Currently, because of heat management and tracer casting I find my arsenal merc harder to play than my wrath/chain sorc. Sorc consists of force lightning spam (instantly starts doing damage, ticks give you back force power AND it has multiple buffs from talents for crit/damage/knockbacks). You get a wrath proc and hit chain lightning which hits for 3k+ and is AoE to multiple targets (with a decent crit you can do 10k+ damage in that single attack to a team). If chain is down you can crushing darkness, you have deathfield for an AoE attack and affliction for dot spamming. All in all, that's FEWER abilites than I use on my merc, an easier rotation, almost all INSTANT casts and when up against a group of enemies puts out more damage than a merc to boot. Top all of that off with more utility, sprint and a shield and I find mercs need buffs more than nerfs. Therefore, I propose following a similar pattern with our damage. Make tracer missle a spammable, channeled spell that instantly does damage but in smaller chunks over time (similar to unload but with mini-missles). Add a cast time to heat seeker missle but give it some utility (heal debuff? 3 targets instead of 1? finish the cooldown of railshot? I'm not a game designer...) and able to be instantly proced with tracer. Tracer can then be easily adjusted damage-wise up and down and the proc rate of heat seeker as well to adjust our damage if need be. We'd basically be a different flavor of sorc, but maybe this would allow a bit of utility AND would help on interrupts due to instant damage from channels. Footnote: arsenal isn't as good as it was before the surge nerf, crit was the thing to stack because of heat returns and with crit surge was the obvious choice. Now, power for pyro seems like the most bang for your buck but I HATE using rapid shot and DoT ticks for 50% of my damage when we are lacking an interrupt. I find it impossible to burst down most healers as pyro whereas a good combo from arsenal can at least make them run for cover.

I'm a BM on my mercenary with full champ and 4 peices of BM gear (I was BM 3 weeks before the 50 bracket and in over a MONTH of doing dailies I've gotten 4 peices total). On my sorc who is soon to hit 50 I have 1 champion bag already bought and 1k of both comms waiting to be spent. That's 6 bags the SECOND I hit 50. 2 more for dailies and 6 more for weeklies that day as well. So, within 2 hours of hitting 50 I will probably have opened 14 or more champion bags. If I don't get at least 2 peices from that there is no justice and I can then buy something with centurion comms. That's not that bad at all. Even better, I'll probably pick up some T2 gear from raids which is equivalent in damage and stats to champion (in the case of my merc, I actually DO wear PvE gear because the set bonuses are better...go figure, a BM wearing PvE gear because stats and bonuses are better than expertise). And finally, on my merc I am remodding all of my gear with Rakkata mods because of the HUGE stat bonuses on them compared to the crap that comes in them. Therefore, people with PvE gear and crappy PvP gear are better than people with just PvP gear. In short, if there is a disparity in PvP gearage, it's probably the easiest and most managable gap that I've ever had the pleasure of working with. In a week my sorc will be competitive in PvP and in 2 probably over 400 expertise.

I'm more interested in your gear. 1) Do you remod your BM and champion gear using PvE Aim mods to max out stats? 2) Do you think the accuracy on BM gear is actually useful in any way or should that all be changed out for crit/surge (and power eventually)? 3) Do you use two peices of PvE gear for the 2 peice bonus? Basically, I'm a BM arsenal merc as well and have pretty much completely given up on my class. Huttball is full of PTs, Ops, Sorcs and Juggs who jump, sprint, stun and interupt you into oblivion. Not only do I often not even get the chance to do damage (the only thing we're good at) because of knockbacks galore (people can just ignore you with a stun, interupt and knockback) but everyone knows about interupts now and I often have 2+ melee on me 50% of the time (the other 50% I'm running back up from the pit or dead because of PTs gripping you into fire). All the PvP maps don't give a crap about damage, they reward classes who can tank, avoid, manipulate and control others. Juggs, sorcs, ops and PTs are the kings of that. Some people have even stoped inviting mercs to PvP premades because they are pretty much worthless except for damage. I'm one of the few remaining damage mercs on my server, the others went healing or rerolled. The reason I'm asking about gear is because I have more BM gear than you do and yet I never get crits over 5k, most of my tracer missles hit for 1.5k ish except on sorcs and ops. I CAN'T kill any tank because they are rolling with 20k+ HP and it takes me 10+ tracer missles to bring them down solo which exceeds my heat capacity and I end up rapid shotting. In short, I feel like you're fighting scrubs who get blown up wearing greens whereas I face premades 24/7 of 2 jugs and 2 sorc healers who use taunt and protection to be basically immune while completely shutting me down. My only hope is that I'm doing something wrong with gear and maybe can squeak out another 500ish damage on hits, otherwise I'm just going to watch from the pit as a CC immune jug with 20k HP walks through fire then jumps to our goal line while laughing at my 800 point tracer missle hits.

As a battlemaster merc, I feel like a complete waste of space in huttball. Who cares if you can crit a sorc for 3k every few seconds when they just stun you, sprint through the fire and score anyway? Who cares if you can do burst damage when powertechs can grapple people into fires for insta kills? And who cares about tracer spam when a single slow and a pillar/box can completely trivialize an entire AC? As a merc, you are pratically a free kill to any melee and I find myself targeted specifically by PTs, Juggs, Mauraders, and Operatives especially. Even if you somehow manage to get them off of you and bursted down, they have more stuns than you and can just run off leaving you without cooldowns and vulnerable to the next guy. On my server, there are massive numbers of people rerolling as tanks (mostly PTs) because of the crazy utility, still formidable DPS, and stupidly easy method of earning medals (3 from protection can be combined with 2 healing medals from biochem means they walk away with 12+ medals a match). It's not unusual to see premades of 2-3 PTs and a sorc healer running around destroying people. Life griping with the sorc who spams shields and just sprints through the fire to the goal, pyro DPS for the PTs who can grapple kill anyone stupid enough to even get close to the center, and protection for anyone who needs it all equals facerolling wins. In short, I gave up on damage and went healing to PvP on my merc. At least that way I can contribute something to my team besides tickling the tank before getting myself pulled into fire.

First off, just because other classes have problems doesn't mean our issues aren't important. Snipers, Marauders, etc. all have issues just as glaring as ours but they have their own forums, in here we talk about Bounty Hunters. Secondly, the lack of utility a merc BH brings to huttball is saddening. Too many mercs on your team and you lose WORSE than with a PUG because they are so easily countered. Mercs need two things to be worthwhile, highground and no melee beating on them. Put any competent team together and they can completely eliminate both of those resulting in you doing nothing but trying to play catch up. Put 4 Sorcs together on a team and they can dominate the map, they have more stuns, can LOS and DPS on the run, can pull any team member to them and can sprint through fire with a shield. What can we do? Hit them for 3k a few times to drop their shield before they stun us and run past? Ever tried to kill a sorc (or anyone for that matter) that was trying to get away from you? They have 3 times the escape options for our one stun and mobile DPS to boot. Heck, even powertechs are twice as useful as we are in any op. They bring protection, grip, two stuns (one AoE), and can charge across the map plus they do almost completely uninteruptable damage that is almost on par with our own (albeit from a much shorter range). The grip alone is reason enough to bring a PT and a team that runs all the time on my server includes two PTs and two Sorcs, they love to hold the middle and just grip anyone that comes near into fire/acid resulting in an auto kill. Who needs a DPS class when a low cooldown tank ability results in a one shot every time? Thirdly, even our healing spec is very immobile. Healing a running ball carrier is crazy hard without sprint or a shield to allow you time to reposition. Even our AoE heal is difficult to work out and pales in comparison to what a sorc can drop. Bottom line, I'm beginning to think Merc is a PvE class and should just stay out of huttball where the guys with lightsabers can leap around the place winning. At least until we can roll full 8 man groups and find a nice balance of DPS and utility on the team.