I hate to be that rational guy that thinks he knows everything, but I just have to. The ppl on here that have said "the age of the MMO is over" (as we know it now) are pretty much right. This is not a bad thing, it's just how it is. As we say in the business: it's not enough "ROI" (return on investment). EA thought Bioware could make enough content and playability to satisfy the amount of hype they had around this game. That was a recipe for destruction. Don't be dumb people, look at the TRENDS. A game is hyped, pick ANY online game. People create buzz about how awesome it will be and how it will destroy the current games. The game is released. The launch is ALWAYS treated as bad by the fans. After that initial anger, it levels out and the game experiences it's best weeks/months of growth and happy players. As soon as the level 50s come into play, the complaining starts that there is not enough content. Then the PVPers complain about balancing. Then the company get's it's first surge of profit from the sales and pre-sales. Then they start getting the subscriptions. However within 2 months of release the level 50 complainers start and the PvP complaining starts. As much as everyone thinks "my request is easy and doesn't need development time" is wrong. Now the company has it's go live bugs, they need to work on content, they need to work on balancing. People stop playing. Subscriptions get canceled. Income slows and there is a ton of work to be done. Even if it's F2P, they need to make money to keep the servers operating, patches coming, content, etc. The reason F2P is seen as the "death of the game" is they are basically working off of borrowed money. They are now giving it away free just to keep people in. They still need income just to keep the lights on. It just wont last. The problem now is all the players are more mature (not from age) but from a gaming expectation stand point. Their expectations are WAY too high, and the time and money it takes for a company to create enough content, flawless game engine/system, can't satisfy these customers. The age of the MMO is over. There is no way they can keep millions of people happy for a prolonged period of time to generate enough cash. At best games like Diablo that are simplistic, but entertaining are the way of the future. That or games where people can just jump into, start playing PVP without a lot of effort.

True that ^^^ The Commando has always sucked 1v1, but after 1.2 you are cut down in seconds.

For my LVL 50 (full Gunnery) I already had a short life expectancy. I heard we'd have an even shorter life expectancy after 1.2 and I didn't believe it. That was, until I played some PVP. For the first time until I first started playing PvP I actually had more deaths than kills. It was pretty horrifying to see. The other scary part is with the healing nerf, now I can't even rely on the healers to keep me going. To be honest why would they even want to try and keep a class healed that dies so fast anyway? Also to the poster that talked about being level 47 on Voss: I'm a level 50 on Voss and my companions have old Centurion and Championship gear. I do relatively low level missions (on Voss), but we too are getting waxed big time there.

So where does the "orange sets" come from? I know the reply is semi-sarcastic, but I'm being serious when I ask how. So I'd earn War Hero armor, pull the mods out and put it in the orange gear which comes from?...

I know right off the bat I'm asking for a flaming, but I'm a noob when it comes to PvP and am beyond confused about gear (especially after 1.2). Now don't be too harsh, hear me out: I Googled my rear off, searched these forums, read the dev notes and to me, everything seems overly complicated. Ok, to prove I'm not a complete idiot, this is what I did when I first started playing SWTOR: I picked Trooper/Commando, and during PvE, I was told to "always get gear with Aim (1st) and Endurance (2nd)". So I followed that model to lvl 50. Every time I could, I'd upgrade my gear with better stats. So I started PvPing at 50 so again, it was easy: I started replacing gear with Centurion, then with Championship. I do ok in WZs now, but I know I'm missing something from the equation that you other PvPers are doing. Fast forward to now and I'm confused as hell. I honestly have no clue what I'm looking for now. I still don't really understand "crit/orange" gear. This is where you should start flaming me, etc. All I'm looking for is a guide (whether it's on SWTOR) or another site. Just some pointers. Or if in a few sentences you can explain what the logical progression for gear is supposed to be in this game. Thanks in advance. Any (productive) info is welcome.

I don't want to disrespect the OP, but if you guys are seeing good numbers from a particular rotation or strategy, please check out this thread and post: What's your post 1.2 skill rotation? Back to the OP, I personally haven't played more then 1 WZ since the patch. I plan to play more tonight and I'll report back. Like I said up there ^, that link has Commandos posting with success, maybe check it out. Commando definitely isn't FOTM, but maybe still viable.

This statement describes me LOL ^^^ I don't think you are crazy, and this sounds like a decent plan. This looks tailor-made for opening WZ on Alderaan, running up to the middle cap. Or a door on voidstar. The best is I rock a Logitech G13, so I can actually make that a macro key, I'll try it out.

As time goes on if Gunnery isn't cutting it, I may try Assault...

Nice! I was going to eventually roll a Jedi for the story, but I wasn't sure which type. I'll still hold out a bit, because you know BW will probably roll a patch right after to "right" some things with 1.2.

Agree ^^^ I wish there was a way I could give the OP access to my account so he could play my LVL 50 (valor 54) Gunnery Commando for a week or so and see his thoughts after that And no it's not a "L2P" issue. I'm not the greatest, but I'm not the worst. I put in a lot of time in my gear, tactics and skill rotations. The Commando has close to zero survivability and is squishy as hell. I can tell you the perfect setup: being healed by a great healer, and have a great tank nearby. However not EVERY class has to roll like that, so I can say just off of that fact the "Commando" is inferior to other classes. It's simple math: get the worlds greatest PvPer and have him/her play all these classes, taking skill out of it, they will find the "better class". I accept the differences, but to ignore there are any, is a bad way to look at things.

That's why I made this thread. If Sages are in bad shape, then what do you feel the FOTM is post 1.2?

This post explains it perfectly, I encourage everyone to read it: Some Thoughts From A Casual Gamer I see where the OP is trying to come from, and I agree with some of it in theory. However there is a big flaw in the statement of "losers shouldn't be rewarded for losing". I would normally agree with that, with the exception there are gigantic faction imbalances, class imbalances and gear imbalances. We know BW tried to make it less dependent on gear, but better gear is still needed. Not to mention the casual player will now have little reward for playing or learning to play. It's a case of "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer". BW has increased the gap instead of decreasing the gap.

Already a disagreement LOL! I actually heard Sages remained relatively "un-nerfed" for 1.2, but then again, that's why I posted this because I want to see "real world" reactions post 1.2. But I Sentinels are probably pretty strong still.

Agree ^^^ I'm NOT a healer, but being a DPS commando, I ALWAYS appreciate the heals I get as our survivability is embarrassingly low. If you keep me alive, and keep me killing, you should get credit for it.

Ok, I'm being serious, I want to roll the best FOTM Republic class I can. Now this statement alone will make people mad, but I have my reasons, so hear me out. Also if you don't want to read this long post, just jump to the last few sentences where I sum it all up. I'm not an MMO player or a PVPer normally. To be honest, the only reason I'm here is because I'm a big Star Wars fan. When I got SWTOR, it was basically for the SW content, nothing else. My PvE journey was WELL thought out: I wanted to play a Trooper because the Clones, and even those silly Stormtroopers were some of my favorite characters from the movies. Sure Jedi and Sith are cool, but I like being the anti-cool character. So BW sold me on the story of this "elite trooper/commando" that can take on a Sith Lord 1 on 1! I mean you guys saw the same trailer I did!!! Darth Malgus got jacked up by a trooper!!! So I rolled a Commando and NEVER turned back. I went through the entire story and NEVER HIT THE SPACEBAR once.. Long story short I got to lvl 50 and wanted more to do, so I started to PvP. Now I know I'm a PvP noob, but I put in a lot of time to "L2P". I feel I'm a decent player, not the worst, not the best. However it is apparent, my class just isn't in the same leauge as the other classes. Yes some of you can say "L2P", or "if in really great circumstances" you can win. I know this. I have won, but the averages are against the Commando. Especially in 1.2 I'm not giving up on my main character, but to really compete, I need to take the class out of the equation and that's why I want to roll a FOTM 1.2 class. Remember I said I'm a SW fan, so I'm going to enjoy the story of my character in PvE anyway, but if I'm going to roll an ALT, I want one with the skills to compete. What's the current FOTM? Help a brother out!! If you just can't bring yourself to support a FOTM, then at least recommend "YOUR" class, and the reasons why it's been so good to you in PvP. Also if there are any Gunnery Commandos out there (post 1.2) that are rocking Imps in their league, please let me know what you are doing.

So it looks like you try to get the 5 stacks of GR before hitting Demo? I know that's the best bang for the buck, but that's assuming you can last that long I'll have to try out that rotation (I'm assuming this is for PvP)..

I really want to give props to the OP. He was dead on with the post. I too have never PvPed and for the most part ALWAYS avoided it. But once I reached lvl 50 in PvE, I wanted something to do, so I tried out PvP. I shared the same feelings: I'm Republic and enjoy a server where in WZs the Imps usually win with a 4:1 ratio, but it didn't effect me much either because I knew if I stuck to it, I would get better gear and compete better. To add insult to injury, I roll with my Commando, which is already squishy to begin with and is dependant on a great healer and tank to have any survivability. Again I didn't care that the odds were stacked against me: weak class, weak faction on a server and not much time to play like the hardcore kids. In the end it was "sticking to it" and "not giving up" that got me to a full championship gear set. Hell, try doing a "weekly" on Ilum on my server, impossible. Now the OP is right, the old saying stands: "the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer".. Guys with the batter faction and better gear, can only earn it faster, while the weaker faction gets slowed to a halt when trying to "improve". I too am not going to threaten to "unsubscribe" or anything like that, but I will probably play less, at least less PvP, because there is no incentive. I'm already dealing with the nerfs to my class (which was weak to start with), but now I'm dealing with less credit for playing PvP.

My big fear is when Ranked WZs go live, no one will want a Commando on their team, because "bang for the buck", almost any other class "pound for pound" is a better person to have than a commando.

I wanted to see what everyotne is coming up with for skill rotation, cool down/ammo management, etc, after the 1.2 patch. If possible, lets keep the negativity to the other threads (I'll be joining you there as well), as there are many of them with valid complaints. I'm just trying to get to the nuts and bolts of what we have CURRENTLY (1.2) and how we are going to work with what we got. I was hoping to break it up into a few categories: PVP Rotation vs PVE Rotation Also let us know how you are spec-ed: Combat Medic - Gunnery - Assault Specialist (or some hybrid) Or if you plan on re-specing to a different Commando tree. I haven't played enough of 1.2 to comment on my rotation, so as a base I'm going to start with my original rotation then modify it: For targeting one Imp: GR - GR - FA - Demo - HiB - Pepper in Hammer Shots. For area attacks: Pulse Cannon, MV, HoB, Plasma Grenade So what's your setup looking like???

I've only have played one WZ since 1.2 today (it was actually Nova Coast) so this isn't a scientific evaluation by any means, just a "first thoughts" type post. I kinda agree with AzKnc: However being a pure Gunnery Commando, I already had a ridiculous survivability BEFORE 1.2 (have a full set of champion gear). It's been said a 100 times before in these forums, a Gunnery Commando is a joke 1 on 1. That's no different in open world or in WZs. 1v1 a GC is toast. The GC works best in a group, usually off to the side or above. The GC works even better with a good healer. As for this patch, it didn't make too much a difference IMO, but I am taking in account I only played ONCE. I'll post results the more I play. The biggest difference I saw was actually not with GR, but MV. I'm not digging the smaller radius, to me it's just a different version of "Hail of Bolts". The damaged being lowered on everything did suck, but FA and Demo were nice. BUT sadly the ammo usage is worse, not epicly bad, but not fun. I could swallow this patch a little more if they didn't offset EVERYTHING so much, meaning the weakening and slowing of GR and MV, but they bump up FA and Demo, but then they hit you with higher ammo costs. It's like two negatives to every positive. Even if you called all things equal in this patch (which you can't) just the fact that over all, ALL healers are weaker, we can't even expect help from them now.

She's really great. The cool part is she goes from stuffy ex-Imp to what I think is a real "loving" girl. It's cool to see the character progression and transformation.

I didn't get to try it yet, but this is what I feared. I was already pretty squishy, and died pretty quick. Yet I did do some good damage before. Now it looks like what we thought, even LESS survivability, and weaker damage.

/bump Mine is there still there after 1.2 and the option to "Abandon" is grayed out.

Well my original plan was to grind out my dailies and weeklies, but after losing 4 straight WZs (Republic players were really bad tonight) I asked myself "what am I doing? This is a joke." But the server gave me the 10 minute warning anyway. Lets see what 1.2 has to offer.

I just realized I have BM bag I can't open yet (only lvl 53) I wonder if it just disappears?