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Mercenary DPS in the new PTS Update: Thoughts and Suggestions


ArchingBeast

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Hello to the SWTOR Developer Team!

 

This is the announced follow-up to my post a few months ago, where I asked you a few questions regarding design and balance choices for the Mercenary DPS specs. As a lot of time has passed since, and the class has seen changes on the PTS, this post is intended to stand on its own. Therefore, I may reiterate some points I already made over there. I also planned this to be much bigger, however some of my concerns I wanted to bring up were already adressed to more or less satisfying degrees, hence I am abled to keep this a little shorter and more consice.

 

After some testing of the original state of the mercenary when 7.0 launched, aswell as the PTS 7.1 state, I, with the generous help of many other people, have reached the conclusion that the Mercenary/Commando DPS specs are universally underpowered. However, since the process of writing this post, the PTS has seen changes to both specs. As such, will start of by reviewing the current changes on the PTS before diving deeper into the issues of each subclass as well as overarching issues with the entire class, and will close with my recommended changes. I will list all changes at the end. Please mind that I will only keep using the Imperial side terminology going forward to streamline the writing process and as it is more familiar to me.

 

The Status Quo on the PTS

Arsenal

 

The reduction of heat cost for Blazing Bolts and Priming Shot work very well. They bring heat management down to a level that is sensible. You can now go to town much more intensly without being harshly punished for having used a single tracer too much or in the wrong place. Well done.

The changes to the new Tactical, „Gyroscoping Stabilizers“, are also welcome, making it an actually effective choice for AoE-heavy scenarios.

The buffs to the „Riddle“ and „Target Tracking“ passives, although a step in the right direction, are far to little to bring Arsenal into any proximity of the strongest specs. Even compared to other ranged specs (that tend to do worse than Melee generally, on dummy and in raid), Arsenal is still only abled to compete with IO and Marksman in single target conditions and being far outdone by IO once multiple targets are introduced. This is not enough.

IO

The buff to Serrated shot damage is a step in the right direction, however far from enough to make a huge difference. It manifests itself as a DPS increase of around 200-300 DPS. Newly added to that is the change of the „Incendiary Ignition“ choice, which sadly also results in more of a sidegrade than an actual buff, as it only results in just under 200 dps extra on average. While buffing sustained DPS is the right choice of action for what the class needs, the amplitude is lackluster.

Sadly, the New Tactical, „Magnetic Resonance“ is utterly useless. The additional elemental damage it deals is about 4000. four. thousand. To put this into perspective, „Energized Charges“ doubles the number of ticks of the DoT applied on the target und Super Charged Gas (SCG), with every tick dealing about 9k damage on average. Needless to say, Energized Charges outperforms it in any situation you can think of. In fact, I find this so hilariously out of proportion that I desperately hope that this was an oversight or faulty code.

 

What Issues the Merc is currently dealing with

Arsenal:

 

Arsenal plays very smoothly with the changes to heat management. The only thing it lacks really is sustained output. Looking at the damage spread of a typical parse, a few things become clear: First of all, the spike and overall damage of heatseeking missiles is below Rail Shot. Rail Shot is buffed highly by both meta legendaries, while heatseeker is mildly and indirectly buffed by only one (random charge). The extra crit chance and damage by the premier choice for sustain, „Customized Warhead“, is not enough to make it keep up with the spikes rail shot is capable of. I find this very disappointing for a signature or flagship ability that looks as cool as this one does.

Second of all, the crit rates of blazing bolts, tracer missile and are all awfully low. Given that these two abilities are the two most impactful abilities, making up around 65-75% of all abilities when counted by global cooldown (gcd) cost, crit rate is obvously a massive factor.

IO:

 

A very similar problem is also befalling the IO, its sustained damage is below acceptable levels, although unlike Arsenal, its capability to output very high damage in just a few gcds via the SCG DoT, combined with its most powerful instant abilities chained together, is still decent. This is also very apparent in the damage spread, with the supposed „main DoTs“, i.e. Serrated, Incendiary, and Burning from Combustible Gas Cylinder (CGC), make up only around 25% of the overall damage. This is the clear culprit that keeps IO from doing decent sustained damage.

Defensives

 

DPS is not the only issue the class has. Even when sporting heavy armor, it is one of the weakest classes when dealing with AoE Damage taken, the by far most common type of damage taken encountered by DPS and Healer players in the most difficult PvE encounters. To illustrate this further, I will compare the Mercs defensive Cooldowns (DCDs) against AoE damage to the Sniper and Sorcerer, the other ranged specs:

The Sniper is easy to describe, with „Entrench“ being a 60% AoE Reduction, which can be used every minute for 20s of runtime, with the ability to instantly reset its CD and gain extra Damage reduction (DR) in the process via „Imperial Preparation“. I don't think that need to go into the Sniper DCDs further to show that its well equipped to deal with AoE.

 

The Sorcerer is a little weaker, sporting only light armor with a passive DR choice in the tree and some small self heal for madness. However, its DCDs are short in CD and provide either a shield for 40k damage overall, self heal or 25% of Damage reduction via „Cloud Mind“ a choice often taken in the tree. Through these short cooldown DCDs that all mitigate spikes of damage, the sorc is also decently equipped to deal with incoming AoE Damage. On top of that, the Sorc posesses the single most „screw you“-ability this game has to offer, Force Barrier. It sports a very long CD and requires you to do nothing, but a its very potent way of dealing with any incoming damage that has a value associated with it.

 

The Merc in contrast has 2 abilities that are directly abled to mitigate AoE damage, those being Energy Shield and Kolto Overload, with 2 minutes (about 1.5 depending on damage taken frequency) and 3 minutes cooldowns respectively. Reflect and the resists diversion provides don't work on AoE Damage that is non-avoidable by movement, i.e. not delivered through a void or ground effect of some sort. The extra 6% DR from the tree and heavy armor sadly don't do enough to mitigate frequent AoE damage as it exists in encounters like Apex Vanguard, Titan 6, Zorn & Toth, Tyrans and Dread Concil, among many others.

General:

One overreaching issue that very much hurts the performance of the Merc are the choices of the Combat Style Tree. The choices both Merc DPS classes get lack noticeable behind most other classes in power and/or impact. Comparing again to both Sniper and Sorcerer, both of these classes have a DPS choice in the LVL 27 tier. While that tier ranges in usefulness depending on spec and the power of the defensive choice in the same tier, the main difference is that it exists.

 

The Merc gets Explosive Dart, an ability thats now even useless for IOs, as it has lost its DoT-spread capability. You never take, let alone use this ability, ever. And it blocks a spot where a potentially impactful choice could be.

 

Unfortunately, even the main damage choices at level 23 and 39 are very lackluster compared to other classes.

To illustrate: The Arsenals premier lvl 23 choice is a little less cast time and energy use for its spam filler, while the Sorc evolves its cleave ability Chain Lightning into a single target cast that is worth hard casting for 2.5 seconds, so large is its damage. The IOs best lvl 39 choice that strongly buffs the tiniest DoT the class has to a point where it only makes up around 3-4% of all damage dealt from around 1-2% last update, meanwhile the Pyrotech gets a new DoT on Rail Shot that now makes up a whopping 9% of all damage dealt by the class. It takes no degree to see the huge difference.

 

What further compounds these issues is the very tiny amount of Raid Utility compared to most classes. Raid Utility are all things that benefit the raid group outside of their own ability to deal damage or mitigate damage taken. Raid Buffs like Bloodthirst, soft and hard stuns, enemy or ally pulls, group shields, etc.

 

Here again, a comparison to the other ranged classes paints a very clear picture: The sorc by default has a hard stun, a rooting knockback, an allied pull, and the ability to give static barries to other players, as well as, off healing It can also spec into a very potent raid buff and a soft stun.

The Sniper has a rooting knockback, a root, an AoE accuracy debuff, with the ability to spec into an AoE shied for allies.

 

The merc has a soft stun, a non-rooting pushback, and off-heal by default, with the weakest raid buff and stealth scan as options in the tree. These utilities are rather weak in comparison. For what its worth defensively and utility-wise, the merc has no business dealing as little damage as it does.

 

Lastly, to be a little more viable, the Merc has to drop one more thing that made it stand out against the other ranges: the ability to move while channeling. The default Kolto Surge is just that weak on Merc that dropping movement liberties is the only option.

 

Last update, the Sniper was obviously bound to stand still to deal maximum damage through the entrench-buffing set bonus, but it is still very bound to staying still in cover. The Sorc last update also was rather stationary with either lots of casting in place or channeling for Madness. The mercs, especially the IO, were the most mobile in comparison, which offset the fact that even last update, its defensives for AoE were the weakest for AoE damage taken.

 

This constraint, while not further detremental to the core issues of the class, still rob it of its identity as the mobile class. The IO can cope just fine, however its channel, Unload, becomes almost useless, which i very much dislike. Arsenal however, is now bound to stay in place a ton more, making it even more vulnerable then as it already is.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

If we add these facts up, what does the merc have? Sub-par DPS, underqualified defences to deal with a lot of damage taken in a raid, crippled movement, and an assortment of raid utility that leaves a lot to be desired. Most choices in the tree are only minor buffs or side grades, especially in places where game changing DPS options should be. All in all,

 

there is no reason to bring a merc DPS into a raid.

 

Suggested Changes:

 

The following changes have been mathematically calculated to keep Merc in line when compared to other ranged classes. They aim only to make merc viable again, not over-powered in comparison.

Arsenal:

the following passive changes are mostly to bring Arsenal as its currently on PTS closer to standard sustained dps of most ranged classes:

 

Increased the critical hit chance bonus from Riddle / Rotary Cannon from 5% to 15%

 

new passive to replace Explosive Dart (lvl27): Deadly Tracing – increases the critical chance of tracer missile by 10%

the following Buffs are redesings for the lvl 39 choices to promote different choice for different situations:

 

Tracing Residue – Heatseeker Missiles apply a residue on the target, increasing you Tracer Missile damage against your target by 10%

 

Customized Warhead – Increases ther Critical Damage of Heatseeking Missiles by 10%. Additionally, Heatseeker Missiler will critically hit automatically. This cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.

 

IO:

 

The following changes aim to increase the amount of damage the DoTs deal, without touching the quite strong burst too much. They are designed to be equal in DPS increase. However, the first choice is intended to be a little more exciting in nature (like many other new choices for other classes) while the latter is a little less so for easy of implementation. again, both provide a very similar DPS boost.

 

 

new passive to replace Explosive Dart: Volatile Ignition – Every time Combustible Gas Cylinder is reapplied on your target, it forces your Incendiary Missile Burn and Early Ignition Burn to tick. (ticking works like Cull)

 

alternatively

Periodic Criticality – Increases the Critical Chance and Damage of all your Damage-over-Time effects by 15%

Defensives:

Merc needs quite powerful means against pulse AoE damage taken. As such giving it very potentA oE DR for a short time will give it what it needs. An alternative is reintroducing permanent AoE reduction, however I strongly advise against reintroducing permanent AoE DR.

 

Chaff Flare – Reduces your Threat towards all current enemies, increases your Area-of-Effect Damage Reduction by 60% for 10 seconds (Arsenal and IO only), provides interrupt immunity for 6 seconds, and grants 2 charges of Decoy. Each charge of Decoy intercepts and absorbs an incoming Force or tech attack. Each time you absorb a Force or tech attack in this manner, Decoy loses 1 charge. Lasts up to 10 seconds.

 

Alternatively:

 

Gyroscopic Alignment Jets - You vent 20 heat when stunned, immobilized, knocked down or otherwise incapacitated, and when this happens your next tech ability used within 10 seconds deals 10% more damage or healing. Additionally, for the Arsenal and Innovative Ordnance Combat Styles, increases your Area-of-Effect Damage Reduction by 30%

 

Movement:

 

Swap either Trauma Stabilizers or Afterburners place with Thrill Of The Hunt

 

alternatively

 

Make Thrill Of The Hunt always passive for IO and Arsenal, and replace it with a modified version of the old "Jet Rebounder" utility:

 

New lvl 64 right side passive: Jet Regeneration: Jet Boost deals 30% more damage. In addition, Jet Boost reduces its active cooldown by 1 second when you take damage. This cannot occur more than once every second.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

This project has taken a while, and wouldn't have been especially possible without these awesome blokes:

 

Rekui for his unending calculations and just for being the IO guru

Supertigar for discussing and challenging my plans

Cliff for providing me great insight into the PvP state of the Merc

Marlone

Aero

and the awesome people of the SWTOR Theorycrafter Discord for their endless reservoir of ideas

 

Thank you for reading and your consideration.

Edited by ArchingBeast
grammatical mistakes, rewriting misunderstandalbe passages, new point about movement
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Once again, players make better balancing decisions than the devs.

 

Most of this makes sense therefore it will likely not be considered, thought I'd love to be proven wrong.

 

Mercs were kind of silly in 6.0 with just how much they could do and were one of the only classes that really needed abilities to be removed. However, the devs went half way and for some stupid reason kept garbage abilities like sticky dart and stealth scan in the ability tree rather than developing actually useful ability morphs such as those created in this post.

 

Arsenal relies far too heavily on random damage via crit chance and IO simply doesn't do enough damage with its DoTs considering it is a sustained damage DoT combat style.

 

Higher base damage on tracer missiles sounds great, auto critting with heat seeker missiles should honestly just be a default thing like AP gets with energy burst. It's supposed to be a burst spec, let its abilities actually deal burst damage.

 

I really like the idea of IO proccing its DoTs when combustible gas is refreshed similarly to cull - would be interesting to see a variant where unload procs the DoTs to keep it more consistent.

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I used to love playing IO, but especially the dps choices just being side-grades instead of essential dps buffs like other classes have, just make Mercs on both specs just boring and not competetive. In this post the main issues with mercs were pointed out very well. Edited by funfish
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I don't get why you made it so complicated though? Like sure ok this ability has more crit and this does more damage when and blablabla, this wouldn't change the playstyle of the class? Those changes would have the same impact as just "Adds 10% damage" to any passive, there you go arsenal does 10% more dmg it now obly parses 6k below Fury - GG balancing done.

 

I understand that if you'd want a change like, make heatseekers have two stacks and refund one on priming shot, would be a suggestion, but this is just adding damage. Why not say +10% more on every ability? It effectively what you said, or at least thats how I understand it.

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There's one simple thing I don't see you mention but the legendaries are poorly balanced between classes. For some classes the legendaries are just a straight 5% DPS buff, with some further buffs on top, and for some other classes it's just... more like 1% or less. And merc legendaries suck hard.
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They don't have to all be numerically equitable, there is value in tactical and legendaries having niches outliers in performances under some situations like Aoe, dual target, short burst, combination of damage and survivability interaction.

 

If the design was 'Every legendary effect must be 5% damage', it would be boring. Sadly we are not far from it in actual function AND some classes have a choice between a terrible and a horrible option.

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Sure there is absolutely value in having interesting legendary implants and tacticals, but when those tacticals result in a combat style severely underperforming compared to combat styles with 5% buffs....

 

We've had a tonne of tacticals since the very start of 6.0 that are completely and utterly beyond garbage. Useless in every single capacity, useless even in the niche scenarios they are built for. Have they been changed? Nope. Will they ever be used beyond troll/meme builds? Nope.

 

We were promised more frequent balancing in 7.0 because combat styles allow the devs to more quickly adjust combat styles. So far we are still waiting on the first balance pass and it's already nowhere near good enough. Moreover, it's bringing back some useless tacticals that will never see use.

 

The numbers don't have to be exactly the same for every combat style, but the end result needs to be a balanced spread of combat styles - which is not what we have right now.

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They don't have to all be numerically equitable, there is value in tactical and legendaries having niches outliers in performances under some situations like Aoe, dual target, short burst, combination of damage and survivability interaction.

 

I mean yes, in theory. But for example, one the merc legendaries gives 2% passive dps, with a maximum 50% uptime. That's less than 1% dps increase overall, and as generic as it gets. Clearly something's wrong with this one if you compare it to other classes.

Edited by Loc_n_lol
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I don't believe that's a correct way to look at it, not all classes need the exact same proportion of their damage coming from their tactical.

 

Just for argument's sake, imagine that Spec 1 does 30.000 dps, and a tactical adds 1000 dps and spec 2 does 25.000 dps but tactical adds 5000 dps. Spec 2 is still 1000 dps behind Spec 1 while having a tactical that is worth way more dps. If you buff Spec 1 tactical to bring 5000 dps like spec 2 you just created a huge imbalance.

 

Note that none of this is meant to justify uninspired or poorly performing tacticals, just that percentage parity is not a mathematical sound way to correct for it as the baseline is also different.

 

For the case of the merc it doesnt help that the baseline AND the tacticals are terrible :s

Edited by Drokisannath
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The devs themselves made a post ages ago explaining how they balanced ranged, melee, burst and sustain combat styles.

 

Burst and ranged should both be lower in general than sustain and melee - not every spec should be the same.

However, some specs are vastly over or underperforming even using those dev defined metrics.

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