In my opinion this game has just plain missed the mark. We can all sit and speculate and pontificate and have a high school debate team meet minus the manners in the forums about why or why not PvP is not fun here. At the end of the day it will come down to this, do more enjoy this or not? I guess we'll see and with GW2 screaming down the tracks the first major hurdle is not far off. In my opinion, the fun factor dial has just been getting slowly clicked back here to the point that I plain don't enjoy PvP here anymore. The last MMO I put any appreciable amount of time into was WoW but here is what I did enjoy there in my time compared to this still baby faced game, SWTOR. 1. There is little strategy here in the WZs. We all know if you are a PuG facing a premade it's pretty much over before it began. At least in most of the BGs (well the earlier ones, AV, WSG, AB) there were the concepts of offense and defense and it took the team to maintain that balance. An exploited failure of off. or def. generally decided outcome. In SWTOR it seems that both sides just sprint toward each other and essentially compare stats when they meet mid-field. When the dust quickly settles from the initial flying head-butts one team is dropping doors while most of the other sits twiddling their thumbs waiting for the invis. wall to drop, planting def. on 2 of 3 nodes with roaming backup, or pushing/pulling/passing across the "gerter system" while owning the middle. It seems impossible to recover a rough start and the mass exodus post the first 30 sec. skirmish only turns a smoldering ember into a raging fire and the game truly is over before it began. 2. In WoW (well when it was still fun years ago), my guild had a few nights a week that we raided, when the raid ended we formed up PvP teams and hit the field IN THE SAME DAMN ARMOR! We put a lot of time into raids, (more than healthy working adults should) and we enjoyed PvE and PvP. We barely had time to focus on grinding out our gear in one avenue, now a days they want us to double our grind? No thanks. We'll choose one avenue as that's all we have time for (PvP invariably because it doesn't require 4 hour marathons) and those who enjoyed the PvE can either find another guild, suffer an already weak PvP system for the comeraderie, or save their $15 (which we all invariably choose these days eventually because they've shot holes in our guild bonds out the gate anyway). Its a tough call for a guild with members going back to Meridian. Yeah there was plenty of grinding to be done "back in the day", but there was also plenty of time to eventually enjoy the fruits of that grind. If PvP and PvE gear was equivalent in power for time invested then I don't see the problem. Why would a legit "PvP pro" be scared of some guy who earned his gear of equivalent strength running scripted boss fights? I stepped out of MC in my Earth Fury and right into AV. If all I was good at was spamming my nuke heal on the main tank then it shouldn't matter if I'm wearing tier 37 gear or a thong and pasties. You either have the skills or you don't. You either earned the gear and can back it up with action or you can't. Make the PvP aquired gear sufficient for raids too, the people climbing the PvP ladder still have to learn the pulls, fights, bosses, etc. to be useful in a raid as well. You may have the stats but the guy who runs up to the boss and just starts poking him with their stick is gonna fare about as well as they fixed "DPS turret" is in PvP. Stop making "gear" more complicated than it needs to be and leave what measure of "skill" you can in the players hands again. 3. CC. Seriously? It's ridiculous here. Rogues had it by the boat load and the only answer was gain enough HP to outlast their opening rotation - and then you pulled em limb from limb. Mages had it because as soon as you got your hands on them it was like a lion eating a puppy. The defensive shields and crap? If you ever "bubble-hearthed" you were instantly a WALKING V@GINA! Same goes for the "99%" damage reduction crap here. 99%? Come on... I've always felt that devs giving a class an ability like this is tantamount to them saying, "well we give up, here we'll give you this amount of time to get yourself out of the way because we can't figure out anything better for you to actually FIGHT with - so at least you can run away REALLY F-ING GOOD!" Grats.... I guess? Eventually they hand them actually GOOD fighting skills or specs though and leave the "get out of jail free card" crutches in their pocket - invariably it seems. No class or spec should come standard with an ace up their sleeve. Just like in poker, the skill is in getting that ace up your sleeve with out the opposition noticing to begin with. Remember the SKILL we were discussing earlier? 4. Well whatever, no one's gonna read all this crap anyway, least of all anyone who can change it. I'm sure I'll see a lot of you in GW2 where once again we'll all collectively say, "I hope they get it right this time." Oh, and before the anti-WoW crowd chimes in; first, I speak of Vanilla and somewhat into BC (haven't even really played it since then), second, I could have compared this sloppy failure to DAOC's PvP but that's like comparing a monster truck to a Prius really. P.S The people crying about ganking and such not being PvP. Where did y'all come from? It certainly wasn't a decent game's PvP server. The long and short is, you signed up for a PvP server, the rules state that if you are in the right place at the wrong time, whether you are level one and a full raid of 50's show up to corpse camp and a*shat you (google it), those rules are being followed. "But I just wanted to pick flowers to make healthy potions for the other care bears in my guildy family ." Yep and those monsters wanted to dry h#mp your corpse's face up and down the map until you rage quit. I guess someone clicked the wrong "I Agree" box? Someone ended up in the wrong neighborhood and I don't think it's that grinning monster using your avatar's lifeless corpse like a baseball bat to beat your friend's avatar to death. (Google the name 'Angwe' for further reading on this subject) And it is with you folks I will leave this bright beacon of truth: "Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." - Alfred Pennyworth to Bruce Wayne

Which brings up another point, too much CC. Every class shouldn't be poopin off CC like this. I played a SS VG, felt like I had a point before, at the very least go defend and keep gaurd up while taunting. Especially with 1 other person we could keep multiples off a cap with plenty of time to spare for back up to arrive. Now in tank spec and gear I feel like I get smeared across the field like a bug, well short of having a couple team mates and everyone popping off CC like fireworks on the 4th of July.

I really don't have a dog in this fight but one comment just caught my eye as one of the most ludicrous I've seen here. I sincerely hope it was meant as an exaggertion for effect and a joke but these days you never know. Best team used to be 8 healers, or 4 tanks / 4 healers? If this was meant seriously, just take a few seconds and imagine these teams meeting in battle. "So um... anyone wanna take a swing?" "Really? What's the point? You see those piles of armor standing next to every guy wearing the sack cloth robes?" "Should we try and cap?" "I've been trying for 8 minutes already. That guy wearing the potato sack flicks a pebble at me every time and messes me up then you 7 idiots spam heal me for 45 seconds... *sigh*" More on topic, it all seems pretty simple to me. Tanks aren't supposed to do much DPS, so you give them abilities to reduce incoming DPS and slow down the march. Healers aren't suppose to do much DPS, so you give them CC and tricks to duck it and keep healing. DPS is supposed to do a lot of DPS (wait for it...) and figure out how to thwart the efforts of the above two roles. As mouse traps go this one always seemed to do the job, short of a stroke of genius I think we could have stopped designing 'em here. Or alternatively, we can make DPS the only worthwhile function on the battle field and give everyone an avenue to be able to pile drive everyone else through the floor with blinding speed. I suppose in some fashion that's "balanced" too? It seems to me they've forsaken option 1 in pursuit of opt. 2 in this game. Not sure we're all diggin it.

No. Way. It can't be... I mean, it can't be for real can it? Wha... I... um... what?

I'm not talking about my broken arm Doctor! I'm talking about this pain emenating from the upper extremity of my body!!! What I am getting at is that no one wants to heal or tank anymore because everything is so heavily weighted to make going for a purely DPS focused spec and gear build that it's no contest. In most other games I've played there was a very succinct statement about healers, "If you can heal, you should heal." In this game it's more like "If you ca... damn, he died before I could finish". Incentives have been provided for every class to focus on DPS and taken away from the pursuit of any other potential role. This is not a "PT's only" issue. A PT is roflstomping you and you can't heal through the amount of DPS he can slam into you with. I'm not surprised. I'm trying to explain to you the environment in which these conditions were created. My guess is he's certainly not "tanking" you to death. I'd also guess that a Mara/Op/Jugg/etc., spec'd and geared to, would pull you apart faster than you could heal through their DPS too. Oh and yeah and, GW2 has AoE.... and RvR...

... I'd just like to add here that it was only a matter of time until the min/max'ers caught up. I don't even think that time is fully here yet to be honest, just wait. If things continue this way unabated it won't be long until you really catch the wrong team and your team ends up behind that wall in the spawn point seconds after it dropped to start the match and doors are blowing off the hinges faster than the announcer can call em. The point is being missed once again. In the vicious cycle of nerfs we can single out one class and maybe they get punched down, but as always a new king is crowned and round and round we go. Pre 1.2 had more hope than almost any PvP / class system coming out of the gate I felt. Then they went the wrongest possible way with it and any class can be smeared across the field in seconds. BEGIN THE NERF HERDING!!! Maybe we should have seen the writing on the wall with how hard they swung the hammer on Smugs / Ops?

I briefly considered joining in a campaign, much like the Marauders and Sentinels have, to try and refute and give perspective on the claims of OP'ness and cries for Nerfing. Briefly. Then I realized that this game is circling the drain in no small part due to the community and that their are other games with promise, especially in the realm of 'balanced' PvP, cresting the horizon as we speak. It can't all be blames on the community though, the developers are the final line between need and want. We don't feed our children cake and ice cream for meals because we know that's dumb, despite what they want. I'll just enjoy this for what it's worth and then move on as has occured with so many flash in the pan, unfulfilled hopefuls that have preceded this in the past couple years. A sincere launch with sincere goals, followed quickly with an over the top, drastic, knee jerk reaction to God know's what that sends the game into free fall it just doesn't seem to recover from appears to be the hallmark of these sad titles. In my opinion, this game's TTK has stood in direct contravention of the idea of several classes and in fact roles. Expertise has been knocked out of whack. There's probably a handful at least of other issues not even worth mentioning or picking this game apart to bring to light. I play a VG. Personally I picked this class to be well... a tank. I tried earnestly to be a tank until the inevitable massive overhaul was implemented. Since then, tell me why would I spec and gear to tank in PvP? Nerf my damage for what? To watch this attack fly by my shield and make my absorption pointless? While that attack makes a joke of my armor and defense stats? Trade my RPG in for a BB gun so I can survive half a breath longer than another VG but typically not as long as any average Light or Medium Armored class? We're all victims of this calamity of logic and design. We've all been pigeon holed into DPS to have the most noticeable impact and contribution. We're all tired of getting pulled inside out in seconds with our only option being to spec to pull the other guy inside out faster . Unfortunatly its always difficult to see the forest from the trees. People complained that a healer was tough to kill not so long ago, especially with a tank gaurding them, taunting the DPS, CC'ing and generally making the task even more difficult. Can I make an off the wall, crazy observation here? Maybe it was supposed to be? Yes, that duo especially was a b***h to kill, they also weren't going to kill you either. They were going to occupy you until one side gained the backup to push the situation to one side or the other, as they should I felt. I tend to think those poeple traded in their ability to DPS for something. Destroy the value of the trade though and... we'll take our DPS back then, thanks. Ah well, moving along...

Reverse psychology? Shrewd. If it works this opens up a whole new bag of tricks though you know.

Well I suppose it could sort of go back to the 'ol, "back in my day we had to walk up hill in the snow without shoes to school. Both ways!". You know, the, 'youngsters have it so easy these days' kind of viewpoint. Kinda silly, just throwin it out there as a possibility. Really it's unavoidable though, as they stack higher and higher "tiers" of gear the lower ones have to become relatively easier to get or you lock out any future players that aren't willing to take on a gargantuan grind. Think about down the road, 5 "sets" have been added beyond WH - but you still get to contend with BM bags and the RNG for God nows how long before you can even dream about those next six sets. Opinions aside, it's just the nature of the beast.

As the title says. Just checking in to see if any progress has been made on this problem.

Can we tone down the condescension a bit? Good lord! It wasn't apparent to this guy yet that Blitz doesn't work against players, that was all. The question has been answered, issue clarified. He's not whining, he's not QQ'ing, or a "bad" or anything else. It would be nice if it worked in PvP, it's on a relatively long cooldown and requires an incapacitated target (so you're bagging someone's CC if you could use it) but it also hit's like a train. God knows I wanted to stomp into the first WZ I could and rail someone in the face with it, doesn't work that way though. We can move on now.

HiB sound sucks, I think we can all agree. Lightning instead of fire I can live with. My idea as far as an alternative to stock strike though may get a little wierd but bare with me. Why can't we just draw back haymaker style and jack em in the jaw? I mean really just rail em in the face Mike Tyson style? Furthermore as part of the manuever the Trooper could eject a shell and snatch it out of the air to hold in his fist while turning his opponents mouth to mush (kinda the same theory as a roll of quarters, you get it)? Explains the ammo cost a little better too. Give us that really stomach churning splattery sound effect that's kinda like someone smacking a piece of bloody raw meat against a wall. I mean I'm talking a really over the top "holy s**t" kinda of chin checker here . Well, it's a thought, heh...

Pardon me? I'd love to know where these figures are coming from because clearly I am doing something massively wrong? I would tend to guess these comparitive numbers are applying to "naked" VG / PT but then that doesn't account for the supposed 200% difference in survivability. I haven't run any numbers either but I have run full Shield spec in Supercommando as well as full Assault spec in Eliminator (with a smattering of this and that odd gear pieces thrown in for a little help in relavent stats for each spec and set). Believe me the difference in DPS is indeed huge. The difference in survivability, not so much. Lot of variables in there to play around with but to make a generic "averaging" of those percentages is quite a leap.

I only had time to skim through but seems to be an excellent idea. One potential problem that leaps to mind, and again I did only skim through for now so maybe I missed an answer for this, is, similar to in WZs when a faction gets 2-capped half of em abandon it as a loss immediately and quit. I could see the same possibly occuring here, "well we lost one planet, screw it - let's give up". I've never been in another game where you had to factor in for people quiting in the face of opposition but sadly, it's all become a pure and simple gear grind and if the fastest way to the gear involves turning tail then that is what will occur now a days.

I was trying, when I first read the OP a spark was struck, when I found out he was only level 38 the fuel line was opened full bore, to formulate a perfect weaving of words in response. In my head I began composing such a work of sarcastic mockery that would hopefully have the OP lighting his computer on fire while sobbing uncontrollably by the end of today. The above is the perfect and succinct summary of how I really feel about this thread though and the OP. Bravo sir. 'My level 38 Jugg does not remind me of the powerful Darth Vader, I wish I were an Agent.' It just... it defies credulity!

Oh, and in reference to your Sig: I am absolutley mortified by Ergs!!!! Spiders too but especially ERGS!!!

When the game first rolled out they at least didn't squash or discourage the possibility of it. It took the community to get the ball rolling though. As time went on and they couldn't help with screwing with stuff they killed it though. God-like gaurds, flying mounts, unreal time sink PvP gear grinds, eventually you could que for ANYTHING from the UI while standing stark still in the comfort of your capital city. They destroyed it to be sure, but fun was had before they got their hands on their own game design and ruined it all. SWTOR put out a lame duck to begin with though, this one never had the potential for open world random battles to even get off the ground. Though on my server we rung every last drop of world PvP we could out of the Plague Event. That was honestly the ONLY world PvP I have yet to see in this game, and the most fun I've had here. Ilum was just a pathetic exercise in "how not to..."

LOL! The edited part is a term that could be construed as a slang racial insult to people of the Chinese nationality, of course it was in NO WAY meant to portray that defintion, heh. BTW, I'd love to go back to being a tank, it's why I made a VG out of the gate. Take your DPS back and give me the defense that is the hallmark of any tank so I can go back to getting punched in the face so my team mates can punch others in the face unabated . You can even take my 10k HiB back !

I enjoyed a similar community of discussion and desire to help in the Shaman forums of WoW. In light of the "Nerf <blank> NOW!!!" threads polluting the PvP forums and the just plain old trolling and mudslinging occuring as a result I suggested that if people found themselves having an issue dealing with a certain AC they go to their AC forum and ask for help there first. That post promptly dropped off into the abyss and the complaining and certainty that absolutely everything and everyone needs to be nerfed continues unabated. Nerf-herders, QQ'ers, fanbois, elitists, baddies, everyone is a member of some faction advancing the agenda of their own dark conspiracy. No one is just a player looking to discuss the game if you take these forums at face value.

Ah crap... secrets out. (seriously there is even more "******" in our armorif anyone cares to look into it)

No, it wasn't griefing. There were dozens of 60's on each side and the battle ebbed back and forth across the field from TM to SS. I was just one-shot fodder caught in the cross fire. What made it so much fun was the near insurmountable challenge, and then surmounting it. Even more so with friends of similar level who were there for no other reason than to help me reach my goal. WoW at least had some of this "epic-ness" in it's design. The Warlock's mount (Pally's as well I guess)? The Hunter's Bow / Staff thing quest? Hell I've gone out with guildie Hunters to help them with this and found hunters of the opposing faction attempting that stage at the time. Especially if they were soloing it, we would go in and clear the road of mobs so they could kite. Bare in mind we were the bastards who would scrap our own raid to stand yours up at the gates of BRM for hours! We didn't grief for the sake of ruining some level 12's play time. It was done with a point and a goal of having fun or creating an opportunity for fun (if stomping a mudhole in that lvl 12 brought 20 lvl 60s out of the woodwork then he was about to have a bad day though). And that fun sir, was in the unscripted, unpredictable, challenge. If your pissed about your 40 man raid having their MC raid ruined by us, well you are 40 lvl 60's on a PvP server.

You have utterly decimated my hopes and dreams sir! I was going to start a new VG on an entirely new server with the SOLE POINT of creating the Legacy name of "TheRaidBoss". Glorious dreams of stomping through WZs dispensing 10k HiBs at will, dashed! DASHED SIR! I didn't want to be a unique and special snowflake! I wanted to be a GIANT MENACING ONE THAT HURTS LIKE HELL! Oh well back to slapping gaurd on the ball carrier I go... *grumble* *sulk* *sniffle*

Sir, I'm willing to accept (hell, I'm just gonna assume) english is not your first or native language. As this um... this? devolved into completely unintelligible though I have never the less tried to understand, I hope I'm missing the mark but.... Did you really just suggest there to nerf our self heals? Couldn't be... Could it? P.S OP (Duckling), thanks for the laughs in this thread but I think you're no longer needed. You aren't entertaining us anymore and honestly that little "facts" comment didn't just shoot your questionable legitimacy in the foot, it blew your whole damn leg off. Again though, hell of a late night entertaining thread, thanks for that !

I respect your honesty sir and honestly, even as a VG I rarely see my mirror in battle. I will impart what I can though. Pre 1.2 I spec'd fully for defense / tanking and geared for same. I experimented here and there but didn't stray too far from the basic tanking roles. Post 1.2 I noticed I went down faster than a drunk chick on pro... well, I died a lot quicker let's just say . So I figured I'd try going the route of burst damage. I spec'd almost fully into ranged / burst damage and began to gear for the same. Now, as burst / range damage focused my opening volley is typically to light you on fire with a DOT / throw an assault plastique (delayed blast bomb that sticks to you), fire a HiB (hopefully crit), then likely try to close the distance and hit an ion pulse, stock strike, etc., etc., and of course try to interupt as much of your stuff as I can while waiting to peel off some more HiBs and stuff, because after my opening volley my "burst" is kind of on cool down for a few seconds. Now I could start slinging harpoons and cryo grenades and activating stims and relics if I really want to kill you (and if your a healer of any ability, chances are I do). However if I get too excited and blow my wa... er, cool downs too quick, chances are if you have any half aware buddies / team mates they are gonna gang up and beat me to death PDQ for messing with their heals. Bare in mind I'm not super geared, don't consider myself a "pro", and generally when I see a healer I get tunnel vision for killing them (meaning the healer's body gaurds generally have their way with me and I'm just praying to knock the healer down before the inevitable). Also, despite my spec and general gearing philosophy I do still run a shield gen., and defensive "stance" so I can gaurd my sides healers, gimping my damage to some degree. I think that's a real general idea of what you have to expect from us as a healer though. We'll try and unload as much burst on as possible and then tie up your heals til our CD's start to become available again. 1 v. 1 you're likely to have to abandon trying to heal all others to stay up til help clues in to the fact that you aren't healing them and they see why, nature of the beast though . If I were playing your toon, my knee jerk reaction would be to throw some CC on the VG / PT (or any DPS climbing on you like a monkey on crack) and get your buddies swarming him ASAP so you don't have to miss a beat healing. I know that'd be in a "perfect world" though. Sadly, in a practical world - outgear your opponent - is the most realistic "tactic".

I'm sorry I missed the facts, could you post a summary of them?