It seems like it was cut in half to me. I believe I was healing for 6-700 pre 1.2, and in the mid 300s now. Of course, before I would always get 2 heal amounts popping up when I used it so it was a bit hard to read. Now there is only one. Maybe that has something to do with it? Maybe a glitch displaying the proper amount healed either now or before?

Wow, they even hacked how many points you need to win to 30-35!

In professional sport, the losing team is the one that is rewarded with better draft picks to improve their team. The winning team does get rewarded with fame and some bonuses, but nothing that will improve their teams performance. In fact, the team that wins the championship gets the least rewards as far as draft picks to improve their team. That is the way professional COMPETITION does work.

My problem with this is that as a healer, vs a good group, I need to be there healing the entire time. I can do as you suggested and try and get those additional medals, I need to stop playing the objective and try and game the system. I.E., I can let a teammate die to ensure I get that KB so I get my 3rd medal, or I can camp at a turret while the rest of my team is dying at mid. Really, the only time I have had an issue so far is when a Pug I am in is against our servers best guild's premades. They are more skilled, better geared and more coordinated then anyone on our Pug. They deserve the win. But they are good enough that if I play the objectives, I am probably only going to get a few medals unless I ignore the objectives. My choices are to stay and play the objectives knowing I may get no rewards, drop out of the WZ, or farm medals. I choose the first one. It is somewhat discouraging that when I choose to play the game the way it was designed when faced against top competition, I am being penalized.

I don't think that people are looking for trophies, they are looking to not have the gear gap widen. On the flip side of things, why do people feel that that they deserve a reward that will increase the gear gap? I think it has already been proven that the team that lost needs the Comms more then the team that won. Why not a prestige reward instead? Why not a system that encourages a balanced playing field instead of unbalancing it more?

The salary cap is another great example of real world sports looking to balance the playing field. One way I could think to implement it would be to have a ranking system based on past performance, and try to make groups that overall equal out. As example, if you have a premade w/ 4 2000 pt ranked players, it would pair you up w/ 4 1000 pt ranked players to fight 8 1500 pt ranked players. Of course, for the best matches, you would want 8 people all of similar ranks on each side. I am sure there would be flaws in the system, but that is off the top of my head. I think that Ranked WZs along w/ Cross Server WZs (to supply the population to make it feasible) would solve most of the issues. The current system would not be so bad if you could count on the majority of your games to actually be competitive.

For those that say that all you need to do is try to win and you will be compensated, how do you explain the following? Yesterday was a very bad day for me. We kept getting paired against what many consider to be the best PvP guild's premades on our server last night. Out of 15ish or so game, 10 were against this premade, and of those, only 2 games were somewhat close. (I went 3-2 in the other games, and 3-0 this morning. I am used to winning 60-70% of the PuG games I am in, even against lesser premades.) As a healer, I was getting focused a fair amount, and had to focus only on healing. I rarely ended a match with a killing blow or 10 or more kills. I was consistently getting the 2.5k healing and 75K healing medals, as well as the occasional 5k healing medal. This was with me playing the objective, and working my tail of to keep others up as long as possible. At one point in CW, I had re-spawned and was about to head to the middle near the end of the match. I had only 2 medals at that point. I was very tempted to say screw the objective, and go camp at our one turret for the defender medals, or possibly taking some damage and running and hiding so I could try and heal OOC and get the 5k healing medal. (In combat it was very hard to get off a casted heal as I was constantly getting interrupted or stunned, as a good team should do to an opposing healer) I didn't go for the easy medals. I threw myself back into the fray knowing that playing for the objective just screwed me out of any reward at all. This system only rewards you for playing to win if you have a chance of winning. It also will reward you for playing for 3+ medals. If you are severely out matched, your best option is to leave and reque, hoping for a better match up. (Not that I condone leaving, but I understand those that choose to leave) If we had ranked WZs like we were supposed to, this should not be an issue. In theory you would not have such mismatches of skill/gear/premades as can happen in the regular ques. Both sides would have a fair chance. I really think this is an oversight by BW. I can live w/ it, but I have decided if I have more nights like last night, I will log onto an Imp alt and work on him after 3-4 games of seeing the same premades. I may as well accomplish something with my playtime.

In professional sports, the leagues strive for as balanced playing field as possible. The primary resource for teams to improve each year are draft picks. Teams that win the championship gain Fame, Pride, Rings/Trophies and a Bonus. None of these things will improve a team the next season, with the possible exception of the fame drawing better free agents to the team. This system works towards competitive balance to keep the fans watching. If only a few teams have a chance to compete each year, it will not be long until only those teams have a sizable amount of fans to support the teams. The other teams in the league would soon fade away, and only the few elite teams would still be in the league. Eventually the league would fail due to lack of popular support. As a fan of a team that has been at the top and the bottom throughout the years, I am aware that going through losing times is tough. The one thing that keeps many fans interested in their teams even when they are losing is Hope. Hope that you can do well enough in the draft to improve your team the next year. That is what is wrong with the current reward system. A lack of Hope. If you are losing game after game, you have no hope of improving your character. The faction that has an advantage now will have a huge advantage in a month. The gap will continue to widen. There are a few solutions I see. The best solution is what BW was going to implement this patch. Rated WZs would balance the playing field so that each side would have a respectable chance of winning. As a sports analogy, you would not pit Major league teams vs Minor league or high school teams. The next best solution would be to equalize rewards for improving your character, but give the winning teams exactly what winning teams get in real world sports; Fame and Bling. I believe that pride is the motivating factor for many PvPers. A ratings system and unique character customization can show your accomplishments without further unbalancing the factions. From Wiki: NFL " Teams that did not reach the playoffs the previous season are ranked in reverse order of their records (so the team with the fewest wins is awarded the first selection). " MLB " Teams chose players in reverse order of the previous season's standings, with picks alternating between the National and American Leagues." NBA "The teams who missed the playoffs in the previous season participate in a lottery process to determine the draft order. The lottery winner would get the first selection in the draft. In the current rules, 14 non-playoff teams participate in the Draft Lottery. The lottery is weighted so that the team with the worst record has the best chance of obtaining higher draft picks. The lottery process determines the first three picks of the draft. The rest of the first-round order of picks is in reverse order of the teams' win-loss record." NHL "At the conclusion of the regular season, the 14 NHL teams not qualifying for the playoffs are entered in a weighted lottery to determine the initial draft picks in the first round, seeded according to regular season standing. The 30th-place team has the best chance of winning the lottery while the 29th-place team has a 18.8% chance of winning, with odds diminishing to a 0.5% chance for the 17th-place team (such that the odds of the 17th-place team picking in what would be its non-lottery order of 14th are 99.5%)."

The problem I have on my server, there is one very good PvP guild on the Imp Side that I am constantly encountering now. Out of about 15 games I have played today, 10 of the 15 were against that guild's premades. I was 0-10 vs them. 2 close games and 8 blowouts. The other 5 games I was 3-2. I imagine that they are out in force because they are competitive people, and are looking to gear up for War Hero gear ASAP so the when ranked games do come, their guild is fully prepared. I am sure they also want to try out 1.2. I can respect that. I dislike losing, but I can stomach it if I feel like I am progressing and learning. In these matches, I do not feel like I am learning much because I am getting vaporized as soon as I try and cast a heal. I am not progressing in gear because losing gets you nothing. I just see the gap between me and the premades I am facing getting wider and wider. After a month of this, I will be even less of a threat vs these premades then I am today. Even if my skill grows at the same rate as theirs, the gear gap will get wider. I am one of the few that believes that skill trumps gear. They are winning because they are better players and better coordinated. Even if our side out geared them, I believe that they would win. I greatly respect their guild, even if I hate seeing them in WZs. In principal, I agree that you should be rewarded for winning. In the real world, that is pretty much the way it is, except for sports. What I mean by this is that most professional sports leagues strive to balance the playing field by giving the best Draft picks to the worst team. There are salary caps in place in many sports to try and keep the talent level somewhat balanced. This is done because seeing one side obliterate the other side does not make for good, long term entertainment. People will watch for a while, but with no sense of real competition, people stop caring. This is where I think the real problem lies. This system of winner take all wold be perfectly fine in a mostly balanced environment. An environment like the rated warzones that were supposed to be in 1.2. IMO, I think that this current system was designed to go hand and hand w/ Rated WZs, and when they got dropped at the last minute, no one thought about the reward system in an unbalanced environment. If I had to bet, I would bet that in the next few weeks that the current rewards system will be rolled back until Rated WZs come out. I think that what most everyone wants is good, competitive WZs. The current system will lead to more imbalance in the future, not less. I will continue to PvP, as I do enjoy PvPing and learning how to play better. I am tempted to start quitting losing WZs, farm medals instead of trying for the win and reduce how often I play. I won't, because that is not who I am, but I certainly will not blame others that make those choices.

As a Sawbones hybrid last night, I was unable to kill a very good Commando healer with 2 other healers on his team last night in Hutball. I was only able to get him down to maybe 30% a few times. Even though he was sometimes guarded, had to blow all his CDs and only self heal and I was the only one attacking him I should have been able to kill him, not just separate him from his group and ball carrier. Commandos must be overpowered!

I remember a Screenshot of 16 medals months ago, when you could stack the WZ buffs, there was only one bracket and before the Bio Nerfs. It was a Huttball match that a BM Premade seriously farmed the other side. I do not remember what class, but it was obviously a tank w/ Bio.

My experiences as a Sawbones If I sleep dart someone, and instantly cap, I may get the cap if they have to turn to face me. In other words, Cap time and Sleep Dart time are both 8 seconds. Sleep Dart does fill the resolve bar.

Scoundrels could use some more utility, but as a PvP Hybrid, I do just fine in all WZ's, including Huttball. Could I do better as a sage? Probably, but I prefer the Scoundrel playstyle. So why do I get invites as a scoundrel to premades? Because I am being invited, not the class I play. I may not have knockbacks and pulls in Hutball, but I pass well, I know how to minimize knock backs, get across fire pits, get open for passes, keep the ball carrier healed, can time CCs to grab the ball at Mid and many other little things that help win a game. I believe that most premades look for skilled players, not specific classes. All things being equal, yes, the Sage is a better pick in most cases. But IMO, the gap is not so wide as to pass over a good Scoundrel for an above average Sage. Also, as a Scoundrel healer hybrid, there are very few players that I fear one on one. I may not be able to kill them, but I won't die either. One of the players I fear is an Op. I am not just running around stalling her like most Marauders I deal with, I am running for my freaking life.

Reasons why I will continue to try and win the game after it is near impossible to come back: 1. I would like to participate in one of those rare games where there is a miracle comeback. 2. I do not want to quit on my team. I feel it is disrespectful to those that are still trying to win. 3. I have fun trying to win, even against insurmountable odds. 4. I want to learn something new. Perhaps a new tactic, or the way an enemy or teammate reacts. If it is a premade we are fighting, we will see them again. I tend to do this when we are winning as well. If the Imps are gathering at one node to collect Defender medals, I will Stealth behind them and hit them with XS Flyby. Then it is a game to see how long I can survive the retaliation. As a healer, this is good practice for when I get focused.

3 Weeks ago I hit 50. Today I just hit 60 valor and have my first piece of BM gear (not including Implants and Ear piece) From Valor 50 to 53 (first weekend), I had a 60% win ratio, and was starting to get MVP votes by the end of the Weekend. Hitting 50 was not painful at all for me, even solo queing. With that said, this morning I kept seeing some very good imp teams that kept rolling our team. Normally I only eat a few deaths as a Sawbones, but I was getting trounced repeatedly this morning. I only recognized maybe 1 other player on my team each game, and most of the same Imps from game to game. I am guessing it was a mixture of a very experienced Imp teams vs less experienced Pub teams. I don't think our teams were severely under geared compared to teams I normally play with, just not as coordinated. I think you may just be on a server where your faction is just at a disadvantage skill/experience/gear wise in the 50 bracket. If the other side has a ton of good players/premades, you will lose a lot until your faction can skill/gear up.

+Huttball (As a scoundrel even) -Voidstar

As a Scoundrel, I have not noticed any real difference.

I just hit 50 Friday night. I would say I am an above average player, and pretty much have PvPed my way through levels starting at the mid 20s. I play on Ajunta Pall on the Republic side as a Sawbones Scoundrel. When I hit 50, I had decent gear, and 6 Champ Bags and was Valor 50. 2 Days later, I am mostly in all Cent/Champ gear w/ Orange Head/Chest and Main Weapon. I have done the dailys and the weekly WF quest. I have bought 2 bags on Coms alone post 50. I started at just over 13k hps, and am now around 14.5k w/ 350ish expertise. I mostly solo qued, but was invited to do some premades in the last few WFs of 47 and most through 48. Lvl 50 wfs have not been painful at all for me. I am not topping the healing charts like I did in the 10-49 bracket, and I am definitively playing purely of a support role now, but I am contributing. I die a bit more, and may not hit as hard, or heal as much, but that has just made me play smarter. I was curious how bad lvl 50 would be, so I started tracking wins and losses @ lvl 43 and wanted to see how they compare. 43 33% Win 44 48% Win 45 37% Win 46 50% Win 47 76% Win 48 87% Win 49 60% Win Total 43-49 win % - 58% 50 63% Win 51 69% Win 52 33% Win Total post 50 win % - 59% This is not to say that gear does not matter, but I do think that there is hope for a fresh 50 that is prepared and has some skill.

It does seem like a lot of people are having more issues then I had experienced. What about the idea of having your OOC ability remove Harmful effects instantly when used? That way, if you have defeated the enemy, everyone can quickly purge themselves before capping if needed. It would also help w/ the complaint of DoTs after death interrupting the OOC Regen and other abilities (like restealthing). Plus, it would probably be an easier fix then reworking the code for DoTs not effecting people after death. It is not that keeping the ability is important to me, but I dislike taking away options. IMO, if the effect is greater then intended, develop more options to deal with the issue instead of taking away options. In RIFT there was an abuse of Rogues being able to keep someone from capping indefinitely from stealth. It could be a bit annoying, but I just respecced to something that had an AoE and learned to deal w/ it. They eventually took away the ability to prevent capping from stealth indefinitely, but even as a victim of that, I would have preferred they developed more counters to the tactic and left it in game. Also, am I correct in understanding that the main complaint is DoTs effecting people after the person is dead? Or are people upset when they tick during combat as well? Thanks for the feedback.

6/10 I am competent, but have a lot to learn.

I definitely see that side, but that line of thinking can be applied to HoTs and CC as well, although I do not think either of those would have as great of an impact as DoTs after death would. IMO, I would rather see a few more ways to remove DoTs so that the tactic is viable, but can be countered by an aware person. Maybe have your OOC Heal/Regen automatically strip all Debuffs when used. Of course, that may lead to many other issues...but something along that line. Or, how about we Reduce the duration of the longer Dots by 50%, and increase their damage by 200%? Well, one can hope, can't they?

I admit that I am a Scoundrel that used DoTs to prevent caps when I learned that they interrupted on each tick. I also admit that I am probably biased in my opposition to the change based on my class. I am not terribly worried about the change, but IMO, it just seems like it is reducing our tactical choices. I am opposed to this change in the same way that I am opposed to limiting movement abilities in Hutball. With that said, I was surprised that this was such a hot topic. I can count on one hand the number of times I had been dotted while/before attempting to cap. And of those times, maybe 1-2 that I was unable to Purge. (I often Ninja from Stealth and tend to Purge fairly often, so maybe that is why I have not had as much of an issues as others.) On the other side, holding a cap w/ just dots while flying back solo has never been reliable at all for me. At best, I hope to buy 4-6 extra seconds for a second defender to arrive, or have the cap take a bit longer because they need to purge first. Of course, I only have the single target, 15 second Dot, and not the 21 second 3 target grenade. Maybe that is why I have seen decent, but not overpowering results. But to my main question. How often have you personally been prevented from capping from having DoTs on you?

Darwin Wintervoid

I haven't seen anyone mention Charged Blast and Sab Charge? I know it is not as effective as it is for a Gunslinger, but it still is a good tool when out of position. Twice last night I was booted off the catwalks by the carrier while he was at 1/2 health, and I was able to finish him off with Sab and Charged Blast before he could score.

In theory, I agree that an OP should not run the ball. In actual play, as a Sawbones, I end up taking the ball fairly often for several reasons. First, I get the to the ball first even before the Jedi because they either don't run right away, don't jump the pit or somehow forget they have force speed. From there, I generally pass immediately. Second, I heal the carrier while trying to position myself for the next pass. I often can get the ball on the lower ramp between the two firepits. From there, I have enough Healing, Escapes and CC to score the ball. (A pug the other day yelled at me for running ahead!) Third, I can pass. Even if I get knocked off a ledge, I can still pass to my team that knows I will pass and ran to the ledge in the end zone. Fourth, with a good team, after scoring, I will Disappear in the end zone. They will run the ball through the pit and toss it to me for another quick score. I am envious at times of the mobility of some other classes at times. But I do alright in Hutball.