I agree with the majority of your post, but we can agree to disagree with respect to Obfuscate. I've routinely advocated for Marauder pre and post-pruning. I offered a considerable amount of feedback on the changes (and why they were terrible) and the devs went through with it anyway. Marauder is my second most played class in the game, and while I fundamentally disagree with their design decisions and vision for the class (if we can call it that), I will not shed a single tear for Obfuscate being removed from the game. Every other accuracy debuff should have gone with it. I'm all for actives and defensives that can be used at the appropriate time to give the user a competitive advantage (i.e. Mad Dash no-selling an incoming ability, rewarding a player with superior timing), but abilities that make an opponent flat out miss or remain stationary for a set amount of time are too low effort for my liking. Moreover, modifying Obfuscate would have introduced complexity and Bioware was terrified of that. I no longer see the point in engaging in solution-oriented discussions when the company isn't interested in feedback from the pvp community. If Bioware had even the slightest inclination of creating a balanced ecosystem in pvp then they wouldn't have gone through with ability pruning in the first place. At the very least they would have modified the duration of all remaining CC as well as resolve. That hasn't happened yet, nor has any appreciable balancing changes outside of the most minute modifications. In the face of their intrepid, overwhelming, and steadfast dedication to class balance, you'll have to forgive a bit of skepticism on my part that they would actually change the duration of Obfuscate (or any other form of CC for that matter). Now if there's nothing else, I'm off to get bubble stunned on repeat 😂.

Welp I'll go ahead and get this out of the way. Ability pruning was a horrendous idea and that person owes the playerbase an apology. Tanks want to do more damage than DPS players while having the most uptime. Ranged DPS players want to do more damage (and burst) than melee DPS who can't stealth out (and from 30 meters way no less). Stealth classes want to keep their burst while negotiating for better sustained DPS. AOE specs want more single target damage while retaining their AOE abilities. Operatives, mercs, and sniper players miss the glory days of being invincible. Everyone hates AP PTs. Everyone hates engineering snipers. Some Marauder players think that a 90% accuracy debuff that lasts 6 seconds would be anything other than an "I win" button with 7.0 TTK. Round and round we go. To the OP: Just about every class has a spec that can put down some serious DPS. Some are more front-loaded than others based on the role they're supposed to fill. Players have an issue accepting this and they want their favorite specs to have all of the advantages without any disadvantages. This isn't realistic. Beyond that, focus on what you can control. Fully gear your character and min-max your stats w/ 300 augs. Afterwards, maximize your skill. Skill is going to be the largest determining factor in the outcome of your fights in this game. And if you find that you can't outskill certain players just min-max an AP PT and get a tank/healer friend to carry you. Become one of them 😂.

I don't agree with everything you've said, but it's better than your typical posts centered around buffing Mercenary beyond all reason. For example, accuracy debuffs have no place in PvP. I'd rather the developers think of an interesting mechanic, damage boost, or defensive utility that buffs the user as opposed to one person being relegated to the position of a target dummy for a certain period of time. There's no counterplay to that. Undoing ability pruning is the answer to class balancing. They could have tweaked CC, roots, slows, broken gear like force bound, brought operatives down to earth, and buffed underperforming classes. It really isn't that complicated. All of the UI and website changes were a waste of time. That time and money should have been invested into the story of the game and end game content.

I'm inclined to agree with Trixxie and Doug. In the game's current state I couldn't name one class in particular that is completely broken, but there are a few specs that need to be adjusted (Madness, Engineering, AP PT, Skank Tank Juggs). Rolling back ability pruning would make this easier as some classes just don't work well in their current state. For the devs: When you go back to the drawing board please remember, whomever decided Snipers needed accuracy debuffs, an endless series of roots, cc immunity, leap immunity, phase walk, and the ability to damn near one shot people needs to be grounded. That person doesn't get to make design decisions anymore 😂. Honorable mention to whomever thought ability pruning was a great idea. Probably the same person lol.

I enjoyed it. I dig the imperial vs republic storylines, but I also loved the side quests and planet arcs. I'm cool with the mandalorian arc, but I'd rather the content be Shadow of Revan sized at least if I were given a choice. Huge pro and thank you to the devs for finally, ******* finally making the force using characters use the force like someone who isn't a complete novice. The game is so much better when the player character gets class specific cutscenes / interactions. Main con is that the story is too short, and ability pruning is still in effect. Also, I won't be upset if you guys delete that silly scene from the game where our character forgets how to use the force and gets crippled by the sonic emitters. Goofiest scene in the game lol.

Hey Jackie. I'm not sure if it's been reported already, but there is a bit of a delay in between skill activation. As if my characters alacrity is suddenly too low or the GCD has increased. I'm not sure if it's due to the changes in stats or not, but with full 332 pvp gear this wasn't an issue. I'm in full 336 pvp gear (alacrity focus and device) and it just isn't the same as before.

Agreed. It makes zero sense to see The Wrath of the Empire / Hero of the Jedi Order fight Ri'kan on anything that remotely resembles equal footing. I can't take it seriously. It's also why I won't take a non-force user through KOTFE. Anything other than getting eviscerated by Arcann and Valin makes no sense for them. That being said I do enjoy the Empire vs Republic storylines. I like Lance's idea of different objectives for different story arcs.

Pretty good points. Undying should be baseline, but Obfuscate needs to stay gone. If I remember correctly it was a 90% accuracy debuff that lasts for 6 seconds. That's entirely too long in the 7.0 PvP environment. Ruthless Aggressor could be tied to a passive similar to War Master, but modified so it doesn't require the use of Obfuscate. I'm surprised that hasn't happened already considering Marauder's lack of self-healing in certain specs.

Pass. That doesn't have the effect you were hoping for. Give it a few days and you'll figure out why lol.

Yea you’re way off base there shooter, but don’t worry I’ll help you out. What you’re alluding to is that a record of a discussion(s) exists; the contents of which is comprised of assertions that may or may not be true. The vast majority of these opinions amount to nothing more than anecdotal evidence at best; due to the fact that they are player accounts of particular events in game that very well may be biased, unreliable, or subjective given the fact that some players have a vested interest in the outcome of the discussion. I did not dismiss them arbitrarily. I dismissed them because: 1) It would be extremely difficult to validate whether or not one subjective player choice can reliably yield a similar result if a different player were subjected to the same conditions. 2) To reliably prove something is to critically analyze it individually and collectively. Ensuring accurate interpretation and an unbiased appraisal of the information within. It must survive logical scrutiny including evidence to the contrary. (see my very simple counterexample). Her claims did not. Your boy answered this already: What I was implying was that there are far too many players of differing opinions, in regards to the topic of premades in PvP, for her to claim that they would ALL react to fighting premades in the same manner. (ragequitting the game). The crux of the matter is this. If someone is going to claim that a situation (premades) encourages toxic behavior and inevitably leads to a loss of players in PvP and SWTOR as a whole, I’m going to ask them to show me the metrics that BioWare has used to determine this to be true. These metrics better have been compiled, tested, and refined to the point where the evidence therein can prove some type of correlation and withstand a simple counterclaim. This is a bit of insight into my thought process. Now you no longer need to make a fool of yourself by assuming you know what my “standards” are. This is literally asking the bare minimum, and everyone is well within their rights to ask for clarification or refute a claim in the face of such egregious leaps in logic. That being said, the rest of your post is great and worthy of discussion. Stick to that my dude. ✌

Not really considering you'd have to omit a staggering amount of information simply to reason along these lines. Trixxie, your train of thought is based entirely on the assumptions that: 1) Premades will discourage new players and solo players from PvPing. 2) Premades encourage toxic behaviour. 3) The presence of one or both will result in a loss of players. Not just from PvP, but SWTOR. 4) The absence of premades will encourage new players and solo players to keep PvPing. You're even bold enough to claim this will grow the PvP population as a whole. I'll offer you one counterexample. I'm a solo player. I have literally been in < 10 premades in the last 5 years. I'm in no danger of queueing less simply because premades are present. There are far too many SWTOR players for you to make this claim in the absence of any raw data on the matter. I'm not even advocating for myself on this. I've taken my stance because there are people who enjoy playing with their friends / guildies. I don't think they should be relegated to a dead queue to appease the few who prefer to play solo, or the unimaginative who view this problem as one that can only be solved with a binary solution.

Terrified at the prospect of a solution-oriented discussion? I'm not surprised. While it's funny, this isn't a real solution if queue times are going to be so high that it will end up dead (like group ranked was). Limiting the ways that friends, groups, and guilds can play together in a game designed to be played together appears to be a non-starter for Bioware, and has been for over a decade. I thought this was obvious, yet here you are.

I'm patiently waiting for someone to propose a solution to the queue time issue (if separate queues were to be implemented) instead of just complaining that premades vs PUGs is unfair. Simply suggesting that the devs return to the old system, which was atrocious btw, isn't a realistic solution. We all know that it sucked.

Madness is slightly overtuned at best. Fix deathbrand, and maybe consider reducing the potency of it's self heals but that's pretty much all that needs to be done. I understand that you're a Merc player and the class is tanky, but this isn't PvE. There are going to be times in PvP where you're going to have to use your brain in order to strategize against your opponent. Sometimes that won't be enough and you will get outplayed. It happens. Understand that 5.0 is in the past. You can't just stand still and farm every bad player in the game anymore. The truth of the matter is that we torched your team due to the difference in skill. That would have happened with or without the Madness Sorcs present.

Gonna go ahead and cosign this. This man gets it. // For clarity I'm speaking to the people complaining about premades. // 99% of my PvP time is as a solo player. Playing with friends or in a PvP guild is much more enjoyable than playing solo, and I *like* playing solo. Also, playing solo has next to no bearing on my fun or my winrate. The biggest issue these days is the skill gap. Skill is at an all-time low in this game right now. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you can't confidently win 99% of the duels you're in (regardless of the class you're fighting) you're going to have a bad time when the 8v8s start getting competitive or the premades come out. If you know the ins and outs of your class and the classes that you're playing against, then the game is pretty much cake. Combat will become routine, and the game will only start feeling competitive when you're engaged in outnumbered fights. If you're doing it right those outnumbered fights will be *fun*. You won't be on the forums complaining about ranked players or premades because you'll realize that fighting against them is about the only time the game will be competitive. They're fun to play with and against. Bioware doesn't need to ruin players ability to play with their friends in an MMO to appease the vocal minority on the forums that refuse to make friends, start a PvP guild, or heaven forbid get better at their respective classes.

Yea I've only had this happen to me once. Don't remember the dudes name. I was fighting a madness sorc that had the ability to rapidly teleport every second. I killed him anyway (repeatedly), but it was pretty ridiculous watching him instant transmission at will all over the Queshball map. Luckily that one person is the only one I've seen do this in PvP lately.

I don't think you actually read my post. Modifying the duration of roots or just giving Mercs back hydraulic overrides as a baseline ability would have made the most sense here. Bioware won't do this because that would be admitting that ability pruning as it was implemented was a mistake. Ultimately the bastardization of advanced classes is what caused this situation. Further stripping of abilities is not the answer. The dev team has had some pretty bad ideas, but implementing a mandatory 4 to 8 second delay in combat for only one of the participants takes the cake 😂

The only thing I have a problem with is granting Mercs immunity to leap after using Rocket Out. Making an enemy immune to counter play is one of the single worst design decisions you could possibly make. Give them immunity to roots, increased defense, increased damage, a shield that procs when they use Rocket Out, a movement speed boost. Literally anything else. As it stands right now a fight between a good Merc and a Good Jugg goes down to the wire. Giving Mercs immunity to leap with no counterplay makes the fight completely one sided. Your only option will be to run for 4 seconds (and we can't reflect). If we so much as saber throw them after they use Rocket Out they get to just do it again? Melee players already have to deal with snipers rooting, stunning, and knocking us back into perpetuity. Don't add Mercs to that list. You'll damn us into irrelevancy with a change like that. Especially in 8v8s. Immunity to leap should never be on the table for any class in PvP. Keep combat as fluid as possible and grant Mercs survivability through other means. if you're going to make changes, please avoid inserting huge gaps of downtime into combat. 4 seconds is an eternity in PvP.

I'll just leave these here 😂

Their original post about offering more customization than the game has ever had was a bit misleading. OP wasn't the only one expecting to be able to mix and match abilities. To Bioware's credit, after their initial post generated a ton of hype they did clarify that what OP was expecting was not the case. I will say though, I see no reason that warriors shouldn't be able to use force lightning. Not to the same degree that sorcerers do, but it should be possible nonetheless. Palpatine wields dual lightsabers at times and he's primarily a sorc. Dooku would most likely be a Juggernaut and he regularly uses force lightning. Then we have Malgus, Marr, Revan, Lana, etc that have all displayed the abiility to do so and they're Juggernauts / Marauders. I'm not saying we should have access to all Sorcerer abilities, but adding a feature that augments existing abilities, perhaps giving them a lightning effect (similar to Vengeful Slam) would make players feel more like these Star Wars legends. In the event that doesn't happen I'll settle for being able to mad dash + saber reflect again. I still can't get over it 😂

It would be interesting to know exactly how the algorithm works. There definitely is one in place. My main character that I've played since launch gets absolute garbage for teammates. It's typically me and no one else that can fight, or myself and one other person that can fight vs a premade + 2 to 4 competent players. Oftentimes it seems lopsided, but then when I take a look at the scoreboard I can understand why the algorithm stacks the teams the way that it does (based solely on average damage output). I wholeheartedly believe there's a hidden ELO, but one that works in conjunction with other data points as well. When it comes to balancing for classes / class stacking it definitely needs some work. Overall I give it a C+ / B- .

Romanceable: Dark side Jaesa since she's basically a carbon copy of my wife. Honorable mention to Vaylin. I'll admit I have a thing for chicks with tattoos and daddy issues 😂

You're not wrong with 7.0 being boring. It still makes me laugh that some genius thought taking a bunch of abilities away from players would make their game more fun and engaging. Anyway, PvP is boring because the brain power is gone. We have next to no control over our stats. The potential for outplay is the sole province of a few classes, and the irony of the entire thing is people who sucked at PvP before 7.0 (because it had too many buttons) still suck at PvP now. Also, I've seen you in PvP on your Marauders (we played a few matches together yesterday) and that's probably half the reason you're bored. To go from what Mara was in 6.0 to the severely reduced kit you have now is jarring. My second class on my Jugg is Marauder and I can't stomach playing it without Mad Dash and Force Choke. I've also noticed that some Mara mains haven't adjusted to the lack of obfuscate, CC, and Force Bound. You really can't go heads up with everything like you used to be able to in 6.0. Mara is definitely a hit and run class these days. This isn't a dig or an insult to your abilities. I still think you're a solid player (and a f**king madlad for playing annihilation so often), but with everything that Bioware removed I'm not surprised you're bored.

This is a pretty silly post OP. Ranked players are not going to be barred from playing unranked PvP just because they play ranked or queue with their friends. My recommendation would be to join / create a guild with people who like to PvP and duel a LOT. There are a lot of abilities in this game that you need to learn how to counter, and you're not going to be able to do that and internalize it as quickly in the chaos of an 8v8 warzone. After you get good at that practice fighting multiple opponents. Learn to stall for as long as you possibly can (and win in some cases). Also, understand that if you're in PvP and you aren't walking into 99% of your 1v1s confident that you can win (against a ranked player or not), you've still got a lot to work on. A good place to start would be Ragequitting gaming or Biggsgaming on youtube. They both have a lot of useful information for beginners looking to get into PvP.

Not really since 7.0 removed DCDs from all classes. You're going to die a bunch no matter how good you are if teams are somewhat even. IMO the best defense in 7.0 is a good offense. To your original questions: 1) Marauder and Jugg rotations are pretty much identical to what they've been since 5.0. All specs can be played in regs. Annihilation and Carnage are nowhere near as good as Fury, but Carnage is getting a buff soon. This doesn't mean they can't be played, they can, but you'll have a harder time compared to just playing Fury. 2) Fury for Mara. Jugg it depends. Better off answering the question "Do you want to AOE or single target burst". If you wanna AOE pick Vengeance. If you want single target burst pick Rage. 3) Not really. Jugg has the same problems it had in 6.0. Good damage but melts under focus fire. Burst is king so we melt pretty fast in 7.0. If you play Jugg get good or get rekt since you can't stealth out and everyone knows it. If you want to be tanky you're better off playing a tank. Ultimately just play the class you like the most. You can take names on any of them if you're good. If I had to pick 1 saying it's the strongest / easiest it'd be AP PT.