My main is a sawbones scoundrel and my alt main is a merc heals. I like healing. I can heal through almost any DPS, including focused DPS, and to me the survivability is better on a scoundrel if one knows how to play it despite the fact that they have medium armor and almost no interruption protection. When I do start dying a lot in WZs, it is because I have been focused with CCs. That is what will kill a healer. You've got to knock us out more times than we can come back and then burn us down. Once we're dead you should have a good minute or so to wreck the rest of the team until we can res and get back to the fight and often its more than that. I don't care how much it offends DPS classes but the simple fact is that we can heal through almost any straight DPS because of our damage reduction skills like energy shield and dodge but those have to be activated. And people often forget that we can still just use a WZ medpac on ourselves just like anyone else can. You've got to remove the healer's ability to use his abilities.

Every healing class has different perks/drawbacks. I would strongly suggest checking out the new class guides for post-5.0 on Dulfy which have helped me out a lot. My own main since launch is a scoundrel/sawbones. It is to me my favorite class overall. I don't like glowstick melees, I enjoy being a support player and to me the scoundrel, bounty hunter and agent stories are much stronger than those for force-users. My main alt is a Merc for same reasons--I really prefer blasters over the force, sorry. Many people don't like scoundrels because they think of healing as a person-to-person action. This is wrong. The scoundrel takes more strategic thinking imo because it's about heals over time to multiple targets. Just focus-healing one person is not going to go too well but once I get my medpacks, kolto cloud, kolto wave chain on a group of three or four then they are going to be bullet proof. That's why sawbones is fun to me for FPs, Ops and WZs. There is nothing better than being the person who turns a fight from defeat to victory and as a good healer you can make a lot of friends very quickly. Survivability can be an issue with only medium armor but you have energy shield and dodge to give you a few seconds of tremendous damage reduction in order to heal yourself. Contrary to popular belief, a good healer with decent gear can heal through even most focused attacks plus you can escape to stealth with Disappearing Act. The fact is that sawbones really just depends on group play which is why I like it. If you are getting focus-killed then that usually says more about the ability of the people you are grouped with than anything else. As has been mentioned, there is not much need for a healer in leveling since comps can all heal now. That's just the way it is unfortunately but if you are taking a char to 70 then you should have group content of some form as a long-term goal. There's really no reason for a solo player to have a healer at this point. Learning to heal well takes more time and patience which is why most avoid it, but if you get it figured out I find it to be very enjoyable. The ability to keep a group going by healing through enemy DPS and learning to cleanse necessary buffs doesn't sound exciting to most people but it really does put the outcome of many big fights almost entirely in your hands. That for me is the draw. Sorry this was so long.

This evening I wanted to play some GSF matches and sat through the unimaginably long queue to get into a few. What happened while I was playing? One good match and then two spawn-camp slaughter-fests. A couple ships from the other team flew up and dropped some mines and a hyperspace buoy and the other team was able to spawn on our spawn. If the lasers on the capital ships had to be turned off because of camping, then I think we have to have some kind of safe spawn zone where a team can spawn without immediately falling under attack but that also doesn't allow ships to shoot out from, just like we do with Warzones. This is all making GSF really not fun which only gives it a longer queue.

First of all, let me say that I am NOT letting Bioware get my hopes up with housing. That said, I have wanted housing for a long time and am glad we will finally get something. I would MUCH rather have non-instanced housing, but I think we all know that there's no chance of that happening. I've never played LOTRO but the instanced neighborhoods sound like a reasonable best-case scenario. Instanced could be a lot of fun if it's customizable and just makes this game FEEL A LITTLE MORE LIKE STAR WARS!!!! Give me some lame little house with a big window looking out onto a Cloud City-esque skyline on Bespin or a moisture farm on Tattooine or a Penthouse Apartment for my BH and Smuggler on Nar Shadaa or a beach on Mon Calamari... or just some water on Manaan. I know this game wasn't made for sandbox, but it'd just be nice to have something we can customize ourselves and actually feels like Star Wars... if it's just a parked ship, then yeah, it would've been much better than to just devote resources to other things. But this game has improved A LOT in the last two years, so I have some hope.

As I've said in other threads, I think the barber shop would be much better as a simple vendor. Charging Cartel Coins really just seems ridiculous to me. I also sincerely hope that the shop will be an actual shop with NEW customization options and not just a ticket back to the character creation screen. Have more haircuts, tattoos, and color dyes please. As great as a barber shop is though, I would really like more details on what exactly "quality of life" updates consist of. I personally am hoping for at least a little more sandbox (though I've just about given up on that hope). Give us the tools to build our own experience instead of offering take it or leave it collectibles on the Cartel Market.

Having the cape would be awesome.

I tried going f2p for a few days and it was awful. They literally regulate how often you can post in the general chat. Re-subbed again because I think the sub fee is worth it to get the whole game. Barber shop stuff, in my opinion, should not be on the CM at all. Make it a vendor that f2p-ers have to pay for access to, but subs should get access for free and only get charged a few thousand creds for the small stuff, i.e. hair styles.

Rrrrooooaaarrrrr! Rawf! Rawllllll! Rrrr-rrr-rroooaaar!!!! Rrr-rrroaafl! Roarrrr-raaaawwwlll!!!!, Rrooooaaar Bowdar! Translation: "Dear Bioware, After six months, I am still wondering if you will ever make a bowcaster that wookies can use? Seriously, has anyone at your company ever seen Star Wars? Sincerely, Bowdar

In my opinion, the game would be much better served with a barber shop vendor on fleet or capital worlds or something. Or even a barber shop droid I could by for my ship. Have an actual barber shop where players can go socialize for crying out loud. There are so many better options that Bioware could use. There are so many better ideas but Bioware is clearly going for the one that could make them the most money. It would be so easy for them to create a barber shop that cost a couple thousand creds to change your hair style or something... instead they take the worst option imaginable and that is what this is. You say we're jumping the gun because you still give them the benefit of the doubt. I don't. I have no doubt at all that when this barber shop comes out it will be some kind of over-priced ticket back to the character creation window that someone might use for two seconds to chose between the dozen or so options we've had from day one.

I've never played WOW, but let me say that I don't mind at all being charged for a MAJOR change in character, i.e. gender or race. But to change my hair-style, eye color, facial hair, body type, etc.? A purely cosmetic change like that should be purchasable with in-game currency. If they would do that, it would make the game a lot more enjoyable for a lot of people. I think people should be able to change their hair-style DAILY if they've got the creds for it and want to spend them. A cash shop like Fable would be ideal. It would make the role-playing experience of this game so much better than what it is right now, which is almost non-existent. I don't understand how it's fair to charge people real money just to re-visit the character creation screen for ten seconds.

Couldn't have said it better. I've been at this game since beginning. I pre-ordered and watched as it developed since first announcement in 2008. I am not disloyal, this pay-for barber shop is a bad idea no matter what's in it. This is an RPG, the ability to customize your character's appearance shouldn't be considered an extra luxury.

Like I said before, people CAN get gems with money, and I understand that some do. But it is not NECESSARY. Like I said in my earlier post, a person could, for instance, craft a ticket to a paid tournament, win said tournament, and be rewarded with 120 gems. That is just one way to get gems without ever paying a dime. Not all gems come from players.

I would really like to know where you got this information. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I've def. never heard that the gems HAD to originate from real money. You can get them from buying with in-game currency and you can EARN them with paid tournaments. The paid tournaments required admission tickets that COULD be bought with real cash but they could also be bought with gems from in-game currency and could even be CRAFTED (yes, some games allow you to craft really, really useful items). The tickets are no longer in use now btw. So again, from what I've known of the game there was always a way to get gems and appearance changes without real money. Using real money just bought you convenience.

You CAN buy gems at a retail store, but it's not necessary. There is a menu in game that gives you the option of trading in-game currency for gems or gems for in-game currency. Right now I think it's at like 1gold, 25-ish silver for 125 gems OR you can trade 125 gems for 1gold, 25-ish silver. You can do both. I buy gems all the time and trade in extras for gold and never ONCE have I used real cash. And the other options I talked about with painting/transmuting armor come in-game. You get the ability to dye armor from beginning with basic set of dyes. You collect, find, buy or sell dyes throughout game and you earn transmutation stones to mix and match stats and skins of similar type, although these stones can also be purchased with gems. There is NO need at all to spend real money on GW2 after purchasing the game itself, although making in-game gold will admittedly take more time you can still do everything without real currency.

If I still believed that testing and feedback would have any real effect on the number of bugs in this game, I might take your advice.