Smash got buffed and nerfed at the same time. Smash is now a 12 second cooldown that costs 3 rage no matter what. You used to be able to spec so that it would be a 9 second cooldown that costs 1 rage. The damage has been buffed by 20%, not 30% if you spec into it. Even after these changes, Rage will be inferior to Annihilation and people will only spec Rage to PUG stomp groups with big Smash crits every 12 seconds.

Yeah the fact that you can't unqueue for Huttball is going to hurt the legitimacy of ranking. It's just too class dependent to be taken seriously as competitive, whether BW wants to admit it or not. Huttball should have its own queue befitting an "arena sport" where Force teams can have at each other, otherwise whoever happens to have more of these classes (plus Powertechs) on their team is going to get a free win whenever Huttball comes up.

I don't have a problem with the Ranked Gear only being differently cosmetically with the same stats compared non-Ranked gear. I have a problem with crafted Orange gear being superior to the Ranked Gear for PvP. If BW intends for Ranked Gear to be a prestige item, how are they going to achieve that when everyone who wants to be competitive just rips out the mods and puts them in Orange gear with augment slots? You're telling me BW went through the trouble of designing a new tier of PvP gear just so it can rot in everyone's bank?

DAoC is imagined to be an outdated model by most modern day MMO devs, including the remnants of Mythic themselves. The truth is, building a DAoC system successfully requires more talent and planning to pull off correctly and most devs just don't have the chops anymore. DAoC was a flash in the pan that somehow came out right. The Mythic devs have already shown they are incapable of reproducing that success with WAR so I doubt they have either the desire or ability to pull it off here. I'll be very impressed if GW2 manages to come close to DAoC's RvR system, but it's your best bet today. This game is going to be small group instanced PvP just like early WoW for the foreseeable future due to engine limitations.

Yeah that seems to be the reality of the situation for most MMOs if you care about being competitive. Regardless of the lip service the 'balance devs' give, the popular mainstay classes WILL be powerful enough to compete. At the end of the day it's about the bottom line. WoW had underpowered Druids in Vanilla and now BW has Operatives. These power imbalances usually get flipped around during expansions because the devs like to encourage people to re-roll which equals more time and money spent on subs. I'm sure there's an internal chart at these companies with the figures laid out.

You're missing the point. The only reason to do ranked is for different colored prestige gear. You will be gimping yourself if you wear this gear as it stands now, therefore it is worthless to try for it. So not only does the gear have the same stats as nonranked, you won't be able to show it off anyway if you care about being competitive. The ranked PvP gear should be the best for PvP period. It's totally asinine atm. Edit: So it's a self defeating cycle. The reward for doing well in ranked is different colored gear...which you can't wear if you want to be competitive. Anyone who gets ranked gear is competitive by nature, so it defeats the purpose of getting it if you can't show it off because you won't be as competitive. if you wear it. So basically all the PvP gear BW went through the trouble of designing is going to rot, and anyone who wears it will be rightly called a noob. I doubt that's what they want.

That's hardly the point. Why work for different colored prestige gear in PvP if you gimp yourself by wearing it and are better off ripping the mods out and putting them in crappy orange crafted gear? It's a design failure and I doubt BW has thought about the ramifications.

Annihlatiion spec (the only viable spec atm) was nerfed with the nerf to Phantom, Carnage and Rage were rightfully buffed because nobody specced them, and the class got some nifty quality of life changes and minor buffs overall. The 1 Rage cost was removed from utility skills and Execute can now be used on targets at 30% instead of 20% like other executes. The buffs don't really increase Marauder effectiveness overall since the best spec was nerfed, the other specs have just been brought closer to par. Edit: Also Ravage was made uninterruptable which is mainly a buff to Carnage but benefits all Marauders. It was pretty cheesy that it was able to be interrupted in the first place as a channeled melee skill.

Merc healers are probably the best PvP healers at the moment, so I'm assuming the OP is only talking about Tracer Missile Mercs. Yes, they suck at 1v1. They require group support but as a reward they do tons of burst damage and armor debuffs, at range and with heavy armor. Also, lots of Mercs panic when Tracer gets interrupted and do nothing for 4 seconds.

Interrupts last 4 seconds on one ability and healers have multiple heals. Some classes have 12 second cooldowns on interrupts. Interrupts aren't going to do diddly unless you have 3 people chain interrupting and even then, Commandos can go immune to them. If healing gets anymore effective, game balance is in trouble.

I've never seen a class get pooped on as much as Operatives have so early in an MMO. It's strange to me because they're the least played class or second to least played class in the game (when you add up the mirrors from all classes) but they just keep getting hammered with nerfs. So obviously they aren't "OP" enough to attract rerollers, but somehow the metrics show that they warrant constant nerfs. I also think it's funny that the least impressive looking class compared to all the super powered Jedi and Sith actually IS the least impressive class. I thought BW would try really hard to prove that the Operative is powerful since it has no basis in lore, but instead they seem content to crush it under heel so the Jedi and Sith can have even more players. It strikes me as a pure business move more than anything.

Yeah I guess the numbers will tell all after the patch. I'm pretty sure Assassins will be outranking Operatives in Rated Warzones by a factor of 3 or 4. But don't tell Georg that's a problem because his metrics show Operatives are totally awesome.

These are all frivolous things for high level play. First you admit evasion is inferior to force cloak. A 2 second root (if specced) on a 10 second cooldown with 10m range? Who cares? Armor penetration...and yet burst is still more or less equal. And the stuff about healing is totally irrelevant and wrong. 2 heals will heal you for about 4k health after 5 seconds of casting. Unless you have 6k or so health, that's a far cry from 75%. The misinformation about Operatives on these forums is staggering.

This is gonna be a disaster if BW is doing what I think they're doing. Like watching a trainwreck in progress.

It's been known for a while that Operatives don't stack up compared to Assassins. With the cooldown on Hidden Strike, there is now literally nothing an Operative can do that an Assassin can't do better. Concealment heals are worthless but Assassins free resource, off the GCD taunts are always worthwhile. I predict <1% representation for DPS Operatives in rated.

So wait. What if I actually want to wear the "prestige" PvP gear from rated Warzones? You're telling me I'm going to be gimped stat wise because I would rather wear the gear I earned over some crafted oranges? This is a joke.

Sentinels will be effective, but they definitely won't be "easy" to play in comparison to some of the other classes in this game. Watchman is basically unchanged and still requires lots of micromanagement of DoTs and procs, Combat will still require setting up perfect DPS rotation opportunities, and Focus will be no easier than the Guardian version. This is all in addition to the numerous off the GCD defensive/offensive abilities Sentinels have to manage all while staying in melee range through the numerous roots and snares the game throws at them. It's easy to Charge a target and to your herp derp DPS rotation until something goes wrong. But playing the class optimally is probably the most difficult in game.

Currently Medicine Operatives can't really heal a PvP group solo. Once Kolto Injection gets interrupted they don't have any heal options that can keep someone up through focus fire. Operative healers only work as supplemental healers. They need another healer to pick up the slack when they can't use their main heal, but Operatives have good synergy with the other two healers because of the HoTs and instant heal mechanics.

You can't. The people who claim this are full of it. Against equally geared opponents, the best you can manage is around 50%. Now with Double Shoot First, you can get them to around 20%. If you get the triple Shoot First bug, then you can in fact 100-0 Sorcs without a bubble up. Of course, double Shoot First is going away which was the only thing that made the spec viable in group play since it was the only thing they could do better than Shadows. Everyone seems to be okay with this nerf compared to the others but this is the nerf that kills the Scrapper in competitive play.

A Sentinel/Marauder thinks Georg is doing a great job! Cmon at least try to make it less obvious.

Uh, you wouldn't take one. Assassins do everything they can do better already. After the patch it won't even be a contest because double Hidden Strike was the only thing the class had going for it in PvP.

There is no need for mystery. You can look at all the numbers now because they're available on the test server. It's an overall nerf to sustained DPS.

This. You've articulated the issue well. Sustained damage is being nerfed for some odd reason and the rotation is being made even more awkward with more empty spaces in exchange for the tiniest amount of burst. BW is going to accomplish the opposite of what they want with these changes, which was to boost sustained and lower burst. It's puzzling. Edit: This reminds me of when BW attempted to fix a bug with the Marauder Annihilation tree a while back. They claimed the bug fixes would result in a net buff, but all the math showed it was a nerf to DPS. To my knowledge they never admitted their mistake and I doubt they will here.

My Operative is retired for now if the changes go through. It was already retired for PvE. I don't see why I would bring the Operative to ranked when I can just bring my Marauder. It was debatable before this nerf but now its clear as day. Thank christ I rolled an alt.

Nice.