Ever wonder how that Scoundrel, Operative, or Sorcerer melted through your tank so fast?  It would appear that mitigation on certain damage types is a little off.  By that I mean possibly broken.  I have no idea if this is 100% accurate but after reading the following post it sounds like this guy knows what he’s talking about.  I don’t normally copy a complete post but I would like this info here for everyone too read in case something happens to the original forum post.  You can read the original here and it was written by Ganondorf.

Mitigation, the REAL problem. Also, operatives need a 2x dmg multiplier.

Hopefully that title got your attention. I don’t actually think that operatives need a buff. I’m here to address other problems. Mitigation. I actually believe the damage outputs of all classes are fine. Please read the section called “the problem” first. It will probably inspire you to read this entire post.

I’ve made a few threads here and there about numerical problems in how damage is handled and etc. I’d like to sum them up into one thread and have an intelligent discussion.

This is Ganondorf from Anchorhead. I’m working on the formulas for diminishing returns but I find, mathmatically, the problem is with mitigation. The fact being that pretty much all of the large burst abilities are more or less unmitigatable except through static barrier and hard mitigation.

Here is the TLDR version:
Shield rating, sheild absorbtion, and defense rating don’t actually work…
Internal and Elemental damage completely ignores armor… and these damage types are the largest.
PvP gear is covered in useless stats because of these factors.

Static barrier is that electric shield sorcs use that can absorb anywhere from 3-9k damage with none of it bleeding through. All sorcs should cast this on everyone friendly near them in pvp, always.

Hard mitigation are abilities that offer hard percentages on damage reduction. For example the skill Invincible reduces all incoming damage by 40%. Unstoppable is a perk in the middle tree for juggs, it gives you 20% hard dmg reduction after leaping (and 4 secs of cc immunity).

I’m going to organize this thread into three parts. I added a new section called “the problem”. If anything read that. The “first part” is the mitigation issue. The “second part” is about how hard mitigation stacks. The third part is a list of glitches and exploits and how to do them. The last part is here solely because they need to be fixed. As of this update I’m adding a fourth section called “how I would fix it”. It’s about how I would fix the problem, quite self explanatory.

I’ll be quick and dirty here. Armor doesn’t protect you from internal or elemental damage. Most classes have a spec that involves using these two damage types. Shields are only triggerable off of “weapon damage” which is very few attacks. You can’t dodge almost every single ability in pvp.

Now shields only activate on attacks that qualify. Shields inherently only activate a small percentage of the time and only mitigate a small percentage of the damage. It is possible, with relics and the right armor, to get your shields to 50/50. Which is a 50% chance to occur and they absorb 50% of the damage when they trigger. That’s a 25% damage reduction. This is unfeasable but possible.

Now, since only weapon damage triggers shields (sniper attacks, unload, basic attacks) shields only be able to activate on roughly 10% of the incomming damage you’ll be recieving in pvp. 25% damage reduction is respectable, 2.5% (25/10) is not. Now that 25% is the maximum possible if shields worked the way advertised and that is the stat cap for both those stats, at 50%. You can’t even get those stats normally much less sustain them in combat. It requires using a relic. I’d also like to mention using a columi relic increase the operatives dps by 25%+ or any player using crits which fully negates the power of shields even at there best.

This all means that shield rating/absorbtion rating and defense rating are useless in pvp. It also means that accuracy is equally useless by relation. These stats are plastered all over pvp gear. This means I’m just as durable in dps gear for my Juggernaut (Vindicator class) as the tank gear (War Leader). I’d also like to mention that the set bonuses for those pieces favors the dps gear for pvp tanking as well.

Vindicator
8% health on Guardian Leap (leaping to a friendly target)
10% damage bonus after leaping

War Leader
Chokes duration is 1s longer
5% damage bonus when guarding someone (While they’re in range)

Armor still offers reasonable protection from damage that isn’t coming from operatives. Shields still protect you from snipers which deal a lot of weapon damage unless spec’d otherwise. Now that you know this I’d like to mention every class has a spec that largely ignores weapon damage or that can do internal or elemental damage. Those spec’s will have the largest dps output.

This also means pvp gear is covered in useless stats like accuracy, defense rating, and anything to do with shields.

This also means to more than half the classes in the game, and possibly all depending on the spec, juggs are just as squishy as any other class.

This also means huttball is designed for whole teams of sorcs because they can all cast static barrier, pull eachother around, and sprint through fire and cc. Literally a whole team of sorcs is the best composition for huttball. I find that thought hilarious and slightly offensive. This also means that a sorc with high willpower and power stats can have a shield (static barrier) that absorbs 9k+ damage. Making sorcs the most consistently durable class in the game.

Also guard doesn’t work on companions, it only reduces their threat. So yeah. If you can heal your companion or Static Barrier them… why can’t I transfer their damage back to me?

Just calling to say you are melted

PART 1

Even with 50% mitigation through armor, 30/30 for shields, and 30% defence chance… I have 0% chance to mitigate any of the incoming damage except through hard mitigation through abilities like immortal, unstoppable, etc.

This means that only a sorcs bubble or there party buff can absorb any of that damage (and a buff from my spec). Regardless I’ll at max only be able to mitigate 20% of it. If I manage to have full resolve or Unleash and get my hard mitigation abilities off before I die… I can survive.

As a fully geared tank in pvp i have 17,000 health. Yes, the pvp armor doesn’t have quite as much endurance on it as pve armor. Quite a bit of health anyways. Envii can, and HAS, de-stealthed on me and punches through maybe 2/3′s of my health within the first or second 4s stun used. If I break the first the second one is always at the ready because good players are good. The damage here isn’t actually the problem, it’s mitigation. If Envii opens with the 8s stun then I get a free full resolve bar, even if I cc break it. Some operatives like to open with a 4s stun feel the water, restealth, and open with there 8s one which stuns for full duration because resolve wasn’t full.

After the initial burst I pop my rakatan medpac, activate my ward, immortal, and occasionally pop my trinkets and more just to survive the damage from one character. There are 7 more possible attackers in huttball and one person just murdered the tank more or less. This is all unavoidable and unmitigatable damage even for what might be the best tank on Anchorhead. I can get by and get out but it requires way too many abilities on large cd’s.

Now I hate comparing a 1v1 situation but this is a guaranteed screw in a 1v1 situation. One player can easily force a tank spec’d pvp player to pop all of his cd’s and consumables just to survive while they pop’d there consumables. The advantage of the opener and the waste of my resources as a tank is inexcusable and silly. Silly I say! Now, please realize here that while I used all my cd’s just to survive the operative/nutbasher still has full health and various cd’s at the ready. They also still have their rakatan medpac. I have 20% health, no real damage output, and can’t escape.

In short the consumables are a problem (a small nerf after the mitigation issues are addressed) but if the damage that was hitting people was mitigatable then the numbers would fall in line. I think that’s what needs to be addressed along with the scaling ratios of some stats. I do believe there is a problem with everyone wanting to be viable at pvp needing biochem, which you do, but that’s another story.

PART 2
I’m a Juggernaut spec’d into unstoppable. I also have the ability Invincible. Invincible reduces all incomming damage by 40% for 10 seconds and untoppable is a spec that allows for cc immunity and 20% damage reduction after leaping. It appears that, depending on the abilities used, these are applied one after another. In this case Invincible reduces a 10,000 damage ability to a 6,000 damage ability then unstoppable reduces that damage to me taking 4800. Instead of reducing the damage by 6,000 it’s reduces by 5,200. It seems like a small difference but it adds up with all the forms of mitigation such as shields and other abilities. Imagine the damage going through several small filters instead of one gigantic one.

It compounds with the fact internal and elemental damage ignores armor.

PART 3

La la la la LIGHTING!

I’ll list what I know and I’ve submitted bug tickets on the insanely broken stuff which I won’t post.

If you have the ball while on your ledge you will die and the enemy team gets the ball and a kill. This means that the enemy team can camp your spawn and toss the ball to enemy players on the opposing teams ledge… and the ball will kill them and bounce back to your team.

This also means bounty hunters can pull the ball carrier up to there ledge as they try to cap to instantly kill the carrier and give your team the ball.

The turn in field for huttball is only about a jump distance off the ground. As well, so with any height if you “fly” or get knocked a small distance over the line it won’t score.

Standing in the ball cradles deprives the enemy team of line of sight on you while you still have it. This means only people in the cradle can shoot you. Any melee class can tab target you, or target you any other way, and melee you as melee only checks if your facing your target and in range.

HOW I’D FIX IT

Since I know everything about ToR, ever, and have access to a secret combat log and game code I have devised the perfect solution. That was a joke. But I am quite good at what I do and hopefully this sounds reasonable.

Operatives need burst. They need those two damage types, internal and elemental, to hit hard as hell. I propose that 40% of armor is returned as defense for internal and elemental. Armor has drastic diminishing returns giving 1/4th less % reduction at 6k than 1k. So understand me when I say this number should be determined by your final armor reduction percentage stat. Mine is at 44%ish I believe. I think 40% of your final armor reduction value should be used as a bonus for internal damage reduction. Only tank specs can achieve numbers like 44% damage reduction from armor which would equate 16% internal and elemental resistance. Reasonable, other classes would fare far worse for not being tanks. The ratio for this internal/elemental resistance should be roughly 40-50% to bring the numbers in line. I think the lower end at 40% is best.

Shields should work on everything. Even at an ungodly area of 50/50 it is still only a 25% reduction on incoming damage. A crit trinket increases your damage output far beyond 25% and the adrenals and stims can even double your damage in some cases. Some classes don’t realize that shields only reduce incoming damage, not stop it. To get numbers like that too you would have to have almost no strength stat on your gear as well and be using a relic. Believe me it’s a fair amount of damage but nothing you can’t overcome.

Guarding a player, the returned damage should not be mitigated by any stat. This will keep the numbers in line and make it so hitting someone your guarding won’t be useless as it will bleed you dry FAST.

Defense rating is scary territory. Having a chance to outright “dodge” and take no damage from an ability is hard to factor in. Honestly I’d say allow for your defense rating to be proc’able on all attacks and abilities used that aren’t aoe or ground targeted. Have accuracy function as intended as well (functionally reducing their %chance to dodge by every % over 100% you have).

This might disturb you. I think it would work to counteract the disadvantage melee is at right now. Out attack and ability rotations are substantially more complicated for no returns as is our situational control. Mostly melee classes have this stat and only ones spec’ing into being tanks will have it reaching high figures. I believe it should cap at 30%. That number should only be achievable to defense rating geared tanks who pop’d a relic and will be lowered by players with enough accuracy.

In addition you shouldn’t be able to defend/deflect/dodge while stunned. It doesn’t make sense to me and it would put more value on cc’ing tanks.

All of this should layer and stack as the hard mitigation abilities do. With these changes defense geared players will be incredibly durable. Their surviability will be up by, at max, 50%. They however won’t be able to infinitely guard players thanks to the true damage bleed from their guard. A player with full tank gear and spec will have a hard time reaching 75k damage in a warzone but they will run around providing cc, taunts, and guards or priority targets now. With these changes characters designed to hit hard will still hit hard, tanks will be able to take damage besides their hard dmg reduction, and aoe and utility players will still have their full viability.

If you read deeply you’d realize those figures are only possible when gearing purely into one stat and popping a relic, adrenal, and stim. You can’t have them all at once.

The average stats at full pvp tank gear without focusing on one stat would be:

44% armor
25% dodge rate
30/30 shields

and complete crap damage and having trouble getting 75k damage.

Those max numbers are only achievable with relics and biochem. Just like the infamous 10k damage crit.

In addition there should be no shields that completely absorb damage like the sorcs have. I propose a 20% bleed through for damage being mitigated by that shield.

There is no way to balance huttball as it is. Even with the bugs below sorcs have a bag of tricks to bypass the entirety of the game. Being able to pull an ally to you and sprint through fire and while sprinting be immune to cc makes it so three sorcs can basically bypass all of the traps and elevation issues. I’m sure many strategies using multiple sorcs come to mind. EAch has that 5-9k damage buff Static shield as well. With three you can actually make an ability chain from the ball cradle to the endzone that’s almost impossible to stop unless you manage to cc both sorcs that aren’t the ball carrier and stay on them while they get to the two proper pull locations to launch their ally into the end zone.

Note that hutball is unsaveable because of it’s pure focus on utility and movement abilities. Those without them or the ones that are needed simply aren’t contributing to the metagame, speed cap’ing.

Voidstar will have problems with these changes. If lucky when I die I might be able to catch an open gate and run back to the door. They won’t be able to kill me fast enough to arm the bomb. WE CAN FIX THIS HERP DERP?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

This one actually gets me angry for once. The Warzones need a respawn timer. For example there is a respawn window every 30 seconds. For example… when you die you wait 20 seconds to respawn.

Why is this good?:
1. No dice rolls on how fast you get back in or the enemy does.
2. DPS classes rewarded on these objective pvp gametypes because they actually keep players away so you can do objectives.
3. It allows for tanks to die and be gone for awhile before they show up again to roll out backhands and /dance emotes during fights.

Some warzones will need gated respawn windows for their design. This is where every 30 seconds there is a respawn window and if you die one second before it you respawn instantly. If you die right after the window you wait the full period. This allows you to spawn in groups and coordinate. Basically the warzones got it backwards. Huttball and voidstar need timers where alderaan needs gate system.

You can’t remove utility from characters at this point. You CAN’T remove abilities now that classes should never have had, but you can tweak them. I can’t begin to describe how, but perhaps making tanks viable is the first step.

The power stat needs diminishing returns. Incredibly small ones but some.

Oddly, in pve these stats work differently. A lot of enemies do weapon damage if not most and you only see internal and elemental from bosses and special encounters. So the tanking gear works in pve. But on hm some of the bosses that do internal damage would just as easily kill you as a naked sorc.

A lot doesn’t feel right. As a jugg or marauder to do my job I need both bottom bars and the left and right bars a long with every usable key on my keyboard bound along with my Razer naga’s 17 primary buttons. Whereas some classes routinely only use a single bar and at the most the bottom two. The returns are a bit off there being that the class is harder to play and gives less… so it’s actually entropic.

CLOSING

Thanks for reading. I intend to update this once I finish running numbers with my guild and friends. Also thanks to Envii on Anchorhead for being my greatest opposition in pvp, your the Link to my Ganondorf. <3

I’d like intelligent discourse on these topics and if possible a reasonable response from Bioware on their opinions and intended course of action. I love this game and Star Wars but there are glaring problems with the figures here that need to be addressed.

Some of you may have fought tanks that were already incredibly durable. This is because they had their hard mitigation class abilities on 3 minute respawn timers up and used them. Or they used one of the other hard mitigation abilities to lower incoming damage.

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