Preface: I want to start this thread by acknowledging I have played in CBT2 and CBT3, which means much of my opinion is based on how the current stage of the beta compares to those previous stages and how those experiences should feel in order to provide the most enjoyable gameplay. What follows below is a critical review of the current state of (DPS) Spellslingers. I think it is very important when testing to provide honest and accurate feedback for developers in order to help shape the game for the better. In the end, I still love this game and want very much for it to succeed but I feel changes are needed. With that in mind, let’s begin.

Summary of Feedback

Without sounding too harsh, Spellslingers have taken a step backward in this phase of the beta. The overall playstyle of the class has become obstructed by clunky mechanics; some of which are specific to the Spellslinger while others more general to the game as a whole. The theme of Spellslingers is the class of movement and action; I like to use the phrase “Running & Gunning.” The fluidity of movement and combat in which quick reaction times and intelligent thinking produced great fights and kept us asking for more is greatly reduced. Instead, complex movement and ability combos are stalled by the current state of the mechanics. This has ultimately made the Spellslinger harder to play at the pace and fluidity to which I feel the suits the class and how it played in previous beta builds.

Points of Concern

Dashing: As it has been brought up in other parts of this forum, dashing is not the same as it was in previous beta builds. In the previous beta builds, dashing was initially bound to the control key and one could activate a dash by either double tapping the direction buttons or holding a directional button down and pressing control. This functionality has since been removed, most likely due to concerns over dashing using a modifier (such as Control, Alt, or Shift) for a movement command (Dash) that is used so frequently. In the current iteration of the beta, double tapping directional keys still dash, however, you are unable to map modifier keys (Control, Alt, Shift) to the “Directional Dash” keybind, which is how the old system worked. Furthermore, there still seems to be some kind of delay going on with dashing. I really can’t put my finger on it, but there is definitely less fluidity in the current build that previous phases.

Spell Surge Interrupt: First, as it has already been pointed out, turning Spell Surge on and off interrupts any abilities your character is currently performing. This can be anything from Wild Barrage to Mobile Fire. This creates serious problems because essentially I cannot “queue” Spell Surge prior to using the ability I want Spell Surge’d.

Spell Surge Decay: Spell Surge used to be resource with three “charges” that could be applied to certain spells when used. By changing Spell Surge to an actual depleting buff, Spellslinger can now become subject to uncontrollable decay of the Spell Surge buff. What I mean by that is I can turn on Spell Surge, but then get stunned/knocked down 3 times in a row all while watching my Spell Surge bar continue to drain down without actually getting to use an ability. This is extremely painful and I can see chain knockdowns/stuns becoming a problem.

Spell Surge Cooldown vs Resource: A huge change to Spell Surge (which I don’t think I’ve seen many people talking about) is an overall shift in the way the mechanic is handled. Previously, Spell Surge behaved more like a resource. It was always present and you had to manage it. This can be said and seen similar to Warrior’s Kinetic Energy, Espers’ Psi-Points, etc. In the change to allow us to control Spell Surge it has moved away from an actual resource and into a DPS/Heal cooldown, which exists on the R key similar to other larger cooldowns. If I were to compare Medic to Spellslinger its almost laughable how much better the Medic “R” cooldown is compared to Spell Surge. Yes, Spell Surge is available more often, but hopefully you see the distinction here. The Medic’s “R” is an actual cooldown. Spell Surge should not behave similarly to a cooldown, its a resource. What happens if you are PvPing, activate spell surge and get stunned/knocked down repeatedly to the point you have no spell surge? What do you do? We currently have no recovery cooldown, all we can do is sit and wait for Spell Surge to regen back up. As it stands right now, I barely use Spell Surge in some fights because it simply is not needed unless I want to do more damage.

Spell Surge Animation Delay: The animation to activate Spell Surge is somewhat rough. The screen shake is kind of annoying and the animation itself puts a small delay in your ability rotation. What I mean here is that there is a 0.5s delay or thereabouts between when I turn on Spell Surge and when I can use my next ability. Overall, there seems to be quite a number of these ability delays/cancellations across multiple spells. Is this a huge game breaking deal? No. But coupled with some of these other things it just continues to inhibit the fluidity of combat I became used to in previous builds.

Damage Output: Speaking of damage, I feel like the overall effective damage output of Spellslingers is less than previous builds. I hate to be that guy crying balance this early in beta, but it does seem like I’m doing less damage than I was before. If I had to guess, this could be due to two reasons. First, the fact that Spell Surge can now be controlled has reduced the overall use of it, because as I’ve previously stated it feels and behaves more like a cooldown than an actual resource. (Which is not a good thing in my opinion.) The second reason I think my damage output is less than previous builds is because of the change to move Assassinate to an ability only obtainable by AMPs. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of this because Assassinate syncs so well with our rotation, but I guess I can live with it and will have to see how it works once the AMP system is active in game.

Suggestions

Personally, I would have no problem with Spell Surge being reverted back to the old system where it would proc off any ability that had its benefit. If the mechanic remains where we have the ability to control it, I think changes need to be made. First, I would fix all the minor issues around activating Spell Surge such as it interrupting abilities and the delay when turning on or off. Next, I would remove the depleting resource mechanic of the current Spell Surge and put individual “surges” back in the game, maybe 5 total. If Spell Surge is turned on, a “surge charge” would only be consumed if an ability is used, exactly the same as the old mechanic. If there is concern about possibly always leaving Spell Surge turned on (which I don't think would be a concern/bad thing) a change could be made to have Spell Surge regen faster when turned off. For an actual cooldown ability, bring back something similar to the old cooldown where it replenished some Spell Surge and gave partial Spell Surge back if used or increased regen.

Final Thoughts

Despite what may seem like a giant complaint, I still think Spellslinger is a fantastic class and there are many positives. Hopefully though I’m not the only one with some of these opinions and Carbine continues to look into ways to improve the class. More running & gunning is a good thing. :)

################################################################################################################

Nice points - I main a spellslinger, and I think they could certainly use some love.

I realized I barely ever pay attention to my special R ability or my resource - like ever. I honestly don't even know what it does I don't think I read the tooltip, lol. I haven't needed it except maybe twice when I was close to death and I just thought "I have another button that's not on cooldown- use it now and hope I live!"). The damage output isn't bad but at about lvl 14 it starts to fall off - even when opening with charged shot, which has a large cast time, it doesn't seem to do that much damage anymore. I put my tier point into it, but I find that it's not as awesome as I feel like it should be with the amount of time you have to wait for the thing to charge. I don't want it to be overpowered, but I'd at least like it to feel powerful (which feel like it doesn't).

I find it harder and harder to keep the enemies away from me. The root ability has such a long cooldown on it, the snare I feel does basically nothing to snare them, even with full resource (from what I've experienced, it's fairly useless). The teleport is fun, I like that it stuns the enemies in the way so I can turn around and charge up my charged shot (and then do mediocre damage to them, lol).

To be fully honest, I'm still having fun with it - it's challenging at times to quest on your own as a spellslinger; particularly in tight spaces where there is little room to maneuver around and a lot of risk to aggro xD, but I've been finding it's fairly fun regardless.

################################################################################################################

I can see a positive change to making spellsurge not being a decaying resource as long as it was still voluntary-use like the new system. The whole "you better use your spells in the right order or else you'll just be wasting surges, because you have absolutely no control over when you use your class resource" thing was just *gag!* Restrictive and totally dependent on doing The Maths correctly rather than organically responding to situations or going by feel. I enjoy trying to fire off my spells against the clock before it runs out, or popping it on and off during fights before it runs out, but I am totally sympathetic to problems with the new system due to things like latency wasting 2 secs of spellsurge for people and the issues around balancing it with GCD. But there was just really no active engagement or choice in the old system, besides trying to figure out whether or not your rotation was "optimal" which was just bluuuuuhhhhh.

I'd be interested in a system where spell surge had X number of charges but was still voluntarily turned on and off, so in a fight you turned it on and every spell you fire off while on used one charge until you turned it off or ran out. So you can still have control and strategize when, which, and how many attacks to use it on, but it's not a race against the clock that's detrimental to people with latency issues, or wasted by long animations or GCD problems. I don't think it always being on would be a problem, because you're bound to run out out of charges and you'd just waste them on attacks when you didn't need them if you never bother to manage it. Technically the old system was spellsurge being set to "always on." So if you left it on all the time it'd just be like reverting it back to the old system.

################################################################################################################

As someone new to the beta I'll chime in on this, obviously I can't comment on previous iterations but I'll throw out initial thoughts.

Coming in I pretty much had my mind made up that I was going to play a Spellslinger (Chua of course) while also making sure to test Esper and the new classes (for possible alts or maybe mains) and testing melee for potential tanks. I have put in a decent amount of time since the beta came up and currently have my SS at level 16 - I have primarily quested (no PvP yet, want to be more familiar with the toon, no Adventure kept crashing before queue pop). I did group with an Engineer last night to bank some renown to create a guild.

Initial thoughts: Awesome! The class was what I thought it would be (for the most part) and I find it fun. The surge mechanic was weird when compared to the other classes "R" abilities - as has been mentioned here numerous times it felt more like a cooldown and not a unique class mechanic. Also similar to what has been mentioned there are times when I forget about it and the bar is really hard to see when things start getting hectic (this I assume gets better as I get more familiar with the game, maybe not). At the minimum I would say it needs to come off of the GCD and not interrupt casts - charge based so no decay or lost time would also be really nice.

In regards to the poster that mentioned the class getting weaker as you level I do see that, right out of the gate I tried to run abilities that let me move while casting (no charge shot no root and latter no rapid shots - not sure if this spell is useful before full upgrade for the dodge regen?) so I was probably doing it different than most. I read up a little on the boards and tried to start incorporating charge back into my rotation and it honestly felt slower killing things, but it also really felt like it put a kink in the rhythm of playing, maybe I just need to get better.

For the little bit that I grouped the playstyle was really nice, not having to worry as much about kiting and just being able to throw some damage down (and snares and shields) was fun, but I did feel slightly weak - maybe me, maybe Engi's are just in an awesome spot not sure.

Anyway, TL:DR some changes would be nice but still enjoying the class quite a bit and excited for the game as a whole.

################################################################################################################

I would have to agree almost 100% with the OP. My favourite class in CBT2 and CBT3 was the Spellslinger and I thought it would be my main for sure. I thought this time around id try the Engineer/Medic to see the differences (possible main/alts) and ended up referring back to a Spellslinger. The surge ability should definitely be changed back to the way it was. There was nothing wrong with it and I fell like being on a timer is difficult when you could be stunned/knocked down.

The part where AMPS come into play is interesting. I love the idea, but not having it in this build is very noticeable as "Assassinate" its one of the most useful skills in tight situations.You can tell the damage output now is a little less where they said as a light armor user the dps would be increased to make up for the lack of armor. I understand that were in beta and lots can be improved on but here's hoping that we can possible revert back to the old surge proccing system.

################################################################################################################

I'm new to the beta this time around, but I have been focusing my time on the Spellslinger and it sounds like the 3 charges system that was mentioned would be a much better way to go about spellsurge. As it stands, I barely use it while questing and only really against group quest enemies in order to get off a quick charged shot. Speaking of charged shot, I think it would be nice if, once fully charged, charged shot allowed you a few seconds of movement before cancelling. Think Samus' charge shot from SSB, but with a limited duration, like 2-3 seconds, and with the added limitation that you can't use another ability in between. That way if you charged up a shot but need to dodge a telegraph immediately and couldn't risk firing before moving, you wouldn't have wasted that charge time completely. Just a thought.

################################################################################################################

IMO, You actually had a lot of control and fluidity with the old system, you just had to learn how to weave spells for the best output. Currently the system is more or less a turn on and dump. Now that all spells have a spellsurge bonus for the most part I would be fine with a middle ground between the to, just not sure what that middle ground is. All I know is the current system is not enjoyable compared to its the Orb System of before. Yes the Orb System of before had its downsides but they were few and far between compared to the current system. Finding a happy middle would be great. IMo the current system lacks fluidity and it has turned what was a fun mechanic about the class into an annoying cooldown.

################################################################################################################

I think there is a discussion about how much (or lack of) control the previous system provided. While I agree you could not directly control it in the sense of on/off you could force which spells used spell surge by utilizing certain rotations. Is that the best system? I don't know, I think that's debatable. In my opinion, I think the old system wasn't necessarily bad persay, but I'm not going to say it was the best thing ever and spell surge should immediately be reverted back to the old system. What I will say, however, is that I wouldn't be upset to see the old system put back in place.

Overall, there seems to be at least some consensus between the people who have played spellslinger before in previous betas and those who are new that the current system of decay and some of the mechanics around it could use improvement. What those improvements are will depend on Carbine receiving more player feedback and their own internal view on the class - which I definitely would be very anxious to hear more about.

Without continuing to beat a dead horse, I'd just reiterate whatever the mechanic of spell surge ends up being, my biggest concern will be whether it behaves and feels like a resource, not a cooldown. Unfortunately, the current system feels more like latter while the old system felt more like the former; which is probably contributes to why many people keep referencing the old system.

################################################################################################################

I prefer the mechanic of being able to choose when my spellsurge is consumed. If the spellsurge stays the way it is I would like to see it not affected by GCD. That being said I also do not think it should turn on/off mid cast, it should turn on/off after the cast is finished. In it's current state and how it can cancel a channeled spell and is not able to be queued should be looked at, oh wait, it is: LINK REDACTED

Sometimes when spell surge was consumed in CBT3 it felt pretty gimp because it was consumed on say wild barrage, or ignite, when you really wanted to save it for charged shot, or true shot (Both of these get half cast time when surged). What the passive consuming of spell surge did was more spamming waiting for that surge to get back rather than being able to optimize rotations. After going over rotations in this current build I have noticed the number of times it is required to hit your spammer/fillers has been cut in half due to the fact of not having to wait for spell surge to come back up. Now my favorite abilities Charged Shot, True Shot, and Assassinate (When we will be able to get access to it) are able to be cast more reliably with surge modifiers when the cool downs are over when compared to CBT3.

They could alternately go the route of most of the other classes and give us a 1.5 to 2 minute cool down for an innate ability. This could hypothetically give us a run speed boost and AP boost for 10-20 seconds. Personally I do not like the idea of any class with this long of a cool down that gives what feels like over powered burst damage/no resources comsumed/finisher spamming/invulnerability/invisibility/Psi point pool every couple of minutes. I would prefer to see more of the classes have something similar to the slinger and stalker where it could be consumed gradually over an encounter giving a slight increase. I like that the Stalker can go stealth every 20 seconds, this is nice for the stalker, not so nice for the clothy with a knife in his/her back. This type of mechanic that can be used multiple times per minute should be used across all classes IMO. I like the more active resource management and modifiers rather than long cool downs.

I was an advocate of the previous surge system in CBT3. If we had access to the old posts I could link at least 5 or 6 posts I made about keeping it the way it was because of many of the reasons posted above. After getting my hands on this new build I much prefer it over the previous build. There are some tweaks I would like to see, but actively managing the spell surge/Innate abilities is much better than spamming/filling and waiting for it to recharge IMO.

################################################################################################################

The old system put players into a cycle of building and spending that was pretty much indistinguishable from Espers and Warriors at the time. One of my main issues with the game was how similar all the classes felt to one another because 3 out of 4 classes had resources that all behaved the exact same way. You got several charges once your surges filled up again, but it was still a matter of just using the same spells in the same order every time, just like how the Esper is a matter of using your builders in the same order until you're able to fire off a finisher, and the Warrior was using your builders in the same order until you could use a heavy hitting attack. Now all 3 classes have different systems, and I think it's a change for the better. I agree there's some issues with the implementation of the new spell surge, but I really do not think that reverting to the old system would be a step forward.

I guess you could call making a class all about using skills in a correct order synergy, but it really seems more like asking everyone to accept the same cookie cutter "most efficient" attack rotations, instead of allowing people to adapt their methods on the fly by choosing what spells in their arsenal they want to boost with surge and at what moment in the fight they wish to do so. The lack of choice was really boring, IMO, and you basically didn't have to think about surges once you had a rotation down because the mechanic would fade into the background in the flow of the fight. Maybe that's more fluid to some people, but to me that's a mechanic that only provides engagement and interest when you first start to use it and aren't sure if your rotation is "correct" enough. Now that it's voluntary I can approach fights differently every time I go into them. I can decide I don't need it at all during a fight and I want it available as soon as I start the next one, or I can pull it out as a panic button when I've realized I just got in over my head, or I can choose to start every encounter by turning it on and go in guns fully blasting at the cost of having more downtime between fights. The old option was only one option: go in with max surges, spend them all, wait for them to recharge, spend them again, rinse and repeat.

I'm finding it a little strange that people object to a single button press at an opportune moment in an entire game that is nothing more than pressing buttons at the opportune time. But I guess that really is just a personal preference thing.

################################################################################################################

What do you guys think about this system?

Spell Surges are charges (again)

You consume charges to give a stackable self buff (1 charge per stack) that adds the Spell Surge bonus to the next X (however many stacks you've got) used abilities (each ability that can be surged consumes a stack of the buff)

Consuming a stack of the buff adds a stackable debuff

R is used to restore all charges with a cast time dependant upon the number of stacks of the debuff above. It also removes all stacks of the buff and debuff

This basically turns Spell Surges into special bullets that you have to take the time to load and gives the option of loading them all and relying on rotation to use them at the right times, or load as needed. The only snag is you'd have to use R both to convert charges to buff stacks and to "reload" charges. Maybe with a modifier, I dunno. I feel like there's something here and I'm missing part of it. Do any of you have it?

I think this is an interesting idea. Essentially what this does his help combat the decay effect and allows slingers to build spell surge. That being said, the more I think about all the comments in this thread the more I go back and forth between spell surge being a controllable mechanic with an on/off switch. I keep trying to figure out how spell surge could be designed in a way you could turn it on and off without it feeling like a cooldown, and I really have no answer to that. For instance, when I think about an Esper, they don't get to choose not to use Psi-Points on their largest attack if they only have 3 instead of 5 - it's about managing a resource. Resources are not turned on or off, they are managed and maintained.