I enjoy the game in general and want it to do well and will spend money to buy CC's to spend on many things I want including renames, transfers, appearance changes, DIRECT sale dye modules etc. However, I DESPISE the gambling pack mechanics of the cartel market and refuse to buy any pack or crate or any item that involves gambling in any way. My logic is that I would NEVER be okay with handing money to a store operator and saying..."I looked round the store and saw you sell a few things I want. Here's some money, SURPRISE ME!" To see that Bioware has doubled down on the gambling pack concept by including a grab bag within a grab bag is proof positive that there are ALOT of dummies out there with more money than sense and this is disheartening. But...GOOD on you idiots! If it makes you happy then spend your money...look...OOOH shiny and mysterious...could be a brand new color tv...or a dirty golfball! TAKE MY MONEY!

Nah, too modest Oofalong, us old timers remember your name in the running for mara class rep...ill fated program that it was.

signed.

Smaller more frequent changes would be much more useful than Large infrequent changes. First, it allows a slow transition to specs from OP to balanced and from ***** to Balanced so people don't scream "**** BW KILLED MAH SPEC!" or "**** MUST REROLL NOWZ TO ( new buffed spec)" Secondly, frequent changes to specs, especially if accompanied with a write up BY THE DEV doing the changes would go a long way to making the community feel like the dev's actually listen and understand the classes and the current state of them. This last point is nearly as important as the changes themselves in my opinion..as too often the amount of negativity that is on these boards centers around the perception that the dev's either don't know what they're doing regarding class / pvp balance or don't care. A legitimate point to support this perception is the extraordinarily infrequent posts about these issues by anyone at Bioware, much less anyone who actually has anything to do with RESOLVING these issues. (I personally think the current class balance is not far off, but it still could use some tweaks) I am sure the dev's HATE to be attacked for their decisions and I completely understand why they would much rather not engage with the community directly and instead send Musco or Tait to make an announcement about an upcoming announcement every 6 months or so...but even a monthly, sticky READ ONLY Dev blog from class dev's regarding the most recent class adjustments would be nice.

First you must got to a magical land beyond the realm of imagination. Here you will meet a wise hermit who cannot be judged by his size, this Seer will give you a quest leading you through a dangerous goblin city and if you survive the trek through the purifying heat of a world made entirely of sand beyond it. You will come to 2 doors. Beyond the first door lies the bounty you seek to make your weapon mighty indeed...beyond the second...CERTAIN DOOM!!!!!! or.....less dramatically you could go to the fleet vender in the supplies section and simply buy the hilt, mod, and enhancement you fancy. If this is insufficient....you COULD board a starship and prove your might by championing the cause of your people and singlehandedly.... well lets not kid ourselves if you bought the hilt mod and enhancement, you'll probably just want to walk across the way to the GTN and purchase a crystal from there. Good luck on your epic journey young padawan, remember, the force will be with you....always.

Very excited to be see friends from Jung ma who have come over to Ebon Hawk and joined us here!

The conqueror pvp sets were retired from the game, but they were identical to the underworld (or was it verpine?) model pve sets save for coloring. Currently you can receive the underworld set pieces as rewards from the commander's reward lockboxes you receive for turning in alliance supply boxes and in addition these pieces are now legacy bound. I can confirm I have seen the chest and helmet drop from these boxes personally. Alternatively the Outlander scavengers set gloves are a reskin of the Conqueror warrior gloves minus the hoses and adding an orange glowing light. I think they are actually superior to the original because I always hated the hoses but your mileage may vary. It is also possible to get these pieces from the gtn occasionally because some crafters reverse engineered the shells. This is more likely to see on the larger servers.

My question along this line is whether offhand attacks can also proc ataru strikes? It already states in the description of massacre that this ability 100% procs an ataru strike and increases the chance on other abilities to proc one by 30%. The crucial part in the description is that it specifically states that massacre BYPASSES the rate limit of one time per second that this can happen. Assuming an offhand attack CAN proc an attaru form strike as well...then that is a much more significant DPS contribution than the offhand attack itself and might be interesting to see how this stacks up with a higher alacrity setup.

For me anyway, obfuscate is right next to crippling slash, the healing debuff...so I often just hit them both in the thick of a fight.

Vortar, Immortal Jug, Penumbral Overall protection 1,335,157 750K+ att/def 850,616 / 1,335,157 Link http://i.imgur.com/HYUJfzD.jpg

I'm in general agreement with the op, random packs aren't any fun for me, I don't like playing the gtn with the boat loads of crappy items you get. I'm not saying you can't have random packs...I just think they should offer sets on the cartel market for direct sale as well... even if it is 1000 coins or more I would rather just buy what I want than screw with all the RNG. This is especially true of the dyes.... to make a basic customization feature locked behind a pay AND RNG wall is asinine. I have not and will never buy a dye pack...I have bought SEVERAL of the stand alone dyes for 1800 cc's. If more people were not rubes and bought into this rng idiocy the cartel market would be MOSTLY direct buys with a small gambling section for those people who enjoyed that sort of thing.

I know this has been beaten to death in several forums but I wanted to chime in before 4.0. I am past getting an animation to put a hood up or down and I understand it is a lot of work. How about a nice set of cartel hoods in the up and down positions we can equip in the head slot? Also, I see some form of tech is in place to add back Items like jetpacks. Any way we could get hooded, not hooded cloaks or capes? Thanks!

Hey, not sure if anyone has suggested this before but would it be possible with the new expansion to scale up some of the old abilities from 3.0 that had replacers so we could use the old animations? I Vastly prefer the sound and look of force scream to devastating blast and think others might feel the same about this and other abilities.

Yeah on paper my marauder should be great in ranked solo's...but in practice the other classes simply have more tools to counter us than we have to counter them. 1 ) Really the most common but not only hard counter to carnage marauder is ANY class with a stun available or at the right time, the only way to counter by yourself is to use stun break and hope they don't have another stun or mez...otherwise pray you have a healer on the team who is watching out for you. Don't even talk to me about white bars...in solo's I am dead before I am white barred, the only thing that saves you is force camo or undying if you are quick...but that is defensive not offensive utility. Good counterplay to this would be a stacking buff based on how much resolve you have. 2) The most common but not only soft counter to marauder (and all the warriors really) is to have abilities with a greater than 10 m range and enough mobility to stay there. This is pretty much most of the other ac's in the game. Sure we get a good closer in force leap...and when we use it..see above. Good counterplay to this would be a secondary charge ability that does more damage based on how far you move before striking at the end. I'll continue to play it, It's my main..but it is very frustrating...I never claimed to be a great player like Skyrush or Aluvien but I do have at least average ability and on a marauder that will get you a 900 rating unless you are really lucky so hopefully with more people playing the class recently and server transfers concentrating pvp the devs will get metrics that tell the true story of how we fare against the other classes....none of this "Statistically carnage marauders are one of the most successful AC's in the game..winning much more than they lose.."

I hear you aluvien, I also feel like my marauder is at best a distraction for the other team. I think it is just that the class offers very little in the way of couterplay in the current meta. Dots are everywhere, we have no way to avoid..and with no self heals they HURT. We have ok burst but as melee it is hard to get any time on targets because EVERY other class has better mobility or longer range or both. The predation buff helps in that you no longer have to choose between gutting your dps or actually standing a chance of reaching the target but it doesn't protect you from just getting rooted again...and the kicker is stuns gut carnage marauder and they are readily available to everyone...unlike Our nice counterplay ability Obfuscate which really only messes with (ironically) carnage marauders and MM sniper..another under represented class...at least THEY don't eat stuns to the face every other Global cooldown. Don't get me wrong occasionally I fight a team that is completely oblivious and I can pump out 20-25k in 2 globals and annihilate someone...but this is rarely the case. Most of the time I spend chasing a target getting dotted up and rooted on the way to being stunned when I finally get in range. Hopefully either BW will bring sorcs, assasins and pt's down a peg like they said they preffered to do...or they will give us some viable self heals so we can play at their level.

Patch 4.2 The Hutt Hurt strikes back After exhaustive evaluation of Metrics gathered in previous patches, Warzones have been redesigned. Hatred / Serenity will now be able to passively spread dots to all players that are within their field of vision at any time during a warzone. In the interest of balance, any player that is defeated with a dot on them will be permanently respecced into a Hatred / serenity assassin upon respawn. The immunity bubble for sorcerer and sage players has had it's cooldown removed and duration extended for as long as the player continues to channel. Any player attacking a character during this channel will now be stunned until they have completed a typing all the lyrics of the hanson MMmmbop song into pvp chat.

Well Jinre I actually agree that sins should have a 30 m attack that can interrupt caps, pull agro etc, One of the ONLY things I can commend the dev team since 3.0 is the slow incremental changes they have made to balance. Perhaps after the change to lacerate goes live and everyone has a chance to get used to it and the devs have some metrics to consult something could be done to give them that utility. As to the other stuff in the thread, PT's are too strong and shouldn't be used as examples when talking about balance.

Thank you Kaoskid for getting what I was talking about. I personally Would like it if they replaced the devastating blast animation with a leaping and slashing one, but with how broken force charge's animation is sometimes I am sure this would be awkward.

Nah The alacrity is a new addition circa 3.0, Carnage / combat got accuracy before as a passive and zen / berserk just reduced the cost of abilities. The concept stemmed from just the descriptions of the ataru stance that are our there.. like this. Ataru is the name given to the movements of this form—though it is aggressive, it is focused, and its best use is in combat against a single opponent." ―Zez-Kai Ell[src] Form IV, also known as Ataru, the Way of the Hawk-Bat, or The Aggression Form, was the fourth of the seven forms of lightsaber combat. The history of Ataru stretched back through the Old Republic, to at least as early as the Mandalorian Wars, where it was commonly employed by Jedi of that day. Ataru continued to be a common form among the Jedi in the latter stages of the Republic, and was also known to be employed by the Sith. An aggressive style, Form IV was fast-paced and effective against single opponents, though weaker in prolonged combat and confined spaces. Also, it was not recommended for use against opponents wielding blasters. Ataru was characterized by Force-assisted acrobatics, such as somersaults and leaping strikes, both for attack and defense. Another characteristic of the form was its fast, powerful strikes from multiple directions. Notable users of this combat form during the Old Republic included Yoda and Qui-Gon Jinn. The New Jedi Order preserved knowledge of Ataru and Jedi Masters such as Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade Skywalker, and Kyle Katarn all employed it. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Form_IV

Yeah I know Juyo gets the point blank force charge. This was just something I was thinking about after geeking up last night and reading about ataru being the form that was SUPPOSED to have a lot of acrobatic moves. Think Yoda's fighting style during his light saber fights with Count Dooku. The animation with the leap from one opponent to the next and back again is used be many Npc's in the latter part of the game and no player ac's use it so I was suggesting making it available to players next time there is an ability added.

Screw the hero engine, if they were going to spent the money to port to another engine, FROSTBITE is the obvious choice...since they already have the license...and it looks WAY better.

Hey Just a thought but what with ataru supposed to be the acrobatic spec Maybe next time we get new abilities we get a tweaked version of that jump to nearest opponent then jump to next nearest opponent and back to original opponent animation we see npc's do all the time maybe with the overhead slash and impale animation spliced in? That would be awesome!

Yeah I understand that, I said transfer and I meant more like copy, because the server would be wiped every season..so you could stay on your home server to raid, rp, etc. but copy a toon to just pvp with. for those not interested they could continue to pvp on their home server but for those who were more hardcore about it the competition would be there, there would be no transfer off of this server, so no reason to go there and farm comms and ruin everyones games. Kind of like the test server but permanent and only pvp instances and fleet. Rankings are legacy and global so would be retained. Edit: I forgot to mention that creating a PVP only server like this would give the dev's a REALLY good picture of how the meta actually functions in matches so data points for balance would be much more accurate.

Hey, radical idea here to solve the pvp que issues. I think cross server is never going to happen, and I also believe some folks are into their particular servers and rulesets, but PVP is instanced anyway soo.... What if bioware simply designated a server to be a dedicated pvp server then allowed Free transfers / copies to it? It would only have to run a scaled down version of the client....just the PVP arena's and maps and fleet. You can only transfer there at level 60. It would be wiped every season and could be set up with some upgraded hardware to help with latency...put it in Austin...or somewhere central to east and west coast for North America and somehere equivalent for the EU.

Thanks for the write up, I finally gave up on Marauder because it is so boned in the utilities. Can you talk about Tank in dps gear? I really like deprevating bolts, because it looks so cool and is about to useable on the move. Thanks!