[Operatives are blowing my mind]

It blows my mind that operatives got a stupid good set bonus and a tactical that makes them the best PvP class for killing anything right now.

 

Exfiltrate has a 6s cooldown with set bonus and they get 2 Debilitate stun charges that they can also spec into have a lower cooldown. Veiled Strike does auto crit, triggers volatile substance which can also crit really hard and then get a 50-60k backstab auto crit without positioning requirements. This whole setup takes players down to 50% hp in just 3 button presses 90% of the time. You can break the first stun but you'll get stunned again and if you don't break the first stun you're dead anyway. There seems to be no way to really counter play at this point in time against this setup. PvP is full of operatives now just abusing how strong this tactical is along with the set bonus. Operative was in a fine place before; strong but not too strong and still able to hurt if you played it correctly. However, now you just have to press 3 buttons in the right order and you do nearly 100k in 2 GCDs, more than any other class that I've seen.

[Marksmanship / Sharpshooter Set Bonuses and Tactical Items]

Tactical Gear Suggestions:

 

- Landing shots from Penetrating Rounds on a target affected by Vital Shot grants a stack of Buff Name Here. At 5 stacks, Aimed Shot consumes all 5 stacks of said buff, causing Aimed Shot to deal AOE damage around the target for 30% damage and causing the targets to burn for medium amount of damage over 5 seconds.

 

- Shots from Penetrating Rounds now ricochet to targets nearby the primary target, dealing 50% then 40% then 30% damage. Damage decreases per bounce.

 

- You have increased range on all attacks (~45m)

I feel like Marksman and Sharpshooter should be the go to discipline for staying way back and taking out enemies. A Sniper should FEEL like a sniper.

 

- Ambush interrupts and knocks down targets farther than 15m away.

 

- Flashbang is now a stasis charge and has its cooldown reduced to 45s. When hit by Aimed Shot, Penetrating Rounds, or Charged Burst, the target is slowed heavily and is knocked back 15 meters.

 

- Aimed Shot now has a 2.5s-3s cast time, but hits for 30% more damage.

 

- When a target is crit by Aimed Shot, their fortitude is shattered, causing them gain stacks of Smuggler's Misfortune. Smuggler's Misfortune reduces the target's armor by 1% per stack and is stacked every time the target takes damage from Penetrating Rounds or Aimed Shot. Can stack up to 15 times and lasts 30 seconds.

[Skank jugg still needs another nerf]

Then watch my shadow hiting almost 41k. His gear have 234 ilvl, Balance?

 

https://s26.postimg.cc/ftxpdxxk9/Shadow_40k.jpg

 

With jug, bigest hit was 38k, dps spec, vengeance. As shank/skank i hit around 34k max. But i prefer shank for his better survivability. Bioware forced our hands with all fotm classes around. As a dps u get destroyed by a sniper/oper/merc same ilvl. U simply have no chance. Every class can put u in dificulty and kill u easy. Our force have died, we simply wield lightsabers but we have been cutted from the Force. So we adapt as non force users with a stick of light in our hands.

 

I see plenty of juggs and other classes that aren't maras/mercs/snipers doing just fine. And just because they play mara/merc/sniper doesn't mean they're good at the class so... Yeah.

[Skank jugg still needs another nerf]

Skank tank juggs are still hitting for 25-30k on crushing blow. Balanced? Lol.

[Lets talk about juggs]

Could I have some of whatever you're smoking? Focus is a lesser fury in every way: damage, survival, even utility in my opinion since predation doesn't require you to sacrifice yourself like guarding on a dps juggie does.

 

On the vigi side, according to the devs themselves it's supposed to be in the top parsing category as a melee sustained class and besides which dps is all it brings to the table (and I think even then it still does worse damage than a concentration sent).

 

Also if you're a sniper having issues with juggies... what do you do against a mara, which given its infinitely superior mobility is far better equipped to deal with sniper? For whatever record, no I do not want mara level mobility.

 

I never even alluded to the fact that I "was having problems with juggs." It was an example.

[Lets talk about juggs]

Okay so is it at all possible that we could nerf the pooled hatred talent for jugg? I mean, 50% extra damage is a lot. This is causing both rage juggs and veng juggs to out perform maras and snipers. Mathematically, this allows both rage and veng juggs to hit for around 50k on impale and vicious slash (of course this is before we add in mitigation stats, armor rating, etc) but it still can hit for 45k. On rage, that near 50k vicious slash can then be followed up using a 20-30k raging burst. I'm really confused how this hasn't been even talked about because this is doing more damage than pure DPS classes. It can even be used on Hew to hit for 40k as well, which means you could be trying to run and then you get hit from say, 26m away from a 40k hew? Uh okay. When snipers were hitting for upwards of 40k in 4.0, that was swiftly nerfed. But if it's on a jugg, it's okay? Not to mention jugg has 4 DCDs, which if timed well, can allow them to 4v1 and win. With the amount of slows that classes have, it stacks quickly. Snipers generally have the Series of Snares talent, which applies a stacking slow when channeling penetrating bursts or series of shots. Arsenal mercs' blazing bolts or whatever it is also applies a slow that is reapplied. The reapplication/stacking mechanic grants the jugg an additional stack every time the slow is stacked/reapplied which means you basically lose a huge part of your rotation while fighting a jugg. This means that you can either stop using that ability on them and lose so much DPS, or you can continue doing it and get hit by a 45k impale/vicious slash.

 

I'm open and willing to hear from other players what they think. I think that it should be cut in half (5% damage bonus per stack -> 25% at 5 stacks). It would still make pooled hatred worth grabbing but it wouldn't make it the monster it is.

[AGAIN FOR THE DEVS: Pvp is dying due to unfairness re snipes, mercs and sorcs]

Snipers are the easiest class to global.... op auto loses with mentioning them in title.

 

Well.. sounds like a terrible sniper then. Cuz Snipers aren't easy to global.

[AGAIN FOR THE DEVS: Pvp is dying due to unfairness re snipes, mercs and sorcs]

AGAIN THIS IS FOR THE DEVS DO YOU KNOW HOW TO READ? ARE YOU READING THIS?

 

Its Maras/Mercs/Snipers living forever along with Sorcs and Operatives in PVP Premade Groups doing the same routine over and over again farming pub players which ruins PVP and makes it boring. This is why pvp needs to change.

 

You all come up with as much EXCUSES as you want in terms of percentages, diagrams. statistics, frankly I dont give a ****. I have seen it all in PVP AND there is something NOT RIGHT about three snipers AND a COUPLE of Mercs being able to stun you for many seconds, heal their team and also have major defense screens, NOT to mention the DPS that is involved. This also goes for the SORCS DPS is way over in terms of STATS and they can also HEAL if they so choose. All that I can say is it must be NICE to be able to HAVE ALL THOSE ABILITIES FOLDED INTO ONE, WHEREAS AT THE SAME TIME, THE REPUBLICS ABILITIES GET NERFED as in COMMANDOS Healing and DPS AND SAGES Healing and DPS AND EVEN SENTS DPS. So basically when we do get a healer, even a real good one, there is NO *********** CHANCE, BECAUSE THEY are up against THREE OR FOUR other healers who can also stun you for several seconds, do dps on you, and when you try to fight back they ALSO HAVE DEFENSE SCREEN UP, (WOW MUST BE NICE. WISH I HAD THAT!) AND if all that do not do it, our Sages and Commandos with healing and some defensive abilities have been *********** NERFED. God only knows what happened to my defensive Guardian I have not checked her yet.

 

OH AND by the way just in case you did not know, DEFENSE SCREENS means you are unable to damage the person hiding behind it for as long as the DEFENSE SCREENS LAST..

 

HONESTLY WHAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR BRAIN? DO YOU HAVE ONE? I seriously question it at this point.

 

So please give ALL THE LAME EXCUSES you want to but I have witnessed in THE ******** IN PVP and from where I am looking, the IMPERIAL Snipers, Mercs and Sorcs have it WAY TO EASY and are exploiting the situation at the same time by making PRE MADE GROUPS and FARMING REPUBLICS as a result. This is A REAL PROBLEM and its also an UNFAIR PROBLEM made by the DEVS who must be PRO IMPERIAL or PRO STUPID. They need to FIX IT.

 

BE ASSURED the game is not going to be that much fun if all YOUR DOING is fighting other Imperials because that is WHERE THIS IS GOING. Without the TRUE JEDI which are in fact Pubs, the game is dead. FIX IT AND STOP *********** NERFING THE LIGHT SIDE.

 

Also for any or all negative comments, NO, I am not a troll. I do PVP all the time. If your comments cannot be productive and if your a one sided imperial, I do not care, because it was not meant for you in the first place. Ya know it must be nice to have all those abilities huh? So easy to win because it is the only way you can.

 

Again I repeat myself: Its Maras/Mercs/Snipers living forever along with Sorcs and Operatives in PVP Premade Groups doing the same routine over and over again farming pub players which makes it boring and very unbalanced in PVP. This is why pvp needs to change.

 

Gingishan posted some good points about this issue. Here is the link:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=945207

 

You do not need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out!

 

In the meantime Congratulations! Good way to kill the game itself.

 

LOL!

 

First problem: trying to play Pubs in PvP. Most pubs are just idiots when it comes to PvP, sorry.

 

Second: Mercs, Snipers, and Maras don't live forever if you kill the healer and LEARN 2 PLAY!

 

TL;DR --> You need to L2P and "git gud" because pub side isn't underpowered when compared to imp side. Imp side just knows how to play the game, unlike 99.9999% of pubs.

 

 

Wanted to add a little EDIT: I run in premades with my guild all the time because frankly, playing without a premade is the worst experience for a veteran PvP player. I want to play with players who actually know how to play and will heal me, dps targets I'm on (LIKE THE ENEMY HEALER OR HEALERS), and play the objective and win. My Guildies know how to do all of those, unlike every pug group. Every group is either full of noobs, people who are wearing gear from level 30, people who don't know how to play their class/fight other classes, people who don't play the objective, etc. Imp side is just as guilty of having the bad PvP players as pub side is. The thing is, a lot of the veteran PvP players play on Imp side instead of pub side. Pub side has basically no good PvP players who play on it, so the entire pub side PvP population is filled with baddies. However, my L2P statement still stands. If you want to L2P, there's always someone out there to help. Hell, you can contact me on Star Forge if you want and I can try to give tips on how to play (I only play on Imp Side). See my sig for my mains if you wanna talk.

[PVP balance out of control]

Is there any reason at this late date to even have gear tiers for pvp? Why not just bolster everyone to 248 in pvp and remove this aspect of the game entirely? The main gripe in these forums is that matches are unbalanced. Under the winner takes 2x reward system we have now, the better players are more likely to have the better gear which just makes the imbalance worse. Uniform bolster to 248 would encourage players to try different classes which is the best way to learn the classes, which is the best way to get better, which is the best way to have good matches.

 

With a large population, having different gear levels makes sense to create diversity of experience within an elo range. But at this point all it does in exacerbate imbalance and should be done away with.

 

Honestly, does anyone here really take pride in having 248 gear? Does anyone really get psyched about leveling the gear of their new toon?

 

From what I read, all anyone cares about anymore is finding a good match.

 

Gear doesn't even matter in PvP if you know how to play your class/the game. A person in 230 gear can kill a person in 248 gear easily.

[PVP balance out of control]

First of all please sorry for my bad english.

We all love SWTOR and the game have many good aspects specially in PVE. But when it come to PVP the things are dramatically. A game have the potential to relax players, make them feel great, destress them even. We do not see this in here and this is sad trully.

Things that must be imediatly adresed asap in PVP:

1. Tier gear. Curently i saw 4 Tier. Game should have only 2 Tier, one from normal WZ-nes and second for Ranked WZ-nes, like most decent PVP games have. make the game to distress us not to stres players with over and over grinding gear.

2. Premades should not be alowed to que unless other premades, basically remove premades from normal warzones. Make a third button with que for premades. Go further and make minimum 2 stages of que, 1 for tier 230-242 and onother for 246-248, unless u remove the 4 tier and let only 2 as i posted above. Go even further since is easy: How u chose openents: same number of healers on each side, same with tanks, same number, same ilvl. Played for days against same premades, with abusive players in language, showing how good they are in premades but very bad when quing solo, most of them leaving WZ-nes if they see they lose. For leavers 30 minutes penalties should be fine.

3. OP classes. I realy want Devs to teach us: How can a jug or any any leap class fight with snipers, in my opinion the most OP class in the proper hands (i leveled one so i see it myself). Leap should be usable against any kind of entrech, cover, etc, even against net from commnados/mercs. And not only leap, but include a second leap like heroic leap or jedi leap with hi range but animation like zelous leap. Imunity on leap, minimum 4 seconds, doubled with talent to make pair with mercs/mandos. Jugs/guardians play shank because the dps tree are lamentable to play, so the fault is yours not them.

4. Remove healing from any dps class. Is anoying to see opers/scoundrels kiting and interupting a node from beeing caped just because they heal like mads, they have too much dodge, they are extremly mobile and roll is buging the game in a way out of control ( i have both scoundrel and operative and i know what i am talking about, they outperform even in low ilvl gear). It is annoying to see mercs dps healing more then 2 times their HP by just talents and instant healing procs.

5. Revamping skill tree for every class. Ideeas? YES! OFC! U did excelent job with chapter Shrouds of Memories, the design for classes should match that type of few talents like HK-55 have. Here u can do an excelent job, revamp the game and stop beeing lazy. Go see and learn from Battlefront 2, from Overwatch, Titanfall and decent PVP games, so easy to play and most of all enjoyable.

6. Quing: I saw alot of moments and WZ-nes where 3-4 players must fight vs 8 players, not once but many times.

7. LEAP BUG. I lost nodes by simply leaping under map (have pictures to prove) multiple times in same WZ-ne. Mostly this hapen when sorc speed up or when operatives roll. Since game started this BUG is not fixed. Leaped 5 times undermap in same WZ-ne, cmon, rlly?

8. Cheaters: Will give you 1 example: Darth Malgus, player named ÒÔÖ, jedi shadow. he caped nodes before time start, he caped ball before game start (have pics to prove if u ask).

Thanks

 

1.) We had 2 tiers of gear before and bioware removed them. They're not going back. Plus, I think everyone can agree that being able to just have 1 gear set for everything is nice.

 

2.) First off, there's not even enough players to segment pvp even farther. The game is barely hanging on as is and most players are at 248 item level. Bolster helps by boosting your stats to around 242 item level. Second, premades are so prevalent because alot of the good players have stopped playing the game. I would rather play in a 4 man premade with guildies in voice comms and win games than play in a pug group and lose multiple games because people don't know how to play objectives, kill healers, or just play their class.

 

3.) Really. You think snipers are OP? Yes they are very, very good when used by a good player who knows how to play it but they're not OP. There are so many mediocre snipers in PvP that it's honestly a joke. Sorry but this requires a "git gud" response. As you learn how to play PvP and how to play your class effectively, you'll see that each class has a weakness and how to exploit them.

 

4.) Another "gid gud" response. Every DPS class except Sniper and Mara have healing in some way. This is because sniper and mara are the only pure DPS classes in the game and technically have/should have the highest DPS output. Other classes make up for their lack of DPS output by having heals and other utilities. If you're fighting a scoundrel/operative, you need to get them stunned, netted, slowed, etc. If you don't CC them, they can roll and LOS you and heal.

 

5.) Skill trees were already revamped in 3.0 because BW wanted to cater to new players and make everyone cookie cutter builds.

 

6.) You do realize that the warzone ends in 30 seconds if you have less than 6 people in your warzone group?

 

7.) I haven't seen this bug ever in my 5 years of playing this game and bugs like this seem to always exist.

 

8.) Cheaters will be in every game unfortunately. Just gotta report them and hope for the best. (P.S. 99% of the time the person cheating is really bad so they use exploits and cheats to win games.)

[Skank tanks aren’t the problem you’re looking for…]

Honestly I feel I make more of a difference in regs than ranked, where the dps should be good enough to work around or through guard.

 

 

Since when does ranked have 8 people on a team? I don't deny the aoe potential of skanks is pretty good. It's also much better from my vigi guardian. Also sins have the highest mitigation theoretically and among the lower end of the damage potential.

The situation you describe is me when I'm sitting at a node in voidstar aoeing to prevent a door cap.

 

 

I admit my ranked experience is rather limited but I remember no teams with double skanks. A skank PT and dps PT maybe. In our case we had my skank guardian and a dps guardian.

 

If you have a decent tank they should be able to guard swap, thus negating the need for the second tank and allowing you to run an actual dps in that spot.

 

If you're getting busted down by a tank, I'm sorry but you need some kind of help. I can outlast most dps sure. But at some point it comes down to who kills who first. I can guard swap perfectly well and our healer is good, so we can run a second dps to kill stuff faster.

 

I have out damaged plenty of dps in an unranked environment. In a ranked environment not so much.

 

 

This is part of being a tank. It provides team utility which is part of our purpose. Also, if your healer is being bursted by a tank with no help from dps he needs help. If 2 dps and a tank are able to burst him, good for them, they coordinated well and maybe you should have done the same.

 

 

 

Who's running double skank? As a skank having another person guarding would drive me insane. I hate having a second guard on an 8 man team, much less 4.

 

 

 

If I get to exchange damage for more survivability you're just going to hate me worse. The good skanks are not the ones that run around trying to be dps. We're the ones who make our teams incredibly difficult to kill. I had someone come in our discord to complain about the number of tanks on our team. It was one tank - me. I was just so effective at guard swapping it negated his team's ability to burst someone effectively. Their dps was low also.

 

Which leads me to the biggest single problem in pvp: dps that can't do dps or can't coordinate at all.

 

That said people are getting their wish. I see the forthcoming skank nerf as most likely implying the death of tanking in yet another aspect of this game.

 

Well considering you don’t understand ranked, let me explain. There’s this thing called CC and in ranked you are CC’d and then they hard swap. Sure the tank or healer can pop their breaker but they will be immediately CC’d again. In ranked, wasting cc breaker is a guaranteed death most of the time. Also there are plenty of teams running double skank tank. You can’t “dps through/around guard” when the dps and healer are guarded, always in guard range, and you as a dps are being taunted.

 

I’m sorry but its obvious that you have not really took the time to understand the problem. A tank is able to do the same amount of damage as a high burst dps like a arsenal merc. All while having 20% shield chance and some absorption. Lets also not forget they also get all the tank cooldowns and perks such as invincible (for juggs) or dark ward (for sins).

[Skank tanks aren’t the problem you’re looking for…]

Okay lets take a look at why Skank tanks are broken. I will be referencing RANKED PVP. Especially group ranked because in regs skank tanks don’t really matter.

 

First, lets talk about how each tank spec gets a damage buff to one of their main AOE attacks. For example, PT tank gets a 100% damage bonus to Firestorm. A skank tank PT can hit 8 enemies for 25-30k damage with firestorm. Its essentially smash monkey 2.0. Granted, it has to crit on all 8 people but it does a lot of damage without crit. It can crit for 13-15k on a normal PT tank. Same with jugg and sin. Depredating volts can crit back to back for 18k. It hits 4 times so essentially a sin tank can do ~50k damage or so with 3 stacks of the damage buff. Not to mention that sin tanks have the highest mitigation possible.

 

In group ranked, teams run 2 skank tanks, 1 healer, and a high burst dps (like mm sniper or arsenal merc). The tanks never have to switch guard. Both tanks cc everyone and then jump on a target, each do 25-30k crushing blows (so about 50-60k damage) and the sniper or merc does an additional 30k damage (now up to 90k damage). By that time you’re dead. The fact that a T A N K can do burst dps like that is insane. They just global everyone into the dirt and you cannot do anything about it.

 

Now lets talk about how all tanks get AOE heal reduction. Two skank tanks can apply a constant 20% heal reduction on a whole team. This means that healing output from your healer is constantly reduced to low numbers. The skank tanksm burst will overwhelm your healer and you will die.

 

On top of all of this, 2 skank tanks in a granked team have the survivability bonuses of a tank, while retaining stupid levels of dps output.

 

Are skank tank teams possible to beat? Yes. However, it’s very difficult and the average team who hasn’t been playing granked together forever will not beat a good skank tank team. Dps output against skank tank teams can be reduced by ~80% due to skank tanks constantly taunting each dps and no guard swaps. You could be doing 5.5k dps realistically but with that guard and taunt always up, you’ll be doing 2k dps. This wouldn’t be a problem with 2 normal tanks because normal tanks do not have the capability to global someone.

 

So please tell me why skank tanks aren’t the problem?

[which IA subclass is the most heavy-hitting?]

Marksman Sniper is one of the hardest hitting disciplines in the game, if not the hardest. However, be aware that Sniper is a turret and you will stay in one spot in order to do 98% of all of your dps. They have a lot of channels and casts but cannot be interupted. With entrench they can get 20-23 seconds of cc immunity.

 

Operative’s hardest hitting spec is Concealment. Lethality is a DoT spec and imo does very little damage. However, Operative is a melee class.

[Get rid of mats in ranked]

Also wanted to thank you for this helpful reply! The truth is on the first round I broke too soon, but was getting no support from my team and was getting run down really quickly. I have have noticed other healers get target first. Usually I find if I can survive the first 30 seconds I'm good, but the beginning can be pretty tense. I'm totally open to suggestions if you have any on how to survive the onslaught when your team is not helping much.

 

Personally if my team wasn't peeling the first thing I would do is try to run towards my team. If they're in stealth, enemy AOEs will force them out and force them to help you by attacking the enemies.

 

Next, make sure you pop your force armor on yourself and your AOE healing if you're playing a sage/sorc. Sorc/Sage is the most vunerable, IMO, when being opened up on because they have paper thin armor and very little survivability options in the way of abilities. Sage/sorc has a ton of kiting tools but not a lot of DCDs. If playing Operative, put 2 probes on yourself, pop nanotech right before they attack, and pop your stim boost (with the 5% heal and 20% damage reduction - revitalizers). As for merc, I would pop reactive shield and make sure you have the 30% less damage while stunned perk. Thats 55% less incoming damage when you're CCd.

 

If you get netted, you have the option of CC breaking and then bubbling as a sorc/sage. Or you die.

[Get rid of mats in ranked]

Solo ranked is a total joke now. Every match one team has a total clueless person which is making the games very one sided, ie. one team has a person who instant dies.

 

I don't have any problems with the clueless people who are new, but this turns ranked into a commedy and there isn't any real competition.

 

It's about which team will get that guy who will instant die and is usually a jugg dps, sorc dps, pt dps with 109-110k health and no stim.

 

 

I have Stims and use my health pacs and am fully geared out, and am usually top two in heals for an unranked and know my toon pretty well. I have a pretty sophisticated keybind and have studied my classes buffs, etc... Then I get into ranked and get targeted first and last night took 28kdps in my fight before I promptly died. I was stunned three times in a row. Finally was able phase walk and then bubble and then force run to my group for help and to buy time and then I was dead, all in five secs. But I wait to try again,ask my team mates for some strategy and last maybe 10 seconds in the next round as they all continue to stealth around as I’m attacked. I didn’t even know about the mats drops (just wanted a challenge), but stick around to watch the end to try to learn, only to be kicked from the group with five secs to go. Then I get a message from my team mates telling me to go die in a hole and don’t come back. I love pvp, I love arenas, and I love learning game mechanics, and I am a sucker for punishment, but that kind of experience is just sad and pathetic. Honestly, if you lose guys like me I can’t imagine who you will get. The weird thing is it made me want to que again and again but not really care, in other words, to do exactly what you guys are whinging on about.

 

I'm sorry but unranked isn't comparable to ranked. You were stunned three times because... thats how you play ranked. You don't pop CC breaker instantly unless you're whitebarred and for sure going to die. I've seen many players that will instantly pop CC breaker the instant they're stunned and are promptly globaled. Now, your team was being very unhelpful and the first thing they should've done is peeled. They should've CC'd the attackers/pushed them away. If one of them had guard, they should've swapped it to you. They should've been taunting too.

[Get rid of mats in ranked]

I think the devs should definitely award mats only for wins. I don't really care much about mats in team ranked because I play with friends who want to win. Solo, however, definitely needs to be changed.

 

As Hottie said earlier, they should force people into 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 dps comps. I agree 10000000000%. *Cough* 2 skank tank cheese strat *cough*

[Get rid of mats in ranked]

I tried solo ranked for the mats over the weekend. I was trying to win, but I wouldn't have done it if I didn't want to go for the mats. Just a few games. Won 3, lost 1. I think all 4 games went all 3 rounds. Was early morning, so it was mostly the same 8 people, just rearranged into different groupings. One player predicted gloom and doom in every match I got him in. I guess none of us were good enough to be there with him. But only one of the matches did the "other 3 of us" get told to quit queuing. Other than that there was surprisingly no hate.

 

Anyway, I like the mats drawing people in. Gives me a chance to give it a try without feeling like "omg, I better be awesome to even look at ranked!". Invasion of the scrubs! Deal with it. On the other hand, I still don't really like arenas, so I do wish there were another way to get those particular mats (well, I suppose there is if I were rich enough to buy them off GTN).

 

Im fine with mats being in ranked but ranked is where you go to prove yourself. I keep getting put with people who, frankly, have no clue how to even play the game at all and spam all their DCDs in 3 seconds. They don't know how to properly CC, DPS, or anything. People who farm Solos for mats are not "trying to win" they simply don't care. It's really sad when you queue for solos and want to win and your other 2-3 teammates don't even try. I did 2.1mil overall damage with 4.5k dps while the other 2 DPS did 600-800k damage overall at 1.5-2.2k dps. I don't like when people say they're trying to win when they put out numbers like that. Ranked, both team and solo, is a DPS race. However, all the DPS have to be good. The frustrating part is those people that put out low DPS and numbers just don't care. I do. I wanted to start doing solos again recently and I've played 6 solos today and lost 5 of them because I get the same, for lack of a better word: trash, teammates. I looked up my rank and its already in bronze territory thanks to mat farming.

 

Queuing for ranked is no longer to prove you're good at your class/the game because most of the time its a 1v4 situation. Im the only person outputting enough damage to do something but without other DPS helping me, I can't kill anything. I just want mat farmers to realize this. Mat farmers piss off a lot of good players doing this stuff.

 

Now, as a side note, I almost won a game with 2 mat farmers after I told them to start doing more dps. We lost the first round, then won the second, then lost the third. Wanna know why we won the second? Because instead of putting out 2k dps, they both put out 3.5k dps on top of my 4.5k dps. Last round I did 5.3k dps and they did a tiny amount of 2.1k dps. If people actually TRIED to do something, you can win. But it's obvious that mat farmers don't want to try.

 

If someone tells you to stop queuing, they're mad because you're just not doing anything. You cannot win solos or team ranked doing sub 3-4k dps. So if you were doing below 3k dps, then I don't blame him for telling you to stop queuing.

[Get rid of mats in ranked]

No, they should reward only the winning team so that the peeps that are mat farmers have to work to get their mats. Simple :|

 

Or that.

[Get rid of mats in ranked]

They should stay in Ranked in my opinion to encourage new people to give it a try, and hopefully stick around, *but* only be awarded for meeting certain damage, healing, or protection thresholds. The thresholds should be high enough that actual participation and trying to win is necessary.

 

That would be 1000000x better than what we have now. It would also help if you were rewarded, say, 4 mats for losing majority of your games and you get, say, 6-8 mats for winning majority of your games. That would also help incentivize people to actually win.

[Get rid of mats in ranked]

This is causing ranked to no longer feel like ranked, but more like reg arena matches where 1 team is actually playing to win and the other is throwing. Queuing for solo isn't even fun anymore because basically every match is a 1v4 or 2v4 because the other 2-3 people on my team just throw for mats. I DO PVP TO HAVE FUN AND THIS ISN'T FUN.

 

I just want to play ranked games without having to essentially play 1v4 and lose all my games.

[Looking for Sharpshooter/Marksmanship gearing advice in PVP]

As a MM/SS Sniper/GS main who mostly plays PvP, this is what I would recommend:

 

For accuracy, get at least 106%. This makes a huge difference because without this high of accuracy you’ll miss ambushes and penetrating rounds quite a bit.

 

Try to get up to 10% alacrity to make your rotation much smoother and quicker (Sniper volley will provide an extra 10% boost when popped). Next, I would get at least 40% crit. I have 2 relics with crit, 2 implants with crit, and an earpiece with crit. To get about 40% crit, you’ll need to get about 7-8 228 purple augments in addition to this. I have 2 +220 accuracy 246 enhancements. The rest of my enhancements is alacrity. The other 6-7 augments should be overkill augments. These will be 228 purples because 236 yellow augments don’t exist for overkill. You can substitute the overkill augs with mastery if you prefer. They will provide small bonuses to all stats if you do that instead.

 

I currently am wearing 246 enhancements and mods with 236 and 242 armorings. My ambush can hit up to 33-38k depending on if my buffs are stacked and if the enemy has light armor, medium, etc.

 

MM/SS is good for pvp because you can do 40-50k health with an autocrit ambush + followthrough. They have very high burst and have high uptime for hard hitting abilities. Penetrating rounds (your channeled attack) can do around 20k hp over the channel. You can do 2 back to back when using Sniper Volley. Also, MM is my preferred “dueling” spec because theres nothing that a target can cleanse or something like that. Only issue is when Knights pop saber ward or scoundrel/gs pops dodge. Virulence/Dirty Fighting can be decent but their only hard hitting ability is wounding shots which is easily LoSed or dodged or absorbed. Engineering really has the same problem. Their explosive probe is their only real burst and then you’re delegated to spamming snipe and plasma probe. However, everyone has their own preference.

[Consistent BS lag]

Everytime that I play this game, I cannot go 10 minutes without the game hitting 50,000 ms ping. No, its not my internet because around 20,000 - 30,000 ms is when the game kicks you if its your INTERNET. One time, I hit over 100,000 ms and it kept going. There's a problem with the game servers because many of my friends experience the same issue.

 

It's so bad that the game becomes literally unplayable. I want to play pvp? Nope, because i'll be attacking someone and then the server just lags out and when it finally catches up, about 40,000 ms later, I'm dead. I want to play a flashpoint? Nope, i'll be in the middle of a boss fight and when the server catches up, I'm dead. Same for operations.

 

Does bioware even care at this point? I'm seriously questioning it, more than I have before. The game is dying so rapidly. Pub fleet on Harb used to have 2 or more instances at any time. Now, its only 1 until like 3pm EST or later at night. Once the server becomes more populated, the constant server lag becomes even worse. On top of that, the stupid RNG system is complete trash. Thank god I have old PVP gear because if I didn't, I wouldn't even be able to play PvP at all due to how the bolster system works.

 

I like to play this game every once in a while to have fun in PvP but I can't even do that anymore because 50,000 ms server lag issues. Hell, sometimes it doesn't even catch up and I have to close the game and restart.

[Stealth for snipers.]

I think snipers need something like Force Camo, not actual stealth. I think having the ability to cloak out and get away would help. Hell, maybe make the defensive roll that Slingers and Snipers have grant stealth when rolling and for a few seconds afterward. This would allow snipers and slingers to have a chance to move into an unpredictable spot.

 

Additionally, all the people saying Snipers are OP... Snipers are the least mobile class of SWTOR. You have to go into cover, which, although it grants you additional benefits which are NECESSARY, it means you cannot move and makes you an easy target for a good ranged class. It makes sense for snipers to be the best DPSers (which is now debatable since mandos and mercs are maybe too good ) because they are STATIONARY turret type characters. The reason snipers receive all the benefits that they do while in cover is because without them, there's no reason to even play a sniper and go into cover. Also, they don't even gain the 20% ranged defense unless they are behind a physical object. The projector cover that they have does nothing other than provide a visual for enemies to show that the sniper is receiving cover benefits. It's also pretty simple for a good jugg to kill a sniper. You can pop reflect and dash. Maras can pop obfuscate and a sniper is useless for those 6 seconds. A bad sniper is easy prey for a good player. A good sniper can make quick work of bad melee players. DR is pretty useless when you're being pounded by 6 people and can't do anything about it. Good teams will focus you because you have pretty **** defenses and that makes you easy to kill.

 

Anyway, perhaps an example:

 

Get Outta There or Emergency Defenses

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Duration: 6~8 seconds

You activate your emergency cloaking device, cleanse all negative effects, and roll forward 10m. Your Ambush (Aimed Shot), Cull (Wounding Shots), or Explosive Probe (Explosive Charge) receives a 10~20% damage bonus if used while in stealth. Using any offensive abilities removes you from stealth.

 

And maybe a utility for it too?:

Augmented Devices or Improved Defenses

Get Outta There or Emergency Defenses grants a stack of Preparation every second, up to a maximum of 6 (or 8) stacks and, when the ability ends, you are healed for 2% of your maximum health.

 

The utility would only grant 12% or 16% of HP back and would make the ability even better. Plus, the ability could augment ambush and all the other central abilities. Its no different than Sentinels gaining stacks while in force camo that increases the damage of their next melee attack. Also, this ability would allow snipers to quickly get out of a sticky situation, which is pretty difficult since rolling STILL has the rubber banding bug. The roll would work like the operative roll.

 

The damage bonus would help snipers do a little bit extra burst (since they lost the 30% crit damage bonus ) And to clarify, the damage bonus would only apply if the player used the ability while still in stealth and when the ability is used (as in Ambush finishes casting etc.) the player is removed from stealth and the damage bonus is applied.

[Slingers are outdated. Might as well just delete them from the game]

Slinger is my favorite class but I don't even understand why they're in the game. Mercs out damage slingers plus mercs have 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000x better dcds now and more mobility. Can't even challenge a merc now because I just get completely obliterated. I'm not even terrible at slinger, in fact, I think I'm a very good slinger player and many times I've been complimented but what's the point if mercs just obliterate me? They just pop reflect shield and for 6 seconds I put a dot on them and wow, it does 2k damage over 18 seconds? While they sit there doing 35k crits on me and all I can do is roll and when that's done, pop my ****** *** shielding abilities? What a joke.

[Utilities]

So far I think some of the utilities are very useful. For instance, I take Phasing Phantasm (gives you 60% inc. damage absorb on force speed) because it helps me get away and hide from players. I'm by far glad that sin/shadow finally has some sort of heal that doesn't require me unstealthing and hitting my channeled ability to regen. I can just pop force cloak, wait for 5 stacks to build up and get a 22k heal which comes in handy a lot. Combine it with the utility that gives 45sec off Cloak and you can have cloak up all the time.

 

What do you think about the new utilities?