Well, that's encouraging. I'm sure it won't amount to much for a long while (since it's hardly anything being tested on the PTS, for instance), but that's a whole lot more than we seem to have been getting as of late. I would love to see continuing bug fixes at the least, and continuing tweaks to the meta of the game. Sure, I'd love more maps and such, but I would love that for ground pvp. Both types could use a little love there.

Yeah, he's just not worth engaging. I myself wanted to try going for DPS gear as a tank in PVP, but it just doesn't fly with how the game is set up. I rather wish Bioware was more okay with blended builds, but they don't seem to want to do it. *sigh* I miss the days from City of Heroes, which was admittedly a little unbalanced for some things but did allow for a huge amount of different builds that you could make work. I'm just glad SWTOR is more casual friendly overall. It does allow players to be a little loosey goosey with some things, as Aproduction is showing. Still, it doesn't allow for that much. I've had enough bad experience in PUGs for HM flashpoints that I don't want people gearing in a not very optimal way for their role. Not saying some people can't make it work (especially if they're playing with others that know what they're doing), but my above example isn't the only one I have of someone gearing badly and not being able to make up for it in the HM. I only have so much game time and don't want to waste it on someone not gearing right or having delusions of grandeur.

So quit posting? You've had your say and you don't care what anyone else thinks, so it's kind of banging your head against the wall at this point, and anyone else that disagrees with you, because you're not going to shift your thinking one bit. To anyone else looking at the thread, you're just going to be tougher in tank gear, and that's what it's about in group content (look into the vast amount of posts on tanking gear and actual number breakdowns... Keyboard Ninja's got plenty in the tanking forum). You'll find groups that you'll be fine in, but that's not always the case. Great case in point, I did a Torch's Island HM where we were stuck on the first boss. Wiped a few times, during which I noticed the healer was really undergeared for the fight. Some mods were okay, but he had quite a few under the suggested rating for a HM FP (and I've had plenty of people say 178s don't really cut it for those), not to mention some green rateds!. He finally quit and we got a new healer that was actually well-geared, and we did the rest of the fights okay. They were a good challenge, but they weren't impossible as they had been before. That's one key character making a dramatic difference through how he was geared. To make the difference even more noticeable, I have a Guardian tank that's still working on getting 192+ gear through these, so he has plenty of 186 purples. Aggro was much harder to handle, as both DPS characters were all 192+ gear and were peeling aggro from time to time, even with them being careful and me taunting regularly and using all my aggro cds as much as I could. We did it okay, but it really does point to how gear matters a lot in PVE for this game.

Yeah, I'm thinking this is either confirmation bias or not noticing some dcds being up. Leg shot is quite reliable on my GS, though it does of course require paying attention to the powers your target has up.

Okay. Guess we don't have the same definition of the term "carrying." They had to work much harder at healing you than they should have because you wanted some small DPS gain. The DPS builds do more damage than the tank in DPS gear, so go with those if you want to do damage so badly. And really, it's not like you do bad damage as a Guardian tank. This is partially in response to the thread, too. My Guardian was using tank gear from 1-60 and he didn't go particularly faster or slower than my dps characters when I used a healing companion. There were things he could do that my Gunslinger couldn't, as some champions were too much for the Gunslinger to handle with a healing companion. And yeah... PVE content in this game, if you're gearing for it okay, you'll be fine with any class and setup.

I wouldn't mind seeing a slight buff to shield probe, as it really doesn't seem to absorb much, at least in my experience. The heal on collapse utility that Scoundrels get makes it moderately more helpful, but not too much. I think I mostly just miss the moderate healing my scoundrel gets from his utilities, since gunslingers get... nothing much in the healing department. I also still despise the Flash grenade change. Not really a grenade anymore, of course, and dropping it to 10m but keeping it an AOE like Scoundrels get would make sense and really help some of the focus problems we have.

I think the poor excuses for human beings that would attack a developer and his family over changes to a game should be perma-banned and justly censured by any and everyone for that behavior, but I also don't think the devs should be taking that into account when communicating with the players. You're running a game, and an MMO at that, and gamers like to give some input on things. Letting some bad eggs make you withdraw from the rather minimal communication you're doing is not a good idea. And seriously, if it's an issue, let the community team post the discussion from "the combat team" or what have you. So that way no one gets singled out. SWTOR really needs to communicate better, so find some way to make it work. To my mind, all gunslingers/snipers need is some better defensive options. We're a little like Commandos in that our defensive CDs stink and we don't have much of a way to cut down on focus fire. If the devs could take an honest look at that and note how we have to stay in one place to do our job and go from there, I'd be happy. I don't know if it's a matter of getting shield probe to be better (not sure why Sorcs and Sages get a buff to their barrier, as it sure as heck eats up a lot more damage than shield probe does), or maybe some uber shield that locks us into place but unable to do damage (something like what sorcs and sages get), but we need something so we're not the easy target every team tries to spike in pvp.

Compounding Impact is the one that makes speed shot/series of shots/etc. do a slow, and it's a heroic. I've been leaning back toward it since starting this thread, as there are plenty of times where leg shot is neutered, and speed shot, etc. has a faster cooldown, the kb on it is a pretty good ability for pvp (combined with the speed boost on blaster whip), and you even have an ability that brings it off cd so you can get it back up when you want--not to mention it does the damage and armor pen you want to be doing as a dps anyway. That's a lot of arguments in its favor for PVP versus kneecappin. I dunno, that slow on Diversion just doesn't seem worth it to me. It's a patch, so they can move out of it, Diversion has a long CD, and to be honest, I haven't seen most people try to move out of it. They probably should, but it doesn't always happen. Anyway, I generally use it on snipers/gunslingers and other ranged DPS to throw them off their game, and that's enough for me. I don't know that I've ever tried it much on melee, but if you use it with the eye to take out their accuracy, you might as well let them try to hit you while it's up and you hit them with other abilities before following up with Penetrating Rounds. Most melee aren't going to run out of melee range just because you use it, either (if they even know what you did), so the slow just doesn't seem worth it. Riot Screen or the other defensive CDs seem a better bet.

In 3.0, I've gone more the route of having a pvp set of gear, and one for pve. In 2.0, pvp gear wasn't that far off of pve in terms of performance (for things like tactical flashpoints and HM FPs), but that's not the case anymore in 3.0. And yes, full expertise makes a big difference. Even missing a little bit of the possible 2018 will have a noticeable change in performance. Luckily the new costume designer means you can swap out gear without necessarily changing your look.

Interesting. I've never had much stock in Holed Up, to be honest. I guess you could argue that you'll probably be using Hunker Down when there is aoe flying, but I'd hate the tendency to try to use it when stuns aren't as likely. I've always thought it was weird to tie aoe defense with our stun immunity. I get what you mean about Leg Shot, and at least you can get Penetration Rounds up fairly often so the kb and slow can be hitting fairly often once their immob protection is down. I may stick with Compounding... I just was disappointed to see it wearing off fairly fast on target. That may be perspective, however. My Guardian (and the rest of my team) was really frustrated in an Ancient Hypergate match that had a two person sniper team that used their slows and damage to great effect. They really tore us apart (not that my team was being all that coordinated, but they were showing how lethal snipers/gunslingers can be when played well in a group).

I'm trying to get a better hang of kiting melee classes and keeping them off of me (in PVP, though there is some use to this in PVE), and I'm in a bit of a quandary about the slows we have available to us. Reset Engagement makes good sense, and Heads Up and Lay Low work well for masterfuls with this. But Heroics, I dunno. Crippling Diversion seems to weak with Diversion's long CD, and I'm not entirely happy with Compounding Impact. That's a lot of slow, but it wears off fast. Does anyone like Kneecappin' better? The slow only lasts 3 seconds there, but it is after you leg shot them. But maybe this isn't worth it unless you get the Trip Shot talent (but making less use of Hunker Down doesn't seem as nice with that choice). You could get both to help with the slows, but I'm not keen on dumping Riot Screen as well, since that's more help against ranged attacks--I don't want to put myself in the melee fight only bucket. Anyway, thoughts? I've probably over-thought this, but any help would be appreciated.

Frankly, Sorcs and Sages were lucky that slow lasted as long as it did. Freighter Flyby has been nerfed to oblivion and it didn't start doing its damage right away even back in the glory days. It's a darn good AOE attack on par with some of the other good ones and it even procs another AOE for TK. Bioware needs to be smarter with its cc in the game anyway, and even if it smarts that some of it started here, it doesn't stop it from being a good choice with this ability.

I'm kind of digging the new trimantium ones armstech can craft. They sound a bit like Han Solo's blaster (think the blaster sounds from "A New Hope" where he's shooting the storm troopers off screen in the Millenium Falcon), and they're an elongated barrel that has a slight "musket pistol" feel.

Yeah, what we really need is a consistent focus breaker of some sort, which most classes have. Melee range cc doesn't fit that bill at all.

Any chance we can get this kind of action taken in GSF? There are people blatantly farming GSF for... conquest points, credits, I don't know what, but it's been going on for months and they have been reported constantly with no action taken by Bioware. It's great that you are doing this for ranked, but it really is a problem in other areas of the game, and it's just as detrimental.

Yeah, power management is huge. I invested in an mmo mouse a while back and it's really nice to be able to hit one of the three buttons easily to swap to whatever power would be helpful at the moment (and not have to take your fingers off the WASD area). You want to be changing those all the time due to your situation. Really handy advice I got early on for GSF.

I really like this idea and I do agree that rapids could use the change. I do wonder about the flat increase to every range, but I'm sure a good average could be worked out that would help.

Thanks for doing that. Anything to keep this on their radar is a good idea. GSF really is a great part of the game and a great change of pace from the normal MMO ground game. If they put a little more into it to make it accessible, there is no reason it shouldn't take off more.

Pretty sure that means it's in a pack that is "embargoed" right now. As in not purchaseable (set artificially by the devs/moneychangers/evil human beings), so the only ones around are the ones people hoarded so they could sell them for higher prices. Also look up the stupidity that is the "Disney Vault." Ironic that Disney now owns Star Wars.

Yeah... I know the farmers can be lame, but I actually feel like I haven't seen them as much in games... it's mostly a bunch of less experienced pilots flying and trying, which is fun. I've been mostly flying alts with less req in their ships, so it's kind of nice for me. It's hard enough going against some of the crazy good pilots when you're in a mastered ship, let alone one that doesn't have much put in it. Still, I miss seeing the usuals on. Don't let them ruin your fun!

I think some lasers need a bit of buffing (Rapids in particular), but there's plenty of argument for why BLC are still way too good. Go see the suggestion to remove some or all of their armor pen, for instance. Even with that taken away, as many people have pointed out, it will be a go-to weapon for scouts since so it can be so easy for them to get close with it, and for those high angle, short-window shooting options that happen all the time with experienced players. And I can understand despising the weapon... you see it all the time because it's so ridiculously good. It's easy to hate something you see so much. I know it annoys me, especially with the good players I see only rolling type 2 scouts with it all the time. Players that I see flying different ship types or builds sometimes impress me a lot more.

More wall decorations period would be great, but I especially would like to see more Mando stuff.

And if not that, even more Voss items would be nice. I have a few Voss-themed rooms in my Coruscant Jedi stronghold and would love to have a bit more. Not sure if there are any major untouched types, but I can think that ceiling lights, etc., would be helpful.

I'm not even sure why they do it, it can't be all that worthwhile, though I suppose all they're doing is letting their computer run the game while they do something else and they'll very slowly get conq points, etc., and it's slightly more complicated to do than ground pvp I suppose. The ones I've seen just fly in straight lines until they crash into something or get shot up. They're annoying as teammates or opponents... I'm not playing the game to run up against people that would be worse than a computer bot. And I agree, there's no reason the devs can't do something about this. I'm not entirely sure how time is spent with all the bugs that keep going and going and how slow powers balance goes.

That all makes sense, thanks. And I did notice the auto crit abilities, so I wanted to make sure I wasn't ignoring Surge. Even with me still working on it, there are some satisfyingly big heal numbers already from crits. It's just nice to have some numbers in mind that I'm reaching for. I'm always going to be short of them, as I don't play enough (and alt too much) to really get the top tier pvp gear in each slot, but it's good to have an idea.