Profession Updates – Spy

This year the development team will be taking a close look at each profession and focusing on your concerns and issues. The Top 5 issues presented by the representative senator are the basis for the updates for each profession.

While the professions and expertise will not be completely revamped, the team will spend time on the issues in the Top 5 and address as many as possible. Please keep in mind that this won't be in the form of a chapter dedicated to each profession, but an update between major content releases that focuses on one or two specific professions.

For the first profession update, the development team is focusing on smugglers and spies.

Spy Issues

Here is an overview of the issues the developers are looking into for spies:

• Bugs that cause problems with cloaks and other spy skills

• Spy viability in PvE

• Issues with ranged damage

Give Us Your Feedback!

In addition to the issues mentioned above and in the Top 5 list, we want to hear from you! Tell us your concerns and suggestions for other issues that you think should be addressed in the spy update. Please keep in mind that this is a pressing update planned for the near future, so keep your ideas within a reasonable scope.

When posting, keep it short, sweet, and constructive! We'll be monitoring this thread very closely and joining in the discussion. Flames, personal attacks, and other inappropriate posts will be removed so that the thread can be as useful as possible.

What spy issues would you like to see addressed in the next update?

As a pure ranged spy I would like to see flashbang upgraded well beyond the feeble 6% to strikethroughs.  My idea on implementing a similar ability that is seen in the nightsister heroic instance to flashbang is here http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/...topic_id=536245  please ignore my melee spy bashing. 

I also suggest adding detect camo to the available mods ingame for modded suits of armor and clothes.  Spies can have their suits modded to have bonuses to camo and it is only balancing for anyone who wants to be able to counter this to be able to.  This way if a BH wishes to hunt a spy then having a suit that increases his detect would allow for his reveal ability to actually work.

Allow for BH droids to work on locating spies again.

As a pure ranged spy I would like to see flashbang upgraded well beyond the feeble 6% to strikethroughs.  My idea on implementing a similar ability that is seen in the nightsister heroic instance to flashbang is here http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/...topic_id=536245  please ignore my melee spy bashing. 

I also suggest adding detect camo to the available mods ingame for modded suits of armor and clothes.  Spies can have their suits modded to have bonuses to camo and it is only balancing for anyone who wants to be able to counter this to be able to.  This way if a BH wishes to hunt a spy then having a suit that increases his detect would allow for his reveal ability to actually work.

Allow for BH droids to work on locating spies again.

I also suggest adding detect camo to the available mods ingame for modded suits of armor and clothes.  Spies can have their suits modded to have bonuses to camo and it is only balancing for anyone who wants to be able to counter this to be able to.  This way if a BH wishes to hunt a spy then having a suit that increases his detect would allow for his reveal ability to actually work

Zenirvana wrote:

I also suggest adding detect camo to the available mods ingame for modded suits of armor and clothes.  Spies can have their suits modded to have bonuses to camo and it is only balancing for anyone who wants to be able to counter this to be able to.  This way if a BH wishes to hunt a spy then having a suit that increases his detect would allow for his reveal ability to actually work

just so you know your gonna get flammed to kingdom come and back and my biggest thing is the LoS bugs and lack of good snares (vp is only decent 1 and that isnt worth the points due to being a trap and on major delay)

kc0stp1 wrote:

Zenirvana wrote:

I also suggest adding detect camo to the available mods ingame for modded suits of armor and clothes.  Spies can have their suits modded to have bonuses to camo and it is only balancing for anyone who wants to be able to counter this to be able to.  This way if a BH wishes to hunt a spy then having a suit that increases his detect would allow for his reveal ability to actually work

just so you know your gonna get flammed to kingdom come and back and my biggest thing is the LoS bugs and lack of good snares (vp is only decent 1 and that isnt worth the points due to being a trap and on major delay)

I do not care what other spies say or think of me.  I do not agree spies should be as undetectable as they can currently get.  Even with no camo you are completly undetectable at range of over 40m.  Being able to move and stand within only a few meters of enemy targets without being seen is absurd.  Even if people gain the ability to increase thier chances of seeing a spy a spy can still very effectively do what they currently do.

Top 5 Updates for spy:

1. Increase pve dammage, in the form of a buff or whatever is needed, but it IS needed (or a big action reduction would work as well)

2. Ranged spy is terrible dps wise nowadays... could use some love, although i love melle myself

3. An aoe absorbtion/resist would be nice, not fun when a single officer runs out and snares then kills you when you have never even left cloak. 

Other than that, spy is set.  I can and have killed buff hore jedi solo on my spy so no dammage increases in pvp or any big changes are needed.

Chance to miss critical on ranged sniper shot seems too high, throw in the block/defense stackers into the mix and the lack of critical chance gets ugly. Jedi? I tab right over them when selecting a target.

Personally I don't think DOTs have any place for a spy in a PvE situation, IMHO spy is alpha attack, if that doesn't do it WAT out of there. But maybe I'm just too impatient to wait for the DOTs to tick

Both Smugglers and spies get first development pass/update?

Pinch me! (see sig)

**edited to clarify bad typing**

Chance to miss critical on ranged sniper shot seems too high, throw in the block/defense stackers into the mix and the lack of critical chance gets ugly. Jedi? I tab right over them when selecting a target.

Personally I don't think DOTs have any place for a spy in a PvE situation, IMHO spy is alpha attack, if that doesn't do it WAT out of there. But maybe I'm just too impatient to wait for the DOTs to tick

Both Smugglers and spies get first development pass/update?

Pinch me! (see sig)

 

**edited to clarify bad typing**

I agree on the flahbang upgrade beeing similar to "lelli hi" power to start all your cooldown timers 
The pve viability, expecially in these heroics is something that should be really addressed. I see i'm almost useless in the heroics
there's mch more i'd like to see like spy only content like assassination missions and so on but i do not think it will be an easy task to accomplish and it is something i do not think that will fall into an update like this.

F

Senator covered the issues.

1. Melee/Ranged discrepency. Currently the gap between ranged and melee is so large there is no reason for any spies to ever go ranged. They are still just as fragile, the have no sustainable damage, and their burst damage is under half that of a melee spy.
2. PvE viability. All spy moves are tied to cloak. Our best attack, heal, and defense all requires cloak. Changing the MOBs heal rate was a huge nerf to spy. The second we use cloak MOB's health is instantly restored. Spies are forced to do all solo PvE out of cloak tanking MOB's who's health is far greater than our burst damage. We have no sustained damage after the initial burst. We have no defenses to tank until a MOB is dead, and cannot use our main heal either to survive long enough to kill anything. Spies are by far the weakest PvE class in the game since chap 6. Suggested fixes would be for MOBs to not instantly heal for 3 seconds after they lose aggro. This would give time for a spy to pop a quick heal and ambush (if they miraculously managed to save enough action). Another fix could be to return their heal rate to the same rate as players heal once aggro is lost. Decoy is also so fragile it is dead as soon as we call it sometimes. This resets the MOB as well. Decoy should be unkillable for the 10 seconds it is out. Maybe if its health stuck on 1 HP like the tusken king so it looks like you are killing it to trick PvPers (Though there are so many more obious clues it is not a real spy). On top of that we are like the last kid picked when playing basket ball in gym. We have little to add to the team that someone else cannot do better. We will always be bumped from the group to make room for a medic, jedi, BH, smuggler, or in one HK instance an ent (to re-apply buffs).
3. Cloaks Failing. Does this really need to be explained? We pop out to attack someone and fail because half our attacks miss. We hit smoke bomb to escape before we are ganked by all the AOE wielding friends and jedi, but it fails and we are still exposed. So, we hit without a trace and cloaked heal, but out heal does not heal us because we are still not cloaked. With both cloaks now on cooldown and no defenses you can guess the outcome. This is not limited to when a corpse with the incap buff is targetted. It happens without any target as well. Also, if players use manual aim or attack with a delay we often cloak (including without a trace) only to be dragged out of cloak the exact second we enter it by the attack. Without a trace is supposed to be unbreakable for 30 seconds.
4. Action costs. Even with full action reduction in expertise, 3 capped action reduction PuP's, 9% action reduction buff, and 9% action reduction in SEA's many spies still drink action as it were water and often cannot get off one whole alpha strike. This also limits the SEA possibilities since every spy must have action reduction and camo on as many pieces as possible. A BH with no modded armor or buff can unload up to 7 attacks before they run out of action. An unmodded or buffed spy can only get 2 or 3 at the most. And, BH's hit harder than spies do. Many moves are not affected by weapons action reduction. This is true for our heals, VP, flashbang, and archanes web. Contrast that to smuggler where every single attack except false hope is reduced by pistol action PuPs. There is a massive difference in action reduction between the 2 professions. Spies have to stack much more because our costs are so high and because less of our moves are reduced by them.
5. Spike damage. Chap 7 saw a massive drop in the strength of ambush and bleed DoT. DoT's were a large part of that damage that was weakened chap 6, but currently we are not able to come close to the spike damage of other professions. Smugglers, officers, BH's, and even ents do much more spike damage than spies. Since spies have no defenses out of cloak they are often destroyed before they can scratch their target. On top of that, even with stacked strength and quiet steps more moves from the alpha strike miss than hit. Defense stacking is over the top. Con/dodge/parry/ent armor all serve to drag a fight out and mitigate spike damage. All we have is spike damage with little to no sustainable damage. It is not a leap to see which profession was hurt the most by all this defense stacking. Often a spy will unload every last bit of action on an opponent and only do 1k or less of damage. The rising popularity of block suits is making this even more impossible.

Address these and we will have a smile.