I really like the way Lethality plays, including the roll, currently. If we could get Scatter Bombs to be to Engineering like Corrosive Mine is to Lethality I'd be all for that. I'm also in agreement for changing how Weakening Blast functions as that tick down from other Slingers' is very noticeable. Lethal Takedown to 100% isn't a bad idea, but I could see BW thinking that would be too good and reduce damage elsewhere in the spec. There seems to be more concern about the Lethality tree from other players than I thought. I'll keep it in mind when thinking up possible questions.

I think Evo meant for you to take that conversation elsewhere, like to private messaging, to prevent this topic from getting derailed. If you're getting personally attacked it's best to just report the posts by the offending user where you're harassed and move on, as per BW's forum policy. Also, I'd like to remind those posting that this thread was created to get a sense of where players thought imbalances among classes exist, not to offer solutions to possible balancing issues or dissect each other's comments. I don't mean to dismiss everyone's input on solutions and their feedback to others' thoughts, but this may not be the place to talk about these things (i.e. it may be off-topic). If I'm wrong in my observation, feel free to correct me Evolixe.

To your fourth point, I like the melee option but it shouldn't be a requirement for viable DPS in that spec. The current DPS output for Engineering is awful without Scatter Bombs. Snipers and Gunslingers were designed as a ranged DPS, not a pseudo-melee DPS, so there should be no melee requirement for the class period. Personally, I think Scatter Bombs should be untouched and the rest of the spec just brought into a viable state ignoring how Scatter Bombs effects the output. One thing at a time.

My main reason for not taking Heavy Shot is I drop PP on myself to punish MDPS for messing with me. I'd rather have that damage than push them away. Again, it's a playstyle choice. I'd encourage OP to play around with moving points around and see what they like. MasterFeign's build is pretty cool and I would guess beastly in Huttball.

Pretty good guide with some nice tips. Thanks for sharing.

Depends on your server population. Try asking about your faction's population in the respective server board. Server Boards

This is the build I use - 7/36/3 Like Baine talked about, a lot is personal preference and situational. Personally, I see Engineering as the most tanky of the three trees (EMP Discharge and Depolyed Shields are big buffs) so I build it for stationary resistance, hence why I don't go for Cover Screen. I miss out on Heavy Shot too, but the 2.5 sec cast time on Ambush makes it less valuable. Imperial Demarcation is a must for any PvP gameplay, my life was much worse off when I wasn't taking that talent. Rotations in PvP are subjective, like Baine also talked about, but this is my ideal opener if the target was just going to let me wail on them: Interrogation Probe > Corrosive Dart > Explosive Probe > Plasma Probe > Series of Shots > Laze + Snipe The only rules I can offer is Explosive Probe before a Series of Shots (primary burst), Interrogation Probe before Plasma Probe (free 2 second stun), use Shield Probe liberally, make use of Leg Shot (seriously one of the best tools Snipers have), if you're not going to wallbang use Covered Escapex2 with Discharge for fast movement, and also fall in love with EMP Discharge. I switch between the three specs in PvP depending on my mood, but Engineering is definitely my favorite. Excellent at area of denial, powerful burst, and fun utility. Played well and they are like tanks minus the taunts. Fun tip: Queue with a Carnage Marauder. Laugh while your combined stuns, roots, and slows allow you to melt opponents in your Plasma Probe.

Try asking in the server forum you're interested in. Server forums If I had to speculate you'll probably get people saying Commando/Mercenary healer. They were pretty unpopular until the recent changes.

Stay Low isn't broken. As Kaos said you have to wait for the full animation of Hightail it to play for it to activate. If there is still an issue occurring you should watch your latency when this is occurring. I'm making these claims on personal experience as I've never faced issues with this ability in any circumstance. Hightail It has issues like that in general and isn't caused by melee DPS hitting you. Please submit a ticket to customer service and be done with this thread. If you have visual proof of these issues, like a video, please provide them. Also, Zealous Leap/Obliterate are 10m leaps that can be used on targets in cover.

Warriors of Justice (WOJ) TUX? Rohco Maxim (Bothan Medic) / Ocki (Artisan) of Flurry. I ran with WOJ years ago, they helped me to not suck at the game and showed me the wonders of open-world PVP. I left the game and came back to Flurry on similar toons named Rohko and Ockai. Most of WOJ was gone already except for one or two guys (names escape me).

OP wanted to know what ideas people had so I gave him links to ideas. He doesn't seem to want to discuss any, just hear ideas. That makes this thread pretty pointless as his topic is a question he can answer himself without bumping down a bunch of other threads. If OP wanted to have a serious discussion he would read other's ideas and come up with his own unique one to bring to the table. This is just a poor excuse for a thread topic that has tons of other, and far better, iterations. Also just for reference, in a recent meetup Q&A BW had stated they won't add any new classes to the game as the uinque story line and mechanics would take too many resources. No one should really sink their heart into something like this and expect any think that looks like results. This stuff is just for fun. I won't comment on the notion OP is just advertising for his channel as he hasn't blatantly done so in his posts in this thread.

I'm usually not this basic in my replies but this is about the 100th time I've seen this kind of thread and there is only one good reply. Deal with it and learn to play, reroll, or protest with your money and unsub.

Try Google or a forum search. Here are three I found in less than a minute. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=718761 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6682650 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=615394 Enjoy.

Check-in board ---> this way. It literally has a thread for about every SWG server.

No further response from any BW employee or dev. Here are both threads related to the topic that were sent in to Eric. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=674592 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=675601 Also, good replies everyone. I like the ideas popping up already.

Thanks for stepping up again Paowee, you did a great job last time and I'm sure you'll do awesome again given we have a ton of time now to come up with questions. I'll just give some brief commentary on my general thoughts moving forward and what you brought up. Six questions is a ton of questions! I thought it was difficult for the Sniper/Slinger community to come up with three good questions let alone six. Since we have six questions we should focus on making the questions very specific so we work towards facilitating a better answer from the devs (i.e. don't have questions that are like "What will our AOE abilities be like in the future," but rather "What is the combat team's vision for Gunslingers/Snipers AOE capabilities and how may future changes reflect this vision"). Also, I know last time out of fairness we split the questions as one PvP, one PvE, and one other. I recommend that we don't do a 3/3 split as this could restrict us fro asking strong questions. If we do decide to do a split, I would say split it three ways so that two are guaranteed to be PvE centric, two are PvP focused, and two can be PvE, PvP, a mixture of both, or questions that apply to both gameplay areas. This would provide us a greater flexibility in the questions we ask. Now in response to what you've brought up so far concerning PvE questions, I do think the Orbital/Flyby change merits discussion with the devs. However, it will be important to note in our question that the Orbital/Flyby change didn't accomplish the intended goal as all Sniper/Slinger specs use it rotationally. Instead, all it achieved was severely decreasing Sniper/Slinger burst, AOE capabilities, and sustained DPS. I'm in full agreement that we should only compare Snipers/Slingers to other ranged DPS as they play similarly and share roles with Snipers/Slingers. Noting that Pyro bug is also important as BW may turn their "our metrics say" card on us when we compare DPS percentage gaps. As for the Engineering/Saboteur question we have to be very careful how we word it and make our question clear. We already asked BW a question about that spec so we don't want to get a repeat answer. However, I do think it's important we bring Engineering up as it needs a lot of TLC. Compared to the other specs Engineering looks broken, left out, and sad. Side thought: Would reducing the CD and duration of Plasma Probe be a possible solution for its up-time problems in endgame PvE (e.g. make bosses moving out of it less of a issue)? This may be a topic for another thread but the thought just occurred to me and I felt like throwing it out.

Thanks for elaborating mastirkal, and thank you Falver and Marisi for better explaining the Pyro versus Assault situation. I understand the ascetic appeal for the two blaster classes, but they seem to cause balancing issues. Granted the gaps typically aren't noticeable in any encounter, as mastirkal explained with the consistent DPS vs. potential DPS case, but they do show on cherry-picked dummy parses. I don't think the issue right now is huge but BW should be aware of it (if they aren't already) in order to prevent creating a large DPS gap between dual-wielding classes and their mirrors.

Commandos use heavy cannons which have a base damage higher than rifles while Mercenaries use two blaster pistols, a main hand and off-hand. The off-hand is identical to the main hand with the exception of a greater reduced accuracy and damage. The Merc's two blaster pistols should be equivalent to the Commando's cannon, however that doesn't seem to be the case for Assault Commandos versus Pyro Mercs. Here is the top combat dummy parse for Pyro Merc, Marisi: http://www.torparse.com/a/555019/time/1389879769/1389880015/0/Overview Here is Marisi in near-identical gear on their Assault Commando: http://www.torparse.com/a/558407/time/1390130246/1390130503/0/Overview The difference in DPS is very noticeable. The theory is that the Merc's off-hand allows CGC to proc more reliably than the Commando's heavy cannon. If you want to read about the issue directly, I'd check out this thread where Marisi talks about it.

I have a question, why do PvPers want an exclusive mount this bad? The vast majority of PvPers I know can play the entire game from the Combat section of the Fleet, so it's not like you need the mount other than to get to storage banks or the GTN. If open-world PvP was more popular in this game I'd understand. If this is truly a thread just desiring the implementation of exclusives for PvP players, wouldn't you all want something that you could display in battle? A mount will never be seen in a Warzone or Areana so why not ask for exclusive armor sets and skins (not just recolors)? For example, maybe if you have a rating of X or higher you can get an armor set that is not only unique in variant but has a special effect, like a red aura or something. The Nightsisters of Dathomir would mount and ride Rancors into battle, not just use them as combat pets.

That's what I forgot to mention! Noble Sacrifice as the primary Force regeneration mechanic for Sage healers is brutal in progression content due to the health sacrifice. Either reduce the amount of health spent somehow or change the way Force management works altogether for Sage healers because killing yourself for Force is really frustrating and can be very damaging in an Ops.

I'll try to keep this brief out of respect for OPs' request, but I'll be pretty specific regarding a few classes/specs. This is also solely a PvE perspective as I haven't PvP'd enough to gather a strong opinion about current game balance. Gunslinger/Sniper -Sharpshooter/Marksmanship: DPS output is in a great place but the rotation is a little wonky due to the Flyby/Orbital change. Nothing big, just uncomfortable. -Dirty Fighting/Lethality: No complaints other than the bug where if you apply Shrap Bomb/Corrosive Grenade or Vital Shot/Corrosive Dart while it's transferring over to Weak DOTs it overwrites the strong DOTs. -Saboteur/Engineering: Intended DPS rotation (no Scatterbombs) is severely lacking in damage output, up-time in encounters is awful for a RDPS (Incendiary Grenade/Plasma Probe isn't raid friendly), and just the spec plays poorly in endgame PvE overall. I stress that this spec needs the most help out of all the Gunslinger/Sniper specs. Sage/Sorcerer -Seer/Corruption: Having more than one Sage/Sorc healing in 8 mans and more than two in 16mans hurts the group a lot due to other Sage/Sorcs Rejuvenate/Resurgence always dropping ALL Force Shelter/Reconstruct, and Force-imbalance from Force Armors/Static Barriers. The current Ops also don't play well to their strengths (aka Salvation/Revivification don't offer much on many fights). Sentinel/Marauder -Watchman/Annihilation: Main complaint is having Force Leap in the rotation and offering no other gap closer kills this spec's up-time in endgame PvE. -Focus/Rage: Sustained DPS is too low for anyone to seriously run this spec in PvE. Guardian/Juggernaut -Defense/Immortal: Threat generation seems a tad low. Vanguard/Powertech -Assault/Pyro: Could use a little love sustained DPS wise (Assault/Pyro Mandos/Mercs shouldn't be beating them on dummies). -Tactics/AP: Could use more in the way of gap closer or at least gaining Pulse Generator/Prototype Flamethrower at a distance while closing in. -Shield Specialist/Shield Tech: Plays well, I'd just like Static Shield/Hydraulic Shield to have the internal CD on the Stockstrike/Rocket punch reduced. I don't think it's needed, I just miss pre-2.0 proc rate. Commando/Mercenary -Gunnery/Arsenal: Like others have said, the DPS needs to be more consistent on this spec. Poor RNG is really punishing to this spec. -Assault/Pyro: Too good at the moment, especially for Pyros. Not sure why, I would guess the off-hand, but Pyro Mercs are far superior to Assault Mandos. Scoundrel/Operative -All Specs: They're in a great place, leave the DPS specs and healing spec alone.

Playing the Imperial Agent story as an Operative was a great choice in my book. It made me feel like an actual agent as I could stealth by enemies and assassinate others. However, I favor the Sniper playstyle when it comes to everything else but the storyline.

Chui explained it well, and I'm just stating what I've gathered from BioWare posts in the past. I'm not saying their current method is superior but rather just explaining their rationale. I'd like player feedback to be a bit more weighty and responded to sooner (currently it can take months to materialize), but I'm not BW's team manager so I can't make that sort of change.

Your post is just asking for trouble. I'd recommend removing your opinion about the announced changes, fixing your grammar, and make your post sound less hostile in general. Now to actually be on-topic... Your main question seems to be if BioWare will ever listen to the player base more closely, and if anything these announced changes have told us is that they have been listening. Sure Sorcs and Snipers got odd changes, but Rage Warriors got their Smash altered for PvP and Operative healers have been brought down a little bit as the community has been asking for a long time. You can't expect them to immediately react to community requests (unless there's a huge bug or something) as BioWare has internal metrics that they prioritize over general feedback. As to answer to your example, the Orbital change rolled out with the last patch and has only been on live for two weeks and BioWare probably wants it to run for longer in order to gather more data and feedback. I know you might say, "But the change was on the PTS for awhile and numerous players collected a lot of data on it." While that is true, you must look at what BioWare has used the PTS historically. They've generally used it for making sure content doesn't go to live completely broken, not for players to test balancing changes. Most of the data gathered was also via the training dummy and the developers mostly pay attention to how classes perform in-combat opposed to on the combat dummy, this is the logic for most of their alterations as we can see via previous patches. TL;DR BioWare is listening and most of these changes reflect that. Remember that there are more changes that have yet to be announced as well, so please try to be patient and reserve judgement until then.

I can get behind this.