage a marauder can do are approximately the same a sin

 

 

 

Tanking a NiM boss with light armor is not even an option

 

 

 

The same goes for Undying Rage

 

 

 

5% DR, not that really impressive. I don't see anyone taking a sin instead of a PT or a guardian for the AOE taunt cheese

 

 

 

Ok, you got this one

 

 

 

As you can see, the raid utility a sin has is not that great. Sin don't have raid buff nor a raidwide speed buff.

 

Marauder has exactly two rotational abilities that have a higher than 4m range, force rend and dual saber throw. Assassins have two 18s dots, demolish and death field as rotational abilities with more than 10m range, this one clearly goes for assassin. Shroud has a third of the cooldown that undying rage has. As for stealth rez, hatred can pull of a stealth rez just fine.

Is the sin's raid utility great? No, I'd say it could use a little more utility, but it doesn't have no tools at all. And the 5% DR from AoE taunt, can be very useful. But you're trading in that utility for a much more flexible, mobile and generally easier to play spec. If you also give it more damage, the only thing marauders have is their raidd movement speed and damage buff, and bloodthirst isn't even unique anymore, every healer class has a similar buff. And hatred outshines annihilation in an AoE context by far with these dps values.

Like the idea, with Raid ututilies mara and pt will be still on top. Stealth has no purspose on pve. Sorry to say not going to happen tough.

Marauder has exactly two rotational abilities that have a higher than 4m range, force rend and dual saber throw. Assassins have two 18s dots, demolish and death field as rotational abilities with more than 10m range, this one clearly goes for assassin. Shroud has a third of the cooldown that undying rage has. As for stealth rez, hatred can pull of a stealth rez just fine.

Is the sin's raid utility great? No, I'd say it could use a little more utility, but it doesn't have no tools at all. And the 5% DR from AoE taunt, can be very useful. But you're trading in that utility for a much more flexible, mobile and generally easier to play spec. If you also give it more damage, the only thing marauders have is their raidd movement speed and damage buff, and bloodthirst isn't even unique anymore, every healer class has a similar buff. And hatred outshines annihilation in an AoE context by far with these dps values.

 

You have to stand still if you want to use demolish further than 4m (if you didn't have the proc earlier), but ok you get this one. Stealth rez is usable once every 15' so it's hardly something you'll use every pull.

Assassin Shelter is not a good utility. 5% DR hardly change anything. Even less if you compare it to the 2 other similar utilities. Sonic Rebounder reflects all damage and Sonic Wall absorbs a moderate amount of damage (I don't know the exact value), but all that is better than 5% DR.

Yes Anni has a difficult rotation, hence why it's in the top 2. But it has 2 utilities that benefit the whole raid. Sins can have one if you trade a utility point and it's not even good. And on top of that, mara have medium armor where sins have light. All in all, the 14 DPS advantage sins have over mara seems fair to me.

And that's true sins are easier to play than mara, but who bring a specific class to a raid because it's easier to play ?

I may have gone a bit overboard thinking about this…

 

Let me start off with saying that my personal view of class balancing is that the goal is balancing, not changing the overall rotation or discipline. I like balancing that is subtle and has no visible effects. I like to focus on Discipline specific abilities to avoid cross contamination with the other advanced classes. I also don’t want to add new abilities or effects because the goal was to have simple fixes that could be done in an afternoon. If I can accomplish balancing via minor changes only, that is my preference. I try not to modify coefficients because of the chance of making a mistake is higher when working with the base level abilities.

 

Summary of Restrictions:

• Only working with existing Discipline Abilities.
  
• No adding anything new, just modification of existing abilities
  
• No changing Rotations or Ability priorities (excluding Madness)
  
• No modification of ability coefficients.
  
• Minimize the number of changes per discipline.
  
• If Quality of Life changes are convenient, include them.
  
• Attempt to get as close to the stated DPS values as possible with no judgements on if those numbers are reasonable.
  

 

 

I made a modified version of my spreadsheet to test my changes and used current 224 gear to test with.

 

Marauders and Sentinels

 

 

 

 

Juggernauts and Guardians

 

 

 

 

Assassins and Shadows

 

 

 

 

Sorcerer and Sage

 

 

 

 

Mercenary and Commando

 

 

 

 

Powertech and Vanguard

 

 

 

 

Sniper and Gunslinger

 

 

 

 

Operative and Scoundrel

 

 

 

 

Edit Log:

6/18: Changed Engineering || Saboteur from 20% to 15% due to a bug found in my code.

 

6/30

Change:

Change Concealment: no change to Waylay (stays at 5%) due to a rotational correction. New DPS is 6921.

Minor changes due error corrections

-Deception is 6927 from 6933

-Advanced Prototype is 6912 from 6914

Edited July 1, 2016 by Goblin_Lackey

I may have gone a bit overboard thinking about this…

 

Let me start off with saying that my personal view of class balancing is that the goal is balancing, not changing the overall rotation or discipline. I like balancing that is subtle and has no visible effects. I like to focus on Discipline specific abilities to avoid cross contamination with the other advanced classes. I also don’t want to add new abilities or effects because the goal was to have simple fixes that could be done in an afternoon. If I can accomplish balancing via minor changes only, that is my preference. I try not to modify coefficients because of the chance of making a mistake is higher when working with the base level abilities.

 

Summary of Restrictions:

• Only working with existing Discipline Abilities.
  
• No adding anything new, just modification of existing abilities
  
• No changing Rotations or Ability priorities (excluding Madness)
  
• No modification of ability coefficients.
  
• Minimize the number of changes per discipline.
  
• If Quality of Life changes are convenient, include them.
  
• Attempt to get as close to the stated DPS values as possible with no judgements on if those numbers are reasonable.
  

 

That's exactly the idea I have a class balance.

 

I made a modified version of my spreadsheet to test my changes and used current 224 gear to test with.

 

Marauders and Sentinels

 

 

Marauder - Annihilation || Sentinel - Watchman

Current DPS: 7109

Goal DPS: 7054

Changes:

• Increase the ICD of Bloodlust || Burning Focus to 4s (from 1s)
  
• Increase the ICD of Hemorrhage || Plasma Blades to 4s (from 3s)
  

Changed DPS: 7051

Reason:

• During 3.0 there was a lot of tinkering with Annihilation to try and make it work with Force Melt. This included lowering the ICD for RNG based Resource generation. With 4.0, Force Melt was fully integrated into the rotation by making it replace Force Leap and increasing the time between Annihilate uses. But the resource generation mechanics were never reverted to normalize to the new rotation. This lead to a situation where Annihilation became a class where it would be using the basic fillers (Vicious slash) more than any other class because it had the spare resources. The changes proposed would increase the number of Assaults in the rotation in proportion to Vicious Slashes and Force Screams.
  

 

 

Marauder - Carnage || Sentinel - Combat

Current DPS: 6857

Goal DPS: 6935

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage from Sever || Saber Storm to 20% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Slaughter || Hand of Justice Buff duration to 18s (from 15s)
  

Changed DPS: 6942

Reason:

• Carnage is a Burst spec that has 3 seconds of high damage to 9 seconds of low damage. Increasing the Critical multiplier on the biggest move along with the most common filler helps reinforce this while only moderately increasing the overall damage.
  
• Increasing Slaughter duration is a Quality of Life buff that helps eliminate rotational instability. No DPS change.
  

 

 

Marauder - Fury || Sentinel - Concentration

Current DPS: 6418

Goal DPS: 6853

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Dark Resonance || Focused Resonance to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Shii-Cho Mastery || Shii-Cho Mastery to 20% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Cruelty || Decisive Slashes to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6865

Reason:

• Fury needed a large boost to get it to the the stated level; Increasing the critical multiplier and Armor penetration for all moves accomplished this. It maintains the current playstyle by uniformly raising the discipline's damage.
  
• Just raising the Critical Multiplier and Armor penetration didn't fully accomplish the dps lift. To get the last boost, the critical hit chance on Furious strike, Vicious Slash and Vicious Throw were slightly raised.
  

 

 

 

 

Juggernauts and Guardians

 

 

Juggernaut - Vengeance || Guardian - Vigilance

Current DPS: 6607

Goal DPS: 7026

Changes:

• Increase Damage from Ravager || Master Focus to 25% (From 5%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Gushing Veins || smoldering Saber to 8% (From 5%)
  
• Increase Damage boost from Shein Form to 9% (from 6%)
  

Changed DPS: 7034

Reason:

• Ravage is a signature move for Vengeance and also locks down a melee character's movement. As such, it should be highly damaging and a large portion of Vengeance's overall dps.
  
• The other changes were to bring the overall dps up to the desired level without doing too large a single boost.
  

 

 

Juggernaut - Rage || Guardian - Focus

Current DPS: 6444

Goal DPS: 6853

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost Dark Resonance || Focused Resonance to 25% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Shii-Cho Mastery || Shii-Cho Mastery to 20% (from 15%)
  

Changed DPS: 6839

Reason:

• Rage needed a large boost to get it to the the stated level; Increasing the critical multiplier and Armor penetration for all moves accomplished this. It maintains the current playstyle by uniformly raising the discipline's damage.
  

 

 

 

 

Assassins and Shadows

 

 

Assassin - Deception || Shadow - Infiltration

Current DPS: 6537

Goal DPS: 6929

Changes:

• Increase Critical Chance from Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Charge Mastery || Technique Mastery to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Crackling Blasts || Deep Impact to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Dominating Slashes || Prevailing Strikes to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6933

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Assassins to behave the same as the other classes. For Deception it increases the on demand burst by a small amount.
  
• Increasing the Armor Penetration will raise damage equally across all non-discharge abilities and thus raising the sustain without affecting burst
  
• Increasing the Critical multiplier for your hardest hitting move ensures that Deception remains a burst spec.
  
• Increasing the critical chance for the main two melee attacks helps raise the damage to the approriate level.
  

 

 

Assassin - Hatred || Shadow - Serenity

Current DPS: 6555

Goal DPS: 7068

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Increase the Range of Death Field || Force in Balance to 15m (from 10m)
  
• Reduce the force cost Leeching Strike || Serenity Strike to 20 (from 25)
  
• Increase Periodic damage from Force Horrors || Drain Thoughts to 30% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Damage Bonus from Claws of Decay || Adjudication to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 7089

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Assassins to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• The Death Field range is a quality of life improvement for large diameter bosses where it is possible to be more than 10m away from the center of the boss while still within 4m of the edge of the boss. This would allow it to be always double clicked to cast while in melee range.
  
• Reducing the force cost of Leeching strike brings it down to the same value as all of the other melee moves for Hatred. If force cost is tied to damage coefficients, then reduce cost via ability such as claws of decay.
  
• Claws of Decay and Force Horrors are the only real levers for large scale changes without magnifying a single ability more than others.
  

 

 

 

 

Sorcerer and Sage

 

 

Sorcerer - Lightning || Sage - Telekinetics

Current DPS: 6470

Goal DPS: 6790

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Fix the current interaction between Thundering Blast || Turbulence and SuperCrit.
  
• Increase the duration of the proc from Lightning Flash || Telekinetic Gust to 15s (from 12s)
  
• Increase proc and damage from Forked Lightning || Telekinetic Momentum to 30% (from 25%)
  
• Increase proc and damage from Forked Darkness || Mental Momentum to 30% (from 25%)
  
• Increase Critical Hit Damage Reverberating Force || Reverberations to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6793

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Sorcerers to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• The Supercrit bug for Thundering Blast is a quality of life annoyance that can eat recklessness charges without providing any benefits to the caster. This fix is optional due to difficulty of implementation.
  
• Increasing the duration of the buff from Lighting Flash is a quality of life change that extends the buff to the full cooldown of the ability. This is a change that has been needed since the cooldown of Lightning flash was raised to 15s from 12s.
  
• Increasing the proc and damage ratio for Forked Lightning and Forked Darkness is the easiest way to increase damage without making any one move too powerful. This does involve changing coefficients, but since it is a straight percentage it should be easy to change.
  
• Increasing the critical hit damage for most of the moves will increase the overall damage by a slight amount
  

 

 

Sorcerer - Madness || Sage - Balance

Current DPS: 6736

Goal DPS: 6964

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Change Lighting Barrage || Psychic Projection to “ticks 50% faster but deals 50% less damage” (From “ticks 33% faster but deals 25% less damage”)
  
• Fix Rippling Force to count as a DOT just like Lightning Burns
  
• Increase Damage and reduce Force cost from Wrath || Psychic Projection
  

to 33% damage (from 25%) and consume 75% less force (from 50%)

Changed DPS: 6965

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Sorcerers to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• Madness has had an issue for a while now where the optimal rotations involve clipping Force Lightning a majority of the time. It has been stated multiple times that clipping moves is not an intended result for any discipline. There have been a few times that this has been attempted to be addressed with limited success. By shortening Force Lighting down to a single GCD there is no need or ability to clip this channel. It also allows Madness to have a normal rotation that utilizes the ability queue. This does break my usual reluctance to change rotations during class balances, but Madness is an exception due to the broken nature of the rotation
  
• Rippling Force is one of the few Mirror class abilities that don’t match. Fixing this would make Madness and Balance equivalent.
  
• Increasing Wrath Damage raises the total damage dealt and also reintroduces Lighting Strike as a useful part of the rotation. Reducing the force cost of Lighting Strike and Demolish makes the Madness rotation sustainable indefinitely like every other class.
  

 

 

 

 

Mercenary and Commando

 

 

Mercenary - Arsenal || Commando - Gunnery

Current DPS: 6682

Goal DPS: 6783

Changes:

• Supercharged Celerity || Supercharged Celerity costs 15 Energy. (from requiring and costing 10 stacks)
  
• Reduce Critical Damage boost from Target Tracking || Deadly Cannon to 15% (from 30%)
  
• Increase Damage from Power Launcher || Charge Launcher to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Barrage || Curtain of Fire to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6788

Reason:

• Quality of Life fix: DPS Mercenaries currently have a huge penalty for activating their raid-wide buff in compared to Sorcerers, Marauders, and Operatives. By changing the cost to energy instead of stacks it allows the buff to be activated at any point with minimal dps penalties (more rapid shots). The 15 energy was chosen because it is the same cost as Tracer Missile which can be replaced by a rapid shot.
  
• Arsenal was the last class to keep its 30% critical damage buff. Reducing it brings it more into line with the other burst disciplines.
  
• Power Launcher and Barrage will increase the damage of all non-rapid shots, non-priming shot abilities and thus increase damage without making any one ability be too powerful.
  

 

 

Mercenary - Innovative Ordinance || Commando - Assault Specialist

Current DPS: 6796

Goal DPS: 6929

Changes:

• Supercharged Celerity || Supercharged Celerity costs 15 Energy. (from requiring and costing 10 stacks)
  
• Reduce the ICD of Innovative Particle Accelerator || Blazing Celerity to 7s (from 7.5s)
  
• Increase Damage from Flaming Wound || Flaming Wound to 5% (from 3%)
  
• Relentless Ordnance || Relentless Assault raises tech Critical Chances by 5% (from 0% Tech Critical chance boost)
  

Changed DPS: 6924

Reason:

• Quality of Life fix: DPS Mercenaries currently have a huge penalty for activating their raid-wide buff in compared to Sorcerers, Marauders, and Operatives. By changing the cost to energy instead of stacks it allows the buff to be activated at any point with minimal dps penalties (more rapid shots). The 15 energy was chosen because it is the same cost as Power Shot which can be replaced by a rapid shot.
  
• Quality of Life fix: Reducing the ICD of Innovative Particle Accelerator will put a bandaid over the persistent alacrity bug that affects the timings for IO. While it does not solve the root cause, it will mask them and prevent them from occurring in the first place. By only reducing the ICD by 0.5s, it also preserves the 15s rotation by still limiting the activation to the desired GCD.
  
• IO does not have very many levers that would affect all of the moves. Flaming wound increases most of the dot moves and thus was an obvious choice.
  
• Adding the tech Critical hit chance to Relentless Ordnance increases the whole spec damage. This ability was chosen because it had it in 3.0.
  

 

 

 

 

Powertech and Vanguard

 

 

Powertech - Advanced Prototype || Vanguard - Tactics

Current DPS: 6439

Goal DPS: 6908

Changes:

• Increase Damage from Power Bracer || Riot Augs to 15% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6914

Reason:

• Personal Note: This is the DPS ranking that I most disagreed with. AP will still be the preferred spec by a huge margin (it was preferred even with a 200+ dps gap) due to better Defensives and that for the first few minutes of a fight all of the offensive cooldowns stay lined up (also will benefit dummy parses). In addition it is still the most mobile spec of any disciplines. It also has access to great utilities to increase in-raid dps and AOE damage only makes the discipline even stronger.
  
• Power Bracers is the obvious move to modify because it affects everything but Rapid Shots and Shoulder Missiles.
  

 

 

Powertech - Pyrotech || Vanguard - Plasmatech

Current DPS: 6645

Goal DPS: 7026

Changes:

• Flame Barrage || Plasma Barrage now triggers on Rail Shot and Immolate (from just Immolate)
  
• Superheated Flame Thrower || Pulse Generator now Stacks up to 3 times (from 2 times), increase damage by 20% (from 20%) and cause it to slow by 30% (from 45%) per stack.
  
• Increase Critical Chance of Elemental attacks from Prototype Cylinders || Plasma Barrage to 4% (from 3%)
  

Changed DPS: 7016

Reason:

• Flame Barrage, and Superheated Flame Thrower are reversions to early 3.0 before a few balancing attempts were made to try and reduce the damage (root cause was a bugged set bonus). This will raise dps mainly by streamlining the rotation by removing excess rapid shots for Flame Bursts. The remaining DPS increase will be via Flamethrower
  
• Raising the Critical chance of elemental attacks was the easiest way to get the last few percent increase
  

 

 

 

 

Sniper and Gunslinger

 

 

Sniper - Marksman || Gunslinger - Sharpshooter

Current DPS: 6238

Goal DPS: 6777

Changes:

• Increase Armor Penetration and Critical Chance from Between the Eyes || Slick Shooter to 20% (from 10%) and 6% (from 4%)
  
• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Imperial Assassin || Deadeye to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Headshot || Aim High to 20% (from 15%)
  

Changed DPS: 6780

Reason:

• By returning some of the Critical Damage Boosts and Armor Penetration, this spec returns closer to its bursty roots. It also raises damage by raising critical chances and emphasizing this burst.
  

 

 

Sniper - Engineering || Gunslinger - Saboteur

Current DPS: 6672

Goal DPS: 6915

Changes:

• Increase from Explosive Engineering || Independent Anarchy to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6941

Reason:

• Explosive Engineering increases the damage of most of Engineering’s abilities so it was the obvious candidate for raising the overall damage level.
  

 

 

Sniper - Virulence || Gunslinger - Dirty Fighting

Current DPS: 6643

Goal DPS: 6950

Changes:

• Increase Chance to tick twice from Corrosive Microbes || Mortal Wound to 20%(from 10%)
  
• Increase Chance to tick twice from Caustic Substances || Gushing Wounds to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6936

Reason:

• Virulence is a dot spec and increasing the number of ticks helps it maintain the overall damage level without increasing burst.
  

 

 

 

 

Operative and Scoundrel

 

 

Operative - Concealment || Scoundrel - Scrapper

Current DPS: 6525

Goal DPS: 6922

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Meticulously Kept Blades || Underdog to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Damage from Culling || Scrappy to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Waylay || Sawed Off to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Surgical Strikes || Turn The Tables to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6915

Reason:

• Increasing the Critical Damage Boost will give Concealment some of its old burst back while raising total damage.
  
• Increasing the the damage of a wide range of abilities by 5% raises the total damage of all abilities without singling out any individual abilities..
  

 

 

Operative - Lethality || Scoundrel - Ruffian

Current DPS: 6657

Goal DPS: 7040

Changes:

• Increase Chance to tick twice from Corrosive Microbes || Mortal Wound to 20%(from 10%)
  
• Increase Chance to tick twice from Acidic Compounds || Sharpened Materials to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Damage from Acidic Compounds || Sharpened Materials to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Cut Down || Rolling Punches to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 7039

Reason:

• Lethality is a dot spec and increasing the number of ticks helps it maintain the overall damage level without increasing burst.
  
• Cut Down affects a lot of moves and is an obvious lever for increasing overall damage.
  

 

 

Wow, that's an amazing job you made there. I didn't expect you to do that and you did it perfectly. Thanks a lot.

http://ixparse.com/challenges/

 

This is all that matters. No raid leader worth their salt gives a damn about anything else, except for Styrak numbers. This is what leads to kills, not an extra taunt, not saber reflect/force shroud, not a few dark heals here and there. Look at the top fifty parses in the only relevant phases left in the game, that's how "balanced" the DPS are in this game. Someone here mentioned that Juggs have more defensives than Marauders. Are there really any people who would take Juggernaut CDs over Mara CDs? When was the last time all charges of Enraged Defense were used up in a relevant PVE boss fight? I'd take Cloak of Pain any day, and that even increases DPS. Both classes have Saber Ward. Undying Rage is better than Saber Reflect for most circumstances, unless you're doing cheese reflect damage to the boss, but from a pure defensive standpoint it certainly works on more mechanics as well as during enrages. Force Camo is ridiculous, and even resists pull ins on Revan. Endure Pain has less DR than any mara CD, and let's not forget Defensive Roll. Just look at damage profiles on Revan or Brontes, two of the most difficult fights at content level. Maras take less damage from Manifest Supremacy and Machine Core pulses + Aberration explosions. Are you really going to sit there and tell me Heavy Armor is more effective than Defensive Roll? Then of course, the thing that's most relevant to DPSing, uptime. Maras have stronger dots and a longer cooldown on Ravage, which is essentially a 3 second self-root. Predation and Bloodthirst, which increase raid mobility and DPS. What do Juggs have? A worse version of Sonic Rebounder that's only really good right before a high stack heave? But of course, who would take Marauder over Juggernaut if they parsed the same on the dummy? Because Juggs can do the off role of a tank and take 5 stacks of trail and Saber Overcharge or smash orbs during Brontes burn phase? Tell me more about how Juggs are in the perfect place.

I may have gone a bit overboard thinking about this…

 

Let me start off with saying that my personal view of class balancing is that the goal is balancing, not changing the overall rotation or discipline. I like balancing that is subtle and has no visible effects. I like to focus on Discipline specific abilities to avoid cross contamination with the other advanced classes. I also don’t want to add new abilities or effects because the goal was to have simple fixes that could be done in an afternoon. If I can accomplish balancing via minor changes only, that is my preference. I try not to modify coefficients because of the chance of making a mistake is higher when working with the base level abilities.

 

Summary of Restrictions:

• Only working with existing Discipline Abilities.
  
• No adding anything new, just modification of existing abilities
  
• No changing Rotations or Ability priorities (excluding Madness)
  
• No modification of ability coefficients.
  
• Minimize the number of changes per discipline.
  
• If Quality of Life changes are convenient, include them.
  
• Attempt to get as close to the stated DPS values as possible with no judgements on if those numbers are reasonable.
  

 

 

I made a modified version of my spreadsheet to test my changes and used current 224 gear to test with.

 

Marauders and Sentinels

 

 

Marauder - Annihilation || Sentinel - Watchman

Current DPS: 7109

Goal DPS: 7054

Changes:

• Increase the ICD of Bloodlust || Burning Focus to 4s (from 1s)
  
• Increase the ICD of Hemorrhage || Plasma Blades to 4s (from 3s)
  

Changed DPS: 7051

Reason:

• During 3.0 there was a lot of tinkering with Annihilation to try and make it work with Force Melt. This included lowering the ICD for RNG based Resource generation. With 4.0, Force Melt was fully integrated into the rotation by making it replace Force Leap and increasing the time between Annihilate uses. But the resource generation mechanics were never reverted to normalize to the new rotation. This lead to a situation where Annihilation became a class where it would be using the basic fillers (Vicious slash) more than any other class because it had the spare resources. The changes proposed would increase the number of Assaults in the rotation in proportion to Vicious Slashes and Force Screams.
  

 

 

Marauder - Carnage || Sentinel - Combat

Current DPS: 6857

Goal DPS: 6935

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage from Sever || Saber Storm to 20% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Slaughter || Hand of Justice Buff duration to 18s (from 15s)
  

Changed DPS: 6942

Reason:

• Carnage is a Burst spec that has 3 seconds of high damage to 9 seconds of low damage. Increasing the Critical multiplier on the biggest move along with the most common filler helps reinforce this while only moderately increasing the overall damage.
  
• Increasing Slaughter duration is a Quality of Life buff that helps eliminate rotational instability. No DPS change.
  

 

 

Marauder - Fury || Sentinel - Concentration

Current DPS: 6418

Goal DPS: 6853

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Dark Resonance || Focused Resonance to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Shii-Cho Mastery || Shii-Cho Mastery to 20% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Cruelty || Decisive Slashes to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6865

Reason:

• Fury needed a large boost to get it to the the stated level; Increasing the critical multiplier and Armor penetration for all moves accomplished this. It maintains the current playstyle by uniformly raising the discipline's damage.
  
• Just raising the Critical Multiplier and Armor penetration didn't fully accomplish the dps lift. To get the last boost, the critical hit chance on Furious strike, Vicious Slash and Vicious Throw were slightly raised.
  

 

 

 

 

Juggernauts and Guardians

 

 

Juggernaut - Vengeance || Guardian - Vigilance

Current DPS: 6607

Goal DPS: 7026

Changes:

• Increase Damage from Ravager || Master Focus to 25% (From 5%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Gushing Veins || smoldering Saber to 8% (From 5%)
  
• Increase Damage boost from Shein Form to 9% (from 6%)
  

Changed DPS: 7034

Reason:

• Ravage is a signature move for Vengeance and also locks down a melee character's movement. As such, it should be highly damaging and a large portion of Vengeance's overall dps.
  
• The other changes were to bring the overall dps up to the desired level without doing too large a single boost.
  

 

 

Juggernaut - Rage || Guardian - Focus

Current DPS: 6444

Goal DPS: 6853

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost Dark Resonance || Focused Resonance to 25% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Shii-Cho Mastery || Shii-Cho Mastery to 20% (from 15%)
  

Changed DPS: 6839

Reason:

• Rage needed a large boost to get it to the the stated level; Increasing the critical multiplier and Armor penetration for all moves accomplished this. It maintains the current playstyle by uniformly raising the discipline's damage.
  

 

 

 

 

Assassins and Shadows

 

 

Assassin - Deception || Shadow - Infiltration

Current DPS: 6537

Goal DPS: 6929

Changes:

• Increase Critical Chance from Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Charge Mastery || Technique Mastery to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Crackling Blasts || Deep Impact to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Dominating Slashes || Prevailing Strikes to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6933

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Assassins to behave the same as the other classes. For Deception it increases the on demand burst by a small amount.
  
• Increasing the Armor Penetration will raise damage equally across all non-discharge abilities and thus raising the sustain without affecting burst
  
• Increasing the Critical multiplier for your hardest hitting move ensures that Deception remains a burst spec.
  
• Increasing the critical chance for the main two melee attacks helps raise the damage to the approriate level.
  

 

 

Assassin - Hatred || Shadow - Serenity

Current DPS: 6555

Goal DPS: 7068

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Increase the Range of Death Field || Force in Balance to 15m (from 10m)
  
• Reduce the force cost Leeching Strike || Serenity Strike to 20 (from 25)
  
• Increase Periodic damage from Force Horrors || Drain Thoughts to 30% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Damage Bonus from Claws of Decay || Adjudication to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 7089

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Assassins to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• The Death Field range is a quality of life improvement for large diameter bosses where it is possible to be more than 10m away from the center of the boss while still within 4m of the edge of the boss. This would allow it to be always double clicked to cast while in melee range.
  
• Reducing the force cost of Leeching strike brings it down to the same value as all of the other melee moves for Hatred. If force cost is tied to damage coefficients, then reduce cost via ability such as claws of decay.
  
• Claws of Decay and Force Horrors are the only real levers for large scale changes without magnifying a single ability more than others.
  

 

 

 

 

Sorcerer and Sage

 

 

Sorcerer - Lightning || Sage - Telekinetics

Current DPS: 6470

Goal DPS: 6790

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Fix the current interaction between Thundering Blast || Turbulence and SuperCrit.
  
• Increase the duration of the proc from Lightning Flash || Telekinetic Gust to 15s (from 12s)
  
• Increase proc and damage from Forked Lightning || Telekinetic Momentum to 30% (from 25%)
  
• Increase proc and damage from Forked Darkness || Mental Momentum to 30% (from 25%)
  
• Increase Critical Hit Damage Reverberating Force || Reverberations to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6793

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Sorcerers to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• The Supercrit bug for Thundering Blast is a quality of life annoyance that can eat recklessness charges without providing any benefits to the caster. This fix is optional due to difficulty of implementation.
  
• Increasing the duration of the buff from Lighting Flash is a quality of life change that extends the buff to the full cooldown of the ability. This is a change that has been needed since the cooldown of Lightning flash was raised to 15s from 12s.
  
• Increasing the proc and damage ratio for Forked Lightning and Forked Darkness is the easiest way to increase damage without making any one move too powerful. This does involve changing coefficients, but since it is a straight percentage it should be easy to change.
  
• Increasing the critical hit damage for most of the moves will increase the overall damage by a slight amount
  

 

 

Sorcerer - Madness || Sage - Balance

Current DPS: 6736

Goal DPS: 6964

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Change Lighting Barrage || Psychic Projection to “ticks 50% faster but deals 50% less damage” (From “ticks 33% faster but deals 25% less damage”)
  
• Fix Rippling Force to count as a DOT just like Lightning Burns
  
• Increase Damage and reduce Force cost from Wrath || Psychic Projection
  

to 33% damage (from 25%) and consume 75% less force (from 50%)

Changed DPS: 6965

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Sorcerers to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• Madness has had an issue for a while now where the optimal rotations involve clipping Force Lightning a majority of the time. It has been stated multiple times that clipping moves is not an intended result for any discipline. There have been a few times that this has been attempted to be addressed with limited success. By shortening Force Lighting down to a single GCD there is no need or ability to clip this channel. It also allows Madness to have a normal rotation that utilizes the ability queue. This does break my usual reluctance to change rotations during class balances, but Madness is an exception due to the broken nature of the rotation
  
• Rippling Force is one of the few Mirror class abilities that don’t match. Fixing this would make Madness and Balance equivalent.
  
• Increasing Wrath Damage raises the total damage dealt and also reintroduces Lighting Strike as a useful part of the rotation. Reducing the force cost of Lighting Strike and Demolish makes the Madness rotation sustainable indefinitely like every other class.
  

 

 

 

 

Mercenary and Commando

 

 

Mercenary - Arsenal || Commando - Gunnery

Current DPS: 6682

Goal DPS: 6783

Changes:

• Supercharged Celerity || Supercharged Celerity costs 15 Energy. (from requiring and costing 10 stacks)
  
• Reduce Critical Damage boost from Target Tracking || Deadly Cannon to 15% (from 30%)
  
• Increase Damage from Power Launcher || Charge Launcher to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Barrage || Curtain of Fire to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6788

Reason:

• Quality of Life fix: DPS Mercenaries currently have a huge penalty for activating their raid-wide buff in compared to Sorcerers, Marauders, and Operatives. By changing the cost to energy instead of stacks it allows the buff to be activated at any point with minimal dps penalties (more rapid shots). The 15 energy was chosen because it is the same cost as Tracer Missile which can be replaced by a rapid shot.
  
• Arsenal was the last class to keep its 30% critical damage buff. Reducing it brings it more into line with the other burst disciplines.
  
• Power Launcher and Barrage will increase the damage of all non-rapid shots, non-priming shot abilities and thus increase damage without making any one ability be too powerful.
  

 

 

Mercenary - Innovative Ordinance || Commando - Assault Specialist

Current DPS: 6796

Goal DPS: 6929

Changes:

• Supercharged Celerity || Supercharged Celerity costs 15 Energy. (from requiring and costing 10 stacks)
  
• Reduce the ICD of Innovative Particle Accelerator || Blazing Celerity to 7s (from 7.5s)
  
• Increase Damage from Flaming Wound || Flaming Wound to 5% (from 3%)
  
• Relentless Ordnance || Relentless Assault raises tech Critical Chances by 5% (from 0% Tech Critical chance boost)
  

Changed DPS: 6924

Reason:

• Quality of Life fix: DPS Mercenaries currently have a huge penalty for activating their raid-wide buff in compared to Sorcerers, Marauders, and Operatives. By changing the cost to energy instead of stacks it allows the buff to be activated at any point with minimal dps penalties (more rapid shots). The 15 energy was chosen because it is the same cost as Power Shot which can be replaced by a rapid shot.
  
• Quality of Life fix: Reducing the ICD of Innovative Particle Accelerator will put a bandaid over the persistent alacrity bug that affects the timings for IO. While it does not solve the root cause, it will mask them and prevent them from occurring in the first place. By only reducing the ICD by 0.5s, it also preserves the 15s rotation by still limiting the activation to the desired GCD.
  
• IO does not have very many levers that would affect all of the moves. Flaming wound increases most of the dot moves and thus was an obvious choice.
  
• Adding the tech Critical hit chance to Relentless Ordnance increases the whole spec damage. This ability was chosen because it had it in 3.0.
  

 

 

 

 

Powertech and Vanguard

 

 

Powertech - Advanced Prototype || Vanguard - Tactics

Current DPS: 6439

Goal DPS: 6908

Changes:

• Increase Damage from Power Bracer || Riot Augs to 15% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6914

Reason:

• Personal Note: This is the DPS ranking that I most disagreed with. AP will still be the preferred spec by a huge margin (it was preferred even with a 200+ dps gap) due to better Defensives and that for the first few minutes of a fight all of the offensive cooldowns stay lined up (also will benefit dummy parses). In addition it is still the most mobile spec of any disciplines. It also has access to great utilities to increase in-raid dps and AOE damage only makes the discipline even stronger.
  
• Power Bracers is the obvious move to modify because it affects everything but Rapid Shots and Shoulder Missiles.
  

 

 

Powertech - Pyrotech || Vanguard - Plasmatech

Current DPS: 6645

Goal DPS: 7026

Changes:

• Flame Barrage || Plasma Barrage now triggers on Rail Shot and Immolate (from just Immolate)
  
• Superheated Flame Thrower || Pulse Generator now Stacks up to 3 times (from 2 times), increase damage by 20% (from 20%) and cause it to slow by 30% (from 45%) per stack.
  
• Increase Critical Chance of Elemental attacks from Prototype Cylinders || Plasma Barrage to 4% (from 3%)
  

Changed DPS: 7016

Reason:

• Flame Barrage, and Superheated Flame Thrower are reversions to early 3.0 before a few balancing attempts were made to try and reduce the damage (root cause was a bugged set bonus). This will raise dps mainly by streamlining the rotation by removing excess rapid shots for Flame Bursts. The remaining DPS increase will be via Flamethrower
  
• Raising the Critical chance of elemental attacks was the easiest way to get the last few percent increase
  

 

 

 

 

Sniper and Gunslinger

 

 

Sniper - Marksman || Gunslinger - Sharpshooter

Current DPS: 6238

Goal DPS: 6777

Changes:

• Increase Armor Penetration and Critical Chance from Between the Eyes || Slick Shooter to 20% (from 10%) and 6% (from 4%)
  
• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Imperial Assassin || Deadeye to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Headshot || Aim High to 20% (from 15%)
  

Changed DPS: 6780

Reason:

• By returning some of the Critical Damage Boosts and Armor Penetration, this spec returns closer to its bursty roots. It also raises damage by raising critical chances and emphasizing this burst.
  

 

 

Sniper - Engineering || Gunslinger - Saboteur

Current DPS: 6672

Goal DPS: 6915

Changes:

• Increase from Explosive Engineering || Independent Anarchy to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6941

Reason:

• Explosive Engineering increases the damage of most of Engineering’s abilities so it was the obvious candidate for raising the overall damage level.
  

 

 

Sniper - Virulence || Gunslinger - Dirty Fighting

Current DPS: 6643

Goal DPS: 6950

Changes:

• Increase Chance to tick twice from Corrosive Microbes || Mortal Wound to 20%(from 10%)
  
• Increase Chance to tick twice from Caustic Substances || Gushing Wounds to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6936

Reason:

• Virulence is a dot spec and increasing the number of ticks helps it maintain the overall damage level without increasing burst.
  

 

 

 

 

Operative and Scoundrel

 

 

Operative - Concealment || Scoundrel - Scrapper

Current DPS: 6525

Goal DPS: 6922

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Meticulously Kept Blades || Underdog to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Damage from Culling || Scrappy to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Waylay || Sawed Off to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Surgical Strikes || Turn The Tables to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6915

Reason:

• Increasing the Critical Damage Boost will give Concealment some of its old burst back while raising total damage.
  
• Increasing the the damage of a wide range of abilities by 5% raises the total damage of all abilities without singling out any individual abilities..
  

 

 

Operative - Lethality || Scoundrel - Ruffian

Current DPS: 6657

Goal DPS: 7040

Changes:

• Increase Chance to tick twice from Corrosive Microbes || Mortal Wound to 20%(from 10%)
  
• Increase Chance to tick twice from Acidic Compounds || Sharpened Materials to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Damage from Acidic Compounds || Sharpened Materials to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Cut Down || Rolling Punches to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 7039

Reason:

• Lethality is a dot spec and increasing the number of ticks helps it maintain the overall damage level without increasing burst.
  
• Cut Down affects a lot of moves and is an obvious lever for increasing overall damage.
  

 

 

That is really an awesome job. Now only thing they need to do take it, adjust the pvp balance with expertise and then gg

That is really an awesome job. Now only thing they need to do take it, adjust the pvp balance with expertise and then gg

 

To be fair, I really think the best thing they could do is separate the 2 trees. I mean the game already recognize when you're in a warzone or not for PVP med packs and adrenal, the only thing they need is use that to trigger the change in what tree is used.

I may have gone a bit overboard thinking about this…

 

Let me start off with saying that my personal view of class balancing is that the goal is balancing, not changing the overall rotation or discipline. I like balancing that is subtle and has no visible effects. I like to focus on Discipline specific abilities to avoid cross contamination with the other advanced classes. I also don’t want to add new abilities or effects because the goal was to have simple fixes that could be done in an afternoon. If I can accomplish balancing via minor changes only, that is my preference. I try not to modify coefficients because of the chance of making a mistake is higher when working with the base level abilities.

 

Summary of Restrictions:

• Only working with existing Discipline Abilities.
  
• No adding anything new, just modification of existing abilities
  
• No changing Rotations or Ability priorities (excluding Madness)
  
• No modification of ability coefficients.
  
• Minimize the number of changes per discipline.
  
• If Quality of Life changes are convenient, include them.
  
• Attempt to get as close to the stated DPS values as possible with no judgements on if those numbers are reasonable.
  

 

 

I made a modified version of my spreadsheet to test my changes and used current 224 gear to test with.

 

Marauders and Sentinels

 

 

Marauder - Annihilation || Sentinel - Watchman

Current DPS: 7109

Goal DPS: 7054

Changes:

• Increase the ICD of Bloodlust || Burning Focus to 4s (from 1s)
  
• Increase the ICD of Hemorrhage || Plasma Blades to 4s (from 3s)
  

Changed DPS: 7051

Reason:

• During 3.0 there was a lot of tinkering with Annihilation to try and make it work with Force Melt. This included lowering the ICD for RNG based Resource generation. With 4.0, Force Melt was fully integrated into the rotation by making it replace Force Leap and increasing the time between Annihilate uses. But the resource generation mechanics were never reverted to normalize to the new rotation. This lead to a situation where Annihilation became a class where it would be using the basic fillers (Vicious slash) more than any other class because it had the spare resources. The changes proposed would increase the number of Assaults in the rotation in proportion to Vicious Slashes and Force Screams.
  

 

 

Marauder - Carnage || Sentinel - Combat

Current DPS: 6857

Goal DPS: 6935

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage from Sever || Saber Storm to 20% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Slaughter || Hand of Justice Buff duration to 18s (from 15s)
  

Changed DPS: 6942

Reason:

• Carnage is a Burst spec that has 3 seconds of high damage to 9 seconds of low damage. Increasing the Critical multiplier on the biggest move along with the most common filler helps reinforce this while only moderately increasing the overall damage.
  
• Increasing Slaughter duration is a Quality of Life buff that helps eliminate rotational instability. No DPS change.
  

 

 

Marauder - Fury || Sentinel - Concentration

Current DPS: 6418

Goal DPS: 6853

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Dark Resonance || Focused Resonance to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Shii-Cho Mastery || Shii-Cho Mastery to 20% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Cruelty || Decisive Slashes to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6865

Reason:

• Fury needed a large boost to get it to the the stated level; Increasing the critical multiplier and Armor penetration for all moves accomplished this. It maintains the current playstyle by uniformly raising the discipline's damage.
  
• Just raising the Critical Multiplier and Armor penetration didn't fully accomplish the dps lift. To get the last boost, the critical hit chance on Furious strike, Vicious Slash and Vicious Throw were slightly raised.
  

 

 

 

 

Juggernauts and Guardians

 

 

Juggernaut - Vengeance || Guardian - Vigilance

Current DPS: 6607

Goal DPS: 7026

Changes:

• Increase Damage from Ravager || Master Focus to 25% (From 5%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Gushing Veins || smoldering Saber to 8% (From 5%)
  
• Increase Damage boost from Shein Form to 9% (from 6%)
  

Changed DPS: 7034

Reason:

• Ravage is a signature move for Vengeance and also locks down a melee character's movement. As such, it should be highly damaging and a large portion of Vengeance's overall dps.
  
• The other changes were to bring the overall dps up to the desired level without doing too large a single boost.
  

 

 

Juggernaut - Rage || Guardian - Focus

Current DPS: 6444

Goal DPS: 6853

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost Dark Resonance || Focused Resonance to 25% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Shii-Cho Mastery || Shii-Cho Mastery to 20% (from 15%)
  

Changed DPS: 6839

Reason:

• Rage needed a large boost to get it to the the stated level; Increasing the critical multiplier and Armor penetration for all moves accomplished this. It maintains the current playstyle by uniformly raising the discipline's damage.
  

 

 

 

 

Assassins and Shadows

 

 

Assassin - Deception || Shadow - Infiltration

Current DPS: 6537

Goal DPS: 6929

Changes:

• Increase Critical Chance from Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Charge Mastery || Technique Mastery to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Crackling Blasts || Deep Impact to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Dominating Slashes || Prevailing Strikes to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6933

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Assassins to behave the same as the other classes. For Deception it increases the on demand burst by a small amount.
  
• Increasing the Armor Penetration will raise damage equally across all non-discharge abilities and thus raising the sustain without affecting burst
  
• Increasing the Critical multiplier for your hardest hitting move ensures that Deception remains a burst spec.
  
• Increasing the critical chance for the main two melee attacks helps raise the damage to the approriate level.
  

 

 

Assassin - Hatred || Shadow - Serenity

Current DPS: 6555

Goal DPS: 7068

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Increase the Range of Death Field || Force in Balance to 15m (from 10m)
  
• Reduce the force cost Leeching Strike || Serenity Strike to 20 (from 25)
  
• Increase Periodic damage from Force Horrors || Drain Thoughts to 30% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Damage Bonus from Claws of Decay || Adjudication to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 7089

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Assassins to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• The Death Field range is a quality of life improvement for large diameter bosses where it is possible to be more than 10m away from the center of the boss while still within 4m of the edge of the boss. This would allow it to be always double clicked to cast while in melee range.
  
• Reducing the force cost of Leeching strike brings it down to the same value as all of the other melee moves for Hatred. If force cost is tied to damage coefficients, then reduce cost via ability such as claws of decay.
  
• Claws of Decay and Force Horrors are the only real levers for large scale changes without magnifying a single ability more than others.
  

 

 

 

 

Sorcerer and Sage

 

 

Sorcerer - Lightning || Sage - Telekinetics

Current DPS: 6470

Goal DPS: 6790

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Fix the current interaction between Thundering Blast || Turbulence and SuperCrit.
  
• Increase the duration of the proc from Lightning Flash || Telekinetic Gust to 15s (from 12s)
  
• Increase proc and damage from Forked Lightning || Telekinetic Momentum to 30% (from 25%)
  
• Increase proc and damage from Forked Darkness || Mental Momentum to 30% (from 25%)
  
• Increase Critical Hit Damage Reverberating Force || Reverberations to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6793

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Sorcerers to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• The Supercrit bug for Thundering Blast is a quality of life annoyance that can eat recklessness charges without providing any benefits to the caster. This fix is optional due to difficulty of implementation.
  
• Increasing the duration of the buff from Lighting Flash is a quality of life change that extends the buff to the full cooldown of the ability. This is a change that has been needed since the cooldown of Lightning flash was raised to 15s from 12s.
  
• Increasing the proc and damage ratio for Forked Lightning and Forked Darkness is the easiest way to increase damage without making any one move too powerful. This does involve changing coefficients, but since it is a straight percentage it should be easy to change.
  
• Increasing the critical hit damage for most of the moves will increase the overall damage by a slight amount
  

 

 

Sorcerer - Madness || Sage - Balance

Current DPS: 6736

Goal DPS: 6964

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Change Lighting Barrage || Psychic Projection to “ticks 50% faster but deals 50% less damage” (From “ticks 33% faster but deals 25% less damage”)
  
• Fix Rippling Force to count as a DOT just like Lightning Burns
  
• Increase Damage and reduce Force cost from Wrath || Psychic Projection
  

to 33% damage (from 25%) and consume 75% less force (from 50%)

Changed DPS: 6965

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Sorcerers to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• Madness has had an issue for a while now where the optimal rotations involve clipping Force Lightning a majority of the time. It has been stated multiple times that clipping moves is not an intended result for any discipline. There have been a few times that this has been attempted to be addressed with limited success. By shortening Force Lighting down to a single GCD there is no need or ability to clip this channel. It also allows Madness to have a normal rotation that utilizes the ability queue. This does break my usual reluctance to change rotations during class balances, but Madness is an exception due to the broken nature of the rotation
  
• Rippling Force is one of the few Mirror class abilities that don’t match. Fixing this would make Madness and Balance equivalent.
  
• Increasing Wrath Damage raises the total damage dealt and also reintroduces Lighting Strike as a useful part of the rotation. Reducing the force cost of Lighting Strike and Demolish makes the Madness rotation sustainable indefinitely like every other class.
  

 

 

 

 

Mercenary and Commando

 

 

Mercenary - Arsenal || Commando - Gunnery

Current DPS: 6682

Goal DPS: 6783

Changes:

• Supercharged Celerity || Supercharged Celerity costs 15 Energy. (from requiring and costing 10 stacks)
  
• Reduce Critical Damage boost from Target Tracking || Deadly Cannon to 15% (from 30%)
  
• Increase Damage from Power Launcher || Charge Launcher to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Barrage || Curtain of Fire to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6788

Reason:

• Quality of Life fix: DPS Mercenaries currently have a huge penalty for activating their raid-wide buff in compared to Sorcerers, Marauders, and Operatives. By changing the cost to energy instead of stacks it allows the buff to be activated at any point with minimal dps penalties (more rapid shots). The 15 energy was chosen because it is the same cost as Tracer Missile which can be replaced by a rapid shot.
  
• Arsenal was the last class to keep its 30% critical damage buff. Reducing it brings it more into line with the other burst disciplines.
  
• Power Launcher and Barrage will increase the damage of all non-rapid shots, non-priming shot abilities and thus increase damage without making any one ability be too powerful.
  

 

 

Mercenary - Innovative Ordinance || Commando - Assault Specialist

Current DPS: 6796

Goal DPS: 6929

Changes:

• Supercharged Celerity || Supercharged Celerity costs 15 Energy. (from requiring and costing 10 stacks)
  
• Reduce the ICD of Innovative Particle Accelerator || Blazing Celerity to 7s (from 7.5s)
  
• Increase Damage from Flaming Wound || Flaming Wound to 5% (from 3%)
  
• Relentless Ordnance || Relentless Assault raises tech Critical Chances by 5% (from 0% Tech Critical chance boost)
  

Changed DPS: 6924

Reason:

• Quality of Life fix: DPS Mercenaries currently have a huge penalty for activating their raid-wide buff in compared to Sorcerers, Marauders, and Operatives. By changing the cost to energy instead of stacks it allows the buff to be activated at any point with minimal dps penalties (more rapid shots). The 15 energy was chosen because it is the same cost as Power Shot which can be replaced by a rapid shot.
  
• Quality of Life fix: Reducing the ICD of Innovative Particle Accelerator will put a bandaid over the persistent alacrity bug that affects the timings for IO. While it does not solve the root cause, it will mask them and prevent them from occurring in the first place. By only reducing the ICD by 0.5s, it also preserves the 15s rotation by still limiting the activation to the desired GCD.
  
• IO does not have very many levers that would affect all of the moves. Flaming wound increases most of the dot moves and thus was an obvious choice.
  
• Adding the tech Critical hit chance to Relentless Ordnance increases the whole spec damage. This ability was chosen because it had it in 3.0.
  

 

 

 

 

Powertech and Vanguard

 

 

Powertech - Advanced Prototype || Vanguard - Tactics

Current DPS: 6439

Goal DPS: 6908

Changes:

• Increase Damage from Power Bracer || Riot Augs to 15% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6914

Reason:

• Personal Note: This is the DPS ranking that I most disagreed with. AP will still be the preferred spec by a huge margin (it was preferred even with a 200+ dps gap) due to better Defensives and that for the first few minutes of a fight all of the offensive cooldowns stay lined up (also will benefit dummy parses). In addition it is still the most mobile spec of any disciplines. It also has access to great utilities to increase in-raid dps and AOE damage only makes the discipline even stronger.
  
• Power Bracers is the obvious move to modify because it affects everything but Rapid Shots and Shoulder Missiles.
  

 

 

Powertech - Pyrotech || Vanguard - Plasmatech

Current DPS: 6645

Goal DPS: 7026

Changes:

• Flame Barrage || Plasma Barrage now triggers on Rail Shot and Immolate (from just Immolate)
  
• Superheated Flame Thrower || Pulse Generator now Stacks up to 3 times (from 2 times), increase damage by 20% (from 20%) and cause it to slow by 30% (from 45%) per stack.
  
• Increase Critical Chance of Elemental attacks from Prototype Cylinders || Plasma Barrage to 4% (from 3%)
  

Changed DPS: 7016

Reason:

• Flame Barrage, and Superheated Flame Thrower are reversions to early 3.0 before a few balancing attempts were made to try and reduce the damage (root cause was a bugged set bonus). This will raise dps mainly by streamlining the rotation by removing excess rapid shots for Flame Bursts. The remaining DPS increase will be via Flamethrower
  
• Raising the Critical chance of elemental attacks was the easiest way to get the last few percent increase
  

 

 

 

 

Sniper and Gunslinger

 

 

Sniper - Marksman || Gunslinger - Sharpshooter

Current DPS: 6238

Goal DPS: 6777

Changes:

• Increase Armor Penetration and Critical Chance from Between the Eyes || Slick Shooter to 20% (from 10%) and 6% (from 4%)
  
• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Imperial Assassin || Deadeye to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Headshot || Aim High to 20% (from 15%)
  

Changed DPS: 6780

Reason:

• By returning some of the Critical Damage Boosts and Armor Penetration, this spec returns closer to its bursty roots. It also raises damage by raising critical chances and emphasizing this burst.
  

 

 

Sniper - Engineering || Gunslinger - Saboteur

Current DPS: 6672

Goal DPS: 6915

Changes:

• Increase from Explosive Engineering || Independent Anarchy to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6941

Reason:

• Explosive Engineering increases the damage of most of Engineering’s abilities so it was the obvious candidate for raising the overall damage level.
  

 

 

Sniper - Virulence || Gunslinger - Dirty Fighting

Current DPS: 6643

Goal DPS: 6950

Changes:

• Increase Chance to tick twice from Corrosive Microbes || Mortal Wound to 20%(from 10%)
  
• Increase Chance to tick twice from Caustic Substances || Gushing Wounds to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6936

Reason:

• Virulence is a dot spec and increasing the number of ticks helps it maintain the overall damage level without increasing burst.
  

 

 

 

 

Operative and Scoundrel

 

 

Operative - Concealment || Scoundrel - Scrapper

Current DPS: 6525

Goal DPS: 6922

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Meticulously Kept Blades || Underdog to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Damage from Culling || Scrappy to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Waylay || Sawed Off to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Surgical Strikes || Turn The Tables to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6915

Reason:

• Increasing the Critical Damage Boost will give Concealment some of its old burst back while raising total damage.
  
• Increasing the the damage of a wide range of abilities by 5% raises the total damage of all abilities without singling out any individual abilities..
  

 

 

Operative - Lethality || Scoundrel - Ruffian

Current DPS: 6657

Goal DPS: 7040

Changes:

• Increase Chance to tick twice from Corrosive Microbes || Mortal Wound to 20%(from 10%)
  
• Increase Chance to tick twice from Acidic Compounds || Sharpened Materials to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Damage from Acidic Compounds || Sharpened Materials to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Cut Down || Rolling Punches to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 7039

Reason:

• Lethality is a dot spec and increasing the number of ticks helps it maintain the overall damage level without increasing burst.
  
• Cut Down affects a lot of moves and is an obvious lever for increasing overall damage.
  

 

 

Great job, but wouldn't that mean they will need to rebalance Ops too? Cause you're actually suggesting ~1-2% dmg buff to all classes/specs.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Tsetso

Great job, but wouldn't that mean they will need to rebalance Ops too? Cause you're actually suggesting ~1-2% dmg buff to all classes/specs.

 

Considering ops are not really that well balanced, it couldn't hurt. But even if that would be a damage increase for most specs, the max DPS wouldn't increase at all. I'm no theorycrafter, but I don't think it would change that much.

Ranks of Bant's proposed #dropsmike post:

 

1. (7089) Assassin - Hatred || Shadow - Serenity

2. (7051) Marauder - Annihilation || Sentinel - Watchman

3. (7039) Operative - Lethality || Scoundrel - Ruffian

4. (7034) Juggernaut - Vengeance || Guardian - Vigilance

5. (7016) Powertech - Pyrotech || Vanguard - Plasmatech

6. (6965) Sorcerer - Madness || Sage - Balance

7. (6950) Sniper - Virulence || Gunslinger - Dirty Fighting

8. (6942) Marauder - Carnage || Sentinel - Combat

9. (6941) Sniper - Engineering || Gunslinger - Saboteur

10. (6933) Assassin - Deception || Shadow - Infiltration

11. (6924) Mercenary - Innovative Ordinance || Commando - Assault Specialist

12. (6915) Operative - Concealment || Scoundrel - Scrapper

13. (6914) Powertech - Advanced Prototype || Vanguard - Tactics

14. (6865) Marauder - Fury || Sentinel - Concentration

15. (6839) Juggernaut - Rage || Guardian - Focus

16. (6793) Sorcerer - Lightning || Sage - Telekinetics

17. (6788) Mercenary - Arsenal || Commando - Gunnery

18. (6780) Sniper - Marksman || Gunslinger - Sharpshooter

 

7089-6780=+/-309 compared to current 7068-6238=+/-830 difference.

Edited June 12, 2016 by UberSamoyed

7089-6839=+/-309 compared to current 7068-6238=+/-830 difference.

 

I'll take that and add it to the front page if you don't mind ^^ I somehow forgot to put it.

I'll take that and add it to the front page if you don't mind ^^ I somehow forgot to put it.

 

I had to correct the last sniper function but the end result is the same, since I simply mislabeled the number ex post facto. Please replace 6839 with 6780.

Edited June 12, 2016 by UberSamoyed

I think some people are overplaying the ranking system here as the important part of the idea. The actually important bit is the overall spread. The Disciplines being balanced to a +/- 2% point means that, given equally skilled players in equally optimized gear should be trading off the top DPS spot on a regular basis due to variance in damage rolls and crit successes. I looked over Bant's changes, and they're quite well thought out, and it really is too bad that BioWare probably won't read through this thread.

I may have gone a bit overboard thinking about this…

 

Let me start off with saying that my personal view of class balancing is that the goal is balancing, not changing the overall rotation or discipline. I like balancing that is subtle and has no visible effects. I like to focus on Discipline specific abilities to avoid cross contamination with the other advanced classes. I also don’t want to add new abilities or effects because the goal was to have simple fixes that could be done in an afternoon. If I can accomplish balancing via minor changes only, that is my preference. I try not to modify coefficients because of the chance of making a mistake is higher when working with the base level abilities.

 

Summary of Restrictions:

• Only working with existing Discipline Abilities.
  
• No adding anything new, just modification of existing abilities
  
• No changing Rotations or Ability priorities (excluding Madness)
  
• No modification of ability coefficients.
  
• Minimize the number of changes per discipline.
  
• If Quality of Life changes are convenient, include them.
  
• Attempt to get as close to the stated DPS values as possible with no judgements on if those numbers are reasonable.
  

 

 

I made a modified version of my spreadsheet to test my changes and used current 224 gear to test with.

 

Marauders and Sentinels

 

 

Marauder - Annihilation || Sentinel - Watchman

Current DPS: 7109

Goal DPS: 7054

Changes:

• Increase the ICD of Bloodlust || Burning Focus to 4s (from 1s)
  
• Increase the ICD of Hemorrhage || Plasma Blades to 4s (from 3s)
  

Changed DPS: 7051

Reason:

• During 3.0 there was a lot of tinkering with Annihilation to try and make it work with Force Melt. This included lowering the ICD for RNG based Resource generation. With 4.0, Force Melt was fully integrated into the rotation by making it replace Force Leap and increasing the time between Annihilate uses. But the resource generation mechanics were never reverted to normalize to the new rotation. This lead to a situation where Annihilation became a class where it would be using the basic fillers (Vicious slash) more than any other class because it had the spare resources. The changes proposed would increase the number of Assaults in the rotation in proportion to Vicious Slashes and Force Screams.
  

 

 

Marauder - Carnage || Sentinel - Combat

Current DPS: 6857

Goal DPS: 6935

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage from Sever || Saber Storm to 20% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Slaughter || Hand of Justice Buff duration to 18s (from 15s)
  

Changed DPS: 6942

Reason:

• Carnage is a Burst spec that has 3 seconds of high damage to 9 seconds of low damage. Increasing the Critical multiplier on the biggest move along with the most common filler helps reinforce this while only moderately increasing the overall damage.
  
• Increasing Slaughter duration is a Quality of Life buff that helps eliminate rotational instability. No DPS change.
  

 

 

Marauder - Fury || Sentinel - Concentration

Current DPS: 6418

Goal DPS: 6853

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Dark Resonance || Focused Resonance to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Shii-Cho Mastery || Shii-Cho Mastery to 20% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Cruelty || Decisive Slashes to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6865

Reason:

• Fury needed a large boost to get it to the the stated level; Increasing the critical multiplier and Armor penetration for all moves accomplished this. It maintains the current playstyle by uniformly raising the discipline's damage.
  
• Just raising the Critical Multiplier and Armor penetration didn't fully accomplish the dps lift. To get the last boost, the critical hit chance on Furious strike, Vicious Slash and Vicious Throw were slightly raised.
  

 

 

 

 

Juggernauts and Guardians

 

 

Juggernaut - Vengeance || Guardian - Vigilance

Current DPS: 6607

Goal DPS: 7026

Changes:

• Increase Damage from Ravager || Master Focus to 25% (From 5%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Gushing Veins || smoldering Saber to 8% (From 5%)
  
• Increase Damage boost from Shein Form to 9% (from 6%)
  

Changed DPS: 7034

Reason:

• Ravage is a signature move for Vengeance and also locks down a melee character's movement. As such, it should be highly damaging and a large portion of Vengeance's overall dps.
  
• The other changes were to bring the overall dps up to the desired level without doing too large a single boost.
  

 

 

Juggernaut - Rage || Guardian - Focus

Current DPS: 6444

Goal DPS: 6853

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost Dark Resonance || Focused Resonance to 25% (from 15%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Shii-Cho Mastery || Shii-Cho Mastery to 20% (from 15%)
  

Changed DPS: 6839

Reason:

• Rage needed a large boost to get it to the the stated level; Increasing the critical multiplier and Armor penetration for all moves accomplished this. It maintains the current playstyle by uniformly raising the discipline's damage.
  

 

 

 

 

Assassins and Shadows

 

 

Assassin - Deception || Shadow - Infiltration

Current DPS: 6537

Goal DPS: 6929

Changes:

• Increase Critical Chance from Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Increase Armor Penetration from Charge Mastery || Technique Mastery to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Crackling Blasts || Deep Impact to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Dominating Slashes || Prevailing Strikes to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6933

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Assassins to behave the same as the other classes. For Deception it increases the on demand burst by a small amount.
  
• Increasing the Armor Penetration will raise damage equally across all non-discharge abilities and thus raising the sustain without affecting burst
  
• Increasing the Critical multiplier for your hardest hitting move ensures that Deception remains a burst spec.
  
• Increasing the critical chance for the main two melee attacks helps raise the damage to the approriate level.
  

 

 

Assassin - Hatred || Shadow - Serenity

Current DPS: 6555

Goal DPS: 7068

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Increase the Range of Death Field || Force in Balance to 15m (from 10m)
  
• Reduce the force cost Leeching Strike || Serenity Strike to 20 (from 25)
  
• Increase Periodic damage from Force Horrors || Drain Thoughts to 30% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Damage Bonus from Claws of Decay || Adjudication to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 7089

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Assassins to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• The Death Field range is a quality of life improvement for large diameter bosses where it is possible to be more than 10m away from the center of the boss while still within 4m of the edge of the boss. This would allow it to be always double clicked to cast while in melee range.
  
• Reducing the force cost of Leeching strike brings it down to the same value as all of the other melee moves for Hatred. If force cost is tied to damage coefficients, then reduce cost via ability such as claws of decay.
  
• Claws of Decay and Force Horrors are the only real levers for large scale changes without magnifying a single ability more than others.
  

 

 

 

 

Sorcerer and Sage

 

 

Sorcerer - Lightning || Sage - Telekinetics

Current DPS: 6470

Goal DPS: 6790

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Fix the current interaction between Thundering Blast || Turbulence and SuperCrit.
  
• Increase the duration of the proc from Lightning Flash || Telekinetic Gust to 15s (from 12s)
  
• Increase proc and damage from Forked Lightning || Telekinetic Momentum to 30% (from 25%)
  
• Increase proc and damage from Forked Darkness || Mental Momentum to 30% (from 25%)
  
• Increase Critical Hit Damage Reverberating Force || Reverberations to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6793

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Sorcerers to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• The Supercrit bug for Thundering Blast is a quality of life annoyance that can eat recklessness charges without providing any benefits to the caster. This fix is optional due to difficulty of implementation.
  
• Increasing the duration of the buff from Lighting Flash is a quality of life change that extends the buff to the full cooldown of the ability. This is a change that has been needed since the cooldown of Lightning flash was raised to 15s from 12s.
  
• Increasing the proc and damage ratio for Forked Lightning and Forked Darkness is the easiest way to increase damage without making any one move too powerful. This does involve changing coefficients, but since it is a straight percentage it should be easy to change.
  
• Increasing the critical hit damage for most of the moves will increase the overall damage by a slight amount
  

 

 

Sorcerer - Madness || Sage - Balance

Current DPS: 6736

Goal DPS: 6964

Changes:

• Increase Critical Hit chance of Recklessness || Force Potency to 100% (from 60%)
  
• Change Lighting Barrage || Psychic Projection to “ticks 50% faster but deals 50% less damage” (From “ticks 33% faster but deals 25% less damage”)
  
• Fix Rippling Force to count as a DOT just like Lightning Burns
  
• Increase Damage and reduce Force cost from Wrath || Psychic Projection
  

to 33% damage (from 25%) and consume 75% less force (from 50%)

Changed DPS: 6965

Reason:

• Recklessness to 100% critical chance is a quality of life fix that affects all Inquisitors and Consulars. This plays into the 4.0 super crit and allows Sorcerers to behave the same as the other classes.
  
• Madness has had an issue for a while now where the optimal rotations involve clipping Force Lightning a majority of the time. It has been stated multiple times that clipping moves is not an intended result for any discipline. There have been a few times that this has been attempted to be addressed with limited success. By shortening Force Lighting down to a single GCD there is no need or ability to clip this channel. It also allows Madness to have a normal rotation that utilizes the ability queue. This does break my usual reluctance to change rotations during class balances, but Madness is an exception due to the broken nature of the rotation
  
• Rippling Force is one of the few Mirror class abilities that don’t match. Fixing this would make Madness and Balance equivalent.
  
• Increasing Wrath Damage raises the total damage dealt and also reintroduces Lighting Strike as a useful part of the rotation. Reducing the force cost of Lighting Strike and Demolish makes the Madness rotation sustainable indefinitely like every other class.
  

 

 

 

 

Mercenary and Commando

 

 

Mercenary - Arsenal || Commando - Gunnery

Current DPS: 6682

Goal DPS: 6783

Changes:

• Supercharged Celerity || Supercharged Celerity costs 15 Energy. (from requiring and costing 10 stacks)
  
• Reduce Critical Damage boost from Target Tracking || Deadly Cannon to 15% (from 30%)
  
• Increase Damage from Power Launcher || Charge Launcher to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Barrage || Curtain of Fire to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6788

Reason:

• Quality of Life fix: DPS Mercenaries currently have a huge penalty for activating their raid-wide buff in compared to Sorcerers, Marauders, and Operatives. By changing the cost to energy instead of stacks it allows the buff to be activated at any point with minimal dps penalties (more rapid shots). The 15 energy was chosen because it is the same cost as Tracer Missile which can be replaced by a rapid shot.
  
• Arsenal was the last class to keep its 30% critical damage buff. Reducing it brings it more into line with the other burst disciplines.
  
• Power Launcher and Barrage will increase the damage of all non-rapid shots, non-priming shot abilities and thus increase damage without making any one ability be too powerful.
  

 

 

Mercenary - Innovative Ordinance || Commando - Assault Specialist

Current DPS: 6796

Goal DPS: 6929

Changes:

• Supercharged Celerity || Supercharged Celerity costs 15 Energy. (from requiring and costing 10 stacks)
  
• Reduce the ICD of Innovative Particle Accelerator || Blazing Celerity to 7s (from 7.5s)
  
• Increase Damage from Flaming Wound || Flaming Wound to 5% (from 3%)
  
• Relentless Ordnance || Relentless Assault raises tech Critical Chances by 5% (from 0% Tech Critical chance boost)
  

Changed DPS: 6924

Reason:

• Quality of Life fix: DPS Mercenaries currently have a huge penalty for activating their raid-wide buff in compared to Sorcerers, Marauders, and Operatives. By changing the cost to energy instead of stacks it allows the buff to be activated at any point with minimal dps penalties (more rapid shots). The 15 energy was chosen because it is the same cost as Power Shot which can be replaced by a rapid shot.
  
• Quality of Life fix: Reducing the ICD of Innovative Particle Accelerator will put a bandaid over the persistent alacrity bug that affects the timings for IO. While it does not solve the root cause, it will mask them and prevent them from occurring in the first place. By only reducing the ICD by 0.5s, it also preserves the 15s rotation by still limiting the activation to the desired GCD.
  
• IO does not have very many levers that would affect all of the moves. Flaming wound increases most of the dot moves and thus was an obvious choice.
  
• Adding the tech Critical hit chance to Relentless Ordnance increases the whole spec damage. This ability was chosen because it had it in 3.0.
  

 

 

 

 

Powertech and Vanguard

 

 

Powertech - Advanced Prototype || Vanguard - Tactics

Current DPS: 6439

Goal DPS: 6908

Changes:

• Increase Damage from Power Bracer || Riot Augs to 15% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6914

Reason:

• Personal Note: This is the DPS ranking that I most disagreed with. AP will still be the preferred spec by a huge margin (it was preferred even with a 200+ dps gap) due to better Defensives and that for the first few minutes of a fight all of the offensive cooldowns stay lined up (also will benefit dummy parses). In addition it is still the most mobile spec of any disciplines. It also has access to great utilities to increase in-raid dps and AOE damage only makes the discipline even stronger.
  
• Power Bracers is the obvious move to modify because it affects everything but Rapid Shots and Shoulder Missiles.
  

 

 

Powertech - Pyrotech || Vanguard - Plasmatech

Current DPS: 6645

Goal DPS: 7026

Changes:

• Flame Barrage || Plasma Barrage now triggers on Rail Shot and Immolate (from just Immolate)
  
• Superheated Flame Thrower || Pulse Generator now Stacks up to 3 times (from 2 times), increase damage by 20% (from 20%) and cause it to slow by 30% (from 45%) per stack.
  
• Increase Critical Chance of Elemental attacks from Prototype Cylinders || Plasma Barrage to 4% (from 3%)
  

Changed DPS: 7016

Reason:

• Flame Barrage, and Superheated Flame Thrower are reversions to early 3.0 before a few balancing attempts were made to try and reduce the damage (root cause was a bugged set bonus). This will raise dps mainly by streamlining the rotation by removing excess rapid shots for Flame Bursts. The remaining DPS increase will be via Flamethrower
  
• Raising the Critical chance of elemental attacks was the easiest way to get the last few percent increase
  

 

 

 

 

Sniper and Gunslinger

 

 

Sniper - Marksman || Gunslinger - Sharpshooter

Current DPS: 6238

Goal DPS: 6777

Changes:

• Increase Armor Penetration and Critical Chance from Between the Eyes || Slick Shooter to 20% (from 10%) and 6% (from 4%)
  
• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Imperial Assassin || Deadeye to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Critical Chance from Headshot || Aim High to 20% (from 15%)
  

Changed DPS: 6780

Reason:

• By returning some of the Critical Damage Boosts and Armor Penetration, this spec returns closer to its bursty roots. It also raises damage by raising critical chances and emphasizing this burst.
  

 

 

Sniper - Engineering || Gunslinger - Saboteur

Current DPS: 6672

Goal DPS: 6915

Changes:

• Increase from Explosive Engineering || Independent Anarchy to 15% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6947

Reason:

• Explosive Engineering increases the damage of most of Engineering’s abilities so it was the obvious candidate for raising the overall damage level.
  

 

 

Sniper - Virulence || Gunslinger - Dirty Fighting

Current DPS: 6643

Goal DPS: 6950

Changes:

• Increase Chance to tick twice from Corrosive Microbes || Mortal Wound to 20%(from 10%)
  
• Increase Chance to tick twice from Caustic Substances || Gushing Wounds to 20% (from 10%)
  

Changed DPS: 6936

Reason:

• Virulence is a dot spec and increasing the number of ticks helps it maintain the overall damage level without increasing burst.
  

 

 

 

 

Operative and Scoundrel

 

 

Operative - Concealment || Scoundrel - Scrapper

Current DPS: 6525

Goal DPS: 6922

Changes:

• Increase Critical Damage Boost from Meticulously Kept Blades || Underdog to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Damage from Culling || Scrappy to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Waylay || Sawed Off to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Surgical Strikes || Turn The Tables to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 6915

Reason:

• Increasing the Critical Damage Boost will give Concealment some of its old burst back while raising total damage.
  
• Increasing the the damage of a wide range of abilities by 5% raises the total damage of all abilities without singling out any individual abilities..
  

 

 

Operative - Lethality || Scoundrel - Ruffian

Current DPS: 6657

Goal DPS: 7040

Changes:

• Increase Chance to tick twice from Corrosive Microbes || Mortal Wound to 20%(from 10%)
  
• Increase Chance to tick twice from Acidic Compounds || Sharpened Materials to 20% (from 10%)
  
• Increase Damage from Acidic Compounds || Sharpened Materials to 10% (from 5%)
  
• Increase Damage from Cut Down || Rolling Punches to 10% (from 5%)
  

Changed DPS: 7039

Reason:

• Lethality is a dot spec and increasing the number of ticks helps it maintain the overall damage level without increasing burst.
  
• Cut Down affects a lot of moves and is an obvious lever for increasing overall damage.
  

 

 

 

 

Edit Log:

6/18: Changed Engineering || Saboteur from 20% to 15% due to a bug found in my code.

 

Maybe a little overboard, but fine work. The only thing I would add is PvE knockback/stun immunity on Ravage||Master Strike (not the stupid new name) for Vengeance||Vigilance.

 

I also don't know if I could stand by the choice of placement for AP||Tactics any more, either.