I am calling for an explanation from the developers who handle class balance to discuss why there was a buff to Focus/Rage trees in the recent patch as well as explaining why the damage from Force Sweep/Smash applies before the animation even begins now rather than after the animation occurs like it did pre-1.4.

 

My concern is that there cannot be any preparation against a move like that with it's current timing mechanism as opposed to the past when there was time to activate available defensive cooldowns like Force Shroud/Resilience or Force Camouflage to counter it. However now, these moves that can potentially do 7000 damage to multiple targets, cost no resource, and be activated more frequently than an already low 15s cooldown used to restrict cannot be prepared for except by guessing when the players will use them. The closest analog to this damage timing mechanism is Death Field/Force in Balance which can only hit 3 targets instead of 5 and does not have a damage ceiling near that of Smash/Force Sweep.

 

I want an explanation of what the developers were thinking because there is no clearly justifiable reason for these changes. Thank you.

I am calling for an explanation from the developers who handle class balance to discuss why there was a buff to Focus/Rage trees in the recent patch as well as explaining why the damage from Force Sweep/Smash applies before the animation even begins now rather than after the animation occurs like it did pre-1.4.

 

My concern is that there cannot be any preparation against a move like that with it's current timing mechanism as opposed to the past when there was time to activate available defensive cooldowns like Force Shroud/Resilience or Force Camouflage to counter it. However now, these moves that can potentially do 7000 damage to multiple targets, cost no resource, and be activated more frequently than an already low 15s cooldown used to restrict cannot be prepared for except by guessing when the players will use them. The closest analog to this damage timing mechanism is Death Field/Force in Balance which can only hit 3 targets instead of 5 and does not have a damage ceiling near that of Smash/Force Sweep.

 

I want an explanation of what the developers were thinking because there is no clearly justifiable reason for these changes. Thank you.

 

News flash, you aren't entitled to an explanation about anything. Have some personal responsibility and learn to adapt or play something else.

Smash thread #771 established.

I have a theory.

 

It goes along the lines of some dev asking his 12 year old son what needed to be changed.

 

That or some kind of game of chance, possibly involving alcohol.

I have a theory.

 

It goes along the lines of some dev asking his 12 year old son what needed to be changed.

 

That or some kind of game of chance, possibly involving alcohol.

 

And a dart board.

Smash thread #771 established.

 

Shall I start #772?

Smash/sweep wasnt performing as good as vengeance/vigilance in PvE. Solution? Break PvP.

I am calling for an explanation from the developers who handle class balance to discuss why there was a buff to Focus/Rage trees in the recent patch as well as explaining why the damage from Force Sweep/Smash applies before the animation even begins now rather than after the animation occurs like it did pre-1.4.

 

My concern is that there cannot be any preparation against a move like that with it's current timing mechanism as opposed to the past when there was time to activate available defensive cooldowns like Force Shroud/Resilience or Force Camouflage to counter it. However now, these moves that can potentially do 7000 damage to multiple targets, cost no resource, and be activated more frequently than an already low 15s cooldown used to restrict cannot be prepared for except by guessing when the players will use them. The closest analog to this damage timing mechanism is Death Field/Force in Balance which can only hit 3 targets instead of 5 and does not have a damage ceiling near that of Smash/Force Sweep.

 

I want an explanation of what the developers were thinking because there is no clearly justifiable reason for these changes. Thank you.

 

I understand your frustration but you'd have just as much luck calling for the devs to be paying US for the high privilege of having such fine examples of humanity as we are playing their game. I honestly don't think that's less likely at this point.

I understand your frustration but you'd have just as much luck calling for the devs to be paying US for the high privilege of having such fine examples of humanity as we are playing their game. I honestly don't think that's less likely at this point.

 

I really hope you're wrong, but it's true that most of their changes have been made with reasons stowed inside a black box. However, in a 1.4 preview they at least took the time/energy/effort to explained about their upcoming changes to Sages/Sorcs and resolve. It seems logical that they finish explaining what they started and touch on this issue as well.

The goal with 1.4 was to see if they could reach the same unsubscribe numbers as 1.2.

The explanation is that they all play marauders.

 

Oh, and by the way, Mercenary/Commando is still OP.

Shall I start #772?

 

Only if you have something unique to add.

News flash, you aren't entitled to an explanation about anything. Have some personal responsibility and learn to adapt or play something else.

 

7/10 of the original PvP players in SWTOR HAVE left because of cluless developers

so that argument is a strange one.

I am calling for an explanation from the developers who handle class balance to discuss why there was a buff to Focus/Rage trees in the recent patch as well as explaining why the damage from Force Sweep/Smash applies before the animation even begins now rather than after the animation occurs like it did pre-1.4.

 

My concern is that there cannot be any preparation against a move like that with it's current timing mechanism as opposed to the past when there was time to activate available defensive cooldowns like Force Shroud/Resilience or Force Camouflage to counter it. However now, these moves that can potentially do 7000 damage to multiple targets, cost no resource, and be activated more frequently than an already low 15s cooldown used to restrict cannot be prepared for except by guessing when the players will use them. The closest analog to this damage timing mechanism is Death Field/Force in Balance which can only hit 3 targets instead of 5 and does not have a damage ceiling near that of Smash/Force Sweep.

 

I want an explanation of what the developers were thinking because there is no clearly justifiable reason for these changes. Thank you.

 

Hi Billie!

 

My favorite thing about the recent Focus buffs for my Guardian is that it's now easier than ever to 1v2 a couple people (contingent on them staying near each other for some reason)!

 

Can we take a second to discuss what's perhaps the more serious problem with Focus - does any other spec allow for such ridiculous stat-stacking? Power to a Focus specced Knight/Warrior is like crack to a, umm, crack addict? Or something. I have a thought that maybe this is what throws off Bioware's metrics. Some players in Focus aren't properly power-stacked, so they bring the numbers down, but the people who do stack power are able to do a lot more damage/burst.

 

For the uninitiated -

 

Force Sweep, when properly set up, does 2x damage AND auto-crits. Due to the auto-crit, you get 0 benefit from crit-rating AND reduced benefit from strength. But, also, since it auto-crits and your multiplier is about 100%, you're getting 2x return from any power you put in just due to the auto-crit, and then another 2x from that proc. So, power gets a 4x return in a focus-specced sweep when compared to a regular sweep which gets something like 1.4x return (assuming a 40% chance of crit). (Its coefficient is something like 1.35, but we can put that aside when comparing it just to other Force Sweeps - this does come up when comparing it to other abilities, though).

 

Now, previously, pre-1.4, sweep was already a decent portion of a Focus Guardian's damage, but now it's even more so. Let's say you're sweeping, with procs, every 12 seconds, and you're hitting on average 2 players. You're now getting an 8x (4x on the Sweep x 2 targets) benefit from stacking power relative to what you would be getting in another spec (it isn't an 8:1 benefit compared to other stats, though, since power and the other stat have different baseline benefits, I just mean when compared to those stats for a different spec) once every 12 seconds, which is once every 8 GCD, so you're essentially getting twice the overall benefit of power compared to what other specs get from power. Not to mention what this does to your burst.

 

This essentially makes it so that an improperly geared Guardian (or Sent) in Focus Spec does SIGNIFICANTLY less damage than a properly geared one (for other classes/specs, the difference in gear optimization doesn't seem nearly as large). So, as I said earlier, this might be creating a scenario where the "average" Focus-specced player is doing damage in line with the other specs in PvP, but min/maxers are doing damage way out of line.

I have been loling watching the rage specs (and their mirros) in sub-50s. When they get you it hurts, but I see a lot of them just spinning in circles with the nearest target just out of their range, and just other terribly bad things. When they get you, it hurts, but it is so comical sometimes. Spec isn't helping these people. unfortunately, it seems those are the ones that wind up on my team.

I think rob_y has shown why it is that there's a huge range of damage being done by Rage/Focus now-a-days. When power is getting amplified so much, the power-stacked war hero PvPers are doing ridiculous damage while everyone else is essentially down with the rest of us scrambling to keep up with them. From personal experience as a sage trying to stack power (at the cost of most of my other secondary stats) the yield was unimpressive because my procs and abilities don't emphasize the power stat as much. Sage DPS is sustain, not burst, so the damage boost from stacking power is limited. The only saving grace was Force Potency which let me get high crit chance when I wanted to make up for my lower critical rating but even then the results were mixed.

 

The reason I'm bringing this up is to show how other classes that stack power (or other stats even) have a limit to their gains while the Rage/Focus spec do not seem to have this concern. So I'd be very interested to hear input from a developer to see what their thought process was on these changes.

 

However, as a realist, I'm going to try to make sure I'm not standing terribly close to my allies so much anymore because clearly I'm not helping my own cause when I'm giving a sweeper 3-4 packed in and juicy targets. Our best chance to "counter" them is to keep our distance from each other to prevent massive damage. Obviously this is not an ideal solution, and some will argue not a solution at all, but it's the only realistic thing I can see us doing to limit the damage output of Rage/Focus.

Edited October 8, 2012 by Ophidion

News flash, you aren't entitled to an explanation about anything. Have some personal responsibility and learn to adapt or play something else.

What an amazing attitude, you've really thought this through.

 

Or wait, what happens when there's only one server left and a queue pop takes three hours as an outcome of everyone playing something else? I bet you're still here, rolling the latest FotM and telling people to adapt.

 

Live the dream, champ!

Edited October 8, 2012 by MidichIorian

Our best chance to "counter" them is to keep our distance from each other to prevent massive damage. Obviously this is not an ideal solution, and some will argue not a solution at all, but it's the only realistic thing I can see us doing to limit the damage output of Rage/Focus.

 

Yea, the single-target burst is still impressive, but when I'm healing a warzone, the LAST thing I want to see is 3-4 guys getting swept for 5k+ simultaneously. Not only is it a lot of damage to have to heal all at once, but it's difficult to tell who the actual target is who may be about to be targeted by the other team. So, sometimes I heal up one of those guys only to immediately lose another.

 

Aside from just saying they could put the whole spec back to pre-1.4, I think the biggest thing they should do is just change the animation back. Putting the animation back won't change the functionality for PvE encounters, since enemies won't react and knock you back, but it DOES even the playing field quite a bit in PvP (and it seems like it's only really a problem in PvP right now - no one's complaining about Focus being OP in PvE).

I understand your frustrations OP, but you won't get an answer.

 

Rage Juggs were balanced in 1.2 (actually I think they were stronger than buncha classes at that point); I had guild mates that even back then with the slower animation and worse resource management would top the charts every game and 1v1 pretty much anyone at that point. This is again catering to the less skilled part of the population, however it made the class god like for the good players, with pretty much no way to counter them.

 

For months people cried how powerful Rage was, and pretty much the only argument against it was always -- well, the animation is slow, you can always knock back, or stun or pop a defensive cooldown. Well, now you can't even do that.

 

And don't expect a reply. This crowd, most of us, are really unhappy and can be pretty negative and for a very good reason. Any explanation a dev gave would be flamed and would be poorly received by many. That's why devs have nowhere to post, these are their forums and they are too afraid to ever use them, sadly.

 

They will most probably stick their heads into the ground, hope the danger will go away, and when they resurface another quarter million of us will be gone.

They will most probably stick their heads into the ground, hope the danger will go away, and when they resurface another quarter million of us will be gone.

 

Unfortunately, with F2P coming, the subscriber numbers will likely skyrocket, so they might take that as a positive sign.

They will most probably stick their heads into the ground, hope the danger will go away, and when they resurface another quarter million of us will be gone.

 

I certainly hope that is not the case. I was under the impression that in lieu of having Q & A sessions they would be monitoring the forums more reguarly to provide feedback. I honestly am not demanding a change here, although it's obvious I'd like to see one, but what I'm asking for is an explanation to the player base why they are changing certain mechanics of certain classes and how that is accomplishing their vision of balance. I don't think that's unreasonable, but they haven't shown much evidence to assuage our protests about these things before except the explanation of stealth, knockback, and resolve changes. Why not more of that?

Is there diminishing returns on stacking power?

Is there diminishing returns on stacking power?

 

Only in the sense that anything diminishes when you're adding a flat amount to a growing amount (i.e. if you add 10 damage onto something that does 1000 damage, that's a 1% increase, but if you add 10 more damage it's a little less than 1%, and 10 damage added to a 2000 damage attack is only 0.5%). It doesn't lower the amount of added damage while stacking higher and higher, no.

It doesn't lower the amount of added damage while stacking higher and higher, no.

 

Maybe it should? I'm a focus Sent (since April) in regular BM gear (haven't played him since before 1.4 though, been levelling up alts lately) and I don't want to see the Focus spec in Bioware's nerf cross-hairs because of min/maxers doing more damage than what Bioware intended.

Edited October 9, 2012 by RAVM

Maybe it should? I'm a focus Sent (since April) in regular BM gear (haven't played him since before 1.4 though, been levelling up alts lately) and I don't want to see the Focus spec in Bioware's nerf cross-hairs because of min/maxers doing more damage than what Bioware intended.

 

That would be one possible solution.