Jedi Archive

.:: Emperor Minsc Shadowflight ::.

.:: Lord and Master of the Galactic Empire ::.

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"Turn and fight, keep the enemies at bay,

To keep a light on the truth, they say."

After stressing about my jedi template for almost a week, a thought occured to me last night. I have refused to pick up defender, partly because it is the new fotm, partly because I hate doing what I "have" to do, and partly because defender is just boring for me. To explain my epiphany, you need to remember the stated goals for Jedi in the CU.

1st - Jedi is supposed to be 1.5 times as strong as a non-Jedi.

2nd - Balance across the profession. Diversity of Jedi.

Now I have been very frustrated running around in Jedi groups seeing how much faster I die than them. And we won't even talk about BHs. A defender can fairly easily kill 4-5 BHs. I'm lucky if I can kill 2.

But that is really the point. With a little bit of luck, I can handle two bounty hunters. They actually have achieved the 1.5 ratio they were looking for. The problem then isn't that non-defenders are too weak, it's that defender is grossly over-powered. While a non-defender is close to the 1.5 goal, a defender is easily worth 4 or more.

This situation has happened before. After patch 10, the master saber/master enhancer/4004 healer template was godlike. Using fr3 and stacked saber bleeds, these Jedi were almost unkillable. The same can be said now for the master defender/0404 saber/and then some heal and enhance template right now. These Jedi are consistently bringing down huge groups of bounty hunters.

The solution? I have a feeling it will be the same as last time. Force Run was meant to be an escape ability, so they turned it in to just that. They nerfed damage hard while running. I have a feeling that many defender powers are going to get a similar nerf. Defenders are meant to defend, or be tanks. For balance, such defense is impossible if it is accompanied with damage. The primary advantage defenders have vs a bh is their abilities allow them to both reduce damage and more importantly double their chance to block horrible state attacks like root or snare. Furthermore, they can channel almost endlessly, because they have the unique ability to fight with 0 health. The answer looks simple and imminent. Defender damage will be nerfed just like damage while running.

This adjustment would mean no more running macros for defender abilities and mowing down bh after bh. Jedi might weigh the pros and cons of a defender template, thus diversifying the profession.

Now a few problems arise from this. First, there are still some pve mobs that are unkillable without using avoid incap and just fighting with no health. These 1 or 2 hit kill mobs are being adjusted though. Second, and most importantly, 5 man bh squads are the norm rather than exception now. If Jedi is truly balanced, as I think it really needs to be, then these goon squads have to go. Limit missions to two or three, or at least the tef. I understand them not wanting a Jedi to be able to get alts or friends to hold a mission and basically live vis free, but surely the tef can be adjusted to lock more than 3 bounty hunters out of the encounter.

Anyways, just my thoughts. I'm sure lots of people will be mad, but I honestly have no problem playing a character 1.5 times as powerful as a regular character. Just keep the huge mobs of bh's away.

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I like donuts

I begrudgingly dropped my entire smuggler line the other day, but I can still smuggle just as much as a master smuggler can. I also have a higher success rate of avoiding detection of contraband and/or faction without any smuggler skills at all--in fact I've never been caught with contraband or offending faction except as a smuggler. I'd still sell my grandma to be able to use feign death now though because sometimes you just want to fight the nightsisters without worrying about that lair of rancors you accidentally stumbled across while kiting.