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The greatest imbalance nobody talks about..


Korgothias

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There is a tiny little imbalance due to the fact, that gunslingers have two pistols compare to the one gun for snipers. But this is compensated - by fraction - with mercenaries and commandos. Edited by DerTaran
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What's imbalanced between the two classes? Be more specific.

 

My only guess is that the OP is bringing up the disparity between dual wielding and using a superior weapon. Dual wielding is, numerically, slightly superior (thanks to how accuracy works with offhand weapons, the damage is slightly better with a dual wield, I'm not sure, but I think crit proc talents will proc off of offhand crits, which means that dual wielding also ends up with better proc rates from such effects). Of course, it's not a unique case to GS v. Sniper since the same discrepancy exists between Mercs and Commandos as well, so I'm not sure if it qualifies as some kind of unspoken inbalance.

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My only guess is that the OP is bringing up the disparity between dual wielding and using a superior weapon. Dual wielding is, numerically, slightly superior (thanks to how accuracy works with offhand weapons, the damage is slightly better with a dual wield, I'm not sure, but I think crit proc talents will proc off of offhand crits, which means that dual wielding also ends up with better proc rates from such effects). Of course, it's not a unique case to GS v. Sniper since the same discrepancy exists between Mercs and Commandos as well, so I'm not sure if it qualifies as some kind of unspoken inbalance.

 

Exactly. Additionally, "Illegal Mods" is significantly more powerful than the Sniper equivalent because of how the dual-wield is supposed to be balanced versus a single weapon.

 

Normally, dual-wield's damage evens out versus the single weapon because the off hand has a high chance to miss. However, Illegal Mods increases the accuracy of both your main and off hand in addition to its other bonuses, making the GS absolutely lethal since you'll be doing maximum damage for most hits (more than the single weapon, even before crits are calculated) instead of constantly missing with your off hand.

 

The burst difference when Illegal Mods is active is especially noticeable with the middle tree Sabotage Charge + Speed Shot vs. Explosive Probe + Series of Shots. The Sniper does less damage by a fairly wide margin.

 

Another minor thing is Leg Shot, which for a Gunslinger has an additional chance to apply even if the main hand misses.

 

This is just anecdotal evidence but I have both mirror classes (PvP only) and my damage numbers are consistently higher on the Gunslinger, I usually play the middle tree on both.

Edited by Jenzali
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This same disparity does exist between mercenaries and commandos, but it is not nearly as significant. Gunslinger/sniper damage is based almost entirely on weapon damage, particularly MM/SS trees. Sab/Eng gains a majority of damage from SoS/Speed Shots, and cull/wounding shots benefit greatly from weapon damage. Not to mention that the base damage of each weapon-based attack has a significantly higher maximum damage range with almost exactly the same stats.

 

Soon to be no longer relevant is the proc chance for a shorter cast time on ambush. Slinger has about 1.75x more chance of gaining this (give or take 8% depending on accuracy, when base for offhand is 67%)

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This same disparity does exist between mercenaries and commandos, but it is not nearly as significant.

 

Debatable. And we're talking about very slim differences anyway. Arsenal/gunnery won't see a big difference, but remember that the single main dps contributor is full auto/unload, which is weapon damage.

 

On pyro/assault though, weapon damage (outside of dots) will be the most present AND there is a proc chance based effect CORE to the spec too (the cell/cylinder proc), which is low enough (though it's going to be raised in 2.0), that more hits due to the offhand may mean an easier time keeping the dot up (or even a higher total uptime).

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My only guess is that the OP is bringing up the disparity between dual wielding and using a superior weapon. Dual wielding is, numerically, slightly superior (thanks to how accuracy works with offhand weapons, the damage is slightly better with a dual wield, I'm not sure, but I think crit proc talents will proc off of offhand crits, which means that dual wielding also ends up with better proc rates from such effects). Of course, it's not a unique case to GS v. Sniper since the same discrepancy exists between Mercs and Commandos as well, so I'm not sure if it qualifies as some kind of unspoken inbalance.

 

I doubt that off-hand crits can trigger procs. If you look at something like Wounding Shots, the off-hand hits do not trigger the double-tick effect. Most special abilities have the "IgnoreDualWieldModifier", which I imagine has an effect on this sort of thing. I would have to look through a sharpshooter log to be sure though, to see whether or not Charged Burst or Speed Shot ever proc'd Aimed Shot via the off-hand.

 

Correction: I found a gunslinger log where Quick Aim procs off of a Speed Shot off hand crit. Yeah, that's not balanced.

Edited by KeyboardNinja
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Correction: I found a gunslinger log where Quick Aim procs off of a Speed Shot off hand crit. Yeah, that's not balanced.

 

I had an inkling that there was something off. I leveled my GS as Sharpshooter and am running my Agent through as MM and I always felt that the GS was getting way more Quick Aim procs than the Agent got Reactive Shot. It's nice to know it wasn't just in my head.

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The draw back of dual wielding is that Knight/Warrior type advanced classes will have Riposte/Retaliation avaliable a lot. You are also easing the life of some tanks who tend to have some ressource management tied to avoidance, which will occur more than enough with the reduced accuracy of the off-hand attacks.

 

That's why long time ago I suggested in a post to BioWare to change the dual wielding mechanic to be a increase in hit damage instead of a chance of additional attack, at least for Gunslinger and Mercenaries (Sentinels and Marauders aren't a problem because they are perfectly mirrored).

The main idea would be that a percentage of the off-hand weapon's damage would be added to bonus damage to match the bonus provided by an "enhanced weapon" like Sniper Rifle or Assault Cannon, and removing any chance of additional attack. It could be effective only for ranged attacks if they want Sentinels and Marauders to keep their mechanic.

 

PS : I hope BioWare read us, because mirror classes such as GS/Sniper and Commando/Mercenary should have a similar behavior.

 

PPS : It seems that for Commandos, they have some "hidden" damage procs to match Mercenaries off-hand attacks, because I often read I defeated X with some hits which name does not match any of my abilities or burns. I do not play in english but if I were to translate their name it would become "friction shots".

Edited by Altheran
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PPS : It seems that for Commandos, they have some "hidden" damage procs to match Mercenaries off-hand attacks, because I often read I defeated X with some hits which name does not match any of my abilities or burns. I do not play in english but if I were to translate their name it would become "friction shots".

 

I think you'll find that High Friction Bolts and I'm assuming you play Assault spec. The game seems to count the PC DoT when reapplied by HiB as a different (although mutually exclusive) DoT from the one applied through Hammer Shot or Ion Pulse for Vanguards. Some parsers will view them both as Burning (Tech) along with the DoT damage from Incendiary Round whereas others will have 3 different damage sources all called Burning (Tech). This is quite noticeable when comparing MoX parser to SWMoniTOR or TorParse. The former groups them all as 1 source while the latter both have 3 abilities.

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