Damage is only dependant on your spec, the warzone it is and the kind of match it is. Of course a smashmonkey would get insane damage numbers in a 30 minute stalemate at novare with at least 2 healers per team. Then again, 1 single smashmonkey is a non-factor hehe... Group them up and have them jump and smash the same target and then they become effective

(Republic Faction) Hello jolly fellows! Me and at least 2 other friends are thinking of finding ourselves a new guild, we have joined this one as part of a rebuilding effort that didn't quite turn out as we had hoped in the amount of time we spent on it already. We all have several lv 55 characters ready to go for HM ops along with the experience to get through those on a weekly basis, the purpose of this thread is for us to test the "free agent" waters and see what's available to us. We hope to find a PvE progression guild with a degree of commitment to progress that equals our own, not a super-hardcore guild, but one that progresses efficiently while maintaining a nice social atmosphere in their voice chat channels. We would like to join an established guild with players to spare for us to form a tight 8 man raiding team. We also are very capable PvPers, but are putting that on hold until 2.4 hits in October, so might do it casually until then. If you feel your guild would welcome such a group and accomodate our ambitions and desires out of this game, reply to this thread so we can discuss this further. Cheers

A sad thing indeed to see one of the most storied guilds in the server disband. Truth is most PvP guilds are not big fans of arenas but we'll make do with what we get I suppose. Now that I was just beggining to have fun in regular warzones with Whasp coming back to the game and running premades... Meh back to facerolling impzies 24/7. Good luck in your future endeavours.

They're removing it probably only so no one can screw with the new matchmaking system they're implementing. Though field respec in actual warzones was a big problem, people would take all sorts of situational advantage from it "Oh we got 2 nodes? Okay respeccing tank and heals, good luck capping now brah!". People might complain that removing it is taking some skill out of the equation but I'll agree to disagree, there's no skill level involved in respecc'ing rather than being able to be at least merely decent in different specs of your AC. Plus, different classes benefitted more from it than others so in that regard it might be a balance issue as well. How can you forget the endless spyral of stalemates that Voidstar matches have become as of late, awesome for number farmers and not so fun for people who just wanna go into a warzone, faceroll the opposing team and move on to the next one. All in all, field respec's removal will be a great thing for PvP - learn to excel in your specs playas!

To be honest if you plan on taking down a healer, smash is not the spec you want to be running in the first place. For guardian/juggernaut vigilance/vengeance would be best for that simply because it has better single target burst. Same goes for sentinel/marauder combat/carnage plus this spec also has tons of roots, good when trying to keep the healer from getting away from you. Before 2.0 no one picked on operative/scoundrel healers calling them out as OP for ONE simple reason, the energy cost of Kolto Probe/Slow-Release Medpac it was 15 at all times back in the day and with 2.0 there was a talent introduced that reduced that energy cost to 9 making it spammable, allowing such healer to keep a Kolto Probe/Slow-Release Medpac on every member of his group without putting any strain on his energy pool. And that's all that has changed, giving the healing class with arguably the best defensive cooldowns and best solo survivability the ability to HoT an entire 8 man group at absolutely no effort. So nerf that talent so each level of it reduces the energy cost by 1 rather than 2 and the ability will cost 12 energy rather than 9, making the healer unable to keep it on everyone without compromising his energy pool. And that's the opinion of someone who rolled a scoundrel healer before it was mainstream

Resilience is currently only negating negative Force and Tech effects for the duration, if melee and/or ranged would be added it would be a go-to defensive CD in both PvP and PvE and then have all the other classes crying about shadow being OP In PvE it would improve a shadow tank's desirability by a lot "Terminate? Okay, resilience. Thx bai come again." just comes out of the top of my head. Still keeps the skill level in the equation for the tank would be able to negate most spikey moments during a boss fight even when they're not channeled like Thrasher's swipe, which is good for about 14k in HM if not shielded, though he'd have to know the fight like the back of his hand. The impact on DPS specs would just be a way to avoid high damage abilities especially on PvP, while also making the shadow immune to CC for the duration as resilience would counter all types of effects.

The reason this lovely class has been shunned by BW is simply because we were too OP in PvP, a shadow running tank spec in DPS gear was a dreadful thing to come by in a WZ so they've nerfed our self heals progressively in each patch and ended up nerfing our armor rating by 30% on combat technique as well (it used to be 145% rather than 115%). Sure we were given a new DR cooldown on Battle Readiness but the long cooldown does not justify the boosts at all, a 15% self heal with 25% DR on a 2 minute cooldown is not gonna help much when you're trying to keep up with a boss' dmg in anything from a HM to a NiM. And don't even get me started on Terminate... What people forget about armor rating is that it is the only defense you have against crits (and yes crits happen in PvE as well) which bypass your shield no matter the rating you've boosted it to. All of these progressive nerfs have made the shadow tank an undesirable thing to have in OPS, as a shadow tank myself for a main character with which I raid I feel the class does need some buffing to at least be viable in endgame PvE. Of course if it does happen it will only last until the PvP forums get flooded with QQ'ing about the shadow hybrid PvP spec being back as the most fearsome thing to come across. Hopefully Bioware takes notice of our struggle, because I'm tired of being better geared than VG or Guardian tanks and have them be more sucessful in tanking simply because they have it easier.

FoTM is in full display in arenas, I have not tried the PTS on this current round yet but I have patched it and shall give it a go tomorrow. I do expect full stealth (DPS Scoundrel/Operative & DPS Shadow/Assassin) teams to destroy other teams, maybe also full smashmonkey teams. But it shall be fun no doubt, at least for a while.

Both classes' initial burst stack up pretty well to each other, but scoundrel is totally useless while out of stealth if you are planning on going into the scrapper spec, the only good thing is that you can stunlock kill people with Flechette Round > Shoot First > Sucker Punch > Dirty Kick > Sabotage Charge > Flechette Round > Blaster Whip > Sucker Punch > Backblast.

This new change is overkill imo, now I regret pointing out how senseless the field respec CHEESE! was and is at the moment in the PvP scene. But this screws up lovely people who would spec heals before the match begins to give their team a chance to win, I'm a firm supporter of no respecc'ing allowed once a match begins but still being able to respec during the waiting period of nearly 2 minutes before it does. Field respec only became a nuisance when used in between VS rounds or after capturing nodes to 'turtle' them, but this my friends is way overkill by Bioware.

My opinion on this was formulated on the assumption that they're removing ranked warzones due to the lack of resources to keep them in the game at this point. Regardless ranked warzones were fun once upon a time, once a few teams distinguished themselves in my server it turned into constant stalemates that most times ended with a DC, a lag-switch or even in rare cases well timed chain-CC. The objective based play has a cerebral flavor to it which can be very entertaining but for it to be sucessful as a whole all the class balance/utility would have to be thrown out of whack and end up having an impact on PvE as well. While most WZ fans might claim deathmatch is merely about button smashing and FoTM, there are several factors that will come into play beyond that, in the end the team with the best players will triumph while previously in WZ being a winner wouldn't necessarily mean anything as far as player ability (it mostly came down to team composition or the occasional setback/exploit). "Oh noes opposing team has 3 smashmonkeys ripping us to shreds, uuuuugggghhh!" or "Why did we not bring a sniper along for this huttball match?". And PvP should be about player ability and a proper challenge in some cases if not, why play it? I will always be more inclined towards PvP myself but I do PvE with guildies as well on occasion and BW has done a great job as far as PvE goes, even though this Dread Masters' plot to conquer the galaxy is getting old, in providing a proper challenge. In fact I was just doing TFB HM for sheer lolz and the Operator IX fight remains tough as nails. Also the ranked scene must not be appealing for new groups of players that would like to try their hand at those, but got no options on practicing with a full 8 man premade group before jumping into a ranked warzone and get hammered by a much more experienced team. I do hope ranked warzones grace us with another reincarnation, perhaps with a proper matchmaking system they will flourish and more people will be encouraged to play them, but right now it's too self repeating. "Guild X smashes Guild Y. Guild X goes on to a stalemate match with Guild W. Guild Y steamrolls Guild Z. Guild Z never queues again for ranked. Guild Y has a stalemate with Guild W. Guild W gives up on ranked for the day, because stalemates are boring. Guild X and Y are stuck always playing against one another for the remainder of the day."

This OP knows what he's talking about, ranked warzones were doomed from the start. The ridiculous amount of exploits/hacks that came up in recent times only made it worse, the implementation of arenas will revitalize the PvP community at least for a little while. At least we won't have to put up with 30 minute Novare matches because neither team can kill any opponent because of the presence of 2 tanks and 2 healers on each side as often was and is the case on ranked warzones. Of course there will be class balance issues, in my opinion especially the ability of a full stealth DPS team on voice communication to open up on a single target and burst it down before anyone realises what's going on, but I do think those will be adressed in time. As in any patch, there will be FoTM to be dealt with, it wouldn't be an MMO without it. Personally I'm looking forward to cleaning the cobwebs off my scoundrel's shotgun and team up with 3 other scoundrels to pick off some poor unawary guys one by one in arenas hehe. Prioritizing deathmatch is something that should've been done from the start as far as PvP goes, afterall everyone wants to hop into a PvP environment and shoot every red named character they see. While I did enjoy the objective play style, I often found myself while queue'ing solo or even in premade groups with guildies/friends for regular warzones to be grouped with people who were either clueless about the objectives or simply didn't care and would rather go out there and kill stuff. Also the less people that make up a team, the more individual player ability comes into focus which is a great thing, afterall in PvP you aim to be the best you possibly can be within your class, spec and role. Thumbs up for a deep and insightful thread. On a last note, to the top tier PvP guilds across the servers that played solely for ranked warzones: carry your commitment over to arenas. Even if you won't be as dominant on arenas as you were on ranked because team coordination will not be so vital or because they're disabling the field respec CHEESE! or if them auto-clickers in a few cases will not be as useful to grab them balls in SNIPER/SLINGERball it doesn't mean you won't enjoy it. So please, stop moaning about all your efforts on getting people coordinated to be sucessful on ranked warzones going down the drain when 2.4 hits because those same efforts will translate over to arenas if your players are worth their salt. I bid you all a good day and thumbs up to the OP once more.

Now before everyone starts hating on yet another nerf ops/scoundrels thread let me start by saying: The ability itself is not OP, when you get Emergent Emergencies/Surgical Precision then it becomes OP, if your target is below 30% max health then you regain the stack of Upper Hand/Tactical Advantage you spent casting, meaning only the global cooldown will prevent you from spamming it to keep someone up indefinetely. While the talent itself would not necessarily need to be nerfed, if a 10-15 energy cost was added to the ability. This would prevent spamming it for ages and not take away it's viability in PvE. In PvP it wouldn't change much, just the longer you press the healer the more in your favor the fight goes, as they'd be running out of energy to keep themselves up with it. Whoever believes making such a change will affect the healer's performance in PvE needs to play one before making that point, because you hardly use emergency medpac/surgical probe unless making up for spike damage or enrage damage.

Hello chaps! I've been playing MMOs for quite a while now since the early 2000s and with each year that passes, people become ruder and ruder. Is it because they suddenly grow a manhood they have lacked their entire life to stand up to others and since they're talking to somebody who's likely halfway across the world they feel safe or just because their cyber sucess got to their heads to the point that a harmless MMO playing teenager became a self-absorbed idiot (for lack of a better word)? A curious question indeed. In every MMO, everyday there's people spamming the general with their pathetic e-peen measurement contests and flames. I wonder when everyone will act politely towards another.

Class balance is not too bad as it is right now, maybe operative/scoundrel spammable instant cast heal that costs absolutely nothing when target at or below 30% hp should be reworked... But beyond that even smashmonkeys can be dealt with, heck combat/carnage is way more fearsome to face 1 on 1, smash is only viable when en masse as it puts pressure on healers but I do agree it is too easy to play. Some specs do need buffing rather than nerfing all others, such as scrapper scoundrel/concealment operative, tactics vanguard/advanced prototype powertech, balance shadow/madness assassin (by dumbing down this one they totally ruined it).

All the best PvP teams transferred to PvP servers, I reckon only the teams that were getting roflstomped before the transfers have remained on their original servers, so now it's their turn to do some roflstomping I guess.

Not to come to Bioware's rescue or anything for they haven't provided us with proper pvp to this date as you mentioned above, but I also blame the PvP community. It seems to me this PvP community is way too spread apart in terms of thoughts on how to improve the game and attitude, you got the carebears who will ask for anything to give them a chance against better players or those who have worked hard for their gear, you got the wannabe pros who will reply to forum threads pointing out obvious flaws in the pvp system (note that this does not include class imbalance) saying it's a QQ thread and you got the proper PvPers, who have played PvP competitively in several other MMOs and aim to improve this PvP experience by continuosly pointing out the flaws in the system. Knowing this and also knowing EA is really running the show behind the scene and that their goal is to appease as much people as possible to make as much money as possible, no wonder they haven't made any proper adjustments to PvP since the game launched. In my opinion, arenas will generate more discontent than happiness as it will showcase a smaller group's ability and that means individual player ability is far more important. Also in a flowing PvP server such as mine, warzones are a joke at 55 these days, even in non-ranked you get people respecc'ing mid match to 'turtle' nodes I wonder what I could do if I could change champion mid match in League of Legends. Field respec is available to all but completetly throws the concept of PvP out of the window when it can be done in the thick of it and not only in preparation.

I believe I found my soulmate, JK. Your point is a very good one, if people are given the ability to change their spec to counter specific situations it takes the skill level completely out of the equation. People should be forced to adapt within their spec, afterall someone who practices the same spec all the time will always be noticed in their performance in PvP, deciding your role in a WZ is to be done in preparation for it and not to be changed during the course of it. I only started this thread because ever since the paid transfers went live this became an issue even in regular warzones where you don't possess the luxury of having 7 other competent teammates who are just as good or better than you to counter it properly.

Carnage presents a better single target burst with 4 secs of 100% armor ignore every 15 secs and when slaughter is proc'ed, extra movement speed, roots, 6% more accuracy and cooldown reduction on intimidating roar. So please regale me further with your 'high level play' I so wish to learn from you master. Respecc'ing to annihilation would be far more useful in defensive purposes, the self and group heals can help your group hold out longer in time for backup to arrive before you drop and smash is only viable en masse puts pressure on healers to keep everyone up when there's at least 2 monkeys smashing their group to bloody bits. Point is, you could be as bada** as you claim to be here though I don't judge anyone until they play with or against me. I also have the upside of playing in one of most advanced PvP communities, with the server transfers ToFN has had an influx of really good teams from every other european server. This means in 55 pvp over here you go up against people who know their stuff pretty much all day long and I pit the poor sods who haven't gotten their full conq min/max'ed gear before the paid transfers kicked in, must be awful for them atm. Moving on, by setting up a jugg tank, sin tank and op healer at a node you pretty much have that node for the rest of the match, no matter how much DPS you bring down on it. A timely force push combined with CC'ing the guarding tank to burst down the healer is really the only way to counter it, but this is ranked talk which should not carry over to regular wzs. Personally I never respec from infiltration to tank except for huttball because I can keep a healer down if not burst them down if they're overzealous but I digress... Although I don't appreciate your tone or self righteousness I shall present you with a response (yes my parents bothered to give me a proper education) which is the following: If you honestly enjoy that kind of play in WZs which consists of loading up tanks and healers to sustain a node then it is pointless for both of us to be arguing, you see it as a L2P issue then again what you call 'real pvpers' might not be as good as you think, last time I checked the best PvPers do play on PvP servers. We've beat teams that tried to respec to 'turtle' nodes, respecc'ing doesn't give you a sure win only a distinct advantage assuming both teams are on equal footing in terms of gear, experience and organization, which is the ranked scene on ToFN right now, plenty of good teams to go around. So next time, instead of trying to discredit someone's argument by saying they're QQ'ing or that they don't know what they're talking about, perhaps do your homework first to give the community a response worth posting for everyone to see.

Aren't you the meanest of them cyber pros? Especially coming from someone on a PvE server, I'd tell you to join me on ToFN to see how bad of a player I am, but that would probably be breaking a few forum rules. Then again some people are just that hungry for attention. If you honestly believe a marauder respec'ing from smashmonkey to carnage has any kind of impact in a match besides better single target burst which is easily contained then you won't find many that would agree with you. As far as most threads on this forum being senseless QQ threads, it doesn't make every single one of them such a thread, if you don't agree with a thread say so, telling people to L2P when you know nothing about them and automatically assuming you're better than them is not just arrogant as it is pathetic beside the obvious point that it is off-topic. So GZ E-peen +10 points, I rest my case.

I could spec tank as well to defend, but where would be the fun in that? 2.4 will be a solution for this cheese anyway, reminds me of shot clock cheese in 2k haha. Might even roll my imperial characters on ToFN, as deathmatch is all the people in this faction seem to be interested on, wonder if they'll be any good in what they always seem to seek in PvP hehe.

To be fair in a deathmatch kind of contest this won't even be an issue, as I'm expecting arena teams to be composed of 4 players and that match will be entirely a deathmatch, so the only viable teams setups would be 1 tank, 1 healer and 2 DPS or 3 DPS and a healer or even 4 DPS for the braver ones. Loading up on tanks and healers after going into a match with a heavy DPS team composition to 'turtle' nodes will not be an issue anymore. Too bad I'll have to wait till October to show them all mighty respecc'ers what true PvP is all about. Objective based warzones were never meant as a tool for measuring player ability, I could go through a WZ without touching anyone and still give my team a good chance to win. So for myself, and everyone else who enjoys PvP for the competition it presents, 2.4 should be implemented ASAP (bar any major class balance issues that might be added until then, I'm expecting it to be very sucessful).

It's not lack of skill that's the problem here, when you got 2 tanks and a healer at least per node guarding it, no matter how much DPS you put on them they're able to hold it if they're any good. Considering a single tank can take 80% dmg off a healer with guard + taunts, having 2 tanks in there means the healer will pretty much always be taunted for. Concerning the effort people have spent in getting 2 sets of PvP gear, field respec goes against anything that's included in a PvP objective oriented kind of gameplay. It should've been addressed way before it got into fashion. My suggestion would be to make field respec impossible as soon as the match begins, after the waiting period at the beggining, feel free to respec during that time to whichever spec suits your team the best. Concerning DCs during the game, it saddens me the frequency with which they happen but I'd be willing to sacrifice that utility of field respec to prevent the so-called 'turtling' of nodes. Hopefully in 2.4 this won't be an issue as I'm expecting arenas to be a deathmatch contest and DPS will always be in need, so teams won't be running more than 1 tank and healer in their 4 man composition.

That would probably cause all sorts of problems for players that don't just PvP in all their online time I'd suppose.

Indeed, if people weren't able to respec during the course of a WZ they would only have how many tanks they chose to begin the WZ with, which is usually never more than 2 for the reasons you mentioned above. Therefore being able to field respec after the beggining of a match is totally killing the PvP buzz, nobody wants to sit in a WZ for 12 minutes hitting tanks and healers guarding nodes. Also guard is working just fine, even with the changes implemented in 2.0 that damage you intercept from other players is now subject to your own damage reduction and defenses. It's the sole issue of people respec'ing to tank/healer after securing 2 out of 3 nodes to kill the match that bugs me and tons of other players I'm sure.