1. No, it's not the end of the world, but it is the end of APAC people playing Swtor. Which might not mean much to you, but it does to those of us who happen to live west of the USA West Coast. Jedi robes? Whoop-dee-doo, I'm glad you have a nice new outfit to play Space Barbie with, but that doesn't do much for our 300-400ms ping/lag spikes, does it? 2. It stands for Asia Pacific

Australia, Tassie, Hobart Ping to Harb before the servers got ninja'd: about 205ms Ping to Harb after the servers got ninja'd: Lowest I've gotten is about 265ms, though it frequently spikes up to between 300 & 400, and sometimes even up to 500-600. Ping to Ebon Hawk is about the same, while ping to Red Eclipse is at least 100ms worse. If the 265ms was stable, I could live with it, but the spikiness is killing it for me, 300ms+ is terrible to play with. I resubbed for 2 months just the day before maintenence, too, and now I wish I hadn't done. I won't be hanging around once the 2 months is up unless this gets fixed, I'm not paying for a sub to suffer through choppy, laggy gameplay.

No it doesn't, it needs people to learn how to play their classes. I did it with a group of guildies the other week, me on a lvl 67 Anni Mara, an IO Merc who is still coming to grips with IO's heat usage, a Sin tank in Defense mods, and an Op healer who struggles a bit with lots of moving around to avoid stuff and heal at the same time, so there wasn't much dps from the tank and healer, which doesn't worry me. First boss, I sat on the boss, Merc got the adds, and we got it down first pull just as it hit enrage. If we can do that, anyone can. We aren't top players by any stretch of imagination, but we're still decent enough at our classes and at following mechanics to clear stuff. Gear isn't the problem, and a gear rating/requirement isn't the solution.

It also chews up two GCD's, one for the roll + one for the heal itself. Useful under certain circumstances, for sure, but it's a dps loss otherwise. If the roll-proc'd Kolto Infusion was off the GCD it would be more useful, but it isn't, sadly.

An Assassin and a Sorc Force Speed into a bar. They have a few drinks. Once they finish their drinks, the Sorc Phasewalks back outside. The Sin bursts into tears. The end

At first glance, I'd say those changes are a good start, but probably aren't going to solve a whole lot. As was pointed out, it won't result in much of an overall dps buff, which is what we need. Seems a bit too skewed towards execute phase and Creeping Terror, neither of which are lacking presently. Discharge, for example, would benefit more from a buff to bring it's overall damage more inline with CT. The change to force regen is kinda odd too, buffing one and nerfing another doesn't seem like much of an improvement. Smoother regen, perhaps, but still not much of a fix. Discharge, Creeping Terror, Death Field and Leeching Strike are all relatively expensive to use, so I'd suggest knocking, say, 5 force off each one. I've got a bunch of balance ideas in a couple of threads, but I'll summarize them here too: To increase damage, a number of things. 1. A flat dps buff across the board, by however much needed to bring us up to par with other specs. Tweaking passives is a nice, but isn't enough. 2. Be good to see a few less Thrash's in the rotation, maybe Maul could be introduced somehow? 3. Discharge, as I mentioned, sits a bit behind CT in overall damage, despite being a very similar ability, buff slightly. 4. Leeching Strike also doesn't contribute a huge amount to overall damage, despite being a core ability. Thus, I would advocate two things. One, reduce it's cooldown to match Raze, which would make lining up all 3 DoT's for Leeching Hunger much easier, and also increase Leeching Hunger's buff a bit, 'cause 5% per DoT isn't much. Making Eradicate's DoT spreadable would also be cool, but also a bit over the top, so I can't imagine that will happen. In survivability terms, Hatred needs the 30% aoe damage reduction, full stop, end of story, period. Hatred is one of the only specs (not including tanks, of course) that doesn't have access to it. Sorcs, Maras, Mercs and Ops all have it as a utility, Deception & AP get it as a passive, Snipers get 60% on Entrench and are defensively strong anyway, while Vengeance gets 60% for 15s with Threatening Scream. Which leaves Hatred, Pyro, and Rage out in the cold, and all three are underperforming in 5.0, strangely enough. I'm also of the same opinion as Jaek, our self heals are currently kinda useless, with the exception of Leeching Strike, which restores a decent amount, especially when it crits. Our DoT and Death Field self heals need a buff, and I'd also suggest adding Eradicate's DoT to the self healing list. Additionally, seeing as self healing is a Hatred thing, reducing Overcharge Saber's cooldown by 20 secs or so might be worthwhile too, or buffing the amount it heals slightly.

I've noticed the same thing with Phasewalk and Phantom Stride/Holotraverse, using it mid-air after a knockback results in nothing happening except the ability getting placed on cooldown. Which is a nuisance, but hitting the ability right as you land kinda gets around it.

I've got a bunch of ideas in this thread already, but I thought of a few Pyro-related things that might be worth posting. Damage and heat management both need to be improved, but I covered that in my post on the first page. Survivability also blows, and giving Pyro Energy Rebounders and the 30% aoe damage reduction would be a good start. Still, like all PT specs, it needs another dcd, and maybe some more DR, either as a passive or generated in the dps rotation somewhere. A few tweaks, firstly for dot-spreading. Being able to only spread one dot gimps our potential aoe damage, and I think we're the only spec which suffers from this. So, I'd change Scorch to either make it spreadable same as Inc. Missile, or alternatively, I'd increase the number of targets Scorch can spread itself to when it's current host dies to 3 or 4. I'd also make the ability to dot-spread available at a lower level. It's currently 44, and Scorch comes in at 50-something, both of which are far too high for what is a core strength of the class. And, from memory, all other dot-specs gain their dot-spreading quite early, so I don't see why Pyro has to wait so long. Dot-spreading itself is additionally kind of a pain due to the conal nature of Searing Wave, which is unreliable at times. Thus, I'd recommend changing the spreader from Searing Wave to Flame Sweep, the circular aoe is much easier to use. That might also make the Bracer Propellant utility a tad more useful, especially if it gets buffed slightly. Speaking of Searing Wave, in addition to buffing it or it's proc damage, I'd also be inclined to swap it with Shieldtech's Firestorm. Let Pyro have the fancier version, and Shieldtech can keep Searing Wave. I would also like to see a small QoL change to Combustable Gas Cylinder, namely having Immolate and Searing Wave apply it in addition to the 3 abilities + Rapid Shots that currently do. Just seems strange that some flame abilities put a burning effect on the target and some don't. Another thing, our elemental execute phase damage only gets a 10% increase, in comparison to other specs which get 15% or more, so that can be changed too. The lvl 64 and 68 passives are also a bit lacklustre, so I'd like to see those improved too. Either by buffing what they currently do for Immolate, or including a couple of other core abilities instead. Now, lastly and most importantly, why does Pyro have no giggling? AP laughs like a madman/madwoman every few attacks, yet Pyro is totally silent. Seriously, what gives? WHERE IS MY GIGGLING, BIOWARE?!

Darkness is pretty solid atm, so I don't think that needs any changes. Deception is also solid, though I agree a few tweaks would be nice, namely sorting out Maul and a damage increase. Or just bring back the double stance bug. Aww yeah, those were some good times. Having phasewalk back would be cool, and I'd like to see Assassin's Shelter improved too, it's pretty useless atm. Insulation also needs to be looked at, the armour buff isn't displaying correctly unless you enter an instance, and stacks of DR that get applied to a guarded target when they take damage are still there, even though they aren't mentioned in the utility description. Hatred needs some work, and I went over my ideas for this in another thread, but I'll throw them in here too. Firstly, damage increase. Sustained dps should out-do Deception, and currently it doesn't. And as a melee dot-spec, it should be one of the higher parsing classes anyway, as Otto mentioned. Aside from just a straight damage buff, I'd reduce Bloodletting's cd by a few seconds, and I'd also like to reduce our filler-usage on Thrash a bit. Deception was given Reaping Strike for a similar purpose, after all. To that end, perhaps Maul could be introduced into our rotation somehow? Making Eradicate's dot spreadable would be cool, though not strictly necessary. Also, a tweak to Leeching Strike. I'd reduce the cd to match Raze, making it easier to line up with the lvl 68 passive, which itself could stand to gain a small buff, as 5% extra damage per dot isn't much. In survivability terms, needs the 30% aoe damage reduction back, without question. Could either put it straight into the skill tree somewhere, or, take it out of Deception's tree and add it back to Shapeless Spirit, though have the utility set to only apply the aoe damage reduction to the dps specs and not Darkness, kinda like Insulation does. A small buff to dot and Death Field self heals would also be nice, but also not strictly necessary, considering that Leeching Strike restores quite a bit, especially when it crits. Alternatively, make Eradicate's dot self heal too. Last thing I can think of is force management. I'd either improve Lightning Charge's force regen capabilities, or I'd decrease force costs by however much across the board. And removing a few Saber Strikes from the equation would also be a small dps increase, of course. Though having said that, if Hatred was a high-parsing spec as we would like it to be, I could live with poor force management. A small price to pay for good performance, and it's not that difficult to contend with either, especially when compared to, say, PT's, which are in a world of trouble if they blow their heat and don't have Vent Heat off cooldown.

I pug SM ops a lot, and in my experience, difficulty is more to do with the group itself than the op. I've seen not-so-good groups make supposedly easy fights painfully hard, and I've seen very good groups smash through supposedly harder fights without breaking a sweat. That said, I play on Harbinger, and pugging ops on Harb can be a very mixed bag at times. EV is a funny one, it's really quite easy, but I see groups get tripped up on certain fights all the time. Usually on HM, oddly enough, SM runs tend to be smoother. The Pylons and the Council are the main offenders, closely followed by Soa, though I have seen a couple of wipes due to enrage on the first and second bosses. Pylons - usually goes pear shaped because clicking a console is too hard, for some reason. As is not pulling every damn cat in the instance. Grrr. Council - not so much the fight itself, just people not knowing their classes very well and being unable to kill their target, or getting killed by their target in the healers case, thus screwing the whole thing. Soa - Well, if it isn't people falling to their death, it's the lightning balls, and if it isn't the lightning balls, it's mind traps, and if it isn't mind traps, it's an issue with the pillars at the bottom. In fact, I once saw a tank struggle so badly to position Soa where he needed to be, that we actually ran out of pillars. Between enrage and mindtraps, we'd lost most of the group by that point, but still, that was really sad. KP, I've never seen many issues with. The odd enrage here and there, or total failure to cope with Sorno's unloads, but otherwise mostly trouble-free. EC is a bit polarizing, the first and last bosses normally don't cause any problems, but the minefield is a pug graveyard. Fire and Storm can also be a stumbling block, mostly due to lightning kiting issues. TFB has a couple of potentially tough bosses for first-timers/less experienced people, but is otherwise staightforward. Op IX's colour mechanices almost always confuse someone, though once it's been explained and experienced, it's usually not an issue. Last boss tends to get people with all the platforms and unlimited range, yet having to stand on the same platform as whatever you're dps'ing. Then there's the irregularities, which are always a fun source of wiping. On a side note, I saw a group wipe on Kephess once, believe it or not. How we got past Op IX and then managed to wipe on Kephess boggles my mind, it really does. SnV - Styrak is really the only sticking point here, though I have seen a couple of enrage wipes on the first and second bosses, and the Cartel Warlords. Those are fairly uncommon, though I must admit I've only done a handful of SnV runs in recent times. DF - as others have mentioned, Draxus and Brontes get the better of more than a few pugs. Adds on Draxus, the Corruptors casting Afflication in particular. To be fair though, knowing where and when they appear takes a few goes to memorize. And just mechanics in general on Brontes. Can almost bet your house that at least one person will get killed by the lightning reaches and/or the lightning during the clock phase. The six fingers two hands bit can often be trouble as well, simply because people can't follow instructions and stack on a damn finger like they were told. I've lost count of how many times I've ended up having to kill all 3 fingers on my side, and sometimes even fingers across the other side, because people were running around doing God only knows what. On another side note, Nefra also causes the occasional headache when one of the tanks doesn't understand what 'stand next to the other tank' means. DP - a bit like KP for me, in that I've never seen much trouble here. The odd botch of mechanics here and there from time to time, but generally fairly smooth. I can understand how some groups might struggle in places, though, there's a few things that are easy to screw up if you aren't paying attention. I have seen a few deaths in that regard, but not much that has caused a wipe. Well, except maybe for being too slow killing the second phase, left side crystals on Calph. Rav - Master & Blaster seem to be the only real obstacle here, most groups generally clear the other bosses without too many issues, though mistakes can/do happen on Bulo/Torque/Ruugar. Tanking Master is usually where the trouble lies, either the fire spin not getting kited or the Ion beam not getting eaten without killing the tank. I'm not a big fan of Rav, so I actually don't run it very often. ToS - probably the most pug-unfriendly op. Between Rapid Fire, aoe circles, running the bombs, potential enrage if they aren't killed close together, and the shield on Unit 1, the walkers are quite capable of causing wipes. Underlurker we all know about, so not much I can say there. I've seen the Commanders trip up a few groups, but that hasn't happened often, normally any group which clears Lurker will handle the Commanders with too much trouble. I've never seen a group wipe on Revan though, which may or not be strange, I'm not sure. Despite all the wipes I've been part of in ToS, every time I've ever fought Revan, we got through it first go. Tyth - my experience pugging Tyth so far has been largely trouble free. No wipes yet, but as someone mentioned earlier in the thread, some dps in some groups have tunnel vision for the boss and totally ignore the adds, which isn't ideal, but isn't ragequit-inducing either.

Would be cool if they did bring them back, and jazz them up a bit so they aren't exactly the same as SM/HM. I for one would like to get the cheevos for them, if nothing else. Anyway, some mechanical ideas: EV Be nice if the op actually required 2 tanks, as opposed to just one with the current setup. First boss - Maybe make the two turrets respawn periodically throughout the fight, giving a second tank something to do and making life slightly more interesting for the dps. Or a tank swap on the knockback, perhaps? Gharj - Adds on every platform instead of just the final few, again to give a second tank and the dps something to do. Or falling rocks/lava getting dropped onto the platform that need to be avoided. Or some sort of tank swap involving getting knocked into the lava. Pylons - Don't really need to change. Spawn a few more adds, maybe? Council - Again, doesn't need a change. Except for fixing the damn cheevo not getting awarded. Soa - Only thing I can really come up with here is more mind traps. Have them on the starting floor too, and spawn two instead of one, making life exciting for the dps. Could maybe have one of the two mt's grab the tank on Soa, thus requiring a swap. KP Rancor - More adds getting dropped down and/or released into the area, to spice things up a tad. Jarg & Sorno - Maybe alter Sorno's attacks a bit to require more interrupting, or have the carbonizer probes drop down more often than just when Sorno sits up on his perch. Foreman Crusher - More debuffs and aoe's getting thrown around might be an idea. Or just more adds, but that's kinda boring. Fabricator - Should reintroduce the whole puzzle here, requiring the boss to be shifted up and down the line to get him under each incinerator. I've heard that's how it used to be, anyway. Karagga - I don't really have anything for this fight, though I feel it needs something to involve a second tank somehow, and maybe the gravity thing could be expanded on in some fashion. Nothing really special, but they're fairly straightforward ops, so I don't think any radical changes would be needed.

I agree, it would be handy for certain pve activities if Maul didn't have that blasted positional requirement. Quite often I'll switch to Hatred instead if I need to facetank something, even though it's currently the weaker of the two dps specs, simply so I don't have to deal with not being able to use Maul. Maybe change it inline with how dps Operatives do for their backstabs, so it's a high level passive that either removes the posi req if used after a certain skill ala Concealment, or changed to a new skill without the posi req ala Lethality. Alternatively, and I saw this suggested somewhere else, remove the posi req entirely but make it so Maul only deals something like half damage if not used behind the target and full damage when behind. Deception is pretty solid atm though, so it's not really a big deal.

Thanks for the replies, I didn't realize the OH penalty was quite that large. Oh well, guess I'll give up on that idea and stick with a standard stat loadout, then.

Been playing an Anni Marauderps lately, after having not touched a Mara since I did the Warrior story as Carnage in 4.0, and this business of missing attacks with the offhand at 110% accuracy is beginning to annoy me, though I get the impression from reading around that this is something everyone just generally puts up with and accepts as part and parcel of playing the class. So, my question, how much extra accuracy would we need to counteract the offhand missing attacks? And is it actually worthwhile to try higher accuracy, or best to leave it at 110% ? Part of the reason I ask is because of the larger stat pool we have in 5.0 / 5.2, I figure we can take a few points from alacrity/crit and drop them into accuracy without really losing much. Thoughts?

Just FYI to anyone that has posted here or tried to get in contact over the last few days, Keeya has been afk for the past week or so and still is, so if you haven't received any sort of reply, that's why. If you'd still like to get in touch, either find me or mail me in-game, my main toon is called Signum Seydlitz, and I'll try to get things sorted till Keeya returns. I'm one of the guild officers, if you're wondering. I'm not always on, but I pop in and out often enough everyday that I'll be around at some stage.

Just noticed on my two PT's that Deadly Onslaught was absent on my bars, and had to be relearned. Pretty sure 5.2 caused this, both toons had it set up pre-5.2, and it was the only ability either of them lost. Haven't found any missing abilities on any other toons either (not that I've really looked very hard). So the question is, what was changed? I don't recall seeing anything about it in the patch notes, and there wasn't supposed to be any class changes anyway. I could be wrong, but the damage values in the tooltip look different. The kinetic and elemental values are now both the same, where as I could swear one was higher than the other before.

I can't imagine they will fix class balance any time soon, but I hope they do, I feel it needs some work. A quick summary in my not-so-humble opinion: Sorcs need a dps buff Sins are mostly fine, though Hatred could do with a buff or two Ops are mostly fine, maybe give them a slight defensive buff and improved energy management for Concealment Snipers could stand to be nerfed slightly, only to bring them back closer to the other classes Mercs could also do with a slight nerf, same reason as Snipers PT's are pretty ordinary, and are the class in most need of some love, Pyro especially Mara's could maybe have a slight nerf too, same as Mercs and Snoipahs Juggs aren't as bad as PT's, but still need some work, mostly defensively So yeah, fixing PT's is the main thing that should be addressed, otherwise buff a few, slightly nerf a few, then be as cool as me and listen to Swallow The Sun.

Just going off the top of my head here, but it sounds like you might need to use Saber Strike more often. Hatred has some ok force regen from using melee attacks, but our force attacks, Death Field in particular, chew up force points quickly. I think the 4.0 Hatred guide said this, but you should try to use Saber Strike proactively rather than reactively, which generally means you want to throw one or two in when you start getting below about 30-40% force points, or when you've got a use of Death Field plus DoT application coming up, as that tends to be quite expensive. I don't use a set rotation per se, I tend to think in terms of priority, but, opening from range, I like to go: Creeping Terror > Phantom Stride > Discharge > Recklessness > Eradicate > Death Field > Assassinate/Leeching Strike, and then start using Thrash/Saber Strike till DoT's need to be re-applied & other stuff is proc'd or off cooldown. Basically, I prioritize DoT's/Eradicate/Death Field/Leeching Strike/Assassinate, then use either Thrash or Saber Strike, depending on force, in between. Some good suggestions from people in the thread, though I dunno about the range increase of Erad/DF to 30m. Wouldn't that just turn us into Madness?

So, as 5.x currently stands, Deception and Darkness are in a good place, but poor old Hatred is lagging behind a touch. Thus, I'd like to see what people think could be done to improve it. I'll throw out a few ideas, but I should point out I'm not an expert on the class by any stretch of imagination, though I like to think I'm decent with it. To start, damage output. Having looked through quite a few of my own combat logs in Star Parse, and after looking at some on Parsely as well, two things stand out to me which I'd like to see improved. Those being the amount of overall damage contributed by Discharge's DoT and also Leeching Strike. As a DoT spec, our DoT's should make up a large chunk of our damage, and they do, in the case of Creeping Terror and Eradicate, but Discharge sits behind those two by a fair margin, so I think a damage buff of some description might be worthwhile. Perhaps even an increase in tick rate, which at the moment feels a bit slow to me, on both Discharge and Creeping Terror, but maybe that's just my imagination. As for Leeching Strike, which tends to sit right behind near everything else, I'd like to a see a damage increase and a cooldown reduction, allowing us to get some more use out of what is a core class ability and reduce the number of filler Thrash's a bit. Also, as sort of an indirect dps increase, I'd suggest reducing the force costs of Discharge/Creeping Terror/Death Field/Leeching Strike/Assassinate ever so slightly, allowing the use of a few less Saber Strikes in favour of something harder hitting. Also also, I'd suggest buffing Bloodletting slightly, allowing the use of a few more Assassinate's. Also also also, and this is totally unnecessary, I'd like for Eradicate's DoT to be spreadable with Lacerate like CT and Discharge as well. Pretty sure that would push our already strong AoE straight through the roof, but eh, I think it'd be cool. Survivability is the other area that might be worth looking into. Losing the 30% AoE dmg reduction in 5.1 certainly hasn't helped us, and I'd very much like to see it come back. Failing that though, I wouldn't mind seeing a small buff to our self heals. Mostly just the DoT heals, as Leeching Strike already restores a decent amount, especially if it crits. Alternatively, seeing as self healing is kind of a Hatred thing, perhaps we could have a cd reduction and/or healing increase to Overcharge Saber. Need to be careful about not going overboard with any self heal buffs, as healing is ultimately the healers job, of course.

Having done some PT tanking in the last few days, I've got a couple of balance ideas to throw in here. Defensively, I feel they could do with another dcd, much like the dps specs, or a reduction to Energy Shield's cd, so they can get some more use out of it. I'd also like to see some sort of defensive buff attached to Sonic Missile, maybe the tank could gain a reflect shield for a short duration of, say, 5 seconds. Another idea, in keeping with the strong passive defenses schtick of PT tanks, would be to increase the passive DR/shield/absorb buffs in the skill tree ever so slightly. Add something like 2% to them, just for a small boost, nothing over the top. Like the dps specs, I feel heat management is a slight issue. To improve on this, I'd like to see the tank spec get a little more use out of Close and Personal, and make a change to the Shield Vents passive. Currently it vents 1 heat on shielding/defending an attack every 1.5 seconds, which is next to useless. I'd bump up the heat vented to about 3, and reduce the 1.5 seconds to 1. Just a small improvement, nothing silly. Utility-wise, two things. Firstly, I'd like to see Grapple improved by allowing it pull in 2 additional targets if they're within about 5m of the pulled target, much like how the comp tank multi-grapple works. Some might say that'd be silly or overpowered or whatever, but I think it'd give PT's a unique boost the other two tanks don't have, which wouldn't be a bad thing considering that PT's seem to be last in the 5.x tank pecking order. Getting rid of the 10m minimum range could also be handy, but that's probably best worked into Reel and Rattle. Secondly, something needs to be done with Translocate, because at the moment it's really only good for trolling teammates. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Translocating unsuspecting group members, it's great fun when they aren't paying attention, but that shouldn't be it's primary purpose. I'd reduce the activation time from whatever it currently is, I can't remember, to either instant or near to it, say, half a second. I'd also reduce the cd by 15 or 20 seconds. That way, it might actually be useful for getting people out of trouble.

Some good ideas there. I also haven't PT tanked much, so I'll just throw in my 2 cents on the dps specs. I agree with your general assesment on where AP & Pyro stand, and I also agree that the utilties need some sprucing up, the current legendaries in particular are a bit lacking. I also should point out I'm thinking in PvE terms here. Damage-wise, I think AP is in a decent place. It isn't top-tier, but it isn't terrible either, and some of the changes you've suggested would lift it slightly without going over the top, which is what we want. The one suggestion I don't agree with, though, is nerfing Energy Burst's damage by 10%. It's AP's hardest hitting ability, but I find it sits behind Mag Blast, Railshot, Rocket Punch, and Retractable Blade's DoT in terms of overall damage, even after taking Energy Burn into consideration. Could do with a slight buff, if anything, seeing as how it (ideally) only comes around every 4 Railshots. I don't mind the not-so-great aoe damage, as that's Pyro's department. One AP aoe change I would like to see, though, is some more synergy between Retr. Blade and Shatter Slug, such as venting heat in much the same way Railshot does on a bleeding target, for example, and/or spreading the bleeding DoT in addition to refreshing it. I feel Pyro's overall damage needs a good boost, but I haven't played it enough in 5.0 to really say where. Though I would like to see either Searing Wave improved so it's on-par with the erstwhile Flamethrower, or being reverted back to FT entirely. DoT spreading seems to be harder with SW, too, which needs to change. A small buff to Reflective Armour & Pyro Shield would be a nice help, just keeping in mind they are dependant on taking damage, which differs from fight to fight. I'd like to see heat management improved slightly. I don't mind some classes requiring a bit more skill in juggling resources to use effectively, but neither dps spec hits hard enough, or is useful enough, to warrant the current heat costs. It's a bit too easy for things to spiral out of control, and difficult to get back on track again, especially with AP's aoe. That said, I wouldn't make huge changes either, given that we have two heat-reducing abilities and a small amount of heat venting on Close & Personal, though C&P may or may not be useful depending on the fight. Proper use of Rapid Shots helps, of course, but it's not ideal, I think. Gyroscopic Alignment Jets can also help, but is very situational. For AP, I'd stick with your suggestion of reducing Energy Burst from 20 to 15, and I'd also like to see Mag Blast and Retr. Blade reduced from 15 to 10 or 12. I can't think of what Pyro's heat costs are off the top my head, but making similar reductions as with AP would be fine. I think this would be enough to lessen heat issues slightly, and give players a tad more leeway in their rotations, without making heat use a non-issue. PT survivability needs some improvement too, especially for poor old Pyro, which is way too squishy for a heavy armour-wearing melee class. Personally, I'd like to see that new dcd removed from Mercs and given to PT's. Mercs don't need it, they've got Energy Shield, Energy Rebounders, Kolto Overload, offheals, and good healing utilties for Energy Shield, while PT's have next to nothing. Plus, the whole reflecting damage schtick is more of a PT thing anyway, so it would fit in nicely. The amount of healing it does needs to be toned way down, though. I also think Pyro should have Energy Rebounders too, not just AP. Partially because the Pyro Shield utility screams out 'Pyro spec' to me, and yet AP gets more use out of it by virtue of having E. Rebounders. How does that make sense? Pyro's 30% dmg red. on Kolto Overload is handy, but only in an emergency, and normally the idea of having/using dcd's is to avoid being placed in that situation to begin with. Being able to generate a small amount of passive DR might also be worthwhile, much like, for example, Lightning and Deception do. Two more things I'll touch on, range and Shoulder Cannon, which I actually went over in another thread, but I'll throw it in here too. This is a slight alteration on your ideas, but I'd like to see all our 10m ranged attacks get bumped up to 20m, so we sit in the middle of the 4m/10m melee and the 30m/35m ranged, as a true medium range class. This could be implented via a utility or just as a flat PT-wide change. May or may not be all that useful in the grand scheme of things, but it'd be nice to have something different apart from 4m/10m and 30m/35m range. Now, for Shoulder Cannon, I'd like for Pyro and Shieldtech to have their own improvements much like AP does. As we know, AP has a damage buff and 3 extra missiles. I'd give Pyro aoe damage to each missile, with range/damage similar to Flame Sweep, for example, plus a burning DoT component for some extra damage. For Shieldtech, I'd go with your idea for the Shield Cannon utility, let each missile grant a stack of DR or an increase to shield/absorb, to fit with the tank theme. Holy long post, Batman

I agree some aoe on Shoulder Cannon might be useful, but I'd give it Pyro/Plasmatech instead, as they're the aoe-based spec, and they could do with a buff or 5 of some description, Doesn't need to be anything huge, just a small amount of splash damage in a 5m radius, maybe with a 6sec DoT attached to it, for example. Would be nice, seeing as AP/Tactics have their own improvement to SC, with 3 extra missiles + a damage buff. Having 30m range back again would be cool, though it's certainly not worth wasting a point on the current utility. Will we get it back, though? Probably not. (I feel our utilities as a whole are a bit lacklustre, actually) Perhaps as a compromise, PTs/VGs could be made into a proper medium range class instead. At the moment, the game really only has short and long range classes, operating at either 4m & 10m, or 30m & 35m. Why not give our ranged attacks something like a flat 20m range, placing us squarely in the middle? Would give us some range back, without upsetting the true rdps.