What AC was he? And how long did he take to inflict this 17k? It would be pretty easy for either a Pyro PT, or an Arsenal Merc with a good string of crits inflict 17k in a full rotation.

I believe they said that in 1.2 the rewards for valor ranks would be cosmetic items like mounts and orange sets. It was in the guild summit PvP panel. Can anyone confirm that this is not just a product of my faulty memory.

So I guess this threat was hijacked into a discussion of the merits of the new PvP gear system, but I'm going to break from forum tradition and try to answer the original question. I suggest getting 1000/1000 wz/merc commendations, then opening your bags (assuming you left the quests pending). If you get lucky and score a BM comm or two, look to see what your biggest total stat upgrades will be. If you're still wearing the centurion boots, you'll be able to fairly quickly upgrade to the champ boots, so compare the champ to bm, rather than the cent to bm. I am betting that the biggest overall upgrade will be the two implants and the earpiece. But that might not be the case. If you didn't get any tokens in your first bags (a very likely outcome) then you should go ahead and buy the implants and earpiece. You'll have plenty of time to buy BM comms later on. Also make sure you look at the champ mods and see which ones (that might not be from your particular set) you want to buy so you can swap out mods and optimize your stats.

I play in a high end PvP guild and I play both a sage and a commando. Your assumption that I'm bad is both incorrect and a stupid way to try to win an argument. Do you play both classes? Are you speaking from experience? Or are you parroting what you perceive of as "the accepted wisdom" that commando/mercs are the best healers? For single target healing, Commando/Mercs are great, but they are severely limited in the amount of healing they can usefully spread around. They are also very immobile. In the same way that Gunnery spec'd commandos are turrets, Combat Medic commandos are healing turrets. Two or three dps can pile on one commando healer, and that healer can live for a while. He'll die, but it will take effort. If a sage gets pinned by 2 dps, then that sage is going to die quickly. But the sage is a very mobile class. They should be constantly moving, only stopping for long enough to channel or cast a single time. If they pillar hump correctly, they will easily have as much uptime as a commando, and they'll be able to put out more healing in that time. Additionally they will be able to spread it out over the whole warzone more effectively. Commandos are support healers, and very good ones, but if I could only pick one healer to bring with me, I'd pick a sage. And it would be the right choice.

The bubble absorbs about 3.5k damage. If someone crits a major ability, it will disappear in 1 hit. If someone hits you without critting, it will take more than one hit to get through).

You're thinking of the commando energy shield which reduces incoming damage by 25% and makes the commando un-interruptable for its duration. And it's on a 2 min cd. That is our major defensive cooldown and is not the same as the bubble. Force Armor (the bubble) is completely different in use and design.

Umm..sorry but the bubble is not the same. I play both a 50 sage and a 50 commando as healers. Bacta Infusion (and it's mirror) is on a 17 second cd with the set bonus. Force Armor is essentially spammable (with talents) on your entire team. It's probably the sages most powerful healing ability in terms of its usefulness. It is far, far better than Bacta Infusion. Think of it this way. If you use force armor on a full health target, you're basically pre-healing that person, freeing you up to heal other targets. Force Armor can last through multiple hits and heals (or prevents damage) for more than Bacta Infusion, unless BI crits (in which case they're about equal). If you use Bacta Infusion on a full health target, you've wasted the spell.

Every couple of days (or hours) someone comes on here calling for a nerf to Mercs and Commandos. It's true that they have a lot of burst damage and can be pretty deadly if left alone to free-cast. But most of their burst damage isn't from the tracer missile or grav round, it's because of the heat signature/gravity well debuff it puts on the target. Seems to me that an elegant solution to the problem (if one actually exists) is to make this a cleansable debuff. A Commando/Merc healer or Scoundrel/Operative could cleanse those pesky stacks off of a friendly target and significantly reduce the incoming damage. This doesn't completely negate the usefulness of the Commando/Merc as a burst dps class, but it maybe adds more dimension to both healing, teamwork, and the spammers.

Maybe he meant adios Bioware Austin, and Bonjour Bioware Edmonton (yes I know Edmonton isn't French Canadian).

Oops made a mistake and deleted this post.

One of the issues with stuns and slows is that healers can cleanse far fewer of them. As a commando, I can usefully cleanse very little because so much of the population is weighted towards force users. Added to that the ui makes it painfully difficult to see who is effected by what (the icons are really small). Unless they're visibly on fire Or being attacked by an agent/smuggler I generally don't bother.

The two biggest general tips I can give for healing are: #1: Positioning As a mercenary you can take some damage and survive, but unless you absolutely need to, don't stand in any open areas. Hug pillars and boxes and move a lot. Even if you're not targeted, move. It's tempting to just sit and spam heals if the opposing team is letting you free cast, but the more you stand still, the more likely it is they will find you and gang up on you. #2: Learn Who to Heal As a healer it's tempting to get into a savior mindset and try to heal everyone, but sometimes you'll need to let some people die so that your team has a better chance of winning. If someone is almost dead, you might be able to save him, but low health targets invite attacks like a dead carcass attracts vultures. You might be wasting time and resources to keep someone alive for only a few seconds more, especially as these kinds of targets will need more and bigger heals. If that person needs to stay alive for a few seconds (a ball carrier for example) then by all means, do your best, otherwise let them die and come back into the fight at full health. Spend your heals on people who are contributing the most. Keep a tank up in front of a door. Help the dps control mid in huttball. And most importantly, heal yourself. If you die, you're not going to be able to help anyone. Of course there is a lot more stuff to figure out, but there are lots of guides and stuff to help you out. Also, just practice. Nobody hates healers, so just go in there and start throwing heals around until you find a comfortable rhythm. It's going to be awkward at first, but eventually you'll find a good groove.

The people who left don't get credit for anything. It's not an exploit. In fact it was just really stupid for the people who left (or unfortunate if there was some kind of mass disconnect).

Also the cheaper pieces (like the belt) are 44 comms which is 7 bags, or 6 if you have a couple champ comms left over. The same bm pieces are 1 bm comm. In that case it's cheaper to go straight bm.

10 champ bags will give you 70 champ comms. The main set pieces are 67 comms, so you'll get 1 piece of gear. For the same number of warzone/merc comms (2000/2000 for 10 bags) you can get 2 bm comms which will get you 1 piece of gear. The only benefit from the bags is the money (if you need it) and the tiny chance for a champ gear token. I say go for the bm comms.

But, but...why would I peel for you when you look so lonely? This is a social game and surely you want me to plant with you. So I take option 1 because I like hanging out with bomb planters.

I'll double your exactly. PvP should be about skill, not gear. I want to test my skill against other players, not how much free time we both have to grind gear.

Yes, what? Why burst damage? Why 9 hours?

Some of the things you mentioned are incorrect. Reps get level 1 social armor on Coruscant and all social armor is light, so it only effects a minority of players. Sages also get a root on their kb. Like sorcs, the talent for it is in the middle tree. Patch 1.1.5 fixes the Alderaan bug that caused the East turret to fir twice on activation which gave them a very very slight advantage sometimes. I believe the CC you are talking about is the Jugg/guardian one. Awe (don't remember the mirror name). Both sides have it and it breaks on damage.

Great idea. Well thought out. Instant defender respawns so that capping a door is impossible. This will really make voidstar a great warzone.

25,000k...that's right, 2.5 * 10^7

I guess if they institute 1v1 arenas then we should worry about 1v1 balancing. Right now we should probably focus on group balancing. Sorcs/sages have more tools and utility than any other class in the game. They are great in groups. Don't base your thoughts about balance on a dueling tournament. That doesn't recreate the conditions of a warzone (or open world PvP if they ever fix it).

Slows don't build resolve. Knockbacks and pulls do. Your wish has been granted.

This. They made changes to Cent and Champ commendations to promote a progression. Why not do this to continue the idea of progression.

...is this AC fun. I started one as a little break from my daily BM commendation lottery and I love this class. Sure, I'm only level 14 and I know nothing really counts until I get to 50, but right now I feel like where has this class been my whole life (in SWTOR)? I haven't done any PvE since I left Tython, and I understand that it can be difficult, but right now I'm enjoying the hell out of this class. Just thought I'd share.