Does combat last too long?

[Klingers]

This is something that I've thought about quite a bit in the last few months as my playtime's dropped off. I still love the game, and more than anything in the world I want to finish all the class storylines at least once.

But there's a problem: Combat to me seems to have the worst of both an action RPG and a hotkey MMO; namely the long and protracted fights as well as a stack of dfferent abilities you have to chain together and time around global cooldowns.

I admit there's a mindlessness to a game like WoW where you're obliterating mobs in under 15 seconds one after the other, but it's also kind of cathartic. You can have something on in the background, or chat to someone on vent, or whatever. SWTOR's different. You have the same kind of "kill 15 boars" objectives you have in WoW, but the protracted length of the fights and your comparative health means you can't (for lack of a better term) shift gears while you're killing stuff. I find that it kind of frustrates me by calling attention to the fact that I'm doing something repetetive. I can't switch off that part of my brain that cares about that like I can in other games.

Maybe I could articulate this better, but has anyone else felt like this?

[Lemmiwink]

I kill almost anything as fast or faster than I did in WoW on my sorcerer. The relative high hp in SWTOR is somewhat tuned to the current character & Companion system. Basically this means, if you are a tank with a heal companion, you quest slow but fairly safe. If you are a healer with a tank companion it's slow but safe, if you heal or tank with a DPS companion it's very fast with almost no down time.

My madness sorcerer runs with Khem Val and has from the very beginning. They will absolutely obliterate any mob ingame as long as Khem doesn't require a dedicated healer in order to not be killed in 4,32 seconds. I ran into a little difficulties with this pair around Voss and had to buy some gear upgrades and check if Khem was using all his abilities, which he wasn't, corrected all this and just breezed to 50.

[Stormcall]

I like that the fights actually require you to use several abilities and not just button mash. Sure, mobs die much faster in WoW, which makes this a change of pace. If I want to mindless wipe out hordes of enemies, I can fire up D2.

To Lemmiwink above, maybe it's different with your sorc, but for me, even on a DPS character WITH a DPS companion mobs still die far faster in WoW, regardless of what toon I'm playing. Only my sniper+Vector can compare.

[Deleted]

Some of them do. It might just be cos all my mods are only green but I just got to Alderaan on my shadow. Its the 1st time I've done P.Tank and C.Healer but elites take absolutely friggen ages to kill. P.Healer and C.Tank was slow on my sorc but this is even slower and just boring.

[Stormcall]

Some of them do. It might just be cos all my mods are only green but I just got to Alderaan on my shadow. Its the 1st time I've done P.Tank and C.Healer but elites take absolutely friggen ages to kill. P.Healer and C.Tank was slow on my sorc but this is even slower and just boring.

Shadow tanking gets much, much better as you go on. Harnessed Shadows both increases your damage and your healing by a nice amount, and Slow Time is rather nasty as well. The problem is, before you get those talents, it's basically just Double Strike, Project, and Force Breach(and Spinning Strike once you get it), with 2 of those having a CD(and Spinning Strike only usable as a finisher).

It's still not like WoW but it does make things die quite a bit faster and gives you a few more things to do while fighting.

[Ghosty]

Shadow tanking gets much, much better as you go on. Harnessed Shadows both increases your damage and your healing by a nice amount, and Slow Time is rather nasty as well. The problem is, before you get those talents, it's basically just Double Strike, Project, and Force Breach(and Spinning Strike once you get it), with 2 of those having a CD(and Spinning Strike only usable as a finisher).

It's still not like WoW but it does make things die quite a bit faster and gives you a few more things to do while fighting.

I concur with Stormcall, and it's not only a Shadow tank issue. Basically all tanks until they get their 31 pt. talent feel like they are gimped, because you are spending alot of talent points on for talents that enhance your survivability, though your gear for the most part only has dps stats on it. Once you get to past chapter 1 in your story, more defensive stat gear becomes available. Once you get a good defensive stat set of gear you can basically replace your healer companion for a dps companion for most of the mobs besides the elites and the tougher class quests.

I leveled my main, Vanguard tank, from 1-50 as a tank, and it wasn't all that bad, but it did seem slow, although I was the first in my guild to reach 50. All my subsequent characters that can tank, I have leveled to 40 as dps, and then decided whether or not to switch them over to tanking builds. I've found the leveling more fun for me this way, as mobs die very fast as a dps. For my Shadow, I run with Queyzen so he can keep the mobs backs facing me, with my Guardian I'm running with Kira as positioning of the mobs is not an issue, and the Guardian is more sturdy with heavy armor.

[Rellitan]

Shadow tanking gets much, much better as you go on. Harnessed Shadows both increases your damage and your healing by a nice amount, and Slow Time is rather nasty as well.

I have to agree. I've leveled an assassin to 50, and am currently leveling a shadow. The reduced damage is a nice factor, but you definitely start killing fast at later levels - it can be relatively slow until then. I know Force in Balance/Death Field is a nice way to increase your AOE potential until you learn Whirling Blow, but it can take some time to get high enough level to have the points to spread out.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#60...bskbzZZf0foM.1 is a pretty decent high-damage/low-cost/quick regen leveling build for a Kinetics Shadow that doesn't force you to forget your Kinetics rotation too much. Effectively, you'd just be replacing Slow Time with Force in Balance, which will allow you to get a potent AOE attack far earlier than you otherwise would.

At 50, respec full Kinetic and pick up Slow Time. This is what I found to be the most fun and sped things up. YMMV.

P.S. I ran with Talos (healer comp) when I got him - this can be tough to pull off with a DPS companion. Never really tried with a tanking companion.

[Profyrion]

That's the great thing about companions. If combat is too slow, pull out a DPS, or change the combat stance of your current companion. The whole system is super flexible (without spreading itself too thin).

[Derah]

all in the eye of the beholder my friend. I play both a Sniper and an Assassin and I kill stuff real fast. Even on the Assassin which is tank specced. When killing normal and weak mobs I 3 shot them at most, when dealing with strong mobs, about 16 seconds, and for gold mobs, those are the ones that take a while, but they are elites, they're supposed to take a while, and excluding heroic quests, very few mobs are elite.

[Stormcall]

when dealing with strong mobs, about 16 seconds,

Well, for people used to playing WoW(which the OP was comparing the length of combat to), 16 seconds on a single mob is taking a rather long time.

Take the Hyjal or Tol Barad dailies in WoW. My warrior can pretty much pick any mob there, Charge it, then Rend, Mortal Strike, Overpower, Slam or Execute, and move to the next mob. Even if the mob isn't dead after the Slam/Execute(which is very, very rare) and I have to use another move, that's still only ~7.5 seconds, compared to your 16. And it's not any slower killing them on my DK, warlock, shaman, or spriest. Hell, my DK has 2 shot Tol Barad daily mobs before, and those have more health than anything outside of elites/bosses.

So no, in the grand scheme of things, 16 seconds isn't a long time. But compared to a game like WoW, where basically nothing you fight will last longer than 8 seconds, and many won't even last that long...

[Darsithis]

Depends on the fight. In the start of the game as I'd regularly stack up heat and need to cool down first, sure, it seemed long. But now it's pretty quick, and about on par with other games. Just depends on comp. If I find an elite, sure it'll take a while, but overall I mow through most places of equal level with little slowdown.

Now, if the respawn rates could be tweaked...

[Derah]

Well, for people used to playing WoW(which the OP was comparing the length of combat to), 16 seconds on a single mob is taking a rather long time.

Take the Hyjal or Tol Barad dailies in WoW. My warrior can pretty much pick any mob there, Charge it, then Rend, Mortal Strike, Overpower, Slam or Execute, and move to the next mob. Even if the mob isn't dead after the Slam/Execute(which is very, very rare) and I have to use another move, that's still only ~7.5 seconds, compared to your 16. And it's not any slower killing them on my DK, warlock, shaman, or spriest. Hell, my DK has 2 shot Tol Barad daily mobs before, and those have more health than anything outside of elites/bosses.

So no, in the grand scheme of things, 16 seconds isn't a long time. But compared to a game like WoW, where basically nothing you fight will last longer than 8 seconds, and many won't even last that long...

I did said "strong" mobs, AKA the ones with the silver frame around their portrait. Even on wow, when killing elites you don't just 1shot them. I know it takes me at least 11 seconds to kill Problim, sometimes even more. Ditto for the Tol Barad shark (Tank) who takes up to 15 seconds.

For regular mobs it takes much less.

Also, another thing that differenciates this game from wow is that here, every mob is part of a pack. I've yet to find lonely mobs in this game. Except Elites/Champions. But standard mobs, and even strong mobs, are always part of a pack of at least 3. And curiously, most packs, when pulled suddenly get 2 to 3 extra adds that seem to rappel down from somewhere (as players who've tried Dragon Age 2 will have no doubt noticed)

Even so, standard mobs die absurdly fast. And in the case of strong mobs (who as their name implies are above the rabble) 16 seconds is still remarkably fast.

Edit: and this is all at a relatively low level. I'm 34 on my sniper, and 26 on my assassin. Still missing several key skills on both, and needless to say my gear is subpar, specially on the sniper, and even so, I mow mobs with ease.

On taris, when dealing with a 4man pack of mobs all I Do is:

Step 1: use Suppressing Fire (After sending vector and using his aoe)

Step 2: use Suppressing Fire again.

Step 3: finish off with a frag grenade.

all done. And that's for when its 4 mobs, for 3 mobs, usually 2 volleys of suppressing fire is enough.

[rhoark]

I think normal mobs are fine, but silver/strong mobs either need to be reduced in HP or reduced in the frequency you find them. After level 30 it seems almost every pack of mobs includes at least one. It's a serious slog to get through some quest areas, and then they respawn behind you. After I complete the objectives, I just alt-tab if shuttlehearth is on cooldown.

[Stormcall]

I did said "strong" mobs, AKA the ones with the silver frame around their portrait. Even on wow, when killing elites you don't just 1shot them. I know it takes me at least 11 seconds to kill Problim, sometimes even more. Ditto for the Tol Barad shark (Tank) who takes up to 15 seconds.

The thing is, you're not comparing properly. Strong mobs, in TOR, are mobs that have roughly the same health as the player(assuming "average level gear). Standard mobs have about half your life, and weak mobs have about 1/3. In WoW, for places like Tol Barad and the Hyjal dailies, ALL mobs have roughly the same or a little less health than you(again, in average gear, in both games once you start getting geared you'll pull ahead pretty easily), in other words, ALL WoW mobs in those areas are roughly equal to strong mobs in TOR, WoW doesn't really HAVE "standard" or weak" mobs, normally, just strong and elite. The only comparison to the lower mobs is the really low health adds that some mobs spawn(the silithid swarmers in Tanaris for example), or the "pets" that some hunter mobs have(such as some of the trolls in STV), which are usually more like TOR's weak mobs.