It's Star Wars. It's always Empire vs Republic in one form or the other. Yes, you cane write situations where they are forced to make peace against common threat, but background to that peace is still Empire vs Republic. Not some random third ******** force that makes them unite so hard there are no differences left.

It exists and is called 'warrior"

22 I guess kids don't play MMOs anymore

Also, if things still work like they used to, shield will only be active when you are in tank stance (tank discipline basically). You won't get any defensive stats out of it as Infiltration.

I guess you missed existence of dark jedis then? Jedi is generally wide-spread term for force users. More widespread than sith anyway, since those guys are restricted to sith order only.

I liked Andromeda. After ****fests that ME3 and DAI were, I was pretty surprised when I found myself enjoying it. Sure, it has problems, but as far as rebooting ME goes - it's good. Story was allright, characters were fairly good, gameplay is solid, and i really liked the shift of tone from EPICAL EPIC OF EPICNESS that ME3 pushed down my throat. Wish it had less technical issues though - after-kill freezing got old really fast. It's not perfect game, but it surely didn't deserve all the hate it got. Too bad BW Montreal won't get a second shot at it.

I still think shooting them off as gunslinger is better fatality

I'm pretty sure you guys in America have holidays as well, so no, its not 365 days. Actually, it's 2 days per week specifically to be spent with friends and family. And even if I have sudden need to spend time with family in the middle of the week, there are different moments. If I'm working on some project that I still have 3-4 weeks to finish - sure, I'll ask my boss and most likely he'll let me go. Even in that case, he will expect me to finish said work in time, and "well, I spent time with family" won't be an excuse if I **** up. But, if I'm working on project that should have been finished yesterday, and there is client that screams at us 24/7 demanding it done - then I sure as hell won't be able to take vacation unless there are some really dire circumstances, like ambulance or something. Actually, I'll be asked to stay late at night, and most likely will keep working on holidays till I deliver the project. Because deadlines are a thing. Because worker's responsibility is a thing. Because that's what I'm being paid to do - getting **** done. Nobody cares if I had to feed my pet hamster or if we as a studio had a downtime because our render farms crashed again. Results matter. Not excuses. I'll ask again - where are results, even those little ones we were promised?

Thank you kindly! Seriously though. People keep praising Keith like he is second coming of Jesus. Particular comment I replied to stated he is "working hard in new position". Somehow I don't see him working. I don't see any results. All I see is rather pathetic excuse for why said results (not that big results, mind you) aren't here. Because when you are "hard at work", you don't take time to visit your dad. Because you are hard at work. At the very least you distribute some of that "hard work" to other people while you are away for some very serious reason. Hint - that reason isn't "I spent time with my dad". Furthermore, he admitted that he failed to estimate time required to finish not some major update, but *********** text document. You know how it's called? I'll help you. Incompetence. Producer unable to plan out time and deadlines for his crew or himself is incompetent producer. What an amazing feat to show in your first month of work. Be objective here. All that guy did was make some forum posts. That's it. That's the only thing he did in his position so far. Sweet promises to calm people down. Well, that worked. Now what? Same old same old? "We are working on new exciting content!" Yeah, right. Never seen it before. Meanwhile, feel free to pay money for new unlocks. "Oh, he is new, give him time!" He isn't new. He was part of the crew before, he knows people there and the way they work (and also was part of overall problem, but let's not destroy guy completely). Also he doesn't have time. Because it's *********** SWTOR, there's no more time. "People make mistakes!" Yes, and when those mistakes result in bad performance, people are being called out on it. Also, he doesn't have room for mistakes. Because Ben exhausted that credit looooong time ago. All I'm saying, the guy did absolutely nothing so far. ****, he isn't even able to punch balancing team in the face to make them go back to work - THAT doesn't require anything but some basic organizational skills. All I'm seeing is same tired routine that got SWTOR into the pit it's sitting in now. I've been here long. I've seen it all. So far, this guy isn't different from previous ones. Actually, he is worse, because he has balls to try and make up excuses pressing on our "humanity" side. That's called manipulation, by the way. GJ on that front at least.

Sorry, he is too busy visiting his dad and failing at time evaluation.

Well, let's see. It used to be burst spec before it mutated into DoT with 3.0, switching name and some skills with AP. Before and after that it was considered unviable because 1)Flamethrower was extremely impractical in PVP environment and 2) old Pyrotech/ new AP was a thing. With 5.0 flamethrower got removed specifically because of that impracticality, but PTs got nerfed (relatively) overall. So yea, it's historically a complete mess.

Your dad. Really. You are the only person able to work on roadmap, and nobody was able to pick it up for a few days. It's you secret child that nobody else has any knowledge about. Because you totally don't have anybody else has any idea on what you are planning to do. Not a single person in entire studio. Actually, wait, nevermind. THAT I sadly can believe.

Guys, be real. It's EA. New producer doesn't mean kitten. Simply expect him to be full of **** until proven otherwise, by action. So far...

IKR. Where is promised roadmap? Where are any real actions, not just forum sweet-talk?

It's not a particular ability - it's visual effect Deception sin gets when getting 3 stacks and Lightning sorc gets from CL proc. You know, when you explode with lightning that then keeps crackling around you hands? Pure awesome.

Ok, pardon my merc speaking, because I rolled one. Still, I assume things that require 2 blasters will also require cannon. Arsenal: Priming shot, Blazing bolts. First one is extremely useful, second is absolutely mandatory. IO: Serrated Shot, Mag Shot. Both are mandatory. And even in case Commando doesn't follow same restrictions, you'll gimp you DPS by a lot. Unless you play solo exclusively, please don't do it.

Unless you are healer, your viability for any serious content will be at 0. Gunnery won't be able to use Grav Round, which makes entire spec pretty much useless. I don't quite recall AS skills, but it's overall so tightly knit that most likely it will get defective as well.

I went through all my chars, leveling them to 70, running flashpoints, getting some gear etc etc. Deception assassin is by far most fun I've had while doing so. It's effective, simple, survivable, looks cool, and combination of Amped Voltage and Reaper's Rush is just crazy fun in solo-PVE and FP environments. It also feels very different from Carnage mara. Deception is full priority-based class with very, VERY forgiving resource management and some ability to maintain range if situation calls for it. Positioning is also very forgiving now. Carnage, on the other hand, still follows strict cycle structure, and, between Ravage changes and new skill, became rage-starved and got hugely ****ed filler sections. The fact that entire spec is pretty much defective without high Alacrity rating doesn't help either. I mean, it's still godly if you have gear and skill to play it. But I definitely don't enjoy it.

-If we are talking about Focused/Enraged Defense, it severely lacks when getting focused. Mainly because it isn't packaged with damage reduction or reflect. -Snipers are snipers. Operatives, on the other hand, have only their healing skills, when mercs have healing skills and healing DCDs. -Unnatural Preservation IS DCD for all means and purposes. While it is strong heal, it doesn't come packaged with reflects or damage reductions. I mean, really guys. It's not the fact that there are other self-healis in game, it's power and quantity of said heals that mercs exclusively have. Comparing those heals to other classes is some serious exercise in twisted logic.

3 "heal to full" skills. Reflect (when you either heal merc or don't do any meaningful damage), shield with utility (same), adrenalin with utility (just heal to full). And that's without even going into territory of healing skills. No other class can do that. Even at best of times sorcs had only 1 HTF ability - infamous traited bubble. Juggs have 1, and it was considered very strong in certain scenarios. Maras - kinda. Snipers - nope. Ops - nope (they do have ungodly damage ignore though). Sins - nope. Vanguards - lol. Starting to see the point?

Well, you guys all remember how PVP is balanced for last 3 cycles? It's not around warzones. As such, question of what is and what is not OP in regs is utterly irrelevant - because even if Bioware wakes up from their balance slumber, they'll keep balancing things around ranked.

It's not defense of them. I just don't agree with reasons behind nerf requests. Mercs were utter **** in 3.0. All of the specs. Because they didn't have anti-focus tool that would force enemy to switch targets, or at the very least bother with stunning, or just save their *** from damage. You know, like maras, sorcs, guards (kinda), operatives and sins had. Then 4.0 came. It tried to remedy situation with rocket out, but it failed at its job because everybody and their mother got extra mobility tools. Mercs remained ****. Somewhere along the line Decoy made its appearance in Arsenal. It caused local *****torm among operatives, but at the end still failed as anti-focus tool. With 5.0 they FINALLY added the damn thing that was requested by mercs for as long as I can remember. What they also did was adding some utilities of questionable balance, that were DEFINETELY not needed on top of new DCD. Also, it turned out that Decoy, while failing at its job as primary defense, is an excellent secondary one. Combine all of that with forever respectable damage Arsenal dealt when left alive, and it breaks the class. Reflect is not a problem. It serves exactly same function as Force Barrier does. Except you can penetrate it with AOE and completely negate healing from it. How hard is it NOT to hit bubbled merc with single-target skills? Apparently it is. Problem lies in combination of new utilities and some arsenal-exclusive perks. That's where balancing should be made.

Just make transfers free. Boom, done. Somehow I doubt Bioware makes that much money out of them.

MMORPG is "massive multiplayer online role playing game". There's your definition. Neither Heartstone nor WoT fall into it. Both SWG and ToR do.

FTFY. Cause it's what your proposition boils down to. Mercs were trash forever SPECIFICALLY because they didn't have panic button. However, during that time they accumulated quite a number of bandages that tried to fix their pitiful survivability. Now, when panic button finally arrived, it turned out that all of those bandages gathered over time combine to make merc as OP as it is. Reflect bubble itself is not a problem. Other survivability tools combined with it are. Like that asinine healing shield utility, or Arsenal Decoy.