So you are saying their leap(s) isn't good enough as gap closers, and that the don't have as high damage uptime as ranged dps? I have two words for you: LoS, Instanta-cast.

I find it interesting that no one has posted any actual claims based on any statements so far, this thread is just full of trolls stating their opinion without reasoning... Marauders ARE overpowered, it is impossible to argue with that. They got instant cast on all but two abilities, which of one is uninterruptable, one of the highest burst AND sustained dmage capabilities of all classes. all this wouldn't be so weird, if it wasn't for their five defensive cooldowns, which of two is nr 1 and 2 of all classes...

I don't know enough about madness assassins in 1on 1, but I think the sin would have a decent chance due to the minimum range on force charge, and the relatively long cd on force push. However, at equal skill lvl, a darkness assassin would win 9 times out of 10.

Bioware generic answer: Learn to play, we have metrics that show it works like intended.

wow.... just wow... if the sorc is good, and I mean really good (gear and skill) i have about 30% hp left after the duel on my sin... If a sorc win the duel, you are right, it really is an l2p issue- for the other guy

What is this open world pvp you are talking about?... I wouldn't worry about balance issues there, it is the pvp area with the least need of attention atm...

Again, class balance isn't about how good the player is, but how well the class perform in the hands of an equally skilled player. If said player can do well with deception sin, well good for him, but fact remains, he would do a better job with another class.

I meant purely for pvp, not sure if I said that though However you are correct that there is no "fluff" damage in pve, because mobs/bosses usually don't heal themselves up to full health if you don't damage them fast enough. To clarify, by "fluff" damage that is dealt to someone who either through meditation or healing go back to full health without dieing, rendering all damage dealt in between pointless.

Afaik... http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=504843

Rated warzones are afaik intended to be for those who have competitive gear, who want to play others in a competitive way, and not for casual gearing purposes. The only issue with the rated warzones as I see it is the lack of cross server matching...

While this might be true, a chimp could perform these changes, so it wouldn't take much time from those "more important" matters you are talking about.

I have seen a lot of people ask about this, and a lot of theories about how to deal with it, which is why I would like to clarify it once and for all. In my first attempt at this, as the nice gentleman below pointed out, I was monstrously wrong, but after scratching my head a bit, and poking the internet and his links, I think I got it, or I will at least give it another go. It is easiest to compare every stat gain to power, because that is a static gain regardless of how much you already have. So lets start! To be able to handle the diminishing returns on some stats, you will need to find the derivatives of said stat at the amount you have, for that I suggest you use this site to enter the code for corresponding stat, posted below. http://www.numberempire.com/derivatives.php Then you will have to input how much you currently have in that stat as the value of x, and you will be presented with a decimal number, that I will refer to as "stat gain" that you will have to enter in the formulas below. A hot tip is to enable "combat log to file" at your in game options, and then upload the file to http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog To be able to evaluate where your damage comes from, and which effects apply to the different skills. POWER Power adds a static 0.23 bonus damage, regardless of how much you have. MAIN STAT (strength, willpower, cunning, aim) This adds a static 0.2 bonus damage, but it also adds to your critical hit chance, which usually makes it superior to power. To get the comparative value, do the following: 0.2+(stat gain)*0,01*bonus damage*critical multiplier To get the stat gain, use 30 * ( 1 - ( 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.3 ) )^( ( x/ 50 ) / 2.5 ) ) at the site posted above *note that you can add an additional 5% to this (multiply by 1.05) if you have the consular/inquisitor buff **note that this isn't accurate if you have some skills or procs that temporarily increase your critical hit chance for certain abilities to 100%, because whenever that proc is on, critical hit chance adds 0 damage CRITICAL RATING This work almost like your main stat, to get the comparative value, do the following: (stat gain)*0,01*bonus damage*critical multiplier To get the stat gain, use 30*(1-(1-(0.01/0.3))^((x/50)/0.45))at the site posted above *note that this isn't accurate if you have some skills or procs that temporarily increase your critical hit chance for certain abilities to 100%, because whenever that proc is on, critical hit chance adds 0 damage SURGE RATING Again, very similar way to calculate: (stat gain)*0,01*critical hit chance*bonus damage To get the stat gain, use 30*(1-(1-(0.01/0.3))^((x/50)/0.11))at the site posted above *note that this isn't accurate if you have some skills or procs that temporarily increase your critical hit chance for certain abilities to 100%, because whenever that proc is on, you have to remove the critical hit chance component of the formula, making surge more useful. ACCURACY Up to 105% accuracy on main hand (every class have at least 5% defense chance by default), for white damage attacks: (stat gain)*0,01*(min weapon damage+max weapon damage)/2 To get the stat gain, use 30 * ( 1 - ( 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.3 ) )^( ( x/ 50 ) / 0.55 ) )at the site posted above *This however isn't entirely true, against someone with 5% defense chance, the real formula would be (stat gain)*0.01*0,95)*(min weapon damage+max weapon damage)/2 up untill 100% accuracy, and at 100%-105%: (stat gain*0.01*(0,95+(hit chance-1)))*(min weapon damage+max weapon damage)/2 EXPERTISE Now this is a bit tricky, especially the defense part, because you don't have anything like your melee or bonus damage to compare it to. For the defense, I would suggest you first use the bonus damage, then play a few games with combat log on and find out how much damage you take compared to how much damage you do (or check scoreboard) and use that as reference. For example, if you have 800 force bonus damage, you do on average 300k damage in warzones, and you take on average 150k damage, the "gain" in damage numbers, would be half of your bonus damage, meaning you should use 400 as the multiplier (I will refer to this as "damage taken"). PvP damage increase: (stat gain)*0,01*bonus damage To get the stat gain, use 50 * ( 1 - ( 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.5 ) )^( ( (x) / 50 ) / 0.8 ) )at the site posted above PvP damage reduction (stat gain)*0,01*("damage taken") To get the stat gain, use 100-100/(1+x/100)at the site posted above. The value for x in this case is NOT how much expertise you have, but rather how much PvP damage boost you currently have. I would like to get any comments on however this is right, because I think (hope) it might be this time:D

I would propose that the warzone scoreboards should show how much total incoming damage every char have had, before damage reduction from defense, misses and defensive cooldowns. This to easier be able to compare different classes. Ideally I would like the scoreboard to show total incoming healing as well, so we accurate could tell how much damage each person could take before they die. If those changes where made, it would be a lot easier to discuss class balance on a less theoretical level, which is something I feel this game desperately needs... ATM there is too much "your class is op!" "nu-uh, its just fine, that class is op" without any real evidence of either... As you probably have guessed, I am suspecting that the game is balanced around outgoing damage vs incoming damage, which would greatly favor those classes with higher mitigation and defensive cooldowns, because although they can take more incoming damage, the actual damage that it takes to kill them is only determined by their HP, which in turn is roughly the same for all classes with correlating gear. . With theise changes, you could take total incomming damage, minus healing received, divided by amount of deaths to get actual "average damage until death" values for each person Similarly the damage output should be balanced time to kill. If you fight around healers, and one class use 20 sec and 30k damage to kill someone, and another class would use 40 sec but do 70k damage, the scoreboard will show that the person with the longer ttk have higher dps, although in reality that person is half as effective as the first person. This however is harder to quantify in numbers from the scoreboard. It can be evaluated by taking each class average "incoming damage before death", and compare how fast each class can pump out said value. Thoughts?

Let me rephrase that, I don't like playing deception because regardless of my skill and knowledge of that spec, I know I would do the same job, but better, on other classes/spcs, which in turn is not good for my team.

Well, most of us don't like to play a sub-par spec, even though it might be challenging and fun, because it hurts your team...

IMO they should just add a "reload position" command that would require you to be out of battle, staying still for 10 sec to use. Then you could at least get out of it... I know workarounds arn't to be be prefered of a fix, but since they are so damn slow with that, I would prefer this...

I also had the Q&A response copied, ready to paste in to a thread of my own about this exact thing... It is simply mind blowing how detached the developers seems to be to the pvp community, I do not understand how they can let this happen. First of all, what matters in pvp is the time it takes for one class to kill another, respectively how long it can survive. Damage number doesn't mean anything in comparison, you can keep wailing at a healed target for two minutes, and end up at the top of the leader boards, and still be less helpful that someone who does a tenth of the damage, but kill the same target in 15 sec. While deception assassins certainly have quite a few tools to interrupt healers and casters from completing channeled skills, they do not have the tools to compete with any class with instant cast abilities. To make matters even worse, they got lower damage then marauders, light armor, and defensive cooldowns that looks like a joke next to the godlike cd's marauders have. The worst thing is that while assassins, according to his post, are supposed to be a "hit and run" class, they actually have WORSE abilities to "get a way" after a fight, their force cloak is on a mind numbing 2 min cooldown WHEN SPEC'ED IN TO compared to the "off the bat" 45 sec cd of marauders, and theirs don't break on damage! Simply wow... p.s, his quote about a melee class that is not supposed to "face tank", is insane on the face of it... what are they supposed to do then? stealth up to a healer, try to kill him asap, then go back in to stealth, and wait for the 2 min cd to end before attacking again? yea that will work...

If you want to compare how much bonus damage you get from each stat, you have to look at how much one point adds at the amount you currently have. Power adds a static 0.23 bonus damage, and willpower adds a static 0.2 damage, + how much you get from crit rating. Here is where it become a bit tricky. Take the % gain to crit chance from willpower, devided by how much willpower you have, then multiply that by your foce bonus damage, and finally add that to the 0.2 pure damage increase to see the actual output. it should end up somewhere around 0.24-0.27, dependent on how much you have. You might have to factor in the buffs (5% to main stat) and eventual gain from build (like 6% more to main stat from spec), but that can simply be done by multiplying the output by 1.05 respectively 1.06.

As long as it isn't usable inside warzones, I don't get what the problem is... But then again they would have to add some kind of interface, and a save functionality, so bioware have to google how to do that before this function can be implemented...

Not quite. Lets say you have a 50% shield chance, that means that someone would have to have higher then 50% critical hit chance on a white damage attack for this to apply... I can't recall any skill that can get this high crit chance, before or after the change to relics and adrenals. But for arguments sake, lets say you get a 60% crit chance on a white damage attack, then you need to roll between 1 and 60 for a critical hit, but only if you get 50-60 will that mean it has any effect on however the attack gets shielded or not...

yes..

Stopped watching after they planted the door in voidstar right next to you, it was actually on screen from time to time... Nice to see yet another dps playing for high numbers rather then the objective

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the dot damage is mainly fluff, the "real" damage comes from cull and speed shot, no? :S Try only adding your two dotts to one person and see how fast they go down. Imo, not nearly fast enough.

True, because say Assassins and operatives have 35m range on all abilities, and rooting someone to LOS is too tricky to be a factor.

Seeing as a lot of people already are pugging for rwz, I think it would be a good idea to add this to the group finder. If it "tried" to add people of similar rating together I can't see any negative things about it...