It's exactly this. If they nerf agents, the main crowd will think Bioware is listening somewhat, and they won't lose many subscribers.

simple way to nerf the build, make superheated rail only work when hitting opponents effect by CGC. Then the build loses some of it's good function. It's not broken, but not nearly as good as it was.

I made a slight change to your build: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600GG0RboZf00MZfMcRs0z.1 With Presence of Mind, you get a no activation cost Dark Infusion, great for pinch heals (it's also 20% stronger). It will make your Rejunvination a bit weaker, but if that's such a big deal, I'd take 1 point out of Telekinetic Defense and put it there. So this way you can still heal good, you have a good AoE in Force in Balance, and good steady DPS with Telekinetic Throw that can in turn give you a instant cast Deliverance that's also 20% stronger. However, I can't really say how good this build will do, you have a lot of points spread out. As big of a fan as I am of the shield, I don't know that the mana reduction (and boost to pool) along with the 20% extra to shield is really that worth it. If I were going a healing/dps build, it'd look like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600GGMRbd0dZMZcMcRs0z.1 Maybe even take some more points out of Balance tree, and put it into the Seer tree to get Resplendence, which in turn will give you much much more mana to play with, assuming you aren't dumb about your healing rotation. My friend runs this spec and is putting out 100k DPS 300k Healing every match (He is somewhat BM gear right now though): http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600GGMRbdbdMZMZcMcRo.1

I actually run with this spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600G0dZfcrMzRMutzZ0M.1 Increased my power/surge/alacrity (I do not feel crit is as important in this spec). Very good burst with Turbulence, and when Telekentic Wave Crits (along with Telekinetic Momentum) I've done massive damage to 5 targets. I'm well aware it's a bit less useful against high armored opponents, but I feel Turbulence makes up for it in stride (is a auto crit so long as they have weakened mind on, gets a nice boost from power/surge, and 50% from the talent, also automatically gives Telekinetic Effusion). I also have no problems with Force with Telekinetic Effusion and Concentration combo (even though Disturbance is more force then I'd like to spend, it's a good fast cast, and isn't used as much as it would seem). I have tried the hybrid dot spec. I have gotten more consistant high range DPS on this spec then the dot spec, but that was when I was properly geared for this spec. I don't think there's a wrong way to go with Sage DPS, so long as you actually think it out, and are properly geared. Each way has it's benefits. I love having a single move, with a quick refresh, that hits like a truck. Obviously this can be counted with a interrupt, but I've found in most fights, without people knowing your spec, they don't know what to interrupt. Most people just look to interrupt heals, and common attacks (like Distrubance). Not the moves that actually matter, unless you know the moves. EDIT: To be fair, this is the hybrid spec I was running: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600ZfoMMdZfbfRs0krc.1 I get telekinetic wave so that I can double AoE when Presence of Mind (practically always) is up. While situations like that are more rare, if you can get 3+ people in a pile for the double AoE, it's a heavy amount of damage (10k+) in a span of 3s. The dots are much more powerful, and I'd imagine with good Crit/Surge they could do about 20% more damage then they say they do. Honestly I might try it again once I have 4 Forcemaster Champion pieces, however right now I've just hit 50, and felt this is better until I can try that Hybrid again.

To add on, whenever your Railshot refreshes, you'll see a line (from you head to your feet) circle your character. That's a more visual way to know that it's refreshed.

Yes, but you really want to be using your energy shield whenever it's up, and you are in (what looks like) a fight that is going to be 12s+. The Degauss is just going to be too rare to use 2 points in it, rather then upping your overall damage/crit chance. To Taugrim, I don't see why you would have a 3% on Rail Shot, instead of another 2% of all fire effects, unless I'm understanding fire effects wrong (I thought it was 2% to all fire damage, which would be great for CGC, IM, and FB). If you could explain that, it's the only thing I'm confused about (the only thing I can figure, is that you use RS more often, and the 3% bonus damage to that actually comes out higher then the 2% bonus to CGC/IM/FB since they are weaker and used less). I'm also curious if you've started use this spec. I haven't been able to watch your stream as of late, due to being too busy in game really. Last I knew you were happily running your Iron First spec.

Normally, I might agree, if this was a Juggernaut or Assassin we are talking about. However, Powertech have a lot of abilities that rely on shielding happening (refresh on RP, venting heat) that it's most definitely Absorbtion > Shielding > Defense > Armor.

You lost me at by far the worst healing of all 3 classes. Sorry, but that belongs to Operative. While Merc's don't have a great AoE heal, Operatives don't either. Difference is Merc's have a much more powerful single target heal, and much better ways to keep their heat down (where as Operatives don't have a lot in the ways of energy regen, in the Med tree).

***? Except you are completely off. I have a little trouble killing heales with my PT, but not nearly as much as my operative. My PT gets 5 interrupts (quell, carbonize, electro dart, jet charge, grapple), along with good defense, and 2 gap closers (grapple, jet charge). If a sorc decides he wants to get away, I have very little in the ways to stop him except a very well predicted flashbang/sever tendon root. If a commando wants to knock back I have to slowly walk back to him. Marauders/Juggernauts/Commandos/Powertechs/Assassins/Snipers do not have to deal with that. The only healer class that isn't so bad to kill, is a another operative due to them really only have 1 good strong heal (kolto injection) and it can be interrupted. The operatives burst was bad, I can agree, but their tools are far worse for killing healers. Also, it's a hardly a skill-less spec, even before. Operatives were always easy to kill, and my PT won 80% of the 1v1 encounteers, even when they got the opener and my cc breaker is on cooldown (Operatives are very easy to kite). Anyway, I agree with your last bit, I have no complaints on the patch really. OP is wrong when he said operatives are meant to take out healers. Operatives, I've found, are best for keeping people in 1 spot, while a healer is dragged away to be slaughtered alone. Flashbag/stealth/debilitate/root on sever tendon, all things good for keeping a tank stationary, while doing good damage. On top of that, they still have some of the best burst damage in the game.

I lost it. So good.

Well then you must have spec'd it wrong. Supercharged Gas + Energy Shield = ~40% bonus healing to self, plus can't be interrupted, plus 90% less knockback. Now if you're saying you can't survive 2 people for a sustained period, that's true, but that's true for any class assuming the other 2 people are even somewhat good. However, Merc healer can survive for 12 seconds easily (more if you get the duration bonus armor). Now you might say 12s isn't much time, but unless your partners are flying the middle speeder on Aldeeran, or caught behind 2+ ticks of the door in Huttball/Voidstar, you're never more then 12s away from back up. On top of that you have a knockback, single target stun, 3 good single target heals (your best 1 being instant), and of course heavy armor. In terms of survivability, Merc/Commando healers got the best in the game.

I'm sorry, I guess I took it as you were saying that because he was facing a bad team, that his point that sentinels are not underpowered was nulled. Forgive me for my misunderstanding >.>

I never understand these posts. So you're saying this was facing a bad team? You realize that any time you're posting a high amount of damage, it requires 2 things, the other team being bad, and the other team having a half competent healer (unless it's Huttball). Seriously, every class posts screen shots of high damage amount got it because of that. Against good teams, you don't see insanely high damage counts for a reason. This Jedi Knight is not underpowered, and Guardian is quite ridiculously useful with tons of versatility. The Sentinel is a bit less useful, but still good when you know what you're doing. It's just so stupid saying that the other team was bad, and that's the only reason you got that screen cap, when no matter what, if you're posting a screen cap of 400k+ (in Huttball) or 300k+ (Alderaan/Voidstar) it's because the other team was bad, or there was tons of healers.

I disagree with this. On 4 (of the 5) servers I've played on, the Republic side is some of the dumbest people I've seen play, where as the Imperial side seemed to at least have some ability to play together as a team (at times). I don't know why this is really, but pugging on republic is much worse then pugging on imperial. It's honestly painful to do pvp without a pre made on republic.

You need to remove one of the http in the aoe rotation vid.

In terms of 1v1, Merc can what is one of the best builds in the game, however it's solely based on healing. You wear the enemy down by simply out surviving them. It's harder to beat other healers obviously, cause you don't have much in the way of interrupts, and they can heal too (where as you don't do much damage at all). However, my Commando has no problem in 1v1s against anything other then healing spec'd Operatives/Sorcs/Commandos, in which it's a problem of killing them before back up arrives. I'd have quite a few duels which go over 4 minutes, or just don't seem to end at all (especially versus Sorcs/Sages).

This depends entirely on sets. A well built merc that is meant for survivability is very hard for a PT to kill. Comes down to skill. That being said, I think a DPS Merc vs a DPS PT will lose most of the time in a 1v1, due to the fact that PTs have a ton of interrupts and a lot of a DPS Merc's abilities are cast (not all, but most of the main ones, aka Unload/Tracer Missle), which can be interrupted. However, Merc's that are into the left tree, and spec'd right, can get up to a bonus of 43% healing themselves, no be interrupted, and 90% less knockback on cast times, on top of having their energy shield up. Even with quick refreshes of Rail Shot, it won't do negative total damage during that Merc heal time. So, once again, it really depends on what you want to do. If you want to be a very mobile DPS, I'd say go PT (they have better survivability as a DPS on the move). If you want to be a person that can move with the battle somewhat, but mostly lay fire from outside the battle, and not be in the thick of it, I'd suggest Merc. Bascially the mirror to my lvl 50 Commando. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#300bfRMRdbbZbIkrRb. Tracer missle mostly for tanks, while using heal to build up for super charged gas. Then just spam Power Shot when you supercharged gas is up. When under fire, use supercharged gas + energy shield to full heal. Some people prefer to put a bit more into the healing tree (Kolto Shell/Critical Efficiency) but I like Tracer Missle for it's ability to kill armored targets faster, and because it gets a bonus from the PvE sets. However, you could go into the left tree more, and use Power Shot as your main source of damage. Neither way is really much worse then the other, both have their advantages.

I'm pretty sure Tech attacks are not blocked by armor or shields/dodge in PvP, which is what I was referring to. For PvE I would be running with Charged Rounds just using Grav Round as a debuffer. I really like the Grav Round for PvP though, and we'll also be running that. To the person saying I should go Scoundrel, I know that now but unfortunately the Vanguard on the team has more time then us, and was originally going to roll Juggernaut (now he doesn't want to switch because he likes the class a lot). It's ok since he says he wants to roll PvP gear, where as I like some of the PvE gear. However, I do appreciate the input, and may go into farther down the road. However, my time is kind of limited as is.

So I'll try to keep it short and sweet. I play with a group of 4 and basically we have 3 that are already set in their roles (1 is a Vanguard (Tank), 1 is Sage (Healer), 1 is Sentinel (DPS), and then there's me). Originally I was going to be a ranged DPS, but looking at it I don't see any point in using anything other the Grav Round (even High Impact Bolt bonus doesn't seem worth it, since it's not a tech attack, and thus doesn't get that bonus to go through armor and sheilding). So I made a spec that's based around being able to heal and do damage (basically being able to help the group stay in rough times, speeding up fighting outside of it), however I'm open to suggestions on what I should go with (the pyro set doesn't look that interesting to me) or what I could change and why. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800rfRMRzbbzZMIkdRZb.1 EDIT: It says I have 2 points in Heavy Stock, but that's the wrong tree (think it's the Vanguard's). It's actually 2 points in Weapon Calibrations which increases my Alacrity by 2% each point. The only reason I can see to roll the middle tree the whole way is for that extra quick burst of demolition round, and if full auto takes out inquisitors/agents very fast compared to grav round.

I'm curious, could you run this build through it and see what you come out with? http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GRGooRroMZMcrroZb.1 It would run close to what the 31/8/2 spec runs except it no longer has the use of FB, and replaces it with a higher damage (yes I realize that you lose the 4% damage reduc from using FB every 15s, but honestly, you wouldn't do that much with the 31/8/2 spec unless your sole focus was just staying alive). Would be curious to see what comes out.

I don't buy this. Any class focused down is screwed, no exceptions. Merc at least gets a quick knockback from their middle tree. If you can get near a pillar to avoid cast time hitters, you can survive much better then a lot of other classes. The only thing that is going to save you if you are being focused, is a well timed forced stealth, which only 3 classes have.

lol, someone hasn't seen 2 good teams go at each other. Believe or it not, that score is easily possible. In fact unless some of the people outputs are incredibly, it's hard to tell how good a team actually was without actually being there. Even then, there can be reasons such as defending a door that wasn't very active, or being the 'ninja' of the team. People saying that a team is bad by only looking at the score sheet truly are usually not that good themselves.

You wish. They probably put around 100 hours testing, max. They used Beta as their main test phase, pushing it on the users to find what might be wrong. With a lot of the bugs that are in this game, there's no way they did thousands of hours, some things are just too obvious

No lol.

I have no problem 1v1, but our ability to stay alive with 2 people, while doing even a bit of damage is basically impossible. I have no problems 1v1, even going in and out of cover. The real thing is that you need to know the other classes in order to stand a chance and stack the odds in your advantage. I still fill out top 2 in DPS with my sniper, though sometimes I will have a lot of deaths. However, I DO NOT go into the single damage tree, and instead spec into the middle and left tree. Explosive and Interrogation probs do a ridiculous amount of damage to Inquisitors/Consulars, and I use internal damage (and cull) to do heavy damage on Tanks. Play smart and you can do a lot of damage, though I will say it looks like you have very little versatility with the left tree, since it basically says you have to stay in 1 spot and shoot, which is very bad for pvp. Not only that, makes it where in order to get the best benefits (the quicker snipes) you have to be put for a while. This is just incredibly annoying. Lethality and Engineering are pretty dominating on the other hand. I have no problems with energy what so ever either.