Tatoointe x3:

Tatooine:

While the theory of "Equal gear" sounds great, and it would be lovely to gear up with whichever avenue you chose and have to option to do all the content when you are geared up, I'd think that I'd be dead against it, in practice. At the moment, people PvP because they kind of want to PvP, not for gear. If people are able to get top end PvE gear through what is effectively soloing (solo queuing anyway), it'll only lead to further degredation of the average skill or enjoyability of most unranked PvP matches. In my opinion, of course.

3 Instant CC's? You know that anyone speccing bubble stun were Seer/TK, which means no instant Force lift. Just saying. I agree though, that immunity would make up for our utility... if it had a more reasonable cooldown. Considering unlike any other 'defensive' cooldown we can't do anything channeling, it's current cooldown is pretty ridiculous. It's also worth noting that in reference to kiting, our DoT-and-Kite skill tree is getting worse at kiting (No more instant Force Lift, and now Sever Force will also be resist-able and we're gaining no new mobility tools, where-as almost every other class is gaining something in moblity. On the PTS, playing a full balance spec was very painful compared to live. Force barrier is going to stall things, not make us super-tough. True. However, what nobody seems to mention is the accuracy changes. In 2.0, we'll have to drop a portion of our DPS stats to pick up this new stat (new to sages anyway). Those changes are going to bring our damage down compared to other classes who already needed accuracy, and who's damaged was based on that fact.

But Debilitate also has a baseline 45s cooldown instead of a 1m cooldown of the Sorc stun. So it ALREADY balances out with your "give and take" rule. It doesn't make sense to use that to explain why a Sniper would get a 30m, AoE, instant cast mez, where a Sorc will, in 2.0, have a 30m, single target, casted mez. It makes especially little sense when you consider that if anyone should be working with more hard casts and less instants, it should be the sniper who has cover and as such interrupt immunity.

Got my baby Sentinel to 45. Basic method: When I got to the point of being 3 levels above the planets max recommended because of all the lovely XPs, I'd just push through the class quests, drop everything else and go on to the next one. Do the Space quests that introduce you to new missions, but not many operation ones. Buy 6000 or so affection with each companion (from vendors) and do all their chatty quests (Which is really good if you can spacebar them all cause you've done them before), though it is tedious applying all those items and only gets worthwhile at level 30+. Do it on a highly mobile DPS class, preferably one that gets a healer early (Juggernaut/Marauder, ideally). Have a lot of presence to make the early levels fly by. If I wasn't busy next weekend, I'd try it again on another class (from scratch this time).... As is, I'm settling for finish the Sentinel and as much as I can on my currently 37 Vanguard.

To be honest, I don't really think it'll open up world PvP at all. It will certainly encourage a wave of stealth gankers, who will wait till their prey is in a fight with a couple of mobs, then launch in. That's not PvP, that's ganking, especially when you consider that, by design, people are intended to have their companions out to fight mobs. Furthermore, the sort of people who do that on a regular basis aren't the sort of people who join in with proper OWPvP. All that it would really achieve is to make doing dailies more tedious for any non-stealth class. I think a possible solution would be to dismiss companions when you enter PvP combat, unless you are already engaged in PvE combat, in which case your companion remains until any mobs you were fighting have died. That would mean that anyone hoping to just run around stealth ganking people will have to potentially contend with Companion + Heroic moment, without their own companion handy. It is sad that sometimes you have to account for people who get their e-peen all e-rect by being an a-hole, but it's better than wrecking the PvP experience for everyone else.

At the moment, Balance is probably the right spec to be in for PvP DPS. You might find that a Hybrid build to pick up defensive talents and force management from the TK tree is more entertaining to play (I certinaly find this to be true), but on the whole you spend enough time Kiting and LoSing that DoTs are going to be the best source of damage. With that in mind, Balance is probably going to be that spec to be in for total output. If, as it sounds, your having difficulty hitting high number currently, a change of approach is in order more than a change of spec. To hit the higher numbers, you really need to be spreading Weaken Mind over many targets, making best use of the extra damage applied by Force in Balance on as many people as possible and generally padding your stats. Very little of it is going to feel heroic or like you're an actual DPSer in the traditional sense, but if you can learn to enjoy that, you'll get good numbers and have fun doing it. However, it is worth noting that the expansion is looming on the horizon, and things are looking to change up a lot. Telekinetics will have a place in PvP (which is most certainly doesn't at the moment), and can burst much better than Balance. Balance may remain viable after people get used to the changes, although I'm still getting used to a distinct lack of instant Force Lift and having to be a lot more considerate about using Sever Force for it's root. It may be worth just sticking with it until the expansion hits and then rethinking things, instead of learning a new spec now and again shortly thereafter.

You know what would be an excellent way to "update" the CE vendor without having to actually do anything significant? Just update him (or add a new vendor) which lets you buy the rewards from past world events, for credits (Either a small amount of credits and BoA, or a larger amount of credits and BoE). It certainly wouldn't be ideal, but at least they have all the assets there, and it would make the CE vendor feel a little more useful/worthwhile.

The problem I'd have with that point, is that what is "normally" the drawback to melee classes in other games is the inherent fact that they are melee. In SWTOR, there are plenty enough ways to get into melee range, and on short enough cooldown, that this disadvantage is largely diminished. If the stun bubble is the only real counter to melee (with the exception of snipers who can just turret), then I don't think that is a good enough reason to nerf it as hard as many people suggest. I haven't seen any arguments in this thread that are persuasive (or thought out) enough to change my thoughts that removing the ability to end it prematurely is all that it needs to balance it better.

That would be the intent of the checkbox idea I described. Match Up Pre-mades vs Pre-mades, and then if you can't fill a whole 8-man team with premades, slot in people who have already signified they'd be happy to be in a team with and against premades, despite queueing solo. Trust me, I don't enjoy Pre-made vs PuG when playing on either side of that either.

I agree with most of your post, but this bit stands out to me as something... I disagree with (for lack of something more eloquent). The data they appear to be getting, assuming that they view all classes as more or less equal, does indeed seem to reward classes equally for their mere presence. It does not, however, take into any account the actual "effort" required, which I think is what many people misrepresent as class imbalance. Can anyone honestly say that playing a Pyro Powertech or a Rage Juggernaught is in any way as challenging as playing a DPS Merc or DPS Sorc? I haven't played my Merc in PvP, but I've done the other Three (or their mirrors) and don't find it in any way comparable. My personal belief is that people who are just not as good tend to look up which classes are "easier" to do well with before even rolling, or if they start with one of the harder ones, they are much more liable to give up part way through and reroll. This leaves a higher proportion of those complex AC's being placed by more skilled players, and a larger proportion of less skilled players playing the "easier" AC's. This affects all the averages, skewing any metrics gathered and hiding underlying class inadequacies or excesses. I do not think things are totally balanced as is, but I, as with almost all the community, do not play all 8 AC at the same gear and skill level, and so am a biased judge. As such, no changes that affect "total output" should be based solely on community feedback. That being said, community feedback (and views on classes that are under or over powered) is usually quite keenly correct in terms of what classes could do with balancing changes that either simplify an AC's rotation/gameplay mechanics or add more complexity to them. This is something I feel developers often don't pay enough attention to.

Not really on topic, but isn't that exactly why it's failing to educate people? I mean, if a person (in this case, you) is absolutely certain that they have considered all the possibilities, and have come to the best, most appropriate conclusion, then anybody who doesn't agree with your conclusion must either: Not have understood the post in full, either because the reader lacks the comprehension skills necessary or the author lacks the communication skills to wholly convey their understanding. Their experiences differ from yours (for whatever cause, such as server differences etc), and so disagree with your conclusion. In either case, spamming the same text isn't going to educate anyone that it didn't educate the first time you posted it. Of course, I suppose you're free to do what you like with your spare time. On topic: Yes, I understand the implications of the Dev post, stating that no separation of queues is on the cards at present. However, I don't exactly have faith in EA/Bioware that what they pick is always the best way forward, based on past experience with SWTOR. As soon as I read the patch notes for 1.5 (and learned that the resolve for bubble stun wasn't going up), I found it glaringly obvious that a Sage that specced Seer/TK hybrid going to receive all the buffs put on the class and it would be truly annoying in warzones (especially in conjunction with the resolve changes). I couldn't possibly imagine how they had failed to see it coming. But apparently, the development team didn't see it. Also, still no mention of Cross server? Not even a "We know it would be/is important and we're working on it, but we have no ETA"? As far as I'm concerned that is as important, if not more so, than enhancing the current matchmaking facilities. I don't think that separating out queues is "the one true way" to solve the PvP issues by a long shot. In fact, on it's own, I don't see it solving very much at all. However, I do think that a toggle in the options somewhere that says "I do not want to be matched into a game with pre-mades" would be a quick (not to mention easier to implement than cross server) partial solution, and wouldn't require any literal separation. It would draw everyone from the same queue and give people the scope to find matches on their terms if it's what they want. Any half decent player (solo or premade) that actually wants a challenge will be fine with queuing for either match-up. I know I would be fine with that. If it was deemed as too undesirable to queue with the possibility of being against/with a premade, stick a small bonus (10% or whatever) in for people who are more flexible with their queuing habits. The same thing that already happens with group-finding tools for many existing games.

Yeah, I could go with that. Maybe even something akin to what Shadows have, where they build up a stack of procs from some other skill, and that adds to the damage of the next Project. Just something to let smart Sages/Sorcs bring in the burst without having to wait a couple of minutes for a cooldown. It's always niggled at me that Shadows have a more powerful Project that the AC that is supposed to be most about pofwerful force abilities.

I totally agree. I dislike getting NC, it's just not really a fun map. And I love Hutball. But I mainly play my Sage, and that's a ranged class with a number of options for staying on the walkways and knocking others off. I imagine it's less entertaining for DPS ops, non-focus Marauders/Juggs etc. So I would like to see more warzones that make the ranged classes actually shine as hutball does, but I also think we need to keep the flatter, more boring ones in equal amounts. Oh, except for Fire pits. They are so annoyingly DERPy. I'd probably be less annoyed with them if being pulled into them from close to 30m wasn't something that happened at least twice per match. Perhaps if they swapped around the Grapple and the Charge on Vanguards and Powertechs it would be less annoying. At least then only the people who gimp their DPS by getting tanking skills will benefit from it, and people who tank deserve some entertainment.

I would say this is both correct and incorrect at the same time. In a one-on-one scenario, their DPS is acceptable, because the combat will last long enough for their utility to and ability to kite to make up for their lower burst against most classes. However, in group scenarios and Ranked, DPS Sage/Sorc are a poor choice. You need to be able to switch targets instantly (which you can't do with a DoT based damage dealer) to focus fire, and it is almost impossible to make up for your DPS shortfall with CC in the same way, because other ACs will also be putting up their own CC and you'll white bar people. That's why Sorc/Sage could do with a spec that has some reasonable front-loaded burst damage. Certainly something better than '20% alacrity for 10s every 120s', because it's really not that good on it's own, but it also requires you go quite high up a tree renowned for being a poor choice for PvP.

Wow, that's just super insightful. Why, it's almost as thought provoking as saying "If you don't want to play a ranked match against Sages/Sorcs with Kinetic Colapse/Backlash, then you should queue and drop ranked matches where your opponents have one until you get a match-up you like". On a less '/facepalm' train of thought: While Burst DPS is the only type people care about in ranked matches, it isn't the ONLY thing that is going to decide whether to take a speicifc AC. As you yourself have noted with Marauders and predation, if an AC offers something unique and valuable to the group, it will still get a spot on a ranked team despite having another AC capable of better DPS. That is exactly WHY stun bubbles are prevalent now. It's something other than Pure DPS or full heals that is valuable to the group. If they actually made a well considered change to ACs that under-perform at burst DPS to bring their DPS MORE in line (but not even totally in line with the best ACs), and then provided some other unique group benefit, there would be much more diversity in Ranked team setup. As things stand at the moment, this sort of utility is ONLY available to classes that already have the DPS to warrant a place on their own and Stun bubble sages.

I don't really agree, but I think it's a point of view issue really. Where you say poor top tier talents mean that lower tier ones are really good (leading to more hybrids), I would say that poor top tier talents just means that it doesn't matter how you spec, you wont ever find a particularly powerful spec (leading to more varied range overall). However, what I hope you'll agree with is that saying "Sorcs have a couple more semi-viable builds than the worst-off class for PvP" is hardly indicative of them having decent talent trees, however you spend their points. On topic (and no longer to the quoted post specifically): I personally think the only "necessary" change to the issue of backlash is to remove the ability to pop it at will. Without Backlash, You might take a full heal Sorcerer, but other builds don't really offer that much to a ranked group. With Backlash, it is only really an issue for the build that can spam it, which really means JUST the Corruption/Lightning hybrid. Of the other ideas presented in this thread: If they remove the stun on any but self targetted bubbles, the Sorc would be better off going full Corruption. If they increase the resolve to 600 (appropriate for a 3s stun), you won't be able to use the skill your whole build is built around without maxing resolve on a massive scale, and so would be better off without the talent. If you revert it to a Mez, is lacks ANY synergy with a class who works primarily with DoTs and AoE. If you increase the cooldown, you negatively affect healers, or the Sorc in question will deliberately save his longer cooldown bubbles for the classes on which it is most powerful anyway, changing nothing. In all cases, you're removing the limited "support" capability of a "support" AC. And even that's not really the overriding issue. All Heal-capable ACs don't have any means to spec for the reliable burst DPS to make them desirable in ranked, and who's only vague "support" capability is that of is full blown healer. I can't speak knowledgably enough for Merc or Operative, but If Sorcs are supposed to spend time in specs other than heal or Corruption/Lightning hybrid, give them some burst. Change Polarity Shift (10s every 120s), to be more like Gore (4.5s every 15s). Give the Madness tree a single-target skill that does damage based on the number of DoTs running. Alternatively, give them other support options. Give them group buffs like marauders get. Oh, and definitely make detaunts do something useful for defence. Then making game-changing changes to Backlash will be appropriate.

Well that's easy, You have absolutely no requirement to join a premade to defeat Soa. You just queue up as a solo in the group finder, and you'll get a group. This most-definitely-NOT-premade team must work together still, just as PUG teams must work together in PvP. There is no literal requirement to premade though, as you are suggesting. Perhaps you should lay your traps better in future.

Comparing PvE and PvP is pretty fruitless, because they're too different. You don't leap straight in to TFB in your Tionese/Columi you got from flashpoints and expect to do anything. So you pick to go EV or KP first, and gear up against appropriate opponents. I'd imagine that if PvP players had the luxury of always playing against appropriate enemies, most of these complaints wouldn't exist. But they don't, so this is a pretty poor analogy.

Depressing, but unsurprising. Cross server queue is (more or less) something unanimously agreed upon. To support the game in it's current state and get queues (and hopefully ranked) really flowing., it needs to happen. People say it, and then move on, and the thread doesn't go that far. Same with Commando/Merc. Everyone who's played a good handful of classes can see they are the worst off class for any sort of DPS. It's just not a contentious point. But Solo-only queue? I can see why people would want it. I can see why people don't. That's why the thread is so big. Ironically, it's more prominent than other threads because it's LESS of a unanimously agreed upon issue.

It won't go away... not in the slightest. As things stand at the moment, if you and your pug end up with some fairly experienced players, you don't even notice premades that are just guildies or friends having fun. As such, people don't realise they are "premade" and yet not really a problem. When people come up against the team of balanced, min-maxed, highly co-ordinated people, THEN they notice it's what they complain about. And because it's such a sound thrashing that they receive, it's something that sticks in their memory. Certainly more so than all those times they actually had fun against an average premade. And that's really what people are complaining about. So 1.6 won't do anything for that. Cross server queues might help it, if it reboots Ranked WZ to the point they actually pop with some regularity. But even that won't cure it. You'll still get those teams that actually enjoy pug stomping running amok, just because they can. Personally, I'm not opposed to solo-only queue. That way, solo-ers and groupers both take a small hit, instead of soloers constantly having to "Learn to deal with" and groupers getting what they want. Solo queue not popping because it's not busy enough? Team up and try the group queue... Group queue not popping quick enough for your liking? Run a couple of warzones solo while you wait for things to get busier. If you don't want to change the way you play to get quicker queue pops, then it's your CHOICE to wait for longer queue times. Hell, if there were separate queues for solo and grouped, and there was an option to queued for both as a solo player (solo or fill gaps in group games), I'd still do it. I know how to work with a premade group as well as a pug group, so it's no loss to me. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people ended up doing that, consequently not really reducing queue times that much at all.

I do mostly agree with the thread, and there are plenty of "premade" teams that play and are just friends/guildies out to have fun. Before my old guild dissolved through lack of interest, we'd just grab a couple of people and hit up a warzone if people were on and up for it, no thought to composition or voice coms or anything like that. That being said, the... "vocal dissenters" to premades are pretty inaccurate in what they're actually referring to. Even though they are saying "premades are a problem", what they really mean is "4-man balanced teams of well/BIS geared individuals are a problem". After all, if you're up against a poor premade group, or one that doesn't fit all those criteria, chances are that unless every member is exceptional anyway, you won't really notice in the first place. You certainly wont remember them as something which made your PvP experience less fun. Frequently, being up against an average premade brings me MORE fun, because it's more challenging (as I mostly solo queue nowadays). So yeah, premades in their entirety aren't really a problem, I agree. But if I saw a thread that was focus specifically towards 4-mans teams of people with the skill, gear and communication to the point that they belong in ranked were it not for the limited population, that I'd have to agree with that too. All the naysayers in current ambiguous threads about "premades" recommend "getting some skills" and "getting some friends", but when facing of against what is essentially some of the best the server has to offer, do they really have a chance of winning whatever they do for the foreseeable future? I mean, what are those groups even getting out of it? They don't need the comms, except possibly for alts. But if it's acceptable for other people to get PvP gear by playing the characters who will use the gear, why aren't they playing (and more importantly learning) those alts? That's the reason you'll never convince anyone to let go of their "premade" bone... to most solo-only players, the logical conclusion is that they continue to queue in this manner because they want an easier time with their alts, or they do actually enjoy winning with little to no chance of a loss. Not that there's an decent solution short of cross server queue to attempt to kick start Ranked and encourage people to play it.

I don't really agree with most of this thread (sorry, I just disagree, there's no point rehashing the same stale, old discussion points), and I'm not really a fan of Open World Ganking... which is what usually happen to open world PvP when there is any sort of population imbalance. Sadly, that's a situation not exactly unknown in SWTOR. Setting that aside however, sticking this sort of crafting material in a free-for-all PvP zone could be a very interesting step forward. I don't think I've seen a game that has had truly engaging World PvP that has had just two factions who fight against each other. Providing a common area for groups/guilds to fight over visible rewards (preferably something that will reduce a grind, but not provide any/much of a statiscal advantage over people who just Warzone to get their PvP gear) will encourage groups to team up to kill a bigger team, then stab each other in the back, or whatever. It would keep things fresher, and make the ability to game the system (as happened in Illum) harder to accomplish due to more variables.

To be honest, this is really where you'll never succeed. Until Bioware officially declare something "intended" or "Unintended", there will always be people willing to argue that something is one or the other, either because they play the class and are in denial about how potent the ability/combo is, or because their class is the "Scissors" to this particular "rock" ability, and they can't get their head around it. Like the bubble stun (before it was officially stated that it was being "Looked in to". You had the people who think Sage/Sorc "Deserves something OP" (A retarded reason for having anything, but it still happened), or that believed they were suddenly better through skill alone. And they contended with a heavily melee crowd who were most affected by the prevalence of the build, going round suggesting equally retarded nerfs to "Bring it back in line", in their opinion. Unsurprisingly, most of their ideas would entirely neuter the skill. And it'll always be like that. This is the internet, where very few people actually pause to consider things from other peoples point of view before running their mouth off. What would people ACTUALLY talk about in the PvP section is it wasn't for Nerf threads? There's be some vids of people ganking other people in groups, vids of people using the current FOTM build to demonstrate how ridiculous it is, and a handful of obligatory "Hacks/Premades/Grenades/Yo' Mama is ruining warzones" threads.