I'd like to add to this, that there is a serious lack of fire pits in Voidstar, Civil War, and Norave Coast. Fire pits need to be added to these warzones, at least two 20m on either side of all objectives.

Pyro is getting hit with 1.3, same way that the DPS Operative is getting hit. Resource-dumping during DPS cooldowns is no longer going to produce the same kind of damage. Pyros will have to use more of their CC in a offensive capacity, and will be required to manage their heat more dealing a more even level of damage. Sustained damage classes like the marauder will not be hit as hard.

If you think AP has a "little" less burst then you were playing pyro wrong.

Powertech is not a ranged class. They do have some 30m attacks but most of their time is spent within 10m of their target. In a choice between sorc and sniper I would go with sniper for better killing power, and with the sorc if I wanted a swiss army knife of CC and group utility.

You aren't strafing while facing them directly. The idea is to turn just less than 90 degrees and strafe into the direction that takes you away from your target. This way they are not able to catch you by simply running forward, as you are both moving at the same speed. You are still able to fire your instant spells at the target. When you are using your move back button your movement speed is much less than it is while strafing away, and your target will be punching you in the face to make sure you never forget this fact.

Did you happen to see 1.3 patch notes Have you tried typing obscenities at squatters? I'm sure a few racial slurs and cuss words would get them moving into the correct position.

Because Operatives have higher burst damage and cannot be parried or shielded, ever. Because they have a 30 second cooldown on their melee stun.

The idea that I'm trying to convey is that if you want to troll enemies by not becoming dead, pulling, pushing, taunting, and CCing them then by all means go tank Assassin. But if you are trying to roll DPS I would advise the operative.

AP is what makes your assault spec burst so good. AP is a burst creating tool, as well as a non-wasted skill when attacking immune targets (marauders with UR up, sins that are glowing white). I would not step into PVP without it.

Did you just take my "three koreans" statement seriously? It was a joke.

I can count on one hand the number of good concealment/scrappers on my server. I have seen one specific scrapper consistently keep up in damage and kills with pyros and sentinels, every other one I've seen has done less than 1/2 of those numbers. A reliable source has told me that this scrapper forces three Koreans play his toon at the same time. DPS Sins are a rare beast, they run in light armor, and get punched in the face as soon as the Voltaic Slash animation appears. Personally, I would not call either one of them easy-mode specs. Though I am under the impression that the operative has more going for it from a PVP DPS standpoint. I would not recommend specing Kinetic Combat (Darkness) if your goal in this game is to be a stealth burst DPS class. Kinetic Combat is the highest damage dealer out of all the tanks, but will never solo burst a healer.

Perhaps you should try playing something other than AP/Tactics? The pyro opening burst rotation takes them onto over 50% heat, if the guy isn't dead he's well below 30% and needs to be finished off before he get that big heal. Using your heat-free attacks at this point usually means that your target lives, which ultimately means that you have failed.

Depends on too many factors, but a good healing op will kill any vanguard (may take longer than 2 minutes) A good DPS op will beat any and every class in a duel. They are just great at 1v1. Depends on how the encounter starts. From 35 meters and in cover the sniper should be winning. So does everyone else. Merc is a weak 1v1 class. A lightning sorc with root-on-punt and mez-on-bubble can troll the vanguard for a pretty long time. If played well this is a strong class that should not be underestimated by melee. This is not a given. With its cooldowns up the assassin lasts a very long time, and can win with proper use of CC, vanish, and force speed. CC-immune juggernauts are not as easily beaten as you think. Again with all cooldowns taken into account this fight can be close. Smash jugs can catch you off guard too. My experience tells me that these usually end with the winner being at ~5% life.

However, they don't use relics and then dump their entire resource bar in 10 seconds.

It doesn't make sense, because it doesn't hit that hard, not without relic, warzone adrenal, recklessness, and marauder 5min cooldown.

I am stunned and inclined to unsub.

Pyrotech PTs deal burst damage by dumping their resources with DPS cooldowns (relic, adrenals, and explosive fuel) active. The adrenal nerf will have a larger effect on this burst damage then on tanks, healers, and sustained DPSers (like annihilation marauders) 1.2 had a nerf to the pyro tree. Specifically the rail shot reset was given an internal cooldown so as to have it occur no more than once every 6 seconds. In 1.1 it was possible to have rail shot be over 30% of all your damage attacks, this is much lower now, and heat management for the pyro took a substantial hit. The pyro is a glass cannon class with no escape mechanic. If it dealt less damage there would be no reason to bring it over a marauder that needs to be killed 3 times before it dies or a sniper that can achieve the same damage numbers from 35m away. I'm getting a strange sense of Deja Vu with these threads that want to focus on the first 15 seconds out of every 3 minutes.

Addendum: Jugernaut -> Roflnaut. Sniper -> lolpewpewloler Operative -> Lmfaoraritve

For those no familiar with Rift: Immagine if you will that you take a CW pop on your Sith Warrior start the game as Annihilation Marauder. Midway through you realize that your healers are getting eaten alive and swap to Tank Spec Jug. Or your healing scoundrel finds himself in the middle of a 6 healer group and decides that now would be a good time to change to Dirty Gunslinger. You picked one of 4 classes, and those 4 had 12 trees each. You could use 3 trees at the same time. You were able to predefine 5 combinations.

I heard the marauder has a middle tree that allows them to ignore armor and root their target 3 times, while providing 80% speed buff to their team.

Seems to me like this is a very difficult group to take down, but at the same time is very slow to kill its own targets. It would be extremely frustrating to play against this group, almost as frustrating as playing in it.

Heals: Sage + Scoundrel Tanks: Guardian (middle tree, tank stance), Shadow (23/1/17 with instant lift) DPS: Assault VG, Sentinel, Dirty Slinger, Scrapper. 2 Pulls, and 2 runners for HB. 3-man stealth team with tank, dps and heals for stealth-zerging nodes. 3 XS - Freighters for area control. This feels like a very balanced group.

Force enough enemies to respawn in front of the ball that your team asks you to leave.

Higher Aim gets you slightly bigger hits on HIB. Higher crit rate on tech and fire gives you better chance to repeat-crit on everything else (AP, IP, DoTs...). I run the 4/6/31 variety, but others like the 7/3/31 spec better.

About the spec: Reflexive Shield > Nightvision Scope. Go ahead and grind the eliminator, you will want the 15% crit rate increase on your 105% crit damage HIB.