Interesting read I hate sage dmg since it's not very reactive but it's fun to see people enjoy it!

Personally I use "R" as a self cast key. You can edit this easily in preferences. In most games I use alt but since there are so many skills in swtor I need alt+1-5 for other stuff. Works well for me since most heals have cast times. For the HoT I have a special button to target myself. In most games you'd want a thumb button as a selfcast modifier since you can still move around while targeting yourself (like ctrl or alt, zxcv if you're well-coordinated). Hope this helps.

To be fair, no one could argue that wasn't needed. When I was last playing the Scoundrels were the top of the food chain, if you ate their stun you could just lean back in the chair and wait until you respawned. That being said, they have an extreme tendency to overdo their "balancing". But that's beside the point, Commandos used to be in a good way back then as well in terms of healing, really good way. Almost rediculously so. But the Sage seems to have stayed somewhat stable and as a result they would be the safe choice to go with, plus they're in a good position right now. Nothing preventing you from giving the others a try once you're all kitted and and start to get tired of that class in PvP.

If you go with sage as a healer think Priest in wow. Very strong, interesting enough I suppose. I just came back to the game for the first time in over three years and I've leveled a sage to get back into it. In terms of damage - boring. Horribly boring. Once I got to above 55 on it I jumped back over to my sin and jugg and it was basically then I realized how dull sage dps was. Subjective of course

I just had 2 or 3 in a row where I was constantly searching for a way out of it. He is persistent if nothing else. But the conversation options that allowed me to escape his ghastly clutches certainly lead to some "awkwardness" in terms of dialogue. And even if in a previous conversations I have spurned his advances he still keeps going at it, I find it very frustrating and unnecessary...

Hello, I have posted this in the Jedi Sage discussion board as well but perhaps it belongs here. Anyway... I have some concerns regarding the influence gain and subsequent conversations with Lieutenant Iresso as a Jedi Sage (female). If you design future conversations or interactions with this character, could you please stop pushing my own character towards having sexual relations with him without resorting to rudeness or rejection? I feel this is quite limited in terms of character roleplay and it appears the only way to gain influence with this character through interaction is by sexual intercourse. I find this highly irritating and somewhat offensive as almost all conversations seem to be of a sexual nature and I feel this highly contradicts the persona of my character. I should be able to gain and improve his relationship to me without direct relations and yet I find in most conversations 2 out of 3 dialogue options are directly related to "getting in the sack", which my character has no interest in. I have enjoyed the rpg experience of SWTOR so far, but this has been a bit of a setback for me. Please do include more options in the future which allow me to improve my relationship with Lieutenant Iresso without sexual relations.

Hello, I have some concerns regarding the influence gain and subsequent conversations with Lieutenant Iresso as a Jedi Sage (female). If you design future conversations or interactions with this character, could you please stop pushing my own character towards having sexual relations with him without resorting to rudeness or rejection? I feel this is quite limited in terms of character roleplay and it appears the only way to gain influence with this character through interaction is by sexual intercourse. I find this highly irritating and somewhat offensive as almost all conversations seem to be of a sexual nature and I feel this highly contradicts the persona of my character. I should be able to gain and improve his relationship to me without direct relations and yet I find in most conversations 2 out of 3 dialogue options are directly related to "getting in the sack", which my character has no interest in. I have enjoyed the rpg experience of SWTOR so far, but this has been a bit of a setback for me. Please do include more options in the future which allow me to improve my relationship with Lieutenant Iresso without sexual relations.

I don't think Sorcs need a nerf. Granted I've only just gotten back to the game after 4 years absence but I never felt my sin or jug couldn't stand their own against a sorc. I think the issue is that people don't know how to handle them quite simply and cannot appreciate the subtle nuances that increase your own potential for fighting one. Placement for example, knowing when to hug and when to pillarhump, most people just want to bullrush us and naturally they end up get shafted by not employing any kind of thinking, just spamming their attacks. A sorc is a difficult class to handle for sure, but exploiting their weakness is something most players aren't considering, they only consider their own strength which the sorc has multiple avenues to counter.

Funny thing is, most of these posts are talking about what things USED TO be. That wasn't his question and I don't think anyone really cares. What we want to know is what it's like today. I haven't picked up SWTOR in 4 years and I could easily start going into how us imps beat the rep to pieces game after game and how their "top players" got completely dominated in every wz me and my friends met them in. But it's ancient history now and doesn't really matter... Could someone please offer a concise state of the TOFN server especially in regards to pub side?

Can't take stuff like this seriously, I mean what about new players then? Going in with absolutely nothing and still managing to end up on top of the food chain.

I agree, you guys shouldn't be punished for losing a coin toss like that. People care about winrates and people care about their rating, which I am sure is exactly what Bioware wanted. Well, if they want people to care about their ranking system then they have to implement a quality ranking system as well, one that is worth caring about.

Aye, and competitive PvP needs precision in order to be truly competetive and interest the serious PvP crowd. I just feel that if this is left as it is at the moment, proper PvP in SWTOR will remain somewhat of a gimmick. There are a lot of knockbacks in this game, and there are a lot of ledges. I do believe Bioware intended for there to be a relation between the two, but seeing how this actually functions within the game, I am beginning to wonder if this was just a happy accident.

...laugh hysterically when you saw the Big Bang Theory episode where they intend to play the game on laptops? HARHAR

I feel this thread got buried a bit quickly, would love some more comments and viewpoints on this matter, as it is something that I feel will virtually make or break competitive PvP in SW:TOR.

Yes, this is where the greatest source of annoyance and amusement comes from me as well. Been punted over the goal line several times and doubling up on cc before I dare kb the enemy carrier. And even then it sometimes goes horribly, horribly wrong.

So, I'm probably not the only one to have gotten slightly annoyed or amused at the knockback functionality in this game and how it seems to behave sometimes. I've been knocked over the goal-line and scored in Huttball several times, I have attempted to knock people off the bridge in Voidstar only to have them go flying straight behind me when I perceived them on my screen as being directly in front of me. I decided to attempt some theorycrafting on this issue which might shed some light on what is actually going on, and hopefully start a constructive discussion on the subject which might actually lead to some improvements. Do feel free to correct me on any errors I might have made, but please do so in a constructive manner. Now, I am basing this upon a typical situation in a PvP environment where one player is attempting to use his knockback upon an enemy player: My own crude tests showed that with no sprint it takes about 5 seconds to walk 30 meters ingame. If we then divide 30 by 5 we get an ICMS(in combat movement speed) of aproximately 6 meters per second. Now, if we account for the "average" lag of players in game, call it 75 ms(took some very limited samples then added a bit as a safety margin, feel free to flame me for lazy research), for a total of 150 ms between two players plus let's say 100 ms for the server to figure things out. As already mentioned, please feel free to correct me here as I am in no way an expert of such things, and these are very general numbers for easy visualization and calculation. Anyway, this gives us a constant "lag" of 250 ms compared to what we actually see happening, so 1/4 of a second. Now we combine this with the movement speed mentioned earlier, which means a player at any given time should be able to move 6 x 0,25 = 1,5 meters in any direction relative to where you can actually see them. We can now devise this information into the following grid, using the trooper knockback as an example since it has no animation time: http://i914.photobucket.com/albums/ac344/Takomuhra/Knockback.jpg Please note: Relative player size is much greater than it appears in the picture(Objects may appear smaller than they actually are ) In this example the victim, or knockback-ee if you will, has moved directly forwards 1,5 meters from his current position relative to where the knockbacker saw him on his screen. Can the knockback-er anticipate this? In some cases yes, but there are a lot of situations where a root ends, a cc ends or the person was actually standing still until the knockback-er walked over to give him a good rogering with his knockback. So, is there a way to fix this? Some games have a process tree on actions originating from the client side which actually tells the server what the person controlling the client(Player 1) is experiencing. The server then forces the actions of Player 1 upon the victim(Player 2), regardless of what Player 2 perceived as the actual "truth". If you've ever been shot behind a wall in Battlefield, you know what I mean(often referred to as a "lag-kill"). Simple fact of the matter is it would be almost impossible to hit anything in FPS-games like Battlefield unless the system worked in this manner. Now there are arguements both pro and against this being implemented in SW:TOR, most commonly found are "The victim is more important, what he sees should matter" and "The attacker has no idea where he might be, impossible to use skills effectively" and of course "Leave it as it is". I personally favour option #2, the attackers perception is the prevalent one, and what he does to his opponent matters the most. The reason for this is because I am a very competitive player, and I like to be able to use my skills the way they are intended to be used and prevent or inflict what I intend to. I also am not happy with having to resort to excessive safety margins simply to make sure I don't completely bungle the game for my own team when I'm actually trying my best to help us. Now, I'm sure there are many like me who have adapted to this and are employing our own measures to ensure we don't hurt our team, though the help we provide is somewhat limited because of this. But are we really happy with doing that? No idea if this will generate interest or not, but it is an issue that holds a great deal of importance to me relative to the competitive PvP they plan on introducing.

Yeah shouldn't reward people for being good at something...That's just crazy...

Unfortunately the winner, or even the best player of any type of objective-based battleground/warzone is not the person with the best "stats". I've scored the Huttball 6 times for my team several times, my stats: 40kish damage, 0-2 medals, 10kish protection and virtually no healing. By this measure, I should've been the very worst player in the entire wz.

Maybe because we don't want it just handed to us. Getting better gear is for me at least a big part of the fun of PvP. PvP only for the sake of PvP is fun, but simply won't keep me interested. There are other games that do that far better, where you also get handed your gear for little to no effort. I just feel MMO's should be about progress and evolvement both gearwise and skillwise. If the latter even exists.

Well if you people think minimal effort for good equipment will keep you involved in an MMO for a longer period of time, go ahead and try it. I guarantee you that without other things than bragging rights to stribe towards, you will get bored a lot faster than you expect.

I completely agree with this, though the knowledge that all my current efforts being useless is not an encouraging one. Especially not one that will keep me around for the months until the proper season starts, whatever their plans are for it. If they continue on the trend they have currently started however(and I suspect they will), a big part of the reason for me is gone. Other might disagree with me, and that is ok. Though no matter how vigiliant you are in defending this system at the moment, I am quite sure that for a good 75%-90% of you this realization will also come, in time. Until then, I hope you enjoy yourself. I really do, no sarcasm intended. I like this game, it's fun to play and all that, but removing such an essential part of the game(to me at least) is not a good move at all. People need something to work for, something to strive towards, other than just bragging rights. Believe it or not, there are certain individuals who genuinely do not care about such things.

You can refer to my being a bad player all you want, doesn't insult me the slightest. But the constant strive for better equipment is still the main past-time of pretty much any MMO. I'm not saying that's the only fun to be had, because of course it isn't. But it is still a very important factor, and I don't see how they expect to benefit from removing that other than attempting to establish the game as a novelty, or a gimmick if you will. Which might attract short-term fans, but long time customers? Doubt it. And disagree with me all you like, we'll see how long you last.

I am pvping because I find it enjoyable, but not so enjoyable that I'm willing to spend hours on it every week for no reward. The rewards for the effort you put in are probably the main reason why MMO's have succeeded in the first place. And they are effectively removing that aspect from the game, leaving PvP for the novelty value and inherrent feeling of amusement. Which won't last long when people get over the first jolt of "Oh I'm having ever so much fun" and start to realize that the effort they put in awards them with absolutely no advantage over their opponents other than the experience and skill they've gained from it. Progress has always been an essential part of MMO's, progress and evolution. Which we can say bye-bye to now. I had no idea this was their plan upon purchase, if I had known I would not have purchased the game at all. I would not have spent 2 months farming gear to get ready for competitive and rated PvP.

I suspect the "unfair" new playing field will be one where it actually matters if you've farmed gear or not. You know, one where months of work actually mean something. If you consider that unfair then well... Not really into the whole mmo-"RPG" thing are you.

I'm done, not giving them another chance to take my money from me. Spent 2 months gearing up 2 alts in BM stuff to get ready for rated warzones, and gg Crowley! It was all for nothing harhar Only have one thing to say to them after this gigantic waste of time: "F U" (No, not Fun University)