they really need to make backstab on par with Maul: both in terms of damage and cooldown. The problem they have with balancing the op's dps is the cc's the op has. Too much burst allows ops to stun-lock folks into death, which isnt a good thing. Lower the cooldown on BS, change stim boost into a 'recklness' type skill that increases the damage and/or crit chance on BS, and change claculated frenzy into lowering CD on stim boost. Heck at this point, i wouldnt mind if they made the knockdown completely fill resolve (to prevent the stun-lock chance), with some significant burst capability..

since the change to most stuns/ccs to be in melee range, give the ball to a trooper/bh and you better hope you have someone right on his behind, or he'll waltz into the endzone, since he cannot be slowed/stopped with the ball..

it would be interesting to see how they spin this for the subscribers. What, exactly, does my monthly subscription get me nowadays? Everything new goes on the cartel market, since i solely pvp new operations do not mean much to me personally. So i guess they duped me and when this model comes out, I can go f2p and not lose any of my pvp.

i usually agree with you on your posts, but don't you think that having an Aoe mezz, a combat vanish and now a scamper is a tad much for escaping tools? A sorc has force speed, thats about it. dunno why its 100% needed. I couldnt care less about scamper. What they should do is modify the HoT. Either make it cost alot more energy to cast, give it a 1 sec cast time, make it NOT grant a TA, or make it only casttable on one target at once (like interrogation probe).

the issue with ops is the way TA is generated. When played right, they never, ever run out of TA. And since the resource management is broken, they can HoT everyone on the team and have endless TA generated. Thats the difference between OPs and sorcs/commandos. Sorcs run outta force and can be interuptted. Commandos run outta ammo and can be interuptted. OPs have nothing to interupt for the most part as everything important is instant. And they never run out of energy unless they scamper too much. Oh and if they do run low, they have a skills to instantly replenish their energy. As i recall, a sorc does have that luxury, nor the luxury of vanishing or Aoe mezz. and their force speed can be stopped by cc, not so much with scamper, or at least not easily. Sorcs lost their instant WW, and their 4-sec stun is on a 45 sec timer spec'd. As i recall, the op AoE FB is alot lower than that. No, OPs have more resource management and more ccs than the other 2 healers. The biggest side-effect problem with OPs is that they can indefinately hold an object-oriented WZ solo for large periods of time, through vanish+sleep+healing+low cc cooldowns. other two healers do not have that luxury...

If they cast force barrier, heal up and time it so that immediately after the bubble goes down, you cc them. 99.9% of all sorcs with use force speed after barrier ends, then their self heal. If its static barrier you are referencing, use a secondary dps skill for your class to pop the button. for example, as a marader i'd use dual throw, then once the bubbles down, snare them into a big burst skills. i'd recommend making a sorc to see what its like and how it plays, strengths and weaknesses.. They are relatively easy to beat, although you have to be at the top of your game to beat the really good kiting ones. No way a sin should lose to a madness sorc 1v1 (with no other of the sorcs friends around) assuming you have your cds. Sin has the immunity/cleanse for dots, enough ccs/interupts/snares, speed boost to catch them when they run,vanish and huge burst to destroy madness sorcs into little pieces. This is from a deception perspective. I do not have expereicne with madness/tank specs for sins to know if its harder/easier to take them out.

That is kinda harsh. I would not blame other people for being 'bad'. everyone has good days and bad days. There are days when i will stomp any and everyone. There are others where i'm distracted, been drinking a little too much, overtired, bored from too many wzs in a row etc.. no, the blame sololy lies with the way the WZs are developed. No matchmaking, not making ranked popular enough to get premades out of regular wzs, allowing premades in regulars wzs, balancing team makeups, imbalances in certain classes making objective oriented pvp boring/pointless, etc. The biggest blame on bioware though, is the lack of communication from BW to the player-base. To PvP effectively (at the highest level) nowadays, you have to be really hardcore: you have to know how to manipulate bolster, how to gear properly, how to take advantage of questionable skills/programming, etc. This knowledge is not communicated to all the player base, even on the forums. Many players hoard the information to maintain the advantage. Its hard for everyone to get to a really high level of pvp unless your connected/in a large guild/etc..

I've started the same thing myself. I do not mind losing, or legimately getting stomped. But when i enter a WZ and theres a premade on the other side and 4 people simultaneously leap and vaporize me over and over, i get more fun sitting at the fleet surfing the gtn. Only other time i will leave is when the other team has 2+ op healers and tanks. pointless playing any objective game with those overpowered class combinations around, unless your pug team has the same makeup (which they normally dont).

perhaps rather than twinking in the lowbies, you could put on your big boy pants and graduate to 55 and start a whole new whiner thread about that level? Personally, I think pre-55 wzs are infinitely more fun than 55, at least after 2.0. So much so, that when i hit 55 i usually park the toon and start another one, and only play the 55 to get dailies out of the way (if that)

i may be the only one, or in the minorty anyway, but more heals would be ess fun to me. No one dies, its just a big circle jerk where dps numbers are inflated, objectives get ignored, etc. I dunno how a team with 3 healers could lose a vs, unless they played really really bad. One op healer can completely prevent one door from ever being planted, if that op healer plays smart and doesnt go into tank mode (or start healing folks). The other two, if they cross heal correctly, should be able to guard the other, with dps cc'ing peeling properly Only time i can remember when the team with the most healers loses a VS is when neither team can open the first door and you lose by the tiebreaker. Other than that, the team with the most healers will almost always win unless that team either over-rotates, healers dont disperse to separate doors or the healers heal the dps rather than cross heal each other. or they are just plain bad. pvp in this game is getting really stale lately. Before, it was the gear gap that really made the difference. now its just the team with the most healers. What i'd like to know is what you get an imp v imp game, and one team has 3 healers and the other has none. The matching algorithm is broken..

many mmos sound great on paper. the devs and product marketting say all the right things getting the hype up. then fail to deliver what they have been envisioned. Look at Age of Conan. It was suppose to revolutionize pvp. Look at the features the devs were promoting. On release, i recken a 1/3rd of those features were available. 3 years later, they may have gotten 1/2 of those features released. The rest were shelved/canned and the result was a mediocre experience..

i did it once, didnt touch pve except for the starter planet to get to 10. No ship, 2 companion, etc. Early levels you fly through levels. once you get to ~35, it slows down considerably. My other toons i solely pvp, but i run just the class mission to get companions. YOu have to pve in the current stat of this game. You need money to compete. No matter what people say, you NEED to augment your gear at 55 to compete, you lose so much health/dmg if you don't. And even the mk-9 and blue augs are really expense, at least on my server. Plus you need datacrons to boost your pvp dmg/health/etc.

Good points, but its still much much easier to call focus on a healer in voice chat, especially when there are more than 1 healer marked (as is the case lately), which one to focus first, etc. But the other big aspect of voice comm is coordianting ccs and interupts.

i hope i'm wrong, but i'm seeing alot of 2xsmashers + 2 op healers on these 4v4 arenas...

You can cleanse the slow but not the damage. So you can do a full roll, just cannot stay stealthed...

ops have two methods to instantly cleanse those snares, one on a low-cd. Electronet is the easiest skill to purge. If a PT is on me and spamming FB, a simple exp+vanish+roll away, all of which are on a low cooldown. Now if they made EN non purgable, then you would have a hard counter, though the cooldown on EN makes it a vanity skill more than useful most of the time..

i despise nar shadda. I even end up parking my toons during those levels i hate this planet's layout so much...

I use it all over the place. You can use FB to get some ticks off it. On my sniper, i'll use the kb to knock folks into the blast radius as well. But in general: 1. Use it to move people: start the cast and abort it. Just starting it usually makes people scatter. great for non-choke points when you know people wont stay in the radius but you want them to move. 2. Drop it on your healer. This is win-win. Either people will run away, giving your healer breathing room, or they will eat the damage. OS + FB to give your healer some respite. 3. Drop it on yourself. juggs and marauders love to eat OS for some reason. entrench+SP+OS+ep+whatever is enough to make maraduers/juggs come screaming to the forums to qq about those OP ops/snipers. if your a sniper, aim in the corner and roll for added burst add use PP. 4. When a plant in VS is made, you know they will go for the door. Plant it on the door (i usually sit in it when on my sniper). 5. in huttball, use it around the firepits, when enemy has ball and you know they need to cross a pit. or when your ball carrier is snared to hell (which is usualy always) drop it on the carrier. 6. In AG, drop it on one of the entrances to mid at end of the rounds. As the enemy comes in, flashbnag them to get a tick or too on them

focus the healer...good thought in theory, but lately there are 3+ healers on each team, all of whom are marked. Without being in a premade and being in vent, how can you focus on the right one in real time? Which marked healer takes priority? Thats the advantage of being in a premade over a pug...

could always remove the healing boost from expertise from normal warzones for healers, and just apply it to rated, if rated is the defacto first-class citizens of the swtor pvp world. Then again, it seems normal wzs pop alot more than rated, so maybe they should balance it the other way around first..

i don't understand the comparisions between the sorc and op healer. In my humble opinion, the sorc healer is where all healers should be at balance wise. Yes, the good ones are tough to kill, but they can also be killed. 1 dps can neutrialize a sorc healer, if equal skill. You cannot neutralize an op healer 1v1, they can tank you and keep their whole team up through hots and instants (TA generation is really what makes this OP over the top). Against a sorc healer, as a dps you can: pressure with damage. cc heals, interupt heals, beat on them until they run outta force. If they flee with force speed, you can cc/snare/root them. If they invun bubble, you can sit there and cc/blow them up when it ends. good ones kite, but if your good, you kite with them and its possible to kill them. Against an op, you cannot cc them during their roll. you can snare them, but they have 2 methods to purge that on low cooldowns. their main heals/hots are instant, nothing to interupt. you can cc them when <30, but good ones are prepared for that with their anti-cc and their ccs. they can vanish making you auto-switch targets off them. Yes, you can burn them down when focused with+ folks, but 1v1, no way should they be able to tank 1 and still heal everyone. They should have to be healing themselves only at that point. And assuming they don't overuse roll, will never run out of energy. This is just 1v1. Put a guard on my op healer and you better send 4+ people focusing me to burn me down. Its like the developers sat down and took every conceivable way an OP could take damage, be cc'd, etc and gave them a counter for every single one of those instances.

i do this as well. Once you use all your saved up ranked on ear and 2ximplants, buy 2 pieces of partisan gear for the 2-set bonus. Then do weekly/dailies buying partisan gear with regular. once you have enough ranked from dailies, get the relics. I usually get the weapon after the 4-set bonus (getting 4 non-chest pieces) and save the offhand for last, but thats just me.

i think healing in general should be baselined to where the sorcs/sages are now. Bring commandos up to that level, drop OPs down to that level, etc. Its tough to 1v1 a sorc, but 1 dps can neutralize a sorc's healing without killing them, forcing the sorc to run/only heal themselves. its also possible to kill them outright 1v1, eventually, with timely interupts and/or them running out of force. 2+ dps focusing a sage/sorc results in a dead sorc most of the time, or at least a sorc on the run and useless to their team. Now fighting the op 1v1 is ridiculus. One DPS is a gnat to an OP, who can just ignore that dps and still heal the their team. 2 dps can force the op to kite a bit and heal themselves, but they can still heal their team outright. nothing to interupt, too many cc/s and def skills,e tc. 3+ dps can be an issue, but with the aoe cc, vanish, roll and other cc's, they can kite and still heal their team until the dps is peeled off. The biggest issue with OPs no one seems to mention, aside from energy management, is TA generation. I can HoT the entire team, which in turn results in constant auto-TA generation and keeps my TA stacks full at all times, letting me spam instant heals as needed while kiting. So even when focused by 3+ dps, i can keep my entire team up with hots/instant heals and use my almost infinite supply of energy for rolling/kiting/hots/touch-up-heals.

What about: 1. give conceal ops and decep sins a skill (top tier) that removes HoTs. 2. give anni marauders and veng juggs a top tier skill (to keep away from smashers) that negates/removes guard 3. Give pyro BHs and carnage marauders a top tier skill that lets them not be affected by taunts when used.

what they really need to do is (using empire class as eaxmple, apply to pubs mirror class) is something like: 1. give conceal ops and decep sins a skill (top tier) that removes HoTs. 2. give anni marauders and veng juggs a top tier skill (to keep away from smashers) that negates/removes guard 3. increase/add energy needed for instant heals. 4. Give pyro BHs and carnage marauders a top tier skill that lets them not be affected by taunts when used.