Good one Maybe you should also add the following: Get the attention! Post a link to your thread in about every single post you make on the forum - to be sure that YOUR thread is going to get the attention it deserves. If and incase it really should get attention make sure that everyone knows right away from the beginning that those who do less damage than you are noobs and those who have better gear and tactics than you got no life!

Not sure what kind of shadows you are playing with but I can play in a 4 or 5 vs 2 (other person being a healer) and live for a loooong time. The amount of incredibly stupid people out there is staggering, especially if you watch them in PvP. A lot depends on correct timing of the abilities, cooldowns and kiting - while knowing where your healer is. The thing, which makes Marauders / Sents so vital in PvP, is the fact that they can mess up healers to an incredible degree. Otherwise - it's just another class.

I can guarantee pretty much that Donnie does have a good load of dmg - he certainly does not take an eternity to kill someone (only Marauder that gives me trouble in a 1 on 1 against my shadow). The thing that I can also guarantee though is that he is absolutely killable. It's just that simple: going against a good premade with voicecoms. skill and knowledge about strategy with the people they had on their team (I know a few of the names) is a doomed action. Not to mention: If they are trying to go for one player with a tunnel view - it is incredibly easy to protect said player - and it allows him to keep smacking people without a break.

Hello there, from someone on the same server: Stop whining about Donnie. If you don't know how to CC his healers / cc him and kill the healers - than it's your own fault. I'd say when we are fighting with him it is pretty equal and yes - you can even 1 on 1 him. The dangerous thing is letting him do his thing, just closing your eyes and praying that the big bad man won't hit you anymore . And while we didn't fight Donnie in this warzone - I'd say it gives you a figure about "teamwork": http://i49.tinypic.com/e5o76a.jpg

Agreed on the specc - disagree on the armor. Just get full dps sets for PvP. Anything else is a waste in my opinion. Oh and don't use a shield generator but a focus in PvP. The Shield generator only helps with white damage - and you take yellow damage almost all the time -except maybe when facing against a large group of snipers The fact that ranged classes are better for PvP DPS... I think it depends on the map. On huttball I agree to 100% - on voidstar I disagree. there are way too many opportunities to drag someone behind a pillar or otherwise kite them around the obstacles while being viable, because most of the ranged classes do have a "cast time" (charge up time / activation time - whatever you wanna call it) whilch can be abused

It depends. If the person trying it dies in a matter of 10 seconds - it's laughable and ridiculous. However if the person manages to keep 3+ persons busy for over 30 seconds - it's impressive. Not to mention it gives others a chance to cap something else while you keep people tied up. Another question is who engages whom. If a healer and me guard a turret and it takes a total fo 5 people and 50+ seconds to kill us than you are allowed to laugh at the 5 people - especially if you kill 2 of them while fighting

Hello everyone! Thought I'd contribute a bit aswell. First of all - the math you posted isn't off. You're right. But here's the pincher. While there are alot of Ilummasters... pardon... Battlemasters, not everyone of them had the BM gear and alot of people were still running around in alot of champion gear etc. Problem is that the gap between champion gear and BM gear has been widened - by about 10% iirc (though I could be wrong, seeing that I am posting from my laptop and can't double check). Now they COULD in theory buy recruit gear with more expertise - but than again they'd lose set-boni, endurance + primay stat and also a bit of secondary stats to expertise. Thus there is the feeling of dieing quicker for them. While my project hits for about the same dmg as before on people with equal gear to me (playing a kin shad in dps gear atm) I can crit up to 4.8-5k on targets with outdated gear. Thus there is the feeling of an increased "speed". To those who complain about a too long (or too short) time to kill... try playing against a good geared and skilled scoundrel healer + tank combo who both know what they are doing. Record for me so far: Stopping 4 people together with a scoundrel healer for 2 minutes and 18 seconds. Than the last of the 4 died.

Agreed. It took me a few games to find a lethality specc that I like in PvP but - it's fine if you go that way. You eliminate your worst enemy: Cover. And bugs related to cover. Of course cover is still beneficial but you gain ALOT mobility - can use your best abilities while out of cover and it plays way smoother than marksman where you have to deal with all the cover crap.

I am quite happy with the community and the people on the opposite side (Empire) in warzones at least. Would hate it if I'd have to miss Cupcakes and the lot and smacking them / getting smacked - depending on the group / luck. Friendly rivalry can keep thins going ^^. However I can also see the problem of "low population" servers (or servers with extremely bad faction balance). Throw servers together imo and bundle the ressources to guarantee fun, a good community and enough people to keep PvP / PvE going without too many problems.

The problem is the "dps race". It often makes more sense to have a dps person "offtank" for a short while til the debuff wears off and switch back to dps to maximize out on dps and succesfully complete an encounter than have a second tank with way worse dps be in his technique all the time. The boss the poster above named is one which forces you to switch between tanks - it isn't about the tank being dead. And I have to agree - skillfull "stance dancing", protecting your healer in PvP with guard if he was taking a beating because the other tank was miles away and didn't find his guard button was nice aswell. All in all - rather give us a cast time on our stance switch than make it cost 100 force. Heck - even make it interruptable. But ruining a fundamental class skill like that sucks. Badly.

@ Sathid: Many people don't complain about the content. They (myself included) complain about OBVIOUS BUGS that shouldn't have been there. Which were known since the beta. They complain about the bad job regarding the community management and the insulting attitude of bioware towards the players. Telling people with high end gaming rigs to turn of the shadows because their system can't handle it and the PC is a "highly complicated machine" while people in the playerbase are trying to modify files, fixing DX themselves to get the game running a wee bit smoother is like pouring oil into a fire. The problem with end-game content was visible the moment Bioware talked about their plans for the game and their focus on story. With a bit of logic anyone was able to figure out that voiceovers + recordings = slower release of endgame content. However that the endgame content is / was buggy is hell is what pissed people off. And while you are of course right that modern MMOs seem to include the inability of players regarding teamwork, reaction times etc. (in the bad meaning of the term "casual") - is it too much to ask for a challenge? A half-ways balanced PvP or if they can't manage that a "rock-paper-scissor" system? The only thing that comes to mind when it comes to those problem is "failure to deliver a smooth gaming experience and quick solution to urgent problems" from the side of Bioware.

The problem with SWTOR is that the combat system is not really new. The thing that changed are the animations. And not to a degree where I think "omg it looks awesome" but after the 87'th clairvoyant strike / double strike you get tired of that animation aswell (not to mention the boring force breach...). That is one of the reasons why Bioware is getting flamed. The thing that annoys me though is the extremely bad community management, bad support, BW not fixing the low fps drops in Warzones / Ilum, claiming they fix bugs yet don't, extra downtime not improving anything, incredibly delay when reacting to the Ilum disaster, faction imbalance due to animations, no-brainers in patches and so on. The list is pretty long and with each dev-post or community manager post you read you want to fire them and wonder if they have ever been professional about their work. It reads more like a bad PR joke than something productive (I point at the Low FPS / performance issue post and the "bug triage" blog). Why am I still paying? Because I'll give the game 3 months time to fix it's issues. Some things take time. If by than BW is still sitting on their arse and not doing anything - it's goodbye.

In my opinion it would make more sense (as has been suggested several times) to turn the expertise stat into a PvE version that only applies in flashpoints / hardmodes / operations / hm ops / nm ops. The advantage would be that the NPCs don't complain about being smacked harder, the raiders (hate that term) will keep their edge in PvE while people who are practiced in PvP get to smack people going into PvP with PvE gear - and leaving them without an excuse of "HE HAD RESILIENCE!111!". Skill > Gear in PvP (in my little ideal world) - and equalizing gear in PvP helps greatly with that.

I think dual specc is not a neccassity but a nice perk. Not due to PvP and PvE but more for the "social" aspect of the game. I am playing in a rather small guild of friends where we have to be flexible and respec alot as even one person changing in the raid setup can throw off the balance. The thing is: If you want to help friends, especially on classes that can fill 2 roles - a dualspecc would help. It usually takes about 2-3 days for me to max out on the respecc cost for helping friends with hardmodes alone - that is respeccing between PvE Tanking / Dps. PvP NOT INCLUDED! Especially on low populated servers dual specc would help with class imbalance so all in all it'd contribute to the greater good.

Expertise - can go that way ---->. Let's face it, it does only 2 things: 1) Reduce the need for skill and makes it "hell" for new PvP players which we urgently need 2) Boost the healers to oblivion. Now this is to those who haven't realised it yet. Expertise has the problem of boosting 3 (yes 3) stats. A) Damage Done B) Damage Reduction C) HEALING DONE Now the problem is that in theory A and B will always gain the net value of 0. If I dish out 10% more damage and player B takes 10% less damage - it is equal. Problem is that the healing tops out over that net value so in the end the only one who profits is a healer. In my opinion the Expertise can be thrown out the window, the suggestion of giving "raiding" gear a stat that applies in raid instances is way smoother, seeing that Mr. random boss is not going to complain, while you can actually try to come up with nice gear combinations for PvP.

Sadly enough though for you - I am not losing that much, infact I got the feeling that I win most warzones with the premade I am going with. I am just making the arguement that it is relatively easy to save up on the gear. And - given that I can't log on atm to check it - even if it holds that they are unique, that still leaves enough boxes in that week for BM gear + 1000 commendations (warzone + merc) to get quite a bit of gear.

Playing on Frostclaw - we were in a raid of ~24-25 people and were outnumbered 1:3 - at peak times it felt more like 1:4.

You are having a serious misconception here. You can always "farm" the gear for battlemaster. You can just start accepting the battlemaster instead of the champion "bags" once you believe yourself to have enough champion gear. And than there is still the stuff you can buy from the warzone + merc commendations. And alot of people I know capped out on those. So basicly you can stock up on the things you need way before you hit valor level 60. Result: Quick gain of BM gear. Maybe it is due to me playing EVE before. But one thing I learned is that you should never underestimate the patience of people while camping / if there is something to be gained. Just sign up for warzones - enjoy the Ilum buff and farm Republic players. The main problem was that even if I quit - you couldn't get out of the base before the "fix" (killed on spawn). As for the people that say they "sneaked" out of the base... that works as long as you don't have a ****ton of people that spam both entrances with AoE / Anti stealth or being killed on spawn.

Why not just allow us republic players to bring every single one of our companions with us to Ilum That might even the odds - slightly. On a more serious note: What did you think? It is first of all biowares fault for signing of the patches (both the primary one and the "fix" *cough*) and secondary the Empires. If people know that they are nothing more than valor on 2 legs getting zerged (and it is even worse for melees, trust me), they will boycott it, quit the game possibly or just wait for a fix while sitting out on Ilum. Easy fixes like e.g. reducing valor if you are in certain party sizes and if more people hit 1 target aren't apperantly within biowares scope of reason. So after implementing a no brainer of a patch, not having reason (i.e. not being reasonable) for freezing the server immediatly, not doing a rollback on the exploiters and making the effort of everyone who reached valor rank 60 the normal way look like a joke (empire and republic are hit by that alike) - Bioware shouldn't be puzzled about Republic players not joining on Ilum anymore.

That was basicly my point aswell. As a republic player I feel that those of the republic side, aswell as those of the empire side who abused the system should feel the "flame" (i.e. valor loss), while those who stayed "honorable" (i.e. not abusing the system) should be exempted from said flame. I don't blame the empire. You want PvP, you got long queues. I can all too well understand the urge to PvP and the "bliss" of world PvP without waiting. The one I am blaming (and by rollback I meant a rollback on valor gained by exploiters!) is bioware for not doing a rollback to fix the problem / freezing the servers immediatly. What pisses me off however are comments in form of "log out for 30 minutes, go on an alt" "Alt+F4" etc. Because that is not functional as players will keep entering the area, and - let's face it: You feel cheated. You pay for a service. You pay for entertainment. And if you are being told to log out it is similar to being thrown out of the theatre after buying a first class seat because there weren't enough chairs and a large group of people arrived. The large group isn't to blame - the organizer is, for *********** up. But if people from said group tell you "but you can go watch the muppet show over there while we have high quality fun over here" - you will rage.

Do I have to point out the irony of your first comment or do you feel it yourself? I am keeping things constructive by stating plain facts. And no - alt f4 is not a solution my friend, at least not if people have a real life, you got a certain timeframe to clear something and you feel like playing something specific (operation etc.) with other friends who have a real life / are working and don't have all eternity. And PS: 30 minutes? I am not quite sure but I think that Ilum was camped for hours. Hours my friend. 30 Minutes help you as much as a "get better soon" letter when you are down with a terminal disease.

I think you are being funny here my friend. Actually - you gave me the laugh I needed this morning to make it through this day. Seeing that most of the republic people did NOT choose to stay there but were FORCED to stay there. Not by their quest - we would have screwed that one over long time ago. No. I am talking about the fact tha you kept dieing at the respawn point, could not get away and - incase you are in a position like me where you are the primary tank in the guild - you just don't have the option to say "gonna log my alt for the operation". Less ignorance helps to understand the world. Now they fixed that but let me continue. After being FORCED to stay somewhere we are now forced to play in warzones (at least if we not only want to do our dailies but enjoy pvp in general) where people are running around in gear they definitly didn't acquire by doing warzones / Ilum the "normal" way. At least not if suddenly 75%+ of the people have had a stat increase by around 3k hp and are all of a sudden donning battlemaster armor. Makes one think doesn't it? And to make it worse: While at lv. 1-49 expertise doesn't mean ****, you end up in a warzone with freshly dinged 50s who can do nothing against those who used the exploit on Wednesday. I talked to a few people I know that made battlemaster, on the republic aswell as on the empire side and guess what. They were either *********** pissed, are boycotting Ilum or have actually cancelled their subscription. To fix the "The republic has given up" problem: A) Rollback on all abnormal valor gained on Ilum B) Fixing Ilum / PvP properly (don't care if the servers are down for more than a day or 2) C) Re-imburse those who feel side effects (incase Bioware is really even so incredibly stupid and is not able to only rollback on the valor gained, re-imburse those who lose something besides valor / PvP gear, that they gained legitimately)

Honestly though: Alot of people from my guild (I am playing republic) are boycotting Ilum and quite a few even PvP in general at the moment. Seeing that the average hp of the people between tuesday and thirsday went up by ~2-3k without buffs you can not seriously tell me that the Ilum thing was not abused to death by the empire. Waiting for rollback - or we will continue to let the empire run around a frozen wasteland with no one in it.

4 Stars **** from me. I think that a rollback is adviced incase they don't come up with a very, very very good fix. And not just a fix for valor (which is the smallest problem) but rather a fix for A) Melee classes B) Faction balance C) Getting a clue on what such a retarded patch does to the server. Honestly - I feel like 99% of the content of this patch has been a no brainer. If I would produce such crap during my studies - I could kiss the course / seminar / project goodbye and prepare for a long speech by my supervisor. Here at Bioware however it seems like you get payed for it. And to adress this: We do not expect a perfect game. However we expect common sense, logic and the ability to read what was being said during testing. If you just glance over the population on the servers you would think it more than obvious that you'd be in deep **** if you roll out a patch like this. Well - I just learned that there is truly no limit to shortsightedness.

Now I am a person that isn't much for the math part - I usually play what feels right and don't go by the 0.03% difference in power. TO make it simple: My current specc looks like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601rI0skrskbsZZf0cz.1. The 3 points in mental fortitude sometimes shift towards 2 points in elusiveness and 2 points in psychokinesis instead of just 1 in there. I pretty much found it to be a good allround specc for PvP aswell as PvE without forcing me to respecc between those 2 occasions, as I am often throwing in a hardmode or 2 between warzones - or a few warzones before / after an operation.