The words of someone who never actually had to put up with the frustration and hopelessness of facing premades day after day, month after month. As long as it gives fair odds of an even matchup and the other warzones don't, I'd rather play nothing but OPG. Funny how the repetition of one warzone is now popping up as a luxury problem for people who have had their farming routine upset by not being able to stack the deck in their favour from the start.

Quoting for truth. The queueing issue is more likely just a result of the faction imbalance and not a hidden function that deprioritizes all the other zones. Imagine having 50 imps and 10 reps and trying to divide them into groups of 8v8 and 4v4 and you'll see that if you're suddenly allowed to mix them in with each other, it'll be a lot easier. As for the people crying about not being able to steamroll in regular warzones with their regular factional advantage as often: lol

This mirrors my own experience in detail - speaking as a republic player on a not-so-populated server (The Progenitor). To me OPG has been a great experience: instead of the usual way (being ganked 3vs1 no matter where I go or what I do on the map because my team is so outmatched), many pvp sessions actually offer a fighting chance; opportunities to affect the overall match, contribute, get some 1vs1 action, and so on. In estimation my win ratio has actually been closer to 60-40, which could be random luck - but I prefer to think of it as me not being such a bad PvPer after all; it just starts feeling that way when 9 out of 10 matchups are completely skewed, day after day.

Realistically it's only fair that warriors face some kind of risk when leaping. It has always been a flawless gapcloser, but in a real fight it could very well be that the warrior leaves himself open when attempting to leap to a distant target who could then easily slay him; or perhaps he overshoots the distance and falls off a precipice. To reflect this a 20% chance for the warrior to die every time they leap seems more than reasonable.

Would be nice from a game mechanics point of view and work thematically for huttball as well, but kind of mess up RP and immersion for the other warzones. 'Right guys, let's claim the Voidstar for the repub - wait, there's just the one smuggler and a mob of sith lords here?'

So we get one warzone where a stealther can't singlehandedly change the course of the match and the whine carpet bombing starts? Seriously.

I agree with much of your post but think you're selling the stealth classes somewhat short, mostly due to the psychological effect on the opposition. If an op attacks a node in a 1 vs 1 situation they have a decent chance for a quick cap right off the bat, depending on the defender. But if there are complications and more defenders arrive, the op can disappear. Any other attacker you can make sure you've eliminated, but when you know someone's still lurking around you're bound to spend time attempting to find him, and loath to leave just a single defender at the node - in such cases a stealther can tie up more than one player, and as such do a good job even without getting tied up. In the short-term the stealther could even go do something else after harassing the node, leaving the defenders unsure whether or not he's still there and potentially making the wrong call. In such a case he'd not only negate the enemy players involved, he'd do so while still being able to put out effort elsewhere.

That would be the most obvious, yeah. For the objective-based warzones the ops and assassins could also turn a game by managing to e.g. stealth/solo cap a pylon or plant a bomb, like kweassa mentions above.

In an ideal reg matchup with roughly the same amount of healers, player skill and cooperation, then yes. But as you may have experienced, many servers tend to have one side winning most of them, all else being equal. I won't go into the possible reasons for this, but when you're in a reg that gets dominated by one side, getting a chance to utilize your personal skill as a player becomes more and more difficult. With your team spending so much time spawning, you'll always be outnumbered in the field. You can't count on being able to stay unseen at range while your frontline engages the opposition; you can't even count on finding a 1 vs 1. This is obviously a tough situation for anyone, but some classes handle this better than others, and snipers and mercs are not among those. At this point in a reg you also often see actually competent players leave the warzone as they realize they can't really do anything; and also of course the players who think they're uber will start flaming the rest of the group before quitting. At least one in every wz.

This. I'm sure a lot of players are awesome and can school anyone, but there are still obvious class differences.

Like I said it depends on what you mean by viable. They're better than an empty spot, but they don't have the inherent potential to turn a game around.

I read it, I just oppose the argument that a class doing well when it has well-working support and the team is winning anyway is much of a positive. And it depends on what you mean by viable. It's not like they are autokills or can't accomplish anything at all, but, unless you get a winning team from the get-go, it would nearly always favour the team more to replace the sniper or merc with a sorc or PT. If you already have an overwhelming team, then the sniper/merc will possibly add more than another sorc or a jugg. A PT, probably about as much. Apples and oranges really. Possibly with the kind of focus you can bring to bear in a premade, but in a reg pug (the concern of the thread) it's more likely than not that people will attack random targets. And with such "focus" juggs and sorcs have a tremendous survivability advantage over a merc or a sniper.

Sure, mercs and snipers are effective with a solid team, but give any class backup from an attention-grabbing tank, a couple of extra dps and a solid healer, and they will perform well too. In a team that's getting beat snipers and mercs will come under pressure a lot, and that will make at least the sniper's dps drop to near zero. Mercs can be more mobile while doing damage, but still can't defend themselves well. They can't do anything to turn the game around. It would seem more efficient to play a class that can help the team win than one that needs an already winning team to reach its full potential. Snipers can do well on maps with perching spots like Quesh and (to a degree) Voidstar where enemies can't easily get to them, but that's about it - and unfortunately utilizing those spots doesn't always coincide with helping the team win. Of course it's bullsh*t. Even an easy win is at least a little bit of fun. Losing a game where you get close to 0 kills and everywhere you go you end up fighting 1vs3 is just frustrating.

What? By rocketing out and running, or what? I would say sorcs, ops, PTs and juggernauts.

Indeed, I almost wept for that marauder who made it to the finals before they separated it into stealth and non-stealth brackets. He defeated sorcs and juggernauts to get that far, and then there was absolutely nothing he could do vs the op in the finals. Literally nothing.

Maybe that part has something to do with it? Most classes can't absorb even a third as much damage.

Other MMOs have handled it in various ways. Perhaps a debuff that can't be purged that makes a stealthed character visible to everyone on the same team as the caster, or prevents stealthing again while it lasts. Compare hunters and rogues in WoW. As for healing, a counter to that already exists as you say, but maybe it needs to be higher than 20% (given the current power of healing in pvp). When it comes to tanking it's not the tanking in itself that needs to be dealt with in pvp terms imo; rather the damage output-to-tankability ratio of characters who can simultaneously deal tremendous damage and take a very long time to kill, like PTs and juggernauts.

Thanks for your many exemplary engineering videos BaineOs, I've watched several while trying to learn the class. I agree with your post, and also feel that it illustrates the issue quite clearly. A sniper needs a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the ins and outs of the juggernaut class in order to stand a chance: when to do damage and not do damage, when to stun, when to mezz, when to knockback, etc. The juggernaut on the other hand needs very little of this; he can just hammer his usual keys for closing distance and dealing damage, and odds are his health pool will last a whole lot longer than the sniper's.

I have heard it plenty about concealment ops. Combination of their utility with resetting combat and healing to full, great mobility and the relatively high skill ceiling, I think. A good operative tends to be extremely tricky to deal with.

Troll post? Ever faced a gunslinger/sniper on your juggernaut? I primarily play one and I can tell you that there's very little we can do against you. An operative would take even longer to kill you; once they've spent their opening burst they essentially need to be able to go in for the kill (not an option with a jugg) or consider withdrawing.

In addition to what sumquy writes above I'll chip in and say that the scoundrel feels like a more complete and self-sufficient class due to stealth and healing options. They have more alternatives, always a way out in a fight, and can avoid one if they want to. On the downside, because of their versatility they also tend to get locked into their healing role in PvE - it's somewhat rare to bring scoundrel dps as they don't exactly deal outstanding sustained damage and as healing tend to be in shorter supply. Other than that there are some thematic considerations. The gunslinger is a ranged class (though deal damage about as well when close up and can survive surprisingly well in the short term) whereas the scoundrel is a short-range or even mostly melee class, so they play rather differently. RP-wise a gunslinger feels more proper in-universe to me: it's somewhat of a suspension of disbelief that a skilled guy with dual blasters kills sith lords left and right, but with some effort you can headcanon it. A scoundrel though, especially with the scrapper spec, essentially runs around punching sith lords and gargantuan monsters alike with his fists. If that's appealing to you then go ahead, but if you're more RP-sensitive I'd recommend the imperial-side alternative, operative, instead.. at least they use knives.

As others have touched on already, as a sniper everything is against you when you fight a juggernaut. You can't tank his damage and with all his defensive cooldowns it's very hard to deal significant damage to him while also attempting to keep your distance. You have to watch out that you don't get your shots reflected back at you, you have to watch out that he doesn't heal to full from your damage, and so on. And even a half-assed juggernaut will do some damage to you as you kite. And all the while, unlike him you don't have any way to replenish your precious health, so the longer the fight goes on, the more of a disadvantage you'll be at. Remember, he could stand still and let you unload on him with an optimal rotation, and it would *still* take you a long time to finish him off. So in short, I don't see it happening without a significant advantage in skill or pvp experience. I agree a map like Quesh gives snipers some leeway, but even if you open up from an ideal position, a juggernaut could jog all the way up to you, and still kill you. It's just how the game is at the moment. If it makes you feel any better, when you do beat a jugg it's really like batman beating superman.

Well, you can get knocked back out of cover as well. It doesn't really work like a stance. Well, yes and no. All specs can avoid diversion through covered escape/hightail it, but only if you time it right and roll when the grenade is incoming. Once you're hit it's too late. And again, I don't know what kind of warzones you guys are seeing, but being one on one vs another sniper/slinger without a sorc wailing on you or an op appearing to stun you happens for me maybe once a month. Heck, it's even gotten so rare to see any other sniper or slinger inside a warzone that it makes me happy just to stumble across one. Usually out of 16 players it'll be 7-8 sorcs/sages, 3-4 PTs, 2-3 ops and the rest mixed melee.

This. Also compunded by several other classes having those abilities, so snipers get jumped because everyone knows there's an easy target that can't really get away and can't withstand heavy focus. Much easier than going for the sorc, the op or the PT where you know they will either escape at will or stay alive until backup arrives. The only real upsides of sniper/slinger pvp at the moment is that you get to feel somewhat unique in the sea of sorcs and PTs; and that it's essentially pvp in hard mode - the odds are always against you, and when you do well it's like you just won with one arm tied behind your back.

In my experience, when you can afford to "waste" diversion offensively vs another sniper you're in a pretty good position over-all. More often than not you tend to get jumped by an operative or assassin in short order and need to pop it for defense. Especially these days when there's seemingly around 4 ops and 2 assassins for every sniper. Not sure what you mean. All specs can spec into this, though mm can extend it for a few seconds after leaving the aoe.