That's really bad play frankly. I've had a couple of times I've done it, either intending to switch my target and failing, or just hitting it without thinking. But I always scold myself for being a baddie when I do it, because that is exactly what I am being.

There are alot of ranged players who can't kite for crap though, and you can pull some insane burst by using shadow stride to reset recklessness. Against reasonably good players you are absolutely right though. Need it as a gap closer.

Are people really seeing this on other servers? DPS is still far more common on Harbinger and Shadowlands, the two servers I play on. Also, teams like you are describing also suffer from being unable to kill anything if the opposing team has one decent healer. Because of this you can do things like spam capping in Novare Coast, and there is very little they can do to stop it if their healers are all healing and don't get the message to start interrupting (and in pug games they usually won't). Heal/tank heavy teams are hard to kill against, even with coordinated teams, but they are actually at a disadvantage in objective based matches. Sorc heals are overtuned right now, and most of the better players to play group ranked in the 8v8 days complained about the tendency of guard to cause stalemates in 8v8 matches. But people stacking healers and tanks intentionally and getting away with it is just because of bad play on the part of the opposing team. That said, cross server queues, cross faction queues, and better matchmaking could improve the experience. But if an opposing four man is composed of two tanks and two healers, you should be beating them if you exhibit equal skill and have a healer yourself.

Maybe, but it's not like they never overnerfed sorc healing (anyone hear remember patch 1.1?).

This is all correct and makes the utility very lackluster in my opinion. I was trying it out, but even in arenas it is hard to make good use of because of the long cooldown and the fact that it only protects from stuns and mezz effects. Makes me very reluctant to use it at all.

Pretty much this ^^^^^^^^ Asking your team not to attack to get you a solo kill is kind of a D-bag thing to do unless the warzone is already no longer in doubt.

I have all 16 Ac's at 60 or above right now with many, including an AP PT at 65. Having played all the AC's since the expansion it is hard to argue against the burst of both AP and MM sniper not being over the top. I really think the surge boost they get from disciplines needs to be reduced from 30% to 10% like most other DPS AC's that get a surge burst and we can see where we are at. I talk frequently with a number of the players who have previously succeeded regularly in group ranked, and the consensus is that AP and MM are currently the best spec's for that setting because of the combination of high DPS and high burst. And they are better than all other AC's by a wide enough margin that the top groups are really considering these the only AC's they want for group ranked. We really need some adjustments (lets just start with the one surge adjustment by the way), and see where they are at after. Because any reasonable player can see they are a bit overtuned right now.

Imperials are only stronger on most servers because most of the better players play there. At certain random times of the day some of the better imp players on Harbinger will play their pub toons and roll the imps. Same thing used to happen on Shadowlands when I played there. The "lure" of the darkside for PvPers always has and always will be knowing more good players to play with on that side, more so than any other factor.

Isn't this a bit of the pot calling the kettle black?

Been plan to primarily play my sentinel (alternate combat and watchman, leaning to combat), and my shadow (infiltration). Will play my healing scoundrel and vanguard tank when those are needed for guild groups. And may end up making the vanguard my main if my guild decides to do group ranked this season.

I play primarily pub side on Harbinger, one of the most imp dominated servers. I have been winning about 80% of my warzone matches the last two weeks because I joined up with a group of solid PvPers. There tends to be a small group of good PvPers on the underdog faction at any given time. Stop complaining about faction imbalance and start to correct it by getting together with some of the other good players you see. We started with one 4 man going in prime time and now always have at least two and sometimes 3 four mans. We intend to get to 4 groups going constantly in prime time. And with Harbinger's republic PvP population being relatively low, this means we can frequently get 8 of us in the same match, virtually guaranteeing a win. This is what needs to be done to improve faction imbalances, no whining to the devs or condemning players who want to play imp side (although I would like to see cross faction queues).

I strongly agree with all of these suggestions. The one I would add is to swap the new mobility abilities for sorc and merc. Give merc's phase walk and sorc's a backwards leap. Would bring both of those spec's closer to balance. I'd also suggest that MM sniper get the same surge nerf you suggested for AP. That alone may be enough to get both of those spec's close to balance. Right now any group ranked team that wants to excel will have a PT tank, AP/MM DPS, and sorc heals. There really is no other combination that can effectively compete given equal skill, and that is a real problem. Hopefully BW will look at all of these things come January when they get back from their extended holiday break.

You know, I can totally understand wanting to play another game. What I don't understand is all the angst and bitterness about it. It's a freaking game. If you did not enjoy the experience feel free to go off into the good night and enjoy playing something else, but why make 40 threads about how much it pisses you off?

I really disagree with much of this post. The healing output of mercs is fine. They just need an "oh **** button" and they would probably be perfectly viable. I really think that if sorcs got the reverse charge and mercs got phase walk with this expansion it would leave the two far closer to balance. And Sorcs are the only ones that can "handle the burst" right now because they are seriously overtuned with regards to burst heal output (especially how easy it is to create burst heals). My primary healer is a scoundrel, and it does have some capacity to deal with burst. You just have to anticipate where that burst is coming as you cannot catch up if you get behind on burst. I really think that is how healing should work in PvP and it should be a bit harder to keep someone up. Yes this makes soloing on a healer painful at times, but it also makes group action with trinity comps far less likely to create stalemates and I really believe this is better for the overall health of the game.

There is no current matchmaking in regs, but it would potentially improve the experience if there were some.

You also realize that a 20% nerf to any classes global damage or healing would make it completely useless don't you? A 5% nerf is very noticeable and will frequently still be too much. Just changing the sorc healers so that proper use of interrupts is more effective against them would be a good start. Op and Merc healers are fine right now, so making them a target for function would be great. And this is an excellent idea. The expansion storylines for the last two expansions would allow this to make sense, so doing it would be a great idea as it would have the potential to substantially improve the quality of PvP matches.

The reason that this will not happen is the limited open world PvP that still happens and the idea of being outclassed by a PvE'er gear wise would be too much for most PvPers to handle.

Funny thing. I played 6 matches on my sentinel last night and won 5 of them, all on Harbinger. Funny how much easier it is to win when you play with a group. If winning a low percentage of your matches is an endless source of frustration, find a group of respectably good players to queue with. It's far from impossible. I play solo a fair amount as well and do not expect to have a good team or win when I do. I'm ok with that. It's a multiplayer game so playing solo is more difficult to do and get a good outcome.

Very nice running with your crew last night. I look forward to doing it again.

Also please note that you will need to turn in the cynosure shells to get the exemplar upgrade. So never actually were PvP gear shells. Get orange adaptable gear shells and put the PvP hilts, armorings, mods, and enhancements in them. Will save you a lot in augment kits.

Why stack defense at all for PvP?

I've yet to see an ambush north of 26-28K on a geared opponent. 16K is about right for rail shot.

I play PvP almost exclusively so maybe I can answer you as both my sentinel and marauder are now full 208 gear. 105% accuracy is all you need for PvP, so start there (but I really do feel like you need that minimal accuracy). Alacrity does accelerate DoT ticks. It is a flat % DPS increase. This means it will benefit specs with maximum on target time more, where power will benefit "burst and run" spec's more. The theory that DoT spec's benefit more from alacrity is based on the idea that damage uptime is 100% once they are applied. I think that watchman and annihilation do not fit this idea as well because they have relatively short duration. What I have found in some limited parsing, is that once crit is increased to about 40%, alacrity and power outperform it. And I have not seen a definable difference between power and alacrity augs for the remaining. So what I have done is slotted 8 crit augs (enough to get to 40% crit and north of 70% surge), and slotted 6 alacrity augments because I just like the feel of the alacrity better than power. I run combat/carnage primarily on my sentinel and marauder, and I like the feel of the 8.6% alacrity I get with that setup better than the extra 50 or so bonus melee damage I get with power augs. Hope that helps.

Now that I am aware of it, I am noticing losing HoJ right before wanting to use it quite a bit now.

Annihilation has the second highest single target DPS output in the game right now, so if played well DPS is exceptionally good. And to the OP, check out the watchman/annihilation guide in this section of the forum. I think you will find it very helpful.