My advice is to not to tank in the traditonal pve sense in pvp. You can read numerous threads on how people regret spending wz comms on pvp tanking gear stacking endurance, shield, absorb, defense. In alot of senses the best defense is a good offense in this game, even if you are planning on guarding a healer 100% of the time, you're better off being able to actually kill attackers, than being able to die more slowly in most cases.. When gearing for damage, its important to remember that alot of your damage comes from enegized shocks which are auto crit force attacks.. Meaning power and surge are going to be the most effective secondary stats for boosting damage. The quick route: Get the 4 pieces for the stalker set For all other slots Get the piece that has power and surge on it, if there is none then get power and accuracy Use overkill augments and a focus Longer Route: Get 4 pieces for Survivor set bonus and re-mod the whole thing w/ power and surge mods/enhancements ripped from boots/gloves. For all other slots Get the piece that has power and surge on it, if there is none, then get power and accuracy Use overkill augments and a focus Finally: Think about when you might actually need a bit of extra defense, and get regular tank gear for swapping to then. Say a defensive relic and shield for huttball (if you tend to be a runner), and defending in voidstar (enemies have 0 respawn timer... killing doesn't do much).

Yeah i've never been able to figure it out.. I'd say 90% of the time my whirlwinds will not break on damage and the target takes reduced damage (no matter what source it is from, including fire traps). The other 10% of the time it does break on damage. Does anyone know what causes it to do one or the other???

The first response to this thread was basically dead on. I Kinda agree with the later post though that often the impact of skill impacts the game more than class composition... will point out that skilled teams tend to be balanced as well, and tend to play alot relatively. Thus although there may be alot of teams w/ variety out there, there is a good chance that you'll be playing against the same old ops, pts, and maras. At least from my experience.

"Expertise" is a pretty ironic name... Other than that though it's just how mmo's work. Not being able to casually pvp once you hit lvl 50 is somewhat poor design tho.

Its not well thought out.. There is only a very limited customization to pvp defense stats. There is only 2 stats (endurance and expertise) that affect your survivability vs the majority of attacks, and there are not many ways to trade endurance for expertise in gear.. I'd think that they'd add armor bonus's into the mix (right now armor does affect survivability, there is no customization to it though, you get the best armoring and thats it..) More generally though I wish that they'd add a larger customization element to gear for pvp 1. More effective defensive stats, or more relevant stats of any type (on some classes 3/4 of the secondary stats are near worthless to worthless) 1. More set bonus's

I'd say generally people should try not to quit whimsically in the name of good sportsmanship. There are several reasons to justify it though including groupfinder, getting paired w/ massively under geared players, rage quitting, virtually anything. If someone is at the point where they want to quit they should, it works out to everyone's advantage. If you think people should have to play w/ you that don't want to play w/ you because you want them to, you need to get a grip on reality.

Yeah marauders force camo is kinda stupid.. Assassins use stealth at most 1x an engagement, often to limited effectiveness, while you see marauders persistently dropping in and out of it. It's just not what you would guess would be the case, then again alot about assassins in swtor doesn't really fit w/ what most people would think...

I use every button in and to the left of the column 5, T, G, B, including F1-4 for tagging... I like it.

I'd predict that there will be adjustments at some point for a couple reasons. 1. Decently geared/skilled PTs focus firing is incredibly flexible and powerful. 2. PTs don't face strong diminishing returns in terms of class stacking (imo they get even better when stacked). More focus firing, they fill 2 rolls dps + secondary tank, and wont don't obliterated by a hard counter, etc... 3. Ease of play If you don't think the current state of PTs will change I'd say think again.. #2 will change in the sense that at the very least, PTs will get adjusted to work like marauders, that is they'll still be good, but not as good when you stack them. W/ that said i'd like to be convinced otherwise. If anyone has any good tactics for countering stacked focus firing PTs I'd love to hear them.

The #1 reason is its hard to put a good team together. The #2 reason is that its hard to hold a team together through losses. It can get easier tho... If you are good and cant seem to find good ranked games, My advice is make friends, always que unranked w/ a premade, when you do solo q, try to group w/ the best players from the game afterwards. Pretty soon you'll be getting invited to ranks or know enough people to organize them yourself. If you are good enough to on average finish in say the top quarter of unranked, it really shouldn't be that hard.

I second this. The fact that the OP listed the vast majority of classes as overpowered is telling... Every class has a rotation/strategy/tactic etc that can be devastating if not countered. You just have to learn how to counter it, and understand that given your only one person you might not be able to fully counter something by yourself. W/ that said, i've always thought that mercs need some love in pvp, and that PTs need to be toned down a little. I say mercs because the numbers show it and its pretty widely accepted. PTs on the grounds that in numbers their powerful/ranged/while mobile focus fire is easy to coordinate, powerful, AND hard to effectively counter... Regardless of if the class is op or not, the sheer # of PTs is getting annoying.. Its not that uncommon to see more than half PTs/Vanguards in warzones now.

I am not a pro rated player... I agree w/ you tho. Post assassin nerf, 23/1/17 is better. Pre nerf, 27/1/13 competed because the hd is what tipped assassins pvp survivability into the absurd region, now not so much. The first time i switched to the 23/1/17 spec would say 3 things stood out, that combined made it better than 27/1/13 : 1. Two 8 second mezz is alot... Enough to 2v1 squishy classes even if they are good 2. Spam-able Death field is much needed.. as a 30m opener, hi power aoe, and for interupting caps 3. No more getting rooted when using force lighting means you can maintain mobility throughout your rotation

I wish pvp in this game had less lull periods, a little more diversity to pvp, and a few more big events w/ some glory associated w/ them... I'd be very happy with just a few easy changes. Dueling and/or open world pvp dailies. The game needs filler pvp content between wz. Get rid of the outliers on the poor performance side in pvp. Realize this game is balanced around pve, you cant completely ignore pvp tho, there is no excuse for the current state of mercs. Periodically gimping classes cause more people to quit, go fotm, or just plain be unhappy while playing their fully geared main knowing they'll never be as good.. Some stuff that i think would be nice is: Tournament event. Pve dailies were pvp is likely and rewarded.

Marauders don't come close to pts imo. While the damage potential of a pt in a match may only be equal to slightly higher than a marauders, its ttk is significantly lower. This is largely due to its mobility and range.. pts generally get the 1st attack, its easier to focus fire, kiting + positioning tricks don't work, etc...

Maybe clarify what i said earlier... Once i decide to play a match I play it to the end, no rage quitting. I think most people should follow this, its best not to have people quitting mid game. I enjoy challenging games and try to stick in any game where there is a remote chance of winning. I quit games that will almost certainly turn into medal farming match's. My logic is the following.. since i'm at the pt where coms don't matter, i'm not going to play in medal farming matches.. it does nothing for me, and its actually painful most of the time..

Same basic thing happened to me, was originally on belsalvis doing my dailies, joined the wz and the 1st time I died came back at the fleet just like i was getting off the shuttle from korriban at lvl 10... was very odd.. If i would have came back at the gtn terminal, maybe would believe i had just gotten booted from wz and was mildly delusional, there is no way i was hanging out at the korriban shuttle though.

When i notice that i am ops leader i always quit if there are not at least 3 other people 1700+ hp. I dont mind playing w/ maybe half the team in recruit (especially if i am joining w/ 3 others), i draw the line there tho for helping out. When over half your team is recruit though the probability your gonna make any difference is next to 0 and your just gonna frustrate the heck out of yourself playing.. if you want to feel good about something, go donate 100k to a new player in the fleet trying to buy a speeder, will save him as much time as it takes to get battlemaster.

I dont think bw would buff all classes, instead of just nerfing 1 or 2 ( although ironically it would actually affect less people now!) its just more work and more possibility to screw things up. I thinks its pretty universally agreed the ordering of classes in terms of dps output in a wz is: Power Tech (DPS Tank) Pure Dps Tank Dps Heal Dps Am not saying its wrong to break the trend and put pts in their own dps bracket, its just suspicious and indicative that things may not be working as intended. Will also point out that bw has gotten tank-dps classes wrong before.. It was almost the same scenario pre 1.3 where assassins put up higher #'s not because they had higher theoretical dps but because they were always in the fight being effective due to high survivability combined w/ decent damage, except w/ pts its damage that is overweight more & range also contributes greatly to the % of time they are effective.. Its unlikely pts will not be touched within the next couple patches (maybe 1.5?) Its at least 5% over pure dps classes (mara + sniper), and 15% over the other dps-tank classes. W/ that said, if bw falls back on the "we try not to balance around pvp" line and the assassin nerf was really just a massive fluke that happened to work out for both pve and pvp.. then maybe nothing logical will happen as far as pvp balance goes... I also think its unlikely marauder will get touched. The question here is what do you think is a fair amount for mara's to stand out from popular non pure dps classes (excluding pts) in terms of damage output in a match.. if the answer is 5-10%, thats right where they are, and snipers the other pure dps class is basically right there with them. Any pvp motivated balance adjustment for marauders would be incredibly small, i honestly don't know what anyone would be hoping for here.

I strongly prefer assassin tanks. I Haven't been able to convince myself its anything but preference though, everything i have seen #'s wise seems to indicate its pretty even. Although there is a big diff in how each one plays, there is certainly not as much variance in the performance of tanks in pvp as there is for dps or healers.

1. Assassins are still worth playing. Tankasin still works, you just dont feel invulnerable as often now. Its still a great spec and certainly still one of the more popular ones, although post 1.3 its pretty clear its less popular than pt and mara. 2. Tankasin is imho easiest for leveling still, and its pretty easy to jump straight to endgame content when turning lvl 50 using the class. I have not had problems on mine, however i'd say the general opinion now is that the class more 2nd rate in pve. Pvp its still fine. 3. Big decision indeed. I'd go w/ the one you think you'll use more. do you like healing or not? do you do pvp or pve? i know more people who have stopped playing sorc toons than have quit playing assassin toons for pvp, i have not noticed this among pve'rs tho.

I think some people just are not meant to heal in pvp, i am definitely one of them... Not the most scientific approach to determining balance, however i go w/ this reasoning: Healers are still the #1 priority/ highest threat target in pvp. Assuming actually as effective as the average dps'r perceives them to be, they shouldn't need buffs.

My General Opinions: If your going through the recruit phase now, appreciate that its a good time to do it since rwz are pulling a huge portion of the best geared players out of normal warzones. If you cant get bm or compete in bm for some reason its probably not a gear issue.. If you're complaining about how long it takes to grind wh once, realize its the only real grind left in pvp.. also if you happen to be one of the specs that's optimal gearing needs to stack a single stat.. be happy you can get 90% of the benefit w/ just a few pieces of wh (that last 10% your going to really really have to work for tho) If you're complaining about how long it takes to grind wh multiple times, please just stop... I think its important to recognize that a couple objectives are balanced in pvp in this game: 1. This is an mmo, there should be some sort of progression (gear, lvling etc) in everything. 2. In pvp its important that everyone can participate in something close to fair and competitive. (otherwise people wont do it) What we have right now is a system where they've back loaded the grindiness in the progression. Recruit is free, bm 1 week, augments craftable/purchasable, however wh takes several times as long as everything else combined. Basically everyone gets pretty good gear quickly and fair play is maintained, yet are not left w/ nothing else to work for, which maintains the progression. And they also have 3 tiers of wz, lowbie, casual, ranked, that prevent what could be massively unbalanced games. To be honest i think it works fairly well. The recruit -> aug bm part can be painful, however you get the feeling of rapid progression to compensate a little. Wh takes a while, i think its better than getting everything quickly and asking for more content, or not having any gear progression at all. They could make it a little faster, i think the current speed is ok though. It kinda destroys the uniqueness of players if you make it too easy... You don't want everyone w/ a level 50 alt to be able to do super competitive ranked pvp w/ it w/ a weeks work...

Generally would say people get jumped often enough that you cant blame them for not calling inc, at least it doesn't justify raging in the chat if it happens once.. With that said, Novare coast can make me absolutely furious.. This map for some reason is capable of transforming otherwise decently good players into absolute epeen machines. Whenever i pug a game and see 7 people already stacked up to go south i want to cry, you pretty much have to accept the fact that you will lose and join them or exit the warzone. More often than not a lost pug game on novare coast can be blamed on one of the following massive blunders: 1. Losing the south node w/ more than half the team guarding it because everyone is to busy epeening to notice that they are losing the objectives.. 2. People at the south node not responding to incomings at the lower nodes because they have not finished dominating the south node. 3. Not giving up trying to take the south node even when you already have both of the lower nodes and are in danger of losing one.. If you're one of those players that goes south no matter what, please try mixing it up. And if you manage to take south, make sure you don't forget to guard it.

err... what?

Spent an hour designing an operative, getting multiple opinions, and everything literally perfect... eventually stopped playing operative because it was not fun and copied my operatives look to my assassin.. I noticed around lvl 10 that my assassins face was slightly different, however i decided not to re-roll. It still bothers me to this day... Whenever i log into my now alt operative for some lowbie pvp i am constantly reminded of what my main could look like if only i had not been so lazy... its to late now tho.