http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/bpcky

So many of you are talking about there original marketing strategy and how it was all story oriented, and then go on to say that they haven't added story content or it has been ignored since release. First off the original marketing strategy was, everything you love about a traditional MMO but now with an epic evolving story. Well they kind of failed in both ways at launch. The traditional MMO elements were minimal and bugged at launch, and the epic story didn't go anywhere once you got to 50. However they have continued to add to both parts of the game, there has been new story added with each expansion, and there has been new end game group content added with both expansion. So for those that love the story stop acting like they have ignored it in favor of group content, they haven't. It is there, is it great or evolving like originally intended? Hell NO, but nothing about this game is like they originally intended. The raiders have a point, and the story lovers should stop trying to silence. Why are you trying to tell them Tough ****, just wait. Why divide the player base. From the information we have come to gather, it looks like there might not be new raiding content until after Season 1 of KotFE has finished, which is late July. Essentially you story lovers are telling raiders to go wait what may end up being close to 2 years for new OPs content. That would be like them not releasing any story content once you reach level 50 all the way to KotFE launch. That has not been the case, and no MMO should go two years before new end game group content is released, 1 year is bad enough. While the end game content changes are good, they would be really good if any of it was new content, which none of it is. To put it in terms the story guys might understand. What if Bioware decided one day after all your faithful subscribing and spending money that they would come out with a new expansion and the only new content was all FP and all OP, no story, no new single player missions. Everything was 2-4 man plus heroic missions, and entire planet of just FP, OPs, and Heroic missions. Sure you could go back and play through old story content another 20 times, and keep doing your same old single player dailies, but that is all you would have. That sucks, and that seems to be the case for the raider community in this expansion. personally i love the direction they are taking end game group content, and enjoy that there will be an evolving story over 16 chapters. However, as an ex raider, i understand where they are coming from, and why they are upset. I am not going to sit here and act like they should be second class citizens in a game that they enjoy playing, even if what they enjoy is different from my particular focus or place of enjoyment.

Outside of the 1-50 class stories this game was never truly a story driven online game. Second it was always intended to have solid end game space ogre killing raiding. What caused the game to fail and go F2P, was that they spread themselves too thin. They tried to have the awesome end PvE content like WoW, and the battlegrounds of WoW, but then they also wanted to have something small for the open world PvP lovers. They wanted to do all of this while also have a fully voiced choice driven cinematic story, and one for each individual class to go along with the core story that they was a continuation of KotoR. To top that off they tried to add in space combat, and that just turned into a ****** on rail shooter. In the end what the players got was a game that tried to do it all but failed in almost every single area.The space combat was pointless and meaningless. The Story didn't really continue at 50 outside of the small illum quest chain, and overall none of it had choices that meant anything. The stories were pretty good though. The PvP balance and gearing at launch was pathetically terrible. Lets add RNG loot to PvP, and make sure 50's that have full expertise gear get to play against sub 50's. That was brilliant. Finally the PvE elder game content was minimal and buggy at launch, and took way to long to fix.

I would say it depends on the person. Many welcome the story elements and change to a more story driven online game, and not a traditional MMO. Others are fearful because it looks like they are being completely ignored when it comes to new group content. Other are fearful because PvP has continued to stagnate for years and right now there looks to be nothing of interest in FE for them. For those two group it looks like Bioware is abandoning them in favor of another group of players. Whether one group is the majority or not doesn't really matter. To them they are being brushed aside, many of whom are loyal customers who kept subscribing despite the poor buggy launch with limited end game content, and stayed despite promises of quicker content release. Many stayed despite their hype for Galactic Star Fighter that turned out to be a garbage pay to win instanced space mini game. I would say more abandonment issues, than change.

@OP You never gate leveling, that is dumbest thing any company could do. Gating end game content with attunements(provide they are done right), or required gear item levels is fine, but you don't gate leveling. Also i don't know where you got your info, which is why your so confused, but it is all the messed up and wrong as others have said. With that being said, if they don't release a new OP before the end of FE season 1 in July (the release of the 16th chapter) that will still be an extremely long time without new elder game OPs and FPs. Almost two years. No MMO should take that long to release new elder game group content. I don't care if this is a story driven MMO, consistent new elder game group content is a must.

While it is disappointing that there wont be a new OP at launch(as expected), i am excited about the direction the elder game is going. That is to say i am looking forward to the fact that when a new OP comes out there will still be a reason to do the old and get relevant gear from it. That way i don't get burnt out on the new OP. When i was hardcore raiding in WoW in BC and Wrath, i would get burnt out on a raid after a month of having it on farm. Having the old content will help eliminate that. I am also extremely happy to see the direction they are taking the core game and small group content. An emphasis on story, and the RPG in MMORPG. Being able to run the core story FP solo is big benefit when i am leveling. Most of all, the ability to run FP changes, making them 10-65 with a sync is a huge bonus. FFXIV got it right, if this is like that it will be a huge improvement to the game. While the lack of a new OP, new PvP maps are disappointing the overall direction the game is going seems to be positive. We can only hope that brand new elder game content wont take to long to come out. While Story is great and the main reason i play, new group content is a must in any MMO.

I don't understand some of the people on these forums. They are acting like KotFE is destroying the game for the people who enjoy large scale PvE, which in this game is rather small with only 8 and 16 man options. They obviously care about the elder game population. If they didn't why would they go through the trouble of making older content available at the new max level, which is a good thing IMO. While a new OP at launch would be good for KotFE, the direction they are taking the elder game is much better than how other MMOs are doing it. Making sure the older content stays relevant is great. Giving players a reason to run different raids via the HM weekly, and story mode dailies keeps people from getting worn out on a single OP. Once they get some new content in there this should be a positive change for OPs players. Hopefully something comes out before the end of season 1 of KotFE. I have grown to hate the, new content comes out old content is irrelevant way WoW does things. More content is better then running the same thing every week for 5 months. Also i want to stress that this has never been a hardcore raider friendly game. If you think 8 and 16 man are hardcore friendly than something is wrong. You want hardcore, play Wildstar, it is the only true hardcore raiding MMO left with its 40 man content. That game caters to the Hardcore PvE and PVP, and that game is doing worse than Swtor. Also every MMO has been transitioning to smaller group content, and there is a good reason for that. Getting 40 qualified, geared, and attuned player together is a pain. Smaller groups that allow the player to be with their friends is far more appealing. Also the older hardcore raider crowd doesn't the time like they did in the early 2000's. We are out of college, have jobs that limit time investment in a single game, and some are even married with kids that further limit. The olde gen wants a game that is more friendly to their busy lives. They seem to want a game that has the constant updates of an MMO but with the lower time investment of a traditional single player game. The newer generation seems to be wanting this also, juust look at some of the new games that are being considered MMOs, such as Destiny. Small group content so you don't have to bother trying to create new friendships online with a stranger, and it doesn't require large amounts of time investment to progress or stay up to date with gear and content.

From what i read it looks like they are trying to move towards a FFXIV way of doing OPs and FP. I don't know if you played, but basically to sum it up they have a level sync, and stat sync. So when you go to a lower level group instance you are synced so that your stats are buffed, or nerfed, and if you have level sync on, you actually lose access to abilities that you wouldn't have at that level for that specific dungeon. The system is nice because it gives max level players a reason to queue for lower level dungeon, and allows lower level players to help populate the que for max level players. It helps to shorten the que times for everyone, which this game desperately needs. On your first question i think it means that when you do the hard modes(50-65), each individual player has there own separate loot roll on each boss. That loot will be appropriate to your class and level. So you may get loot on one boss but not on another, while someone else may get loot on a boss you didn't, but might not get loot on a boss that you got loot from. Your second question, i doubt you're going to get an answer on that. The hard mode FP gear, will likely be brand new gear. The statement "entirely new" i think pretty much states that. I doubt they would say that if it was just recolors. As for the tactical FPS, and Solo stuff, i think it will just be the same looking gear sets, but with mods that are appropriate to your level. When it comes to gear i think you will be seeing a few different levels, and hopefully each will look different. But i expect a Hard Mode FP gear set. Essentially this is the basic gear sets that you can get from coms now. Meant to get you ready for standard OPs. Then there will be a story mode set, likely the same look as hard mode FP, but slightly hire ilvl gear, or exact same ilvl. I think Hard modes, and Nightmare will have the same gear, with the weekly hard mode giving exclusive rewards. I think the idea here is to get your ops group to circulate through the content. Relevant means it will be appropriate to your AC, level, and likely your roll; DPS, Tank, or Heals. Since there is bolster for the 50-65 story mode OP, it is almost an automatic that when gear drops for you, that gear will be 65 if you are 65, or 50 if you are 50. Will people be able to gear up with entry level gear quickly? Probably, but there is still the HM, and NiM gear to strive for, which will take longer. I have a feeling HM, will be the go to for most OPs guilds, and Story Mode, will be for those who play solo but want to experience the content. It will likely be a cake walk, like WoW did for its Group Finder Raids. As for will there be level 50 EV. Well I think that answer looks to be a no. You can do the Story mode OP at level 50 if you want, and you will be bolstered, but i doubt you will be able to get a small group of 65s and go back and do EV at its original level 50 difficulty. I think there will still be comms, but i think that will be for the HM FP gear only. Hopefully HM and NiM OPs are only available by actually doing them.

I wish they would get rid of cyborgs, and allow any race to have cybernetics attached to them. They have masks and Cybernetic armor that actually makes your character look like a cyborg if you want that option. Currently cyborg race is just human with cybernetic face attachments, you don't even get arm, leg or any real interesting options, those are left for gear that any race can have.

I have played many of MMO's over, and i used to choose PvP servers if there was a choice, as i enjoy PvP. Through the years i have learned a few things about world PvP. The first is that world PvP typically sucks unless the game is designed from the ground up with world PvP in mind. Said PvP must also be objective based, there needs to be a reason to do it. While people will participate in a mindless killing OWPvP, it oftens just devolves into a mindless ranged AoE **** fest. Warhammer Online had one of best OWPvP plans i have seen, but other issues caused that game to be ultimately fail. Another thing i have learned is that 2 faction OWPvP generally does not work. One faction on a server tends to always have a noticeable higher population than the other. This creates an environment where one faction wins by the numbers game, and the constant losing causes one faction to just stop participating, and the PvP will eventually drop off. The third thing i have learned is the PvP server is just code name for gank fest, If there is no cohesive design and puprose to OWPvP. Players want to level without a Dbag ganking them while they are killing a quest mob and trying to level. Ganking isn't OWPvP, it is just being a dick. They tried OWPvP in this game on illum, and on most servers it just became a daily and weekly trading lame fest, that was neither PvP nor fun. There are things they could do to make OWPvP work in this game, but i doubt the cost/time investment it would take is worth it for the few that actually want to do it. Even then the faction balance poses a huge hurdle to overcome.

I doubt they will be cutting out any video files or planet stories in the streamline. At most the would do like they have done with SoR, and make the side quests just simple pickups, no having to go through some stupid video for a lame side quest that is kill X, Y amount of times, and i doubt they will even do that. What they most likely mean is that the 12xp, or some version of it will go to the F2P players. With that they will likely be adjusting quest rewards so that you can actually gear up as you go up. With 12xp right now your only choice to get gear is through comms, and that only covers your main gear. I don't think there are any quests for the class story that give you implants or Ear slot gear. So you have to use credits to buy them. Basically i think quest rewards are going to be more like SoR. They said SoR is streamlined, and designed to be optimized leveling, and that is why it didn't receive the 12xp boost that the core and Makeb parts of the game received.

if you were under the effects of Electro-net then it would be likely that force camo does not work. Electro-net disables the use of movement enhancing abilities. Force camo increases movement speed by 30% when used. Judging by the exact wording of the hindered debuff from Electro-net, this is working as intended. Now maybe the will put in a change that allows you to force camo but not gain the movement speed increase.

You make it so roll drops the ball then they certainly would become the worst. Are they the best now? NO, so if they are not the best then it is not OP. If they were by far the best ball carrier then you might have a point. In the end, shadows and guardians are better ball carriers and that is all that matters. They aren't even in the top 2 and you want to make them the worst ball carrier with such a change. Maybe they are great in pug HB but should we really destroy their ball carrying capabilities because idiots like you can't handle roll in pugs. Stop being an idiot and realize that you are asking to make them the worst ball carrier. Honestly this seems more like scoundrel and operative hate then it is an actual well thought out topic about roll being OP in HB. HB would be far better if they took the new hindered debuff, the one from electro net, applied to all ball carriers, and remove the constant slow from carrying the ball. This would help turn it into a game about passing, they way it should be played. You may get some turtle strategies but there are ways to remove that. 1 is to put a damage increase debuff on the ball carrier. Another is to prevent teams from winning 0-0, by adding in extra time if there is a tie. a non timed sudden death period.

Okay, then how do you propose they buff it if they give it a C/D. 1. Remove the Energy cost: if energy doesn't matter now, as you say it doesn't, then this wouldn't buff the ability which it needs if you add a C/D. 2. Make it so you always roll the same distance: currently you can slow them and they only roll 6m instead of 12m. 3. Make the range 30m: currently it is the shortest length gap closer, one of the reasons, along with #2, as to why it has no C/D 4. Increase the defensive bonus duration to last longer then the roll itself: The current design is that this is more of a defensive mobility tool, less of a gap closer type of tool(at least IMO judging by design). This would further reinforce that it is more of a defensive tool then offensive gap closer or ways to move the ball across the map quickly. 5. Other things As of right now this ability is balanced by the fact that it deals no damage, high energy cost(25 of 100), the mobility is hindered by slows, and has a very minimal range in which it can open. I wouldn't mind them giving it a short C/D of 10-15sec if they removed they removed the energy cost and made it so the distance traveled was no longer hindered by slows and increase the range that you can roll to 20m. I am not saying that it isn't a problematic ability with zero C/D but i will argue that adding a C/D, while keeping its current negatives would be even worse. The closest comparable ability is force speed. Which has no force cost, and can traverse a considerably larger distance. Both are hindered by slows, but there are talents to remove slows upon force speed activation. I don't know of any talents that remove slows when you scamper, unless the snare deals damage and then it is only a 50% chance.

The problem is that they took a spec that was all about having incredibly strong single target burst and greatly reduced said burst, to the point where their burst potential is considerably lower then some other classes that retained their advantages over Pyro PT. Pyro PT traded survivability for high single target burst, however that burst is destroyed and their survivability is still crap, and their sustained has not gone up by much. Overall DPS remains the same. Compare to a focus guardian, probably the closest thing to a Pyro PT. Lost some burst in this expansion but because of guaranteed crits it isn't as noticeable, and you combine that with the fact that the damage from sweep wasn't shifted to DoTs , like is the case with Pyro's burst, and you can still get similar burst from Rage as you did prior to 2.0, it just requires you to do more then just hit force sweep. Not to mention a focus guardian is much better defensively. Combine the now defunct Pyro with a poorly designed Advanced Prototype and the below average tanking of shield tech(compared to other tank specs) and you get an entire advanced class that is now useless in PvP and PvE. Prior to 2.0 Pyro was regarded as the only viable powertech tree, and although Shield tech and AP have recieved buffs, they are still sub par, along with Pyro now being sub par. If i needed a tanking hybrid advanced class in ranked PvP i would take a Guardian or Juggernaut any day now. Rage is better than pyro, vengeance is better and more fun than AP, and immortal is better than shield tech.

This is because the bolster system is designed to bring a players stats just below partisan level gear. This has been stated a couple times by the devs.Basically if you are wearing full partisan you really won't get bolstered. The purpose is so that someone wearing partisan doesn't have a large advantage. Also it is hard to tell how good something is when you don't also mention the tertiary stats. It would also help more if you could do a full comparison, full EWH or WH vs Full partisan and full naked. Part of the reason your stats are probably so close is that the Partisan chest piece is probably not getting any bolster because it is higher ilevel then the level they want to bolster players to. This is why you need full set comparisons and not just a single piece. If you could actually look up the specific changes in that one piece alone then this test would be good. Part of the problem is the end game gear of the basic game is essentially equal in item level to starter gear in RotHC.

The problem with that is that you have to make sure that it takes similar amounts of time to aquire the same item level set. If time investment for one or the other is significantly better than the other, then players will take the shortest path to gear progression. Then we come full circle and the same complaint of having to PvE to get the better PvP gear is still there, or the opposite is true. For instanced no one wants PvP gear to be random like PvE gear is. You could always make PvE gear guaranteed like PvP gear but then progression goes to quickly and players are whining that there is nothing to do since they are already BiS, and it is already to easy to get BiS in most MMO's. In fact the only time BiS was hard to acquire was T3 vanilla WoW, and the Final tier in Burning Crusade. A very small percentage of the raiding population ever got BiS in those two tiers because the bosses were designed to be very hard. The reason games have separate gear is so that they can better control damage in each environment, through a PvP stat, or some other means. The other reason is so that progression paths can very, and time needed to aquire the gear can very.

This is very important and something many are missing out on. The bolster change was designed so that they did not have to hand out Recruit gear, and then pass down partisan to recruit when the new PvP gear comes out later. It is great idea that also solved issues below the level cap. And even though i understand i like the attempt it is a more complicated then having free recruit gear for those who reach 55. However there is a problem in this system and it has to do with the a lack of gear inflation from 50 -55. Right now PvE players who got full dread guard before the expansion are pretty much able to go right into hard mode content, pretty much skipping over the 69's and going right to the 72's. There is pretty much no gating on the PvE at the moment. This means that those who are getting the 72's even with the decreased expertise have an advantage at the moment because most people are not even close to conqueror. You can't go straight to conqueror even if you had full augmented EWH. You have to get Partisan and then trade in those shells to get Conqueror. 72 PvE will be worse then conqueror but 72 PvE is slightly better then partisan. If the PvE had some gating, such that the player had to get quality level 55 PvE gear before they could do hard mode PvE, then the issue wouldn't be a big deal. PvE players would be inclined to get Partisan and actually use it.

They also don't cost any resource to use deal damage and some like force leap generate resources. exfiltrate uses 25 energy, 1/4 of their total energy. In addition exfiltrate is affected by slows, such that the player only traverses half the distance when slowed. Also those abilities can traverse the Z axis, making them overall better You can't compare scamper/exfiltrate with those abilities because, too much is different. Each has their upsides, scamper trades damage, Z-axis movement, zero resource cost, and a root in exchange for an ability which has no C/D, defensive boost while you roll, and a high energy cost. Scamper is a better defensive/escape tool, while force leap is a better offensive tool used to close the gap and add utility via the root. If you were to put a C/D equal to force leap or even a 10-15sec C/D you would have to remove the energy cost completely and possibly buff the defensive aspect of it so it last for a 2 sec after the roll completes, and remove the aspect that causes slows to decrease the distance traveled. You can't just nerf the ability by giving it a C/D. That would completely ruin what it was designed to be.

The people who are complaining are not complaining because things are terrible in Warzones where bolster makes up for the Expertise removed from the WH/EWH gear. They are complaining from a world PvP perspective because they are on a PvP server, and despite world PvP no being great, it still happens in this game. This is especially true for Makeb. Essentially for those that play on a PvP server and are leveling or doing daily missions on Makeb it is incredibly painful without the expertise on EWH now. They are getting crushed by those who got early access or rushed to 55, and are already in full partisan or higher PvP gear or those who have higher quality PvE gear. Prior to the change the Expertise allowed them to at least fight back and make things competitive despite the difference in main stat/END compared to partisan geared players. There are also other issues popping up with regards to bolster. The bolster change is great but it has so many bugs and issues at the moment. It was pushed into the game before it was ready, just like how this game launched before it was truly ready. I love the game but the quality assurance in this game is extremely lacking.

This game really doesn't have bad lag anymore. Most of what your complaining about isn't really lag, it is the way this game does its client/server relationship and the fact that this game has some very long animations. In this game you will see melee hitting you when they are outside of melee range, but in WoW you see the opposite issue, melee not being able to hit you even though they are inside melee range. In both cases this is lag, but it is unavoidable lag that every online game will have, especially MMO's. There is no fixing it just ways to make it less noticeable. In WoW you don't notice that it is that bad because of snares and roots help to cut down on this problem being so prominent, but if you were to ever play a melee class without a snare you would see how bad it was, and it was just as common if not more so then what goes on in this game. I have played many of MMO's and there is always one of those two issues present. Most of you will blame lag, and although it is lag, it has more to do with how they decide to handle player commands with the server client relationship and how optimized there coding is. This whole game needs some major code optimization. That won't fix the issue, it will just help to make is less noticeable. The animation issue also goes to make this issue a little more noticeable. Sometimes you will see an animation still in process out of range but the start of the animation happened while they were in range and as such the damage still get applied.

I enjoyed your original post but i had some issues with it. I don't know if you have played the ranged DPS classes in this game but, it seems like you haven't. Ranged are at a huge disadvantage in this game and the only DPS that is even considered decent is the sniper, and that is because of Cover The gap closing/gap Opening mini game that goes on in any MMO, is extremely in favor of melee at the moment. It is just too easy for the majority of melee to close a gap, and kiting is almost non existent in this game. only a full Madness sorcerer can kite with any sort of real effectiveness, but there damage is **** against anyone who is wort a damn, and they can't burst at all. because Kiting is already so poor in this game you can't include roots on resolve, **** they need to take knockbacks grabs and pull off resolve. Resolve should not prevent gap closing or opening. Those tools are essential for those class to create a gap, and unless they prevent warriors from leaping to a full resolve target, them my knockback should work against a full resolve warrior. Granted KBs are too prevalent in this game, so putting them on resolve was necessary, but that has to change. The KB bouncing that goes on is absolutely frustrating. For instance i don't think Comm/Mercs should have a KB and instead should of different tools for creating a gap, maybe a jet jump to a target location that can funciton with the Z axis. Assasins don't need a KB either. Honestly only Juggs/snipers and sorceres should have a KB. KB C/Ds are also too short in this game 45sec would be perfect, 20-25sec is just too short. If the range with KBs need better gap opening to compensate than it should come it buffs to an existing ability or add a new ability. Roots to need to be on some sort of system to prevent rooting someone forever, however that has to be completely independent of resolve which should only function for stuns and stuns that break on damage, otherwise you just have too many problems. I don't believe resolve should decay it should actually grant you some time of immunity. IMO resolve should be reworked to incorporate DR. Essentially the resolve bar would be go 0-1200 and broken into 3 section. 0-400, if your resolve is less then 400 a cc lasts for its full duration. 400-800, cc last for 50% its total duration, and finally 800-1200 CC last for only 25% of its standard duration. At full resolve you are immune for X amount. Hard stuns would generate 100 resolve per second, Stuns that break on damage would generate 50 resolve per sec. Abilities should have the resolve they generate placed on the tool tip. Finally this game needs less hard stuns. Why is it that every class has a hard stun, mezzs should be the dominant form of CC not stuns. I don't mind being CC, i hate being CC'd and damage dealt to me to the point where i can die without ever being able to do anything. I would prefer to see Sorc and some other classes loose their stuns in favor of much shorter C/Ds on their mezzs and a possibly shorter cast time on the mezzs. The mezz should not me instant either, players should have a way to counter or interrupt CC. I believe that having more mezzs be the dominate form of CC and stuns being more rare would overall create a better PVP environment where people aren't killed inside CC and CC isn't tossed around like battlefield like candy. Class balance does need some work, and i agree with most of your feedback there with a few exceptions. Concealment Operative: damage is fine and mobility is pretty good, but fine for a stealth spec. The problem with them energy managment, pretty much for all DPS operatives energy management is terrible and you find yourself using your basic attack far to often. Fiquire out energy management and they will be, since this is the major reason why their sustained is horrible in PvE/PvP. DPS Sorcerers: Madness is relatively fine sustained damage wise, but it desperately needs some form of burst, the wrath proc just doesn't do it since Lightning Strike still hits for **** and Ch rushing Darkness initial hit isn't that great. Lightning is just flat out brokenly bad. Partially because kiting is a ***** in this game, and secondly everything has a cast time, and they do terrible damage. Lightning strike sucks, chain lightning doesn't hit that hard and thundering Blast is quite frankly disappointing for a tree topping ability with a 2sec cast time. Fixing this spec requires it to be able to kite more effectively and damage increases, either through proc chance increases or actually increasing damage of thing like lightning strike, and it could also use a way to get an instant cast Thundering Blast that increases its damage. Perhaps Lightning Storms proc could work with TB. Lightning is quite possibly the worst spec in the game for PvP. Both spec could also use an actual defensive C/D, they are too dependent on the Bubble. Bubble stun is flat out broken, should not be in the game in any form. The stun doesn't play kindly with resolve. If you make it generate normal resolve, then the sorc would have their opponent full resolve in no time with no way to escape since KB currently don't function against resolve targets. Remove the talent all together and replace it with something else. Rage/Focus: just flat out broken and needs to be redesigned to work around a single target ability. Damage would still need to come down, but the core of the problem is that this is an AOE hitting harder than any other single target attack in the game, Master Strike and a Unload with all ticks beings crits withstanding. Sentinals/Marauder: If the gap opening/closing model isn't adjusted so that ranged can more easily kite i would say that this class needs its defensive abilities nerfed or one of them cut. They are by far and away the hardest non tank speced class to kill. With all the stun issues this may not seem like an issue but if those actually get fixed this problem will be more noticeable than it is now and they will continue to be the go to for melee dps. Merc/Commando: Flat out broken, worst healer, and worst DPS for PvP. Damage really isn't a problem with any DPS spec, they mainly suffere from a lack of kiting ability since they are heavily reliant on casting, even Pryo needs to be able to cast. Their Burst/Sustained is fine, they just can't escape long enough to get off necessary casts and subsequently die to easily, Adrenalin Rush could use a Buff for all trooper and BH advanced classes. Assualt/Pyro for merc/mando could possibly use some better resource management tools. Other than that i think everything else is going relatively well for the type of PvP we have. I would love some space PvP and good world PvP that makes the two factions actually feel like there is a war going on.

Your little Phalanx is going to work unless you have multiple snipers. The fact is outside of Snipers Ranged are at a huge disadvantage in the game, and a group of Smashetards, will be a group of range unless that group is all Snipers. Also your only justification for Sages/Sorc being any good is bubble stun, an obviously broken mechanic. If you need a broken mechanic to beat something else, then it can easily be inferred that Focus/Rage is broken as well, which it is. Focus/Rage is only broken because it is an AoE that hits harder than any other AoE and hits harder than any single target attack. The fix is not to make the buffs debuffs instead, the fix is to rework the tree to work around a single target ability and make it so that it isn't such a "one trick pony". There is nothing wrong with Auto crits, there are many abilities in this game that can auto crit, the problem is that the tree is designed around a single attack. This creates the issue where the player can stack nothing but power and surge. I would redesign the tree to make Obliterate/Zealous Leap the core hard hitting ability, or i would create a new ability that the tree is designed around. It is never a good idea, in any mmo, to design something around burst AoE that is on par with single target damage.And you certainly cannot buff said spec to perform better in sustained, which is what they did. It is terrible when Focus not only has better burst than a fulll madness sorcerer, but can still perform on somewhat equal footing when it comes to sustained damage in single target PvE.

Your whole problem is that you are playing AP in PvP, Pyrotech is by far better. Pyro doesn't suffer huge damage losses outside of melee range, and has better survivability. Play pyro, AP has more problems then just gap closing which make it not so good for PvP.

I have said that three times in this thread and multiple times before, and part of the reason for that is they have great utility that almost everyone can use. There is no better classes then a Sorcerer to protect your ranged DPS with, and there is not better class than a sorcerer to allow the melee to stick to targets. They are by far the most useful class in a team environment, and that is because they seem to be designed as a utility class. No matter what spec you choose it is not a great 1v1 class like an operative or Marauder. Are they OP because of that? maybe, But i insist that if design is the problem, than a nerf will only break the class, a fundamental redesign is the answer. Like you said it probably isn't them being OP, its when you have a group of them that work together well. And it isn't just sorcerers/sages, the two ACs of Inquisitor and Counselor stack amazing too, especially when you use kinetic shadows to protect your sages. Like everyone else though, i am sick and tired of going into a WZ and seeing half the team Sages/Sorcerers and the other half Commandos/Mercs. with a sprinkling of the other advance classes.