Quick background.. played from launch until Shadow of Revan, almost totally as a healer but I dabbled in tanking from time to time. Played off and on as a DPS to do the expansion stories since then. Resubbed for 7.0 and decided I wanted to take a stab at tanking more so I've geared up and have been doing MM Flashpoints. I've found the experience to be pretty frustrating for one, and also quite boring..

 

It feels like every pull I jump in (playing Powertech) and I get flashbanged, then I get knocked back and slowed, then I'm getting choked or something. So by the time all that's over I have threat on nothing and I've also sat there with my hands off the mouse/keyboard for like 8-10 seconds. I know there are CC breaks and abilities that can prevent this, and also AoE taunts, but they have cooldowns and the flashpoints are fast paced.

 

In my time away after Shadow of Revan I played a lot of World of Warcraft, where I mostly tanked. Am I just used to that game where the tank holds threat on everything and only gets CC'd if they make a mistake?

You’re not wrong about the stuns and push backs. They made changes last year that added lots more to fights. It has become super annoying and it’s not fun or challenging.

 

I think 7.0 might be removing some of them. But if they don’t do it, it’s going to be even worse than now because many classes are losing lots of stun break or immune utility on them. Which would mean being stunned to death or spending an excruciating amount of time stunned instead of fighting.

One of the most unbearable parts of this game, honestly sometimes I don't know how I still play it despite all the CC spam (and it's not just FPs, it's everywhere with silver and gold mobs). I end up thinking about flow a lot when CC happens. Flow is something they talk about in video game design, getting into a state where you're more or less fully engaged with the game and enjoying it (e.g. you aren't getting bored or distracted easily). The CC in this game regularly disrupts my state of flow because it literally forces me to just not do anything with my character, sometimes for a good 5-10 seconds. That's more than enough time to get knocked out of flow and start wondering why I'm even playing the game.

 

I mean, control of your character is really important. It's the virtual extension of you in the game. If you can't do anything with it, on a regular basis, what is the point, ya know.

 

I don't mind it so much in PvP because I expect the combat there to be a game of wills (tho it can still be gratuitous, the amount of it) but in PvE, you're supposed to use rotations and such. It's more a game of optimizing your threat, your healing, DPS, etc., and CC spam from mobs throws that completely off. Not to mention it isn't even tactical like you'd encounter in PvP.

 

The one that really flabbergasts me, it's so absurd I almost can't be mad, is the melee mobs that pull you in only to immediately push you away. Like what is even the strategy there, clearly it's just filler to make the mobs seem more challenging. If I could, I would go in and delete every single CC ability off of every single non-special-boss mob in this game. If you are a boss and it's a special mechanic at some point, that's ok. Otherwise, delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete.

 

Edit: added a few more "delete" for emphasis.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Rolodome

Yeah I guess it's really prevalent in the open world as well..

 

I'm not opposed to CC as an enemy NPC mechanic if It's avoidable/interruptible. Like you have to make the choice of getting stunned for a couple seconds or taking a larger-than-normal hit because you can't interrupt both.

 

It's pretty brutal when areas are littered with mobs that, on queue, hit you with an instant-cast flashbang 3 seconds after engaging them haha.

Nothing says "engaging gameplay" like staring at your keyboard, unable to do anything for 10 seconds while getting wailed on by MOBs.

 

Simple fix, stun resilience. As in once stunned, you can't be stunned again for "X" seconds. The elephant in the room is PvP, but I'm sure they're smart enough to balance that as well.

You’re not wrong about the stuns and push backs. They made changes last year that added lots more to fights. It has become super annoying and it’s not fun or challenging.

 

I think 7.0 might be removing some of them. But if they don’t do it, it’s going to be even worse than now because many classes are losing lots of stun break or immune utility on them. Which would mean being stunned to death or spending an excruciating amount of time stunned instead of fighting.

 

Having played quite extensively on the PTS, I haven't seen any reduction in knockbacks by NPCs. They did fix some of the mobility issues where the best you could do is slow walk back to a ranged attacker that knocked you back while getting pounded on. The worst area is still the Bonus Killik area on Alderaan (where everything seems to have either a knockback or stun so you get knocked back/stunned several times during the battle) and the Battle of Illum flashpioint where the Kaleesh chieftan (not the one with the Ongree as well) has a persistent knockback (with a stun added as well) effect that keeps melee characters from attacking for 15 seconds (during which time you just get knocked back again if you do attack) or so which he fires off every time he loses about 20% of his health. It pretty effectively neutralizes all of the Sentinel/Marauder gap closers. I was even getting knocked back using a ranged attack if I was too close.

Of course, learning to use your cc breaking and preventing skills also helps. 😇

 

And there are some instances, such as when fighting HK-45, when you have to refrain from leaping to the target to prevent kickback. Took me admittedly too long to figure that out. 😏

Edited January 15, 2022 by JediQuaker

The elephant in the room is PvP, but I'm sure they're smart enough to balance that as well.

 

They're not, though. PvP is non-stop stuns.

I think a lot of non-tanks don't appreciate the voracity this game throws stuns/knockbacks/counter-intuitive tactics that do nothing but diminish your fun at tanks.

 

Fewer stuns/cc is not directly the issue - fewer targeted on the tanks would be better.

The number of these effects don't have to be directly reduced, but spread them out so that RANGED dps and healers can enjoy what the tank/melee gets to experience them.

 

Let's take a normal trooper, with a cryo grenade AND a cover pulse effect - you move into melee, you get to endure both while you play at range and just the one might affect you were it not for the tank having aggro. So what's wrong with the cyro grenade only targetting those 4m away? Make it an AoE stun on targets outside the 4m range so that all those ranged dps get punished for being too far away to interrupt!

 

It's not exactly rocket science to program this as other games can prove, so why not consider re-directing the annoying attitude bioware freely allow their programmers (who clearly don't understand the disparity) to exude.

The number of these effects don't have to be directly reduced, but spread them out so that RANGED dps and healers can enjoy what the tank/melee gets to experience them.

 

This. What me bothers most is that 8/10 stuns only hit melee.

There are often 2 or 3 times more mechanics against melee than against ranged. Stuns are just one of them...

Off the top of my head, the ones I find most annoying are the second boss in Lost Island, the last boss in Kuat Drive Yards (Jedi or Sith), the desert area boss in Czerka Core Meltdown, and the mini-bosses in Oricon heroic area. The bosses knockback so much and do pretty high damage, so the one with aggro is running from healing station to healing station the whole fight. I guess second boss of Depths of Manaan is like that too, but more because of high damage than a lot of cc. Oricon heroic area is like 3 or 4 cc abilities they can chain back to back. They don't do much damage, but it slows down the player a lot. In that case, I think it's because it used to require 4 players, so the CC might focus on tank but other dps could do damage while it happened. Now if you play solo, your dps is frequently stopped.

Off the top of my head, the ones I find most annoying are the second boss in Lost Island, the last boss in Kuat Drive Yards (Jedi or Sith), the desert area boss in Czerka Core Meltdown, and the mini-bosses in Oricon heroic area. The bosses knockback so much and do pretty high damage, so the one with aggro is running from healing station to healing station the whole fight. I guess second boss of Depths of Manaan is like that too, but more because of high damage than a lot of cc. Oricon heroic area is like 3 or 4 cc abilities they can chain back to back. They don't do much damage, but it slows down the player a lot. In that case, I think it's because it used to require 4 players, so the CC might focus on tank but other dps could do damage while it happened. Now if you play solo, your dps is frequently stopped.

 

Such an annoying fight. Not hard, just annoying.

Such an annoying fight. Not hard, just annoying.

I would say this is a great way to sum up most CC in the game.

I don't mind all the cc's as much, just the knockbacks in MM FPs. Those are actually annoying.