You weren't the only one who spotted him exploiting the VS door. He did this in my game too. I believe he is a former MDN player from the best pvp imp guild there, not 100% sure on that though. I was fighitng around the front of it, eyes on the door a long time, then the door has a bomb on it, and he walks out of the wall/door. Sigh.

Okay, here is my general rules of thumb when it comes to Kolto Pack. Bear in mind, this only applies for the next 10 or so days. After that, it will be used on CD pretty much (2.0 gives it a 9 sec cd). Just my opinons, im sure everyones got thier own: It is our highest HPS heal (even better with the pve set bonus if its still around, as i dont pve very often) bar none. It is heavy on our resources. 1.) Use it when you have close to full energy, and 3 stacks of UH, always. 2.) Useful when UWM has been interupted, or when you are anticipating an interupt on UWM cast it instead. If they let it go, it still does great healing, so its a win/win. 3.) When DPS spec'd, its a great heal, as most don't take the cast time reduction to UWM. 4.) When a target is being focused, spamming UWM -> KP repeated ad nauseam is the best burst single target healing in the game i have seen. It will kill your resources though, so be mindful of doing it without cool head being up. And in some situations, keeping someone alive is more important than resources. I believe the last point i made is why KP is changed in 2.0. We have the best HoT healing, as well as the best burst healing atm.

Thats it, you can do it! Don't contest any points of my arguement at all, because you can't. You just keep argueing symantics, your bound to prove your point that way! I also find it funny you argee with me, but don't want to admit it. you said yourself, "We take a scoundrel when we can't find a shadow". LOL. Scoundrels are second class citizens right now, you know it, i know it, everyone knows it. Keep on truckin though, buddy. As to the original point, 2.0 changes in scoundrels, it's too early too tell either way if they will compete and mix it up with the best. Alot of us hope so.

And the above posters point is you can have more effect in total, not just for less effort, in pyro/assault than scrapper will. Full stop. Ever. Viable is when RWZ teams have trouble deciding between say a scoundrel scrapper and a gaurdian/sentinal/vangaurd/shadow/gunslinger. Atm, there is no discussion. The best teams, putting together their best chance to win, will take almost any other dps (cept commando maybe) before a scoundrel. Viable is when they do take that scoundrel. Sure, you can have some fun in WZ's, pump out some good damge, have a lot of fun ninja'ing off nodes. But from a best of the best perspective, they fall short, everyone knows this. This has alot to do with the fact that in almost any situation, a DPS shadow is better. Better survivabilty, better DPS, better utility, better at gaurding nodes and ninja'ing.

Hey man, good to see you decided to come join us after all. To all the other Bastionite's, <Core> is pretty much the team to beat from APAC atm. While the Elite guys are still working on alot of things and learning team cohesion, <Core> have been doing this for a long time, with a larger player base, and will definately bring a challenge and stiff competition to the server. Looking forward to the ranked games!

Thats the thing. More often than not, its a good 4 man against a good 4 man. Warzones have more competition in general. There isn't just 1 guild on 1 side smashing every other poor team, they are more closely contested. Thats fine Obiray, or Obiraysbrother. If they go there then thats what they decide, im not that fussed either way, although i never say no to more aussies on the bastion. I'm just providing some info so people can make an informed decision.

Just some more food for thought: If you are talking about the absolute best of the best team compositions, you may be right in assuming that will happen only over the weekend, on our saturdays and sundays. Howver, there are almost always very competitive teams queing at our prime time from the US guys on weeknights too. Synergy is very competitive and are basically on 24/7, and usally most every night ask us to put a team together if we can. The MVP guys are on very late on most weeknights too, and we have games against them also in our AU primetime. But lets be honest, do you really want to continue to play against the same level of competition that ended up being all that was left on MDN? Lets not kid ourselves here. The pugs were freaking awful. One premade from certain guilds in normal warzones and the game was a steam roll everytime. I dont find that very fun, on either side. There were 2 very strong teams left, we know who they were, and the others were in the next tiers below, of varying competativeness. On the Bastion all of those teams left on MDN will find appropriate and similar levels of competetion to push them. Same goes for any PvP guilds from Dalborra. Also, from chatting to a few GM leader's on Bastion, they say that <Don't Panic> and <Strictly Bussiness> have been just as competative as those two teams previously mentioned. Lately in ranked it's a coin toss as to who wins from the 4 main guilds. That is some very healthy competition at the top levels, which would really suit the best APAC pvp guilds. I understand that this is not the only consideration when picking your destination server. Presh bought up a few other good points, and there are other factors too, like the "APAC community". I just believe that any pvp guild or player going anywhere but the Bastion will end up regretting it in the long run. Lots of people have been posting what they feel or believe is how the bastion works, and i am only trying to present the on the ground facts from a guild already playing there. Now as to spilting the legacys; If you read Mr Eric Musco's last post carefully, he tells us that we will be able to spilt our legacys! We will be given 1 time transfers to our choice of destination server. So if you are on MDN, transfer what you want to go to The Harbringer. Then, when they merge the servers at the end, PvP servers will merge with pvp servers. So, just leave any toons you want to go to the Bastion on MDN till they do that. Fellows from Dalborra just do the opposite.

Thanks for the info guys. In the end all i want is for every guild to make an informed decision on where to go. Alot of people are stating things in discussions that simply aren't true and just opinion or distorted/mis-interperted fact. Hopefully this will clear things up.

Yep. Fair enough. For the record: I have played 16 ranked games, with 7 wins and 9 losses in the last 3 weeks, all against the better yankie teams. We aren't getting alot of RWZ pops on weeknights, although that is more to do with our guild, not other peoples. Snyergy has alot on all the time, and most weeknights around 9-10pm melbourne time they have been asking for rated games. If you talk to guild leaders on the server, they are happy to organize games whenever as they are on mostly 24/7. As i type just now, we are about to que up against MVP in a no smash no bubblestun game. (12:30am thurs night/fri morning) Just wanted to post it here for anybodys curiousity.

Oh, sigh. 6 core members for our rated team is not 6 active players. Troll will be troll. Running along now, adults are talking. No more food for you.

Thats fair enough to not be called an APAC guild. We haven't been on MDN for a fair while now. However, we are almost all APAC located players as a guild and hence, do count towards these discussions as it gives other guilds/players people from the same time zone to play with/against. Weather or not they want to is their own decision, but i believe it is more than justified and fair that we be listed here for others to know about and be included in these talks. For the record, as someone mentioned, once MVP got geared, they had a positive record to the best of my knowledge, including against SS from Harbs. I can understand people wanting a higher population and hence favouring Harbringer. In my mind, if you are a serious pvper, and want to play the best team(possibly best teams plural, as a few others are very good) in rateds, there is only one choice. The Bastion. If you want to call yourself the best, then play the best on the bastion and prove it. Just my opinion. For the record, alot of members from <The Elite> have leveled two of the same class, (1 MDN 1 Bastion), so in cases like that the duplicate is going to the harbringer, but, as it stands atm, we still intend on keeping The Bastion as our home. The RWZ scene is alive and with healthy competition. Normal WZ pops are never ending. Proxii, be good to see you in on Bastion, if your looking for a home, look us up.

Just a few things: 1.) The PTS as mentioned is not stable, and my ping was about 150ms worse going from the bastion (180ms ping) to the PTS (3330-350ms ping). 2.) Off topic but Ryere i am curious as too how MVP did on the PTS. How did you guys go, and how do you feel the bastion rated's scene skill wise is compared to the other top guilds on the other servers? 3.) <The Elite> is recruiting APAC players looking for a new home! Feel free to come join us republic side on The Bastion for the double XP weekends and have some fun in anticipation of transfers!!

I really wish people would try the other server out before posting opinion paraded as fact like this. I understand people are upset, in some respects they have more than a right to be. But statements like this simply aren't true. I play from Melbourne, and even at 11pm Melb time on weekdays, i still get GF que pops, although it does get quieter around then. But pops still happen. GF pops all the time anytime during the weekend. WZ's pops are never ending, anytime, day or night, any day of the week. That is better than any aussie server just there, not even mentioning it has a thriving RWZ community compared to the APAC servers too. No complaints about ques at all, maybe you should try it out yourself. Edit: P.S.: <The Elite> are recruiting on the Bastion repub side, come join us for double xp weekends and see for yourself guys!!

A few people mentioned 90% of pop, or majority of the pop, the reality is, even if those numbers were true (which i doubt), they are an insignifcant number to sustain an MMO. In most peoples hearts i think they know this. That is all i will say on the matter and wont get dragged into discussion or negativity on the decision thats been made. Now, for some positive news!! <The Elite> have been mixing it up on The Bastion for a while now. We are recruiting all (well, almost all lol) Aussie players coming across to the republic side! We have a rated team, are mixing it up with the best on the server, and coming out with a few wins already, and only really have 6 core players. I suggest all those thinking of trying The Bastion out, make a low level alt and level up a bit with us over double XP weekends, it's alot of fun! We have a number of people looking to raid as well, but not enough to get it started, hopefully this might change in the near future! A few quick points: - The lag isn't that bad, we still top damge/healing/protection all over the place, only place we notice it is in hutball trying to pick the ball up from the middle. - We have a bunch of people online every night, more than 2 dozen some nights, even though we only have a core of 6 or so, we have a bunch more 50's and lowbies leveling up to join us. All those wanting to join us, please send a tell to Stavross, Stavroz, Valsy, Thoros-of'myr, Zimas, Thrashgash, Spooned, Spoonable, Athiya, or Mah'jong. Alternativly, you can do a shout out in the pub fleet, someone is usually there!

I am laughing my absolute *ss off at all the rage in this thread. I was going to type out all my thoughts about everything, but then realized its pretty much pointless, and i'm just going to continue to laugh. Btw, <The Elite> is currently recruiting all good PvPer's for rateds on the Bastion.

Lets be honest here: 1300HPS+ games are not an everyday occurance. You need a very special set of circumstances to occur before being able to have to oppertunity to go for this sort of game. I can post screenshots gallore of between 1000-1300hps games from random pug wz's, but getting above that, doesn't happen often. The circumstances required for these sort of games are more prevalent in ranked warzones. Alot of times, depending on the wz itself, that can change things too. Alderaan matches will go off at hte start in mid, alot of time going above 1400hps, but then you have a patch of 4 mins where you do nothing for example, because the other team gave up. First and foremost, and most important, the damage needs to be there for you to heal. Not every game you play will you be facing 3-4 dps on the other team who know what they are doing and fighting close enough for you to heal. Also, generally speaking, if they know what they are doing, they are focusing you. So you will need good dps and maybe a tank to peel for you. If you have a proven reputation of being a b*tch to kill, that helps too, as once you have this, sometimes they will just generaly ignore you and allow you to do your thing in non ranked wz's. That is the most common scenario for those large games. The other scenario which can happen, although is more rare, is you have around about 15 other players in the wz with you that are genreally sh*t to average players. They are all dps, with maybe 1 healer on the other team, and they all pick individual targets to fight, so there is 8 mini 1v1's going on in the wz. With damage spread out like this, and because the players are sh*t, it's not accumulating quickly, so u can basically hot everyone and stop every single person from dying. As to what to do inside the wz to acheive results, thats been covered, with some good advice on KC and SRMP using EMP when energy is low from hotting. The best thing to do, is get together with good players. Generally speaking, the more good players in the warzone, the more likely the circumstances will present themselves to have those 1300hps+ games.

Okay, on the Heal: First up, crit chance would affect the heals in the same way, for the same total average mean healing given the same stats. It doesn't really increase the healing value. Alot of your thinking and reasoning appears to come from the mentality of 1v1 fights, not 2v1's or group fights where the old KP is better with increased up front healing. Sometimes you have to get an offheal in to give the healers some breathing room. The old KP gives more breathing room. I have never found that if i got a KP off as dps, that i ended dying and said "damn, if that heal was 15% larger, i would have won". I find myself saying "If i had been able to get a heal off, i would have won". Against the few classes we are even or struggle against in a 1v1, if i get 1 heal off, i usaully win. If i get 2 heals off, i do win. The issue to me is getting that heal off, not it being too small. (Btw, the dirty fighting spec has done well regarding this issue). As to the old KP not worht the UH stack and it being 15% bigger turning it into a magical heal suddenly worth it, i disagree. The old one was just as worth it. I appreciate your viewpoint but do not agree with it. I still firmly believe the old style KP is better, not just for sawbones, but for dps classes as well. I guess it all comes down to sytle of play really. As to the cleansing of dots mentioned: For a healers viewpoint, if it is a hectic game, i/my team only try to cleanse the dots on the focus target at the present moment. It's all we really have time for. If the target has lots of dots on them, sometimes its not even worth trying) and you just brute force heal them through it), as you don't know how many cleanses it is going to take to get hte ones you want to be gone.

Yes KP heals for a little bit more now (in the order of what, 10-20% without getting on and checking the actual figures?), however, it is on a 9 second cooldown. The old one could be used whenever you had a an UH and it also healed to the full amount instantly, which is clearly better for facing burst damage, as damage can kill you before the hot's had a chance to run its course. From what you explained, doing the same thing on with the old KP would have done pretty much the same thing. Please explain to me why you think the old KP is not a true mid-combat heal. You labeling is very subjective and i don't understand it. Also, please explain to me why the new KP was the only tool that would have saved you in that situation, and why the old KP was inadequte. I understand exactly where your coming from, wanting more durability from DPS spec(i do too), but i just don't understand how you feel the new heal is better. To me, the old one worked just fine in mid combat, if not better because of it all being up front healing (not too mention 5 energy cheaper).

I'm un-aware of any AU imp guilds, but i have seen some familiar names from the AU servers playing imps on The Bastion. Rep side, there is <The Elite>. We have 6 core members for our rated team, and alot of casuals. We are aiming to complete our squad for rateds but finding it hard filling in those last 2 places. Lots of casual levelers in there as well, and alot are now close to 50, so that may help as some are great players but don't have alot of time to play anymore. Anyway, if you have an Repub characters, hit up Stavroz/Stavross, Valsy, Thrashgash, Mah'jong, Spooned/Spoonable or Zimas for an invite into the fold.

After doing some trialing with the new sawbones, its really hard to complain. I'll be honest and say that while everything is really an improvement/buff except for kolto pack, i can't help but feel the skill cap on our class is being lowered. Speed roll, well, nothing needs to be said lol. Its awesome. We got alot of quality of life improvements, that if you were already good, didn't really bother you too much. Instant UH's after exiting stealth is nice, instant UH's with pugnacity is nice. It really just makes UH management that more simple, in fact, i will go as far as to say you don't even really need to manage them anymore, because you will always have them. Base energy regen is higher, and we get cheaper hot's. Energy management was one of the more "difficult" things to learn, and in a pumping game, you needed to pay close attention to. This just got easier. Scramble is now pure awesome sauce, making room for that in a build is almost mandatory. Adding the heal on med screen is nice, but for me it's too small to take over lowering the CD on dodge. Again, both of those are nice QoL improvements. Making it easier to do what we have to and survive. Kolto pack was always useful, and anyone who doens't think so, well lol. It was our highest hps heal. It's now on a 9s cd, and costs a little more energy, and had half the heal turned into a hot, and heals for a bit more in total. I do not like this change, although i concede it was probably(?) needed. The way it stands on live, between UWM->KP we have the best burst healing cycle in the game imo. Now we can no longer do that. I feel our burst healing has been reduced significantly, and in clutch situations we wont be able to keep up like we used too. They have really changed KP usage scenario, and while i consider it a nerf, it has other uses now and i can live with it. Basically, they just made it easier to do what we already do. I feel the difference in performance between the average and the good/great will be alot closer now with these changes. While the good and great players will always be able to perform better than the others, and most of the changes are positive ones, i can't help but feel my beloved class has been dumbed down.

Just a note: Some classes, like other scrappers, get a 2% passive defense bonus (shifty-eyed, although this desription has been changed for 2.0, not sure if it still works the same or not). This apply to force/tech attacks as well as melee/ranged. Shadows get it too,as well as a few others i think. The accuracy bonus to tech helps to negate such bonuses from enemies skill trees. It also helps to negate accuracy debuffs which can be applied to you via other enemy abilities. Still not worth stacking, but the fact we get a few extra percent as we move up our skill tree will definatly be of benefit. Trying to test lots in the pts, i like scrapper changes so far. Nice sustained dps increase. I think dirty fighting now has some serious potential also.

You are incorrect. Bastion isn't quite as busy as Harbringer as Scorpio mentioned, but its still packed. Bastion's off peak is still 2 instances of the fleet until really late for us. It does drop down to 1 fleet though once it gets really late for us Aussies. However there is normally around 200 on the fleet anyway. Normal pvp pops never stop, and last time we did rated pvp, it was from about 9pm to 11pm our time, and we got 5 or 6 games in. As for what jumpsuit says, well it all boils down to your personal preferences really. He places a 'playing expereince/ping issue' over a 'gaming expereince'. I think he has it backwards, but he is entitled to his opinion and choses to play where he finds the most enjoyment. I really don't find the ping that bad, and if you play just about any other MMO out there, it will be the same or worse than US swtor servers. We all played just fine on swiftsure as mentioned, i think people have just been spoilt. All that aside, even with the occasional fake GCD, the gaming experience i get from the US servers far outwieghs any negatives. A thriving GTN, where just about anything is for sale, and people acutally buy stuff, and things aren't ridculously expensive. 24 hour pvp pops in lowbies and 50's, rateds every day, both organized and pug, with a huge variety of competition (especially compared to MDN). Group finder pops, lots of raiding guilds, and most importantly, actual real people to level up with on lowbie planets, sometimes with 3 or 4 instances of the most popular planets. There is also a strong oceanic presence in other guilds, so organized raiding at our prime time is not completely off the table. Moving servers was the best thing i did, it revived the game for me and got me interested again. If things are getting old playing against the same players all the time, or just feeling stale in general, i suggest you give Harbringer or Bastion a go with an open mind. Imo the 'playing' experience doesn't matter if the 'game' experience is rubbish. But each to their own.

I managed to round up a couple of friends last night, and re-confirmed alot of stuff already tested. We also tested abilitys like a guardians "Guardian Leap", and that acts exactly the same as a taunt. We also for the sake of throughness tested tanks defensive cooldowns, like a shadows black-out (when specced), gaurdians warding call and focused defense etc. All which mitagated gaurd damage. While we found shield chance and aborp also contritbute to mitagation taken through guard, we had some interesting results with defense. When attacking the tank directly, as opposed to attacking the guarded player, he 'seemed' to dodge/parry consistantly more shots. Weather this was only due to our small sample size, i dont not know. It worked out to about 12.5% dodged when we attacked the gaurded player, our tank had roughly 24% defense chance. At first it appeared like only a tanks base defense is taken into account for damage recieved via guard. But the more i think about this, the more i am unsure, and think that our sample size was too small. Anyone else found a discrepancy between attacks defended/parried dirtectly and through gaurd damage?

Well, reading through this thread, i doubt anyone who said they tested it in here did it properly.

Why did you nerco this old thread? Please go and read my post below stated PvP Guard Damage Mitagation. It was made 1 month or so ago, and several players conducted independant tests. Guard damage applied to the tank is then mitagated by ALL TANK STATS and armor, including defense, shield and absorb. Also, there are quite a few teams running around in RWZ with a fully defensive geared tank for warzones, and just about every good tank i know switches to 'Tank' gear for defense in voidstar and ball running in hutball.