Bump because I'd like to hear what our pvp community says about the post... edit: I've read a lot of threads where players state that MMOs are all about the gear grind in PvP. Historically, that may be the case based upon old, outdated models. Why not continue to break new ground for PvP? I like the boost system and liken it (as of right now with my current knowledge) to a more leveled playing field. People who want a drastic gear advantage can go camp players in lower level zones on PvP servers to get their jollies imho:) If those players want a distinction, why not work your rated group up to a very hig ranking. Wouldn't you want that instead of stomping casuals or under-geared players into the ground? To atain the best gear requires a lot of game-time...if you've spent that much time playing your class you probably know how to play it very well. You don't need to stomp newbs into the ground to show them how good you are. Save that for competitive-style SWTOR arenas!

*tips hat to Bioware* Good job on reworking pvp to engage more people. The game, as everyone knows, took a nosedive within the first 6 months- one year. Some people came back for F2P, but we still need more. Instanced PvP is looking better than ever, regardless of the whine posts. Remember the silent majority happily plods along or quits and I think this step will help to improve the playerbase. Reccommendations: 1- Implememnt an "arena styile" system. Classes in Swotr feel more balanced than in WoW. Even in WoW, arenas are still popular with FOTM comps. To wit, there is even an "Arena Junkie" site that still lives on, with posting limited to those who have attained the highest ratings or are previous "gladiators." I still play WoW and read and post on AJ after these many years and I still rush to gladiator ratings at the end of each season. Why? Because it is fun for me. 2- Continue to balance classes: this is a tough one, I know, because the game also contains a PvE component. Let's face it, WoW is a template regardless of how much people disagree. It retains a very successful business model for 10+ years. However, one of the issues in WoW PvP/Arenas is balancing classes because PvE is the mainstay. In this game, PvE is simply "ok", but you have a chance to develop an mmo niche now. SWTOR as an esport will bring more people back to the game. This same group of ultra-competitive people will spend money not only on subscriptions for you, but they will also buy cartel coins in order to get to level 55 faster. 3- Implement some end-game, PvP-based cartel coin rewards: some may complain about having to spend more money, but I think this is a good addition. We have valor boosts currently, but perhaps you can put your minds to it and get more creative! 4- Make healing feel more rewarding: As of right now, playing a healing class is not as rewarding or as fun as in WoW. I personally think the reason for this is that healers aren't vital. If they are vital, it is only in ranked warzones and, let's face it, the ranked warzones are a pretty small percentage of your loyal playerbase. I've been in games as both dps and heals and my experience is that PUGS could really care less about healers. There is no incentive to support healers now as it is a DPS race without peels, cc and support for our healers. Obviously, ranked/rated warzones understand the distinction between dps and healers and that playerbase covets them. In my opinion, healers should be so valuable that even the casual instanced-pvp'er should know how important it is to keep them up. I'd say the same goes for tanks, but there are so many people playing the "warrior and bounty hunter" classes that the problem isn't as drastic. Same with the other tank class. (edit: caveat- my main is a healer so I admit I am biased. At least I admit it:).....) 5- Lastly, consider making SWTOR an esport: it is apparent that you sunk a lot of money into the "leveling-up" part of the game. This game is more fun to level up than any other MMO I've played, and I used to be an avid WoW, multi-class, multi-season gladiator pvp'er. Like many, I left this game after the first no-go on ranked pvp but I came back. It has been fun to level up my new toons (but at the same time frustrating to find out that i can't transfer the healer and Jugg I attained pvp rank 50+ with.) In summary, I think you can define your market right now. Make SWTOR a more viable esport game and I would bet that your cashflow will increase. There are a lot of players that are waiting for the next MMO-esport apart from WoW (and, please note, even WoW has problems as an esport but there are coders who have recently improved how easy it is to follow tournament games as a spectator). Since the game didn't do as well as EVERYONE hoped initially, I say strike while the iron is hot! End-game PvE, while enjoyed by some players, is definitely not ground-breaking or lauded in the media as original and refreshing. You can do that with PvP though. In fact, when we all first bought the game, Bioware even announced that SWTOR would have excellent and novel world PvP and instanced PvP. That's why I bought and subscibed to begin with! Keep moving PvP in the right direction. Thank you fpr starting to make the right moves. There may be a big backlash to this thread but these are simply suggestions from an arena-junkie and a player who immensely enjoys PvP. I love the Star Wars Universe and I love competitive pvp. The potential is great, padawans...just use the force and take heed of my yoda-like wisdom! lolo.

Oh lord, a post scathing on reading comprehension and logic comes from someone who calls itself "BoushhDC?" Oh my, says George Takei...

Hey Pearl...relax looololo. You can bring your "subscriber" badness to any match, not just the forums jousts.

OP bashes people who don't agree with him/her. Pretty pathetic, but par for the course. The THIRD post to this thread is spot on. The game is F2P, let's get this game running on skill rather than time spent on gathering gear. I would rather log in and spend a few matches setting my keybinds, learning my class and jumping right into competitive games rather than grinding gear and crushing others who haven't spent that investment. WoW is for that. I enjoy WoW arenas too as I am a posting member of arena junkies and a mutli-glad on two classes. For the OP, if you want to do the competitive-gear grind to "smash" less-geared players, come over to WoW. I'll even teach you how to play arena's comptitively if you'd like. Send me a tell and I'll give you my credentials and I'll even gear up with you this season on priest or mage to see if you can actually play competitively. So many pvp'ers are bad asses in their own mind...and it is only a video game to boot Otherwise, let's embrace this change and hope that SWTOR PvP becomes a hit with other like-minded people. There is nothing at all wrong with leveling the playing field. The good players will rise and the less-interested people will become average. What's wrong with that? No more "Hulk-Smash" with better gear mentality? To OP- if you are like 12 years old, I'm sorry for posting a semi-sarcastic post. You don't know any better. HULK-SMASH! Edit: The next one or two MMOS HAVE come along, FYI. The pvp'ers still here probably enjoy the game enough to keep playing. second edit: I was not serious about gearing up with you in WoW. Takes too much time, and i suspect you suck. However, I will provide credentials for you in the alternative.

Hi Swtor community- as an ex SWTOR designer and coder, i can tell you that- while the OPs analysis seems plausible, the math is all wrong I'll post how everything really works with respect to the "3 tiers." Alacrity is, in fact, a silent stat that is meant to be undervalued at risk of developers having to re-evaluate the entire game dynamic. I'm only telling you this because the game is F2P now, and I lost my job so iIhave nothong to lose besides my subscription If this post doesn't get deleted quickly, i will show you a graph and quote some internal emails re: the main stats to include alacrity, surge, rtc. Believe me, you will find this interesting! I am only doing this because i am a disgruntled ex-employee. Believe what I post at your own risk. EDIT: I have a bridge I'd like to sell you after reading this post. I am joking! Good job OP. edit: Is alacrity the same as cast speed?

Right on, thanks. I know it takes some of your time up, but in 2 weeks, what are the changes that may help with healy sorcs? Thanks again, buddy!

Great post, especially for returning players. Thank you!

Heyo- I just returned to the game after a long break- maybe one year long or so. My question is this: How are sorcs doing in pvp healing now? Back when I played we saw melee locking us down. A lot. Did we get new talents, or did the other classes get tuned down at all? I loved my healing sorc, especially in hutball with the oull across the line. I'm thinking about leveling a healy sorc again. Input appreciated. I know many people are jaded, but there are always a few informed responses that will help answer a legitimate question. Thanks in advance! edit: How are sorcs in PvE healing now too?

Lol, please dude, just stop. You are going off on everyone who states that the game is dying. It is, no matter how you want to spin it. Further, forum posts won't destroy the game...bad PR, bad design and dead servers with frustrated players will. Have a little integrity and at least state that your mission in this thread is to increase morale and esprit de corp to a demoralized and mostly disappointed and broken payer base. I'll admit that I love the SW franchise and I had high hopes for everything. I was naieve and bought into all of the hype this SWTOR team generated pre-release. I even leveled multiple characters, leveled a toon on the Fatman server and hung around post 1.2 to try my hardest to enjoy my game time. I hung around even when they pulled rateds out mere hours before 1.2 release. I don't know much outside of the fact that the game lost app. 400k subs, and, despite disappointing profits from subs to SWTOR, Bioware ended the quarter doing okay based upon digital sales and their other games. (that is all publicly available info from business press releases and analysts) I also know that this game is not *thriving*....

This is a really interesting post to me, and I'm not being a smart-aleck (sp?) With all of the imbalance and disparity between classes right now, some (or maybe many) are focused on sabers vs. staff. Maybe Bioware has it right by focusing so broadly on everything, especially the little things that seem trivial to some. Maybe it isn't so trivial afterall...I'll be damned. Are you guys solo'ers? Do you tend to care about mechanics or are cosmetics more important? Do you play causally or are you part of a raiding guild? Just curious is all...

This guy is assuming that you know him, of course- that's why he would post this. He happens to be the class developer lead for SWTOR sorcs. I know it seems presumptuous for a random toon to make a post like this. I would think it incredibly conceited too but for the fact that he makes all of the sorc design decisions. If he was just an average Joe this post would this be ridiculous! No one would care...

FYI, you are in the PvP forum. The assumption is that the OP is talking about PvP / Warzones. Check your local class forums for the PvE info. Who cares about boss fights in this forum?

Ahh gotcha, makes sense. Does TERA have good pvp? Thanks for the input.

WoW, at it's peak had 12 million+ subs, maybe 12X the amount of Swtor subs. Despite the cries of people leaving WoW in droves for Swtor, it hasn't happened. Sure, WoW lost some subs but WoW continues to thrive whether you like it or not. The only thing that will kill WoW is age and Blizzard themselves. Arenas are not a failure in WoW. Do you realize that Blizzard runs a big arena tournament annualy and that tournament offers cash prizes and gets a lot of coverage? There are other cash tournaments too, and the top arena'ers are e-celebs. (I will admit that, recently, the arena tournaments have slowed down) Do you realize that WoW just opened an arena-only portion of the game after how many years on the market? Do you realize that there is a large contingent of players who are hardcore pvp'ers? Arena is one of the few things keeping people subbed. Balancing has been hard for WoW, but their arena system has brought in a lot of money and has allowed them to retain a lot of subs. WoW continues to make a lot of money. Arenas did not destroy WoW. (Whether or not arenas are a true e-sport is a distinct issue.) If you are a hardcore pvp'er and ran around with a gladiator/arena master title over your head in WoW, you wouldn't complain so much. Gladiator is the top 0.5% of arena'ers. It's an elite club. Even Duelist is REALTIVELY hard to get. I posit that at least some of the people who complain about arenas are the ones who have tried to get into that elite gladiator bracket, season after season, and have failed. Even if you are not that kind of player, you should support arenas because I'm telling you--- it will increase the amount of Swtor subs. And to the guy who claimed that all 300 of his guild members would leave....yeah right. And even if they did, good riddance. Your 300 players will be replaced many times over by people who want competitive pvp. Bioware themselves admitted that MANY PEOPLE WANT TO PVP- MUCH MORE THAN THEY ANTICIPATED. Swtor + arenas = win. I guarantee that Bioware will, at the very least, see a year or two of a significantly growing sub base if they did it. However, it takes a lot of balancing work. Look at WoW though...it is still the MMO champ so the incentive is there. I would resub past our free 30 days in a heartbeat if Swtor announced that arenas are incoming. edit: I concur with some previous posts; Bioware needs to address some class balancing issues before introducing arenas. On the other hand, excellent players in the arena would really shine a light on which classes and comps are OP and which need buffs.

In one of the Developer posts, they admitted that participation in PvP was a lot larger than they initially anticipated. I played WoW almost exclusively to PvP. I think that in WoW, the idea that the "PvP'ers are a very small minority" was established. Maybe that idea has changed during the last few years. Even WoW implemented arenas and then a few years later they developed rated battlegrounds to appease the pvp'ers who wanted a rated pvp system apart from arenas. Case in point, maybe the old paradigm that pvp in mmos is strictly a sideshow for a minority of players has shifted. Maybe players want to do both or maybe there are just more players wanting to pvp hardcore. The game Rift, while having a pretty neat skill tree, missed the mark by not putting much into PvP. I would have stayed there if there were rated pvp options. Think about it- we are how many years past the advent of WoW? There is an entire new, young generation of MMO players now and they may like to pvp more than the previous generation. That's just my hypothesis- I have no numbers to prove it. I think the same thing is happening here with Swtor. While they overpromised and totally under-delivered re almost all facets of PvP, I don't think Bioware anticipated such a backlash from its players. Five months into the game and they are already giving free month's subscription plus even more free time for servers being down. They really, really dropped the ball by deleting rateds a few hours before 1.2. I really liked this game and I was rooting for it, but when my entire pvp guild quit, I lost my entire team. Its no fun to play without friends. I wonder if Swtor can fix this even with rateds at this point. I hope so because I would come back to give it a try, but the fact that we have no idea when they will be implemented is pretty silly. edit: I bet this thread gets deleted or closed, like so many others, under their rule that prohibits talking about games other than Swtor. Can you imgaine how many threads would be closed in WoW if they enforced similar rules?

Ah that stinks. In the interest of good, informative forum posts, why don't you find a group to raid with? You are very good about sharing what you learn, even if I don't always agree with your reliance on models. However, you do more for the sorc community than me, so I think you should raid and tell us how the math, et al, compares with application in a raiding scenario. In other words, and I'm not trying to sound condescending, keep up the good work re sharing info. I'd love to see your parses versus Xeno's if you each play unique specs. That would help the sorc pve community a lot, I think. Also, I am mature enough to eat my words from pre-1.2 where I predicted sorc dps wouldn't be up to snuff...

This is a great point. All of the math, sims, theory or whatever one calls them are great. However, why doesn't Daelia offer up combat logs to support the number crunching? It's kind of odd, to me. If madness/hybrid is better, someone should throw up some parses proving such. It's like publishing in science. Before i went into patent law, I was a biochemist. I published in a biomedical engineering journal and wrote the methods section. That paper's analysis would have meant nothing without showing the methods and actual experimentation to support the analysis. I realize one confounding variable that is tough to account for is player's skill. Therefore, maybe if you yourself ran the madness/hybrid for one or two runs and posted the results, we would be able to see for ourselves. Again, thanks for posting Xeno. We see lots of math on the forums but not many meaningful parses with explanations. If Daelia posted some parses and I missed it, please accept my appolgy. Anyway, keep up the good work, Xeno.

Firstly, Staf, pretty please, just go away. It isn't funny anymore. At least we agree about Xeno though...but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see he is the best and you are a pest. Anyway..onto the Second question addressed to Xenofire: 1. I'm tracking with your finding that lightning is better in 16 man raids. Thanks for making that easy to understand! However, what 8-man comp do you reccommend to make lightning single target dps the best sorc spec? 2. It's pretty cool that you guys already cleared EC hardmode. Geeze, grats! Are you leader of a sponsored guild? How does HM EC compare to the other HM OPs pre 1.2 as far as overall difficulty? Thanks again man!

<***-kissing on> Xenofire: I just wanted to quote one of your shorter posts...to say thanks for sharing your experience and insights. I've followed your posts re: PvE closely, even after quitting. Thanks and Cheers to you for some good work! You are a great representative for PvE sorcs No wonder why your guild is #2 in the U.S. for the whatsy-me-bobbitt. <***-kissing off>

Thanks for the pep talk, buddy Staf is just an odd bird. First it was an honor for him to play on our premade, now he's flaming them and me, what's next looolo?! I see you have things well in hand representin' the capable sorcs on Dreshdae though! I'm back on WoW about to grind this season's gladiator now, though This time, I'm gonna try a warlock and see how that goes...Cheers! edit: I hope you crush that one pub guild out there who actually has decent players, boy oh boy, I can't even remember their name right now..know who I am talking about Hedley?

Yeah that was me, I logged in for the first time in a while and played a few matches. By the way, you realize that you just complimented me, right? I still don't know who you are. I'm gonna start callin you princess though, boy, cuz u gots some perty lips.

Cool. You moved over to esdf, nice, makes sense to get a few more easy binds. The only stretchy kinda reach is y (electrocute), but I guess people who don't type with two fingers like me don't have an issue with it haha. I'd post mine, but unless you have a steelseries keyboard and naga mouse they wouldn't make sense. Ok, enough free PR for them. Thanks for posting some of your binds buddy! I think I have everything bound; there are a lot of them!. I use the mouse scroll forward for dark heal; sometimes people don't think of using mouse scroll wheel as a bind outside of camera zoom. I also use ctrl+mouse scroll wheel for a bind. Question: Would anyone be interested in seeing an autohotkey script for multiple keystrokes? It takes some time to set up, but here's what it does---> for times when I need burst healing, I can use <recklessness> plus <relic> plus <expertise pot> all from one key, instead of hitting three separate binds. It works because only <recklessness> is on the global cooldown. Using the macro requires downloading of the autohotkey program. End result: when I need burst healing, I can simply press number "6" quickly because that is my bind for it. It sets up your burst healing or damage much faster than using 3 separate binds. If there is interest, I'll post instructions. (shout out to my guildie Matumbo / Nematode for showing me this)

The thing is, you don't have complete control of the camera. You either do or don't have complete control of your camera and when the game automatically forces you to snap back, you lose control. Granted, the majority of casts require a jump-turn, but if you can't see the other advantages I mentioned earlier in the thread, then the point is lost on you, which is absolutely fine. Play the way you want. However, you did mention in an earlier post that it may simply give a small fraction of a second advantage. Isn't that what we are about here? Finding all of the literal and metaphorical little fractions of seconds and adding them all up for a considerable advantage? Yes, I think so. That really describes what the high-end pvp'ers do so much better than everyone else. (Props to the movie "Any Given Sunday" and Pacino's "football is a game of inches" speech as the impetus for my comparison above, haha. But I think it definitely fits here.) To answer your question, in my opinion, using the interrupt would depend on what else is happening around me. Can you quickly see who the sorc is targeting and their health level? Do you have assists on that target or on the enemy sorc casting the innervate? Will his or her resolve bar allow for another interrupt if you have one on cooldown? If you are trying to drive home the point that Sorcs have few meaningful healing options for 9 seconds post innervate, well, I'm not sure I agree with that. Maybe I don't understand the question. In any case, I do agree with you on one item- focus targeting is important, although not drastically more important than camera control. For me they are simply two pieces of the puzzle. Speaking of targeting, I save some really nice (i.e. easy to reach) binds for targeting. I use a steelseries merc stealth keyboard and the wicked cool razer naga mouse that has 12 binds on the left thumb-side. These 2 devices offer so many bind options that are easy to reach. I started using them for wow arenas a few years ago and they transition really well to SWTOR. For those of you who use them or know what they look like, I can tell you that I use ctrl 12 (where the 12 is on the side of the mouse) for target nearest friend and ctrl 11 for target next friend. Likewise, I use ctrl 9 for target nearest enemy and ctrl 8 for target next enemy. I really hate click targeting bad guys, especially the perpetually jumpy ones, so these binds really help me out quite a bit. Some people think posts about binds are boring, but I love comparing them with people who use the same devices as me. Question: Do you guys have any interesting keybind combos that could make others go "herp derp I shoulda thought of that!?" FYI, here are links to the keyboard and mouse if you are interested. I absolutely love both devices!! http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/pd/productID.220156700/categoryId.35208800 http://steelseries.com/products/keyboards/steelseries-merc-stealth And Staf, please shush. I offered a tip re: how efficient smart camera removal is; he said he tried it and didn't like it. Whether he plays with smart camera on or off shouldn't matter to you in the slightest. It is simply another advantage that, when added together with all of the other little things could make a meaningful advantage. Further, you said you ran with me before but I highly doubt it after reading your posts. I and my guildies play with people we have fun with and who maintain a certain level of competency. You don't seem to be very much fun. edit: damnation, I said I would stop posting four posts ago!

You didn't realize that if you turn off smart camera, your camera angle doesn't snap back to forward view? I'm not trying to rain on your pro-tips thread. Like I said in my other thread where you were hitting us with the skinny on sorcs, I have no clue if you are a good player like you and your friends (in that thread you linked to us) claim, but let me just throw this out there because it is a very basic but important tip for pvp'ing for sorcs and really any toon. Despite my very slight sarcasm, this really is a very important pvp tip... Hint: Go to preferences, controls, camera and uncheck smart camera. Turn it off and you don't need to jump and camera turn in order to cast deathfield behind you. All you need to do is turn your camera around while continuing to run forward to cast deathfield behind you. You gain so much more control by doing this. Even better, you have total control of your camera angle at all times because it will never snap back to forward view!. The only time you should ever need to jump-turn-cast is for spells that require you to face the enemy...Electrocute is one example if I remember correctly. Camera control is one of the most basic yet important aspects to seeing the map. If you aren't doing this already, I guarantee you will notice a big improvement on seeing enemies behind you, casting behind you while continuing to move forward, etc. It takes a little bit more work to control your camera if you've relied on it snapping forward this whole time, but in return you can keep an eye on bad guys behind and to the sides of you much easier. edit: Ok, I'm not going to post anymore. I was supposed to stop after my post in that other thread. This is too good of a tip to not post though; i just assumed every uber pvp'er did this because you are at a big disadvantage if you can't control the camera 100% of the time. In addition, having the damn camera snap forward all the time is annoying. See stafaureus, I posted a tip here so please don't post your garbage in my sorc healing thread and get it deleted. I have fun reading what people write about top-notch sorc play there.