I applaud Bioware for not making nightmare mode drop better gear. The reward for nightmare is the sense of accomplishment that comes with defeating the hardest thing in the game. This creates a sense of elitism without creating gear elitism. Why is this distinction important? Because bragging rights have a minimal appeal while gear has a direct impact on the game. In fact, gear may have a direct impact on parts of the game that directly affect other players (such as pvp where a character chooses to use a nightmare level weapon on players that have no hope of gaining such a weapon). Before you rebut here, let me say that I can comfortably hit 10% expertise (500) and use my Rakata level main hand for a touch extra damage. I choose to use 9% expertise and stack huge stats on my modded bracers and belt (better than rakata level) and find this works best in pvp. But I digress. The main point of what I am saying is that players should have the choice between fighting stupidly hard content (nightmare as intended, not as designed) or just hard content (hard mode) in order to get the best gear. Any guild that wants to be considered a serious raiding guild would have to show off their videos of them beating nightmare bosses and any guild that wants to be casual but get the best gear would focus on hardmodes. On my server hard modes are done by guilds that work on actually gearing up and doing them. They can be pugged but fights like Bonethrasher and Soa are actually tough. Hard modes took practice. If they are a bit harder, that would be ok. A lot harder, no thanks. Nightmare should be tougher and should continue to be all about bragging rights and not about gear. Thanks, Guthwulf

Remember, my argument is that no other base archetype is BETTER than a sorcerer at any operation and in most case worse than. Not that the other archetypes suck. I am saying that Sorcerers and Assassin tanks are the 10/10 of raiding and every other class is measured against them. As far as the defensive cool down argument is concerned, remember we are talking about operation raiding. Can you provide an example of a situation where you would want a sniper instead of a sorcerer? Which fight and why? I cannot. The closest I come is EV 1st boss, ballistic shield is it? the one that is a huge bubble. But if I had to choose between a ballistic shield and another revivification or between ballistic shield and a character that can static barrier themselves and heal themselves, I would pick the sorcerer every time. Especially if you have 2 or 3 revivifications stacked in the same place. Other places we have used ballistic shield is when we are having trouble with hard mode Foreman Crusher. But that was a Powertech tank. An assassin tank with sorcerers healing him has had no problem with Crusher with less gear than the Powertech by a long shot. Burst AOE... which fight is this a requirement? I dont know of any. In all fights (like KP 5, EV 2, KP 3) where AOE is crucial it is more about immediate moderate damage. What I mean by this is that orbital strike is more than enough damage to clean out a wave of adds in KP 3 but it requires considerable cast time and an AOE taunt to keep the mobs in the right spot. Sorc AOE is more than adequate to kill the adds, starts doing damage instantly and can be moved with only moderate force cost to the caster should the adds jump around a bit. In KP 3, if the mouse droids had more health I might say that Mercenary DFA is better because of the damage but it isnt because the sorcerer AOE does the trick handily. KP Boss 1 run is the only place it matters... disagree unless you have perfect raid execution. KP 2, sprint can save your bacon should you get pulled by Jarg into DFA target, every bit of speed helps. EV 5, ball lightnings and accidents before platforming can be mitigated by speed. So while I reinforce my argument that while the other classes are acceptable, they are never NECESSARY and often times not as good.

WTB video of you proving me wrong. OR a reasonable argument of your position based on your experience.

One of my guild mates pointed out that dual spec will make it so that Inquisitor Sorcerers basically become gods... they wont even need to respec. Each of them has a heal build and a dps build and raid composition becomes trivialized.

In addition, say for annihilation droid, when you stack revivifications and self cast static barriers you end up EASILY being able to dps through the entire missile barrage. Also consider HM KP boss 1... and how he switches targets a lot. If you mostly have to worry about yourself and you can static barrier then the 2 to 3 healers are able to only worry about healing the raid. Division of labor creates easier execution of the strategy.

TLDR version: In an MMO it is a bad idea to create one archetype that can do it all. You want diversity to appeal to multiple types of players and you want to enforce diverse grouping. Especially in a game where you have ops and group pvp. I will focus on ops in this post. This promotes longer subscriptions because it is worth playing multiple archetypes and multiple classes. About me: I am a battlemaster on my main and have defeated all bosses in ops on 8 man hard. So I am no pro but I do well enough. I have Rakata or better gear in all but 3 slots and mostly Champion and Battlemaster gear (or better). Long Version: The best raid composition right now is 1 BH, 1 Warrior, 1 Agent and 13 Inquisitors. (I play imperial but this applies to republic as well). The only reason you have the other archetypes is because they provide a buff. That is literally it. Once your gear is good enough the buffs no longer matter (unless you are in nightmare mode). Composition: Sniper, Arsenal Mercenary (dps), Marauder, Assassin tank, Assassin off tank, 2 or 3 sorc healers depending on 8 or 16, lots of sorc dps to fill the op. First lets list the core raiding skills/qualities unique to an Inquisitor: Force Speed Whirlwind Sorcerer Extrication Force Storm Consumption Static Barrier Revivification Haunted Dreams Assassin Armour is the least important tank ability, defense and shield tanking. Now lets examine why you dont need any other archetype and why, in fact, in a lot of these fights using non inquisitors is a bad idea. EV Boss 1: Annihilation Droid Static Barrier - allows your characters to survive missile salvo. Critical ability in nightmare, important in hard, noticeable in normal modes. Force Speed - trivializes missile barrage. Extrication - further trivializes missile barrage for your tank/ot Revivification - further trivializes missile barrage should you choose to stack on the tank, aoe heal and continue to dps during that phase. Helps to beat enrage timer in hard mode. This fight is ranged friendly. Melee have to watch for cleave, run farther during missile barrage, avoid grouping up (which is harder for melee that can only use the rear half of a mob) for storm protocols. Certainly the other archetypes can do this fight but none of them do it better than an inquisitor. EV Boss 2: Gharj Force Speed - trivializes the island hopping Extrication - further trivializes island hopping Force Storm - best aoe to hand the adds Static Barrier - trivializes pounce and frenzy on the tank/ot Revivification - easy mode to top up all of the ranged dps after a knockback into lava / splash damage. Haunted Dreams - nice instant cast cc on adds in case something is going wrong This is another ranged friendly fight. With all sorc healers and dps you dont need to worry about frenzy and pounce. Certainly the other archetypes can do this fight but none of them do it as well or better than an inquisitor. EV boss 3: Pylons Static Barrier - saves lives when aclays spawn Haunted Dreams - trivializes the aclays through instant cast, in combat, 1 minute CC I hate this fight, who cares what classes are there. Just make it less buggy. EV boss 4: Shadow Council Assassin tanks deal great dps. Sorc healers deal good dps. Sorc dps are excellent. None of these characters struggle in their fights. Without combat meters and a combat log I cannot definitively demonstrate that sorc healers are less likely to hit an enrage timer than an agent or a mercenary so I wont bother trying. As far as dps is concerned, Assassin Tank > Powertech Tank > Juggernaut Tank. This comes from watching who wins fights first (MT/OT) during Shadow Council vs similar hp mobs between those 3 classes. EV boss 5: Soa Extrication - life saver if during a phase transition someone just landed or is escaping a mind trap and is disoriented. Consumption - force is never an issue Static Barrier - trivializes running into your ball lightnings, currently the only way we know to beat phase 2 in hard. Revivification - trivializes platforming, not necessary (we beat soa hard 8 person without a sorc healer) Certainly the other archetypes can do this fight but none of them do it as well or better than an inquisitor. And in this case, at least in hard or nightmare, it is much more difficult without static barrier. KP Boss 1 - Bonethrasher Force Speed - if you use the kiting strategy, trivializes kiting the boss. Whirlwind - when adds come at 50% this may help you to stop an add in its tracks to allow your tank to get it or sorc to cc it. Extrication - further trivializes the kite strategy. Consumption - unlimited force in a force intensive fight (tank him strat) Static Barrier - makes the stand there and tank him strategy practical during hard and nightmare modes. His big frontal cleave can hit for 15k on light armor in hard. Haunted Dreams - in 8 person mode, trivializes the adds. Instant CC both, tank grabs one, dps it, grabs second, dps it. (mercs can instant CC in combat once every 2 minutes, which is inferior to once every minute) Certainly the other archetypes can do this fight but none of them do it as well or better than an inquisitor. And in this case, at least in hard or nightmare, it is much more difficult without static barrier. The only exception I can see here is a mercenary dps because of heavy armour, self healing, instant healing (with cooldown) and the self buff damage reduction ability. This makes the stand there and tank it stategy easier with merc ranged dps. KP Boss 2 - Jarg and Sorno This is another fight where static barrier saves lives unlike any other ability in the game. This is also another fight where non melee is better (due to Jarg's pbaoe dps abilities). My only point on this fight is that sorcerers ability to static barrier, self heal (as dps or healer) and sprint ability make the movement aspect of this fight much easier (sorno in the air). Being near either boss in melee is tricky, especially if they are accidentally tanked near eachother. The sorc interrupt is fast enough to have 2 sorcs on sorno and catch every unload (most of the dps in this fight from the bosses) and every rapid scan. I would entertain an argument as to why another other class is necessary in this fight but I cannot think of one. KP Boss 3 - Foreman Crusher Static Barrier - makes the enrage easier by a long shot Force Storm - best aoe to handle the adds (death from above has a minimum range, thus it is marginally not as good and orbital strike has a far too long cast time). Assassin tanking deals with total mitigation via defense and shield mitigation. This makes him best for dealing with the enrage pounding. A powertech tank that is under geared is never going to make it due to the style of tanking (mitigation) and a juggernaut tank is the middle road between the two. Since defense is best (and armor worst) during enrage, that gives the slight edge to the assassin tank here. This is also another fight where melee sucks (cleave, knockback, enrage hits in a cone, adds spawn far away and need to be chased by meleel) Certainly the other archetypes can do this fight but none of them do it as well or better than an inquisitor. And in this case, at least in hard or nightmare, it is much more difficult without static barrier. KP Boss 4 - Heavy Fabricator Assassin tank is the only one that can easily tank with 10 stacks of the debuff requiring no swapping of aggro. Ranged is superior in this fight because of stun droids and pulse mines. Overload makes it so the puzzle solvers never need to move. Static Barrier is helpful in this fight. Lastly, Haunted Dreams is the best way to CC stun droids when the boss is below 20% so you can focus on beating the enrage timer. Certainly the other archetypes can do this fight but none of them do it as well or better than an inquisitor. And in this case, at least in hard or nightmare, it is much more difficult without an assassin main tank. KP Boss 5 - Karagga Force Storm - best aoe to hand the mouse droids Otherwise this fight is trivial anyways. We have beaten 8 hard with fresh 50s. Certainly the other archetypes can do this fight but none of them do it as well or better than an inquisitor. And in this case, at least in hard or nightmare, it is much easier with sorcery aoe. Conclusion: As a raid leader I think to myself "why wouldn't it be lovely if I could replace 75% of my raid with sorcerers" and that is a major problem. In most cases, especially on hard or higher, static barrier is essential and having extra static barrier casters in the form of sorcerer dps trivializes fights. This points to a design flaw in providing too many skills that are best for raiding to one archetype. Please note that I did not take the time to summarize the abilities of other classes as that would make this post too long. I will happily rebut any arguments where someone can tell me why an archetype other than inquisitor is better at a fight (other than the 1 case mentioned above, KP boss 1, hard or nightmare). Also note, without damage meters it is hard to say which class is best dps or best heals. I can say that Shadow Council duels are a good measure and sorcerer dps usually wins or is not far behind other dps classes, sorcerer healers have an easier time than bh/ia healers and assassin tanks have the best dps of the tank classes. Lastly, due to revivification, I would make an educated guess that an end of the operation summary would always show sorcerers as number 1. If the meter was sophisticated enough to display damage mitigated then static barrier would far outweigh any other buffs through healing provided by other classes, such as the 10% armour buff from a mercenary healer using supercharged gas. Cheers, Guthwulf Keller's Void PS: Dont nerf inquisitors, buff the other classes. Thanks.

Do you feel that dual speccing is a valuable feature which might allow a character to either fill 2 roles in flashpoints/operations or to have a pvp and a pve spec?

He randomly decides he is in one-shot mode. Not sure what to do about it. Our 16 man normal mode was canceled because in that mode he was 1 shotting people but in both of our 8 mans he was hitting for the normal 7kish damage.