The droid is a flashpoint courier on fleet. He gives you the quest to begin the entire CZ quest line.

Yes he is entitled to his opinion. So are people who think the earth is flat, people who think Jesus is speaking to them, people who think heavy metal music comes from the devil, etc, etc .Doesn't mean they aren't delusional.

Every time i see one of these posts i begin to think that mass genocide is not really such a bad thing. The tree of intellect must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of the ignorant and stupid.

When i see a game that offers a lifetime sub for launch i see a company that doesn't believe in their product. Most lifetimes subs cost the same as 3 years of sub time. They are saying we don't expect to be making any more money by the 3 year mark. They are saying we don't expect most to keep playing our game and we need to get as much money in the beginning as possible.

No offense meant by this statement at all, but you have proven with this statement why this concern is warranted. For them to balance the situation in pvp you just described they will destroy all semblance of balance in pve. It always seems to me that whenever a strict pvp player talks about class balance they are pretty much talking about 1v1 balance. 1v1 balance is not possible for both pvp and pve at the same time. Right now pve balance has caused imbalance in pvp, and balancing for pvp will destroy it in pve. This is why they need to balance for pve first, then balance for pvp within warzones and arenas with buffs/debuffs. This is why in beta many players said they needed to make abilities work different in pvp and pve, and it was suggested to have specific pvp treees only usable when in pvp. It would have stomped out this problem from the get go. As the OP said a few posts up this balance situation is going to be a never ending disaster. And i can tell you right now that if i start seeing the massive nerfs and buffs like wow had i will leave this game behind forever. I wont go through it again, and i doubt ill be the only one.

I am in the same boat as you. There are ways they can make balance changes for arena without affecting the rest of the game though. Almost all classes have talents which are pvp only talents. Most of these deal with mobility, protection, slows and stun breaking. These talents can be modified to make certain classes more viable and not hurt the rest of the game. Certain abilities could also be tuned to work differently in pvp or not be usable at all(such as the change to resurrection for arena) Additionally they could use a buff/debuff system within arena only which makes changes to damage, healing and protection capability without affecting the rest of the game as well. There are certain classes right now that are under performing, and these should receive some balance changes to bring them in line on the pve side. Once that is done they can use the 2 things i described above the bring in further balance for pvp, especially arena play. My belief is all balancing for arena should be done in those 2 ways and only those 2 ways. If they follow this approach it won't negatively affect the rest of the game. If they go the route of making massive changes to classes that affect all aspects of play then this will truly be wow 2.0.

They are not going to remove the warzone pass, or the need for it. If they do that then they will have to remove all the passes for fp, ops and space as well, or suffer a storm of ************ whiny players They said specifically removing the restriction for entering, no more cap on warzones per week. Lets examine what the restrictions do now. Only 5 warzones, and because of less warzones less gear. So how do you keep less gear while removing the restriction of only 5 warzones? Cap the coms per week that can be earned! The pass would remove the cap. The flashpoint restrictions do this very thing in a different way, and the pass removes the restriction. The only way they are removing the passes is if they have come up with a way to improve what subs get. If they don't throw in a large number of new sub perks they will loose a bunch of subs and money as they move to preferred. I have posted this very thing in multiple threads about this subject. But in almost all cases they have been ignored. I just sit and watch a bunch of people who apparently have absolutely no critical thinking skills what so ever ***** about it.

Guess i have to say the same thing in every one of these threads. Exact quote: Removing the F2P restriction for entering the Warzones. Entering is the key word. Flashpoints are free to enter, but the rewards are limited. The pass removes the limit. I bet you the warzone pass will become the same thing. They will put a weekly cap on coms. With new gear coming roughly every 6 months they will cap the coms to ensure it will take 4-6 months to fully gear up best in slot without paying anything. And those saying you can just buy the pass off the gtn, what happens when you all drop to ftp and there are not enough passes to go around? Who is gonna subsidize you? The pve crowd? Lol , doubt it.. Even if all the strictly pvp players dropped to ftp you will still have to spend money to gear. You might be able to spend less than a full sub, but don't think you will be able to go full free. These people are running a business, trust me they have looked over the numbers and thought of all this. They will balance with the expectation that more people will come back because they can now play ranked and reg pvp without a sub, but will still have to spend some money to remain competitive.

I'm not saying you couldn't save money, you could. I guess the question becomes how much of a grind do they make it? My guess is pretty big. If you had a weekly com cap of say 300 warzone and 150 ranked how easy would it be to gear then? And how hard would it be to stay competetive? If they did this you can also bet you will see pvp gear updates more often, say every 4 months. They are gonna look at things like that if they do it so they can balance thing out on the money side of things. If they make this change they will try to make sure there is a big incentive every time they do a gear update for people to buy the pass. They are in the business of making money. Main thing is this: Yes you can save money, do a little grinding and trading, and buy some cc to make it a bit easier. If all you do is pvp it isn't a bad idea. And that is the big reason for the ftp system. Pay as much or as little as you want to. Its better to have a customer who only spends $40 bucks a year than to not have that customer at all.

That would help for fp's, lets hope they do it. No more dps queing as tank and pissing off the healer.

As i pointed out in my post they said no restrictions on entering war zones for ftp, not that there wouldn't be any restrictions. They will most likely restrict the rewards like they do with flash points. You will still have to pay, or you will have to grind out the credits to purchase the pass every week. And have fun transferring credits to your alts, becuase you can't. You will have to grind those credits on all 4 toons every week to gear them up, or buy each one a pass to gear. You might be able to save some money and go ftp, but will be required to do a bunch of dailies every week to pvp on 4 toons. The question is are you willing to grind it out so you can. It's a cost vs time thing. Spend the money and just enjoy yourself, or spend time were you could be in a warzone doing daily quests on multiple toons to fund your enjoyment.

I agree that pvp needs more people, and allowing ftp to get more involved is a great way to do it. If you didn't read my post above check it out. I highly doubt the will make it completely unrestricted. I would be surprised if they don't do something similar to what i said.

If you want to check the blog again it says this: Remove the ftp restriction for entering warzones. Again it says entering, but nothing about being completely unrestricted. Currently ftp players can run unlimited flash points, but have restricted rewards. The flash point pass works as a gearing pass. My bet is they will still have the pass but put in a weekly cap on warzone and ranked coms. Thus turning the warzone pass into a gearing pass the same as the fp one. You can choose to grind out your gear very slowly and be far behind the curve, or you buy the pass and get it done as quickly as a sub. Removing the restriction on participation has a lot of potential to bring in some fresh blood and old players who have left the game, especially with the addition of arena. Sub is not diminished in the least since you still get unrestricted access, along with all the other perks which are numerous compared to ftp.

i am going to ask this question again since i seem to have posted it when you went to lunch. I have a very important question about class and balance changes. If you do make changes for classes based on arena play how do you plan to implement these? Are they going to be changes that affect the whole game? Or are you going to balance within the arena itself with some type of buff/debuff system. The reason i ask this is in wow balance changes made specifically for arena severely affected other parts of the game like raids or regular battlegrounds. Some classes were nerfed into the ground and became unusable in raids. I am hoping you will balance this within the arena system itself so it doesn't affect the rest of the game. I see this as one of the major faults in the wow arena system. If classes get balanced as they currently do, with the changes affecting the whole of the game we are going to go through the same balance nightmare that was WoW.

I agree, and having just looked at the blog post again it said removing the ftp restrictions for entering warzones. Nothing in the post said that there wouldn't be any restrictions. I personally think this is something they should do for all the content passes, you have full access but restrictions on rewards. They all become gearing passes

I also doubt the are getting rid of the pass itself. I have been wondering if they are going to make it work like fp's, restrict the rewards by setting up a weekly com cap for warzone and ranked coms. The pass would then become a gearing up pass much like the fp pass. Unlimited play, limited rewards.

I have a very important question about class and balance changes. If you do make changes for classes based on arena play how do you plan to implement these? Are they going to be changes that affect the whole game? Or are you going to balance within the arena itself with some type of buff/debuff system. The reason i ask this is in wow balance changes made specifically for arena severely affected other parts of the game like raids or regular battlegrounds. Some classes were nerfed into the ground and became unusable in raids. I am hoping you will balance this within the arena system itself so it doesn't affect the rest of the game. I see this as one of the major faults in the wow arena system.

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I was only saying aoe taunt changes with stance, not the single target. .Utility is still maintained, and if aoe taunt is needed in an emergency they change stance. All of the situations you described are possible with the single target taunt. Aoe taunt as is right now should switch names to instant death when in a dps stance because thats what it is. If there is a trash pack nearby and a dps presses it they will be dead in 6 seconds.

Thank your comment about focused defense/enraged defense. I showed in an earlier post how this ability without a threat drop combined with blade barrier would equal the same effective healing as harnessed shadows, at certain times even healing more over the course of a fight. I agree this would be to op if it was always accessible in its current form. The threat drop prevents it from happening. I would like to see a real threat drop added to the class, but if it is focused defense needs to be redesigned and have a longer cool down. The dps specs can then spend talent points to improve the ability and lower its cool down, making it a decent cool down for them. I suggested in the jugg forums to have the aoe taunts of all the tanks act as a threat drop in a dps stance for pve, while still maintaining the pvp effect regardless of stance. In pve dps should not be using their aoe taunt unless its an emergency, and they will be switching to a tank stance if they aoe taunt to survive the hits.

This debate has been going on in the jugg forums and i want to shed a little light on it here as well. While i believe it needs to be improved, and jugg/guard need a proper threat drop i want to point out why tanks using it as is would be op if the threat drop was removed, or in this case adding threat to it as you have suggested. I have copied this post from the jugg forums and it is written in jugg terminology. Going to lay out a small math lesson showing potential numbers over a 6 minute fight. Juggernaut with 36,000 HP Assassin with 37,000 HP Juggernaut sonic barrier: effective healing every 12 sec = 1400-1500(will go with 1450). Over 6 minutes with 30 uses= 43,500 Enraged defense: for this experiment we will use 9% as an average. Over 6 minute fight with 8 uses = 25,920 Total = 69,420 Assassin force lightning heal of 8% used roughly every 15 seconds over a 6 minute fight with 24 uses = 71,040 Difference: 71, 040-69,420 = 1,620 If you add in endure pain every other enraged defense with 36000 HP the juggs number goes up by 3888 To have the self healing, lower armor tank only healing 1,620 HP more once an immortal tank gets unrestricted use of enraged defense is is a bad idea. Especially when enrage is on the same 45 second cool down and is largely unneeded now to maintain rage. The use of one Assault gives you the 7 rage necessary to heal that 9% every 45 seconds. Just removing the threat reduction and leaving enraged defense as is will lead to this very outcome. This isn't possible now with the number of taunt switches on the most difficult bosses in the game. The threat dump prevents it from happening. I'm all for giving the class a real threat dump, but enraged defense needs to be redesigned and given a long cool down for immortal if it is done. It is my opinion that if what you suggested was actually implemented that the powertech and sin tanks would be obsolete. There would be no reason to play them when you have a tank with the armor of a powertech and the self healing of an assassin, the best defense % and the best defensive cool downs in the game.

Not bad, i could get behind those question.

I actually suggested both in my post. Accuracy moved to single saber, 3 second reduction to MS(0ld ravager effect) while in shien in place of accuracy and increase plasma brand chance reset to 45%. MS reduction slightly mitigates when bad rng happens and plasma brand increases rng chance.

Going to lay out a small experiment/math lesson showing potential numbers over a 6 minute fight. Juggernaut with 36,000 HP Assassin with 37,000 HP Juggernaut sonic barrier: effective healing every 12 sec = 1400-1500(will go with 1450). Over 6 minutes with 30 uses= 43,500 Enraged defense: for this experiment we will use 9% as an average. Over 6 minute fight with 8 uses = 25,920 Total = 69,420 Assassin force lightning heal of 8% used roughly every 15 seconds over a 6 minute fight with 24 uses = 71,040 Difference 71, 040-6,9420 = 1,620 If you add in endure pain every other enraged defense with 36000 HP the juggs number goes up by 3888 If you don't see a problem with the self healing, lower armor tank only healing 1,620 HP more once a immortal tank gets unrestricted use of enraged defense than you you have no sense at all. Especially when enrage is on the same 45 second cool down and is largely unneeded now to maintain rage. The use of one Assault gives you the 7 rage necessary to heal that 9% every 45 seconds. Just removing the threat reduction and leaving enraged defense as is will lead to this very outcome. P.S. this isn't possible now with the number of taunt switches on the most difficult bosses in the game. The threat dump prevents it from happening. I'm all for giving the class a real threat dump, but enraged defense needs to be redesigned and given a long cool down for immortal if it is done.

I can agree with this, all though i am going to take it a step further: All other classes have their 3% accuracy talent on the bottom row, many of them have it tied into a talent that everyone is going to take anyway. Shadows have the accuracy talent tied in with technique mastery, the talent that improves each of its stances. All of the other AC's can easily take the accuracy talent no matter what their build is, guardian/juggernaut is the only AC that isn't built that way. I believe the 3% accuracy should be tied in with single saber mastery. We can then replace the accuracy talent with a cool down reduction of master strike by 1/2/3 seconds and 2/4/6% alacrity to MS while in shien form, giving it a 27 second cool down and 2.82 channel time. This would mitigate some of the dps loss to bad rng in vigilance and seems like an appropriate power level for a second tier talent. If you combine this with a 45% chance for plasma brand to proc zen strike bad rng becomes much less of an issue.