True, but mat farmers are in my opinion probably the only reason why there still are group ranked. I think after BW changes mechanics and PvE players won't have to endure the TR farm humiliation, the queue will be pretty much over. Only the same 20 guys battling each other over and over again. Twice per week. Hating and shaming anybody new out of the queue. Mat farmers will be replaced by friendlies on alts as it will be extremely easy to sync queue with nobody else online. All you need is eight buddies(or alts), regardless of gear, skill or anything. Welcome 3k elo again.

Well if we'll need to grind PvE to play PvP then it's time to unsub and check out annually if they've fixed it.

I totally disagree with OP suggestion. Juggs are just fine as are mercs. I am talking from ranked arena perspective. First, jugg tanks are monsters. Crazy control, crazy mobility, crazy damage. In dps spec, people play mostly vengeance. And I must say properly played vengeance jugg is a monster. What I see is people not using even taunts and then writing crap comments about the spec being bad. And assaulting off heal classes that they won't sacrifice their gcds to keep them up. (While I do agree, that offhealing is awesome, it shouldn't be mandatory to play expecting other classes to basically carry you and if they don't insult them.) Another thing I see good juggs doing and bad ones not, is using mobility! Good juggs don't just farm AoE, die in the same spot they jumped in and then qq that they got focused. They use little tricks like: Getting Unremitting as often as they can. Mezzing / slowing a group of enemies and jumping to a different dps, staying out of reach of other meelee by using the same - AoE slow + mobility. Some kite very nicely. Even the less skilled jugg that die rather soon can do so much damage with their AoE that their dps is decent in the end. Mercs have been nerfed to ground for so long that everybody got used to them as being basically silver NPC. And with all the talk about how strong they are they can be killed pretty fast if dealt with in the right way. They can be locked down way better then juggs. What you need to do is: Not single attack them when they pop reflect (I think they still get damage from AoE if they didn't remove it recently), Ideally you want to Mezz them while they have it popped and leave them be. A few seconds later, you can come in again, and force them to pop kolto. And have some brain when dealing with the shield. If they specced for it, decide if you want to burn through it. If there are 2+ enemies on a merc, the chances are that they can burn through the shield before it pops. And even if the merc force-pops it, they won't get as much healing from it and they are letting the 25% dr go. It all boils down to how well you can use what you have. And counter what the enemy has. Another angle could be that Merc healer is considered unsuitable for higher level ranked (can perform well in synced group and with support though imo, but that's circumstantial), DoT spec is practically unheard of in ranked and so the only competitive spec is arsenal. Juggs have tank completely capable of reaching top tier, dps that with some brain can go high aswell. People don't play jugg smash too much so I can't comment on that.

I second this.

From what I have seen not much has changed for team 4vs4. The problem with tanks in organized tank + healer matches is that in tank gear you lack the extra damage in burst and the extra protection doesn't help much. It's for a 2nd set in case you are tted imo. This is just a casual observation, I haven't really spoken to any top tier tanks.

I think the balance is good atm. Most OP class for 1vs1 is operative (had their own separate bracket from all others in tournament). Mercs are fine, so are snipers. The biggest loser atm is probably pt dps. That is, if you ming dying. It's a blast to play it, as always. As tanks they are great. Ppl cry about juggs, but I think it's mostly because they are used to easy wins and now they have to work for it. As tanks they are great. Bioware has dealth with the problem that cast classes had, they now have mobility, dcds and moments of instacast and/or uninterruptibility. Mechanics wise the game is in a great place right now imo.

I agree with OP that "Elitist shamers are the true ruin of pvp in this game!" While I think swtor has probably the best PvP system in current MMOs of this type. The root of the whole problem is low population of this game, especially of PvP. You are getting with and against the same people all over again. This allows for continual griefing, shaming, wintrading... and any form of manipulation. If there were enough players you would just move on with very little chance to meet the same berzerker again. Also, the matchmaking would work. In other games where the population is high enough, it works as you are getting matched against people of your level. Ofc there are comets that you'll occasionally meet but after would soon rise above your bracket and you'll probably not meet them (not anytime soon anyway). Here you get queued against the same teams, against the same players. Solution for warzones is to get a team yourself. If you are tank, get a pocket healer and vice versa. I have noticed that the odds are against you when you play warzones solo and tehre is a premade in the queue. Let's say there are two teams, 16 players total. There is a 4-man premade in queue. So your odds of getting against the premade are twice as high as getting with it. (As you have 4 slots open in the team with the premade and 8 slots open in the opposing team). In other words you'll be matched against premade two times out of three. Team ranked is the most fair and you'll be generally opposed by these tactics: - Griefing, shaming (preferably on fleet chat), whispers ranging from insults, through opinions about your family members, wishes of ill health of varying painfulness and prolonged suffering, up to suicide suggestions and death threats - all the best from cyber bullying. - In queue, there are only teams of players that play well, play together for some time and their cohesion and cooperation is much higher level than yours. After losing to them, you are typically laughed at with a spicy combination from the griefing menu. These teams often pray on mat farmers and when a team that can actually defeat them queues, they stop. - You have serious tryhards in queue. These guys will farm you and anybody else and they will actually go on alts with no or very low rating to destroy your rating (in general, smurfs). If they lose, well, you don't get much since you were against low rated characters, and if they win you get a LOT of rating down. As you can imagine, this leads to lot of queue dodgin, alt-tracking and queueing in specific times. Maybe account-wide rating could solve this but it would introduce another set of problems and I think they would just queue from different accounts. Solo ranked This is the signature of this game's PvP imo. Getting queued with seemingly random people and being rated for the whole team's performance. Wintrading in this mode is rampant and so is every form of cyber bullying. Unfortunately this is the mode most people without a team go in. And since cyber bullying works in most cases, the only ones who stay are the same people, or individuals with exceptionally thick hides. Griefing leads to poor queue numbers which in turn lead to same people playing against each other and any outsider has a very hard job of staying. Unfortunately there is not going to be a turn around as any new influx of players will be griefed into oblivion within weeks and thus it will be only tempoorary. Honestly, if you want a fair PvP, go play some other game. PvP is swtor is toxic and about wintrading on higher tiers. P.S.: A nostalgic tear for the old ranked warzones days...

If we were playing cleave I would be happy to go with operative healer. I just don't think they can single-target burst heal as well as sorcs or mercs. But I am open to being proven wrong. ^^

I will, thank you!

Hi, our team is looking for a healer for regular playing. We currently play jugg tank, smash mara + maksman sniper. We plan to play twice per work week rouhly at 18:00-21:00 CET. Ideally you should be a skilled sorc able to listen to Discord and communicate important CDs and states (stuned, mezzed, ccing, in trouble etc). We could go with a good merc, I don't think operative would work with our comp as we hardswitch instead of cleave. We can try though if you think you are up to it. We are a new team (Currenlty 1300ish) and I am sure we can go much higher if we persist. With this comes another requirement: Be patient. Usual toxic griefers are already catching on (Already got a threat, lol.) and there surely will be lot of hate aimed towards us to keep us from playing. If you are experienced player you already know what I am talking about. Sowelu (aka Unholy Champion marauder in this comp)

I think you have been lucky. Also there seems to be certain individuals (often on alts) that do the most toxic stuff. Some people destroy games on purpose and also they are toxic in order to chase others from the queue. Plus occasional frustration outburst of somebody playing for rating and being mixed up with mat farmer, or more often thrower/wintrader/however-you-call-it

Whatever comes to your mind when you hear somebody say they carried the team. The term can be used in a variety of situations and so can answers address any of them. Your answer is fine. Thank you. I was partially curious myself what people actually understand under this term, partially the thread could be a good indicator what is general consensus what sort of things should be done if you want to better youself and up your contribution. Or your public visibility. Why do I mention public visibility? Because in my opinion you can do things that are not easily spotted and don't show in stats at the end of the match yet they can make a tremendous difference. My point of view is from 4vs4 ranked as it's practically the only activity I do in swtor these days. What sort of things? An example would be pushing (several) players off the ramp on Orbital. The difference can make or break the game situationally (You push all but your team's target down). How does it translate to their lost dps/healing/protection? Yet you lost dps or hps because the ability doesn't contribute to any stat in the end match summary. Or you force wave (with root) a dps and a tank out of the guard range. How much damage have you prevented? Some good burst sins come to mind. They use a combination of lift, wave, stun, low slash, grenade to lock down a player. Definitely changing the balance of the match. A good kiting would fall under this category as well. You may look bad because you have lower dps but at the same time you screwed two opponent dps wasting their time on you. When I was writing the post I had 4vs4 in mind but I am happy that people from all kinds of group activity responded. You can "carry" anywhere.

I loved the 8vs8s. it was a golden era for me. Queues were quite organized from what I remember. There was even a tournament!

Hi, what does it mean to you when somebody says he carried the team? What sort of things did he do? Can you make a list, maybe give some examples if it's not clear? Maybe it's highest dps? Maybe a cc at the right time. How important is following up on agreed upon targets? Better to switch than chase a slippery one? My hope is that all players might benefit from this. Perhaps they will realize they can do more or do something different. For me it means he helped control the game. He did dps on the right target, cced the right target at the right time. Offlealed when possible. I prefer more focused dps on one target. This depends on the composition ofc. If all members have AoE / DoTspread mezzes wouldn't work wery well. I try to stay on the target up to a fault. For example Operatives carry by offhealing, cc, baiting enemy into attacking them and locking down opponents. Marauders can carry by high dps, well placed cc and high survivability. Same for Juggs except they can guard too. Mercs can carry by dps, offheals and baiting enemy into attacking them and then kiting well. Dps PTs can... ...kite? If you disagree with me, just write what it does mean in your opinion.

I find this thread very interesting and enlightening.

Can I get the explanation too, please?

I was talking about general tank mindset and meta. What I would personally like to see is full tank in PvP in proper tank gear. The solution I have proposed was made with as little change to current systems as possible in mind. I wanted to tank's damage in tank gear stay the same so that BW doesn't have to change anything in PvE while simultaneously compensating for the lack of tank's dps in arenas by adding a healing debuff, effectively making a skank tank and a full tank equally valuable on offense, but skank tank weaker on defense. In such situations it wouldn't make much sense to opt for a skank tank as it would have no advantage, only disadvantage. I realize that the healing debuff solution may not be so important in games that don't utilize healers (skank may be a better option there) but the system would help a lot in tr with minimum impact to the game or tanking mechanics/balance.

I would like to add a screenshot of a mail my friend received. The author is meaning this seriously and is actually doing it. What I find fascinating is that he admits this publickly and that there are people - all gold medals, you can see them occupying top of the ladder - actively helping him. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xIuTji32BkbhAYK3S3ynWxgrfbQdssEW There is way more to this story but it's not my place to go into details. I just coudn't resist posting this.

Carnage mara in PvP was always tricky. Nice for uninterrupted damage dealing but once you get into meelee with slows and enemies who know how to kite things get very difficult. IMO it's a PvE and duelling spec.

I am writing this post from ranked PvP player point of view. I am very skeptical about how Bioware intends to nerf skanks. On the other side, the game IS better for rankeds thank it used to be. Classes are more interesting, there is almost no completely useless class so there is still hope. The problem with skanks is twofold. Weak mitigation and dps requirement. As everybody knows, the defensive stats are bypassed by certain attacks thus making the mitigation very weak and unreliable, up to a point of damage mitigation difference between dps and tanking gear being very barely noticable. Making defensives worthwile addresses only one part of the problem: Defensive stat usefulness. But what about the other part? The team having enough damage to land a kill? Sure, there are highly skilled players who can do a proper hardswap, but you'll generally find them at 1500+ rating. If Bioware only boosts defensives it will just lead to a standstill until acid. Tank damage is what tips the scales. So in solving the puzzle Bioware needs to address not only the broken mitigation issue but also how will teams score kills. Tank's dilemma: To throw in a rough comparison, you can either have 20% more survivability or do two or three times the dps and top the chart. Considering your contribution to the team as a whole, the fact that healers can now roughly outheal two dps, the choice is clear. Going full tank is seen as gimping your team these days. Okay, to not only state the obvious but to also address the problem in a constructive way... Solution: The way would be to add healing debuff percentage increase on every tanking (armoring), mod and enhancement. If full tanks would decrease healing done of affected targets by a total of 50%, it might be interesting. Let's say 1% for each piece. The damage would stay low(er) as is appropriate for full tank but the contribution to the win and kill would be roughly the same as dps gear. I understand that this may be seen as nerfing healers but they would pull usual numbers against targets that have not been debuffed by the tank. I don't play PvE so I don't know how would this change affect raids and such. Technically this could be done by assigning mods and enhancements a hidden set bonus that would increase the debuff by 1% for each piece. Thinking about it, the better way would be to actually make a compulsory bonus: all or nothing on it. You would have to have all mods with tank stats in order to get 15% healing debuff. Same with mods - all needed to be tank in order to get another 15%. Or you can change the ratio to better represent number of mods vs number of enhancements. This would also remove speculations of of many debuff pieces vs dps pieces are optimal. Also, remove guard for non-tank specs. This post got way longer that originally intended... O.o

No, there are no fully legit 2k+ players in solo that I know of. There is no way you can have that ELO considering number of people who purposefully lose, bads, DCs, bad matchmaking, top players playing on alts with no / low rating, backfilling, hackers (didn't notice much outright hacking lately though) and just common misunderstanding. And of course luck. In TR the situation is different.

Shandaara (with accent on a) / Powertech / AP / Empire

Not the first one, but still 50. And since I play almost exclusively PvP I find it very representative. http://imgur.com/dza5NJ4

I have the same problem. Sometimes I can take screenshots, but mostly not. This seems random. I just lost an awesome picture of doing twice the dps than the rest of the team. Mentioned it in chat and now I can't show a proof because Bioware let me down! /cry

We have had SO much fun running in burst merc + burst sniper combo. Net at 50% synced via TS with fully loaded Ambush and Heatseeker. LOOOOOOL ...SO much fun. Sages were just insta-evaporated ...good times XDDDDDDD