Until cross-server happens rating won't mean much as each server will have a different level of PVP player, add to that the win-traders and dodgers.

You must not read the patch notes.

Uh, you can stealth past the bridge in Voidstar (using vanish if you have to). In Huttball only the fire pit will kill you, but you aren't alone in getting pulled/knocked into the fire pits and dying, every class has to deal with it, Ops unfortunately just can't return the favor.

This. The problem is less about starting the match unequal, and more about the warzone shutdown sequence being too long and resetting. Also, the warzones design for Alderaan/Voidstar puts too much focus on the initial 3 minutes of the match, which magnifies the uneven problem. If you waited for everyone to accept and load in before you start a match the queues would be longer than they already are.

I like it.

This is a good list. I would also add: The speed at which they are implementing fixes and new content. The fact that the game/servers were never unplayable for lengths at a time (yes individual users experienced problems, but nothing on the scale that was seen for the majority of MMORPG launches).

It is very easy to balance MMORPGs. Everyone should be the same, all have the same gear (or better yet no gear/stats at all), and everyone has just one skill: Attack, which does a set amount of damage every time. Then everyone can finally be happy with the balance of the game. Of course nobody would play it because it would be utterly boring, but at least it would be balanced, because that is the only important thing. No, the game is not perfectly balanced, but if you think it is so widely unbalanced in a group setting, then you should look at yourself and your group because the problem is with the players and not the classes. Honestly, at least wait to try the 1.2 changes, if they do not address the issues rage, *****, moan all you want.

You are not the only one. Alderaan is decided in the first 3 minutes, and Voidstar needs to be changed or all we will have is a ton of 0-0 matches because it is so easy to defend the doors.

Protection is important, but you should not be equipping yourself for taking damage as the tanking stats of defense/absorb only work on ranged and melee abilities and not tech and force abilities. Tech and Force abilities make up most of the powerful abilities classes will be using (unless your server has a ton of sniper/gunslingers), so defense and absorb are wasted most of the time. You should be gearing for damage and you should work to improve damage as well as protection.

I am curious what spec you run.

With the ammo/heat changes I would rather have the free instant heal than Grav Round/TM.

Are you planning on running hybrid in 1.2?

For me it depends on the class. I think Merc/Comm hybrids give up too much (instant cast free heal and the lead-up crit increase for all heals) to go hybrid. Whereas Sorc and Op give up very situational aoe healing and marginal healing increases to gain both damage and utility.

Expertise is a knob that the developers can use to balance PVP by altering survivability, damage and healing output of players in PVP combat. This knob is more needed in PVP than it is in PVE. Generally, balance issues in PVE are on an encounter by encounter basis, and it is easier to alter specific encounters that might be tuned incorrectly than to alter, for example, all healing classes because they heal for too much in PVP.

This is a faulty premise. You cannot assume that PVP combat at 0 expertise is balanced. First there is Trauma, which is a 30% reduction in healing. Heals are also baseline weaker than dps abilities and scale worse from power and main stat than dps. At 0 expertise healers are at a significant disadvantage, both because of reduced time-to-live of all players and much lower output compared to dps.

Operative gear looks horrid. Good thing we will all be in crit crafted orange gear within the week.

Sure, right now a lot of PTs run Ion, but we are talking 1.2 here. Anyone wanting to utilize PPA will have to run Combustable. AP can run Ion, but loses out on speed and extra heat management for doing so. You don't want to attack Ironfist or ST in a group setting because both will be durable targets with less output than other targets likely available.

Everyone wants to score, but defense (mid control) wins championships (Huttball matches).

AP has passive heat regen, shieldtech's regen relies on shielding attacks, which means that they have to be getting attacked and attacked by abilities that can be shielded and getting lucky on that 50% chance. ST PTs can get Heat Blast, but I think they lose too much PVP utility to do so. So yes, against bad players who attack shieldtech PTs in a group setting heat is less of an issue. But in rated people will quickly ID each PT by their gas cylinder and will not attack a ST PT.

Yes, both sustain dps and burst dps will decrease. I don't think I ever stated that they would not. Obviously the devs felt that PT Pyro was doing too much sustained damage as well, I don't have any sort of logs or numbers for live, so I am not in a position to say whether that is the case or not. However, what I have been arguing this whole time is that the changes are good in terms of raising the skill cap on PT Pyro. The difference between average/good/great PT Pyros is very slim at the moment and gear/luck play more of a role than the player does. Your heat management will be how well you deal with your procs and your CDs. If you get your procs early after the ICD you can utilize heat generating/neutral abilities, if not then yes you will need to use more auto-attacks. You will have to judge how much you are going to press, how far will you fish for those procs based on the CDs available and the situation present. Bad PT Pyros will build too much heat during the ICD, or get heat too high trying to get a proc. You will have to properly utilize your heat management CDs they are there for a reason. You might have to pick up Automated Defenses in addition to Gyroscopic Alignment Jets if heat is such an issue. True, it does not eliminate those famine situations, but it does reduce the chance, and thus the frequency of those famine situations. The offset to the no feast situation is less of a chance at famine. We will just disagree whether that is enough of an offset. Again, Incendiary Missile is probably too expensive now with the changes, especially considering the fact that dots no longer stop caps anymore and Multi-dotting is bad in organized PVP because it will screw up mezs.

That is intentional. You should have to worry about your resources. Again, having to manage resources raises the skill cap of the class and is a good thing. Incendiary Missle is a bit too expensive now, it should be brought closer to Retractable Blade cost. But Pyro should not go back to not caring about heat, that makes the spec easy.

Not sure that would work. Once one team starts getting some kills they will stay at a numbers advantage. This isn't a FPS where players can get multiple kills in quick succession without losing their life. After the initial battle the game would be all but decided because there are no objectives to force the other team to move to different locations.

You have Unload, Flame Thrower, thermal det, incendiary missle if you aren't worried about heat. The additional skill is expending more heat during the time PPA can proc and then reducing that heat during the ICD, and knowing how much to push and how much to reserve. You have more choices to make based on CDs available and current situation than you do now. It will take more skill to maximize your damage than it does now, good use of both vent heat and thermal override will be needed as well. Those suggestions just make it a basic and boring rotation, the changes reduce the feast/famine problems of now without making it a absolute set rotation.

There is no "real" PVP, PVP is player versus player competiton, whether that is deathmatch or objective based. I am not against adding arena/deathmatch, but to say it is the only "true" pvp is just hypocritical.

Except Trauma. Healers have a 30% debuff all the time in PVP combat that dps does not have to deal with. Even with stacking expertise up to 15%, healers are still doing 15% less healing than normal. Heals also scale poorly with main stat/power when compared to dps. Sure, healers favor expertise more because they scale better with it (instead of power etc.). Scaling better is not inherently problematic, it only becomes a problem when you hit the point where the scaling makes the game unbalanced.