Funny you should mention those skills, because that's actually what we're talking about...

Welcome to 3.0, where Full Retard now has 25% more damage, 15% more crit and 30% more surge. Of course it's not the optimal method for clearing all flashpoints and all planets from 15-50, but it now actually works. 3.0 has fully enabled the one button gaming. That's retarded.

I think the Utility Tree concept is great. I think it's implementation took more away from Mercenaries than it gave to other advanced classes and I'd like to see some changes. Gyroscopic Alignment Jets: Minor quibble, just needs renaming to Gyroscopic Alignment Vents. Improved Vents: lower the cooldown instead of venting 15 more? Power Barrier: Damage reduction is free with other DPS specs. Can we have 10% for the effort? Do I hear 8% for four stacks? It's -not- free and I -do- need to cast immobile interuptable skills to get it working... Jet Escape: rename to Afterburners, see below. Can we have a speed buff on Jet Boost instead of Afterburners? Afterburners: Rocket Punch should be Powertech only, a Merc has her hands full! Custom Enviro Suit: Seemed like a good choice before the off-heals were stripped. Boresights: aka "Boring Fights". 0cd aoes constant single button spamming ruins the game. DFA cdr please. Torque Boosters: It would be so nice if we just had a tiny 25% speed buff to go with it... Suit Foreign Object Excisor: I like the idea, just doesn't seem to help. Cleanse Force/Mind instead? 50%? Protective Field: Would be a pretty decent skill pre-3.0, but now the dps specs have terrible healing... Pyro Shield: I never tried it. Heat Dampening: Less heat spent on emergency skills sounds good, but I don't know anyone who uses it. Infrared Sensors: Stealth Scan? Is that like Sweeping Gunfire but without the damage? Energy Rebounder: Has a class ever been so dependant on one utility? Jet Rebounder: I'd love to see Jet Rebounder as a Masterful skill. 30% damage? no. 30% more slow? yes! Kolto Jets: Why is a sorc getting this for Skillful and it's on my Heroic list? It could be so handy! ** Thrill Of The Hunt: Pretty much Arsenal only and very much essential too. Shouldn't it be on the Discipline Path? Stabilized Armour: I remember seeing this and thinking "maybe I won't be the primary target anymore?" Super Charged Reserves: How about we reduce the cooldowns a lot more and forget Supercharge stacks? Power Overrides: I remember it was really handy for Arsenal before Priming Shot and before the off-heals got such huge cooldowns. * Slapping a guy with your pistol is cool, 'a dragon punch with a gun in your hand' is not cool. Stunning a guy in the nuts at point blank range is cool. Rooting a guy who can throw three lightsabers at you and then jump on you isn't cool. ** Also worth noting that since Merc DPS lost Kolto Missile, Sorc dps gained Overcharge heal. I think that a combination of Kolto Jets and Jet Rebounder could make mercs an interesting off-healer again without requesting Kolto Missile. No one is going to want take Kolto Jets and Jet Rebounder because they need to take Thrill of the Hunt and Energy Rebounder.

maybe this needs it's own thread... I would like to say that knowing where you opponent's aoes are landing is important, but the pve aoe warnings are gaudy enough, we don't need the huge Imp/Rep signs and I'd like the option to turn them off or to change them to pve markers. The huttball marker is great, for example.

e.g. Force Storm, Sweeping Gunfire, Flame Sweep, Kung Fu Saber Spin, et al. TLDR; I think that adding +25% damage to 0cd AOE skills have totally killed any fun there was playing PvE pre-endgame. I'd like to see the skills themselves removed/repurposed. Force Storm could be an epic Offensive Coolddown like Death From Above and Orbital Strike, and Flamesweep would make a really cool proc for Flame Burst. Since 3.0 left Mercenaries behind and since I'm primarily Pvp focused and I want to solo queue, I've been grinding out a Powertech. Flashpoints and Pvp only. I've just hit 52 this afterrnoon, so I've done a lot of PUGs. I just got through another flashpoint with a group where both DPS just spammed 0cd AOE for the whole Flashpoint, and other than the occasional Static Shield and Resurge, I swear the healer was just spamming 0cd AOE against single targets too. The Merc never used Death From Above and the Sniper never used Orbital Strike. I asked the Sniper about this, and he said he was eating his dinner while playing. Force Storm is an amazing skill, really epic animation and effects. Visually is it as good, if not better than Death From Above and Oribtal Strike? Wouldn't it make a really good offensive cooldown skill? Flame Sweep is pretty cool. It's not that cool when you're doing it all the time, because nevermind, all the npcs will be dead before I run out of heat anyway. I'm pretty condfident though, that Flame Sweep would make a really cool proc for Flame Burst. Let's say when the you skip the light fandango or turn cartwheels on the floor, you gain a stack of Flame Sweep that makes the next Flame Burst effect everyone in the area (like how backstab has a special animation coming out of stealth). Or maybe it's an additional effect of Flame Barrage... I'd say the same for Thrash and Kung Fu Saber Spin, but I don't play Tank'sins enough to know anything other than they already have incredible aoe. When I played Merc I never felt the need for more aoe, but that was before Fusion Missile became pyro-only. Since I'm attacking the 0skill 0cd AOEs anyway, can we get an option to turn down the overwhelming AOE Ground Targeterers? Just a simple circle or the enemy npc aoe attack marker or the Hutball landing spot would be nice. Not sure I ever need to see the offensive friendly aoe attack area either. Ever, actually. Flamesweep doesn't need one, why does Sweeping Gunfire?

You had me at 'Marauder'.

Superfast Hydraulic Override and Carbonize can get you out of a lot of bad situations though...

Isn't that the reason why everyone wants to see Mercs get an escape/force target switch:rak_02:?

I've been playing Arsenal Mercenary. As a DPS with a 20% bonus to Kolto Missile and a handful of points in Bodyguard, I felt like I had my niche. Now I've got an instant heal every 20s (which I have to save for myself) instead of an aoe heal every few seconds, I don't off-healer at all anymore*. I also feel like the talent system has taken a lot out of my class, it seems a lot of what I took for granted is now considered a Heroic Talent, and the 'New Skills' were false promises. Priming Shot and Supercharge feel more like 'extra buttons' than extra abilities and Thrill of the Hunt looks weird and unfinished... 3.0 seems to have taken utility away from the class that I was already having a hard time justifying ... * On the flip-side my daughter's dps is still throwing Static Sheilds about and now she can back them up with Resurgence and Overcharge... between that and being able to throw out TWO Lightning Strikes and a Chain Lightning whenever she uses Force Speed, she's over the moon.

Would it be too far fetched to expect Rocket Jump to simply act like Hightail It? But there are plenty of threads about "Dodge From Above" and Troopers would get some sort of Riot Shield equivalent skills in the Merc forum.

Either there should not be an unranked queue for 60s, or there should not be a solo ranked queue. 4v4 format should definitely only be for group ranked play either way. Bolster certainly shouldn't be in Ranked play. But I'm pretty sure EA doesn't give a flying ****, so let's go back to moaning about Merc's lack of Escapes. When 3.0 hit I went back to playing my Gunslinger. I have a root component on my knockback, a 35m root, immunity to leap/pull, crazy good ranged defences, an instant aoe mez, and I can outrun Mercs by ROFLing. Have you heard about the Dodge during Cover? Mercs are so much worse off than Snipers. Jet boost is the worst knockback without spending Heroic points. Rocket Punch is the most misplaced root in the game. Electro-Net is your only protection against Leap . Concussion is designed for pve, obviously. Hydraulic Override isn't bad... Where are you going? Roll and snipe beats run and gun hands down, and no more crappy Thrill of the Hunt animations!

Maybe armour needs a buff? Three years...

They can't tell you're healing when they're burning you down either

I always found Kolto Missile to be a very handy off heal simply because you could maintain your focus target while you apply it to your allies. Not just because you aim it as a ground target, but because you could double tap the skill in while targeted on your opponent in order to heal your allies who are in melee with that target. All in all, a very clever little off-heal indeed. I do agree that the instant heal is a very good addition to the DPS Merc kit, but it's certainly not a viable replacement for Kolto Missile. Certainly not considering DPS Sorcs are running around with Static+Resurge.