Hello! Will you please go into some details about how you guys balance classes(outside of ability bugs) for PVE, and what are classes you guys are looking strongly at in relation. I.E. Is there an internal build you guys are testing certain class changes on and what direction are those changes going in? I guarantee this is the biggest issue players look at, and it seems the communication when it comes to that hasn't been there. This includes the exclusion of in game combat logs that prevent healing and damage meters. Thanks for doing these blogs and I hope a lot of good questions and answers come out of it!

I didn't realize the issue w/ Mythic devs. Srs though, I think the dev's are prioritizing in a certain order here. A) Major game bugs. Seems to be issues w/ BW trying to get all of their graphics options working. I.E. AA and Bloom B) Various bugs while leveling up. D) The game is out for a month and already ppl. have hit deep into end game mod. While it's awesome there is end game content. I don't think the majority of the imbalance issues are being experienced by a majority of players, as they are not at end game yet. E) There's like a 7:1 Empire to Republic ratio. I think they might be trying to brainstorm some ways to fix that number. F) End game, which probably a minority of their player base is probably at, though an ever growing minority.

I like how some of these Operation leaders/participants talk about those classes as if there's a skill gap in the ppl. that play them. Sorcerer healing is incredibly op atm. Bioware has made statements that Operative healers are supposed to feel limitless in resources to heal throughout a raid encounter. Sorcerers are supposed to be more resource starved, which is why their heals are so incredible. As it is, the reverse is true for resource management. I expect that they'll patch that in one of the next patches, and then skill might come into play. Half of these games are just about knowing your role and the other half is about gear. Very little skill required. APM means **** in most of these games, as like 50 APM is fine.

I agree. I think Droids are the only kind of non-force class/race combo that would appeal to a large audience. Also, they could branch off of the advanced class system..would be cool to see like 4 new advanced classes. IA Tanks SW Healers or R DPS Trooper Melee DPS/brawler type SI: LOLZ. Maybe a melee class that's not so rogue like, or maybe something that's more like an EQ bard in play-style. Republic would follow the same system here. Could set them up as Heroic adv classes, where you're just started off at the end of the last ACT, and engage them a new expansion related quest..yadda yadda. Pet classes are just stupidly horrible for PVE and PVP. Please do not make pet classes. They are a huge headache for raids. I played a beast lord on EQ, and though I was geared w/ 1k + AAs, raiding some encounters was just a huge *****. However, I guess a presence based class that uses companions in abilities woudlnt' be a bad idea. Your companion doesn't follow you around, but your abilities all summon a companion to do various things. Maybe you'd call in a dps companion for like 10 seconds to fight with you, in place of a dot, or call in an orbital strike type ability.

If you read everything the poster said, you'll see that Surge is roughly equivalent to Power. I think after a very small amount, it was ~98% just as potent as power, point for point. Power is over-powered to the extent that it makes picking it as a stat, a "no-duh" I think further questions need to be asked though, but only to cover rare situations that will probably never happen, like the below: I think with large amounts of alacrity, it's value might increase exponentially..The issue is figuring out how much alacrity is needed to fit your free heal in to your rotation more often, and how to fit that into a parsing calculator. Yadda yadda.

There's actually been quite a few sci-fi/fantasy things out recently. They've just all sucked! The ones that have been successful, are just not interesting to me. Harry Pottery and Twilight come to mind. Then look at films like Skyfall, and you'll see why a lot of companies aren't too eager to risk the budget.

This was my assumption a long time ago, when comparing Power to crit or surge, as Power will effect both crits and non-crits. I've raised that point to a few people, and some have responded that Power will not actually effect your crits(Meaning it would just effect non-crits). I believe that to be incorrect, but looking through the UI and tooltips, I cannot say that is the case, definitively. Is there any evidence of this one way or the other, in game. I'm too lazy too test or do further statistical research myself. PS. That's awesome. I think that's the first time anyone has calculated any kind of APE-equivalent for this game! TY!

I don't think anyone is arguing your point that Sorcerers have to spend points in their respective trees to heal, dps, pvp. I think the argument here has been: A)Sorcerer healing is super awesome. B) Other healing classes are lacking and feel incomplete. C) Healing classes need to be buffed to be able to handle situations when being brought in as a healer for certain encounters. I think there can be a decent argument that in raid scenarios, operative healing gets their intended job done, as do the other classes. In group scenarios for HM Flashpoints, other healers are inadequate or require some luck from RNG to pull off some encounters(I.E. Bonus boss for Kaon) D) As other classes seem to have some inadequacies, the logical step would be to buff those classes in line to the sorcerer. I think everyone would agree, that the sorcerer healing class, is the only healer w/ a complete healing kit to handle situations where they would be the only or group healer. E) Classes that have these inadequacies, need to be looked at before determining the direction that adjustments(if any) to sorcerers should go.

Just switch the Sorcerer game developing team w/ the IA's. Should fix everything! Really though, I mirror a lot of the fixes from the above poster. A) Kolto Probe: 1 stack, 50% more healing or shielding, and 50% more ticks. Energy cost should be the same. B) Infusion: I like this ability. I hear a lot of people complain about it, but it's one of the most useful heals I've used in tight situation. Though I would say the heal on this needs to be increased or a shield or Hot should follow up the effect. I'd be fine if they left this as is. It actually better than surgical probe C) Surgical Probe: I hardly use this. It's really lacking in Heals. It's good for a quick heal to try to get some ae dmg taken care of. Keep in mine, a probe heals more than this and doesn't cost a TA, and will in-fact reward one given time. I would use this more often if it had an additional chance to crit or something. It seems like a poor-man's oh **** heal. Except you'll still be like oh **** by the time you can cast another ability. D) Diagnostic Scan: Since they fixed ability lag a little bit, it's been easier to fit this in. They need to remove the cast time all together, and make it so i can use this when I need to move. It's really restricting right now. Though, keep in mind, you can get a tick off of it and still move, you don't have to let it finish it's cast time. E) Nanotech: Useless right now. Only time I use it is when I feel like being lazy while clearing trash. i would say it would be more useful if it just insta healed instead of HoTing, but I'd imagine that putting you at the top of the aggro list. Instead, make it an instant group shield. Would be fine on threat, and give us an extremely useful signature move. Energy is still a little too high for that, I'd say keep energy as is and add some more benefits or more shielding that it would heal....maybe allow the shield amount to be double the heal. Also, remove the damned range. Too many of our abilities require us to cast and not move around at all. My usual rotation is Injection, Infusion, Probe. W/ stim on I can usually throw a Scan in between and keep up 90%+ energy. Keep in mind that your energy still regens while casting Injection. W/ Stim activated, I can toss out 1 probe, and regen the energy before my Injection finishes casting. An immediate follow up of Infusion will get me back up to 90% after the GCD finishes from Infusion. Though don't quote me on the GCDs.

What gear did the Operative have?

It's a conspiracy to get you to make a second character!! Serious though. In other MMO games that swtor takes all of its ideas from, you are expected to learn and lvl a character into the "End Game". All the gear and experience that you acquire is meant to help min/max your stats for a role to help the overall community raid, pvp, or completing group instances. By fulfilling multiple roles by switching specs over and over again, you are diminishing the effect of the developers' game design to allow other members of the community to participate to a certain extent. If you are tanking for one instance, and then dpsing for the other, that is another dps or tank that is missing out on that opportunity. Thus, harming the community. Imagine what that does for raids if you have someone that is taking your DPS gear because some nights he DPS's, but he's your current tank. As SWTOR is REALLY REALLY FRESH off release, I'm sure they'll fine tune this system to allow for some more quality of life improvements in that regard. They've had developers make several comments about certain tools not being implemented yet, as they want the community of a server to be at a certain stage of the game before they release those quality of life tools(I.E. LFG tool). If you're looking for any sort of conspiracy, the only one that would make sense is that they're holdilng off on certain things to make sure those at the end game don't progress further than the developers are ready for. In short, play alts until bioware adds more end game content!