Yes, it can have some inconsistent damage output at times, but that's a mechanics/design issue that will eventually be addressed and improved. As for players CCing you during Gore, you'd be surprised how many players out there have absolutely no idea what Gore does, or what the animation looks like, or how much it hurts us to be CC'd when we use it. Just guessing, I'd have to put that figure somewhere around 99% of the players in WZs. As for Annihilation, I think it's an inevitability that Bioware will nerf internal/elemental damage (e.g. having it mitigated by armor) across the board. I do not want to be playing that spec when it happens. And as I stated earlier, Predation and Bloodthirst are far better group buffs for my team than Beserk.

Let me just dispell this myth right now, while a ranged "mortal strike" (Deadly Throw: 20% heal debuff for 15 secs) sounds really awesome, it's not. Most healers (Sages/Sorcs in particular) are getting crit heals that far exceed any pressure this ability might place on them. Don't get me wrong, having it is better than not having it, but it's a far better use of resources to stun the healer than to apply a healing debuff that most of them don't even bat an eyelash at. I typically use Deadly Throw situationally, except in Huttball where I constantly use it on the enemy ball carrier. But it's a constant misconception by players who don't play Marauders who think that Deadly Throw is like "mortal strike" from WoW or like "lingering wounds" from Rift (both of those are 50% heal debuffs). It's not. As for the comment that Carnage is not viable in PvP, I strongly disagree. Annihilation requires more face time with your opponent to get DoTs (bleeds) applied, and Rage must be spent on Beserk whenever it's up. My experience in group WZ PvP is that I can't always get on my target either due to CC, snares, knockbacks, or them sprinting away on me, etc. With Carnage, I'm less reliant on getting on my target because I have more ranged abilities at my disposal and I can use my Rage for other abilities like Predation and Bloodthirst, which are much more beneficial to my team than Beserk is. I think Annihilation definitely does much better damage when you're on your opponent, not to mention it's got some nice survival benefits such as the self-heals from your bleeds, but you can't always count on that. In a team setting, I'm always going to go with the choice that benefits my team the most, not just what benefits me the most.

Rage Marauders? In PvP? I'm not sure I can agree with the statement that Marauders who know how to play their class are using Rage in PvP. Most Marauders I know playing in the 50 bracket are either Annihilation or Carnage. And while there's a bit of contention about which of those two are better than the other, most agree that Rage is not the better choice for PvP.

Really, it's pointless to argue with players who are clearly biased (or just that oblivious to actual balance issues). I don't need to convince anyone when there's a 97 page, 1000+ post thread still active on the topic of Sages/Sorcs: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=302206. Why do you think that is? And what do you think is going to happen? I'll give you a little hint - they are going to get nerfed.....hard - it's just a matter of time. Ok, maybe that was a huge hint, like blowing the surprise out of the story huge, like Dumbledore dying in Harry Potter.

TL;DR version - I'm right because in the absence of an official Bioware response, there is nothing else to prove me wrong. Actually, you were. You were implying that since there hasn't been any Sorc/Sage nerfs since launch, then the QQ about them must be unjustified, hence you concluded incorrectly that #1 was false. But as has already been pointed out, Bioware's competence at MMOing leaves much to be desired. There's at least a dozen fairly significant issues in this game that they still have NOT fixed, many of which are far more important and game impacting than the relative OPness of one AC in PvP. The fact that they haven't gotten around to adjusting Sages/Sorcs yet shouldn't be taken as an indication that they are fine, and we all just need to l2p.

These two sentences sum it up very well. Bravo.

^ Pretty much this. Most premades I see these days are 4+ Sorcs, or all Commandos + Sages. The over-representation in WZs should be a clue.

I have to say I agree with the majority of this post. If it wasn't for the ground-breaking class storylines in this game, I probably would have quit by now and gone back to Rift (or just took an MMO break completely while waiting for ME3 to come out). Being melee in Ilum blows chunks. What I used to do to contribute in addition to buffing my Op was Force Charge into the middle of the Republic zerg (on our server, the Republic outnumber the Imperials by about 4 to 1), drop Intimidating Roar in the middle of them, Force Camo and then get the hell out. Because the FPS is so bad when you have more than 1 Op involved in the fight, I often don't get Force Camo off before I'm chain stunned and dead. So lately, I just hang back and buff my Op, as melee DPS. Yep. Their ****astic design in Ilum has rendered non-stealth melee DPS classes virtually pointless in large scale RvR. Then there's my personal favorite: Warzones being allowed to start with 8 vs 3. At least now you can quit when it's that lopsided, but pretty soon you won't even be able to do that. There's soooooo many more important, fundamental design issues they need to fix before they start worrying about stupid crap like deserter debuffs. You don't need to go on the Dr. Phil show to know that your incidents of players quitting WZs would be drastically reduced if they........wait for it.......fixed the WZs! I also find myself agreeing with the OP that it seems from where I'm sitting that a trained monkey with banana-shapped keys on their keyboard could have done better with PvP design than Bioware did. Sure, it's their first MMO, but you'd think they'd realize that and hire some developers who have had at least some (successful) experience in the medium and enough common sense to implement basic ideas like a no RNG loot system for PvP gear, daily/weekly missions that don't require wins/kills, Warzones that don't start until both teams are full and that allow a separate premade queue from the solo queue, an RvR area with some smarter design that doesn't make top end gaming computers wince in pain, and so on. It honestly feels like this game was released about 3-6 months too early, and that we're paying Bioware to beta test their game for them. At this point, PvP is more of a morbid curiosity than it is entertainment. We're all rubbernecking as we drive by the accident scene on our way to work, wondering if they are going to pull a decapitated body from the wreckage.

Here's a better idea: do NOT start a WZ until both sides have a full team. I'd rather sit in queue longer than get into a half-baked WZ where it's 3 vs 8, and because of the craptastic queue system coding by Bioware, the side with 8 gets a free, easy win as the poor bastards with 3 get to watch the paint dry in their spawn point for 2 minutes.

What surprises me about it is how MMO companies, especially recent ones like Rift and TOR, have somewhat catered to the premade crowd when they are very clearly in the minority AND they can easily research metrics from other MMOs that would show them how damaging it has been for their PvP demographic. I do get it that you don't want to design something that prevents or punishes people from doing things together in an MMO, but with PvP, that principle is adversely affecting the majority of their players who PvP in the current instanced PvP mechanics. What's needed is a system that allows premades to queue against premades, but without them having to suffer really long queues to do so (which, ironically, has traditionally been caused by their own camp of people who wanted nothing to do with anything resembling actual competition). I think a post I read earlier tonight summed up a few things that they would need to align for that to happen in a way that would sustain premade PvP. They'd need a cross-server queue system, they'd need to increase the rewards/incentives for premade PvP, and they'd need to implement some code in their queue system that prevents players from queue synchronizing to circumvent the solo queue mechanic. Keep solo queues solo, and premade queues viable, and you just might have an integrated solution that works for everyone.

Premades have been a longstanding point of contention among PvPers across a dozen different games, including those games you listed, which isn't to say that their inclusion with solo (PUG) queues is a good thing for MMO PvP. No MMO has come up with an innovative idea yet to keep both sides of the argument happy, which is why more recent games like WoW, WAR, and Rift are hemorrhaging their PvP subscribers. But if players could be a little less self-serving about their PvP experience, they might realize that it's not about QQ, it's simply about players who pay the same monthly fee as you do who want to have relatively fair, competitive PvP games. Unfortunately, the very nature of premades is diametrically opposed to the notion of fair or competitive PvP. Maybe if you approached the topic with a bit more maturity and objectivity, you might realize that this isn't an issue of some habitually bad players complaining about being outplayed that plagues good players throughout the history of MMO PvP. It's about maintaining an equilibrium of fairness and competition so that everyone can have some fun, so that everyone can win some as well as lose some, so that everyone can earn their gear, and perhaps most importantly, so that everyone wants to participate and continue playing. When you start alienating the majority of your PvP players on the basis that they are too inept or too lazy or too introverted to form their own premades in order to remain competitive with you, all you are essentially doing is justifying your easy wins and faster gear grinding at other players' expense. There is no clearer definition of a self-serving argument to state that players who don't form their own premades deserve to get steamrolled. And while that certainly serves your purpose and those who choose to premade with you, it will eventually haunt you when your queue times go through the roof because there's no one left to queue against. Players are only going to take so much frustration before they decide that there are better things to do with their time, especially when they are paying for it. All that being said, I believe premades have a place in MMOs. I too enjoy joining a battleground, warfront, warzone, warband, or whatever each MMO happens to call it, with friends and guildmates. However, I do not believe that premades have any place in a queue setting against solo queues (PUGs). It's not a challenge for the premade, and it's not fair for the PUG. I can promise you, having been on both sides of the fence, it's NOT fun going against a premade of 5 Commandos and 3 Sages all on Vent/TS together while in a PUG. One of these days, MMOs will realize all of this and come up with a good solution for it. Maybe Bioware will be that MMO; then again, maybe not. Until then, try to see things from both sides of the argument instead of from a "it's all about ME" mentality and maybe you might begin to understand why this issue has continued to be debated over the last 6-7 years of MMOs.

In all fairness, it would discriminate against players who don't have hands due to some horrific accident while wrestling alligators in their spare time to nerf Sages/Sorcs so that they can't faceroll anymore.

I think this post sums up the argument about AFKing pretty well: I tried warning folks that if Bioware added a deserter debuff, it would only result in rampant AFKs, especially if they don't completely rework how Warzones reward participation, premades vs PUGs, gear disparity, matches starting with uneven teams, and a host of other PvP design issues that contribute to one-sided matches that are just miserable to be stuck in.

So you want people to watch your premade beat a bunch of PUGs? Um, lol?

Awesome!! Thanks, guys.

Was wondering, does anyone know if Bioware plans to add armor mods to PvP gear? Reason I ask is because it would be spiffy if we could strip mods off PvP gear and put them on other modable gear so that we all don't look the same in PvP, and so that we can take advantage of some of the really cool modable armor sets out there (e.g. Dread Marauder). As it stands, armor/expertise is inherent to PvP gear and can't be removed.

Here's your guide: 1. lay face on keyboard 2. roll face vigorously back and forth 3. brag about your mad skillz with the AC 4. live happily ever after Enjoy!

The important detail he's leaving out here is during those 4 days, how many WZs did he win compared to lose? I think the big difference is whether you're on the dominant faction for your server. If you're on the side that loses most of their WZ matches, 4 days becomes 4 weeks.

You guys do realize that when they finally do implement a deserter debuff for players who abandon WZs, those same players are going to start AFKing in your matches instead? I'd rather someone leave so that the team has an opening available for someone possibly better geared or more competent to replace them than to have someone sitting in the WZ not contributing at all.

Don't put words in my mouth trying to make your argument and justify a flawed PvP design. I never said players shouldn't earn their gear, but those who got BM in under a week from the valor bug in Ilum did not "earn" their gear, and are far ahead of those who are grinding their gear without the benefit of fast-forwarding to valor 60. And while there's little difference in Expertise between Champ and BM, there is a substantial difference in health and damage. My issue, if you bothered reading more closely, is with players who think their relative valor rank somehow entitles them to prescribe the enjoyment of the game for everyone else, especially those who didn't earn that valor rank the same way the rest of us have to.

Sorry, but some of us weren't able to take advantage of the Ilum farmfest to make valor 60 in under a week. You PvP commandos with absolutely no clue about the world outside your monitor talk about how everyone needs to suck it up. I have news for you, when people pay real money with the expectation to enjoy the time they have and the services they are spending that money on, telling them to suck it up isn't going to fly - not in the real adult world at least. No one likes to get facerolled every game because Bioware ****ed up and allowed players to start earning BM gear in a week, which in turn completely tilted the Warzone balance for nearly every server where there exists a population imbalance. And for those who got BM early, they didn't have a crapload of players who were already in BM gear to play against, so they didn't have it nearly as bad as new 50s to PvP do right now. And in case you made the mistake of assuming everyone is unemployed or out of school and able to play this game 24/7, most of us have jobs and families and other responsibilities outside this game, and we won't be "fully geared" in two weeks.

I agree with the OP. On Vrook Lamar, Imperials lose approximately 95% of their Warzone matches. I went 3 days before completing my WZ daily this week. It's simply a miserable playing experience, and it's utterly unacceptable that I pay the same money to enjoy this game as the next guy on the opposing faction, but get to be frustrated out of my mind because of the extremely one-sided win/loss ratio on my server. I don't expect to win every game, but I do expect a fair, competitive fight where I win some and lose some. As I mentioned, Republic dominate the Warzones on my server, and PvPing in Warzones as an Imperial here is NOT fun. Either the WZ daily/weekly needs to be changed so that it can be completed with losses as well as wins, or lvl 50 Warzones need to have stat/gear normalization like lvl 1-49 Warzones do. Personally, I prefer and believe the latter option is the best choice for all involved. You are essentially forced to do Warzones for commendations, unlike world PvP which doesn't reward any commendations aside from the Ilum daily/weekly. Therefore, Warzones need to be more (artificially) balanced, and more conducive to the enjoyment and participation by ALL players from both factions - not just the one that happens to have more Battlemaster geared players. Leave the gear disparity for RvR areas like Ilum where participation is mostly optional. If you have any doubts about it, simply poll players two questions: Did you enjoy pre-50 Warzones? Do you enjoy post-50 Warzones? I gaurantee you the answer to those two questions will resoundingly indicate what should be done to improve lvl 50 Warzones.

I'm going to call BS on this right here and now. Vrook Lamar (RP/PvE server): very heavily dominated by Republic, not Imperial. The faction imbalance is estimated to be about 4 Repubics to 1 Imp. P.S. This is off topic. The thread is about an exploit that allows premades to bring in more people than is intended into Warzones. If you want to argue about faction imbalance, make your own post for it.

TOR PvP? "Pooched."

I would say that's incentive to AFK instead of quit. Be careful what you wish for.