First thing's first, the official patch notes for 1.2 can be found either here or here. I toyed with the idea of editing out anything not worth commenting on or leaving out changes to the Republic classes but I think that in the interest of making this a one-stop discussion of the upcoming changes it would be best to include everything. I am gonna move the order of a few things around though (notably, putting Empire classes first so I can fit in my commentary for those but also include the Republic versions afterwards). Also, I won't have something to say for every little note and tweak, so bear with me here. Finally, as much as I'd like to do it as one big wad, this is clearly way too big to cram into one post, so I'm gonna break it up into chunks for separate posts.
To distinguish the patch notes from my commentary, all the original patch notes are in italics and my own comments will be in bold.
Highlights
-Players can now unlock a wide variety of rewards by leveling characters and reaching new Legacy levels, including buffs for your characters, unlocking additional Species choices for every class, and upgrades for your personal Starship. Build your own Legacy with the new Family Tree!
-Players can now unlock a wide variety of rewards by leveling characters and reaching new Legacy levels, including buffs for your characters, unlocking additional Species choices for every class, and upgrades for your personal Starship. Build your own Legacy with the new Family Tree!
--If you haven't already played a character to chapter 2 on the PTS to check it out for yourself, you can read this article for a good preview of the new legacy features. The vast majority of them are asthetic, or at least don't have much bearing from a character advancement standpoint. It's also noteworthy that the highest required Legacy Level for any of the new features is 25. Kind of a kick in the nuts to a Legacy fiend such as myself but eh.
-Lost Island, a new Flashpoint, is available for play! Having uncovered the sources of the Rakghoul plague outbreak in the Tion Hegemony, players must travel to Ord Mantell and confront Dr. Lorrick, the mad scientist who engineered this horrific biological weapon.
-Explosive Conflict, a new Operation, is available for play! The Trandoshan mercenary warlord Kephess has seized the planet Denova, a world rich in resources valuable to the war effort. Players must assault his war camp, situated atop a mountain in densely-wooded terrain, fighting Imperial defectors and heavy war machines along the way. 8- and 16-player Story and Hard Modes are currently available for this Operation.
--My guild's been in line to get copied to the PTS for weeks now, so I wish I could say more about this. Nightmare mode won't be available upon release of 1.2; it's to be released at a later date. I've heard rumors that even Story Mode is difficult and requires Rakata level geared players, but that sounds awfully contradictory to the stated design philosophy in having a "Story" mode.
-Novare Coast, a new objective-oriented Warzone on the planet Denova, has been added to the game. This Warzone, like Huttball, supports same-faction matches if there are not enough members of the opposing faction to be found.
--Played this a handful of times on the PTS while Darkhorse and I were working on getting through chapter 1. It's very Alderaan Civil War-esque in that it simply breaks down to who can hold two points better. Unlike that WZ however, progress can only be made towards winning if you control two points--each objective is a gun turret that each fires after a set time, one shot is required to knock out a base's shield and the second is required to damage the actual base (the shield's regenerate such that the base will not be damaged by only one cannon firing at it). The players' bases are at the southwest and southeast corners of the map, with objective points at the northeast and northwest corners and one in between the two bases to the south.
-New repeatable high-level daily missions are available in a new area on Corellia, the Black Hole!
--Reportedly, there are 5 new solo dailies and 1 new Heroic daily which both give the existing Daily Commendations. Additionally, there is a weekly that reportedly gives 6 Black Hole Commendations. There are new relics that are meant to be bought using Daily Commendations now. Supposedly, these relics may also be craftable, but require recipes and blue and purple materials the source of which has not yet been discovered.
-Guilds now have access to a shared Guild Bank, accessible on the Fleets, with expandable storage.
-A new tier of gear has been added for both PvP and PvE.
--Black Hole and Campaign gear comprise the new PvE tier; the new PvP tier is War Hero gear. Last I saw on the PTS the set bonuses and stats on several pieces were still missing.
-Ranked Warzones are here! Players can now queue up and participate in PvP matchups to rank themselves against the competition.
-Players can now customize their User Interface by moving and resizing UI elements!
--Played around with this some on the PTS. Be aware that a lot of the interface options from the current options menu are now found as options for individual elements in the UI customization screen.
-A new level 50 World Boss with a challenge for a well-coordinated 16-player Operation Group has been sighted in the Gormak Lands region on Voss.
--Reportedly this boss is raid-gear-relevant, ie it will be worth doing regularly. Supposedly, to fight the boss it's required that you obtain an item through either crafting or Daily Commendations that prevents a damage aura of some sort (it's not clear if only the operations group needs it or each person needs one) that allows it to be fought safely. I'll be curious to see how this turns out if multiple groups from either faction have to fight over spawns or items required therefor.
-Players can now leave comments on entries in their Friends List in the Social Window.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Everything's Granado
Well, the revisit to GE lasted all of a day before I remember why I quickly lost interest last time. It's a very old school MMO. It's got some nice ideas, but the vehicle that delivers them is woefully unrefined.
Which means its time for a comprehensive review of patch 1.2, which is what I'll be working on the rest of this afternoon. Expect to see it posted later tonight.
Which means its time for a comprehensive review of patch 1.2, which is what I'll be working on the rest of this afternoon. Expect to see it posted later tonight.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Biding Time 'til 1.2
Trying to put off finishing Lantus and Desyrel until 1.2 so I can put at least some of the Legacy system advantages for alts to use in leveling, so that means I'm basically out of stuff to do until it lands. Playing bits of Tera gave me this really weird urge to play Grenado Espada again, so I'm gonna download the US version tonight, should help kill time. Otherwise I'm also playing a Commando on another server (Pyridium, on Zakkeg Beast) to see some of the Republic storylines.
One of these days I might do a comprehensive commentary on the 1.2 patch notes since that's something I'd like to do after taking on a chunk of it yesterday--and it would no doubt kill most of a day.
I've got a vague hope that 1.2 hits tomorrow but I'm well aware that's quite unlikely.
One of these days I might do a comprehensive commentary on the 1.2 patch notes since that's something I'd like to do after taking on a chunk of it yesterday--and it would no doubt kill most of a day.
I've got a vague hope that 1.2 hits tomorrow but I'm well aware that's quite unlikely.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Tanking Discussion: Comparing Assassin and Powertech Tanking in PvE
It's been a while since I've written something designed to be a little thought-provoking and I've been meaning to comment on how Assassin and Powertech tanking compare so I think it's a good subject to pick to get back to writing those kinds of posts.
There's three tank classes in SWTOR. Juggernaut (Guardian) is the one of the three I've not played to 50, so I'm not going to say much on how it plays per se. It is considered to be the weakest of the three options--not to say it's a terrible tank but if you were to rank the aspects of tanking in SWTOR it would come in last place compared to the other two classes except maybe in terms of the defensive cooldowns available to the class. The other two tanking classes, Assassin (Shadow) and Powertech (Vanguard), I do have a reasonable amount of experience with though.
Say you're just getting into SWTOR and you've decided you really want to tank. So which class should you pick? I would tell you that I strongly recommend playing a Powertech or Vanguard. Why not Juggernaut? Well, primarily because of the reasons outlined above. Why not Assassin? Assassin is also an excellent choice for tanking--in fact I'd assert that if you consider tanking in terms of the attributes that make a tanking class good (threat generation, survivability, damage, cooldowns), Assassin is either on par with or not far behind Powertechs. What makes Assassins second to Powertechs in my opinion is that they are a lot more work to play.
Let's briefly go over the abilities you'll need to use on a regular basis for both classes:
Assassin
-Saber Strike - Obligatory no-cost filler move; use when you need to save Force for another ability.
-Thrash - Basic everything-else-is-on-cooldown filler; procs Energize.
-Wither - Nice AOE damage and threat and comes with a damage debuff whose duration is more forgiving than the debuff on Discharge, but alas it also feeds Withering Darkness thus necessitating that it too generally be used on cooldown.
-Discharge - Provides an accuracy debuff, but its duration is just barely longer than the cooldown on Discharge, necessitating that it be used on cooldown to max the debuff's uptime.
-Shock - Heavily boosted by Energize and Chain Shock and it feeds Harnessed Darkness, but it eats up a ton of force so it's best reserved for Energize procs.
-Force Lightning - Made essential by Harnessed Darkness, and thanks thereto it becomes an excellent survivability tool.
-Dark Ward - Contributes heavily to survivability, but it needs to be actively monitored for when its cooldown is up, the buff's duration, and the number of charges.
-Recklessness - You'll want to keep this on cooldown, especially since it's amazing when combined with talents that boost force damage abilities especially Energize and Chain Shock.
Powertech
-Rapid Shots - Obligatory no-cost filler move; it's barely less damage than Flame Burst so it's recommended that you use it unless you have less than 10 Heat.
-Flame Burst - Basic everything-else-is-on-cooldown filler; comes with a damage debuff if talented, but as outlined above it's barely more damage than Rapid Shots so it's best saved either for if the debuff needs refreshing or you're nearing 0 Heat.
-Rocket Punch - This ability is talented into amazing damage and guaranteed Ion Gas Cylinder procs (and thus even more amazing damage) wrapped in a neat little package--it even randomly finishes its cooldown on shield procs thanks to Flame Shield; keep this shit cooldown.
-Rail Shot - Another nice heavy-hitter; thanks to Ion Overload and the Ion Gas Cylinder procs from Rocket Punch the conditions required for its use will never be a problem.
-Explosive Dart - Yet another nifty (AOE) heavy-hitter.
-Heat Blast - Not great damage per se, but it's free and actually vents heat so it makes a nice heat control cooldown.
-Explosive Fuel - Powertech's level 50 ability, a great offensive cooldown that's freely available to tanks too.
That's 8 abilities Assassin has to juggle, all with their own interconnected procs on top of having to keep track of Dark Ward charges compared to Powertech's 7 fire-and-forget abilities and 100% passive defense.
Powertechs have an additional advantage in generating clutch AOE threat over both Juggernaut and Assassin--their AOE taunt is on-target, ie you pick a target and the AOE radius of the taunt is on that target (Assassin and Juggernaut AOE taunts are centered on self). Extremely handy. Both Assassin and Powertech have Death Grip style pulls, and, while neither represents a clear advantage (actually, Assassin may have it here), I personally like Jet Charge over Force Speed. Powertech's one clear relative weakness compared to the other tanks lies in its defensive cooldowns--a Powertech only has two cooldowns (granted one of them is amazing) that are on a minimum two minute cooldown (three defensive cooldowns, admittedly, if you include Oil Slick, however it requires and consumes a global cooldown). Strangely, despite the fact that Powertech has no abilities that have a "generates significant threat" tag on their tooltip, Powertechs have no trouble holding threat (owing presumably to their relatively nice damage output).
Given the proximity to the onset of 1.2, this discussion wouldn't be complete without considering the upcoming changes though, so let's give those a brief overview.
Well, actually, there's pretty much nothing to speak of for Assassin. Just an update to the tooltip and some not-relevant-to-tanking changes to the Madness tree.
Powertech
-Shield Tech
--Ablative Upgrades: the absorption amount gained from this skill has been slightly reduced.
---Nerf, depending on how much "slightly" is.
--Empowered Tech is now a 3-point skill.
---It's not readily clear if this is a buff or nerf; it is currently a 5-point talent that gives an extra passive 10% shield chance. If it gives the same shield chance at 3 points this is a handy little buff, but it's more likely, given Heat Screen's description (see further down), that this won't be the case.
--Heat Blast is no longer limited by the global cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by approximately 15%.
---This is a pretty rockin' buff to Heat Blast and further cements Heat Blast's role as a heat management cooldown. I suspect that this change was made to encourage taking it in PvP.
--Heat Screen is a new 2-point skill that causes Flame Burst and Heat Blast to build a stacking buff that increases shield absorption.
---Presumably this will be a new tier 6 talent to make up for the change to Empowered Tech. It's likewise not clear whether this talent will be meant as a buff, nerf, or to simply make up for the change to Empowered Tech.
--Oil Slick is no longer limited by the global cooldown.
---This will properly turn Oil Slick into a defensive cooldown.
-Advanced Prototype
--Charged Gauntlets now triggers from damage dealt such that the bleed caused by Retractable Blade can trigger the buff. It now has a visual effect.
--Kolto Vents has been replaced by Hamstring, which causes Retractable Blade to slow the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
--Prototype Flame Thrower now is granted a stack when Immolate is used. In addition, stacks make Flame Thrower immune to interrupt and at 5 stacks Flame Thrower will now slow the movement speed of targets by 70%.
---None of these changes are really relevant to tanking.
-Pyrotech (Powertech)
--Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
---This is only relevant to tanking in that it's a pretty damning nerf to the Parakeet PvP build.
All considered, these are just changes--probably minor--to passive absorption. Additionally, taking Heat Blast and Oil Slick off the global cooldown are both positive changes. The bottom line is that 1.2 isn't going to do much to change my earlier recommendation. It's worth noting that 1.2 will bring some needed buffs to Juggernaut tanking though, but I'm not particularly qualified to comment on them at this time.
It's important to iterate that all three tanks are perfectly viable but to people such as myself who have a choice of tanks to use or for people who are just getting started and want to get into tanking, in my opinion Powertech/Vanguard is the clear winner.
There's three tank classes in SWTOR. Juggernaut (Guardian) is the one of the three I've not played to 50, so I'm not going to say much on how it plays per se. It is considered to be the weakest of the three options--not to say it's a terrible tank but if you were to rank the aspects of tanking in SWTOR it would come in last place compared to the other two classes except maybe in terms of the defensive cooldowns available to the class. The other two tanking classes, Assassin (Shadow) and Powertech (Vanguard), I do have a reasonable amount of experience with though.
Say you're just getting into SWTOR and you've decided you really want to tank. So which class should you pick? I would tell you that I strongly recommend playing a Powertech or Vanguard. Why not Juggernaut? Well, primarily because of the reasons outlined above. Why not Assassin? Assassin is also an excellent choice for tanking--in fact I'd assert that if you consider tanking in terms of the attributes that make a tanking class good (threat generation, survivability, damage, cooldowns), Assassin is either on par with or not far behind Powertechs. What makes Assassins second to Powertechs in my opinion is that they are a lot more work to play.
Let's briefly go over the abilities you'll need to use on a regular basis for both classes:
Assassin
-Saber Strike - Obligatory no-cost filler move; use when you need to save Force for another ability.
-Thrash - Basic everything-else-is-on-cooldown filler; procs Energize.
-Wither - Nice AOE damage and threat and comes with a damage debuff whose duration is more forgiving than the debuff on Discharge, but alas it also feeds Withering Darkness thus necessitating that it too generally be used on cooldown.
-Discharge - Provides an accuracy debuff, but its duration is just barely longer than the cooldown on Discharge, necessitating that it be used on cooldown to max the debuff's uptime.
-Shock - Heavily boosted by Energize and Chain Shock and it feeds Harnessed Darkness, but it eats up a ton of force so it's best reserved for Energize procs.
-Force Lightning - Made essential by Harnessed Darkness, and thanks thereto it becomes an excellent survivability tool.
-Dark Ward - Contributes heavily to survivability, but it needs to be actively monitored for when its cooldown is up, the buff's duration, and the number of charges.
-Recklessness - You'll want to keep this on cooldown, especially since it's amazing when combined with talents that boost force damage abilities especially Energize and Chain Shock.
Powertech
-Rapid Shots - Obligatory no-cost filler move; it's barely less damage than Flame Burst so it's recommended that you use it unless you have less than 10 Heat.
-Flame Burst - Basic everything-else-is-on-cooldown filler; comes with a damage debuff if talented, but as outlined above it's barely more damage than Rapid Shots so it's best saved either for if the debuff needs refreshing or you're nearing 0 Heat.
-Rocket Punch - This ability is talented into amazing damage and guaranteed Ion Gas Cylinder procs (and thus even more amazing damage) wrapped in a neat little package--it even randomly finishes its cooldown on shield procs thanks to Flame Shield; keep this shit cooldown.
-Rail Shot - Another nice heavy-hitter; thanks to Ion Overload and the Ion Gas Cylinder procs from Rocket Punch the conditions required for its use will never be a problem.
-Explosive Dart - Yet another nifty (AOE) heavy-hitter.
-Heat Blast - Not great damage per se, but it's free and actually vents heat so it makes a nice heat control cooldown.
-Explosive Fuel - Powertech's level 50 ability, a great offensive cooldown that's freely available to tanks too.
That's 8 abilities Assassin has to juggle, all with their own interconnected procs on top of having to keep track of Dark Ward charges compared to Powertech's 7 fire-and-forget abilities and 100% passive defense.
Powertechs have an additional advantage in generating clutch AOE threat over both Juggernaut and Assassin--their AOE taunt is on-target, ie you pick a target and the AOE radius of the taunt is on that target (Assassin and Juggernaut AOE taunts are centered on self). Extremely handy. Both Assassin and Powertech have Death Grip style pulls, and, while neither represents a clear advantage (actually, Assassin may have it here), I personally like Jet Charge over Force Speed. Powertech's one clear relative weakness compared to the other tanks lies in its defensive cooldowns--a Powertech only has two cooldowns (granted one of them is amazing) that are on a minimum two minute cooldown (three defensive cooldowns, admittedly, if you include Oil Slick, however it requires and consumes a global cooldown). Strangely, despite the fact that Powertech has no abilities that have a "generates significant threat" tag on their tooltip, Powertechs have no trouble holding threat (owing presumably to their relatively nice damage output).
Given the proximity to the onset of 1.2, this discussion wouldn't be complete without considering the upcoming changes though, so let's give those a brief overview.
Well, actually, there's pretty much nothing to speak of for Assassin. Just an update to the tooltip and some not-relevant-to-tanking changes to the Madness tree.
Powertech
-Shield Tech
--Ablative Upgrades: the absorption amount gained from this skill has been slightly reduced.
---Nerf, depending on how much "slightly" is.
--Empowered Tech is now a 3-point skill.
---It's not readily clear if this is a buff or nerf; it is currently a 5-point talent that gives an extra passive 10% shield chance. If it gives the same shield chance at 3 points this is a handy little buff, but it's more likely, given Heat Screen's description (see further down), that this won't be the case.
--Heat Blast is no longer limited by the global cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by approximately 15%.
---This is a pretty rockin' buff to Heat Blast and further cements Heat Blast's role as a heat management cooldown. I suspect that this change was made to encourage taking it in PvP.
--Heat Screen is a new 2-point skill that causes Flame Burst and Heat Blast to build a stacking buff that increases shield absorption.
---Presumably this will be a new tier 6 talent to make up for the change to Empowered Tech. It's likewise not clear whether this talent will be meant as a buff, nerf, or to simply make up for the change to Empowered Tech.
--Oil Slick is no longer limited by the global cooldown.
---This will properly turn Oil Slick into a defensive cooldown.
-Advanced Prototype
--Charged Gauntlets now triggers from damage dealt such that the bleed caused by Retractable Blade can trigger the buff. It now has a visual effect.
--Kolto Vents has been replaced by Hamstring, which causes Retractable Blade to slow the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
--Prototype Flame Thrower now is granted a stack when Immolate is used. In addition, stacks make Flame Thrower immune to interrupt and at 5 stacks Flame Thrower will now slow the movement speed of targets by 70%.
---None of these changes are really relevant to tanking.
-Pyrotech (Powertech)
--Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
---This is only relevant to tanking in that it's a pretty damning nerf to the Parakeet PvP build.
All considered, these are just changes--probably minor--to passive absorption. Additionally, taking Heat Blast and Oil Slick off the global cooldown are both positive changes. The bottom line is that 1.2 isn't going to do much to change my earlier recommendation. It's worth noting that 1.2 will bring some needed buffs to Juggernaut tanking though, but I'm not particularly qualified to comment on them at this time.
It's important to iterate that all three tanks are perfectly viable but to people such as myself who have a choice of tanks to use or for people who are just getting started and want to get into tanking, in my opinion Powertech/Vanguard is the clear winner.
Streaming
My blog's picking up a lil bit of traffic, so I'd like to try streaming a little more. Let me know in the comments if this is something you visitors are interested in seeing more of.
There's not gonna be a ton of excitement though; my ISP is pretty terrible and being that I don't have much income at the moment there's not a lot I can do about it, so it's gonna pretty low quality and stuff that doesn't require much bandwidth--mostly random questing, maybe some PvP.
Anyways, streaming some Tera beta right now; check it out at http://www.twitch.tv/scpantera
There's not gonna be a ton of excitement though; my ISP is pretty terrible and being that I don't have much income at the moment there's not a lot I can do about it, so it's gonna pretty low quality and stuff that doesn't require much bandwidth--mostly random questing, maybe some PvP.
Anyways, streaming some Tera beta right now; check it out at http://www.twitch.tv/scpantera
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Terable
Darkhorse and I finished off our 1.2 PTS Chapter 1 marathon, got kind of an introductory live look at the Legacy system. It'll be neat to see on live, but frankly the only really neat stuff on the whole Legacy panel was the entire tab that was basically "look at all the cool stuff you'll have to wait 'till 1.3 to get!"
I'd been playing Bioshock 2 in bits late at night since I'd seen a thread about it around a week ago and got a strong urge to play through it again. I'm a really big fan of the whole story of Rapture; I've also been wasting a lot of time reading the Bioshock wiki. Anyways, finished it this morning just in time for Tera to finish downloading for the beta weekend.
Played that with Callsign most of the day so far, but to be honest I'm not particularly impressed. Lots of eye candy, but not a lot of soul.
Meanwhile it seems parts of my thread on the HoG forum have vanished (namely most/all of page 4); can only speculate why--moderation cracking down on the trolls? Wouldn't explain why some of my later posts disappeared though, unless they go the extra mile and also prune replies thereto. Some kind of server rollback or something mayhaps?
I'd been playing Bioshock 2 in bits late at night since I'd seen a thread about it around a week ago and got a strong urge to play through it again. I'm a really big fan of the whole story of Rapture; I've also been wasting a lot of time reading the Bioshock wiki. Anyways, finished it this morning just in time for Tera to finish downloading for the beta weekend.
Played that with Callsign most of the day so far, but to be honest I'm not particularly impressed. Lots of eye candy, but not a lot of soul.
Meanwhile it seems parts of my thread on the HoG forum have vanished (namely most/all of page 4); can only speculate why--moderation cracking down on the trolls? Wouldn't explain why some of my later posts disappeared though, unless they go the extra mile and also prune replies thereto. Some kind of server rollback or something mayhaps?
Friday, March 23, 2012
Will Level Alts for Food
Hoo lordy, there's lot of folks on the forums who are needlessly hostile over the fact that I'm currently unemployed. I suppose I invited it with the "ask me anything" tagline. But on the other hand, it's hard to be trolled by the same people who waste time arguing about backpedaling on the official forums.
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