Once you get the mechanics of the new ops down- you will prob go back to your jugg. Having their defensive cool downs available is a big help. Mercs in IO spec are up there, good snipers can out up high numbers- but I live my jugg and power tech. I've always enjoyed melee classes but the devs sure made us work this time aruybd

This should be fixed ASAP as hard as it was. IS in hardmode- for a melee dos- it's nigh impossibl right now!

What I find extremely frustrating is the entire Mara community is against the change- yet it's gonna happen. The sorcs had insane force storms for 4 months before it was touched... Then sorc healers consumption was being reworked- the sorcs uproar- and they CHANGE it! It's like sorcs are untouchable - while marauders are just th devs beaten step child. It was such a glorious class prior to 3.0 too- sad to see a class just die bc of changes like this

This doesn't even make sense. I don't think you could find any reasonable player from the community to agree with what has happened to marauders since 3.0. The class has been wrecked. If the devs planned on making it like a merc "IO" rotation, very difficult - tough resource management- yet rewarded with top end dps--- I think people could get on board with that. But marauders don't play like any other class- we have to spend a GCD to build resources to use our skills. Which is on a cool down. It is very difficult to manage compared to those classes that regen every GCD a! Sure carnage maras are decent in PVP- but the changes for annihilation on pts will destroy th spec altogether. Maybe that's what the devs want. There is no reason anyone will play annihilation which is sad bc marauders used to be fun to play. It's hard enough to get into a pug raid atm- it's going to be 3.0 all over again albeit worse. I guess the devs want to just see mercs sorcs and pts in raids. I guess there is one marauder on the combat team and he is just highly skilled compared to the others and he wrecks them in pvp, decimated them in dps parsed erc. That's the only plausible reason to destroy the class.

I do not understand th logic involved as far as annihilation spec is concerned. 3.0 pretty much eliminated marauders from contention. They slowly climbed back up and annihilation can put up decent numbers in pve- tho still nowhere near as easy as mercs sorcs pts and even juggernauts. Why on earth would you decrease their overall dps? At the same time - make their rotation harder? Juggernauts ,their sister class, doesn't wield two sabers and puts up higher numbers- has heavy armor can mitigate three times the damage. Just help me understand. While some of the community took it to a different level- which i do not support- surely there is - there HAS to be something the devs should look at and listen too? I know oofalong, a well respected member of the community- put up his synopsis of his experience on the PTS. The changes pretty much dropped 600-1k dps off the top- and made the rotation a resource starved mess. Sorcs that just experienced a nerf - are still higher than annihilation marauders, Could a developer list their reasons why marauders should just suck? Why force people to re till a different spec? The logic presented just doesn't add up if the goal is "balance", Every ranged class is worlds easier- parse higher- I hat to see change like this when a game is in its death throes. So many friends hav left since 3.0. This is just the beginning of the end

Can we get an answer whether this is a bug ? or design? personally i preferred the other flame animation - atleast i could see it while it was up - and had no problem on my PT, Jugg, Sin - getting out of it. I hope it wasnt changed bc of the level of complaints - bc the new animation shows flame for 3 secs - and then turns invisible for 3 secs. This is 100 times harder than previously - once you got used to it - it was simple to avoid until the flames died out. now memorizing where the flame appeared is just not a viable mechanic in hardmodes. Honestly - becoming frustrated with the amount of people complaining and crying for class balancing and mechanic changes to make it easier on them. This is what happens when devs try to cater to the public. is this what we are to face now in hardmode torque? invisible fire? can we change it back?

Alright you all convinced me, I rescind my comment. The ops are balanced just fine bioware. Good job.

Either people aren't reading or in the unluckiest player in the galaxy. Yes ranged are 30m away they get a volley drop it middle of map- (I can't control where someone else drops anything) 1. Boss jumps other side map - where that volley we just dropped. Melee cannot go on tanks side of boss - they are literally locked out of fight for 30 secs. It's a piss poor game design - that was my intent of the post I wanted a clarification how "balanced" this is between melee and ranged- I am a melee dps- I am viable - I can beat most ranged dps most fights- that is not what I'm looking for here. I think people just post random replies without even thinking whether it's relevant or not. If you honestly call ravagers and Tos balanced between ranged and melee - well there is no helping you. Sad thing is - there is nothing that can be done to change bossfight mechanics. If just really really like an explanation from the devs why they either didn't bother balancing melee vs ranged -- or what their logic was in ignoring said balancing. I am not going to roll a ranged toon. I am the one and only melee toon in our prog team. Which is necessary for a balanced group dynamic pushing content. Never seen any operation in Swtor history with such a major imbalance

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying its unbalanced. Bulo if a ranged drops a volley on boss as he moved - it is 45 seconds until the volley stops. Time it. Volley lasts 45 secs. Bulo jumps every minute. Just seems like a gross oversight to release these ops as they stand. And who brought up NIM corrupter? The argument I was making was the new operations are grossly imbalanced- Df and dp are fine - I guess they fired the melee team this time around.

so these new Raiding operations have been out awhile and I've yet to see any developer comment on what exactly happened. I refuse to believe that melee vs ranged was tested. Further if it was tested - what was the outcome? How can you justify the level of difficulty required for melee toons to succeed, scratch that; live through a bossfight. Ranged specs can stand, turret, ignore 90% of mechanics while maintaining 99% uptime. Melee must: 1- chase adds on sparky- leap, sprint, back to boss on sparky 2- Bulo- lol one volley dropped on boss- melee cannot hit boss for 45 seconds. Meanwhile fire barrels tossed at tanks hits melee on boss- load lifters - excavation carts.... Melee has to stop dos run away from boss. All things considered 50% uptime on Bulo is good. 3- torque fire- ya right - ranged sit back 20m away from any fire or dangerous fire devices- now the fire changed - and its invisible for 3 secs. Hahahaha Do you see the pattern? Just wish we could get an answer why it was decided melee shouldn't be viable for an entire round of content? Sins in light armor are just pathetic anymore - and we were just nerfed bc of pvp? Maras are starting to make a comeback at least.

truly amazing work - truer words were never spoken! i feel like your hardwork is under appreciated by some - but I constantly check your numbers when switching gear for the HM Bosses. Youre a legend, and deservedly so thank you

Just throwing this out there- you mentioned bringing assassin hatred 30m moves down to 10m bc they are a melee class and don't deserve ranged options- Yet in the same patch you give the same classes other spec a 35m saber throw? How can you say one thing, justify it, then break both rules for the other spec in the same class? I realize the job can't be easy- just my 2 cents. Games been around awhile- and I really like it- but I fear with changes and nerfs to the popular classss- we are going to bleed players . Perhaps we could try bringing other underperforming classes up to the more popular classes threshold. That being said- what is going on with melee classes. I mean in a pve perspective we are massively hindered with the new ops- yet every melee class has received nerfs in the last few patches. We sure could use some love. Thanks for listening.

since it's clear that pvp vs pve is much much different- changes made to improve pvp often have the desired effect but negatively affect that specs pve effectiveness. Conversely changes made for pve improvements negatively affect pvp environments - it's rare that a change can be made to positively affect both enviros- Would it be that difficult to simply have a seperate pvp and pve skill set? That way you as devs, could make changes to one or the other without the negative impacts one has on the other? Just an idea

Thank you that was what I was looking for- I'll scroll through the thread try and find it. If anyone has a table with optimal defense #s for the tanks for the new ops boss fights I'd appreciate it!

Using the M/R K/E - F/T #s we have with the new ops - Has anyone created a table for optimal defense vs absorb? Sparky- all MRKE- Jugg- all defense 1600 d 1100s 1050 abs Sin- high defense- 1500d 1300 s 1100 abs Pt- ?? Would try for high def? But some say PTS should run all shield Bulo- some MRKE Bulo - adds are Ranged tech? So only shield able correct? Jugs - 1300d 1300s 1200 abs Sin - 900d 1350 abs. 1650 abs Pts- ? No clue best build for pts Torque- boss is defendable- turrets req shield/abs If they aren't killed quickl Juggs- Sins- Pts- Master/blaster- lil guy wrecks shields/absorb Req high #s shield/absorb Juggs- 950d 1400 shd 1400 abs Sin- 550 d 1400s 1900 abs Pts- ?? Crostini/pearl-- Juggs Sins Pts Anyone able to help me fill in blanks answer any questions? Trying nail down optimal builds for these thanks

Looks like new sorc rotation is aff-TB- CL-forcestorm- force storm - force storm- /face palm- force storm- force storm- force storm. Thanks bw! How does force storm survive the need? They just made our forked lightning weaker woo!!! Sins are prob crying atm however

Heres a SS of minerva's clear on RAVAGERS. This is BULO - forgot to grab sparky (but weve clearly cleared spark) Will try and remember to screenie the TOS clears tomorrow! http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i417/computergeek13/8mHMBuloclearMinerva_zps638ddba6.jpg any questions you can whisper kinsaa in game. Thanks!

Ranged dps are stronger this fight- the adds hit melee really hard. Every dps class in 186/192 gear can hit 3k dps on this fight. You need 5 dps and 1 tank - they need to do about 13,000 total dps to clear the enrage. That's about 2600-2700 every dps. You can't carry people through this fight Try have tank place boss over the adds as you kill me so you can push the boss while killing adds After 3 or 4 crosses - just pull boss to safe side of room and burn burn burn.

played just about every class but operative so far is vastly different with the tactical advantages etc, First time operative looking for some advice on rotations. Is one spec dps better than the other low levels? 20 now... Can any operative dps experts pointme in th right direction? I open with backstabbing, as often as I can- but am lost after that! Should I switch to lethality at a certain point? Figured a dot spec usually isn't good until endgame as burst higher dps is usually the best way to power through class quests. Thanks in advance!

Sin tank changes hiting pts mention a decrease in dmg to deprecating bolts I am not sure why didn't ever hear anyone say wow those boots are super op,

Thanks keyboardninja- such a great utility especially with the gear changes and upgrades post 3.0. Has anyone been able to determine new ideal stats for the bosses in ravages and temple of sacrifice? Ravagers Sparkly - defense - mostly kinetic damage Bulo- shield/absorb - I don't see my defense helping much and had to swap out for this fight Torque- defense? Not sure what is best here Master/blaster - ? Coratinni- ? ToS Malaphar - defense Walkers - shield/absorb Under lurker - defense Commanders- ?? Revanite -?? This is just me experimenting I am no where near KBN level - so looking for some advice on what other tanks have discovered works. I have a bunch of hard mode logs if you need Sithras/Kinsaa Ebon hawk empire

thanks gentlemen. with alacrity speeding up our dots, and cooldowns i imagined it would be beneficial- but the cull rotation seems pretty tight as is. shortening them just a little seemed to throw it off - where id be waiting approx a 1/2 GCD for cull to come back off-- or itd be ready to early.. not long to fill with anything... just short enough to be annoying. since removed- and considered trying crit. def sounds interesting. stacked full cunning augs - and slowly rotating out 180 min max power mods for the 192a Crits. In my personal opinon, i do not like marksman. I love the mobitilty of virulence - and i feel it has the potential to lay down some high dps when a proper setup is discovered. strange to see so many snipers running around with extremely poor dps - especially considering where the class was pre 3.0. looking forward to your posts soon. good luck*

Never liked marksman - been playing around with virulence. wondering what others have discovered as far as Secondary Stat Builds Crit, Surge, Alacrity So far - augmented in 186 Cunning Augs, 3x accuracy Accuracy is 774 - 110.10% crit is 232 - 23.97% surge is 408 - 70.48% alacrity: 0 running old 4 piece set bonus in 168's 192-186 dps offpieces 180 min maxed mods - and 192a Mods 186 min maxed enhancements --i swapped out some enhances for power/alacrity -- but at 4% alacrity -- the timing of the 3 cull rotation was off. wondering if its like a merc or pt where the alacrity really made improvements? what are snipers finding works? my surge kinda high - but no real way to lower.. its either 300 or 400 (65% vs 71%)

been playing this game for almost a year now. never had random disconnects. approx 3 nights ago... all of a sudden - kicked to the server login screen (although there were no servers available to connect too.) Shut game down... opened launcher... logged in... (nothing happened: "Unable to retrieve patch data. Check network connection (208). Well network is fine.. mumble is still working, webpages are loading, and im posting on SWTOR website as we speak. Killed launcher... re launched it. Entered username/pass. Patches fine... Logs in to server.. load character... about 10 mintues later... same thing.. Server lag is at 39 ms (everything is working fine up to this point.) Then, the reason i know its about to happen... all my abilities stop firing. I cant do anything, i can move in about a 3m square until i hit invisible walls. Then seconds later-- kicked to the server login screen. (error 9001) Reboot router, modem, computer. Everything seems to be fine. Kill all background progs, antivirus, literally anything that can be shutdown is. Relaunch launcher... log in... nothing... unable to retrieve data.. Have to load launcher like 3 times before it logs in and lets me load into server. It has been happening for 3 days. And its still happening. There is no rhyme or reason to it... It can happen 4 times in 30 minutes... Or go several hours before it does it. Happens late at night (11 pm est) or early in morning (9 am est) what is going on bioware.

I've always kept my setbonuses in place until i got a better setbonus armoring to install. However bridging the gap into 3.0.... we now have old 2piece, and 4 piece bonuses -- and new 2,4, & 6 piece set bonuses. On my assasin Tank - keeping the old 4 piece setbonus - and a new 2 piece setbonus -- seems to be pretty viable running mostly 186 min max gear, 192 min max, and the 198 comm off hand. I imagine as i start min maxing in 198 gear - the old setbonuses in 180 armorings is going to start needed replaced? or is 3 tiers lower in armour going to be acceptable? at what point should a set bonus piece be scrapped or is it dependant on each class. I mean if the setbonus is still viable... obviously if it sucks - throw a 186 comm armoring in . Say for a PT tank - the increased duration of oil slick.. always nice to have-- but is it worth keeping a 168 piece instead of a 192 piece (3 tiers difference).] What does everyone think about keeping lower tiered set bonus's in play?