The dps Mercs who claim they are not an easy kill or claim they can easily defeat all other classes all the time, simply don't play in competitive settings. For example, back in the BH forum a Merc made a post about how you should be about to use Tracer Missile repeatedly without a problem and if it is a problem for you, you are bad. Well technically speaking he might be right. Getting TM off isn't that hard as long as you can get isolation on a single enemy and you have all your abilities off CD. But in a competitive arena, it doesn't work that way. In a competitive arena, you will get off zero Tracer Missiles if the enemy has two operative/scoundrels and your team only has one. Or at best one Tracer Missile if the number of operative/scoundrels is equal on both teams. That's it. You'll also get off one HSM, one Explosive Dart, one Rocket Punch and after that it is all Rapid Shots. People who do not play group ranked simply can not conceptualize the level of coordination that can occur and how easy it is to nullify a casting class with coordination.

Operative dps are already a decent class. Not the best and not the worst. Why buff a middle of the road AC with a "significant" boost? Because they are BW. They simply don't know any better. Then again, what BW describes as "significant" could turn out to be insignificant, totally earth shattering or merely....... "significant". Who knows? BW certainly doesn't...

It will depend on what limits are placed on Kolto Shell. We know you will be able to have more than one running. Two? Four? Eight? At those upper numbers, I can see Mercs being preferred over Operative healers in some situations. Not so much as two.... Am in agreement with you that the pushback rule change will have virtually no effect. Tracer Missile/Power Shot is defeated by interrupts, stuns and mezzes. Not by damage pushback. This rule change is a red herring.

The difference between 1 accuracy item and 0 accuracy items is virtually....nothing. Very little change in accuracy vs. very little change in damage output. It basically doesn't matter. Use whatever you personally prefer and don't sweat over it. Sorry, but I must disagree with this. Actually pretty much everything in this statement. Dummy parse is irrelevant for determining which class does more damage in pvp. Dummies don't interrupt. Dummies don't cleanse. Dummies don't force you to defend. In my experience, vs. good skill opponents, Arsenal does more damage in pvp than Pyro. The cleansing just devastates Pyro damage output. Against bad opponents that don't cleanse, Pyro can do a lot of damage. But a sorc will do even more. The one advantage Pyro has over Arsenal is burst. Yes, burst. The conventional wisdom that Arsenal is a burst class is deeply flawed. Arsenal is a sustained output machine. UL-TM-HSM-UL-RS does a lot of damage but has a very long windup, and burst occurs only if get a critical hit on HSM. Which is about a 22% chance. That is not dependable and dependable is what you need to be a good burst class. In contrast Merc Pyro's RS-UL-RS is a far more dependable source of burst because of the 40% crit chance on each RS. Don't believe me? Consider this. Even if Arsenal's HSM had an auto-crit, it still would only do about as much damage as the Pyro's 2x RS with 40% crit chance per RS. Yes, Arsenal's best case burst is only equal to Pyro's average burst. Case closed. Pyro burst > Arsenal burst. Where Pyro sucks is sustained damage. Because once your 2x RS trick is used up you are stuck with crappy abilities that get cleansed. What makes it even worse against good opponents is that you need to spread your DoTs across multiple opponents or you subject yourself to being easily double cleansed. Which means your sustained single target damage is abysmal. Again, unless you are facing bad opponents that don't cleanse.

The situation is still the same as it was when 2.0 was released. It's just that people are no longer in denial about it. Arsenal is a decent 1v1 platform, but it simply sucks in a 4v4 arena context. Weak defense, easy to shut down, and very few downsides to the enemy when they focus on you = they will focus on you.

You didn't mention what kind of endgame content you like to do. If it's pvp, well you are out of luck. Merc Pyro is simply not a good pvp spec. In pve, Merc Pyro is actually quite powerful in a group context. In solo pve, you are basically saved by the fact that the solo content is not difficult. Make sure your companion (Mako or Treek) is nicely equipped and you should make steady progress.

Why would they get off even one more shot in an arena? Those abilities are still interruptable. So the only time they will get one of those attacks off is if they use their insta-cast ability. Once that is gone, they are stopped with interrupts, not pushbacks. So I agree with your post. You just didn't follow through all the way. Agreed. Which is why my suggestion was to have each heal delivered by Kolto Missile give a 10% chance to make your next Rapid Scan instant. But noooo......

How is that different from Merc dps or Sorc dps or even Sorc healers? Face it, these subclasses all suck.

Way back in the 1.3 era, most healers had enough experience in fighting pyros (both Merc and PT) that they instinctively knew when to cleanse tech DoTs. But nowadays, that knowledge is mostly lost amongst the player base. Both pyro subclasses are virtually extinct and so are the Watchman/Annihil subclasses. So most healers are simply not in the habit of neutering DoTs. Also from a positive standpoint, having an enemy healer cleanse your tech DoTs isn't as annoying now, since your longest tail DoT (IM) had its heat cost reduced. Back when IM cost 25 heat, getting that cleansed really did hurt. Now, not as much.

Philosophically, I'd like the Merc class to be (and play) differently than other classes. To a certain extent we already are, but to a certain extent we aren't. Currently we play closest to the Sorc classes. From the standpoint of the dps Merc/Sorc subclasses, the Merc does less damage, has less off healing output, has less utility, but has more survivability than the Sorc. The healing Merc compares to the healing Sorc in a similar manner - less productive output, but more survivability. One way to address a number of issues with a single rules change is to give Kolto Missile a certain % chance to make the next Rapid Scan cast instantly. For the healing Mercs, this would finally give them ability to do something when their shield is on CD. It's an outright increase to their healing output, which I think is needed, since they are by far and away the lowest output healing subclass. For the dps Mercs, this new ability will be harder to take full advantage of. The difficulty involved in frequently switching between mouse targeting (Kolto Missile), tab targeting (enemies for dps) and team targeting (for Rapid Scan) will make the Merc subclass play a lot differently than other subclasses. And it will end the old yarn about Merc dps being a derp skill class.

You are correct with *ONE* exception. Missile Blast. The CGC proc via Missile Blast is on a separate 6 sec timer than the CGC proc via all other ranged attacks. You can test this by going into your ship and firing at the pvp dummy with Rapid Shots until you get a CGC proc. Then switch to the pve dummy and fire Missile Blast. Now you will see two CGC DoTs active at the same time.

With the new infinite heal exploit - available to Scoperatives only, natch, no one can out heal a Scoperative. Two sorcs combined can't out heal a Scoperative. And yes, this officially makes them unkillable. Literally. Hmmm, maybe if 8 enemy dps focused solely on the Scoperative healer and the Scoperative's team mates totally ignore the enemy. Certainly unkillable in any arena, even if outnumbered 1v4. Way to go BW.

Lethality is the one DoT spec that is viable currently. Simply because you can apply DoTs faster than they can be cleansed. Every other DoT spec fears that its DoTs will be cleansed. Lethality actually hopes enemy healers spend time to cleanse. It does highlight the problem (aka the worthlessness) of DoT specs. But hey, what's one more non sequitur amongst friends, eh?

Good question. Bolster was supposed to allow pve centric players the ability to play pvp without being a burden on their team mates. I understand the desire to make pvp accessible to those folks. But then why are pvp centric people not able to do the same with pve content? I have tons of pvp people in my guild who might enjoy a night off and would enjoy doing a 16 man ops. But their pvp gear prohibits them from doing any ops that their pve compatriots would want to do. In other words, to accomodate those pvp centric people, they are going to be a burden on the pve people who will have to do an ops they dont want to do. Fairness, as well as ease of implementation, should have argued for pve and pvp gear having the same stat budget, different set bonuses, and at most a -1 per stat penalty (per mod/armoring/enhancement) for using that gear in its non-native environment. Instead we have the unfair and convoluted system that is bolster. Doh.

Our damage is OK. Not great, but OK. Every 15 seconds we can do 6k damage with HSM against an average player (who does not have any defensive abilities up) with that jumping to 10k about once every 4 attempts, i.e. once per minute. And we can not control when that damage spike occurs, which is practically a precondition to having effective "burst". Compare that to smash monkeys who get that 10k vs. an average player every 15 seconds. On demand. And in AoE form no less. *THAT*, folks is burst. Now you are just being stubborn. With the advent of HO for Mercs, 1v1s now happen more frequently than ever. Prior to 2.0, Mercs were the last person on the team that should switch nodes. Now you are one of the first. And in doing so you will get interdicted by a waiting Assassin or enemy melee frequently. I can't believe that you would imply one should not switch nodes quickly and should instead wait for a team mate so you can travel in tandem. But that is basically what you are saying. Now in arenas, very few 1v1 duels occur. But the context of arena fighting, with constant switching of guard and hence targets, means the Arsenal in that environment will very frequently be forced to deal with an enemy melee in his face. The 45 second free casting episodes which sometimes occur in 8v8 are simply not going to happen against any reasonable opposition in an arena. And then the tools the Arsenal will use to extract himself are the exact same ones used in 1v1 fights. The Arsenal that can only survive via the intervention of his team mates is putting an excessive burden on his team. Bottom line - it isn't the 1v1 fight from full health to death that is critical since that just doesn't happen from start to finish very often. But if your toon is a helpless kitten in a potential 1v1 fight, then it is a clear signal that you will be drawing and expending more resources and attention from your team mates than is desirable.

I disagree. Merc dps these days seem to have amnesia about the bad 'ole days, aka the 1.3-1.7 era when a Merc dps was a free kill for any competent melee dps. In a warzone environment. I know I felt that way on my melee dps. Unless multiple enemy team mates intervened on the Merc's behalf, I'd kill him. Now the situation is entirely different. Against 99% of the melee dps out there, I feel I will win 1v1. Against the best melee players I will lose, but it will take them so long to get the kill and they will need to blow all their abilities and be sitting ducks should even a single team mate of mine intervene. This altered 1v1 dynamic causes them to completely change their approach to dealing with me. Now they are not approaching me to try and kill me. Instead they watch me, wait for me to target someone else and then leap to me. They are specifically trying to disrupt my attack sequence because their team needs to alleviate the overall pressure I am putting on their team. And when they have succeeded in forcing me to use some of my defensive abilities, they pop some of theirs and extract themselves from their overexposed position. This is why I say half my value to my team these days is in pseudo-tanking. I am forcing some of the enemy melee to lower their own output in order to lower mine. And it is the altered 1v1 dynamic that is forcing them to take these countermeasures rather than relying on the prior, brute force method of simply bull rushing the Merc and getting an easy kill.

It's just the way it is. For every time a Merc Arsenal says, "Yeah! I just hit that guy for 10k!", there are 3 or 4 times when his "burst" sequence is just meh. Having a so-called burst sequence that actually bursts only 1 time in 5, just isn't reliable. Rather what we have now with Arsenal is the ability to put overall pressure on a target *IF* certain conditions are in place - namely the target has difficulty breaking up our attack sequence with either an interrupt or LoS break or pushback. Conditions which generally fall in place if one of your melee team mates is also pressuring the target. Which should clue you in as to what the optimal useage for the Arsenal is. We are NOT the burst class that can target an enemy healer and put them down 1v1. We actually suck at that. Any decent healer worth his salt can evade an Arsenal 1v1 and avoid being killed. Because Arsenal suck at pursuit and finishing. What Arsenal is good at is dog piling. Set your team's best melee dps as your focus fire target. Switch to his target and get to work. Almost inevitably the enemy target is going to blow his ultimate defense ability which should give your melee (who IS good at pursuit) a kill once that ability drops. And when the enemy melee comes after you, the Arsenal has a good array of counters - as long as only a single melee is coming after you. The good burst classes are Rage and Assassins. To give you an idea of how "unbursty" Arsenal actually is, compare and contrast with Merc Pyro - universally considered a low burst class. Yet Merc Pyro will on average do more damage with RS-UL-RS than Arsenal does with TM-HSM. The advantage of Arsenal comes from quite long sequences like: TM - FM - HSM - UL - TM - UL - RS. Sequences that take 13 or more seconds even without being interrupted. That is pressure. Not burst. Merc Pyro simply can not match that kind of output over an extended time window. Really only Sorcs can. And they have the downside of....well.... being a Sorc.

Nah. It's the same thing. You need a crit to hit for 8 or 9k. You are not going to get a crit 80-90% of the time. Let's face it, although Arsenal has its moments, the reality is that it is not a good burst dps class. Relying on a 22% chance for a HSM crit is just not .... effective. It's like saying you need to be lucky to be good. Rather the strength of the Arsenal class currently is that it has some unique tools, and can actually be pseudo-tanky when attacked by a single enemy melee. It's certainly a lot better off that it was pre-2.0.

I think most people using Merc Pyro will have their 36 points in the Pyro tree arranged fairly similarly to yours. The only question here is Volatile Warheads. Here's the thing about Volatile Warheads. They are only useful if you use Missile Blast regularly. And if you do, the only reliably good use for that ability is to maintain CGC on a secondary target. This tends to push up your heat thresh hold considerably, enough so that I think it is worth putting a single point into Improved Vents. I also question putting 2 points into Stabilizers. From a pvp perspective, the Merc Pyro useage of Concussion Missile is negligible. You are a DoT class. Just conceptually, the opportunities you have to use a mezz given that your target is probably DoTed is low. So what are you really getting for those two skill pts? Reduced pushback on PS and UL?! Any time you are in traffic or under attack, no reputable opponent is going to let you get that cast past their interrupt anyway. I'd rather have those two points in Improved Vents and Med Tech. I heal people a lot as a Merc dps. You'd be surprised how often it can stymie the enemy team.

This has been occurring for some time. Certainly ever since 2.0. It happens for the same reason you frequently do not see a stealth player unstealth when they begin attacking you. Instead they show up 2-3 seconds after you get knocked down. It is taking that long for their client to communicate to the server their new (uncloaked) status and then have the server communicate to you their new (uncloaked) status. People sometimes think that because they have a 50 ms ping time to the server that everything the server knows is communicated to them in 50 ms. No. The ping time means that the first (highest priority) thing that the server communicates to you gets to you in 50 ms. Everything else is coming after that. And uncloaking seems to have a fairly low priority. Certainly behind things like interrupts and even ironically, cloaking. The bottom line here is that BW needs to bump up uncloaking changes in the communication hierarchy.

Sorry, but I completely disagree with these views. First, about Rail Shot procing. - one of the things that most Merc Pyros don't understand at a conceptual level is that attempting to proc Railshot (RS) all the time can actually *DECREASE* the number of Rail Shots you get. I have explained this issue previously, but it was a difficult thing for many to grasp. The bottom line here is that if you proc RS when the RS CD timer is already at the halfway mark or lower, you are screwing yourself. All you are doing is delaying the time frame in which you can do a double RS attack, i.e. RS-UL-RS, which is your ultimate goal. Another way of putting it is that by fishing for a RS proc, you are settling for a single RS, when you could have had two. Assuming that you have just finished a RS-UL-RS sequence, it should be obvious that no RS proc fishing should occur for another 4.5 seconds ( 3 GCDs). After that, you have 9 seconds left on your RS CD timer. Enough time for maybe one RS proc fishing attempt with Power Shot. However given the low % chance of actually landing a PS attack, you are probably better off putting CGC on a second target (see below) and then using Rapid Shots to refresh CGC on the primary target. Another common situation is when you have just finished RS-UL and RS did not proc. Now you have 12 seconds left on the RS CD timer, and there is a short window of time when proc'ing RS via PS is useful. Outside of these cases, the use of PS is generally not recommended. Secondly, about IM - right off the bat, IM has no CD timer. The main issue with IM now is whether it is worth it try and keep IM on two targets simultaneously. I think the answer is yes, at least if you are trying to maximize total output. Moreover, at least in pvp land, my view is that the Merc pyro should attempt to keep both IM and CGC on two targets simultaneously. Doing this requires an IM/Missile Blast sortie, but as long as you are getting your RS procs properly, the attendant heat control issues should be manageable. Perhaps you were referring to Fusion Missile rather than IM? If so, I am not a fan of using FM on CD. FM does only about 50% more damage than IM yet costs twice the heat and forces you to root yourself to cast it. In my view FM is reserved for use when you want single target burst or when there are multiple targets and you think you can get off a cast without being pushed/stunned/interrupted.

Well if you re-read their answers, most of the "This is a possible buff to Merc/Commando that we could make" were all prefaced by "we have no plans to do anything currently and think Merc/Commando is in a good place right now". The lack of any changes to Merc/Commando is not surprising really.

The purpose is to keep the player base occupied until 2.5 and space missions arrive. On the lower population servers, it isn't even clear how active normal warzone queues will be once people shift to doing space pvp. Ranked? Non sequitur.

There are a lot of good aspects in SWtoR PvP. But like the OP, I am of the opinion that this game will never get over certain anchors wrapped around its ankles. Some of these are unfixable, such as the inability of the Hero Engine to deal with x-server information transmission. Or the engine's latency and difficulty in dealing with moderate population concentrations. Others are, sad to say, limitations that were self-inflicted by BW's lack of understanding of statistical processes. Although the use of meta averages as a metric to manage class balance is probably the most obvious mistake, these days it isn't even the biggest one. Instead their biggest current mistake is to continue to allow on demand match making in arena queues. Even with the slight delay BW has in its match making algorithm, this system virtually ensures that low tier teams will eventually stop queuing and ultimately the queue stack gets cannibalized from the bottom up. Fixed match start times would fix this problem, but I don't think BW understands this. The concept of aggregating random queuing teams and how that would improve the long term health of the queue is alien to them.

It's the same phenomenon that we have seen repeatedly. BW judges the potency of each class based on meta averages. Assassin meta averages were horrible. That's because assassins tended to be used as node guards and solo attackers on distant enemy nodes. Thus they had tons of downtime and very low overall output. But they were arguably already the most valuable person on the team, after the healers of course. yet the context in which teams used assassins doesn't matter. Only meta averages matter. Hence assassins will be buffed. As for Operatives, there are so few dps Operatives seen these days that meta averages for that subclass will have wild variance from week to week. And as we have seen previously, when the meta averages are composed from a population sample that is really low, BW has a tendency to just punt. This is why Merc Arsenal wandered the Sinai for 6 months after 1.3. This is why Merc Pyro and Operative dps are on the same journey now. It's the same story. It's always the same story.