First time I have posted in these forums in years, but this recent change is unfair and bad for the game in my opinion. I raid an arsenal merc with pretty optimized gear/stats. I have full set of apex predator armor with identical stats to my concentrated fire set. I parse about 1500 dps less in the apex predator set compared to the old concentrated fire set, which is roughly 7-8% less dps. I do hope the devs are aware of this issue and intend to remedy it quickly. Whatever their intentions, it would be nice to hear from them.

I have two war hero toons, and sadly one is a BH merc. When the new game began a few months back, it was unclear to me the relative value of each class with regards to pvp. I rolled a BH as my alt because I liked the armor models and it's fun to blow stuff up. However, Merc BHs are possibly the worst class in 1v1 pvp, as they lack strong defense and they are too easy to shut down. Their weaknesses are not always apparent in group play because if postioned well they can appear strong if left alone. I guess I should have abandoned the BH toon a long time ago since I do enjoy pvp, but I still like the armor models and its kind of fun playing an underdog class against other players. I have to admit that I chuckle each time someone loses to me 1v1. Against decent players, frankly I don't stand a chance unless I can use the terrain to my advantage. Sometimes, I get lucky. IMO BW should give mercs a little bit better defense to balance them better. In the meantime, I wish I could change over to PT-pyro w/o having to re-roll.

I am 0-26 for battlemaster comms out of bags on my BH. I do the pvp dailies every day. The chance of that happening is much less than 1% so I submitted an in-game help request ticket and spoke to a live BW rep. That person told me BW is aware of a bug that causes some toons not to receive BM comms in their bags. I asked him whether they would compensate those folks who were affected and he said he could not do that. I asked him when this would be fixed and he said to just keep watching the patch notes. I asked him why BW was not telling people about this bug and he again said to watch the patch notes. I was surprised by this response as it suggests BW is not very concenred about this issue. Seems to me this issue should be a top priority.

Battlemaster Sorcerer with 13/14 Battlemaster gear. Veteran MMO player. Despite my good gear and 12% expertise, it's true that concealment Operatives with mostly champion gear can burst me down within 5-6 seconds from stealth. Happens frequently, even after the stim changes. This is not a learn to play issue, but rather a case of poor game design, which everyone who PvP's a good amount knows well. There is no sense arguing against readjustment of the Operative's burst at this point in the game. Change needs to happen. The only way I can survive a geared Operative that jumps me from stealth is if I happen to be standing near a ledge and I'm able to use overload just before death to blast the Operative to a lower level. Then I must run away, try to heal up, and hope the Operative decides to find another more convenient target. While I'm sure that Operatives currently love the ability to single target kill most anyone they want 1 v 1, this sort of unbalance does not sit well with other players. Rather than trying to defend such an over-powered class, it would be much more constructive to suggest changes that you feel brings Operatives back in line with other players. Some posters have been doing this and I applaud them.

Wholeheartedly agree. Need more bottom bars ASAP and some customization options.