FailWare!

You know how hard it is to find game mechanic information for TOR, like anywhere? I mean supposedly, A 10K companion gives you 5% crit crafting chance, but we dont really know that for a fact. We only know what Dulfy's site tells us and how credible is that insider info? Not a single other site suggests that and it's certainly not reflected ingame. Do the ship droids and HK share that mechanic? You would assume so, but Dulfy doesnt even mention it. They are a different type of companion after all. And yet, you know that the queue algorithm attempts to pair off groups? Do you have any evidence of that, or has it just been your experience? I don't your fault your experience of course. That's all we ever have to go on in this game. Though, people who show up in PvE blue 50 gear rather than free recruit do aggravate me too. Everyone's got an opinion on the expertise thing. Seems rather obvious to me, especially since you can prove it numerically with the tool tips. I do agree a Black Hole healer has more output potential than a WH healer, but only if they're left alone to free-cast. Which of course you can't count upon.

If you're going to bring up every exception situation to attempt to win an argument, like this one circumstance nullifies the entire discussion, we'll never get anywhere. Yes, of course crossguild premades are semi-common, but less so than full guild premades because they're encouraged to assist one another. I only brought up a known tag to illustrate how a hardcore grouping dominates pugs, which is effectively not a balanced game technique. If you disagree with that, I dont know what else to say. I've made a specialty of the solo queue, and consequently win more matches than I lose. But it is a point of obviousness that premades that refuse to solo queue for exactly the reason we're discussing imbalance the engagement. Again, if you think that's untrue, I dont know what else to say. And blaming the premade is not the issue. It's the mechanic that's the problem. If you take a 4 RL hardcore friends with maximized gear and put them in a room with 4 random people of varying skill and equipment, text only communication and limited (at best) synergy, the result is all but certain. That is clearly imbalanced. So the solution is to require solo queueing or require group queueing. At it's most basic level, that's what qualities as fair. In the end, I would like to see more people participating. But if they won't do it because they're tired of getting stomped during the gearing up and learning processes, and considering this is a game, that is a failure on BW's part and a loss to the community at large.

I only brought up GG's quality to illustrate how ineffective a pug is against them, which reduces the fun factor for anyone who's not hardcore, and I'm sure that's not something BW wants. In regards to it not resolving the quitters problem, let me elaborate. I believe it will mitigate the issue. Don't you breathe a sigh of relief when you solo queue into a group with a quality premade, because you're worried about a premade on the other side? But if there were no premades, the gear distribution in a pop would be far more even, an aspect that you could effectively rely on from pop to pop. A quitter, knowing that there is no premade and with a statistically even distribution of gear and skill, is more likely to stay. Only quitting on the odd pop. Now I wasn't thinking there should be 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 queues (if that's what you meant). You're either grouped or you're not, but you do bring up a point about the 3v3. I guess you'd have to test it to see how effective it was. But is very possible that we'll get a larger pool if solo queueing was separated. And again, cross-server queueing would fix the wait issue. I know that's been done in other games.

Its so rare to be able to use a companion in PvP. You can't use them in any designated PvP area (although I don't know how it works on PvP only servers). I have outfitted Ashara in full WH and sometimes ride around (on my speeder) flagged in a high level pub infested area, hoping to get jumped. At which time, the speeder despawns and out comes Ashara with 1100 EXP and some change. It's fun, but unfortunately I get jumped so rarely. Now Im a healing sorc, so I dont need Khem in a situation like that. What you usually want is your highest possible DPS to end the fight before any gawking onlookers decide to jump in. And that's Ashara or Revel.

Take Game Genie (Ebon Hawk) for example. Truely an exceptional group, but a group none-the-less. When you oppose them, they protect their healers aggressively. They give the huttball to the appropriate tank and maintain a good pass flow from ball spawn to in-zone. They maintain a quality predefined player pair for capturing the introductory CW turret. They have stealthing specialists to prevent CW mid-cap that waste your team's time very effectively. They aggregate 3/5 or 4/4 splits in VS to maintain consistent pressure for the plant or defense. They dont risk solo pylon grabs in AH, offering up potential kills points for the opposition. In NC, only a few trusted allstars are allowed to break away and attempt the 3rd turret cap or distraction. But even with all of that, what I see is effectively a raid invading the solo queue. Most of us don't play that way, and so it's very hard to be effective against them. So consequently, the only GG members that I respect are the ones that I can see have solo queued and don't quit out when they don't like what they see. I know several "elites" that are serial quitters because they don't want to work with recruits. And I'm not just talking about GG or pub guilds. That goes for all PvP primary guilds. Some of them are really bad about it and I call them out when I see them queue into a recruit group before they quit. I've never once seen a serial quitter drop out when they're proactively called out on it. So I know it means something to them. So give us a solo queue, to separate the quitters and the cowards from those of us with spines and drive.

Ever the hot-button topic. I do think we should have 3 queues (Ranked, group and solo). If you really think that you're all big and bad, but only because your buddies are always covering you, then you really arent that pimp. Most of the classes I've tried have the ability to be exceptional if maximized properly. That means there really is no reason why a solo queue option shouldnt be available. And for the few classes that suffer at one time or another, their lack of attendance in a solo queue would be an easy-to-pull stat indicator for BW's balancing goals. It's much harder to poll for imbalance when an allstar plays a disadvantaged class successfully, but only because he has reliable help. Trust me, that allstar still knows his situation and would like it fixed also. I personally feel that the solo queue is always the most challenging. It really forces you to refine techniques, gear, cooperation, skill charting and rotation. But that provides little benefit if you run across two guys of similar drive ganging up on you as your team's playmaker. I know a variety of skilled elitists with inflated heads, not because they really are "unbeatable", but because they're simply used to winning due to their group associations. Most of them are mistaken about their skill (barring the occasional exception), but there's rarely an opportunity to prove them wrong, not that you can really teach lessons to such obtuse cowards. A truely "unbeatable" reputation is obtained by working with what you've got and running with it, on the fly. The only downside I can see to creating a 3rd queue is fewer queue pops. But it's quite possible that such a feature would actually increase the queue pool. There appears to be a lot of responders in this thread that have quit queueing because of the lack of said feature. And it could be resolved with cross-server queueing. It all seems like a win-win to me.

It's hard to argue with you Popsi (cool name btw). But I do see solo nonstealth guards all the time. O.o. Because it's considered "crap duty", a weak player is often chosen to occupy the local turret until a 2nd is taken, at which time you send another person over. But before then is a prime opportunity to stealthstrike a turret grab. To not be in stealth would alert enemy reinforcements too soon, so its falls to a scound or sin class to make it happen right. Because both classes get two instant cast 8 second mezzes (the scound without even having to spec into it), the idea is always to mezz, attempt cap, get interrupted, re-mezz and then cap. BUT, that requires the guard to be 10 -15 meters away. Any closer and they'll stop your cap when they come out of the 2nd mezz. Any further, and they're too far away to pop the 2nd mezz. They also have to be green enough to not know how to handle the situation, since an 8 second mezz is actually not quite long enough to cap an 8 second turret (except for Hypergate, but that has it's own tradeoffs). With such a specific set of requirements, the nonCombat stealthcap is a rare thing, rare enough to where, in the long run, you have wasted too much of your team's time in the various attempts. You're better off to attempt to kill the guard, then cap. In most cases, this won't work because at least one reinforcement will arrive, though it's usually two. When they arrive, chances are excellent that the original guard will be running back. Now that's 3, so the pimp hybrid heals come into play. You still won't last long. That's when you incombat stealth and just sit there (or leave). The point is that now, 3 guys are standing there indecisively because you presented yourself as a real threat. If one gets smart and attempts to leave, Sleep Dart. You can keep those 3 boys tied up for a while, during which time hopefully a 2nd turret is taken across the field. Now that I have done many times. But you're right, if you're full heal spec and attempting to do this, you're letting your team down. Better to let a sin do it, if you have one and he's motivated. The hybrid op is not meant to be a healer, but to possess enough native healing to extend an engagement long enough to succeed objectively. But he couldnt do any of that without being able to go into stealth mid combat. I have a merc and sorc, and tried them both in DPS specs. They don't have anything like slow release medpac or instant cast cycling HoTs that would allow them to hybridize effectively with DPS. In fact, their native heals are really only used if you manage to get away and can top yourself off before you leave combat. But that's cool, it's not like Ops get the big phat heals of sorcs. But if they're going to try this, they shouldnt have a Get out of Jail Free card every time it's not going their way.

That's true. Popping Sleep Dart CC, then immediately First Striking (which finishes Sleep Dart) triggers Sedatives. Should have been more specific on that point. No matter how much detail I try to input to answer questions, I always leave something out. In the hybrid spec I speak of, you're not going to put a turret guard down as fast as a sniper could, but it is an eventuality. Only way out of it I've seen if it you also happen to be a well geared knowledgeable healer that's cool under fire. But you dont often see healers on guard duty, or at least you shouldn't. I've tried full DPS and it is better overall numbers, but you dont get the longevity with slow release medpac or the gimping debuff of sedatives. Takes more time. Not the wham bam the OP speaks of (except for the introductory volley of course), but a victory of time and pressure. About 50 to 75% longer than a sniper's capable of. If power maintenance were an issue, I could see that impacting the engagement, but that's not a problem for this class, on power mgmt par with what a sorc is capable. Bear mind that my whole reply is not about reducing an Ops DPS potential. Like I said, it's not insane. It's just reasonably high burst. My point was to illustrate that their in-combat stealth should be removed. *Poof*ing out of an engagement is game breaking unless your entire class is built around it (AKA Assassins/Shadows). But to give this ability natively to a healer as well is where I take exception. IMO, only Sin/Shadows should have in-combat stealth, AND they should also have better speed boosters that nullify most of the snare associated with being stealthed. To this, an Op healer would complain about a a Sorc healer's Bubble Pop Spec. But when you're in Bubble Pop, you don't get away. You just hold off the inevitable. It's not like you disappeared, hid somewhere where you brought yourself back to full, and stepped out again to sleep dart a few enemies before initiating your next rotation. And since they moved Bubble Pop out of the healing tree anyway, this prevents you from acquiring the group heal (bread and butter of the sorc healer). That alone ends that IMO. You can't maintain power on a sorc if you're solo healing with only single targets. Ergo, if you want to do your job right, you don't get to be bubble pop, which I agree with. It's an OP ability that should be reserved for protecting yourself (and the occasion VIP) when you're in a DPS spec. That's how tradeoffs are supposed to work. You're not supposed to get them by default.

I mentioned that just above. Everything I wrote up there is current.

What does that have to do with the price of tea in Zimbabwe?

Perhaps you missed the 2nd stun he mentioned, during which he's set upon again.

OK, first off. The fact that this thread has 115 pages speaks for itself in regards to whether this class is overpowered. Yeah, I think the Op is OP. Aptly named. But rather than going into numerical oblivion, let's speak basically. You NEVER NEVER NEVER give a healer in-combat stealth. NEVER. There are 5 overall leet abilities is MMO classes, any 2 of which should NEVER be combined in any class. 1. Burst DPS. 2. Heals (meaning any class that is meant to be a healer). 3. Plate tankage (in this game, meaning heavy armor combined with native tank abilities that dont require an AA tree). 4. Stealth (but I'll refine this to in-combat stealth, meaning the ability to stealth while engaged). 5. Feign Death (which, in this game, is likenable to in-combat stealth). The unique situation with TOR is that 6 of the 8 archetypes (or 6 of the 16 subclasses) have the ability to be a healer AND something else. Now, the scound/op can heal on the run with the majority of their heals. That means instant casts, meaning no interrupts. Most of these are HoTs, so it takes some time to feel their effects, but one of them (slow release medpac) is cheap to cast, a decently large heal and can be stacked. You combine all the instant cast HoT's plus the occasional free sizable instant cast full, and you end up with a very hard to kill PvP healer. Also, a nifty little ability (Sedatives) in the healing tree (that only costs 2 points I might add), reduces the targets DPS by 50% for 10 seconds when First Strike is used (which is a pretty big attack by itself). 50%. 10 Seconds. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. You wanna know why you're dying when they jump you? It's because you're gimped. All your high cooldown big booms are halved. 10 seconds is the majority of the engagement. That ability costs no power and is passive. And it's in the healing tree? Hmm. I have a well geared Sin and Scound. The base dmg (just looking at the base numbers of the abilities) is no comparison. The scound's got em beat. And the scound's attacks are less situational. The biggest Sin ability is assassinate. It requires the target to be below 30%, the attacker to be behind them and within 4M. No scound ability is that high in dmg, but they have several that are near it and they're not situational. First Strike is, but obviously that one's a guarantee. And a scound would be a fool not to open with First Strike since it gimps your DPS by 50%. Now I'm talking about a hybrid scound that went far enough up the healing tree to maximize slow release medpac. So when you combine those remaining points to create a fairly high burst DPS class WITH pimp heals AND in-combat stealth guaranteeing first strike ability (which we all know is at the core of successful PvP), you end up with a class that (when combined with a knowledgeable player) is highly advantaged over the other classes. And if it doesnt work out, they can just *poof* out of the situation, robbing you of your victory against the odds. Believe it or not, there are classes out there that have no significant DoTs to break their poof. Sorcs and Mercs for example. In every other MMO I've played where there was an assassin, they were the best stealthers (nonCombat) and held tier 1 DPS. But in this game, only an allstar can do enough with the pitiful base dmg of a Sin to make it a class to be reckoned with. But an average player can put out similar dmg with a hybrid Op. And to add insult to injury, Ops get every steatlh abiltiy of the Sin (including stealth detection and level boosters & speed haste) PLUS group stealth. Not that I use that much, but the point is they get more stealth ability than the Sin. THE SIN. THAT is a JOKE. I mean, what was BW thinking? They're really showing their green MMO stripes here. My scound is relatively recent. But I've heard that ops/scounds have already been significantly nerfed. I can only imagine what they must have once been. No class should outstealth an Assassin. I've never even heard of such a thing. And to give the Op better DPS (notably better) is mind boggling. But I suppose that's a byproduct of allowing a healer to hybridize. Generally speaking, I've rolled 8 classes to 50 and PvP'd with all them. Some of them are very clearly more instantly suited to PvP than others. Those classes don't require EWH to be stellar. Simple WH is sufficient and you can get that in a week. I have a marauder too, and everyone goes on about how OP they are. I disagree. A high Smash hit requires maximized gear even against an average geared player. AND you have to build a sequence of abilities to maximize it, so you cant use it very often (at high dmg). And once its built up, you got about 10 seconds or you lose it. Not that I consider the marauder to be a fun class, so I dont use him anymore except for crafting. So I'm not all pro-marauder or anything. The point is when I talk about how I think the op/scound is OP, you wont see me whining about the usual class that folks complain about (smashers, who btw are very very squishy, even the juggs). When I say something is OP, I speak from experience. But again, I didnt even have to maximize gear to know. You DO NOT give a healer burst dmg or in-combat stealth/feign death. You get one, not two of anything, or you're OP. 1/ Would you like to see a plate tank class with burst DPS? * A true tank class has native skills that dont require wasting AAs to become a tank. Turning a cloth wearer into a tank by forcing them to use all their AA points does not compare to a plate tank that starts out a tank and merely enhances their tanking with AAs while snatching up other things. 2/ Would you like to be set upon by a Sniper with 200 or 300 healing per second? 3/ Would you like to be jumped by a cloaked tier1 DPS Sin with plate tank survivability? 4/ Or a plate tank with tier1 DPS or 200/300 healing per second? Combining these things is a no-no. But there's no way to fix it without a serious restructuring of the class system. You're a healer, a tank or DPS. You dont get to be a combination of two at 80% effectiveness in both. It's supposed to be an equal trade-off, but BW failed here.

My understanding is that you cannot use Legacy abilities in a WZ. For example, I opted for the Field Mail Droid (Legacy) on all my characters in lieu of the ship mailbox. I've personally confirmed you cannot summon the Droid in a WZ.

Dont forget that Expertise provides bonus healing. But more than that, the problem comes in when youre attacked. You're just too squishy without expertise protecting you. I dont waste my heals on folks in PvE gear because I can't keep them up. Better to heal someone else that actually has a chance of a surviving. As a healer, youre a primary target. As a PvE healer, an experienced PvPer will focus you for instaganks every time he sees you. It will be even worse if a PvP healing teamMate is trying to keep you up pointlessly. Your death means group death. Honestly, I can't think of a worse person to be in PvE gear than the healer, except maybe a designated ball handler in huttball.

Well lets put this observation to the test... Dorne is a kind, compassionate, forthright and beautiful individual as opposed to a groin licking pugilist. You can't help but go along with it. But let's say you could. You turned her down and carried on. Have you finished Chapter III? Did you get 3 purple L1 gifts with suggestive text in the emails? While Jaxo is a fun distraction, there's no possibility of a walk down aisle with her, so she's not really part of the equation. More a port of call as it were. Not trying to be crude, just stating what was offered by BW.

A very eloquently written question, evidencing one of my mentioned points. Translation: Irrespective of what you do with your companions, there is no evidence anywhere that any of your choices or interactions are reflective upon another player's perception of you or said companion, and there never will be. Consequently, why would anyone, including yourself, actually care? The only answer I can give you to you is that you aren't a roleplayer. Although in truth, I feel I'm only a light roleplayer. But character development in any story provides an empathy that begets an emotion. With how much depth BW provides us for interacting with our companions, their stories and relation to me matter a great deal. Irrespective of what anyone else thinks, which I have no interest in. Obviously, there are 50 <insert companion name> roaming fleet at any particular moment. This is of no relevance to me. What I care about is what I've built with my <insert companion name>.

Not one person has actually responded with any kind of concrete answer. They're all assumptions or jokes. One L42 said that clearly this person did something wrong in an earlier conversation that implied a romantic attitude. That's not how the game works, and you cant even get married until after Chapter 3. There are plenty of opportunities to flirt that don't lead to marriage, but most of us shy away from even low affection level flirting for fear of BW pigeonholing us into matrimony. I personally believe that any conversation involving going into a bedroom and/or having sex is a direct reflection of a romance in progress. Not just flirting. Don't forget that you can flirt and sometimes even have sex with normal NPCs. There is a pivotal conversation that happens for every romanceable (currently heterosexual) companion. And it should be very apparent to you when you see it. There are several problems that will shed some light on this... Because every choice is permanent, you can't ever really know what would have happened if you'd taken another route and let it play out. That uncertainty plays to the benefit of the company providing the customer service (BW). We're always concessioning that we may have made a mistake. Because who can know, right? No one really knows where the Point of No Return is for any companion. And the spectrum of flirts and romps at varying levels of affection create an ambiguity that leads to fear and assumption. Only BW can truely answer this question for any particular companion, and they aren't talking, not even when a ticket is submitted. The only evidence that you have in fact married a companion is the 3 purple L1 companion gifts you receive in the mail (along with the sexting body of the mail). There's no ceremony. No after marriage activities. No followup emails. No line of text anywhere in the user interface that confirms you are married. And so this too creates ignorance in the playerbase as to the how and why and what-have-you. The majority of the playerbase does not care enough to get up in arms over accidental marriages (because they have so little current impact to a non-RPer), if you can even prove that that's what happened. You oftentimes get jokes and chides for even being upset about it. And consequently, those who do care, back off and simply accept it, which of course contributes to overall lack of knowledge and useful feedback. There is no credible information anywhere that says that you have an opt-out choice. In fact, I believe we are all forced to marry a companion (test details below). But again, the lack of matrimonial evidence leads a player to believe that they didn't even get married, and so they blow it off, making an assumption. BW is either unwilling or incapable of answering questions on this point. My female sorcerer was somehow forced to marry Andronikus Revel, a slimy wannabe pirate. This is my main character, and I have reserved her, from Day1 for Ashara, knowing that some day, same sex marriage will be put into the game. Consequently, my Ashara is perpetually at 6500 affection (in terms of the conversations that I've engaged with her. She's actually at 10K and "wanting to talk"). It is my hope that BW will give her alternate conversational choices when the feature is input, but I really have no way to know what they'll do, or if they'll do it all. I was quite sure that I did not make any wrong choices with Revel, but he was quite insistent upon pretending like we had a thing going. I turned him down over and over, losing massive amounts of affection in the doing. And I never gave him a Courting gift. And yet he persisted and ultimately sent me the 3 signature purple companion gifts. When I contacted BW about this in massive protest, they could not even confirm if I was married, much less do anything about it. The service rep was completely helpless and ignorant, giving me the same old spiel about forwarding it on to a developer. That was months ago, and as expected, I haven't heard word one. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- MY TEST -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have come back around to the Inquisitor class and am rolling up an assassin. And the first thing that occured to me was that filthy forced marriage to Revel. Yep, primary concern before I even locked eyes with Harkun. I love the inquisitor storyline, so I'm FRAPSing every main and class quest along the way. And since I'm doing that, I'm also FRAPSing every single Revel conversation, to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that I sent his butt packing every time he even suggests something romantic with me. I am now L49 and eagerly working to complete Chapter 3, in part so that I can confirm what I suspected all along... That Revel will force himself into marriage with me no matter what I did. And no one is going be able to tell me that I made a mistake, because I can prove I didn't. Currently, he's at 10K and awaiting the Chapter 3 completion before forcing me down the aisle. I'm already convinced he's going to do this because the last conversation I had with him, he was talking about our having babies, like we had ever flirted even once. There was no choice where I could tell him to go blow when he blurted this out of the clear black sky. The best I could do was say that I didnt realize he was such a softy (though I did listen to all 3 choices, and the other two were suggestive). As you can imagine, I feel strongly about this. And I intend to shove this down the Service Forum's throat once I have it organized for internet viewing (which will be a cakewalk for someone as technical as me). Now, once SGRA releases (noted below), if they do some sort of optional overall romance reset that will allow me to fix this myself, that will be just fine with me. What won't be fine is a total lack of intelligent response or no response. Because hey, I can type all day. A side note... SGRA (Same Gender Romance Arcs) - This is the official term for it. It will make it easier to search on than "same sex romance".

This is a damn fine question, and one I've been wondering about. With the amount of Barrier'ing that I do, I'd be willing to bet that I'd have consistently equal numbers to him if... / SB heals are not currently reflected in the WZ window... / and are corrected to do so. HOWEVER, before everyone jumps onto to the YEAH! bandwagon, consider this... EQ2 has 3 kinds of healers. Plate wearing Reactive healers: They throw a heal proactively that has a set number of charges. When the group member is hit, a charge is consumed.(instant reaction). Healer's purpose is to prevent the health of the groupmate from dropping below 100%. Chain wearing Warding healers: They also throw a heal proactively, but for a set amount. It gets consumed accordingly when the groupmate is hit (after mitigation/resistence has been taken into account), for however many hits it takes to fully consume the total amount of the ward. Healer's purpose is to prevent the health of the groupmate from dropping below 100%. Leather wearing Direct/HOT healers: They throw heals as needed, attempting to keep a constant rotation of HoTs and high amount directs. Healer's purpose is to rescue a dying groupmate while one of the other two healers gets back into position. But spike dmg is a huge problem for this heal class as a human cannot react or cast as fast as a computer algorithm. / Originally, it went like this: Dmg first went through reactives, then through wards, then finally direct heals. Because spike dmg can kill a tank faster than a direct healer can react and cast, leather healers were encouraged to constantly rotate heals even though the tank is at 100%. Else they be blamed for wiping the raid for not doing their job. The result was that direct healers received very little numerical credit as their heals were constantly wasted. Eventually, SOE fixed this by giving the 2nd and 3rd tier healers (shamans and druids) heal credit for everything they threw, even if it wasn't being used. And that was the only way to make it truely fair. And that may be the problem with them giving us credit for Static Barrier preventative heals (effectively it's a ward). Because theoretically, they come first and so other people's heals are wasted. But it's not the same. SB is one ability. It's not like I've got a whole line of stackable SB's that I can use to hog all the heal credit. I'm not a warder. And spike dmg hasn't been so much of a problem here. There's plenty of dmg to heal. Sorry about the long explanation. I felt it was necessary to explain the situation.

Mainly what it is, is that I'm always looking to improve my numbers. And seeing somebody consistently beating me out motivates me to continue refining. I know I'll always get better with more practice, but Im pretty sure I'm in the levelled off part of the learning curve. And with the difference being so big still, I had to assume it was simply imbalance. But I didnt want to scream about falling skies. I just want to understand. Even with everything I've read, inquisitor is my favorite. I dont care to reroll. In another game, I intentionally rerolled to the currently favored healer and AA'd/Equipped them accordingly. I just murdered all healers numerically with limited experience with the class. Yes it was fun, but I wasn't motivated to try hard and become an exceptional example that defies imbalance limitations. It also wasnt my favorite healing class, and I've always felt you should play what you like, not the flavor of the month. Now I have a better idea of what I'm working with.

I appreciate the thoughtful replies guys. He's usually on my team. Sometimes grouped, sometimes not. I've seen him in every situation and his number are pretty consistent, so I wouldnt really say it's a group factor. He is a highly skilled healer no doubt, but I consider myself similar. So what I'm hearing is... / Less dependency on stationary heals / The group long duration stun Flashbang (which I didnt realize they had) / Stealth escaping The shielding I was referring to is Static Barrier. I keep it on myself and everyone else consistently. So I count that as personal protection that serves to counter the medium armor distinction with the op. Used properly, it's very powerful. One thing I've never know is whether the soak dmg that it consumes counts as heal numbers for me. I'm thinking not, but I'm unsure. I know it doesnt count as "Protection".

The endline heal in the sorcerer heal skill tree is an AoE HoT (Revivification). Wasn't that once an AoE instant, later nerfed into a Heal over Time?

If every op healer outhealed me, then it would be me, not a class thing. I expect to beat par/subpar skilled and subgeared ops as experience counts for quite a bit. But if I'm equally geared and feel Im equally skilled to another player using a different class, and they are beating me by a significant margin consistently, then there's some mechanic that's the problem. Honestly, it's just this one guy. I agree its odd that only 1 op can realiably beat me if its a class imbalance situation, but I do only play at one time of the day, same time as him. Maybe the other superior ops are playing in a different slot.

I've been PvPing on my sorcerer for a good while now. Fully Augmented WH, working on the elite weaponry, etc etc. I'd say I'm top heals 75 or 80% of the time. I've got a pretty good rotation. I've figured out how to move and use LoS blockers. I keep those shields up all the time. I primarily heal, only attacking to help a teammate finish someone off before they get healed back into a threat, or to throw a quick CC. And yet, there's this operative that traditionally heals for 25% more than I do. I can't get any better equipment. I feel confident in my casting order and technique. So I've come down to wondering if it's a game imbalance. Looking at the operative, I see they have an in-combat stealth and regular stealth, just like an assassin. So I'm thinking he's beating me in part because he's simply not dying as much via *poof*ing out of a gank session. And consequently not having to waste valuable heal time running back. That and the fact that he's wearing medium while I'm in light, though I presume he doesnt have a shield which should roughly equal out his armor advantage. IMHO, in-combat stealth and feign death are the two most powerful abilities in an mmo, Consequently, I've seen them traditionally only given to hybrid classes, not specialists (plate tanks, healers, single target nukers). And yet, BW has given a healer an powerful PvP escape. So I'm thinking this ability is the reason. Now dont get me wrong, he is very good. But he also rarely dies. And I'm thinking that window where I'm running back is what's killing my numbers. So I'd like to ask what you guys think about this. I'm sure there'll be any number of trolls that tell me I don't know how to play my class, that I should just shut up and reroll or quit. If you're one of those, temper yourself with the knowledge I'm not wasting your time with this post. I am interested in hearing a valid counter, like how gimped ops are in other areas that the sorc makes up for. Just remember that the primary job of a healer is to heal. So if youre going to say that my Extricate makes up for it, it doesn't. My shield (which keeps me up longer to continue healing) makes up for the armor difference. What else is there?

I've been PvPing on my sorcerer for a good while now. Fully Augmented WH, working on the elite weaponry, etc etc. I'd say I'm top heals 75 or 80% of the time. I've got a pretty good rotation. I've figured out how to move and use LoS blockers. I keep those shields up all the time. I primarily heal, only attacking to help a teammate finish someone off before they get healed back into a threat, or to throw a quick CC. And yet, there's this operative that traditionally heals for 25% more than I do. I can't get any better equipment. I feel confident in my casting order and technique. So I've come down to wondering if it's a game imbalance. Looking at the operative, I see they have an in-combat stealth and regular stealth, just like an assassin. So I'm thinking he's beating me in part because he's simply not dying as much via *poof*ing out of a gank session. And consequently not having to waste valuable heal time running back. That and the fact that he's wearing medium while I'm in light, though I presume he doesnt have a shield which should roughly equal out his armor advantage. IMHO, in-combat stealth and feign death are the two most powerful abilities in an mmo, Consequently, I've seen them traditionally only given to hybrid classes, not specialists (plate tanks, healers, single target nukers). And yet, BW has given a healer an powerful PvP escape. So I'm thinking this ability is the reason. Now dont get me wrong, he is very good. But he also rarely dies. And I'm thinking that window where I'm running back is what's killing my numbers. So I'd like to ask what you guys think about this. I'm sure there'll be any number of trolls that tell me I don't know how to play my class, that I should just shut up and reroll or quit. If you're one of those, temper yourself with the knowledge I'm not wasting your time with this post. I am interested in hearing a valid counter, like how gimped ops are in other areas that the sorc makes up for. Just remember that the primary job of a healer is to heal. So if youre going to say that my Extricate makes up for it, it doesn't. My shield (which keeps me up longer to continue healing) makes up for the armor difference. What else is there?