Just play whatever you like. Even if it's not that great right now now, it eventually will be. Performance gets shuffled around all the time. Ultimately, there's no point in trying to stay ahead of the curve. Just enjoy yourself. Besides, you'll probably perform better in general if you're enjoying your class versus picking one because it's strong but that you find unfun. But if you really want the numerical "best" pure melee, then the answer is most likely marauder/sentinel at the moment. They have the highest skill ceiling of any advanced class in the game, but you'll also get better performance overall than you will from jugg/guardian if you play them well.

....What? Assuming you're talking about DPS jugg, as the original post appears to imply, then I would have to strongly disagree. Marauders will pretty much run you over if they even half know what they're doing, and their durability is only below a DPS jugg's if you are for some reason not using any defensives at all. Pure tank juggs are also fodder in PvP. Only skank tanks are to be feared.

Yeah, I know there have been many of these over the years. I also know the one thing the entire community has been able to agree on, that being Darth Vowrawn/Scourge's facial configuration as a selectable option, has yet to come to pass. But y'know what? Screw it, here we go again. Customizations that would benefit Sith Purebloods (and be relatively cheap to implement) - Vowrawn/Scourge facial structure - King Adas' black skin - Different configurations of "tattoo" in the form of scarification, not unlike what we see on Tenebrae's body. This could of course be much less complex and detailed, otherwise it might not be so cost effective to do. - More hair and jewelry options.

I'll alert the media.

Knowing them, they'll probably increase the cost instead. Because perpetual rage starvation is definitely a "streamlined" playstyle.

A much greater number than those that complained about teaming up have reached the point where they want cross-faction activities, including grouping, to be enabled. Of course, it's possible this is primarily driven by the diminished size of the playerbase.

Both Jedi and Sith are extremely prone to becoming drunk on their own power. It tends to make them quite arrogant, though Jedi are often thoroughly blind to this fact; Jedi believe themselves infallible, and Sith are normally too hopped up on the dark side to care either way. Those rare few that do take the pragmatic approach end up being absurdly dangerous. More often than not it's the stupidly powerful ones rather than the weak ones that resort to pragmatism, also. Darth Malgus would be a pretty good example of a powerful Sith that opted for a more common sense approach, at least in the later years of his life. He was as hotheaded as any other Sith during his youth.

Hrm. Lance/Gore's miss percentage does seem to be unusually high. I also seemed to be missing more with Annihilate as well, when trying to clock Annihilation's current numbers.

See, that's the thing. Satele Shan is supposed to have inherited quite a bit of power from her ancestors, Revan and Bastila, yet she comes to admit that the Jedi Knight PC has grown much stronger than her. The Sith Warrior, meanwhile, is constantly made out to be this monstrously powerful force user that nobody can quite figure out why, exactly, they're so strong. PC force users all have stories that build them up as these absolute beasts. Depending on choices made, the Sith Warrior may even be implied to be stronger than Revan himself. So bearing that in mind, one must conclude that the playable force users are, in fact, floating around in the realm of OP. Still far from insane **** like Vitiate, of course, but also certainly nothing to shake a stick at. Storywise, I have a hard time believing that a BH or agent would win a head on fight against one of these individuals. They would require a lot of planning and prep work to make sure everything possible is working in their favor.

Don't forget to mention that troopers made up for that with their ability to murder people -- even tanks -- in warzones in two to four GCDs, depending on the circumstances. Scoundrels, however, didn't really have anything going in their favor. Operatives were just straight up better at everything. Rock throwers (as someone else already mentioned I believe) also used to have an edge up over lightning bots, but that has (to my knowledge) long since been resolved.

Isn't that a long overdue addition to the game? People have been asking for it almost since the game's inception. Perhaps with the special jewelry on their tendrils included with one of the existing jewelry options to avoid having to program in extra jewelry options, since we all know people are going to want to have that in addition to the other jewelry varieties available.

You would go far away from demon hunter if you were smart. They're crippled on the PTR now. That other company's most recent swath of changes has all but destroyed Havoc's boss damage. They are now nothing more than cleave bots.

Probably going to stick to my marauder, though it looks like 5.0 might not be their best showing.

Therein lies the problem. The majority of marauder players despise Annihilation because of the severe ability bloat it suffers from. Those of us that happen to enjoy Annihilation have learned to roll with the punches and accept that they're going to keep heaping more and more on there. Carnage, on the other hand, was competitive--theoretically stronger than Anni in most fights due to the latter's needlessly long ramp up. Carnage now, at least judging by numbers being put forward in this thread, is in a pretty rough spot. While Annihilation will likely continue to be fine (and indeed, it has rather consistently been one of the stronger DPS since the game's inception) , those individuals that find Carnage is more their style may find themselves being asked to switch to Annihilation if the difference ends up being as big in practice as it is on a dummy.

Oh Christ, don't let them know that. The last time annihilation was self-sufficient they clubbed its self-healing until there was almost nothing left.

To a point, anyway. I have no clue if this is still the case or not, but there was a time when vanguards and gunslingers were slightly stronger than their imperial counterparts.

I would think it would also vary wildly on a case by case basis. For example, Palpatine would be essentially untouchable to anyone that does not wield the force. Back when some of the EU stories about him were considered valid by people, one of his feats included tearing open a wormhole that devastated an entire fleet of starships in the span of just a few seconds. He did this without ritual or even a preparatory period, requiring a mere act of will and the expenditure of a great deal of energy to accomplish the feat. On the other hand you've got your average Jedi Knight or Sith, which there is plenty of evidence to suggest could potentially be taken down by a sufficiently prepared and skilled non-force user. The main issue would be that force users do indeed have much greater sensory perception than those without, sometimes even to the point of possessing a pseudo-controllable power of foresight. Catching one with their proverbial pants down can be quite difficult, if not outright impossible in the case of the aforementioned rare few that possess foresight. As far as the game is concerned, the player characters are meant to represent the pinnacle of their chosen path. Each is unusually gifted or powerful in their own way, be it skillful use of firearms or a way above the norm connection to the force. Assuming equal skill and playing field, a force user would likely win due to the sheer ridiculous number of things at their disposal. Luckily most of the non-force users seem to make it a point not to fight "fair" whenever possible. Helps level the playing field a bit.

With an execute option. He's been allowed to live for far too long, amirite?

I have no doubt that many marauders will use the new camo ability to front load their damage at the start of a fight. And if they do that, they're going to rip hate right off the tank and not have any way to get rid of it again. As useful as it might be under the right circumstances, one has to think it would be a bad idea overall. After all, marauders that play their class well have long had to use force camo specifically TO drop their threat--you will inevitably pull hate if you do not.

The suggested romance options are fine and all, but what about the opposite? They need to bring back Malavai Quinn and provide us with the option to put him down for good. I'm certain many players would be on board with this.

I've used Sorc, Assassin, Marauder, Juggernaut, Powertech, Mercenary, and Smuggler in HMs and NiMs as both DPS and tank across my years of playing this game, though I do confess I've never healed in any ops -- I simply don't have the mindset of a healer. In any case, I might not play all of those anymore, but I have made sure to remain familiar with how they operate in case I ever find myself with enough free time on my hands to resume raiding, in which case I would need to pick up whatever class is the strongest at that time in order to be competitive at my preferred level of play. As for the skill cap, there is a certain ratio of effort to reward that is generally maintained in MMOs. It's long been a thing that the harder the class is to play, the more powerful it is compared to the easier ones when placed in the right hands. Throwing that away may be fine for those that play marauder purely for the challenge, but no longer having any shot at pulling top end numbers regardless of skill level isn't going to sit well with people that chose the class for its capabilities. I happen to enjoy the marauder playstyle--it's easily my favorite class, but I will admit that I'm not exactly pleased to know that the amount of effort that goes into said playstyle may no longer yield appropriate results. As for the mention of having three DPS specs being the balancing factor, I'm afraid that's not how their balancing works. The game is not designed around frequently changing specs to suit a particular fight, though I do agree that all players wanting to see high end content should make certain they are able to do so. There is also the fact that Fury has absolutely no place in PvE whatsoever. It is not even competitive for cleave heavy fights anymore--Carnage will always beat it hands down, and I'm reasonably certain Annihilation would as well. Its viability is even less on single target. The fact that Carnage appears to be falling down to near-Fury levels in 5.0 definitely doesn't help matters any either. In any case, it appears we're more or less in agreement that mDPS should have higher dummy DPS than ranged. That's what people in this thread have been getting at. There has been no call for marauder to consistently be the end all be all of DPS, only that having melee DPS in parity -- or behind, as is currentlythe case -- with ranged DPS in dummy parses is a terrible game decision that will strongly negatively effect mDPS in general, but marauder in particular.

Marauders have decent defensive cooldowns, but two of the three are on fairly lengthy cooldowns. One of them doesn't even work on most ops boss mechanics and can easily be completely bypassed by players. Then you've got obfuscate; which is near worthless in ops, and doesn't really seem to make much of a difference in PvP anymore either. It is extremely easy to get oneself killed with even a single mistake regardless of skill level. Your skill cap comparison seems to be somewhat misleading. First of all, marauders very well do need to constantly monitor their rage usage versus their rage intake. A single mistake can leave you rage starved and cost a significant amount of DPS. Annihilation in particular is bad about this. You really can't get away with any mistakes at all if playing Annihilation, though I will concede that Carnage is a bit more forgiving. Again coming back to Annihilation, the spec's lengthy ramp up combined with its long rotation, resource balancing needs, and vulnerability to disruption makes it rather easy to have absolute garbage tier DPS if one is not playing it with a good amount of skill. To touch on the last point, how is it "bringing the pain" if it's consistently losing out to other, less risky DPS classes? Current projections would effectively make it so bloodthirst and predation are the only reason to even bring a marauder to high end PvE content, not to mention the drop off they will undoubtedly experience in PvP. Long story short, a glass cannon needs to be just that; a glass cannon.

A few points I feel should be made here. 1.) The hybrids are generally significantly more durable. If a marauder botches a mechanic or is unlucky enough in the RNG to be chain targeted with unavoidable mechanics, it's more than likely just straight dead. This same thing, putting aside instant death mechanics, has a very low chance of actually killing a Juggernaut. Other hybrids make up for lack of tankiness by being able to heal themselves. And more importantly than that, these classes can choose to assume a role other than DPS when they're put in a position where their numbers, be it through player error or poor game design, are no longer sufficient for a given task. Pure DPS classes lack this option and therefore suffer significantly more from poor design decisions. 2.) Marauders in particular have a very high skill cap. The gap between the 'average" marauder and one that is truly skilled is very pronounced. Average players won't even be able to draw out three quarters of the class's potential. A tremendous amount of effort, focus, and hand/eye coordination are required to keep up your rotation/priority whilst at the same time performing the plethora of boss mechanics that are aimed your way. 3.) Marauder has zero survivability outside of Undying Rage. If that's on CD and you get in trouble, you're pretty much SOL. Being a "glass cannon" without the "cannon" would probably be quite off putting to players. 4.) Marauder does present some nice utility in the forms of Bloodthirst and Predation, but that is all it brings to the table aside from damage. The class as a whole exists purely to bring the pain. So bearing these four things in mind, why shouldn't all three marauder specs pretty much stay above average? Besides, dummy parses only mean so much. If we use Annihilation's spot as fifth as the example, I believe it won't be hard to conclude that it'll be much lower than current projections once fight mechanics are brought into the equation.

And that is a problem. Bloodthirst + Predation should not be used as justification for the other two specs of a class that is purely DPS being crap. As far as DPS goes, being middle of the pack is every bit as bad as being at the bottom. And frankly, with the amount of skill that is required to correctly use Annihilation, it should always sit at number one. Anni marauder requires significantly more effort than any other class/spec--the ability bloat made sure of that.

I.... what? Annihilation is already by far the most convoluted mass of buttons in the game. The amount of ability bloat it's fallen prey to is insane. On top of that, it's got such an absurdly long ramp up and recovery times that its position as number one was only really theoretical in the first place; carnage normally beat it hands down in practice. Carnage, meanwhile, is absurdly fast paced -- easily the fastest paced spec in the game, bar none. And for no discernible reason they decide to kick both specs in their proverbial junk? I truly hope the changes we've seen thus far do not end up being finalized, elsewise there just won't be melee appearing in PvE content at all. Then, to add icing to the cake; Fury, the spec that is almost universally considered the most fun out of the three, remains the red headed step child, only now one of its two big brothers will be helping it keep the bench warm.