I have started playing again to see if this round of balancing has had an effect on my enjoyment of the game. I have played many of the classes and I can honestly say the difference in the feel of every character is tremendous. Sorc healers are no longer making invincible teams. Op healers can be interrupted and must be interrupted for the win making them heal from the shadows, mercs have no movement but aren't completely overwhelmed, but fighting them properly brings rewards. As for DPS, stealth only works if you are playing a bad player or are running in packs which is good, it brings an element to the game without sins and opers being hard hitting tank beasts and stealthed. Melee hits really hard and moves well, mid range PT is a little less defensive but has the range to make the distance. Ranged is supportive and not the main source. I haven't tried the tank classes (and I haven't tried every spec). All this may be a quick evaluation but nothing screamed new Fotm when the balance data came out (unlike 5.0) and dps feels useful again now sorc healers are back in line. There is a good range of how the dps is delivered for contrasting amounts of defence and mobility. PTs hit really hard do not increase their defenses. Stealth are not solo rambos and also not ineffective. Maras are in your face but evasion renders them useless. Mercs are supportive turrets like snipers. Juggs well only played a match so far but all seems well. Sorcs are still very good dps if you know how to use them. Especially madness. Phase walk, bubble and bubble stun are still the best defenses in the game. I guess people will never see balance even when it actually exists. Those that have been playing the op classes even more so. If anything then remove the cover dynamic, snipers don't need it anymore. I'll finish with a pvp tip for all those that are crying about sorcs. Fight from a high spot and use your range. bubble stun and keep fighting. jump off and phase walk back to high place. bubble stun again. repeat. DO NOT STAND IN WITH THE MELEE. IT'S A MELEE. You wouldn't use a rocket launcher in a phone booth.

If you are going to troll cover your trail. You didn't kill the ball carrier at all because you have no objective points. You also named everyone but yourself. Or blanked out the top scoring name and class of a random photo. The biggest aspect that makes a team win in lowbies and mids is level composition. Winning Lows at rank 35+ is like winning school sports day as a try hard dad. It's lows, learn, experiment have fun, and if you have all the experience teach the new players, yes they exist.

I sometimes feel that the posts I write and those of others are like those of a couple who have recently split up. So many players, including myself, seem to be saying to bioware it'll all be alright if we just change a little and grow together. We have had so many years together do you really want to throw it all away? Do you remeber the time you made smash monkeys? oh how we laughed together after they got nerfed to normal levels. But the sad truth is bioware is the abusive partner. The partner we hang on to because we feel they offer something that others can't. It's all locked up inside them and we try to make it rise to the surface. We paid for a game from the shop shelves at a premium price, and continued to pay maintenance on it but the truth is it isn't the same game anymore. It didn't grow. We continue to invest time, money and love but Bioware only uses this to see what we can be made to do. "Make them do 100 more levels of cxp. make the grind from 0 to highest even bigger". "Give them the biggest encouragement to have alts and then take away the possibility". Many MMOs are on the market and they are grind based or microtransaction based, they have never been as successful as Swtor. So why else would bioware be following these unsuccessful business models? It must surely be a sadistic nature of the developers. Refusing to balance classes at the earliest opportunity, sorc healers have been this way since 3.0, nearly half the life of the game. It makes a mockery of the gaming system, they boasted at the time of launch 8 individual classes, but only 3 are now playable. They said it would be an expanding game, but 2 new warzones in 3 years (8v8) and the first new op in 18 months? They said legacy would matter. They told us class balance was easy with utility points and there would be no delay. They told us that pvp would be easier and easier to gear. They told us many things but like that abusive partner they lied as they slipped eel like through our hearts. What started as an imperfect relationship with many bugs we worked together and became closer for it. In those early honeymoon days we forgave mistakes and they provided maps and ops. But after 5 years and so many unasked for changes in direction, so much wasted on frivolous things, they now know they don't even have to appease us the paying customer. "There will be no class balance in 5.2" A statement of fact, an order to stop asking for their attention, a demand that you will put up with all their decisions. Like every abusive relationship there comes a time. It's a time of sorrow. A moment that stills holds you still. As you walk away today, tomorrow, in another 5 years time, you will look back on those good times with bitterness. A bitter taste taints the fruits that had been, and the a resentful glance that one wrong word can turn to hatred. A lost love that so little resembles what you fell in love with you wonder if it was ever there at all.

Increasing survivability and keeping high dps is what breaks the game. That's why engineering is now a problem. The ttk is through the rough on a spec that is designed to aoe. The slows are just annoying and at 70% just ruining the fun element. Bioware needs to make this game an MMO again and make all classes rely on the presence of others. Lose the cover defences now they have so much on the skill table, like Operatives had to.

totally agree I meant dps jugs I do not play one so shouldn't really comment but they don't seem to do that well

As I said it was a rough estimation, looking at peoples stats and scores, I don't actually have full 242 gear but comparing a player with 123k hp to my output, not the best way to do it but all I have with the resources I've got.

But this thread was about buffs. Sorc is fine where it is that's the point give it anything more and it would get the nerf threads going. Oh how Irony translates.

just mob drop gear I used. maybe the H2 makes a difference but I'm not doing it again to find out. I'll leave that to someone who enjoys looking into bolster patterns.

I had 98k hp with a freshly levelled toon and no set bonus. You should haven't written down your gear so people could graph bolster with hp that high. Before you mention that is 20% not 10% I was talking 230 to 242 before. 10% makes a big difference in pvp. It's that last 10% that gets the kill.

Depends what mods you use. I have seen merc healers have a biggest single target heal of +50k, so they'll be stacking crit more than alacrity.

123k on dps specs and 129k on tanks i think. It is basically what the DVL gear gave you.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Madness

It does make difference especially for new players who arrive in 190 gear with no set bonus and have to RNG a set. It may not be a huge difference,I estimate slightly less than 10%, but I think everyone who plays PVP would rather see an equal table. If they don't care then why are so many forum posts about balance?

Sorc healers at the same time? Then maybe see how the balance is. Should be pretty good with maybe a buff to pt and Jugg dps, make them real glass cannons bioware.

Fury gets so little healing, 1v1 as on the terms you suggested, that a good sniper will have no problems. As I said you simply let them burn themselves out. They have to use a boost to resources rather than their speed boost. "But that gives them 10% more damage" you may argue but with the slow probe and as many knockbacks as you can shake a stick at they are now near rooted to far away to use it. "But they get leap to cover" yes it has 10m range and you get hightail. "But they get a defense buff on their big attack" yes and they need to spend resources to get it. "But maras defences are quite good" a sniper has more and self heals and imperial preparation so even if the stars align for the mara and jump to cover is not on cooldown nor is valourous call snipers bet everything twice, just rinse and repeat.

I have been thinking about unsubbing as well. The gear disparity is huge at the moment. You see people in ranked with 10k less than maximum health because they want to play the game. I have ground out so many full sets of pvp and pve gear in the past. It was bad enough using comms. I do not want to do it again. I have some 242 gear but as you say that will be second rate stuff in weeks, still waiting for any for wrist protection to drop. RNG killed the game 5 years ago and to celebrate swtors 5 year anniversary they brought it back but this time they removed the cap. Now you will never get the best gear, forever trapped in gear v gear pvp or story mode ops. It is sad and maybe this response seems a little dysfunctional but as I have written it all I have thought about is do I really want to keep playing this game? My answer to myself is not really, my sub goes past 5.2 so they have a chance to change my mind, but no class balance and even less gear balance is not the way to do it

add the words "to be gods" and it suddenly makes sense

Yes but as you said you have only played 40 hours since 5.0 and mostly in lowbies the rest has been testing gear for bolster. You get a skill called box of tricks or imperial preperation. This gives all defences a reset. So you have hunkerdown, heal shield, shield probes, evasion, Hightail all on reset. Hunkerdown means you are immune to stun and interrupt so you can keep firing at the mara and as they are melee they cannot return fire and los. Heal shield may have a 3 minute cooldown but you don't have to wait use imperial preparation. Against maras you can sit tight let them burn themselves out as they can't jump to you to rebuild their resources and heal that bit more which will tip the fight, if you have a few defensive cool down problems hightail and evasion take care of it. Maras must also choose which buff they use as they have to build 30 rage to use, snipers get illegal mods, and the alacrity buff on cd so both together for maximum damage.

The step to multiples make and back to singles mean that certain classes are massively op?

Totally agree.

New suggested changes for sorcs they lose god bubble and give sins phase walk back. It's only a joke but then you did start it.

I think the issues come form the focus. Sorcs have had it so good for so long people forget that they need to run. Unfortunately for them the big killer is electronet, as designed when both skills where released together, and Merc is fotm. Sorcs put out ok dps and have great kiting skills and escapes. They have to run and hide and use utility defence buffs. I don't think anyone cries they are overpowered but as said in a previous post, Rank will never be balanced. It has three must have classes now. Sniper engineering, Sorc healer, and merc arsenal. So if you rolled PT, Jugg, mara, Op you may as well have turned up with a merc healer at any point in the last 3 years. All that crap you gave them "go learn sorc" it's come back to bite you. Go learn sniper.

Sniper self heals are much greater than a maras so keep moving and shooting a mara will always die 1v1 against a sniper as long as the sniper doesn't panic maras need a jump in rotation to build focus, so they sacrifice a speed boost to compensate or burn themselves out. Snipers can see sins coming from a long way off, burst their cover and aoe/dot them they can't restealth and lose a lot of damge out put by not opening from stealth. OPs treat like sins. Juggs and PT's hahahahhaa. Mercs engineering is dot and aoe spec, well done you just took away the one trick mercs have dcd, snipers can hunkerdown and do not need to move for a bit, that's the big offensive trick sorted, you get cover protection against ranged in a world of low acc. And why do snipers beat all classes? because even if you screw this up you get your dcds twice.

Sorry you have that completely wrong. Merc heals have a very good no interrupts utility on supercharge gas cells which they run well over 50% of the time. What makes Mercs worse than sorc heals, is sorcs have slightly better healing figures for burst, sorcs have instant casts by rotation and do not rely on tech overrides, sorc healers have no resource management to worry about they can spam their resource gains, sorcs have phasewalk (guaranteed out of range escape with los) against rocket out (still in range and got caught on a tiny slope in the floor 2m away), sorcs have rescue with 25% defence to target added to it, sorcs have defence bonus on most of their heals, Mercs do no have any defence bonus, Sorcs have god bubble (wins in acid) and enduring bastion, mercs have reflect shield which is not as good (enduring bastion allows casts like reflect shield does, combined length is so much longer then reflect shield, god bubble is a stun break etc), sorcs have 2 stun breaks, I could go on but I'll stop there you should get the picture. Mercs only advantage is 2 aoe heals, and they can ouput damage more easily on than a sorc. However this is still healer like damage much worse than a tank. Under pressure a sorc also has roaming mend which goes off and heals anyone else who needs it, mercs have to cast basic aoes, sorcs relieve pressure with their armor buffs mercs do not have, sorcs produce better hps anyway with a single target heal has their cast while moving, and sorcs have much better defences and escapes. If you want me add to the list I can but I kept it short TL; Didn't Type

They still send to many ranked games to acid. They also armour buff too much. They also can pull 8k hps. Sorc healers are OP. No one doubts it.