I missed your last streams, but I have a related question; what would it take to get a Drako 4-man up and running?

You never answeres my question though... Fact is that DF still deals top damage of all abilities. DoTs don't deal more damage than it over a fight, if both are used optimally (off CD, no DoT clipping). If your rotation is for heroics and leveling, thats fine but don't say that a fixed rotation isn't needed. That's false, your rotation does less DPS than the fixed one (and the priority one I listed above). Holding DF for mobs is useful for such activities, but you shouldn't be doing it in ops. It messes up your rotation and nets you lower DPS.

This is intetesting, what are your utilities? I usually take celerity/force wake/fade/misdirection/cloak of resilience/egress/containment/stalker's swiftness. Do you swap cloak of resilience for force harmonics? Or is it for mind over matter?

No, it doesn't. If he's a tank, it adds mititgation, but exactly the same as it would add were he to use a double bladed saber. If he's a DPS, it adds nothing. In either case it has nothing to do with the fact that he won't be able to use many abilities do to missing a double saber.

Wow, this thread is good. I'm almost sorry my sub will soon be up because of threads like this one. So much to cover... Where do we start? Mercs are OP. 75% heals every ~35 seconds (two utilities), 70% heals every ~135 seconds (two utilities) and a better version of enraged defenses + reflect combined (heals limited by time instead of stacks, reflect works on melee as well as everything else) every 120 seconds. All this before covering the damage mercs can deal (top of the burst food chain) and their 30m range. Mercs never had a problem with any class in 1v1. Not that this is in any way relevant to actual warzones/arenas, but a merc could hold their own against sins, maras, juggs and PTs easily. Ops could pose a problem, but nothing a good merc couldn't at least turn into a stalemate. OP has to be a troll. Why else would he make a throwaway named like that and "brace for hate"? Is he afraid that "telling the truth" will rub the wrong side of non-merc players? Don't worry OP, there's only 4 or 5 of us left, we can't do ****. Speaking of which, why do you think people rerolled merc? Why is it FoTM? A "preceived OPness"? That's an impressive piece of arrogance there; saying you're smarter than the whole part of player pool who decided to reroll (as well as the whole player pool part who didn't but still claim OPness). Tank stats are mitigation. Pretty irrelevant to the OP but very relevant to points made here. Tanks are *meant* to survive longest, they deal reduced damage as a direct trade off. If they both deal less damage and survive a shorter time than DPS, there is literally no reason in bringing them to a warzone. The point OP claims (that it's good mercs can now out tank tanks, it prevents them from being tunneled) would be almost laughable if he didn't make it with such conviction. Tanks do gain mitigation due to to tank stats, they should absolutely out-survive mercs when being subject to the same focus. Slightly unrelated, but this irks me too: tanks in DPS stats are doing their job. If you think tanks are supposed to stand and take damage without dealing any, you're confused with a training dummy. One way to mitigate damage is to kill the damage source, and seeing as how tank stats suck for almost anything (TR being the exception) it's only fair players min/max for their benefit. Great thread though, many riled faces (myself included).

I'm sorry, but this isn't opinion related. Assuming you're a CP strike flying against a repair drone bomber with HLC, railgun sentry and seekers, the only reason the bomber should ever lose to you is because he didn't fire back. I'm not even talking about him actually flying as a bomber should (i.e using LoS and evading you while the railgun + seekers finish you off). If you don't eat a single seeker, by the time you've manage to lock a torp on your hull is down to 325 HP, and your shields down to 340. This is assuming max range, which is unrealistic because you're going to want to fire your blasters too. A more realistic number is ~250 hull, and ~220 shields. If you eat a single seeker during this timeframe, you're just plain dead to either the bomber shots or the railgun sentry drone. Your heals won't save you either, and the bomber has stronger heals anyway. A better build would be a directionals/lightweight/combat command/running interference (if you really want to kill a bomber with a strike). CP is killing you faster, the T2 bomber can get armor pen on both the railgun and HLC. Effectively, your shields are killing you with bleed through and your armor component is all but useless. But I digress. Even if you could kill bombers in strikes exclusively (which you can't, bombers have similar/better offensive output and are tankier) it takes too much time in strikes. In TDM, you might win such a match (provided they don't decide to swap to scouts or gunships and decimate you) but in Dom it's absolutely necessary to kill bombers as fast as possible to prevent them from reaching the node again before you cap it. As mentioned, even scouts have a hard job doing that, and their offensive output is a lot higher than that of strikes. Even if you disable their systems and engines/shields with EMP, they can still kite you on the node and you lack the close range offense to finish them off. Gunships can do a better job ironically, due to their possession of BLC. I don't think anyone said ions are a must for clearing bombers from nodes; they are needed for it to be done in a short enough time as to allow node capping, though. EMP would be viable if it could actually clear mines. As it stands, clearing mines every 13.6 seconds (assuming you're sharp with your timers) is not nearly enough. A bomber who staggers his mines will have a mine up already, two bombers will have two, et cetera. Ions are the only weapon which can reliably prevent mines for a long enough window that a kill can be had.

Ion railgun is not OP. It's only devastating if you've already blown your cooldowns or if you were low on engine power to begin with. The first case can be your fault if you needlessly wasted them, but will often happen anyway if you've just killed an enemy. That's fair, you are expected to lose 1v2. The second case can be dealt with by simply managing your engine power - make sure you have enough engines to make your escape if you need to before you go in. In addition to all of this, if you're a gunship/bomber, staying near an object is the best counter to ions - if you're shot once, get behind LoS and you're fine. This also works for scouts that aren't in transit to kill a target. A couple of things that bug me here: It's already been proven that for TDM the T3 gunship is more than viable. Ions have very little against other gunships that positioning can't fix. The other components the T3 has too (barring barrel roll), but it has better engine options, thrusters instead of sensors and some good CQC options. The AoE is the only reason to bring the T1 gunship over the T3 in Dom, without it mines would be unclearble. This has been touched upon so let me only add one thing - when killing bomberspam you're working against the clock. ion AoE is the only way currently in game that allows you to clear the mine clouds fast enough for scouts to be able to finish off bombers. Without it, killing bombers fast enough would be virtually impossible if they stack. I don't think this is a fair example. For one thing, they were 8 vs. 7 for the first minute of the match (at least) and the maximum amount of gunships they ever faced was three (or 3 bombers, but never simultaneously). Them being a wall of competent players against what looks like 4 good players definitely doesn't help this example. I do think that the scout counter can work, but it's a high skill, high risk strategy - it's much easier to swap to a gunship and join in the wall building. Not to mention it requires high team coordination. It's not fair to compare different skill levels. Of course someone really good in a Star guard can beat some new player in a sting. Assuming equal (and competent) skill levels, the counters work most of the time. RNG is still a major factor in GSF, and that can always shift the balance. To OP again - I wonder why you even posted this thread. You never bothered trying to find out how to beat ions, did you? Hop in a gunship and prove to everyone that ions are as strong as you say. I only know them to be good for 3 things: clearing bomber poop killing enemies foolish enough to stay out in the open without cooldowns padding your damage and DPS stats for record threads As for the "gear > skill" part - well, I get it. You're frustrated. Calm down and respond again. Any idiot can grind their way to a mastered, min/maxed ship. Do so and prove what a big advantage it gives you.

My personal favorite is lifting an annoying op/sin just to have a jugg/mara leap at them. Getting people to focus fire a merc when his shield is down while avoiding him with his shield up is basically impossible for pugs.

I have to make this point again, since it seems mercs are prone to forgetting it. How often can you pop your energy shield? Every 35 seconds or so. How long is it up? 12 second. What you're suggesting is to simply not hit a merc for 1/3 of the time. So easy, right? Let the ranged nuke freecast, or you'll heal him. And for the record, I don't think many people are complaining about Responsive Safeguards. It's Trauma Regulators + Energy Rebounder that make for a combination hard to beat. Which would be fine if mercs couldn't also wreck from range.

Imps suck. As for servers, if you're west coast/east Asia/Oceania then Harb has the fastest pops. For east coast, I think they're all ok, although SL and TEH are pub dominated. For Europeans, TRE is the Harb equivalent. I have very few games on Prog, but they say it pops ok too. TRE is imp or pub dominant depending on the hour you fly on, and I believe prog is imp dominated.

Stasie's guide is still a great place to start. If you want something more specific, name the ship and you'll get a billion suggestions easily. Stasie's guide is in my sig.

Juggs/maras can mad dash through it. Every class but maras has either a KB or a pull, even ops now. The only time you aren't able to knock/pull an op down into acid/fire is when your team whitebarred him, giving him free passage to score. So yes, it's all in the team.

The problem is never ships, it's always people. I doubt CXP has brought a big change to GSF, it's just that more players means more new players and more jerks. Same percentages as before though (except for new players, there's more now than ever). I never responded to OP in this thread, so I'm going to take the chance to do so now. Spawn camping happens. You can avoid it if you want to, some people don't want to though. You can do something about it - group up, log on the opposing faction and beat them. Other than that, you really can't do anything. It's not against the rules, it's not ToS breaking or anything. Tl;dr - complaining about it will probably achieve nothing, unless you think said campers are doing so because they didn't know people don't enjoy it. I'm of the camp that prefers a stomp to end as quickly as possible. I'm not averse to 3-caps. Even if I were, I don't see why it matters if they were 3-capped with bombers or scouts. A superior team will stomp a weak one regardless of comp and you know it. Again, if you want to make a difference group up and beat them. This is generally a Harb problem I think. I have no problem with premades, but on Harb it always seems like a single match will determine the outcome of the next couple of hours - people always swap to the winning side. A simple solution? Premades... Yes, group up and beat them. I agree that players should want to balance out queues for their own joy, but there's not a lot I can do if some guys enjoy stomps. I can't change them, I can just prevent the stomps from happening. Also, the hyperbole in the thread title is reminiscent of all the 'SWTOR is dying' harbingers. GSF is not dead, and even if t completely died on Harb I wouldn't mind. On other servers it flourishes, and that's enough for me.

They probably do, the question is what are they measuring? GSF was never properly monetized, so that could very well be it.

The two closest matches I was part of: Thanks for hosting the event!

There is a counter to bombers, but generally speaking they're easy to use and hard to counter. Especially when stacked. New players lack both the experience to deal with them, and in many cases the actualy tools (armor pen, ion AoE). It can be tough for experienced players when facing a lot of them too. That being said, bomber who do know know how to do their job (i.e they either circle the node or "tick" in one corner) are easy kills to anyone who understands how to deal with them. It's a mistake to think bombers are the key to easy wins.

Squelch is the 5.0 replacement for Vanquish (Serenity).

Pardon my question, but why do you keep posting these threads? If you want the best FoTM, look at the leaderboards and take your pick. If you want something fun, take the class you enjoy playing.

I don't take it either, but there's no denying that if you (anyone) feel squishy it's due to you and not the spec.

No, op damage output is low in 1v1 too. They can outlast pretty much anything, that's all. When people complained about ops it was never their insane DPS, just the CC and roll + heals (which gets annoying).

Deception is one of the tankiest melee specs right now. You get 15% DR from maul (should be up at all times), 9% DR from critical damage (up for almost all the time), 60% AoE DR and 30% less damage received while stunned (both with Entropic Field + Shapeless Spirit.). All this even before counting standard DCDs and utilities such as Fade/Phasing Phantasm. Hatred is the weak spec. While less squishy than before it's still not tanky and needs a ramp up time to build its damage, while Deception has really strong burst currently. Stalker is the correct set bonus for Sin DPS. If you have old gear, swap the mods, enhancements and augs for new ones while keeping the set bonus.

Definitely true. Mercs are really hard because sometimes you need to think before clicking. Unlike literally any other class, where everything simply happens on its own. I main a shadow, teach me more about your amazing instant CC Hydraulic overrides for kiting? No way! I though it was for making a pretty gear around my feet! Oh, I'm sure that mercs are the new reflect experts now, too. I mean, you've had it for all of a couple of days, so undoubtedly you as a merc know how to use it best. And as a melee main, I have my 's' key bound to a damaging ability - I couldn't backpeddal if I wanted to. **** dude, you really think you're smart for doing that stuff? Next you'll be counting grenades and medpacs/adrenals as abilities that add to your class's difficulty...

Thank you for confirming that I am indeed a mouth breather. I'm not worked up about your thread specifically (it helped) but mainly about all the merc apologists that refuse to admit they have an overtuned class. Just as sorc healers refused to admit it previously. You will note that in my first post I said I don't think sins need an additional closer to these. Mercs are easy to play with regards to offensive output. I said that and I stand by it. They have range, mobility, burst and no ramp up or energy management whatsoever. If you mean IO then they are quite a different piece of cake, but I haven't seen them around for quite a while now. As it stands, arsenal is top of the food chain for a reason. Trauma Regulators is a dumb addition honestly - it actively encourages mercs to do the exact opposite of what is expected from them as a ranged class. Before, a merc taking damage needed to move out of the way or die. Now, not only are they not punished for staying and taking a beating but they are rewarded in the form of a 75% heal! Ridiculous. Slightly deviating, but a good example for a utility that encourages a spec to do their job is Retaliatory Grip for sin tanks - it encourages them to hold focus while not actually reducing any damage they take. A good utility for mercs is Tag and Bag - you get rewarded for dealing damage by both receiving a damage boost and by increasing your survivability. And yes, the thread title is hyperbole. Melee do kill ranged, but mercs have an undeniable and strong advantage right now. Have you read my post? I main a shadow. Since I can do quite well on my mando with only 5 buttons (and the occasional sticky grenade/mortar volley or whatever they're called now) I think I'm a pretty good representation of how dumb the class is. Of course you can improve by using all your abilities, but why should I? Clicking the glowing things and spamming grav round in between is basically 95% of what I need to do and it does good DPS. Good on the arrogance though. I'm sure you're here to convince me that mercs are actually so hard...

Nice, but you seem to have missed my point. Low slash is only good for trolling heals. Deception sins are in a good spot right now (in large due to a bug), but low slash is pretty much useless except as an extra interrupt. It's good at that and as part of a coordinated team it can work wonders, but between that and counting it as a gap closer... Let's not stretch the truth more, it might break. Surely this isn't coming from someone who wrote a book about how they can tell my personality based on my toon choice? That would be ironic and dumb, so it can't be. I must be confused. No offense (alright, offense) but mercs are extremely easy to play with regards to putting up numbers. The difficulty they had used to come due to survivability issues - you had to know how to kite and position. Or are you really telling me you find the 5 abilities you have to use (from 30m) confusing? Now who's using hyperbole? I'm sorry I'm to blame for Musco leaving these forums ages ago. Obviousl its because I said low slash is junk, and not because they just don't care about PvP I don't really care. FYI, I play a shadow. You may have picked up on that somewhere along our recent discussions. I don't PvP all that much any more, but my complaints as to shadow balance stem not from us being the underdogs (which we most certainly aren't) but rather from us being homogenized with other melee to a generic hard hitting melee spec. No more finesse with the loss of PW, TK throw, blackout and mind crush. Now we just need to stand in front of our target and spam fillers between our force breaches and vaulting slashes. I can see that mercs are about where sorcs were the previous xpac survivability-wise, and much better than sorcs ever were offensively. So no, I'm not mad because I can't kill mercs, I think that BW should stop balancing stuff with a D9 Caterpillar. TBH.

More merc apologetics. It's funny how with 5.0, you can just take sorc threads from 3/4.0 and replace the word "sorc" with "merc". As for gap closers, sins actually saw an improvement with 5.0. Phantom stride is still utterly junk and an OCD for deception, but at least force speed is back to 20s. That being said, stop using low slash as an excuse. Especially now that sins have no CrD anymore, all it can do is troll heals. Nice and good for guarding objectives, but that's it. I'm pretty sure that if you're a mouth breathing, keyboard turning player mercs suit you more than sins. You need to have a general idea of your target's position as a melee, while as a merc you only need to pop reactive shield every 35s and spam tracer missile. What would I know though? I've played both classes, I'm a mouth breather either way...