I hear what you're saying, but I don't really think it would be a problem. To an extent current healers are still capable of doing damage in healing or hybrid specs. Granted it's not great damage, but it's more than nothing. Just like DPS Mercs, Sorcs and Ops are capable of healing themselves and others if they have to. Of course the effect is diminished compared to a pure spec, but it's still there. Similarly, I'm sure they could come up with a melee healer where the difference between a DPS specced or healing specced one would make a great difference in their DPS and HPS outputs respectively. That way the melee healing mechanic would be there regardless of spec without skewing the balance. For example, in WAR, the biggest heal that DoKs/WPs had was a 3s channeled melee ability on 8s cooldown, which suffered from damage induced pushback. This made it extremely hard to use it when getting focused. However, deep in the healing spec was a trait that increased the pushback resistance on that skill, greatly improving the ability of a healing specs to use it. As I said in my original post, there were other issues with DoK/WP healing, such as their heals all being tied dirrectly to how much damage they were doing, but all those issues were addressable if Mythic just got their head out of their behind.

Nonsense. Spoken like a truly ignorant PVPer who only takes part in one aspect of the game. My opinion on the other hand comes from a decade of MMO experience in both PVP and PVE (SWTOR since beta, rank 14 and gladiator in WoW, WAR, AoC, etc.). If you actually READ my entire post you'd see that I acknowledge the fact that Mercs need a buff in their ABILITY to DPS in PVP, not the DPS itself. Mercs already outperform most classes in raw DPS capability, you cannot just buff raw damage without considering what effect that would have on other parts of the game. The fact that Sniper, Mara and PT are capable of higher PVE DPS doesn't mean that Mercs need a buff in theirs, it means those classes are over performing, especially PT which is not even a pure DPS class. Assassins and operative have terrible DPS, and Sorcs aren't that great either, but I don't see you complaining that Mercs are capable of completely wiping the floor with them when it comes to DPS. Yet those same classes outperform Mercs in PVP. Clearly DPS is not the problem, but the ability to deliver it on the move and/or under pressure is. Buffing Merc damage would just skew the DPS balance even further. We should be boosting the lowest DPS classes and nerfing the highest, not boosting middle ones to the highest, leaving the low ones even more behind. Mara and Sniper should have a small edge on damage since it's all they can do, but the disparity of DPS across all classes is far beyond the promised 5%. Bottom line is, you cannot just buff raw damage, improving mobility, defenses and ability to do unhindered damage is what's needed. That part of this thread I fully agreed with, but you started going off on a tangent about how Merc DPS needs a massive buff, which is complete nonsense. If Merc defense and mobility is improved, their already high damage capability would follow. Your talk of "flimsiness" of the Merc class is irrelevant, since even if Merc had 90% dmg reduction at all times, it would do nothing to improve their DPS when they have constant interrupts on them. Biggest problem for Mercs is how easily they're shut down. PTs are barely 10% ahead of Mercs in PVE, yet double to tripple their damage in PVP. This is not because the class has higher damage capability, but because most of its abilities are instant and can therefore DPS unhindered regardless of anyone being on it. This is why I said that what needs improvement the MOST for Mercs, is their ABILITY to do DPS under pressure. Hell, even just making Tracer Missile uninterpretable at all times would go a long way. But you can go on with your irrational and ignorant suggestions that do not consider the consequences of your changes on all aspects of the game, I'm sure the dev's will love your approach.

Dick measuring contests on PVP scoreboards, skewed by loads of AoE, CC, knockbacks, etc. =/= DPS. When discussing actual DPS capability of a class, the only sources that count are PVE parses from top players in the game: http://www.torparse.com As you can see, the top DPS classes in the game are Sniper/GS, Mara/Sent, PT/VG, followed closely by Mercs, then the others. Mercs do NOT need a DPS buff, only a buff to their ability to perform that DPS under pressure. Some of the suggestions in this thread would address that, although I feel they're overblown. First off, R&G should only apply to Trace Missile/Power Shot IMO. Instant heals on DPS specs are not balanced no matter how you try to justify it. Second, I don't feel it's appropriate on Rocket Punch/Stockstrike. You're giving way too much utility to a single ability: high dmg, knockback, root AND insta cast on next 3 abilities? Way too good. I support returning the knockback to RP/SS in addition to existing root, but I think R&G should be tied to another ability, like Jet Boost. JB's cooldown would also nicely control how often R&G can be applied so you wouldn't have to have that clunky mechanic added on top of the talent that prevents it from proccing more often than every 20 seconds. Second, dispelling all types of debuffs should not exist on any class. Certain specs are already completely useless in competitive PVP (Annihilation/Watchmen) due to dispells, we do not need to make it even worse.

Give this site a shot: http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/forum-7.html Not as many people frequent it anymore, but most information on there is very informative and backed by math. At one point it was considered equivalent of "elitistjerks" forums for SWTOR theorycrafting. I will also second to visit the individual class forums though. Unlike WoW's, SWTOR's forums are often just as good source of information as they are of trolls (except PVP forums... stay away).

This. Despite some of its flaws, melee healing on DoK/WP in WAR was one of the most interesting and challenging mechanics I've ever seen in an MMO. DPSing enemies while at the same time juggling which friendly target your heals are being channeled to, juggling dispells, detaunting attackers on you, managing two resources (one for attacking abilities, one for heals), and doing it all at the front line of the battle... I really miss the high skill cap that playstyle allowed...

Check the date of the post... I've been Carnage for months.

http://dulfy.net/2012/10/23/swtor-cartel-market-items/#4

I was more implying that there are plenty of fights that favor range. Most of the fights in TFB favor range or at best put them at no disadvantage compared to melee. I think more than anything many classes need their DPS buffed, not maras nerfed.

Then I fail to see how you're "running several hundred thousand more damage per boss fight than other geared DPS as a carnage mara". Unless you're pulling 3k DPS, and that I'd love to see. If all DPS is pulling their weight, everyone's total damage per boss fight IS several hundred thousand damage. Maras are top DPS, but not by the huge margin you make it out to be, especially when you consider actual fight situations (where DPS uptime and aoe capability counts too). You can't just look at pure single target dummy DPS and ignore all the other factors that can affect it in an actual boss fight.

You must have terrible mercs...

There is only thing I felt my merc was ever lacking, and that's mobility. Therefore, one ability I would add to them would be stolen from Shaman in WoW, a cooldown that allows casting on the move for the next X seconds.

Mercs in PVE are right up there with Maras on DPS. In fact, on many fights they're capable of higher DPS due to movement factor hindering melee. Same with healing. Gf has been our top guild healer as a Merc since the game came out. Mercs may need some survivability buffs in PVP, but if you're sucking in PVE, that's all on you.

So much fail in a single sentence is comical.

Considering they're setting it up as a Freemium model: http://www.swtor.com/free/features I'm not going anywhere.

Yes. I did it on my Jugg, Vette first then Jaesa.

Absolutely not. The whole point of comparing the specs is to figure out which would perform best in scenarios where it matters most, i.e. boss fights. Therefore, to get the most accurate comparison of the specs you should be using conditions closest to what they will be in raid. You should probably even have someone with you putting an armor debuff on the dummy, since that would bring the simulation even closer to what you can expect in operations. If you regularly run with a Madness sorc, you could even argue having them on dummy with you, since for YOUR raid, that would be the true picture of Anni vs Carnage. Furthermore, since most boss fights last just about 5 minutes, using two BTs in a 5 minute parse is actually closer to reality then using only one.

I rest my case.

I've never failed to vote off someone because they're holding up the group, so from my experience majority do not condone this behaviour. It is their right to watch the story, on THEIR time, not at at the expense of others. Therefore, if you want to watch the story, stick to Story Mode.

If you want to listen to to the story, then do it in Story Mode, that's what it's for. If you're holding up my HM because you're refusing to spacebar, I'll boot your *** in a heartbeat. My time is precious, not to be wasted on waiting for every new noob who stepped into Hard Mode without ever even doing Story Mode. They should just disable cinematics in Hard/Nightmare modes.

Str has its own (very slow) DR scale on its crit bonus which is independent of crit rating or any other bonuses. You should be augmenting for Str and re-modding your gear to replace a lot of your crit rating with power and accuracy (if still under 100%, though carnage favors having even over 100%).

For the longest time I too believed Power > Strength. However, recently I have concluded that Strength is superior after all. To calculate DPS, you cannot simply look at what adds the most raw damage, you have to consider all stats that affect DPS, hence crit, surge and accuracy as well. 1) That is actually incorrect. Crit bonus from Str has nothing to do with your overall crit rate. Each stat has its own diminishing returns and on its own scale. Diminishing returns on crit bonus from main stat is actually very very low. See charts here for details. 2) In terms of raw weapon damage, Power is better, but only by about 9.5% after factoring in Inq buff. Str has multiplier of 0.21 (0.2 * 1.05), while Power has 0.23. However, the crit bonus from Str cannot be ignored. Even at almost 2.2k Str, I still gained well over 1% crit by changing all my augments from Power to Str, yet my weapon damage only went down 5 pts (53 weapon dmg vs 58). 3) Power is a linear stat. However, its relation to other stats is not, i.e. the more crit, surge and accuracy you have, the more value is given to Power and vice versa, since they affect how often you get higher multiplier from that Power (due to crits) and how rarely your multiplier is zero (due to misses). 4) Agreed. Itemization for all classes is terrible and requires purchasing many duplicate pieces and even other class gear to get optimal armorings, mods and enhancements. I could post my own napkin math, but I'll just copy and paste a post I saw in another thread --------------------------------------------- For either Combat or Watchman, Strength and Power are within about 5% of each other in overall DPS effect, but Strength is always better for any currently attainable gear level. In addition to the critical bonus, Strength is buffed twice (+5% to the stat from Consular buff, then +5% to the resulting damage bonus from the Knight buff), while Power is only buffed once. So in terms of the damage bonus alone, the numbers to compare are 0.2415/Power vs. 0.2205/Strength. But the bigger your damage bonus (and thus, the bigger your base damage), the more valuable critical chance becomes. DR on the critical bonus from primary stats is very minor. At 2000 Strength, you are still getting about 2/3's of the raw Critical Bonus (i.e. compared to no DR). I have run a full simulation of days of combat, but you can see how Strength makes up the difference in damage bonus by doing a fairly simple calculation. Suppose, with your current stats, with buffs, an ability does tooltip damage X and has a damage bonus coefficient of 1.5 (this is approximately the value for abilities like Blade Rush and Blade Storm). And suppose you have a choice of 14x (+16 Power) or (+16 Strength) augments (+224 of either stat). With +224 Power, the base damage of the ability (including the Knight buff) will be about X+81 With +224 Strength, the base damage of the ability (including the Knight and Consular buffs) will be X+74 Lets suppose you have a 33% Critical Chance, and a 75% Critical Multiplier bonus (a number of key abilities gain added critical damage from talents, which makes Strength's critical bonus even better, but we will ignore that). With Power, the expected damage of the ability is then (X +81)*(1+0.33*0.75) = (X + 81)*1.25 = 1.25*X + 101 With Strength, assuming you have around 2K Strength, 224 Strength will increase your critical chance by about 1.2%. So the expected damage is (X + 74) * (1+0.342*0.75) = 1.2565*X + 93. The difference (Strength - Power) is then: 0.0065*X - 8 So strength will win (i.e. the difference will be positive) when: 0.0065 * X > 8, or when X > 1230 At level 50, abilities that matter have a base tooltip damage > 1200; hence, for those abilities, Strength beats Power. Power benefits from a high coefficient, but abilities with a high coefficient also have high tooltip damage. Master Strike, for instance, has a coefficient of around 3 (rather than the 1.5 I assumed above), so the damage difference (Strength - Power) in that case is: 0.0065*X - 16 But X is several thousand for Master Strike, and Strength still wins.

Arsenal 1. How do you think your Mercenary spec is perceived by other classes? High DPS and burst. Easily killed in PVP due to lack of defensive abilities, especially against melee. 2. How do you perceive your own spec? PVE: High DPS, fun to play, fairly mobile. PVP: Needs more defensive abilities, such as a long lasting snare to help keep melee off.

Carnage 1. How do you think your Marauder spec is perceived by other classes? Solid DPS. Too much burst in PVP. Many think our defensive cooldowns are overpowered, but they ignore the fact that we'd be canon fodder without them or that we're the only class without a knockback or a stun. They also ignore what impact on PVE the nerfing of those defenses would have. 2. How do you perceive your own spec? Great DPS, but boring to play. Most of the time you're spamming Massacre while waiting for Gore to come off cooldown. Annihilation 1. How do you think your Marauder spec is perceived by other classes? Great DPS. Hard to kill one-on-one, but lacks burst. Many think our defensive cooldowns are overpowered, but they ignore the fact that we'd be canon fodder without them or that we're the only class without a knockback or a stun. They also ignore what impact on PVE the nerfing of those defenses would have. 2. How do you perceive your own spec? Great DPS and very interesting and challenging spec to play. Useless in organized PVP due to bleeds being dispellable.

Darkness 1. How do you think your Assassin spec is perceived by other classes? In PVP, can do too much dmg when wearing DPS gear. In PVE, squishiest tank. Hard to heal due to unpredictable damage spikes. 2. How do you perceive your own spec? Versitile class with many tools, but somewhat boring to play due to force starvation and being forced to keep Wither and Shock on cooldown in order to maximize uptime on Harnessed Darkness. When taking into account defense and absorption, we measure up well against other tanks on average. However, we have by far the lowest passive mitigation, which makes us most susceptible to spiky damage due to "bad luck" and hence dieing.

Well that we already knew, so while I do think it is terrible design to be able to nullify a spec's damage in a single GCD (there is a reason why Affliction Warlocks in WoW had anti-dispel talents built into their abilities), at least it's working as intended. This on the other hand is a blatant bug.