OS and EP are already in the rotation, and with our energy improvements I don't get starved as much as I do on live, the problem in lines when both of those abilities are on cool down. We're getting alacrity out the ying yang. I did the test with the stock gear and with our talents (including the new alacrity boost from concealment) we're rocking about 11% alacrity. 6% from the concealment talent, 2% from the lethality talent, and 3.09% from the stock enforcer gear.

 

This reduces the GCD down to almost faster than a carnage marauder currently on live. Assuming OS and EP are on the cool down, our dot doesn't have to be refreshed, we are down to Shiv - 5 second CD, Backstab-12 second cd, and Laceration(requires TA) and RIFLE SHOT. Remember, Alacrity is reducing the GCD not Cool downs.

 

Lethality also has this problem in their rotation. Assuming dots do not need refreshed, OS-1 minute CD and EP-30 second cd are both down, and WB-15 seconds is also down There's shiv -5 seconds- Backstab-12 seconds-Cull (requires TA) and rifle shot. Granted as lethality your not rocking 11% alacrity but 5.09% as you don't have that talent from concealment up all the time.

 

Also, stim boost is giving us an extra 10% alacrity every 2 minutes(minute and a half for lethality) so during "burn phases" when its up we're sitting there rifle shooting more.

 

Even with our higher energy regen rate, My personal opinion is that Overload shot still does not put out a good DPE ratio.

 

Again, this is just my observations from playing on the Test server with my dps op using the stock gear against a level 50 operations dummy. I don't claim to be the #1 authority on op dps but I am still a bit concerned.

Guys, what do you think about our chances against shadows/assassins?

From testing on the PTS, vs. an attentive sniper with 30 stacks of stealth detect, approaching from the front is unadvisable even with sneak up and using the roll. Fully stacked, a sniper can spot a sneaked concealment op who's in his frontal cone at nearly 20 meters. You can roll to 8m, but the sniper is still going to have at least a global's worth of warning. Unsneaked you'll be spotted from nearly 30m.

 

If you can get behind the sniper, tho, then using sneak you can still easily get in range for hidden strike without being spotted or using the roll. Even without sneak if you're behind the sniper you have to be within about 8m to be spotted.

 

A sniper sitting in a corner with 30 stacks of stealth detect ought to be pretty safe from stealth opens and sap/caps. The first room of voidstar has a couple of corners on the first door where a sniper could solo guard effectively. The huts in Novare are probably the same way. Civil war and hypergates I'm not so sure on.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Syberduh

From testing on the PTS, vs. an attentive sniper with 30 stacks of stealth detect, approaching from the front is unadvisable even with sneak up and using the roll. Fully stacked, a sniper can spot a sneaked concealment op who's in his frontal cone at nearly 20 meters. You can roll to 8m, but the sniper is still going to have at least a global's worth of warning. Unsneaked you'll be spotted from nearly 30m.

 

If you can get behind the sniper, tho, then using sneak you can still easily get in range for hidden strike without being spotted or using the roll. Even without sneak if you're behind the sniper you have to be within about 8m to be spotted.

 

A sniper sitting in a corner with 30 stacks of stealth detect ought to be pretty safe from stealth opens and sap/caps. The first room of voidstar has a couple of corners on the first door where a sniper could solo guard effectively. The huts in Novare are probably the same way. Civil war and hypergates I'm not so sure on.

 

very nice, thank you for info.

From testing on the PTS, vs. an attentive sniper with 30 stacks of stealth detect, approaching from the front is unadvisable even with sneak up and using the roll. Fully stacked, a sniper can spot a sneaked concealment op who's in his frontal cone at nearly 20 meters. You can roll to 8m, but the sniper is still going to have at least a global's worth of warning. Unsneaked you'll be spotted from nearly 30m.

 

If you can get behind the sniper, tho, then using sneak you can still easily get in range for hidden strike without being spotted or using the roll. Even without sneak if you're behind the sniper you have to be within about 8m to be spotted.

 

A sniper sitting in a corner with 30 stacks of stealth detect ought to be pretty safe from stealth opens and sap/caps. The first room of voidstar has a couple of corners on the first door where a sniper could solo guard effectively. The huts in Novare are probably the same way. Civil war and hypergates I'm not so sure on.

I have only had a few games to test because a) my Scrapper hasn't been copied and b) PvP + Bolster = broken, but I had a different experience even against competent snipers.

 

It turns out that, no matter where the sniper sits, the Op CAN get off the opener as long as he gets off a good roll. If the defender is camping in a corner near the door, the Sniper won't see approaches made from the sides (just beyond the pillars. By skirting along the wall near those pillars, you can get within a few meters of the sniper's detection cone. If you strafe around the corner and aim your roll perfectly into the sniper's corner, you end up behind him; as long as you have a slight GCD reduction, this gives the sniper less than 1 second to react, and even good players are not perpetually ready to respond. I won't name names, but I recognized at least two snipers that I succeeded opening on in Voidstar, and they were both good players. But I also mis-angled my rolls and ended up too far in front of the sniper to get the opener off.

 

Alternately, if you think you can win the fight without Dirty Kick, you can just Sleep Dart on approach and then open with Shoot First as you get close. Given how much burstier we are now because of the GCD reductions off of Alacrity, this is also a viable option but might be somewhat gear dependent.

 

The real problem right now are guardians. New Shield chance against Tech + Reflect is a big danger.

Edited February 22, 2013 by ktkenshinx

So the idea is you close in the distance while looking for a way to stay out of LoS, then make a quick roll to get behind the sniper so that you can open on him.

 

Lets take another scenario,

You are defending a node alone, the sniper comes with some other class, lets say somebody with no stealth detection.

The other dude comes to node and starts capturing. The sniper position himself somewhat behind so he can have within his cone of vision his team mate (if you will try to mezz the guy doing the captures, you will be in sniper's vision cone).

 

The sniper rolls into cover, and starts gaining stealth detection levels, he might as well activate entrench. The other dude is capturing.

 

What is your plan to delay the capture for as long as possible? Do you seek to sleep the sniper before he gets to cover? when will you use sneak?

Edited February 22, 2013 by NoTomorrow

So the idea is you close in the distance while looking for a way to stay out of LoS, then make a quick roll to get behind the sniper so that you can open on him.

 

Lets take another scenario,

You are defending a node alone, the sniper comes with some other class, lets say somebody with no stealth detection.

The other dude comes to node and starts capturing. The sniper position himself somewhat behind so he can have within his cone of vision his team mate (if you will try to mezz the guy doing the captures, you will be in sniper's vision cone).

 

The sniper rolls into cover, and starts gaining stealth detection levels, he might as well activate entrench. The other dude is capturing.

 

What is your plan to delay the capture for as long as possible? Do you seek to sleep the sniper before he gets to cover? when will you use sneak?

 

 

if it's a visible 2 v1 coming up you shouldn't of let them come up together. In this scenario I always try to sleep someone off the node before attacking on the node. it just gives some distance and room to breathe. So come sniper let us play, you can sleep in the yard while your friend dies on the node.

The real problem right now are guardians. New Shield chance against Tech + Reflect is a big danger.

 

Was thinking about that, it's a worry.

 

I believe I remember that crit and shield are decided on the same roll, and that crit pushes shield off the table.

 

Anyway, this means that if you crit, it's not shielded.

 

So if you get the crit, you're going to get big numbers shielded or not. Fail, and your normal hit could well be pathetic.

 

If I remember this mechanic right - it's been a while since I was looking at it, I didn't pay attention because it didn't apply to me, and mechanics might change in 2.0 - then so long as we crit we're still causing pain to people with shields. Bit hit-and-miss though.

if it's a visible 2 v1 coming up you shouldn't of let them come up together. In this scenario I always try to sleep someone off the node before attacking on the node. it just gives some distance and room to breathe. So come sniper let us play, you can sleep in the yard while your friend dies on the node.

 

So you are basically saying that you will need to come ahead and intercept and do anything possible not to allow the sniper to reach the node with his buddy together?

Edited February 22, 2013 by NoTomorrow

See Ilmarinen how much i am doing for you, so that you could kill me?

 

haha missed that earlier - you're too, too generous. I shall do my best to repay you in lovely warm lead.

So you are basically saying that you will need to come ahead and intercept and do anything possible not to allow the sniper to reach the node with his buddy together?

 

yes. My take on 2v1 or whatever. 1v1 is possible, just sometimes you have to stagger your opponents.

 

if you aren't doing anything possible to make life hectic for people, you really aren't playing operative to it's fullest.

 

We should be the class that makes people blow everything, and have nothing for your teammates.

Edited February 22, 2013 by AngelofCain

yes. My take on 2v1 or whatever. 1v1 is possible, just sometimes you have to stagger your opponents.

 

if you aren't doing anything possible to make life hectic for people, you really aren't playing operative to it's fullest.

 

We should be the class that makes people blow everything, and have nothing for your teammates.

 

Pretty much, the goal in a 2v1 if you can not win it is to simply make them blow their escapes, cc's, and hope you can prolong just enough to where if you die your friends will come destroy them with their 0 cooldowns. Exactly what hallow stated. Many people dont realize how long Operatives can hold nodes...its just about los and positioning.

Lets take another scenario,

You are defending a node alone, the sniper comes with some other class, lets say somebody with no stealth detection.

The other dude comes to node and starts capturing. The sniper position himself somewhat behind so he can have within his cone of vision his team mate (if you will try to mezz the guy doing the captures, you will be in sniper's vision cone).

 

The sniper rolls into cover, and starts gaining stealth detection levels, he might as well activate entrench. The other dude is capturing.

 

What is your plan to delay the capture for as long as possible? Do you seek to sleep the sniper before he gets to cover? when will you use sneak?

My gut instinct in situations like this is always to sleep the non-Sniper and take my chances against the Sniper himself; there are few classes I would rather fight in a 1v1. Maybe a Lightning Sorc, but that's about it. If the Sniper doesn't have his Escape up, we can hit him a lot harder than we can his friend in the first few seconds of our opener. Also, with the PTS changes to Guard, damage dealt to the guarded target will no longer crack a mezz on the guard himself. That gives us better defensive options.

 

The other problem here is that the Sniper might have a stealther with him. If he does, you do not want to go out and meet the Sniper to sap; the enemy stealther might have detection talents and/or sneak/fadeout up, which can put you in a vulnerable position by rushing out to meet a supposedly "solo" attacker. I generally hide as long as possible just to confirm how many opponents are around.

 

Let's assume that the Sniper is watching the node capper. If the Sniper is himself capping a node with (maybe) Sin/Op backup, that's another scenario entirely.

 

So if the Sniper is watching the node with his detection, my objective is to Sleep Dart his buddy before opening on the Sniper. That means I need to reach the capper without getting detected.

 

Thankfully, and this is a purely geometric and theoretical model, I do not think there is ANYWHERE that the Sniper can stand where I cannot navigate around his cone to Sleep Dart his buddy. If he stands too close to the capper, I just approach the sniper from behind and Dart over his shoulder. If he stands too far away from the capper, I just approach from the front, interposing the node between myself and the Sniper. This is a very tricky thing to model out, but I think the approach would always be clear.

On the PVE side of things, here's a concealment spec ops boss dummy pass I did with the stock, non-augmented level 69 gear you get on the PTS*:

 

*Fully buffed with rakata skill stim, but the gear alone gets you to 2500 main stat so the stim isn't nearly as big a deal as it used to be.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/141067

 

2100 dps. If I were better about using orb strike and explosive probe on cooldown and keeping corrosive dart up it probably would have been 2150-2200. Not the 2500 that marauders can apparently do, but at least in the same universe. And this is without augments.

 

Overall energy management is much easier. You can actually afford to screw up without being energy starved for the rest of the fight.

On the PVE side of things, here's a concealment spec ops boss dummy pass I did with the stock, non-augmented level 69 gear you get on the PTS*:

 

*Fully buffed with rakata skill stim, but the gear alone gets you to 2500 main stat so the stim isn't nearly as big a deal as it used to be.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/141067

 

2100 dps. If I were better about using orb strike and explosive probe on cooldown and keeping corrosive dart up it probably would have been 2150-2200. Not the 2500 that marauders can apparently do, but at least in the same universe. And this is without augments.

 

Overall energy management is much easier. You can actually afford to screw up without being energy starved for the rest of the fight.

 

thanks for the parse That was on the operations dummy on the fleet right? I'm asking because some parses are showing marauders with 2760 dps but they are on the warzone dummies. It's hard for me to do a parse on the test server seeing as the lag on the fleet is ridiculous.

Did you see a lot of misses with the 107% accuracy (assuming that you have that companion max) ?

still not within 5% of the rest of the classes that I'm seeing tho.

Yep the ops dummy on my ship. I don't recall seeing any misses. Don't forget this gear has no augments. I don't know if the 2700 dps guys are augmented by I suspect so. Also this was far from a perfect pass. I screwed up numerous times and as you can see did not use EP/OS on cooldown. Someone who's better with concealment pve rotation/priority should easily do 10%+ more dps.

Yep the ops dummy on my ship. I don't recall seeing any misses. Don't forget this gear has no augments. I don't know if the 2700 dps guys are augmented by I suspect so. Also this was far from a perfect pass. I screwed up numerous times and as you can see did not use EP/OS on cooldown. Someone who's better with concealment pve rotation/priority should easily do 10%+ more dps.

 

Except Ops dummy on the ship is level 50...not 55. So you pulled 2100 on an enemy 5 levels lower. Still not looking promising for Ops DPS-wise (though energy is WAY better).

 

Best I pulled was a little over 2000 on the 55 ops dummy, but I've not touched concealment in a while (swapped to lethality). So its probably possible to hit 2100-2200, but we're still in the dust. Especially when that's 69 gear and people (non Ops) are hitting that in 63 gear on live.

Except Ops dummy on the ship is level 50...not 55. So you pulled 2100 on an enemy 5 levels lower. Still not looking promising for Ops DPS-wise (though energy is WAY better).

 

Best I pulled was a little over 2000 on the 55 ops dummy, but I've not touched concealment in a while (swapped to lethality). So its probably possible to hit 2100-2200, but we're still in the dust. Especially when that's 69 gear and people (non Ops) are hitting that in 63 gear on live.

Our sustained damage is going to be higher, but I can't imagine that it will rival a Marauder in a drawn out fight. The fundamental flaws of Scrapper design still remains.

 

1. Our primary "delivery system" of Flechette Round, Backblast, has a 12 second CD, but the FR DOT itself only lasts 6 seconds. That leaves us with 6 "dead seconds" where that DOT is not ticking on our target.

 

2. Our secondary resource, Upper Hand, still has only one generator on a 6second CD timer. Indeed, to maximize that resource, we need to keep 1 stack of it active at all times, or we lose a 2% damage boost. Other classes, like Pyrotechs and Sins, do not even have a second resource that they need to use and manage (they have procs and buffs, but those do not get "spent" in quite the same way). Marauders have a much more generous secondary resource system.

 

3. Scrappers still have no automatic critical or "big combat moment" to build up to. Most other DPS competitors do have such a move. Deception Sins have giant Mauls. Rage has Smash. Snipers have a number of instant activations and free attacks used in combos. Carnage gets Force Screams. The list goes on. We are reliant only on random critical hits and a good rotation.

 

In the long run, these flaws do not hurt our PvP performance too much. In the first 15 seconds of a fight, our damage is going to be the highest; there just aren't classes out there that can handle SF+FR, BW, Kick, SC, BB+FR, SP, BW, SP, SP over those first seconds, and there aren't a lot of classes that can put out that same kind of damage. But if testing is done on Ops dummies (at least, testing over 5-6 minutes), our DPS will be comparatively lower.

Our sustained damage is going to be higher, but I can't imagine that it will rival a Marauder in a drawn out fight. The fundamental flaws of Scrapper design still remains.

 

1. Our primary "delivery system" of Flechette Round, Backblast, has a 12 second CD, but the FR DOT itself only lasts 6 seconds. That leaves us with 6 "dead seconds" where that DOT is not ticking on our target.

 

2. Our secondary resource, Upper Hand, still has only one generator on a 6second CD timer. Indeed, to maximize that resource, we need to keep 1 stack of it active at all times, or we lose a 2% damage boost. Other classes, like Pyrotechs and Sins, do not even have a second resource that they need to use and manage (they have procs and buffs, but those do not get "spent" in quite the same way). Marauders have a much more generous secondary resource system.

 

3. Scrappers still have no automatic critical or "big combat moment" to build up to. Most other DPS competitors do have such a move. Deception Sins have giant Mauls. Rage has Smash. Snipers have a number of instant activations and free attacks used in combos. Carnage gets Force Screams. The list goes on. We are reliant only on random critical hits and a good rotation.

 

In the long run, these flaws do not hurt our PvP performance too much. In the first 15 seconds of a fight, our damage is going to be the highest; there just aren't classes out there that can handle SF+FR, BW, Kick, SC, BB+FR, SP, BW, SP, SP over those first seconds, and there aren't a lot of classes that can put out that same kind of damage. But if testing is done on Ops dummies (at least, testing over 5-6 minutes), our DPS will be comparatively lower.

 

I totally agree with all these. I have been playing on the test server for a few days now and against the operations dummy on the fleet using stock pve gear that we are given, I was able to hit about 2k dps as lethality. Concealment I hit about 1.7k. both fights were for 5 minutes with no stims or "on use abilities" in extreme lag. It almost seems as if the concealment tree is not fully constructed and a lot of it's talent points are just there to fill up space. they could combine a whole lot of talents and put up actual dps boosting talents in their place.. maybe one to let us use hidden strike other than out of stealth, after all. it's not making sense that one of our highest hitting dpe moves is only usable once every 1.5 minutes yet there's several talents that play off of it high up in the concealment tree.

 

As it stands right now, in my opinion and from my testing, our only viable DPS option is going to be lethality due to its fantastic energy management, the ease of gaining and keeping a TA (shiv proc a free cull every 6 seconds roughly) and the improvements to the dot system itself (Corrosive grenade is no longer on a cool down so when your facing multiple mobs you wont have to wait for that grenade to come on a target)

 

I heard that they are changing tank assassins based on feedback, and as testers of the operative variety the community has left their own feedback so let's hope that they finally listen to us non glowstick users..

Except Ops dummy on the ship is level 50...not 55. So you pulled 2100 on an enemy 5 levels lower. Still not looking promising for Ops DPS-wise (though energy is WAY better).

 

Best I pulled was a little over 2000 on the 55 ops dummy, but I've not touched concealment in a while (swapped to lethality). So its probably possible to hit 2100-2200, but we're still in the dust. Especially when that's 69 gear and people (non Ops) are hitting that in 63 gear on live.

 

Thanks for pointing that out.

 

Pass on the fleet ops dummy for 2025:

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/142223

 

I agree that it's probably possible for concealment to be in the 2100-2200 range in un-augmented Arkanian gear with a very tight rotation.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Syberduh

As it stands right now, in my opinion and from my testing, our only viable DPS option is going to be lethality

 

Eh i'm quite interested in respeccing to this tree in 2.0 so i hope we can get some good numbers before then. Seems like a good tree for PVE dps

Can you imagine, with only 10 energy you can now get DoTed 5 players. this change is huge. I will love having it on my sniper.

I love the changes but feel some of them are too strong. Poison grenade is crazy as I understand it. Half the energy, 2 extra targets, and NO cooldown. With poison crits giving energy back this grenade just became one of the most important talents in the tree. It is almost too efficient. It can be a spammable slow, energy regen and dps boost. If they gave it a short 5 sec cooldown that would make it more balanced. The idea of crazy regen combined with our new roll makes us borderline OP.

I love the changes but feel some of them are too strong. Poison grenade is crazy as I understand it. Half the energy, 2 extra targets, and NO cooldown. With poison crits giving energy back this grenade just became one of the most important talents in the tree. It is almost too efficient. It can be a spammable slow, energy regen and dps boost. If they gave it a short 5 sec cooldown that would make it more balanced. The idea of crazy regen combined with our new roll makes us borderline OP.

 

lets see what they do in the upcoming PTS patched. I have a feeling that this is not the final version of corrosive grenade. I was already impressed with the 10 energy cost and no CD, but when i saw 5 targets... I started to question how much of it will it make into live.

 

Regardless i would like it to have a low enough CD so we actually counter assassin tanks that have a tendency to whipe our dots with force shroud the moment you apply them. This way, if we have a short Cd on it, we will not suffer that much.

lets see what they do in the upcoming PTS patched. I have a feeling that this is not the final version of corrosive grenade. I was already impressed with the 10 energy cost and no CD, but when i saw 5 targets... I started to question how much of it will it make into live.

 

Regardless i would like it to have a low enough CD so we actually counter assassin tanks that have a tendency to whipe our dots with force shroud the moment you apply them. This way, if we have a short Cd on it, we will not suffer that much.

 

I guess I really don't want a massive amount of players to reroll lethality cuz of the buffs. I despise playing Fotm specs regardless of whether I respecced/rerolled to it.