Metals are capped at 4 and ppl are still going to QQ? On my server (Gauntlets of Kreesh, pve) the lvl 50 pvp is good and been better since 1.1.5. People are mostly reasonably skilled and the newbs often balance out between factions. Some imp guilds feel the need to always pre-made up and queue for hours, facepwn solo queuers a few hours til we get a nasty range/healer imbalance and the melee train gets derailed in record time. But a majority of the time its an interesting fight and thats the way I like it. Rolling a lousy/unorganized/newb heavy team is fun like once a day. Ditto on some newb that stalks me in a fight. Drop him once, continue on with getting objectives done. PvPers that want to facepwn all day long on newbs baffle me. You prove you can do it once, now you need it do it X hundred times? I'd rather take the challenge of variety in my matches.

Yeah I'm a hypocrite myself and use the raidbar But I am a spot healer in PvP mostly. In a main healer role, its worth learning the F#'s because its 2 buttons and 1 hand.

Need to use your keyboard to heal folks, F1-8. Mouse clicking is asking for movement, jumps, pushes, etc. to make targeting someone a challenge that can take 1-10 seconds.

Yeah we're horrible. I'll go back to being an unstoppable healer running and keeping my whole team up now thanks. With AoEs and stuns out the wazoo to boot. The tips on here about casting triage on the run and making time for sabo charge are just added boons.

That made my day. You are my hero!

Yeah you need to take the lead if no one else is bro. Call out the strats the imps are using pre-game. Melee train or heavy pew pews? who are their healers? stealther numbers? what strat has worked against them? Then if your team ignors you, you can log and do something else knowing you aren't part of the problem. Pub numbers/ gear on my server have wild fluxes too based on time. I have had high crits vs. pubs in huttball that had to be new 50's and wondered how can their gear be THAT bad? Think the imps even made the situation worse with seemingly obvious mules with names like traitorus, plsfarm, or deadweight , etc. to throw games. Hmmm... what do you mean? Traitorus is... a traitor? Ahh, the joys of playing versus 20 hour day gamers that bore easily.

With a premade, I run to the goal line fastest way possible and stealth up. My guardian bubby can jump to me from pit in stealth without even needing to pass it to me.

Team up is the quickest fix. Find a guildie or pickup partner if you get stuck on something. I ended up out-leveling content pretty quickly so I was 3-4 levels minimally over quests from space combat & warzone xp gains.

A little late but you don't want the centurion relic, it doesn't have expertise :-( The champ one is cheap too at 24 champ tokens for 48 expertise.

Good ideas on Kolto Cloud and it is set to get a boost in 1.2. Maybe a long channeling time on Diagostic Scan to have it closer to Commando ability but can end it if needed? I don't think that the speed increase is enough on Dodge spec ability or it isn't working. Like a base 30% and up to 50% would make it of more use.

I have ran 3 tree spec and its good for DPS/ backup healer role (PvE). Mainly b/c some of the better +damage skills are lower in the trees. I eventually dropped sucker punch for black market mods and just used Quickshot in that part of the in melee range damage rotation, but the damage can't be that different on a pve mob that just eats it. I've been complimented on my pve DPS because I can DoT up in closing to melee range then rotate melee abilities to their best potential. Often my guardian buddy has to peel bosses off of me from damage rotations. Extra heals are always nice to brunt force through burst damage in a new encounter rather than try a better tactic on the fly. Especially with voice chat to your groupmates, you can be a good addition to any team and own any content. Don't marry a spec though, they are cheap to change or wait out a week for a freebie.

The snare on shrap bomb only really helps a good bit in Huttball on ball carriers, unless you are with range heavy DPS in ops group. Melees have jumps & range just turret fire on someone else than be kited by you. The damage is nice when you get it on to 3 targets. I believe that the numbers/cost on wounding shot is garbage. Like bottom of pve rotation extra burst needed at energy problems cost bad. Hemo blast too many conditions to work well PvP too...DoTs, Upper Hand, 10m.

A great game until you add the human factor into it.... Faction imbalances messing up server pops. Server pops from too high to too low. Hardcore PvPers pushing the envelope and video posting it for the masses to copy. Ilum attempted as a fix for lack of content for powergamers but the engine couldn't handle it. Too much PvP focus for great PvE game (lacking in difficulty but not that much) Bad PR from first nerfs and valor exploits. Generally way too high of expectations for a game that is under constant updating. ROFL the QQers in this game wouldn't have lasted 2 hours a decade+ ago in EQ release with naked corpse recovery for gear, xp loss on dead, shared instances with mobs that didn't go back to spawn & made trains of 20+ mobs in xp area entrances that shut it down for hours, travel times of hours and seemingly weekly updates to class balance that could make you regret thousands of hours of game time. If you died once in 2 hours of grinding you broke even on xp. Time is on their side. The powergamers will go elsewhere, finish those games and then come back if the product improves (and it will).

I still can survive well in Voidstar b/c the retreat lanes are to mid on defense and walls on offense to LoS and heal/medpac up. New tactic for the stalk tonite will be to circle from mid to get to healers rather than trying to burst down melees on the ropes & get AoEed half the time. Surviving to pop shot cappers is best way to defense now, but I suspect that 1st attacker set will win 3/4 or more of the time pug'ing. Less 0-0 ties at least.

You learn ways around the problems you are having. Don't bother healing someone that is getting focus fire and not burning defensive cooldowns. They will only die a bit slower like you said. Use flash grenade versus packs to slow them down instead. Defensive cooldowns are how you are losing to enemies at 20% health too, use yours (defense screen, dodge, escape if stunned), snare and kite until their ones are down. Mostly just play with your team and know going in that their contribution is equal to yours for winning and losing. Don't take losses personally.

I respecced to Full Scrapper to screw with the imps on my server, from HoTs & DoTs heal/Aoe build that is mostly at 30m range save cleaning up targets. I finally have enough champ gear and biochem items to not embarass myself. 4.5k-ish was my best yesterday with everything popped - relic,adrenal, stim. Not crazy damage but the knockdown makes follow-up damage land well so the stalking was ok. The poor imp healers must have invented new swear expressions after the bursts/deaths. Some notes: Got some crazy differences in ranges of push on the knockdown from like a drop in place to 15m. Others experiencing this? Stalking is a real pain in Voidstar from aoes and small combat area. It sux b/c it was fun with hots&dots from good mobility. Civil War rocks on the other hand. Get speed buff, invis, size up battle and make someone go grey. I may only have the patience for a few days of this. Pre-fight its relic, adrenal, flechette, sneak & defense screen (situationally), then in fight its shoot first, backblast, dirty kick,blaster whip, sucker punch. I have the buttons running in sequence and ranged stuff in another area, but its like trying to play piano for an orchestra. Might be nice when we can have dual specs to go EMP/Shrap bomb hybrid and Scrapper as my specs.

You are still lacking some of our best damaging abilities at lvl 30 - Shoot First at 36 and Freighter fly-by at 48. PvE shouldn't be that hard so long as you are using our CC abilities, e.g. tranq shot, slice droid and flash grenade to divide and conquer groups of enemies. Dodge & Vanishing Act get you out of most fights that aren't going well and then heal and re-engage. Scrapper spec is good until early in the 50's bracket when you need to get to expertise to even up your gear with other Pvpers. Healing or hybrids w/ at least SRMP work better at that time to stay out of melee range more. If you train in Biochem & get reusable medpacs/adrenals, you will be fine with most builds after matching gear with other players. Huttball will be always be painful at times but we're serviceable if you stick to the middle and off the ramps at the sides healing on offense/CCing healers on defense.

Also its not like we don't have abilities at range if someone makes a gap from melee... vital shot, thermal nade, sabo charge, heals if needed & shrap bomb if specced. We aren't true range DPS but we are far from helpless.

No love for this comment? Best sarcasm I've wrote in weeks!

Now go home and get your shinebox, Gus.

Rumor is that the next PvP set is going to gap 49-50 expertise gap easier. Even if its for war hero, the jump between champ and BM is really small enough that you would need a calculator to notice the difference. I imagine it would be more show than substance.

I agree with the other posters. It can sometimes confuse the enemy at the start of a voidstar/CW war zone group encounter because its not that hard to coordinate out of the gate. I just type "Group invis on me to left/right/mid" Just expect mixed results. First time it happened to me I thought they were all stealthers ;-) Its worth the extra 10s of walking to perhaps confuse defenders where the main attack is coming. People in the 50's bracket have usually seen it before and don't wig out.

ROFL, prove Scoundrel and Operative numbers are decreasing. I'm guessing you have weeks of server snapshots across all servers to back this claim....<crickets> /ignor

Dude you are right, 4 people focus firing you should all be stunlocked until you can fight them 1 on 1 at full health with all cooldowns. If you are losing an "I Win" button should pop up to save you some face and it zaps them down. You should also adjust your tinfoil hat before the government melts your brain.

The pass to goal line stealther works on the fly well and is really cool for rescues when you don't even have to break stealth. Just run ahead of team mates a bit. Camping there isn't viable long term. My spec is SRMP and Feelin' Woozy shrap bombs for snare so I can do well on defense & healing on offense from the sides of the pits of the ball carriers, even if I get pushed off platforms. Full Scrapper build is rough going. Can mostly try healer hunting/ stunlocking to help objectives.