This just goes to show that a Bolster system that tries to adjust for every gear type/level will always have exploit holes in it. By this time the Bolster code is probably a spaghetti-zed lump that even the designer can not fully comprehend. They should toss it and make avaiable pvp gear equal to pve gear. Or convert all pve gear to be equal to Obroan -3 expertise while in a wz. Simple wins. Simple can not be exploited. Or they could continue with the Bolster spaghetti code. Yeah, that's the ticket....

Because you can't keep track of it? You can't even come up with a reason for your position. The reality is that adding capabilities that trigger only some of the time still makes the class stronger. It is true that only the better players will be able to make full use of such capabilities, but the class does not become worse for weaker players. Respecc'ing for different situations is not an option for pvp. And as I previously stated pve is not the problem here. Arsenal is actually pretty good in most pvp 1v1 isolation situations. It was even prior to 2.7, and is better now. But where it is severely lacking is in group fights. It has lower raw output than a sorc/sage and yet has lower survivability when focused upon than does the sage. That is not a good combination.

Merc is fine for pve. Arsenal is not very good, but no one uses that spec for pve anyway. It's pvp that is the issue. Because neither Merc dps tree is very good for pvp. And let's be honest here. It (they) never will be. The problem with the Merc dps trees is that they are too easy for low skill players to play. A low skill player on a Merc dps will easily outperform a low skill player on a melee dps. And if you simply buff the abilities on the Merc trees, that disparity will only grow larger. For two full years since this game launched that trait dominated the pvp class balance landscape as far as Mercs go. It's not all that different now. What needs to happen is for Merc dps to become significantly harder for low skill players to play. Then you can outright add traits to Merc abilities that will make a difference in high level pvp play. But none of the Merc buffs we see in 2.7 go in that direction. Indeed they all make the class easier for low skill players to deal with. Remove RNG to proc Barrage? Yup. Flat decrease in Power Surge? Yup. What they should have done is introduce more chained abilities for Mercs. For example, for Pyros - JetBoost snares target to 45% for 4 sec IF they already have two DoTs on them. Or for all Merc - Kolto Missile gives a 10% chance per ally healed to make your next RapidScan cast instantly if used in the next 5 sec. The only way you are going to get big buffs is if those buffs are not low hanging fruit. All of these 2.7 buffs are low hanging fruit that are easily accessible by low skill players. That is the kiss of death. It has always been this way for Merc dps.

Why would the Jugg use Force Crush right away? That is a really bad Jugg.....

They also nerfed total team dps output though, since almost every 8 man team had a rage/focus toon. So it is not clear whether in net the attack or the defense benefits more in 2.7. What is true is that in most of the 2.0 era, defense has dominated. Less so in arenas, but in 8 man warzones, the defense was so dominant, that all the maps were broken. Alderaan and Novare devolved into 25 minute battles where no one could take mid. Anytime two good teams met in Voidstar, a 0-0 score was predetermined. Huttball was only about who could macro button grab the ball at mid since you could never kill a ball carrier. Increasing the stun/mezz/root resistance that resolve offers will clearly help the defense and hurt the offense. It's not clear to me that this game is at the stage where needs to be done.

This is undoubtably a nerf for those concealment operatives that always seek out 1v1 attacks. But the damage buff and KB removal is actually a net BUFF for operatives that work with another stealther. An operative working with an assassin now does more burst and still knocks the target down. Operatives just need to get out of the mindset of being a lone wolf.

Until someone finds a new loophole. Which WILL happen. Even back before the 193 exploit or the blue 46 exploit or the purple crafted explot, people configured certain combinations of weapon gear so that their output was higher at the expense of dr. For many dps toons it was worth it. And now BW is raising the effectiveness of endgame pve gear in pvp. There will be plenty of combinations of pve gear that will be better than Berserker.

I don't have a problem with pvp gear being irrelevant. But by the same token, why is BW gating access to pve content with gear? I know a lot of pvp centric people who would like to do pve. But they can't. How is that fair?

You'd think. But stranger things have happened....

To be fair, I honestly don't understand why BW has decided to restrict access to top tier pve content while they do not restrict access to top tier pvp content. From a business decision standpoint I see why BW wants people to be able to access pvp content. It increases the amount of endgame content which is good for retaining players. But by the same token, there are plenty of pvp centric players who can not access the top pve content and have unsubbed and moved to preferred status. How is that good for business?

They play pvp, but not nearly as much as the hardcore pvp community. Thus their understanding of the key issues is....well it is less than optimal.

The problem is that vote kick doesn't help the team voting. It just hurts them even more. Fundamentally I simply disagree with the BW policy that encourages everyone to do pvp but places severe gear restrictions on doing pve. Why is it that we have bolster, so a pve centric person can do wz? But BW places DF/DP beyond the bounds of a pvp centric person in full Obroan? Personally I'd rather have pvp and pve gear equivalence (maybe have a set bonus difference), than the present system which is riddled with exploits and functionally prohibits certain people from doing high end pve. And frankly from a business standpoint BW should too. The more people BW can get involved in endgame play, be it pvp or pve, the better for them.

Indeed. A necessary (but not sufficient) condition for having a coherent, internally consistent rating system is that any player with a rating of X wins and X losses (50% win rate) will have a rating that is equal to the average rating of the opponents he has played (at the time he played them). Perhaps subject to X being above a certain minimum. The present system does not have this characteristic.

Wait you are complaining about this?! Puleezeeee. How about complaining about the exploit where a dps in dps stance can still guard a healer? This game has so many broken rules/exploits. I think they need to fix all those before they launch upon a crusade vs. hybrids. And just for the record I use a 36 pt main tree toon for ranked.

BW appears to have abandoned the attempt to make each skill tree viable for both pvp and pve. Now they seem to be after a much more modest goal - have at least one skill tree useable for pvp and one for pve. So for PT, tank tree for pvp, AP for pve. PT Pyro is SOL. Similarly, for Mercs, they have Pyro for pve and well, nothing for pvp. BW is still trying to gain traction on this I suppose....

He isn't incompetent, he is just....busy. I've said this many times before. The devs are just people. The one guy in charge of class balance probably works 50 hrs a week. If, after that he gets to play pvp more than 10 hours a week, it's probably a big week for him. And that means he *might* manage one hour a week with each advanced class. He simply is not going to be capable of understanding class balance the way the best players do. This is why the devs relied so heavily on the meta average metrics to drive class balance for over two years. They finally seem to understand why that approach was fatally flawed, but they are still in the same boat - a guy that plays each AC an hour a week is in charge of making class balance decisions.

Yeah, but what else are you going to take? I think 95% of Pyro Mercs will have it.

I'll believe there will be changes when they actually happen. Devs said they would make changes to Mercs in 1.6, and then didn't. Said they would make changes to Mercs in 1.7, and then didn't. Don't fool yourself, the probability that they make any positive changes to Merc dps in 2.7 is somewhere between zero and 20%.

The problem is that the Merc dps is already most effective class for low skill players. Any buffs to Merc dps that are easily accessible to all player skill levels will make Merc dps OP amongst low skill players. What needs to be done is to offer buffs to Merc dps that are difficult for newbies to use. Typically such buffs take one of three forms: 1) An new attack that does not respect the global cooldown. Newbies have a lower APS (action per second) than experienced players so this is one way to place additional Merc output on a higher shelf that requires more skill to reach. 2) A defensive heal (say, Rapid Scan) that is instant cast if it is procc'ed. Newbies often can't keep track of ability procs, so again, this is a way to put output on a higher shelf. For a long time I have suggested that Kolto Missile be given a 10% chance to proc an instant Rapid Scan. Seeing as how Sorcs already have such a heal that does not require any proc, I can't see why this would be unbalancing. 3) An ability that becomes useful when chained with other abilities. Power Surge + Conc Missile is a good example. It wouldn't be hard to design a Merc dps buff that is difficult for newbies to access. But I doubt it will happen. You are probably better off if you want to be a ranged dps to just reroll as Sorc.

I've done solo ranked on both Pyro and Arsenal, and both classes are weak. Pyro is worse, but Arsenal is not good either. It is critical for either class to NOT be in the initial engagement. The initial collision of the two teams is invariably a root/stun/mezz cluster f*ck, and as the Merc has the lowest survivability in the game in such situations, it is imperative that you avoid this. If you can manage to be 20-30m from the initial engagement, then you also have an increased chance of getting 1 or 2 casts off before you are noticed. Moreover once you are noticed (i.e. targeted), it is more likely to be by a single enemy. The Arsenal in particular is well suited to deal with a single enemy melee that begins the engagement by leaping to the Merc. The problem here is that the strategy basically means you are using your teammates as an initial meat shield. This is part of why sophisticated teams will refuse to have a Merc dps. They simply can not contribute at the start of the match. And that is the best case. At worst, a stealthed enemy works his way around to the Merc dps and begins the engagement by pulling him. Disaster. Your team will be down a player almost immediately. Really nothing has changed since 1.3. The Merc dps needs to forgotten about by the enemy team in order to pull his weight. Which is simply another way of saying that the Merc dps needs bad opponents.

Sorry, but I totally disagree. Against a middle tree Jugg/Guardian in particular the Merc Pyro is noticeably weaker than the Merc Arsenal. After the Juggs initial leap, the Arsenal can pop HO which will still have a tail after the Jugg uses Awe. This is not the case with the Merc Pyro. So the Merc Pyro is screwed, unable to get distance unless he is up against a bad Jugg. One of the real problems of the Merc Pyro is that his DoTs eliminate any meaningful use of Concussion Missile or the mezz grenade. A good Arsenal Merc is using those two strategically. In particular good Arsenal Merc's are thinking about the Concussion Missile as a ElectroNet gateway, i.e. you are baiting the enemy melee to use his cc breaker on Concussion Missile in order to setup a proper ElectroNet.

It actually depends on the character. For many (most?) characters the 69/63/61 is BiS. Not for all. You will need to test it on your toon. Moreover there are many, many other bolster exploits in the game that are not listed here. Depending on your class, output a full 30% higher than from full Obroan is achievable. You just have to test different combinations. They will never eliminate all the loopholes in their bolster code.

Oh, there is FotM. You just don't know what it is yet. Nor does BW. Suffice it to say that despite everything that has been posted on these forums about bolster, the general populace sees only the tip of the iceberg. Bolster works differently for different classes and there does a exist specific weapon/class combination that will boost dps by a full 35% over full Obroan gear. That is your new FotM.

In group ranked, both Arsenal and Pyro are weaklings and a liability to their team. While Pyro is less vulnerable to being interrupted, it's damage can be cleansed and it is more flimsy defensively than Arsenal. But in truth the differences are slight on both the attack and defense side. You are going to be focused down first and you will die first. If you are fortunate enough to play against a weak team, either spec can work. But in a competitive environment, both specs are ineffective. In solo ranked, the enemy team often lacks the coordination that good group opponents have. In other words, you are more likely to face a bad enemy team in solo than in group. Which is the window the Merc dps needs in order to escape his ineffectiveness. The worse the quality of the enemy team, the more the environment favors Arsenal over Pyro. That having been said, the lower the quality of the Merc driver, the more Pyro generates better results than Arsenal. So there are multiple inflection points there. Choose what you will - there isn't a lot to pick from here. But if you do go Arsenal, here are some points to consider. Btw, this is all assuming that you are experienced in piloting your Arsenal in pvp in regular warzones. And if you are, you know that as even if you are jumped by a melee, as long as you can get him 1v1 in isolation you are going to win. The problem is when the fight becomes a furball and multiple enemies and teammates are throwing around AoE snares and AoE stuns/mezzs. Then you are going to lose. So you want to avoid getting anywhere near the mosh pit that most arenas quickly devolve into. The problem is that with the popularity of PTs you are probably going to get pulled in anyway. *IF* you get the ideal situation where you can open with TM while stealthed, consider popping HO right after your TM. Since your enemies will be at range, this will allow you to go through your core rotation at the start of the match. If you coordinated your ElectroNet with your teammates focus fire, your team might get the first kill and the fact that your toon is the weakest on your team will be ameliorated. If an enemy melee leaps to you, simply move away while he is in midair. Target that enemy, pop your PowerSurge and dispose of him as he has nicely moved away from his team and given you the 1v1 in isolation that you want. The problem for you is when your team has fewer Infiltrate/Smuggles than the enemy team. You are basically screwed then. You can not preemptively use HO or even PowerSurge because the enemy team can simply back off and choose to start the engagement when those key abilities are on CD. So against a decent enemy team you are going to eat a TM interrupt right from the start. Either that or you must hang back and have your team fight 3v4 initially until you engage. And even the latter strategy is highly vulnerable to an out of stealth pull from the the enemy team. And they will pick you to pull if they can get an LoS on you. Because you are a Merc. Which by definition means you are an easy kill. It also follows that the longer the battle goes on, the worse for the Arsenal Merc. Once you have HO and PowerSurge on CD, you are screwed. So coordinate with your teammates. They need to chain stun/root their target and goad him into using his cc breaker. Then ElectroNet him. If you can not get a kill in that first sequence, you are in trouble. You will get pulled into the mosh pit and consumed. This is why any trend towards using two operative healers rather than one is problematic for Arsenal. As if we didn't have enough problems...

I really don't understand why the devs didn't link merc buffs to Kolto Missile. Give Kolto Missile a 10% chance per teammate healed to make your next RapidScan an instant cast. Problem solved. Merc healers need the ability to do something when their shield is down. And frankly Merc dps need better off healing too. Sorc dps off healing is about 50-100% better in output than Merc dps off healing. It's really not very close. If Kolot Missile would proc RapidScan, both those issues would be addressed.