If you don't like the cover mechanic but still want to play your sniper, Switch to the lethality tree. You can get away without using cover alot more than any other tree. I usually just drop down into cover to get a cull or series of shots off and then its back up and running around. it does sounds more like an issue with the playstyle. I cannot stand marksman personally but i will play lethality or engineering till my fingers fall off.

I tend to run a little low on the expertise in favor of main stat. My sniper has ~2000 Cunning and low 1200's expertise in full WH. My Juggernaut (tank/tank hybrid) runs in the low 1100s. The Mindset here are as follows: 1. that you are usually the last person to be attacked and there is no evidence that expertise effects damage coming though your guard. 2. If you are being focused by 3+ or more dps then, without a healer, its not going to make a difference. 3. You have enough defensive cooldowns between, saber ward, WZ adrenal, undying rage, Engraged Defense, Unstoppable, and invincible to make up for it and the added endurance from the PVE mods keep you standing longer. If your sitting with 26k Hitpoints, it give the healers more time to get the heals off while you are guarding them.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we don't really have a set time that we queue. If we have enough people on and a half-way decent composition, then we are usually a go. I wish you luck in all your future endeavors. --Megatog

I wish i could find the video of the team that dominated some huttball using nothing but controlling effects. It was a beautiful sight to behold and that is the aspect i like about huttball. Team coordination can overcome lack of DPS, or Heals or an overabundance of either on the opposing team.

Its not a fair comparison because of the AOE heals the sages can throw out. I think Mercs/Troopers do need a buff. Not to the 1.2 level but a nice balance. I wouldn't mind if they changed the bounty hunter (since i don't have a trooper) missles' bonus healing back up to where it was pre 1.2 and made the shell no heat again. This would help greatly to get merc healers back to at least competitive.

I have exclusively leveled up my past 2 characters though space dailies and warzones. With exp boosts and legacy xp boosts, the gap between it and PVE has been greatly reduced.

Competitive and more fun matches is what i say. That being said, if OP is in full BM gear, it is going to take you very little time to get into full WH. I would just consider yourself lucky as you will get WH gear alot quicker than you would if you would under the 1.5 system.

I do it all the time as well. My juggernaut can go from full min/maxed rage or vengeance with 19k hp to an immortal/vengeance hybrid (i like the 27/12/x) with 26.3k hp for huttball or defense. I have got the switch down to like 15 sec including switching all the gear, rearranging my hotbars, and clicking all the buttons. I don't think its that bad as everyone can do it but it certainly does favor us that have played more and have been able to acquire multiple sets of gear. That said, i think it should be removed from rateds but kept for normals. When half your group can be a pug, being able to respec to a useful/non-plentiful role goes along way for making the match less frustrating.

I love huttball the way it is. That being said, I would love to see more traps in warzones. Fire, acid, big swinging axes from teh ceiling. maybe even an indian jones style boulder that rolls though the middle of everything that would require you to get out of the way. These just add alot of fun to warzones. I was thinking of maybe an area similiar to huttball (i.e. multiple levels) where each team has 3 pedestals and you score points by keeping people on your opponents pedestals. The trick is that you cannot easily get from one pedestal to another moving side to side (meaning you cant just run back and forth, you would have to go back to a mid point to try to get back to where you would be good). Oh yeah, and some activation pads with cooldowns to activate certain traps (maybe some air vents, additional fire, stun traps, etc). You could even make these effect only the opposing team as long as they had like a 1 or 2 min cooldown. Something like this would benefit form all classes being in their group. Mercenaries large AOE knockback would help defend, pulls and pushes to control people, Snipers would have good control of access points, Stealthers great at taking/defending nodes. Since their are six nodes total, forces will be spread out more defending/attacking/bluffing. Just something i think would be fun.

I play to have fun. I got some good gear out of it. I have smashed people for close to 9.5k and they have died in the time it takes to leap/smash/vicious throw. This wasn't fun for anyone. So now they get gear and matches get more competitive. That is its own reward.

I can 5k tick on ravage in vengeance form (i think 7k is the highest i have ever gotten on a ravage tick) Carnage marauders can 5k with force scream too.

If you absolutely must have proof, ill bite. http://i.imgur.com/pkckw.jpg

Gear makes a huge difference as a sniper. I finally got my war hero gear and fully augmented it and i have to say I am a beast. I play either engeineering or Lethality trees. I just cannot get into the marksman play style. It gets better once you grind out the gear. In engineering i can frequently hit someone in heavy armor for 5k+4k+ with explosive probe/ambush. As lethality my crit rating is at 39.xx% (51.xx%) for poison effects, which allows Cull to hit like a truck.

If we don't have enough people or the comp for rateds we do whatever premade group we can to have some fun. Last night we did a sniper premade. In voidstar it was funny when there are 4 orbitals going off at once..

Darkness assassins in DPS gear are pretty stout in PVP but if you are set on changing to one of the two mentioned classes i would have to say Sentinel. They have three trees that are currently all in a good place. Guardians on the otherhand have one dominate tree with another mediocore damage tree and a tanking tree (not too useful in pvp) . They also have a tank/dps hybrid that is fun to play if you like playing a more supportive role.

This is just one of the unique abilities of the class. Not every class can ignore 100% of targets armor like carnage marauders can. Not everyone call pull friendly targets (sorc) or deny an area like an engineering sniper can. Its part of what gives each advance class its own flavor. Its fine against equally geared players and with 1.6 everyone will be equally geared to the point that you won't be able to make that argument anymore.

Adapting to what your enemy is doing is all part of strategy. If you know they are going to be smashing then you spread out. If you know they have an engineering sniper in voidstar, you have to make him a priority if you hope to cap the door on the side he is on. As a rage Jug I hate bubble stun of course. It takes away ~40% of my damage output potential. Its part of the game right now so you gotta deal with it. So if i have one, i put a ranged DPS as my Focus target and when i see their targets bubble go down i leap in and smash. My sniper gets hit for 6k smashes all the time if i let a Rage get close to me. I usually have to prioritize these guys in my kill order and they go down pretty easy. Jugs are not a great 1 vs 1 class and by staying grouped up you just make them better. They are the class that is most dependent on what their opponents are doing and their damage output is most effected by it. To me, this weakness more than makes up for the burst they have every 9 seconds.

This is the silly part. Juggs damage output is only as good as the enemy team is stupid. SPREAD OUT. Don't stand where 5 people can get smashed. Sure there are a few bottle necks in WZs but keep that to a minimum. Also, lets mention that in the 9 seconds smash is on cooldown, Juggs hit like a wet noodle compared to the other melee dps classes. It all builds up on one attack. Yes it hits hard. Yes it can hit alot of people if they bunch up. Its a burst damage ability and when factored in so that all damage is taken as a whole, they are on par with the other melee DPS classes.

I love this games PVP. The only stun i have a problem with the the "bubble Stun" sorc spec as it doesn't fill up enough resolve. CC makes the the game very tactical. Good CC wins games and punishes poor play. If you run in solo and get stun/killed by a couple people, it not really the stuns fault.

I have a fully Min/maxed smash Juggernaut and against most equally geared players (i.e. Full Warhero) and i hit in the 5-6k range. If they have some armor debuffs that moves up to 6-7k'ish depending on their armor type. If they are silly enough to come into WZs without any expertise then http://i.imgur.com/SkIEG.jpg awaits them. This is roughly 18-25% of most players hitpoints (again, equally geared) which to me sounds fine. I seen people talking about merc back after 1.2 and the problem there was that multiple debuffs stacked allowing for huge crits (i think i recall getting 8k hits back then when the majority of peoples health was in the 12-15k range. This wasn't fine in my opinion as it was over 50% of their total pool.

But the stat difference is so minimal that it doesn't really matter if you don't grind it out. I for one will be becuase i like having the best but others won't have to do this to be competitive. Hopefully it will help the ranked scene. Taking away gear access as a barrier to entry.

The difference was back then everyone had 10-12k health and now its around 20k. The comparison is apples to oranges when ops could tkae away 50-60% of your life and kill you before their knockdown was over verses an attack that does 20%-30% that is followed up mediocre attacks.

Gernades are part of what make PvP in this game strategic and fun. They are available to everyone either though crafting them or purchasing them for a low price on the auction house. If you are in a decent PVP guild, you probably have access to hundreds in the guild bank. In close games, the proper use of CC wins objectives. This is a strategic point that many "bads" don't understand. They throw their CC out all willy nilly and get frustrated when they can't cap a node or they get stunned and cannot prevent a cap. Get some gernades, learn to use them, and profit.

Ill call up Jerome. I am sure he knows some ladies that wouldn't mind joining us.

What this guy said. There is a reduction in the global cooldown on those channels.