What part of playing a merc are you not getting it is a DPS burst class not a pseudo tank/ Dps! They are NOT suppose to have 3 lives! It is counter intuitive to the whole trinity system! Last time I checked it wasn't TANK/HEALS/ DPS/ & TANK+HEALS+DPS otherwise known as i'm so bad at other spec's I need a crutch! You go in you do your DPS you DIE! This would be on par with other DPS burst classes such as Marauder and Assassin Jug would need work cause their pseudo mercs in some cases. While operative is not an op bursting class its ability to kite is just insanity personified and that aspect is OP. It is simple there need to be trade offs and costs if your gonna implement some of this stuff. Merc is the worst offender huge DPS, plenty of escapes, Heal, DR( blue shield) Heal when Hit (yellow shield) Dots what pray tell is the cost Heat really I don't &%%$%&$ think so! Now while some would argue that the heal on hit is avoidable don't attack them problem there is the one mechanic to let the player know hey don't attack me is flawed. The visual cues can be drown out by other visual cues such as sorc bubble, operative heal globe and mercs very own shield bubble (blue) SO, no the other DPS classes wouldn't need adjusting we're already glass cannons which is what MERC SHOULD BE! So the Merc players need to decide do you want a high bursting class which equates to being a glass cannon or do you want moderate DMG and high survival. YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE BOTH IT BREAKS TRINITY! Plainly evident by all the peeps needing a crutch class that are now playing merc! Everyone with a brain sees it those that play them know it cause that's why they're playing them! This explain why the dev's haven't addressed it as well (NO BRAINS)

Then they would actually HAVE to have BALANCED classes no more heals on hit so Jugs ED and mercs shield heal when hit out the window.

DUDE I WAS BEING SARCASTIC & Completely nonsensical in an effort to stress the point that OUR REALLY BIG HITS ARE PROC BASED and therefore left to chance........for the love of god man, okay I got the solution for the GFS. All sarcasm will now be preceded by <SARCASM> I wasn't one who posted the 40k crit I just responded to it..... JUST SAYIN

What the %&$&^ are you smoking? Back in the day you could get 9 or ten great matches close call down to the wire fights! You didn't care if you lost cause it was god &^$& Fun! Now your lucky to GET 1 of those a night. Most matches are an exercise in frustration pointless matches that are lopsided to hell and back mostly with the dominate side being skewed with the typical "I win classes" , Merc, sniper, Jug, Sorc heals but I can't blame the players their just peeps that see a huge advantage over the other classes and are using the least amount of effort to achieve said goal. ( I.e. They need a crutch) bam typical match has 3 mercs two sniper two jug and sorc heals. The blame falls on these lazy inept dev's who see the issue as being the matches are to long so were gonna make them shorter. Are you Effin kidding me that is SO NOT the problem! Until this dev team can actually balance these classes PVP will continue to be a joke and pointless matches which are over before they begin will just deter any new people coming into pvp from actually playing unless of course they happen to be playing one of the Crutch classes.

As a deception assassin I find fighting snipers just a huge pain the arse. Wholly agree with everything you said if your gonna give them this much control + survival then cut their DPS and remove their ability to stun in entirety would be poetic justice. Having that much DPS and Survival should come at a cost which it don't . You literally have like a 1 second window when entrench wheres off and before they roll again and 50% of the time mostly due to lag slow player reaction you miss the chance to stun a sniper. Personally there should be a 3 sec cool down once entrench ends before he can roll so you can at least have a chance to stun them.

As a deception assassin I find fighting snipers just a huge pain the arse. Wholly agree with everything you said if your gonna give them this much control + survival then cut their DPS and remove their ability to stun in entirety. Having that much DPS and survival should come at a cost which it don't . You literally have like a 1 second window when entrench wheres off and before he rolls again and 50% the time mostly due to lag slow player reaction you miss the chance to stun a sniper. Or have a 3 sec cool down once entrench ends before he can roll so you can at least have a chance to stun them.

Why is it Jugs insist on having three lives as DPS this is why Mercs and snipers are OP as all hell in current meta. your a DPS burst class you burst then you die! But hey I'm game so yeah give DPS jug more "anti-focus" and cut your dps in half do the same to Merc, & and Sniper and I'm fine with it!

eNever really left Mercs and snipers both shared spot light before. There was a brief influx of fury mara's and peeps still play jugs all of which break trinity. As long as you have I win crutch classes which are classes that by definition break the trinity rule you will have peeps flock to them in droves. Merc's the worst offenders, sniper, jug all are prime examples uber DPS plus UBER survival this breaks trinity your either DPS which suppose to be a glass cannon spec and none of these are or your a hybrid i.e. a pseudo tank / DPS in which case your DPS shouldn't come close to what pure spec DPS put out because what in the sam 4377 is the point of playing a glass cannon spec when I can play a I win Class such as Merc, Sniper, or Jug achieving the same DPS output and not dying nearly as much. Now had the so called nerfs to said classes actually been nerfs then people would have switched because they don't have the I win crutch. Understand also that having abilities like what merc and jug have where you basically cannot attack them or a.) you heal them or B.) you get the dmg reflected back compounds the issue because now we have all these peeps playing said classes queuing for these matches which unbalances them. One you might be able to overcome but the difficultly gets Progressively harder with each I win class in the match. Bioware fails to get this and hence the reason peeps aren't PVPin like they use to. Can't get a decent match now days your either on the UBER team and stomp your opponent or your the team that gets ravaged neither are fun IMHO I want a challenge not a ^%$#^%$ cake walk or and exercise in frustration and pointlessness!

DUDE for the record yeah it's possible to get a 40 k crit on a sin and i'm betting your running a max power crit version but those hits are basically when the stars align, Venus in geosynchronous orbit with mars on a bilateral vector with Saturn and Uranus another words it's not an all to common occurrence because our crits depend on stuff procing all at the same time so we're more likely to around 20-25k crits with a 35-40k crit poping up every once in a blue moon. For the record if your playing a DPS spec you SHOULDN'T have uber survival you should be a glass cannon now I don't know if its skanks or tanks but most of the time goin up against a jug I get eviscerated and the jug gets 3 lives. Some of this can be boiled down to poorly thought out visual ques to show when Reflect and ED are used cause they get drowned out as well IMHO.

Actually its a range of the " I win classes" Merc's and jugs are usually top running classes with at least 3-4 of either class in a match followed by Sniper and sorc heals. The rest are usually your fill ins mara Operative PT etc etc What the focus should be is Why are these classes always in the top running which is pretty much the fact they all break trinity Huge DPS output plus Huge Defenses which leads to what boils down to essentially 3 lives. We aren't talking tank spec here but DPS burst classes. Why play a DPS burst that is a glass cannon when I can play an "I win crutch class" put out the same high DPS, IF NOT MORE yet die far less of the time. Doesn't take mental giants to then figure out why most PVP matches are inundated with Merc's, Snipers, & Jugs. What really takes the cake though is the fact that the lame queue system will queue 3-4 of these I win classes into match throwing off the balance in 99% of the matches. Yeah I know that's supposedly getting addressed in some future pass of some future update, well i'm not holding my breath, will undoubtedly be as effective as the "NERF" to Merc's DPS was or how about the "NERF" to SKANK tanks.

It gives premades a huge advantage because you only have to tell someone hey focus X or I need a heal vs those in a pug who have to type it out. It is the single greatest strength premades have.

PREMADES SHOULD ONLY FIGHT PREMADES! OR Bioware provides their own IN GAME chat !

Withholding judgement until implemented if pattern holds this will a.) be as effective and a complete joke as the nerfs to Jug skanks and Merc DPS were because those were $^$^%$%^& mother %#$^$# laughable. or b.) due to typical lame dev shortsightedness other issues will be introduced causing yet even more problems.

yeah but thats predicated on the fact that you have a diverse pool to pull form when 95% of the pop is playing I win classes the odds of pulling diverse classes in don't necessarily go up. So basically if you have a high population of players playing the typical defacto I win classes Merc|Sniper|Jug| Sorc heals the odds of pulling those class from the pool are high.

someone with brains

Eric, you honestly think these are the issues that are concerning those PVPing now? How about the joke that is pvp due to class imbalances! You can't get a map now a days that doesn't have at least 3 mercs/jugs as a rule! The rest being back filled usually end up being sniper, sorc heals and fury mara's. I frankly am plain tired of having match after match being utter points of futility and exercises in frustration simply because the dev team can't grasp the simple concept that granting DPS burst specs what boils down to essentially 3 lives. They should be glass cannons if their DPS burst, to do otherwise makes playing pure DPS burst specs moot. Why play the glass cannon class when I can play an I win class doing the same amount of DPS with 3 times the survival. I am also well aware that in most cases these class survival is tied to being healed when hit yet the so called visual cues mechanism for the player to utilize is also broke. In most cases the visual cues do little to help the player. What good does it do someone who's fighting a merc who pops his shield ( yellow) that heals when the player cannot visually see the yellow because it's drown out by a sorc's bubble or an operative heal globe or even the merc's very own blue shield! (The same goes for jugs ED). Frankly giving heal on dmg to only a few was a mistake BUT if you insist on going this route then make the visual cues Persistent, perceptible and pronounced! Finally the last issue. Seeing as most of us know you will not address the class imbalances even though this is what has been what most have been advocating for some time .........yet Merc / Sniper still seem to be the defacto class to play hmm could it be that high DPS output + high survival = increase numbers of people flocking to the class results in grossly lopsided queues. Choice is simple if your pure DPS your glass cannon OR your a hybrid in which case your DPS should be reduced and I mean a real reduction in DPS not the lame thing you all just did which was a total farce. The only other option failing that is to limit the number of " I win classes" into a match. Because while one might be able to overcome the I win classes OP-ness if there's only one to deal with, it becomes a lot harder when it's an infestation of the class and in most cases devolves into an exercise in frustration when you have 3 other merc's or jugs. Now don't misunderstand I am not stating I expect a solo player to be able to survive 4 merc's, that's not what I am saying. Having those four merc's in the match especially because they break trinity makes the match almost pointless in most case's because overcoming those collective DCD and DPS puts an undo burden on the opposing side especially if the other team's make up falls short and due to your joke of a queue system this turns out to be the case now a days. I use to log in for 8 hrs have 15- 20 great pvp matches where the fights were down to the wire close calls . Those were some good times and fun matches. Now I log on for 1-2 hrs, most of the people I played with are gone because the matches have become boring pointless exercises in futility and instead of having 15-20 great matches I'm lucky I get one. Usually getting frustrated around the 3rd hour of the utter ridiculousness pvp has devolved into! It's not suppose to be merc vs sniper or jug vs merc which is the theme of late brought about because of the Dev's own shortsightedness. The issue isn't on the dang length of the match Eric IT'S THE QUALITY OF THE MATCH!! Focusing on shortening the matches isn't the issue never has been. Most of us what a decent challenge, notice I said challenge not futility personified and while a great many of us desire a challenge human nature being what it is there will always be those that seek out an advantage and having "I win Crutch" classes will always lead to imbalances and an influx of those classes which unbalances the entire system. Be innovative, be Creative take a risk MAKE PVP GREAT AGAIN! Or As Keith mentioned in the roadmap we are looking to make some Warzone changes this year, starting in July. It is our plan to try to get these on PTS as well, but before we get to that point we wanted to get your opinion on our plans. Below you will find the changes along with our goal for these changes. Let us know your thoughts. The goals of these changes are: To shorten the average time of our Warzones to be around 12 minutes. We have a few WZs that are taking quite a bit longer than that currently. We have some WZs that are exploitable due to environment hacking, we want to fix that. Voidstar changes - We want to give the offense a much better chance of completing the objectives. We want to make Voidstar more about a race to complete the objectives as opposed to a map which often ends in a stalemate. Less stalemates will shorten the overall time of the map. Door now take 6 seconds to arm (down from 8) Defenders now have 15 seconds to disarm door bombs (down from 20) Extending the bridges and lowering the shields now takes 6 seconds to channel (down from 8) Forcefields are now blocking the reactor room doors until the bridges are extended Characters who hack their way into the last two rooms of the Warzone before the bridge has been extended or the forcefield is down will be killed Ancient Hypergates - We want running orbs to be more impactful to the WZs gameplay, with the goal of shortening each map. Orbs now score more points (up from 6, review below) Orbs scores ramp up each round of the game: Round 1 = 12 points per orb delivered Round 2 = 15 points per orb delivered Round 3 = 18 points per orb delivered Round 4 = 21 points per orb delivered Round 5 = 24 points per orb delivered Round 6+ = 27 points per orb delivered Player corral forcefields have had their up-time reduced, the forcefield is now down for 10 seconds and up for 15 seconds (previously 30 seconds) Alderaan - Shortening the match time. Turrets now damage ships for 12 damage per tick (up from 10) Characters exploiting by hacking inside of the capture terminals will now die when they do so Yavin - Further differentiate the map from Alderaan Civil War along with shortening the match time. Teams now start with 500 points (down from 600) When players die they reduce their teams score by 2 (up from 0) Characters exploiting by hacking inside of the capture terminals will now die when they do so -eric

ROFLMAO, From this inept dev team they're more likely to make things worse. These guys are a joke they couldn't balance a scale even if the scale was broken! Just don't hold your breath, just get use to joke matches with 3-4 merc's jugs and snipers the kings of the I win class mainly because they break trinity. As long as you have classes that break trinity I.e. DPS burst class with 3 lives you will have an influx of players flocking to play them inundating the dang queues with said classes which will result in lopsided pointless matches.

Simple Dev's break trinity. It's a rather simple concept the trinity system DPS, Tank, Heals. The whole issue stems from the DPS part of the trinity system . If your DPS burst class you should be glass cannons which means they do a whole lot of DPS and then die examples are Assassin, mara. But thanks to the inept development team bioware decided to allow some DPS burst classes to have 3 lives breaking trinity. Merc, Sniper, Jug are all I win classes huge DPS burst combined with insane up time which is the part that breaks trinity! The issue this creates is 2 fold creates an I win class which everyone either from necessity or just joining the mindless sheep starts playing. I mean why would i bother playing an DPS burst class that is a glass cannon when I can play pseudo tank with uber DPS thereby making pure DPS spec moot! This then creates the second problem now the game is inundated with an influx of I win classes those that play other classes can't get a decent match because they're all complete jokes 4 mercs and 2 snipers with 2 sorc healers or three jugs and a couple mercs and sniper plus heals etc etc . Point is the matches are just effin pointless. YET the dev's still refuse to address the issue. I am completely baffled on how any Dev can say these classes are balanced when anyone with eyes can see that they're not! I'm guessing the issue is that EA / Bioware are more focused on working on other games and have neutered the dev's working on SWTOR so that all we get is lame fixes that really do nothing just so they can say hey when did something. Then there's the off chance where they actually do address the issue and because so many where dependent on the I win classes what little skills they did have having atrophied most would just bail believing some horrible injustice was done to them. The longer this is allowed to continue the greater the out cry from those playing said I win classes if things were to ever change. Failure to change on the other hand drives the rest of us who don't play I win classes preferring a challenge not an I win button, we just get pushed into other MMO's.

HELLO ITS BIOFAIL! These guys don't care half our crap don't do what it's suppose to! Need to phantom stride to target activate ability and oh look nada oh but a i got lame sped buff but do to that little rock graphic target gets away and heals. Or you get rooted i took phasing phantasm pop it oh look still effin rooted. Just accept this fact not enough devs play and the ones that do play other class like merc and jug hence the reason nothing bad eve happens to them.

visual queues being drowned out such as merc's shield that heals when hit (yellow) gets drown outed by a sorc bubble, operatives heal globe and mercs very own blue shield! same can be said for Jugs ED make the visual ques predominant and ez to discern especially if you are not going to balance the classes or fix the queing system so we don't have 5 merc's on the field!

Seems to me I'd rather have someone producing a buff for 5% or more dmg for everyone doing the PVE content coupled with a debuff on the bosses instead of one tank doing DPS! How would doing this be any different than heals? You buff your companion / Debuff target and solo content achievable this is what a healer would do!

Tanks classes are the primary reason why PVP is what it is. Tanks should at no point EVER be doing DPS ! They should have been a support role doing their guarding thing and then doing buffs and debuffs Jedi|Sith even have cannon for it Battle mediation stances.(could change nomenclature and visuals for BH's) basically think Heals only instead of health they produce a buff(s) or debuff(s). Because they are not doing DPS there is no issue that will arise were tanks spec can out DPS pure DPS specs. ( This is the reason why everyone and their brother are playing Merc/ Sniper/ Jug DPS burst class which HUGE survival making glass cannon specs moot.) plus rather good incentive to play a Tank as most teams would want a buff or the ability to counter someone else buff!

nah that would never work because its complicated. Bioware only does things half#@ed I mean look at space sim and crafting both things could be great but instead just advertising gimmicks designed to entice would be MMO players from other MMO's. The space sim is a joke tie fighter vs xwing by far a more entertaining experience and that's fricken 20+ years old out date space sim!!!. Even SWG had a better space sim! As for crafting there is no crafting just replicating of stock items put on GTN and play price wars. If you have a huge amount of $$ you can by those that low ball you and put back on market. No one buys your item cause it's the best or unique simply the cheapest on the GTN this is not crafting this is the dev's being lazy. PVP a once enjoyable aspect of the game is flooded with imbalanced classes such as merc and their bs heal on hit ability a utterly stupid %$#%$^# ability to give to a dps spec (jugs included) which is predicated on being hit when shield is up yet the visual ques that tell the player the shield is up ( yellow shield visual) can be drown out by sorc bubble, OP's heal globe and their very own blue shield dmg mitigation one just to name a few. So now the players can't even tell when they're not suppose to be attacking at all because Biofail can't even get the visual ques to perform properly which is further exacerbated by there utter inability to grasp the concept of the trinity system which is Tank |Heals|DPS. Tanks shouldn't be doing DPS if they do it should be half that of a pure DPS spec. otherwise playing a pure dps spec (a glass cannon) is pointlessly moot why play a glass cannon when I can play and I win class! Heals shouldn't be able to heal endlessly without running out of force so in situation where they get put guarding they would die simply from attrition. Finally, DPS if your gonna be a dps burst your gonna be a glass cannon if your not then your a hybrid and your DPS should be half of what a pure spec is it simple! One might be able to cope with the imbalances if the actual team makeup were balanced but do to the inept queue system you get matches which are just pointless exercises in frustration lopsided to hell and back with FOTM Merc's | Sniper's| Mara's and the rest back filled in with Jug and sorc heals and maybe a assassin or OP. Seriously 3-4 mercs and 2-3 snipers minimum now days. SO if bioware can't fix any of these things what makes you think they would implement your idea ( which seems like a good idea mind you)

Dude to sit there and say this is all the players fault is utter bs! Merc's /Snipers/Jugs all break trinity and you and don't tell me you don't see it! If you've been playing so dang long then you must of seen the influx of players playing merc's and snipers you can't go a match without have at lleast 3 per team with two snipers a couple of jugs or possible mara and a sorc heals. Merc Snipers jugs are I win classes by default huge DPS huge survival these are suppose to be glass cannons! Whats the damng point of playing a DPS glass cannon spec when I can load into an I win class do gobs of DPS plus not die compared to that of a pure dps spec Glass canon. Further more bioware's lame visual que to tell the player hey I just activated my Reflect or play shield that heals me get drown out by other visual queues like sorc bubble or Merc own dang blue shield drowns out the yellow.Then there's Operatives healing globe drowns out darn near everything. A HUGE part of the blame for this lands right smack on the back of the ineptitude that is this dev team. First having classes break trinity just forces people to either quit playing cause they're tired of getting rolled by 5 merc's ( or what ever the I win class is) or to roll an I win class themselves exacerbating the problem! Secondly, If you absolutely are dead set against actually holding your characters to trinity then your queue system should be adequate enough that it prevents GROSSLY mismatched matches from occurring WHICH IT DON'T! Lastly if your going to have heal on dmg (stupidest thing you can do) and reflect abilities predicated on visual queues the players sees then it kinda vital the player be readily able to see them! Yeah the poster seems rather new but I sense his utter frustration at the class imbalances it's hard enough dealing with one yet most matches have 3-4 it's an utter joke! Quit blaming the new people & start blaming the ineptitude that is this dev team! Instead of L2P how about L2B dev's

spoken like someone who plays an I win class