Quote Hello Vanguards!



Below are your answers from the dev team for your top three questions. Thank you very much for all the hard work you put into gathering these! The combat team will be keeping an eye on this thread, reading your feedback, and watching for any followups. Like with the Sniper and Sentinel answers, we have put the answers twice - first with Vanguard and second with Powertech so that it is easier for you to read.



-Courtney



Quote: PvP



The community feels that Vanguards lack both survivability and utility in comparison to the other two DPS/tank classes. When we look at the defensive cooldown that shadows possess (stealth, force speed, force wave, deflection, phasewalk, and resilience), we see a greater potential for surviving an encounter. The same is true when we look at a guardians list of cooldowns (guardian leap, force leap, saber ward, saber reflect, enure and force push). Looking at the vanguards short list of (reactive shield, hold the line, and adrenaline rush, harpoon, stealth scan), In terms of being picked for high level end game PVP IE (Rated pvp) coupled with the changes to our burst and lack of cool downs as listed above vanguard tanks and DPS alike bring nothing to the plate that the other two tanking/DPS class don’t bring, For example (in this example consider the three classes are DPS spec only ) in a huttball a shadow has his or her stealth for setting up end zone passes also the shadow has his or her force speed and resilience for grabbing the ball when it resets to the middle of the map. A guardian has his or her enemy leap and friendly leap, and force push for setting up scores, a vanguard has his or her harpoon for fire pulls and hold the line, harpoon can be a game saving talent in the right hands and hold the line is far from useless but the community feels that these talents don’t stack up to the other two classes talents. The word “lackluster” fits how the community's feels about the class right now. To encompass the point of this question here again the vanguard players feel “lackluster” in PVP Where as before many players at least felt like they were able to compete in PVP do to the burst assault once had now many players feel no matter which spec they find themselves using they cannot compete whatsoever, so we ask what could be done to address these weaknesses? We are sorry that the community feels this way about the Vanguard. The short list you gave for the Vanguard was only one item behind the lists you gave for Shadows and Guardians. The road of comparison only leads to disappointment, and I believe many Guardians and Shadows are disappointed in their 30-meter range options, while Vanguards have many options when they are beyond melee range. Guardians and Shadows also can’t use Shoulder Cannon to damage enemies while they are stunned or to add a bit of extra burst when they aren’t stunned. Vanguards wear heavier armor than Shadows and have much better long-range capabilities than Guardians.



In short, this is a perception problem, and it is one that you admit didn’t exist when Assault Specialist dealt more damage. When Assault Specialist damage goes up, will this perception issue go away? If not, we’ll address the issue, but we aren’t looking to make massive improvements that would only tip the scales in the other direction.



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We are sorry that the community feels this way about the Powertech. The short list you gave for the Powertech was only one item behind the lists you gave for Shadows and Guardians. The road of comparison only leads to disappointment, and I believe many Guardians and Shadows are disappointed in their 30-meter range options, while Powertechs have many options when they are beyond melee range. Guardians and Shadows also can’t use Shoulder Cannon to damage enemies while they are stunned or to add a bit of extra burst when they aren’t stunned. Powertechs wear heavier armor than Shadows and have much better long-range capabilities than Guardians.



In short, this is a perception problem, and it is one that you admit didn’t exist when Pyrotech dealt more damage. When Pyrotech damage goes up, will this perception issue go away? If not, we’ll address the issue, but we aren’t looking to make massive improvements that would only tip the scales in the other direction.



Quote: PVE:



With the changes to the Assault tree and even with the small tweaks to the Tactics tree, many players for higher-end content (i.e. TFB/SV NiM) opt out of the top tier talents in both trees and instead run a hybrid spec. The general player consensus behind this option is that a full-tree Assault build is simply not viable, and that Tactics is missing a few key components to make it a truly great spec. In Assault, Assault Plastique's damage is disproportionate to other classes top-tier talent (not to mention having its burst potential neutered in 2.0), and lacks any kind of synergy with the tree. Tactics is a bit better, but players are forced to put a point into Blaster Augs (which gives a frustrating 1% boost to elemental attacks), and once again, the top tier talent Fire Pulse features a long cooldown while lacking any real punch. The hybrid spec, rather, is a simple priority system that combines Tactics AoE capabilities via Pulse Generator and pre-2.0 Assault's single target damage potential with three different DoT's and hard-hitting HiB. Was this hybrid intended to out pace the full tree builds of Assault/Tactics? If not, we as the player base feel as if the top-tier talents in both Tactics and Assault should be re-considered to make it worthwhile for players to climb all the way up the tree, so what can be done to increase their usefulness? We never intend for hybrids to outperform the 36-point builds, and this is exactly what we addressed in the 2.4 update. Players should now find that both Fire Pulse and Assault Plastique deal more damage than they did previously. In addition, the Assault Specialist should see some of its burst make a return in 2.4. At your convenience, I highly encourage you to copy your Vanguard over to the PTS and try out the new Tactics and Assault Specialist builds, along with the hybrid builds. The 36 point builds should outperform the hybrids now.



Please keep in mind that Assault Specialist will perform considerably worse on a target dummy than it does in a real combat situation. There are two primary reasons for this. The most obvious reason is that the Burnout skill does not get its full effect on a target dummy, because a target dummy never falls below 30% health. The less obvious reason is because only around 48% of an Assault Specialist’s damage ignores armor, while for Tactics this number is around 65%. This means that the Assault Specialist has more to gain in situations where an armor debuff is present on the target, as should be the case in an operation.



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We never intend for hybrids to outperform the 36-point builds, and this is exactly what we addressed in the 2.4 update. Players should now find that both Immolate and Thermal Detonator deal more damage than they did previously. In addition, the Pyrotech should see some of its burst make a return in 2.4. At your convenience, I highly encourage you to copy your Powertech over to the PTS and try out the new Advanced Prototype and Pyrotech builds, along with the hybrid builds. The 36 point builds should outperform the hybrids now.



Please keep in mind that Pyrotech will perform considerably worse on a target dummy than it does in a real combat situation. There are two primary reasons for this. The most obvious reason is that the Burnout skill does not get its full effect on a target dummy, because a target dummy never falls below 30% health. The less obvious reason is because only around 48% of an Pyrotech’s damage ignores armor, while for Advanced Prototype this number is around 65%. This means that the Pyrotech has more to gain in situations where an armor debuff is present on the target, as should be the case in an operation.



Quote: Other:



For our last question one of the biggest concerns the community has with the vanguard class from a DPS standpoint of view is lack of burst. With some of the changes to our class in 2.0 and the change to Crit vanguard DPS across all servers found themselves lacking burst and suffering heavily from it. Our classes TTK (time to kill) is very slow now its not impossible to solo another class but overall in both the tactics tree and assault tree we feel VERY underwhelmed and out classes compared to a shadow DPS or a guardian DPS. Many players have made note that the change to our High Impact bolts armor pen has played a part in this but also if we look at other classes such as shadows, commandos, or focus Guardians our numbers in game don’t stack up. Our High impact bolt hits on average around 5.5 to 6.5 K and that’s at its highest whereas other classes like focus guardians or shadows flat out hit harder In PVP TTK (time to kill) especially in endgame high level PVP such as rateds or the upcoming arenas time to kill and burst is something a class must have to be taken, our class lacks that over all. Our end match numbers CAN and will stack up to other classes in both tactics and Assault but these numbers are misleading we might be stacking up number wise but we struggle to kill anything in both our DPS trees compared to the other DPS classes, it feels as if right now all classes have at least one DPS tree they can count on to bring burst to their teams efforts but our class really lacks that feature and we feel this is a problem that needs to be addressed. Before 2.0 a vanguard DPS could find himself a spot on a good rated team do to the great burst he or she brought to the plate. It was what set our class apart from the others and in many ways was our best defense skill so, with that said is there anyway this overall general concern for our classes lack of burst damage could be addressed? 2.4 is bringing a DPS upgrade to both Vanguard damage dealing specializations, as well as a burst upgrade for Assault Specialists and a harder-hitting Fire Pulse for Tactics. These upgrades should make Vanguard damage dealers more competitive in PvP, with faster TTKs than before, and intrinsically more survivability because of that.



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2.4 is bringing a DPS upgrade to both Powertech damage dealing specializations, as well as a burst upgrade for Pyrotechs and a harder-hitting Immolate for Advanced Prototype. These upgrades should make Powertech damage dealers more competitive in PvP, with faster TTKs than before, and intrinsically more survivability because of that. Courtney Woods | Lead Community Coordinator

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