At the rate things are going, this game (and these developers' jobs, for that matter) doesn't have a future.

I think even a fair numbers of East Coasters would begrudgingly agree with you. Unfortunately it appears the decision is final, and EAware won't be making any apologies for it.

Yes, you can claim with certainty that it was a lie, because they specifically said in the 10/2 Roadmap update that they were rolling all of the servers into "one for each existing region and language". Last time I checked, the server list always had distinct East/West Coast designations for NA servers. So unless they want to retroactively redefine the word "region", this wasn't even a lie of omission, it was just a lie. You are in no way spouting hyperbole. Don't let this dishonest apologist try to convince you, or anyone else, otherwise.

What part of your reply was meant to be relevant? I don't need to know anyone from Bioware (or EA, for that matter) to know that the quality of the product no longer justifies the money I spent for it, and judging by the replies here, many people agree. Gameplay experience has actually managed to decline since last year, and this news only adds to the trend. Frankly, I don't care who made the decision, or how it was made. At some point along the chain, this was decided, and someone somewhere deliberately chose to hamstring us all by releasing such important information after the fact. That is poor business practice, and I hope for Bioware's sake that this was the Austin branch's doing. Because if it wasn't, then one can reasonably expect that this type of piss poor treatment of paying customers will be repeated in future titles. "The United Forces update expands your connection to a galactic-sized community of players. We will be integrating our existing seventeen servers to five new servers, one for each existing region and language." ---10/2 UF Roadmap update I wonder what kind of mental gymnastics you'll twist through to defend the devs on this one. They lied, and you know it.

+1 to these. Bioware, you've lost another paying customer today, and I'll be viewing any future titles produced by your company with a greater level of skepticism that I do not reserve for many other publishers. Your dishonesty is killing what is left of what was once a great brand.

I'll just leave this here. "The United Forces update expands your connection to a galactic-sized community of players. We will be integrating our existing seventeen servers to five new servers, one for each existing region and language." ---10/2 UF Roadmap update

"The United Forces update expands your connection to a galactic-sized community of players. We will be integrating our existing seventeen servers to five new servers, one for each existing region and language." ---10/2 UF Roadmap update That post aged really well, didn't it, Devs?

/Signed. The fact that the devs told us about the move after the fact just goes to show how little respect the company has for its subscribers. I'm extremely tempted to take my money elsewhere if Satele Shan is not stationed in the West. This is what we were promised, and this is what we will get if the devs want to keep enough money flowing to justify the continuation of their jobs to the higher ups. Because if the server locations stand as they are, then the revenue lost to the 5.0 player exodus will look small-time to what they're about to lose.

You people just screwed over a huge portion of your player base, and you knew about this well in advance. So you just now inform us in some cavalier manner after the fact, as if moving all of the NA servers to the East Coast was some insignificant decision made in afterthought. I and most other people in the APAC/Western regions would completely understand if you made this announcement as a key change in your Roadmap announcement, and just being honest about your reasons for doing so. But it's clear that you have so little respect for your community that you didn't even have the decency to do that. This crew has made some extremely seedy decisions in the past, but this one takes the cake. My server lag tripled overnight, with no explanation as to why until I heard about the move from another player. I was already on the fence about renewing my sub at the end of the month, but this may finally be the straw that broke the camel's back. I highly doubt I'm alone, either. Shame on you, Bioware, and shame on everyone else up the latter that was involved in this asinine decision. You deserve every bit of criticism and income loss for this dogsh*t move, and I hope your branch closes entirely by the year's end for all the dishonesty. Good riddance.

Welcome back to the game. I won't say specifically which discipline you *should* play, given that all three of them play very differently and offer different advantages. Instead, I'll highlight their strengths and weaknesses, and allow you to make a better informed decision. Concentration, in my opinion, has the simplest rotation of the three. It runs on a set, 12-GCD path that are divided up into two 6-turn "cycles". Focus management is easy, and you rarely have to deviate from it for optimal DPS. With a heavy alacrity distribution, it has the highest single target sustained damage in the entire game. It's the best equipped of any melee class for handling mobile targets, and it offers decent AoE that requires more attention to maintain than the other two specs. Combat is also a fairly simple rotation, but more difficult to execute. Half of the spec is basic attack spam, with the other half fitting ~60-70% of your DPS into a 3 second window. It also has very strong potential DPS for being the burstiest of the three, but mistakes during your burst window are extremely costly. It is also the weakest of the three against mobile targets, but it does offer the best potential burst AoE of almost any class. Watchman is currently the redheaded step-child of the three. While its DPS is still fairly competitive, it lacks the burst of the other two specs, underperforming in fights with multiple, weaker enemies. The rotation still requires the ramp-up time you likely remember, but it's significantly shorter than it was. When this is completed, you have two sets of abilities synced to two different base CD timers, which causes the greatest rotational variation of the three. Because of this, I argue that it has the highest skill ceiling for newcomers, but it's the most forgiving when making mistakes. It is the slowest in terms of GCD time, and offers decent AoE with many opportunities to spread DoTs. You do receive some baseline self-HoTs, and it does offer decent kiting tools as well. Conc is a decent choice in any scenario, and you have the tools to deal with anything. Combat is best for fights with multiple enemies and target swaps, but you potentially suffer being kited. Watchman's only comparative advantage is fighting two or more enemies with high health for prolonged periods of time. Hope that helps.

So the parse boards have been reset, and it's safe to say that my initial argument is vindicated. I will grant that Conc probably needs a sustained nerf, but there is absolutely no reason even Combat should be putting up higher sustained numbers than Watchman on a dummy. Devs, I urge you again to either reverse or soften the Watchman nerfs, or provide us a new bone to chew on. Better discipline CC-immunity, AoE, or DCD up-time will suffice.

Nope, Sentinels completely lack any baseline CC immunity while attacking. Zealous Ward from the Legendary tree provides 6 seconds of it on Saber Ward (3 minute cooldown, though). Our only other source is Force Camo, but nobody can even target you to attempt a stun while in stealth, obviously.

I provided solid evidence that contradicts your opinion, and your response was "but Conc is a PvP spec". Again, Conc has objectively superior burst, sustained DPS, CC-immunity, target swapping, energy management, rotational ease, and time-on-target utility. It's better in both PvE and PvP. If we are to continue operating under the assumption that the developers still wish to balance every discipline for PvP purposes (or even the game at all), then the sheer number and magnitude of the advantages Conc has over Watchman cannot remain as they are. And if they no longer wish to balance every class in PvP, they should just make their intentions clear and lock the "non-PvP" specs from PvP. Until you provide any solid evidence that suggests Watchman actually has some large advantages over Conc that have not yet been represented in this thread, I see no point in further debating this matter.

This "Conc is a PvP spec" argument is also nonsense. If the developers intended for one discipline for each class to be played in PvP, then why are all of them available in PvP? Furthermore, if Conc is going to out-DPS Watchman, then why would Conc not also be locked to PvE conversely? You know this was never the case since launch, and there are plenty of cases where classes' DoT specs outperform their burst counterparts in one patch and the underperform in the next.

I'll argue that Combat suffers more than Watchman in PvP because a single stun or DCD at the proper time will erase ~70% of their damage in that rotation cycle, and just about every class in the game is capable of repeatedly shutting down Precision windows. To the guy attempting to argue that Conc is somehow more difficult than either of the others --- what on Earth are you smoking? So to you, the only discipline in the class with built-in CC immunity, a 100% set-path, net resource-positive rotation, a free resource/rotation reset (Valorous Call), the best anti-kiting utilities of any class in the entire game, the only tree that allows your only 30M ability sit idly for use at your leisure, is the hardest Sentinel tree to master? I'd just dismiss you as a troll, but your level of commitment to denigrating people in the thread who disagree with you suggests otherwise. This argument is nonsense. Conc's top parse was less than 300 DPS below that of Watchman pre-nerf, and its parse average is actually higher than Watchman's. Don't believe me? Here you go. As you can see there, Conc has a 200 DPS advantage over Watchman even on the 2.5M dummy, and I can attest to that with my own anecdotes. Pre-nerf, I was hitting 10.3-10.6k on my better parses. Post-nerf, I was happy to break 10k, and it wasn't until I had to re-optimize my gear that I was regularly surpassing that mark. In fact, the only fights I'm reaching my prior numbers on are add-heavy fights (such as Tyth, C0 and Underlurker). Tell us all how Watchman is out-performing Conc in sustained, again. Ball is in your court, my dude. I reiterate all of my points from the start of the thread. 1. Conc is objectively superior to Watchman in almost every way. It is easier, more resource-friendly, burstier, more sustained, and better PvP-equipped. 2. Watchman hit like a wet noodle in PvP, even when it was king of the Parse Heroes™ This problem has been further exacerbated with the nerf. 3. Sentinels suffer from weak up-time on their DCDs. The mitigation on the DCDs is absolutely fine, but the rate at which mitigation is sustained is horrible. 4. Watchman and Combat completely lack CC-immunity while attacking targets. Such up-time can be increased by a whopping 6 seconds every 3 minutes with a Legendary utility. 5. Other DoT classes have superior target swapping, and all but Watchman have a main AoE ability (defined as providing a DoT spread and/or powerful debuff) in their single target rotations. My solutions to the above issues: 1. Reduced CD on Saber Ward. This solves both the CC-immunity issue, and DCD up-time. Do it through utility or baseline AC change, I don't care. But 3 minutes on such a mediocre DCD is ridiculous. 2. More PvP-situational DPS for Watchman. There are a myriad of ways to implement this, ranging from a damage bonus for each time the player is controlled (sort of like the Guardian's Gather Strength utility) or an attack is avoided, reintroducing Riposte, increased damage reflect on Rebuke, or many other possible methods. 3. Add a damage bonus to AoE. Again, there are a variety of ways to resolve the multi-target issue. I.e.: give Watchman's Twin Saber Throw or Force Sweep the Beat Down passive, give Sweep a proc (sort of like Accelerating Victory) to buff its damage or Focus cost once every ~8-16 GCDs (to make it temporarily more powerful than Slash), or rework DoTspread's mechanics to reapply DoTs more consistenly. I think these solutions are more than fair, and provide the developers ample room to tweak the changes to fit the existing TTK models for all gameplay modes. I also fully support additional protections for Combat's extremely vulnerable Precision window, but that is not the core focus of this thread. So long as at least 2 of the 3 solutions I have offered are met in some way, I will drop the issue and we all go happily on our ways.