All the schematics for moddable gear Ive come across so far you get through underworld trading, I have had about 10 schematics proc so far for synthweaving/armormech, I've not seen any item drop or quest reward with "research available" on the RE tooltip so it looks like underworld trading will be where most the designs come from. The devs did say that the new end game items could be RE'd into an orange pattern so they must be different but every other item ive come across in game doesnt RE into any patterns, and the crafted items that do only RE up to purple as far as i can tell, with moddable patterns coming from the mission skills

No, this doesnt happen at all, the items you get that arent crafted items or end game items dont RE into any patterns you just get mats from them, the items that you can learn new patterns from have "research available" in green on the tooltip as you hover over the item with the RE button pressed and none of the items I've come across outside of crafting have "research available"

Well so far the only orange recipe's I've gotten on the PTS has been through UT, however I do seem to get them proc from UT missions more often than befor. The way I understand it the only items that can be RE'd for the orange pattern is the end game sets

I think the merc healer from "cali" compared hps from all three AC's and found mercs and ops were around about the same with sorcs still being a little ahead

I dont see how the changes would be worse for pvp tbh as pvp is going up against a team of other players who have been hit with the exact same class changes as everyone else. All the changes mean in pvp is it will be a little harder to keep people alive without proper teamwork, that doesnt make pvp unbalanced and its not like rated teams arent going to want healers, because a nerfed healer is still far better than no healer at all

You do know these changes have been tested and sorcs are still the srongest healers in the game right now even with all the nerfs and the fact that ops got buffed, they still out heal both ops/scoundrels and mercs/commandos, just saying

I'm leveling a smuggler sawbones specc currently on live, atm they are the worst healers in the game (which is why they are the only healers recieving a slight buff), but leveling is very easy, much easier than leveling any other class ive played, so the nerf to healing is not going to break the game for a solo player at all

No you are correct, I dont have a healer main, my guild does have healers tho and i do keep hearing from them that the content is too easy and the only challenge they have is learning to live without quality of life features like debuff traking, ToT and mouseover healing Tier 1 HM/NM should be tuned for a rakata geared group, thats just the way progression works, its gated by the speed of which items drop in that instance, each peice of gear you get from the first boss improves your changes of beating the next boss and so on, if you can clear the content without the gear that drops from it then there is something wrong with the end game design and content will be cleared too quickly (as was the case with 1.0/1.1) Not much as they arent paying for content they will never see, as there is a version of the content that they can see (story mode) and if they are that desperate to see the exact same content but tuned to be harder, then they have 2 options, they can either learn to play better or wait until they outgear it when the next tier is released But it should require Rakata gear to beat the entire instance where that gear is dropping as the gear drops are there to gate progression, if you are clearing content with a group thats only wearing gear from the tier below then the content is too easy, the only thing you should be clearing while in the lower tier gear is the first boss or 2, the last boss should be tuned so it takes being almost fully decked out in the gear thats been dropping in that instance, thats how progression works

But not every guild should be able to clear HM/NM, its should be difficult content that only the best guilds can clear unless they over gear the content. Normal/story modes should be clearable by everyone HM should be clearable by guilds with good coordination and NM clearable by the best guilds. If you make the content so everyone can clear it then progression becomes meaningless, If the best guilds can still clear KP on NM with the new changes then the changes werent too harsh

Or they could have three levels of content, one level thats easy, one thats a challenge, and one thats a real challenge. ATM all content is too easy and was cleared far too fast, they have now nerfed healing and a lot of the burst dps in the game to make it more in balance, the normal/story mode's will still be clearable by most people as will the HM flashpoints. If you want to clear the HARDER content like HM/NM ops then you will need more skill, how is that a problem?

For me those 2 are the most important, being able to reliably track your own dots/debuffs and being able to track dispellable debuffs on your raid is a must have imho, especially if bioware plan on making operations much harder (which they have said they are). I would love to see them add a way to dissable all buffs from the raid frames so it only shows debuffs and add a countdown timer, like they added for CD's, for your own dots and debuffs

In order to that they would need to create new content thats exclusive to soloers, all they are doing is adding some fluff rewards for content already in the game Also the system is there to encourage grouping up for flashpoints etc, which without a good lfg system is needed, soloing doesnt require any extra encouragement because there is no barrier to entry (like finding a group of players), solo content is something everyone will do anyway even if the reward is only a few credits and xp

It isnt rock vs paper vs scissors, its rock paper and scissors vs rock paper and scissors

Idd, all you need is enough time in order to get the top end gear, I watched towliee get BM live, he was naked dancing on illum occasionally hitting is buff button, that doesnt require any skill at all

Yes because most pvp games dont have some form of ranking or rating system they mostly rely on gear, right? Rankings ladders etc are the staple of pvp progression across genres, gear is finite when it comes to pvp, once its obtained its obtained, rankings last forever because unless you are number 1 there is always something to work towards and if you are number one you have to work to stay there It is purely cosmetic as the exact same stats are availible from pve, you dont have to pvp in order to keep up with the stats at all therefor it isnt pvp gear progression, you will just gain xp and gear while doing wvwvw and it will be the same level and stats as gear and xp you would be getting just questing, so no those who are pvping for longer will have no gear advantage over those of the same level pvping for the first time infact its less pvp gear progression than 1.2 in swtor is offering because at least in 1.2 you have to pvp in order to get the gear, that isnt the case in gw2 at all. And when you say a lot of pvp content, you mean the 4 maps and a opvp zone theyre launching with? Because at the last count swtor has 3 maps with a fourth coming in 1.2 and 1.5 opvp zones, so i dont see that there is all that big a difference tbh besides the fact that gw2 opvp zone might actually run well

No it wont take out progression for pvpers at all, the rating system is a form of progression and for pvp is much better than gear as its easier to balance so your rating will actually mean something Again, no WvWvW will not have its own gear progression at all, the only gear you will obtain in the mists is the same gear you would get while pve'ing, its not its own gear progression at all, someone who only pve's will be able to enter the mists and be justr as geard as someone of the same level that only pvp's

The flaw in that system is that if i dont like to pvp but like to play a healer im screwed for half the tiers of content

But they are making pvp gear much easier to get by removing any requirements on it, all you need is the currency (rated comm's), so it makes pvping as a fresh 50 much easier while still keeping raiders from having a clear stat advantage in pvp

Its no different really, you can still que solo for rated wz's, yes if you end up against a premade you will be at a massive dissadvantage, but thats the case now in non rated if you come up against a 4 man pre-made

If time locks were the only thing preventing you from completing an instance then all instances would be completed week one, time locks prevent you from never hgaving to start from the begining, its the stat progression that prevents you from clearing content week one And pvp is still not gated by stats at all, the stats are only there to prevent pve'ers from having an unfair advantage at 50, at 1-49 it doesnt matter as much because everyone has access to the same level of items, post 50 raiders get better items because thats the way thier content is gated I dont disagree with them normalising stats in instanced pvp, the only reason i can see behind them not is because it wouldnt solve raiders having an unfair advantage in world pvp. The way gw2 is doing it is by having instanced pvp completely seperated from you main toon, and the reason pvp gear is not needed for wvwvw is because there isnt going to be a pve "end game" to create stat inflation, as swtor does have end game progression, there has to be something to prevent either playstyle getting an unfair advantage over the other unless they completely remove every form of opvp

Because without a pvp stat you would be forced to raid in order to be the best at pvp, which wouldnt be good for those that like to only pvp, if you made it so all gear was the same and you could get the high end pve gear from pvp you would negate the gating of pve content and make it so that in order to progress fast pve'er would be forced to pvp, which would be bad for that only like pve

You cant make that argument because pvp isnt balanced or tuned or gated by stats, pve content is gated and tuned through stats, gear upgrades are what prevent pve from being consumed at too fast a rate which is why its called gear progression. PvP isnt in anyway gated by gear stats, PvP gear exist for one reason only and thats to prevent pve players that require upgrades for progression from facerolling pvpers due to an unfair gear advantage

I would argue that improving your rating is a far more meaningfull form of progression from a pvp standpoint

Agreed, I didnt find it any worse than in any other mmo tbh, however I think making the transition to 50+ pvp easier is a good thing on the whole

PvP gear is needed in a game where stats on gear determine how hard you hit, if you didnt then raiders would dominate pvp, if you allowed pvp to be the same as raid gear then people could affectively leap frog content, niether of which is good for the game. The negative this brings is a gap in power between newly dinged 50's and those that have been PvPing for a while, it makes PvP frustrating when you first enter the 50+ bracket, removing the volor req on PvP gear along side adding a starter pvp set in 1.2 will make this pretty much a non issue tho