I don’t want to flame here, but it’s the merc that should win in open. Unfortunately I just lost a VERY long post I wanted to contribute here with, describing tips and tricks. Sage should win if ha can LoS, merc should win in open. If you are on ToFN EU or you can transfer, I’ll be very glad to prove this in a couple of friendly duels. Btw on my unoptimized pyro merc I can single handedly burn sorcerer healers - pyro burst, if set up properly, is devastating. Try playing with a friend who can back you up. If you repay in kind you’ll both have a great time. 2 mercenaries in tandem can ve devastating indeed. Oh and apart from 1vs1 mercs ARE a trash class to play PvP. :-)

lol + Constructive answers only please.

It’s a stun, not a mezz. And a very short one. You have Volatile substances on you, they wait until stun wears off (or break anyways) and port to you. Another stun incoming. The only thing that works is to pop shield before they attack wait until they full resolve you with second stun, break, heal up and try to kite. Can't use dcd in stun. With the exception of selfheal. You need to break for AoE mezz. And the port. And exploding bubble. I named them as the possible counter. Chaff flare is a real lifesaver here. Can help you survive initial burst. But pretty much yes, you are dead meat. Operatives get in faster than you get stacks to see them. I have heard reports from several people that they were stunned while entrenched. Not sure if it was a bug, glitch or some purpose. When played properly, they have a chance to survive the opener, but when they screw up, they are dead meat. To be sure you would have to hunker down immediately in order to get enough stacks and see them coming. One less major dcd. Almost never works in solo. It’s rare to see somebody willing to lend a hand for the good of the team. It’s only about how much damage you have at the end of the round.

Hello, thank you for the input. I understand how to theoretically fight a single operative - the tips are very appreciated anyway. What I am more interested in, though, is a group of them. Let’s say you fight two operatives a sin and something else. What happens is: Whole enemy team will get an opener due to stealth + smuggle. 2-3 our targets will get sapped. They open on one target. If they are good - and many are - they reapply the mezz with flashbang. The focused person will run out of dcds and die. Another thing is that most classes have only one breaker. So you should use it only once the resolve is full. It’s very hard to start kiting before you see the enemy, it’s very hard to use the dcds just before they open on you from stealth so more often than not you are caught in a stun with 2-3 stealthers bursting on you. You can either try to wait for the second stun to fill your resolve - the chances are they’ll kill you in the first stun or you can break the stun immediately, pop dcds + heals and hope that you’ll survive the second stun and kite away. You can deal with one operative, but the other will burn you. The thing is dcds don’t really help and if you cc or kite them they are right back on you. White defense doesn’t really help since all their damage is yellow. That basically leaves mitigation to general damage reductions. Shields, Saber Ward, mercenary Chaff flare. I have seen ridiculous arenas where two operatives offhealed and we couldn’t get a single kill. I am afraid I know the answer, that there is nothing to do against good operatives, but I was hoping that I missed something. I don’t want this to be a qq, but rather a constructive debate. I saw what is coming some time ago and I have a geared operative ready when season begins, but I would rather play a different class if there was an option. Thought snipers would dominate the arenas, but they seem to be less popular than I though. Maybe because they are harder to play than most classes. The best defense I have come so far is to try to AoE and catch the group before they open, or just risk it and once I see a sap on enemy or have a hunch that it might come now, pop dcd in good faith I’ll use it just in the right time.

And how can I easily deal with those operatives?

1 vs 1 yes, but they'll eventually run out of cds and die of 4x DoTs. Sages / sorcerers are one of the few classes that can survive the opener. Twice.

Solo ranked on ToFN are starting to be flooded by operatives. It’s quite common to see 2-3 in each team. Game is becoming one-class mockery again. Any tips what could counter them? The only thing that comes to mind are four sages/sorcerers. No other class stands even a remote chance in my experience. Any tactics that works?

I got used to 4 dps and 3dps + tank matches. I kind of like them. They make a nice change. Making all matches healer + tank + 2 dps would make things duller imo, plus you need to pull off some coordinated cc and/or switching when against a decent tank and healer. That's not a skill many people possess. Result would be that most of the matches would end in acid (rounds being max time) as neither team would be able to kill the opposing one. Also, sorcerer/sage would become the dominant class because of their ability to survive acid longer than other classes.

There have always been wintraders on ToFN. Players who normally win about half the matches suddenly rise up to 2k+ rating. Players consistently doing 1/2 or less damage and not using cc when queued against certain character names and doing great cc and dmg when with them. You can't really get past 1600 unless VERY lucky or with help. There are always some newbs or trolls or other wintraders that ruin your rating. This won't change. What CAN change is player pool size. Solo ranked is by large part broken because there is too small pool. By getting more people you'll have bigger pool and it will become more difficult to manipulate the system. Moreover you'll get matched against players with similar rank. No 2k mixed in team with a fresh 204 PvEer. In this regard I welcome free 60s as it leads to potentially bigger pool and more balanced gameplay. That's the theory part. My experience with Bioware is that they don't have a clue about PvP / they don't care and there is SO much hate in ranked that only the most resilient can keep playing for a lnoger period of time. I am quite skeptical about PvP in swtor improving. Bioware cancelled 8vs8, repeatedly destroyed PvP community with patches that broke the PvP balance, reacts way too slowly to imabalances (Reaction time is about 1/2 year+), doesn't fix bugs (for example bugged respeccing, falling through textures when jumping...). PvP swtor is now a joke in PvP community, good players left. If you want balance or something try other game, ranked PvP will remain ruined forever in swtor. The only reason I play it is because I have friends that play it.

750k jeeez.. O.o

Yes, the players who can't make it past 1300 miraculously getting 1900 rating in a day is working as intended too. Same players from the same guild being together over and over in solo ranked working as intended. Players in solo ranked whom I can solo almost every time but having 2500 rating working as intended. Players who lose two out of three times against me during the day and being on top of the ladder working as intended. Same players of 1600+ being again and again queued against random 1100 players working as intended. All these skilled players getting their hard earned prizes is working exactly as intended. Obviously we play a different game. EDIT: And as for the "more" play. If I pool all my characters' tokens I can get 60k easily. Just from tokens, not talking about medals. So I play enough. And that's exactly my point. Even though I play a lot I can't get the same reward as somebody who plays one character only. Doesn't matter what rating.

Please make the ranked season tokens tradeable in legacy. Same as with warzone tokens. I play on several characters. On some I have silver, on another I have 33k tokens but I am on bronze. I can't but the higher tier rewards even though I spent a lot of time playing the game.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_d2wL5pprPiRl9kQ2Q4QVdTU28/view?usp=sharing Notice the classes.

Yes, after year and half of constant moaning on forums they might start to notice... I am serious.

It's nice to have people like that on your team. Unfortunately it's a rare sight and they are usually alone in the wz. On the other hand, if you get 4-5 good PvPers on your team... ...pure awesomeness.

ARE YOU CRAZY? YOU ARE ACTUALLY BUFFING JUGGERNAUTS IN PVP? Clueless jugg lovers. -.-

Judging from comments general buzz I was thinking that the game is going to hell - the same way the biggest MMO did. After watching the stream however, I have changed my mind. I play mostly PvP and I made hybrids not to increase my dps output but to get utility skills that I considered essential or very tempting. By speccing into hybrid I was sacrificing my main spec, often to the point of crippling it. The new system ensures that I will get to play the spec I want while cherry picking the abilities I craved for from other trees. My main is sage and I could see from the video, that the changes were for the good of the class. The only thing I do not like are the three tiers of utility points. While I did personally squeeze into the restriction while taking everything I want, I can see how this might not be the case with other players or classes. I would like to see that you are able to pick any combination on max level. This way it feels that you consider some abilities more powerful and there will be problems with the concept. Personally I consider some of the abilities on lower tiers more powerful than the ones in T3 as they were presented in stream. As a side note, I am a HUGE fan of what you are doing with alacrity. With alacrity now not only affecting DoT and HoT ticks but also cds of abilites, this stat will become finally useful. Overall, I can see that you are making an effort, you are trying to address the problems and so far it seems you are (for the first time) doing a good job. Thumbs up.

I don't mind that. In fact I see it as a nice way how to boost your character to max level quickly and still enjoy the best of the game. If the person wants to enjoy more of the content, they can come back. Better that getting an insta 55 Ievel guess. I have loads of alts, I like levelling them, watching the storiers, making different choices. This xp boost allows me to do exactly the same thing but without going through planetary quests too. Also, you can choose not to preorder the expansion yet and spend 150 hours levelling. And the fact that you had to work for it? Yes, you did. Same as everybody will have to level 55-60 the same way. Give some value and credit to the time you spent playing the game. Did those last years meant nothing to you? It's not about how fast and when you level your first character, it's about enjoying yourself.

I levelled 25-41 and used only green synthweaving armors of the same set name. Since the specific armors are distributed among levels, I am getting a new piece every few levels. Exception will be levels 49 and 50+ where you get the whole set at the same level. I take rewards with this priority: My improvement -> Companion's improvement -> Planetary comms. So far I didn't have any gear issues at all.

There are some strange things like matchmaking, 3vs4, hell I got several times a match with enemy having a healer and us not having one (yes, in solo ranked, and no, we didn't even have a skank healer). But I can live through it. Even through 4-jugg or 4-sin teams. What I can't stand is how players behave. That is the thing that make the game really suck for me. Apes gone wild.

First. Update your drivers. Seriously. Try a program for reouting traffic such as WTFast and something to smooth your load times from HDD such as swtor Unleashed if you have enough RAM. There can be 3 things bad on your end: Your computer is not overpowered NASA beast you need to run swtor. The game is extemely poorly programmed. You need an overkill computer to run it smoothly. Press ctrl-shift-f. In lower right corner you'll se you fps. Is it low? Then the problem is somewhere in your machine. Is it okay but you are having spikes? Then the traffic is probably routed via some backwater with a possibilty that some pigeon blocks your wifi whenever it feels so. Try something like WTFast and you'll see if it help. It reroutes the internet traffic. This completely solved my lag spikes - and believe me I tried everything else. Don't fall for programs that modify your windows register. They might help if your computer is a mess. But the real culprit is some ISP along the way. I am speaking from personal experiance. I had i5 and it couldn't handle the game. Fact. I have i7 now 660Ti graphics card, 16 gigs of ram and the game has 100+ fps with fleet being at 40-60+. If you try WTFast make sure to try different servers. For example when I choose a server in my country I am getting 3-4x ms I usually have and the game lags and spikes. When I connect to a server across europe (like 1k+ kilometers) I am at 60ms and everything is always smooth with no spikes at all.

First, many people in warzones are arrogamt and they are never punished. That encourages them even more. Most of them never step foot in any sort of ranked. They are loud and bad. Just don't mind them. As for healing in PvP you'll just have to practice-practice-practice. Find a guide for priority list as doing a rotation is PvP is next to impossible. For example Dulfy. As for rough directions: Sage: Rejuvenation, Healing Trance and then what is needed in 2 or 3 globals (depending on if you have set bonus for trrance or not). Then repeat. In those optional globals you mostly use shield, speed, for wave. Deliverence and the other heal are easily kicked and generally a waste of time. Your whole rotation is based around Healing trance. It;s your best healing spell. Period. Commando: AoE heal on cd. Then combo heal with cd (15-sec?) followed by big heal (costs half if you used the one on cd before it. Check details in skill tree). You usually fill in with auto attack heals. Never spam big heals. You'll just run out of resource. Also, when you gas has 30 stacks use combo heal with cd - big heal. Don't just spam the one with cd. And don't use the one with cd twice on same target if you can avoid it. It has a Hot component after heal so you would be gimping your heals. Btw I never have to use auto attack heal in wz and I often topped healing. Meaning you don't actually need it if you do it right. But then I know my frien who is using it a lot and he's doing grat too. You can expect 1,5mil heals per more intensive warzones. I do not play heal scoundrel so I can't advise on this much. I *believe* it is about having all HoTs up and usinf the instant heal with a cicumstential heal that usues one of those 3 stacks as a filler. You'll find that positioning is absolutely vital to successful healing in PvP. Don't heal in meelee unless you absolutely know what you are doing and why in all the hells you are standin at front line. Try to stand next to a pillar if something where you can see most of your team but enemy has hard time tageting you (you are behind corner for them). A sad fact is that nobody will give you support. Prepare to be violated over and over bu 2-3 enemy dps while your team is happily attacking enemy dps or even better tanks while ignoring marked enemy healers. You are fighting with a mindless horde of berserker wampas after all. If you can try to team up with a tank. You can sometimes find one on general if you ask. He'll be happy to guard you since playing a tank without heal sucks big time. And you'll be protected. The difference between having a good tank and not having is HUUUUGE. With a good one you won't die to pugs. For example when I was tanking (in non-augmented obroan gear) and my freiend was on his commando we could hold 5 average players indefinitely. If you can arrange for voice communication with your tank, it's going to come to another level aswell. Skype is for free for example. Don't be shy to communicate. Tell him, I don't have coolddowns, use yours. Or vice versa, he can tell you he has nothing and you can pop your cds to up your healing, perhaps even use cc. Don't blame yourself for people dying. Mostly they die because they overextend and don't use their cds properly. Their problem really. If you try to save every "hero" you'll both die. Be prepared for a simple fact that most of your healing in wz will be self-heals. You are, unfortunately, going to involuntarily tank for your team. Oh, and make your tank switch guard very often. A good method is that if you are on a voice comm he calls a target he changed his guarf on and you can either start healing the same person or if more are in need you know that that one can wait a bit since he's guarded. First of all though read again your abilities in abiliteis panel. Very carefully. Many things that seemed lame and useless in PvE are super-important in PvP. Practice-practice-practice. That should cover basics. ;-)) EDIT: ANd another SUPER-IMPORTANT thing. Bind your abilites to keybinds and learn to rotate your view with mouse. You will NEVER be a good healer if you either click your abilities with your mouse or keyboard turn - god forbid doing both. I am dead serious. If you can't learn to use keybinds and turn with mouse you'll suck. Save yourself time and don't aspire to PvP. On the other hand, don't overdo it with keybonds if you start. Bind only let's say 3-4 that you use all the time and they are your primary heals. Click rest. If you drive a car and you use shift it's the same. You'll have to concentrate on it at first but it will come naturally in time. Once you don't have to think about those 4 keybidns add one for cc breaker, and other something else you use at least once in a minute. Continue to do so until you have bound everything you use in PvP. It helps to order your keybinds at 1st quickbar according to priority in rotation. it's silly but it works. Don't clutter your main quickbars with abilities yo don't use. I have even out abilites I don't have to watch cd on a side bar so that they don't take up space where I need to see important stuff. No point in having auto attack visible on the bar, is there? If you are serious about PvP gaming consider buying a mouse with several buttons. Some players can do well without it but tbh it's a HUGE help. If you want the best go for either Razer Naga or chepaer (and in my opinion better) Logitech. I have had Nagas and they seem to be made of poor materials or they are designed to break after a set amount of time. Also, they are prone to hardware conflicts with other Razer products (personal experience - I had Nostromo + Naga. It was a heaven as far as keybinds go, but I had to abandon them since they malfunctioned when they were plugged together at the same time. Not cool to have your view spinning needing to reset profiles in the middle of arena/warzone).

So one day I was strolling in a warzone on my operative, silently looking for a wounded chap to finish. I noticed two juggs guarding a node, apparently bored. Well, let's have some fun, I thought to myself. So I opened with a sap, switched to another, did my opening routine and as I saw the first one slowly waking up, I flashbanged him to sleep some more. I returned to the jugg I started on right after. Poor fellow, didn't stand a chance against my vicious onslaught. Then I turned to the other one. Noticed I have two globals left to tease him so I threw a discoball and danced with him a bit. As the flashbang was wearing off, I started to carve the poor sod. It was a piece of cake as I had my reastealth at hand. Bang-swoosh and he went down. Next time I'll global you b***! So I sat next to a node until the end of the match as nobody dared to approach me.

I like your idea. Broadcasts would probably need a delay though.

I believ you. I happened. Once. ;-) And it warrants a video with posters and trailers and hype. ))