I can't really talk about the balance of ranked 8v8s because I don't play ranked 8v8, but I do challenge the notion that the only way you can balance a game is through 1v1s. As long as classes have clear cut, neccesary roles then balance can be achieved. A good example would be MOBAs. There is absolutely no 1v1 balance in that genre and if you don't believe me try playing a heads up mid game. You'll notice some heroes are drastically better than others but not only has balance been pretty well achieved, but those heroes who dominate in 1v1s usually aren't even picked up in serious league matches. IN PUB WARZONES, I don't notice drastic imbalance. Mauraders appear to be a little to good, imo, but in the grand scheme of things I think things are pretty balanced. I have 4 50s and don't feel too weak on any of them really. The notion that some classes are obsolete or useless, at least in the pub scene, is fiction. A fun side note: I don't have an OP but I do know that that class has been the target of some of the harshest nerfs in this game, and just before 1.3 people were complaining about how useless they were. Meta games shift. Once people figure out the weaknesses of these classes then they will begin to exploit them and there will be a new OP class (my money is on maurader, or possibly sniper).

Maybe we do need to L2P. Maybe I do know as little about my own tree as they say

Yeah, if it cost 2 heat it would be pretty good.

Flame burst = godlike *snicker*

Just a couple quick notes. First, railshot can happen within 2 globals of one another. Global after railshot, then global after rocket punch. So best case scenario you get 2 railshots within 2 globals of each other. Also, yes railshot and plastique have 30 yard range, but to do the combo you illustrated you have to be in melee because rocket punch requires melee.

It would really depend on what spec the Jugg was. The major selling points that prevent Jugs from being kited in each tree: Tank: Chilling scream has an 8m range, and is free, that closes the deadzone to 2 meters. After lag and netcoding is taken into account the deadzone is pretty much nonexistent. They also have a massive amount of stuns on you, quantity wise. If you somehow manage to get 10m on them, and don't fall into that deadzone they have charge to gap close, and of course at 10 meters force push to reset charge. Veng: The major selling point of this tree, obviously, is the immunity to CC every time they charge. So you're rooted for 3 seconds, and they're immune to snares for 4. That will give you 11 seconds to try to put range between yourself and them, but if they feel you slipping out of range they can force push to close the gap, or they can choke to buy some time. Again, chilling scream is in the equation too, but in my experience it's generally not worth the rage, unless you really think they'll get away. You're probably looking at maybe being able to actually put some range between you and the Jugg 2-3 seconds every 15 seconds, but if you do it's only because they're letting you have that range. Rage: There's a lot of factors here again, there's crush but the odds are good that'll be what you degauss. They've got the same standard tools, push to charge of course. Choke they might not neccesarily use to buy time if they're going to go for a second smash. The big game changer here is obliterate which functions as charge part 2 and roots you. Rage has a pretty easy time keeping people in melee range too, if they don't have force speed. That's just kind of a breakdown. I don't really want to go into a hypothetical combat situation with every spec as that woudl take too much time. But really, Jugs shouldn't be kited by anything other than inquisitors (granting even terrain of course which usually isn't the case). *edit* I'm getting off work now, and there's a good chance I won't check this thread again until the weekend is over. I just thought I'd throw my 2 cents out there when it comes to Juggs.

You can put range between yourself and a warrior, but if you're able to stay out of melee range for 20% of the fight against any spec of jugg or maurader then they fail. Maurader you could maybe put range between you and him for 20%, I could see that. After they use charge to gap close the first time, and camo to gap close the second time, and you're fortunate enough to have energy shield, and they'r stupid enough to snare you when you haven't used energy shield yet. Yeah you could probably from that point on put some good distance between the two of you. Of course, then they'll probably just activate saber ward or Obfuscate, or Cloak of pain, or maybe if they're feeling sassy 2 of those, until their charge is back up. If that's not how the fight plays out, then the maurader is either unfortunate enough to have blown all his CDs and have over-extended or you caught him out of position. That wouldn't make him BAD I suppose, but it wouldn't make him good either. This would also, of course, be assuming you both have CC breakers up. There are a lot of factors to take into account when saying something like "You can't kite good mauraders and warriors." I would be making the assumption that they start on even footing and have all their CDs up... in which case the PT really shouldn't be able to get range for very long at all. If he did, marauder screwed up.

I had considered that thought. The thing is, if we don't remod our gear then we don't hit the big numbers so in the end it boils down to would you rather have consistent good damage, or Really high inconsistent. Since it's burst that kills, I'd rather have really high, mitigatable damage I think. What you bring up is definitely food for thought though.

Kiting a GOOD rage jug or marauder is next to impossible. Luckily for us, most of them aren't any good at all At least not on my server.

whoooooooooooooooooooosh *edit* That video is gold, though The initial reveal was priceless. First video game youtube video that's made me laugh out loud in a long time.

I thought an Operative who had full cooldowns and gets the opener on a maurader usually wins. Is that not right? Seems like operatives are almost built for it to me.

I think he's referring to the CD of thermal detonator, when he said you can only use the full opener once every 15 seconds.

Sorry, I should have clarified, I didn't read your whole thread because at this point these long ranty threads are too much and they all say the same thing I was scrolling down and I caught your bit about "free snares" and I was simply making the point that plenty of classes have free snares. I wasn't commenting on kitability (as that is something completely different, where the "price" of snares doesn't matter), that's a whole new discussion on PT mechanics and I've learned pretty rapidly that in this thread it's pretty moot to actually try to change someone's mind. I'm just now along for the ride making small comments.

I run into these tools a lot, especially the ones that think they're hot **** because they have WH gear. As if that was any indication of skill and not just time invested I suspect that these forums are overflowing with these people as well. Your story was pretty entertaining though I remember running into a lot of people like this back when WoW was starting to become really popular.

I wouldn't say that's neccesarily true about the snare bit. Sure there are some moves that require outside of rotation use, but there are quite a few that don't that are part of the standard roation. Off the top of my head, I can think of Engineering snipers, Rage Juggs/mauraders, and Wither for tanksins.

Apparently not obvious enough for some of the morons on here. Read all the posts taking him seriously

He's been posting in this thread the whole time I don't think english is his primary language. I get your point, both about me not having an agent, and your utility vs damage arguement. I have an assassin but stealth isn't as important to them so I guess I get the benefit of utility from stealth and solid out of stealth damage. I'm starting a scoundral soon though, looking forward to that Keep in mind, however, that stealth not only gives you utility but it also provides survivability. Something, after playing the classes that I have, that I could consider pyrotechs severly lacking in.

And you don't see how that's exactly what the OP is doing? Interesting.

Stealth to gimp it? Are you on drugs? How is the ability to go invisible anything but an advantage in an objective team-based game?

You think the class is easier than Shadow? That's interesting, that wasn't my experience.

If the GM actually wanted to investigate, they probably have access to chat logs and tell logs. That's what they would do in HoN if someone was griefing. The second they said something like "you guys don't deserve to win *blah blah blah*" and started AFKing in the well they'd get a temp ban. BW probably doesn't actually want to investigate, but if they did they would have the materials to prove intent.

I don't know what to tell you, that's the spec they were talking about with ambush. I was just correcting your statement when you said snipe had a cast time. In the framing of that conversation, it doesn't.

The 30 seconds (if you're lucky) off of energy shield isn't enough to make it worth it, and if you DO pick that talent up you don't get these mega crazy railshot crits everyone is talking about. As people have been saying, you gain damage at the expense of survivability. It's one of the reasons I'm actually not a huge fan of the pyrotech spec. Too little mobility, too little utility, too little survivability. In my opinion, it's not worth the trade-off.

Marksman is good for Burst... Also, we're discussing the burst potential on ambush and it being a 1.5 second cast right? That's Marksman. Marks is pretty poor for killing tanks, but it shreads healers and DPS and that's what snipers are good at. I've never played with a lethality sniper so I don't know what to tell you, I'm speaking to my experience. A sniper with good situational awareness is capable of keeping tabs on multiple targets at once... If I've forced a target to go hide in cover and he comes out later, unless I've got a higher priority target I switch back. There's no reason not to, they aren't reliant on debuffs on the other target to do their damage. Their combo is based on internal buffing. Pyros have the mobility, true that. It's a perk of theirs. That doesn't mean that snipers aren't capable of moving to follow up though, especially if marks, and it doesn't mean that you can't kite pyros. There's a lot going on in team games and Kills =/= Wins. It's about what you accomplish. A sniper is just as valuable as a PT.

Snipe is actually instant if specced into the burst (Marksman) tree (You get one instant cast snipe every time you enter cover, 6 second ICD). That's true snipers can't follow you around, but if the sniper has pushed you off the objective, or forced you to hide in a corner mission accomplished no? I'll grant you it's not as good as killing the target but it's still effective. If you're afraid to go out in the open because of a sniper, him forcing you into poor positioning can be just as detrimental to the team as killing you and he's able to keep himself at longer range and out of easily focus-fireable danger. I'm not saying snipers are better than PTs but I strongly disagree that Snipers are worse than PTs in any capacity. It's been my experience (sub 50 on my sniper, and at top-level Warhero organized team on team play with a sniper guildy) that it's just not the case. Maybe I'll be proved wrong when server merges finally happen, who knows.