Skype is awesome for competitive pvp. If you guys have a problem with heavy breathing on mics like some say, then you can't even program your mics properly, you won't ever have the brainpower to be competitive at pvp. In wow, alot of top level, HIGHLY competitive teams use skype, when they have access to TS, ventrillo, whatever also. Using push to talk is a hinderance in competitive pvp. It lowers response time and having another key to click is stupid, if you can avoid it.

He said in his initial post, that he is 31 ST because he raids also and doesn't want to respec everytime he does a warzone. His question was is tanking any good in pvp and how to handle dps and healers. The answer is that tanking tree (31 ST, and other hybrid specs) ARE extremely good in pvp, if you like that playstyle, and even as dps you will have a hard time killing good healers, and killing healers isn't the job of a pvp tank anyway. Against dps you shouldn't have much problems as either 31 shield or 21 hybrid.

As a 31ST tank, you're HIB will ignore 60% of armour too, with most normal specs. I'm not saying you're wrong, you're right in everything you say, but 21/2/18 also has some wasted points. The point i'm making is that people are saying 21/2/18 is the greatest pvp tank spec ever and slate 31ST as useless, when that is FAR from the case. Both specs have advantages and disadvantages over eachother, you have to play both and find out which compromise you want to make, dps or defence. For some players 21/2/18 is the best, for some 31 ST is the best given different priorities. Some people say Counterattack (+shield chance) is wasted points, but fail to recognise that 31 ST penetrates 60% armour with HIB with 3 talent points. 21/2/18 takes 7 points to get 70%. So basically you're spending 4 points for 10% increase in HIB armour pen, which is a very small damage increase, if it even gets through defenses. In total 21/2/18 spends 13 points on raising the damage of a ONE, PHYSICAL ability (High Impact Bolt) which is over 20% of your total talent points. HIB gets checked by absolutely every defense skill ingame. Also, your defending the turret scenarios is plausible given the 6+ aren't good players, but if they have a brain, they won't let you dot them all. In which case having the extra defense to allow backup to arrive, might be better, but that's wildly speculative and we could argue all day about combat scenarios.

This is where you have to decided. The guy above obvious values medals above ALL, so he goes dps spec. I value WINS above all, so I go tank spec.] Once you get to rank 60, you won't care about medals, all that matters is wins for your dailies. Before rank 60, I would average 9-10 medals a game, even in losing games. Now I average 6-7. Not because i'm not trying anymore, but because i'm trying everything to WIN now, and medals mean nothing. As tank spec with my gear, I can EASILY get 2.5k medal in the first minute of any game. That only leaves 300k medal that is hard to get. Being full tank and winning more matches on average, you get less medals per match, but overall you will get more valor etc per hour than being a dps with maybe 1 extra medal every so often.

People cry too much about tanking gear. I find it the best for most scenarios in warzones atm. Between dps gear and tank gear, I notice my survivability increase pretty dramatically, which allows you to stay alive to do your job. A tanks job on WZs isn't to do crazy dps, once people get that into their head, they'll start being more effective. Full tank spec has drawbacks, but so does hybrid specs. 21/2/18 focuses on optimizing High Impact Bolt, well guess what. HIB is physical damage, so it is one of those skills that has to go through armour and all defenses. So basically 31 ST is situational in that it decreases damage FROM certain abilities/classes. 21/2/18 is situational in that it increases damage TO certain classes. You have to decide, that to acheive your role, do you need to be able to stay alive longer on average, or do slightly more dps on average. Both specs have their advantages and disadvantages, but neither are lightyears ahead of eachother, and both excel at different things.

Actually with tank spec you can get very high stockstrike crits. With some dps gear as 31 ST I can get 3k+ stockstike crits with adrenal + trinket. 2.5k+ crits are common without buffs.

I have about 4 full sets of champ gear on companions now.

Against healing classes 1v1 you will have a hard time, but so will they. If you get the right interrupts they will be under pressure to keep healing and they will do minimal damage to you. Your heal pots/heal over time skill is enough to keep you up versus healers. Killing a healer 1v1 is hard for ANY class, as a tank in a warzones, 1v1ing a healing, even if you don't kill him, is a win. You're stopping him from doing his job (healing others) Against DPS class. I don't have much problems at all, but I have very good gear. I'm not going to go into how to kill each class, as no one way works, but needless to say, if you're in trouble just pop your defensive and offensive CDs (use double dps trinkets always in pvp), hit the right interrupts, and it's not that hard. Operatives (even after nerfs) are still the hardest, but you will kill them more than they kill you. In general in warzones however, I would not get preoccupied with 1v1 encounters. It's all about the WIN. If that's what matters to you, then PT/VG is one of the best classes, even and especially with shield spec. In my opinion shield spec is the best pvp spec for vanguard/ powertch period. The other spec that people are citing (21/18/2) has better dps, but 31 ST you will take less damage from certain players. People like to yell out that defensive stats suck in pvp, but infact they don't. Alot of classes still do physical damage etc. So it's more of a compromise which spec you like the best, and not an outright advantage.

Tanks are the longest survival classes against a sizeable attack on a base, particularly range tanks. Sure a stealth class can interrupt indefinitely against 1 player. A healer can last long versus 1-2 players. When there's 3+ players instantly attacking a node, only a tank is guaranteed to last long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Stealth classes etc can do it, "sometimes", but you're counting on the attacking players being *******. Any class 1v1 should be able to defend a node 1v1 until reinforcements arrive, unless they suck.

Far from the worst pvp tank, and if you can't play well with 31 st, then going 21, you'll still have the same problems. It's not a huge difference.

I was 2nd or 3rd to get Battlemaster on TOFN republic side and tbh I spend as little time in Ilum as I can at the moment. I was rank 63 when Ilum hit, I grinded to 65 in ilum for mount and since i've only entered ilum to complete my dailies/weeklies. Maybe if you actually did a few warzones, you would see what well played classes are capable of doing.

All my advice above is applicable to random warzones, where you're not in a team. I basically assume in any random warzone matches, that I have to win the match myself, as I can't rely on any other team member to do the right thing at any one time. I believe the shield spec vanguard/powertech is the most powerful class that can influence the outcome of random warzones, as long as you're switched on 100% of the time and you're a good player. What I mean by your job to win is: In Alderaan, when you get both bases you should be in a position to see attacks on both bases all of the time, without having to rely on randoms calling for help. In voidstar, you should have the mentality, that you're the only 1 guarding both doors, when you commit overly to 1 side, they will cap the other door. In huttball, you're the one that has to score, and stop the enemy team from scoring. Once you realise that this is what you have to do to win, and you have the skills to use your class to acheive these goals, then you start winning alot more random warzones.

Log on to Tomb of Freedon Nadd (EU), charachter Xbuzz after servers come up, and i'll show you my gear. It might burst your bubble though. Also I never said I had 20 BM tokens before the patch. I had around 8.

I'd say you're the one who is likely pretending. There are dozens of dps powertech/mercenaries with good gear on every server. I play on the highest population and the most pvp competitive european server, and there's very few properly geared pvp tanks. So it would be only fair to assume, that i've fought more well geared dps pts/mercs, than you have well geared vg tanks.

I had 4/5 bm tank gear, bm tank weapon, bm dps weapon even before the ilum patch hit. When the patch hit, I got a good few BM commendations from BM duplicate items (6 I think), and yes i've been getting a decent drop rate on BM commendations too.

I've never had problems with any dps specced powertech/mercenary. I might as well take my gear off, because they'd still probably die!

Im a vanguard shield spec tank with full battlemaster tank items (in every slot including weapon) and have 4/5 battlemaster dps gear with ears etc and weapon to swap out in certain scenarios. I got battlemaster in warzones (not ilum), so i've alot of experience in warzones. Tanks, especially powertechs/vanguards are far from weak in pvp. As said above, you can survive at nodes considerably longer than any other class in the game with 3+ people on you (a healer can survive 1-2 people better, but 3+ they go down like a rock). Any other class in the game will get ***** by a well geared operative/scoundrel, but tanks can beat them. This makes powertech tanks, extremely good at guarding turrets in alderaan. Also being ranged, you can go further from the nodes to kite when attacked, while still stopping others from capping, which other melee tanks cannot. In huttball, powertech tank is extremely good. You're one of the most mobile classes, you can change levels in huttball without any sweat and you're a pain in the *** to kill. If you get the ball, the enemy team is gonna let out a huge sigh (i know i do), especially if you have a healer on you, because with 21k+ hitpoints and 700k expertise, you're incredibly hard to take down, and coupled with your mobility, you're extremely hard to pin down. Also with the amount of hitpoints you have, running through acid means nothing, and if you have heal pot up, running through fires when you need, is no big deal either. In voidstar is the only wz I switched into dps gear on attack. With dps gear and adrenals etc, you can do insane amount of damage, both solo and aoe. Most stockstrikes will hit over 2.5k and with buffs 3k+ with similar scaling to other abilities, and all this while you're in tank spec, you're still really hard to kill. On defence in voidstar (tank gear), because you're ranged, you should stay in the middle, particularly in random games. You should be running between each doors, interupting people planting then running away, guarding people close and killing people who enter your patrol zone (middle between doors). If you see one side of your defence falling, that's when to get involved, while your team wait for you to spawn, you can easily last 20+ seconds with cooldowns, even against 5-6 enemies. In defence i prefer to generally not get involved in any battles, until it's absolutly apparent, that if I don't a door will fall. Staying in the middle of the doors, no one will annoy you for the most part, if you commit to one engagement, you risk losing the other door, especially in random matches where you can't rely on anyone but yourself to look after the doors. A well played powertech/vanguard tank is a game changing class in almost any warzone. It's not a class that many notice, but if you're objective is to win the warzones above anything, there is no other class period that can singlehandly have a higher solo effect on a warzone. A good healer, still needs to rely on others for protection, good dps, needs support to do their job, but a well played VG/PT tank is a HUGE obstacle for any team to get around, and although it's nice to get heals etc, you don't need them to effectively do your job. Tanks don't kill healers, but that's not your job, if you're 1v1 with a healer, you're keeping him away from his team, from healing others, so that is a victory. A healer won't be able to kill a well geared tank, so it's basically a deadlock.

The drop rate is 25%. It's been said before. I roughly have that droprate for BM items. Just because someone has only had a 10% of bags drop the item, doesn't mean it is a 10% drop rate. You need thousands of samples to get an anyway accurate indication of drop rate and even then it could be extremely inaccurate, so you can't draw any conclusions at all from 108 bags. Just because the drop rate is set to 25%. It doesn't mean in the slightest you should expect to see 25% drop rates yourself. Some people will get drops 75% of the time, and some 10%, but the chance of getting an item out of a bag is still 25%, no matter how much they try and prove otherwise.

You guys seriously need reading comprehension. They didn't say they are nerfing pvp gear. They said they are trying to close the gap between newly dinged 50s and people in full battlemaster gear. Atm when you ding level 50, the easiest pvp gear to get is champion gear (not the centurion). In the latest patch notes 1.1.2 they said they are changing the bag drops so more commendations drop i.e. newly dinged 50s with get centurion gear faster with more commendations from bags (less luck in getting your first set of pvp gear) while they will also decrease the drop rate of champion gear. What this means basically is that Centurion gear will be first set many pvpers get now, while getting some random pieces of champion. Then when they get rank 60, they will be opening BM bags and getting champ commendations so will be able to finish off that set, while getting random BM pieces. The system at the moment is flawed in that centurion gear is actually harder to get than champion pieces. This patch looks like it will rectify that, allowing new 50s to get their first pvp set faster without the random factor.

Saying more options lowers the skill cap is wrong. Just because a class has less options than another, doesn't mean the class with more options won't play to the best of their abilties. As a skillset it takes more skills to play a vanguard, than a guardian, because you have every skill the guardian has, and you're also ranged. So not only do you have to master the melee skillset, you have to master the ranged skillset too. This is exactly my point. Harpoon is a superior skill in almost every way. Harpoon allows good players to do awesome things. Force push, as you said is somewhat "Random". Even an elite player cannot rely on this skill to do exactly what he wants, as with lag etc, this skill might as well just be a random direction knockback. Force push hence isn't condusive to high level skill play as it's not consistent. The same way, if you build your tactics around the fact that you will crit every hit, yet your crit rate is only 30%, then it's flawed. Force push has a random factor too it. You might be the best player in the world, but if the other player has slight lag etc, or he changes direction quickly, you cannot control where this skill sends your opponent. The example you listed. You say you peel an enemy by charging too him, then force pushing him away. You've just used 2 of your most vital skills. A vanguard could pull 1 enemy away 30yards (force push has a HUGELY decreased ranged in comparison) then the vanguard could charge another enemy rooting them in place. Peeling is a high level skill that you see hardly ANY players using in swtor atm, and vanguard has better peeling abilties than guardian has, so it's more condusive to higher skill cap players.

That's not what skill cap is about. Just because a class is less powerfull than another, does not mean it has a higher skillcap. I have 32 in combat abilties bound on my vanguard that can be used in any one pvp encounter. A guardian might require more skill than a vanguard to play to the same effectiveness in pvp, but for the skilled player, the vanguard has alot more options open to them, meaning to utilise the full variety of skills you would need a higher skillcap. For example, taking one area. To be a top skilled player as a guardian, it requires you to have mastered melee combat. To be a top skilled player as a vanguard, requires that you master melee combat, and also master ranged combat, so obviously the vanguard would have a higher skill cap to play to an elite level in that regard. This also carries over to alot of other skills. Harpoon has a much higher skillcap than force push, as it has alot of more uses. If a class has alot more uses/utilities than another class, it means that the player, to master the class, has to be aware of in any scenario what abilties to use. Guardian being a melee class, cuts that skill cap down, as they're a melee class, so the player has to think about 1 thing extra, "should i be in melee range in this fight or not". To be effect 90% of the time this is an easy decision for a guardian, for a vanguard, they have the same decision, but it's alot harder because they are also effective from ranged.

Im curious as to why people are saying guardian/jugg over vanguard/powertech? Vanguard has all of the skills guardians have etc, but they also have the ranged advantage and also harpoon. Being ranged allows for MUCH more adaptations in skill play, and harpoon is WAY WAY WAY > than force push. Allowing you to peel enemy players off healers, carriers, pull people away from objectives, a skilled player will take harpoon over force push any day of the week. Being somewhat ranged also increases vanguards ability to mitigate damage and CC's through LOS where available. It allows them to stay back in a fight where needed and still contribute dps/taunts, while remaining in a position that allows them to interrupt doors, position themselves for passes etc. A guardian/jugg doing the same is basically a non factor in any fight. Simply put vanguards have alot more options open to them at any one time, which means that a higher than average skilled player can do more with the class, than with the guardian.

I think people are confusing high skill cap, with classes that most people suck at because theyre below par atm. Personally I think shield vanguard is one of the highest skill cap classes because of the amount of tools they get. They're ranged/melee hybrid with charge, harpoon, they've taunts, stuns etc. Huge amount of skills, that when wielded by an above average player can do some insane things, that can single handedly change the outcome of a warzone.

Absolutely mind boggling how this system was put in place. Empire outnumbers republic in every ilum instance, and because of which they nearly always control every base. So not only does republic have to fight 2:1 odds, they only get 20 valor per kill, compared to 200 that empire gets. Did this game even have a beta?

Why don't they put individual cap on factions in ilum? Why does Ilum valor give 5x the rate of valor of warzones? Why was ilum released with non pvp quests? Why is the loot system random? Four simple questions, among many. The only reason why these issues aren't fixed, is imcompetance. SWTOR has the pvp CONTENT to be a good pvp MMO, but the way it is implemented is illogical beyond belief. They have gone to all the trouble to make warzones, open world pvp zones, pvp systems, yet they have fails ON THE VERY BASE LEVELS in their implementation. ONLY a team with NO EXPERIENCE in pvp would have allowed these things to happen. This is basic pvp, it's like 2+2 in maths, it's so simple, they shouldn't even need pvp experience to know what they have done is stupid. PvP in SWTOR atm is like a ferrari without any engine. It looks good, but it's pointless.