Occasionally you will run into a Marauder or Sentinel that destroys people and puts out a ton of damage while not dying. When I see those I typically say to myself " Thank GOD they weren't on an Assassin/Shadow!"

It happens to me, soon as you go "up" to the bridge FPS drops to 1-2, or completely freezes up.

But the Puerto Ricans get sick pings to Pot5....

I just transferred from Harb about a week ago. Solo Ranked pops much more frequently here than on Harb for some reason. As for the level of play, it's all relative.

You are right about players wanting to win, you can't blame them. But when one class is the answer to ALL comps, it's a problem. It's Biowares problem, and I'm guessing they will address it soon.

Anyone who thinks there isn't a problem with Madness sins right now is either trolling or playing one. The top teams in preseason are all running double madness. I transferred from Harb to Pot5 a week ago, and the last day I was on Harb, Tauntons was running two different double hatred teams. When the best players are exploiting the best classes, it forces other people to do the same or just get destroyed. The OP plays on Pot5, and there are FAR less sins/sorcs in solo than on Harbinger, where they probably make up 75% of the solo que population.

I'm no Mara expert, but my first thought when looking at these changes objectively is that there are far too many "must have" utilities in the Heroic tier. I understand the need for players to make "choices", but at the very least the 2 UR utilities should be combined.

I have to agree with this. It isn't the DoT's or the insane survivability, it's the BURST on top of those other things. Do something about the constant 10k executes and you are good to go. That said, if you wana nerf dot spread, just throw in the old mechanic that SMASH Juggs used to have: Only let them crit on the primary target.

The Idea that just "Adding an augment" boosts stats isn't true with 100% accuracy. I just tested this 20 min ago: level 59 Sage, 172 blues. Stats are using the Bolsterizer . I wanted to see if just adding low level augments would boost my stats. I used MK-1 kits and lvl 2 Overkill Augments. Not Augmented / Augmented HP- 41,248 / 41,078 Willpower - 2996 / 2818 End- 3484 / 3467 Bonus dmg- 1655 / 1613 Crit %- 23.5 / 23.1 Crit X- 67.57 / 67.57 Expertise remained the same (1728) for both. So, my stats went down about 1-6% by adding augment slots and augments. It is possible that the augment bolster is gated, so that you specifically CAN"T do what I was trying to do, that is use lvl 1 kits/augs to get max bolster at 59, but that is giving Bioware a lot of credit if it does work that way.

There is a good argument being made that choosing ANY class over Hatred/Serenity is a disadvantage, including a tank and/or a healer.

Your riddle is easy to solve: Being popular in the game doesn't automatically make them the popular choice in Ranked PVP. They are popular in the game because of the nature of the Classes and the Movies. Juggs/Guardians are popular in the game for the same reason but are FARE less represented in Ranked PVP , with the exception of Group Ranked taking up the tank slot. DPS Operatives would also like to say hello. No, these classes are popular in Ranked pvp because they out perform their counterparts in that environment. As for the Yolo que comment, I'll riddle you one: What do you think will be the premier comp/group makup for Season 4 GROUP ranked pvp, assuming NO class changes go in before it starts? Write it down and we will re-visit this thread in a month or two. I stand by my original opinion: There is a bigger disparity in group composition than ever and it would be very cheap and easy to fix.

This, while being true, has nothing to do with their over representation in Ranked arena. Interestingly enough the poster above you is correct. All classes can do solid damage/dps. Only a handful can take/mitigate/avoid it. Those are the classes you see in Ranked, and because of this people are playing them in regs more than usual. 3.0 has the least diverse class makeup for competitive pvp that I can remember, and I played a concealment Operative in Beta/release. That being said, I have hope. 3.0 is new, the Ranked season hasn't started yet. Maybe the Devs are watching and gathering data, planning to make some of the proposed adjustments prior to the actual season going live. Or maybe not. I don't know, just stating an opinion on a lazy Sunday morning.

Wouldn't it be smarter, from a business model perspective, to fix the over abundance of Sorcs/Sins-Sage/Shadows in PvP by buffing some of the underrepresented classes rather than nerfing the popular ones? I've seen some Ideas on the forums that sound pretty smart, and wouldn't throw a huge problem into PVE balancing. Maras and Sents are the first thing that comes to mind: so many good ideas that would make them a serious threat to the perceived "OP" classes and not change their PVE dynamic. Maybe some QoL changes for Snipers/Slingers as well. I specifically mention the classes that have only one role available in their skill trees. It just seems like a no brainer, and a very easy fix from a coding perspective. I'm not talking about huge reworks or the dreaded "OMG DAMAGE BUFF" requests, I mean something simple like removing the health loss on Undying Rage or something. When I join a solo ranked match on my Jug or Sorc and we see a Mara/Sent, Sniper/Slinger or DPS Merc/Operative, we know we have a class advantage. Sure great players can overcome this, but if they win it is in SPITE of their class choice, not typically because of it. It seems like a very easy fix on paper, with very minimal cost to Bioware if any. If I'm out of line here let me know. But for the last 2 weeks I'd say 85% of the people in Ranked i've seen (and probably over 75% of regs) are Sorcs/Sages, Sins/Shadows and PTs/VGs, with the occasional Healer Operative/Scoundrel. 10% are Jugs/Guardians and 5% are everything else.

Corrupted Barrier is pretty much mandatory in Rateds. It will nearly heal you to full after Barrier. Immersion and Force Mobility are pretty much mandatory as well. After that, I like Electric Bindings in Rateds and BubbleStun in Regs. Barrier is the reason Sorcs thrive in yolo. If someone on the other team isn't dead (or out of DCDs) when your barrier wears off, your team is probably inferior to your opponents. That being said, I am a mediocre healer at best with limited Ranked experience, and my perspective may be completely wrong.

This may be common knowledge but I haven't seen any threads about this. I just picked up my 6p pvp healer bonus and I'm not seeing any reduction in Innervate's CD whatsoever. Am I doing something wrong?

It is absolutely Biowares fault. There should be: No Bolster for Ranked, or Minimum Expertise requirement to que for ranked, or both.

How do they justify this? Have they even acknowledged the fact that Sins use Death Field , a 30m ranged AoE, to spread their DoTs, and are doing far, far more damage/dps th

But in practice the player(s) skills come into play. What do you think about it theoretically, as in the "on-paper" matchup.? I guess what I'm asking is, does his argument for Lethality have any merit? You don't see many people complaining about OP Leth Ops these days: Hatred Sins is another story.

Instant Light Strike that does 35% more damage, Force Lightning that has no CD, and Death Field, one of the hardest hitting instant attacks we get. All that for Thundering Blast. The Hybrid spec basically removes the requirement for Lightning to stand still and cast, while gaining the ability to do more instant, AE burst. Losing Fadeout sucks no doubt... and I don't think the Hybrid is hands down better than full Madness in every situation, but it is superior in some, as evidence by more than one high ranked Hybrid sorc I've seen running group ranked. It's academic anyway: RIP Hybrid in 3.0

Any redeeming qualities that a DPS Ops can bring to Ranked PVP that it would excel at over the other classes? We are trying to get our comp(s) worked out and I have a few 50s from the old days to work with, but I always enjoyed playing the Operative back then more than my others.

Been away for a while (2.5 years) and my team and I are coming back to SWTOR and after doing some lengthy reading It seems DPS Ops aren't the "favorite sons" of the Rated PvP world these days. Wondering: are there any teams running DPS operatives with any success in rated Arenas, and is there any word on changes in the 3.1 patch that would increase viability? Is Lethality just a PVE spec still? Thanks Xav

I remember you!

If it were 4v4, I'm not sure you would even need a healer at all. We've had several 4v4 tournaments on our server(of which we have won all but 1 that we've entered) and our healers do little more than try to stay alive long enough for our DPS to kill before the other team scores a kill. Healers in this game are nothing like WoW. They are much easier to kill and 10x easier to sit on and shut down. Tank assassins and Undying Rage would make small arena combat pretty mundane I think, with a Pyrotech or two thrown in for good measure.

Most pvp servers have dueling tournaments I would assume, yes? Post me the brackets from a dueling tournament on a pvp server with a guardian or jugg winning the tournament. Shouldn't be a problem if there are so many "baws" duelists out there that beat marauders/sents all the time, right? Until we can /copy to a test server, this is the only way to really put the " i beat XXX all the time" debate/debacle in context. On our server, there is no Guardian/Jugg that can kill our Marauder, regardless of which spec he picks. In annihilation he can probably 1v2 90% of them......

As much as I love Intervene, I'd take Undying Rage and Force Camo over Intervene and Enraged Defense in a heartbeat. Wouldn't think twice about it. Just sayin.