Well that's what I mean by issue. There is no issue in terms of DPS and it is possible to maintain sufficient resource level for fluid rotation all the time. However, to maintain that level, the amount of Assault/Strike required seems excessive. In PVE it's manageable as you can maintain a high DPS uptime on target and don't have to spend rage/focus on any abilities outside of your rotation. In PVP though things are a lot messier and can result in a very inconsistent DPS output. I do agree that it seems to be more a quality of life issue and fixing it would ultimately result in a buff to our DPS, which we don't really need. Then again, there are still other classes that beat us on some fights consistently, so maybe returning the rage/focus discount on Berserk/Zen wouldn't be so bad.

I agree with your points, but I would also add that Carnage/Combat still has rage/focus issues. Ever since they removed the range/focus discount on Berserk/Zen, Carnage/Combat rotation has changed into a sine curve on the DPS meter. Massive spike, followed by a massive dip due to excessive Assault/Strike usage.

Still looking for DPS and a tank. We don't mind if you're under geared, as long as you're a great player and a reliable raider.

Something equivalent of "Power Auras" mod from WoW, where you could configure visual indicators to pop up on screen when a buff/debuff is active/missing.

Please, make it happen.

Because you use Shiv twice as often as Backstab. It's a PVE bonus, hence the goal is higher DPS, not higher burst.

You allow more than 50 comms per planet right now, but after patch you're limiting it to 50 accross all planets. That makes no sense. The number is way too low and it doesn't "discourage hording" if there is nothing to spend the comms on. Many of us come back to use these comms to buy mods when we roll alts, but we don't know ahead of time which mods we might use in the future. I see no positives to such a low cap and only negatives.

The hoverchairs.

/facepalm... because PVE gear will never BiS in PVP, and vice versa, though they will finally both be viable in all areas of the game. You'll finally be able to acquire viable gear by doing whatever you enjoy, which could include a bit of both PVE and PVP. If at any point you decide to participate in top end content of either PVP or PVE, you will still need to acquire best gear intended for it respectively.

Tanking 101: higher HP pool + lower damage reduction < lower HP pool + higher damage reduction Ask any PVP healer who they prefer healing, a PVE geared tank or a PVP geared one. PVP gear will still be superior to PVE gear in every way. The change will only make PVE gear actually usable in PVP, the same way PVP gear is usable and IS used daily in PVE.

Try to look at the big picture. Most new players, or PVE players, feel too intimidated by the gear gap in PVP to even give it a try. This leaves the PVP population at best stagnant, or more realistically declining. As Rob pointed out, PVP gear will still be superior to PVE gear in PVP. Currently, you can use your PVP gear in PVE and do fine in everything but top end ops content. The same cannot be said for PVE gear in even regular WZs. Ease of acquisition is arguable with ops having weekly lockouts while warzone having no weekly caps on commendations. Crafting skews things a bit, but is not exactly a viable method of gearing for majority of player base. Either way, it's an irrelevant topic when discussing PVP balance and viability of different gear in it. Your insinuation that PVE'rs would only farm mats instead of trying to win is ludicrous though, since most efficient form of farming would still be winning.

Thanks Rob. This sounds very promising and could bring a lot of new faces into PVP. I'm really looking forward to seeing it in action.

Thanks for responding. However, if I'm interpreting your response correctly, that means that top end PVE gear would receive none or next to none expertise. This, as you put it, would put us somewhere between "introduction bolster" level and top end PVP gear in power, but only on damage output. The damage reduction provided by expertise cannot be replicated by any PVE stats, and thus PVE gear would still be far inferior to PVP gear. Now, I don't think any PVE'er would try to argue that their gear should be equally viable in PVP as PVP gear. However, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect it to be at least competitive by performing as good as PVP gear a tier below it (i.e. DG, which is equivalent of EWH, performing at WH level in PVP). Thanks

That sounds very interesting. I wonder how that will work with high end PVE gear. Does it mean that the better the item is, the less expertise it will receive from bolster? Maybe a better approach would be bolstering everyone to equal expertise level, but reducing their PVE stats based on the amount of bolster received?

lol... people will really find anything to complain about... OMG I'M LEVELING TOO FAST!!! ***!?!?!

What makes you think this is a bug? Stealth was nerfed because of PVP, screwing over PVE in the process too. Btw, Mythic team is the one handling the PVP side of SWTOR, the same team that made WAR and DAOC, both primarily PVP MMOs, the latter regarded by many as best PVP MMO. So your "carebear" BS is baseless.

Maybe it's because it's a necro of a 10 month old thread...

- posts a 1675 DPS VG parse on WH, while top parse is 2425 DPS by a Sniper. Sniper/GS is not a very mobile class, yet they parse as top DPS on most fights. Btw, 3/5 of the Top5 DPS on 8man HM Op IX are Mercs. - talks about parses from SMs and FPs, while top players are posting logs from HM and NiM. - uses WH as an example where DPS uptime gives PT/VG advantage, meanwhile Merc can sit planted in the center of the room without moving an inch for the entire fight and hit the boss and every add that pops up. I've heard enough.

I'm not in the mood to argue. Parses don't lie. Mercs are in the mid/mid-high of the DPS spectrum. Maybe you're not as good at Merc DPS as you think you are. http://www.torparse.com Note the length of the fights, many people upload failed attempts where their burst DPS was way higher than anything they can sustain, and therefore skew the results. It's unfortunate that the site doesn't show kill parses only. Also look at 8HM and 16HM only, most top players don't run SM. And the reason why PT/VG is over performing and needs a nerf is because it does equal DPS to sniper and mara, which are pure DPS classes. BW has already expressed that pure DPS classes should be ~5% ahead of the rest. Now we all know that the gap between highest and lowest DPS class in game is definitely more than 5%, but it doesn't change the fact that PT/VG is over performing even if you only compare it to Sniper and Mara. Again, this is all coming from PVE standpoint and DPS potential behind classes. PVP we've already discussed and agreed on what's holding Mercs back.

You're comparing your Merc to a class that's tied for first place with pure DPS classes Mara and Sniper. PT/VG is highly over performing and needs to be nerfed. I never argued against that point, only against the point that Mercs are terrible in PVE. Compare your DPS to assassins and ops then come tell me how bad Merc DPS is.

While what you say is mostly true, I wouldn't agree that Merc DPS is that hindered in PVE. Lets not forget that they're still a ranged class, and that still holds some advantage over PTs. On target dummy there's no doubt that Sniper, Mara and PT out perform Mercs, but in reality most fights are not tank and spank and there are many factors that affect DPS uptime. Lets not forget that there are many encounters that are unfriendly to melee. I raid regularly on my Merc since we're short on RDPS, and on most fights I keep up and even surpass our Marauders. In fact, on Op IX, I mop the floor with our Marauders because of how much that fight favors range due to all the running around and being limited to center of the room during your color phase. They catch up a bit on Phase2, but Phase1 usually gives me a huge lead. So a lot of it really comes down to fights as well. I'm able to take advantage of RS, SM, SD and rapid shots (to keep heat under control anyway) during most movement phases to minimize impact on my DPS. It's not like melee isn't also hindered by some of the fight mechanics. The only fight where I really have a hard time is TFB Keph, the back and forth across the room really sucks there.

Clearly you've never played WAR and seen it work in both PVP and PVE, and definitely don't understand at all what I'm saying. I thought we could have a civil discussion, but all your replies boil down to "no, you're wrong, I'm right", and are borderline personal attacks. I have no interest in having a pointless argument. I'm out.

If unhindered by anyone else your DPS output is half of others, you are simply BAD. Mercs are in the top half of the DPS spectrum. However, if you're talking about inability to put out consistent DPS in the chaos of battle with interrupts, knockbacks, stuns, then you're no longer talking about DPS ability, but the actual real problem behind the Merc class, which is how easily shut down they are.

You can think of the DPS/HPS capability as a slider based on your stats. For example, heal potency could be based on willpower, while damage based on strength. I know it's not ideal to have two "primary" stats, but it's not like heals and DPS don't already have separate sets. Since the amount of stats on your gear is finite, it would be up to each player to decide what ratio of dmg vs healing output they want out of their character. So a player fully decked out in Willpower gear would be putting out high healing and miniscule damage, comparable to what you described in your earlier post. Their damage would be like a Sorc meleeing you. On the other hand, player that wears pure Str gear would be doing competitive DPS while putting out miniscule healing, similar to Annihilation Maras put out some healing on the raid. It could be further balanced by choice of abilities. Say they have an ability that does low damage while doing splash healing in melee range. It would be a low priority on the DPS list and ideally avoided, unless the healing benefit offset the DPS loss of using it. IMO, having the option to make decisions like that on the spot based on dynamics of combat would be an amazing mechanic and would provide for a very high skill cap. DoKs/WPs also had a dual resource system, where using offensive abilities generated resource for healing. Kind of how DKs use runes to generate runic power. Some of their heals came from splash healing from their melee abilities, but a big part of their healing also came from casted healing spells (direct and hots) which consumed the healing resource. Obviously, whenever they'd be casting these spells, they weren't DPSing, so once again it's a conscious choice between damage and healing. They also had a channeled ability that allowed them to generate the healing resource even faster at the cost of not doing anything else during it. Again, choice for even more healing at the expense of damage. It really was a brilliant mechanic in how seamlessly you could switch between full on DPS and full on heals or stay somewhere in between. Anyway, that's just one approach to it, I'm sure if devs put more thought into it they could come up with other approaches to making it viable. In any case, I think it's doable and worth the effort. After all, Mythic developed WAR, and now they're the team behind SWTOR PVP, so the concept should be very familiar to them. None of the other suggestions I've read so far sound as unique. The melee hand to hand fighter sounds interesting, but at the end of the day, it's still just another melee class, smacking things with their hands instead of weapons. Interestingly enough, WAR had a ranged counterpart to melee healers which worked on similar mechanic of DPSing to fuel a healing resource, Shaman/Archmage, so they could technically even make two advanced classes out of this idea as they did with all the others.

No, I totally get what you're getting at. Since such a class would be doing damage and healing at the same time, the numbers for both would have to be tweaked to keep it balanced, but not necessarily at the extremes that you suggest. For example, if this class was capable of doing both mediocre heals and dps, you could bring two of them to replace 1 pure healer and 1 pure dps. Or even bring 4 of them and have no pure healers. The overall raid DPS and HPS could stay relatively the same, while some of the raid members perform multiple roles. This is actually how DoK/WP performed. In some of the more challenging content, they acted more as a support healer/DPS, where a second healer wasn't quite necessary, but having all the pressure on a single healer could be challenging. I'm not saying it would be easy to implement and balance, but I think it would be worth it for such an interesting mechanic and the flexibility it would add to some groups. What I was suggesting, and how DoK/WP work, is the latter. A healer class who's healing spells have melee range would be an awful design. WAR had a ton of CC, including constant knockbacks, yet the melee healers worked just fine. However, WAR did also have a "detaunt" mechanic, which allowed healers and squishy DPS to lower the damage of their target(s) for X seconds for as long as they don't attack that target(s).