I am sorry. I am letting my frustration over a game I enjoy to create a hostile attitude in me. I apologize for being condescending to you. We will have to agree to disagree. Based on personal experience and what I can see in game, the evidence is monumentally in favor of Gear being greater than skill. Many people like that, but I personally find it to be a hinderance when the difference is that great.

Wow so anyone without warhero gear has no skill? What are you smoking? WH gear has nothing to do with skill, but instead by the amount of time spent in the game. Seriously mate, I play a total of 2-3 hours a day, farming for WH gear takes hundreds of hours of play time to get. Skill to Gear is the most ridiculous argument you have yet to bring up. Please go back and take a look at the gear upgrade again. Because for me the Cunning upgrade on my 1H blaster is 20 and for my offhand it's 17 I think, I would have to double check. Finally getting the rifle first is the worst thing to do with your coms. The maximum upgrade from Recruit to WH at first is to grab the bm gun and spend your Ranked coms on implants and earpiece. that will give you the single alrgest jump in total stats. I wasn't going to post, but your those who have skill have WH gear is such a horrible comparison that there is no way you meant it. Plus you just completely insulted anyone outside of full wh gear.

Comparing Vanilla WH with vanilla BM is the best way to show the gear differential. Apparently you haven't seen that the gun and shotgun (two weapons) carry a significant upgrade in cunning. Comparing fully Augmented gear is useless as the only difference in the two between is the base stats again. Now if you are talking completely remodded BM versus completely remodded WH than it's impossible to do that since, I am not going to remod BM gear and 90 percent of the people won't do it either. Augmenting your BM gear doesn't change the vast difference between Augmented BM and augmented WH. It makes a greater difference to scoundrels simply because so much of their damage is tied into their weapons. It's like not seeing the difference between upgrading weapons. If the upgrade is minor than you would see full bm guys getting 2100 ranked, you would also see full BM guys wrecking havoc against WH guys, except you don't. This is the last comment I will have on this since I am leaving. Go to your vendor and compare the two gear. the weapons are the biggest upgrade they contain 82 expertise upgrade. If you don't see the benefit of 165 expertise, 300 power, 200 cunning, 220 endurance, 150 surge, and close to 200 armor than you are lacking a basic understanding of how the mechanics of the game works or you are trolling me for laughs.

I was comparing vanilla BM to Vanilla WH gear, fully augmented gear adds the same to each piece. Who would waste the time and effort to fully optimize BM gear when you can save it up for WH gear. It would be completely ridiculous to waste coms optimizing gear that you will get rid of in a few rated games. I have yet to meet any rated guys who stated anything close to optimzing BM gear. The fact that there are probably 2 people in the entire game that would ever optimize BM gear when they could have spent the coms on WH gear. Let's talk reality not science fiction please.

I really enjoyed the scrapper, and the dirty fighter. It's was definitely my favorite class even if it was a bit scrubbish at times. I will still be around until 10/12/12 hoping they fix the bugs and disappointing issues. DF is great, but in ranked it really loses a lot of it's luster. Scrapper is a better node guard than DF, but df is better when they attack your node in force. The Dirty Fighting spec is significantly better if you are trying to stay alive longer, but with no utility you kind of fall behind other classes. I will be headed to the Gates of Madness server and be under the name Anam Itheoir.

I posted my good-bye thread. I have cancelled my subscription. If you would like to read my farewell letter, and the noted reasons for leaving. You can find it here Saying Goodbye! - Sadly I can't take the frustration anymore

I posted my good-bye thread. I have cancelled my subscription. If you would like to read my farewell letter, and the noted reasons for leaving. You can find it here Saying Goodbye! - Sadly I can't take the frustration anymore

Daiy, I respect both you and Mobius, but seriously you took what is widely known as the weakest upgrade in the game and stated taht's the difference? Seriously the belt? Why not just take the bracers and go dang only 7 expertise I don't need that at all. Come on man, at least do your work before stating something so obviously off base. The belt and bracers make the smallest upgrade outside of the relics. The relics give you a plus 3 everything else is plus 7 or above. Now pay attention you get a total of 165 expertise upgrade from going full warhero. It's 10 per Armor piece that's 50, 7 per bracer and belt that's 65, 6 for implants and earpiecs that brings you to 83 extra, and finally 82 for the weapons for a grand total of 165 expertise upgrade alone. The weapons are your single best upgrade to war hero. Now let's talk about endurance You gain 220 endurance minimum, not to mention your base damage for weapon upgrades goes up 32-66 damage for both weapons. You have a net gain of close to 300 power or more depending on how you mod. Not to mention over close to or over 200 cunning more depending on how you upgrade, and close to 150 more surge or crit depending on gear. So to recap 165 expertise 220 endurance 300 armor 300 or more power 150 surge 200 plus cunning 32-66 base weapon damage There you go and that's without perfect modding. I would say that's a huge difference! Not just minor, that's huge. That's the difference between pve trigger relics and not having a trigger relic in 1.2 But hey that belt is such a minor upgarde. Come on wake up! The game is heavily in favor of gear. Look at those numbers again. That's the difference between 3500 damage Shoot first and 4800 damage shoot first. If you can't see it, than I am not sure what else to say. Look at the differences again. Now tell me that an equally skilled player has even a chance at killing that guy.

WH gives more than just more expertise. It gives more power, crit, surge, and when you remod correctly you can bring your cunning, power, crit and surge to much better levels. It is easily attainable with WH gear you have better gear and by pulling mods and enhancements from the gloves and boots you can fine tune your gear and gain even more cunning, power and surge and limit your accuracy. 28.5 percent is easily obtainable especially if you are able to soft cap crit (easily done), then focus on power (easy to do), and augment for cunning (pushing your stats even higher). This is not a gross exageration. This is based on fighting against full WH guys in ranked with my 3 piece WH scrapper. My high crit 3572. His high crit 4400 or something like that. I will take a screen shot the next time I run into a scrapper and show what he did. I will also show you what my team and opposing team did. Just because you haven't faced it doesn't make it fact. I have first hand experience facing equally skilled teams who simply laugh because their gear is full aug wh and they are facing full aug BM. Full WH is 1400 plus expertise, 1200 expertise is full bm gear, 900 is full recruit. Are you saying a recruit can hold a candle to Full BM? Haven't you ever ran into a recruit geared player as full bm and demolished them? What's the stat difference between the two? It's huge just in the ability to live. The same is true between BM and WH. Play some ranked and watch the divide grow. When there is only one solo queing WH the difference he can make is decent. When there is a team of 8 the gear difference is monumental. Like i said, you keep speaking about someone sacrificing damage, which only speaks that you have yet to play ranked at any discernable level or equipped WH Gear. I am at 17.4k health with War hero Relics, IMplands, Earpiece and Main Hand. I was at 15.7k previously. This is concrete evidence. It's easy to prove Take off your gear put on recruit gear, than put on bm gear than go up to a WH geared guy. Than ask him to give you his stats while you look at yours. Quit arguing a side you have no proof on. I have personally done the conversations. I have worked with operatives. Talk to any full WH geared guy and his numbers will dwarf yours. Okay you are right and wrong. I agree that fighting with skilled people against a larger number is more fun. it's why world pvp is always well beloved. Again you are now talking about not solo queueing. That is a long story and the system is not setup this way currently. It will queue against anyone at times, though it's supposed to set you up against someone of equal level. I call bull to this statement, and it's evidence that you have little to no experience in ranked play. I have played equally geared BM teams and won. I have played equally geared teams and had great battles and lost. I have never beat a full WH team. No full bm team can beat a full WH team or even come close. We fought and held a single turret against a 2100 ranked full WH aug team yesterday, and they congratulated us, because it's next to impossible to survive against them. Their comment was this "Can't wait til you guys have gear". The fact that 80 percent of the ranked pvp teams know that without gear skill means crap should be evidence. But then again if you haven't seen it than it must not be true right? But armor has everything to do with kinetic and physical damage which is our entire burst damage

You can heal from cover, and there is a damage reduction by being in cover.

You can't. Unfortunately they all look the same, and sometimes it bugs out and Vital shot only shows up as one dot. It drives me bananas, and is another frustrating thing with the game. Your best bet is to have a rotation worked out to the time when you are going to cast yoru dot and then stick to it. You should be close each time.

Except you are wrong. 3-5k health is significant with higher mitigation. The fact that most sages are 19k in WH without sacrificing damage is the normal. Your lack of rated experience shows here mate. 10 percent armor difference 100 per 1k hits, 3-5k more life. Top end WH geared without augments is 19k for Operatives and scoundrels with proper augments and replacing Accuracy with power or crit surge mods you can remain well above 19k and hit your Crit/Surge and stack cunning and power. So you gain 10 percent more armor, 3-5k health, 3-5 percent more damage (a talent giving you 3-5 percetn damage across the board would be immediate specced into). So the armor alone accounts for 100 less damage, the mitigation accounts for an additional 50 less per hit, and the more health you have the harder it is to kill you. Plus while I am hitting them for 200-300 less on a crit they are hitting me for 200-300 damage per hit more. This difference becomes even greater the more power or base stat they stack. Are you beginning to see the picture? Let me give you an example. A full augmented BM Scrapper Will crit for 3500 with Shoot first a Full WH augmented scrapper will hit for 4500-4800 against equally geared people. This isn't a guess, this is based on first hand experience. A full aug BM Geared Guardian Focus Spec will hit you with a Slam for around 5k. A full WH aug geared will hit for as high as 8.9k against equally geared opponents (highest recorded on my server) I enjoy your discussions, but in this instance your inexperience with rated and facing WH geared opponents is evident. WH gear > BM gear regardless of skill unless the player is absolutely horrendous. My brother's Fiance is a heal spammer, In BM gear she would die quickly and maybe get 300-400k in heals. She is now full WH gear, and heals on a sage using channeled heals. In full WH gear she is typically at 580k or higher depending on the team. She can be carried because the gear alone allows her to live significantly longer. [quote=MobiusZero;4944037Like I said, my opinion is not exactly popular. What I really find funny, is that elitists work sooooo hard to be the best, and when they finally dominate and have no competition, they get bored and quit. They shoot themselves in the foot! The ability to zerg is the greatest counter to elitists. Without the capability to do so, they will always dominate no matter what. That's socialism at it's finest and perhaps your most foolish statement to date. Trying to be the best is great. I like fighting people better than me. It forces me to be better. Zerging is completely counter to pvp. A full 20 man zerg can be easily counter by 8-10 highly skilled and coordinated players. Heck, I have seen and been the guy who wiped out 5 players because they were completely unskilled zergbots. Zerging is counter to pvp. Give any decent player who wants to prove he is good at something, and zerging immediately becomes counter. It's why many mmo's limit your ability to zerg by putting LoS, and timed objective caps because it's not fun. Zerging almost destroyed WoW's pvp. They ended up putting debuffs on flag carriers and buffs to bosses in AV to eliminate the possibility of giant zergfests. Because the games were routinely boring and stupid it was just a race to the finish. That's not pvp at all. Your inexperience with WH geared teams is evident again. Skill has a factor, but class imbalance and gear imbalance is huge. WH gear vs BM gear equally skilled player is over as soon as it starts. WH geared player wins. WH geared player vs slighly more skilled BM geared player - WH geared player wins easily. WH geared Player with skill vs 2 skilled BM players - WH geared player wins, but not as easily. It's easy look at your defense tabs. Kinetic damage is mitigated by armor, Internal damage is mitigated by damage reduction significantly more than Elemental. We tested this repeatedly the other day against my guild tank. Elemental ticked higher off him than Internal and especially any kinetic damage.

WH is significantly better than BM. You are talking at least 5 percent better damage reduction 3-5k more health, and 10-15 percent more damage across the board. Take into account if you go augmented plus maximizing your mods and enhancements and the leap becomes even greater. However in order to get to that level you have to play an inordinate number of games. WH may seem like a small upgrade, but it's not. Especially when it comes to full teams. If it's 1 WH guy he can only faceroll one guy at a time, and you can have 2 guys kill him off. When it gets crazy is when you have 2 WH healers, 2 Fully aug WH tanks, and 1 WH dps. We are talking dying in 3-5 seconds and being unable to ever kill a healer. Play ranked for awhile and you will see what I mean. You mean Pyro's not PT's . Let's not nerf the Tactics or Assault guys they are fine. I have been complaining about CGC and it's ridiculous overpowering for about 3 Months now, and I am exhausted. Team play is the only reason I play. I like being a part of a group and goofing off with my buddies. If you want solo queue only go play an fps. I absolutely despise when I get paired up with someone who has no clue what they are doing, won't defend a node, and runs around getting wiped out because they don't want to spend the time to gear correctly. GW2 has solo queue Structured PvP, where you can either pick a server, queue based on ranking, or random queue. You can't stay with your team in Structured because it will remake the teams based on how badly one team is losing over a period of games. Finally, Zerg style pvp is a joke. Skill should always come into play. However 1 skilled player shouldn't be able to wipe the floor with 5 players which in the current state of PVP this is exactly what can happen. 1 skilled Fully augment WH Mara or PT or Guardian or Sage even can wipe out 5 Recruit or BM geared people. My brother is a 19k augmented WH gear Marauder. He put it best, "If I see anything 17k or under it's free kill. If I see two guys guarding a node and neither has more than 17k than I know I will kill them both regardless if one is a healer. It only becomes a fight when you reach 18k because then you at least have the gear to fight me." You are misguided here mate. It's the gear imbalance that is frustrating you just from a different perspective. A team of geared players will wipe out anyone. Skill doesn't even come into play currently. My guild ran into a tracer spammer WH geared, and all he did was spam tracer missle over and over and over again. Which means you are hurting yoru damage considerably, yet because of the gear imbalance he was able to kill off two of us before we got him down. We are all Full BM geared with 3 pieces of War hero. Essentially when we face a full WH team it's game over before it starts. Our dots are internal or kinetic both are mitigated by defense, talents, and despite claims armor as well. We have tested it repeatedly with my guild vg. Elemental is mitigated by defense as well but at significantly less of an issue. The PT and Madness dots on our guild tanks suffer significantly less mitigation than the operatives dots.

My favorite was Big George's comment that deception assassins couldn't receive the same burst nerf as scoundrels because their dps was not an instealth stun attack. Except he nerfed BackBlast but didn't nerf Shock or Voltanic Slash or Maul. haha, I know about 3 scoundrels who actually heal mid fight. The rest of us run away to heal except we don't have a reliable way to get away to heal. FlashBang really makes me laugh sometimes. I use it as an interrupt because other than that it's pretty worthless haha. I have yet to find someone who disagrees. Flashbang is amazing in pugs where people stand next to eachother while node defending, but in ranked, everyone stands 15-20 m away from each other when node defending.

Actually it's not solid. It's broken. Your biggest hitter is the single weakest big hitter in the game. Shoot first will hit for 4k at top gear levels, and back blast the same thing. You have no gap closer outside of a 2 minute vanish. Your damage outside of 4m is completely horrible. Your easily killed by the other melee, and your single greatest attribute is stealth, but you can't get into it as much as Sins or Maras. What would help fix is if you had a gap closer that allowed you to use shoot first out of stealth every 30-45 seconds. This would not be game breaking but would allow you to actually be able to use a key ability more than once every 2 minutes. Instead WH geared healers laugh, and the only classes you can handle 1v1 are Mara's, other Operatives, Commandos, and sages with their shields down. Concealment is more broken than Lethality. At least with lethality you have the 2nd highest damage dots in the game, and aren't as reliant on stealth. Did you know Deception Assassins have significantly higher burst than you? Even crazier their burst is reusable over and over again in a fight. They can also drop into stealth more often and have a great escape or gap closer in Force speed. Their defensive cooldowns are better, and their biggest hitter Voltanic Slash x2 to shock is usable at any time.

I actually can outdamage anyone except our Guild PT. Humorously enough the man can do 400k damage as a PT tank. The aoe damage output of railshot is crazy. As a tank his Railshot hits for 3200 that's slightly worse than my scrapper shoot first and backblast. I do great damage at mid, the problem is I have to go into melee, and don't have the defensive cooldowns or damage output to warrant it. Without a gap closer I am also the worst at moving from node to node. Our sorcs, sins, and mara's, are the node switchers. The PT's may not have a reliable speed boost, but their damage is so good they make up for the slow switches by blowing people up. So go guard a node becomes the call. It's sad because the other node guarder is usually our Commando for the exact same reason - almost no mobility though his burst damage is much better than mine so he is usually with the main group. We have a unique way to play. We send a sage/sorc to cap the node while I run interference than we switch.

It is not server wide, it's warzone wide. It happens maybe once a day, and it even killed one of our rated games. Also the rated queue system is awful. My mainly BM with 3-5 pieces of War hero are constantly being queued up against the top pvp guilds on my server. When you are facing full WH rated and augmented gear on a daily basis it's horrible if you arent' close in gear. Gear is way too important in this game. The class imbalance combined with the gear differential is crazy. I hit a Powertech yesterday with shoot first and it hit him for 1100. He did not have his shield up. My backblast than hit him for 1450. Needless to say I died quickly since his dots ticked on me for 750, and his railshot hit me for 5.2k. Please explain to me why I should spend 13 dollars a month to play a game where unless I have the best gear possible I won't stand a chance of even living in some games. My guild is currently at the 1400 ranking spot where we face 2100 teams and get slaughtered, and then run into undergeared teams and slaughter them. Neither is fun at all. It's not fun Globaling a sage healer because he doesn't have full BM yet, and then getting globaled by a guardian because he is full War hero with augments. I used to enjoy the gear grind, but now I realize how horrible it is to be wiped out for 10 straight games, because the queue is completely imbalanced. My dots are so random as well. On some targets I will hit for 1k, and then 400 on others. It all depends on gear.

I play Scrapper and Dirty Fighting, and my job is the same regardless of which spec I am in. Because my damage isn't on top of the charts, and neither do I provide any group benefit except damage. I am relegated to door guarding the non-zerg door (stealth is amazing for this), turret guarding (more stuns and cc on instant), and node defense in the Coast. I will get about 100-220k damage a ranked wz, but that's about it, due to my relegation to standing at the node and guarding. In fact, every operative/scoundrel I talked to has the exact same job. It's why I am leveling a guardian and Sage, I would like to do something besides guard the node.

It's server lag, not my computer. Everything else works, and it's server wide. Everyone in the warzone locks and we all move slowly until it resolves. When it's just me, it's usually because I haven't reset my server connection. When you log into SWTOR, your IP address is essentially put into a queue. If you don't break that connection once in a while you continue to get pushed down until your connection is crap. Even though my server is sending to them it's not getting replies (there is a technical term, but this was happening at the very beginning of the game). When this happens I have to reboot my computer and that cuts the connection to the server queue, when I start the game my connection is rebooted and I get clean play. I agree in the beginning I almost trashed the game because it was unplayable for days on end and BW would not acknowledge the issue. They told us it was our graphics card or our modem. Then they found out because thousands had the same issue that it was their server queues that were broken. My setup currently is about 3times what I need to play this game. My issues are only with this game. I can download a movie while watching netflix while playing halo online with no problems. I turn everything off turn on SWTOR and massive lag issues, delayed jump stops until I disconnect from their server. I never had one hiccup or cough on GW2. I was able to run it at it's highest setting with shadows turned on doing world v world with 300 players on each side in the same location without my FPS breaking 40. I get onto SWTOR and my fps spikes to 1500 back to 34. Than I play a wz, everything locks up and no one on either team is able to move even though my FPS still says 34.

There is a reason I deleted my sniper. I can't stand the cover system. The Lethality/Dirty Fighter is the most mobile spec in terms of ways to deal damage in the game. Except their dot is applied by a 3k base line low cost attack that you can't mitigate, and applies a 6 second 50 percent slow. If Vital shot hit for 3k than we could compare. Haha, it's why my guardian is still lvl 31. I carry a vibro sword instead of a lightsaber ;p. I don't like casters. But if I were Madness is the only way i would go, it's the only mobile caster that I know of.

Except we were talking about group utility, not self utility. Self heals, self cleansing, and cloaking screen provide zero benefit as opposed to Ballistic shield and Knockbacks. I am not talking about what we can do versus someone. I am talking about the ability to help your team as a whole and still do damage. Except you are wrong. I have tested this with my guild vanguard. His Plasma Cell dot which is attached to his base attack which means it's always up and contains a 50 percent slow. Ticks for as high as 1k and he has seen 1.2k ticks which is about on par with Vital shot. We have the grenade so does he except his is elemental damage so his doesn't get mitigated as much as ours does. Lingering Toxins meet the Pyro tree which buffs CGC by 30 percent. Go find your guild PT and test his dots. The Pyro Dots are the OP portion of their damage. In fact every tree in the PT/VG line becomes up to 10 percent more powerful by using Plasma/CGC instead of the tank or AP/Tactics Cell. I keep watching this War Hero Madness Sorc and Assassin rip through me every other day. I see them regularly. When it's me and my commando buddy against them we almost always lose. My only hope is if our Vanguard comes to help. When he is there we have a shot. Their slows, healing dots, instant whirlwind (crazy powerful) and Creeping Terror, not to mention some of them skip creeping terror and hit you with that crap shield that does a massive stun.

I haven't cancelled yet, but it's getting closer. I just am getting too frustrated with the gear grind, the war hero augmented guys hitting me for 7-8k when I have full BM gear with 4 pieces of war hero, the class imbalance that is so obvious not a single reputable player denies it but Bioware does. The fact that in every rated game unless you are an extremely talented scrapper you won't find your way onto a good rated team. Every high rated team I have talked with says the same thing scrapper for node guard. The fact that there is massive server lag every day in the midst of warzones. The speed bugs that have yet to be fixed. The wonky resolve system that could be tossed out the window if they just dropped all the cc down to 2-3 seconds max and took away the ability to spam any cc, and any cc that was tied to damage was put on an extended Cooldown.. The ridiculous respawn timers in Voidstar, the Civil War turret situation that requires you to be on top of the turret to cap half the time. The fire pits that don't always show they are on fire when they are. Having said all that this game is still leagues better than WoW, Rift, Aion, LoL, Tera, Secret World, and Diablo 3. I will completely miss Huttball and I love Novarre Coast. My brother is staying on this game so I am sure I will be around. I think sometimes I am acting like a jilted lover. At this point, I am noticing every flaw, bug, and underperforming aspect of the game. Part of it stems from the fact that my favorite class AP PT has been shafted since day 1, and that the answer is staring them in the face, but they refuse to acknowledge that their is even an issue. That it took them almost a year to sit down and go shoot maybe we should find out why the Operative/Scoundrel is the least played class in the game outside of nerfing them repeatedly. Did you know that in a game I will not name , just nerfed the ability to spec a certain way on one of their most played classes because they found a possible build that would have allowed it to be too powerful. No one had even played the build yet, but they found it while playing the game. Before the beta was over the change was made, and they made an announcement illustrating the build and the reason for the change. I was floored. They found something before the players did and made a quick adjustment and then let us know exactly why the change was made. Not only that, they noticed a tendency for players in the game to use a specific weapon with a specific build and be able to put out a ridiculous amount of damage in a short time. They made a post stating that that build was not supposed to work that way, and they would make minor changes to bring it more inline. If Bioware showed even a fraction of that type of service, they would see a lot more of us stay. I rarely pve anymore so this is coming from a strictly pvp standpoint. I actually like the pve aspect of this game, and find the story modes, companion, orange modable gear, and crafting system to be awesome.

Except just about everyone one of those has a spammable or multiple slows which defeats the purpose. However, we have been through this discussion before, and we will agree to disagree. We must agree to disagree. Anytime you are on a healer , you will be targeted. I think you are avoiding melee too much to simply avoid the risk of getting targeted. To me that's a horrible playstyle. You do moderate damage and then wait until someone is really weak and jump in for the kill. Players like that are largely ignored because they provide what many see as fluff damage. Against Pugs, your play style works, and yes you will live longer than me. But I will take the productive kills and burning down the targets. You play Lethality for the same reason I play Dirty Fighting. Scrapper was horrible (a burst spec tied to stealth that they can't reenter and has the weakest burst in the game). Your reasoning is invalid. Cloaking Screen provides almost zero group benefit, Toxic scan is 90 percent of the time used on yourself, and if your heals are beneficial at all than your healers are seriously under-performing. It also costs a bucket load of energy and sucks our Upper hand which is worse than having no CD. Do you know how much damage a Double cull does? 8-10k damage at best. That's with full dots and Hemo and the Devouring Microbes, That's the same damage over a longer period of time than Pyro TD/RS - Snipers big shots, and as much damage as a single slam. Except unlike the other burst damage it's mitigated, by defense, armor, and able to miss. I don't underestimate it's potential at all. I completely realize that while it can be powerful it's nowhere close to as feared as it should be. On a final note, we are a dps class that means are job is to kill other targets. If you don't at least focus somewhat on our burst than what good is the class. Did you know our dots hit for less than Pyro's Cell dot? That madness sorcs and assassins dots hit for the same amount of damage but provide better benefits? That Mara's bleeds while slightly worse than ours either have a slow attached to them or heal the target? That a juggernaughts dot damage might be slightly worse than ours but are attached to a superior mechanic? That even the crap AP dot provides a crit for one of their hardest hitting attacks. It also costs less than our dots. Essentially we agree, but if you just want to be a dot spammer there are a lot better classes to choose from.

Whoa, whoa, Mobius! Now you are going a little crazy with your math. If you are spreading dots all over the place. Devouring Microbes becomes a significantly bigger portion of your total damage. Simply because more dots on more people who have the potential to be under 30 percent health. I have personally watched my dots alone kill off multiple targets. You cannot say Countermeasures is worth anything at all and then say Devouring Microbes is worthless. That's ridiculously shortsighted and very rigid. That's like me saying you don't use Back Blast on cooldown so that means you aren't using your class to it's full advantage (which you aren't). Telling people not to spec into damage boosting abilities while telling them damage is their main purpose seems a bit odd. Look, You can choose not to spec into it all you want, but it has it's value for those of us who play a strafing style and dive bombing style. I use Back Blast on CD, I use Blaster Whip regularly, and I use my dot's in a spread the love style until I need to focus fire. The fact that you don't use Back Blast on CD considering how powerful it is at higher levels baffles me. i have watched your videos, and your playstyle works for you. However, you are rarely focused. I am repeatedly focused and have to kill someone quickly. Devouring microbes is amazing when the class drops below 30 percent. It allows me to get a kill 2-4 seconds faster than it otherwise would have. I believe we went over this before. Your playstyle is better suited for the dirty fighting/lethality sniper and not the operative. On that note, I whole heartedly agree that the Operative/Scoundrel is at a severe disadvantage in terms of control and burst. We play a support role with crap support abilities. Other classes provide healing debuffs aoe damage reduction, armor pennetration, Knockbacks (much more useful than stuns), Pulls, leaps, Pushes, force chokes, or bursts greater than 3.4-4k damage. We provide either sub-standard burst mixed around single target damage or aoe dot's with backloaded sub-standard burst. Granted I can roll through just about any ranged class, and our dots when spread around can be ridiculously annoying for healers. However, you have to admit Sniper do Lethality for more burst than we do especially if they spec Lethal/Engineering.

The fact that we are close to equal to Hybrid tank classes is one of the things that is what bothers us. We shouldn't be equal in damage with tanks. The biggest issue is anyone with defense or basic damage reduction gets a bigger bonus against internal and physical damage than they do against Force or Tech. And all of our damage is internal and/or physical. This means that every single form of defensive statistic works against us. There is no other class that faces this disadvantage. I ran about 20-30 games last night as lethality than swapped to healer so our normal healer could do something different. My Lethality damage totals were usually between 250-300k. However, what bothered me is in games with zero healers my damage suffered more than anyone elses. Our Tank PT in damage gear was htting 170k-220k with 80-120k protection. His highest hits were 2500-2800. In full bm with 4 War Hero Pieces my highest hits are 3400. When I play my PT with lesser gear. I hit 3800-4400 on Immolate. That's a major imbalance. I got hit last night by a guardian for 5700k with my defense screen up. Let me repeat that 5700. He wasn't even full War Hero geared.