Yes, I agree.

Madness sorc can still do well on the scoreboard in regs but if you don't understand why madness sorc is currently UP then you don't understand pvp (universal you btw ).

It's not about premades. It is about lack of matchmaking. There are so few games that are really close (win or lose). Matchmaking helps with this. I used to premade a lot in SWTOR and there are periods where I go back to premading but the lack of matchmaking makes premading rather boring after awhile. All I want is more even matches. I'm 100% fine with premades but if BW could just add a basic matchmaking system that at least tried for a few minutes (2-5) to get a premade on the other team then it would increase the number of even matches when premading or pugging.

Basic matchmaking doesn't require high population. It just waits a few minutes to "try" to match premade vs premade. If , after a few minutes, the system can't find another premade then it would work as it does now. This would be especially helpful on the weekends. Right now on Harb there are likely 10 matches going and close to 10 premades. However, most matches only have 1 premade in them. Basic matchmaking would solve this. BTW, this isn't a "waaah i lost" response. I just got out of a couple extremely easy wins that were very boring. I just want more even matches (even if it results in more losses for me).

Just remember, anyone who pretty much only premades in a game that lacks matchmaking is a very sad person in real life. Normal people do not like to pugstomp 100% of the time. Also, these players aren't very good. Most the the good premaders left for games that do have matchmaking. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to play with a group of friends (I love premading as well) but competitive players want to actually compete, not just pugstomp. This pugstomping/avoid competition mentality is a large part what keeps MMOs from going as mainstream as other types of games/hobbies. You don't see this in pickup basketball, soccer,etc.

I did several chars in ranked last season and I put a dps sorc on JC for a quick run to 1700 in case the mounts were cool and/or if they made a nice armor set . I saw you a couple times and well...not impressed. I would not normally bring this up but since I am making the point that you enjoy the gear gap it would make sense. BTW, I'm not saying people in 240s are bad. There are a lot of good players that were good before 240 but that doesn't mean that 5.1 is good. Also, it is funny that you would spend the time to check my post history but since you did please read closer. I love premading. In Rift I would premade half the time and had the best premade in my server group. I just hate constant pugstomping. I don't premade very often in swtor because of the lack of x-server, mixed faction, and matchmaking. Normal people do not enjoy pugstomping. We want even matches. It is like when I used to play basketball. If there weren't many people playing and one team was just far better than the others we would mix the teams up to make the games more fun. This is what normal people want.

We know your view. You love your gear advantage over the average player and you want to keep the gearing process slow so that you can keep your advantage as long as possible. You've never been good at pvp but now you are beating some people and you want to keep believing it is because your skill increased. Although, from seeing you in the past I'm sure that even with 242 you aren't too much of a threat

I said pretty good, not perfect. With the maras and jugs they were a little OP sure but it wasn't nearly as bad as now and most people suck at melee regardless of how op the class is. Merc is MUCH easier to play near the skill softcap than mara/jug. The reason people remember this time period is the stacked premades using mara/jug. These premades destroyed before the buff and destroyed after the buff was taken away though. Sorc bubbles were stupid and annoying but was more of an enjoyment issue than a class imbalance issue. There were other periods where some classes were op/etc. but nothing like now. However, even with what I've said you can still make any class do well in regs so balance isn't as bad as some people think it is just matches with a lot of snipers and mercs are rather annoying. Solo ranked is where the balance issues really show themselves.

I'm one of the rare people that has always thought class balance was pretty good in SWTOR. That changed in 5.0 .

Overall DPS Sorc: Don't remove pw and we don't need a reflect type dcd. PW management is what keeps sorc interesting in yolo. Just up our healing mp management (at least for self heals as they could make heals on yourself cost less than heals on others rather easily), give us back the old bubble healing with that utility and make the knockback root baseline to both dps specs. For Lightning only: up the single target burst....duh . There are multiple ways to do this but even if they just up the dmg and remove the dot requirement for autocrit it would be enough. This would still be less burst than sniper or merc but sorc does have a lot of utility and so a little less burst is ok. For Madness only: Give deathfield the old aoe range. Then either up the single target dmg a fair amount (my preference) or give us real aoe dot pressure again (not as good for overall class balance).

Snave and others have posted with math and logic throughout these threads. You have just stated what you feel like. Stop bringing in math/science/etc. You obviously know nothing of these subjects. Leave math and science to those of us who do it successfully for a living.

I agree that while the gap is large it doesn't hurt regs too much. However, it really is an issue in solo ranked. There are people that were stuck around 1400 after hundreds of matches played and weren't a threat in 5.0 that are now rating up fast and are a threat. These weren't "bad" players (gear can't help them) but they weren't very good either. Also, gear really affects the bursts classes. Maras that were mediocre are now good, good are very good, and great are just destroying people.

That is GENIUS!!! If only BW had tried that!

Just give up snave. Qwu is either trolling you or....well for his sake I hope he is just trolling .

Exactly, the people saying the gear gap doesn't exist or isn't very large are the same ppl that qdodge/qsync/windtrade/"kickball"/etc. that need the handicap. What is even worse is that human nature pushes these people to eventually believe that they are on an even playing field. Once this happens there is no way to convince them otherwise.

Especially when we start seeing more sins and dps ops in 242. I know a couple mercs in 240/242 that are beastly but not gamebreaking, however once a decent op gets 236+ that burst really hurts. I've seen a couple ops go from being a gnat to a lion due to gear (decent players that have been playing for a long time so not like they all of a sudden improved).

It is funny watching all the people try to excuse the new system. It is obvious they are really enjoying their gear advantage. They are trying as hard as they can to convince themselves that they have become better players and that the gear gap doesn't have anything to do with it. The best yolo players I play with were good players before 5.1 but fully admit 240/242 gear is a huge advantage. If you can't see this you need to see what is going wrong in your real life that makes you desperate to believe this gear gap doesn't exist. Get yourself to a good place and then look at this with an open mind. You'll see that new players are at a huge disadvantage (also remember many new players don't even have 208!).

Even without the DVL gear the gap is rather large. I was in yolo a lot the last couple days and talking/inspecting some of the people who are 240 already. I have 208/230 on my 2 chars I got to gold tier already but on my current char i'm almost all 208. One guy I know who is a really good player regardless of gear now has 500 more bonus dmg than me, 7k more hp, 5% more crit, and same alac/accuracy. He went from being very good to just destroying 208 geared players. BTW, he is not using DVL it is just full 240. The gear gap is huge. To give you an an idea of how large it is he has the same stats I had wearing 208 during 5.0 except for about 12k less HP than in 5.0. His dps stats are almost the same as 5.0 though. For people who use DVL gear they actually have the same hp as 5.0 as well! Remember all of the discussion about how much burst was brought down and survivability went up the first day of 5.1? Well think about some people running around in almost 5.0 stats while the rest are in 5.1 first night stats. It is almost that bad.

LOL!!!! You were an operative on jarkai sword....in other words you had no competition and likely q synched (although I'm sure you called it q'n with friends). PVP on a real server or don't brag.

10% bonus dmg is HUGE (and I said over 10%). Lol. You must be someone who just really really wants to believe you don't have an advantage. I feel sorry for you. Get a life.

I've been checking people I do yolo with and talking to them afterwards. Not even Min/max 240 was almost 5% more crit and hp and over 10% more bonus dmg than min/max 208 (with 240 weapons). BTW, this is without the dvl gear exploit as I don't like the people that do that and did not even want to talk to them This obviously makes yolo a joke (even more than normally lol)

The last couple days the gear gap has really become noticeable in solo ranked. There were players that weren't much of a threat (i.e. one mara was near 500 wins, 1400 rating, and never much of a threat but is now rating up quickly and hits much harder than others). This change was gear based only. Also, there are people in DVL with 20k more hp than everyone else! Solo ranked has q sync'n, wintrading, etc. and so of course many people will do whatever they can to get a gear advantage. I'm only playing ranked until gold and going to alts so I'm in 208s (on 3rd char this season). This gear gap is going to make ranked very frustrating for me and I'm an experienced player. I can't imagine what it will do to people trying out ranked for the first time. I'll give it a few more days and then I'll prob unsub till the next season or until they make the game alt friendly again. I hate unsubing but it really is the only way we can reach BW. You can still get gold with 208's but it will be frustrating when you see the stat disparity and a video game is supposed to be fun stress relief not another frustration.

The last couple days the gear gap has really become noticeable in solo ranked. There were players that weren't much of a threat (i.e. one mara was near 500 wins, 1400 rating, and never much of a threat but is now rating up quickly and hits much harder than others). This change was gear based only. Also, there are people in DVL with 20k more hp than everyone else! Solo ranked has q sync'n, wintrading, etc. and so of course many people will do whatever they can to get a gear advantage. I'm only playing ranked until gold and going to alts so I'm in 208s (on 3rd char this season). This gear gap is going to make ranked very frustrating for me and I'm an experienced player. I can't imagine what it will do to people trying out ranked for the first time. I'll give it a few more days and then I'll prob unsub till the next season or until they make the game alt friendly again. I hate unsubing but it really is the only way we can reach BW. You can still get gold with 208's but it will be frustrating when you see the stat disparity and a video game is supposed to be fun stress relief not another frustration.

This is a rather large issue in solo ranked already. There are a fair amount of yolo players with 300,400,500+ wins already (do they ever log off? ). These guys now have a decent portion of the gear advantage we have been discussing. I've seen a couple of them go from near 1600 to almost 2k this week and I'm thinking the gear advantage may be a part of that. I also saw one merc go from below average to a decent threat. There are also a lot of solo ranked players in 208 (myself included since I switch to a new char once I hit 1650). I don't "feel" at a disadvantage yet as my win/loss ratio has been good this week but by checking players I can see there is a rather large gear gap developing between the haves and haves not. In regs I don't think gear matters that much except in the case of a fully geared premade. However, a fully geared premade in the current gearing system would likely have won even if they put on lesser gear as they would likely have more experience, more communication, and a better team composition to begin with. In something like yolo however, gear is a huge factor. A lot of yolo is burning a player down first or surviving longer than the other player being burned down. Gear is a huge factor in both of these cases. I've also seen many yolo matches end up in 1v1 situations where gear is a huge factor as well. New players starting yolo are at a huge disadvantage to begin with but with this gearing system it is going to be even worse.

5% is debatable but even assuming it is slightly less than that it is still rather large (especially in ranked or on an entire premade in regs). Remember this 5% isn't just a 5% to bonus dmg, it is a 5% to several areas. I used to box. If I went against someone who was only 5% stronger than me that wouldn't be too much. However, someone that was 5% stronger, 5% faster, and had a 5% longer reach would be hard to overcome even if I was more skilled. I'm still playing 208 alts and even doing rather well in yolo so it isn't a major issue to me yet but that doesn't mean this system is a good thing. 5.0 was almost perfect (outside of balance issues ). You could grind for a slight advantage and shinies but you didn't need to. Now you need to if you want to be truly competitive. The main reason I've stuck with swtor is I can live my busy life outside of the game without being punished in game. Also, it is a great game to play alts in pvp. The skill softcaps are rather low for all classes so it isn't too hard to be decent on all of your chars. This is why I loved 4.0 as well. It was easy to gear all of my chars while still playing rather casually. Hopefully you will grow up one day, get a real job and a family and learn that many adults don't need a long gear grind to enjoy pvp.