I know PVP communities vary from server to server, but I have found that since Bioware changed the daily quest to be games played and not just games won, I have found an increased interest in pvp, I pvp 10+ games a day in the level 50 bracket on a sab gunslinger, so I am not in the group of people who pvp 24/7 but I do pvp a lot, and I have seen a lot of new names on both sides lately. My server queues are generally less than 5 minutes, but sometimes they can stretch to 10 to 15 minutes during non peak hours, This doesn't bother me, because in wow with cross server queuing I sometimes waited an hour for a queue. Cross server queues can't make queues instant every hour of the day. For those who are wandering my server is the Ebonhawk, its RP/PVE. We have a nice pvp community, with 2 or 3 good guilds on both sides, and a lot of decent solo queuers, I mean I am not saying we are perfect, every server has the noob who forgets to watch the objective or call for help, or the smack talker who annoys everyone, but overall I love my server and there is some good healthy competition on it. I would love to hear from some of the other servers with medium population who may share the same feelings about their server community. We are are not flashy but we have fun

I know this is a server by server issue, but I have found that since Bioware changed the daily quest to be games played and not just games won, I have found an increased interest in pvp, I pvp 10+ games a day, so I am not in the group of people who pvp 24/7 but I do pvp a lot, and I have seen a lot of new names on both sides lately. My server queues are generally less than 5 minutes, but sometimes they can stretch to 10 to 15 minutes during non peak hours, This doesn't bother me, because in wow with cross server queuing I sometimes waited an hour for a queue. Cross server queues can't make queues instant every hour of the day. For those who are wandering my server is the Ebonhawk, its RP/PVE. We have a nice pvp community, with 2 or 3 good guilds on both sides, and a lot of decent solo queuers, I mean I am not saying we are perfect, every server has the noob who forgets to watch the objective or call for help, or the smack talker who annoys everyone, but overall I love my server and there is some good healthy competition on our server. I would love to hear some of the other servers with medium population who may share the same feelings about their server.

While diversion is good in pvp it is not essential. I think it's best used to create a leap target for a teammate or as a defensive move, a good player will try to line of sight you until the duration wears off, using the abilities they can do while on the run.

I am on the ebon hawk server and we have a pretty good pvp community. I just see a lot of ss specs on both sides, with a few df, to be honest they may be hybrids as I can't see their specs. I see a lot of people using diversion in pvp, but as stated earlier, not incendiary grenade.

I do not want to tell you that any spec is better than another, but I don't think you should either. I have played a variety of specs since the launch of the game, my personal favorite in pvp actually being the sab spec, but I recognize that all 3 specs as well as their hybrids have their place and are viable it just depends on how you want to play the game. slows and roots are not just about keeping an opponent off of you while you dps them. Its about aiding in the capture of an objective or defending against the enemy capping the objective, I don't care what role you play. Dps/heals/tank, that is your job. And just a note for Saboteurs Utility Belt, I agree it is expensive to spam, but it can be your best defense against multiple people capping a node, so when you are left alone you can pop any survival cooldowns you have to keep them off the door until usually long enough for help to arrive if you have called for it. again I am not telling you to that you should not take 31 points in ss, I agree that it is an amazing ability, just keep an open mind to the fact that there are many different play styles in pvp and the most dps does not mean the most useful in a warzone.

I want to reiterate that this thread is not about saying that full sab is the "best" pvp spec, it is just extremely useful. I mainly started this thread because up until recently I never saw anyone other than me using incendiary grenade on either side in pvp on my server, and I am a frequent pvper, (average 10+ matches per day). There is now just one other full sab gunslinger using incendiary grenade in pvp on my server as far as I can tell. When I looked to the forums there was little discussion on full sab spec, and most of it was negative. Therefore, my goal is to get people to try it out, see if they enjoy the play style and know that it is as viable as the other 2 specs and/or their hybrids. So test out all your trees and abilities over time, respec prices reset every week so don't be afraid. Find the spec that works best for you with the talents that you enjoy and utilize the most. After all the best spec to play in pvp is the one you enjoy the most. You will play it better simply because you are having fun. Furthermore, you pay to play, so HAVE FUN!

To address the comments above. Flyby is not instant, has a short duration with a long cool down, It does not slow or stun targets, and costs more energy. Flyby is much less effective in pvp than incendiary grenade, although it can be useful to prevent capping or to give cover to someone capping from all the smoke and fire. Or to kill enemies who group up together, something that happens less in the level 50 bracket. To address any misunderstands about my initial post. Only my first point states that it can be used to prevent capping directly. The other 5 points address some of its many other uses. In addition, I do not mean that these are the only uses, just a few of my favorites. Two additional uses are it can be used to pop a stealth out of hiding, and it can be used to provide extra damage when you're trying to protect a team member such as a healer who is being ganged up on. Again, these are some of incendiary grenades many uses.

I have to disagree, as someone who has been on both sides. Personally I would rather just get back in queue and wait for the next full match when either side outnumbers the other team by 2 or 3. Even when I am on the team that has 8. I like it much better when I play a game where we are evenly matched. It feels like a cheap win when the other team is short handed or worse half of the team gives up and just sits trying to get defensive medals. I like to pvp to pvp, not just to get coms. Also, as mentioned earlier in the thread, the fact that people get medals for quick victories solves the issue of people not getting anything for matches that end early.

To answer what I think is your question, how much dps you do in a wz means absolutely nothing if you let the opposing team gain an objective. Yes dps is important when you need to kill a a target fast to either protect someone capping/carrying the ball, or stop the ball carrier, take out healers/support. But if you have lower dps in a warzone that doesn't mean you were not effective. sometimes using cc is the best thing you can do, or just interrupting someone from capping with our free shot which doesn't do much dps, but does stop the opponent from capping a node.

I simply do not understand what people are talking about. For starters, at launch the only pvp wow had was pvp servers open world pvp. And when they introduced battlegrounds initially the only one they had was capture the flag and the queues were awful, although the game was quite fun. Now, a decade later, of course they have a lot of pvp content and cross server queues that generally take little to no time. At launch swtor had 3 interesting warzones with huttball being a unique twist on capture the flag. And now, less than a year after launch we have a 4th warzone. This proves bioware can come up with new content in a short period of time. And for open world pvp, it's what your server makes of it, Ilum didn't work because players didn't make it work. It was a great concept but unfortunately what happened was(at least on my server), people just wanted to huddle in the middle and collect missiles on the ground, killing the one or two opponents who dared come when mid was being controlled by the opposing faction. Every now and then, you would get 2 full ops of opposing factions battling it out, and it was amazing, but ultimately the losing team would end up leaving and it would be a long wait before another battle would occur. This is the players' fault, not Bioware's. As for open world on a pvp server, same thing, if pvp is not happening on your server, its not bioware's fault. If you want to do more than just go to low level areas, then get an op together and go to the opposing faction's daily quest hubs and raid them. As for the low pop servers, I know it sucks, but it may be in your best interest to reroll on a high pop server. On the ebonhawk (rp, est) we have a good pvp community, and generally short queues, but I am sure there are even better servers if you shop around to find the best pvp server.

I realize I already posted this in heretics guide to sab but I wanted to start a new thread that mainly focuses on incendiary grenade. Incendiary grenade is my favorite ability in pvp. Here are a few of its amazing uses. 1. instant interrupt to enemies trying to cap a node, even without having line of site. For example, I am able to place it just off to the back side of the node in Alderaan and it hits my target, even though I can't hit him with anything else, do to the line of site caused by the node. 2. place it on yourself when defending a node to make it difficult for a stealthy to sneak up on you giving them the upper hand. Note you will only have a split second to either push the stealthy back, stun them, or hit hunkerdown before they get to you so you have to pay attention. 3. place it on yourself when fighting melee to increase damage/deter melee from wanting to fight you 4. use it with shockcharge to instantly stun your target for 2 seconds 5. It slows opponents in it by 50%, this can be used as an aoe slow, but it also ensures that even if your target(s) move out of it, they will take some upfront damage. The spell is front loaded so more damage is taken in the beginning of it duration so this mechanic is very helpful in getting a lot of dps out of this ability even in pvp 6. The best part about the ability is that its duration and cooldown are both 18 seconds so you can have it up 100% of the time. This ability is the main reason that I continue to return to the sab spec, even though the ss and df full specs and hybrids can bring a lot of dps and utility to pvp. I want to stress that I am not saying that sab spec is the "best" spec for pvp. Because I think the "best" spec for pvp is going to be the one you enjoy and play the best. I am simply trying to say that a full sab spec is amazing in pvp and so often misunderstood. It's not actually about doing massive dps when your opponents clump up together, its about constantly being able to interrupt multiple people attempting to cap a node and increased survivability. And to just say a few words about riot screen and blazing speed since these talents often deter people from going full sab spec in pvp: The best part about riot screen in pvp is not the reduced cooldown on scrambling field, although that is nice, its that you take 6% less damage while in cover. Blazing speed also provides me with an extra 1000 dmg (non-crit) on my target. In pvp this could easily be the difference between your targets life and death, especially as they run out of your range with speed boost, or if you get rooted/cc'd.

What I mainly have a problem with is the roll into cover keybind on my hotbar, more so than my roll into cover keybind from the movement keybind section. Let me elaborate. I currently have "v" bound as roll into cover, while "f" is take cover in place. This allows me to use roll into cover when I see a good opportunity to use hard cover, or close the gap on an enemy. This key only seams to bug out when an enemy moves while I hit it sometimes I end up just dropping into cover instead of going where I intended. which is not really a big deal, at least I am still in cover, just not exactly where I wanted to be. I also have roll into cover on my main hotbar in the same location as pulse on my cover hotbar. I used to be able to hit the hotkey twice to get pulse to go off (when I am running to a person I want to knock back, mainly huttball). The way roll into cover used to work is that if there is no place for you to roll based on your current target you dropped down in place, however 9 times out of ten this key will not drop me into cover at all and I end up missing the opportunity to use my pulse. Now I realize I can adjust my gameplay accordingly knowing this, I just don't see why bioware would make that change to roll into. Just to clarify, all of these findings are from pvp I also want to comment on the changes of no longer being able to go into cover from, mid jump and that you have to wait until you arrive at your destination when rolling to cover before you start casting. I don't know i this is cover being "broken" or if bioware made these changes knowingly. Here is my take on it: guardians/sentinels and their mirror classes can jump into the air to get them in a better position to leap to their target, so why can't we jump to better position ourselves to where we want to take cover? Also, I get that bioware may not want us to be able to start attacking while rolling into cover, but hitting a hotkey should not cause you to stop mid roll, it should just do nothing. I am sure if hitting an ability mid leap caused the leapers to stop mid leap people would have a major issue with that.

Incendiary grenade is my favorite ability in pvp here are a few of its amazing uses. 1. instant interrupt to enemies trying to cap a node, even without having line of site. For example, I am able to place it just off to the back side of the node in Alderaan and it hits my target, even though I can't hit him with anything else, do to the line of site caused by the node. 2. place it on yourself when defending a node to make it difficult for a stealthy to sneak up on you giving them the upper hand 3. place it on yourself when fighting melee to increase damage/deter melee from wanting to fight you 4. use it with shockcharge to instantly stun your target for 2 seconds 5. It slows opponents in it by 50%, this can be used as an aoe slow, but it also ensures that even if your target(s) move out of it, they will take some upfront damage. The spell is front loaded so more damage is taken in the beginning of it duration so this mechanic is very helpful in getting a lot of dps out of this ability even in pvp.\\ 6. The best part about the ability is that its duration and cooldown are both 18 seconds so you can have it up 100% of the time. This ability is the main reason that I continue to return to the sab spec, even though the ss and df full specs and hybrids can bring a lot of dps and utility.

I am a gunslinger who pvps often and while I do like to gain the bonus from natural cover, or use it to close the gap between me and an enemy, you do have to move a lot in pvp so if you get tunnel vision and only use natural cover people will just get behind you and you will no longer receive any benefit. another big reason to not use roll into cover is sometimes the mechanic will want you to roll right into the middle of the fire, as a gunslinger it is generally better to be off to the side somewhere you can hide, or escape if you need to. That said, pvpers who completely unbind roll into cover, are missing out on a great utility mechanic of your class.

I have not done very much raiding on my Gunslinger, but I have noticed an increased need for mobility as I started to do the harder hard modes such as Lost Island. If the raids that you are in require high mobility, then DF is worth trying out to see if you like it, and if you can get more dps out of it. DF will provide a significant increase to damage while moving due to increased dot damage and the fact that your abilities are channeled, you can get some damage in before you have to move, rather than being interrupted from casting completely by a long casted ability such as aimed shot. But all in all you should play the spec that makes you happiest. I play Sab spec, and mainly pvp, but I have recently started doing some ops and hard modes and don't have any problem putting out enough dps to clear the content. That said I am not doing EC or nightmare modes so I do not know what your guild is requiring you to do.

You should not expect to kill a tank in 4 hits, tanks generally do less damage and therefore you should be living longer and given 2 players of equal skill/gear you should have a long interesting fight. If you are fighting a non-tanking heavy armor wearer, the key is to key them at bay with your knock back, leg shots, aimed shot knock back, if you are ss spec I feel this is a really good talent, dirty kick and run away, and your flash bomb. If played right, you can keep them away long enough to burn them down. Now if you don't like this play style you could try out Sab or DF, I myself, would not give up incendiary grenade for any other talent at the moment. It has so many uses. I love to watch melee be forced to stand in it while they attack me, this gives me a pretty big damage boost against melee. I also tend to live a lot longer as sab spec with decreased damage while in cover, Increased damage absorption from defense screen, and you can throw in ballistic dampers from the ss tree for extra measure. The counter for a vanguard is that they can be interrupted and a GS cannot be interrupted, except with a stun, which SS spec has a shorter cool down on Hunker down which makes you only interruptable by a fellow slinger/agent with diversion

I don't disagree, but the best thing you can do is report every player you suspect of hacking. Bioware can investigate and verify on their end whether or not the player was hacking, or if it was a bug in the game itself. Then they can apply punishment and hopefully they can put in measures to prevent that hacking/bugs in the future.

My vote is not needed. If and only if they could use the bolster mechanic to equalize everyone in pvp, such that everyone was on the same playing field for their particular class. They could still give gear rewards, but it would be purely for cosmetics. After all, isn't pvp suppose to be about how well you play your class/spec and the objective, not how good your gear is. However, if they can't equalize everyone's stats in pvp, I wouldn't change the way expertise works for another gear stat. I think it works fine as long as the people at least pick up recruit gear. You wouldn't go into a lvl 50 op or HM under geared, why would you go into a lvl 50 WZ with no expertise?

Yes it is a bug, yes it sucks, but if you get it, and you can't leap back down using guardian leap or force leap again try to use /stuck to get out of it, so you aren't stuck up there doing nothing. Also, if you know that when they are in the corner you will get bugged by leaping to them, I recommend not leaping to them. It sucks if you don't have a ranged ability to interrupt them, but you may be able to stop them before they take it if you walk, or leap to someone not in the corner to close the gap if you can. Where as if you get stuck up top, you have no chance of interrupting them. Now all that said, I still think its a bug that should be fixed, these are just recommendations on how to deal until it does.

I completely agree that every class has weaknesses and strengths against particular classes. As far as tracer missile/gav round spam, the best defense against this is interrupts, if you don't have one, and no one else on your team is interrupting them, yes this ability will eat you alive. As far as leg shot not breaking with damage after 2 seconds, I don't generally see this. I myself am a gunslinger and sometimes get frustrated when my root and flash grenades are immediately broken by someone who starts attacking the target instead of leaving them cc'd so we can cap a node. Its possible that someone or multiple people are rooting you in quick succession. I like to root a player from knock back, attack, then root them with leg shot to keep them at bay. And I do see leg shot parried sometimes.

I like to take the opportunity to learn how to play better against specific classes/players/teams, when I keep playing against the same people. Once you know who the healers are you can focus them, interrupt/cc/kill. You can also see who they are focusing and lure them away from a node with that person sometimes. The key is good communication with your team. If you see you are queuing with the same people a lot, ask them if they want to group queue, this can get more people talking to each other. More likely the reason why a team seams unbeatable is not the classes that they bring, (although a group of all sorcerers can slow the hell out of you in voidstar, and a well played operative/scoundrel healer may seem to be unbeatable) but the fact they they are communicating with each other very well. As for the people on low population servers, that's unfortunate, but if you are looking to pvp more , it may be in your best interest to just reroll, as much as that sucks. If you go this route, I know my server has some great pvp guilds on both the imp side and the republic side, The ebonhawk, rp, east coast server.

The great thing about the gunslinger is that all 3 specs are viable in pvp and pve, it depends on your play style, do you like increased mobility DF is an excellent tree because you aren't required to use cover as often, but don't forget that cover is still a great tool to use to defend against leaps, and to mitigate incoming damage. If you like burst damage SS is the way to go, you will see larger single attacks with longer cast times. This is very useful for taking down targets one at a time in pvp. You can focus the lower health targets and really pressure healers. But if you go this route, don't get tunnel vision. Make sure you pop in and out of cover often to proc ballistic dampers and snapshop. Sab spec has amazing aoe power which is really good at defending a node pvp. You also have increased survivability in this spec. This is my personal favorite. Incendiary grenade has so many uses. But it all depends on your personal play style. I would suggest if you are going to pvp a lot that you take some of the controlling talents for instance, trip shot in the SS spec to reduce the cool down on your root, or feeling woozy in the DF tree to get your shrap bomb aoe slow 3 targets. Dirty trickster, is another great pvp talent if you are going full DF All in all my suggestion is try out each tree to see which play style you prefer, and then play around with the spec to see which talents you feel you can live without.

I have to agree with blurps, I think all of our trees are extremely viable in pvp. Personally, I prefer saboteur spec, because I enjoy taking on a defensive roll in pvp. I often live longer than I feel I ever have a right to, and I always have an aoe ability up and ready to interrupt multiple people capping a node. However, if you are looking to stay back and snipe single targets down quickly, DF and SS are amazing specs and extremely useful in pvp. You have to play the spec you enjoy the most. You will be better at your class if you enjoy what you are doing. I would recommend putting 2 points in saboteur's utility belt in the sab tree no matter what spec you are. This lowers the cool down on your flash grenade by 15 seconds which is useful, but it also lowers the cool down on your thermal grenade to 3 seconds. I have found this invaluable in defending a node in pvp.