I'm also at this level range and don't have too much difficulty with melee, so long as I have at least some of my cc skills on cooldown. If I see them moving towards me, I will always start with a Shatter Shot (it lasts 45s which will be the entire fight) and then Leg Shot. If they are too close for me to set those two up, I will Cover Pulse first and then apply those two skills. While they are pushed back and rooted, I'll use Explosive Probe and then Series of Shots (it seems like most damaging attacks will immediately break root even though we are supposed to get 2s of free damage, so that's why I use Explosive Probe at that point; this could be the result of ability delay though). If I have Debilitate up, I'll use it as they close in (followed by Shiv, of course, for the instant damage), if not, then I'll use Flashbang. Once stunned, I'll move (resetting ballistic dampeners), cast Laze Target, instant Snipe, Followthrough, and begin Ambush for the pushback. Once pushed back again, I'll Leg Shot again (which should be off cooldown if they are left in cc for full duration). At this point I'll use Rapid Fire/Series of Shots(x2), or Snipe x2 and Followthrough (should be off cooldown). Once they are at 30%, I'll use Takedown and either Snipe/Followthrough or Ambush/Followthrough depending upon what is up. If at any point they close in and I cannot push them away, I will use Evasion and reset my Cover to get ballistic dampers again, and then use Diversion with my Shield Probe. Diversion along with Shield Probe means they should be doing rather weak damage for 9s. This should give you enough time for Cover Pulse to recharge, or to Leg Shot and move away (to once again get ballistic dampers). Also, if Shiv is on cooldown and they are on me, I will use it (it's relatively decent instant damage, especially if it crits). You also have Ballistic Shield if you feel you need the extra protection. Also, if you are biochem, might as well use your medkits, too. P.S. Don't forget your surge/power trinkets.

I'm only going to cover MM, as it's what I've focused on mainly, and feel needs help (especially at 50 endgame). General: Cover's defense should protect from all damage types, not just against other snipers. If you are going to force a class to become an immobile target to do respectable damage, they need to be given some benefit, or else there's no reason why they shouldn't just roll a mobile class which does equal, if not better, "mobile" damage. (Granted we cannot be interrupted (not my biggest concern as a sniper), and we cannot be pulled (this is relatively useful).) There are four things I would like to see added to Cover: 1.) A passive armor penetration (~25%), 2.) A 10-20% defense against "all" attacks, 3.) A 10m increase in range, and 4.) Allow us to go invisible while out of combat (and remove the awful blinking lights that scream, "Come kill me, please!") Skills: I would love to see Rapid Fire turned into something useful. The other two trees get new skills on a 15s and 18s cooldown. We get to reset a skill w/ a 15s cooldown on a 1.5 minute timer... come on, seriously? I would be happy with a passive 25% armor penetration as the 31 talent skill, but I really think that should be applied when we are in cover. I would also like to see Cover Screen become a 6s mini-absorption shield. Reactive Shot is a bit weak for a 2 point talent skill. I'd settle for either a flat reduction to Ambush's cooldown, if the cooldown was reduced by "x" amount for any critical, or a flat reduction in cast time. Sniper Volley is the only other skill I find not worthy of talent points (especially 3 of them). This could also be a potential area for MM to have their much needed armor penetration (~5, 10, 15%). Or, this could be a skill that could make using the energy draining Overload Shot more lucrative than using a normal (energy free) shot (e.g., reduce energy by 3, 6, 9.) Or, this could be a 33%, 66%, 100% that dropping into Cover removes movement impairing effects. Or, this could reduce Distraction cooldown and increase penalty for being interrupted by 1/2/3 seconds. Abilities: Make Laze Target apply to any damaging skill. Evasion should be a 3sec immunity vs. all. Distraction should apply a more severe penalty to interrupted skills or we should have a way to reduce it's cooldown.

I doubt many full time workers, with real life concerns were 50 less than two weeks after launch. At that point, just about every other warzone was 50's on my server, and in pvp gear no less (of course, all imperial).

Bit of a letdown, considering I've been waiting about 2-weeks to actually pvp again. Warzones on my server have been nothing but 50 facerolling for the past two weeks. Got to love the unemployed, basement dwellers. /sigh

I also wondered why lower levels didn't have access to expertise. Expertise is only available on mid30+ weapons until 50. If they actually made expertise available on all pvp gear and have it scale in warfronts, then there wouldn't be a huge disparity between levels. Granted 50's would have access to more skills and spec points, but that's going to happen when you have a 10 vs. 49, too. A 50 might have access to slightly better gear, but I can't imagine it would be as huge of a disparity as we are seeing now. Oh well, I'm patiently waiting for the brackets since my server is dominated by 50's in decked out gear (i.e., not a lot of fun pre-50 atm).

+1 support (I was hoping pvp mods were on some remote vendor I had yet to discover. )

Not sure how anyone could rationalize that as a "reasonable" strategy. There's a reason why the scoundrel cannot do those activities while stealthed. It's lazy code that doesn't check for these activities on group members, and then keep those performing those activities unstealthed. It's a bug (of course, unless the devs are too lazy to correct the issue, then it's intended).

My only real complaint is that I've also experienced the inability to fire off skills while under portable cover. Many times I've noticed that I have to repeatedly use my Cover Pulse hotkey to get it to work. The same thing happens with Evasion. I don't believe there's a skill out there to "silence" us while under cover, so I'm at a loss as to why this happens randomly. Beyond that, I'm not too annoyed by being rooted to deal damage; other classes have to deal with the same issue. The only real annoyance is losing Entrench when we have to move. It would be nice if it was a buff that lasted 20s but only went into effect when we were behind a bunker. This would at least allow us to re-position ourselves, since most people just LOS us when they see our huge bunker slide into view.

There will be brackets (I believe only a level 50 bracket has been mentioned). Also, the most troublesome high-level players are the level 50's with PvP gear (you'll know when you encounter one; it's that obvious).

Sadly, I get the same bug. I'm not sure what initiates it, but I've noticed whenever I "immediately" get a WZ popup after queuing that it is most likely a bugged queue. I then re-queue until I have to wait. This seems to help me avoid that bug.

Honestly, they should be capitalizing on the possibilities provided by oPvP to keep such individuals entertained. While WZ are great, they can become very repetitive and lack-luster (oh joy, another Hutball match ).

I read a post from a dev that had mentioned that there was some promising oPvP areas that were not really discovered in the beta (think this was on the old forums). Any chance someone might know what this refers to. Sadly, the general consensus has been that oPvP is rather unexciting.

They could try to implement something along the lines of what was done in League of Legends - remaining within a range of a defendable objective garners points for time spent in area. This should be properly rewarded so as to be competitive with going out and killing (WZ-specific objectives (defending/capping/scoring) should be the most heavily rewarded tasks). The sad fact of the matter is that they need to greatly adjust the way in which rewards are earned. With that said, someone who is actively attacking a node to take it over needs to be rewarded more greatly than someone defending and doing nothing (if they are defending from attackers then it becomes "much" more lucrative than attacking a node imho, or else you'll encourage constant node swapping). This will be a fine balancing act that BW will need to test heavily on. If proper reward objectives are set per class/role this should eliminate a lot of the possible exploits (BW will need to test them out heavily). BW really needs to be forthcoming with admitting they have a problem, and discussing possible solutions among the community. Sadly, I think a lot of good suggestions will just fall on deaf ears unless they explicitly request feedback/testing on the issue. With regards to the "team" reward, if your team plays properly, then I would anticipate that the entire team would benefit by gaining a lot more rewards then if they failed. I don't believe in giving a flat team-winning-reward as that has been shown to promote AFK reward leaching. I wouldn't compare PvP with RL sports. In RL sports if someone is performing poorly they simply aren't allowed to play or they are booted. The only way to get around this in PvP is to have a premade queue, which allows you direct control over who is on your team. Since not everyone is in a premade team, the alternative approach is to base performance on an individual basis and make it lucrative for teammates to coordinate to increase the potential for all players on a team to gain rewards.

I've also seen a few of these on my server, as well (it's very obvious they are playing in god-mode for the time being). They really need to make Expertise more commonly available to lower level players (beyond the mod stored within the lower-level pvp weapons), so that there isn't a huge disparity between players pre-50 (with little to no access to expertise), and those at 50 with great availability to expertise). Making expertise more widely available pre-50 will also lessen the shock of being a new 50 with no expertise gear (some is much better than none).

Completely agree. Macros tend to really dumb down the game (Rift was really bad with this.) BW needs to pay attention to animations, as they are having a substantial impact on performance (mirror classes with the quicker animation get an advantage). I won't even get started on the end-game pvp gear; it's just a mess (from obtaining it, to the stats, etc.)