This, and changes previously LIKE this, may well be what finally kills this game for me (I've taken a bunch of breaks, but I always end up back). It seems like Bioware has decided that they don't WANT players to be better or worse, they just want everyone roughly the same, no matter their ability or class knowledge. Operatives who could cover-dance did more damage, so they removed that. Warriors and PTs who could stance-dance were more effective, so they removed that. Mercs who knew tricks like single ticks of blazing bolts proccing barrage did more damage, so they removed the damage bonus of barrage. Rocket punch? Could be great for good players, or bad for terrible players - so they removed it. And now this. For the first time EVER since launch, I am bored of my commando/merc. Not because of their survivability, not because of their damage, not because of nerfs or buffs (now or previously). But because all of the tricks that separated the experienced from the new have been ironed out. It's almost impossible to do a suboptimal rotation now. And the same thing is happening to *every* other class. It's exactly the same PVE rotations for days, no matter what you're doing. I'm all for making things more accessible to new players. But don't do that by dumbing it down for the more experienced. You're losing me. And I'm sure others like me.

I'm gonna play this one straight. Either: Play objectives WELL or Deathmatch WELL or BOTH. But for the love of the flying spaghetti monster, don't suck at BOTH. THEN you're doing it wrong.

Hello

Both sides are identical. Pubs and Imps have 'mirror' classes, that have the same attacks and defenses, barring some purely cosmetic differences. A pub sage has the same attacks as an imp sorc. A pub guardian has the same attacks as an imp jugg. Etc etc. Any and all advantage in PvP is down to ability and/or coordination. That's not to say that imps all work together, but a team of deathmatching muppets who know how to DPS reasonably well is still going to beat a team of deathmatching muppets who don't.

Wait - Harby / Satele is on East Coast now? Then what is the point of it?

I don't give a flying %$&* whose dick was biggest. I'm just looking forward to fast pops now.

I'd like the Mercenary Elite crafted armor back. It vanished when all the decent-looking armormech crafted stuff was replaced by the awful newer pieces. In particular, the helmet - It's iconic merc, and although the basic /shape/ is still obtainable, the color layout is different on newer versions. Hey, why not throw us a bone and make all those old recipes available again.

Seems fine on both my merc and commando.

Hahah oh boy. I didn't take kolto anyway (I viewed it as a crutch), and it's not a terrible nerf to regulators. There are going to be some tears when people realise they're still getting smushed by mercs. I'm still just upset at the earlier change to barrage. Preloading the buff before a PvP encounter was a small part of what made the class interesting, now it's just the same rotations for days. Not a complaint about the loss of damage, just that it made things /boring/. I still find myself casting a single tick of blazing bolts before combat occasionally - and then I'm like 'oh right, don't bother, just pew pew'. Sigh.

I hope it's a classic ruleset, with a fairly simple map (although not just a reskinned arena). Odessen Proving Grounds and Queshball are both terrible. They're best when they don't try and reinvent the wheel.

Same here. I have a couple of thousand cartel coins burning a hole in my pocket, but there's no way I'm blowing them on the damaged tuning. It's ... kinda rubbish. Was looking forward to the overcharged.

I still look back on my very first PvP videos occasionally and remember how embarrassingly bad I was. Practice practice practice. Recording myself play was probably the best decision I ever made with regards improving my game. You have to *want* to improve though. And that's what appears to be missing from many people now. They have an external locus of control.

All other things being equal, gear matters. 99.9% of the time however, all other things are not equal. Outside of ranked.

News at 10! Most people suck and can be beaten naked with both hands tied behind your back! Read all about it! Extra, Extra! Nothing changes.

If I remember correctly, BW has nothing against multiboxing IF all accounts are being *directly* controlled by the player. The moment someone uses software or hardware to mirror actions from one keyboard out to multiple toons at the same time, that becomes against TOS. Or to put it another way, multiboxing is fine for sedentary stuff like crafting, but practically impossible to use within TOS for anything else. If a bad multiboxer is trying to queue only against a specific group or guild, then they're probably also breaking TOS there too. But that's more difficult to prove.

As Stoopicus said, the big one you'll get is Responsive Saveguards - ie. the reflect. However, assuming you're playing DPS, don't discount Chaff Flare (which becomes useful in PvP at 52). For IO, chaff flare gives you 35% defense for 6 seconds - but for Arsenal, it actually gives you 5 charges of full absorb against force or tech damage. It'll only last a second or so if you're getting ganked by more than one person, but is enough to eat a big hit under the right circumstances. Save it for just before a PT's thermal detonator explodes, or a Sorc's thundering blast, or a mara''s scream/raging burst, or a Merc's heatseeker, etc etc.

Oh bless you lol. You haven't done the math have you. It's gonna require... what, somewhere between 258 and 645 warzones run just to get tier 1 (costs 1290, warzones give 2-5 each). That's base. Then the same again, plus 50% more to get tier 2. Then the same again, plus 125% more to get tier 3. Lol. We're talking thousands of warzones. How many warzones does your 'casual PvPer' run per week? Also, how many people have gotten rid of their tier 1 or 2 shells already because they didn't actually need to turn them in before? This has to be a mistake or misunderstanding. A HUGE one. But you know, BW did their usual 'dump on a friday and leave' trick, so we won't know for days.

Hahahahahahahahah. Bioware: New Galactic Command system! It's awesome! Player: Uhhhh it looks terrible. RNG Grind? Seriously? BW: No look, it's fun! You'll like it! FUN! Not a grind at all, it's like opening gifts every day! Player: No sorry, it sucks. Nobody likes RNG grinds. BW: Fine, we'll fix the RNG. You can all just *********** GRIND instead. Until your eyes BLEED. The only way these numbers make any kind of (albeit twisted) sense to me is that someone at BW had a hissyfit that nobody liked their pet project, so they decided to just be an arse. They're absolutely punative lol. You let the genie out of the bottle already, you can't put it back in. People were enjoying getting gear relatively quickly pre 5.0 - this just looks like a dick punch.

The salt is real with this one. Some merc really touched you on the no-no eh? EDIT: Dear god that post history lol. He's done nothing but blubber about 'OP' classes since 2013 /boggle.

70s? Or midbies? Currently bolster makes you hit MUCH harder in midbies than at 70. What's your exact gear? How are you working out what your max hit is for? Just eyeballing, or are you using combat log? Do the latter. Definitely don't go off the scoreboard at the end - this doesn't take into account 'overkill', if you do a 35k hit but they only had 15k health left, it'll show as a 15k hit. If your max is 3200 dps, then something is definitely wrong either with your gear (as in 'bugged' wrong, not just bad choices), playstyle or rotation for sure. How long have you been playing the class, and what was your max in 4.0? What do the tooltips say for damage on various abilities when you're in a warzone? Did you forget to slot crystals perhaps? That can make a big difference.

From the Deceived trailer? That's Shae Vizla. There are a couple of cartel market sets with a similar helmet. Shae Vizla (Acolyte Shadow's pack): http://torf.mmo-fashion.com/shae-vizla/ Commander Vizla (Revenge alliance pack): http://torf.mmo-fashion.com/commander-vizla/ If you pay to unlock a full CM set in collections, you can claim it on any character, even at low levels. I don't know if there is a craftable, questable or lootable version.

Sorc DPS was just fine in 4.0. I seriously think they got overnerfed. Hard.

The class was swamped at the end of 4.0 *before* they got any changes. Whether or not there is any problem with the class, the perception that it would be strong was there. Combine that with the obvious strength of stacking any class, and the fact that Galactic Command discourages any rerolling/alts, and you have a reason for people to stay. I notice that Mercs/Mandos have now dropped to 15th in the yolo rankings, with Sorcs, Sins, Snipers, Guardian, PT and Mara all placing higher. Heh. Maybe they're hacking.

Many thanks for all the testing you've done, and will do in the future. Much appreciated.

Equilibrium is fine. But slotting the highest tier mods should never be an actual downgrade under bolster. That's just stupid. Of course bolster has *always* been stupid.