What purpose are you playing for? If you're playing for PvP, stick with the assassin, as it's one of the best PvP classes. For PvE, go with either.

I think people are forgetting that if TM were instant cast, it would still cast the same amount of heat. It's not as if you could spam it; if you did, you would max out on heat incredibly fast. Would be very inefficient.

Bizzump.

Adding this to first page.

I think you need to look up the definition of incoherent.

What a stupid post, coming from a Marauder just amplifies it. All three of your specs are PvP viable - why are you allowed to have 3 viable trees, but Mercs cannot? Silliness.

Did you type that with a straight face? Nevermind the group speed buff, the group damage buff, the defensive CDs, the healing debuff, the great damage output and whatnot. Surely your commando helped just as much.

Don't try to reason with him, it's obviously in one ear and out the other. Obviously it's us and not the class.

Look up Confirmation bias, I think you suffer from it. Says who? You? They're relegated to a support role due to their terrible current design. I've never heard a SWTOR Dev state Mercs are suppose to be a support class. If they're a support class, where's our support utility? It's non-existant. You can claim we're a support class all you want, but if we're going to be a support class, then where's our support capabilities? How do we support better than any other class? We don't. You have no idea who this guy is, he makes one post in favor of Mercs and he's your new best buddy. No one said Mercs can't top the DPS charts (which are somewhat irrelevant as this is an objective-based PvP game). It's easy to top DPS charts when you're being ignored. The guy even said he faced pugs, who were likely terrible. Against bad players? Sure. Arsenal spec is the easiest spec to shut down in this entire game; by saying you've seen them do well, you're pretty much admitting they're playing against bad players. If you're admitting that they do well against you, then that says more about you than them. Regardless of how much movement you want to toss into the mix, Arsenal is an incredibly immobile class. The fact is, they're dependent upon TM and Unload casts, which are easily interrupted. You can throw a sticky/railshot on the go, but outside of that, you're not doing much. The class is messed up as a whole; pyro spec is slightly more viable, but it's not nearly as good on a Merc as it is a Pyrotech. I think you have a problem admitting that Mercs are in a bad spot. Do you still feel accomplished when you kill them? If you do, you shouldn't.

\ Lol, this. We don't care if you can kill bad players; anyone can do that. You wouldn't have been able to cap that turret against a competent team. They also would have been on you like white on rice all game. By the way: u wot m8?

Indeed.

Added a list of changes proposed by others onto the first post.

Yeah, I guess it could be abused in PvE. It's a bummer, cause it would be a cool and unique escape ability. Honestly, I think some type of sprint ability, as well as increased movement speed/removal of snares after using our knockback would be golden escape abilities that seem reasonable. Also, perhaps they could lower the cooldown on our shield, and perhaps make our casts uninterruptable while it's activated.

I know this feel.

A leap to an enemy wouldn't make sense. Mercs are a ranged class, they have no business leaping to an enemy, as the whole point is to stay in range. A leap to a ground target, a friendly or both makes sense however.

Yeah.. would be nice to have some sort of timetable. Is the soon actually soon, or is it a Blizzard type of soon? Any type of details would be nice. Hopefully a Dev actually conjures up the ambition to parse a couple of the merc threads on this forum, like this one, for good ideas to fix the class. As someone else said already, help us to help you. As far as PvP goes, the best PvP'rs in this game know how to play it better than the Devs do, and they know how to make it better also.

Focus was still viable before the buff, the buff just made it moron-proof. The spec is almost as easy as pyro PT now. All I'm saying is, if one class can have 3 viable trees, then either BW needs to nerf the one class or buff all the others, as it's not fair otherwise. I could argue that VG/PT and Guardian/Jugg have 3 viable trees as well, but not to the level of marauders/sents.

If Marauders/Sent can have all 3 of their trees viable in PvP, then the other ACs should have all of their trees viable as well.

Surprised this thread got a yellow post, albeit not a very informative one. But some acknowledgment is better than none.

A sprint, like consulars/inquisitors. A disengage/retreat that could send us flying away to an area we target 20-30 meters away. Rocketpunch with both the knockback and the root, and make it native to the class, not just the arsenal tree. Make unload unable to be interrupted, like ravage/master strike. A speed increase and/or snare removal when you use your knockback. Preferably both. Reactive shield making all of our abilities unable to be interrupted for the duration. A talent that would give us the ability to proc a free and instant powershot, similar to the proc-style for a renewed Rail Shot for PTs. Some sort of missile attack to AoE root/snare targets, or an ability that let's you disengage and roots/snares those who were at your previous position. Any of these would work, but the Devs will never do any of them, as they make too much sense.

Good luck, pretty sure the Devs gave up on the AC.

Still no response, go figure.

Where to even start. 1 knockback, okay. Too bad it's not that helpful if you're already snared, plus you'll just get leapt back to in most cases. Rage spec juggs/maras have two leaps. Every class has a way to nullify the knockback. High ranged DPS? Sorry, but that's not utility, I think you're confused. Every class can do high DPS. The difference is, every other class can still do that DPS under pressure unlike mercs/commandos. Ability to take off dots? Only tech unless spec'd for it. Pretty much useless. CC's? You mean a stun, which every other class has, or the mezz, with a cast time and a 1 minute cooldown, that breaks on damage? Or the root, which only one spec has, which only works in melee range? Notsureifserious. Do you even PvP, or are you willfully ignorant as to how easy it is to nullify/shut down Mercs/Commandos? The class offers nothing that the other ones don't, and the other classes can do their jobs better.

Lol, are you willfully ignorant? What about Rift? The amount of content that game received in the first 12 months blows this game out of the water.

BW has had almost a year to "incrementally" buff Mercs/Commandos. It hasn't happened, outside of an interrupt they should've had at release. Big changes are needed before the class becomes extinct. There's a reason the majority of warzones are composed of melee now, and hardly any mercs, let alone DPS ones.