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Planned Balance Changes for 7.1.1


ChrisDurel

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Hello everyone,

 

Chris here again, Gameplay Designer on SWTOR. I wanted to share with you some upcoming balance changes planned for 7.1.1 (Jackie mentioned it in this thread). I’ve spoken of our post 7.0 balance plan in the past, and if you are curious about that and our philosophy going forward with regards to balance, you can find that here.

 

With 7.1.1, we are mostly focused on healer balance and various QoL (quality of life) improvements across the classes. We’ve taken a lot of your feedback and applied that to the changes we are making in 7.1.1. This includes changes to every healer with Operatives / Scoundrel, Mercenaries / Commandos, and Sorcerers / Sages in the form of balance adjustments, passive mod redesigns, and QoL improvements. In many cases, we’ve adjusted their HPS (heal per second) output to be higher, as we noticed they weren’t reaching our internal targets. Operatives, while their healing is being brought down in some cases, are being brought up in others. Our goal with this change is to equalize healer HPS across all combat styles while retaining their individual class identity.

 

In addition to balance changes across healers, we’ve also improved some survivability in a few classes. While these may seem to be small adjustments, we feel these changes will bring them more in line with other classes.

 

Finally, we have continued to adjust our DPS (damage per second) balance across multiple combat styles for 7.1.1, with the intention to narrow the gap between the top and bottom DPS classes. We continue to strive for making every combat style viable while retaining what makes it unique.

 

We are also introducing two new Tacticals for 7.1.1 to replace old Tactical items that were removed with 7.0. One is for Advanced Prototype / Tactics Powertechs and the other is for Madness / Balance Sorcerers / Sages.

 

7.1.1 will not be available on PTS, but you can see a list of tentative changes below. We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on our direction, as we appreciated all your contributions to 7.1.

 

Here are some of the balance changes you can expect from 7.1.1. Note that all of this is subject to change.

 

 

 

Operative / Scoundrel

 

  • Evasion / Dodge now additionally lowers threat by a moderate amount and lasts one second longer.
  • Quick Countermeasures and Sly Countermeasures now additionally grant 60% AOE damage reduction while Evasion is active.
  • This now additionally works with the Evasive Screen / Skedaddle mod.

 

Medicine / Sawbones

  • Reduced the Kolto Burst mod’s healing on secondary targets by 50%.
  • The Kolto Stim mod now additionally grants 10% increased healing to Kolto Injection.
  • Reduced the healing received bonus given by Nano Mark mod from 20% to 10%.
  • Redesigned “Defensive Injection” mod, which is now called “Reactive Substance”, and does the following:
  • Kolto Injection applies a reactive substance to the target for 10 seconds. If the target is dealt damage during this time, they are healed. Stacks up to 2 times.

 

Concealment / Scrapper

  • Reduced the bonus critical hit damage while Stim Boost is active from 20% to 15%.
  • The Tactical “Acid Lash” no longer improves the damage of Acid Blade.
  • Increased the duration of the Advanced Stealth mod effect from 4 to 6 seconds.
  • Increased the duration of the Tactical Critical / Upper Critical mod effect from 4 to 6 seconds.
  • Increased the damage reduction per stack from the Defensive Stance mod from 3% to 5%.
  • The Best Defense mod now adds a life steal component to Crippling Slice / Shank Shot.
  • Increased the movement speed bonus granted by Quick Countermeasures from 50% to 100%.

 

Sniper / Gunslinger

Marksmanship / Sharpshooter

  • Target Acquired / Illegal Mods now generates a charge of Laze Target / Smuggler’s Luck whenever it is activated.
  • Lazer Focus / Lucky Thoughts no longer relies on critically hitting the target to lower the cooldown on Laze Target / Smuggler’s Luck but instead has a 50% chance to do so whenever dealing damage.

 

Mercenary / Commando

  • Bodyguard / Combat Medic
  • Increased the healing done by Rapid Scan, Emergency Scan, Progressive Scan, Kolto Missile and Kolto Pods by 2%.
  • Increased the critical healing bonus given by Warden from 5% to 10%.
  • Increased the healing bonus given by Integrated Scanning mod from 3% to 5%.
  • Increased the critical chance bonus to Healing Scan from Critical Scanning mod from 5% to 10%.

 

Powertech / Advanced Prototype

Advanced Prototype

  • Magnetic Blast / Tactical Surge damage reduced by 14%.
  • Power Burst / High Yield Explosives mod stacks damage bonus reduced to 4% per stack down from 5% per stack. (total of 16% damage bonus to thermal det down from 20%).
  • Serrated Blades damage reduced to 5% down from 15%. (combined into prototype rail)
  • Blood Tracker / Triumph damage increase to bleeding targets is reduced to 3% down from 5%.
  • Lingering Heat / Superheated Cells damage reduced by 50%.
  • New Tactical: Powered Detonator (Burst)

    Thermal Detonator remains dormant on the target for 12 seconds, and can be detonated by Magnetic Blast, Energy Burst or Rail Shot. Depending on which is used, a different effect is applied.

    Magnetic Blast: Slows the target by 50% for 10 seconds.

    Energy Burst: The cooldown of Rocket Punch is reset and your next Rocket Punch costs no heat.

    Rail Shot: Your next Shoulder Cannon missile deals 20% more damage.


 

Pyrotech / Plasmatech

  • Charged Gauntlet's / Hyper Assault Cell’s critical damage bonus for Searing Wave, Flaming Fist, Scorch, and Immolate is now 10% down from 15%.
  • Reduced the damage bonus given from Burnout to Immolate / Plasma Flare from 40% to 30%.

 

Sorcerer / Sage

Corruption / Seer

  • Increasing the healing given by Penetrating Darkness / Clairvoyance to Renewal and Resurgence / Rejuvenate from 10% to 15%.
  • Dark Heal / Benevolence now gains a 60% healing increase up from 50% from Dark Concentration / Altruism.
  • Each stack of Corrupted Bastion / Resurging Power increases the healing done by Dark Heal / Benevolence, Rally / Deliverance, Dark Infusion / Keeper of the Peace by 5% per stack up from 3% per stack.

 

Madness / Balance

  • New Tactical: Killing Field (AOE)
  • Death Field slows targets it affects by 50%. Force Storm deals 15% more damage to slowed targets.


    • Disintegration - Death Field and Death Brand grant Vitiate's Malice, giving Force Lightning 20% Lifesteal for 12 seconds.
    • Force Horrors - Increase periodic damage from 15% to 20%.
    • Lightning Barrage - Force Lightning reduced damage changed to -20% from -25%.
    • Tempest of Rho - Correctly applies 50% chance for Force Lightning to trigger periodic effects down from 75%

 

Lightning / Telekinesis

  • Reverberating Force - Critical hit damage bonus has been reduced to 12% down from 15%.
  • Thundering Blast - Second arc of damage deals 20% of Turbulence's damage down from 25%.
  • Storm watch damage decreased by 4%
  • Halted Offensive cast time increased from 2.5 seconds to 3.0 seconds. Alacrity still affects cast time.
  • Decrease Halted Offensive damage by 15%.
  • Convection - Thundering Blast grants Reserved Darkness, making Dark Heal an instant cast and increasing its healing by 30%. Stacks up to 2 times.

 

 

Assassin/ Shadow

Deception / Infiltration

  • The damage done by the Awakened Flame tactical has been increased by 10%.
  • Changed Severing Slash to additionally grant damage reduction per target hit.
  • Redesigned "May Cause Injury" Tactical to grant the AOE version of Discharge more often. It now reads:
    Gaining a stack of Voltage / Clairvoyance causes your next Discharge / Force Breach to arc to multiple targets.

 

Hatred / Serenity

  • Changed the Two Time Trouble tactical so that it can no longer tick from Saber Strike damage.
  • Fulguration / Rebounding Force now restores 5 Force when Lightning Charge / Force Technique deals damage, up from 3.
  • Increased the damage bonus given by Pervasive Death / Pervasive Balance to Death Field / Force in Balance from 10% to 15%.
  • Hungering Force / Longing Force now additionally grants a critical hit damage bonus of 5%.
  • Increased lifesteal amount from Severing Slash from 25% to 50%

 

Darkness / Kinetic Combat

  • Changed the Severing Slash effect for Darkness to root its target for 2 seconds, followed by a 3 second slow. Severing Slash no longer grants damage reduction.

 

 

We’re looking forward to your feedback! As Jackie mentioned, we’ll have more details to share about 7.1.1 in general soon!

 

-Chris

Edited by CommunityTeam
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So these changes looks like their nerfing DPS for some classes.

 

I beleive this is the wrong move since r4 HM 1st boss is only complete able with 6dps 2 healers or 5dps 3 healers if dps are very good.

 

This is not the norm since most raids are ran 4 dps 2 healer 2 tanks and this cannot be done with this set up.

 

Maybe the problem is w r4 balancing because it's imbalanced right now. But I wouldn't decrease the damage of classes right now.

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Concealment / Scrapper

  • Reduced the bonus critical hit damage while Stim Boost is active from 20% to 15%.
  • The Tactical “Acid Lash” no longer improves the damage of Acid Blade.

Why? What possible reason could you have for any of the DPS nerfs listed here? I'm normally not one to spew vitriol about how the developers don't know what they are doing, but this makes no sense at all.

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So these changes looks like their nerfing DPS for some classes.

 

I beleive this is the wrong move since r4 HM 1st boss is only complete able with 6dps 2 healers or 5dps 3 healers if dps are very good.

 

This is not the norm since most raids are ran 4 dps 2 healer 2 tanks and this cannot be done with this set up.

 

Maybe the problem is w r4 balancing because it's imbalanced right now. But I wouldn't decrease the damage of classes right now.

 

Thanks for the challenge

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Not sure on the DPS nerfs. I'd rather you buff the classes that are underperforming.

 

The heal stuff seems nice overall. Operative though...I hope you tweaked those raw numbers enough. Otherwise you might've just smacked em out of the meta entirely.

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So I never post on forums but I feel like it’s absurd that we’re talking about another round of class balancing without addressing the fact that commando/merc dps has been in the toilet forever. Get rid of electronet, stop balancing around pvp or whatever needs to be done. I’m not even a commando main, but it just seems insane that they’re practically useless in difficult pve content.
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Whew, I would be happy to test this but.

 

I am going out on a limb assuming you guys have fixed the bug allowing for stacking of thermal det empower? nerfing it marginally isn't going to really help imo. Fix the bug, if the bugs are fixed then great this is reasonable still.

Now the tactical for AP. Just over the top, literally. This thing is overkill, far from balanced in a PvP situation.

This spec is already extremely meta for PvP this will just make it reign even longer.

 

As for the slows - can we steer away? 50% slows are quite big and when they last that long and generally the mass application of slows in the game. It basically makes it impossible to play PvP at normal or even boosted movement speed for more than a second or two. This is not what we need.

Other changes seem interesting but, please revise AP Powertech changes. Nerfs are fine! Bugs with thermal det stacking empower are not. What I mean by that is having the ability to have a 4 stack, 3 stacks, and 1 stack all for one thermal det. This allows for quite a bit over 100k hits consistently, hell even 80ks through 50% DR dcds. This should be a top priority to fix if anything.

 

If the ability of stacking empowers is still in the game and this tactical comes in unchanged, killing someone in the opener is already possible. Afterward, killing someone through nearly all defenses in an opener is definitely going to be possible and I am talking about things like PT/Lethality operative, classes that are already leagues ahead of most defensively at the moment. How does a sin stand a chance? Resist their energy burst? Well, the bad news is they'll still have it, and resisting their energy burst will just reset their TD anyway. Please, please, please, think about this in a PvP situation and I am happy to give examples or more feedback.

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WTH am I going to do with a root ability for a Sin Tank in PvE when anything worth a damn like an ops boss can't be rooted? And you're taking away my DR for this?

 

FFS. More PvP appeasement at the expense of PvE.

Edited by tranzmatt
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I don't understand evasion/defensive abilities being improved for operative (or their DPS being nerfed--but that's another matter) when sniper isn't getting better self-defense. Snipers had self-healing abilities removed with 7.0 and are low on defensives.

 

Shouldn't operatives continue to rely more on healing, not defense? They have self-heals.

 

-

 

I'm glad kolto burst is being adjusted to something more reasonable. But I'd like to be able to single-target heal effectively on an operative.

 

Can we get a buff to Kolto infusion yet?

Or the ability to (occasionally) deploy 2x probes at once, like the old utility.

Edited by Riyar
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This game really doesn't need the upper spec DPS classes nerfed. It needs the lower specs classes raised to match them. Especially like people have said the R4 Ops needs as many DPS as possible, unless your plan is to whittle down the really lower DPS classes so they're unplayable and make people only play the upper tiered ones.

 

Also like has also been said, replacing a DR with a Root when most Ops bosses and the things you generally use it on literally can't be rooted is a bad move.

 

Some of the changes are good but there are some that are just so questionable. Even if you nerf some damage on certain abilities you can't just do that and not raise the DPS of others. When you have a 12k difference between the highest and lowest DPS classes that's unacceptable and the solution isn't to leave the lower ranked classes around where they are and nerf the upper ranked ones. A 5k difference or something like that between DPS classes is fine but not by the margins were's still seeing today.

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WTH am I going to do with a root ability for a Sin Tank in PvE when anything worth a damn like an ops boss can't be rooted? And you're taking away my DR for this?

 

FFS. More PvP appeasement at the expense of PvE.

 

So, screw PVPers for the sake of PVEers, because that's not the exact same thing in reverse or anything, right?

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I understand that Operative Healer finally needed that ridiculous AOE heal nerfed but what possible reason could you have for nerfing the nanotech as well? For once the class could actually put out decent single target healing using that as the first in line for this to work. HALVING that AND the rest with the current damage being dealt out in operations is going to hit even harder.

 

Not to mention the DPS nerfs no one needed. Literally no one. They need to stop basing so much of this on PVP and realise that half of these abilities don't even work in PVE. Like rooting a boss that can't be cc'ed anyway. Imagine that. Why don't you listen to your community for once instead of kissing the asses of the pvp'ers?

 

Yeah. Because PVErs are more important than PVPers, so it's okay to ignore how class balance effects PVP.

 

One is not more important than other. And until such a time as they enact different balancing measures between PVE and PVP this is an avoidable state of affairs. It also go in both directions. Carnage got nerfed to hell and back because of PVE. Class balancing always screws some people in PVP and some people in PVE.

 

One is not more important than the other. I care about Raiders and I care about PVPers equally.

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What in the world is the thought process behind nerfing the single target damage of the concealment operative when he offers literally nothing else? Zero AOE capability, tiny range, weak when switching targets due to dependency on the debuff triggered by backstab and virtually nothing else.

 

The APT PT nerf seems too harsh. It's not like spec dominated like crazy, did it? Wasn't Pyro virtually better on every boss, especially when there were more targets? And what is the new tactical? You get one extra thermal when you use energy burst and then it buffs a single missile shot after rail shot? One?

 

Then you massively nerf AE healing of the operative because we already have all those great AE healing skills around that aren't virtually worthless beyond kolto burst? Nobody likes to play this way, you just made it a must. You even nerfed what tiny little insignificant amount of AE healing the Sorc had for like 5 minutes before you took it away again. Where are the buffs to AE healing for the other specs then? That would've make sense.

 

the most pointless spec in the game right now seems to be Marksman and this change does very little to help it. It has useless choices on almost every level which could easily be fixed to make the spec more viable.

 

As for Hatred Assassins - you really want to add energy management to the class while at the same time making it rather luck based whether or not you can get enough dot crits in to reset recklessness on time? That's good design? More fun to play now? I kinda doubt it.

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I'm going to reiterate what some others have already said. Why are you removing damage reduction from tanks in favour of a root ability that is useless in pve? Why is the damage reduction of severing slash being passed instead to dps on what is, for them, primarily an offensive ability and which, if chosen, locks them out of force shroud, which is a far more desirable ability? Why are you strengthening the defenses of operatives - a self-healing class - when snipers have had all of their self-healing abilities and many of their defensives removed and/or locked out by mutually exclusive ability choices? Edited by xshiromorix
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So, screw PVPers for the sake of PVEers, because that's not the exact same thing in reverse or anything, right?

 

DR for tanks benefits both PvEers and PvPers. Roots benefit only PvPers. So no, it isn't the same thing. It is favouring the needs of one class of players over the needs of the other.

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  • Dev Post

Hi everyone,

 

As Chris wrote in his post, these changes are tentative and we're looking for feedback. I understand that you all may have strong feelings about these, but we are asking if you can explain why you feel a certain way and in addition to that explain what a preferred solution or change would be.

 

Please keep your posts constructive as they help us understand your line of thinking and provides opportunity for your feedback to be reflected in any changes that could be made.

 

Thanks!

Jackie

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Chris,

as a long time raider in this game. Who has played cleared nearly all the content many times, I find the choice to nerf concealment perplexing. In operations concealment has been one of the least represented combat styles for many years. Even when its single target damage is among the very best. It simply lacks any competitive AOE at all, has very little utility, and often struggles to survive without further sacrificing its often limited damage and uptime on defensive abilities that are tied to the GCD.

There is a reason why so very few concealment operatives have cleared Gods, Dxxun, and why not a single one to my knowledge has cleared all of R4 HM (according to parsley.io). And even when they do, their is a multitude of vastly superior PVE combat styles to choose from.

 

Overall i am glad to see the addition of aoe damage reduction for operative. And I think a nerf to Kolto Burst was absolutely the right move. But I am concerned for the PVE Viability of concealment operatives going forward, with a nerf to single target, and no further adjustments to mitigate their many weaknesses

 

I put a lot of thought into ways concealment could be improved of the years. At the core of it in my opinion its two greatest weaknesses in PVE, are its atrocious AOE dps, and at times its sub par survability from Off GCD cooldowns. With the addition of AOE damage reduction on evasion i would say it will be in a solid spot in regards to the second.

As for its low AOE dps, i think addressing its resource management in AOE situations would go a long way.

Simply removing the energy cost of Noxious Knives or Fragmentation grenade for instance would help it to sustain itself for a decent period of time. Then its just a matter of playing with the numbers to get them to reach the target DPS that the team is currently aiming for

Edited by Thyron
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As Chris wrote in his post, these changes are tentative and we're looking for feedback. I understand that you all may have strong feelings about these, but we are asking if you can explain why you feel a certain way and in addition to that explain what a preferred solution or change would be.

 

 

 

I hope I can be constructive. I am a PvE player and never dabble in ranked PvP. There is a 15 long page thread on R-4 being badly tuned; the first boss requires very high DPS and very precise movement. So high that teams are running 6 DPS and one tank. The second and third bosses are very easy in comparison. In fact, most teams need to stop DPS on the 2nd boss so they don't push it into burn whilst being in Stalker Protocol. R-4 is also riddled with very frustrating bugs like people appearing dead, the 2nd boss being inaccessible after a raid session and requiring a Sniper push, to name just 2.

 

I feel the frustration here from the PvE community is that, for class changes, we were expecting buffs for the classes that are underperforming. Instead, we see a heavy nerf for Tactics Vanguard and Scoundrel healers, with a very slight buff for Shadows and Balance/Seer Sages. I appreciate this post might be tailored just to classes, but what we really want to see is you addressing the issues with R-4, as it is the only new competitive PvE content you have released, and the only way to gear past 330.

 

I hope I can speak for us all but what the community want to see is a buff for the underperforming DPS classes like Arsenal Commando, rather than a nerf for something like Tactics which isn't really that OP in PvE. But what we want even more, is addressing the bizarre scaling issue for R-4. The first boss needs much less damage output and a health nerf, if you are not going to buff class DPS to allow raid teams to bring classes they want, rather than restrict them ('no Commando for this boss!'). I sincerely hope this yellow post is going to be accompanied by another general nerf for R-4 post, otherwise you are just going to present you community with essentially 'we have heavily nerfed 2 classes, slightly buffed 4 and we are not addressing/changing anything in R-4 which is only completable by 1% of our playerbase'.

 

How do you think that is going to sound to the community?

Please address the glaring issues raised in the forums, buff classes to a point that they are actively no longer refused in raids, certainly nerf classes that are slightly OP, but not if you are not going to address any of the other pressing issues!!

 

TL;DR:

Don't just hit us with nerfs when your only new content/way of gearing needs immediate attention. At least give us some good news along with the bad, and make the underperforming classes more viable.

Edited by Elvarania
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i'm having a hard time trying to understand the thought process of the dps nerf. The reason why most people use powertech in pve is not because is everyone's favorite class but because the designe of some pve fights makes it a requierment because of fuel or rebounder.

 

Failure the best pve team with full max gear had to use 4 pt to be able to break the shield of scyva, there is no powertech nerf that will make people use other classes when the fight designe requiers a big or huge dps burst in a short windown.

 

If you go at data alone in parsely on dummy the top dps specs are, 1) hatred (34.6k top parse), 2) concealement (33.4k dps), 3) fury (35.3k dps), 4) engineering (32.7k dps), 5) carnage (32.5k dps), 6) rage (33k dps) and the lowest are 18) arsenal (29.5k dps), 17) marksmanship (28k dps) 16) madness (31.5k dps) 15) advanced prototype (30.9k dps), 14) io (30.9k dps), 13) virulence (31.2k dps) 12) pyrotech (31.1k dps)

 

And if you go to fight specific nim fight from all the apex bosses plus the 4 new of r4 hm, out of the 11 fights juggernaut holds the top dps of 6 (kephess in ec, tfb, styrak, izax, kanoth, dominique) more than half of them, powertech 3 (brontes, council and ip cpt) and marauder 2 (apex and watchdog).

What is ruining the variaty of dps is not only the dps discrepancy of some classes that everyone knows which they are, but also how completely broken some abilities like shatter burst/cut to pieces is, or how the fight designe requieres very high dps burst checks or how annihilation can be considered a huge help for the healers. There is literally no reason to bring anything but a jugernaut when there is a boss with adds and other classes with cleave are discouraged beccause they take damage away from the juggernaut. Probably making vengeful slam requiere rage when cut to pieces is used will bring way more class diversity than the dps nerfs that are planned.

The powertech nerf will change nothing in the fights that is absolutely requiered by game designe because of the short burst windows or rebounder like nahut or hateful, but will make the class underperform by a good margin compared to other classes especially on fights that you take no aoe damage to trigger close and personal or stack poweryield. Probably removing rebounder reflect from pt dps will bring way more dps variaty, or making burst dps checks not requiere your full team to have 4 pts with fuel active to pass it like scyva. And probably nerfing annihilation heals by a lot more will bring more diversity too. The lack of diversity in pve to me comes to how broken juggernaut aoe is and the utility powertech and annihilation bring to the table since there are classes that do more dps than them but are not used or used way less

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I also think it's important to note that most people who frequent the forums are going to be 'hardcore' players who will likely represent a small majority of the community, eg high end raiding and PvP. However, it's equally important not to dismiss some of the changes. For example, the Balance Sage tactical for high end raiding/PvP seems useless, but this could be great for a solo player who wants to kill large groups of enemies. No doubt this is the majority of the Swtor community, the casual/solo player.

 

HOWEVER, please yellow posters, recognise that you have made the ONLY way to gear past 330 currently to clear R-4 veteran, and it desperately needs attention. That is why there is so much focus on this.

If all legacy Master raids dropped a 340 token, or you were able to get a 330+ token once per week from a weekly or whatever, you'd have much less focus on R-4 being too highly tuned. Sadly this community backlash is a product of your own making, but can easily be redeemed in the near future.

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