This. Plus Obroan gear looks awful, thank god for custom gear (though the cost of changing your look once in a while is ridiculous). ^.^

This. People keep arguing this or that, but fail to see that an instant AoE ability that is among the hardest hitting in game, requiring very little setup, executable every 9-15s, guaranteed to crit, simply doesn't belong in PvP. Not to mention all the utility leap/charge has as rage/focus, a second gap closer usable when rooted, a plethora of snares,...

You mean turret classes like sorcerer?

The denial runs strong in the warrior/knight community. Something like smash has no place in PvP in this game (and probably many others). No AoE attack should ever hit nearly as much as a full single target big hitter, and as others have already pointed out, this is an instant attack on a fairly short cooldown hitting multiple targets likely without any other prominent warning than something leaping to a space near you... What's worse, it's nigh unavoidable, in contrast to most other prominent AoE attacks, which may slow you, but most aren't usually accompanied by a leap root or deal damage instantly. That said, smash isn't the only thing that's out of whack in this game.

Our bane was and is still lack of mobility and utility, lately though it seems to be lack of DPS as well. Sure, if undisturbed arsenal has a bit of burst, but who lets a a mercenary turret and cast? Pyrotech damage took a huge hit though, we have no burst even when aligning our big hitters, and we have no way to keep other ranged classes in hitting distance so if they're in trouble they can just hurry away with no fear of us ever catching them. We're still the slowest class, so catching up to the opponent and scoring a kill is harder than ever when everyone has better speed boosts. Same goes for escaping and resetting the encounter. Electro Dart is somewhat nice but on much too long a cooldown. As for Hydraulic Overrides, they're nice for immunity to slows and knockbacks, but their speed boost is easily countered by other class' speed boosts and gap closers. In short, we're still bottom of the barrel.

I tend to agree. The example "biowareftw" provided doesn't prove much beyond the fact that different classes are different, and any class clobbering an opponent that isn't using defenses or being healed will be able to kill him relatively fast. But that video says nothing of how classes perform as a whole and how they interact with each other, which is where WoW's balance is better than SWTORs. Also, you don't have to worry about animation issues, server and video lag, which result in ridiculous ability delay, rubber-banding, triggering of global cooldown without the skill actually executing and similar nonsense. As much as I would want for the state of SWTOR PvP to be better, until those issues are resolved, it will never be.

It's video lag coupled by server lag, the result of a bad client engine and servers that can't handle the current load.

Back when the assassin/shadow class was designed there was no gear power creep and the burst was nowhere near as insane as nowadays. People lived longer and had time to react in PvP. The abundance of CC and utility that the class has, was meant to give them some survivability against the more "powerhouse/tanky" classes. But since damage is getting more and more out of control and nobody at BioWare seems too concerned about it, it's come to the point where the class can now indeed kill most opponents without them ever having a chance to react. And if BWs track record so far is any indication, we better brace ourselves, things will only get worse further down the line. It's sad to see a game that was initially praised for it's PvP come to this mockery of a combat system. The saddest part is that they do seem genuinely incapable of fixing this mess.

I feel your pain, however since the initial optimizations (think it was around patch 1.2, or maybe a bit earlier), we have unfortunately seen no further improvements. Personally, it only rarely bugs me in PvE, except when I'm healing and things are looking grim. In PvP however, this thing drives me nuts almost as much as rubberbanding over goal line and fire traps in Hutball, or the lag/rubberbanding that can be caused by Scoundrel CC or Master Strike. These things should not happen, but as everything else PvP related, it's not being addressed at all.

Eric, it's not answers we crave, it's fixes to the situation that's been growing worse since patch 1.2. The combat system has been growing worse all the time. Resolve has been adjusted in the exact opposite way the community wanted it to. Time to kill has only gone down which was, again, the opposite of what the PvP community wanted. I don't know who's feedback those changes were based upon, but it probably wasn't ours.

TTK is anything but fine in lower level WZs, being 2-3 shot is simply not acceptable. Some players like to throw the "lowbie pvp doesn't matter" argument around, but that isn't really true. While I do want for for the endgame PvP to be handled properly, lowbie PvP needs some semblance of an engaging PvP combat system as well, and not the "stun-pew-dead" one that is now in place. I think the most acceptable solution here is to tweak expertise to prevent more damage from players, otherwise PvE may be affected negatively. TTK should be at least tripled. And can we have the resolve system looked at again pretty please? We've been asking for it since this new "improved" one was put in place, much to the shock of the PvP community, as it did the exact opposite of what we were expecting.

This is a bug that's been present since release, it's just more prominent when the servers are lagging due to the heavy load lately. In the olden days we used to call this "ability delay", triggering a false GCD is just one of the symptoms.

Like others pointed out, mercs do well in PvE, I didn't feel any class really wouldn't be viable in PvE ever. If you want to PvP though, we're not viable at all atm. I won't go into too much detail, let's just say we' are in dire need of utility and defenses. Our damage is generally fine, but we're too easy to shut down and lack any serious burst in a game where pvp is defined by stun ==> smash/flameburst/backstab/snipe ==> dead.

Mercenaries are currently the worst PvP class, it's a bit better sub-50, but in endgame they get absolutely destroyed by equally skilled/geared players. We're blue in the face from holding our breath since 1.2.

Why did this post fall so deep? Mercenaries are in dire need of utility/defenses. Fix please.

/signed PvP has been getting worse ever since 1.2, and it goes past class imbalance, the stun/zerg fest it's become (despite advertising time to live will get longer past patch 1.2) and the imbalanced matchmaking system they keep running (in hope of hiding that the rated WZ system can not work in a server-based player pool). I've unsubscribed after the first 6 months but then reluctantly decided that I'd give them 3 more months and see where they will take a game that had such huge potential (maybe it still has, though not with the current driver at the wheel). However, they've since failed to address any of the glaring issues with the combat system in general and seem to not even be able to communicate the game's direction to the player base. We do not want to hear how fine and dandy content will be in a game with a horrible combat system. Subscription running out in a month. Thanks for all the fish.

I'm sorry mate, but that's exactly the wrong way to go about proving mercenaries are "okay"-ish. I see the pvp scoreboard misunderstood like that all the time. Those statistics need to be put into proper context. As a player whose main is a mercenary since early access, and without even watching the match, I can guarantee that this player was either completely ignored by the opposing team, or had good enough a team on his side that completely overwhelmed their opponents, giving him ample opportunity to unload. But which class in appropriate gear with an appropriate player behind the controls wouldn't be able to put out ridiculous damage under the same circumstances? On the other hand, as a player that also leveled up a juggernaut, operative and an assassin to level 50 and played them enough to push them past battlemaster gear level (not many WH pieces truth be told, the grind is simply too punishing outside of rated warzones), spent quite some time on sub-50 gunslinger, sage, and sentinel, I can say the mercenary is by far the most difficult class to master and perform with, gravely lacking in the utility department. Damage is really not an indication of pvp viability here, nor did experienced players ever complain about it being too weak.

So basically you're telling him to S.T.F.U. without offering any counterarguments...? I have been playing the class myself since the beginning of the early access period (in addition to leveling a Juggernaut and Assassin to 50, and dabbling in other classes, though none of them at max level yet), and I must say I agree with most of what the poster listed. The damage output of a Pyrotech Mercenary is actually not bad in PvE, but our reliance on cast time abilities gimps it in PvP, unless the enemy is careless and allows you to cast freely. Both Power Shot and Unload are easily shut down via excessive amount of stuns / interrupts / knock-backs / knockdowns / incapacitate effects and other utility this game (which most classes have in abundance). As for a Pyrotech Mercenary, our utility is limited to Electro Dart, Jet Boost and Concussion Missile, which are nothing to write home about. Sure, they do help, but they don't do enough in light of the utility most other classes possess, especially since the dive of health pools and overall damage boost to most classes in patch 1.2, which made most classes all too bursty. Strangely enough, not Operatives or Mercenaries though. Do I manage in PvP? Sure, I'm not about to give up on the class just yet. Would I do better having rolled a Warrior, Inquisitor, Powertech or Sniper at start? You betcha. What about other classes? They have their problems, but none seem as lacking in utility as a Mercenary at present. And in case this hasn't been stressed enough: we're the only class without an interrupt. Looking at you Georg, your explanation didn't convince this Mercenary.