Shockingly, yes, it is viable for endgame PVE. It's not going to match the single target throughput of Carnage and Annihilation under all circumstances, but the DPS is no longer abysmal on one enemy. For one thing, I like TORParse much better as a DPS-tracking tool. It's not real-time, but once a raid starts it doesn't really matter what the numbers are so long as you're not wiping or hitting enrage. You can use the combat logs after the fact and TORParse's superior analytical tools to sort out who is doing more or less. For another, it seems like many Maras I've grouped with don't use & abuse Berserk like they should if they want to see competitive numbers, and don't avoid wasting the Rage it provides. Rage has very little need to waste GCDs on Assault if you use the spec's massive Rage generation properly, and that goes a long way to help bring DPS up.

You've said this twice now, but I'm really struggling to figure out what such a build brings to the table over Waka 2.0. It seems like a fluff damage DOT-spamming spec, which means it'll put up funny numbers in PUG WZs, but be utterly horrible at actually doing anything productive in a close match because it just doesn't have enough reliable killing power. I think Waka 2.0 is probably going to be the optimal DPS build for Shadows and Assassins, because it gives up very little in exchange for one of the best AoE attacks in the game. It is at a slight disadvantage versus full tree Infiltration in extended engagements since it has less ability to repeatedly burst without exiting combat, but gains more utility and keeps all of the murdering goodness in short fights. Burst is king in PVP and either Waka or full tree have the best burst. Waka has less telegraphed burst and more utility, so I'd say it's a superior spec overall.

Assassin has a spikier damage taken profile in 2.0, so you can feel squishier at times, even if you're not ineffective or worse off than either other tank AC. There's also more need to rely on CDs even on big trash packs, because 4-5 strongs beating on you is pretty tough to handle for any tank right now. Keep in mind we're down over 5% Defense chance, almost 10% shield chance, and over 20% absorption from where we were in the same gear prior to 2.0, so we are taking more damage, plain and simple. So are Juggies and PT though, so it's not like we're alone in that regard. Sin tanking in 2.0 is more active in general - more need to time Dark Ward carefully (to maximize Dark Bulwark's value), more complex, proc-driven priority system, more need than ever to focus on maximizing self-healing, and more need to use & abuse our CDs. Unfortunately, more passive, "relaxed" play is being punished right now since we can't leverage a gear advantage to brute force through content.

So they run Smash & Engi. Big whoop. Sturdy DPS specs that dump AoE and can door deny very well. What's the problem, exactly?

Hover over your Melee Accuracy stat on your character sheet, and you'll see two entries. First is Basic Accuracy, which is equivalent to the value displayed when you simply open the character sheet. This value applies to Assault, and only Assault. Second is Special Attacks, which is 10% higher (100% base) and applies to everything else but Assault (in the game files, all other attacks have the "isSpecial" flag set to flag them as Special Attacks). Increasing your Accuracy by 10% brings your Basic Accuracy to 100% (and thus a PVE boss retains a chance to parry/dodge), and your Special Attacks accuracy to 110% (and thus overcomes any known PVE defense chance).

I haven't sat down and done math with accurate assumptions about damage splits with the 2.0 talent trees or stat formula changes, and doing the math "properly" is a very time-consuming and involved process. And even at that point, if you use something like a combat dummy and a significant number of trials to identify a "normal" split between skills, apply the damage formula appropriately to each component (to identify ideal stat splits for each major contributor), and generalize that to all content, you're going to wind up with something that's usually close to ideal, though how ideal depends on how close to a long tank & spank any given fight is. Annihilate does not benefit from any unusual critical damage bonuses, and the general math does not support emphasis on Critical Rating for optimal DPS without them. The high attack multiplier inherent in the skill is good with or without crits, so big tradeoffs in Power to pick up Crit are not automatically better, as you get significant improvement in damage output even by pumping non-crit damage.

Along this vein... El Kamino was raiding with the same 8 people consistently, although at least 3 were not wearing guild tags (one was primarily in another raiding guild but used one character exclusively with us, two were in non-raiding guilds). That group of 8 formed a raid team most easily labeled "El Kamino" though by the letter of the rules we can't post progression since we're not all wearing the same tags. It doesn't help that El Kamino only has 4 full-time members, a few tagged alts of friends, and none of us care to enforce guild membership vs. raid group membership as we don't want to pigeonhole our friends and fellow raiders. Guess once we get a new group stabilized for 2.0 (RL changes have cost us a couple members) we'll just go about our business and not worry about this thread, even though the guild membership rule is a little strict. Team consistency is much more important than the tags over the peoples' heads, in my humble opinion.

No offense, but a couple hundred points in Crit Rating isn't going to help the OP pick up 100+ DPS. He asked what he was missing, and whilst gear tuning might have some impact, a large gap like that is indicative of priority issues rather than stat allocation issues. Edit: For the record, ~300 Crit Rating buys you a little over 5.5% crit chance. That used to be obtained from less than 150 Crit Rating. ~300 Power buys you (including SW class buff) over 70 bonus damage. 5% crit chance is not unarguably better than ~10% more bonus damage for any spec, Annihilation or otherwise.

No, why would you? Special Attacks, or everything except for Assault, already start at 100% Accuracy. If you see 100% listed, all of the attacks that matter for any spec are at 110% Accuracy, which overcomes any defense chance in PVE.

They added Power proc relics, is what changed it. They have higher uptime than on-use relics, and the cycles of up/down are much shorter. Certainly they are a little unpredictable, but for the most part they're insanely good. Matrix Cube hasn't been BIS or even close to it in ages. It was inferior to PVP static Power relics, it was inferior to PVE on-use Power relics, it was inferior to PVE damage proc relics. Due to Marauder's lack of a main stat boosting talent, Strength isn't massively superior point-for-point in comparison to power when considering optimizing DPS. After 2.0, that's even more the case (as the contribution to critical chance from main stat was been reduced).

All 3 classes are perfectly viable PVE healers. Mercenaries probably had the most noteworthy drawbacks prior to 2.0, which haven't really been entirely addressed, but that just means that the skill floor is higher. Operatives have an easier time than ever before of group healing due to improvements to their HOTs and changes to energy management (no more TAs spent on Stim Boost instead of healing). When people said Sorcs were the best PVE healers, it was due to the act that they had the best single AoE heal (puddle), arguably the highest single-target throughput as well, and a massive well of resources to blow through in emergencies. Operative's AoE healing got a boost, their single-target healing got a boost, and their energy management got a boost. Sorc got boosts of its own, but both classes, and Merc as well, can absolutely tackle any content successfully without any issues.

Tank balance is probably the tightest out of anything in the game, honestly. Both Juggy and Sin are perfectly workable for raid tanking, so try both out a little and play whichever seems to be more fun. Sin is undeniably spikier in its damage taken profile, but it also is doing pretty phenomenal DPS right now, plus retains its healing and powerful CDs. Juggy has great mobility, even better CDs than before, and a significantly better tank tree than it had in 1.0, so it's no longer so difficult to play competently. The utility Sin brings to the table outstrips what Juggy can do, but Juggy is an absolutely fantastic boss tank right now.

/facepalm Did you even read the question I asked? You cannot snare someone that you never even get into range of, before they complete the cap of their natural. What people are QQing about is that AT THE START of a game, a person can complete a key objective that nearly guarantees victory at the highest levels of play before it is reasonably possible to stop them. When most ranked CWs are determined by who caps their natural first, trollrolling gives you a near-100% chance of successfully capping immediately at the start before an interceptor from the other team can prevent it. When most ranked Huttballs are decided by first possession, trollrolling gives you a 100% chance of getting that first possession (unless the other team is trollrolling too). Who cares about snares or what happens after the first 30s of a game when 2 out of 5 RWZ maps are decided in that first 30s, and there is now a tactic with only one counter (the same exact tactic used by the other team) to guarantee that win?

How does a snare prevent someone from traveling from their spawn point to their natural node faster than it is possible to intercept them if they know what they're doing and you don't have every moment speed buff under the sun, plus no interruptions on your way, plus the devil's own luck? In case the last, oh, I don't know, EVERY SINGLE PAGE wasn't abundantly clear, the far-and-away most dangerous thing about the trollroll is that at the very beginning of certain WZs, it can virtually guarantee a win in a highly competitive ranked game if the same tactic isn't used by both teams. Otherwise yes, it can be dealt with, but such a glaring flaw is not permissible.

In regards to #1 and #2... I don't think a slight uptick in Assault usage is avoidable. The increased Rage requirements of a 6s Annihilate are noteworthy, and dumping the same number of Vicious Slashes as prior to 2.0 just isn't sustainable anymore. I'm not entirely sure I'm understanding what you're trying to say in regards to Rage builders, especially early. The pre-2.0 opener is basically unchanged (Charge + DS > BA > Rupture > Anni + pray for Pulverize > Ravage > Rupture (if available) > etc.). That order minimizes the DPS "dip" in the initial ramp-up, whilst minimizing wasted time with core skills off CD. After the opener, and until 4 stacks of Annihilator are obtained, it's definitely advantageous to use Force Charge regularly, as it is our second best Rage generator, and distinctly better than wasting GCDs on Assault. Annoying if there's significant risk of loss of uptime, but in those situations, Carnage is probably a better bet regardless. If fight mechanics force Rage starvation or early Annihilator stack gaps, DPS is irrevocably poisoned and the fight in question simply isn't optimally completed as Annihilation. As long as you can safely use 2-3 Charges to the timer during initial ramp-up (including the opener), resource issues are far less noteworthy.

It rhymes, and I have tremendous fun exploiting it on my Operative, so I'm going to continue using it. I am a troll in game and I don't pretend otherwise. Force Speed is fast enough to reach the other team's node right after the cap completes if the roller did it right (e.g. ledge launch for extra distance, optimal path to node, no delayed rolls), which is fast enough in unranked games to nuke a recovering Op and take the node if no interceptor is sent. In a ranked game, I wouldn't put money on it.

Disbelief why? Your example does not have any direct relation to what I said. If you read my post, I even agree with you that people will make an effort to gain every advantage available. There is a key difference between what we're each trying to say. People *IN THIS THREAD* have explicitly said that the PVP isn't worth doing without the gear grind. The goal is thus the attaining of better gear, rather than the winning of warzones. Maybe the reason for attaining the better gear is to win more warzones, but to imply that the goal of winning warzones isn't worth pursuing without the gear is where I take issue. Warzones are worth winning in and of themselves, gear or no gear. If BioWare wants to make it so that playing a lot of Warzones allows you to have better gear and win more often, that is A-OK. I don't care in the slightest about it. I do care about people acting as though the gear grind is a necessary component, and focusing more on the gear than whether or not the actual PVP itself is fun. And yes, skill + commitment + experience are ways to level the playing field. But before 2.0, which is all any of us really have to go on, even the most skilled, committed, experienced player was at a woeful disadvantage when they dinged 50 (and, on the flipside, the skilled, committed, experienced player on a new class could be effective against those many levels higher than themselves in lowbie thanks to bolster). That's what 2.0 bolster is trying to address. It's doing a bad job of it right now, certainly, but more of the same from 1.0 (a big gear grind providing a massive advantage) is not a good alternative. A player in Recruit vs. a player of the same class in augged EWH in 1.x was at a >20% HP deficit (potentially 30-35%, even over 40% in the worst case scenarios), significant Expertise deficit (giving the EWH-geared player a 5-10% swing in damage dealt/received before any other stats came into play), down easily over 100 bonus damage, down significantly on Surge, etc. Those kinds of stat differences are enough to eclipse skill and commitment, except in the cases of really good undergeared players versus really bad geared players. The gear gap exacerbated the problem considerably, and is a design choice BioWare is choosing not to repeat. It aided significantly in stifling competition, along with the more crippling barriers. Class barriers have been eroded somewhat due to rebalancing and we'll see how bad the disparity is once 2.0 PVP has settled out a bit more (though I'm sure it'll never, ever be perfect). Skill is what it is, and skill difference is an inherent part of any competitive activity. Tactics, especially team tactics and coordination in team-based gameplay, will always be a problem and there is no solution other than adding more PVP variety (which BioWare should do, but that's its own thing). PVP isn't an outright mess because people want to compete. PVP is an outright mess because BioWare did a poor job of implementing a system to make that possible. The core goal is a good goal, and a laudable goal, but the efforts undertaken to obtain it were neither good nor laudable. That doesn't change that the goal is valuable and worth pursuing, or that a more competitive PVP environment is a bad thing for SWTOR.

An individual with Force Speed can make it to the opposing team's natural in time to interrupt a cap with or without Transcendence in play for either team. It is not perfectly reliable, and if it fails the game is likely lost. If the team has neither Force Speed nor Transcendence, they're almost certainly boned. It is not a well-balanced scenario, but counters do exist other than "use Transcendence" even if they are not reliable. If one team has trollroll and the other does not, even Force Speed is insufficient. I have not seen even 80% Transcendence be sufficient (due to LOS issues), but I grant that it probably could be possible in combination with Force Speed or with absolutely perfect timing and placement of an instant ground-target AoE (e.g. Death Field). The critical difference for Huttball is that even with Transcendence, both teams reach mid in quick enough succession that even the slower team is present in force in time to react to the initial ball grab. A well-coordinated effort can force a turnover, which is not possible with a trollroll opening. I do not mean to say that Transcendence doesn't provide a tremendous advantage, but the difference between "too late but able to do something useful" and simply "too late to do anything" are immense and measured in a second or two. Seconds which the current state of trollroll provide. I will absolutely, unabashedly, and unreservedly grant that Transcendance, especially with the talent buffing it to 80% movement speed, is an ability that is unfairly strong. I don't think I've said otherwise. It is not, for all intents and purposes, un-counterable, which is the only difference between it and trollroll, though an incredibly noteworthy difference. The difference between "hard to counter but possible" and "virtually impossible to counter" is small but relevant. For the second part of your post, it simply isn't the case anymore that Operative is a drastically sub-par DPS. It is effective, even in Huttball of pressuring healers to control momentum in the middle. It can move into position to be a target for Intercede. Or, to take a different tack, the Operative who performed the initial ball capture could respec to heals if the team feels that they aren't worthwhile in a DPS role. For the first 15-20 seconds of a Huttball game, it is not disadvantageous to be down a healer, and you could be spec-swapped and in position to be helpful before the carrier reaches the goal line. Maybe not what you want to hear, but certainly one entirely valid answer to the idea of bringing a "dead weight" DPS.

Some people do, certainly, but they're the same ones that want everything that beats them nerfed into oblivion. Most of the more sane people discussing the skill (either on this thread, in game, or what have you) prefer smaller adjustments that limit the maximum distance traveled in a short span of time via a minute CD or other mechanic to limit sequential use (as the current mechanic of Energy cost is insufficient in practice, and cannot be adjusted to address the situation without utterly destroying the utility of the skill). Stealth is an amazing utility in its own right. It's just not a useful piece of utility without mobility or competitive DPS. More ability to make use of it, or further improvements in mid-combat burst, would be welcome, especially for Concealment. Cull is incredibly bursty already (especially with the new proc) for Lethality, but Concealment does still need some tweaks for when entering Stealth isn't feasible. This is all undeniably true, but you still can't balance the game for the average. The fact that these games could occur is reason enough in and of itself to look for sane, measured adjustments to trollrolling to keep the ability strong and useful, but not uniquely able to decide the outcome of a RWZ game before it starts.

You misinterpreted. You could win a competitive ranked game on Voidstar, Novare Coast, or Ancient Hypergate without an Op/Scoundrel on your team. You have virtually no chance of winning Huttball or Civil War because the only effective counter-tactic is the tactic itself. 2 out of 5 possible WZ maps are essentially forfeits, and if all 5 WZ maps show up with an equal average frequency, you lose 40% of games against an otherwise evenly-matched team before the match even starts. Not even pre-2.0 Sith Warriors were that dominant in ranked play.

In a competitive game? The same things that happen now. The team with the ball first in Huttball scores and gains momentum, which, if they're worth their salt, they use to hold the lead throughout the game (by either scoring additional goals or denying momentum and offense to the other team). If they don't score, they still gain a momentum advantage which they can use to keep the other team playing reactively and defensively. In Civil War, you get the first shot at their ship, scrum endlessly for mid, and avoid losing your side at all costs. Game ends 10-0 after 20+ minutes of pointless fighting and hugely inflated scoreboard numbers. After the first 10 seconds, nothing changes, but that first 10 seconds changes everything, as they turn a coin-flip (which could be influenced by a variety of tactics and team compositions) which decides a match into a near-guarantee, provided one tactic and team member of the proper class/spec are utilized. In less competitive games (one-sided ranked games, PUG games) those advantages don't convey to near-certain victory, but at that point skill imbalance between teams and poor play tend to determine the outcome rather than team composition or single overpowered abilities. You can't balance a competitive game around the average, only ensure that it's fairly balanced when played by a group of average players.

And I completely disagree with what I've bolded in your post. Before 2.0 the DPS gap between Operative and not-Operative was immense. That gap has been closed significantly. The biggest things hamstringing Operative were lack of mobility (fixed, to an absurd degree, via Exfiltrate) and woefully inadequate DPS (addressed via changes to talent trees, especially around Laceration and Cull). I do think that Operative is an unfairly high skill floor DPS to be effective with, but the ceiling is no longer so low that it simply cannot be competitive in a DPS role. Aggravatingly, Concealment/Scrapper still can't match the burst of Deception/Infiltration, and an unfortunate component of that is how strong Hidden Strike is compared to Spike (theoretically compensated for, in part, by shorter CD, but hard to make use of in big scrums). The difference between Backstab and Maul is bordering on farcical and should be dealt with, but conversely Laceration is a fantastically strong filler attack now and far stronger than Thrash/Voltaic Slash. I don't mean to sound as though no balance work needs to be done in 2.0, because there absolutely does. I do think that making DPS balance changes now, before 55 PVP has had any chance to take something akin to its final shape, is premature. I also think that the mobility Operative has now is game-breaking and can be toned down to a reasonable level via minor tweaks that will not break the mobility of the class on the whole (e.g. <5 second duration buff associated with the troll roll that will lock out the skill at N stacks, most likely 3, until the buff expires). Because competitive games of Huttball and Alderaan Civil War are generally decided by first possession and first natural node cap, respectively. Trollroll nearly guarantees that these will occur for the user's team, and thus drastically imbalances those particular Warzones to a spectacular degree. Later in the game it becomes only shockingly strong (and comparable to Predation or Force Speed), but the existence of the skill in its current form reduces the number of effective strategies on 2 out of 5 WZs to basically 1.

That is a separate imbalance added in 2.0 which needs to be addressed, honestly. It is a lower priority, however, because it is less game-breaking and far more difficult to execute on demand in any situation. Frenzy's CD limits the effectiveness of chained Predation, as does the requirement to have 30 Fury ready to. Certainly an Op could be low on energy and limited in their ability to trollroll, just as a Mara could be short on Fury and unable to two-step Pred (or even use it at all, if Frenzy is on CD). On top of that, the most overpowered use of the two-step Pred is the start of Huttball, and it's still not fast enough to beat a trollroller to the punch. It may get you there fast enough to interfere with the first pass if you're lucky, but it may not. It doesn't hard-counter trollroll (nothing does except trollrolling). Range advantage and the size of Warzones frequently hard counter Predation. It is an amazing buff, and I don't mean to downplay that fact. It gives the team a huge advantage in mobility which translates to map control. It is inferior to trollroll in the single key manner that it is not capable of single-handedly deciding the outcome of a competitive game before it starts, even chained in 2.0. I suspect Marauder will continue to be a highly, and probably unfairly, popular class in RWZs, and that should be addressed by the developers, but it's not game-breaking in the way trollroll is.

We're arguing past each other at this point. I'm trying to make the point that gear-as-progression as a primary motivator for playing at all is ludicrous for a competitive activity, rather than competition as a primary motivator for playing. There are a ridiculous number of people (including the guy I originally quoted) who present PVP as not worth doing if there isn't a gear grind. That attitude boggles my mind. PVP is worth doing with or without a gear grind because it's not the grind that defines it, but the competition. What I'm trying to argue against is the idea that the grind is an essential component. I'm not arguing whether or not people will exploit any advantages available to them (they will) or that many games have systems to give people advantages (they often do). People don't play Madden competitively to get a better player on their roster. They do it to win a football game. People would still play the hell out of CoD, BF, etc. if all of the unlocks were cosmetic because those same people were playing other games, including other console FPS games like Halo, where that's all there was (if there were any unlocks at all). Thousands of games of StarCraft are played every day despite having no reward other than winning and the opportunity to play stronger enemies if you do. It's not my place to tell other people how to play, but I do fundamentally believe that it is destructive to the competitive aspects of the game to insist on gear progression in PVP. With or without gear progression, the success of SWTOR's PVP is going to be predicated on whether or not it fosters competition. If people don't feel like they can fight and win, they won't play. That is, and should be, where BioWare's efforts are focused, and how they go about doing it is ultimately secondary to whether or not they succeed.

Because neither was game-breaking. They conveyed significant advantage that made their use optimal, but their absence was not insurmountable. A team without a Juggy could win Huttball against an evenly-matched team with one, and a team without 80% movement speed buffs could still win against a team with them. It may put them at a disadvantage, sure, but not one so overwhelming that there simply was no recourse except mirroring the tactic. Trollroll is game-breaking. It conveys a significant advantage which can be completely insurmountable except via employing the same tactic. That's the core difference. Hybrid tanks in Huttball were not unbeatable. They were far and away the best ballcarriers, yes, but if you could still compete without them (albeit at a significant disadvantage). The absence of one was not an instant guarantee of failure the way Huttball currently is with a trollroller getting the ball initially. You gain such an advantageous position from an uncontested grab at the beginning that there's almost no recovery in a closely-matched game. Likewise for Predation... 80% movement speed buff is a huge advantage, but it can't instantly secure victory the way trollroll can right now. There are counters (including, but certainly not limited to, normal 50% Predation, Force Speed, etc.). Don't get me wrong here, I do think that Warriors in particular had an unfairly advantageous position when it came to team selection for RWZ, but they didn't provide an insurmountable advantage in WZs all by themselves. You could still have a successful team without them. Right now, you can't have a successful team without trollroll because the advantages it conveys have absolutely no counter other than mirroring the tactic. It is almost impossible to win 2 out of 5 WZs without trollroll if the other team uses it, and you can't be a successful team if you are effectively forfeiting 40% of your RWZs.