Full Saboteur shines a little brighter on maps where you can guarantee people are going to congregate. So your Novare coasts where you know an extended fight South is almost inevitable. It lacks some of the all purpose kill power of other specs though. Your stacks of 'Blazing Speed' are easily disrupted, and if people aren't stacking or really focused on one objective its' hard to get mileage out of your AoEs. SS is good if you can plop yourself down in a spot thats' going to remain relevant (especially if your team is winning since you'll be unassailible)... but I find it less desirable in any situation where you might have to move around at all. So while outright its' monster, it starts to fall flat if you have to readjust to work on healers or if you have a determined ranged harassing you while LoSing. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700bZbcZhMrkrrRkrsuR.3 The above is my personal favorite every down spec. If your team is getting stomped, you're DF so you can resort to pressuring with DoTs and being mobile without suffering as your team gets pushed around the map. With Dirty Trickster for immobilize breaking, and a Blaster Whip speed boost you have a few more options for dealing with melee who jump you. And unlike Hybrid you don't get ****ed quite as badly by competent LoS/Cleanse happy healers while throwing about normal rotations. Also as far as big finishers go the fact you can prep targets you've dotted with Flashbang, and then following up with Sab Charge > Aimed Shot > Take Down(Applying sab won't break your mez, and besides the animation for Take Down it will hit within less than a global of Aimed Shot). Situational but in terms of damage dealt in the span of 1.5-2~ seconds not even SS or Saboteur can match it, and its' incredibly good for solo killing healers or node guarders. (Granted Sab and SS do have good burst, but even at the height of their rotations the damage doesn't happen as quickly nor are the targets CC'd when it does happen, which sort of miffs the chance you're going to finish someone before they react).

Concussion (allowing you to mez at any time without fear of breaking your own CC), Dirty Trickster (additional snare-break, amazing synergy with High-tail it to roll out of melee initiates), and Holdout defense (good melee filler for breaking 4m range and disrupting enemy melee rotations) are all amazing for survivability and your spec takes none of them. To put it in perspective if you only even Dirty Trickster > Hightail it once in a match to avoid a melee initiate (something you can't do at all or as quickly if you don't have Dirty Trickster specced to break immobolizes), you've already mitigated around 2-5x as much damage as 'Cool under pressure' and 'Underworld Hardships' gives you in total healing/extra health. Sure that's a niche situation but you sacrifice no offensive power to have it availible, and it will out perform other "defense" oriented talents if the right scenario does pop up. And in getting all that supposed defensive stuff you also sacrifice the entire reason you would want that type of Gunslinger in the first place, by being able to live long enough under pressure to deal damage. "Nice try", "Dirty shot" and "Cold blooded" are absolute necessities to even be a threat to most competent healers, without those you won't be dealing much damage as a DF slinger and thus how long you can survive is a moot point. I understand the logic of trying to stack the most universal defense oriented talents in the hope that you can make yourself tankier. But one of the biggest strengths of a Gunslinger is they already have a ******** of cooldowns for taking pressure off themselves, while still being able to continue to pressure with strong DoTs and good focused burst as needed. Your spec skimps out on the DoTs and focused burst in favor of some sketchy cooldowns that really won't add any meaningful amount of saving power.

I would hesitate to call any range a "counter" because if we're talking a purely 1v1 scenario while it might be a wash Sage and Commandos have enough burst to kill us. In an actual game situation where the objective is anything but outright deathmatch. Gunslingers can run laps around opposing ranged with their cooldowns, cc, and instant casts/dots. Shadows are probably the closest thing to a true counter. Simply because: -Through stealth they get a strong opener -They have enough CCs to at least temporarily lock down a Gunslinger to build an advantage with their Opener -The bulk of their attacks are instant cast and self-buffed based (so you can't disrupt their rotation the same way you can Scoundres/Guards/Sentinels by just breaking melee range, cleansing, or using cooldowns for the one big hit) -And Shadow cooldowns actively disrupt Gunslinger dps rotations and force them to start over and reset, rather than just slightly mitigate like other classes cooldowns. Although the downside is obviously, in a real game situation with a Gunslinger plopped down in their teams backline, the Shadow will either be getting lit up by the slingers teammates or the Gunslinger will just start kiting while they continues to DPS the Shadows teammates. Which really is the underlying strength of Gunslingers. Even if they can't outright win every fight they have enough cooldowns/CC to escape from the ones they can't win while just tabbing around and pressuring as many enemies as possible before they eventually get dragged down.

They have arguably the best cooldowns and utility of any of the pure DPS classes. And its' only arguable because Gunslinger/Sniper are right up there as well and need some nerfs just as badly. In PvE other classes simply can't compete with the inherent mitigation Sentinels get from their cooldowns. I mean a long with Gunslingers they're really the only DPS class that can waltz into NiM level fights on bosses like Terror and completely ignore 15-20~ worth of otherwise 1 hit kill mechanics (see: Phase 2 Tentacle slams, and any red circle or boss cleave mechanic) just purely from using cooldowns at the right time. Which gives a pretty big advantage in harder content because not only do you make it easier for Healers to raid heal (and thus make it more favorable to stack a Ops with Sents/Slingers, but you also increase your dps uptime when you can ignore mechanics). In PvP Sentinels have easily usurped, other melee just by virtue of the fact they had a get out of jail free card for 5~ seconds out of every 45 seconds on top of all the rest of their utility/defensive cooldowns. In the current healer heavy PvP meta this was a problem, since even "tanky" classes like Guardian or Shadow can't tout that kind of damage immunity even when they spec hybrid or use a shield. In 1.7 Commandos may have been the kings of PvE dps, with Guardians holding down the PvP side of things. But for the better part of half a year since 2.0 it has been all Sentinel/Gunslinger once the masses caught on, I don't mind some minor tweaks so much at this point, we had our fun in the sun, both of the classes are kind of imbalanced.

I don't think anyone reads anything he types. He's either shouting nonsense in general chat, saying nonsense to the other team during a WZ, or my personal favorite not playing in a WZ and losing his **** in team chat about how people don't have 2018 expertise and that's the exact single reason his team isn't winning. The last one is especially moronic because I don't think 2018 expertise has ever been truly BiS anyways, so its' not even something worth pouting about.

The biggest gripe I had against Balance initially was how even with ability queue set to 1 second, it was hard to chain your DoTs/Channel without clipping your abilities and ghosting your globals. In raid situations that always seemed to either outright lower my dps because I was wasting globals or force me to stifle my APM and slow down my rotaiton thus lowering my damage. The last patch supposedly fixed that issue, but compared to TK with ability queue it seems like its' much easier to push 30+ APM rotations get out more abilities and subsequently deal more dps than it is with Balance.

In all honesty its' just a flaw with "Light Armor". Insofar as the fact that Sage/Sorcs already don't have cooldowns to augment their own casts, on top of their lower armor rating. Case in a point, A Sniper/Marauder/etc gets marked with something nasty, he'll pop his own shield/dmg reduction cooldown and get the healer buffs (armor buff, static barrier, etc.), on top of the fact they'll have medium armor. A Sorc/Sage gets a really bad debuff... they get to force barrier 1 time every 3 minutes. Since most raids have a Sorc/Sage healer anyways there's no inherent extra bonus to Static Barrier since everyone will be getting that anyways. When you consider that the Marauder/Merc damage reduction, or Sniper shield cooldowns are already mitigating an extra 5~k+ damage on top of their higher armor values, it often easily puts the Sorc/Sage into a 7~k damage disadvantage when it comes to mitigating an effect. So while not truly detrimental to any single raid, since obviously Sorc/Sage healers and dps are still useful and put up good numbers, they are inherently gimped when it comes to mitigating damage. And when you factor in the fact that Shadow/Assassin tanks are in the same ****** situation because of their armor rating, you could probably chalk up most the blame onto Armor ratings being inherently imbalanced or skewed.

Pillar hugging Commando/Mercs can be difficult because global for global they can trade with you, with the added advantage or being able to simply line-of-sight as needed. Whereas a Slinger/Sniper will lost most of their inherent advantages if they try the same. Also getting jumped by any type of ranged you're not actively targeting. Especially if you're Dirty-Fighting/Lethality since it will take you 2-3 Globals minimum to get into the meat of your rotation. So if another bursty ranged like a Lightning Sorc or Arsenal Merc starts on you while you're Wounding Shots/Culling someone else you basically only have the option of breaking cover and running. And I mean to be fair Gunslinger/Snipers are still in a good enough place that forcing them to pop a few cooldowns or break cover won't instakill them. But forcing a Gunslinger to break cover and resort to just tab dotting random people while losing or out-ranging the person who is hitting them is in and of itself fairly disruptive. Since it then opens them up to being vulnerable to melee and prevents them from putting out a decent dps rotation. Melee can also be somewhat disruptive, but that mostly depends on whose cooldowns are up and whose aren't. Because if you're in cover in a good position with cooldowns like Hightail-it/Flashbang/Evasion/etc up, even a good stealther opener won't immediately break you. So yeah mostly just smart ranged focusing a Gunslinger from a good position that they can use to LoS the slinger while forcing them to eventually break cover and move is the best way.

Yeah Innervate doesn't need the help from crit, even used in a scenario where you would conceivably want every tic to have a 100% chance to crit, if that much damage was going out you would still want to save Recklessness to bolster the weak part of your rotation. Either to proc Dark Heal crits in between your Innervate or to get a strong Resurgence>Dark Infusion combo out.

Depends on the circumstances I think, I've had times where I was able to strafe out of a smash on my Sniper just with CC-break>normal movement, but I've also had plenty of times where as a Sorc Healer my snare break Force Speed all-in-one wasn't enough to get me out of range.

A good Jugg is going to Force Choke the moment you try to pop that speed, and if at any point you dip low in health they're going to Force Push so they can re-initiate immediately with all the goodies. Many will also save the Saber Reflect until immediately after Unstoppable/Unremitting. Its' not as clear cut as all that obviously, but they do have many good cooldowns for dealing with classes like TK Sorcs, and while those cooldowns are long they're obviously not going to be picking fights where they leap into enemy backlines unless those are up. The 15% is just going to lessen the disparity in those situations where ranged just start max-range dpsing random Juggs who aren't targeting them. Since ironically despite all their cooldowns compared to Marauders/Assassins... Juggs are actually easy to pick on and rip down since they lack the combat breaks and reengaging power of other melees.

This is true, but also many Operative/Scoundrels simply pop Evasion after their first roll if they're getting focused, since it'll then clear their debuffs/slows, mitigate some others, and allow them to then be 24+ meters away from an enemy who in all likelihood has already blown their good range CC/slows (which were cleared with Evasion). That's the real problem, when you start factoring in cooldowns, an Operative is always going to at least one Evasion/CC break/Stealth/Flashbang/Adrenaline Probe available. Which from means most of the time if they want to get away, they'll be able to either through using their energy to brute force rolls, or simply by CC/debuff clearing.

Players formed lines and traded Orb running during the Gree event as well, so the quest could actually be completed. Of course just as often (if not more so) you had players who would each fight other just for the hell of it. The pvpers never really need an excuse to congregate as long as there's other players and the potential for some action. But you're not going to get people involved unless some reward is given, since without the reward for something to be gained there's not much reason to stand around in a zone hoping other people might show up.

The difference being after you disrupt a Sorc force speed, or a Jugg intercede... they can't do it again. They are incredibly potent for traversing the pvp maps, and can be sued to great effect, but they're counterable because of their longish cooldowns. The fact you're willing to even admit Force Speed or Intercede into the conversation as a comparison to a move like Exfiltrate is promising though, since you're at the very least recognizing it to be on the same level as skills with 20~ second cooldowns as far as mobility goes. Maybe eventually that awareness will put you in the camp with the rest of us who think Exfiltrate needs a cooldown instead of a cost.

Its' less about healing and more about how their mobility affects every map. All of the Healers (with Sorc/Sage leading the charge) are incredibly good in pvp at the moment. The difference is even cross-healing can be dealt with and worked around over the natural course of gameplay. Depending on the circumstances of Huttball, Voidstar, Hypergate, etc.. situations arise where Operative/Scoundrels can use their immense mobility for huge gains, with almost no counterplay available to enemies, unless they also have an Operative/Scoundrel. It's very similar to the old bubblestun Sorc/Sage spec. There were ways to somewhat mitigate its' effectiveness, but at the end of the day, the only way you were really going to counteract it was just use a bubblestunner of your own. Which wasn't that fun. (Although Bioware also kept it aorund for 6+ months despite the discussions and complaints around it, so you really shouldn't get your panties in a wad just because people are talking about Operative roll being strong).

Its' worth mentioning three things in particular, one is how the ingame physics deal with rolling over ledges or through obstacles. Depending on what you roll off the cumulative distance is actually much longer (specifically huttball ledges). The stealth and CC mechanics built into the Operative/Scoundrel class greatly benefit their mobility. Many other classes have mobility, many CC breaks, or CCs, but few have all three in the variety and numbers that Operative/Scoundrels have. And lastly while this is more situational, and tied to client-server sync anomalies. The roll is very glitchy. Now for Inquisitors/Consulars this same anomaly has always been very annoying, ask any Sorc/Sage about it and they'll have numerous examples of how rubberbanding (being snapped back to their original location) wasted or diminished the effect of their Force Speed. This holds true for Operative/Scoundrel as well, with one major difference, they can roll multiple times. While a rubberbanding Sorc/Sage who force sped the exact moment they were lep-to/pulled may be annoying for a bit, they can't do it again. However, the disorienting nature of trying to gap close to or pull a rolling Operative/Scoundrel greatly works in their favor since they can continue to roll. Also the most prominent and disruptive movement impairing effects tied to ranged damaging abilities, are the ones Operatives can cleanse.

The flaw in your argument is that strictly speaking every MMO game ever had people who pvp'd for fun, challenge of beating other players, etc... And yet many of those MMOs had very bad pvp or Devs who made very poor decisions with regards to how it was implemented. The OPs criticisms related more to what makes SWTOR pvp better than other random game X, and sadly for a lot of people the answer is "Well I've already invested hours and hours into SWTOR and not that other random game X". From an objective perspective of money/time spent on developing for PvP, and a list of features that SWTOR PvP provides, it is rather lacking even when compared to lower budget projects that had no themed basis for PvP (The entire SWTOR marketing revolved around their being TWO factions, with Sith fighting Jedi, Republic fighting Empire... the premise was very strongly pvp oriented.)

A good operative still has their Cloaking Screen, Evasion, CC break along with their cleanse for certain debuffs (as well as Flashbang and their stun to disrupt people who might CC them). Now obviously those aren't all full proof especially if multitudes of enemies are around. But in your average Voidstar/Hypergate/etc situation an Operative is going to easily be able to outrun any one single class. Even my Sniper has trouble halting Operatives alone because even with my own roll, cover pulse, leg shot, and flashbang. Its' still very easy for an Operative to outdistance someone simply by rolling and burning a CD or two if they get slowed. And the problem is greatly compounded if team you're facing has more than one Operative/Scoundrel, or if anyone else on their team is being even slightly disruptive, since it either takes an Operative to be out of all their own CC/CDs or you to focus them global for global to keep pace with their own. (A long with any situation where they aren't actively in combat (i.e. running to disrupt node caps or to switch objectives). Also some classes have no hope to ever stop an operative since after they use their ranged/gap-closer the Operative/Scoundrel is going to easily outrange them.

It was probably just a latency thing. The same thing happens with moves like Force Speed, or Covered Escape. You activate one of those instant abilities, yet can still receive from and even die from a melee attack. In theory your instant ability would outrange such attacks, but many of those abilities are instant as well. And if someone throws out an instant melee swing, and you throw out an instant escape, well both of those can't be possible. Which is why rubberbanding happens, or if you spam skills its' possible to lose a GCD without a skill activating. The same logic applies to your shields. Entrench has its' own activation animation just like most CCs, so it all comes down to server latency and who's ability the Server decides goes first. Thus sometimes you'll end up being knocked out of cover with your entrench on cooldown, or use shield probe be killed and realize the probe never mitigated any damage because you died before the animation finished.

I don't agree with the Medpac purchases only because there are so many people spam selling stacks of Medpacs for super cheap, that I would rather spend 70-90k to give an alt 99 Medpacs than I would want to spend 990 Warzone comms on them. I mean comms are easy enough to come by, but if you're playing efficiently you always need comms more than you a bit of credits. And when you start adding it up I would rather spend even a million for a bunch of stacks of Medpacs than I would want to spend 11k/3k~ on normal/ranked comms. Since even on lowbie characters I would rather have the option to power-level so they can legacy buy gear for other 55s than I would want an extra couple hundred thousand sitting around.

Problem is many other DPS are pulling 4k~ on that very encounter, and when you factor in how much extra uptime ranged classes get, to how much more raid utility classes like Marauder have. It becomes much less favorable to be an Operative. Not to diminish the person in that parse they probably play their class well, but even conservatively speaking you can say if they were any other dps they would easily be pulling 1k more dps on average.

I'm glad to have been a part of something so historic

This would be true if the 2.0 healing boosts Commando/Mercs received happened in a bubble where the other healers were still stuck with their 1.7 sill trees. The simple fact is though for all the new Kolto buffs were touted as the savior for the Commando/Merc class, its' still not that great. Take the Operator IX encounter in HM TFB. You have a situation where the raid will be taking constant damage that needs to be cleaned up less your dps dies from attrition, while also cooking constant powerful heals on your tanks. Those healing intensive fights is where the Commando/Merc falls behind. Because in fights like the Operator the raid is either completely spread out or only grouped for a short time. While spread out Op/Scoundrel HoTs completely demolish anything the other healers can upkeep wise just because of the cooldown and how easily they can roll heals on multiple targets while still having strong heals for the main tank. Sorcs/Sage have the stronger AoE healing, while also now being able to heal tanks with almost 0 downtime. Commando/Mercs are still in this weird middle area. They provide mostly the same buffs and AoE Sorc/Sage albeit slightly weaker. And while through their casts they have stronger heals than the Sorc/Sage they're still weaker than the numbers an Op/Scoundrel castable heals will put out while having no comparison to the Op/Socundrels ability to roll HoTs on a spread out raid.

Its' simply a new component to the rotation. Will it replace a skill outright? Obviously not, Thrash still needs to be used to proc Conspirators' cloak to get you that cheap frontal Maul, and its' obviously not going to bump out Wither/Discharge/etc as one of your big threat builders. But Maul does deal more damage than Thrash so finding a place for it in your rotation will only do good. Of course using Maul won't put you on par with DPS, but claiming you won't use Maul because "I'm not DPS" is a poor attitude to have when trying to min/max your class. Since when clearing new content you're only barely geared enough for, every bit of extra DPS, survivability, raid support that any role can provide is a huge boost (even if its' something role-breaking such as a Tank/Healer providing extra damage, or a DPS staggering defensive cooldowns).

Spontaneous pug roleplaying more or less doesn't exist. Most of the actual RP happens behind closed doors, in smaller guilds/communities, in out of the way places. You'll can definitely stumble upon some RP going on in cantina and stuff. But mostly you'll just end up getting trolled and/or start getting PMs from RPers trying to figure out who are "real girls", with the former being simply irritating and the latter being creepy as ****.