I beg to differ. It actually makes a pretty big difference when you consider you are getting 300 wz and 300 RATED wz commendations. Convert those into regular WZ and that's 1200 commendations for the weekly. That's a good number of matches worth compared to the previous 400 comms the old weekly gave. Combine that with the 9 games you need to win (avg 130 coms per win) to finish the weekly, and that works out to about 790 Ranked for completing the weekly. (1200 + (9x130)) / 3 = 790

- 2 sin tanks - 3 op healers - 2 dps assasins - 1 dps operative (cc/annoy their healer) = ouch One tank and healer defend a node (snow, east/west, door), the rest offence. Or, one tank and healer on each of two nodes, with three dps and last healer on roaming offence. Sounds like a fun group.

I have chars on both Repub and Emp, at prime time their numbers on Fleet are actually pretty close. In less peak hours, there's maybe a 20-30% difference in favour of Empire. That being said, both factions still have 100+ most hours of the day, and close to 300 during peak.

Thanks everyone for the great advice. Operatives certainly do seem to have a ton of choices but I think I'll try to focus more on melee for now and get used to being up close. It's certainly interesting trying to weave damage and healing into a single encounter. I have a feeling my key bindings are going to grow similar to my Mara, and I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. I do enjoy more complex classes. Cheers!

Thanks, guys! So, the general consensus seems to be to get up in their face (back) and melee. I suppose given the cool-downs on the two melee moves I have right now I just fill with the free rifle shot? So, crouch is really only used for the odd explosive probe then? Fair enough. Edit: yes, I have backstab at 13. Thanks.

Hello fellow Ops, I've just started levelling a medic and seem to be having a bit of an identity crisis and was hoping I could get a little advice. I'm currently level 13 and not entirely sure what I should be doing during questing. It seems if I focus on healing my companion stuff dies really slow, and frankly they don't need much healing on normal mobs, so I gather unless they are elites/Champs I should probably DPS, and this is where my identity crisis comes in. Should I be sitting in cover and sniping, or should I be up in their face as melee? I can't help but feel like I need to keep my distance as a healer even though I'm technically spec'd in a melee DPS specialization. I think what confuses me is that I'm not spec'd in any melee enhancing talents, so I'm not sure if my ranged abilities will keep pace, damage wise, with my melee ones. Snipe certainly seems to get the job done, but it's quite energy sapping and I'm curious if the gap between Ranged and Melee will grow over time. In which case I should probably get used to using melee all the time instead of getting "set in my way" of being ranged. TL'DR: What should I be using to DPS while questing; melee, ranged or some kind of mix? P.S. I have no doubt this has been asked before but there doesn't seem to be a search option on these new forums. So sorry if I'm beating a dead horse and feel free to just toss me a link to a current thread.

I think this posting I found in the operative forum from a BW employee is pretty interesting and should be reposted here. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4039844#edit4039844 SO be mindful that the Ops dummy is not gonna give anything close to reality when it comes to actual boss fights. Your off-hand always hits the dummy.

Patch notes are your friend, read 1.1.5 update http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes Valor gained from Warzones has been increased. Medals are now worth 500 Valor and 10 Commendations. Players only earn Valor and Commendations for the first 4 medals earned each match.

Can't go wrong with Biochem.

I'm sitting here wondering why all of my Biochem implants over about 310 favor Endurance over Aim? Every other stat is represented as a Stat/End (meaning higher main stats than End) except for Aim. From 310 to 400 all my implants for Aim have higher endurance stat and half of them repeat the lower end stat. Is this done intentionally or an oversight? Example: Biochem 310: Will 47 / End 40 Str 47 / End 40 Cun 47 / End 40 Aim 39 / End 43 (less then every other stat) Biochem 350: Str 54 / End 45 Will 54 / End 45 Cun 54 End 45 Aim 45 / End 50 (less then every other stat) Aim 45 / End 50 (same one twice , different secondaries) Biochem 390: Str 62 / End 50 Will 62 / End 50 Cun 62 / End 50 Aim 50 / End 59 (less then every other stat) Biochem 400: Aim 50 / End 59 (Again, really) Aim 42 / End 72

I think the perception of WZ's being nothing but sorcs and mercs is due to parent types (BH and Inquis) having access to all 3 class types. I have never been in a warzone that had 7 DPS sorcs or 7 DPS mercs. That being said, I have been in plenty of WZ that had 2 DPS Sorcs, 1 healing Sorc, 2 DPS Assasins and 1 tank Assassin. Or on the flip side, 2-3 DPS Mercs, 1 healing Merc, 2 DPS Powertechs and 1 Powertech tank. This example is really 4 completely different classes (meele tank, melee dps, caster healer and caster dps) that can come from either of the 2 parent types. Far too often I see people complain that this spamming merc or sorc got 1st because they play an OP classes, yet further inspection shows that #1 person was an Assassin or Powertech. People jump to conclusions far to quickly when all they see is a BH or Inquisitor.

It's advice like this that makes me giggle. You assume every BH is a merc, but a good Pyro PT will tear you to shreds if you get in Melee with him. Oh, and they have nothing you can interrupt. They will kite you at 10y giving them access to all of their abilities but one (Rocket Punch), which they will allow you to get in range to use and then kite you again.

I'm getting so tried of this, queuing for warzones on Hoth is pointless. I've now missed 4 WZ queues because of the bloody loading screen that takes 1:45m to load. I leave one wz, auto-queued for next... by the time I load back into hoth I've missed the queue that popped directly after exiting the last. SO ANNOYING. BW can you please detect when people are on a loading screen and delay the timer?

I play a PT bounty hunter, pyro spec. I tend to go into tank stance at the beginning of a match when it's a zergfest, be it Huttball scramble for the ball, voidstar door zerg or the zerg to nodes in Alderran. But, after the initial push, when things start to spread out, I go back to DPS until I see a need to switch stances and protect a ball carrier or whatever. I find this the most fun as I can be useful in key moments but still can satisfy my need to kill people and pew pew. I see a lot of "tanks" do this (not true tanks, but people with the option of tank form). If true tanking was more like this, where you weren't permanently stuck with crappy DPS and can only tank, then I think tanks as a whole would be more fun in PvP. Just my $0.02. That being said, there needs to be trade-off's. For example, when I switch to tank form as pyro I lose a lot of my talents that are fixed to my DPS stance but gain a bit of survivability and can guard. If tanks worked more like this, losing the DPS when they were full guard stance but gained a lot of DPS when switching to a tank tree DPS stance, things would work well. But, I guess this is exactly what you can do today by speccing DPS and just using tank form... so perhaps nothing needs to be done. Only downfall there is you can't really tank in PVE if that's what you also like to do... though dual specs should solve that issue.

I can see how you may misinterpret what I said, but let me state that I do get in range. My point was just that if you can't get in range, you have decent options. I avoid going head long into a dog pile at a Voidstar door as range will tear you apart in there. Instead I play the back field (in melee range) or I use my range abilities on the people piled at the door. I certain agree that you need to be in melee to do your full burst, no denying that. My point about low level being rough was with regards to PVP. You don't have grapple, heat is an issue, and you have limited abilities (I found myself sitting there with everything on cooldown a lot). Again, this is in PVP. In Pve I had 0 issues leveling.