Well, the first example is pretty much exactly what does happen. And the second I'm not sure is relevant since Dan Marino would likely not be worth it anymore. But if he were somehow still the best QB in the game -- Again then, this is pretty much exactly what does happen. Have MMO subscription/expansion models so warped people's understanding of economics and their ideas of what they should expect in life?

Bye fanbois

What did I expect? I don't know, how about this: Introduce a new tier of pvp. Or at least a mid tier of ranked. Or allow me to get to 59 so at a minimum I can have the same gear and abilities as the other pvp'ers in the tier I am now relegated to. As I keep saying - I am not asking for things for free. But I would like to at least have the stuff I had before. And fwiw all of you saying that 'every MMO...' nonsense have not played enough MMOs. Plenty of MMOs include new content with subscription fees. In fact, part of what I expected comes from the reality that THIS mmo has done it in the past. They should have done something like they did in the past and simply allow players to reach max level but withhold content like new FPs, new planets, new story. This way players would be only paying for new things. But anyways -- you are all right. What was I expecting here?

Whatever. It's not just new content (which is my point). They DID take things away. I have lost ranked pvp. I have lost top tier pvp And this, after I just paid a bunch of money. No thanks SWTOR

Ok, I was a subscriber from launch. Played a lot back in that first year and less after that. Overall I have been subbed probably over half of all months since the game released. In addition I have purchased with in game currency almost all play-based cartel unlocks (which drives cartel market spending) All-in-all I have enjoyed swtor a lot, despite some of it's problems. Missing the game having not played since fall, I decided to come back and put some time into it again, as I have not progressed past 55, and wanted to see the new features. First, I log onto my old server (Jung Ma) which is now almost dead. I know immediately I will need a transfer but I play for about a week before settling for sure on leaving a server I liked so much. The 12x xp comes and I decide that I'll sub again, since I'll want to make a couple alts on the new server as well. So I sub. Then I pay for a transfer. Then I play a few warzones and do a few other things only to hit what should be 56 and discover the game will not let me level. I check the SoR content starters and sure enough, I cannot do any of that either. Basically, after spending $35 just to get back into the game (since BW has not recognized the problem at Jung ma) I now discover I need to pay $20 more. And I know what some of you are thinking here -- "buy the expansion bro, what do you expect stuff for free for?" But this imo is a different kind of situation. It's not like BW took a bunch of new stuff and said "here, pay for this stuff and you can have it". That would be one thing, and almost understandable. If that had happened with starfighter, or strongholds I would have totally understood. What, in effect, has happened this time is that I have had a ton of things I value in the game TAKEN AWAY. I now cannot be max level. I cannot have top tier gear. I cannot play top tier pvp (which has honestly been my #1 preoccupation in this game since launch. I can no longer play ranked pvp. lol I have almost all play based unlocks -- Pretty much the only thing I ever sub for is ranked pvp! Swtor has, after I just paid them $35, taken my game away from me. No thanks, I don't think I will buy the expansion. And I won't obviously be subbing again. Swtor wants my business they don't need to constantly give me new stuff for free, but they sure as hell better not periodically take things I have paid for away from me unless I give them more money.

Fair enough. Your clarification may be correct, and it was this that I really meant. The rating is just not that meaningful (unless you have hundreds of legitimate games, of course). My real problem is just the ego that seems to swell around dozen game samples -- which a LOT of people seem to have.

This is something that so many players fail to grasp it amazes me. As though if everyone were great all their problems would go away, when they don't understand an ELO system presents a RELATIVE ranking, and in order to rise in rank you need to be RELATIVELY better than a significant number of all other players. To be clear, if everyone who queued was exactly as good or better than you, in the long run, your ranking would never rise, and could only go down. You NEED weaker players queueing. You should WANT bad players queueing. The one real problem to all of this is one artificially imposed by the game structure itself, which so often pits one faction against the other. Because of this, if the weak players on your side are shamed into not queueing, but the other side encourages them, you will benefit and they will lose. And people have an intuitive sense of this, so they ***** out the bad players and discourage them. And both sides do this in order that they are not exploited by the other faction's standards. Which ruins solo ranked pvp and any hope of a meaningful elo rating system. Trust me -- if there were no factions, Everyone would be begging bad players to queue, which is something BW needs to think about. Obviously factions are important in star wars and I want them but something needs to be done to change the structure so that it doesn't discourage play from weaker players.

Ranked warzones on Jung Ma can be fun, but at the same time, there's a lot of nonsense floating around regarding what ranks mean, and the importance of solo vs group. On Jung Ma, I'll just say it -- Group Ranked is MEANINGLESS And the irony of this is that pretty much all of the current 1400+ group ranked players with 10-15 total wins all claim that it's solo that's meaningless because their solo ranking is generally hundreds of points lower. The reason for this, of course, is that a LOT of players trying for the rewards are doing everything in their power to set up opportune matches or outright fixing matches by getting fodder teams organized in order to build their group rankings. They cannot do this in solo, and like to complain alot about every other weak player in solo as though the presence of those weak players somehow makes their solo ranking invalid. Of course every other solo player also has to contend with the weak players... Meanwhile, these players will no doubt be proudly strutting around on their Rancor mounts come April with a dozen or so group ranked matches played. I say all this only as a means to set the record straight. You have it all wrong. Group ranked on Jung Ma is a meaningless joke. SOLO ranked is where it's at, and especially if you have hundreds played. Which brings me to another point. If you complain every second warzone about the weaker players solo queueing, you are missing the point of solo queues. Rankings of any kind will always present a ranking that is RELATIVE to all players who play. So if weak players never queue, good players will have rankings closer to each other. In fact, if every player who queued was fantastic, they'd all have pretty marginal rankings. On other servers with lots and lots of 2000+ ranked players, this is why this happens. Because the presence of a range of skill allows for a range of ranking. The point is -- you should never complain about weak players queueing. You should encourage them to keep queueing in the hopes that you get into lots of matches where your skill differential can shine. But instead we get a lot of players telling others to stop queueing and shaming them which gets exactly the desired outcome, but probably not the end result they were hoping for in terms of ranking. If you want a 1500+ solo ranking, you need a LOT of players of all skill levels to queue. The only counterargument to this is the unfortunate fact that if one side (imp or republic) shames it's weaker players, but the other doesn't, that side will get to take advantage of the weakness they will so often face in faction divided ranked warzones. People have an intuitive sense of this, so they do it -- but again, EVERYONE would be a lot better off if all were encouraged to play. Because if only the very best queue, nobody is going to build much ranking, unless they play the silly game of scouting opposition and scouting allies queued in order to find slightly opportune times to queue where they are likely to win. This defeats the purpose of a competitive ranked environment and in the end amounts to much like the matchmaking that is currently so prevalent in group ranked. Bottom line, if you think setting up matches to be farmed means anything, you are wrong, and if you are scaring players away from ranked queueing in general, you are doing it wrong.

neither Use reflex.

The problem is that you were in a flashpoint with people doing PvE. Your spec is perfectly fine for pvp. In fact, if you did this all on your own without reading anything I'd even call it impressive. BUT, it's less than optimal for a pve tank. That said, If you don't plan to do more than most hardmode 50s, it's probably all you'll ever need.

Underpowered? WHY WHY WHY do I keep seeing this? Vanguard Shield Spec is NOT underpowered. And this Nerf... bah Because of all these discussions about our huge stockstrike nerf, today just to get a sense of things I removed stockstrike from my quickbar and played a few warzones. First warzone I did 450k in a PUG voidstar with basically only ion pulse and hammer shot. Every warzone I finished top medals. Every Voidstar I got a destroyer medal (300k+). Every warzone I got all protection medals (50k+). If you think shield spec is underpowered you should stop playing mmos I can crit with an almost completely spammable ion pulse for 1600. Average with it is well over 1000. Any class that can run around doing one ability over and over and get 400k is NOT underpowered. Seriously. Burst? we get sticky grenade which can be timed to strike with other damage. We get energy blast which is off the GCD. With the nerf we'll have sticky grenade damage happening at the same time as 'nerfed' stockstrike, and followed up with a High impact bolt and simultaneous energy blast. All while being super tanky. And YES, we are super tanky. 53% damage reduction on 2 types. 19% reduction on other 2. 40+% shield and absorb on all white damage. Easy to apply 4% additional debuff for everyone on your team. Higher HP. And that's not even getting to def cooldowns. I've said it before -- The problem people are having is that they mistakenly buy all tank gear for pvp because they think if they buy dps gear they won't be a good tank, or actually playing as a tank. Basically ALL of your real tankiness comes from something other than your gear. So stack dps and do great damage like you can. And for god's sake if you really want to be tanky and play like a tank, GUARD and TAUNT.

What you are missing is the most underrated ability in the game: GUARD And def cooldowns is not what makes us tanky Edit: I see what you are saying. You'd actually use the IGC. Well, that's not a horrible idea and you really would be playing a tank still, but I don't think your dps would really be that much higher and you'd be a lot less mobile. Truth is, I've never been able to get the middle tree to do significantly more than my shield tree, though I may not have given it enough of a chance. And I love the charge too much to let it go.

I don't understand your reasoning. Saying that you focus fire 2 players and that you get a 2 for 1? No, you don't get a 2 for 1. You get a 2 for 2. You still have to kill both, it's just that now they have to go down together instead of one by one. A bunch of times in the past few days I've been told how great 'burst' is, and that doing 1500 to one player is better than 1100 to 2 different players. How can people defy their own logic so easily. When I guard, I effectively turn a burst single target ability into a shoddy AoE. That same 1500 attack when I guard becomes a 750 pt 2 person AoE. So my AoE is crap apparently but your is ok? And yes, I do get to mitigate my share. I'm not sure what all counts but I sure as heck know that I do not take the same damage as the healer. This is easily testable just by going and hitting the next guarded healer you see in a wz and noticing that the tank takes less. AND don't forget that the taunt applies the 30% damage debuff, and ion pulse/explosive surge/flame burst/sweep another 4% You are seriously undervaluing guard and it's almost like you don't understand how it works or what focus fire means. Focus fire means putting all damage onto one target, and guard by it's very nature prevents this. Allow me to illustrate with a contrived example: Suppose we have 2 DPS players that do some high amount of DPS, say x damage. And suppose they run into a tank and a dps'er. The tank is a weak dps'er and only does 1/2 x damage, but the other dps'er does x damage. So, group 1 does 2x total dps, whereas group 2 does 1.5x total dps. Who wins? Group 2 does! Why? because they can apply this 1.5x dps to each target in turn. they can burn the first down at a rate of 1.5x damage while group 1 is forced to do only 1x damage to each player. and once they have done so they can start on the second, who will now be doing only .5x damage to each player, while they are still doing 1.5x. I should point out that this is actually a perfectly equal fight. It's based on the length of the fight and each player's actual dps relative to the tank. The exact point of equality is when tank dps is exactly half of everyone else. But I can promise you that in practice this 'tipping' point is far in favor of the tank/guard because they should do more than this. More importantly though... In this contrived example all that's coming into play is the dps ratios and the guard. This is not assuming any HP advantage on the part of the tank, or any mitigation advantages through armor or damage reduction. That's right -- it means that if I was wearing light armor like the DPS'er and had the same HP we'd still be just as effective. (this all assumes that you choose to 'ignore' the tank, but then that's exactly what people like you keep telling me they do). Now, you may call this theorycrafting, and I'd agree. But mostly just because in practice things are FAR FAR more telling in favor of the guard. In practice, a lot of 2 person guarding tank combos can hold their own against 3-4 players. And if you are like me, you do a lot more than HALF the dps that the other player does. Perhaps the easiest way I can make this point is just to ask you this: If 2 groups get into a fight and group A each picks a different target and starts to apply damage while group B puts all their damage onto one player, who is gonna win? Having a guard up means that even people who want to be in group B are FORCED by the tank to play like group A. If you think you have killed a 2 player guarding tank combo and that you burned them down before they could kill you you were either: Playing the worst 2 player combo in history Way better/more geared than them Totally ignored by them as they were killing other players/doing other important things.

When I talk about being a pain to the enemy team I am talking about things that definitely have an effect on the game. The best example of this is the guard, which very much does limit the ability of people to focus a healer or other players. You may think you are ignoring the tank, but the mechanic itself is making sure that you aren't. half of your damage is being directed elsewhere and making it so that no matter how much you'd like to focus fire, you actually can't. Same thing with taunt. if I taunt you and you don't even realize it or just don't think I am a pain at all and once again ignore me, that doesn't mean you aren't now doing 30% less damage. And 4% less on top of that from my damage. How is it that the same people who argue so strongly for burst and single target damage so easily defy their own logic by suggesting that guard is meaningless when it effectively turns burst and single target damage into pretty bad AoE. For example, in the past few days talking about this I have been told over and over that explosive surge/flame sweep sucks because 1100 dmg to 2 targets sucks compared to 1500 to one. But then when a guard turns that same 1500 pt ability into 750 (less actually) to two targets via guard, well that's no problem at all somehow.

Ummm.... YES. Exactly. This is exactly what you should be doing. Seriously. Run around with guard up and wear DPS gear. Those of you who aren't doing this -- this is why you think shield tech is not viable. I've said it before elsewhere -- Basically ALL of your tankiness as a Vanguard/Powertech comes from places other than your gear.