I love how everyones just calling for class nerfs. Ever thought for a second that the problem is with the map? If the map was just a big football field, no one will be qqing.

Well for one your aoe healing will never come close to a sorcerer's because of their 31 pt heal skill. I do feel like on single targets it fairly close. rapid scan is 2sec cast, dark infusion is 2.5s, so it would make sense that it heals more.

It has absolutely nothing to do with wanting a lightsaber. This is from a healer's prespective: Its about how in huttball as an operative you feel like garbage next to force speed, bubble, ally grip, aoe knockback, 30m interrupt, 30m stun, crazy aoe heal. Its completely ridiculous the amount of tools sorcerers/sages have to play around with. Even if you combine all of mercenary's tools + ops tools, it will still be worse than sorcerers. their aoe knockback cooldown is 10s less than mercs, neither merc or ops have force speed OR ally grip. ops interrupt is 10m (mercs have none), sorcs same cd 30ms range. I'm a 50 bodyguard merc right now with a non-50 sawbone scoundrel and would go sorcerer in a heartbeat if I can go back time. I've just put in too much effort in my merc and I'm sick of leveling another character.

Also want to add: If you intend to play this game for a long time, you have to realize that eventually all that matters is how your character looks. 1) Your companions no longer matter much, since you can't use them anywhere useful at level 50. (not in dungeons, not in parts that matter in ilum) 2) Your spaceship rarely matters since 90% of your time you spend on the fleet. 3) Story no longer matters the moment you finish your class quest. Frankly I don't see them changing the design style/concept of republic classes' gear. - Smugglers will always have capes in the design (which I hate, but other may like). - Consulars will always be in dull looking rags, that look like crap especially on males. - Trooper armor will always look like trooper armor (you can't really stray from the stormtrooper image much), they can however go pretty creative on bounty hunters - I was going to say that jedi knights can't stray from robes as well but their pvp 50 armour isn't robes so I'll avoid saying that. I never understand why at this stage in mmo development some developers still don't understand mmo is ALL about aesthetics, that it is on nearly the same level of importance as balancing, right after bug fixing. People complain about 15/month subscription but will pay 10 bucks to buy appearance alteration items. TL DR: all that matters in the end is how armour and character looks.

It's not going to get better... if anything it gets worse, at least that's my opinion. I really tried to go republic, made 5 characters, all above 30, 2 at 47/45 but everytime I look at the end game gear option, I die a little inside. (the only set I kind of like is jedi knight pvp heavy armor minus the helmet but I don't play that class). Eventually I just went Empire and I'm not regretting it. Have fun looking like a hobo in rags when you hit 50.

Now take the skills of the said good player and give them a sage (if sawbones) and let them radiate awesomeness. OR for dps, a rage guardian, watchmen sentinel or assault vanguard and watch them do far better than "well". seriously, im a bodyguard merc (healer) in half champ half centurion gear (300 expertise) and battlemaster scrappers barely tickle me, their entire opener barely takes 35-40% of my hp and then afterwards its just like tickling me. Only once in a while do you get the double relic adrenal opener + vanish -> reopen that can maybe kill me. So congrats, you can kill me once every 2 minutes or so. against high armor targets, scrapper are just useless. Of course you have it better than marksman snipers/sharpshooter gunslingers, they just roll over and die if a tank run towards them. Having said that, im sure you do well against sorcs/sages and there are plenty of those running around.

Really? you think its possible? Skip all 10m abilities? so no wounding shots, no hemorrhaging blast, no blaster whip (which means no pugnacity since you have no other way to gain upper hand), no back blast, no quick shot? so just vital shot, shrapnel bomb, thermal grenade, charged burst, sabotage charge (I assume you would at least go cover for this) and your auto attack? Wait isn't there an AC that uses sab charge, charged burst, vital shot, shrap bomb and grenade at 30m? Oh wait there is: GUNSLINGER...

Aside from their aoe healing (I only pvp so aoe rarely matters), I think mercs are in a pretty good place. Utility is still not as good as sorc but at least its nowhere as bad as operatives.

Frankly from a pvp perspective, I do not believe that they can fix scoundrel/ops by tweaking their existing abilities. The class is just so lacking in utility and survivability as a healer. Even if you double the amount underworld medicine/kolto injection heals for, its still crap since 1 interrupt you are still dead. I think scoundrel/ops need skills similar to marauder/sentinel's defensive cooldowns. and 1 more heal that generates upper hand (or at least not require upper hand).

EXACTLY, you are viable, you just aren't competitive.

its not about how much healing you can put out in pvp, its about whether you have the necessary tools to stay alive when focused + extra utilities. mercs/commandos just shield up supercharge gas, puts them over 50% damage reduction + interrupt immunity. aoe knockbacks and range stuns on top of that. sorcs got bubble/force speed escape, force speed also helps ball running, they also have grip ally, 30m interrupt, best aoe heal in game, aoe knockback, range stun. Both those classes can still dps massively at range. What does a scoundrel/op have? semi-faulty dodge which you pretty much only use with vanish (which makes you useless unable to heal for 10 seconds), an aoe cc which breaks on damage (flashbang), an interrupt, a stun (which all of them are at most 10m range). So to conclude, they created a healing class that needs to be standing in the midst of combat to be effective, yet the class wears medium armor instead of heavy. To top all that off, if anyone is smart enough to kick your 2 sec heal (underworld medicine/kolto injection), you are left with one of the following hot/a fast cast small heal/instant heal(EM,SP)/aoe heal(if you spec for that in pvp), casting hots if you are focused will not save your life (if you are getting interrupted you are probably getting focused), the other 2 requires upper hand/TC, which is completely RNG based at most 1 per 6 seconds. sorcs? kick my 2.5 heal, no big deal I got innervate and a small heal mercs? well first if I get focused I just pop my shield which makes me interrupt immune, otherwise I still got other direct heals I can throw out. No one says scoundrels/ops can't heal (as plenty of people has said before), they are completely viable, they are just not competitive to the other two classes. 650K means nothing if you are just padding it with hots that don't matter. And frankly if you can just stand there and spam all day long, I bet scoundrel/ops will do the most healing. How often do you get to stand there an spam in pvp?

doubt ops will get anything that will help in pvp since apparantly he thinks the 1500 emergency medpack/surgical probe is "good" burst healing... wonder how that compares to a sorcerer/sage bubble (oh hey thats 3300ish). Don't know about pve, but the ops/scoundrels will never come close to the other 2 healers in pvp.

Frankly, just from my point of view. There is no alternative game of similar genre available right now. Diablo 3, GW2, Tera aren't out yet. So you are either stuck with this game till those come out or go back to wow/lotr/any old mmo that you quit for this, which I assume most people don't want to. Since the only game with a release date announced is Tera (May 1st), I expect my subscription to last till then. Things that annoy me (that I'm certain will be added sometime in the future but no soon): 1) want to recustomize my character's looks (don't want to relevel 50 levels just because I don't really like her look). 2) server transfer (rerolling just flat out sucks). 3) do something about crew skills, because right now its just flat out pointless aside from biochem 4) im not going to go into specifics about class balance, but right now they are NOT balanced (3 healing classes perspective). Frankly I don't have much faith in this game, it will have a loyal playerbase because of the star wars franchise but I don't see it beyond the old SWG once there is competition.

Actually thats not really true, the one class sniper (marksman)/gunslingers (sharpshooter) can kill are sages/sorcs. If you just stand there and do a dps race with them, you'll die, especially once they pop entrench/hunker down (which makes them immune to stuns and knockbacks for 20 seconds). I have yet to lose a straight up dps race against a sorc. target acquired -> ambush -> explosive probe -> followthrough -> 3x series of shots can do like 15K-20K easy in like 10 seconds. Seeing a sorc/sage running towards you is pretty much telling you they intend to aoe knockback you, so they just entrench, so its nearly pointless. your best bet against a marksman is dots and run away/line of sight. or find a tank, cause seriously there is no harder counter against a marksman sniper/sharpshooter than a well geared tank (completely unkillable). lethality snipers and dirty fight gunslingers are harder (they can deal with tanks) unless you have someone who can dispel their dots (tech and physical so you can't really do it yourself), once those are gone, they are just as useless as a madness sorc without dots. Every sniper/gs tree has its fatal flaw (hard counters), but none of them is the sorc, frankly they are all I chase after in wz's.

Demolisher – 2.5k damage from a single attack Quick Draw – Getting a killing blow on one player Combatant – Dealing 75k damage Destroyer –Dealing 300K damage Assassin – Killing a player in a one-on-one fight Commando – Killing 10 enemy players Soldier – Killing 25 enemy players Anihilator – 5K damage from a single attack Defender – Earning 1k Defender Points Warden – Earning 3k Defender Points 10 medals you can get. Granted I usually end up getting 7-8 or so. Now of course tanks have it easier because they sacrifice Destroyer (usually) for: Shield – 5k Protection Protector –50K Protection Guardian – 2k Protection since last death Paladin – 10k Protection since last death I usually get 9 easily on a tank.

47 shadow 44 mercenary 38 sage 35 scoundrel 26 sniper 24 gunslinger 23 vanguard For those who want to play an alt for story, I really recommend the smuggler, I would not have made any alts if I could stand smuggler's armor sets. Since all you do end game is pretty much stare at your character (doesn't matter how good the voice acting or companions are since you are just sitting at the fleet queuing for warzones). You gotta make sure you can stand looking at the end game armor sets. I practically just decided to abandon my republic characters just because I don't really believe I will be able to stand a hobo in rags (consular 50 pvp gear) or capes (I REALLY hate them and nearly all smuggler armor are capes). Now that I am empire, oh man IA sniper is awesome, not the biggest fan of the story (prefer humor rather than the 007 stuff) but I lvl mainly through pvp, I'll just sit through it. I'm already sick of doing any of the quests for planets (I really only do the class quests now, unless I really want one of the planet commendation items). The sad part is I know I'm not going to be able to gear out anymore than 2 before guild wars 2 or tera comes out.

Frankly I really want to play smuggler over IA, I love the story and voice acting of the smuggler but seriously 90% of smuggler armor sets are capes and I can't stand that art direction. (If they put in hide cape option, id switch immediately) The agent on the other hand has 0 capes, its either a trench coat or tight leather suit, which on a female just looks AWESOME. Having said that, not digging the story. For anyone who prefers a good laugh I'd honestly recommend the smuggler, as long as you can stand those damn capes.

maybe its just me but I always feel quickdraw hits slightly faster than takedown

my bad but THANK YOU you just saved my life

wish he wasn't a mon calamari (they are so ugly). But again, based on the way he talks, even if he were human, he'd probably be a fat guy.

All I want is that snipers to never use natural cover, I'm sick of trying to get into cover but instead roll off a ledge in huttball, roll into an aoe (void star first door). I already have portable cover, I don't natural cover anymore. At least give me the option to turn it off.

Seriously that x1000. It is freaking ridiculous you can call gunslinger and mirror sniper with that difference. Oh hey my ambush explosive probe 6-7K burst on sniper just turned to wet noodle on my gunslinger, now its 3-4K damage -> 1-1.5 sec -> 2-3K damage (that is assuming that someone else is hitting my target else its even worse.

I seem to see very little people talk about this issue, maybe they just got used to it? This isn't about things such as sabotage charge has a cast animation so that you can't do snipe + explosive probe (charged busrst + sab charge) combo where the snipe actually detonates the explosive probe since probe is practically instant. Having starting to play both gunslinger after a sniper, I notice a LOT of graphic bugs cause from gunslinger ability animations when snipers don't have this problem at all. Example: 1) If you move out of cover right after you cast quickdraw, quickdraw animation doesnt go off half the time (it does damage however). 2) If you spam the ambush button when casting charged bolts, you will immediate being casting ambush right after and the charge bolts animation doesn't go off, all you see is a white number from the charged bolt(and im not sure but sometimes the damage doesn't even go off) 3) Both ambush and quickdraw deals damage before the animation of the bullet hits the target (quickdraw in particular does damage before the bullets leave your gun). 4) sniper's ambush feels similar to gunslinger's but not as bad. In theory these don't really affect the game too much (unless if the damage sometimes doesn't go off), but I'm just surprised how much worse gunslingers have it when compared to sniper animations and it kind of bugs me.

ALL THE TIME. although I am ahead of you quite a bit in lvls, 47 shadow 34 scoundrel 38 sage 44 mercenary 30 marauder 30 trooper + assorted 20+ other ones I primarily pvp. aside from my shadow (first republic character to go through the story) and smuggler (man they have awesome dialogues), I pretty much pvped my other characters to their levels (only doing major quests). 3 gladiators, 5 duelists and stuff. Probably would have gotten 2 full battlemasters if I had focused on 2 characters (funny I dont even have a level 50 yet). I felt obligated to go republic (because of the massive population disparity) even though all my favourite companions are imperial companions (cept risha). Thats when I ditched my merc and went republic. Wanted to play smuggler because of awesome voice acting and companions, but 1 look at end game armor makes me puke (hate capes and those stupid hats), constantly wondering why Im not playing an agent (their lvl 50 pvp armor + hide helm is the best looking imo). Also bummed because knife animations > wacking people with a pistol. Not to mention dirty kick rooting you in place. Scrapper is fun to play but I just can't stand the super fake punching and whipping sounds from blaster whip and sucker punch. Wanted to play sawbones but then made a sage and realized without drastic changes, theres no way sawbones will come close to a sage in pvp healing in the future, so kinda ditched my scoundrel and started healing on sage. And while we are at it, who came up with the idea that sawbones should heal people with a TV remote? YET I hate everything about the sage/consular, voice acting, companions, star ship, I hate myself for playing such an easy to play class, but of all 3 healing classes I've play, its just so much stronger. I also leveled my shadow because I kinda though I'd like nadia but no, shes dull, boring, just flat out nothing compared to say vette. Leveled as shadow tank and pvped a lot but again, I hate the consular class. Thought I'd try out the trooper vanguard, much more fun to play (cept for the obvious mirror class differences, mortar volley vs dfa, full auto vs unload etc) BUT I hate the voice acting + companions even MORE than the sage, I mean serious, lizard man, cat man, super uptight girl. (The only one I can stand of the 2 classes combined is maybe Tharan Cedrax). I'm pinning my last hope on jedi guardian, but frankly the first 2 companions are already fairly disappointing (voice acting is okay though). However, their lvl 50 armor sets both pvp and pve look really good (of course have to hide the stupid samurai helmet). I play all female characters (pretty much same look for every character), I don't do any of the romance though, its just hard to flirt at a guy when Im a guy myself. (maybe if same-sex romance ever comes out, I will consider it). Frankly I wouldn't be having any of the above mentioned problems if I didn't force myself to play republic. But seriously you are looking at CRAZY imp : republic ratios as it is, its just hopeless at this point. I know exactly what I want to play if were imperial, sniper + a juggernaut alt. But can't, my sense of duty to play the underdog side is too great. Although I am fairly certain if jedi knight doesn't work out I will go back to imperial. waste of over a month of gameplay but whatever, you can't keep playing things you hate. In conclusion: props to Bioware for making one side so much better than the other. (I mean seriously, how can smuggler be the only class that have the exact same lvl 50 pve and pvp gear, reskinned different colors?) P.S. I'm lucky I got my legacy started off my first character (merc) early, funny Im like at lvl 22 legacy or something now and still have no 50s, but I'm not looking forward to hitting 50 anyways, thats where you have to being the rng grind for pvp gear. Edit1: And during all the consular bashing I forgot to thank bioware for making all pvp consulars look like hobos with "SUPERB" armor design which frankly just look like rags to me. Edit2: AND I also hate that I have to relevel biochem on like every single one of my characters. Edit3: It's not the worst thing in the world to have leveled so many characters, its because of pvping on my mercenary that made me know exactly how to kill one, and that they are completely not OP, unlike sorcs/sages.

1) Whenever you disappear as sawbones, you get a debuff that reduce your healing done and received by 100% for 10 seconds (Yes you becomes useless for 10 seconds, in huttball you are better off dying and running back in some cases). 2) The biggest beef that I have yet to see anyone mention is interrupts. Man anyone with a brain decides to interrupt your underworld medicine cast and you are done. Sure spam your HoTs and pray for a upper hand proc. for 4 seconds you have nothing unless rng favors you (not to mention you get at most 1 UH proc per 6 seconds off your HoT). Not saying commandos are THAT much better but at least you get a 2 min cd that makes you immune to interrupts. and you have other direct heal options to cast. Sage of course is the ridiculous one, interrupt my big heal? healing trance or bubble (equivalent to a direct heal), or worst case scenario they even have a small heal. All my direct heals minus underworld medicine requires upper hand. HoTs are garbage since it doesn't heal you through bursts. As far as pvp healing is concerned, certainly sawbones is viable since there are rarely any healers around, but sages/commandos just win at everything. Did I mention the awesomeness of the ability to dps from range as a healer? As squishy as a sawbones is, I have to run into the pile to do any substantial damage when commandos just pop supercharge cells from 30m and spam charged bolts. 3) I do decent running a hybrid scrapper/sawbones build which nets good # of medals but I always feel like I don't contribute much to objectives at all. nearly all my healing is done on myself and I never do enough burst to kill people alone. for people comparing scrapper to focus guardians (yes the crazy force sweep): The force sweep does do a lot more than our opener BUT after that, your backblast ~ blade storm, guardians tend to lose out on the 2 extra sucker punches (I feel like over 10 seconds or so the damage balances out), that said, of course burst is everything in pvp. I really hate the sage class, hate my companions, hate the voice acting, hate the ship, hate the armor sets but every single time I heal a wz as sawbones and then one as my sage, I just wonder why I am still playing my sawbones.