Lethality is definitely not fluff damage, infact there is no such thing as fluff damage unless it's the player not being effective. Dots being seen as useless in this game kind of amuses me. In other games they are just as if not more easily cleansed. Most DoTs in this game are easier to apply than they are to cleanse, and if they are being cancelled out by a HoT you can look at it the other way around, that it's cancelling out a HoT. It takes a GCD to cleanse, and that's not always available in heavy focus moments. As for lethality itself the damage is far from burst free "fluff". The problems lie in the base class and it's lack of anti-focus fire as well as the specs long set up. But in a prolonged fight lethality can wreck people. Cleanse is a definite weakness to the spec, but the belief that lethality is useless damage is a misconception and not the problem with the spec.

Well I have broken 800k+ spamming nothing but my shrap and vital in huttballs and voidstars just for fun, but you are right regarding the misconception of DF being a fluff damage spec and nothing more. The single target damage is quite vicious. The problem is that someone on top of cleanses can really neuter your damage, and once they realize you are DF a healer isn't going to have that much trouble against you. For PvE both specs are fine, and can handle current content. DF is a lot more forgiving for raiding.

Those things can be utilized better by healing OPs though. The 1-2 warriors will also already be on snaring and mezzing duty. Hard to get a spot over a warrior. Most likely wont get a spot intended for ranged dps, tank, or healer. So it leaves you with a small niche to fill that many teams don't attempt to fill. Which is lone wolf dps. Doesn't work well in games that have splits on their teams, meaning you're never going to run into solo guarders. And then comes the issue of why an operative over an assassin? I play both classes, not speaking out of bias but experience. And that is that the assassin is better. Better burst, better survivability and equal utility (neither excels in utility compared to other specs of the same class). I'm not saying you can't have a DPS op and be winning games, just that you could take another class assuming both players are at an equal skill level, and see even better results. DPS ops just don't really have anything that makes them desirable vs others. That in addition to their huge susceptibility to focus fire compared to assassins and warriors (DPS PTs share the pains of this class well imo, at least they were top dog killing machines for awhile though) makes it hard to justify the dps OP getting a spot unless they are your friend, assuming there is an equally skilled and geared replacement of a more appealing class. Right now trying to get a dps spot as an operative over the better classes is a lot like trying to get a healing spot as a merc over the operative. If the players and gear are equal, most teams will take the OP and understandably so. Doesn't mean the merc isn't a good player that knows his stuff, it's just that it's much easier to peel for an OP and partly due to that and the nature of their skills the OP will do more healing. The silver lining if you can consider this that, is that DPS op is just fine in pug games and really fun. I hope they get a survivability boost though (as long as the healer spec can't take advantage of it).

I'm guessing this is one of those things that got done incorrectly, but instead of fixing it they probably just went "meh whatever".

Depends. Jugg tank is nice, yeah they will be bait but that can work out nicely for you. As long as you guys communicate, he and one other of you (op healer) can play bait while you cap a node. If they see the op come out of stealth they may assume there are no more stealthers trying to sneak. Start the battle near the node, and slowly move it away. In a pug game 90% of the time they will tunnel vision and go for the kill, leaving the node wide open. Plus OP healer and jugg tank is the hardest combo to take down right now, so it won't be easy for them to get the kills even if they do ignore nodes. For straight combat, you WANT the jugg getting attacked. Juggs can take a beating, with heals if you can get the other team to attack you things are going your way as a juggernaut even if protection numbers don't show it at the end. If the DPS is focused on him your healer should be able to keep him alive while the assassin picks off targets. The best alternative if you don't want a non stealther is a second assassin though. 1 dps assassin, 1 tank assassin and 1 healer op. Same strategies can apply, just keep in mind assassins aren't built the just soak all the damage, an assassin tank needs to make the best use of his abilities to stay alive and be that ultimate pest.

Yesterday on my merc I was healing voidstar and after defending a door I got left alone because my team believed that you had to have 7 people to defend against 5 and it's best to leave mercenaries as solo defenders. This leaves me alone at west. The previous battle was pretty intense and my cooldowns were popped. Suddenly the 2 scoundrels in the match forgo sapping me knowing my shield was down and began attacking me. I stayed alive long enough to call for help and to stop the plant on the door by a 3rd stealther assassin that showed up to plant when I was almost dead a few times. Some teammates finally came over and we successfully defended after the scoundrels were eaten alive when being caught out of stealth. It was almost sad how easy they went down after all of that effort to carry out a good plan due to my team's stupidity. The point is, I died. Nerf operatives.

Don't know what your skill level is, but I can't imagine someone that thinks movement isn't that important and they can get away with clicking better than ranged as melee being very good. It's just completely wrong. A good melee player will dominate any keyboard turner with ease because they move and stay in their dead spots. The way you move and react is what separates good melee players from bad. Ranged is all about positioning and having escapes, which is slightly more clicker friendly. The "jump shot" style attacks you mentioned are not a ranged only thing. If I'm retreating on a melee I can strafe in ways so that I can attack my pursuer without losing speed like a backpeddler. It would be hard to react to the enemy this way keyboard turning.

Assault is "viable" as in you can play it and find success... but gunnery is better in many ways. I'd say assualt is a little more pve friendly than pvp at the moment. Yes aim is your main stat for any spec of mando. When leveling just look for anything with aim, power and surge. Some crit is good for leveling too. And yes, they do have an instant heal. Kolto bomb is instant and should be used often but , even as a dps spec it's nice, but I'm guessing you mean other than that. At 45 you get bacta infusion which is an instant, free, medium sized heal on a 21 second cooldown. Depending on the fight you can either use it every chance to save on heat or save it for emergencies. You'll also have kolto shell (can't think of the commando version's name) which is an instant cast technically, but only heals when the target actually takes damage. It's more of a fluffer to keep damage spikes smaller, but at the same time is your most efficient healing per heat skill so keep it up when needed.

In an average pug game a tank can get anywhere from 50-200k on average depending on how things go, which is enough to counter 1-2 dps. It's harder to get higher protection numbers in pugs because you may not have anyone healing you, can't tell you how many healers I've kept alive that do not return the favor in pug games. However what people don't realize is how much damage a tank really is protecting you from. When I'm peeling, stunning, mezzing, pushing and doing everything I can to weaken the other team there is a lot of damage that simply doesn't happen because I deny their chance to deal it. That doesn't show up in numbers, which is why tanks go so unappreciated. A tank that's focused on peeling and interrupting can prevent a crap ton of attacks. Lets say your typical pug game goes something like this. DPS: 300k damage - 4 deaths DPS: 500k damage - 3 deaths Tank: 185k protection - 4 deaths Heals: 700k healing. - 2 deaths People see things like this and assume the tank didn't really contribute THAT much, not understanding that without him the dps numbers and healer deaths would be a lot higher.

Class balance aside from a few outliers is in a pretty decent spot. Each class does have at least one spec that can do well in rateds, which is better than before. I think powertech/vanguard is probably the least desirable atm. Mercs and Mandos are beginning to shed their stigma as least for arsenal/gunnery.

That's very silly reasoning. A merc healer is not a merc dps. What's the point of having multiple trees if you purposely make some weaker? All healers should be relatively equal.

Well it's not like an assassin sure, but I do fight against those guys as well and don't want them behind me. And no I don't need to be behind anyone to use my abilities but I do want to be behind them either way. I strafe and try to back attack just as much fighting other melee as I do ranged, more so even. Getting 1-2 more attacks in on him than he does you is what can decide fights. Remember if you're behind him he's not attacking you, a melee that turns slow is hurting himself just as bad if not worse than ranged. I get what you're saying, don't agree though.

Mandos are decent face tankers, but only in relation to other healers. It's still not something you want to be doing. Sorcs and Ops are powerful because they avoid damage, not soak it. Heavy armor isn't really the biggest difference maker, if their bubble isn't up a merc isn't going to do too well face tanking either since they won't be able to get a cast off. Even then you better hope your CC breaker is ready and they fill your resolve fast. HO has been huge for the class in pvp but merc escaping still pales compared to other healers when it's down. Sorcs do have to wait on force speed if it's down but double bubble soaks quite a bit of damage up, and they can buy plenty of time to get cross healed with their barrier. With cross healing and guard even mercs are tough to take down, but not like the other 2. OP . Sorc . . Merc That's how I see it in pvp right now as far as difficulty to kill or at least shut down. Not to say merc is super easy to kill but just in relation to ops. I play a scoundrel and mercenary healer but not sorc.

Put a heat sink on emergency scan instead of just being free. Add a constant heat depletion similar to arsenal (weaker is fine) Double the heat venting of super charged Give rapid shots a 1-2 heat per critical vent. Not saying they need ALL of these, but stuff like this is what I would happy with.

What? I never stop moving on my juggernaut, ever. Ravage is the only time I stand still, and choke if not specced for free casting. I rely BIG TIME on moving around and facing the correct direction. Constantly strafing and leaping around debuffing and protecting people. Why on earth would a jugg or guardian not rely on movement? You should be one of the most mobile players on the map when playing this class. I'd say it's tons easier to get away with clicking on a ranged class. They shouldn't really be clicking too much either though.

X-server queues should be standard for MMOs these days in my opinion for pvp. It evens out the field when servers have isolated dominance. 1 faction winning constantly isn't fun for people that actually like and are decent at pvp but by chance picked a crappy server for their faction. Some people won't like it but... Cross server queuing, and do away with faction vs faction pvp. It gets rid of all concerns towards server and faction balance. Does anyone REALLY care about lore for pvp maps? I know I don't. I doubt most pvpers do either. I can certainly understand why someone would be opposed to this if they really like their faction or are roleplaying but it's just pvp. Plus queues would be quick, 16 people on either side get chosen at a time.

Shroud yourself before you vanish, you'll be cleansed and resist some incoming aoe. Make sure force speed is up and run off in a direction that isn't so obvious. Getting away isn't a simple button push, you need to plan escapes. Sin is NOT easy to play really well, it's easy to burst people sure but there is a lot more to the class. I use more buttons on my sins and shadows than anything else. Spike, and yes I don't open fights with it often. There are times, like stopping a cast or wanting to delay someone in combat. But most of the time I find it best served as my post-vanish opener. I use vanish offensively way more than I do defensively unless an objective is at stake. Saving spike for mid battle is better because you've already got the element of surprise on your side in the initial opener. It's not hard to do the same amount of damage on someone as you would with spike before they react. Plus I don't like loading people's resolve at the start of the fight when I really don't need to.

No, I am against anything that would increase queue times. Random games are random. Sometimes you get a good team and sometimes you don't. If you want a balanced team make your own.

Anyone hit once by a lightsaber should be instantly killed. It's stupid that when I'm playing my juggernaut and I hit someone they keep fighting. Wow... shouldn't they be cut in half??

Your oversimplification does not accurately describe the current state of healing in pvp. Mercs do the best under pressure? You mean the worst? Heavy armor means jack squat, they only have interrupt immunity with their shield up and even then anyone smart is just going to stun you or use knockbacks/pulls to pseudo interrupt. Operatives are ahead in healing output AND survivability. They are the least effected healer under pressure, the hardest one to catch and by far the hardest one to deliver a killing blow to. If you think the operative cooldowns are bad you have no idea when to use them, sorry but that is evident. Highest single heal means NOTHING. That's simply fluff. Operative healing strength comes from the fact that it can HoT and toss out instants while on the move. Chasing down an operative trying to "shut them down" is like chasing a dollar bill someone has hooked to a fishing pole. Guess what, the operative is still healing their teammates. Now sure, if you get 2-3 GOOD dps on them you can start to hurt them and their healing output, but in the games that matter (rateds, not unorganized pug zergfests) their team is not going to let you do that. I think a lot of people defending operative heals only play in regular warzones. Even there they are too powerful it's just that most the time if they solo queue no one is going to help them out. Nonetheless good ones still rarely die and keep their team up with ease. Rateds though have become stalemates because the operative healers cannot be taken down. Do you not think it's a problem when a PVP match ends with only 1-2 total deaths and the map objectives are near impossible to complete? I don't have anything against scoundrels or operatives, I have a scoundrel healer myself. It has too big of an effect though, this class is the single most powerful thing in pvp right now by a large margin. It's not fun to not be able to kill anyone in pvp. It's not fun to fight over nodes an ENTIRE match with nothing actually happening. PvP is not working right now how it should because of these healers.

Yeah, this is essentially what I said in another post. The healing output is good, the problem is that mercs have to constantly hold back on their heals. On my scoundrel I don't even think about energy anymore, keep HoTs on 4 people and heal all I want. Everyone stays topped off the entire fight.

You have to look at it in relative terms. I love my merc healer and find him way more fun than scoundrel. But the ease of play is just super far apart. How effective you can be at your best is also a pretty big gap. I'm talking even skill, most likely the operative will be more effective in just about any situation. Again it's not that mercs cannot heal all content or be successful in pvp, it's just that operative in comparison is not only easy mode but more effective at skillcap.

Targeting them huh... amazing strategy. Did you just come up with that on your own? I'm sure rated teams that have to play constant stalemates because no one dies will have a whole new outlook on things because of this development. You understand how little of an impact an interrupt has on scoundrel healing especially when they have teammates helping them right? They can heal well enough to escape and help a friend without needing to stop and cast. It's easy for them to get into a position where they can cast when they do need to. Ok, PLEASE use your CC to stop my casts. That way when I'm low HP and you need them my resolve will be full and you won't have anything to use anyway. Meanwhile my hots are rolling regardless and I can easily roll away and los your harpoon and storm long enough if I need to cast. Not to mention I could stun you, mez you, slow you or stun/vanish to give you the slip. This is pretty much the same point you made with 2 and 3. Again, nothing revolutionary here. You'd be amazed how easy it is to heal yourself and 2-3 other people on an operative even while being harassed. Meanwhile the jugg just choked, slapped, pushed, slowed, taunted, guarded and mezzed your little focus party so the scoundrel is on the other side of the pillar laughing at you. By this statement I can tell you're talking about pugging regular warzones. It's not hard to kill people there because there is no organization (I still see games with very few deaths in pug matches nonetheless). Put an operative healer on a team that knows how to assist them and it becomes this never ending balancing act where neither team dies. Here's the thing. It's not about KNOWING how to counter them on paper. It's about the fact that even if you try your best in practice they are so insanely hard to take down right now that people don't die. Replace them with merc healers and this isn't the case. Again, knowledge of how to deal with them isn't the issue. It takes calculated and coordinated set up to take down a good one. A tiny slip up means you missed your short window and that node battle will continue endlessly. That's how it feels to go against a good operative healer right now. It's not as simple as a few dps jumping them in a pug game and them not receiving any help. Teams plan battle strategies around 2 things right now in rateds. Keeping their scoundrel healers up, and killing the other team's scoundrel healers. You can't accomplish anything with these guys running around, you have to stop them. So if you really think that rated teams don't know to target the healer I believe you should expand your thinking beyond the disorganized randomness of regular WZ and try thinking about the organized play where balance actually comes into play. Good to know you're open to discussion and learning things.

I read what you said. You confuse your personal obsessions and habits with a problem within the game. Why do you stack up on something you already have too much of? That's not anyone's fault but your own. Just get credit boxes. You don't want to? And you want to keep buying things you don't need and pretend there are not banks all over the game that you will come across often just by playing? Then live with it.

What mercs mainly need is better heat management, not better heals. The 1.2 nerfs we're ridiculous. Ops got their major buff at the same time and it put mercs at the bottom of the healer list significantly. Mercs have GREAT healing when you're not holding back. But you have to constantly hold back even with supercharge active. If you don't you overheat in few seconds. You can only afford to do this once every 2 minutes. Operatives have cheap HoT and instant heals and can recover lost energy with the occasional scan. I don't remember the last time I had to actually pay attention on my scoundrel healer to my energy. Sorcs can get in trouble if they run low but can consume and heal themselves up in moments of low inc damage, and their regen is not punished for going low. Both of these classes are in the battle for the long haul without hurting their healing. On a merc you need to constantly monitor your heat, making sure you get the most out of every single heal. When people are in trouble and you need to spam heals if your vent heat is on cd you'll be screwed the next 10 seconds. You wont have hots rolling on people like sorcs and ops and you cannot do anything to speed up your recovery. You're stuck spamming rapid/hammer which doesn't cut it against focus fire. With a more forgiving resource managing system you'd be able to play the class to it's potential like the others. I'm not saying it wouldn't still be 3rd best of the healers but at least the gap wouldn't be so large. It honestly needs a heat drain like arsenal, even if it's half as effective. Or make emergency scan refund heat/ammo instead of just being free. Larger heals would be nice, but just being able to cast heals without having to wonder whether or not it was a good idea to do so would be prefered. The others can't just spam their biggest heals either but they can cast everything else without much worry for as long as they need.