At launch it was all levels in one bracket together, so the system now is much, much better. Could you imagine a group of pre-made level 60's hitting a pug of pre-level-50 characters? Yeah, that was unfair. Any pre 60 pvp is chaos, and frankly I'd rather the devs devote time to fixing bugs than fixing a bracket that gets outgrown anyways.

I prefer the Tiger Eye Roll, it has avocado and jalapeno. Plainly put, it is delicious.

The only rule of PVP is to remain flexible.

I'm a returning player and while SWTOR has its faults, it isn't bad that's for sure. My opinion is that it's because of the rather cool people who play. I often run into people who just want to help me level or help me get past a tough mob, while the forums may have a bunch of cynics and whiners, the game has a bunch of nice people playing.

It's an absolute waste of time to lose in a war zone. Frankly, they had it right before 1.2. This is why I cancelled.

Tricky? Well, they should have thought of that before they borked the system that was actually working! There should not be a cutoff of whether or not you get medals, just a reward per medal that you go out and get. You get 2 medals? Okay, valor and comms, and none of this 13 coms for losing a match either, that's ridiculous. I que solo, maybe there should be a seperate que for me than for the groups? That'd be great, just not enough population on my server to support that, so if they have any thoughts of pulling that off it's going to be another 6 months before they implement it and it'll still be full of bugs and exploits. And they still haven't fixed the 'Invisible guy Removing the Bomb' trick from Voidstar.

It's a case of BW catering to the already established player. The 'buy in' for pvp is now much, much higher since the level 50 recruit gear is very nearly worthless in pvp. The grind is much longer, and your time to get killed is much shorter. That, is a 'Combat Upgrade' formula to me.

I already cancelled over this, it's a mistake to give no reward at all for being locked down by superior gear and coordination in a war zone. You're only recourse is to join a pvp guild, (IF there's one recruiting) or pve to get Rakata or Columi gear. This is a wasted patch as far as pvp goes.

Nice writeup, I for one never noticed the twelve second rotation part of the spec. The new PTF is very nice in PvP now, keeps those pesky healers from running away too fast. I'll start using your notes here and see how things go. Thanks again!

Which is why I use AP.

It'd be nice to get mini games for the ship, and a trophy case.

I've been a powertech since beta, and I remember crazy stuff like getting thermal detonator as just a normal bounty hunter skill, so I've been around a bit. I disagree with your assessment of AP as being useless. It's good for it's uses, killing healers, surviving while stunned, and ignoring grapples and punts after you've closed distance. Like any spec it takes a bit to figure out and get used to. Pyro can give you an unlucky string of 'no Rail Shots for juu!' we've all had it, it's just part of the spec. It can also give you that 'I AM A GOD OF DPS!!!!1' feeling when you burn someone to a spec of ash in a few gcd's.

I'm not sure what was wishful thinking here, this is the spec I roll with and the damage I do and have done as pyro and ap. It's base damage from FB is higher than the base FB damage you'll get in pyro and it's heat management is a passive skill. It's not that I'm saying 'Everyone go out and roll AP right NOW!!!1' I'm just saying that it works, and it'll work better in 1.2, snare on proto FT will keep me from having to drop a grenade to hold em still for the effect or use carbonize. Immolate proccing proto FT stacks will be nice and the slow from RB will be great too. I'll admit, I do more damage with pyro, but I don't view it as effective because it's not dependable. Also, a good bit of that damage comes from dots, which are curable and easily healed through. Anyways, that's my opinion, from testing it in war zones and 1v1's and testing pyro as well. Have fun.

A lotta folks hate AP since it's not tanky like Iron Fist, or burst heavy like pyro. I prefer AP now that I've been using it. It's great on heat management, and has some great survivability tools. I wouldn't advise using it until you've gotten full centurion gear and a piece or two of champ though. I went 8/31/2 with mine, getting the -20% damage when stunned talent is great for 1v1, it's like a free Energy Shield, and if you popped your ES before you got stunned, well, I've had 3 people beating on me who didn't take me down past half health, still passed the huttball after that. Hydraulic Overrides, 8 seconds of snare/physics immunity, can't be grappled into the acid or fire, ideal for the guy picking up the huttball. As far as dps is concerned, it's less than pyro, but it's more dependable. When I need a string of crits, pop explosive fuel and Immolate(3.4k crit), Rocket Punch(2.5k crit), Retractable Blade(1.2k crit + dot), Rail Shot(3.4k crit), Flame Burst(2k crits) as filler or range demands. Going pyro the openers are always Thermal Detonator (3.5k crit), Incendiary Missile (1k crit + dot), Rail Shot (3.7k crit), Flame Burst (1.4k crit), Rocket Punch (2.5k crit), pray for a proc for PPA, no proc, Rapid Shots, Flame Burst until proc or RP reset.

I have switched to Advanced Prototype for the last week and I enjoy it more than I did playing Pyro. Why? because it's much more dependable and effective dps. I'll repeat that one more time, it's much more dependable, and effective dps. Dependable, because I know how my rotation will work, and effective because I can do 8k damage in 3 gcd's if I set it up right. Not if I get lucky on procs. Yeah, I know it's not a lucky string of 3.4 - 3.9k Rail Shots that devastate a 20k hp Jedi Knight, it was never meant to be. What it is, and I run a 31 pt build, is a healer-killing build. 6 second interrupt on tap. Immolate crits for 3.1k with about 73% surge. Follow that with a free Rocket Punch, 2.5k, same as pyro. Flame Burst crits for 2.2k with 73% surge. 1.1k on a normal hit, and the thing is, it's almost all Elemental damage, the only weak spot is your reliance on Tech abilities, that means a good Tankasin will shut down your rotation for 5 seconds, time to stun and walk away. Heat management is awesome because the heat removal proc happens FIRST then the six second counter starts. I can literally spam Flame Spin 5 times in a row, and be able to launch a Flamethrower or other ability with less than 25 heat cost. Pyro has to have those rail shots to cool off, and you have to be lucky to get them or you've just heated yourself up past 75% in the first rotation. The other overridingly awesome thing about Adv Proto is Hydraulic Overrides and the in-combat speed boost. It's like being in fast forward compared to everyone else, also, you don't get knocked down, or snared, or grappled, it makes for the perfect forward passer in Huttball. Get the ball off the rack, pop HO, and your bubble and only take 55% damage from everyones attacks (the ability that reduces damage by 20% while stunned stacks with ES) until you can pass the ball to the waiting sorc or assassin. To the Naysayers about the flamethrower usage I have only this to say, I use it, I get kills with it even now, once it's uninterruptable, it will be much more deadly. On a crit, with full stacks of Prototype Flamethrower, mine hits all targets equally for around 2.4k, excellent for keeping people from disarming the bomb in voidstar. In closing, all I have to say is, I'm using it, getting kills, supporting my team and we win matches. My damage numbers aren't what they were with pyro, which has a bit more synergy with Rapid Shots, Unload etc on burning targets, but I don't ever have to use Rapid Shots because heat management is so much easier. Anyways, that's my take, disagree if you like, but if you haven't tried it, maybe you should just to use something with a few more tools.

I just switched from Pyro to AP and I gotta say, Hydraulic Overrides alone was worth it. Not being able to be knocked down, slowed or pulled is awesome when beating on a healer. One thing people seem to overlook is the crit damage bonus for Flame Burst, with my crit around 30% in war zones, I typically flame burst for 2.3k of damage. The Immolate crits for 3.4k and while RB is somewhat subpar damage wise, 1.1k on a crit, it does open them up for the autocrit railshot. It's not insane ****wtfloludead burst like pyro is once in a blue moon, but it is dependable, high dps, with options. Carbonize + 5 stack proto flamethrower + 220 crit/surge relic = dead people either in groups or just one at the time as it crits for 2.5k a tick. I've had as many as four people in mine and one was a tank guarding a healer in the cone. Heh Heh Heh, that tank melted like a snowcone on a tin roof in texas! Adv Proto is the new Pyro after 1.2

It's really hard to test this without a combat log to be honest. I use adv proto now, just because I like the heat management and Hydraulic Overrides better now that I'm decently geared and doing raid content.

In pvp it's a guarantee that you will be attacked, if not directly all the aoe flying around will keep that RP proc happening on demand.

The straight up intel is that for 4 global cool downs you can not proc a free rail shot from Prototype Particle Accelerator anymore. Used to be you could luck out and get one every other gcd from Rocket Punch and Flame Burst. After that you will have a 45% chance from Flame Burst and a 60% chance from Rocket Punch. Still luck dependent so we'll say every 5 gcds' you can get a Rail Shot instead of every 3. This will drop our single target dps by 10% at the very least. Bioware was not kidding when they said they were nerfing bounty hunter (troopers too unfortunately) and buffing everyone else (who uses a lightsaber). What bothers me most about it is that they didn't even look at Advanced Prototype. Both sides, Trooper and Powertech, have been asking for changes to that tree and our concerns were ignored completely. Also that they haven't even rectified the 4% difference between Bounty Hunter resource pools and Trooper resource pools. This is just like the Swordmaster nerfs in Warhammer all over again and even less justification. Basically it's ignoring the player base that plays the class, and listening to the people who don't play it or theorycrafting based off of numbers in war zones. In short, very poor development sense, and game devs really don't seem to like changing their minds about anything, ever, so the class concerns will probably keep being ignored.

I'll try the 1.2 pyro dps but if the nerf hits as hard as I'm sure it will I will cancel and play my remaining time on alts. A company that refuses to listen to the concerns of the player base (fixing AP) won't magically start listening to it at any later date.

Make no mistake this is a serious nerf to both us and Vanguards, I hope that they reconsider the length of the cooldown. If not, pyro dps will become nothing worth using, it will lack spike potential. Might as well go tank and do even less dps. What bothers me about it is the pages and pages of buffs to other classes and three lines of nerfs to pt/vanguard and a page of nerfs to mercenary. It's a serious lack of effort on their part to retain this part of the player base.

Bounty Hunter looks stupid in the pvp set, but at least it's better than the absolutely ridiculous 'Ant Man' helms and 'Ork Horde' armor we've been putting up with...

What bugs me is nobody here is noticing that powertechs will no longer get Rail Shot procs nearly as often. Now Prototype Particle Accelerator is on a 6 second internal cooldown before it procs another Rail Shot, that's a serious nerf to our spike dps.

Pyrotech (Powertech) Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds. Serious nerf for PT Pyro dps, it used to be that you could dot an enemy, Rail Shot, Flame Burst while closing distance, Rail Shot again, Rocket Punch, Rail Shot if lucky on the proc. What they've done is space out the proc, but make it happen every six seconds or so, unless you happen to be very unlucky. So that means they want us to go through 4-5 gcd's between Rail Shots as opposed to 3 a drop in dps of about 25% and a complete nerf to our spike dps. It won't be very interesting to see bounty hunters shelve their powertechs and rant in the forums after this hit to our dps.

I use it all the time in Voidstar, since it doesn't paint a giant 'Hey Interrupt me NAO!' sign on my forehead when I use it. It's great for keeping people from removing the bomb off the door. I'll also use it whenever I've got a tank/healer combo I'm fighting. The healer usually sits still and tries to keep casting so the tank comes up and sits still. I Flamethrower and watch the tank who's guarding the healer just get 2x elemental damage since I get him in the arc of it as well. Burns down tank, burns down healer, ???, Profit.