Exhibit #684527719

When all your side has is exaggerations, wild hyperbole and lies that at least half of you don't believe (and/or care what you're argueing about), it's hard to take you seriously. My main issue is that many newbs do believe this crap. It's like in politics, the loudest ranter gets heard and the calm voice of reason gets rolled over or strung up, whichever appeases the mob. Fortunately, BW hasn't been trying too hard to appease them so far.

Can't get singularities from choke anymore - what's the cd on crush/force-exhaustion? Is it changed?

Which "TWO BUTTONS" = full singularity smash? This is not me trolling. Exaggerating class effectiveness to make a political case for nerfing (and to get into arguments like this) is my idea of trolling. If you have numbers to back up your position that "smash" is supereasy or always tops the charts or whatever then that would be a different story. But I see lots of wzs where smashers don't make it into the top 50% of damage done, especially without BiS gear and some even get out-critted (especially without BiS gear). Saying smash only requires 2 buttons makes me think that you don't have a clue about what you're talking about. If you ever see me crying about a class or a spec then you better believe I took the time to personally confirm that there's a real problem and it's not just a collection of newb windbags squealing because they died fast in their pve greens. 9.5k is 1/3rd a characters health in 2.0, or so I've heard. 8k is less than that. For an attack that usually requires setup and is easily avoidable if you aren't the target (smallest aoe effect in the game or close to it), and that can't be spammed more than 5x a min (with great luck and some skill), no, that is not remotely too much; many many classes can do more damage to individual targets faster than any smasher can (assuming equivalent gear). Arguments otherwise again lead me to believe that you haven't played MMOs and/or this one for very long but feel free to convince me otherwise. Pretending that you haven't already won your argument without making a case outside of a couple anecdotes and references to posts as devoid of facts or knowledge as yours would go a long way towards doing that.

Hyperbole much? I haven't played on the pts yet but which "2 buttons" produce a smash for 9.5k ?

I have a min-maxxed smasher - the max crit for most of my wzs is usually in the 5.5-6.2k range. Once a day or two I'll run into someone I can smash for 7k. It's not constant tho.

Find an out-of-the-way corner and curl up in an invisible ball. That will probably work unless you made one of them mad by openly looking in his direction before you turned invisible.

He's got almost 300 posts on here, including several every week for the last couple months. I've been in lots of mmo games where the community managers either didn't exist or were much less likely to engage the community with things like twitter and message board posts.

There are several on my server that solo smashers all of the time.

Not all bubbles are stun bubbles. Regular bubbles minimize the damage of a single smasher by quite a bit. 1.1k dps? That's really good. I've only seen that in premades vs teams full of healers. Very few smashers do that... It definitely doesn't happen every day on my server. Maybe you need a nerf?

If you aren't 50 and you try to take a 50 in pvp that's what happens. If you want me to read your post or take it remotely seriously, tone down the hyperbole (or remove it). I've been in too many wzs and fought too many sorcs - the good ones do not die quickly. Bubbles effectively add ~4k to your health - if you die in 3 secs with 24-25k health then you're getting focus fired. If you don't have 20-21k health then you're not using optimal gear and you're going to lose to someone that does.

"anything and it's dead"? Not sure what game you're playing.

To smash, a jugg needs: enrage (1x every 40 secs) - auto full crit crush (3x / min) - needs to tick 4 secs, then auto full crit, can be cleansed - resulting in a weaker smash depending on how fast you cleanse choke (1x / min) - needs to tick 3 secs, can be interrupted or trinketed resulting in a weaker smash depending on how fast you stop it Only one of those things is automatic and doesn't require the jugg to be dancing at melee range 3-4 secs prior to the smash. A sentinel needs the same except he can replace the enrage req with using zen if his centering is at 30 stacks which requires a lot of melee abilities being fired or the use of valorous call which can be done 1x per 2.75 min.

If you do the math, the extra armor pen works out to an extra couple hundred pts per smash vs light armor targets. It is not a game changer and min/maxxed smashers are -not- hitting noticeably harder post 1.4 than pre 1.4, they are just hitting more often/reliably as you mentioned. BTW smash is very counterable in group play and 1v1 smashers are very beatable by just about every class/spec (no gaurantees tho - player skill and gear matter). No one's spelled out exactly what is so OP about the spec: an untaunted 6k crit vs unguarded characters with over 20k health followed by a long pause and telegraphed setup steps for a repeat is NOT the end of the world and it's not more pvp damage than other classes can put out. If you have a bunch of smashers with enrage/zen ready and charge off cooldown and they're on vent then yes, they can almost instantly do a lot of damage to one (or more) target(s) if <a whole bunch of other things aren't happening> but that is neither a game breaker or any different from a bunch of other dps classes on vent with cooldowns up that can also focus a target(s) very fast. As far as I can see most of the whining is by people that have perception/observation problems (and weak tactics) and/or a prejudice vs melees. The results scoreboards that I routinely see do not support a blanket "smash needs a nerf asap we don't need to back that up it's obvious". If the class was so easy and as truly "obviously" op'd the numbers should be there every time.

Spread out. Smash has one ot the smallest aoes in the game.

On most servers and in most pug wzs, in the higher level ranges, there are usually more consulars/inqs than knights/warriors, btw.

Guardians do have a little (a little) more cc and maneuverability than vanguard tanks do. But guardians don't have a ranged aoe taunt which is incredibly useful in pvp. And they don't have several of the ranged aoe damage tools that vanguards have. I can put out more damage on my vanguard tank, more easily (with less risk of being cc'd or targeted or getting hit with melee aoe). There is no night-and-day, one is much better/easier/harder-to-do-well-with difference between the two classes: they have different styles/fortes, definitely, but that's basically it.

Yes but one of the stuns hits up to 5 ppl. I realize that sages have something better in every way in one of their trees but still... And while riot strike is short range, both Harpoon and Storm (shield tree) count as long range interrupts. I didn't say vanguards were better or worse than guardians/shadows - just that they are not harder to play and they are useful.

Darth Sidious (sorc) killed three or four jedi knights with a lightsaber while Mace was fighting him. It's arguable that Mace never had him beat. He only lost to Vader because Luke was tanking him - it was a 2v1 vs the 2 best knights/warriors ever so he lost, yeah... Darth Maul killed Qwai-Gon (sp) and was holding his own against both him and Obiwan. Sins are just about the best 1v1 class in SWTOR (good ones can dissect most knights/warriors). Also, while Han did beat him conclusively, Boba Fet didn't die.

So you're saying a vanguard is hard to play? Ranged aoe taunt, multiple hard stuns, multiple ranged interrupts, lots of ranged aoe damage and lots of interesting snare/immobilization procs that you don't have to directly activate? Mine's only 45 and I mostly just play him when I'm bored (don't like the classes style) but it's not difficult to play and it's plenty useful in wzs.

Do you have a sage or shadow? Those classes have the most utility. Guardians have nothing on either of them. You are literaly the first person I've heard complain that guardian tanking is too easy compared to other classes. Based on your in-depth analysis and a few other things (randomly starting a thread to whine about a class, weak grasp of facts, few actual details provided or apparently deemed necessary, random exaggerations, etc) I'm going to say it's just your opinion and as far as I'm concerned it's not worth much.

Tank spec'd guardians are pretty good in 1v1 pvp actually - 2 hard stuns, a mez and a kb with a 2 sec stun... not to mention their aoe snare spam. I remember spanking sages with one in duels even pre 1.2 when sages were completely op. They can also do decent damage (but not compared to focus guardians) if you stay busy; I've seen tanks do more prot than damage but it's rare that a good one on a winning team does that. The best guardians on my server don't duel in focus spec.

A rated team that needs 5 character (pull + 4 smashers) to focus fire 1 character at a time with smashes is going to have a very very low rating.

If you have 3 aoe healers vs 3 smashers you will be fine but 3 aoe dps vs 1 aoe healer... don't stand so close to each other.

Only if you're badly geared, very unlucky and they are well geared. You know what else with perfect gear can kill badly geared, unguarded characters really fast 3v1? Every dps. Less than 1/3rd - if you're decently geared, much less. If you have a bubble and guard on you and the smasher is taunted? You won't notice the smash at all (but your bubble will pop, probably). Saying 6k smashes are "too much" isn't an argument, it isn't a fact, it's just an opinion and one I disagree with. Saying smashers are doing much more damage than any other dps much faster -is- an argument but you have to back that up with more than an anectdote and vague references that sound or are wrong/exaggerated ("half health in one hit", "3 smashers can kill anyone with 1 global", "everyone's playing smashers to the exclusion of all other classes and winning", etc.). If anyone has backed the actual argument up with anything resembling objective stats, I haven't seen it. Having played many classes in many many wzs my experiences, anectdotes, observations, opinions, combat logs, screen shots, etc. haven't picked up a massive problem. Maybe a correction is warranted, maybe it isn't, but most of the problem I have seen is with irrational players and inaccurate (or wildly wrong) observations. For those saying a team of coordinated, well-geared smashers is impossible to counter, have you seen what a team of coordinated, bis-geared pyros can do? Or sins? Or snipers? What's your frame of reference?