Commando Archive
Thread: Another alternative to the flame dot 'nerf'
Quote:
Getting grenadeer title gives you the same, exact dot as master commando has. so no, you do not do 'pretty darn close' damage to what a master can.you do EXACTLY the same damage a master can. Thats the problem.
It has long been argued on these boards that master commandos should get additional accuracy mods and speed mods.
Wouldn't implementing that give the exact same effect without a nerf? Why do you have to nerf others to make yourself better? Why don't you just ask for additional accuracy/speed at master like everyone else?
Better yet, why not just ask for the current accuracy and speed mods to be redivided over 5 boxes (4 grenadeer + master) instead of 4?
Why are you so dead-set on nerfing the flame dot? (the only thing our class has that is worth anything)
tacwraith wrote:
uh.... weve been saying that since waaaay before you entered these arguments. Unfortunately people dont bother to read the threads past the first 3 and last few posts on the same thread it seems.
This whole argument started so that we could PREPARE for the combat changes the devs will be making shortly after they finish the clean-up hotfixes from this patch bygiving our correspondent our views and suggestions.
I will cut and paste...
"Also, I think assuming we will be fixed before we are nerfed is naive. Pleasenote that the developers have stated NO plans to fix our 3 non-flamer trees within the next 6 months, even though they HAVE made promises to other classes. If our flame dot is "balanced" as Tac is suggesting within the next month or so (along with theotherweapon fixes), we will have to go through several months of ineptness and worthlessness before we ever see any fixes."
Again, you are asking for us to be nerfed based on the premise that our other combat trees will be fixed at the same time. From what TH has been saying (and considering that it has taken him 2 months and counting to complete the top 5 reports alone) this is not going to happen.
If we ask for a nerf now (as you said in the upcoming combat changes), with the assumption that our trees will also be fixed, we are fools.
daker, the devs have stated there will be an overall combat review, class by class coming up. thats when it will happen. Thats why we're posting all this to be ready. I would rather havea say in the changes to come up than to one day wake up and find my acid rifle suddenly hitting and my flamethrower turned into a supersoaker.
The devs may as well ignore all our posts (as you well know they do most the time already), but who knows?
tacwraith wrote:
daker, the devs have stated there will be an overall combat review, class by class coming up. thats when it will happen. Thats why we're posting all this to be ready. I would rather havea say in the changes to come up than to one day wake up and find my acid rifle suddenly hitting and my flamethrower turned into a supersoaker.
The devs may as well ignore all our posts (as you well know they do most the time already), but who knows?
AHHHHHHHHH... It's like hitting my head againsta brick wall.
"Overall combat review"DOES NOT mean we will be getting and specials or accuracy/speed mods for our launcher pistol. It also DOES NOT mean that the stats of our HAR will be fixed, or that we will get AP1 for it.
What is does mean is that devs are already in the process of combat rebalancing, even though TH has not even completed our top 5 report (including all those comments that you are hoping devs read). The changes will be completed in the next week or so for testing (again, before the top 5 reports).
If you think the that devs are going to magically fix all of our trees just because you areliberally reading into some vague comments from the devs you are wrong.
I do encourage you, however, to read TH's post about what the combat rebalancing REALLY is. You will see that the devs are creating 3 versions of every weapon, with separate certifications for each. Weak power certs for low skills, high power certs for high skills. This may include a flamethrower nerf, but will probably not include a fix for the HAR, our lack of launcher pistol skills, our our worthless grenades.
So, as you can see, stating that we are going to be fixed in the next patch is naive and most likely wrong.
Actually Tac, I will just do it for you...
This is from TH's combat balancing plan:
In very basic terms, rather than making the T-21 and the FWG the end-all, be-all master weapons, we are “buffing” the system and putting in a full range of weapons at all levels. We’re going to be adding power progression levels for each type of weapon, a better damage progression for each specific power level, more weapon scalability and more weapons and certifications. We’re also putting in more swooshes and blaster bolts!
What this means is that there will be novice level T-21’s and master level T-21’s, novice level FWG’s and master level FWG’s. From novice to master, there will be a full range of weapons and certifications for each layer of the skill onions for the various combat professions.
Please identify where TH says he is fixing the 3 broken commando trees...
From the SWG discussions, someone (sorry forgot name) posted this:
"I'd love to see the dot on flamesingle1 go away and flamesingle2 get moved to master "
That would fix the dabbling issue perfectly and still keep the fire dot on the commando proffession, a true perk for being master.
Daker,
I'm afraid you really didn't get the gist of my whole post...you proved that especially with the following:
Also, I take issue withyour comment that all combat classes should be created equal (despite skill pointcosts). Skill points should be directly proportional to combat power. Why? Because a person with extra skill points can invest those points in other combat professions.
I never said that...what I said was, the arguement that a class should be higher because of skill point usage is an unfinished thought...the question is "How much stronger based on skill pts?"...Yes, I do believe a class should be stronger based on skill points...but is that +100, +1000, +10000, etc...when is too much? That's the issue you keep ignoring...we are stronger then other classes that use less skill points...but is it correctly proportional or is it over compensated...that's the point that all your arguments lack...And that is why the rest of your post is non-sensible...sorry...You are just saying "We cost more so we should be stronger." You need to widen your scope otherwise your arguements keep coming up lacking...do the math instead of repeating yourself.
Tac doesn't want our other trees fixed. Nor did he ask for our other trees to be fixed. He simply is asking for a self-nerf of the flamethrower. Consequently it makes perfect sense for me to say "nerfing the flamethrower alone doesn't make sense because it is our only weapon."
When did you start reading this forum...Tac has been a HUGE pusher for fixing our other trees and has made some great suggestions to move us in that direction...he just tends to occasionally have posts specifically targeted at certain trees....that does not mean he's dropped his desire to see other tree's fixed as well...Go back and read Tac's other posts...
Also, I think assuming we will be fixed before we are nerfed is naive. Pleasenote that the developers have stated NO plans to fix our 3 non-flamer trees within the next 6 months, even though they HAVE made promises to other classes. If our flame dot is "balanced" as Tac is suggesting within the next month or so (along with theotherweapon fixes), we will have to go through several months of ineptness and worthlessness before we ever see any fixes.
Again, I'm afraid you are wrong...TH, whether it's to be believed, has sought out our imput and has acknowledged our frustration over our broken trees...He is also a Commando and has first hand experience with our issues...The Dev's have aluded to several combat balances over the next few patchs and have sought interest in what weapons we would need...one of the reasons for so many "what weapon would you like to see?" posts...It's the Dev's that have never said they planned on nerf'ing the Flame Dot...in fact they have said repeatedly that it "is the way they intended..."
"This may include a flamethrower nerf, but will probably not include a fix for the HAR, our lack of launcher pistol skills, our our worthless grenades."
look at it this way daker. If they are adding, 2 more 'versions' of each weapon, and they start putting in the 2 versions of the HAR... they are very likely to, in the same time, fix the non-stacking accuracy and speed mods on the weapon.
they said they were adding new weapons, they didnt say which or when or what they were... but adding new weapons implies going back to each class's weapons and skill trees to do this. commando has the biggest arsenal of weapons, i doubt we will get any more explosive type weapons, but we may get the beam rifle or something similar... and then again, they have to look at the proffession as a whole before they put anything new in.
And only a nitwit would not notice that only 1 of the trees actually works properly. The devs aint stupid, they just suffer from a tremendous case of attention deficit disorder 
garvin wrote:
When did you start reading this forum...Tac has been a HUGE pusher for fixing our other trees and has made some great suggestions to move us in that direction...he just tends to occasionally have posts specifically targeted at certain trees....that does not mean he's dropped his desire to see other tree's fixed as well...Go back and read Tac's other posts...
...
Again, I'm afraid you are wrong...TH, whether it's to be believed, has sought out our imput and has acknowledged our frustration over our broken trees...He is also a Commando and has first hand experience with our issues...The Dev's have aluded to several combat balances over the next few patchs and have sought interest in what weapons we would need...one of the reasons for so many "what weapon would you like to see?" posts...It's the Dev's that have never said they planned on nerf'ing the Flame Dot...in fact they have said repeatedly that it "is the way they intended..."
I have read Tac's other posts... In another thread he and I have been sparring in, he said (summarizing) "we are going to get nerfed, the only way we can avoid it is to move the powerful dot to master."
He wasn't saying that the nerf is going to be justified by other changes or fixed trees, he was saying if you move the dot to master maybe we can keep it. You are putting words into his mouth that weren't there until I entered and objected. He has since clarified, but it took him a dozen posts to do so. If I didn't have ESP to get the whole picture...please excuse me.....
Additionally, posts like the one in this thread are the EXACT thing that I have a problem with. You are telling me that the only way I can understand what Tac is saying is to go back and read through everything he has said for the past 6 months.
Key issue: If a developer or TH came into these forums and breezed through them, do you actually think they would take the time to go back through all of Tac's posts. Hell no! They will click on the thread entitled "I, a commando, am calling for a self-nerf of the tlamethrower,"and read his idea with no explanation or context whatsoever. They will then go back to the dev team and say "hey,commandos think they are overpowered, lets nerf them" without seeing that what we really want is our power not reduced, butdiversified over our broken trees (each with it's own strengths and weaknesses for balance).
All nerf calls are dangerous because they can be misinterpreted... In fact, many nerfs calls have already been misinterpreted (people ask for corpse runs again, they get decay; commandos ask for ranged damage, they get 2.5x penalty; people ask for limits on creatures to stop the poke*** feel, all pets, even starwarsy droids and factional soldiers ger nerfed). I am asking only for a degree of care when making them...
As for the highly anticipated fixes that are supposedly coming in the next patch...we will see. My gut is telling me that they are going to do VERY little to the commando class outside of a flamer nerf, because they are too busy creating 16 new guns and weapons for every other class. Please excuse me if I come back and "I told you so" after we get nerfed with nothing in return.
I will also note that 90% of our class' problems come from the fact that ALL we have is damage and a good DOT. Our regular damage is about the same as other classes, so our advantage is the dot. When the dot is reduced, we have no advantage. Will fixing the HAR remedy that? Nope. We still have damage and a regular dot (just like every other class). We will just have a choice of weapons in administering that damage (big deal..every other class has that too).
In order for us to be "fixed" and balanced after a flame nerf, we need status effect and increased damage specials for our launcher pistol and/or grenades. Although I am hopeful that these will happen, I severly doubt it.
This brings us back to my original point...we are getting a flame dot nerf, and nothing in return. Getting another weapon that does the exact same damage as the flamethrower (without the dot) is not a fix.
Quote:
And only a nitwit would not notice that only 1 of the trees actually works properly.
Heh, I won't comment, but I will note that only a nitwit would:
(1) Put death decay on armor because they can't make corpse runs work right and tailors (NOT armorsmiths) need something to do.
(2) Give commandos a 2.5x penalty in the only range they can use their specials in.
(3) Limit all non-CHs to one droid (even all droids suck in combat) or one faction pet (even though they are only useful in pvp) for "combat balance reasons," but allow CHs to control multiple droids and faction pets even though their class has nothing to do with these pets.
tacwraith wrote:
"I'm a weaponsmith who CAN'T master commando. I think for getting to lvl 4 on the flamethrower tree I should be able to use a flamethrower pretty darn close to what a master can."
Getting grenadeer title gives you the same, exact dot as master commando has. so no, you do not do 'pretty darn close' damage to what a master can.you do EXACTLY the same damage a master can. Thats the problem.
And again, any change to the flamer MUST be done after the other weapons are fixed.
I'm missing the best special. My AOE attack does half as much damage as yours, and I can only stack 3 burns on a target while masters can stack 4. That is NOT "exactly the same damage a master can"....sorry.
I don't wanna touch the banter going on between Garvin and Dakar, but I will say this: Commandos have been proud of not being nerf-herders (ie: not saying "nerf them, not us!"). But that's really what this post is. It's a master commando who doesn't want his character weakened, so he's suggesting something that will seea different group of people (grenadeers)get nerfed without affecting him. Shifting the major benefits of the tree to master level isn't going to change the fact that many people out there feel commando DOTs are too strong. It may cut down on dabblers, but why do you want this? I would have thought it's generally good for other people to take an interest in your profession. The reason dabbling is a "problem" is because the 3 other trees are broken and not too many people are interested in using up precious skill points to master an entire profession for the purpose of using only one tree from said profession.Fix them and you'll fix the "everyone has a flamethrower" syndrome. Shifting the balance of power to master is a cheesy way out, and a selfish suggestion by masters in my opinion.
Everyone here has agreed that the other trees need a revamp, I haven't seen a single person who doesn't want some launcher pistol specials and pistol bonuses, and I haven't even heard a person disagree that the flamethrower DOT should account for heat resistance (no one disagreeing with nerfing their own prof???? This MUST be a good idea ). Let's leave it at that, and stop trying to make sure upcoming quick-fixes affect people other than ourselves.
To be 100% truthful, if we had those other 3 tree's working, had 1 or 2 other useful weapons, and some better (non-ft) specials...None of us Commandos would be focusing so hard on the FT generally...we'd have other routes we could take...
The main issue is that general opinion is that there is a NERF coming, thanks to the outcry from other professions...there is a popular belief that it is innevitible...unfortunately
So, we as commandos feel the need to attempt to control our fate by offering up possible solutions...and yes, this hurts the dabblers any way we go. If I had my way, I'd leave everything below master (regarding the flame tree) the exact way it is...Then I'd up Master a bit to make it more desirable...and outside our profession just make resists work properly...But that doesn't look like it will happen...
So the question comes down to...how do we proceed, and how do we, as commandos, send word to the Dev's a realistic fix they'd be willing to accept without just NERF'ing us to death on their own...