I'm sorry, but I have to think about the troll under the bridge in some Hellboy movie right now. ;> Ever took a look at Tera? Seems like totally not your kind of game.

At least this part is true. With legacy, speeders and whatnot serving as a cash dump there is no need to charge excessive amounts of credits for (mostly) cosmetic changes.

Especially when playing a DoT class in a 16 man opertation I really really miss them!

The complaints are that Marauders are too good in both PvE and PvP and thus need to be nerfed. Darkness Assassins deal too much damage in PvP and their speed, self healing and force bubble are annoying, but that's kind of a bummer because those are integral to their PvE performance.

Step 1: Place your haed on your Keyboard. Step 2: Start rolling Step 3: Repeat from step one. Sorry, couldn't resist and the post above already covers most of it ... when leveling of course you don't have as much of a rotation because most of the time you fight multiple mobs and Smash becomes very powerful because of it and DoTs are less useful than in 'real' fights. Carnage is rather nice, not because of any of the damge skills, but the increased run speed.

Excluding Void Star that's quite a valid point. Plus Berserk is not as important as for Annahilation.

Why would someone come up with that question? I always found this very odd. Really ... how does it make a difference? Maybe it's because for years I have been in guilds who use voice chat exclusivly for communication and we invite randoms to join us so we don't have to type everything just for them ... and obviously the gender question (if it's even there) resolves itself by this practice. Or maybe it's because if I'm not small talked to I don't start any conversation in-game that doesn't have to do with whatever's happening on the screen, unless of course with people I know for a while and that are in my teamspeak channel ... but then we're back at the point above. This really riddles me a bit ... to what gain does one want to ask if your fellow gamer is a girl? They can't be of sexual interest, usually far away and just virtually present ... but now I'm writing in circles this really is a huge ? for me. And now I have to apologize ... I was kind of bored and could not help myself from digging up and commenting some of the previous posts. There really are some gems hidden in this thread. ;> Don't kid yourself ... for the most part I'm a man, but there are times where I mentally revert to a little boy. May 15 might be such a moment to give an example. Well nice to see Bioware has fitted starships with custom interior, because it seems there's a big closet on yours. It's called vanity. ;> You mean ... they're usually attracted to men? Kind of obvious don't you think? My favorite were these two posts in close succession: Not sure if that's the usual personality of a female gamer... a professional with a pretty big lawn to be mawed.

I sometimes think that's how some of our male healers are playing, judging from their performance. And now I have a very unpleasant mental image in my head. O.o Anyway ... not surprised that this thread has over 60 pages by now. I learned few 'facts' about girl gamers in my career: * they're more helpful than others in 3 out of 5 cases * usually (~80%) healers * and usually movement isn't their strong suit * sill most of the time not distinguishable from playstyle alone * always improve the social aspect of a guild * until now the biggest drama queens in the guilds I've been in weren't any women * less present in SW:ToR than in WoW ... but that might just be my server

Lost Island is great to tank. This weeks run was done in 36 Minutes. We also had some pre-50 pieces on our tank ... called 'Veracity Nano-Optic'. Puging the instance on multiple occasions I know that the thing with gear and this instance has nothing to do with mechanics but especially the bonus boss is hitting quite hard and most importantly the enrage timer isn't generous enough to do it in greens no matter how well you dodge the icicles.

It's weapon damage, that's why. Power Shot is two hits obviously. Unload however seems to be two hits as well, which is quite strange. And yes, Pyro, while fun to play, needs some help ... maybe a heat cost reduction for Incendiary Missile would be enough. Thermal Detonator is sort of lame, it coule just copy other classes DoT enhancement mechanic and leave a debuff that buffs a couple of DoT ticks.

It's not the fact that Gunnery was nerfed, but how hard the bat hit. A slight adjustment after another with evaluating the effect might have been better don't you think? Maybe it's because Grav Round was nerfed by 19%, wich is no where near approxemately 10% and guess what? It still contributes 30-34% of our damage. So please for the love of common sense and sanity as a whole, don't just spread whatever lies you trust in, if you don't care about being delusional that's fine but keep it to yourself then. Sure, good ol' Grav Round had it coming, but the compensation is rather laughable and that's what pisses me off. Where's the part where the changes were made to make the class more interesting to play? Slight increase in Unload usage? Nice, that really spices things up it's almost like I wouldn't spam Grav Rounds ... because every single talent for Gunnery focuses on that one skill the spam will never stop unless there's a major overhaul and any change to this skill will heavily change the specs performance for the very same reason. Yes, exactly. That's what Blizzard and any other company said before. Would you believe that the earth was flat as a pancake if Bioware twitters about it? ;> Obviously they listned when the community wanted the animation for Tracer Missile to look different ... it really isn't far fetched if they also saw the bazillion tears about it's damage.

Didn't know Sheldon Cooper posted here ... Anyway, the nerf to Merc/Commando DPS was a bit too harsh. I won't say that no nerf was needed, because it really was but it's like Blizzard and Arcane vs Fire for Mages ... no little and smart adjustments, just pulled the lever fully to nerf or buff.

They actually look different. I wasn't aware of it either and already built sabers for myself ... if you're zoomed out the difference is rather small, but a guild mate wanted me to build a saber for him and it had to be the level 50 one because of the looks. So at least some are aware that there's a difference. From an economic or gameplay point of view their just the same - as are all orange shells that have augment slots ... stats come with whatever you put into it, so the issue (that I don't really see) you discribe is also there for any crafting skill that makes moddable gear.

Pyrotech and Vengeance spec lost their giggle too.

The nerf itself was alright ... after all it's a spamable ability. The compensation we got however was almost not even worth it ... and that's why Mercs suck right now. And god knows why they nerfed Pyrotech for Mercs ... Power Shot nerf without any compensation? Tyvm.

Just came to my mind ... craftable orange Foci and Generators, Earplugs and Implants could spice things up a bit. Seeing that Exotech Stims, Medpac and Adrenal schematics seem to be almost MIA - I have ssen one drop and have almost a second character in full Rakata, wich does hint a very bad drop rate ... and after all I have yet to see Skill and Might Stims on the GTN on my server. Make them purchaseable with daily comms or make a daily mission in the north of Belsavis for Biochemists that gives you a box with a random schematic if just buying it would be too easy. Also ... people are stupid and give away orange augmented gear for almost nothing now. I saw this coming and the number of items in the GTN is already rapidly dropping because of this ... it might seem harsh, but people fail to understand in-game economy and maybe it's time to discuss minimum prices ... or a way smoother solution: Dynamic standard prices, when you put in an item the standard price isn't 4x vendor price but the average of all items with the same name. Lots of work, but MMOs need an economy.

Major increase in mobility here. The skill itself is nice but a) it's not good enough to keep up with other classes high level cooldowns, b) underused and c) gives Mercs what they lack the most right now. Ok ... flat CD reduction too lazy for Bioware? Maybe try this ... also makes a 100% useless talent useful for PvP at least. Still, you won't start kiting around anyone ... 12-15 CD charges make sure of that. Increases max benefit to 6% and gives Arsenal minor interrupt protection. Moved up to Tier 6 so hybrid healers can't abuse it. Again, more survivability, we might wear heavy armor but our cooldowns are a lot weaker than those of other classes ... this talent was obviously heavily inspired by those Madness and Annahilation have. What works for them can work for us and the original Kolto Vents really sucks to be honest. Here comes the fun part! Where Bioware actually failed to fulfill their own statement about making Arsenal more interesting. Not a thing has changed in 1.2 ... other than the fact that we deal less damage and have less survivability. More interesting? No. But maybe shorter cooldowns on the non-Tracer Missile Skills can do the trick and including another skill into the rotation might not be a bad move considering that Arsenal still has to keep track of not very many skills right now. In short: Pyrotech wasn't owning the meters pre-1.2, got nerfed and now lags behind. I don't really know what the devs were thinking, but hey ... maybe not just re-buff it a bit, but make it more interesting at the same time? Less CD on the Ultimate that feels a bit week when looking at 'damage done by ability' charts and of course a tiny self heal for a spec that's made out of paper in PvP. As the alacrity talent in Pyrotech had to make room for something that actually benefits the tree it had to be compensated somewhere else and as this talent was just blindly copied and posted over from the other healing trees it was a good spot to include the alacrity bonus. It's also 1% less because the buff to 'Power Surge' buffs healing quite a bit.

Well, since the official statement on the 1.2 Arsenal changes were that they wanted to make it more interesting, diverse and fun to play with & against, it's safe to say Bioware fully failed their own goal. But not to worry! hxxr is here to save the day and while I play multiple classes more or less actively, my Merc is still my raiding main character and to be fair Arsenal, Hybrid-CL Sorcs and Annahilation Marauders all either got a deserved nerf or really need one. (looking at you Marauders!) 1250-1350 seems to be the point where DPS are supposed to be in fully optinmized Rakata gear and that part of Bioware's mission was accomplished for 7 out of 8 classes. Not all specs, mind you bit 1.2.1 for example is another good step in the right direction. But now for the important part of this post: PvP balance sucks very hard for Mercenaries and they're very monotonous in PvE. What a Merc needs is some form of interrupt protection and mobility for Arsenal and a straight up damage increase for Pyrotech. All: 'Power Surge' has an additional effect and it's cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds whenever you deal a critical strike with any of your abilities, this can only happen every 1.5 seconds. It's basic cooldown has been reduced to 45 seconds. To rebalance the changes Eliminator 2 piece bonus has been reduced to 10% additional Crit. This time it was not forgotten that major changes should always come with a free respec. Arsenal: 'Power Overrides' is now located in Tier 4. 'Jet Escape' is now located in Tier 3 and additionally enhances Jet Boosts knockback range by 3/5 meters but no longer lowers the cooldown. 'Pinning Fire' no longer snares the target but critical hits from Unload have a 50/100% chance to reset the cooldown on Jet Boost. 'Afterburners' has been redesigned. It now reduces the heat cost of Fusion Missile by 17 and increases your critical strike chance against targets suffering from it's burn effect by 7/15%. 'Power Barrier' is moved to Tier 6 and now only has 3 stacks, reducing all damage taken by 2% per stack and as long as there are 3 stacks present you're casts cannot be interrupted. All stacks are removed whenever being hit by an interrupt or stun effect. 'Kolto Vents' now has a dependancy to 'Terminal Velocity' and heals you for 2% of your maximum health whenever you vent heat with any mechanic. (This includes 'Vent Heat', 'Terminal Velocity' and 'Gyroscopic Aligment Jets'.) 'Stabilizers' curent effect is now included into the 'Ironsights' talent. 'Stabilizers' reduce the Cooldown or 'Railshot' by 2/4/6 and the cooldown of 'Heat Seeker Missiles' by 1/2/3 seconds. 'Tracer Lock' has been increased to 8% damage increase per stack but the maximum stack size has been reduced to 3. Pyrotech: 'Incendiary Missile' damage over time is increased by 6% to account for the lost damage by 'Power Shots' reduction. 'System Calibrations' no longer increase alacritiy but increases the critical strike chance of 'Railshot' by 5/10%. 'Degauss' is redesigned and now heals you for 0.5/1% of your total health whenever a weapon attack against a burning target critically hit. This effect has a 1.5 seconds internal cooldown. 'Thermal Detonator' now has a 12 second cooldown to further account to the previous loss of damage. Bodyguard: 'Surgical Precision Systems' are too generic and no longer reduce threat of healing abilites but now increase alacrity by 1/2/3%. I think that's it for the time being. Commentary and Republic version coming up soon.

What you miss is that the legacy class buffs are not an increase in power, but convenience. 1 buff of each type is the limit and very much the same, no difference whether you wait for 4 people to buff or only one. In a raid setting it was a given that one of each class is present, but even then after a battle rezz you need too much shouting until the revived player is rebuffed. Now you just need one person to buff the raid and not wait any longer than nessecary. There is no real increase in power from the legacy buffs and it's absolutely OK.

The regular player seems to have not heard of movement, gear optimization and has no wipe resistance whatsoever. Running flashpoints with alts makes this very apperant ... one wipe anywhere and someone rage quits? Relly? More often then not it's their own fault. Or actually putting in 3 minutes of research to figure out what stats you need and realizing that just having the highest available tier of gear isn't enough. The information is all there and it's easily accessed if you stop and think for a moment. Come to think of WoW ... for one the golden ages was Burning Crusade and not the casual (on these forums this seems to equal the bad) crowd, but the dedicated one are the loyal players. Increase in overall online gaming and gold selling has quite an effect on # of subscribers here. The inclusion of LFR had quite the negative impact on subscribers after seeing that being bad is almost rewarded by this feature. Yes, there should be an easy raid and I support raids having multiple difficulty settings, but none of them should give away gear for no effort.

If you can stand in **** and heal through it, ignore mechanics and such nonesense and you are supposed to wipe. This is not a question of casual. This is a matter of just being bad at the game. The improved visability on effects is almost a guarantee that people will be able to dodge the bullet unless they're half afk. No - not all healing was nerfed, 2 of 3 classes were nerfed and one was even buffed a little. So in retrospect this does hint that there might have been a slight bump in healer balance and you want to revert it? And no to less damage on Toth and Zorn. The 'movment phase' deals not enough damage if anything and healers just didn't fully figure it out yet. For example during Baradium Throw Zorn's tank isn't hit by anything and on HM when the yellow circle is placed on a player the same thing happens - healers have to shift their awareness away from the tanks here. And executing the tank swap quicker is another easy method to reduce the encounter's damage ... use of personal CD for everyone and timing them right ... a new raid means a new phase of learning - otherwise it would be kind of boring. If you exclude the buggy railshot on Jarg & Sorno 16 NMM there is no hard content. Most of the fights are tank and spank with minor adds or movement mechanics. Mechanic wise Karagga and Bonethrasher are the most complex, but at least Karagga is very undertuned when it comes to actual numbers. The average player seems to just play bad and not be able to communicate, is that what the average player is? Because designing content for this kind of player will destroy the most loyal playerbase while securing the majority one. Which will kill the game once the next interesting title will hit the stores. In order to promote fights with two tanks your options are very limited. If a fight does not have either hard hitting adds, forced tank swaps or multiple bosses you won't want to bring more than one tank and are better off with more healers or damage dealers. Options here are limited. They always were and always will be, since it's the very basic mechanic of a 'holy trinity MMO'. Looking at the fights (for 8man) thus far: EV: Robot 1 tank / Gahrj 1 tank / ... everything 1 tank, wich leads to not enough tanks for flashpoints and other content. KP: Bonethrasher 0 tanks / Jarg & Sorno 2 Tanks for NMM / Crusher 1 Tank + class with taunt for adds / Fabricator 1 Tank + 3 Healers or 2 Tanks or 1 Tank and right-left combination / Karagga 1 Tank EC: Everything needs two tanks, because Bioware always wanted a 2/2/4 setup - that's also why there are enrage timers everywhere ... so you can't just bring more healers On a side note ... next big end boss will be 6 bosses at once btw.

Gear Progression with Wrath rendered everything but the newest raiding tier moot. As far as I know this is neither wanted by the raiding playerbase or the development team. You can skip T1.1 already if you feel like it btw. Skipping Columi not so much, unless you're an alt that can get dragged along, and I think that's a good thing.

Guess it's time to level some Marauders then. :>

12 sec CD charge with a root effect and a snare that's just as good and easier to apply than most ranged snares? And then there would be the fact that any meaningful damage, other than some midium to high cooldown skills, can only be dealt while standing still. Kiting is not part of this game.

It was closer to exactly 19%. Huge and not compensated in any way. HSM/Demo need a serious cut in cooldown to get us back on our feet. It gives us all we need, mobily, burst, higher sustained damage and really is a simple fix.