yes, there is.

Tradeoff for getting more surge is less crit or power. If i'm already getting 95% surge on 3 abilities with 44% crit (talented), I'm stacking power.

SS for the burst, even at 50 - TTK in 1.2 makes DF really painful. Change your cover to crouch and you won't go rolling into random places. Turret mentality is the wrong way to play SS. You should be constantly on the move to reset your ballistic dampeners and proc your instant CS while maintaining LOS on that Op/Scoundrel healer. Cover is not a bad thing. It keeps people from jumping to you.

DF energy management improved after 1.2 because hemo is free. The change to Burst Volley for SS also makes it almost a non-issue. Just throw in some blaster spam after using your XS.

Did you actually run the numbers to see what the expected dmg difference is? Have you considered the 2 blasters vs 1 rifle diff?

I don't know what you're talking about. I ask them to pass me the ball all the time, everywhere on the map. It's rare, but sometimes the other team actually listens to me.

What that guy said. 1.5 second channel + 1.5 second GCD means you start casting the next CS as soon as the first fires. With the animation time for each shot it would look like you're firing nonstop. Even if you could spam CS with no GCD it would be more of a handicap that weeds out bad players. That'll be the guy sitting there after wasting all of his energy on 4 CS while the marauder is about to execute him.

Classes played by key-binders have an advantage over those played by mouse-clickers. Do you really think 1 augment slot that gives you +12 endurance and +18 power will explain or overcome any of the other eight reasons why someone lost a warzone?

SS/MM. Faster gameplay/TTK means burst is more valuable than the internal dmg from DF that requires a decent amount of setup. MItigation against white dmg has been tempered pretty well by the 5% boost to SS/MM tree abilities plus the overall weapon dmg boost. Stack power, power, and more power. With the spec boost to crit and surge for most of your abilities, you don't need to waste stats on crit or surge. Change your cover to crouch so you don't go rolling all over the place randomly. Mobility isn't an issue if you don't have the mentality of a stationary turret/target. You should be constantly moving to stay with the fight and reset your instant CB procs and refresh your ballistic dampeners. Played correctly, a SS/MM is tough as nails to kill. SS/MM is also the only true hard counter to Sents/Mars, so it's like cake-day playing against all of the ****** FOTM rollers. For full disclosure I happen to be one as well, and I work crappy GS/sniper alts over all day long - which I really shouldn't be able to do once they figure out how to use their class.

Hope that didn't come off the wrong way. Was more poking fun at the general qq silliness. I'm amazed people don't post more about the dancing unicorns and frolicking guinea pigs that habitually screw things up in wz's.

You can mitigate all you want. I'm still going beat the snot out of you from 35 meters. QD, SS, TS all have 95% surge. CB, SS, TS get +4% crit. With the base 20% armor debuff, AS gets 40% armor pen. SS/MM GS/Snipers are the best ranged burst class in the game. Hands down. I'm assuming equal skill and gear. Powertech/Vanguards can exceed the burst, but IMO are too easily CC'd/killed. Have trouble killing a tank? Who cares, I take out the healers and DPS faster and leave the tanks for last with more of my team still alive to help. Standard opening rotation on a high value target in the middle of a team fight: Relic+adrenal+debuff, crouch+hunker down, instant crit CB, alacrity buff, instant sabo + 1.2 sec AS + instant TS (so all 3 hit pretty much at once), SS x 3 (2.1 sec each, no CDs), instant 40 meter QD. With the change to burst volley, energy comes back quickly after that spam. Target is dead or running out of the fight well before I ever even get to the SS's. I don't even know which abilities respect the GCD and which don't, I just know that **** hits fast and hard.

So now you're saying the OP can't tell the difference between 1 and 2 lightsabers?

And my guarded by the force lasts for 15 seconds.

SS is the hard counter for Marauders/Sents. If you equalize gear, skill, and CDs you should be winning 100% of the time.

If you are specced into SS you should not need to waste stats on surge since you can spec into +30% surge on CS, TS, SS, and QD. With full WH you will have a **** ton of crit already - stack power.

Nah, that information won't really change the minds of the masses that lose to the 1 good sent/mar out of 4 FOTM players and think it's all of a sudden b/c they're OP. I said this in another thread, but the real change is that pure DPS classes can now actually do what a pure DPS spec is supposed to do - kill ****. PvP is more balanced now imo because no role is actually completely trumped by another. Tanks matter because healers can actually be killed. DPS matters because they can actually kill. Healers matter even more now, not because they're basically unkillable tanks, but because you need them to have any hope of being able to do the other 2 roles. All in all it means you need a multi-roled team working together to be truly effective. TL;DR I think BW is doing it right so far with the PvP changes.

Ditto. If there were as many snipers/GSs as marauders/sents people not used to how pure DPS specs can actually kill stuff would be on here crying about snipers/GSs instead.

Tongue-in-cheek, sort of, but the buff to SS/MM trees for GS and Snipers is effectively a nerf to Sents/Mars? Just not enough of them to counter the mass of FOTM Sents/Mars. Full disclosure - I play a gnarly GS and a FOTM sentinel. I giggle whenever I come across a new 50 Mar that I four-shot before they ever get in melee range. And I also giggle whenever I come across a lowbie GS/Sniper that freaks out when my alt strolls up and starts smacking dots into them.

There's also the fact that gunslingers and snipers are one of the least played classes. When SS/MM specs are the hard counters for mars/sents and there are 5 lightstabbers for every pew-pew-pewer but plenty of squishy casters to prey on, it makes sense.

Sniper/GS in MM/SS spec SHOULD beat them in 1 v 1, CDs being equal. That should is contingent on player skill, but in that spec you are the perfect hard counter for a sentinel/marauder.

There's a focus target box that I haven't figured out how to use. I was hoping that you could have your assist target always there so you don't have to click in the raid panel everytime you're looking to figure out what the next target is. Under the Targeting section of your prefs-keybinds, there's a Target-of-target command that is not bound by default. I map that to my mouse so I can click on my assist target and instantly pop over to whoever he/she is shooting at. You also need to make sure you have your Target-of-target box enabled in the interface. This helps a lot in raiding too to see if you suddenly pulled aggro or a boss's random aggro table rolls to you.

Had another SS spec assist target off of me the other day. It was hilarious. This is new to me because GS's are rare and the ones that our premades run into have been unfortunately not all that great. Just think about it. Overlapping defenses, interrupts, and CCs, absurd single target burst. It was like a Venn Diagram zone of non-stop < 3 GCD death in front of the Voidstar doors.

Pssh, forget the forums. Just follow me around

Numbers? Nope. Anecdotes? I've held off 6 players for a solid 30 seconds at Voidstar bridge button by myself by resetting my dampeners, hunker down, scrambling field, dodge, and screen. There was one healer, a tank, and the rest were casters. You get the most out of dampeners as long as you keep changing positions when under cover. Slight tangent, but I would go SS post 1.2. I played DF all the way up to 1.2, thinking SS would suck b/c of the mitigation. Now that I am geared (full BM, WH mainhand), I think the overall pace of PVP really hampers DF. If left alone, sure DF is great b/c you can set everything up nice and tidey. But as soon as a decent marauder jumps you, you're way too likely to be toast to trump the internal dmg + mobility. The mobility is great if keeps you alive. Just don't think that's the case anymore.

Yea, DF has an absurd amount of unmitigated damage and it's a lot more viable in 1.2 b/c of free hemo and uncleansable dots. From a DPS perspective I think wounding shots with full hemo and double dot procs is the highest in the game. But it requires a ton of setup. In a 1 v 1 against a mar you're going to be dead before your wounding shots has a chance to finish casting. Against a good mar/sent in annihilation/watchman? You'll be choked out, burned down, merciless slash, dispatched before you even start casting. What DF lacks in defensive utility it makes up for with mobility. Mars/dps juggs can easily counter that. IMO SS is a hard counter to sents/mars. Not as much dps juggs b/c of their armor, but I've noticed that it's about 50/50 when I'm 1 v 1 against one of the top dps juggs on my server. I can easily shift that more to my favor by being opportunistic - picking him off from far away while he's focused on a diff target. If you can fly under the radar and set up your DF rotations without being harassed to much, it's hands down better in terms of killing power. But if you're actively being chased by a melee and need to take them out in <4 GCDs, then SS is about the only choice you have.