Queues on my server are generally longer than I would like, but not horrible. 4-6 minuites for level 50 at peak times for a PUG queue - I would love cross server queues for every reason, but will leave that to another thread. What is the maximum length you would accept for a typical WZ queue? And thoughts if GW2 will push this beyond acceptable limits?

Doing the math below, yes, I consider the difference between WH and BM quite minor - as it is basically, around a 5% damage bonus, 2% damage bonus on top of that, and 10% health bonus from gear. I am not saying they are insignficant, but far more often than not, this differential will not be the reason you die as a key LOS, interrupt, team support, peal, cc, etc. will have more impact. WH Force Mystic vs BM Force Mystic End 1186 vs 1079 +107 (1070 health, about 10%) Will 1023 vs 970 +53 (5.5% bonus) Power 369 vs 376 -7 Alacrity 159 vs 204 -45 Crit 259 vs 265 -6 Surge 371 vs 337 +34 Forcepower 1298 vs 1224 +74 (about 5.5%) Expertise 1291 vs 1164 +127 (24 vs 22.2% damage bonus, +1.8% damage) There are different views on this. I accept that some folks (including you) seem to prefer 100% gear normalization in PvP and others like hard core gear progression. I think TOR does an excellent job navigating these competing views since it gives a reward and motivation to play which is a fairly standard MMO model, but the gear differences are minimal in my opinion and everyone has access to all the same gear.

I think what you really mean is that PvP for newly dinged 50's is challenging for as long as they wear recruit gear - which for most folks is a very short time. I am starting to conclude the newly dinged 50's who complain about gear are simply used to PvP'ing with a mixture of levels where players don't have all their abilities. So their most recent memories are from when they were in the 40's where they were on top of the food chain and it is a rude awakening to play against folks with all their abilities and a full talent tree.

If you want to compare level 50 greens or recruit gear vs fully agumented WH gear, then that is really a silly concern. Folks have continued to say that BM gear is very easy to get and BM gear is very close to WH gear. So, your point of gear disparity is misguided at best and really just factually inaccurate.

These #'s are not the best to use - better to compare unaugmented WH Force Mystic vs unaugmented BM Force Mystic for example: Expertise 1291 vs 1164 = 127 expertise difference (24% vs 22.2% damage bonus, = 1.8% damage difference). This doesn't show healing or dmg mitigation, but you get the point. The differences are very small between BM and WH and most certainly not the cause of any win/loss in any but the most unusual situation.

We get several of these misinformed posts a week... 1. There is minimal gear disparity between augmented BM and augmented WH - and it's easy to get BM as several folks have already posted. 2. Gear progression is a standard model for an MMO. GW2 is trying normalized gear in PvP - give it a try if you want. 3. Previous posts have shown the math between vendor BM and WH gear to be "around a 5% damage bonus, 2% damage bonus on top of that, and 10% health bonus from gear." If you think this difference is the reason you are losing, then you I really feel you are mistaken. 4. 10-49 PvP is more unbalanced than the minor math between BM and WH shown above. A 49 with full talents and abilities is more unbalanced vs. a level 12 with far fewer abilities, so I think folks have selective memories on this one...

This ^^^

I appreciate your constructive comments and share your desire to solve any problem which may exist. However, if the difference between BM and WH gear is as the math above summarizes, then changing the ease by which players can obtain WH gear doesn't solve the problem and we need to look elsewhere.

Morrolan - I would like to see a little math behind this post. Fungihoujo did a nice comparison of WH Force Mystic vs BM Force Mystic which shows "Basically, around a 5% damage bonus, 2% damage bonus on top of that, and 10% health bonus from gear." If you are in 50% BM and 50% WH, then these are cut in half. --> Is your argument that things would be fundamentally different if you could do 2-3% more damage and had 5% more health? The overall issue is that BM gear is easy to get and the difference from BM to WH gear is estimated above, and pretty negligible overall, so I just find it difficult to accept the argument things would be drastically different if it were easier to get WH gear.

Saw another post complaining about recruit vs. WH gear which was misguided...

For argument sake, so what? So, it takes a long time to get from 140-146 level gear? Again, so what? From what I see when inspecting people, they often wait to augment until they get WH gear - this is the problem. As now you are comparing BM gear to fully augmented WH gear which is a real difference. Solution - augment your BM gear folks, then you are looking at a negligible difference when comparing augmented BM gear to augmented WH gear...

The current PvP reward system is well designed. Let's accept that no single reward system will satisfy everyone as some folks legitimately prefer a gear normalization system where everyone has the same stats, while others prefer hard core gear progression where there is a massive gear disparity. SWTOR balances these competing interests very well. 1. Recruit gear = gives a fresh 50 a starter set to PvP - yes, you will get stomped, but it's a starter set. 2. Battlemaster = quite easy to get and it's a 140 value vs. 146 at War Hero, really very close. You can absolutely hold your own vs. War Hero gear in BM gear. 3. War Hero = rewards a gear grind and provides a tangible reward for continued play. 4. Augmentation = You can augment any tier of gear, so this is available to all players. If you compare vendor BM gear vs. Augmented War Hero gear, that is not a fair comparison as you can Augment BM gear if you wish and your argument is really one of credits and not gear. And credits are quite easy to get with companion missions and just the smallest bit of effort. 5. Mod Swapping = Provides the ability to customize gear which is another reason to play after achieving max gear while not tipping the balance in performance. Overall, if you want 100% gear normalization in PvP that has everyone using the same stats then SWTOR is not exactly for you. And if you want a massive gear disparity where you can ROFL stomp someone more skilled because you have top gear and they have no access to anything which can compete, then SWTOR equally misses the mark. But SWTOR does a good job balancing and motivating you to play (this is an MMO after all), while making the easily obtained BM gear quite competitive vs the top War Hero gear.

"Medals are now worth 500 Valor and 10 Commendations. Players only earn Valor and Commendations for the first 4 medals earned each match." --> OK, this will reduce the commendation farming. Fair enough. --> Now, incentivize the win. Objective based WZ's need to incentivize players to focus on achieving the objective, hence winning. With everyone getting max commendations and valor for just showing up, I can see folks not really caring. Something like a 15% bonus to commendations/valor for the win would be nice. It doesn't matter what it is, but the system needs to reward the win or things will get pretty bad with folks not caring what happens at all.

1. They already announced the process for rewarding BM commendations will change in the future: "we will be changing Battlemaster Commendation drops in a future patch toward the same 'steady' progession goal without changing the overall average time to gear up. " http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=2454364#edit2454364 2. Any while it is really bad luck to get poor RNG, who really cares? I have been BM for 3 weeks also. I have 13 commendations and have never bothered spending them. Who cares? Champion is essentially the same gear...