My T2 Paladin... er, Sage in augmented WH gear and Containment Officer Chest/Augmented random low level legs.

Capture the flag matches (the kind you're talking about) aren't that interesting. I'd much rather have another Hutt Ball map over a "Warsong Gulch" type CTF.

Balance is OK for doing damage in pvp if you dot up everything you can within range, but it's HORRIBLE 1v1, imo. Yes, there's SOME ability to kite, but that's ONLY 1v1. Every warzone I've been in, melee sees a sage/sorcerer and it's a beeline straight for them. Time To Kill is ridiculously fast now. I really enjoyed the pvp when it was more about using all your abilities and winning because you did smarter things than your opponent (cc/interrupts/knockbacks/silences), now if an encounter with another player last more than 5 seconds that seems like an eternity. I've never understood why so much of a sages/sorcerers damage is mitigated by armor. We've got the lowest armor of ANY AC. Yes, we've got SOME kiting ability... but we've got no emergency cooldowns, our bubbles absorb was nerfed (and the reapply debuff is pretty long) and almost every other Advanced EXCEPT sages/sorcerers have some sort of armor reducing debuff/talents they can use to help against heavier armor (again, everything else but us). This is the only game I can think of where your classic caster/magic user doesn't actually do unmitigated damage. Hybrid specs (which is now dead) damage numbers in pvp were inflated. People you hear doing 700k (I've seen the videos) did so by abusing the aoe into groups of people. 1v1 I don't think they had any real advantage, in fact most fights felt pretty even. Now it's not even a contest. I'll definitely be shelving my sage until things change. Guess I'll try the FOTM like everyone else. With any luck, if everyone does the same we can get that nerfed as well!!

That and 5k+ crits don't hurt either.

Haven't made it to 50 yet (have a 49 an a truckload of lower levels), but it seems to me the biggest problem with warzone pvp right now is there being zero penalty for leaving a match in progress. As soon as someone scores/captures 2 nodes/opens a quick door the other side immediately has people leaving the match... which just puts the trailing side further and further behind. I can take being outplayed... I can't take being outplayed because I got randomly grouped with quitters and people that think if you don't win every match that pvp MUST be broken.

I agree with your points. Can't really even level through pvp now that there's 50s starting to fill the matches. Totally worthless to help win a match with the way things are now unless you're 50 and have acquired some level of expertise PvP gear. It needs to be fixed last week. Sometime soon isn't going to cut it.

I agree with the OP. Doing a full pug of Huttball can be pretty brutal at times. I definitely get frustrated when it seems all the people I'm in a group with don't have a clue about the game's mechanics. It's definitely a love/hate relationship. The things I love about the zone are also the things that are the most frustrating to deal with.

I played mostly Empire in beta and enjoyed BH and IA storylines. I find it really hard, though, to get attached to the Empire storyline as a whole. Maybe I'm a LOT more RP than I think I am, but being GOOD and doing the right thing is actually a lot more appealing to me than being the "bad-*****" faction. Thanks Bioware for allowing me to actually have this problem! The story is such a HUGE draw from someone that has played MMOs for years and has become bored with the "wall of text" method of gaming.