That's the point, staying forever in low bracket pvp, but in higher levels (37-40), premading (I haven't ever seen one of them playing alone) with pocket healers and stomping on everyone. It's much easier this way... In 70's they should make a real effort, and I guess that's too much for them. Better to kill level 20 unexperienced players who offer no challenge at all.

And where did you go to find PVP enjoyable again?? I would like to know! Yeah! In Red Eclipse Scare Bears (and another "friend guild") are a pain, and they completely ruin every warzone they are playing, which now, with this very low population, are every warzone you happen to enter. If you play against them, you have nothing to do, although you try to coordinate your team, tell them to focus, guard, call for incs... You can do nothing, they are good players who should be playing lvl 70 warzones, not low level pvp, with their pocket healers, team speak... If you play with them (1 out of 10 games) you have nothing to do, but because there is nothing to do, just stomp on the enemy team and everything gets completely boring. I wouldn't mind facing these premades sometimes, but game after game, warzone after warzone... And all of this because of low population... No team rotation, nothing... I don't really know how to address these issues, really... They have the right to play, but me too. And I would absolutely prefer not to play than playing with/against those premades. Maybe more than 2 player premades, should be queued apart, and face equally coordinated teams. But low population is the problem...

They can't balance current classes, so it would be such a tremendous work to try to balance a new class within the mess we have now. And new classes should come with new expansions, and they discovered since Fallen Empire that it is much easier to expand just releasing new boring, single-player story chapters, which you can finish in... 1 or 2 hours and never play again, than actually "expanding" the game, with new classes, abilities, planets, game modes, operations, warzones...

If you could set your real level to the appropriate level in those brackets... It won't be a bad idea... But if there is a terrible imbalance in the lowbies now (some people at 40's are like gods for some even at 30's because of class differences), I don't want to think about someone with all the level 70 skills!

Well, it's not such a short span of time for many people, including this abusive guilds, which stay there forever because it is easier than higher level PVP... And when they are about to reach level 41, they return with a new level 38-40 character to keep doing the same. As you say it wouldn't be a problem if these people and guilds stayed there for one or two days, until they level up and leave lowbies. But the ones who like leveling 20 toons, like I do, stay there for a very long time, suffering this problem over and over again... And the solution is not so difficult, just keep AoE damage at a reasonable level, just like the rest of AoE skills.

I don't think it is such a bad choice. There could be better utilities, maybe, but in the end it is another DoT to the person attacking you, is Affliction a bad skill? I don't think so, and if you can have one aditional DoT... And it is much better than Merc's reflective shield utility!

Yes, I know it is umbalanced, some disciplines get very useful things while others have to wait or won't even get until the level beyond 40. But this issue with area damage is extremely umbalanced... I can't see the reason why force storm, and specially suppressive fire are so extremely powerful, until the point that everyone who plays these classes, can do it just by spamming them. I have also tried, and yes it works! 7k-8k hits for 4.5 seconds! And that to a large group of enemies! To every single target in the area, with no cooldown (death from above is much weaker, 1k- 2k hits and has 45 seconds cooldown...) In every game I can think of, area damage is significantly lower than single target damage... but it is not the case here. I like leveling many many characters and I keep seeing these guild sniper premades ruining every PVP they are on. If only suppressive fire did a fair amount of damage it wouldn't be so frustrating for everyone else. They could not rely only on a single ability. It would be ridiculous if someone tried to kill you with Lacerate, or Sweeping Slash, Noxious Knives... because its damage is so low... But it is not weird to do it with Suppressive Fire because it simply works!

Hi everyone, I have noticed that sorcs with the utility Lightning barrier, always have this activated. I checked it in my sorc and tested it... And the description is completely wrong! It says it reflects some damage when your static barrier absorbs damage to you, but you can place a satatic barrier on another and get the reflecting shield on you!! Moreover, placing a static barrier grants this buff for 30 seeconds!! It does not depend on your static barrier (it works even when the static has ended), and you can have it permanently (while other classes, like mercs, can reflect some damage with their shields once in 2 minutes...)!! Is this right? I have been searching about this, but I can't find anything about it.

I feel melee is quite weak compared to ranged in this game. As you mentioned, they have the same output damage, or even higher, they have more mobility, better dcds... And they have ranged, they can do everything at a safe distance... I don't see the point in playing melee, when you can do everything a melee does, but better. Considering how difficult it is for melee to stay on target, I find their damage too low.

Older gear bonus sets have always been a major problem in this game, creating huge disadvantages for those who cannot access that equipment anymore... And I don't what the solution is, but I think I would remove set effects for older gear. Then, as you stated, why would you want to get a "better" equipment if you already have a superior gear with bonus sets?

Hi everyone, I just wanted to ask if this is a problem everywhere as it is now in my server (Red Eclipse), in which some "scary" guilds are staying in the low bracket of PVP, premading with even 3 or 4 snipers sometimes, usually using engineering, and overcasting and spamming suppressive fire all the time. The damage done by this ability is ridiculously high, I dont know how many ticks it does, but they easily hit for 5k 6k damage each tick (even you have utilities for 30% area damage reduction!!) . It is so high that they don't even need to do any rotation in 1 vs 1 fights. They just cast suppresive fire all the time, with the first explosive probe, which ALWAYS crits, and you have a 95% free kill. Moreover, they stay in the low bracket with very high level, usually 39 or 40, which makes things even easier for them, as many classes in low levels don't have anything to escape or mitigate this overwhelming damage. Once you are spotted by one of them, if you are lucky enough to escape, you find yourself with 15-20% HP. (35k explosive, +40k suppresive aprox, +contingency charges... about 90k damage in a few seconds) Why is ranged area damage so unfairly high? I really really think Suppresive Fire (and not so much Storm) need a significant damage reduction. I remember that these skills where used a long time ago, mainly to interrupt caps, when many people were concentrated in one small area. But now they free cast even in 1 v 1 fights... It's ridiculous! You make a good effort to counter this, with your skills, waiting for entrench to end to stun them or something, but you simply can't, you need too many resources and many people to counter this teams, because their output damage is impossible to withstand. Why this area damage is comparable, or even higher than single-target focused damage? Really, I can't find any amusement in stomping on enemies this way, hitting a single button and getting free kills all the way. I think this is a problem, a huge problem never addresed in the forums as I see no one has ever complained about this, I guess because everything is too focused on higher PVP brackets. The only solution I have found is to stop playing PVP the 2 or 3 hours these people are playing, because it gets completely unbearable to fight 4 or 5 snipers this way.

I feel that if all the DoTs are applied, even with 2 or 3 culls, the enemy HP will just stay the same. Cull is one of that abilities that seems to do no damage at all, although you see a lot and a lot of numbers... Compared to other instant abilities like the ones mentioned before... Heatseeker misiles, ambush... which usuaully do +30k, I'd say a complete cull would do 10-15k damage, which is completely useless with these levels of HP now. I think that if you need 3 or 4 abilities to do a complete cull (2 Dots, weakening blast and cull), it should be more "rewarding" than using a single ability like ambush or heatseeker, and hit for +40k. But logic is out of this game, so easier abilities get higher damage... If your class doesn't have an autocrit which hits for +30k in a single hit you can't do anything relevant in PVP, and everyone will be laughing at you.

A thing that have happened to me a lot of times: I use force cloak or the op/scoundrels' one (can't remember the name now!) to exit combat, I get stealthed correctly, I don't have any DOTs, I don't get hit by any AoE, I keep stealthed but IN combat. I would say this happens to me 80-90% of the time. When I use these abilities I just don't get out of combat, so I cannot use mind maze and I cannot get to a safe place and heal out of combat. Has this ever happened to you?

Well, I'm sorry you didn't read or understand what I wrote. Being in a group is not classified information, it would just give us a hint on how the game will be, specially if you have been playing against the same premade over and over. You (and others) say it is not so difficult to group up and form another premade. Yeah! It is not difficult, and I already said I have premaded too, and that I find it quite boring because most of the time, premades (at least on Red Eclipse, where I am right now) get no resistance at all. They win 95% of the time. And that is why I play most of the time alone or with just a friend. I would like this game to be fair and funny, if I premade with 5 and find no suitable opponents then no game should pop for me. Maybe you are too afraid to lose if you don't premade and find these ideas stupid or childish. I know I don't suck at PVP, I am not the best of course, but I think I can do quite well, most of the time giving directions to everyone, trying to help, and of course I expect people to try harder. I usually get invited to those premades (I guess they see someone valuable in me), and I usually refuse those invitations. Grouping in even bigger premades? Making the game even more boring? Naaaaa But sometimes it is too much. Game over game fighting them, and you see no one in your faction has the skill to face them... Do I have to keep losing so the premades get the "fun"? Yeah! Fantastic! This is why I pay, to get stomped always and make others happy...

I know, I've been told that many many things, and sometimes I do it. Sometimes I group up with some guildies, and roflstomp everything. And I really hate that, mainly because it is boring, and because I like competitive and balanced matches. So I usually queue solo or with a friend, and depending on the day it is funny or not (if the "impossible premade" is playing, no fun at all; if they are not playing, much more fun, you win some games, you lost some games, but there are not that much umbalanced games). At least I would like to know at first sight who I am facing, and maybe if there are the same players as the last game, I quit because I don't want to lose my time (but I assure you I have only quit a single game in the last months)