I've been away. Motherboard went on my old laptop 2 months after its warranty expired and I've been contemplating whether or not I should replace it. Ended up ordering a new one and I'm waiting for it to ship. I have TOR up and running on my Mac in boot camp, but that's so painful that I don't want to even bother logging in (horrible experience on Intel HD 4000 onboard graphics, even if it is halfway decent). When I get the new laptop I'll send you a PM through the forums. Hafta find some means of rolling with you again.

Broski! <3 How you been buddy? Been a long time, I'll have to log over sometime.

Grats in advance to whoever wins. Personally, I've only ever seen posts from Aiori, so I feel he's the right choice. At this point, though, it's likely become just what people predicted it might: a popularity contest. This one happens to be so close, I'd be surprised if fellow guildies aren't helping sway one way or another. It's a "position" that's going to be changing hands regularly anyhow, and they won't even be getting paid for doing this "job". Popularity contest though, it's only going to end up hurting the AC's community if the wrong person is representing them. Edit: Just saw that the thread is closed. Sorry Aiori...

Yeah. At least JC has been my pub home. Imp home has been on POT5 for a year or so. The competition on POT5 has definitely increased since xfers though =P.

Hey Proxi. WB. Decided to come back for a bit as well. Motherboard on my last laptop went, but I ended up ordering a new one, also figured I might as well head back to JC where I enjoyed it more. Should be seeing you sometime whenever I get it (2 weeks). - Thechive/Crackshot

I actually enjoyed it, somewhat. It was the last story I played (only haven't done BH) and I found it better than JK story. JK was way too much of what you would expect (IMO), whereas the JC actually felt like a "real" Jedi with some kind of power/authority. The plot kinda got boring and lost it's original appeal after Chapter 1, but it picked up again (somewhat) in late Chapter 3. Note: I played dark side, so not sure how enjoyable the story would be comparably running it as light side.

I hear ya brother. But don't get your hopes up for ESO. Understandably, it is still in beta, but the combat from the leaked footage looks extremely lackluster. Personally, I was very interested in seeing what it could end up being like, especially given the non-linear skill trees/customization of Skyrim, but it just looks bad.

They're not going to address it. Basically, if they went back and made Ops hit harder than they do now, it would be a reversal of the changes they put into effect in 1.1, which would almost be like them saying "sorry, we were wrong". The concealment tree has been in the toilet for so long now that it should be completely apparent to everyone playing it that it'll never be fine-tuned for a PvPer. Even if they went back and adjusted things, you'd still have a Sin who can spam Mauls, the expose weakness proc on Mauls still would exist if the Maul missed or was dodged (letting the Sin spam Maul until it hits while the proc is active) whereas your Op missing a BS and it's on cd for 12 secs no matter what, and you'd still have no great utility to bring to the table with numbers adjusted since your out of stealth prowess can't compare to that of a deception Sin. Xinika (Sin/Shadow forum contributor) nailed it on the head when she said Sins have been dumbed down with the changes in 2.0, but even still they were more fun to play pre-2.0 anyhow. I'm a long time Scrapper/Concealment player who just simply realized I was playing a class that, as you put it in another post, we have to work that much harder vs other classes who can beat us out without having to put as much effort into it. The problem is, this is an MMO, and Massively means they are going to cater to the Masses rather than the Minority. The masses are casuals, the game tanked and went F2P which brought on a whole host of new casuals. Those people want to be able to be competitive, and if the Masses are constantly dying to the Minority, they don't like it, are more vocal (due to the size of their playerbase than, say, a concealment Op) on the forums, and them leaving would be more of a hit to EAware's income than losing the rest of the concealment Op community. TL;DR - FOTM exists in all MMOs, the concealment Op is never going to be reworked as BW can't get it right (but look at all other MMO "giants", none of their stealth classes are any more useful than the concealment Op is, so it is the archetype), but Sins happen to flourish, at least in non-RWZs. You *do* have to put in more effort as an Op, and mastering a Sin (at least IMO) is less skill involved, but if you want to have any kind of fun in this game you need to see the writing on the wall and move on. Good luck in whatever you choose, though.

Banksy AKA M4 Best VG I've played with/against. And +1 for his uncanny ability to spit game at sexy pixelated fembots. - TheChive / Crackshot (ret) @ JC

Retired as well. And it's just sad that people still put faith in BW, latest stint being this whole class rep thing, which makes people think they'll actually do something about it. Do yourself a favor and just reroll assassin or shadow. Even if they were to change ops to make them more viable, you still would reliance on Hidden Strike (your reliance on that makes you mediocre outside of stealth, unlike an assassin) and your 12 second cooldown on Backstab. One thing you should realize about the 12 sec BS cd is that if you miss it, or it gets deflected, you still have 12 seconds without it. An assassin who gets Duplicity to proc uses Maul, and if it misses or gets deflected, Duplicity stays active for them to just spam it again until it connects. This factor alone makes their potentially hardest hitting attack able to be used whenever, which could spell certain death for an op if it misses. Making any alterations to the 12 sec cd for PvP would directly affect PvE and would need to get nerfed. Don't keep kidding yourself into thinking ops will be anything else but healers in high-end pvp. Reroll or unsub.

Ino, I agree with the entirety of your post, except for the +30% AoE damage reduction needed (for, yes, Scrappers). That is the first and foremost concern on the minds of most of us PvPers and without it, I feel we might as well just not try representing the Scrapper community. Yes, Scoundrels have crap defensive talents, but a medic's best defense is his ability to heal, and they have quite a lot of instants to do that with. I'm all for diversity, I would find it very boring if not. But I am also an advocate of the "everyone should have the same, fair shot" policy. I'm kidding myself from the get-go that complete class balance will ever be achieved in an MMO, but still it's easy to say "lol you don't need that" when you're not the one spending nearly as much time at the respawn. Again, I agree with nearly everything you posted and have a ton of respect for you. I just not only feel, but I know the spec needs to have AoE damage reduction, simply for the fact I play multiple classes and see how much it increases their survivability. Most gamers love to play easy classes that are able to perform extremely well with a limited amount of involvement needed. In those instances, especially when changes are made to games through updates/expansions, people tend to flock to those classes or specs and you have FOTM. In TOR, there are a ton of easy classes and specs, whereas it is terribly difficult to even survive in a warzone as a Scrapper. As one poster said in another thread, he feels "completely useless" in some WZs depending on the composition of the opposing team, and even in some cases just their coordination. As per my experience, Scrappers are absolutely a useless addition to your team in at least 1/4, if not 1/3, of all games. I can only end this rant with this: You likely get focused a ton because you are a healer. But have you ever played a Scrapper who is purely playing objectively and as soon as you open from stealth you are immediately focused? Hell, some people do it just to troll you, and the current state of snipers, mercs and sorcs, they all can do it and laugh at you while doing so. Scrappers are a joke, plain and simple, and it is not fun in the least getting trolled by classes that are much easier to succeed with. The general idea is that Scrappers are the guy who comes in to burst down the healer and is able to get away, restealth and be a menace to the opposing team. The reality is they are a joke and are easily farmed. When the opposing team has one of the aforementioned comps that we just are not suited to go against, we are farmed, and farmed repeatedly, because it is easy for them and they get off on doing it.

Have a look at this thread. I did a double-take while reading the first page, it is literally a year old today. The particular responses would be that of how bad the Concealment Operative (our mirror) is in PvP. Sadly, as I see that post being a year old, it is somewhat disturbing that they are doing class reps and seem to have completely ignored what was posted by players themselves on that thread. Leaves me little hope that anything will come of this newest venture.

Very true! And you know as well as I do that it's then Sin vs Op, and you know who wins that fight, lol. (Unless they are not really good, then you can have some fun)

I'm not the rep, but thanks anyhow. We're all a part of this, all as one, so keep doing what you're doing

I really wanted to make a new thread for this so that hopefully the PvP Scrapper community sees it as a whole, but there are just entirely too many PvP Scrapper threads going right now... Just wanted to take a moment and say to the PvP Scrappers with this whole Class Rep thing: Don't get your hopes up. The "job" of whoever is made the class rep is to provide 3 questions, and 3 questions only, to Bioware, which will then be presented to their combat team. The class rep is representing the class as a whole, and you the PvP Scrapper are the minority of the class. If the only representation of ours ends up being 1 of the 3 questions, even in the form of "What, if anything, is or will be done to address the viability of Scrapper Scoundrels in PvP, whether rated or non-rated warzones", then you *have* been represented. There is a good chance that a healer will be chosen by the Scoundrel community, and their choice is not getting paid for doing this "job". I'm not even sure how these 3 questions will be presented to BW, whether it will be in a new/locked thread for all to see publicly or if it is going to be a PM back to Eric and then the rep will say "hey, this is what I sent" kind of thing. Just asking to please be courteous to whoever gets chosen, regardless of their active role in the game, and feel that you are being represented. These are only questions that are being presented, and the questions are being presented for every other AC in the game. Don't keep high expectations, because there is the greater likelihood that not much of anything will come of it for PvP Scrapping, at least until maybe the next expansion. - Randiesel - Crackshot - TheChive - #howeveryouknowme

That is too true as well. And don't forget how much of a complete waste QS is. If anything needs a damage buff, it'd be Quickshot. Anyhow, I still stand by my original statement some 6+ months ago and say that scrappers need to have dodge. Like 1/3 of all attacks are able to be dodged, melee/ranged/force/tech. Sounds dumb to be able to dodge a force attack, but sorcs deflect my Backblast all the time (12 sec cooldown, anyone?) and they never miss me with their Thundering Blast (which is an auto-crit, mind you). Given that, I think another thing that would be amazing would be if they increased Accuracy by 6% (if not, by 10%) as Alacrity is boosted by Rolling Punches. That would ensure that we connect with our attacks, b/c it wasn't stated but that is another thing that is our downfall: Our only advantage in PvP is our offensiveness (which is even questionable, but definitely not our defensiveness) and when we don't connect at ALL with our attacks (regardless if it's a crit or not) we are useless. This would affect PvE DPS I'm sure, but I couldn't picture it tipping the scales too heavily. Might even make up for a small amount of DPS lost while switching your position behind a target. Again, a lot of things they COULD do. We've exhausted many different ideas over the past year and now all of a sudden the community is back to posting "what-if's" as if BW actually cares/will do something about it. The whole reps thing has yet to begin, but I've already seen other classes post on their forums about how terrible it is for them. Preaching to the choir.

That would be incredibly overpowered. And I think we need work in several areas, rather than pumping steroids into any one single area.

I like. +1. Some stuff is recycled, but point 2 (for BB only), 3 and 5 I think are great. #3 is specifically something that would impact pvp only and have no direct change on the class/spec in pve, so I think that is more of what the dps scoundrel needs (for us pvpers) is to have choices that don't weight too heavily on one particular side. And I just think auto-crit on SF is bad no matter how you look at it, but on BB it is an awesome idea for a finisher. Auto-crit SF > auto-crit BB with a target <30% will have outrage on the forums. Too many people already vanish to SF again just to get the odds in their favor, this would put it over the edge and imbalance 1v1 encounters, which we're still surprisingly good at. Edit: The finisher should somehow apply to player targets only, therefore not impacting pve and causing the class to push past others too easily in pve encounters.

Sadly, the only way I see it being viable is to almost copy that of the Infil Shadow tree, rather than differentiating the 2. I don't see how else it could be accomplished. Quite honestly, we are a from-stealth fighter only, nothing more. I know I'll get crap for this, but if they cut the damage on SF to 1/3 of what it currently is (66% damage reduction on the talent, that's correct) and increased Backblast's damage to the level's Shadow Strike/Maul are, we'd be able to escape the whole negativity of our opener from stealth being OP. Then, boost our survivability with AoE damage reduction, rework Shield Probe to make it useful, reduce the dodge proc on scamper to something reasonable to make it useful (15 secs is ridiculous), and maybe even boost the AoE damage we can dish out by making Thermal Grenade a useful part of our PvP rotation (wishful thinking, say 4-5k on your focused target with nearby targets taking 2/3 of that damage as splash damage).

The problem with this is that an Assassin's spike does maybe 2-3k damage if it crits, and is only usable outside of stealth for a tank, which is less damage. Ours hits for about 8k+, so that'll cause outrage with the opposing community, and as Perron put it, likely make the class FOTM.

Agreed, but the damage mitigation on Shield Probe/Defensive Screen is pretty terrible. It's a little better with the DF 30% reduction and 2pc Medic 10% reduction totaling 40% increased damage reduction, but still not great. Even if the cds were cut in half, it's still lackluster, and then you're talking about how it affects other trees, mainly Sawbones, unless the talents were very high in the skill tree.

I think the issue that they've been bringing up all along is how it's affecting ranked, not regs. A coordinated team of 8v8 is way different than the pugs you end up with in a reg match where nodes can be flipped all the time due to completely different skill/comp (or even gearing) of both teams. Hell, some players just afk at random in regs. Personally, I thought the percentages and mechanics were very well done in 1.7 and the changes tested on the PTS were very unnecessary. As it was said by another poster, the PTS feedback was posted for all to see and, just as they are currently doing with the class representatives, issues that are made aware are probably not worth anyone's time to research/post. BW has from the get-go not addressed most of the issues that players have been concerned with (how long did it take to get transfers? remember this issue?) and the PTS changes made it to live simply because they wanted them there.

Last I heard, Scrapper is perfectly viable for raid dps now. Besides the fact that I agree with you on wasted points in the Scrapper tree, I did state that this was a pvp only assessment. As far as raiding is concerned, though, you truly do have every option of respecing for your fight and not have it affect your overall survivability and, potentially, ruin your night. I'm not really one to talk on raiding in TOR, but I did happen to put in years of raiding in Wow. Again, not that qualifies me to speak here, but playing a spec that allows you to do the best you can offensively while also ensuring your own survivability defensively is paramount in pvp. Being inconvenienced by having to "waste" talent points on extra endurance might seem annoying, but I can assure you not being able to live more than 10 seconds while playing your strongest skill tree for the setting is a completely different story. I empathize with you, though, so don't take that as anything negative.

They must've changed the mechanics on it, surely in an attempt to fix the perma-snare bug. The timing is different from when you hit the scamper ability until you actually roll. I only noticed since I get bored waiting for pvp queues in the fleet, I run around and scamper-jump (it is possible). With the newest patch it stopped working and I figured a new way to scamper-jump, by waiting about .5 sec after hitting scamper and then jumping. Seems a change in the mechanics of it. Also, The wait time in between rolls seems less.

Never thought of it that way. That is a good point you bring up in that it would likely make us the next FOTM. I've witnessed Shadows/Sins get "dumbed down" and it kinda does suck. They were excellent in 1.7, then the changes were just over the top on a lotta things, even Xinika agrees. The whole scrapper tree needs a major overhaul, not just a tune-up. That is defensive-wise at least.