Impressive guide, lot of good, sensible things in here.

You're after claiming about three times now the Merc nerfs came from "forum whiners who didn't like their playstyle" mind actually backing that up with a source? As far as I can see our nerfs came from a direct result of the fact HSM was critting on all heat signatures as opposed to just the ones belonging to the player (so it was going to be changed regardless of what the forums said) and their own meta data based on Merc collective average DPS which was apparently too high for their tastes. I've been playing my Arsenal-spec Merc since launch, love the new TM animation (tired of looking like I was taking a dump every time I used it) and am still actively playing my class in both PvE and PvP (just not outside of a premade in PvP). This isn't "your" class and the vast majority of us who are still playing our Arsenal-spec Mercs are quite glad it's been changed so we can focus on actually getting the class properly rebalanced/changed so we're actually properly effective again in both PvE and PvP.

Fair enough mate, as I said those last 5 points are pretty much wherever you want to put them. I like having the extra accuracy for armour pen and the option to either heal myself quickly or toss out off-heals as part of a group.

It's only a 3% increase, personally I don't find it to be worth it, but again it's a personal choice.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#300rcZMIkbRMdRkfzZc.1 I've used this spec since pretty much Day 1 and it's served me very faithfully, though less so since the nerfhammer came thoughtlessly crashing down. Your level 20 spec should look like this so you get Tracer Missile as early as possible given even nerfed it still forms the cornerstone of the Arsenal playstyle. At 21 and 22 you'll want to take Target Tracking because Unload is now our biggest DPS channel. Taking Vent Heat in your 20s is a good idea because you get used to working it into an active part of your rotation, crits procing Terminal Velocity will likewise help with heat management. By 31 your spec should look like this personally I don't bother taking Jet Escape because it's more geared (IMO) towards PvP where you'll be trying to break stuns more regularly and knock enemies away to give yourself breathing room. From there you want to take in order Tracer Lock, Riddle, Pinning Fire, Kolto Vents. At 36-39 take Barrage fully, then Power Overrides and finally our former big closer (but still quite useful) Heatseeker Missile. From 43 to 45 take Hired Muscle for extra crit and after that your last 5 points are pretty much yours to do with as you please. Med Tech is nice if you need to heal yourself in a hurry combined with Thermal Override and Power Surge will let you get off a free heal instantly, which is very handy from time to time in PvE and PvP. Increased Accuracy from Advanced Targeting will help you get over 100% which gives increased Amour Penetration if I remember right. Again this is just my spec, I'm not claiming it's perfect but it's worked well for me. In terms of rotation, Tracer Missile is always our cornerstone ability to be used as often as possible to get the 5 heat signatures up to maintain the armour debuff and % damage reduction with Power Barrier. Unload will help reduce heat issues and dish out a good torrent of DPS over a channel. Heatseeker and Rail Shot should be used when you have at minimum 4 heat signatures to do their maximum damage (RS gets 6% bonus damage from Light 'Em Up per heat sig). Once you have Heatseeker your rough rotation will be 3xTracers, HSM, Rail Shot and Unload, the Tracer again to keep 5 heat signatures. Even though Power Shot crits can end the cooldown on early (thanks to Barrage) it's not particularly viable due to the heat cost and the mediocre damage. Tracer Missile crits will do the same and are more useful (because they'll give you increase Rail Shot damage). Once you get used to working Vent Heat into your rotation you'll get a feel for when you use it appropriately, usually if you want to do a big burst of damage quickly and then work back into your regular rotation. Thermal Override and Power Surge are likewise event-based activations, I tend to use them to get a Fusion Missile or heal off quickly and without the heat cost. Electro-dart is helpful during fights to get you 4 seconds to open with and get up 5 heat signatures quickly (TMx3) or against Elites to give you a bit of breathing room if your health drops and you need to quickly heal yourself. Fusion Missile, Death From Above and Sweeping Blasters are all good to clear tigh-knit groups of trash mobs quickly, though you need to properly position the reticule given the 5m radius. Due to the charge up time of Concussion Missile it's only really useful to stun the strongest mob of a group (typically Elite) before you engage the rest. Given it affects all mob types it's very useful in player groups for picking targets. That's pretty much it, the rotations bit is a bit messy because well, you'll get your own feel for the rotation as you go on and I'm currently not playing so it's hard to remember when what cools down. Hope that helped a bit.

Our damage reduction based off of TM was also nerfed, and our "buff" to HSM has made it weaker than it was before 1.2. DFA which was our only really useful AoE is barely even able to be called an "AoE" any more given it affects only 5 metres radius (which 1m above melee range) and now more often than not actually knocks at least one of the enemy group out of the blast radius when used. But please do continue spewing supercilious nonsense about a class you clearly don't play, when (based on your avatar) you're playing an Inq AC which are some of the easiest, and most effective classes of the game at the moment.

As others have said you need to LOS him so you can let the debuffs wear off, otherwise he's just going to kill you over and over again.

Acquire Delorian. Achieve 88mph. ??? Profit. Joking aside, you can't and I have no idea why people want that ridiculous squatting animation back for our backbone ability.

It matters because your spec and rotation won't be complete until you hit 50, so from a balancing point of view for developers pre-50 does not come into the equation. And frankly, if you're doing "awesom" with an Arsenal-spec Merc in sub-50 PvP that speaks more to the calibre of your opponents than your personal skill. Any class with an interrupt (everyone but another Merc) is able to shut down any of your channel abilities on an 8-second basis. DPS Sorcs, Snipers and their mirrors can not only shut you down from range rendering your two knockbacks worthless but have higher and more efficient DPS rotations. Melee classes can pushback your channels long enough to ensure what little DPS you output is marginal at best, and that is ignoring the standard approach of stealth, stun and burn for a quick kill. In PvP currently the only way for an Arsenal Merc to be effective is to park yourself away from the combat and DPS in, hoping that no other class pays attention to you long enough to do any of the above. Huttball is about the only PvP environment where we specifically have a terrain advantage that lets us do that, which is why obviously you perform best in Huttball (where having the Highest DPS should not be your most immediate concern).

Because BioWare feel we don't need one, which is ridiculous now that they've nerfed our DPS and given us no replacement utility, mobility or defensiveness to make up for it.

But unfortunately it's also true. By the time you're in your 40s doing pre-50 PvP you should be a top player because you are (or should be) better geared, have more abilities and higher level versions of abilities, and better specced towards your particular playstyle. Aside from gearing, these are non-existent differences at 50 and therefore you can more accurately gauge the performance of a class in the hands of average players. It's like people posting one screenshot of them doing extremely well in one PvP match and exclaiming it's par for the class.

God no.

Because it's not a healing class, it's a class which if specced up one of its three talent trees (the other two being PvE DPS and PvP DPS) can become a capable one. No advanced classes outside the Marauder, Sniper and their mirrors are pure archetypes, each of the rest can be played one of two ways. By your logic all Juggernauts, Powertechs and Assassins should be tanks and tanks only and all Operatives, Mercenaries and Sorcerers healers, which means out of the 8 advanced classes only 2 can or should be played DPS. The whole idea of having advanced classes is so people could pick their specialisation along with their talent tree and roll with it. Reread the OP, people are saying that Mercenary DPS (specifically Arsenal spec) has been broken with recent patches, Pyrotech is geared towards PvP and therefore not optimal for serious endgame content (though there are multiple threads claiming Pyro DPS has been nerfed also). Certainly there are still people who can play the class well and make it work to an extent, but as someone else in this subforum said, why should we have to work our backsides off to give out average at best damage when someone rolling a DPS Sorc can faceroll and do a superior job? Gearing isn't even an excuse because there's we've never been a gear-reliant advanced class. Previously an Arsenal-spec Mercenary was a nuking channel turret who if allowed to DPS uninterrupted brought massive firepower to the table to compensate for the fact we have tiny utility (we are the only AC with no interrupt) and quite little in the way of active defences outside one shield and a damage reduction if specced for it. Now we are vaguely effectively only in PvE because our burst damage in PvP has been emaciated and what's left is easily interrupted or just healed through. I can't comment on the Bodyguard Mercenary's healing ability because I don't play one but based on what I've heard from guildies and seen here on the forums of the three talent trees it appears to be the least broken or perhaps most capable of doing what it is intended but there's obviously still a reason most healers are Sorcs.

Given Mythic is part of BioWare's team now, I would not even be remotely surprised if this was the exact cause of our nerfs. Exactly the same thing happened in Warhammer Online where certain classes (Swordmaster for instance) remained utterly broken and mediocre because the devs didn't play them and "Working as intended" was the only reply given to requests to properly rebalance/rework them. Conversely classes that the devs did play (Bright Wizards) were regularly buffed and remained FOTM for years at a time to the point they destroyed any semblance of balance in RvR. I'd love to force every dev to play any "Working as intended" class for two weeks for two hours a day to see how quickly changes would come.

Was hoping they'd remove the day wait between new missions now that the event is close to being closed. Going to miss out on the belt by a matter of hours which is a bit of an annoyance.