I agree with your post, but to clarify this point, Scoundrels and Agents do internal damage through Wounding Shots/Cull, a T5 talent in the Dirty Fighting tree (as well as the T3 AOE dot, which does marginal damage; T7 is weapon damage). Pretty much everything else is largely weapon damage, with some tech damage thrown in. That's why a lot of people spec Dirty Fighting as the tank killer tree, and why Sharpshooter/Marksman builds find heavy armor targets problematic. The devs have stated that Sentinels and Gunslingers are supposed to have a slight edge in DPS over all the other DPS specced ACs. It's definitely not through internal damage, though. The majority of Sent and GS damage is white. Abilities such as Saber Ward, Deflection, Pacify, and Evasion are very effective against Sents and GSes.

Pretty much this. As a 1v1 spec, I'd put Vig in between Watchman and Combat, with it closer towards Watchman. There isn't much that a well-played Vig Guardian should fear on the battlefield.

Slow Time is fantastic for 1v1 survivability (due to getting 3stacks of HS up very quickly), giving your team a bit more survivability, and keeping everyone around you snared. The downside is that you can't snipe people around turrets in Civil War or stop a Voidstar door cap from 30m. It's really a personal preference. I've played 27/1/13 and 31/2/8, and prefer 31/2/8. It's less versatile but more self-sustaining. 24/1/17 is probably better than 27/1/13 for team play if you're heading in that direction.

For who to acknowledge weakness and seek improvement? We have three Vigilance Guardians in my guild who regularly pull between 300-450k each wz (and one of those three goes another 50-100k higher). We don't run weird comps or farm to inflate numbers. We just grab whoever's online for premades and try to win as quickly as possible. We rarely have healer stalemated games. Like many people said earlier, if you're playing a DPS tree, you need to be in full DPS gear. No mixing and matching sets. Get your power/surge as monstrously high as possible, especially given how many +crit abilities there are in the tree. Do not hybrid spec. Augment all of your War Hero gear, and use the power crystal. If you're arguing that the spec is too hard for casuals to play, then I think you may have a point. The Gunslinger has similar issues. I regularly pulled 450-550k on an average WZ with my Sniper in 1.1.5, but most Snipers on my server struggle to break 100k. If you're arguing that the spec is incapable of high numbers in PvP play, you're clearly wrong based on all the people who have posted photographic evidence and anecdotes disagreeing with your assertions.

Gunslingers are going to be a lot scarier than Sentinels once people bother learning the class, and teams adjust their engagement strategies around Gunslinger LOS.

Apparently he doesn't realize that Bioware already has an internal testing methodology to gauge DPS across both PvE and PvP, as well as ensuring a happy middle ground between optimal rotations vs clueless casuals. It continually amazes me how people constantly default to blaming the spec.

Take advantage of the free server transfer next Tuesday. The game is a lot more fun on a server with an active population.

I really dislike HS without Slow Time. There are so many Shadow tanks running around that people now know that they need to pop their defensive cd or vanish the moment the pebble throwing begins. The strength of 31KC is that if the fight drags on past that first evaded TK, your opponents are in a lot of trouble due to how easy it is to build 3 stacks of HS. Rated 8-mans will either be about objective-based play (cc/tank/heal heavy teams) or assist training targets down. I like 23/1/17 over 27/1/13 for the additional 30m instant cc (Force Lift) and superior ST damage. I personally prefer 31/2/8 over 23/1/17 because I like being a stronger 1v1er, but will concede that 23/1/17 is better for objective-based play. Having two 1min 30m ccs and a 30m FiB is pretty darn clutch.

I can ask the player what their spec is, but I'm pretty sure it's some variant of the following: 4/32/5 - http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500MMZcGMRMudduRZG.1 There are a few obvious places you can move points around based on your playstyle. Like others have said, you need to be in full WH DPS, and prioritize power after getting a bare minimum crit and accuracy. The upfront burst of Vig isn't like an Infil Shadow or Assault Spec Vanguard, but the sustained damage is amazing. Throw in the mobility, cc defenses, ease of force management, armor debuffs (benefiting the entire team), and consistent big hits (2.5-5k a swing), and it's a very good all-rounder. I've discussed the spec with a lot of the serious PVPers in my guild and the consensus is that Vig is actually one of the most balanced and complete DPS trees in the game. It's not overpowered nor underpowered, and has a good mix of strong hits and survivability. Glad to hear other Guardians and Juggernauts are having a lot of success with the tree. To be frank, in a 1v1 situation, I'm far more cautious around a Vig than Focus Guardian. Focus is a one-trick spec that's pretty straightforward to deal with, and does not have great uptime in between the big hits. Vig is more versatile, and it's capable of quickly punishing small mistakes.

KC and Infil are less dependent on crit than Balance because KC and Infil's burst rotation has an incredibly hit crit chance through 4p Stalker FP. Given that it's almost guaranteed that you'll crit both rotations (KC PAed Project -> TK // Infil Project -> Force Breach), the power is much more useful since you want to burst people so hard that that they'll get into Spinning Strike territory before they can hit a defensive CD or that Scoundrel healer can pop an Emergency Medpack. The +1000ish power makes a massive difference in that 3-4.5 second burst window given damage coefficients. Since your crit is almost guaranteed through FP, you want to make the most of that window. All of the top DPSers on our server, both imp and pub side, are now all running full power/surge/accuracy builds, and it's common to see multiple people critting 5-7k+ as their highest recorded blows. Unlike other servers, I regularly face matches on Swiftsure where no one has fewer than 17k hps, and the worst geared player in a match still is mixed BM/WH. Many healers are now running around with 20k+ hp and 1100+ expertise. I've played all three specs extensively, and in 1.3, it's going to be impossible for a single DPS to spike an equivalent geared player into the danger zone without help. You can test it right now, by going through your FP rotation without any on-use +power cds.

PEBCAK. Our Vigilance Guardian regularly pulls 350-550k per warzone, and also focuses on objectives and defends points. We have about a half dozen War Hero and Conqueror Sentinels among our premade regulars, and only two of them can pull even damage with the Vigilance Guardian. Our Vig Guardian does not receive a guard, and does not get special treatment with heals.

Casting veiled aspersions on people based on their class choice does nothing to advance the conversation. Like people said earlier, due to the AC-specific defensive cds on the DPS Tankasin and Marauder, you almost always come out behind if you decide to target those classes first instead of a DPS class without a 'get out of jail free' card. You can waste your burst dropping a WH Mara from 100% to 20%, but then he pops Undying Rage, then Force Camos afterwards, and you've just wasted over 5 seconds and your on-demand burst. Meanwhile, that DPS Powertech or Sniper is happily pew pewing away, who could have been dropped reliably, and would only have been saved by a healer.

Will likely make reliable heal debuffers (Maras, Snipers) more valuable than other vanilla DPS specs.

Any Mara worth his or her salt has no business losing to a Sorc of any spec.

A Sniper vs Marauder fight is pretty even, speaking as someone who has both classes at valor60+. The Tankasin has the advantage over both, given equal gear, skill, cds, etc. With the 1.3 changes to the MM tree, I'd give the advantage to Sniper > Mara. 1.3 will also make the MM Sniper a bit more even with a Tankasin, given the reduced armor and self-heals. Snipers will really be the sleeper class of 1.3. Btw, teams with 4-5+ full War Hero geared Tankasins are pretty crazy, especially with 3 Operative healers. If you can't cap early, it will be very difficult to wrest objective points back since you won't be able to kill them fast enough in between respawns.

This is a great summation regarding the most core problem with group PVP class balance. It's very easy to kill most DPS-specced classes like Pyrotechs, Sorcs, and Mercenaries, but other classes are incredibly self-sustaining (namely Tankasins and Anni Maras) in proportion to the damage they can put out, to the point where a disproportionate amount of the valor60+ playerbase plays these classes. On the bright side, Snipers are looking pretty good for 1.3. In between Snipers and Pyrotechs, the metagame may shift over towards RDPS for 8mans.

Very neat. Thanks for the feedback, Keyboard. How does your Balance Shadow and Watchman Sentinel stack up to Gunslingers (any spec) and DPS Vanguards on your parses?

This is really poorly thought out. World PVP is almost non-existent on TOR, so I don't think people with 50s on a PVP server care if someone who levelled to 50 on a carebear PVE server transfers over. What you guys should do is choose a core PVE, PVP, RP, and RP-PVP server for people to transfer to on both the west and east coast, and gravitate towards having eight be the first set of superservers. Why are you willfully reducing peoples' choices? You know it's only going to disappoint and piss people off, and you have a pretty wounded playerbase right now.

1 patch away from casualville

I may respec to 31Bal from 31Inf, depending on how severe the trinket/on-use/wzbuff nerfs are. No point playing the burst spec if you can't stack your burst. Balance is better at force management, seems to pull higher numbers based on parses, and is not as vulnerable to kiting. The lack of burst will be irritating to adjust to, though. Maybe it'll be better to take the easy way out and just go back to KC.

Yup, that's why I said I'll need to get some playing time in to tell the extent of the nerfs. Prefer empirical data over theorycrafting.

Will need to get some playing time in to tell. KC definitely has a strong edge over Infil for 1v1. I can burst an equally geared KC down to about 30%, but then they pop resilience and do that harnessed TK Throw nonsense. With the armor nerf, maybe I'll be able to burst them to 10-15%, but I lose the adrenals and on-use buffs, so I'm thinking it'll be a wash.

This may be the straw that makes me respec from 31Infil to 31Bal. Let's take away the burst from the class that lives and dies by front-loaded on-demand burst.

Tbh, I'm indifferent about the Shadow nerfs. It's the nerfs to adrenals and on-use items that's annoying me. That seems to be a bit of an overly severe response to TTK complaints, and shifts the game again towards the casuals.

The sustained damage capabilities of 31Infil after using the first Shadow's Respite out of stealth, then Blackout, is pretty disappointing. Couple that with the lack of gap closers, vulnerability to roots and snares, and vulnerability to y-axis (vertical) separation, and the class feels clunky to play against good teams. The Sents and DPS Vanguards I play with have a much easier time maintaining constant uptime on targets. It really amazes me that the designers decided that they should give the KC tree all the utility which either increases uptime or reduces the vulnerability to cc: - 5 second Resilience - 45s Resilience CD - 20s Force Speed CD (yes, you can spec into this as 31Infil, but it's an incredibly bad idea to skip Upheaval) - Snare/Root removal upon activating Force Speed - Force Pull - Spinning Kick on demand We get... 15% run speed bonus, and a marginal CD reduction on Vanish and Force of Will (where you still can't use either one every single fight). Yay. Low Slash is nice for 1v1 and 1v2s, but it's pretty useless in big fights. I actually don't find the class that squishy, and I rarely get or ask for a guard. I'm actually pretty self-sustainable, and can solo protect points pretty well, though not as well as a KC Tank. It's the poor sustained DPS and vulnerability to movement impairment and ccs that bug me the most.