Just because you made green numbers pop on their screen doesn't mean you're saving lives. I can give a terminally ill man a band-aid and a bottle of Pepto, but it isn't going to make much of a difference. To be less snarky: Anyone that gives a rat's behind about class balance generally accepts the fact that warzone scoreboards are an oversimplified way to present a rather poor representative summary of the match. There are numerous factors that are not presented in said score totals, not the least of which being whether or not said numbers actually contributed to the team in any meaningful way.

Irony. The healer considered most "Overpowered" at the moment has 2 abilities (and the free lol-channel that only bads interrupt) that can be interrupted. One of those is a highly inefficient burst heal that costs a TA/UH. The other is our most efficient heal and generates a TA/UH. Interrupt the right one, and don't suck bad enough that you get owned by Surgical Probe spam at <30% health, and that Op/Scoundrel healer is done. Yep, the problem most definitely isn't bad DPS players. PS: You don't see videos of a guarded healer being killed by interrupts because the people that defend the "Healers are OP and interrupts have nothing to do with it" crowd inevitably spout "Nu-uh, that's 2 DPS!" completely ignoring the fact that it's kinda silly to assume a single DPS should win 1v2 against a healer-tank combo.

You really aren't inspiring any votes of confidence with replies like these. But that's okay, HoTs are srz bznz.

Erm... If you were dying to a healer in a 1v1... I wouldn't really be bragging about that.

So... You're saying... we whined so much... about our own OP-ness... that the devs nerfed us? My mind... it is blown.

I wonder how many of those PvE players are just sitting on the tail end of their sub time + free time and going through the rest of the story mode until their sub expires and/or something else comes along...

I'm gonna be like the cool kids and say "Metrics". Owned. After all, we've seen firsthand that there is no need for testing to prove or disprove anything in this game, especially involving PvP. The Operative/Scoundrel nerf was on the PTS less than 48 hours after buff-stacking and the 50 warzone bracket went live. And your attacking someone for speaking their opinion is any less short-sighted and/or hypocritical? One might also notice that there's a distinct lack of healing ACs in your sig, but no lack of DPS... And if you had no issues pre-1.2, why get so worked up about this post? Unless... you support the nerfs... Now, if you had no issues, why support the nerfs? Tell us oh great e-tough-guy. PS: He adapted the same way many of us adapted. We stopped giving BioWare and EA our money. But don't worry, healing has been simplified to the level that a decent AI script could compete with even the best of healers, so if the game actually survives the next few months I'm sure some enterprising script-kiddie will have a healbot script to pass around.

Dirty kick. For the lulz. That's pretty much it. "Operatives: We roll bads. :cool:" "Scoundrels: And we kick 'em in the 'nads! :o"

The problem with Operative/Scoundrel is the fact that no one likes feeling they lost a fight because they didn't have a chance to win in the first place. When you have a spec that is fundamentally pigeonholed, by a complete lack of survivability and utility alongside a reliance on stun/CC to stay on target, into picking your battles, people complain about it. It isn't so much that they don't have a chance to win, they do, but the Operative/Scoundrel is only going to pounce when the odds are stacked in their favor, otherwise it's a de-facto death (or worse, stuck in combat with no way to restealth other than 2min cooldown vanish) for that Op/Scoundrel. So people complain and the class gets nerfed. Repeatedly. Which in turn makes the situation worse because Op/Scoundrel becomes even more pigeonholed into "stars aligned" combat situations. And to add insult to injury, it is not difficult to counter even the best Operative/Scoundrel. All a target has to do is get outside of 10m, and the Op/Scoundrel is completely out of their element. Most classes have an effective way of doing so, and our best targets (Sorc/Sage and Sniper/Gunslinger) arguably have the best means of doing so. Sure, they'll still take a chunk of damage from the opening sequence, but, if you can't follow through with the kill and end up stuck in combat, you're effectively neutralized until you drop combat, die, or blow your 2min cooldown vanish. It's just a lot to give up, and a lot of effort, for no benefit over other classes that do just as well in DPS/burst (if not better) and also bring utility to the group, not to mention some semblance of personal survivability.

Unlikely, seeing as 2 DPS (or 1 DPS 1 Shadow/Sin tank - for stealth defense) can in many cases prevent more damage just by blowing **** up faster than a healer + tank combo can counter damage through healing + guard/taunt, especially when you're facing any somewhat coordinated focus fire.

Your analysis of Deception Assassins, besides being a gross oversimplification of the class (out of force for an assassin, especially Deception specced, is trivial compared to out of energy for Op), assumes button mashing instead of actually taking the time and effort to head-fake your opponent. Deception is aptly named. Its greatest strength is the predictability of its burst.

First off, he wasn't healing his buddies, or those melees were very very bad (or tank specced). Second, the general inability of your average DPS to put forth the effort to learn any other class and how to counter their strengths/defensive cooldowns and exploit their weaknesses is what caused class balance to go into this downward spiral to begin with.

If that were the case, population here should be booming.

People who blindly follow a dev team that shows time and again that they don't have a clue as to the slightest basics, much less the intricacies, of class balance... well what can the rest of us say, enjoy it while it lasts. If you can't see that nerfing burst across the board, complaints about healers being "OP", significant nerfs to 2 of the 3 healers, and now massive QQ about certain DPS being overpowered might just be the least bit related, you're as clueless as the dev team.

It's a simplistic way of looking at it... But healing in this game is almost as simplistic as you can get, thanks in no small part to "metrics" and the dev team's apparent inability to balance the game without knee-capping any significant application of skill on the player's part. That said, that **** don't fly in PvP. Between a neutered resource for Merc/Commando, loss of Sorc/Sage proc'd "flash" heal, and Op/Scoundrel lolHoTs, healing in PvP has become srz bznz.

I rather prefer to hear the narrator and watch the clip than sit looking at a white forcefield for that much longer, but maybe that's just me.

In b4 the busy "Nerf Marauders 1!!11!!1!" crowd takes a few seconds to type out "L2P. Good healers adapt.". I have to admit though, the lack of foresight into the potential changes in the metagame from both the dev team and the majority of the vocal playerbase is... leaps and bounds beyond any lack of fundamental understanding of class balance I've seen in any MMO to date.

The problem is, by this very fact, you're a hindrance to your team. While the Operative/Scoundrel is looking for the opportune target, their team is fighting a warzone with a man down. Then when the Op/Scoundrel strikes, sure they can take down their target if they chose wisely, but, unless they're out on the fringes and attacking a solo target, chances are they just traded their life for that of their target - unless of course they're only attacking once every 2 minutes, which just adds insult to injury. Combine that with the fact that your team was already fighting a man down before you opened, and you're looking at a Concealment/Scrapper on your team as a no-win situation. The question then becomes, how valuable is that burst compared to fighting a man down whenever that burst cannot be used to optimal success? You yourself admitted that an Op/Scoundrel opening on you near full health without support doesn't scare you. Now, I'm not saying that Op/Scoundrels should be able to insta-gank people from full, but let's consider this for a moment - you're essentially saying that Op/Scoundrel burst is useless except in 2 (or more) v 1 situations. Even if that means someone else went 1v1 against you and lost, and the Op/Scoundrel smells blood in the water and strikes, they're just cashing the check someone else wrote - it's a teamfight. Scrapper/Concealment are the absolute worst team fighters in the game. They bring no team synergy (armor debuffs - their armor pen is self only) and no group utility. Their damage relies on being able to keep a target within melee range via stuns... if someone else is pumping resolve, it often has a significant effect on their burst potential. Stealth is slow. If their team is focus firing without using the Op/Scoundrel as the initiator, there's a pretty good chance the fight will be over by the time you get in position. If the team is using the Op/Scoundrel as the initiator... well hope they don't mind waiting on respawn or re-stealth every 2mins. I could go on, but I think that's enough to get the point across. The point is Op/Scoundrel aren't the only class capable of bursting down people 2v1, but they are one of the worst at it, even if you assume that they have the absolute best burst potential in the game. Yes, you don't always see them coming. You also don't always see a pull coming, or a team of charge happy Marauders/Sentinels or Juggernauts/Guardians, or a Sniper/Gunslinger that somehow got behind your lines due to your oblivious teammates and just Ambush-punted you into the fire/acid.

I'm not so sure about that. Pre-1.2 I would agree with you, but, with the quality of life changes to TA/UH stacks and faster Diagnostic Scan (energy gain on crit) I'm leaning towards Op/Scoundrel being the better burst healer simply because we won't be useless for anywhere near as long as the Merc/Commando would be. I mean, just looking at the abilities it's obvious we suck at burst healing... but since 1.2, so does everyone else, and the question becomes who sucks the least.

People say the same thing about all these buffs Marauders got... I wonder how many people actually bothered to read, much less understand, the 1.2 patch notes.

That's because Deception Assassin burst is very easy to telegraph, and thus easy to counter... Unless of course the player is smart enough to know their burst is very easy to telegraph, and either compensates or even uses that to their advantage. Myself, I prefer the "open on one guy and proceed to lol at his blown defensive cooldowns as I burst down his oblivious nearby ally" strategy. Like I said, Deception sins that know how to use their spec to its full potential are very very rare.

A bit off topic, but I refuse to let this misinformation stand. Operative/Scoundrel healers were NOT buffed. Their 31 pt ability was made to actually be viable rather than a hindrance - in other words making hybrids no longer outright better than full spec, as the devs have done several times to other classes - and they got a few quality of life changes. The reason people think they're "overpowered" is because of the overwhelming number of DPS that fully believe healing shouldn't exist in a warzone and whined for the other two healers to get nerfed into the ground. And yet those same people complain that there's too much damage flying around now.

You have Deception Assassins on your server? True deception assassins are rare. Hell, I've seen more "deception" (specced) assassins still running around in Dark Charge than I have full specced Deception sins running Surging Charge. And even rarer still than a full specced Surging Charge Deception Assassin is a player that knows how to play it.

Why do people continue to insist on arguing that Scrapper/Concealment is fine because they can 2+v1 people? Is there any DPS class that doesn't wreck face 2v1 in the current state of the game?

I'm too lazy to look through your posting history, so I'll just say it straight: I'm not sure whether you're trying to remove Operative/Scoundrel DPS from the game, or trying to join the nerf bandwagon for the only class with no effective CC. Really your post could go either way, since its assumptions completely neglect either of these two extremes (reliance on CC for DPS and DPS with no CC to speak of).