In my opinion, the degradation of PVP on this server began before the world event. I know of many people who have quit the game, gone PVE only, play infrequently, or created an account on another server. The following two different Sentinels are, sadly, quite representative of the new level 50 in PVP and exemplify why a number of us are frustrated with PVP on the Harbinger at the moment: http://postimage.org/image/hxtv891m1/full/ http://postimage.org/image/c0hht05e7/full/ I'm now playing mostly on the Jedi Covenant server on a different account with a few other refugees from the Harbinger while my brother plays my account here. While JC certainly has a large dose of bad PVPers, it seems to be a much more healthy server PVP-wise than the Harbinger is at the moment. This move wasn't necessarily a "grass is greener" sort of thing as JC too could experience a decline in PVP (and some say it already is), but we are enjoying it there right now as it feels like the Harbinger a few months ago.

Indeed! 80,804 kills...with at least the same number of deaths http://postimage.org/image/bght99sph/full/ --Kuvox

So few of us from Fa'Athra now remain . Imp side, Garrar, Shishou, Slight, Mageta, and the original members of the Four Horsemen, all fantastic PVPers, are gone. Only a few from Monday Night Huttball are still around. And Pub side, Muffins, Nocturne, Leenal, Aoshiz, and Eno, like those listed above, were great PVPers but are also nowhere to be found.

I have been healing in PVP since the launch of the game and have been valor 100 for way too long. I would never go lower than 1100 expertise, especially because of all the LOLSmashers out there (the damage mitigation expertise provides is too important to give up). Also, I have done extensive testing of a higher bonus healing vs. a higher crit rate and have found the higher crit rate (around 38%) to be the best. I also heal ONLY in bubble popping spec. Also, for the love of God, do not bring Tionese level gear into PVP. If you are going to bring any PVE gear into PVP it needs to be 63s (Dread Guard).

Bye Yat . It was always fun grouping with you (but not Nachos). Best of luck!

I have talked to many Sages on the Harbinger and you are about where the rest of us are. I do a parse or two about every day and my average is around 1740 over six minutes in full balance and slightly higher in TK without the armor debuff (I am full dread guard, and have been for some time). My highest parse is 1841, but got lucky with the crits on that one. I also try to parse in the morning before work and on my ship. I parse as much as 30 DPS more in the early morning (when few are on) than I do at nighttime and nearly 75 DPS more using the dummy on my ship than when I use the training dummy on the fleet. I've been quite surprised at how much of a difference these two conditions make.

Going lightning/telekinetics in PVP can only be pulled off if you face clueless opponents or your team consistently provides a defense line in front of you, otherwise this spec is pretty bad for PVP. As a fan of TK spec, and one who uses it a lot in PVE, I tried to make it work in PVP when Bioware made all spells cast during mental alacrity uninterpretable but still found it to be less than ideal for PVP. That said, the following long match was done in full TK spec shortly after that change: http://s3.mmoguildsites.com/s3/gallery_images/505733/original.jpg?1350021689 (I am third from the top). I was pretty much allowed to be a turret when at mid. Very few of my other matches in this spec allowed that. And with the Bastion being the capital of smash monkeydom, Luxford would be lucky to get any spells off at all.

Apparently this new warzone is too difficult to understand for most Pubs on the Harbinger. Capturing pylons and picking up and depositing energy orbs at said pylons is, it would seem, simply beyond their capacity. So instead they spend their time in mid deathmatching while we get two-capped and then type "??" and, "how did we lose?" when it's over.

As I've written before, I would trade the ability to shield teammates with the stunning bubble IF Bioware makes Smash/Force Sweep based on one's actual crit rating rather than the current guaranteed one. I got hit for 7.2k this morning in a Voidstar and then 6.4k a few seconds later, yet I have 1390 expertise. This change would force lolsmashers to start stacking crit at the expense of power and surge which would, in turn, bring the frequency and magnitude of such huge hits down into reasonable territory. Keeping lolsmashers stunned from the popping bubbles of our teammates (and our own) is basically our only real defense against such ridiculous damage. The guaranteed lolsmash crit plus the stunning bubble must be changed together for this to be fair.

Hmm...600k+ is quite common for Sages on the Harbinger. Just did this match this morning. http://s3.mmoguildsites.com/s3/gallery_images/526761/original.jpg?1355088510

Kuvox 1820 DPS http://www.torparse.com/a/69775/1 Spec: 3-7-31 Balance Sage AMR Profile

Nevermind. Today the parser is showing the "burning force" effect from the Dread Guard Relic of Elemental Transcendence. The relic tends to crit between 42-52%. BTW. The Dread Guard Relic of Boundless Ages + the Dread Guard Relic of Elemental Transcendence are CURRENTLY providing me with about +25 more DPS than two War Hero Relics of Boundless Ages. However, with the release of 1.6 this Tuesday, 12-11, the first Elite War Hero pieces I will work towards are the Elite War Hero Relics of Boundless Ages. It will be interesting to see which set comes out on top. I'm guessing the Dread Guard relics will still be higher DPS but only by a small margin.

Yes, in addition to keeping a top 15 DPS parses list, please keep another one that separates parses by class type, as Sonicfury here suggests. Without question some classes are capable of dealing higher single-target damage than others. As such, if this list is to be composed of just the top 15 parses then it is likely to be dominated by a few class types and their mirrors (unless there ends up being a dearth of submissions that is). It's a great idea though. This addition will just allow more people to participate.

I would say that this is a very 50/50 server, at least compared to another server I play on that is dominated by Pubs. But like others have said, it all depends on who is on, and if a lot of Pub teams are in ranked. And speaking of ranked, I have played 33 ranked games since mid-November. Only 6 of these have been against Imperial teams (2 against Aliens, 2 against Ascendancy, 1 against Disconnect, and 1 against a pugged group). It could just be that when we queue for ranked Imperial teams are not on, but others have also said that they face Republic teams far more than Imperial ones in ranked. There are a lot of excellent Imperial players out there who I never see in ranked; it would be nice to see them start making teams.

Hmmm, I am not trying to be rude, but while you're decent (and you are), I would encourage you to come to the Harbinger as the quality of our Sages (and some Sorcs) is, I would argue, higher than what you've presented so far. Your LOSing skills are not great as you stand out in the open too much. Your damage numbers are also far lower than what the best Sages and Sorcs on the Harbinger put out. Psibre, Lolimblind, Yatagan, Hype, Mocha (all Sages), and Darc (Sorc) each put out 600-800k on a routine basis. Even in the shortest of matches it's rare to see them below 400k. I'm also fairly certain each of them has surpassed 1 million in dmg as well. They are also the best Sorcs on the server as each has a Sorc as well. That said, it is my completely unrelated opinion that the quality of Sentinels and Smash Guardians on the Harbinger is terrible, but we do have the best Sages and Sorcs.

Which relic besides the Dread Guard Relic of Boundless Ages is correct then? If elemental damage is tied to force then we should get the Dread Guard Relic of Elemental Transcendence, correct? Well, I just DPS'd with it and unlike corrosive injection, which appears on the parsers, I cannot see that this relic does ANY damage at all. Has anyone tested the Dread Guard Relic of the Kinetic Tempest?

This, in my experience, is largely true but unfortunate. I know that a lot of people I typically PVP with on the pub side on the Harbinger server are playing more and more on their Imp toons simply because they cannot stand how bad the average pub is. Although it's totally fine for them to do that, and I certainly share their frustrations, it's not something I understand totally. In my opinion, jumping to the side that always wins does nothing to make one a better player. Since this summer I have resolved to always play whichever side is seemingly losing the most. This past Sunday afternoon, for example, all the better pub guilds were on so, not surprisingly, the Republic was winning most warzones (which isn't too common there, at least in regs). As such, I went and PVP'd on my Imperial for the next few hours. And at the end of the summer on the Drooga's Pleasure Barge server I PVP'd almost exclusively on my Imperial for about two weeks because the Republic was winning so much at that time. Single-faction domination in PVP hurt many servers in the past; I'm worried it has the potential to do the same in the future.

I agree that the matchmaking system needs work. Let me provide you with an example of why: Two nights ago I was part of a four-person premade. Five of us were actually interested in queuing together so the fifth person, who, again, was not part of our group, queued at the exact moment my four-person premade did. Both my group and the additional friend got warzone pops at the same time. As such, we figured we would all be in the same match together. Instead, my premade was placed into a Civil War match with another premade while our friend was placed into a Novare Coast warzone with pugs. My warzone group faced what appeared to be undergeared pugs (no obvious premades) while our friend faced a single premade with the other four players being mostly well-geared. Since my group of four and our additional friend both had matches start at the same time, why couldn't the matchmaking system have taken either my group or the other premade in my match and placed us into the Novare Coast our friend was in to make it more fair? It didn't make any sense.

I have been asked to bump this thread because I and the group I have been running a lot of ranked matches with lately think that doing a ranked warzone tournament is an excellent idea worth revisiting. We agree with Tairisa that such a tournament should be scheduled far enough in advance to allow people to plan for it. We also agree with Vara that it should be done over the course of several days rather than in one long day. As such, would the afternoons of Sat, 12/15 and Sun, 12/16 work (say, 1:00-5:00 pm server time)? If we get enough affirmatives we will move forward with those dates or, based on feedback, change the dates and/or times and move forward with those. In any case, once a date is set we can then begin working out the logistics mentioned by Sirlen (i.e., coordinating exact times to avoid incorrect matchings, creating a sign-up schedule, etc.).

I've played at least 25 ranked games since the introduction of free respecs for subscribers (likely more) and from what I've seen it's largely been a non-issue. Both sides tend to have players able to switch to tank/heals for the defense phase of Voidstar and usually both sides have those players do just that. As such, the potential advantage free respecs might give to one side has, it least from my experience, largely been negated because both sides are taking advantage of it. Moreover, because you aren't certain which WZ you will get, the usefulness of pure DPS classes is still there. It's generally not wise to take, for example, 4 Sages/Sorcs into a ranked match just because they can DPS and heal, as you might run across a team full of lolsmashers who would likely make short work of such a team. I played four ranked matches yesterday and in each there were still Sentinels/Marauders, Snipers/Gunslingers, etc.

To be fair to Aliens, this pug wasn't your typical one. It consisted of good players from Deadweight, Goof Troop, and Trilogy. I was pulling up the rear.

I propose a swap of sorts: Sorcs/Sages will no longer be able to bubble others with stunning bubbles but Smash/Force Sweep must be based on one's actual critical rating rather than the guaranteed one that Force Leap/Force Charge and Zealous Leap/Obliterate currently provide LOLSmashers with. This would force LOLSmashers to start stacking crit at the expense of power. As things stand now stunning bubbles are our only real defense against the 6-7k hits we are frequently hit with (and not a very good defense at that as others have stated).

I parse higher using TK spec on bosses 1-2 in TFB but higher using Balance on bosses 3-5 in the same due to all of the movement required. Boss 1 is particularly conducive to being a turret, save for your turn in the blood pool. As such, I parse about 70 DPS higher using TK here than when I use Balance. That said, except for the tentacle phase I have found TK to be just bad, bad, bad for Boss 5 and not great for Boss 4 either. And, for me Balance parses only slightly higher for boss 3 than TK does. In any case, I like both specs and find it odd that some would say that one is superior to the other when both have their strengths and weaknesses.

To your points... 1) Force pull is something I rarely use in PVE. I really have only ever used it when the whole team is learning a boss fight and I need to save someone. It's useful, but certainly not mandatory, on the 2nd boss in TFB and on Kephess in EC but not really anywhere else. No raid leader is going to bring in a DPS Sage because they have force pull. If they did then I would question that group's skill. If everyone in the raid knows what they are doing then force pull is not necessary. 2) Sorcs/Sages shouldn't have to bubble anyone. Good healers prevent raid members from having to heal themselves or others. Anyone who raids with excellent healers knows this to be true. 3) Yes Sorcs/Sages have nice AOEs but so do Gunslingers/Snipers (e.g., Freighter Flyby) and Commandos/Mercs (e.g., Mortar Volley) but their single-target DPS is higher than ours so why not take them instead? 4) Multi-dotting. Sage DPS suffers greatly without mind crush and weaken mind (and Sever Force) being on a target a great deal of the time, if not always. In other words multi-dotting is essential to what DPS we have; it is not an added perk. Look...I will be the first to admit that our DPS is enough for current boss fights but we will always be second choice after a Sentinel or Gunslinger fails to show up for the raid.

Anything that is implemented that will make queue times take longer will be problematic for this game. The time between warzone pops is, like the OP stated, steadily increasing, something many people in both my guild and in general chat have been noticing. It's not particularly bad right now but this is exactly the trend that happened on many servers in the spring: near instant pops became a few minutes wait then a 5 minute wait then a 10 minute wait and so on. By mid-May PVP was all but dead on a large number of servers due to this snowball effect. Anything that causes or contributes to this being repeated should be avoided. So instead of matching people by valor, gear, primary stats and what not, because this will likely lead to less warzones all around, I think that Bioware should institute some sort of reward system that encourages people to group up, perhaps a 30% increase to commendations or something of that nature if you queue up as a group of four.