Ghost Infantry owns the morning (mostly). We get some good competition from <Boss> (who have hugely improved) and <We haz Cookies> and maybe a few scattered <multiverse> here and there. The reason we run this time (it has been said before) is that most of our players are scattered across the west of the international date line, so that is our prime time. And we get to pick up the most dedicated/addicted of our American friends who log on early in the morning. Boss also runs at this time because they are an Aussie guild. So if you want to get some wins mate, just set your alarm clock and hope you get to pug with us. Until then, good luck fighting Psy and Vullesh and co. I will freely admit they are nightmarish. Cheers -Lin Ghost Infantry

Thanks for the response, I was not actually aware that there is an additional reduction in expertise given for a high level PVE item compared to a low level one. Is this what you are suggesting? My comment was based on a lvl 63 EWH belt (that I have not removed yet) that seemed to still bring my expertise stat to 2008, despite its now lack of expertise. -Lin

Hey guys, I am not sure this has been brought up. But has anyone else noticed that getting full partisan or conqueror gear is actually a waste of gear? I say this because you can omit I would say 2 pieces of PVP gear for PVE gear (lets say belt and bracers) and still have expertise around 2000. The 2 pvp pieces would have contributed 218 expertise to your total, but in this case it adds a measly 18- equivalent to a tiny percentage gain in dmg increase and dmg reduction. It is far more beneficial therefore to wear excellent PVE belt and bracers (with lvl 72 gear) to increase your numbers. Am I the only one who thinks this is stupid? We were sold the premise that the order of quality for gear in PVP would be: PVE gear<partisan gear< conqueror gear, this is clearly not the case. Now I know they are still tweaking bolster as we speak and intend on fixing bugs regarding augments, but this feels like a problem that really lies at the core of the bolster-expertise interaction. We need to reach a point with expertise where for all levels of PVE gear (lvl 50-72) you do not have as much power as someone with PVP gear on. Otherwise, the gear becomes effectively useless and the ill-informed nubs to the game will just blindly buy all the pvp gear they can get their hands on only to discover that they have done themselves a disservice. I apologise of this comes under the banner of QQing about bolster, but I feel it is specific enough of a point to warrant its own discussion. -Lin

I feel your pain mate, and I agree that making new players have a bad experience is not good for the game. To be quite frank though, I do think the problem is not the premades per say but the skill level of players they are going up against. Once again; coordination helps and gear help you win matches these are not unattainable qualities, skill may just be. For this reason, having skill leagues may be the best option here. To combat the long load times, the queue could do what other online multiplayer games do and do a system of "looking for ideal match" whereby every second that progresses, the queue gets less specific about finding the perfect match. To bring some levity to this topic I found this video that perfectly illustrates what PUGs must feel like going up against a good team: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/104347/we-are-the-champions

Hey guys, Just wanted to let my fellow shadows on a quick tip to dropping healers that may have gone neglected. Basically, it is the introduction of mind crush into your rotation just once during an encounter. ok so I am using wakajin 2.0 (love it). And find this the best rotation to killing a healer. spinning kick>shadow strike>force potency> force breach>force project> low slash> MIND CRUSH. Now I will point out here that with the full PVP set, you will have 3 stacks of force potency, meaning that if mind crush crits, every single one of its dots will crit too. This does amazing continuous damage that a healer simply cannot heal against as you finish him off with your newly procced shadow strike (most likely) and spinning strike. I have tried this against healers who I have previously struggled to quickly drop in 1v1, and it has honestly made the job far easier. Small caveat, if they us their stun breaker on the low slash as they see u winding up that mind crush (as they are usually want to do), they are screwed since you can then follow up with a force stun- giving you 4 seconds of unmitigated double strike/FiB pain. I would love to here your thoughts on this guys. Cheers -Lin

Come back Shin, I miss your videos and would love to get your thoughts on the changes to shadows. *signed everyone*

I have found some sure fire way of spotting a healer in a WZ even before a cast has been thrown. Some classes have a vary obvious tell: the green ion cell for commandos and mercs, perhaps a couple of slow release medpacs already on a smuggler before the fight starts. But my favourite tell is that sage and sorc healers will always* be female toons. Take note of this next time, I am sure after a while you will feel confident in marking them even before a heal goes off. *95% of the time. Statistical significance p<0.05. Pro tip Take care out there -Lin

Hey guys, It appears to me that there are already some really good guides to beginner pvp, however there is a scarcity of posts that discuss advanced PVP strategy. I hope that we can remedy this by providing some tactics that have show to work. Some of the examples I am looking for would be "How to shut down teams with (x) composition". "When to slow and stun enemies instead of killing them", "best positioning in huttball" etc. Hopefully, this can provide extra reading material for those new to PVP as well as providing the existing bads with some tips to improve themselves. To get things started I will offer a quick and obvious one for voidstar: After capping the first door, your job as the attacking team is to slow the enemies as much as possible not to kill them in the corridor. If done correctly, your team should be able to hold the entire defending team in the corridor while another teammate- either a shadow or a marauder predation goes and caps the bridge allowing for easy access to the second door without the risk of spawners dropping down to interrupt him at the second door. Classes with very good slow abilities presently are: Defence guardians/ immortal jugs- these guys can spam an aoe force slow at no cost. slingers and scoundrels with shrapnel bombs provide an aoe slow at a very cheap cost- and if this is the only dot being spammed there is little risk of killing those in the hallway. Vanguard tanks now get an oil slick which will slow enemies and finally tank shadows get an aoe slow as well (though not as good as the vanguard and guardian IMO). If I have excluded any, please add them here. Hopefully this thread will take off and help provide some more competitive PVP. All the best -Lin (the harbinger) P.S To the higher rated pvpers please do not feel the need to squirrel these tips away- by this point I assume you too are also frustrated with bad PUGs and would like to see them improve to a more competitive level

Agreed. Agreed. It is roughly akin to the quantity of "NERF" threads that are started. LOL! Please read my previous comments on the concept of the premade (usually) being full of the best players and carrying the PUG's in most WZ's. And how pray, do you imagine that Pugging with bads will help me "learn to pvp"? What specific skill set do you think I will learn in doing this? I am already confident that I could beat any bad player no matter what class I have and what class they have. I also think that a definition of premades needs to be clarified here. Are you referring specifically fielding a group of 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 DPS? Or are you against the concept of any make up of classes grouping together? If the latter is the case, you need to simply admit you are being beaten by relatively simple concepts such as focus fire and coordination of stuns etc- hardly unachievable feats without voice communication. In my experience a good group of players will beat a bad group of players no matter what the team composition is.

To the OP, You are aware that you are not the first person to bring this up right? When I read your post, all I read is: "I want to go into WZ's with noobs who have no idea what they are doing, certainly not enough to know how to coordinate tactics and perhaps not even enough to play objectively" How about you look on the bright side, with the system in place premades can only be 4, it is very difficult to get 2 premades to get a pop at the same time when the queues are busy (trust me Ive tried a lot). Therefore, you have a chance to get thrown in with one of these groups wherein they may actually teach you something about how to pvp better- especially if you observe their tactics, help coordinate with them etc. Trust me, the premade will certainly appreciate not having to carry the other half of the team, and who know if you show skill they may bring you along for the next one. To some extent I understand your frustration- no one likes getting beaten up badly. But I too was forged in the fires of PUGing it solo and eventually realized that grouping up with people (even if it is just with people on fleet before the WZ) makes people better. For some reason everyone just plays better and helps each other out when this occurs. I imagine it is something to do with accountability. Regardless, I'm afraid that you are going to have to jump on the band wagon here mate. There is no such thing as a free ride in PVP, you cannot expect to just derp around in WZ's with a bunch of the aforementioned poor pvpers and succeed.

We'll give you a look in at Ghost Infantry mate. Just check us on fleet and we'll take you for a few WZ's to test ya. Or just whisper me. Looking forward to another shadow in our ranks -Lindooni -Lindothar -Lindac -Lindraya

Totally agree Sataru. 55 PVP is not for the faint hearted. Get grinding and get your gear people. Having all this namby pamby shifting of stats only allows for exploiters to exist. -Lin

Aussie bretheren, I have been playing a sleeper cell on the Harbinger for quite some time now and can assure you things are going to be ok here. The ping is not that bad 162ms (average), which close to the GCD anyway so you should be fine. Please ignore the haters, and know that there are some friendly (lots in fact) folk who play on the Harbinger. If you roll republic side, there are already a few very skilled aussies who reside with Ghost Infantry and we would be happy to swell our ranks with more talent. Welcome -Lin

Hey mate, I was rolling with Shi, Jump and Hauk last night. Was very impressed by their skill and communication so we recruited them to Ghost Infantry. If they are any indication of the skill of your players, we would be glad to have you all as well. Also being an Aussie myself, it was good to see some of my countrymen representing so well. Welcome to the Harbinger! -Lin

This post deserves a celebration

Agree with the above post. True, you can learn the mechanics of a pvp warzone, and you can learn things like focus firing healers. But when it comes to the level of twitch response and situational awareness needed for high end pvp, I don't think even the hardest ops has ever required. For example, soloing a node as a scoundrel and stopping 5 people from capping for 30-40 seconds while your team gets there. In fact, having not done a tonne of PVE (only done HM on all the ops), I hope someone advocating for PVE being tougher would provide a situation specific to PVE that would only be possible with some experience with PVE encounters. Looking forward to it -Lin

ty as always- will bring long my new lvl 50 scoundrel -lin

Some great answers here guys. Though far more reasonable than the flame war I thought I might be inciting. Evidently this was not going to happen because it seems a lot of you do both PVP and PVE (and quite well it seems). I am very much of the opinion many of you have been expressing which is that it is easier for a pvper to get good at PVE whilst the situation is not the same in reverse. I feel for this reason, that we must consider the skill threshold higher for pvp. Now, this does obviously not hold true for all PVE and PVP in MMO's some games may throw up bosses with more random elements that makes it harder. Or indeed, some games may have larger amounts of players on their maps (alterac valley had quite a few I remember), that leaves far less reliance on every player performing optimally.

Hmmm, I may need to make it clear here. I am really after cases from people who do both of these activities at the elite level. For PVP this would be rateds, for PVE this would be at least hard mode ops.

So I kinda of feel like starting a debate on these forums regarding who they think are the better players of the game. Feel free to put cases forward with regard to skill required, reaction speed, communication etc. Or indeed sub headings, including what is easier for certain roles in the game- ie healing in PVE vs healing in PVP. Personally, I think PVP requires a little bit more skill due to the speed with which everything happens and the randomness with which it occurs. This goes for both the larger battle as a whole and for the smaller skrmishes that take place between individual players. PVE to me seems to whilst having an initial learning difficulty, eventually becoming a wrote process. Insofar as classes go, I believe that healers have it much harder in PVP due to the severe amount of focusing they receive, whilst tanking in PVE (that is to say good tanking- not losing threat) seems like a much more difficult process than it is in PVP. I tank a lot in PVP (and quite well I might add), but the fact that you need only keep one person alive (usually your healer) makes it far easier. DPS on the other hand has easily got it harder in PVP due to the need to know how to effectively shut a thinking person down (with stuns, roots etc), whilst in PVE you need only fine tune your rotation and occasionally change targets according to the fight at hand. Ok let the war begin. -Lin P.S I am mostly referring to the difficulty of these to environments difficulty in the context of being successful.

+1 for equality

It does not matter, like I said in a later post I am glad he is having fun. I simply took this as a challenge to point out things he was doing wrong- that is, things that did not benefit himself and his team to their maximum potential. On that note, I still think positioning is important therefore it would be appropriate to MOVE according to the location of the battle. For a caster, this is usually at the back of the pack. Secondly, I was under the impression that off heals were rather important, particularly with classes who have very short cast times on their heals (ie dark heal i believe it is called). Perhaps someone who plays a dps sorc/sage could weigh in on this? Lastly, I believe you are correct about clicking. I have recently found out that some players I pvp with are clickers and are extremely proficient at it- that is they are excellent pvpers. I of all cannot judge by what method people play, since I have mentioned elsewhere that I play with an Xbox controller, and I consider myself proficient at PVP as well. Whatever floats your boat. All the best -Lin

tyvm for this snuckin. fantastic

Just thought of one. How about "smuggle" combined with a combat sentinels "transendence" and having the whole team running fast and in stealth.

One reason that some players on pub side may not play in peak hours is because we are playing from a different time zone- specifically west of the international date line. Thus, peak hours for me and my pacific friends is still midnight(ish) which is early morning for you yanks. -Lin