Rerolling Norn Guardian.

Level 36. Enough said.

The only issue I ever had is if a target was getting focused hard, we have no reactive "oh ****" heal/shield like Sorcs and BH's. Our only big heal has a 2s (without alacrity) cast time that can only be used a few times before our energy regen starts to completely suck.

"If you're worried about being 1v1'd against an operative now, bring a teammate so they can cc the operative and proceed to face roll him. This game isn't a 1v1 deathmatch." Am I doing it right?

It definitely did give us an advantage against level 10 sorcerers when we could buff stack and literally 3 shot them (as other classes could as well). As for now with 50 only warzones against targets with the same gear? Not so much. Grats on the free kills non-operatives.

Let's balance a class around perfect situations that take into account an opponent who just stands still and does nothing nor do his teammates, that sounds reasonable to me. Let's also use our AoE mez to gain a single kill instead of saving it for when we get into a group fight and can actually mez more than one person thus helping our team. In before the rage.

I guess I am sort of excited only because I know there will be a buff coming to us and eventual nerf to Sorcs and BH's. Whether or not this is before Guild Wars 2 is what actually matters however.

This thread really makes me lose faith in the future of the game if these are seriously the type of responses it garnered. At least after the nerf people will finally realize how terrible we will be against high expertise targets, even now my crits are rarely hitting for 5k (which by the way is a medal, obviously by design) even with the biochem adrenal and relic. Nice post by the way, I'm glad to see other people giving proper thought out suggestions instead of just the usual crying.

Flavour of the month implies that the majority of the PvPers are playing that class, I think you should refer to sorcerers when you talk about FOTM. Also we haven't been able to kill anyone with one stun since 1.1 happened with the consumable stacking nerf and level 50 only warzones. I will continue to play concealment however, as an inevitable buff will be coming our way once more people get geared and realize we hit like a wet noodle against a high expertise target. Not to mention operative healing is complete trash (seriously, it's really really bad) compared to bounty hunter and sorcerer.

When you get up from our knockdown be sure to kite us/knock us back/stun us and run away, we have no chance at all to catch up.

Clearly the 2 days that were used when it was 50 only brackets was enough data before announcing 1.1.1 changes. I must be wrong as Cowflab obviously has vast knowledge of the Operative workings instead of pure speculation.

I'll just leave this Mercenary video here. Obviously us Operatives are the ones that are overpowered though because we can do the same damage as a Merc except we require to be in stealth, behind a target, popping adrenals and relics, and praying for a lucky crit. Before anyone says "but that was before 1.1 when they could fight undergeared lower level people!", guess what...that's the same reason Operatives are getting nerfed. There was absolutely no time to allow people to see after the consumable nerf that Operatives rarely hit 5k (which by the way is obviously intended, seeing as there is a 5k single hit medal) anymore unless on an extremely undergeared level 50.

The easiest solution is the best. Roll Ilum back to win trading (so at least the daily/weekly is able to be finished) and start working on an actual world pvp system, like an instanced cross server siege warfare type of deal that has teams setup regardless of faction. Make it server vs server so republic and empire on one server team up and fight republic and empire on another server, that way faction imbalance won't matter.

If you honestly believe we can do 23k burst damage after the consumable stacking nerf in 1.1, I have a bridge to sell you.

A 1.5s jarring strike is so bad because instead of spending 2 talent points on something that requires stealth, being behind a target, and hoping you don't lag you can invest 2 points in the debilitate talent in lethality taking it down to a 30 second cooldown and increased 30% movement speed. It's clear which the better talent is, which is sad considering how high up jarring strike is in the tree and how low down the debilitate talent is.

Ravikar Baenre - Imperial Agent: Level 39 Bolded for emphasis. PvP at level 50 vs similar geared players is a futile effort unless the stars align on your opener. Now take that opener and reduce it by 20%, your hits went from 4000 crits to 3200. Now tack on another 20% ArPen nerf. With absolutely no increase to sustained damage, mobility, or utility. The least played class also became the most laughable class in one fell swoop.

Jarring Strike to me becomes 2 free talent points to put somewhere else, like Slip Away (debilitate talent). At least we will be able to hidden strike > debilitate > have 4 seconds of free time that still doesn't fill resolve unlike the 3s jarring strike which does. 30 Second cooldown debilitate and 30% movement speed increase > 1.5s faceplant that we won't even be able to get off a second attack with.

Marauder has always been seen as higher sustained (no proof since no combat logs or parses), but I feel they are much more boring to play.

Considering there is a medal in the game to get a 5k crit, why is it surprising that at least one class, a burst class at that, can achieve it? Also I am pretty sure you must be playing a sniper wrong, because when they survive my initial burst I am completely annihilated after the knockback/root you use. Most people are not calling for an un-nerf on hidden strike, we agree that the burst damage was too high in some situations. What we really want is an increase in sustained damage, or a sizable increase in utility. As of right now our only purpose is to take out single stragglers that are lightly armoured, if we get in a prolonged fight where we can't re-stealth we are very much out of our element and generally not as well equipped as other classes to deal with it (see marauder with 4 defensive cooldowns and numerous party buffs/enemy debuffs, not to mention a gap closer and crazy sustained damage).

Personally I would like to see a baseline "Shadowstep" (for lack of a better term) type gap closer that can be talented in each tree to act differently. One of our biggest problems in PvP is mobility and I feel this would be a great change. The talent would obviously have to be higher up in the tree so you couldn't get two Shadowstep increasing talents. All of these would be usable in stealth, and would not break stealth when used. Baseline Shadowstep: 20 second cooldown 30m range Vanishes and reappears behind enemy target increasing movement speed by 30% for 5 seconds. Medic Shadowstep talent: 20 second cooldown 30m range Shadowstep is transformed into Koltostep allowing the use of the ability on friendly targets, healing them for X amount instantly. Concealment Shadowstep talent: 20 second cooldown 30m range Shadowstep now increases the amount of damage done by your next Backstab or Laceration by X%. Lethality Shadowstep talent: 20 second cooldown 30m range Shadowstep now poisons the target dealing X damage over Y seconds. This will work to increase the damage of Cull as well since a third poison DoT will be on the target.

This is the spec I am going with after 1.1.1 http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bZhGbRkhrbtzZcMc.1

Give concealment a Shadowstep type gap closer with maybe a 25 second cooldown that will increase the damage of our next backstab or laceration by x%, and either snare the target for y seconds or increase our movement speed by 30% for z seconds. On top of this rework (and rename) Jarring Strike to root the target of our Shadowstep for 2 or 3 seconds. Yes, this is needed as even right now in 50 only brackets we can just be knocked back and kited endlessly if the player knows what they are doing.

The nerf to burst damage was fine, but no buff to sustained damage is very far from fine. Also, valor has absolutely no merit with how skilled or unskilled a person is. Grats on playing more than other people, nerd.

Time to level a sorcerer.

After reading this thread the only conclusion I've come to is that Operatives need Shadow Step, after all they are melee with no gap closer which apparently is wrong.