Depends, whereas the Republic used to be the much better faction when it came to PUGs there's been an excessive number of pre-mades and hardcore Pvpers returning for the game resulting in many more losses for the Reps. I'd estimate it takes me about 2 hours, which is pretty average.

Reverting Expertise back to 1.1.5 with the exception of diminishing returns would go a long way toward making PvP more fun again.

You're not alone. Warzone consumable have become an unsustainable luxury at this point in time. It will probably change with the introduction of RWZ when rated commendations become much easier to obtain but at this point in time I can't imagine anyone investing into them. I'm personally still living off the 200+ consumables I stockpiled before the patch but even I've become rather stingy with them.

The idea that players should respawn in waves seems a little archaic, dating back to the days of FPS like Battlefield 1942. The idea was that respawn-waves ensured people would move out together and thus encourage team-play. But it never really helped all that much and felt pretty annoying at times. That's why more modern FPS have moved away from the idea of respawn-waves and resort back to a fixed respawn-timer (typically around 15 seconds in a modern FPS). Now I for one curse every time I respawn in a warzone and see that I have to wait the full ~20 seconds for the "gate" to open, all while watching my team getting pummeled. It's frustrating. Now I can see why respawn-waves might be necessary for some warzones like Voidstar. It would be really hard to plant any bomb if you had a constant stream of respawning players interrupt your process. On the other hand a successful plant is almost entirely dependent on getting lucky with the "respawn timer". In fact, I've lost and won many Voidstar games simply due to good/bad luck with the respawn timer. It kind of sucks. So while it's debatable for Voidstar I don't see how it serves a purpose in Huttball or Novare Coast. Civil War doesn't resort to such a clunky mechanic and it works just fine. Hence I propose that instead of resorting to archaic "respawn waves", Huttball and Novare Coast now have a fixed ~10 second respawn timer every time a player dies. Imo this will result in a better and more enjoyable player experience compared to what we're currently seeing on live.

Yes, healers will be needed. Even a single healer drastically increases the longevity of the team. Think about how often you actually use the ooc heal in PvP. Not much...unless defending a node. I think 2 healers will be considered ideal. You don't want too many or you gimp your pressure but you want enough to keep your team topped-off without having to constantly respawn.

Sounds about right. Assassins win the games while Marauders kill everything that stands in their way.

I know, but they were trying to fix a future, theoretical problem that didn't currently exist and thus ended up making things worse overall. At a 10-15% range, the extra DR gained by Expertise compared to damage bonus is negligible. It only becomes a problem once you reach Expertise levels of 30% or more, which will hopefully never happen. Consider for a moment how many stats affect your survivability except for Expertise. ... ...Endurance. Endurance is the only stat that increases player surviability on a wide-spread basis. Tank stats are only relevant to certain classes, hence they aren't global surviability stats. Now let's see how many stats improve your damage output. Strength/Cunning/Aim/Willpower Power Crit Surge Hit Alacrity Surge and Crit even scale with each other. So while the increase of Endurance might off-set the ever increasing main-stat, what's going to off-set the rest of the stats? Having superior damage reduction on Expertise served the purpose by making it off-set at least some of the ever inflating damage stats. You can't have an RPG system with 6 offensive stats and 1 defensive stat and expect it to remain balanced over extended periods of time, especially not when you intend to keep introducing new tiers of gear.

It might not have been a game-changer in itself but it certainly is a big part of the current problem. Class changes surely play a role, but only Expertise changed the game as a whole. The thing is, they were trying to fix something that wasn't broke. All they needed to do was curb the diminishing returns on Expertise a little to make gear progression meaningful. Simply giving Expertise linear DRs would have probably sufficed. Because the thing is, damage always scales better than survivability in every single MMO. This is largely because designers have a hard time coming up with mechanics that enhance survivability outside of Endurance (HP). The slightly superior damage reduction component of the old Expertise helped curb that ever-increasing damage a little.

I agree, PVP since 1.2 has been a lot less fun compared to before. I blame this largely on the Expertise change and the lack of nerfs to Tank Assassins/Shadows. While the Expertise change made sense from a mathematical POV it didn't make much change from game-play POV. Damage/time to live ration was fine before 1.2. Now it just feels off. The healers nerfs aren't helping much either. What really bugs me though is that this development was very predictable after reading the patch notes. Players had a much better sense of what 1.2 PvP would feel like compared to the development team. Honestly, half of the class changes didn't make sense to any serious PvPer while the classes that needed nerfs escaped unscathed. As far as PvP balance goes, Bioware displayed a complete lack of understanding of their own game.

I disagree with a few points made by the OP 1. I really don't see what point you're trying to make about PvP not being "dynamic". Somehow you turned something about dynamic combat into a rant about team-size imbalances. I really don't see the connection between the two. If your point is about static environments, well then I think that's just part of the game. Every PvP map in every PvP game is essentially static. The only dynamic elements in PvP games are players. 2. I also disagree about PvP combat being "engaging". While I do think the PvP is rather simple and evolves too much around spaming damage into your enemies coupled with lots of AoE CC I wouldn't call it uninteresting. It's just not anywhere near as deep as say, WoW's PvP because abilities are very simple. I think that's the core problem. Players do have a lot of tools to work with, it's just that all the tools are very similar. There's very little "finesse" requires for managing abilities. Any duel in WoW has more micro-management and split-second decision making going on than a 3v3 in SWTOR. This is something SWTOR is lacking. But it will get there eventually. I skipped the part about Ilum because that really belongs into a different thread.

...because let's be honest here for a second....that's essentially what it's become.

-delete please-

With ranged DPS all fights are soooooo much easier than with melees. Doing this flashpoint is melees is like Nightmare mode x2.

Rage Smashes used to hit for about 5000 reliably and under extreme circumstances and with heavy gear optimization you'd get the occasional 6000 pre 1.2. This was nerfed into the ground. And yet here we are, seeing 8k Heatseeker missiles. What gives?

How to beat a Marauder... Kind of says a lot, doesn't it.

I'm rocking 4/26/11 currently and it's working alright in PvP. Damage and mobility both seem better compared to deep Vigilance due to Zealous Leap. Focus is also a non-issue because many Blade Storms end up being free. It still doesn't feel anywhere near as awesome as old focus but I guess it works. My only gripe, as usual, is our piss-poor survivability. Focused Defense is worthless in PvP and overpriced in PvE. We die like flies even with full PvP gear. Whereas with old Focus I felt I had a niche carved out for myself (AoE pressure) now I just feel more and more like a gimped Sentinel.

We're still less than a week into the new content. I'd hold out a little with the nerf cries until we have a better feel for the thing. I agree that the healer nerfs probably contribute a lot to the enhanced difficulty.

/signed It's despicable how much ranged DPS are favored in PvE encounters. Lost Island is just the tip of the iceberg. Earlier in this thread I recounted my experience from last night, with a pure melee group. Even with a full Rakata group of what I'd consider fairly capable players we wiped close to 20 times with the best try leaving us at 3%. Today, I decided to give it another shot. I threw on my tank gear...I didn't even bother to respec to tank, and 2-shotted the boss. The only difference between the two visits were the fact that we had 1 ranged DPS and 1 melee instead of 2 melees. It's a WORLD of a difference. The final boss too is very melee unfriendly although not nearly to the same extent....I think.

FTFY The amount of melee hate in SWTOR seems to reach new horizons every patch. It's like the designers are completely oblivious to the imbalance.

1. Revert Expertise back to the way it was in 1.1.5 but address the overly-harsh diminishing returns. 2. Address imbalances especially in regards to Sentinels/Marauders, Shadows/Assassins. Give Operatives/Scoundrels a gap closer while reducing their burst. 3. Implement cross-server warzones with priority queuing for same-server teams. 4. Implement rated warzones as planned. 5. Implement a DotA-style Ilum, as suggested here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=251962 6. .... 7. Profit

1st Huttball of the day > Civil War > Void Star > 2nd Huttball of the day > Novare Coast > 3rd+ Huttball of the day.

For the record, lose the PvE gear. But aside from that...yeah...something's seriously off with PvP at the moment. Heatseeker missile is probably just a part of the problem.

Like most players, I too had my trusted Matrix Cube equipped for most of my PvP up to 1.2. On some characters I even preferred the passive PvE proc-trinkets just to save me a keybind. But now I'm questioning these choices since their lack of Expertise makes them a poor choice for PvP. PvP is "stack Expertise" or "stay home". Assuming that Expertise stacking is the way to go, even for Relic slots, does that mean that I should run with 2 "on use" trinkets? Because I'd love to have a choice between at least one passive trinket since keybinds are really hard to come by. TL;DR: Bioware, please add some "passive" PvP trinkets to your game.

The change to warzone credits was entirely an economic decision, not one made to annoy PvPers. If you PvP'd a lot pre 1.2 then you stacked up a lot of credits over time, without ever having to spend any. I had close to 10 Mio. credits prior to 1.2 and only PvPed for the past month. Look, you might not think it was a problem or convince yourself that Bioware is somehow out to get you. But Bioware obviously considered it enough of a problem to warrant a change. I'm inclined to agree. Low inflation is good for the game's economy, something they were focusing on in 1.2.

Constant respeccing is a luxury. The first respec each week is free. You won't run all Belsavis Dailies in 25 minutes. 40 Minute at least. And if you do die...for whatever reason, (which isn't even a possibility in PvP) you'll have run that particular daily for nothing. PvP is a low risk - low reward environment. It's like a savings account. You only gain 2-3% interest per year. If you want higher risk/reward, you'll have to partake in other activities that at least offer the potential for failure. PvP consumables can be purchased for PvP commendations. That point is entirely invalid. You can get everything you need for PvP, from PvP. If you want more money, run dailies, just like everyone else. Just because dailies are considered "PvE" doesn't mean that raiders enjoy running them or that "PvPers" should somehow get away without running them. It's a tedious task for everyone, but a necessary for a working economy with stable inflation.