Updated with utility.

 

mobility: serious damaging/healing while moving

burst: self-explanatory

range: anything that can shoot from more than 10m

*new*

invulnerability: not facerolled/insta death in a facetank situation

escape: mechanisms exist to escape from a single attack or a gang attack most importantly

utlility: abilities that contribute in increasing the team effectiveness and/or to "easier" accomplishment of the warzone objectives

 

sents/maras

mobility: yes

burst: yes

range: no

invulnerability: yes

escape: yes

utlitiy: yes (trans and bloodthirst)

Total: 5/6

 

guards/jugs-

mobility: yes

burst: yes

range: no

invulnerability: yes

escape: yes (can guardian leap be taken for dps specs?)

utility: yes. guardian leap, taunt, easily switch to guard stance

Total: 5/6

 

vanguards-

mobility: yes

burst: yes

range: limited they have some 30m hits with one being decent and the other although conditional it can hit really hard, hence 0.25 if not 0.5

invulnerability: yes

escape: no

utility: quite decent. enemy pull is good particularly for hutball and if taking into account field respec for hutball (hence ball carriers with guardian leap) or in some cases guarding/defence, for this 0.75 as they are no longer dps considered, and let's face it who does it outside ranked games

Total: 4.00/6

 

snipers-

mobility: very limited in general, basic attack plus 1 more as far as i recall which does a bit more damage but is energy inefficient, 0.25 with reluctance

burst: yes

range: yes

invulnerability: yes

escape: no

utility: small-medium, (team shield although in very long cooldown from what I recall, more importantly xs flyby which prevents a node being capped) would give at least 0.25 for xs flyby if not 0.5

Total: 3.5/6

 

shadows:

mobility: yes

burst: yes

range: no

invulnerability: yes

escape: yes

utility: yes. their stealth makes them ideal solo defenders/attackers, enemy pull is also very good, force speed can also be used to quickly assist a node (although you only arrive a couple of secs earlier than the rest but still) or in hutball

Total: 5/6

 

operatives:

mobility: yes

burst: conditionally yes 0.5 here

range: no

invulnerability: no

escape: yes

utility: yes. their stealth makes them ideal solo defenders/attackers but they lack the rest of the utilities of shadows hence 0.5

Total: 3.0/6

 

commandos-

mobility: no

burst: yes

range: yes

invulnerability: partial (0.5)

escape: no

utility: none afaik

Total: 2.5/6

 

sages-

mobility: conditionally and weak, 0.5

burst: no

range: yes

invulnerability: no

escape: yes but it's the easiest to counter and you are probably dead by the time you try to force speed away from a gang attack -still dying so quickly works as intended (bubble stun is not counted as it is even more stupid than smash). Hence 0.5.

utility: yes. without considering bubble stun, they still have excellent utiliy. force speed can also be used to quickly assist a node (although you only arrive a couple of secs earlier than the rest but still) or in hutball, pull commonly used in hutball but also to save a friendly from a coordinated attack or pull an additional teammate closer to the node you are running to assist if you are ahead, etc. bubbles can sometimes save a teammate if there is no sage healer in the field, cleanses can cleanse dots from teammates but most importantly break the force mezzes (e.g. lift/whirlwind).

Total: 3.0/6

 

And the order is then out of 6:

5.00: tie - sents/maras, guards/jugs and shadows/sins

4.00: vans/ptechs

3.5: slingers/snipers

3.00: tie - sages/sorcs and scounds/ops

2.50: comms/mercs

 

An important point that I observe from this table is that all the classes that have been complaints about have 3/3 for mobility/burst/invulnerability.

 

Invulnerability for sages cannot be changed as this is the nature of the class, made of glass. Fixing/improving 2/3 of mobility/burst/escape and all in par. Personally I would prefer burst and some limited mobility.

 

EDIT: Fixing/improving burst and escape will create an OP class in my opinion.

EDIT: Changed for commandos per suggestion

EDIT: Guardians/jugs guardian leap as escape. Can this be taken for dps versions?

EDIT: Sages escape value

EDIT: Added utility

EDIT: Changed survivability to invulnerability to avoid misunderstandings

EDIT: Added ranking

EDIT: Updated guards/jugs section

EDIT: Updated snipers/slingers

Edited January 26, 2013 by MusicRider

A further observation is that there are:

5 melee dps classes out of which 4 are, let's use the diplomatic term, preferred and 1 might be considered in ranked if a team lacks a shadow (operatives)

3 ranged dps classes out of which 1 is preferred (snipers), 1 could be considered as an option in ranked (sages) and 1 which is not preferred at all (commandos).

DPS sorcerers especially could use a survivability boost, I think most would agree. This could be introduced via a talent in a dps tree, probably low in Madness/Balance. Personally, I'd add it to Corrupted Flesh and move it lower in the tree.

 

- Unnatural Preservation gives 6 seconds of 25% damage reduction.

- Use of Recklessness resets the cooldown of Unnatural Preservation.

 

This means that sorcs could have 6 seconds of a simple cooldown, every 30 seconds. It also means they could chain that into a 12 second cooldown every 1.5 minutes.

 

I imagine the Stalker set might become more helpful to all sorcs with this update, although it is already more helpful for Madness sorcs.

 

Thoughts?

 

Or maybe they can have one they can spec into that insta-casts, and when 2000ish damage is is given to it, will stun everyone in five meters with very little resolve? Then, we can give them an option to be able to put it on themselves every 15 seconds as well as other players.

Guardian Leap is a baseline Guardian ability Rider.

 

For some reason, you don't seem to consider taunts as utility. That is weird, tbh. Also, a Guardian can switch to Soresu and Guard a healer without respeccing. The damage and Focus generation will suffer somewhat but it's still useful if there's no proper tank in a regular warzone. That is good utility.

Edited January 26, 2013 by Siorac

Guardian Leap is a baseline Guardian ability Rider.

 

For some reason, you don't seem to consider taunts as utility. That is weird, tbh. Also, a Guardian can switch to Soresu and Guard a healer without respeccing. The damage and Focus generation will suffer somewhat but it's still useful if there's no proper tank in a regular warzone. That is good utility.

 

Updated. Thanks for pointing these out.

Or maybe they can have one they can spec into that insta-casts, and when 2000ish damage is is given to it, will stun everyone in five meters with very little resolve? Then, we can give them an option to be able to put it on themselves every 15 seconds as well as other players.

As you clearly have not been paying attention; the vast majority of the Sorc population understands that the Backlash ability is not balanced. In fact most of this community is open to its removal/re-design so long as Bioware manages to provide us with compensation.

 

@MusicRider

I would actually give Snipers/GS some credit for mobility. (0.25 to 0.50)

While the hardest hitting abilities do require cover there are a number of mobile DPS abilities that work as fillers and CC that can be deployed while on the move. While it is not impressive mobility it is enough to hit someone with shiv, CC the target, continue damage, and reposition effectively.

MusicRider

 

good job, but i think it's time to go into individual specs. Generalizing entire classes will not work. Because the mobility, utility, survivability, survivability can differ quite a lot between specs. And this is not only for tank vs dps specs, this can be totally different even between dps specs: compare Engineering with Lethality, the first one is leaps and bounds ahead in terms of survivability.

 

I can help you rate most of the specs from these classes: Sniper, Operative, Sorcerer, Powertech.

@MusicRider

I would actually give Snipers/GS some credit for mobility. (0.25 to 0.50)

While the hardest hitting abilities do require cover there are a number of mobile DPS abilities that work as fillers and CC that can be deployed while on the move. While it is not impressive mobility it is enough to hit someone with shiv, CC the target, continue damage, and reposition effectively.

 

Thanks. Updated but only 0.25. The abilities are fairly weak and energy exhausting as far as I recall from my sniper.

MusicRider

 

good job, but i think it's time to go into individual specs. Generalizing entire classes will not work. Because the mobility, utility, survivability, survivability can differ quite a lot between specs. And this is not only for tank vs dps specs, this can be totally different even between dps specs: compare Engineering with Lethality, the first one is leaps and bounds ahead in terms of survivability.

 

I can help you rate most of the specs from these classes: Sniper, Operative, Sorcerer, Powertech.

 

Thanks Express. I agree that a more detailed table would saw differences between different specs, but a) it will need more people for time and skills, b) we have to think before that whether it is worth doing this comparison. In the table I produced I am trying to take a rough estimate of the classes taking in mind their "decent/best" dps specs (for example what do you think of lethality? would you ever play it in ranked?). The results I think show some interesting results and conclusions:

a) the dominance of the melee classes over the ranged

b) which attributes seem to be valued or are more useful at least from a rated team perspective.

 

A spec specific tree is still useful in my opinion as it shows which specs are OP, UP, balanced. I am happy to do the 4-5 common specs of sages/sorcs and/or sents/maras (although imo all three specs are fairly representative of the attributes in terms of burst/mobility).

 

If such a thing is to be done it might deserve a separate thread. I am more than happy for anyone to start it and feel free to use the above table as a starting/generic point.

 

EDIT: The whole point of the generic table is that some classes do not even have a viable dps spec, and this is most referring to comms/mercs than the rest of the classes. The only exception in our server is on commando who every time I face him I think he is a vanguard. He is just plain ridiculously good beyond comprehension, and I hope they don't take his numbers and play into consideration.

Edited January 26, 2013 by MusicRider

This could be interesting if we made a thread where people did not argume if something is OP but if a certain spec can be considered for example mobile or with above average survivability. It does require a lot of work though. May be i'll get to it in one night.

 

As for lethality, that's basically an artilery spec, you need support from your team, you don't walk alone between the mission objectives with lethality. I never tried it in RWZ, i usually went for MM or Engineering.

Edited January 26, 2013 by NoTomorrow

Nice work with the list guys, I'll help you with my ratings also on all toons I play if you decide to make a big thread on all specs.

 

MR, and all the other guys who think we need a damage boost but no DFCD... I really have the same vision as you guys and I would love to play a pure glass cannon with crippling damage and no survivability (that part they got right), but I really don't think they can change the damage much, at least not as much as we think it deserves -- and that leaves mitigation.

 

In competitive team play a bit of extra damage won't make a dps sorc any more viable, since they will still always be a first target, and a quick one at that. The damage potential of the sorc would have to be increased tremendously for the teammates to appreciate having a sorc, with all the babysitting they have to do to keep one up against a good team. If the damage on a couple of melee specs got toned down a bit I think sorc dps would be noticed again, but bumping it up a bit might push the class into OP territory, and with the amount of sorcs in the game and the popularity of the class it would definitely start a chitstorm on the forums... and we know how that eventually ends up.

 

If I did, I'd change the damage by keeping the same damage on both DoTs but halving the length of them, better force management explained in a post above, and probably a small boost to burst via a proc to Shock damage/crit multiplier.

 

But since I really don't see any of that happening, I was thinking -- what would be the easiest bandaid fix for sorc? It's a simple cooldown that would allow a bit of competitiveness and who knows, might even enable a few good sorcs to enter rated and have a chance. I would prefer 6k crits, but do you really think they would allow for 4-5k Shocks on the main Shock? Or redesign the tree for shorter DoTs?

 

At best we can hope for a quick and easy DFCD, something easy to implement, and better force management through doubling the force regen to 2% per FL tick while in PvP combat. Those seem easy to implement and test.

This is so opbvious that it don't even need a post to know that. But seems that they dont care abouyt it at all, for me, i think a lot of things dumbs, like the class with the worst armor have no defensive cooldown and a slow dps. You need to survive for a while to begin some dps, but you cant survive this long. Anyone can kill you quickly. This is not a glass cannon, this is a a glass slingshot

New thread

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=591200

 

Feel free to contribute. Thanks.

Edited January 27, 2013 by MusicRider