A real ranked system would have some sort of external mechanism for judging ranks based on your team composition, their current ranks, and your opponents ranks. There would be an algorithm to determine how much your rank goes up or down depending on who you beat or who you lost to and what your ranks were compared to their own. Doing it by valor rank is just wrong, as I've seen plenty of Battlemasters who just aren't very good, and plenty of valor 30-40 players who are very good.

This guy has it right. If I pop my relic and adrenal simultaneously and have the sweep build up completely, geared players with expertise rarely take over 5k damage. Without the relic/adrenal buffs, my typical hits are 3500-4000. And yes, it's incredibly easy for people to avoid. I have tricks, of course, including using the sweep at 3 stacks, which sacrifices some damage to avoid an inevitable knockback, or getting 4 stacks, waiting for knockback, then leaping and using it, but smart players are able to avoid it often, not to mention the fact that the client/server sync frequently thinks im standing on top of someone, only for me to find out a moment later that apparently I wasn't, and my sweep just hit nothing. Show me another burst combo that has these problems.

And you shouldn't be able to. If all damage in the game was non-burst, nobody would ever die with a good healer at their side. Burst damage is the counter to heals. It sounds to me like you just want all DPS to be consistent and predictable so you can keep your teammates alive without worry. This does not a fun game make. Why aren't you complaining about the burst potential of Vanguard/PT Plastique + Bolt crits? It does as much if not more damage in the same time frame as a Force Sweep and is easier to hit. DPS specc'ed Assassins/Shadows can pull bursts just as big if not bigger, as can Sniper/GS, Commando/Merc, and in many cases Scoundrel/OP post nerf. With the exception of Commando/Merc, most of these bursts don't require a buildup, perfect positioning and avoidance of CC/Lag like the Guardian/Jugg burst does. The game you're suggesting in which no one has burst that can outdo heals would be mind-numbingly dull for anyone but healers. They're already able to keep players up through burst damage (the good ones, anyway), so why make them infinitely better by dumbing down all DPS across the board to be nice and steady?

In large scale (read: Ilum) PvP, yes, we are useless. The only thing we can really do is leap into a group, throw off an AOE, and die. It's utterly impossible to leap into a group and Force Push somebody back towards our team, because as soon as I Force Leap, my FPS goes to near-zero. By the time I see a frame on my screen, I'm already dead. All I can do in these fights is lightsaber throw when it's off cooldown, attack people that are pulled in, or leap in, spam Force Sweep, pray it goes off in time, and die.

This skill was already hit with the surge nerf. There are also other skills in the rotation that do damage. This is not the only ability you need to win. I assure you that I can kill people just fine with a Vigilance spec (which is as you like.. multiple attacks instead of a buildup), it's just not as flashy, so people don't complain about it. I can also kill people just fine without even using Force Sweep in Focus spec. Force Exhaustion is a good DoT, force ability crits in general do a lot of damage. Force Leap + Blade Storm + Force Push + Force Leap + Force Exhaustion + Zealous Leap + Blade Storm + Force Stasis + Master Strike (not always necessarily in that order) does a lot of damage. Is that a good enough combo for you?

Thank you sir, for doing this. Made my morning.

Not a clue. Seems he is complaining about something that recently changed his PvP experience gain? I don't know what it could be. Care to enlighten us, OP?

This change just flat out makes no sense. I fail to see how allowing purchasing of 20/40 PvP gear prior to those levels was in any way affecting the game negatively. Why even take the time and effort to make this change? It's almost as if they just want us to have more things to complain about.

Anyone who says "I do it because it's fun" is missing the point. I do it because it's fun too, but 99% of the population doesn't. They're going to go to warzones, they're going to go to Ilum, because people want the progression thanks to the WoW mindset. Very few people are actually going to go out and seek out PvP just for the sake of it anymore. Players just no longer have that mentality. They want rewards, if they don't get them in open PvP, they simply won't do it. This is why the people who actually like it have such a hard time finding it. Aside from Voss, I rarely if ever found any open world PvP in my levelling, and have searched far and wide for it at 50. It's just not happening. If Bioware chooses to give rewards on Ilum and in Warzones, they also need to give rewards in open PvP, or people simply won't do it. To the handful of people saying they do it just for the sake of enjoyment, I applaud you, but there aren't enough of you to make it something that happens consistently in an entertaining way.

There are diminishing returns on Expertise, as there are with any stat. I don't think there is a hard cap on any stat in the game, at least not one that has been reached or found. There's a good post on this blog about expertise that includes an interactive graph.

I like that solution, probably because it's as close as resolve can get to simply being diminishing returns. It's the same principle of "the more you're CC'ed, the shorter the duration". While I would prefer this type of system over the current "all or nothing" implementation, I have a feeling resolve isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

True, but I don't think it's even remotely fair to withhold changes or balance the game around Huttball. Huttball is - at best - a minigame. The majority of PvP involves killing, not being killed, defending and capturing points. Even on Ilum where nobody does any objectives, killing is the point. For Alderaan, Voidstar, Ilum, and general PvP, added immunity would be a welcome change. Choosing not to implement something for the sole purpose of keeping Huttball under control is silly. In all honesty, it wouldn't even make that much difference. Since every class would have it on both sides, it would simply make it a bit easier for both teams to score. Balance is still maintained, the nature of the game just changes a bit.

It's not always that simple. If you're trying to defend a point you don't usually have the luxury of waiting for full resolve. By that point, it's entirely possible that the other team has already captured it.

I've already seen several nerf threads targeting Marauders and Sentinels. There just aren't a ton of good players of these classes, so people haven't starting posting in droves yet. Just wait. Once more people start getting good with those AC's and realizing their potential, you'll see the wave of complaints drowning out everything else on this forum.

I'm sure I will have disagreement on this, but if the resolve system (which I believe is poor) is going to be kept in the game rather than implementing a tried and true diminishing return system, the CC break that every class receives needs to be improved. Most people agree that there is just too much CC in this game in general - not pointing to any specific class - and it often ruins the fun of PvP. If resolve is here to stay, the global CC break skill should also give a reasonable (3-5 second) immunity to further CC. Given that it is on a fairly long timer relative to the amount and frequency of CC, and resolve is a broken system, players should be able to have at least a brief period in which they can be sure they're not going to lose control of their character again after removing their current debuff. As it stands, it's far too common to use your CC breaker and immediately be CC'ed again by the same player or another player. I'm sure some players like this, but I believe the majority do not find it enjoyable when you spend a large percentage of time in PvP without control of your character. Even if they choose to make this immunity apply only to "hard" CC (stuns, incapacitates) and not "soft" (movement impairing effects), it would still be a welcome change.

Yes, it's annoying, but it's not gamebreaking. That said, as much as I'd like them to work on other, bigger problems first, this seems like such an easy fix it should have been put in one of the smaller patches by now.

Also, she is voiced by Moira Quirk. If you're old enough to remember Global Guts on Nickelodeon, she was the referee. Apparently she's taken to doing video game voices as a career.

All servers are not created equal. Argument invalid.

I do play my Guardian more often, but only because he's 50 and my Sentinel is not. I can't make specific comments on the end-game PvP of the Sentinel class, but based on feedback from my guild members who play them, and the good Marauders I routinely fight against, the class is better than fine. It is possible to win 1v2's on a Guardian. It's not easy, but should this really be easy or possible for any class? If a class can routinely win a 1v2 without using a long duration CC, there's a problem somewhere. I find that my best "out" is the same as my "in". Force Leaping away from a group targeting you to a safer target that is on the outskirts of the battle has given me ample time for healers to pick my health up a bit, and sometimes nets me another kill before I go down. Guardian Leap also works well for escaping as it doesn't put you in harm's way again. I do die a lot. I expect that as a melee class. Yes, my job is to get in there, disrupt people, do as much damage as possible, and then get back in there after the respawn and do it again. If I have a healer on me, I'm not going to die much if at all, and then the class becomes a serious annoyance to their entire team. I really don't see anything wrong with the Guardian AC. I've never felt like I needed a buff. The cooldown reset on Force Push a few patches back was a welcome addition, but again, I didn't think it was really needed. I can swap between guarding and full DPS in warzones when I please, instantly and without cost. Enure is better than people think it is. I survive just as long as any other DPS class, the only difference is I die more because I'm constantly in the middle of the fight. There's no getting around that. These are the woes of melee.

Anyone with Force Leap can jump across if there is an idiotic opponent standing in the right place on the center platform. Also, anyone with Force Speed (if they know how to do it) can jump the gap.

Anybody who says they're not impressed with 950,000 damage is either jealous or full of ****. Show me your screenshots of your character doing that much. Maybe this will prevent a few Sage/Sorcerers complaining about their damage. Either way, good job.

Very well written, and it makes Ilum sound like a lot of fun, but I have to entirely disagree with this: I don't know what the behavior / population balance is like on your server, but on mine it's typically 20-30 pubs and 70-80 imps. The imps will always be in one big group. They either sit at mid and farm armaments, or they sit on the bridge near our speeder because that's where everybody "fights". We've organized groups to take points before. The zerg does not follow us. If we're taking points they're just sitting at mid slowly gathering armaments. On a few rare occasions the zerg has followed us, and again, they're all together, so when they find us, we're dead in an instant. It's near impossible to try to execute guerilla tactics on a larger enemy force when the majority of your group is pulling 5-10 FPS. If we do attempt to organize any kind of attack, all strategy becomes moot as it is literally impossible for 25 people to make a dent in three times as many. The best we can hope for is to run around the zone trying to pick off stragglers, which works once or twice, and then there are no more. They're always together. There is literally nothing we can do. So while this all sounds very nice and rosy, in reality (at least on servers like mine) it will never happen. It's the same every day. 70 Imperials sitting in one place with Republic having no chance whatsoever. The only way people are able to complete their daily/weekly is by sitting in a group across the bridge by the speeder and periodically pulling someone over while 40 lightning AOE's prevent any forward progress. Trust me, I would love to experience the fun that it seems you are having here, but it's just not happening. No amount of strategy is going to overcome 3:1 odds on Ilum, because when a fight does break out, the lag ensures that it will just be a button mashing slideshow, and tactics go out the window. The larger force wins with ease. We've tried it, we can't do it. Not a chance. The only time we've ever had decent fights is in the wee hours of the night when there just aren't enough people on to zerg us, and frankly most of my guild doesn't play during those times, so it's kind of useless.

No problem... I'm not in the game to verify, just wanted to make a note of it. It's either 20 or 30.

Knights are very viable in PvP. Sentinels tear things to shreds, and my Guardian is versatile and able to prevent damage, take damage and deal significant damage. They don't need to be toyed with or we'll end up with overpowered FOTM classes. I have no complaints about the capability of my class.

I'm fairly sure that my Guardian Leap has a 20 second cooldown.