How long do they hold something on the pts? They have about 3 weeks to test and then release live... so seems like the have to get it on the test sever soon to make the 'deadline'

hd 7850 is the best under 200$ and a little bit more gives you the gtx 660. each one compared to the gtx 550 ti : http://www.hwcompare.com/12048/geforce-gtx-550-ti-vs-radeon-hd-7850/ http://www.hwcompare.com/13319/geforce-gtx-550-ti-vs-geforce-gtx-660/ 660 IMHO is the best value 7850 is faster in some cases but can't produce the same video quality. don't get a 550 ti... old tech

I have 4 gigs of ram. I run a gtx 275 video card ( think its 1gig onboard mem). win7 64bit, I have triple monitors running something like 5040x1080 or something like that... Have NOT CTD in months. I play for at least 3 hours a night.

I think this is a straw man argument. NO one who knows what they are doing is spamming power shot or trying to go toe to toe with melee or snipers. But once you start casting it you want it to finish especially because of the rail shot potential proc. ...everything else is on cool down so you start a power shot.. you are being attacked in the middle of the cast, it fires cleanly, you get the heck out and hope rail shot has popped and fire that on the move. If your pw shot is stopped no pw shot damage no rail shot damage....

It's comments like this that made me start this thread. I've read all the dev posts and currently there is nothing that is in the five pages of post that talk about class balance. All the older dev posts I can find quoted on the various class pages refer to a major class re-balance possibly coming in a future patch. Not expansion PATCH. example http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5498439#post5498439 But I see lots of player posts are very contradictory "Bioware said... bla" Some say Bioware said it's in 1.7 some say not until BLa... But I can't see anywhere were they say anything other than "coming soon" or "in the near future". I thought maybe people were getting info from other sources than the forum like Facebook Twitter or whatever... So I asked a specific question is it in 1.7 or not. But I guess they prefer to just answer that when they post the notes and allow the rumors to fly.

The stats between Body guard and dps don't differ too much but the armor bonus on end game gear will hurt you. For instance dps end game gear give bonuses to tracer missile and rail shot. while the healer bonus is on healer type abilities. Alacrity is another stat that will be useful as a healer but not so much in the other specs ( Alacrity shouldn't go beyond what is taken in talents when in dps). To make a long story short... end game armor your going to have to collect 2 sets of armor to max out each role but leveling you should be ok.

You must Recreate... if you are interested in PvP do it now before you level to high... assuming you are not 50 already

I just realized you're talking about the expansion (2.0?) I'm talking about 1.7 the next major patch

Yeah you guys are talking about the expansion I'm talking about 1.7. Return of the Gree Many posters believe some class balance fixes are coming in 1.7. The tree revamp stuff has been announced for the expansion you guys are jumping ahead

I don't want to sound harsh but doesn't a revamped skill tree effect balance in some way even if it's one ability? I guess when I said balance I was casting with a wide net. New skills is something effecting balance IMO

Lots of people are posting that 1.7 is going to contain class balance updates. I think a lot of players are waiting to hear what's in it hoping it will address class balance for their particular class... can you at least confirm if 1.7 has class balance updates or not?

Going to put my two cents in here. This is pvp dps slanted. I haven't done pve in almost 6 months. The main problem with the merc is that it doesn't have a combat specialty. I believe the intent for the merc was to be a movable heavy turent with enough dps to hold off attackers and enough damage mitigation to out last a dps race with attackers if they close the gap. Going with that design the merc should be immobile while attacking and hard to damage while the merc is racking up damage. The first part is true currently but the second part is not. When the game first came out the mercs seem to be just that... "Steel cannons" (apposed to glass cannons). They did enough dps to deter most 1v1 assaults and enough damage to make hard to allow them to just run amuck. In short... they mattered. Now merc can still do a lot of damage if left alone but not enough to deter 1v1 encounters and with all rebalancing of classes the end result is the merc is easy to kill. Making them NOT matter at all in pvp. There are two ways to go to try and fix the merc. 1) give them tools that will fix the current design 2) give them a new combat role If you are going to keep the current design the merc is going to need much better defensive cool downs, interrupt protection, and better gap wideners. The merc like the sniper should be allowed to keep attackers at range. For this I would move the talent for turning the shield into interrupt protection somewhere so every spec can get that talent or make it a baseline ability. Give the 30m range back to the electro dart. put a 4 second root on the jetpack knock back (talented) and return the knock back to the uppercut and leave a 2 second root . If you need to change the mercs combat role I strongly suggest you turn the merc into a kite class. In order to do this you simply allow Tracer Missile and Power Shot to be instant casts. This will should not effect pve dps and if it does tweak the damage or heat cost of them. But allowing the merc to fire on the run will solve a lot of it's utility problems and not effect it's dps. Nothing I said hasn't been said before, but I was hoping to swing the conversation were we concentrate on the role merc should have and then how we fix the tools to allow the merc to perform well at that role. Right now people just list changes without thinking about how the merc play stile should fit in and still be unique. My vote is to turn the merc into a kiter. There isn't another class that can kite well. Both the sniper and Sorc are just better at staying at range (and escaping in the case of Sorc). But those classes also have to stay still to dps. Giving the merc a kiting role will set them apart.

No but I use a nostromo and can't imagine using anything else... except the new orbweaver

Yeah I tell people that play pvp for the first time... "You don't really die" Just report them and don't fell bad about it.

Guy or girl I "hate" you because you're un-killable... of course I play a merc so take that or what it's worth

Well like I said there people who don't have intimate knowledge of the tech they are using can't really confirm this is a real problem or a problem they can easily fix. For instance: (total guess) This could be a file that's distributed with the engine and they don't have the original source to clean it up. or they might not have the license that allows them to touch that part of the engine. OR any hosts of reasons... but it does sound like it could be contributing to some of the performance issues.

And just to ad to this Muti threading doesn't make things go faster it's enables parallel processing. If you design it wrong you can actually make things go slower

Well I'm a software engineer but I don't develop video games. So I'm not 100% sure if the OP knows what he is talking about. But the technical stuff does sound plausible . He might have taken a condescending tone but that doesn't make him wrong. He might have actually been helpful... Those of us who aren't familiar with this specific tech really shouldn't jump to conclusions either way until the OP can explain how he might have this insite or a dev confirms the accuracy.

They announced 1.7 last week when do they typically post the patch notes? seems like it's taking a long time. It's been a long gap since 1.6 and they promised shorter cycles when F2P was released

yeap. If you are not a healer pvp wise mercs are just not viable. And even as a healer you are going to find RWZ teams that won't take you over a good Op or SOrc

Please let us know if you find something pvp wise. I love the pvp mechanics in this game even if the execution is broken. I've played a bunch of pvp games recently and didn't like them as much. I've tried to make alts here but don't like my alts as much as my merc. The best one I tried IMO so far is Warhammer Wrath of heros. It's ok but the heros are too watered down for me. And the engine feels dated because it seems like it's using the same engine as "warhammer age of reckoning" And it's not a full MMO. I want to try "forge" that one looks intense not sure if they got that one right.

I'll say it again. Stabilizers is a must or merc dps. And it's not for just 1v1. Unload and powershot are a huge part of both dps mechanics you need as much protection on them as possible.

Don't mind me I only use the words "Over Powered" because I admit I'm part of the emotional crowd... :-)

I'll admit I'm not the most articulate forum poster and I post with a lot of hot emotion. And I might be part of the vast unfortunate majority... So I can see and understand your frustration about how difficult it is to find the good info in player feed back. BUT the forums have plenty of level headed players that pvp a lot and have provided plenty of evidence. I see many of the familiar faces have even responded to this post. It would only take someone 5 or 10 mins to find the good posts that have been on the forums for MONTHS. Given all that and reading your comments just makes it very clear you guys STINK (IMO) at pvp class balance. It was laughable to learn you play two of the few classes/builds that are actually viable in pvp then go on to say what you devs play have no impact on your class balance methods. The fact that you seem (just using your comments so I could be wrong) to rely on what you guys play personally and combat logs to class balance makes me think you are viewing this from a very narrow view point. Not sure if you guys are even playing RWZ against good teams or even taking the time to find the posts that actually provide good raw data or the posts that simply compile HOURS of play experience. You think pvp balance is good right now? There is clearly a small group of "haves" and and large group of "have nots" There are a handful of class specs dominating pvp, another handful that are just OK but don't come close to the OP "haves" group.. and several that are just flat out broken. And when I say broken they have no viable role in RWZ because there are significantly superior classes that can do much better in every role. It's pretty clear balance has been bad since 1.2. You guys are simply not listening to what we as a player base are saying. Your looking at data and theory and not taking the time to figure out what the actual player experience is. Numbers don't lie but they never give you the whole picture. It's pretty clear that the people that think class balance is ok play the handful of classes that ARE OK or OP: Tank assassins PT Powertechs Healing Operatives Snipers Marauders Smash Jugs

Multi boxing has never been against the game rules in any game I've played. I hate it especially in pvp... but most game companies don't care unless they are using software to bot the extra toons. As long as they are using "physical" gestures to control the extra toons they don't care