"You're both taken out of the fight while that DPS is trying to kill you!" is a specious argument, and I touched on that in the OP. If I'm unable to kill the DPS, but he stands a very good chance of killing me (since I'm panic healing the entire time all it takes is an extra crit or a TINY amount of help from his team), then he has quite the advantage. As soon as I'm dead, I'm no longer neutralizing him, and he can jump into the fight straight away while I have to make my way back to the battle from spawn. When forced to heal myself so heavily against only 1 dps player, I'm unable to do any noticeable amount of team healing; all I can manage is an occasional 1-stack HOT, which is as much for more UH procs to keep myself alive as anything, and perhaps hitting 1-3 other people with Kolto Cloud if they get close enough to me. Killing a decent healer that isn't majorly out-geared should require either more than 1 dps player, or - at the very least - some modicum of playing ability on the part of the lone damage dealer. As someone else mentioned, players that trinket my stun when I'm still at 90% hp or constantly blow their interrupt on my Diagnostic Scan should be totally unable to kill me by themselves. It's also untrue that I'd have been able to survive easier if I had someone on my team helping me, unless perhaps that person was a tank. In case you missed it in the OP, I relied on Flash Grenade and Vanish -> Tranquilize in order to stay alive as long as I did; any amount of damage whatsoever on the Assassin at those points would have meant my death (not to mention the fact that you can't Vanish -> Tranq at all if there's someone else there keeping the enemy player in combat). That's why you toss a stun, CC, knockback, pull, and/or interrupt at the healer. Killing speed has been quite fast since release, but it feels a bit worse now. A modest amount of healer-interference, along with knowing when to switch targets, makes killing virtually any class fairly trivial. Unless of course you're stuck in terrible PUGs most of the time, like I am. Still, facerolling over most people when I'm DPS spec'd is quite easy. PvP damage is simply too high right now. It makes the game feel like a first person shooter where everyone has an aimbot.

Because it's pretty ridiculous right now. I'm sick and tired of mediocre players being able to faceroll over me (as a healer) so quickly. Many of these people display absolutely no concept of ability-timing, but they're still able to get the kill through mindless button mashing. I had one particularly ridiculous incident in Huttball a week or so ago; my team was awful (par for the course, but I can deal with it) so I was more or less farting around waiting for the Imperials to get the last couple scores to finish the game up. I got attacked by a single Sith Assassin, and decided to go ahead and duel it out. The fight basically consisted of panic-mode self healing from start to finish, and the only reason I didn't die was the game ending with his team's final score (I was at about 10% hp with no cooldowns, no consumables, etc...) And when I say panic-mode healing, I really do mean panic-mode; the only offensive ability I was able to spare a global cooldown for was Blaster Whip, and that was only because of the Upper-Hand proc. I pulled out all the stops...Dirty Kick every 30 seconds on the mark (unless he had resolve), Vanish -> Tranquilize when his CC break was on cooldown, faked out some interrupts, used a Warzone heal consumable, and even grabbed the speed boots to escape for a while and heal up - none of which would have been enough for me to actually stand the slightest chance of killing him. It should be quite difficult and time consuming for a lone dps player to kill a healer, otherwise there's no real point to playing a healer in PvP (if I can do nothing but heal myself until he kills me and immediately attacks someone else, why not respec and have a chance to 1v1 him down before helping out my teammates?) Killing a competent healer in good gear should require some modicum of playing ability, timing, and/or teamwork; currently all you need is semi-random button mashing and either an unbroken stun or a crit string (excepting those cases of multiple, guarded healers). Assuming there's no hint of upcoming nerfs to PvP damage output, I'll likely be canceling my account in the near future. I don't like being the, "Do it my way or I quit!!" guy, but current level 50 PvP is just not fun. At all. When I'm against a lot of really bad players then sure, I can survive for the entire game. But if the opposing team has one guy in good gear that could maintain >= 1650 Arena rating in WoW (which, for those people that never played WoW, required little more than a pulse and an active subscription), it becomes a game of, HP spike -> LOS and/or fake out an interrupt -> Heal -> Repeat until he gets a crit string and I die.

No. Wear DPS gear and hope there's a decent healer around. Using Guard and Taunts to protect said healer will provide your team with a force multiplier. That said, it's frustrating to play either a tank or a healer when you solo queue and find yourself on a team with hardly anyone worth guarding or healing. Still, that situation is less annoying as a tank, since you're still capable of doing a fair amount of damage.

Indeed. I've felt for a long time that damage output in this game is way too high for skill-based PvP to exist, and if anything it felt like it got worse this patch. Last night I took a 5,166 crit, which should never happen with current HP levels in PvP. Buffing Marauders/Sentinels was probably one of the worst MMO PvP decisions ever made. All of them that had an IQ over 45 were already one of the most dangerous things to be targeted by; now you're pretty much guaranteed to die if one happens to pick you out of the crowd with their Tab key. And that's with DOT cleansing. Facerolling being so successful for so many classes doesn't make for challenging PvP, it just makes things feel like a first person shooter where everyone has an aimbot. Killing a decent healer should require some effort, now just having 2 people target them and chain 2 stuns (and probably just need the first stun if their CC break is on cooldown). The only time that doesn't work is when there are multiple healers and Guard involved, at which point you'll need a third DPS available to chain an interrupt and CC on the second healer. The only reason it's possible for me to get 400k+ healing so often is that so many of the DPS players I find myself against are bads. Proportionally, though, my faction has more bads than the other guys, which is why it sucks to get such poor rewards so frequently (went 1-4 tonight before I rolled my eyes and logged off).

I feel you. It's kind of annoying to be either #1 healing or #1 damage (depending on character/spec) by a large margin, as well as complete some objectives with little-or-no help, only to get garbage rewards because your team fails hard. Personally, I think non-rated games should base individual rewards primarily on individual playing ability, rather than team performance. It's already hard enough to get the weeklies and dailies done as Republic on my server; at least let me get the commendations that I "earn" as an individual player who isn't terrible.

Yea, it sucks. It sucks even more that I wasn't paying attention to the 2k cap on Warzone comms and ended up throwing hundreds of them away when I was changing them back at the 1:1 ratio

Sawbones itself actually got improved this patch. Kolto Cloud in particular is more useful than it used to be, due both to the reduction in energy cost and more upfront healing. My only gripe so far is the removal of my giggle. The only audible signal we have now sounds like the very beginning of a tracer missile being started up, which makes me want to find a pillar rather than expend an Upper Hand proc. Still, it can be pretty frustrating to play a solo queueing healer. If the opposing team has some skilled DPS players and you don't have a tank helping you out, you'll be dying frequently and not making as much impact on the game as you would be if you were playing DPS yourself.

Lots of low-damage bads in that video. (The first song is also one of the most horrible things I've ever heard in my entire life - it's easily on the level of fingernails on a chalkboard or styrofoam squeaking) The hybrid Scoundrel/Operative specs are all inferior to deep Scrapper or deep Sawbones, unless of course your primary goal is to look good on a scoreboard. Even then, good teams will put a damper on the scoreboard showboaters since the HOTs won't be rolling against terrible damage all game.

I agree with the person above that suggested using Risha - once I got her she was basically the only companion I ever used (though I'm sure you'd be fine switching to Akaavi once you get her, if you prefer). Honestly, the tanking companions didn't/don't seem any less squishy than me, so I just healed myself and threw out a little damage while Risha melted things.

Yep. It's rage-inducing to get spammed with error messages on my followups to a Shoot First opener, only to see the person warp 15 meters in a random direction when they stand up after taking only one hit from me. Or to get broken out of stealth without even getting the opening hit because the game tells me I must be behind my target, when I clearly AM behind it (on my screen, at least). To answer the OP, no, there are no gameplay-related reasons to choose Scoundrel over Shadow for a pure dps character. You might like one storyline better than the other, but there's no way to know without either playing both or perhaps reading a bunch of spoilers. Don't get me wrong, a DPS spec'd Scoundrel is not a "bad" class (and I personally find the lack of a gap-closer less of an issue than many other players seem to, except perhaps on Huttball). It's just that it's inferior to the other melee damage classes, when looked at from the point of view of an organized team. 'Course, in those situations I also think that non-tank Shadows/Assassins are clearly inferior to Sentinels/Marauders, especially if they actually get buffed as per the 1.2 patch notes (which still dumbfounds me). I'd personally say that Vanguards and Powertechs are basically neck-and-neck with Sentinels and Marauders for most-overpowered melee class prior to the 1.2 patch, but I think Sentinels and Marauders will be the clear winners soon, if more changes aren't made before it gets pushed live. So if you really want stealth (which is nice, but honestly quite overrated), I'd advise going Shadow/Assassin. If you want the most effective melee class in the current stage of the game, go Sentinel/Marauder.

Have you tried Sawbones any? If so, what kind of heal-numbers are you seeing, specifically in PvP? (ie, is Kolto Cloud more than just a scoreboard-padding energy sink now?) Two sidenote comments: 1) I really wish players (and seemingly, Bioware as well) would stop blaming "healer invincibility" on healers themselves, rather than on a combination of Guard, Taunts, and bad dps players (ie, the people that have similar combat-uptime to me but do 170k damage to my 320k - despite my laziness seeing me in quite a bit of Field Medic gear with no mod optimizing). Sawbones survivability is quite terrible when you don't have guard (which is nearly always for me, since I typically solo queue); if they start nerfing that in order to counter the "invincible healer" complaints, it'll probably mean an account cancellation for me. 2) I absolutely cannot believe that they'd actually buff Sentinels/Marauders. What were/are they thinking?!?!!? That class needed nerfs, not buffs. God I hope the patch notes aren't final.

Some of the jackets and pants look fine, but the hats...yea...not digging 'em at all. I also dislike the "wrist spike" thing on the PvP gear - that'd honestly just get in the way.

Currently, Sage/Sorc is the best healer in the game, followed by Commando/Merc, with Scoundrel/Operative being a pretty distant third. Scoundrels and Operatives are the only ones that are truly crippled by a single interrupt, plus they have no utility and quite poor survivability (vanish is extremely easy for a number of classes to break and reduces all incoming/outgoing heals to 0% for 10 seconds if you're heal spec'd; the only other defensive CD is Defense Screen, which goes down almost immediately vs anyone with half-decent dps). Don't get me wrong, Scoundrels and Operatives have very good healing output if they're being ignored, but if the opposing team isn't full of bads, the class/spec honestly isn't very good - you're much better off being DPS spec'd. That said, there are supposedly some pretty big changes coming for Sage/Sorc and Scoundrel/Operative heal specs in 1.2, though all I've seen so far are rumors (if anyone knows of an official list of changes for healers, I'd appreciate a link). If it's true that Sages can no longer get a "free" Noble Sacrifice, or a <= 1.5 sec cast time on the biggest heal, then those are some pretty substantial nerfs to the class for PvP. In fact, if damage doesn't see some (sizable) simultaneous nerfs - pretty much across the board for all classes - I'd say that it'll make solo queueing as a healer pretty pointless. It's already pretty frustrating to do now, but with those nerfs and no guarantee that you'll have Guard, Taunts, or peels of any kind, healer lifespan will be quite bad for more than just Scoundrels and Operatives.

All that utility is wonderful until some Powertech/Vanguard 5-GCDs your ball carrier (or his/her healer). You have better burst than an Operative or Scoundrel, don't need to initiate combat from stealth in order to achieve that burst, can do the lion's share of it from 10m (meaning you have a chance to do some amount of kiting against melee players - Op/Scoundrel can't), and have better utility than they do (since Op/Scoundrel has, you know, none). Oh and in rated games your damage-reduction bubble will be quite superior to vanish as a defensive cooldown (and it's already light years ahead of Defense Screen). Plus you conveniently left out the utility of taunts and guard - things which are absolutely essential for healers and ball carriers (and useful for others as well, obviously). Do you lose damage by switching to Ion Energy Cell (and whatever the Imperial counterpart is called)? Not a particularly noticeable amount, to be honest. And if you're running the really popular hybrid tank/burst spec, you'll have that cell loaded anyway. If you think Pyro/Assault Specialist damage isn't totally broken in the current state of the game, you're delusional. Personally, I think most of you realize how overpowered it is (you certainly do if you've played other classes, anyway), but are just drumming up whatever sophistry you can think of in order to try and avoid being nerfed.

As I understand it, the class changes for 1.2 haven't been officially announced anywhere, and the information that everyone is going on is based off of second or third hand accounts that may or may not even be accurate. Therefore, I'm hoping at least some of it is incorrect and/or incomplete information, since Sentinels and Marauders absolutely do not need buffs.

If there's any class/spec in the game that needs a nerf - this is it. The burst damage kind of reminds me of what I was able to do with a Frost Spec'd DK in WoW a couple years ago, except even that required more lucky RNG than Pyrotech/Assault Specialist does. There's one Pyrotech in particular on my server that has literally unhealable damage, and routinely bursts people down in a tiny handful of GCDs - the spec is totally broken. In fact, I don't think it's too much hyperbole to say that it's one of the most overpowered specs in the history of MMORPG PvP; it requires 0 skill to be extremely potent with, and really is the epitome of faceroll. 'Course, buffing Sentinels/Marauders is still incredibly silly. Their burst damage is only slightly less ridiculous than Pyro/A. Specialist, and they don't really suffer the same (potential for) energy cell/heat problems. Lastly, I gotta give the OP some props for recognizing that the burst damage needs a nerf, and not just joining the, "OMG WE'RE GETTING NERFED INTO THE GROUND I QUIT!!!!" crowd of bads.

As someone who usually queues solo, and almost never queues with more than 1 other person - your idea is terrible. Why should I be penalized because my team is full of bads (including most of the 4-man premades that I occasionally see on the Republic side)? I can guarantee that I'd have canceled my subscription quite quickly if I were to lose credits/valor/etc...after losing a match.

I certainly agree with the OP, and made my own thread about the issue a while back. Scoundrel/Operative healers are absolute garbage when compared to their Sage/Sorcerer and Commando/Mercenary counterparts. I intended right from the get-go to play my Scoundrel as a healer in PvP, but for now I've respec'd Scrapper and use the Sage alt as my healer. Scoundrels and Operatives have pretty bad survivability in any spec, but it's probably worse as Sawbones (healing) than it is as Scrapper (LOLBURST). When I'm LOLBURST spec'd I actually stand a chance at killing whoever it is that's attacking me, plus I can vanish to escape bads (who usually still have Battlemaster because they're Imperials that hold Ilum 24/7) more often. And if that vanish gets broken I can still potentially LOS -> Heal, whereas I can't as Sawbones. My Sage can escape from situations where my Scoundrel just gets dumped on and dies with no chance whatsoever of surviving. Being able to remove every melee snare except for that of Scoundrels/Operatives (who are the least common melee class, and are also able to remove the snare of Scoundrel/Operative healers) is phenomenal. 'Course, that's not the only advantage Sages and Sorcerers have when it comes to healing: Force Speed, knockbacks (even more useful in Huttball), multiple cast-time heals with good hp-return to fall back on after an interrupt, a ranged stun, ranged snare, ranged interrupt, sizable bubble that can be reapplied every 17 seconds, and a vastly superior AOE heal that also doesn't suffer the same target limitation as Kolto Cloud.

Your reading comprehension is really bad, just FYI. And if that spec had such horrible damage and a 5k crit every 15 seconds was so totally worthless, you wouldn't have Rage spec'd Juggernauts in the top couple damage spots on the scoreboard with such regularity. But that's beside the point. It's not all a gear thing, either. My Scoundrel (LOL @ the people that claim Scrapper/Concealment was nerfed into being "useless") can take down almost anyone quite quickly, including Battlemasters. And that's in all Field Medic gear, btw (since most of my time on the class has been spent in a healing spec). There isn't the same single-target damage output available to my Sage, but his is hardly weak (people who claim that Lightning/Pebble spam + instant procs is "weak" - and I see that a lot - are big fat liars). Sage survivability, especially when heal spec'd, is drastically superior to that of my Scoundrel, but that doesn't mean that it isn't really bad when someone with a brain and a stun (or two) targets you. I have a Scoundrel, I should know.

Asking for my own characters to be nerfed in order to allow more room for skill in PvP is crying? See this is why I need your newsletter so bad. I wasn't aware that SWTOR's PvP was based on skill; all this time I've been thinking that it was based on facerolling out a lot of damage in a short amount of time, since that's what I've been doing to stomp all over people when I'm spec'd DPS. I mean seriously, I jumped a Sorc earlier on my Scoundrel, and killed him even though I got shafted with a string of "out of range" errors after my Shoot First, only to see him warp about 10m away when he stood up. Damage is simply too high, and it's detrimental to skill-based PvP. Period, end of story.

Oh man what a great rebuttal. Do you have a newsletter I could subscribe to?

I see that some people seem to have a hard time with reading comprehension, so I'll say it again, JUGGERNAUTS/GUARDIANS ARE NOT THE ONLY CLASS WITH BROKENLY HIGH DAMAGE. No, it's not OK. Considering current HP levels in PvP, there should be no attack in the game that hits for 5k under any circumstances whatsoever. Burst damage is one thing, but 5k in a single hit every ~15 seconds is just plain silly. Also, you do realize that not every fight is a 1v1, right? In fact, the specific case of the 5,277 crit that I mentioned in the OP happened right after he leaped to me for the first time (because I was healing teammates). That wasn't the only time that he landed a ~5k crit, either; they happened quite frequently. Which is probably why that particular player is routinely in the top 1-3 slots for damage done in almost every single game I see him in (occasionally beaten out by AOE-spamming hybrid Sorcs or Sages). But yea their damage is GARBAGE right? And since we have so many, "LOL just avoid his one big hit" professional gamers in this thread, I'd like to request that you guys write some guides for everyone else on my server, and tell them how to avoid my Sage and Scoundrel damage. 'Cause once again, this ain't just about Juggernauts and Guardians, that was simply ONE EXAMPLE. Nerf my Scoundrel's damage (though the class needs some utility/survivability buffs, and the healing tree especially needs some lovin'). Nerf my Sage's damage (and probably healing too, especially once damage gets brought down to a level where skill actually matters a bit more). Nerf virtually every other class/spec's damage as well, with perhaps a couple exceptions. It's pretty dumb when keyboard turners drop someone from 100% to ~30% inside of one non-trinketed stun, all by themselves.

So doing "only" 1/3 of a health bar on someone in average'ish non-Battlemaster (screw you Ilum) gear with a single hit is totally OK? LOL And stop lying about them not doing damage outside of that one big hit. I've heard that other times on the forums, and it's a big fat lie. Besides like I said in the OP, THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT JUGGERNAUTS/GUARDIANS, that was just one example. Both of my level 50's, with no battlemaster gear whatsoever, can do too much damage when spec'd for it. One guarded healer isn't a big deal unless your team is awful. More than one can be problematic for PUGs, but with proper target switching and CC chaining, it's certainly doable. And in games where you don't have multiple guarded healers (which is almost every single game I've ever played in on both characters), damage is completely broken. People in "decent" gear shouldn't be getting rolled as fast as they are now. I think it's hilarious when I'm 1v1'ing another Sage/Sorc, and they never once cleanse my DOTs, but instead just stand there like a turret spamming Force Lightning over and over and over (only breaking to recast their bubble or throw out an instant proc). If they start to lose they'll either Force Speed away in a straight line, or stand there in my face trying to heal. Yet those bads still get 900+ damage Lightning crit ticks. It's just silly.

See title. Getting hit for 5,277 by a Juggernaut is simply ludicrous at current HP levels (healing spec'd Sage with all Cent/Champ except for implants; 508 expertise, 2% damage reduction from skill points). And no, it's not just Juggernauts and it's not just me being mad about dying. I have a Sage and Scoundrel both at level 50 (Scoundrel is a little more geared than the Sage), and I've played both in DPS specs, and yes - both do too much damage. The time-to-kill in this game is really ruining PvP, and it needs to be changed as soon as possible (though this will necessitate nerfs to guard and healing; especially Sage/Sorc and Commando/BH healing). It's hard for there to be any room for skill when two decent players in decent gear can focus someone down as quickly as they can now, and with some classes (ie, the Juggernaut mentioned above) you don't need two players and you don't need to be decent. Seriously, my Telekenetic Throw can tick for 800+ on crits against light/medium armor players, and currently I have 0 points in skills that buff it. This PvP is starting to feel like it did in WoW in mid-late 2009, which was when I quit that game. I don't like to be the "do as I say or I'm quitting" guy, but any MMO that wants my subscription for any length of time simply must have "decent" PvP in it, and that means that my lifespan must be longer than that of an Ethiopian chicken, once I'm in decent gear and not getting zerged. I don't want to get too long winded with specific suggestions, and I'm not familiar enough with all classes yet to get into the nitty gritty, but (almost) every class needs a damage nerf right now, so maybe a blanket -20% in Warzones would be decent for a short term bandaid? (and cut Guard to maybe 25-30%?) Killing people in a decent team should require interrupts, positioning, and CC, not targeting someone and spamming a few damage skills over and over.

For all I know you're talking about me, since within the past week or so I've been told I was "impossible" to kill. I didn't want to be rude, but the only reason that he/they couldn't kill me is that they apparently didn't know how. Killing Operative and Scoundrel healers on either of my characters in a DPS spec is relatively trivial. The other two healers are far more survivable...like, it's not even really comparable. TROLLOLOLOLOLOL I've already said it several times, but I guess I need to reiterate...When I'm in a game against a team of bads - yea I come out looking like some kind of god-class that needs a nerf. That happens when I rarely get targeted, and all I need to do to get myself un-targeted is dirty kick and run around a pillar. In games with players who actually know what they're doing, that doesn't work. When that happens (which is almost always), I spend the entire game doing nothing but panic-style self healing and hoping I can get out of LOS long enough to cast an Underworld Medicine so that I can stay alive a few more seconds (and if I get unlucky on Upper Hand procs from HOTs, I can forget it).