Taugrim's MMO Blog

It’s been a few weeks since I last posted, as I’ve been busy with corporate work and leveling up my Gunslinger to 50.

I just played my 83rd warzone at level 50 on my Gunslinger, and I wanted to share my blunt thoughts on the state of SWTOR PVP at endgame, from the perspective of a new character.

Let me open by framing my preparation for making my Gunslinger as effective as he could be as a fresh 50 character. Prior to dinging level 50, I did the following:

1. Reached the limits of 3500 RWZ (Ranked Warzone) commendations and 2000 WZ commendations, so that I could immediately purchase the War Hero mainhand blaster weapon at endgame
2. Saved up the credits to purchase a full set of Recruit gear (aside from the War Hero mainhand weapon)
3. Stockpiled Warzone Adrenals, so that I would not need to spend WZ commendations on them
4. Leveled Biochem to 400 and crafted the reusable Rakata Medpac, so that I would not need to spend WZ commendations on Warzone Medpacs

I am probably in the very small minority of the population who undertook steps 1-3 above (especially step #1). So keep in mind that my experience was probably better than people who were not as prepared.

As I wrote over a month ago, Patch 1.2 had a very negative effect on the quality of PVP.

Some of the issues were addressed by BioWare:

• Prices of warzone consumables was reset back to what they were pre-1.2
• Rewards were improved for the losing side of a warzone match
• Recently BioWare also changed the PVP daily quest to be based on warzone participation not wins, which was another positive change because it discouraged quitting mid-match

That being said, I was expecting 50 PVP with a new character to be a fairly rough experience. And it’s even worse than I expected.

Issue #1: PVP gear scales too much across tiers

Before stepping into a 50 warzone, I acquired the War Hero mainhand weapon and 13 pieces of Recruit gear. With the Trooper 5% HP buff, that put me at ~13.4k HP, but with a Recruit weapon that would have been ~13k HP.

The issue is that the Recruit gear doesn’t provide a sufficient amount of stats to enable a fresh 50 to be competitive with players decked out in some or mostly War Hero gear, because the latter have:

• ~17k+ HP, or even 18k HP with augmented War Hero gear for non tanks. A 17k HP player has 30% more HP than a Recruit-geared player
• Higher stats in every category: more Expertise (which affects damage done, damage taken, and healing), higher primary stats, and higher secondary stats. So they hit (or heal) harder, crit more often, have higher crit bonus damage, avoid more attacks, and have their attacks avoided less often

On top of the gear scaling, a compounding issue with SWTOR’s PVP itemization is that the type of stats on a given slot changes between tiers. The Gunslinger Force Tech’s Battlemaster gear is woefully under-budgeted for Surge, whereas the War Hero versions of Force Tech have a lot of Surge. Surge equals burst, and as the old adage goes, burst damage kills but steady damage is easily healed through. My understanding is that the lack of Surge on BM gear is not isolated to my class.

This makes gear a primary determining factor in PVP performance, just as it was back in Vanilla WoW. This was the exact same problem with RIFT last year, where the gap between Rank 2 gear and Rank 4, and R4 and R6, and R6 and R8 actually increased the higher rank you reached. It created a faceroll advantage for R8 players in RIFT Patch 1.4 – even after Valor (the PVP stat) was normalized.

Unfortunately, BioWare has repeated RIFT’s mistake of having PVP gear scale too much across tiers.

It took months of iteration for Trion to sort out the gear scaling. As you may recall, RIFT went through the following progression:

• Having ranks of gear with increasing overall stats (those related to HP / damage / healing) and an increasing PVP stat (called “Valor”, which provided mitigation only), to
• Having ranks of gear with increasing overall stats but with the PVP stat normalized across all gear tiers (e.g. the Valor normalization that I was a huge proponent of), to
• Having gear scale much more gradually, with more ranks than 8

Let me state that even the 2nd bullet point above was insufficient: R8 still had a faceroll advantage over R2. And such is the case when comparing WH-geared players to Recruit-geared players.

Is having gear such a big factor in PVP outcomes healthy for a game? My strong belief is no.

It’s a deterrent for new players to try PVP at endgame and enjoy it because they’ll get their ass kicked repeatedly until they can gear up (hundreds of warzones), and it’s a hurdle for existing players to gear up alts at endgame. This is not to say people won’t do it – the most hardcore PVP guilds on my server are full of FOTM re-rollers (notably Sentinel/Marauder, Shadow/Assassin 31-pt tank, and for healing Scoundrel/Operative).

Issue #2: Class Compositions Influence Outcomes

As I stated consistently before Patch 1.2, SWTOR had the best class balance of any MMORPG on the market.

This was not to say it was perfect – pre-1.2 Watchman Sentinel/Annihilation Marauders, Shadow/Assassin 31-pt tanks, and Assault Spec Vanguards/Pyrotech Powertechs were overpowered, and Scoundrel/Operative healers were underpowered.

I loved PVP in SWTOR pre-1.2 in both the 10-49 and 50 brackets. Raved about it consistently here and elsewhere. Why? Pre-1.2, we could run comps with a wide variety of classes/specs and do well in warzones. What mattered the most were the players behind the keyboard. That’s the way it should be.

But after 1.2, that is no longer the case – the class balance gaps are too significant to ignore from a mechanics standpoint. With the sweeping changes to classes in 1.2, PVP outcomes are now heavily influenced by which classes your group contains. The same healer playing a Sage/Sorc versus Operative/Scoundrel will heal much more effectively with the latter. I know this from talking to multiple players who re-rolled and from killing them.

The parallel between RIFT and SWTOR in terms of the progression of class balance is striking. RIFT was trending in the right direction in terms of class balance from 1.0->1.4, and then 1.5 and 1.6 went in the wrong direction. SWTOR PVP in terms of class balance was trending in the right direction from 1.0->1.1.5, but then 1.2 launched

Issue #3: The Grind

If there is one word I would use to describe the experience of playing Patch 1.2, it’s “grindy”.

With respect to PVP, to be competitive you not only need to grind hundreds of warzones to get a full set of War Hero gear, but you also need to acquire augmented crafted War Hero gear, which requires purchasing crit-crafted gear and then paying to yank out the mods from the vendor War Hero gear so that you can insert them into the augmented gear. You also need to purchase augments, which as acknowledged by James Ohlen typically run for 75k+ credits each on the AH, roughly the same pricing I’ve seen on Ajunta Pall.

Closing Thoughts

My server, Ajunta Pall, has been consistently top 10 in terms of active population according to torstatus.net since January. In recent weeks, we’ve gone from having a critical mass of players – typically 100-170 on the Republic Fleet during primetime – to 50 or less. The result has been increasingly long queue times – for much of the weekend I was waiting for 10+ minutes per pop.

SWTOR is losing players, and it’s not simply because other games have launched. As BioWare has previously stated, PVP has been (unexpectedly) very popular ever since launch. But the majority of players I’ve talked to agree that the quality of the PVP has tanked with 1.2.

There are some players who believe that the Ranked Warzone system is the silver bullet for keeping PVP players engaged. While it is a much-desired piece of content, the issues with SWTOR PVP are more fundamental: the emphasis on gear and increasing class imbalance need to be looked at. SWTOR 10-49 PVP is still very entertaining, but there needs to be sticky PVP content at endgame to retain players.

The patch notes for PTS 1.2 are up: http://www.swtor.com/test-center/patchnotes/313976

Simply put, the number and degree of class changes are significant.

I’m an advocate of the approach of tweaking fewer things, putting them on Live, and seeing how  balance is impacted. That has been the working mode of BioWare up through Patch 1.1.5. However, in 1.2 many classes are being changed in significant ways, and it’s hard to tell whether the changes will collectively bring classes into the desired balance.

After talking with my Maven guildees on Vent, below are our thoughts on the notable initial changes in 1.2. For brevity, I do not cover every single change.

Summary

• Overall
  • Sustained healing for 2 of 3 ACs nerfed
  • Instagib / burst DPS nerfed
• By AC
  • Guardian / Juggernaut significantly buffed
  • Sentinel / Marauder significantly buffed
  • Sage / Sorc healing took an arrow to the knee, for DPS no more proc to insta-cast AOE
  • Shadow / Assassin basically untouched
  • Commando / Mercenary sustained healing nerfed. Grav Round / Tracer Missile damage nerfed
  • Vanguard / Powertech can’t hybridize tank with right-hand DPS tree, and the RNG burst has been lowered for that tree
  • Gunslinger / Sniper buffed
  • Scoundrel / Operative healing buffed, DPS instagib nerfed

Sentinel (Marauder)

• The Focus / Rage cost for CC abilites is being removed. I think this is a fair change, because previously you’d have engage in combat before having the resources to use CCs.
• The “Execute” ability is usable at 30% HP instead of 20%
• The healing debuff can’t be cleansed
• Watchman tree
  • Can no longer talent the in-combat stealth to provide 100% damage mitigation. A nerf, since damage will break you back out of stealth
  • Cauterize can be talented to snare at 50%, so this removes the GCD contention with the “Hamstring” ability
  • Valor is now in Tier 1 of the tree, which is great as any spec can take it
• Combat tree
  • Fleetfooted now buffs the Transcendence buff. This change keeps the Combat tree consistent with being about mobility and anti-kiting
• Focus tree
  • Inner Focus causes Zen to provide up to 4 stacks of Singularity. This is consistent with the philosophy of being able to generate resources immediately (or not need them) to do something you want to do
  • Improved AOE damage via the Swelling Winds talent

Guardian (Juggernaut)

• The Focus / Rage cost for CC abilites is being removed. I think this is a fair change, because previously you’d have engage in combat before having the resources to use CCs.
• The “Execute” ability is usable at 30% HP instead of 20%
• Finally, Guardian gets a CC effect early: Charge stuns at level 10. However, some players are concerned about building Resolve on the target, whereas the existing root effect does not build Resolve
• Defense tree
  • Blade Barrier was moved down a tier. This fantastic ability will become reachable for Vigilance / Defense hybrids
• Vigilance tree
  • Single Saber Mastery damage buff no longer tied to stance. Everyone will likely take it
• Focus tree
  • Inner Focus causes Zen to provide up to 4 stacks of Singularity. This is consistent with the philosophy of being able to generate resources immediately (or not need them) to do something you want to do

Sage (Sorcerer)

• Seer tree
  • Conveyance buffs have been nerfed. The fast-cast, mana-inefficient flash heal is having the mana cost reduction replaced by increased Crit Chance. The greater heal is having the cast-time reduction replaced by reduction in mana cost. Both are bad changes for PVP
  • Resplendence no longer removes the HP cost from Noble Sacrifice. Per Ryndar, this change is crippling. Right now NS is the only way to regain mana, which regens slowly, and in 1.2 it will cost HP to use again
• Balance tree
  • Presence of Mind proc now only usable on spammable single-target spells. Significant nerf. No more insta-cast AOE

Shadow (Assassin)

• No noteworthy changes

Gunslinger (Sniper)

• Can finally enter Cover while rooted
• Healing debuff effect added to the armor debuff ability
• Sharpshooter tree
  • Burst Volley may be worth taking, as it will not only boost Alacrity but mana regen as well
• Dirty Fighting
  • Crit Chance talent nerfed from 6% to 3%

Scoundrel (Operative)

• The backstab ability’s cooldown increased from 9s to 12s
• The opener from stealth now has a 7.5s cooldown. This is probably being added to prevent instagibs (Shoot First -> vanish -> Shoot First). In practice most of the better Scoundrel / Op players I know don’t rely on the instagib technique, but it is funny
• Sawbones tree
  • Upper Hand limit increasable from 2 to 3
  • AOE heal amount increased and made more compact, cooldown increased from 12s to 15s
• Scrapper tree
  • Not sure why they’re making the changes
• Dirty Fighting
  • Crit Chance talent nerfed from 6% to 3%

Commando / Mercenary

• Channeled ground-target (DFA / MV) AOE diameter nerfed from 16m to 10m – probably a good change
• Full Auto attack animation timing fixed
• Base cost for cast-time nukes reduced
• Combat Medic tree
  • Crit Chance talent nerfed from 6% to 3%
  • Net-higher mana costs for healing
  • Healing buffs and damage mitigation buffs nerfed
• Gunnery tree
  • Grav Round damage nerfed 10%

Vanguard / Powertech

• Interrupt costs no mana
• Shield tree
  • Some abilities moved off GCD
  • Mitigation tweaked (can’t tell whether it’s net-buff or net-nerf)
• Tactics tree
  • Melee DoT can be talented to snare 30% for 6s
• Assault Spec tree
  • The proc cooldown reset talent for High Impact Bolt now requires a specific stance to work. No more Carolina Parakeet (21/2/18) hybrids
  • The proc cooldown reset talent has a 45% / 60% change to proc but has an internal 6s cooldown – which is a net-nerf due to loss of RNG burst

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GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/category/the-republic/

BioWare revealed many key features for Patch 1.2.

Here are some of the notable takeaways from the livestream. My comments in italics.

Quality of Life Improvements

• Sprint (out-of-combat movement buff) will be available at level 1. Thank. Freaking. Goodness.

UI Changes

• Customization
  • You can move / re-position elements
  • You can resize individual elements or the entire UI
  • You can export your UI settings (XML file format), so you can share them with other players. Unfortunately you can not export keybindings
• They are adding Target of Target as a UI element
• Companion bar will be separate instead of an overlay
• Mouseover targeting is not making it into 1.2
• No ETA on macros. What they are ruling out are macros that affect combat directly
• No ETA on API for addons
• No plan on adding a separate bar for Stealth, just as there is in Cover

General PVP

• Valor Rank will not be a gate / requirement for gear – it’s merely a measure of how long you have been PVP’ing. Unarmed Brawling combat will be unlocked at higher ranks. It appears it will be more for Prestige and for fun
• Stats on PVP gear are getting re-worked. My hope is that with the changes PVP gear will be the best option for PVP for each slot, which is not the case now. Right now the DR cap is too low for Expertise, which makes slotting all PVP gear a waste
  
• Tab targeting is being worked on. So many people have complained about this, so it’s good that BioWare is looking at it
• You can target players by clicking on their nameplate. BRB need to rename character to “Tau” and guild to “Mvn”

Rated Warzones

• You have two options for queueing for Rated Warzones
  • solo for 8v8. I think having solo queues for Rated Warzones will be hilariously fun. People in the chat over on GAMEBREAKER speculate that this will be a lot of Assassin/Shadow and Operative/Scoundrel, and I’d throw in Sentinel / Marauder as well. Those 3 classes are the strongest for soloing and most difficult to shutdown in terms of their DPS. Regardless, it will be an entertaining option while you are waited for guildees / friends
  • 8-person group for 8v8. Finally, we can run full 8-person groups! The catch of course for smaller guilds is having 8 players available and online that make for a functional comp. As Leiralei tweeted, it would also be great for smaller guilds if you could queue as a 4-person team, and get paired up with another same-size team.
• There will be a “pre-season” for Rated Warzones at the start of 1.2, and the the “regular” season will begin. What this means exactly is not clear, but some people are speculating that pre-season will be used to bracket people at the start of the regular season. TBD.
• Rating will be at the individual level, as opposed to the team level. Prior to this announcement, I was concerned that Rank warzone teams would have a fixed roster, a la WoW’s Arena. The issue here is that creating teams with fixed rosters can create schisms within guilds and you need the same team members online to be able to run. Having the rating at the individual level will allow for much more flexibility
• Best-in-Slot PVP gear will come from Rated Warzones. I have mixed feelings about this. IMO titles / bragging rights are sufficient reward for the cream of the crop. Giving them a gear advantage will make PVP even more faceroll, especially against lesser-ranked opponents in whatever context. When Blizzard largely removed the Arena Rating requirements for epic PVP gear in Cataclysm, it created a much more level playing field, where outcomes were determined based on skillful play and coordination (and composition)

Multi-Spec

• They are targeting Dual Spec shortly after 1.2
• You have to manually click gear to swap sets, i.e. no predefined gear sets

PVE Difficulty

• Normal Mode is being replaced by Story Mode
• Nightmare Mode Operations will drop different loot and have additional mechanics compared to Hard Mode Operations

Companions

• Regarding same-gender relationships
  • They don’t want to just take the existing storylines / voiceovers and re-work them – that isn’t storytelling
  • They did have some romance relationships that did not make the cut due to budget reasons
  • They will come out with same-gender relationships with the Story Updates later this year

Population / Distribution Numbers

• Overall population breakdown across all server types
  • 57% Empire
  • 43% Republic
• The population is more lopsided on PVP servers, but Georg did not say by how much
• Not surprisingly, Sith Inquisitor is the most popular class, with almost one-fifth of the entire game population

UPDATE (2012/03/07): Dulfy took in-depth notes from the livestream, so check out her post. She has a kick-ass blog, so make sure to follow her on Twitter.

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GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/category/the-republic/

Today’s video includes two 1v1 fights from Star Wars: The Old Republic with my 50 Trooper Vanguard @ Valor Rank 57, 16.1k HP.

My opponents:

1. Sith Warrior Juggernaut, tank spec’d, with 16k HP
2. Sith Inquisitor Assassin, tank spec’d, with 17.5k HP

In this video I am using my “Iron Fist” 25/14/2 PVP tank spec:

• Powertech: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GRGozRroMZMcrroZb.1
• Vanguard: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GRGozRroMZMcrroZb.1

For more information about Powertech / Vanguard PVP, please refer to my free in-depth Guide.

To see me PVP’ing live, check out my TwitchTV channel. My stream features real-time commentary – and to the extent possible interaction with the Chat Room.

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GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/category/the-republic/

This article describes the Defense and Shield mechanics for SWTOR and their implications for tanks in PVP.

Defense is the Avoidance mechanic and Shield is one of the Mitigation mechanics. In this article I use the terms “defense” and “avoidance” interchangeably.

Avoidance and Mitigation in SWTOR

To quickly define terms:

• Avoidance: not being hit
• Mitigation: reducing damage taken when hit

There are 3 categories of Avoidance as captured in the Defence Chance tooltip:

1. Melee Dodge: base of 5%, boosted by Defense Rating, talents, and buffs
2. Ranged Dodge: base of 5%, boosted by Defense Rating, talents, and buffs
3. Resistance: base of 0%, boosted by talents and buffs. This is against “spells” (Force and Tech attacks)

Mitigation comes from multiple sources:

1. Expertise: stat that provides mitigation against all damage types
2. Armor: mitigation against 2 of the 4 damage types: Energy and Kinetic. Keep in mind that for attacks that deal “weapon damage”, to understand whether Armor factors in, you have to check the damage type of the weapon itself. E.g. blasters and rifles deal Energy damage
3. Talents that provide flat damage reduction
4. Shield Chance / Shield Absorption: provided when you have a Shield offhand equipped and successfully Shield an attack that hit. The amount of damage mitigated (absorbed) is based on the offhand (e.g. 20%), your Absorption Rating, and talents in the tanking tree. SWTOR’s Shield functions similarly to WoW’s Block mechanic. The main difference is that in SWTOR you don’t have to keep oppponents in your frontal facing to Shield
5. “Bubbles”: mitigation against all damage types

The 2-Roll System

SWTOR leverages a 2-roll system for determining the outcome of an opponent’s attack as explained by BioWare’s Georg Zoeller (references: 1 2), bold emphasis mine:

First is a hit roll, accuracy versus defense, and if the attacker misses then no damage occurs. If the attacker rolled poorly enough to miss even discounting the target’s defense then a “Miss” result occurs. If he misses because of the defense then the result varies based on the attack type, the cover state of the target, and the target’s equipped weapons. All the possible results – Dodge, Parry, Deflect, Resist, Cover – are mathematically the same, but they can trigger different effects and are visualized in different ways.

If the attacker hits, then a second roll is made with the crit chance of the attacker versus the shield chance of the target. If a Crit or a Shield occurs then the damage is adjusted up or down (based on Surge/Absorb), and then it goes through to the armor and damage resistance. A critical can never be shielded, and an attacker with a high enough crit chance can push the target’s shield chance off the table. It shouldn’t be possible to get your passive crit chance high enough to start pushing off the target’s shield chance, but there are short-duration buffs that push these chances high enough to come into conflict.

Which Attack Types are Defensible and Shieldable

There are 4 attack types: Force, Melee, Ranged, and Tech.

The attack types should not be confused with the 4 damage types: Elemental, Energy, Internal, and Kinetic.

Melee and Ranged attacks are Defensible and Shieldable, whereas Force and Tech attacks are not. This is consistent with other games such as WoW and RIFT, where “spell” attacks are not dodgeable / parryable and not blockable.

Based on what Georg wrote , here is my guess on what the roll table for Crit-vs-Shield looks like for Melee and Ranged attacks that were not Defended.

Scenario 1

• Attacker’s Crit Chance: 30%
• Defender’s Shield Chance: 30%
• So remaining 40% is normal hit (not Crit, not Shielded)

Scenario 2

• Attacker’s Crit Chance: 60%
• Defender’s Shield Chance: 30%
• So remaining 10% is normal hit (not Crit, not Shielded)

Scenario 3: Shield Chance reduced

• Attacker’s Crit Chance: 80%
• Defender’s Shield Chance: 30%, but for the roll calculation it’s treated as 20% because the Crit Chance pushed 10% off the table

Scenario 4: Shield Chance negated

• Attacker’s Crit Chance: 100% (e.g. due to a proc buff that makes the attack Crit)
• Defender’s Shield Chance: 30%, but for the roll calculation it’s treated as 0%
• Therefore, the attack is a guaranteed non-Shielded Crit

Implications for Tanks in PVP

A critical consideration for SWTOR is that all classes have either Force or Tech attacks. You can see the attack type by looking at the Abilities tab for a given character and looking at the right-hand column. Therefore, an implication is that you may not get as much mileage out of your Defense and Shield-related talents as you might expect. E.g.

• Stun-based abilities across all Advanced Classes are classified as either Force or Tech attacks, so the target’s defensive capability doesn’t come into play
• I play Bounty Hunter and Trooper and most of my key abilities are classified as Tech

Keep in mind per Georg’s post that the attacker’s Crit Chance can push Shield Chance off the table. There are a lot of buffs (e.g. talent-based, from Relic, etc) that boost Crit Chance, and the implication is that when you most need to Shield heavy incoming damage, your Shield Chance may be reduced significantly or completely. Given that, and the fact that Shield Chance is calculated after the hit roll, Shield Chance is not a strong mechanic in PVP.

Another implication is that the talents for boosting mitigation may be stronger than we might have expected. In particular, this explains why in my experience Guardians and Juggernauts tanks take the longest time-to-kill: they have multiple bubble mechanics in their tank tree, including Invincible (Warding Call) and Sonic Barrier (Blade Barrier), and these excellent abilities provide mitigation against all damage types.

I shared some of the thoughts in this article on a thread for my Guide to Powertech Mechanics and PVP a week ago, and some 50 Powertechs including chainsawsamurai tested and confirmed that the Avoidance and Shield-related talents do not work against Force and Tech attacks.

When I run as a tank-spec’d Vanguard, I will likely use a DPS PVP set based on the game mechanics and avoid (no pun intended) the talents related to Melee Defense, Ranged Defense, and Shield Chance, unless they provide some additional benefit (e.g. the Ammo-regen effect from Shield Cycler).

This is not to say that you shouldn’t take the talents and tank PVP gear. If you want to max out your survivability, invest in them. It’s just important to understand what benefit you get out of them and the mechanics.

Acknowledgements

Huge thanks to Kjollborn, who helped me to realize that the attack type not the damage type is what is factored into Melee Defense, Ranged Defense, and Shield Chance.

Thanks to Lightweight, a 50 Combat Medic Commando in my guild, for helping me with testing.

UPDATE (2012/01/24): a copy of this article has been stickied on the SWTOR official Tanking forum.

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GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/category/the-republic/