my fear with GSF is that since everything is 'standardize' it will be easier to balance. So the devs will throw everything they have to improve that blanaced play, and totally ignore pvp (or at least have a reason to ignore it like they are doing now).

at this point i'd be happy if they lowered the cooldown on backstab and/or removed the cooldown on shiv. That dead space in the middle of a 'rotation' is just freaking brutal to the flow. That being said, if they raise the dps up considerably, to where the best defense is a good offense, i'm fine with that. But then the QQ about stun-locks will rear its ugly head again. They we'll get a nerf something along the lines of '25% damage increase on backstab when AB is active, but also has a 75% chance to cause 100% reflective damage to OP, causing him to giggle while respawning..

depends on the spec. When I'm playing normals, I queue as engineer spec. And no one will cap a node where i'm hovering around, and i rarely die as well. eng kinda stinks in rated though. On my lethality sniper, i can dish out tons and tons of 'fluff' damage, more so than my sorc, tho my sorc can off heal and has better utility. my merc is average at best, but usually is the first to get focused and die in rateds.. All in all, play what you like. I like all three, depending on my mood. Though my sniper i respec all the time between the 3 specs depending on what i'm doing. my sorc stays as madness permanently (and perhaps my favorite) and i have two bounty hunters, one pyro and one arsenal. Tho i prefer the PT pyro spec better.

if you can get tweek, i'd highly recommend it. especially for levelling. Set him to tank, and you can backstab all day long. If you get a tough fight and/or you cannot upgrade tweeks gear right away as you level, switch him to heals and he shines there as well..

pvp is what it is, people summed it up quite nicely in this thread. My only input is that i wish the devs would put only half as much effort/resources into pvp than they put into the cartel market...

the ranked queue times were long, even before 2.0, due to players being scared of facing extreme premades. You had a few premades on which server that would never lose, so other guilds/premades never queued and opted for the regular queue. Now you can use the pretense that they wanted to play together, have fun, blah blah blah. But the fact is, they could play together in ranked and lose the majority of the time, or play in regular together and win the majority of the time. You can see which side held out... There are a bunch of folks they spout they would love premade vs premade. And i'm sure its true on some level. But there's always some elite premade that will roll the ranked queue easily, and these folks will lose alot and scurry back to the regular queue, their tails between their legs, hoping for a good old fashion pug stomping to reinflate their egos...

Here's a solution: keep premades in all queues, but if you queue solo, you get 5x+ as much money and comms for wins/losses then if you queue as a group. That way, the folks that are clinging to the line of 'i wanna play with my friends not pug-stomp, but too afraid to play ranked' can still play with their friends and pug-stomp and solo folks are compensated for the putting up with the disadvantages of facing said premades...

I agree thor, but that would require a developer to 'think outside the box' and apply some effort, which i have yet to see in any game. Don't get me wrong, i'd like to see it, but i wouldnt hold my breath. One thing i've learnt from this game is, that the devs equate pvp to 'sit-still-and-kill', and if you don't they code in some extra snares/slows/ccs to make sure you do. Hardly forward thinking, but then again, most mmos are like that...

until some new developer comes along with fresh ideas, world pvp will always fail, in any mmo. They could implement the best systems, achievements, quests, money, etc. But the fact is, its the players that destroy it. Majority of the folks are of the mentality that world pvp is just killing folks until they quit: whether that means rez camping, ganking over and over, ganking 6+ levels beneath you that doesnt have a shot (on a lowbie planet) or probably the biggest reason, bring 3x as many to gank a few. I've played many mmos, and love world pvp. But the fact is, you fight someone 1v1, it looks fair, then they call 5 of their buddies. ok, you call 5 of yours, then they gotta bring 10 more. World pvp is always always a numbers game, not a balanced pvp fight. Its like the wz-premade issue x10. Some folks will say to place some shiny valuable item in the world that force people to go there and pvp. ok, good idea in principle. Until you have an ****** guild with 10 folks just camping it 24x7. Then factor in expertise in gear that would cause all sorts of issues, and wpvp would never survive in this game..

or you could, with your many friends, get some courage and queue for ranked. Don't let the competetion and the possiblty of losing discourage you...

yes, i do. And i also know that do to the low pvp population, certain guilds can queue solo, get on the same team (or drop until they do) , and viola, premade...

or you premades could find some courage and play in the ranked queue and stay the hell out of the regular queue...But of course, you wont get easy wins in the ranked queues, so most premades wouldnt want that...

they need to make the roll concealment-only. or remove vanish from healing ops. way too many tools for the healing op to survive...

the queues will end up the same way AoC's pvp queues ended up: players took it upon themselves and just left when a premade was on the other side. Eventually, the premades had no one to play against, got bored and stopped queing as a group. eventually, premades in the regular queue died out.. (but so did pvp, but thats a whole different story there)

To be honest, its not that big of a deal, and in some cases, it helps. Standing on/next to another capper can make it difficult for folks to target both cappers in time to stop one of them capping. Also, what are you suppose to do if you dont have any cc's off cooldown? Whack at someone as they leisurely walk up and hit the capper? At least your doing something potentially useful. There are a few head scratchers in WZs for me: huttball when a stealth sits in endzone the entire match when their team cannot get/keep the ball. never understood the 1/7/0 strat in CW, but worse is the 6/0/2 strat and give up mid without a fight. these really gets me going: Novare at beginning, everyone jumps down, sees 1-2 reds heading to their pylon and all 8 charge the pylon, surrendering mid, letting them easily cap 4 orbs, etc. Novare: non PT's guarding the pylon by sitting on it, even after being told its not a great idea. any of the pylon ones when i'm on my stealthie, setup for a sap-cap, and some hero comes running up to the pylon with 20 secs to go in non-stealth, bringing all 8 of the enemy back...

its alot easier with range, as you can see the add to kill it quickly. Normally, charge in, get a couple of big hits ) but not ravage yet), after about 2-3 gcds he will cast extinction (or whatever its called). Use your interupt on that, then he'll use oblivion to knock you down. just eat the knockdown, charge in, then ravage. you'll get a message on the screen saying a tenatcle spawned. Use your throw on it (it will die in one hit). He wont cast the kd again, but will cast one more extinction (if you cannot dps him down fast enough). interupt that again, and tool on him. I use treek, outfitted with planteary comms as a tank in abosrb gear in tank stance. As long as i watch/kill the add immediately, and interupt the extinction cast, he's not too bad. treek never dies and if he gets close i can taunt aggro off him and he heals himself (i can use intercede as well to help him out). oricon is all about cc's and interupts. you have to interupt elite/champions big hitters if your soloing.

best you can do is stay alive as long as possible, and if possible, try to pull the other teams dps away from their healer before you bubble/die.

I'd say solo, as solo requires more intelligence (in general), the ability to adapt quickly and efficiently and more quick thinking on your own. When playing solo, if you want to win, you have to know the ins-n-outs of your own class, along with all the other classes, in addition to anticipating what your teammates skill level is, and what they may or may not do. Your pretty much on your own in terms how how you play, mistakes/strengths/etc. The good ones are better at adapting to random situations like no healers, no tanks, on teams that play like chickens with their heads cut off, etc. Grouping on the other hand, allows for a player to be carried by stronger teammates. It allows (assuming out of game comm) being told what to do, how to do it, who to focus, etc on the fly. If you need to adjust a strategy, or make a mistake or need to adjust quickly, its easier in a group. Also, with many groups, they play together alot, so they know each other well, and become dependent on the team to succeed. These folks, in general, have a hard time adapting to random WZs setups when they don't have their 'normal team setups' to rely on. This is in general terms of course. But too many times i see these elite folks kicking butt in premades, looking like unkillable forces of nature. Then when you pluck them into the solo queue, they are suddenly normal/slightly above average. Now they cannot be assured of a pocket healer, or a pocket tank. focus of the group might not be on the same enemy healer, etc They cannot adapt to changing/random WZ teams/. Many of these folks get frustrated, their ego bruised, leave the solo match and/or go to the forums and say how everyone is bad, how pugs stink, how pvp is dying, etc.

hrmm. that was one bad shadow. shadows are one of the two classes that can shrug off EN if they know what they are doing. EN is only good against inexperienced folks for the most part.

maybe thats your opionion, but rating doesnt mean crap to alot of people. Especially the solo queue. Solo ranking is just a crap shoot, just shows either how lucky you are getting decent teammates or how well you can beat the system until the devs patch it. Many people use ranked to get geared up. Now if your argument is that you should be full conq before playing ranked, then that i would agree with...

Nothing that a few or 10 more new cc's wouldnt fix. /sacarasm

takes too long to release class balancing patches. And your right, either they don't play the game, or are all PVE folks, who think that a great pvp enhancement is giving their favorite classes another snare, root or stun..

These devs sure do love their stuns/ccs. I'm beginning to think that many/all of them are really just pve folks that are use to mobs staying put in front of them, and when something 'moves' out of range, they need more cc to keep it still. They love CCs so much that even the oricon champions cast chain stuns...

i've seen this a few times myself. I'll be right on a non-stealth class heels, and all of a sudden, my target switches to another target, even though they are right in front of me still visible. Strange thing is, i cannot tab target to them either with them right in front me and no other reds in my frontal cone, it ignores them for a few secs. Eventually i just peel off or i get them through tab-targetting after about 7+ secs or so (i refuse to click target, heh). No just a sage, i've seen this on mercs and pts too. Could the pve skill to drop a npcs focus now be affecting pvp targetting? I havent really nailed it down yet on specific circumstances, although the most recent was a merc that did fire off that chaff skill before it happened (though that could just be a coincidence). I say its a new bug, or a new survival feature they didnt document. You know, like when a dev plays a WZ on their op healer and they die, and add in yet another counter to prevent that foolishness from happening again..

remove the only gap closer a warrior has? thats just stupid. they are already an auto-kill for snipers, and get destroyed by most range classes with all the roots now. Thats like saying remove force speed for sorcs, hyd override for bhs, combat vanish for sins, pull for pt,etc. Remove force leap but leave the roll for sniper/ops and force speed for srcs heh? Gee, i wonder what class you play..