Force Camo -> Get LoS -> Wait Six seconds for them to get bored and switch targets -> Murder the Sin.

I have no issue in PvP with the new smash(fury w/e) it is actually really fun again to me, a year break tends to make you forget the little things though. I haven't had the time to test in ops yet though. but ill /sign your petition if they revert Undying back to uber styles. EDIT: And they change Crippling Slash to Deadly Throw.

Yea, I don't even liken arenas to battles, they are just fights! A battle is when there is a 7v8 on a Voidstar door or a node in Novare/Civil where it is just utter chaos of effects and stragegy and no one is dying. The flow just.... ah, the good old memories.

....If they brought staged 8v8's back. Maybe a once a month event even. Nothing in this game bring a more vivid memory to my mind then Ranked Warzones.

I mean whats a Jedi or Sith without being able to throw a lightsaber. Nubware.

Nah, Haven't had a single issue besides under geared healers and tanks... oh wait... its right after an expansion.

The issue with new GBtF/UR, is very simple. It negate half the healing recieved while it is active... the more healing the more health is actually lost. It is by nature a low health ability, Best suited for the near-end of combat. So by that it is no longer a survivability tool, its an overdose shot of Adrenals. For better or worse, treated as such. That said... I believe its current incarnation is not what bioware was looking for, but with feb at the earliest for new class changes even though they said time and again that changes would be a routine thing around here... its what has to be lived with. I believe it needs a complete remodel. Perhaps may only be used at less then 30% life, provides 99% damage reduction for 6 seconds, adds 20% of the players power for the duration. End effect the target dies. The current skill is just a pain in the arse for healers.

I enjoy it very much, I am just conserned that in two weeks G-ranked will die off and S-Queue will dwindle back down to the same 20 people its always been.

You should have just left it flat rate but no you had to wait 2 weeks to introduce an even more broken and untested version. GJ bioware, this ones on you not them. Then again you havent balanced classes, fixed op roll bugs, made it so sins and ops cant use more then one medpack per arena', fixed the relics, given people incentives to actually queue for arena and are introducing bright-light boring space PvP in 2 weeks... not to mention after public outcry you still released DF+DP with arena's effectively killing arena's on my server. Learn to release properly please. Thanks a bunch,

Its a very good relic for any class with +9/+6 to mainstat,

However they do not actively seperate and place contesters on a Server into their own ranking system. Low-pop servers are doomed!

Cross-server boards without Cross-server queues... I dont get you bioware. Not to mention no sort functions what so ever? This is what you spent 12+ Months working on?

I would assume, and this is not ment as an attack by any means... however I would assume they dont have any clue what they are going to do balancing for 8v8(Not Really... hehe) and more predominently 4v4 PvP as well as 8vE and 16vE which I assumed the content was actually balanced to the current "GB"(Game Balance) So by saying Nerf everything they came to the realization that it would just not be fiasable. That being said they are trying to say "Hey, were not afraid to "re-balance" by completely taking sin dps in the wrong direction to "Maintain" sustainability, which I can gureentee will have little effect on PvE and will create the next Mash-Monkey of PvP. It seems to be that since Mercs maintain a close enough margin to the "Curve"(What ever the heck that is, To me if any spec can participate and complete "New"-Hardmode or Nightmare Operations they are fine interms of numbers, The same applies to 4v4 G-ranked, which it is obviously apperent the only spec that cannot participate on that curve is Merc healers, ill pipe down about that for a moment though, heh.) the devs felt they were fine and did not need upgrades. I feared pre-info that we would be facing a "NGE"-Style remodel with 2.5 and I assumed the devs had the same assumptions as I going into the patch planning. I believe however that it was not balanced as a single unit, the changes were small and centered on paticular specs in paticular situations, Undying rage is now useless in 8vE operations save a few mechanics such as "Doom" in NiM dreadguards, as albeit PvE is more predictable healers will have to play reactive to any Mara that does not call "Using Undying". These changes must bare inmind that all types of gameplay must be accomedated, the only thought out change coming is the Sin Tank Buff. The madness change after thinking about it and discussing on end with two of our guild sorcs is actually quite ineffective in 4v4 as the only class that could "Clense" these DoT's were sorcs in the first place, if you were fighting against the proverbial Op healer the change means nothing, and does not in anyway effect PvE, it would have been much better placed on annhil spec as anyone can "Clense" said DoT's....(Must make a quick trip to the store, will round out the post back to my thoughts on merc dps in-depth in a bit.)

I would again like to say this a PvP thing ;p Merc's have been built for ops either 16 or 8. Personally I believe Merc dps is fine in both catagories and has been since I have played the game. I personally found Arsenal to be much more fun pre-2.0... I dont know why as the changes to the spec were very minimul, I was able to sit with or just behind the best pyro's in the CGC hayday(by 100K or less). It was most likely because when you had to stack tracers for the debuff you actually had to be mindful in a fight, swapping targets to make sure they were all "Stacked" which made you think smarter and spread damage more. Pyro, I dislike personally on both my Merc and PT... Its to simple, 'nuff said. But I digress. The simple fact is Merc healers are just not all there, they dont have a spark nor a follow through in PvP. I dont believe this is a resource issue, nor a player error issue, nor an escape issue. It is simply that they are not capible of multi-targetting in none turret situations(IE: Arena's), They we're ment to be support healers in PvP cleaning up the scraps that the Sorc or Op could not get to in midscale combat such as 8v8 Ranked. This is simply not viable in Arena's thus the reasoning I ask for very specific changes that minipulate them out of the "Red" interms of the charts. A very capible Op healer decided to challange us on his merc healer a few nights ago in g-ranked, he was playing with by no means his mainsquad but they were fun baughts never the less. The key difference I saw was the fact when even slightly pressured his HPS dropped substancially and overall he did not break 200K per round on his merc, a number that would be a joke for any Op or Sorc. And yes our Sorc atleast doubled his healing per round(Our damage was approx 75-100K over the other teams). That is... unacceptable at the very best, Merc heals need to be validated in Arena's, No excuse of we are introducing small updates rapidly, you get first "dibs" on the class ladder is acceptable. By saying the class dibs, but not improving the way things work for Mercs is admitting you decided to disregard the previous community feedback completely. By not allowing the mercs to "heal up" and introducing the ladder in a few days, is essentially gimping an entire Adv-C and a big... well you get the point. The only hope at all that I can see for Merc is that everyone +1 is going to be playing Sins come 2.5, Bodyguards defenses are natively more effective vs deception sins then either other healing class. But it remains to be seen if a Merc can healing through x2 sins dual mauling for 10K+ a pop. I doubt any class save a few pro tanks can survive the insue'ing "Stealth Wars". Overall, I hope upon hope that with the coming of a ladder system "Bioware" will understand what is required to maintain a fun and balanced game for all players and advanced classes. I have played/play every Adv-C(In every spec) through the evolution of this games PvP and I can say without a doubt that no class and no spec is more neglected, more ignored and so unforgivably non-viable then the Bodyguard.

Buff mercs in PvP, 'nuff said!

If you dont see such an issue with Merc/Mando heals in arena's then I will challange you to min/max your commando as heals bring it in vs our mainsquad and see how long it lasts.

I agree with your sentiment, I see no reason to buff mercs if it was purely on a PvE grading however I based all my feedback in terms of what is needed on PvP, with consideration of what would make mercs vastly overpowered in PvE. The fact that they are not viable in PvP in a hardcore setting even though they are/may be alright in PvE, is simple a wrong standard of practice to go by. They need to be address symboticly. To many times have we seen it said they will not do something purely because it would imbalance PvE. An example of that is the Sin buff coming with 2.5. They based it on PvE with a side order of "PvP", Now I whole heartedly agree Sins leave much to be desired in PvE but what is now upwards of 11K mauI's will reach 12-13K. Along with every other attack skill getting a buff it'll be Nightmare Mode Kel'Sara all over again execpt in PvP. I am willing to bet we will be seeing a whole fad the size of smash proportions over again with this change. Over a change dominated by a mostly PvE decision.((1 in 3 people are leveling sins because of how Bioware dictated they will be the FOTM.))

Not to get way a little astray on the topic, but I feel I need to discuss this as well and will works Bodyguards into it late in the post. The biggest issue I have with Sorc healers at the moment is not so their survivibility but their longevity, one needs stamina to adequately perform any task at hand. My mainsquad has up until now rolled a Sorc as our healer in arena's and the biggest issue being while the sorc sits consuming life struggling for every little bit of force he can muster sitting consistantly on the redline an operative opponent can casually sit with near if not max resources. This issue is not player based(He could be considered the top sorc on the server and we always roll the very best of the DPS) as one might argue and overall it pains me as his tank to watch our OGH slip lower and lower as he sits on 50 force. Now I wont say if that is a problem with Sorcs or Operatives however I will say in 1,000,000 years we would not dream of ever taking a Mercenary Healer into serious G-ranked. That is an issue to me as Bodyguard was my first class and perhaps my most loved, and if even 80% of the Top G-Ranked community agrees this is a much larger issue then Bioware is lead to believe and deserves if not an instant fix something within such timeframe as reasonable by the community which so far it has not been.

Thank you Eric for quickly replying to what could be considered a very sore subject, I understand that this is simply adjustments as perviously mentioned. Even with such grammar as "BaIance" commonly used regarding these changes. However, I would like to challange and implore You and the Dev Team to incorperate the below suggestion on behest of a very downtrodden advanced class and skill set. Bodyguards as it stands are just not practical however much fun they may be. I believe through long hours of thought and testing that such changes would raise them to an "On-Par" state in the PvP heaIing matrix whilst not imbalancing PvE in any fashion. I would also like to build on my below statement in one more way. Using peacekeeper to shoot an enemy is infact critically unfavorable in Ranked Arena's due to the professional use of coordinated crowd controls, many of which are breakable on damage. Currently a situation where: Two melee is attacking an unguarded merc healer as the tank and melee DPS have seperated to opposing teams healer and ranged dps into LoS just beyond the reach of the healer so the healer decides to proc Peacekeeper from one of the melee attacking him during midshot the sniper on the allied team had flashbanged the melee, the healer trying to use his abilities had just adversly effected his team in a unforgivable manner. Anywho, "I've come to a very simple conclusion, Give mercs multi-target Kolto Shell, and change Peacekeeper/Bodyguard so it procs while healing a friendly target... Its not that hard to change, its not that OP. It suppIiments self healing while still being able to maintain a decent resource pool and minimul healing on a friendly target in high intensity PvP such as ranked arena's. No need to increase anything else or add another escape mecho because all of the above rely on no cast-time. I can say right now with full confidence, Kolto Shell(All Targets) + Kolto Missle + PIus rapid shots on an ally proccing Bodyguard/PeaceKeeper would be just on par with other healing classes escape/heal mechanics, if not still a bit weaker but given a passing grade by the community." Again, Let us see this change within an amicable timeframe, such as 2.5. Thank you for your time and assurence in this matter. ~Harbingers

I've come to a very simple conclusion, Give mercs multi-target Kolto Shell, and change Peacekeeper/Bodyguard so it procs while healing a friendly target... Its not that hard to change, its not that OP. It suppIiments self healing while still being able to maintain a decent resource pool and minimul healing on a friendly target in high intensity PvP such as ranked arena's. No need to increase anything else or add another escape mecho because all of the above rely on no cast-time. I can say right now with full confidence, Kolto Shell(All Targets) + Kolto Missle + PIus rapid shots on an ally proccing Bodyguard/PeaceKeeper would be just on par with other healing classes escape/heal mechanics, if not still a bit weaker but given a passing grade by the community. *BIOWARE* just try it, 2 weeks on live and if its as overpower as you might believe take it out there are/were many games that patch skill nerfs weekly and if something was truly unbalancing they would hot fix it over night ~Harbingers ((I reposted this post of mine from the merc forums.))

I've come to a very simple conclusion, Give mercs multi-target Kolto Shell, and change Peacekeeper/Bodyguard so it procs while healing a friendly target... Its not that hard to change, its not that OP. It suppIiments self healing while still being able to maintain a decent resource pool and minimul healing on a friendly target in high intensity PvP such as ranked arena's. No need to increase anything else or add another escape mecho because all of the above rely on no cast-time. I can say right now with full confidence, Kolto Shell(All Targets) + Kolto Missle + PIus rapid shots on an ally proccing Peacekeeper/Bodyguard would be just on par with other healing classes escape/heal mechanics, if not still a bit weaker but given a passing grade by the community. *BIOWARE* just try it, 2 weeks on live and if its as overpower as you might believe take it out there are/were many games that patch skill nerfs weekly and if something was truly unbalancing they would hot fix it over night. Take a page from GW1 book of perfect balance.

It is not a balance worthy list, its more of an... adjustment.

Oh wait.... looks like they were forgotten anyways.... Did you wash them before you hung them out to dry? In all seriousness though, how hard is it to recode Kolto Shell for multipul targets? I mean really, not like we haven't been asking for that for a year or anything... Mercs need something pro-active. Sorcs got bubbIe, ops got probes...

So, two weeks into the 2.4 release of arena's and removal of 8v8 how is your server fairing? Sadly to say I come from the very lowest population server with a strong but small PvP community. Suffice to say the competition is few & far between and the queues are close to non-egsistant already. Most teams have already relinquished to syncing themselves into solo queues or have purely gone back to Warzone queueing. How are other communities?

If you are looking to pass the buck on this also, pop me a message with the raw formatting of the post.