Not sure what I want either. It would be nice if we were made stronger in PVE, but I am not sure how they could do it within the limits of what they are likely WILLING to consider. I am hoping that they will consider at least a tree option to make SRMP longer lasting but heal the same per tick. Also make KC either cheaper to cast or more powerful. (either cast on more players or do more healing -- prefer it to hit more players for the same cost) I just don't see them doing anything with defensive screen, or giving us any sort of comparable ability to Sage FA.

I thought I was adressing both sides of that, I do think its viable as a spec. You have to learn to work around our weaknesses and get used to using a lot more "maintainence cooldowns" than other healers. (CH/Pugnacity, ect) If you aren't doing very high end content its VERY viable, and competitive with other healers. Once highest possible HPS becomes an issue we are a bit gimped. I never have a problem healing with HM FPs. During ops I lose too many cooldowns to keeping everything running. If Sages weren't so obviously OP then it would not be an issue -- but they ARE. I like your idea of an attack buff, but it really would be better on SRMP, and should stack just like SRMP. 2 GCDs should be enough to keep it from being overpowered. DPS shouldn't be taking that much damage and KP isn't worth casting just for a buff. A hardcore group will DEMAND that the buff be on the DPS fulltime as well as healing you realize. It might even be a good fit on KC instead of increasing how many targets. Self limiting to 4 with a decent cooldown.

Not really disagreeing that it CAN be great. But its currently the most restricted due to how our energy works compared to Force and Ammo. Our big nuke heals are very equal, as far as it goes (and we tend to stack crit so we may even do a bit better) but we can't SPAM them like a commando or sage. So we have to fall back on our other tools. SRMP is our best one, IMO, but most if not all players will take a Force Shield over a pair of SRMPs any day -- and I am one of them. (2 GCDs for us, versus one for the Sage) EMP is one of the BEST tools, and it saves energy -- but the one time you REALLY need it on an enrage and UH isn't up then the tank (or yourself) dies. A few times and you don't get invited back. The problem is that if someone DOES have a FS on them then your SRMPs are usually gone before the bubble goes down. DURING a fight you don't have time to recast on everyone, so just the tank and spot heals get it cast on them. (and if the guy you spotted with one or two dies then "its your fault!" again) Nobody ever *expects* more than a bubble from a Sage as a spot heal. When it goes down and they pot and still go down its not blamed on the Sage. Its not fair, but it is what we have to deal with.

To some extent, yes. But all guilds that are pushing hard on doing nightmare/16s are min-maxxers. Spending a lot of credits for very small increases, requiring stims, paying people to buff them if they are missing a specific class, ect... I was bumped for a Commando for just that reason.. tank heals. When I was on my alt listening to them talk about how well they could tank heal I knew I was screwed. I had already been bumped the week before so they could test out a new sage. (they are recruiting for 16 man, but aren't there yet -- so its not just me that there wasn't space for -- and we were short a tank to at least go do HMs at the same time) So now I have to learn a new spec, and hope I get the time to do it. I never ran DPS spec as I was levelling up. I *know* that I wasn't doing very well at it, and had to go change my spec again after my first attempt. (mind you I had no prep or chance to practice with it before an op) I still think I am more useful as a healer, but with KC as it is we are sorta gimped.... most expensive and least useful of the AOE heals in my opinion. I never have claimed to be one of those "super-spec" hardcore players. I aim for competent and upper-middle of the pack since I am casual and have a lot of alts. Usual guild politics. If they annoy me too much or I really hate DPS spec there are always other guilds doing progression. Hopefully we get a bit tweaked during 1.2, that would GREATLY help in how we are percieved. Even if its minor it may be enough to get us a second look from the min-max crowd.

My take on it as a scoundrel healer is that we are more viable for FPs and HMs and less so for operations. (unless your operation tends towards each healer only healing their own group -- mine don't work out that way) For comparison I have a SI healer at level 41 who has done a lot of regular FPs. The issue I run into is most raidleaders have no clue about how our healing works. We do great as a MT healer -- we can conserve energy and use a lot of SRMPs. General healing over the whole raid will run us dry fast. What always happens is they assign the sage to the tank for bubbles (mitigation) and heals and have me do spots. Its when I try to suggest switching that it usually doesn't go well because "everyone knows sages are better healers and we don't want the tank to die..." -- perception kills us. Then as soon as they have a second sage or a Commando healer available for that second slot guess who gets cut? Been there, been cut. I think its a very viable class, but you do have a bit less leeway for errors (as someone above noted) and it definitely works best if your group is well geared. If your group is pushing hard on progression then it only takes a few "out of energy" moments to get a bad rep. In the end I re-specced to DPS, I preferred healing but after the second day of raiding when I was left playing an alt and listening in on teamspeak it was time to change. We needed DPS a lot more than a 3rd or 4th healer. Hopefully I can switch back when we start doing the 16s. I am doubting it though.

(edit, fix spoiler tags)

You mean merge servrs that aren't as badly overpopulated with Empire with ones that are, right? Although apparently a good number of PVP guilds re-rolled from empire to republican because they were tired of Huttball...

IOW even free is too much? Lazy much? You can easily have the authenticator turned off as long as you know the answers to your security questions if it doesn't "work without problems." And the problem with Togruta is that they don't have a skin mesh so they can't be very flexible about clothing. I guess Lucas never told them what they looked like under the robes so nobody knows what skin color they have since only tatoos are shown. (personally I would just continue the tattoo pattern all the way down, but they didn't do that) The skin mesh on characters tends to include the permanent underwear on SWTOR. (it was often changed by mods in non-online BW games)

I disagree, the majority of the pass-throughs leave so fast they are often replaced before the match starts. the main issue folks are complaining about is one side leaving as soon as its obvious they CANNOT win anymore. People need "wins" to finish their quests and some would rather move on and hope to get a "better" match while the "pre-made" that was stomping them before is still tied down. Me personally I will not stay if I join a match if its well lost before I get there (like 0-4 Hutt) -- I am in enough losing games as it is without starting in the dumpster. I don't leave games that I start however. Many casuals only play enough matches to finish their quests, otherwise they go back to their alts or whatever. Let them get finished and the worst of the leavers will never even start a match. (several chronic leavers from my guild do so because they are ON an alt and just trying to finish their weekly and don't want to spend more time on it than neccessary) Serial AFKers will always be in matches as long as they get a share of the rewards. The fix for THAT is separate.. no contribution/damage/healing? no XP/Val/Cred.

First thing is, if you don't like the balance/guild setup on your server then move. Its not that hard to level other characters. Pick one you haven't already played and get to work. Heck, roll a toon on the OTHER SIDE of the server you are on. Then you can have the uberguild on your side. As far as open world ganking.. it happens a lot on busy servers. I was getting ganked by groups on Alderaan all day last weekend trying to do my questline. It was always by full groups. I would be minding my own business, get stunned at long range and then jumped by a full group. (there are a lot of H4s in that area) that was on my EMPIRE character, which is the overpop side on The Fatman. Another guild that I play with went Republic on a PVE server. I prefer not having to deal with gankers, and all. But after I made 50 there the lack of players made the market and WZs sorta blah. If my PVE server had the population of the PVP server then I would proabably play there more. Find a heavy populated RP or RP-PVP or even a different PVE server and GO there. I also rolled up a rebublic character on The Fatman, and the ganking does go both ways. Tat and Alderaan in particular. I have never seen a H4 group pass up a gank. Ever. (I still almost killed one in return the last time on Alderaan because they were ignoring my DPS pet on the Sorc -- but they realized it and CCed the pet before finishing me off) I was a touch overleveled for the area, which helped a lot. there are always a lot of new folks moving to the more full servers. It sounds like your current server may be underpopulated too.

Except for the fact that many of them are using stolen credit card information to buy game cards and clients? (or using a keygen if they develop one?) Its not like GFs are wanting to pay BW any of their illgotten gains from their own pockets.

No, BW won't merge low pop servers until WELL past the point they should. Mythic took so long to do that with Warhammer they were doing multiple merges into 1. (and I beleive it was already Bioware Mythic by then) There are huge numbers of people on the low servers who have re-rolled characters on a high population server. (and I am one of them) I have a 50 smuggler and 40 trooper that are pretty much unplayed except for mission runs and an occasional op or daily for credits. If they get server merged then I may play them again. My server is technically "healthy" but not so much on the republic side. They need to cap each side separately and they can't do that due to how they set up the login interface. Personally I don't understand why they even allow people to roll characters on both sides of a server anyway.

Not to mention re-rollers and players on multiple servers. (I have characters on 4 servers, though I only play 2 servers regularly) I see 300+ on the Imperial Fleet in the evenings on my Imp server. (heavy pop) And I see 60-80 republic side on my republic server. Last time I was on the starter worlds for my "heavy" pop server it was full of people re-rolling from dead/low pop servers. What BW should do is raise the population cap on servers and start merging low pop servers. If they need to do a server split later then thats fine. They need to condense a bit. Once people start leaving a server that server is dying.. and a lot will just leave the game entirely.

No, they are not wrong on many servers. It takes a certain critical mass to have a healthy marketplace and some servers (and more often the republic side since they are lower population) just have horrible markets. Busy servers, espacially Empire I have no issue selling things. (I was in two guilds in different games that migrated here.. one is on a busy PVP server emp side and the other is a lo pop rebublic side. I can easily sell stuff on the busy servers, but even with huge losses can't sell anything on the slow ones. I just gave up crafting and selling excess mats on that slow server. I really hope they merge the red and blue markets, but I doubt they will. They need server merges too for the low pop servers but likely won't do that either.