a) Developers who don't know the definition of balance. They probably don't even play this game Patch 1.4 is the perfect example. Why buff Focus sents/juggs/mara/guardians? Makes absolutely no sense to me. Focus was a spec that was fine as is. Now it is going to be the NEW FOTM SPEC. Changes to powertechs/vanguards to little too late. Buffs to scoundrels, too little to late after all the nurfs they endured. Sage dps buff? I wouldn't even call it a buff. Healling commando/merc buff, absolutely not necessarily, too much for a class that is one of hardest to take down in a group setting. b) Released a game with no content, story driven mmo is exactly that, story driven mmo with absolutely nothing else. c) Community keeps quitting at an exponential rate. I play this game to have fun with my friends, when they don't wanna stay because there is no competition, population, slow queuepops and staying means having to endure another server merger, why stay? d) Free to play means spammers, gold farmers, a community that was perhaps the best community in all of mmos that will become diluted because bioware didn't know how to develop a game properly. e) Who's idea was it to give recruit gear to new players? atleast champion gear with expertise on every piece may have had a bettter chance against BM and WH. recruit has absoultely NO CHANCE. BRILLIANT IDEA. f) 8 months after launch we have yet to have.... a polished game, combat log, paid server transfers, cross server lfg, warzones, rated warzones, anything else. It took patch 1.2 to bring adjustable uis. Why should i wait any longer for things that should be STANDARD IN ALL MMOs WHEN YOU CAN'T GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. Consumer confidence in bioware is completely diminished to the point its not even worth attempting FREE TO PLAY, cause anyone who's going to attempt this game will realize how bad it is to other games. All I have to say is SWTOR was in development for HOW LONG AGAIN? And spent HOW MUCH MONEY in Development? The exponential decay of subscriptions isn't random, it's a result of a complete failure on your part. This is what's pissed me off the most of about this game. I primarily pvp So let me see what I ended up getting. Ilum, but ilum was taken away so no world pvp. 3 warzones, now 4. My favorite is hutball And i can't queue for what i want to play. I have to sit and wait for the chance that huball is the warzone i play in. Lower pvp population because more people are quiting everyday. Rated queues so selective, can't just log in form a group and queue, somedays we went 3 hours in queue with no pops. So 1.2 introduced warhero gear for pvp and extra warzone. What did 1.3 bring to the table? augment kits. What does 1.4 bring to the table? Pvp weapons? and??? Warzone? That means since 1.2 I've been wearing THE SAME GEAR. 1.5 probably won't come out for another 6 months so what does that mean? That I can COME BACK AND PLAY IN 6 MONTHS AND STILL HAVE THE BEST OPTIMIZED GEAR THIS GAME HAS TO OFFER. No gear progression, no areneas, no season 1, all i get is a story driven mmo.

From my understanding from reading the post about the changes to CC, is that overlapping CC will not fill the resolve as it did in the past. For example: 2 people use 4 second stuns at the same time. 4 second stuns fill the resolve bar 4/5 bars. Essentially stacking them both will automatically fill resolve. That was a very poor system. They're changing it to prevent overlapping stuns that fill resolve. Now here is the question. Difference between stun and incapacitate: Stun means taking damage doesn't break the CC. Incapacitate breaks on damage Stuns: 2second stuns (Ops(ops are 1.5s but fill resolve like 2sec)/assasins/Pts) fill the resolve bar 2/5 so you can stack 2 back to back and still not fill resolve. 3 sec stuns (Juggs/Mara) Not 100% sure but pretty sure it fills 3/5 4 second stuns Fill the resolve bar 4/5, almost all classes except jugg/maras have a STATIC 4 sec stun w/o having to spec or gear for it. Incapacitate: break on damage awes: 6 second Cybertech: 4 seconds Forcelift/whirlwind: 8 seconds mindmaze/traqdart/sap: 8 seconds Flashbang - 8 seconds Merc/commando (can't remember the name, concussive....) - 8 second Tele Sages bubble (3 sec) The way the game is right now you can use two 2 second stuns and still not fill resolve and use a 4 second stun after that for maximum stun time. 8 Second stun Or you can use two 4 second stuns and have the same effect. 2 and 3 second stuns fill resolve as well as 3 and 4 second stuns. But overlapping stuns will yield a lower stun time. Usually a maximum of 4-5 seconds. 5 Seconds of stun usually mean a full resolve time. The exception to this rule is 2 vanguards with 3 second aoe stuns which only full resolve 2 bars. So if someone is running around freely, they should recieve the FULL DURATION stun WITH the full resolve. But this is where it can become broken. a) a 2 second stun overlapped by a 4 second stun, which takes precedence? Which take dominance? 6 seconds of stun should always fill resolve. b)a 2 second stun overlapped with a 4 second stun 1 second after the 2 second stun was activated. If the 4 second stun takes precidence, does the resolve add like a 5 second stun and fill resolve? I'd like to see the existing Stun take precedence while the 2nd stun is rendered useless. But this next scenario would work better: In the case of a weaker stun followed by a stronger stun, I'd like to see something like this: The stronger stun takes precedence but only fills the resolve of the difference between the stuns. For example: An existing 2 second stun overlapped by a 4 second stun should only fill 2 bars. If a player is only stunned for 1 out of the 2 seconds before the 4 second stun was applied, then the 4 second stun should only add 3 seconds from that point and add the difference between the resolve bars, which is 2/5 for the total of 4 seconds as 2/5 bars is already in play with the preceding 2 second stun. Total stun time 4 seconds, total resolve 4/5. There should also be a diminishing return on how much resolve is filled during a duration of a stun. The D/R should be EXTREMELY HIGH at the beginning of a stun, but SIGNIFICANTLY lower towards the end or at the end of a stun duration. If two people overlap stuns at the same time, the added resolve should be none or next to nothing. And as the stun duration continues, decrease the DR. Also what are your plans on people overlapping incapacitates with stuns? like a flash bang and a stun simultaneously?

Learn to read? Nit pick little out of text comments and think your smarter. From page 1 I made several arguments as to why the class needed some changes and yet you wanna argue about subject that has nothing to do with the argument. Who cares that they are a "tank spec" or what ever stupid point your trying to make. The abilities and mechanics involved with the class specific spec are broken and no one will argue otherwise. Try arguing any other point than they are a tank archetype with dps spec. If that's the only argument you can make then trollers going to troll and prove themselves idiots. If you think I am uniformed then you clearly haven't read the entire post (which I severely doubt you did). But on the infinitesimal chance that you actually comprehended the argument and the only comment you can make is the technicality between class and spec then you are far less intelligent than what anyone should give you credit for. Learn to read, maybe your trolling will become better. Just saying.

I have a few comments about snipers/GS and mara/sents. Those two classes have only one purpose: to DPS. All three specs are used only for DPS and really the only pure dps class in the game. Mara/sents have ridiculous defensive cool-downs while they have pretty solid offensive abilities. Between pacify (accuracy debuff), rebuke (damage taken reduction), saber-ward(50% parry and 25% damage reduction in tech/force), vanish, awe (6 sec aoe stun, breaks on damage) and force stasis (3 sec channeled stun) they have perhaps one of the best arsenals of cooldowns in the games matched by no other class. Not to mention that 1v1 sents/Maras are probably the hardest class to kill 1v1, esp if they are watchmen. Unlike other classes most of their cool downs don't require any speccing into. Gunslinger: Defensively they have pretty solid cooldowns, hunker down (CC immunity for 20 seconds?) Static barrier damage taken reduction 20% AOE for entire group. Self bubble (Something screen absorbs decent damage) Aoe knock-back with root, ranged root, Flash bang 8 second stun, and a melee 4 second stun. But if you look at the tree, the burst is in sharpshooter while the damage and dots come heavily in saboteur and dirty fighting. Sharpshooter has perhaps the best setup burst in the game. If everything crits, a sabatage charge -> 1.5 sec aimshot proc -> trickshot -> quickdraw is 17,000 damage approximately in a matter of 4.5 seconds. (a sabatage charge(3500) -> 1.5 sec aimshot proc(4500) -> trickshot(4500) -> quickdraw(4500)). But in arguments against powertech/vangards these classes dps are a) avoidable 90% of their hardest hitting abilities are white damage, b)burst is setup and easily recognizable and c) easily prone to kiting/line of sight. Gunslingers for sharpshooter have to be sitting still and hard-casting all of their abilities while a mara/sent has to be in melee range, easily prone to knockbacks, snares and roots and are easy to kite. vanguard/Powertechs can use their hardest hitting ability from range, never have to sit still for a SINGLE ability, never have to cast and can pull their targets to them and 2.5 sec stun and still not fill the opponents resolve.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=522364 word?

Sw:tor has by far been the most disappointing game next to warhammer. A game that lacked content from the very beginning is now struggling to keep it's remaining subscribers with GW2 around the corner. For a new game to be successful you need the following: a) Strong beta turnout (Decent) b) A strong launch (this game had the best launch in mmo history) c) Provide critical updates within the first few months to keep players involved. (this is what sw:tor developers failed to do) THe PvPers of this game left when ilum turned into a disaster as the population imbalance favored the zerging faction. The PvErs of this game mostly left after the ridiculously easy PvE content and the pathetic nurfs that they had to endure due to balancing for PvP. Its ok, you can release your "content updates" as 9 months into the game this game is still lacking: a) Combat log b) Paid Character transfers c) Sustainable population numbers for PvP (ranked and unranked) d) Developers who have any clue on how to keep their subscriber base happy. c) A terrible gaming engine with obvious flaws including bugs from release still not resolved. Bioware used to be a great company, I always looked foward to to games released by bioware. Dragon Age I was magnificent. And then Bioware got bought out by EA games and look at the quality of games since. Dragon age II was the biggest disappointment as much of the games released recently by bioware. Your hard work will mean nothing as there will be other companies who will do everything you do but better. Take Bethesda Game Studios for an example. Always releasing critically acclaimed games, (much like blizzard did back in the day) and in the process of releasing an MMO with tri-faction game-play (brings nostalgia just thinking about it). I should have simply known how bad this game would have been by how poor DA:II was. Elder scrolls MMO will be the next game to play, after skyrim who wouldn't want to atleast test that game out?. How many subscriptions will SW:tor have left when that game gets released. How many more MMOs releases will swtor survive?

Disagree. Any class that can win 1v1 fights without cool downs and use minimal abilities is broken. 1v1 with cool downs no one should ever loose to a vanguard. 1v1 without cool downs vanguard/power techs should always win. Maybe next time learn to read the 7 pages of points people have posted before making ignorant remarks. Just saying.

Now its clear, Nintendo is credited for the inception of the vanguard/powertech. An idea that manifested 20+ years ago but only materialized recently.

If by shields you meant shields/armor your right. The dots of PT/VGs are elemental bypassing armor + 90% armor pen in HiB.

I've seen the most garbage guardian (couldn't place awes to save his life, didn't know what a guardian leap was) play a vanguard and do well. The class is advertised as no skill required.

I play a vengeance Jugg, Concealment operative(which i actually played heals until they nurfed it now i play dps because no one else plays it dps) and a Gunslinger. I'm usually the recruiter for my guild (we excusively pvp, pve is boring, repetitive and not worth attempting in this game) and about 95% of the players looking for guilds are people who can't find a guild or rateds group because they're not vanguards/powertechs. I get a million tells from infiltration/balance shadows, dps scoundrels, dps sages, dps commandos and dps tanks non vanguards who have all long since quit because they cannot be role players in a group because no one wants them. Sad thing is if they were all vanguards/powertechs they'd all be included in a ranked group with no hesitations. Plus they'd all make great vanguards/powertechs if they were half decent players because all those classes require far more skill to play than a 3 button pyrotech/assault smashing class.

Who knows, maybe they'll make some other abilities in assault better. Atleast then you can keep more than 3 keybinds in pve.

my guild mates say it all the time. They'd rather play tactics.

So far in this game they have toned down the damage of almost all the classes since launch. The surge revamp hurt scoundrels/operatives and assassins/shadows the most. Sages/sorcs had an insane single target burst and aoe hybrid spec, that got nurf. Can't begin to count how many dps nurfs scoundrels/operatives received. Commando/Merc tracer/gravround specs got nurfed. Sages Healing and resource management got nurfed. All the DPS geared tank specced classes got nurfed, vanguards/guardians got a damage nurf while shadows got an armor/heal nurf. The cycle continues and vanguards/powertech assault/pyrotech should be next.

Further examination of other classes show that almost every class has about 15 second CDs that prevent them from continually bursting the way vanguard/powertechs can. Sents/Mara Combat: 100% armor pen is on a 15 second CD, but can only use their entire burst rotation with masterstirke (25 second CD?) Watchmen: Takes about 4 global cooldowns to apply all your dots, but their burst is mostly with zen which requires 30 stacks of centering, which takes a bit to generate or use valorous call to generate 30 on a 3 minute cool down. Focus: 12 seconds between burst rotations, 15 if using guardian set bonus. Guardian/Jugg: Vigilance Usually takes 10-15 seconds for all CDs to reset Focus: Same as above: 12 seconds between burst rotations, 15 if maximizing guardian set bonus. Shadows: Infiltration: Clairvoyance strike is the main ability here with no cooldown but most of the damage is from procs and accumulation of procs: Infiltration tactics 10 seconds and force breach stacks(exit stragegy) x 5 which can take up to 10 Global cooldowns to accumulate. Balance: Force in Balance is your hardest hitting ability on 15 sec CD. Everything else is sustain Sages: Balance same as above. Telekinetics: 9 seconds turbulence(2 sec cast) auto crit. Telekinetic wave can be refreshed by disturbance but disturbance is cast so easily interrupt-able. Scoundrel: Scrapper: Stealth opener has a 7 second CD, backblast 12, sabotage charge 30 sec CD, blaster whip 15 seconds, sucker punch requires upperhand which can only be accumulated from blasterwhip or stealth opener shoot first. Dirtyfighting, have to apply dots (one instant and one 12 sec CD), hermorage shot (15 sec CD) and wounding shot (requires upperhand) Gunslinger: Sharpshooter: Speedshot 15 sec(can be reset once every 45 secs), aimshot 15 sec, sabotage charge (30 sec) trickshot 6 seconds, (autocrit charged burst 1 minute) Sabateur, revolves around sabotage charge (30 sec), shock charge 18 sec (resets if target dies or cleansed) speedshot 15 sec cd and incendiary grenade (16 sec cd). Dirtyfighting: same as above except wounding shot is now channeled and has a 9 sec cd. Commando: Gunnery: Gravround(no cd), Demo round 15 sec(maximum damage requires 3 grav round debuffs) High impact bolt 15 sec CD, maximum damage requires use of 5 grav rounds. Assault: For this class assault spec is very balanced, decent damage decent survability plus can hybrid heals. Vanguards: Sticky grenade(15 s), gut(no cd), fire pulse(15 s), shockstrike(9 s), ion pulse x 5(no cd), pulse cannon (12 s). Throw High impact bolt in anywhere when you get the proc (15 s). Assault: (any grenade of choices 15s), incendiary round, HiB (15 sec) Shockstrike or Ion pulse for HiB reset proc, then HiB. Rinse and repeat This was edited into the OP.

The game is fully sporting FOTM classes and pt/vg is definitely one of them. If you say that toning down the assault tree will completely kill the class then do so cause the level of difficulty in playing that one spec is minimal. Atleast this way they'd be on pace with every other class in the game. Personally i think tactics/advance prototype tree for vanguard/powertechs requires more skill, will do way more damage and still has the burst/sustain comparable to every other class. Just sounds like people would rather play easymode and have things handed to them on a silver platter than actually learn to play other specs with some degree of difficulty. edit: i'd like to see a far more variety of classes. I'd like to see more people play vengeance/vigilance for juggs/guardians. More tactics pt/vanguards, DPS mercs/commando have been obsolete for while, would like to see them back to prominence. This game needs less tank shadows and more people playing infiltration/balance as shadows. This things will all happen once PT/Vanguards get toned down.

Maybe, but you of all people should know the exploits of plasma cell as a shadow/sin popping resilience can still get a plasma cell dot through resilience and thus get HiB/RS through resilience. Hammershot has a 15% chance to activate plasma cell and hammershot hits about 5x per use. Not to mention that plasma cell does about 1500 damage over 6 seconds. And applying plasma cell on someone who is guarded also transfers the tank who is guarding. Also you wanna argue that sniper/gs can do everything that a PT/VG can do, then do 20 straight duels one after another after another. The point is PT/VG don't need CDs while sniper/GS need to use all their CDs to survive. Do the same thing 2v2 sniper/GS vs PT/VG. Sure when both classes have their cooldowns then its a fight. But when the GS/Snipers don't have their cds its a slaughter house. P.S: @Zalfax All these points were meant for pvp, I don't pve much anymore lol

Every MMO (including swtor) I've ever played had an awesome high burst class. However, almost all of those awesome burst classes were limited to light armor with little to no defensive cooldowns. This is usually the archetype of the high burst class: a) Medium mobility (perhaps a movement speed buff to get away, usually they have a snare or a knockback, most will get either a snare or a stun along with their class). Vanguard/powertechs can use High impact Bolt/Railshot, and have a full arsenal of abilities usable at 30 meters. These abilities can proc the plasma-cell which applies a small hard hitting dot that snares for 2 seconds. While that maybe 2 seconds, if one Vanguard/powertech is on a target, that dot is ALWAYS refreshing. Only time they would ever need to get into meele range is to refresh their abilities. (HiB/RS) b) Light to medium armor. Vanguard/powertechs have heavy armor. c) Little to no defensive cool-downs, you cannot be a tank AND have the highest burst in the game. The entire mechanic and survability of the class involve group play and having the tank, healers and other dps help keep you alive. Vanguard/powertechs have an AOE Stun on top of a damage reduction shield which reduces damage received by 25% for 12 seconds on a 2 minute CDs. d) You expect glass cannon classes to be glass cannon and heavily dependent on its group setup to be able to free cast or use abilities which require casting/channeling to maximize damage. Vanguard/powertech abilities are all instant (the ones in their main rotation) and non require channeling/casting which does little to nothing to disrupt their rotation when focus firing a Vanguard/powertech. e)Every other MMO has burst classes which are heavily dependent on the use of Cool-downs, Assault/pyrotech. They have 1 CD that they depend on offensively Battlefocus/Explosive Fuel increasing crit chance by 25%. Only cool-down they need which is on a 2 minute cool-down In Swtor, every class that has a burst rotation has a sustained rotation that they can use while waiting to burst again. Perfect example is focus/rage sents/maras being able to spam slash in between force sweep cool-downs. While force sweep/smash is mostly AOE in a single target scenario they can get 5 force sweeps off in 1 minute,(or 4 in a minute if using the guardian/jugg setbonus following the rotation of Force) exhaustion/stasis/exhaustion/zen/exhaustion for maximum use of force sweeps. using 12 second sweeps/smash. Vanguard/powertech can easily get 7-8 Procs in one minute rotations plus the initial HiB/RS so that is 8-9 HiB/RS in a minute. Given that in a minute they can get at least 4 HiB at the minimum and 10 at the most, average would be between 7-8 HiB. If the target is a light armor class, the sentinel will average around 5.5-6k damage with 5 sweeps and 6-6.6k per sweep with the dps vindicator tank jugg/guardian setbonus. So we're looking at 27,500-30,000 damage with the guardian set bonus. 24,000-26,400 without the guardian setbonus. In the same amount of time if the Vanguard/powertech averages 4.3-4.7 per Hib/RS crit and gets 8 of them off in one minute. That's 34,400-37,600 damage output in one minute at averaging 8 HiB/RS in a minute. Not including the damage from their dots, their HiB/RS refresh abilities or any of the other abilities they have. Vanguard/powertech damage from burst is SO HIGH that their burst can be considered sustained damage It can be argued that force-sweeps/smashes if done properly are autocrits vs HiB/RS which are crit-based. A Vanguard/powertech will normally have around 32% ranged crit chance in full war-hero. Include the eliminator set-bonus which adds 15% to HiB/Rs so those abilities have 47% chance to crit naturally. When the 25% CD is popped that's a 72% chance to crit for 15 seconds which is enough time for 3 HiB/RS to crit. Edit: Further examination of other classes show that almost every class has about 15 second CDs that prevent them from continually bursting the way vanguard/powertechs can. Sents/Mara Combat: 100% armor pen is on a 15 second CD, but can only use their entire burst rotation with masterstirke (25 second CD?) Watchmen: Takes about 4 global cooldowns to apply all your dots, but their burst is mostly with zen which requires 30 stacks of centering, which takes a bit to generate or use valorous call to generate 30 on a 3 minute cool down. Focus: 12 seconds between burst rotations, 15 if using guardian set bonus. Guardian/Jugg: Vigilance Usually takes 10-15 seconds for all CDs to reset Focus: Same as above: 12 seconds between burst rotations, 15 if maximizing guardian set bonus. Shadows: Infiltration: Clairvoyance strike is the main ability here with no cooldown but most of the damage is from procs and accumulation of procs: Infiltration tactics 10 seconds and force breach stacks(exit stragegy) x 5 which can take up to 10 Global cooldowns to accumulate. Balance: Force in Balance is your hardest hitting ability on 15 sec CD. Everything else is sustain Sages: Balance: same as above. Telekinetics: 9 seconds turbulence(2 sec cast) auto crit. Telekinetic wave can be refreshed by disturbance but disturbance is cast so easily interrupt-able. Scoundrel: Scrapper: Stealth opener has a 7 second CD, backblast 12, sabotage charge 30 sec CD, blaster whip 15 seconds, sucker punch requires upperhand which can only be accumulated from blasterwhip or stealth opener shoot first. Dirtyfighting: have to apply dots (one instant and one 12 sec CD), hermorage shot (15 sec CD) and wounding shot (requires upperhand) Gunslinger: Sharpshooter: Speedshot 15 sec(can be reset once every 45 secs), aimshot 15 sec, sabotage charge (30 sec) trickshot 6 seconds, (autocrit charged burst 1 minute) Sabateur, revolves around sabotage charge (30 sec), shock charge 18 sec (resets if target dies or cleansed) speedshot 15 sec cd and incendiary grenade (16 sec cd). Dirtyfighting: same as above except wounding shot is now channeled and has a 9 sec cd. Commando: Gunnery: Gravround(no cd), Demo round 15 sec(maximum damage requires 3 grav round debuffs) High impact bolt 15 sec CD, maximum damage requires use of 5 grav rounds. Assault: For this class assault spec is very balanced, decent damage decent survability plus can hybrid heals. Vanguards: Tactics:Sticky grenade(15 s), gut(no cd), fire pulse(15 s), shockstrike(9 s), ion pulse x 5(no cd), pulse cannon (12 s). Throw High impact bolt in anywhere when you get the proc (15 s). Assault: (any grenade of choices 15s), incendiary round, HiB (15 sec) Shockstrike or Ion pulse for HiB reset proc, then HiB. Rinse and repeat The current state of this game for ranked warzones involve all other dps classes to be overlooked and stack Vanguard/powertech teams. If one Vanguard/powertech can do that much damage mentioned above, having multiple that can burst that hard really kills the fun in this game as no other class has recyclable burst they way this one class does. In addition to the burst they have perhabs the best utility in the game as they have a pull, a 4 second ranged stun, a 2.5 second aoe stun and stealth detect. As well as being able to use perhaps all their major damaging abilities from a ranged. Their tech damage dots are elemental so it bypasses armor, and HiB/RS bypass 90% armor always. Here are two common builds for http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/trooper/vanguard/#::f8e2f9efef2ef8ef6e3fede2fef4e4: This build is more for building around higher damage for all your abilities without the top tier ability. http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/trooper/vanguard/#::f8e2f9efdf2ef15e8fef2efe4: This build is the standard dps build which grabs the highest teir ability to increase burst output Suggestions to tone vanguards/powertechs: a)Move focused impact/Puncture (3/3 HiB/RS ignores 60% armor) Higher up the tactics/advance prototype perhaps to the 4th teir. This reduces the damage of HiB/RS and brings them down to the same level of commandos/mercs in terms of damage from HiB and bring dps commandos/mercs back into relevance. b) Bring down the ranged of ALL Vanguard/powertech damaging abilities: Force their hand and make them play as a suedo melee class the way operatives/scoundrels are forced to play. It can be argued that the operative/scoundrel lethality/dirty fighting tree is their ranged tree while concealment/scrapper is their melee tree. However, operatives are forced to get into melee to use the majority of their high damaging abilities, wear medium armor and have no damage reducing ability/talents... while Vanguard/powertechs can stand at 30 meters, use HiB and reset the CD using one of 2 abilities on someone who is closer and recast HiB at someone further away. Reduce HiB's range to 10 meters and bring down all other damaging abilities (grenades, dots, etc) to 15 meters. Leave the abilities as is for mercenaries/commandos the same way it is for the scoundrel/gunslinger shared abilities(ranges on flashbang/distraction etc). c) Increase the CD reset timer prototype particle accelerator/Ionic accelerator. That has been the traditional bioware fix for everything. Increase the cooldown of most major abilities which had discrepancies. Force sweep/smash had its cooldown increased to 12 seconds up from 9. Backblast for scoundrels increased the CD to 12 seconds from 9. Shootfirst/hidden strike now had a 7 second cooldown which prevented the use of double opener/knockdowns. But increasing the cooldown of the reset will not completely fix the class as it still has THE HIGHEST burst in the game in a matter of seconds... (HiB, refresh,HiB) d) Reduce the damage done by the HiB for Vanguard/powertech ONLY. Don't touch the damage for merc/commandos as their damage is fine. Or if you want to follow the direction you went with the changes to shadow/assassin tank trees in 1.2 adjust multiple things to address issue at hand. Personally I'd like to see prototype particle accelerator/Ionic accelerator completely revamped. Force it to instead of reset the active cooldown of HiB/RS, reduce the CD by x seconds, perhaps 6 seconds to begin. Every other class in the game has to set their burst up. Vanguard/powertech are the only ones with active bursts on 3 ability rotations with minimal setup required. Vanguard/powertech require no debuffs to place, no extra abilities, nothing to setup, nothing at all, DOT>HIB>Frefresh >HIB>Repeat. Furthermore, examine Vanguard/powertech as a solo class and compare their abilities and their assault/pyrotech trees to every other tree of every other class. Vanguard/powertech will not win every 1v1 duel given equal level gear etc. However, reexamine the scenario duplicating class classes involved. Place 2 Vanguard/powertech against two of the same classes and see what the end result will be. Against 2 rage marauders, 2 Balance sages, mix and match the specs if needed and see who ends up standing in the end. Replay the scenario using 3 Vanguard/powertech against 3 of the same classes in an arena style fight. What about 4v4? 5v5? 6v6? Which other class in this game contains an aoe stun, a single target 4 second stun, a damage reduction shield, a pull and stealth detect? Now multiply each one by the number of Vanguard/powertech in a group. This is what rated warzones has come down to. Edit: i would like to mention this point, my friends and I discussed the prospect of perhaps setting up a 3v3 class vs class match and they said that depending on the skill it is possible to kill the powertech/vanguard combination. BUT we were all in unison agreeing that the level of difficulty will be immense for the non powertech/vanguard group. Which is the argument I'm making for this entire thread. The margin of error for non vanguard/powertech group is small, one mistake can cost them the match, while the powertech/vanguard group can do whatever as they can do so much damage have their pulls stuns and still win because they have a margin of error which is insignificant. Also as a 2nd edit: Do the battles continuously without waiting for cool downs each time. A team with all their cooldowns will have a chance, but what about a team waiting or lacking cooldowns against powertechs/vanguards? 1v1 anyone has a chance against a powertech/vanguard when they have their cooldowns. But when botch classes have burnt their cooldowns and begin to fight again powertech still can put out far more damage in less time and win everytime when cooldowns are not involved. I really expect little from bioware/swtor developers at this point in the game as they left the class virtually untouched as every other class got revamped. They ignored this issue for far too long and as far as the rest of the community goes bioware/swtor developers really could care less. But with guildwars 2 around the corner expect more server mergers if they can't keep their player base happy. So in conclusion: We have a class who has a burst so high it is considered sustain dps, who can perform the majority of its burst rotation from any range between 30 meters, has a gap closer in pull. Has an AOE 2.5 second stun and a single target 4 second stun. A class whose dps is so high, there is no point in running any other dps spec or any other class for any reason.

How do you plan to build player confidence in this game after what was the best launch in MMO history and a disastrous first 6 months with needless updates and a complete refusal to keep your player-base happy. Let me clarify: Everything that was released in 1.2 should have been released at launch anyways (everything except the new operation and the new warzone) new crafting elements, augments, the garbage script you call a combat log all should have been released at launch. And I still don't have a decent combat log.... And this was the biggest patch in MMO history according to you... The failure of ilum killed the open world pvp experience which this game lacks and people will go to other games which will have open world pvp, i.e Guildwars 2. If you had a polling about what the players really wanted, I promise you legacy is on the bottom of the list, yet this is all you work on and believe will be the factor that keeps players happy. Quit working on legacy and work on other projects like the so called 1.2 rated warzones that never happened? Work on stuff people care about, stop working on useless features that are nice but don't define this game. Diablo 3 killed the population of my server twin spears. If we're lucky we can get about 5 warzone queues ALL DAY at primetime at the level 50 range. With guildwars 2 around the corner, how are you going to keep the player confidence in bioware/ea games high? Cause right now, bioware/ea games... Your players are not happy.

Absolutely terrible that you developers continue to ignore the state of the game to try and implement features into the game THAT WILL NOT BRING BACK PLAYERS. At this point in this game, the priority should be merging servers and salvage what is left of this pathetic game and hopefully make it worth playing. Right now on twin spears, republic side. You cannot queue before prime time eastern standard time because you don't get any war zone pops. Not only that, when they do pop... there is a 30 minute wait between queue pops. You think that is sustainable? You think that the most fun that I'll have with this game will be when diablo servers are down causing everyone to log into swtor and queue for a few games until diablo servers are up again? You stupid developers, get your act together or you risk the biggest subscription dropoff in mmo history, this coming shortly after "the biggest patch in mmo history." Sad thing is you haven't even hit the 6 month mark yet, once those free months and 6 month subscriptions drop and people start seeing what a terrible game this is because of the stupid developer team, you won't even have 600 subscriptions come the end of May.

I personally think that the pvp in this game is very balanced in terms of 1v1. Any class can easily take out another class of similar gear and skill. That being said there are some classes that really could use some revamping. Personally I'd like to see gunslinger/snipers and commando/mercs have a better pvp spec that is onpar with the jedi/sith classes. You focus any of the jedi/sith classes they have to tools to get away, survive and live though the focus fire. The non jedi classes mentioned above really can't do the same. I as a jedi guardian say that those classes need a more pvp friendly spec because the long casting and massive free casting damage doesn't compare to when you run into a good group and they know how to assist and focus fire. As a Jedi guardian I can single handly lock down any healer and ranged class easily with my 5 interrupts: Kick, awe, force leap, force stasis and my knockback. They really need a quicker casting on the move abilities with dots. The sniper/gunslinger class reminds me of the hunter class from wow without the pet and traps. What's a hunter without a pet and traps? Absolutely garbage. Mercs by far are the best dps class on par with sentinals/maras but their pvp abilities revolve around 3 abilities so a revamping of their abilities should be in order as they really could use some help. Ilum right now is a complete joke, where have you ever seen a game where everyone gets the same amount of valor for tagging someone? On my server imperials camp republic 90% of the time at our spawn owning all the bases and all the bonuses getting 200 valor a kill FOR JUST TAGGING someone. While we're getting 20 a kill being heavily outnumbered 3:1 or even 4:1. Bioware has no idea how to fix this game and this game is going to suffer subscription losses with the bioware's inability to fix the games imbalances. They masked the lack of endgame content with voice acting and the leveling process. I hit 50, now what? That's what everyone is saying. I geared up got full colulmni and rakata, now what? I'm imperial and I just stood there in ilum and now got 60 valor but only can get 2 bags a day... now what? I'm a republic player on a severely imbalanced server, i just hit 60 after a month of grinding through loosing warzones and imbalanced ilum, i can only get 2 bm bags a day and don't have the will to level another character through the grind.... now what?

You do realize this will completely kill what is already a competitive biochem market? Everyone will save up to buy the rakata stims and medpacs if you remove the biochem requirement AND COMPLETELY make the regular and 2 hour stims OBSOLETE. This is a retarted Idea and biochem was a WAAAAAAAAAAAAY over powered profession to begin. Bioware your idiocy is completely amusing. You change the "little" things which affects minimal amount of people and yet you let the glaring issues still exist, i.e ILUM If you wanted to fix biochem you should have made the RAKTAS have a LITTLE better usage as well as have X (IDK maybe 50? 100 is pushing it?) amount of USES, instead of it completely being "UNLIMITED." But hey, who knows better how to fix this game, the experienced gamers who know how to balance issues and offer possible suggestions instead of crying about it? or the stupid developers who are virgins and still have yet to get their cherry popped in the world of successful MMO gaming. So in short, remove the requirements for the rakata use, lower the bonuses on them and make the rakata's have internal usages that way they are FAR more expensive than normal and blue items but yet still have their uses in the long term without completely destroying what is a completely one dimentional market.

Again today we roamed around in a group of 8 trying to kill as many as we could, but we could only take two battle objectives at any point while trying to dodge the zerg. We'd work together really well calling out chain CCs and whatnot. At one point our 8 man would killed 24 of or theirs at one time, but its impossible to fight their odds simply because they could just come up and kill us AND STILL GET MORE VALOR while we're dodging around trying to avoid the zerg and whenever we'd run into them, we'd get smashed and they'd get far more valor for killing us, then we'd ever get for dodging around and playing strategically picking off as many as we could.

You want to fix ilum? take a look at this thread, if you seriously want your game to thrive you should take a look at the following: THE WAY TO FIX ILUM PVP FOR THE BETTER If you don't then you'll loose more subscribers than you estimate because: a) the imperials have a much easier time farming valor on ilum, they'll get bored really fast because the republic aren't up to par in gear and valor. b) republic will either want to reroll to imperials or just unsubscribe because of how much you bioware people favor the larger populated side. c) the gear carries over to warzones and when you loose 90% of the time because its easier for one side to farm gear, then everyone looses.

Huttball 80% means your an imperial, nothing wrong with that but Cross Sever PVP isn't going to help because the same problems remain. I don't think there is a single server were population imbalance isn't a factor and thus for the reasons mentioned in the original post, there is absolutely NO reason why the imperials shouldn't have a much easier gear grind on every server. So even if you have cross server war zones, then your looking at hut ball 90% of the time considering the amount of imperials that exist on every sever and how heavily they outnumber the republic. As a republic play, if i queue 15 times, I probably get 1 hut ball match for the entire night we rarely play against the same faction. If your getting huttball 80% of the time, you know your sever has a population imbalance. But i regress... But to your second point, how many times did bioware push back the release date for this game? how many times did they have closed beta weekends, and this is the best that they can deliver? They deserve to loose the 100 mil they spent on this game if they don't fix the imbalances.