Commando changes in 1.2 (surprise! Combat medic nerf!)

[ZephixLeer (Zephic)]

Trooper

General
•Full Auto's attack animation now begins more quickly to improve reactiveness and faction balance.
•Mortar Volley's animation has been updated. In addition, it now has a 5-meter radius to bring its range in line with other Trooper Area of Effect abilities and it now begins its damage sooner after activation.


Commando
•Concussion Charge now triggers snare visual effects on affected targets.
•Charged Bolts has been rebalanced. It now costs 2 Energy Cells, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.
•Cure now costs 1 Energy Cell (down from 2).

Gunnery
•Charged Barrier now provides 1% damage reduction per stack.
•Curtain of Fire: the chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly.
•Demolition Round's damage output has been increased by approximately 10%.
•Grav Round has been rebalanced. It now costs 2 Energy Cells, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.
•Muzzle Fluting no longer reduces Energy Cell costs. It now reduces the activation time of Charged Bolts and Grav Round by .5 seconds.
•Tenacious Defense now reduces the cooldown of Concussion Charge by 2.5 seconds per point.

Combat Medic
•Field Training now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
•Field Triage now reduces the cost of Medical Probe by 1 (down from 2).
•Kolto Bomb now affects up to 4 targets (up from 3), improving reliability in group and Operation situations.
•Kolto Residue now increases all healing received by 3% (down from 5%).
•Psych Aid no longer reduces the cost of Field Aid. It now causes Field Aid to heal the target for a small amount.
•Supercharge Cells now restores 1 Energy Cell (down from 2) when used and increases all damage and healing dealt by 5% (down from 10%). The shield applied by Kolto Bomb now reduces damage taken by 5% (down from 10%).
•Trauma Probe now costs 2 Energy Cells to activate.

So, initially I read over these changes and cried a little inside for the gunnery tree. However, after some thought on it I realize that we may actually see similar damage from this tree. The changes I see are as follows:

Although charged bolt and grav round now do 10% less damage, we will see the same cast time and same cost as we previously did, regardless of the other changes. (-As long as we take muzzle fluting to reduce cast time by .5 seconds.) The cost reduction that muzzle fluting previously provided is now permanent as a static reduction in base cost.

Full-auto and demo round will now be the go-to skills for recovery of the damage lost due to the 10% reduction in damage of grav round and charged bolts. Demo round got the increase in damage by 10%, and full auto will be casted with 25% increased damage at least once per 6 seconds if all goes well with Curtain of Fire. (Supposedly the chance for this to occur has been increased significantly.) Full auto actives faster now as well.

It sounds like we'll be able to keep similar damage in PvE based on current rotations and changes noted above with full-auto and demo round as long as CoF is up at the end of every 6 seconds or soon after.

PvP will be harder to pass judgement on just yet. Currently, I try not to waste grav rounds anyway, but with the new changes it will be even more necessary to cast full auto and demo round as often as possible. Which, of course is really the whole reason for these changes to gunnery. People whined about grav and tracer spam and so the developers did what they could do force commandos and merc's to rotate to other skills a bit more often.

The other changes to PVP were a surprise to me. Charged barrier now gives half the protection it used to, dropping from a maximum of 10% down to 5% when fully specced into it. Concussion Charge will only get a cooldown reduction of up to 5 seconds, down from a maximum of 10 from Tenacious Defense. I guess we'll see if the extra 5% damage reduction from charged barrier and the extra 5 seconds knocked off the cooldown really changed PVP that much pre-1.2.


Now for the REALLY big changes. Combat medic. WTF Bioware?

NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF!!! NOOOO!

Trauma Probe is no longer a free cast buff for the tank. It will cost us 2 ammo.

Supercharge cells has had everything it provided cut in half. The shield from kolto bomb, the extra healing, the ammo regeneration... yup, all of it only provides half of what it used to.

Field Triage now provides only a cost reduction of 1 ammo for medical probe, doubling ammo use for medical probe.

Kolto residue has been nerfed from 5% to 3%
Kolto bomb still only hits 4 targets. Gee, thanks for the extra target and all the other nerfs bioware! Still lame. No increase in radius on these notes, either.

Field training's critical bonus was cut in half.



My conclusion, for combat medics:
The way I see it, ammo conservation is going to be a real pain in the ass now. We're going to see far more out of ammo situations when things get hairy. No more "shit, out of ammo.. supercharge!" It will now be more "shit, out of ammo.. supercharge, hammer shot until full ammo!" Or relying on the second healer to top people off while we regenerate ammo.
Thank god for those force users who have practically infinite force!
(nevermind... evidentally they got a nerf too..)

The biggest letdown for me (outside the surprise nerfs in ammo sustainability and trama probe) is kolto bomb. I expected we'd get more targets and with a higher radius. Increasing the number of people we can hit with kolto by 1 doesn't do shit for Operations, which is where we were complaining about it the most.



-What do you guys think of the changes we'll be seeing? Personally, I hope they rethink the changes to combat medic. They feel inspired by wanting to nerf the gunnery/combat medic hybrid with poor ammo sustainability. Which, looking at the sage/sorc, I don't even understand. I'm actually pretty darn furious about these combat medic changes. I thought I'd be mad about gunnery, but instead I see a PVE nerf of combat medic.

[ZephixLeer (Zephic)]

New info with the updates from Tuesday's PTS patch notes:

Commando

Emergency Medical Probe is a new level 50 ability that allows the Commando to revive an incapacitated ally. It is usable in combat.

[likwidtek]

We get a combat res!? Woo!

[waz_here]

I would appreciate it if you level 50 Gunnery Commando's would post your skill tree, and the rotations you plan on using with 1.2.  I just want to make sure I'm good to go.

[Tecknik]

I would appreciate it if you level 50 Gunnery Commando's would post your skill tree, and the rotations you plan on using with 1.2.  I just want to make sure I'm good to go.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800McZMIkbRrdRkfzZ0c.1

Same skill layout and rotation you should already be using.

Grav Round x5 (For your proc and debuff), Demo Round (During your proc), High Impact Bolt (Ends your proc), Hammer Shot x(however many times you want).  Rinse and repeat.  Throw in Full Auto if your Curtain of Fire is up.

Don't ever be afraid to use your Medical Probes if you're running low on health.  If you've got ammo and can use it, use it.  Leave your medpac for when you don't have ammo.

I don't remember who it was that said if they used their Medical Probes during a fight that they weren't doing DPS for a period of time.  It's better to stop DPS to heal and continue, then to die and do no DPS for the rest of the fight.

[sjodin]

So taking the combat medic nerf into account, has anyone come up with a good spec and rotation for healing in 1.2?

If not, I'd like to get a discussion going on it to learn a bit more and get in on the ground level of the theorycrafting.

[ZephixLeer (Zephic)]

I don't think any of our dedicated combat medics have had time to check out the PTS yet, to be honest.

[waz_here]

Thanks, Tech!

[Tecknik]

So... I thought something weird had happened with Demolition Round between 1.2 and one of the subsequent patches.

I was right.

Apparently Demolition Round has been "bugged" for quite some time, and this "bug" was causing it to do more damage than BioWare intended.

http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/1.2.0c/4192012

Trooper
Commando
Demolition Round: This ability will no longer deal more than 25% bonus damage on targets with more than 5 stacks of Gravity Vortex. Also corrected an issue which would cause this ability to hit for an increased 50% damage at all times instead of 25% as intended.

[Sared]

Welcome to playing a non force-using class, the niggers of SWTOR.

[Strod]

Because only force users are over powered right? Now that's a good laugh.

[Sared]

Has nothing to do with Force users being overpowered, has everything to do with pleasing and retaining a larger subscriber base over making a good game.

[Saint]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion Sared.
End troll..

[Sared]

Although my previous statements were made when I was completely shitfaced, I will still own them and attempt to give a sober clarification of my feelings on the matter.

At the end of the day, my subjective perception is that of feeling that Troopers/Smugglers are second-class citizens.

Anakin: Nobody can kill a Jedi!

Qui-Gon: I wish that were true.

Fans of the Star Wars universe have long put Jedi/Force-wielders on a pedestal, particularly after such gross displays of power as seen in the Jedi Knight series, The Force Unleashed games, and pretty much any other game that has put you in the position of a lightsaber-wielding individual. It has been rightly said that pretty much anyone that knows what Star Wars is has wanted a lightsaber (thank you Mharz), and that sentiment echos the special place that most fans of the series hold for Jedi.

EA and Bioware have publicly stated that their interest is to appease the community and retain subscribers, even at the cost of well-made game. I would be willing to bet cold hard cash that were this game set in a different franchise, one that did not have such a large emotional investment in certain archetypes on behalf of it's players, this wouldn't be so much of a problem.

It's just my opinion. It's not always right, and I don't claim it to be, but it is mine.