I'm not accusing you of not knowing how the game works, but just as general advice to anyone who might be reading: Note that just because there is an AOE at the console where the AOE circle on the ground covers everything, it does not mean that all caps will be interrupted. Some abilities can miss (same as normal attacks can), some abilities can be forced to miss with some defensive cooldowns, and some abilities can miss because of line of sight (the person is on the opposite side of the console from where the AOE was put). That said, I have also seen some shady stuff on Alderaan, a month or two ago I made a thread about it on the forums. Middle got flipped while there was a lot of fighting going on. However, I actually saw the player who capped the turret. He was standing about 25 meter or so away from it.

Sure, the Gunnery tree has a number of desirable PVP focused talents, which you mention: The better knockback, the (mostly useless) root on Stockstrike, and the snare on Full Auto. Another reason might be because at least in my opinion, managing heat/ammo is much easier as Gunnery than as Assault, and if nothing else, it's a different playstyle which some people prefer. Personally I prefer Gunnery for PVE and Assault for PVP, partly because in PVP I don't like being so dependent on one single casted ability both for the important buff, debuff, and overall DPS. Assault being less focused on any one ability is also why I think it has less problems in PVP than Gunnery. What we both agree on is that currently the effectiveness of melee shutting down a Commando is too high, however it seems as though the main difference in our opinions is that you (and many others who discuss Commando changes) are focusing the entire balance changes on buffs to Commando, while I would prefer to see a smaller buff to Commando, at the same time as a small nerf to some melee classes' anti-ranged effectiveness. (which would also at the same time fix many of the issues which Sorcerers have) For balance in terms of a 1vs1 situation I don't think it matters much which route you take, but in my opinion if ranged simply can keep themselves constantly close to their potential maximum damage, then that quickly becomes overpowered in a team situation because of the advantages which ranged has over melee. One simple example is in having two players attacking one enemy player, for example a healer. If the attackers are melee, one Operative Flash Bang or Vanguard Neural Surge is enough to give the player some breathing room, one AOE taunt or damage ability will hit both attackers, and so on. Because ranged do not have some of the disadvantages which melee has in a situation like this, there needs to be other disadvantages to being ranged in a team situation, and in my opinion the best solution is indeed having ranged classes become immediately noticeably less effective when being focused on, in particularly by melee. However I'll reiterate that currently, the amount which a Commando loses is not in line with how easy it is and how little melee classes lose while shutting down a Commando. I think that the learning curve is steeper than what it is for some classes (Vanguard), but similar to some other classes (Operative). However regardless of exactly how much underpowered Commando is, I think that because of how obvious it is that Commando is underpowered and because of how obvious the way to counter them is, it causes the problem to seem bigger than what it actually is. I say this both from a psychological sense where things which are obvious often seem bigger and more important than what they actually are, as well as from how it plays out in game, where it makes sense to keep hunting the easiest prey with the lowest risk.

^ You make some good points (in particular I agree that BW has grossly overestimated the useful all healing classes' heals are when specced as DPS), but we will still disagree on exactly how underpowered the class is, and what it does and doesn't bring. I'm not going to respond to everything because I think you've already made up your mind anyway. One thing which I'd really like to point out though, is that pretty much every time I see when people discuss the Merc in PVP, the focus is on how to make Arsenal good (and as I wrote I agree that something similar to Run and Gun could be good for that spec). Keep in mind though that a lot of these Arsenal fixes are focused on fixing problems which do not exist when playing as Pyro.

My opinion on the Mercenary/Commando class has changed somewhat from what it used to be. After having played a Merc at 50 for a while, I now think that we are less underpowered than what I had originally thought, but there are still some adjustments which should be made. In my opinion, it's not THAT bad. Pretty much the only times I feel like it's just plain unfair, other than when against a few players of various classes who seem to be very good at their class, is against Warriors. Nerfing the Warriors' anti-ranged effectiveness would probably help Mercs and Sorcs a lot. Regarding changes directly to the Merc (as opposed to indirectly by nerfing other classes): - Arsenal already has big damage potential IMO, and might be difficult to balance for PVP. Some sort of idea similar to the Run and Gun idea might be the best. - Pyro is already in a fairly good place in my opinion. The only thing I'd like to see changed is a talent which gives Power Shot a 100% chance to proc the Cylinder DOT, exactly like how PT's can talent Flame Burst. Obviously both of the above are after Warriors have been fixed.

Yes you can. I did this exact thing, I bought the Digital Deluxe at launch, then I later bought the physical Collector's Edition, and redeemed the code in my account settings. I got all of the extras which you would normally get with the CE (1 month game time, the extra Cartel Coins CE accounts got, and so on).

There is no difference, except for the weight of the armor. Light offers less armor than medium, medium offers less armor than heavy. Adaptive automatically adapts itself to the maximum weight the wearer can wear. You can wear lighter armor than what your class is able to wear, however know that you are then getting less damage mitigation against kinetic/energy/weapon damage.

I think the SWTOR system is really good, but it definitely needs some adjustments in terms of the numbers. (which abilities are affected in some way by resolve, how much resolve different types of abilities gives, their cooldowns, the cooldown of CC breakers, how fast resolve goes back down, how long CC immunity last for, and so on...)

I like the Sorcerer and the Juggernaut. I think the Operative looks a lot better in those colors than the WH ones. Making the top of the Powertech's helmet red was an unfortunate choice, but I'm glad that not everything in the game has the same boring colors which makes every piece of gear look like the same grey. (haven't been paying much attention to the EWH looks so I don't know if those colors are already in the game or not for Agents and BHs). As a sidenote, Makeb looks like it's going to become a really good looking planet!

Yep, in fact almost every single game with PVP is entirely, or at the very least heavily, focused on skill over gear. Unfortunately there are no MMORPG's with "normal" MMORPG combat which is focused on skill over gear, for some reason people think that this is the one sub-genre where it's OK to make gear win. BW took some big steps in the right direction in 1.6, hopefully they'll continue like this.

Depending on when you left, things are either the same for Sages, or worse. While gear is still very important, if you can't jump into a Warzone and at least most of the time do OK, in my opinion getting gear won't fix it. Also note that if you are still below level 50, the class imbalances are significantly larger at level 50 than before. Sentinel seems to be the class which is guaranteed to always be very good. Since BW has said that they want the classes which only have DPS trees to be flat out better at DPS than anyone else (which IMO would be fine for PVP but the problem is that healing abilities in particular suck when specced for DPS), Sentinels at the very least will never be in the position which all classes which have healing trees are currently in. Sentinels are also pretty fun to play because they have a lot of cool and unique abilities. Other classes to consider based on what you write are Shadow (although then you'd have the same story line as Sage, unless you went Empire), Guardian, and Vanguard. Gunslingers, being the last of the classes without a healing tree, are also very good, but probably won't fit the playstyle you are looking for.

I think it's too early to start worrying about hybrid specs at the moment. We both do not know how BioWare will change the trees, and we do not know how good the new talents will be. For example, some of the important abilities which could make a hybrid very strong might be moved further down the tree than what they are currently. Even if the only thing they do is to just add new tiers to the existing trees, it's still not guaranteed that hybrids will be good. As an example, Operative healer with Corrosive Grenade (not that useful IMO but just a simple example), you can already do that right now, but the thing which keeps healers from taking Corrosive Grenade is that Recuperative Nanotech is so good. It's possible that the new abilities which are coming will make the same thing happen with those, you could go hybrid but you won't because it might not be worth it because the new talents might be so good. Again, there is a lot which we do not know at the moment.

No one can tell you exactly what to put where, because it's down to personal preference. For example, I have my movement on ESDF, so if you don't then a lot of the keybinds would have to be approached very differently. Some things I keep in mind when doing keybinds is to for example put abilities that I use a lot and need to use quickly in places where they are as easy as possible to press. One tip which is especially for the Naga, is that if you want to, it's pretty easy to press two buttons at the same time (or even three). So for example I have my 25% damage mitigation and my 15% HOT on buttons that are right next to each other, so if I want to I can press them both at the same time (since they are off GCD), same with WZ adrenal and medpack, same with next ability generates no heat and no cast time, and so on. Again though, that's personal preference, so think about it for yourself and decide on how you want it.

Sure, I can understand that this is your first game and you didn't know what it would be all about, this game made a lot of new people want to try it out, but you played for the many hundreds of hours it takes going from level 1 to War Hero geared level 50, and you never felt interested enough to do a few minutes of research on the genre of the game you are playing? Ok, well... now you know. This is the way it works. We'll be getting new gear all the time. Also we will extremely likely get a level increase. In many other games, when there is a level increase, old gear is made completely useless, however I think BW has said that once the next level increase comes, old content (and I am assuming old gear) will not be made useless.

The reason you should have known is because this is the way it always works in every MMORPG with a gear progression. Unless BioWare completely changes their entire view on progression, there will always eventually be another tier which replaces current top tier gear. Some months from now, there will be a tier above EWH (which has already been datamined as being called Champion War Hero, unless their plans have changed since the datamining was done), some months after that there will be a tier above that, and so on.

You are right, I forgot about that talent. Someone had to ruin the party. While it's fun to do stuff like this, in my opinion games shouldn't be won or lost for something so simple.

If your team does not hold a pylon at the end of each round, then your team will be behind so many points that it's very unlikely for you to be able to win, unless you also manage to hold both pylons after another round. Because of this, making sure that your team holds at least one pylon at the end of each round is one of the single most important things you can do in any Warzone. One very important thing to note, is that it only takes 6 seconds to capture a pylon. This means two things: 1. If you see that there are more than six seconds left when you abandon the pylon, then the enemy can still capture it while you are running back. 2. A mezz is long enough for the enemy player to capture it. What this is turn means, is that one single stealther can guarantee a capture if there is only a single defender. Operative/Scoundrel has it the easiest. - First they can from stealth put an 8 second mezz on the defender. - Because it only takes 6 seconds to capture a pylon, the defender is forced to use his CC breaker, if it's off cooldown. - Then the Operative/Scoundrel simply uses their instant 8 second AOE mezz. Because you only have one CC breaker, and because of how the resolve system works, this is a guaranteed capture, and it is impossible for a single defender to stop it. An Assassin/Shadow can also easily do it, but they have to either do their second mezz with a cast time, or restealth and cast the second from stealth also. Therefor, having only one person defending your teams pylon at the end of a round is not enough. Of course, it's just as easy for two stealthers to completely disable two defenders... These objectives are fairly important for a Warzone which was supposed to be about team deathmatch.

Because in terms of gear progression, there is both progression in stats and looks. The lower level gear is meant to have a simpler look than higher level gear. As long as you use gear with the maximum weight which your class can use (light, medium, heavy, or adaptable which automatically turns into the best which that class can wear), it doesn't matter which you use, it's completely up to you to use whatever you like the most, as long as you can meet its level requirement.

Normally when someone goes into stealth, if that player is targeted then the target is lost, however (I don't know for sure if this happens all the time, but to me it seems as though normally) a player who disappears into the ground is still targeted. After he vanished the second time, you can see that the player who is recording it still has the Shadow targeted, therefor, the Shadow did not go into stealth at that time. It's possible that it's just a great coincidence that the bug happened at the perfect time for the Shadow.

I'm having a lot of fun PVPing as a tank TYVM, and when I'm on my healer I appreciate it a lot when there a tank protecting me. The reason why I rarely PVE, and never as tank, are because: - You would need two completely different sets of gear. Tank is the only role where this is the case, and it is caused by the tanking stats being so bad for PVP that it's a lot better to use DPS gear with shield offhand (which is probably what those tanks who "can't kill anything" needs to start doing). - PVE seems mostly boring. - Tanks are expected to already know everything about all encounters beforehand. Sure, I could easily find these out by reading or watching some Youtube videos, but I don't really know what the point in playing is when you've first had to sit down and read up on everything which is going to happen. I'm just not a PVE'er I guess.

These aren't exactly HAHA-funny, just a few screenshjots I had. The Marauder ruined it: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=zv98i&s=6 Damn those teams of Operatives! ...to be fair, some of them were Snipers. Again: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=11azozm&s=6 Yes, I lost both games, they played well. This happened today, a player was invisible all the time. After being attacked, while in combat, etc. After she died she came back invisible. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=34rx35s&s=6 I removed her name, but note that I am not calling this player out for cheating, I consider it to be a graphical glitch.

In addition to the head, the belt also is the PVP Battlemaster belt. For the chest and gloves, I think the gloves look similar to a few different ones in the level 30-40 range (such as the Grand Inquisitor). I'd recommend to just check the GTN, use the preview feature to check some different ones.

I've been taking notes of some of the cool gear I've seen on NPCs while questing: Ralesk in Sith Warrior act 1 on Dromund Kaas Colonel Malcom in Republic Alderaan bonus series Kamen Proy in Republic Alderaan bonus series Overseer Verandala in Republic Alderaan bonus series Master Corin Tok in Imperial Corellia planet quest line Lord Torius in Trooper act 2 on Voss Jedi Escort in Imperial Voss planet questline Something which is similar (but in my opinion not exactly the same) as Satele Shan for Jedi Shadows. ..in addition to the ones I wrote in my previous post in this thread. All of these are either color variations of existing gear, or slightly modified versions of existing gear.

Because higher critical chance gives you more critical hits. As SgtKlavier wrote, the increased critical chance which you get from mainstat is on a different DR curve than what you get from the Critical stat. Same for whatever increased critical chance you get from talents and set bonues. This is the reason why you should be looking at the actual critical rating stat, not your total critical chance when deciding that your have "enough" (but of course all of these will change in the future depending on what gear is available). Buffed and talented, Power will give you extremely slightly more bonus damage than mainstat, however since mainstat gives you additional critical chance, and these not on any meaningful DR curve for the amount of stats in current gear, there is currently no point in which Power become better than mainstat. For more information, read up on MMO-Mechanics.com.

If you really wanted to go fairly deep into two different trees, then Shield and Tactics are the two which you would go into. The easiest reason why Tactics would be a better idea than Assault is because a lot of the talents in Assault require you to use Plasma Cell for them to even do anything. That said, it's really not a good idea to do this. If talenting for both roles, then when you are in Ion Cell you are not going to be as good as someone who's tank specced, and when in one of the DPS cells you are not going to be as good as someone who's DPS specced. It's OK to just quickly change your role by changing cell when you are very low level and you haven't yet gotten a lot of talent points, I do the same whenever I am on a low level character, but once you start getting higher in level you should be aiming at going 31 points into one of the trees and using the cell which is meant for that tree. Then when you want to change your role, you should respec your talent points.

That's what I expected would have happened to me also, I expected the game to tell me that I was too far away because I thought because then I thought that it's at least somewhat possible that the player was really by the console, and it just looked as if he was 25m away on my screen. The thing which made me feel like it might not have been a bug like this when I actually was able to attack him with a melee ability. (followed by the suspicious behavior of him not trying to attack me back or get away or anything, followed by having none of my teammates noticing him successfully capping it) I've decided to install some screen capture software. Next time I see something I'll be able to record it.