I think there's a new talent that gives a big (~40%?) healing bonus on the primary target of Recuperative Nanotech for a couple of seconds. Not sure if the bonus is functional since the game is buggy, but maybe that's key to single target burst?

Who cares if it's creative if its RNG and not as fun as huttball

Agreed on 2.x. We still had skill trees and hybrids, and the original Powertech skill trees. Classes had just been given unique abilities in 2.0 but didnt feel cookie cutter or bloated like they were starting to feel in 3.0. Pvp gear was still pretty easy to obtain, and so were augments IIRC. We didn't have so much absurd movement and desync going on.

Sniper/gunslinger is probably the hardest class to play, defensively speaking. All of its defenses are based around positioning. This means that Snipers will pretty much always lose against a ranged class (all else being equal), but will dominate warriors. Operatives live in a special place where because of their stealth and root breaks, they are actually a counter to Snipers. All of this has been true since launch, and as 5.x and 6.x dragged on, all classes were given all tools which watered down their identities. Sniper is very difficult to play in a warzone unless you have good team support.

What is all of this complaining about "damage farming premades?" I don't understand it. It's not about having damage farming premades as teammates, because people are complaining about being farmed by them. It's not about being bored of beating damage farming premades, who always lose because they don't play the objective. The only explanation here is that damage farming premades are actually good at the game, usually win, and make bad players angry.

Has anyone else noticed their laze target stacks sometimes disappearing early but without using Ambush? It looks like Laze Target can be consumed by Takedown and will cause Takedown to critically hit, but that behavior isn't mentioned anywhere. In case it matters, I run Marksman with Targeted Ambush and Lazer Focus

For 10 years, Ive put Crouch and Snipe on the same key; and Take Cover and Ambush use the same key. I still haven't gotten used to using new keybinds.

I get far angrier at bad players who cannot play the objective than I do at griefers who pad damage instead of playing the objective. So, I very much welcome the ability to leave matches without penalty.

None of this makes sense to me. Historically, neither I nor anyone I knew kept augments up to date while leveling, whereas keeping mods/enhancements/etc. up to date was common. Augments were an endgame phenomenon only. It was very hard to obtain an augment slot, it had to be crafted gear only, and a critical craft. Once 1.3 rolled around (had to look that one up, I thought it was 1.2), the kits came out, and you could go directly to MK-6 without starting from 1, if I recall. Aug kits were never *necessary*, tomorrow bioware could make every gear have augment slots by default, and get rid of the MK system and say all slots can hold all augments regardless of the levels involved -- that's how it was pre-1.3. But, aug slots are supposed to be a kind of commodity that costs value -- either having to craft enough of a thing to get a crit, or to pay cost + kit. At best, the only thing that's not necessary is the different MKs, like why have MK-1 and MK-2 kits when a MK-11 can also fit those augments? The answer is that a low level wouldn't want to pay a million credits for a MK-11 kit. I'm not seeing exactly what here is a remnant of a legacy system.

This post mostly applies to PvP in Marksman, but I suppose it applies to the other specs in pvp too. People are saying snipers have lost evasion, but that is not effectively true. Really, we lost evasion to a choice, just like we lost many other abilities to a choice. Basically, you have to choose between hardstun and evasion. And, the choice is obvious. I say that because anyone who is choosing hardstun is doing it wrong. What's more, evasion got buffed because it (or, the mod that makes Countermeasures act like Evasion) resets Covered Escape. Combined with Imperial (I mean Meticulous) Preperation, that's 3 rolls in a row. That's very powerful in pvp, assuming you know how to position. Also, there's been a meta shift-up in how classes are expected to use their tools. Anyone who has pvp'd has probably noticed that although stuns are down, roots are out of control (relatively speaking). Snipers are of course, the most root-heavy ranged in the game. We have 2 cover pulses + short cooldown on leg shot. For maximum kiting we should talent the speed boosts and single target knockback on the channeled move. All this to say that Sniper is cemented as an anti-melee caster that is countered by stealthers and potentially other dot-based casters, which has been Sniper's identity for most of the game's history. It's a general consensus that Fury Marauders are a tad overtuned/fotm. It's unclear if this is just because they are easy to play and we are all adjusting, or if they need nerfing. Either way I would say that Sniper has always been harder to play, and 7.0 is a much needed return to normalcy. For Pve, I doubt the sniper should be taking much damage anyways, and the only long term mitigation move we would have is ballistic shield but what else would you take there for pve anyways

Where do you see that "SWTOR screen?" It is old: Ion Cell is for shield spec and plasma cell is for plasmatech and High energy cell is for tactics. A long time ago, ALL vanguards had all 3 cells, and you could switch between active cells, kind of like a stance. The cells all corresponded to 1 of the 3 disciplines. But, allowing players to switch between cells in combat made the game difficult to balance, and maybe there was a little bit of the game being too hard for new players or something. Anyways, there's nothing you need to do, your vanguard is always in the correct cell at all times.

oh, I didnt realize gunslinger is considered "On the PTS" since i didnt see an announcement. All other styles were announced, and their corresponding feedback threads created: https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=998193. I guess it was just an oversight that they forgot to mention gunslinger was in. I'm surprised they had the foresight to rename XS Freighter. I would say there's no issue then. I agree that Orbital Strike vs Bombing run is not so sniper or gunslinger specific, its more "military origin" vs "neutral origin." From that argument, Vanguard's "Artillery Blitz" is also very military origin specific, and it should be replaced for Hunters and Smugglers. Of course, all of this is far too much work and would make things needlessly complicated. I think the fix is unfortunately just to erase all mentions of the XS freighter from gunslinger. Sorry gunslingers, now you feel the pain of scoundrels -- no more XS Flyby, just a shallow imitation.

Theres a similar thread out there https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=998687 asking for a similar thing: to have abilities based on Origin Story. It may not really be possible, since currently there are no abilities based on Origin Story, and the developers went into the expansion thinking "origin story should not affect abilities" so it might not really be feasible, or it may take way extra work. I think it's a good idea though. In practice, my guess is it would require 2 Gunslinger combat styles - one only available to Hunter/Smugger origins, and one only available to Agent/Trooper origins. And then also 2 Sniper combat styles for a similar reason. In fact, since you said the hunter should have their own ship do the bombing run, it probably couldn't be called "XS Freighter Flyby" -- it would have to be "D5 Mantis Flyby" or something. So that's a 3rd Gunslinger and Sniper Combat style, just to support the hunter origin. It seems you used generic terminology like "Bombing Run" to try to collapse XS Freighter and D5 Mantis into 1 case So there'd be all this extra work and changing slightly different descriptions, and its probably not worth the extra effort.

we used to have an extensive tutorial on when to use CC, interrupts and how to do rotations. It was called leveling but by making the game so easy and the process so short it causes new players to not learn how to play the game

Ah, I was confused. You're talking about the knockback and for a moment there I was thinking of Rocket Out. either way, when i read "Jet Boost" and "Offensive" I immediately knew you were wrong anyway. So this game is weird, and has attached a pitiful amount of damage to some knockback abilities. Absolutely nobody uses jet boost to damage a group of players. Jet boost is a knockback, because all ranged classes have a knockback. So, it is a defensive ability, because it is a kiting tool for melee. If you double down and claim that Jet boost is offensive because it deals more than 0 damage, I will assume you are trolling. Unless you are suggesting the team redesign Jet Boost to be a move that does significant damage, in addition to also having a knockback? (Like how Snipers use Penetrating blasts/series of shots to deal damage, and can talent a knockback which is nice to have) Your take on missile blast also confuses me. Last I checked (and maybe this has changed) the AoE for missile blast is a pitiful joke. Missile blast is "Aoe" for thematic reasons only. Absolutely nobody uses missile blast because there are 3 enemies they want to damage simultaneously. Fusion missile, explosive dart, DFA, and Sweeping gunfire are all normal aoe that deal x damage to multiple targets. Missile Blast deals x damage to a single target, then tickles everyone else with y damage. Are you suggesting the team redesign missile blast to be an aoe that does the same amount of damage to everyone? (Like Frag grenade from smuggler/agent)

Firstly, hard disagree on instants. Ranged classes have to cast in order to balance them against melee, who never have to cast or channel (We dont talk about old ravage or flamethrower). The only classes who get to out-kite melee are 10 meter range classes, which are kind of soft-melee. How would it be fair for you to unload a rotation at 30m range against a melee, *while moving at full movement speed?* Kolto shot shouldn't be merged with anything, because it is good to have a filler heal without a cooldown or heat cost. Really curious how you consider Jet Boost to be an offensive utility. Usually mobility for a ranged class is considered a defensive ability. Replacing it with explosive dart would never happen from a PvP perspective -- explosive dart is crap damage, and is a perfect example of ability bloat based on how your post is laid out. Explosive Dart is mostly another checklist to hit while grinding mob groups of 3-4 standard enemies pre-level-30 in vanilla, before you achieved your core talents. Back in vanilla, your spammable placeable AoE (Sweeping Blasters) was extremely heat inefficient, and very weak. So, you would pop fusion missile, explosive dart, and flamethrower and most standard groups couldn't survive that. If you needed to clean them up, you'd use sweeping gunfire once. Any more and you'd kill your heat. Sweeping Blasters was sort of like Rapid shots but AoE: filler. Fast forward now, and Sweeping Blasters is so powerful it's better than an auto-attack, which is silly to me. So yeah, explosive dart and fusion missile seem like bloat now, because they're no better than Sweeping Gunfire but have a cooldown for some reason. Missile Blast has a similar story: pre 3.0, missile blast was what you call the "Main Ability" of Bounty Hunters. At level 10 you'd become a powertech and replace it with Flame Burst which is more heat efficient; or for mercenary it was replaced by Power shot or even Tracer missile. Missile blast was never to be used except in absolute rare circumstances. Now years later, the devs attempt to make these useless skills relevant by adding silly talents, which is why merc IO merc has some some stuff involving Missile Blast and explosive dart. Instead of adding talents to give these useless abilities a home, they should have just evicted them. You're 100% correct that Priming Shot and Serrated Shot are bloat. The reason they are in the game is because when 2014 rolled around, EA stakeholders wanted an expansion pack added, and when you add an expansion pack you have to add abilities: it's just What You Do. The game was absolutely fine before these extra abilities, but the business called for adding Fresh New Things, so that's what happened. Nevermind that IO is based around burns and not bleeds.

They are pruning some abilities, mostly *talents* because there really are too many talents. On live there are sometimes as many as 3 talents attached to some abilities. Many of those passives that I never took are now attached to the base ability, assuming I take the ability. I'm looking at Jet Charge speed boost and Flash Powder, etc. So they are pruning talents, which I whole-heartedly agree with. They actually pruned evasion/counter measures from both agent combat styles, now its just CM for sniper and evasion for operative, but really its CM + Evasion for both -- that's an example of pruning done correctly. Personally I'm not a big fan of unrelated effects attached to the same button, because it forces me to choose to use a cooldown for one effect or the other, but I suppose that's just another way to reduce survivability (something else I'm all-for) Speaking of reducing survivability, I also agree that DPS classes are tanking a little too much. Solution is obviously to remove defensives. If we increase damage that just fuels the arms race. So sure, removing abilities isn't ability pruning. So sure, BW messaging is mis-using a buzzword. I still agree with the approach they are taking, even though it probably won't be balanced when it launches. your post is mostly just about warriors losing defensives, but if most everyone is losing defensives (I believe Powertechs are keeping all of theirs) its not that warriors will really be uncompetitive. And if they end up being hit the most by the nerf bat I hope they get buffed back up, but current live is just kinda too much. So mostly it's just "7.0 feels bad" and yes, 7.0 feels bad from a certain point of view. Personally, I think the desync feels bad (from too much movement speed) and the fact that I have trouble memorizing every talent in the game, and that it takes so long for me to get used to using a class's tools after awhile of not playing it. There's just a few too many tools imo.

How do you manage to use different utilities in different pvp maps? I thought that respeccing utilities wasn't allowed in a pvp match, or even in pvp queue? How do you know when you're about to play a huttball? Changing tacticals is allowed, but only before the match actually begins.

really confused in this thread why people speak as if AP PTs have to choose between grapple and jet charge... I know there are bugs where skills are being granted when they are not intending to be (for example, I can have both Searing Wave and the Channeled Version, which is an error)... But the descriptions of AP PT and Pyro PT imply that grapple is baseline for AP PTs. So the only thing you theoretically are losing is Jet Charge. Thing is, how many of us actually use (on live) Second Contract, or whatever the other one is (Reel)? Doing either of that gimps your damage. On top of that, how many of us take Battering ram? (That's 2 Jet Boosts). So... to clarify, if you're like me, who never uses Battering Ram or Second Contract, then: On live I get 1 charge and 1 pull On PTS I get 2 charges and 1 pull Even *if* you do take battering ram (very common) then you're still no worse off. And if you take Second Contract... then it seems you're about to get a huge damage buff in the form of Power Lode, which appears to be baseline on the PTS. Or am I missing something?

What makes you say PTs will be an even easier kill than before? What defensive ability have PT's lost? Haven't all classes lost defensives? I think sentinels and juggs are gonna be far easier to kill than on live... relatively speaking, PT's are becoming more tanky, no?

As it is now, all classes have the same tools: melees all have leaps, some sort of reflective damage, a hard mitigation cooldown (except PTs maybe), a dotspread spec, a burst spec, etc. All classes have root breaks/immunities, and speed boosts. No doubt to make it easier for BW to balance, create cookie cutter talents, tacticals and set bonuses. The engine cannot handle 16 players in a warzone using all of these speed boosts -- it is rare that anyone actually moves at 100% (or 115%) movement speed. There is always a speed boost active on someone, which feels really bad to play. There is little point in rooting someone when everyone has multiple root breaks and escapes. It does not feel impactful to whittle away at 3 layers of defensive cooldowns, making fights drag on. All classes (Except PT I think?) have some reactive hard mitigation cooldown added at some point, meaning you cannot swiftly punish poor positioning and players who don't properly use their defenses proactively. This lengthens TTK. PvP at 1.x and 2.x felt a lot more impactful because classes had different identities and different tools. Reflect was a unique to the Guardian, who also had a multitude of leaps. Snipers were a low-mobility turret which could easily destroy and root vulnerable melee. No counterplay is bad, but too much counterplay is almost as bad. Fact is, if all you do is add power and never regulate it, you *will* get power creep. The only alternative explanation is "there is never too much, and power creep is not real."

Slows are not combined additively or multiplicatively, they are combined using a "winner take all" which just means if you put 10 50% slows on someone, they are slowed by 50%. If they are then affected by a 75% slow then now they are slowed by 75%. Force Crush is noteworthy because the last second or so is a 90% slow, which is so slow it might as well be a root. Force Charge does not slow, but it does immobilize. Of course, if you root a slowed target, then they can't move. So any target can have multiple slows and roots on it but only the strongest effect happens. Speed boosts for a player also use the same system. For taunts, the damage reduction due to taunting does not stack (I have not tested it but it would be silly if it did). However, if you're taunted by 2 different players, then you'll deal 70% damage to all targets, including to both of the players who taunted you. Trauma almost certainly does not stack at all, if I had to guess.

Actually, PT's are in wonderful shape (PVP) Losing CC doesn't matter PT changes are not happening in a vacuum. All the classes (except guardian?) are losing their hardstun. I actually think it'll be good for pvp, since as we know there's too much CC anyways for PvP nowadays. Guardians will be returning as the Control Kings they were at launch, which is fine. Losing Mobility Doesn't Matter How many of us actually use Second Contract? On live, it gimps your damage. Is nobody grateful for baseline battering ram? On live, battering ram gimps your defense/hydraulics. I understand DPS losing 75% Overdrive, because that was insanely overpowered IMO anyways. Again, we need to consider this in context of all classes, where PTs will still have good mobility. PTs received extra mitigation CDs, other classes lost theirs Operatives lost revitalizers (except lethality apparently) Jedi Knights. Snipers lost ballistic shield Mercs losing half of their heals/mitigation Meanwhile, Pyro and AP did not lose any mitigation. In fact, both DPS specs received extra dcd opportunities. No other classes received extra DCD talents, as far as I know. After seeing what they did to warriors, I was expecting to lose Power Yield/Energy Shield/Kolto. Are you not grateful PTs are the only class to retain all mitigation as on live? 7.0 seems to want to move PTs from being glass cannons to being slow cannons. This is understandable but I can see why some players dont like it, because it does feel like a nerf mobility-wise. Stealth Scan sounds fun again On live it is only useful to counter vanishes. Maybe I just havent been playing as much in the last 5 years, but I dont use stealth scan as much as I used to. I think its because the stealth classes are not relying on stealth so much because of all the reflects, hard mitigation, and extra mobility. With all classes being tuned down, stealth should become more of a factor, and so I see myself using stealth scan instead of the extra dcd talents. With the extra long duration (which has been suggested on the forums for years) we probably become mandatory for voidstar defense. Channeled Flamethrower Really happy to see this back in the game, just wish pyrotech had access to one as well. Thermal Sensor Override Heat management is strictly worse now. Making 1 "oh ****" button for all concerns caters to bad players. It's like how Snipers have Evasion + Speed boost on one button, which i dont like either.

It's great to see Active Stealth finally work! Is it considered a bug that Revealing Weakness doesn't trigger it? Backstab should act "As if you attacked from stealth" after volatile substance. It triggers Jarring Strike knockdown, for example, so the precedent is not only "from-stealth" damage + gain a TA.

Actually, Revitalizers was flat-out removed and was responsible for a lot of operative's tankiness, so you're not exactly off-base.