My advice is to allow "main" abilities to do something extra or new and pick between them. For example I'm a vanguard tank main so maybe you can choose between these 3 "ability enhancements" for ion storm-

1. Ionic Kolto- Ion Storm now heals you for 5% of your max health each use

2. Pulse Recharger- Each use of Ion Storm lowers the cooldown of reactive shield by 4seconds and riot gas by 2

3. Positively Charged Ions- Using Ion Storm with battle focus active gives all nearby allies 15% defense for a short time (8 seconds)

Something like that instead of making you pick between abilities pick between abilities passives.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying this... but the more I think of this (and I bet others may have gone down this line of thinking), the combat style system is basically the talent system from World of Warcraft.

For the Guardian, as you level to 80 you pick up the baseline knight and guardian abilities like Strike, Slash, Force Leap, etc then every certain level threshold you can choose how to tweak your class. At level 15 you get your first choice to tweak your spec, another at level 20, then 6 more as you get up to 80, for a total of 8 choices. I'm assuming all disciplines will have 8 choices to make as they level up. Your choices will determine how you need to play your spec at that given point.

WoW does something similar to this.. you level up and pick up your main attacks/heals, etc then along the way, you get 7 talents to pick from (current WoW max level is 60, compared to 80 in swtor 7.0). The first is at level 15, then 25, then every 5 levels until 50. These choices can either be passives to existing abilities, or new abilities outright. WoW also has a special talent tree that only activates in PvP or if you're flagged in the open world.

I'm curious.. will loadouts work for switching up your choices on the fly? Can you go from pure single target choices for one boss then switch to different choices for another if need be? If true and it doesn't require anything extra, that is better than WoW, which requires you to either use an item (they're super cheap though) or be in a rest zone to adjust your talents.

Don't get me wrong... I still don't like the fact that instead of basically pure passive choices that we have now with the utilities, we're going to have to pick and choose what we want to use and lose some abilities we've grown to love over the last 10 years. If all this was stated earlier by someone, I'm sorry.. I fully admit to not reading all 26 pages.

My advice is to allow "main" abilities to do something extra or new and pick between them. For example I'm a vanguard tank main so maybe you can choose between these 3 "ability enhancements" for ion storm-

 

1. Ionic Kolto- Ion Storm now heals you for 5% of your max health each use

2. Pulse Recharger- Each use of Ion Storm lowers the cooldown of reactive shield by 4seconds and riot gas by 2

3. Positively Charged Ions- Using Ion Storm with battle focus active gives all nearby allies 15% defense for a short time (8 seconds)

 

Something like that instead of making you pick between abilities pick between abilities passives.

I really like this idea, this is how choice can and should be implemented without gain or loss of complexity. The current attempt on the PTS adds choice by stripping abilities, which generally just makes the class feel more limited.

As many have asked on this review thread - why does the game need this? I agree the current classes are already really well balanced. Also we just got a great addition of complexity with Onslaught by introducing the shell set pieces and tacticals - so why now are we taking two steps backwards by dumbing the classes down and decreasing complexity?

The above is a great idea to implement choice without sacrificing complexity and core class fundamentals. Like everyone else, I was excited by just the idea of swapping to multiple different advanced classes the way it was apparent from the stream, and this would have been an amazing and welcomed change. It would give great ability to manage fewer characters and promoting more people to more easily adopt different roles to help facilitate group content.

I don't want and don't care about being able to switch between pruned and gutted advanced classes, and now I am extremely nervous and worried about the future of the game if this similarly occurs across all classes.

Yall can't be serious, you're going to dumb down the game play?! Are you guys off your meds? I love having alot of powers KOTOR had lots of powers, why dumb down the game?! it hurts pvp pve and every where else! do you know how an OP is going to function now with the less powers and flexibility? your not making the game easier. your making it harder, I like challenges but not when it does not benefit the game, look I like what your doing with the subclasses getting to be a Sith warrior, or assassin, Jedi knight, and all other classes, and getting to choose a sub class of your choice? fantastic! Genius really! deleting powers!? Methodic Aim and firing to the foot! you don't want to shoot your self in the foot do you? Look I don't know who your trying to appease but, just don't. You have a fanbase of people who are super loyal to you who, will keep coming back, who will spend there cash no questions asked, because they love the game, this game is amazing!!!!! I spend my cash for you guys all the damn time!! but this!? this loss of abilities!? how am I supposed to enjoy my class, if you take away my flexibility? how!? I love its flexibility and the ability to customize? you will hurt that and drive loyal people away! yeah sure you will invite the dumb folks in for a quick cash grab. but you know what the difference between us loyalists and those folks who want it easy is? WE STICK AROUND! So you best think about that, before you make these changes because if you do. youl be losing your long term players. a lot of them. maybe not, all but a lot. and then when then the easy players are done they will leave. and youl have an even less player base. Think of the long term. For the Good of the Game Please! Think of the Long Term!! Oh and my Answers to the questions? well ask Darringerknight. dude has a spitting image of how I would answer, but one is different

Does it feel like a Jedi Guardian:

No it don't it feels less flexible, and not as refined as it used to, there is a few places that are good like moving some powers up to lv 1, but the rest the gaps in powers throws everything off, it just does not feel right.

Disney's version of choice.

Pick one of these 3:

1) Air

2) Water

3) Food

We're working hard here at the dev center to make your choices, and thus your gaming experience, meaningful and impactful.

I have tried the Defense Guardian this time.

Was appalled that in Loudout B there was no "guardian slash" where the tactical of choice refers to that ability!

So i had to change to Loudout A (because it is nowehere explained what are they) and there it was.

Went to Onderon, did one daily - took me ages, my companion (lvl 1) died few times, I probably survived only because I could use Enure and well, tanks are tanks for a reason.

In my opinion, the "change" is ruining game experience - because now, as it stands, we would have 2 stances in one discipline!

So, you pick up Defence Guardian and STILL you need to choose of which abilities you will be deprived.

I do not like that at all.

I suppose i am not alone on this conclusion, seeing previous opinions.

If anything, the players should have been give a free choice of abilities out of all of them and not something "predefined".

Regardless, I do not look forward to welcome such "improvements" sadly.

Disney's version of choice.

Pick one of these 3:

1) Air

2) Water

3) Food

 

.

sorry but must admit that ^ post made me LOL a bit

Anyways, back to the feedback.... /pep-talk BioWare!

Hi all,

 

We’re going through all the feedback that’s being posted here. Thank you to everyone who has been providing constructive feedback and answering the questions listed in the feedback thread. There is a lot to read through, but we wanted to acknowledge that we are reading your posts.

 

One note that we are seeing is concerns of our overall lack of addressing questions in real time that have popped up. We know that this can be frustrating but at this stage of the feedback process, but we need your raw constructive criticism without us potentially changing or tainting it. This is especially important in the first few days of PTS and what we will be following for future phases of PTS. We also know that there is an ask for us to acknowledge every single thread that was created, but please understand that is not feasible in terms of keeping info consolidated and in one place with how the dev tracker functions. Know that we are reading each thread as they are updated and compiling the feedback and reviewing it with the team.

 

Here are common sentiments that we are seeing:

 

• Concerns regarding the availability of defensive abilities.
  
• PTS Jedi Guardian could be effective in story content but not endgame content.
  
• Saber Throw/Saber Reflect should not be a choice.
  
• The class is about survivability. The PTS Jedi Guardian does not feel like this.
  
• Choices being offered as of now don’t feel balanced.
  
• The gear and companion being offered during this phase of PTS does not equate to the live player experience.
  

We know there are questions surrounding this phase of PTS and will be addressing them in a consolidated dev post later this week after we’ve reviewed the feedback that’s come in since we’ve launched PTS.

 

This thread will be updated with a dev post later this week.

 

Jackie

Okay a few things. People aren't concerned that guardian is "less defensive" people are infuriated you want to strip abilities from them. I'm not sure in what world where us taking issues with ability pruning somehow translates into us having issues with 'survivability'. Like juggernauts don't even survive that well in pvp or pve. Tank jugg in pvp because of grit teeth does, but that's about it.

Just because you mess one thing up, doesn't mean we're mad at this other thing you did as a causality. We're upset because you're not doing what you said, which is giving us the choice to respec into anything force or tech respectively. That's what we want. Don't touch anything else, period.

I seriously wonder if you even have the proper knowledge of how these classes you're wanting to immensely mess with play in higher end content. Because that's what matters and it's the only thing that matters. "jedi guardian can be effective in story" is an asinine statement.

A NAKED character with HEROIC MOMENT is viable in story content. Of course the stripped down thing is going to be viable in story content. Anything is viable because story content is such a meme. Like I can't even comprehend how you guys don't have an idea of how these things work, other than you just don't play the game.

I'm not even trying to be toxic, and I sincerely and whole-heartedly apologize if it seems that way, Jackieco, rather I am just genuinely trying to be honest about what's going on here. Just leave the things we've worked hard to learn, alone. It's not like it's somehow going to gatekeep new people more than doing very basic things like reading guides and reading skill trees does.

You want to know what gatekeeps 'casual' people? It's that they can't even be bothered to take basic steps to learn about their class. That's why story is as dumbed down as it is, and somehow making it simpler is going to make it a more positive experience?

I've said this before, stop trying to hammer a Screw in and pick up a drill and use the appropriate tool. As a matter of fact, give newer, more casual people better, more well designed tooltips and tutorials that teach people their class, because the solutions you're proposing aren't even addressing the root cause. You're addressing a symptom.

JackieKo's post alerting us to the added descriptions also confirms more utilities baked into passives. For example. Defense A, which I tested, has Critical Defense: "Critically hitting with an attack reduces the cooldown of your Combat Focus by 1 second. Combat Focus purges incapacitating and movement impairing effects." This incorporates the previous tier 2 Focused Freedom utility into the new passive, but also helps to counter the loss of Blade Blitz which we can't get in EITHER Defense path currently on test. Admittedly, Blade Blitz wasn't just for the movement effects but also for its damage reduction, and this passive only addresses part of that. The problem is that it almost requires a tank to carry some Critical for this passive to be effective. Having to stack critical chance, to get back a helpful utility, to only partly make up for the loss of Blade Blitz isn't an impactful, meaningful choice. It's a bad design decision.

Looking at this a little further. A fully mitigation modded tank will have around 12646 mastery, give or take depending on whether they are using Sha'tek ear/implant or SundTech for the better absorption. Mastery will also vary depending on whether you are using Warding unlettered mods or high R-#'s for the extra defense rating, or low R-#'s for the higher stat pools, or whatever. But suffice it to say, this much mastery contributes around 12.83% critical chance. Then you have 1% from completing the companion convo for the corresponding companion in your class story. For example, Zenith for the Consular or Vette for the Sith Warrior. (this is a once per legacy thing so it doesn't stack if you complete all the comps. Lastly, you have 5% from the Smuggler/Agent class buff, and a 5% base crit chance. That means that a defensively oriented tank would have around 24% critical chance.

Now, granted, a level 80 character will have more mastery, but you know you're going to move the diminishing returns curves again so you know that its only going to translate into a one or two percentage points more critical chance.

So, they will have a global cooldown of 1.5 seconds, usually. Even if their guild has the alacrity buff they still will be at 1.5 seconds.

OK, so the default cooldown of Combat Focus is 45 seconds. With a 24% crit chance, just to make it easier we will say 25%, that means you have about a one-in-four chance with every attack to trigger the proc. Since you can only get 4 attacks in 6 seconds, that means, on average, you will get the proc to happen once every six seconds, assuming you have complete uptime. That means that if you pop Combat Focus, and start doing damage, on average, every 6 seconds that you are pressing damage buttons, you will shave another 1 second off Combat Focus' cooldown. Meaning, you turn a 45 second cooldown into 39 seconds.

Blade Blitz has a default cooldown of 45 seconds and becomes 35 with the "Cut Loose" tier 3 utility, for the record.

So, really, this passive ability is pretty poor design. Even totally gearing for dps, assuming a 1.4s GCD and around 40% critical chance (though you could probably go higher since tanks automatically have 110% accuracy), that means every 7 seconds you get two crits, on average. That means you've turned a 45 second cooldown into a 35 second one. And again, these assume you have complete uptime doing only damaging attacks, not having to move or use a non-damaging ability, for the whole 35 or 39 seconds. Does that even happen ever in ops or pvp or flashpoints?

So Devs, you are telling me that I, as a tank, have to stack dps-level crit and alacrity, just to get part of a mobility skill back? One that still isn't as good as Blade Blitz?

C'mon man! Something like Critical Defense should proc on parries, or dodges, or shields, or whatever. Make it synergize with the actual role, don't force us to stack unrelated tertiary stats just to get a mobility skill back.

In Summary: do not like. Feels gimped.

Does this feel like a Jedi Guardian? Please explain why or why not.

- No. Recognizing the gear isnt on par with live, I was getting owned by trash.

Is there anything that feels missing or out of place in the combat rotation?

- Felt like a bunch of abilities were missing so I sat there waiting between cool downs just taking damage

What are your initial thoughts with the effectiveness of the Jedi Guardian against enemies?

- Cannon fodder

How are you enjoying or not enjoying this class?

- Really not. And I normally love it on live.

While I generally feel this game has too many abilities, I feel like this is just randomly dropping some instead of revamping for effectiveness. I don't have a current console, but I feel like if I were to count the buttons on an Xbox controller, I could correlate it to the number in game. That said, I'd support a port to console done right (and would buy one).

All I can say from testing is “I’m depressed” with these changes.

My main Alts are Rage Jugg / Focus Guardian and it feels like you’ve gutted the class severely on the defensive abilities and the other missing abilities makes it not feel like a Guardian anymore.

If your aim is to dumb down the classes, then all you’ve succeeded is making it unexciting and weak. It’s certainly not fun.

I tested both Focus A and B load outs in veteran mode flash points (that I can usually solo on my focus guardian).

Before doing so, I spent time to get my gear to 306 and close to BiS as you can on the pts.

I also used gifts to get my companion up to lvl 20 (which is usually fine for veteran). It wasn’t possible to complete any of the flash points I tried.

I then tried Onderon and while I didn’t die, the specs felt weak and clunky.

(Missing 10 abilities on the pts compared to live server). Removing some of these had a negative impact on my enjoyment

No resolute - stun break (I really hope that’s a bug)

No Sabre throw (to build up focus or attack ranged targets)

No Awe (AOE stun)

No Guardian leap

No challenging call

No Enure

No combat focus (can’t build focus before a fight)

No freezing force

No force kick

No force clarity

Choosing between blade blitz (load A) and Sabre reflect (load B) is just dumb (sorry I have no other way to describe that)

If you really want to prune the spec, then look at what Focus could do without, ie guard and taunt. But you’ve given them to us while removing DCDs like Enure and making use choose to have reflect or blade blitz. It make zero sense.

There are abilities you could easily prune and not ruin the class as they aren’t as dependent to make the spec work smoothly in combat. Ie get rid of tanking abilities for focus.

If we need tanking, we can switch load outs to the tank spec. It makes less sense to keep tanking abilities on a burst dps. And dps off tanking is what causes issues in pvp.

Riposte (not a major part of the rotation)

Slash (is really only a filler)

Cyclone slash (completely worthless ability)

Guard

Taunt

Challenging call

Guardian leap

Force Clarity

Strike (it’s only a filler that is rarely used)

The perfect ability build for me would be with the following abilities (in no specific order).

Please keep these below abilities on the focus spec Guardian on the next build so we can test and report. And don’t make us choose between them and passives.

Sabre Throw

Force leap

Force exhaustion

Focused burst

Concentrated slice

Blade Barrage

Sundering strike

Blade storm

Dispatch

Zealous leap

Force sweep

Combat focus

Sabre reflect

Sabre ward

Focus defence

Enure

Force kick

Awe

Force stasis

Freezing force

Resolute

Blade blitz

I use everyone of these ability’s playing pvp and master mode pve content solo. Without all of those abilities, the play will be clunky and cookie cutter and won’t feel like a focus guardian.

I really hope you guys are taking peoples negative feedback as a sign that you’re on the wrong path if you think this is going to keep players in the game.

With PTS now live, you can help test the Combat Style for the Jedi Guardian.

 

Please answer the following questions:

• Does this feel like a Jedi Guardian? Please explain why or why not.
  
• Is there anything that feels missing or out of place in the combat rotation?
  
• What are your initial thoughts with the effectiveness of the Jedi Guardian against enemies?
  
• How are you enjoying or not enjoying this class?
  
• If you have feedback on the different disciplines and ability paths, please note your feedback accordingly so we can track it.
  

Feel free to answer in as much detail as possible to help us understand your thought process and line of thinking. Please include the specific Discipline and ability path you chose.

 

Thank you!

To be completely honest, I’m a little cranky that you guys thought this is what players wanted.

I’m so deeply disappointed and depressed after testing, that I’ve lost interest in playing the live game until we get some answers to our feedback.

I tried to stay emotionless writing this, but it feels like you’ve taken my favourite puppy out the back to be put down.

How about telling us what the actual intent of the pruning is so we can try and get our heads around that first. Then we can offer some feedback on what pruning would actually work vs what you guys guess.

Aside from adding a room to a stronghold about 5 years ago has there ever been any changes made from the PTS?

What is the purpose of these changes, is it to dumb down the game?

If Yes, why?

Is it for a console port?

A belief that you have to be an idiot to play this game so the target audience need it dumbed down?

Keith has got to the age that its just too many things to remember?

If its not to dumb the game down, what is the purpose?

Will it see a wholesale reduction in DPS, Tanking, Healing and Utility as we have the half the number of skills but they have the same cool downs so basic attack becomes our go to?

Is this the best use of an incredibly small development team? Would not more content and more story not be better than dumbing down the game?

If combat changes are the focus over content and then looking to encourage replaying old content via Galactic Seasons would not more options, more variety, more build choices so people can customise their play style to play however they want be better to at least make running that flashpoint again more fun. Where as this nerf and dumbing down seems like it will have the opposite effect on people wanting to run the content making it more of a chore as you have a dumbed down experience.

No combat focus (can’t build focus before a fight)...

...I've seen several people saying now that they didn't have combat focus on PTS, but I had it in every spec I tried. Did you talk to the droid twice and check your powers menu?

...I've seen several people saying now that they didn't have combat focus on PTS, but I had it in every spec I tried. Did you talk to the droid twice and check your powers menu?

I spoke to the droid 20 times as I was going back and forth to compare ALL the different specs for dps and defence to find out what was missing. Ive even got screen shots to show that it wasn’t on any builds.

On a side note, I did discover that everytime you talk to the droid it gives you a million credits. So I did this and then purchased and sold back armor & gear to get my 306 setup. Took about 10 mins.

I spoke to the droid 20 times as I was going back and forth to compare ALL the different specs for dps and defence to find out what was missing. Ive even got screen shots to show that it wasn’t on any builds.

 

On a side note, I did discover that everytime you talk to the droid it gives you a million credits. So I did this and then purchased and sold back armor & gear to get my 306 setup. Took about 10 mins.

Bizzare. I had to dig into the powers menu to find it the first time, but I had it for both defense and focus specs (I didn't test vigi). Chalk it up to a PTS bug, I suppose.

Hi all,

 

[...]

We know there are questions surrounding this phase of PTS and will be addressing them in a consolidated dev post later this week after we’ve reviewed the feedback that’s come in since we’ve launched PTS.

 

This thread will be updated with a dev post later this week.

 

Jackie

I just want to take a moment to appreciate that we have a form of dev post that doesn't promise the world, or even promise they will all be changed, but at the same time gives a clear message they heard our concerns... More of this please.

I just want to take a moment to appreciate that we have a form of dev post that doesn't promise the world, or even promise they will all be changed, but at the same time gives a clear message they heard our concerns... More of this please.

They have a massive track record of "hearing" but not "listening".

I am not suggesting they listen to everything... every little and big whiners on here.

But I can guarantee you they will NOT take any of the info provided here to guide the development of the content. Never have, never will.

Happy to hear that, looking forward to the next patch readjusting for the crazy defensive cooldown ability bloat that we have at the moment when most players simply end up using the defensive cooldowns to totally ignore or fluff their dps. Reducing the number of defensive cooldowns, or simply reworking them to have a much lower effect is taking a step in the right direction for more fun gameplay.

Nobody likes pvp games where nobody dies

In 7.0, we want to reduce the quantity of defensive skills overall, across all classes, making for a more balanced and enjoyable experience in both PvE and PvP content, while at the same time making the defensives that remain more impactful and fun.

I can be more sympathetic to this for dps toons, but for tanks? Isn't that the point that they have defensives? I mean, most bosses have mechanics to evade defense chance and shield chance, and players have ways of dealing with that as well, so what are you going to do to make tanks better at their jobs?

As a second point, one of the justifications for guardians (Vigilance, Focus) having average dps is because they have increased survivability. I mean Concentration does better dps, and has CC immunity, compared to Focus, so other than the armor debuff, the only other thing Focus offered you was the survivability. If you remove that, what is to distinguish the dps classes beyond merely being force or tech, melee or ranged, dots or burst? Why would I play Focus Guardian instead of Concentration Sent (assuming someone else in the group can apply the armor debuff)? Just so I can equip heavy armor?

Lastly, for this phase of PTS, the Jedi Guardian was missing both their breaker (Resolute) and interrupt (Force Kick). We understand that players may be worried about what that means for 7.0. It was never our intention to completely remove these from the game. We realize this has caused confusion, so we are going to add these back for the next phase of PTS with the caveat that they may change form in the future. We are currently iterating on different ways of utilizing breaker functionality that doesn’t necessarily require an independent icon on your hotbar as well as considering where interrupts fit in with the overall class and encounter design of 7.0. Because of this, we didn’t include these in the testable ability sets on PTS.

 

Please keep in mind that breakers and Interrupts will remain in-game, they just might not appear in the same form as they are now.

Well, OK, but interrupts need to be available pretty handily. I mean, they aren't really intended to be part of a "rotation" so attaching them to a core rotational ability, for example say Guardian Slash for a defense guardian, can create a lot of issues.

I'd like to adress the last post, specifically two points that don't make sense at all for me:

In 7.0, we want to reduce the quantity of defensive skills overall, across all classes, making for a more balanced and enjoyable experience in both PvE and PvP content, while at the same time making the defensives that remain more impactful and fun.

 

Instead of spending utility points to upgrade abilities, as in the current system, you will be presented with an already upgraded version of several abilities to choose between leading to more interesting decision making, customization, and greater choice for your kit.

So, instead of coming up with a new, more impactful utility point tree, you just reduce the available moveset/set of skills in any certain situation.

How is this going to be a more fun and enjoyable gameplay!? Why even bother removing what isn't broken, instead of improving what needs fine tuning!?

I also highly doubt that this will make balancing more easier for the Devs... There would have been way better solutions to achieve the same goal, especially in PvE, but also in PvP.

All in All, if you will follow through with this concept, we will ultimately end up with a dumbed down game. And this is definitely nothing I am looking forward to.

Lastly, for this phase of PTS, the Jedi Guardian was missing both their breaker (Resolute) and interrupt (Force Kick). We understand that players may be worried about what that means for 7.0. It was never our intention to completely remove these from the game. We realize this has caused confusion, so we are going to add these back for the next phase of PTS with the caveat that they may change form in the future. We are currently iterating on different ways of utilizing breaker functionality that doesn’t necessarily require an independent icon on your hotbar as well as considering where interrupts fit in with the overall class and encounter design of 7.0. Because of this, we didn’t include these in the testable ability sets on PTS.

 

Please keep in mind that breakers and Interrupts will remain in-game, they just might not appear in the same form as they are now.

I am very curious about what the alternative to active skills for breakers and interrupts would be.

I can see why there would be some consideration about how to handle them, of course, since they're traditionally tied to the "base/story class," and that's not supposed to be combat-related in 7.0, but even though some classes have other skills with interrupt as part of their functionality, I'm not sure I'd like it if all interrupts were folded into existing, and possibly rotational skills (like some of the other things mentioned in this post), because there are encounters that require interrupt-coordination. (Izax is the obvious example).

So... looking forward to see what the third option is, I guess. >.>;

• In PvE, our intent is to take into account these changes, and adjust NPC encounters as needed to compensate.
  

This sounds worryingly like you're nerfing PVE to accommodate PVP changes. Will difficulty be maintained in PVE?

Will these changed PVE encounters be on PTS in the future with 7.0 class previews?

Following up on the post I made a couple days ago. We wanted to bring clarity to some of the feedback we’ve been reading. First, we would like to share our philosophy on reducing the number of defensive cooldowns available.

Well, are you sure you read the same forums as we do? I mean, i haven't seen 3 nice feedbacks saying that this is the update we need/want, but by this msg, seems that we'll just have to adapt to whatever you do, so why even bother with feedbacks and PTS? Just do what you want if you beieve it's the best and leave the rest to us players, don't waste our time pretending you all care. If it was one or 2 players saying that this is not a good update, sure, i would shut up and move on, but really? After everything you can read on this thread, you still think this is a good update? How arrogant it is from BW to do this, there are so many things that can be done to rebalance the game, removing skills should not even be an option. Make the game harder, rescale dtps and put everything up to lvl 80. It seems to me that you're just taking the easy path. When you make us pick between defensive it's like saying "you want to use a fork or a knife to eat?" Well, both, cause both are used for different things. And if you're gonna change the fights to fit this update, this means dumbing down the fights, which is the exact reason why this update is happening. So what it seems to me that you're saying is "we'll try to make the fights harder by removing defensives so we will also make them easier to fit the lack of defensives". Sounds smart?

Btw, i'm still waiting for an answer for what happened to some nim bosses and what kind of ninja update they got, Also, let it be noted that i admire the players of this game, our ability to adapt to bad ideas/updates is really impressive.