The retort whose argument rests upon the fact that the Focus tree is "EZ" mode or less skilled is one that comes from ignorance. Anyone, as the majority of posters in this thread have done, can claim they know everything and because of this knowledge, X spec is overpowered or Y spec underwhelming. Like any advanced class, there are players who play them well and those who don't. The common denominator with the Focus spec is the fact that the spec is the shared tree between two advanced classes. This makes seem more prevalent and perhaps overpowered. I do agree that if there is a clear trend of indifference toward other specs, this may signify a potential issue that should be looked in to. A lot of players focus simply on the raw numbers and end of game score-sheet to make their determination of whether or not a spec is overpowered or under performing. The truth is, a lot of factors contribute to the overall success of many specs and combination of advanced classes you encounter while playing the game. The number of deaths compared to damage output, for example, may show you who has superior heals. However, it may also indicate a player who is particularly good at dealing out damage and surviving intense bouts of combat. Specs in the game shouldn't boil down to just numbers. My first response has seen almost no reply because many posters seem hung up on the numbers and not the more important aspects of the game. Either way, play what you like to play and enjoy it because Star Wars has some of the most intimate objective based PvP combat out there.

I understand why the spec is catching a lot of flak, namely its ability to do high damage to a large number of targets. However, has anyone considered there are other, and perhaps more compelling, reasons to choose this spec. There are two primary ones for me: 1. Force Exhaustion is a key control ability that can both prevent enemy healers from escaping and prevent enemy players from capping nodes. Oh and it really helps with those Scoundrel/Operative healers everyone is so fond of. 2. Force Slow has a cooldown that is faster than the GCD thus allowing even more movement control. Force Slow was moved to the Focus tree from the Vigilance tree in Patch 5.0 which took away a big incentive for me to play Vigilance. Exhaustion has proved to be a vital ability that even with a 15% passive movement speed increase implemented a few patches ago, is simply too good to pass up. Force Smash could be nerfed and I would still choose to play the Focus spec because of those reasons.

Everyone needs to understand that all they have done is mentioned the word arena. We have no further details on what this implementation of arenas will be. Let's reserve judgement, both praise and mud slinging, until we have more information.

I originally posted this in a longer post that can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=648956 My question to the community and those who support the implementation of arenas is why? Why do you want arenas? How do you think it would enhance PvP as a whole? The Old Republic has done a really good job of focusing on objectives as the primary aspect of its PvP. Ilum had them, the Gree event had them, and the warzones are won or lost by them. Arenas don't fit this mold. Furthermore, balance is a tricky, egg-shell walking, line that is only made more difficult by small skirmishes that don't represent the entirety of the abilities in the game. Most players agree that the balance of classes is not at equilibrium, many more will argue that the goal of perfect balance is impossible, and therein lies the problem: arenas will only serve to make it harder to determine what is imbalanced. The process of balancing will now require two tiers of consideration, arena and warzones, and that will have far reaching consequences for PvP as a whole. What do you envision an Old Republic arena to look and play like? Are many of you simply proposing a carbon copy of WoW's version of arena?

I am writing this post to share some of my ideas, opinions, and questions in the hopes of receiving positive feedback. This post will span a variety of topics that are primarily focused on PvP. My first topic is perception, specifically, how Bioware's MMO is perceived by those who play and post on these forums and why it is important. The consensus on the forums, a probably minority all things considered, is that Bioware doesn't do a good enough job in communicating with the community. This seems to be a sour point for the PvP community, as recently shown with the recent PvP focused DEV posts. The scope of the posts was very narrow however and we continue to see issues with bolster go unaddressed. I am not here to blast Bioware for their level of communication, rather, I mention this topic because of its impact on the community overall. Reading through various posts indicates that many people simply don't have faith in Bioware's ability to address bug issues, respond to these bugs in a timely manner, and provide clear and direct communication that outlines a course of action. Ultimately what this translates to is low efficacy. People view Bioware as ineffective and unable to respond to the issues that they think are important. If efficacy is low then morale becomes low and the community suffers. My second topic is more in step with the spirit of the PvP forum. Diverse Gamemodes. The Old Republic has a struck a good balance between objective based PvP and deathmatch. Both are important to succeeding in a warzone environment. My suggestion is, why not add more? It would be interesting to borrow some gamemodes from Halo. For example, a Capture the Flag (CTF) game mode would work really well in the Civil War, Huttball, and Hypergate warzone maps. I can envision other game modes like a mobile King of the Hill, Oddball, and VIP protection as viable game modes that are ripe for experimentation due to the smaller size of the maps and the number of players in each map. The third topic is on the implementation of a personal ranking system. I'm not sure if many here have ever played Rainbow Six 3 on the Xbox or PlayStation but there is one notable thing that I remember about this game. It gave every player an ELO rating. This rating was based upon the number of wins and Kill/Death ratio a player had. This number would be adjusted per game and could be viewed by anyone. This suggestion borders on the subject of matchmaking and rightfully so. However, the point of the ELO rating wasn't to matchmake, it was simply an estimated indication of skill based upon stats that determined the player's ability to win a game. In time, this type of system, whether overtly displayed or done behind the scenes, could translate to a matchmaking system if one is so desired. In time, a matchmaking system will be required to ensure proper pairing of teams. The fourth topic is on the subject of arenas. My question to the community and those who support the implementation of arenas is why? Why do you want arenas? How do you think it would enhance PvP as a whole? The Old Republic has done a really good job of focusing on objectives as the primary aspect of its PvP. Ilum had them, the Gree event had them, and the warzones are won or lost by them. Arenas don't fit this mold. Furthermore, balance is a tricky, egg-shell walking, line that is only made more difficult by small skirmishes that don't represent the entirety of the abilities in the game. Most players agree that the balance of classes is not at equilibrium, many more will argue that the goal of perfect balance is impossible, and therein lies the problem: arenas will only serve to make it harder to determine what is imbalanced. The process of balancing will now require two tiers of consideration, arena and warzones, and that will have far reaching consequences for PvP as a whole.

I am concerned over the potential devastation that the server transfers may have on the community at large. There is the chance that a slippery slope transition may take hold if proper foresight isn't exercised. At the root of the issue is the lack of robust ranked teams on many servers. The cause of which can be numerous, though, the most common complaint is a sub-par matchmaking system that doesn't match evenly skilled teams. The fact that players want to transfer in search of more opportunities is a good thing; It ensures a healthy desire to PvP and indicates a community that enjoys this aspect of the game. Players have requested a cross-server queue system for Ranked Warzones because they feel it will breathe new life into the ranked scene of PvP. My fear is that if this concern isn't addressed before server transfers go live then the slow transfer of the PvP community to a few concentrated servers will degrade the overall experience for everyone. For example, if POT5 and The Bastion become the defacto PvP servers they can expect a huge influx of players that may result in: longer queue times to login, more lag related issues in warzones, as well as the potential for economic turmoil as the economy will see an influx in new suppliers and demand. On the contrary point, those servers that are left emptied of their PvP community may see their warzone experience and queue times drastically increased, a gradual decline of economic activity, and overall a more one sided experience that fails to represent the essence of the Star Wars experience. I hope that Bioware carefully considers their options as they implement this new feature. -Viphen

Let's clear up something right now. These threads are a fallacy and fall victim to the self selection bias. The average player only participates in a fraction of all warzones played throughout a 24 hour period. Unless you have access to the win/loss records of every warzone or you can find a way to accurately sample the population, you will have no way to apply your subjective experience to the broader population. As Swijr mentioned, our mumble is open to ALL PvPers, regardless of faction, to enhance and elevate the level of competetive PvP in Star Wars: The Old Republic. I encourage anyone interested to drop by or message one of us in game. See you in game. -Viphen

Hey everyone. We are always looking for new people to PvP with. I am around most nights after 9:30 PM. Hope to see some new faces!

As someone who rerolled a Juggernaunt in June after playing a Guardian since launch in order to play with friends after my guild and friends quit, this ability was great. I put in a lot of time on my Guardian to acquire gear and while I would have grinded it out once again, I was pleased that the system was flexible. The cost of doing this, moving all mods/enhancements/armoring is incredibly expensive. I did mine prior to 1.3 and to pull the gear out twice, without the ability to augment any piece bankrupted me. The changes in the most recent patch allow for augmented legacy gear and reduced costs, however, it is still expensive to move the gear. It is also impossible to move barrels or hilts so you will have to grind out for the weapon, off-hand, ears, relics, and implants. As a bonus, the new augment kits, when used on legacy gear, will also allow moving binded augments from character to character.

This thread has inspired me to now refer to the bases as "Generator," "Command Center," and "Crash Site." In Voidstar, the western door is now known as the "United States" and the eastern door is "Hong-Kong." We have also debated "Ihop," "Dairy Queen," and "Friendlies" for the east, south, and west bases in Novare. Much to the disdain of our awesome healer Marilla.

A premade group may posses the advantage of voice communication but they are never unbeatable. I agree with the sentiment on strategy and consensus and I find the biggest barrier is a lack of communication or willingness to talk. Entering warzones where a simple greeting is ignored is unsettling to say the least. I implore everyone to be social, interact, and communicate. It will pay for itself later because the result that follows will inevitably lead to less frustration and more winning. My server has a global chat channel in which we invite PvPers to join to encourage grouping up regardless of guild. The best kept secret of an MMO is the people. They aren't that bad, most don't bite, and you never know who you'll meet. My vent: (thesystem.typefrag.com Port: 60823) is always open for anyone who loves PvP and wants to talk. Empire, Republic, irrespective of server, are all encouraged to join. Communities build a better game experience. All the best

I share your sentiment and in response I've heavily lobbied and rallied my server around the concept of community PvP. My guild maintains an open Ventrilo and global chat channel to help people group with each other and with our guildmates. I've met plenty of great people made lots of friends. Just take the initiative.

I write this post with deep admiration and respect for the hard working developers and staff that make this game. It is that respect that encourages my friends and I to talk so passionately about this game and ultimately allows for a substantive discourse to take place within the community. There have been changes implemented to the PvP gearing system to further make clear the distinction of PvP and PvE gear; the totality of which rests on expertise. Like any gear progression, the time needed to acquire gear for either niche has always been delicately balanced to ensure equality and fair play. I am hoping to challenge the traditional model of gear progression that is present in the current PvP model in a few ways. What if in lieu of a rigid pricing system, all PvP gear was simply bought for credits or obtained through some very brief introduction system that requires your participation in a warzone. This would be separated from any reward associated with PvP because PvP commendations would no longer be used to adjudicate gear. Instead, by allowing PvP gear to be easily obtained the emphasis can be refocused on true player versus player competition and remove discussions and imbalances based on gear. Gear differences should matter in the PvE environment where challenges are tuned to scale based upon your success in a preceding challenge; your reward comes from your ability to routinely defeat increasingly difficult content. My point is that skill alone should be the factor that decides PvP outcomes and rewards should be a reflection of that. Warzone commendations could be used to buy consumables, augments, enhancements, mods, armoring, hilts, and color crystals, to better diversify stat options and encourage individuality. The lack of an inherent gear grind would have to be supplemented by other rewards. To this end, character progression would become more important and would allow the introduction of rankings obtained through ranked warzones. Ranked levels can continue to work as explained to the community: customizing gear options and appearance. However, in addition to that, a more robust option would be to have a function similar to or in lockstep with the legacy system and one that encourages longevity. A PvP player with a high rank should be able to purchase new longer cool down abilities, earn titles, and get unique buffs, among many other ideas I’m sure many people have. Since skill relative to other players is best determined in time, it’s important to make the system’s rewards relative to how well you perform and how long you perform at that level. The benefit of this system is that skilled PvP players will never have to “catch up” with gear to enjoy PvP and do well. And those that play well overtime and earn high rankings will have tangible achievements that don’t reset on a seasonal basis and don’t cost credits like the legacy system. This encourages continued PvP interest and would only be helped by the introduction of more world PvP. Which leads us to the impasse in the road: Open world PvP and its relationship to warzones. For this idea to truly be realized there must be a substantive world PvP environment. Warzones are great but they shouldn’t be the single entity that decides ranking. World PvP, like the guild challenges talked about by Lead Game Designer Daniel Erickson are a step in the right direction towards encouraging different methods of participation. However the fact that there would be no rewards associated with it provides less incentive for people to seek them out. Ideally, with a personal rating that affects all aspects of PvP, through warzones, guild challenges, and open world engagements, the rewards from doing any PvP will be determined based on performance overtime. This where duels can also be integrated into the PvP aspect of the game. While the ranking you receive should vary based on the different options in the game, duels could contribute slightly towards your overall ranking and make them more noteworthy.

The big letdown is the delay of 8 man ques; PvP guilds were honestly hoping to get to finally play with ALL their friends. Any backlash might be stemmed just a little bit if some tweaks were made to allow 8 v 8 groups to play against each other sooner than later.