So the first time I jumped into PTS I chose Defence A, then Focus A, and while I noticed that some abilities were missing, both options still have some solid defensives (well that's coming from PT main's perspective ok?). And I was like "Okay I get it, this is an early test, stun breaker and interrupt are coming back 100%, and we didn't see the new abilities, maybe it will be easier to balance specs for PvP that way" but then I saw what people were saying about Vigi, read some feedback from those players who tried duelling vs skank tank and I thought " No that's bs, this is the same thing but with fewer abilities, this needs to be heavily adjusted". Then I remembered that dev post where they say this is all about "streamlining, making specs more user-friendly, less confusing, less ability bloat etc." BUT at the same time, they are going to keep every adv class and every spec available (they said this on the stream), which means we are going to get to choose between combat styles half of which is a mirrored version of the other half. On top of that, we have some mirrored specs as well, like Fury/Rage/Focus/Concentration, Madness/Hatred/Balance/Serenity, Lethality/Virulence/Ruffian/Dirty Fighting, and don't forget about base class abilities which are probably going to be duplicated for every advanced class to make those work as a combat style. So, if you think about it, the ability bloat and confusion is going to increase, while the amount of available abilities per combat style is going to be reduced. For example, a tech class player with access to every tech-based advanced class and discipline basically is going to have access to 8(!) abilities which do pretty much the same thing, here they are: Unload, Blazing Bolts, Speed Shot, Penetrating Rounds, Full Auto, Bolt Storm, Series of Shots, Penetrating Blasts. I understand that you can't mix and match different specs, but still xD. My head is exploding rn

They do it on purpose, but not just for ***** and giggles, but because testing works best when there is no possible influence from the dev's. You won't have a dev sitting behind you explaining how everything works and what were their intentions every time you launch a game, so they have to observe silently, take notes from players' reactions, adjust, and reiterate.

Since I main a PT tank this is going to be mostly about the Powertechs/Shield Tech discipline, so feel free to add what visual changes you'd like to see. 1. Wrist gadgets (the ones we see during our flame attacks and Explosive Fuel) The current ones look very outdated in terms of polycount and texture resolution. Plus they look too large IMO. The white color should be changed to something more metallic, so it will look neutral on top of most armor sets 2. Shoulder Cannon While everything written above applies to SC as well, the whole concept of huge cannon appearing out from nowhere looks weird, especially if someone isn't wearing heavy armor in their outfit slot. Also, it clips horribly with almost any set that has some sort of jetpack in its chest piece. The only solution I see is to make those rockets launch from the wrist gadget, or maybe knee pads (Like what we have seen in Boba Fett's armor). 4. Deadly Onslaught Everything I wrote about shoulder cannon and the wrist gadgets applies to this animation as well but it is 10x multiplied because of the size of all those rocket launchers and how over the top the whole animation looks. You know, people love Death From Above animation, why not make it similar? Make the PT hover above the ground in Rocket Boost kind of style while he unloads a few missiles from his wrist launchers. Just don't forget to make him always look directly at AOE while he unloads and moves around and it will become even cooler animation than DFA. 5. Neural Dart/Shatter Slug/Rail Shot Make it shoot from our gun, so we could see our pistols in use more frequently. 6. Heat Blast That fireball looks a bit boring and not like something that vents heat. Spraying some hot steam from our wrist gadget will look more like what that ability actually does, the yellow shield is fine tho. 7. Oil Slick Even the puddle spilling animation deserves better in 2021)) 8. Flame Burst Okay so here I would like to see something more than a visual update: Is it possible to make that ability look like a channel when we click and hold the ability button? It can "tick" and generate heat every GCD, just like the Flame Burst we already have, but we won't have to click the ability a few times in a row. Pretty sure that most players will prefer to use the flamethrower in that way.

Main a PT for years and I never heard of 100% uptime 75% slow. The utility you are referencing gives 75% slow for 15 sec every 30 sec, which means most Powertechs/Vanguards die before they can use it a second time. That utility was there forever, its funny to see how people make a big deal of it.) It kinda makes me curious what pt's are going to get if the jugg mains feel stripped of dcd's lol)

Yea, right, because you said so. 95% of PvE tanking consists of knowing the boss mechanics, wearing mitigation gear and holding threat. Very likely there are much more people who can't give a damn about NiM raids than PvP. Still, that doesn't mean one should be prioritized over the other, and since both PvE and PvP exist in this game, both modes should be working properly.

All right, you do your thing then) Hope the devs will adjust to what we expect and give us some good stuff.

We didn't have an interrupt and a stun breaker and that makes me think that we are going to have some small base class ability kit on top of what we saw. Don't forget that we are 100% going to get some new abilities, and the choice between which ones are going to be available is a subject of change. You may think there is no ability bloat right now but it could be in 7.0 if they are going to keep everything. Right now I feel like they took away a bit too much, but it's too early to call this a complete dumbing down. Getting less DCD's while having the same rotations makes the fights harder if anything, so you have to be smarter about how and when you gonna use them. I think if they will cut just the right amount of abilities while giving us a few new ones it could be a great change.

The question is do we want to play with those drama queens? I can understand the frustration, but if some people can overreact this much to something that is wip and in very early stage, I can only imagine how they behave ingame lol. So I can't say i'm going to miss this type of people xD

I think you won't have to worry about that anymore in 7.0 lmao Tbh, I don't care what changes we are going to see and how drastic they are going to be. I just want every spec to be able to perform well in any type of pvp content. I know that perfect balance is too much to hope for, but the diversity of specs is really lacking, and it could be one of the reasons why PVP isn't that popular.

What you have to do here BW, is to make sure that any DPS Guardian spec can stand a chance in 1v1 against Defence skank tank, while still giving enough cooldowns to Defense, so they would be capable in raiding.

It was and it wasn't xD If we are talking about DPS Guardians, they are a bit more tanky than PT's. But Defence/Immortal is one of the best specs rn, and clearly is the best tank in pvp.

I agree. It'll make more sense if we could get every combat style like we got guardians here, without new abilities, and with "restricted flexibility", so we could jump in some group content and pvp and see how they work together and against each other.

All right, now that I saw what you are going to do with combat styles on PTS, I really, really hope we are going to see something else instead of Translocate in 7.0 lol (Not saying to look at my suggestions as they might be an overkill xD, but still, you won't keep it, right ?)))

It feels like mid level Guardian, not 75 lvl. I get it, you want to remove some abilities because we are going to get new ones with the new expansions, but without seeing how much this affects the other combat styles, JG feels like it's nerfed to the ground. Of course, once we will see the whole picture this impression can change, but until then this thread can be renamed as "The Official Jedi Guardian Mains Crythread"

Idk guys, while it is true that there is huge amount of gap closers, teleports, rolls etc. removing them so everyone would stay and smash those repeatable attacks doesn’t look fun to me. High lvl combat is more laggy, but it’s more spectacular and fun with those abilities so adding more of those makes more sense than removing them, I would also like to see some more electro net kind of abilities for those classes that aren’t designed for kiting while adding some restrictions that won’t allow being netted two or more times in a row. At the end of the day desync is a technical issue that should be fixed, and removing abilities that may cause desync is not a fix, it is a lazy approach to solving the problem.

Sorc with Mad Dash and Force Choke, hell yeah, I'd play that))

Haha, that sounds like if everything is already balanced here and what i’m saying will ruin it completely. I know you are a pvp guy, so you know it isn’t). Just imagine for a second what’s gonna happen if everyone gets the ability to play every single spec on any char: It would be 90% stealth classes in regs and the other 10% would be jugg tanks. Arenas would become mirrored matches with whatever the meta is (oh it’s already a thing in TR). And this would be a much more noticeable issue than having some minor base class impact on the combat style.

It would be a really cool feature if the base classes would still affect the gameplay, not in a significant way, but still noticeable enough that you could feel the difference. It would be more interesting to see something like a different approach to some combat styles from the base classes, and noticing how, for instance, a trooper uses a sniper rifle or an assault cannon in a bit different way than an agent or bounty hunter or smuggler would, maybe in one or two animations, while having his own few trooper only abilities, like the way they use stuns, mezzes, maybe one unique dcd and damage ability, buff and out of combat healing animations, small things that won't make ridiculous imbalanced combos, but which will still give some base class flavour to the combat style.

Oh, poor operatives, lol. Electro Net is the only answer to all that crazy amount of escapes, teleports, rolls, force barriers etc. And I think it's weird that only mercs have that kind of ability, every class that doesn't have much for them in terms of kiting should get some hindering ability. Something to prevent from being hindered few times in a row would be a must tho.

Chill dude)) Don't you think it is obvious they realized it was a mistake if they reversed this change? I'm not asking here for apologies, I want to have fun in PVP and actions speak more than words. They fked up with the lowbie brackets, everyone told them this is stupid, they made it as it was before. No point discussing it anymore, as there are many other problems that aren't fixed that we can point out here (like having 1/3 tank specs viable in ranked lol).

lmao is that a big deal? Like if this is the first time they forgot to write all the update changes. What is important here is that they listened to the community and did what it was asking, so thanks for that at least, BW, hopefully, we'll see more of that in the future.

We have 2 types of emblems currently: role emblem (Tank, DPS, Heal) and your adv class emblem. Since Combat Styles are Adv classes the emblems stay I guess, but they will switch if you pick a different CS. And since your role emblem depends on your spec you will get the correct tank emblem regardless if you are a Shield Specialist Smuggler or Immortal Sith Inquisitor (idk for sure obviously, but it makes sense at least).

That video is based on the devs steam, so nothing new there. Still no info on what happens to base class abilities. You all think this going to be the same thing, but then again, how is this the biggest feature of the expansion? Those layouts where you can switch your sets, UI, and adv classes on the fly seems to be a much cooler feature and they talked about it like it wasn’t.

Force Throw)

Can we have Huttball as a separate bracket? Solo and group version with its own rewards? I always wanted to know that feeling when everyone knows what to do in a HB match, maybe it would be so fun that people may just want to watch those matches. Yea, I think it would be cool to have some in-game streaming service that will allow us to watch PVP matches from every player's perspective and from some in-map cameras (no one cares enough to search for those SWTOR pvp'ers 30+ sub Twitch accounts). Arenas, Huttball, any type. This can be very useful for the new players, and it can be fun for more experienced ones.