Unfortunately. that's just how this game works right now. There appears to be a fairly large DPS disparity between classes and healing in general is fairly undervalued. The bottom line is, balance in this game is quite out of whack, which, to be fair, isn't entirely unexpected. It is a fairly new game after all and it will take time to sort out. The only real problem is both the game developers and a large portion of the community (who, coincidentally, play certain DPS classes ) refuse to acknowledge this fact... a fact on which many, many people have commented or written blog posts. The flaws in this game are well documented and well explained. Until there's a desire to see the game balanced, you'll probably have to change something on your own... If you're a DPS who is not one of the higher end DPS classes, there's not much you can do. Hang in there and wait for balance changes, or reroll. The levelling PvP experience in this game was done very well... from 10-49 everybody on the same playing field stat-wise. From about 25-49 most classes have a good enough skill set to be considered fairly even. Try something new and you'll probably have a good time. This will give you something to do while things are evened out. If you're a healer, you can either reroll DPS until healing is in a better position or you can find a few friends (one pretty much has to be a tank) and queue with them. If you've got people looking out for you, things get a little better as a healer. Your heals still won't really keep up with focused DPS and you'll still find yourself kiting damn near everything (if you can) but with a more coordinated effort you'll find yourself contributing. The guard alone makes the difference between dying in a 4s stun and living with 20% health, allowing you to hopefully run away and heal back up. You'll still feel like you're not being very effective, but it's a lot better than feeling worthless If neither of those appeal to you, cancel your sub and check back in a few months. Either the devs will wake up and balance the game a bit better, or they'll stick to their guns that this game should be a rapid-fire burst race... but by then hopefully a game that's more appealing to your tastes will be out. To be fair, not every game is going to be the same and if SWTOR isn't what you want, check out something else. Good luck!

Well, at least I got the confirmation I was asking for a few weeks ago. The bottom line is that they seem to be happy with the high amount of damage and low ability to heal. This is the game they want, and a lot of people around here clearly want it to continue. I don't... it's just fun for me getting exploded in 5 seconds any time I drop a heal. If I have to spend my entire game running away and healing myself, I'm not really contributing. The alternative is playing DPS since healing is intended to be as weak as it is, but I don't really want to. Healing is something I enjoy. So... This isn't the game for me and I won't be renewing. BioWare, I appreciate that you finally took a stand on it, though I'm somewhat miffed that you took your sweet time in doing so. I gave you another 15 dollars for a month in hopes that you would change things. Instead, you waited several weeks after 1.2 to say anything. Seems underhanded to me, but oh well, you got me. At least we know where things are at now. To those who like this gameplay style, good luck and have fun!

TL;DR / Executive Summary DPS to healing ratio is too high and people are dying too quickly. Tweak the numbers so they're closer, but keep DPS rates close to how they are. Then increase health pools considerably so that players live longer, but coordinated damage will still outpace healing. Give people time to react and time to play the game. Full Post Like it or not, you have to admit that this game is kind of a gib fest right now. A single DPS outmatches a single healer without a guard plain and simple. Throw in 2 DPS and any one target that doesn't have a high amount of defensive abilities tends to die fairly quickly. People who die quickly and spend most of their time in the respawn area aren't having fun and frankly, leaving this game in droves. Now you've got two sides of the coin here: 1) Healers who don't enjoy being unable to use their abilities effectively because they or their targets die so quickly. This group also includes classes without a lot of defense... dying inside a stun isn't very fun at all. 2) DPS who are afraid that if healing is too powerful, it will be impossible to kill them or the targets they heal. Skirmishes that never end because a healer can't be killed and is able to keep up their whole team at the same time is not fun. I'd like to propose an alternative solution. Make damage and healing match each other nearly one for one so we have almost the same damage versus healing output we have now (though a little toned down on the damage -- come on folks, you know it's a bit skewed). Next, increase player health pools drastically... as much as four times even. This will allow players to live through stuns and give resolve time to come into effect. Coordinated DPS will still outpace healing, but healing will also come into effect to delay the dealth of a player. Additionally, players will be able to make use of their abilities and play the game. Again, spending your time either stunned or sitting in the respawn area is NOT fun. Playing the game IS fun. Aim to have people live, under focused DPS (lets say 2 DPS) without support, for maybe 25 - 30 seconds. This gives you time to get stunned to full resolve, but then come out and actually contribute. Right now you live for maybe 5-8 seconds under focus which means you may get to use one ability when the stuns wear off, at which point you die and go back to the spawn. I realize that if players live longer, maps may need to be adjusted so that players have time to kill defenders before reinforcements arrive.

I use the ops frames but keep my eyes on the action as well. You can kinda watch both at the same time, while jumping around and moving. I've played years of WoW PvP and raiding so I'm used to this, but it doesn't take that long to learn. Both tab targetting and clicking players in this game is messed up so the ops frames are probably your best bet imo. Keybindings are also a must as you generally need your mouse to select people. My thoughts on the matter anyway...

Wait, DPS takes coordination... what? "Guys, I've marked the healer with a green lightsaber, attack that!" "OK! derp derp derp"

50% win ratio is a good average case... that's the target for general competitive games where one side faces the other. You say you win 80% of your games... that's great, other people win 20% of theirs. You find a middle ground and go from there. Again, for your time played, most games go the length of the match, you have to average it out. If you want to use 20 minutes per game cycle go ahead and adjust the numbers accordingly. Do the same with the commendations per win, on the average case. If you say you get 90 per loss instead of 80 and 150 per win instead of 120, do the math with an average of 120 commendations per game. You're still going to end up with a very unrealistic amount of time to play in order to get your full BM set over a weekend, and an extremely demanding schedule to get it in a week. I'm also aware you can do the calculations for someone who loses and gets no commendations, I chose the average case as this would best indicate the experiences of most people. If you made it that far, you'll note that I did touch upon the likely scenario of the OP which is far worse than what I described. Finally, I like how you quote "math" like it's some mystical concept... lol. So far my crazy number mumbo jumbo has given us far more realistic an image than your anecdotal nonsense. Perhaps you just lost track of time during your crazy SWTOR binge weekend and don't actually realize what you did...?

MMOs don't automatically mean a hardcore game experience. There is no rule in some rulebook somewhere that says this, certainly not one for SWTOR. Also, if it took you a weekend to get your full BM set, you played quite a bit every single day. We can even do some math to find out roughly how much you played. I've noticed I get about 80 commendations for a loss and maybe 120 for a win. I'm guessing here but that feels right... feel free to correct me. Anyway, lets assume a 50% win ratio so we can average 100 commendations per game. Now, lets see how many commendations you need for your full set. I did a quick google and found this helpful site: http://feature.mmosite.com/swtor/1.2_pvp_gearing_review.shtml. Here they say it takes 12050 commendations for your full set. Again, feel free to correct me, we can put in any numbers you like. So, an average of 100 commendations per game and you need 12050 commendations. Well that's easy enough: 12050 commendations / 100 commendations per game = 120.5 games, which we of course need to round to 121. You need to play, on average, 121 games to get your complete set. Now lets work out how much time that takes. I find your average game takes about 15 - 20 minutes. Then, depending on your server you have 2-10 minute queue time. Lets go ahead and assume a 25 minute turn around: ((15 + 20) / 2) + *(2 + 10) / 2) = 23.5 -- round to 25 for funsies. You can work it out with 23.5 if you want. (NOTE: In reality this number is actually much, much larger. On my server I wait 10 minutes for a queue at peak hours. Queues simply don't pop outside that because, like so many other servers, mine is all but completely dead. I'm actually unable to even complete my daily simply because I can't get in 3-6 games in the amount of time I have available to me.) 121 games at 25 minutes per game. 121 * 25 = 3025 minutes, which is 50.42 hours. So we've worked out that you need to play for 50.42 hours to get your full battlemaster set. Cool, now you say you did this over a weekend? All right, well there's two days on a weekend so 50.42 hours / 2 days = 25.21. Waaaaaitaminute here, there's only 24 hours in a day. You must have meant Friday too. No problem, we'll assume you got home around 5pm on Friday so that gives you 7 hours on that day for a total of 55 hours (7 + 24 + 24). I suppose that's possible... though I gotta ask, are you all right? You may want to go see a doctor, I worry for your health. For the rest of us, that's actually rather impossible. I know I need to sleep and generally consume food. I also tend to need to use the bathroom... I know, personal failing. Lets look at this from a more realistic perspective. I feel like you or someone else said they did it in a week. Lets try from that perspective. In your normal week, your normal person spends 7-8 hours sleeping, 8 hours working and maybe 1-2 commuting. This is just a ball park but I'm sure if you add up the hours in your day (or those of your parents if you don't work full time) you'll see that this is actually pretty close. Lets add it up... on a work day you have 24 hours - 8 sleeping hours - 8 working hours - 1 commuting hours = 7 free hours. This excludes eating/bathroom but lets roll with it. Lets say you don't go out on the weekends and stay at home and play SWTOR, we can figure you have about 16 hours per day. This gives you 5 * 7 hours + 2 * 16 hours = 67 hours. So yes, if you spent every free hour you had on SWTOR over a week you could get full BM. This is true. Of course, most of us can't really spend every free moment on SWTOR... we generally have other responsibilities. We have to make/eat dinner, see the family, see friends... I know, so tedious! Now we start to get into the realm of speculation but I hope after this rather lengthy post (who are we kidding? You didn't get this far...) you start to see a true picture of the amount of time it takes to get your full BM set and how it's not a trivial endeavour. Now consider that the OP says he loses much, much more than he wins and he spends most of that time in the spawn area. I can verify that last part because it's true... I'm a healer as well and can attest that people tend to mob healers, which means they die very fast.. So you're talking about spending every free moment for a week doing something completely, mind numbingly, dull! If this is the gameplay SWTOR is shooting for, you and the few others like you will quickly find yourselves alone in a vast, empty universe.

I made it to page 5... which is pretty good considering. ITT - Healers upset 'cause they die in 5 seconds, DPS saying this is fine and l2p. Welcome to the world of bias... lol. OP, you're absolutely right. PvP is a mess, people die too quickly and healing is irrelevant. People need to live longer in PvP, not shorter. High health pools relative to the amount of both damage and healing is the way to go. People should have time to react and play, not get gibbed in seconds. Even to the folks saying 3 DPS doing focus should be able to explode people... why!? What's the fun in that? There's no counter to that kind of gameplay. It's just pick a target, assist, mash buttons. People need to live longer so that players have a chance to use their abilities in order to counter it. Right now it's stun, die. As the OP said, small wonder people are leaving in droves. I gave this game one more renew cycle (monthly) for my PvP friends but if there's no news by then, I'm moving on as well.

I've tried juking a few times but I just go down too quick. Having the HoTs sounds like it will help pad that out though, so I'll have the time to make juking effective. I'm almost 20 so I'll have Kolto Probe soon Again guys, I appreciate the tips. It was a pretty punishing round of warzones so it was fairly disheartening.

Thanks guys I'll keep at it then!

So basically, it gets better? I don't have any dots yet, just kolto injection and infusion... I get interrupted and then rolled over inside a stun. Do operatives get any kind of defensive cooldowns to live through these things?

Trying out an operative healer... I'm getting run over in PvP, consistently dying inside the 4s stun and it's not very fun. I try to dps but I also seem weak. I'm also currently only level 17, so is this something that will improve with time? Tips/help appreciated. Thanks!

Before this thread devolves into "You suck!" -- "Nuh-uh!!!" like so many other before it, allow me to reiterate something I posted in another thread. LiveandDieinLA, lets just assume for the moment that you are the pinnacle of Sorc/Sage excellence and because of this, you don't feel the nerfs are that bad and that the class is fine from your perspective. Consider that your perspective isn't the only one, and that not everybody can be as good as you are. Classes in this came should be accessible and viable for the average player. After all, there can only be one first place but other people want to enjoy this game too. If a class has to be played with perfection in order to be able to hold its own against the merely average, it's a fair indication that there is indeed something wrong with it. Finally, to comment on your video... I did watch the first fight as you suggested people do. I'm not saying you're good or bad, but from what I saw there you're quite lucky. I also use my escapes to the best of my ability but nobody ever leaves me alone like they did with you on more than one occasion. Whenever I knock back and duck behind LOS to get some heals, the DPS that are usually mobbing me simply follow and continue to beat me down. In your video, they left you alone and went around the other side. Posting what is clearly an edited video (vs. uncut raw footage) of your most impressive PvP situations is not clear-cut evidence that a class is fine. There are any number of variables at play here. I am certainly glad you had some good games, and gladder still that you are a good enough player to make the class work for you, but please don't trivialize the well thought out and considered opposing views of those who still know how to play the class (maybe not as well as you do, but skilled none-the-less) but are having a much different experience than you are.

I've never had a problem with NESW but sometimes my brain just won't communicate properly haha. The other day I was standing at east on voidstar trying to call for incoming and I just couldn't get my brain to tell figure out where I was standing! It was so frustrating... incoming... uh.............. frick really!? Errr............ Never Eat... East! Oh crap I'm dead >< Shouldn't be a big deal to put it on the minimap for brain-fart related issues

Hi there, Let me start by saying that your post is excellent. I think you touch on some great things and explain how people should be playing anyway, regardless of the state of our class. We should always be aware of what we're capable of and how we can use those capabilities effectively to turn the tide of a game. This is something great players will always do and sharing that knowledge is appreciated. The problem is, I'm seeing a lot of this being used to write off Sage/Sorc concerns about class imbalance. I'm getting two main points from everything that's been posted. They are: If you play your class exceptionally, Sorc/Sage is fine. If you have a skilled tank working with you, Sorc/Sage is fine. Here's where the problem lies. For the first, Sorc/Sage needs to play exceptionally well to hold their own against mediocre players of other classes. It's not a fair stretch to say that an exceptional player will always win against an exceptional sage. On equal grounds, a sage is at a disadvantage... For the second, this statement is flawed because it means a Sorc/Sage must have a tank in order to be successful, but others don't need this. So in order to succeed, Sorc needs 2v1. So when the other side brings it to 2v2, Sorc then needs 3v2, and so on... again, Sorc is at a disadvantage it seems. Now I'm not going to say that the class is broken because we aren't. A broken class would be completely unplayable and offer nothing. That's not true... but we are most definitely underpowered. We lack defensive capability that allows us to main throughput, meaning we are extremely susceptible to burst damage and target switches. We could handle it before because we were bugged, but the double shot of losing that bug and the quick cast large heal means we can't keep up to large amounts of burst. By large amounts, I mean that put out by 2 DPS classes or more. So thank you for your post and I think it's great to share the knowledge of how to improve with other people, but please don't write off the concerns of others because you happen to be really good at something. The game needs to be fun and playable by the average to experienced player, not just the exceptional player.

I don't know if that's what's happening here... it's too hard to say. If it were though, it doesn't explain how stealth caps happen on Civil War. There's no door to spawn behind

Hmmm I just reviewed again. You may be right about that... it's tough to tell 'cause he swings his view just as it turns. I think we can all agree though that there is definitely not a person there

1) I kind of feel like this is something better left to those who do it better, but I see where you're coming from. If the PUG already has voice communications, a component of team play is in place. I wouldn't call this required but it would certainly help a lot. Until then, make a few friends. Mumble and TeamSpeak are both free to host your own server and Ventrilo is free for up to 8 players (perfect for SWTOR). 2) I don't know that this is a "need" either... but it would be kinda cool. Not so much for hackers... I don't see how this would apply at all, but it would be really need to have your last Warzone match automatically recorded and then you could save it out if you wished. 3) 100% agree! But a lot of us feel like healing is kinda busted right now so it might be getting fixed... I hope so. A lot of people will tell you it's fine, but that's mostly DPS who can't find their interrupt button and feel like they should be invincible ---- adding ---- 4) Cross server queues. There's no reason not to have this for both PvP and PvE... server population issues are largely mitigated by this feature.

I made a thread about this a while back wondering if this was possible... a few folks suggested it was a hack. I dunno, but it happened to me in Civil War. Nice to have some video evidence. You can clearly see the door yellow with nobody on it, then a few frames later it switches to purple. I had to watch it a few times but it also looks like you can see two red light sabers appear for a split second. Can anybody else confirm/deny this? Could just be my eyes.

I play a Sorc and I make heavy use of rescue to pull ball carriers to safety. To comments/observations... 1) While I can pull teammates to me, other classes can pull them right back. Just saying, there is a counter. 2) I'm actually 100% ok with this being disallowed, but you would have to disallow a whole bunch of other abilities being used by or on the ball carrier. I'm not against this, but please keep in mind that you may be just as unhappy about that game as you are with the current one.

Sure, they can remove rewards for losing. Then they should have the recruit gear as the only PvP gear in the game. Commendations buy vanity replacements with the same stats. Problem solved. What is it with everybody in these games and wanting to hold their gear advantage close? Can't they just play better and win that way? Bleh...

So basically, you're saying healers should only be able to be effective if they have someone with them. But DPS should be able to be effective all on their own? Waaaaaaaaitaminute here...

Wow that quickly!? My friend hit 50 last night and bought up the recruit gear. He said it gives you about 730 expertise... so if that's true, I might as well not even bother when I hit 50...?

I've noticed the same... and it's funny you should mention that execute throw. I didn't know what it was called but that same scenario happens to me so often I've taken to calling it the boomerang I too have a good connection to my server... it feels exactly like lag, but how can it be? There's another class... sniper maybe? The one that makes the pew sound when it shoots you. That one seems to get me around pillars also. Now that we're talking about it, my knockback (sage/sorc ability... names escape me) is often weird. I swear I'll be in front of them and use it, but then they fly behind me. Again, it screams of latency issues but my connection is just fine. Oh, unless it's them being laggy and having a delay in reporting their own position to my own client.

Glad I'm not the only one... I was thinking it might be lag... like my client didn't render them exiting stealth and starting the cap in a timely fashion. But then, my latency to my server is under 200ms. If it's a hack... that's kind of sucky