I like this. It would still allow roots to be effective but also prevent the frustration, which has always been the biggest one about the resolve system for me, of being rooted in place with a full resolve bar.

I think the game engine could probably handle 40 vs 40, or even more. The problem, at least for my computer at the time, was that Bioware decided to add every particle effect they could think of to the Ilum battle area, plus a lot of other map animation as well.

That makes the assumption that a)there is at least one healer in every warzone and b)the healer knows what he/she is doing and c)the healer lives long enough themselves to be of any use. I actually had no idea that healers even COULD remove roots and slows, that is how little I've seen that done.

Yup. I've predicted since beta that their would be a spike at the beginning and then a slow drop off before stabilization. The two things that will mark this game for having longevity is: a)Bioware(or EA) doesn't do, or mandate, anything drastic in an attempt to get or keep subscribers in a panic over the numbers. So far they really haven't, and I don't think they will unless the subscriptions get a lot closer to 500,000, which is the number they said they needed to maintain for at least a year to break even on the game. b)Whether, once the games subscriptions have stabilized, Bioware can get into a rhythm of good new content and generated good grass-roots interest in the game and build its subscribers. The only thing I'm worried about right now is there refusal to merge servers that are extremely low population. If there is anything Bioware has done that I truly worry might undermine this games success, it is that they opened WAY too many servers at launch and now aren't merging the one's that are all but ghost-towns. In this case, I actually think if there is anything that can be laid at EA's door, this is probably something EA has mandated, since they are probably the one's paying for the use of the servers.

why roots and slows don't count as cc, at least with regard to the resolve bar? The cc breaker we all have clears movement impairing effects, why doesn't the resolve bar count it. If being rooted in place or being slowed to a crawl isn't cc, I honestly don't know what is. I would personally be more than happy with the resolve bar filling a bit more slowly in exchange for roots and slows affecting the resolve bar.

A man of wisdom and sanity, how rare. I like that your name is Tiresias too. Truly though, I don't understand why so many people are under the impression that MMO = Endgame and endgame only. Yes, its perhaps more important than any other single thing in the game, but there are other parts to the game. If MMO's were just about endgame, what is the point of the leveling phase, why not just have people start a character and have training halls or something if they need to learn how to play the class.

Exactly this. For the life of my I cannot understand why roots and slows don't count as CC. I would even take the resolve bar filling up slightly slower than it does currently if slows and roots actually effected it. If being rooted in place or significantly slowed isn't cc, I don't know what is.

As much as I actually love parts of this game, I have to agree with whoever said that this game was either released a year too early or a year too late. There is also the fact that Bioware rather overreached themselves, I think, with their anticipations of how many people were going to flock to this game and how long they would stick around until things got ironed out, hence the massive number of servers they've launched, and are now stuck paying for, and the large number of obviously placeholder or only partially complete systems. The problem with PVP, is that their initial placeholder system, and the problems involved with the first month of Ilum, allowed some people to heavily outgear anyone else. Yes, now if you are wiling to put the work in you it isn't too hard to grind out enough gear to at least compete, but that huge disparity has driven a lot of casuals away. The other problem is that, despite Bioware constantly saying that they were focusing a lot more on story and the leveling phase in the game, a lot of people still rushed to endgame and are now left with little to do but more of the same. That is what I think the problems stem from at any rate.

My biggest problem with the PVP and Warzones in this game is having only 8 people aside. That, FAR too often, causes warzones to come down to 1)which team is better geared and 2)which team has the better group composition. Easily 80-90% of the time I can tell which team is going to win a match, even if there are good players, who are playing smart, on both teams, because I recognize who has the better gear or has a team comp better suited to playing the objectives. This is the reason why I find losses so frustrating, since in most losses, I never feel like my team was ever in the game or had a chance of winning because we just didn't have enough geared players to compete. This is especially true in Alderaan and Voidstar, since success in both is largely based around killing enough of the other team quickly enough to be able to cap an objective(or stop them capping), so even a slight advantage in gear pretty much guarantees a win. This is also a problem, though not as big of one, in Novare Coast, which is somewhat more momentum based, and you can also cap if you are clever about positioning, but even there, if the other team has notably better gear, you have pretty much no chance of winning. Only Huttball is gear notably less important than playing smart, but that brings me to the problem of group comp. Voidstar is also a problem there because a good stealther, who really knows what they are doing, can often carry an otherwise bad team to victory. In Huttball, passing is paramount, which is made considerably easier if you have a couple of people who are of an AC, most effectively an Assassin/Shadow, that can quickly and effectively get ahead of the ball carrier to pass. In all warzones, the team that has more healers is almost always going to win as well(with the exception of a couple matches I've been in where the other team had 6 healers, we couldn't kill them but they really couldn't effectively do anything either). Rated Warzones would certainly help with the first problem, but even a few more people per side in a warzone would help with both. Yes there would still be blowouts, probably still lots of them, but for every additional person in a warzone, skill and coordination become more important. That is my opinion on it, anyway

I think the resolve/cc problem stems from three things. 1) The resolve bar starts draining away immediately when it hits maximum, but getting maximum resolve doesn't automatically break the cc like it should, and if you get one of the 6 second mezzes, and your cc breaker is on cooldown, then you are still cc'd for more than half the resolve bars length. In a related issue, the fact that the resolve bar drains also makes being killed with full resolve all the more frustrating. 2)Slows, roots, and snares DO NOT count as cc in this game. I would personally that is THE biggest problem with the resolve system in that you can have a max resolve bar and still be rooted in place. 3)A lot of players don't use their cc breaker properly. Honestly, unless you REALLY need to get to an objective(to, say, stop someone from capping a door in Voidstar), it is pointless to try to use it unless your resolve bar is full since you can instantly be cc'd again. Bioware has said they are currently working on a revamp of their debuff system and I am personally hoping this will fix the root/snare/slow issue somewhat. Honestly, I like the resolve bar idea but it needs to be changes. I think that it should stay static(and persist through death, although go away if your are out of combat for more than 30 seconds maybe), every cc builds resolve and the higher your resolve bar either a)the greater chance the cc will miss or b)the cc will last proportionately less time. Once the bar is full, the next cc will always do nothing which will also give 5 seconds of complete immunity(pulling a random number out of my head) but will also completely empty the resolve bar. I think this would add a degree of tactics to cc, rather than just using them all the time and will actually give an incentive NOT to try and chain cc someone, since the cc's will last less and less time before stopping working at all for a short period, and give incentive to actually using cc to accomplish particular goals rather than just stunning someone whenever you can.

Darth Hater database, Torhead, probably lots of others. You could probably google 'TOR Sith Warrior abilities' and you'd get a number of lists. Also, go to the trainer and there is a drop down menu at the top and if you change it to 'all' from 'available' it will show you all the abilities you'll get.

I've found Vengeance DPS to be pretty devastating in PVP, especially in a 1v1 situation. We have decent mobility, good defensive cooldowns, good interrupts, high damage, and our taunts are helpful in team fights. There are only three areas in which I've found myself at a serious disadvantage. 1)Vengeance DPS is rather momentum based, if someone gets the jump on you it can sometimes be hard to effectively recover and win the fight, especially if Enraged and Force Push are on cooldown. 2)Like all melee, we go down pretty quick if multiple ranged all decide they'd like us dead at the same time. 3)Especially if we've got Force Charge and Intercede on cooldown, slows and snares are very effective against us, since if we can't get to melee range, we really can't do much and most classes know about the talents we have that build range and boost damage when slowed or snared, so most will stay out of our way afterward as well(seriously though, I've never understood why slows and snared don't count as cc and effect resolve, but I digress). This can be especially frustrating in Huttball if the ball carrier is on the other side of a hazard or is on a different level. The reason I think that some people think Vengeance isn't very good is that it seems more gear based than Rage is. For a fresh 50 or for level Rage might be better, but once you start getting several pieces of BM gear, Vengeance becomes the better spec and highly effective.

I, along with a number of other people, think that there really needs to be a deserter debuff for people who repeatedly leave warzones at the first sign of trouble. Now, I understand that one of the reasons to be hesitant to put one in is that people do sometimes dc, their games crash, they get a sudden phonecall, or they simply load in too slowly and get kicked by the automatic system and I agree they shouldn't be punished for that. Therefore my suggestion is that the debuff be progressive and reset only along with the dailies. Make the first one be 0 minutes, this will allow someone who has a legitimate reason for leaving early to get a one time free pass essentially, they get dc'd, they get a phonecall, they've just discovered that they are in a warzones with the one person on the whole server they absolutely hate(it happens). Make the second time it happens in a 24 hour period give them a 10 minute debuff that prevents them from queuing for a warzone. Every time after that double the time, 20 minutes, 40, 80, etc. etc. With this kind of system it gives a strong incentive to stop people from bouncing around from warzone to warzone until they find a winning one and actually try to fight fairly. It also protects people who might have a legitimate reason for leaving one or two warzones. After all, if they keep getting phonecalls or keep dc'ing it isn't exactly fair to the people who are trying to warzone that they keep ending up shorthanded because of that so the progressive debuff would give them some leeway but also make sure that if the problem keeps happening they probably shouldn't be trying to do warzones right then anyway. There certainly might be some people who are frustrated by this, I've certainly been there, needing just a couple more matches to get that last piece of gear and have my internet keep crapping out the only time of day I am able to play but a system like this would, I think, be beneficial to the greatest amount of people while being unfairly harmful to the fewest number.

Since it doesn't seem like anyone has yet covered them, here are the uses for the utility abilities in pvp. A biggest thing to remember is to use your taunts(Taunt and Threatening Scream) whenever you can, especially when in a group of a lot of enemies. The reason being is that both the single target and the aoe taunt don't redirect any damage to you but reduce the damage anyone it hits does by 30% unless they are attacking you. This is particularly useful in Huttball but is nice in all Warzones. Best part is that it counts toward Protection, it is basically 2 incredibly easy to get medals right there AND you are helping your team out. As for other utility skills. Hit Chilling Scream whenever you can, especially in Huttball and Voidstar when slowly your opponents down is incredibly helpful. Intimidating Roar is a bit situational, as it incapacitates anyone within range of it, but it fills up their resolve bars by like 80% and breaks on any damage. It is useful in a situation like Huttball and Voidstar when stopping peoples movement is useful and in Alderaan and Novare where keeping them off an objective is useful. However, I would not recommend this as a way of stopping a ball carrier, since it pretty much guarantees you will probably fill their resolve bar, which might be the difference between the carrier scoring or not. Force Choke, which will prevent you from moving as well, is really only useful to hold someone over a hazard in Huttball or to stop someone from escaping and either having your abilities get off cooldown or to allow one of your allies to get the kill. Force Push is useful for resetting Force Charge and getting someone away from the Target. Be careful with it in Huttball, however, as the direction and distance of the Push is a bit particular.(I've been angled towards the pit and had the ability randomly throw the person to my left at like a 30 angle toward the goal). Enraged Defense pretty much has to be paired with Enrage, and it is best if paired with Sabre Ward as well but it really more of a 'I need to stay alive another few seconds to do x' ability than anything it. It is still useful but again, it is more a situational thing, if you are going to die, no matter what, and there is nothing you could accomplish in the next 5 seconds, might as well just save the cooldowns.

The problem isn't that most of what they do is fundamentally flawed, the problem is their pvp designers seem to have a habit of completely missing something that completely undermines their systems. For example: Huge Valor rewards in Ilum, which never worked quite right, giving advantage to players who had the time to do Ilum(and had comps that could handle it) RNG bag systems which answered the admittedly vexing question of 'should time, skill or success be rewarded?' with 'luck' which for once united all three schools of thought in annoyance and favored those who had gained huge boosts of Valor from Ilum. Removing the buyable pvp blues at launch Making a bunch of changes in 1.2 that are dependent on Ranked Warzones, but then pulled RWZ's(personally, I think most of their changes would have been just fine with RWZ's in, making sure that, broadly speaking at least, people of the same skill and gear would be facing each other). The rest of their pvp design is perfectly fine, but those 4 missteps made the whole system rather bad, and to their credit they did eventually fix the first three so I'm sure they'll eventually fix the fourth too. The only really troubling thing is that those 4 mistakes seem so blatantly obvious that one wonders how anyone thought they were a good idea(though, in fairness, the 4th problem they might not have had enough time to fix).