It does all seem like yet another player-blind move by an MMO developer.

I presume you mean why do people who WANT TO PLAY pvp hate what's going on, rather than why do people who don't play it hate it. Because the ones that don't play it or don't want to obviously don't complain about it. The previous poster is right, its partly a resources thing (more people PvE) and partly an "ego" thing - getting beaten by a player is not the same as wiping to a boss. Wiping to a boss is solvable. Get better gear; learn the tactics, try something different. Losing to a player may not be or feel solvable (it may be that your whatever class/spec just cannot beat their whatever class/spec in this iteration because of class balance issues.) The main reason though is that pvp will always create perceived or actual unfairness. Without passing judgement on whether these are real issues (lots of debate), this unfairness can be things like: Bad gearing iteration - you can only get gear don't content you don't want to do (try getting a gear set via just doing unranked warzones.........now try doing pvE content) Gear gap affecting play - no matter how skilled you are, the other player has a 10% advantage due to their pvE sourced gear Bad class balance, fixed really slowly. E.g. Huttball becomes Operavtive Ball as operative double roll and positioning means side with best operative wins; skank tank issues; stalemate unkillable healer issues etc Bad queuing systems: - allowing premades on teampseak into unranked, basically like joining a casual tennis club and being paired with a professional player every match - arenas where you get tank-heal -dps x 2 versus 4 dps, or 4 x 3 etc - lack of choice over matches - solo ranked is a terrible iteration of competitive pvp This is just a starter list and I am not arguing for or defending any of this. The main point though is that in pvp you expect a level playing field and its just not possible to deliver one. Whenever it doesn't feel fair, people get upset. Fed up with crap arena matches? Unfair > upset Fed up your beloved spec is useless in pvp? Unfair > upset Fed up that operatives dominate huttball? Unfair> upset Fed up that your unranked match is just your team being relentlessly kill farmed by 4 ranked veterans connected on teamspeak? Unfair> upset. None these issues really apply in PvE. And the last thing is, we get upset because we're passionate about it and want it to work. Pvpers love pvp. When you get a good match, there's nothing like it. So we keep coming back for more and moan on the forums when it feels unfair. That's why. Now bring back pvp gear:) haha

I like the ability to run around while using it - great in warzones. But yeah, it looks hideous. When that backpack comes out I look like a "one man band". Add a drum and a pair of cymbals and you're there. And then the back pack miracuolously disappears again. Yuck. My suggestion would be changing OILFIRE. We already have oil slick /oilfire in tank spec. Fire slick would be where we oil slick then ofc set that oil on fire and available to all specs. The tank version could have a suitable debuff and with dps specs you could perhaps have a skill or utility which added a slow. E.g. OILFIRE Deploy an oil slick which is ignited by sweeping flames, causing X damage over Y seconds to all enemies who remain in the slick. I mean, if we're gonna spray oil everywhere we may as well burn it.

I actually use it in warzones and have saved a fair few players.........e.g that ranged dps suddenly being jumped on by 3 melee - suddenly those melee get me carbonising them while the ranged guy gets to run away for a heal. But if I were to replace it, it should be something that helps another player not me as a tank. Suggest applying the equivalent of a sorc shield - roots the player but makes them invulnerable? That way they have a few seconds closer to their DCDs coming back. I could shield them, jump in and debuff the enemy while they're safe,

Thank you that makes a lot of sense.

Thank you that is very helpful

Thank you I didnt know that

So I run various toons and my favourite SWTOR activity is unranked warzones. In reading all the guides I can, with alacrity I am told you have to hit specific thresholds to hit GCD targets. For example, to reduce GCD from 1.4 seconds to 1.3 seconds you have to specifically get 1213 alacrity or whatever. OK, so what I don't understand is - does alacrity not increase at all if you don't hit these? If I put half the points needed to get GCD from 1.4 seconds to 1.3 seconds, wont I just achieve 1.35 seconds ? Also it it capped? I play a madness sorc - if I just max out alacrity on every enhancement, augment, earpiece etc wont I just get superfast? any help appreciated

thanks for spotting this, hope the devs pick it up.

I find arsenal merc kind of "meh" in unranked WZ. It will do the job, but pretty non exciting and other ranged DPS classes have better sets (like the sniper one that gives entrench forever and makes entrench a damage boost.) I go IO in unranked as its a nice combination of DOT and burst. DOT is helpful as if you are playing LOS wars with an enemy, they can be hiding behind their pillar still taking your damage while you're hiding behind yours healing up. It also puts out better AOE for example for enemies grouped around objectives. Also it's just more fun. For example your regular missile can gain volatile warhead which increases its damage and makes it a viable finishing move. Add that to the utility based root or even experiment with Missille backblast tactical for a knockback and troll away. It has fewer defensives than arsenal and a harder rotation, but overall I really like it. Set bonus is concentrated fire - again an advantage as you don't have to argue like Arsenal over whether Apex Predator is better. CF really helps the spec because (3) energised charges is a great tactical, boosting your supercharged burn. EC should be your default tactical. This means you have a set designed to boost supercharge and a tactical designed to make the effects of supercharge twice as good = profit. Supercharged burn is a way better result of supercharge than the arsenal version. Utilities - For me i think there's a wide variety depending on your playstyle. In tier 1 I always take jet escape and afrerburners for the cool downs and missle root. In masterful I think energy rebounder and power barrier are crucial for DR. Jet Rebounder will further boost your set and tactical bonus by giving you 2 supercharge stacks on jet boost. In heroic trauma regulators and other defensive stuff is really important. Alacrity - I've been playing at the first threshold. I've had other toons and experimented with higher alacrity but the loss of crit never seems worth it. The exception is on madness sorc where high alacrity did seem to work - but madness is awful in pvp compared with lightning atm anyway. Can't help you about ranked.

I enjoy getting to grips with how IO works in warzones - like it better than boring old arsenal. I agree with the other poster on the need for the central burst window of TD> MS > PS > MS As you get MS detonating TD, proccing insta power shot then proccing another MS. Also, using that lovely tactical you have, along with the Concentrated Fire set bonus, means that adding electronet and supercharged gas not only buffs your electronet DOT but also gives you a first autocrit MS. Fun times:) It can be worth throwing in a fusion missle if you're unpressured and heat OK (which I often use PS for) before dropping supercharge so that gets a buffed burn too. With luck then your Gas Cylinder, SS, IM, electronet, FM and supercharged burn all get a few seconds of 10% buff - a wopping 40% on a low health target. With the Concentrated Fire Set I play around with the utility where jet boost gives me 2 stacks of supercharge, as much more than arsenal, IO benefits from its supercharge ability especially with energized charges. I think its OK to be relaxed about the possibility of interrupts on things like SS. For one thing you want to save insta procs for your burst. Just get positioned right for hard casting if possible - hide a bit! don't be afraid to have to hard cast; just use your interrupt blocks when pressured and you have no choice rather than habit. BTW some great fun in warzones like huttball and voidstar is the missille backblast tactical which knocks folks back. Take that with the root utility, knock someone into acid and root them, fun times. Especially if that missile happened to be volatile:) Now one thing I wrestle with is whether to take the shield utility which gives you DR when using power shot etc. In arsenal this makes sense as you spam the same missile ability loads; in IO I don't seem to use power shot enough or early enough in the rotation to ever reach 5 stacks..... Oh yeah, and the one thing I always forget is that if I remembered to DOT spread with fusion missile, then sweeping blasters triggers supercharged burn on everyone hahaha. So many times I overlook that. peace out

OP I think your post is quite balanced and well intentioned, and your frustration at the state of solo ranked is evident. My own experience of solo ranked after playing loads of unranked, being fully geared with the right stats and right tactical/ right legendary amplifiers, was instant toxicity just because I was new and unknown and had no ranked experience. There was certainly no space to learn from any mistake or get advice. I was insta vote kicked while dead between rounds (when that was a thing.) The truth is anyway I don't care for arena and don't have the time to invest in a ranking (not that I would probably achieve much) (I would loved ranked warzones) so I'm probably not your target audience here. Although if you are serious and there are indeed players like you who want to bolster the ranked community by training noobs and showing them stuff then you must be as rare as hen's teeth and that would have made a lot of difference to players like me. I suspect though that the bottom line is that yours and other solo ranked players' frustrations at noobs is entirely misdirected. The frustration is caused by the system itself. Solo ranked at the end of the day is just an extremely silly way to create a competitive pvp environment, and investing any energy in such a bad iteration is a total waste of time. Of course it will lure the underprepared and those not looking for ranking, just for dailies, mats, practice, whatever. By its very nature it's self defeating. It will always be like some people wanting to host a fine dining experience with a Michelin chef and black tie, only to find that several folks in jeans have also turned up wanting pizza. The other thing is of course this is what we do for fun. It's not a professional competition - the rewards are virtual, and the bottom line although this may sound harsh, is that we all pay our subs equally and no player needs to listen to any other player's advice or take into consideration anyone else's goals in the game at all. If someone wants to spend their evening playing solo badly , and they derive entertainment and value for their sub over it, that's their prerogative. (No, I don't mean deliberately trolling and throwing matches.) Which is why really this should be about the player base engaging with the devs, not with each other.

Hi there, I wonder if better players than me could help with my using volatile strike with concealment. My focus is unranked warzones and very light PvE. I like the idea of the volatile strike tactical but I get so confused as to when to use abilities in what order: If I have this right then Stim Boost boosts alacrity Backstab applies acid DOT Backstab gives 10% crit boost for 15 seconds Backstab increases Armor Penetration by 30% for 15 seconds Volatile Substance boosts elemental and internal damage by 7% for 45 seconds ( presume this means acid, your dart and VS itself) Volatile Substance when detonated makes your next backstab better, as if it was from stealth Veiled Strike boosts tech damage by 5% for 45 seconds ALSO Laceration gets a 10% buff "if effected by Acid Blade." ***Does this laceration buff just mean effected by the 6 second acid poison or does it mean effected by the 15 second armor penetration??*** Then along with all this the tactical Makes Veiled Strike auto crit if you've applied Volatile Substance Insta detonates volatiile substance This makes your next backstab critically hit. So reading all this makes my head hurt:) OK, so when I open an attack, I could Stim Boost for alacrity and TA Backstab from stealth: Gives TA, applies Armor Penetration and poison. But it wont benefit from Veiled Strike's 5% tech buff Apply volatile substance which will now have a plus 10% crit chance from back stab Apply veiled strike, this will crit and explode volatile substance, and will benefit from Armor Penetration get my next backstab to crit from the tactical and also be treated as from steatlh because of revealing weakness from volatile substance But the negative side of the above seems to be - Backstab wont benefit from 5% tech buff If Im too slow or interuppted then my next backstab won't crit from the tactical as there is a time limit on that Or I could Stim Boost Apply Volatile Substance Veiled Strike Backstab This would deprive my volatile substance and veiled strike of the armor penetration boost/crit chance boost from back stab BUT it would give a backstab which will now crit a 5% tech damage boost AND it would mean I would be confident that backstab will crit as the window for that will be triggered immediately. So which approach is best? :) Also I don't get in which order to use stuns. What do better players do? Should I use the ability which makes backstab immobilise you or leave it? At the moment I use debilitate first, then after 2 damage abilities use crippling slice - any advice? Many thanks in advance if anyone can help.

If you run a veteran flashpoint it's really unlikely you won't complete it; you'll probably have a fast run and get your tech frags from the daily, the bosses, deconstructing the equipment crates, and renown points becoming deconstructable renown crates. In the current iteration, if you run warzones and try your best but keep losing you pretty much get nothing. Yet investing your time one flashpoint is the same time as around 1, maybe 1.5 wz. There have been lots of arguments, the majority opposed, to not rewarding losses. Yes it's understandable for the devs to want to stop toxic play, people not trying or ragequitting etc - but as it stands you can spend far too much time in wz to even get a shot at achieving the daily. Warzones already have what I think is a good system: medals. OK, not perfect but you can be rewarded for a variety of things - defending, healing, staying alive, guarding an objective. Medals reward players who contribute to the team. Just make medals award tech frags, win or lose the match. Yesterday I lost a hard fought match but contributed a lot and got 15 medals. Even at 5 frags per medal, 75 frags would have made the loss seem very worthwhile - and made the time investment on a par with flashpoint grinding.

Just specced into smokescreen on 75 IO merc. When activating rocket out, 2 rather than 1 smokecreen 4 second timers appear. After they disappear, the visual smoke effect manifests so it's out of sync with the ability. Then the smokescreen is permanent - at least in visual effect! Help -smoking's bad for you:)

Cleary the devs don't play the soul destroying matches.... the 5th same wz in a row the 3rd hutball against the same operative premades for the loss the lose 2 turrets at the beginning and never get them back so 20 minutes stalemate the ones you're backfilled into 5 seconds after someone ragequit because their team sucked the ones with crappy balance etc. With lockout now account wide, you are requiring players to have the patience of a saint to pvp now in what is meant to be a fun game. Add this to no points for a loss, and what you're doing is forcing a choice on us: force feeding a really substandard experience - or basically not playing pvp. GG.

I play unranked warzones. For a a few days after the changes to rewards came in requiring wins, and the deserter lockouts went live, in some matches people tried harder for the win and stayed in longer. Indeed out of maybe 10 matches I played in one day, onr or 2 were indeed surprise turnarounds where under the previous system people would have left to re-queue. That glimmer of light, and it was a mixed picture even then, is now extinguished. The behaviour now, rather than desert, is stop trying in an unwinnable match with lots of players just switching to basic attack with bothering to defend and wait for the match to end. And the quitting matches are coming back, especially no doubt for those who have multiple end game toons. And folks are starting to abandon pvp where rewards are locked behind a win and after whatever, 3 losses in a row there is no motivation to complete the daily any more. Way, way worse than before. sigh.

Thanks for that. Yeah I didn't report them and will probs avoid ranked now, at least until they fix that feature.

I went to play my first ever solo ranked game yesterday. I was 306 augmented with a pvp specific tactical but I only had a regular set which gave 2% alacrity. I was kind of excited to try it out and wondering how I'd do. As soon as I arrived all 3 other, clearly experienced players started discussing me like I was dog dirt, and made it plain they would kick me. It really was how dare you play this. And sure enough the second I died they initiated vote kick and of course I could do nothing about it as I was dead so couldn't initiate combat. I'm no stranger to MMOs or SWTOR - played since launch - so expect a range of people and attitudes just like in RL. But I have to say there was something truly shocking about the complete scorn and contempt here. Yes I understand wanting to gain and maintain rankings but dam I was willing to try to the best of my abilities and if that particular set bonus was a deal breaker and held me back I would have been the first to acquire it. So yeah - vote kick needs an urgent fix and I agree with OP. I can only think that these guys have nothing going for them in RL so after the initial shock, frankly I pity them.

I like these ideas. The main problem apart from bugginess is probably the way it screws rotation. Could there be other solutions e.g. 1.) Weakening blast immediately deals say 75% of the remaining dots damage, leaving enough time for you to apply a cull and gain its damaging effects before dot reapplying, thus screwing the rotation less or 2) WB deals 100% of dot damage the dots remain on the target but deal only minimal residual damage, but the cull effect still applies as if they were doing full damage, so cull still works as normal. BTW does the other tactical that has lethal blast apply a DOT - how does that work with multiple lethal shot casts - does it refresh the dot or stack it?

I admit to having a relatively high deserter rate in lowbies. Much of the time its arenas, and sometimes several in a row are against most of the same toons. Because of the level gap I can just have a lowbie arena pop and just feel that for the umpteenth time in a row I just can't face taking my level 21 sin against 2 x 41 juggs and a 40 healer again. I often leave if the level disparity is ridiculous, if its a heal/tank combo and we have neither, sometimes if we are 3 v 4 but not always. I once stayed in a 1 v 4 ( I was the 1) just for the sheer lols and to be fair they did allow a 1v1 duel before destroying me. All of this leaving is borne of frustration over matchmaking which can really be summed up like this you leave because you know (or think you know) that whatever you do, the match will be a bad fail anyway. The "whatever you do" part is key. I think the same decision is at end level pvp. If I join a reg match against the same premade running coordinated operatives for example who double roll the huttball to the endzone seemingly before my team has actually got to the middle, whatever I do it's game over. I leave to spare myself the humiliation of certain defeat in other words. Not always, but often, especially when morale is low. So how will deserter debuff affect this? In arena matches people will calculate it's quicker to just walk out, sit down and wait to be killed than desert so I would expect a lot of that behavour If rewards are more win based, but matches are still unfair or demoralisingly unbalanced, pvp pop will drop not rise. So I'm scared for the future of pvp here. In spite of my rather whiny post above, when it's good, it;s really good and really fun - the best pvp I've played in an MMO (better than the current Wow iteration.) And if it's a fair match, it can be good even when you lose - that's the point. In Huttball recently I got the ball with 30 seconds to go and was hiding at the side of the map. A vanguard got into perfect position and right at the last few seconds grappled me up from a weird angle into the fire, killed me and took the ball which gave their team the tiebreak victory. I hadn't realised I'd opened that angle up, and relogged Rep to actually whisper the guy to say "wp". But it has to be good matchmaking and less frustrating for that to work.

OP, I have to disagree with your post. Seterade is right. Let's take it that we all want SWTOR to work for as many people as possible and for as many as possible to find the game satisfying and fun. I've been 10 years a pvper in WoW and SWTOR. I'm not brilliant at it, I just love it. I love the challenges of objectives, class mastering, learning to counter different classes, learning "tricks" etc. I love how each match is different. And, during those 10 years I've also learned that a significant majority of fellow pvpers want to pvp, not pvE. If the pvp environment is right we will want to focus on that. IME far more folks are passionate about one or the other, few folks like both equally. Others have talked about the relative ease or difficulty of getting gear. Seterade is spot on: pvp is an action mode, not a progression mode. Gearing should happen quickly at the beginning of a season or expansion to allow for equalised skill so that the action mode is on an even footing. PvE gearing should happen more slowly as each tier of gear unlocks harder and more challenging content. The most frustrating thing is SWTOR already had a great pvp gearing system and ditched it. You stand out in pvE by completing the hardest raid and getting the best gear. You stand out as a pvper by beating other players or teams who are geared equally If you only have one gearing system, by definition you spoil either pvE or PvP. If it's easier to gear via PvE then PvPers are forced to play content they don't want to play in order to play content they love. This is the case in SWTOR right now. If it's easier to gear in PvP then PvErs will gear up for raids in warzones, doing content they're not interested in. Again Saterade is right - you will pick the easiest gearing solution. The only way in principle one gearing solution would work would be if gearing in PvP or PvE was equal. But how on earth could you make it so? Should I get the same bracers from 3 warzones as from 3 flashpoints? Or what? Equality of gearing is impossible because it's like saying make a hamburger equivalent to an ice cream. This is the crux of why pvpers want expertise back. Imagine a casino where I love to play poker and want to play it all day, but you love to play blackjack. I hate blackjack and I don't want to play it. But the casino rigs the system so that blackjack players win chips at a far faster and greater rate than poker players. (yeah, they're a generous bunch!) So, I play poker for a week and you play blackjack. We then sit down to play poker together. You have twice as much money for poker, but you played blackjack to get it! So if I want to compete with you, I have to grit my teeth and play blackjack for a week. And I don't enjoy that week of blackjack one bit. What would I do? Well I do love poker. So I'd either spend a lot of time playing something I don't enjoy - or more likely, I'd find a casino that rewards poker players for playing poker, and blackjack players for playing blackjack. I'd vote with my feet and leave the casino. Just like so many pvpers left SWTOR. (Now if PvErs say expertise is a barrier and they want to pvp too, again SWTOR already had the solution. Gearing in PvP (because it is an action mode) ishould be quick and easy. As in the old days, a PvEr could start warzoning and be easily geared in a week and had learned about PvP as well. Expertise is not asking PvErs to grind for weeks and weeks to be competitive. It's asking for a short learning curve.) And that's why we need expertise back.