The only thing overpowered in this thread is Ducklings imagination. /thread

another Mercs point of view.... Marauders are the counter class to mercs... i dont expect to win and i dont want to be buffed to be better against them. "Uphill in the snow" is "Working as intended" as far as Merc vs Marauder goes. HOWEVER... Mercs, by design, are also intended to be the Premier anti-stealth class in the game due to stealth probe and no lkess than 5 AOE's...the issue is that stealth probe is currently broken to the point of uselessness in all practical terms...and as a skill thats only really used in PVP, thats a pretty bad thing. Id rather thay fix stealth probe than do anything to "fix" my ability to 1v1 against my counter class.

2 knockbacks on marksman spec.. tons of CC...and CC is the bane of all marauders. Ambush, 2.5 second channel , knockback if talented but very interruptible. Cover Pulse. PBAOE instant knockback. Add in 1 melee CC/stun, 1x 30m range sleep... and a snare/immobilise. Sniper>Marksman has all the tools to counter marauder, if the both play well the Sniper still comes out 1 CC ahead and should always win the fight... If the sniper is careless about positioning, doesnt use their snare and gives the marauder a chance to use a wall or object to counter the knockbacks, the marauder should win. To be honest the biggest bane for a sniper is OTHER players filling the marauders resolve bar and/or giving the marauder a leap target in melee range of the snipers cover position.. doing either or both will and does get snipers killed. If you play with a sniper on your team...DONT STAND NEAR THEM ... and let them do the CC, they are better at it than any other class. On my Marauder Snipers are my primary target.... on my Sniper, Marauders are my primary target, for good reason.

Finally someone else who gets it... For WINNING OBJECTIVES. Assassin Tank/DPS Operative Healer. All other classes need not apply an 8 man premade composed of *only* the above 2 classes will dominate every other combination in every warzone. Put simply thier ability to stack numbers on your weakly defended objective, while being able to effectivly defend//stall an objective with just 2 players and stealth CC/Sap means they always win the numbers game. Fixing stealth probe to 3x cooldown with 3x radius, so its up less often, but is actually good at De-stealthing would kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Its a PVP only skill anyway and giving mercs a place on an 8 man premade because they actually have a role they can play isnt a bad thing..

Stealth in an objective based (capture/hold) game with no *effective* anti-stealth powers.... Right now you have a ~ 8m radius destealth in an approx 30x30 area of control..the chances of revealing a defender are almost zero. The tactical advantage stealth gives is HUGE, especially in maps like Novare, Voidstar and Alderaan, but fact is Op healers and Tank assassins are also great at huttball.. OP DPS isnt a factor because your better off with that OP specced healer. HEALER Operative in todays TTK environment are simply superior because of their kiting and ability to heal while being evasive...the FREE heal on targets below 30% doesnt hurt either. Tankasins... the more you add, the better they get because of taunts and guard being multiplactive, especially when the TANK deals so much damage.. Stealth just lets you stack a numerical advantage on top of the rest. CC on both classes is great for stalling cappers, effectivly meaning you deny the enemy the ability to defend a turret with 2 people, while easily being able to do so yourself and disguise the fact you have 2 people on a turret while doing so. Honestly the main change needed initially is a big fat buff to anti-stealth powers ability to destealth, stealth probe would be far better on a 45 second cooldown with *triple* the radius than the current 15 second cooldown

Cos he thinks his 4 button PT shouldnt be being stomped by a 24 button marauder who knows how to use his 14 cooldowns and 10 attacks properly.

The irony in this post is the 2 classes mentioned for example powers...Assassin and IA. If youve ever faced a team of 5-6 good assassins and 2-3 good healer operatives all queing for pvp on a faction that only has 8 players queing, youll understand why nothing else matters right now.

Thats why in the absence of any healer to guard, guard an annihilation marauder. Their mitigation is high, they heal you when beserk is up and they also burn down whats attacking you... basically if you tagteam with a good marauder you'll both end fights at close to full health AND burn people down p.s. Dont forget to taunt in PVP (AOE and single target taunts own), 30% less dmg done by enemies to the guarded target is less damage being shared to you.... taunts also count towards your "protection" total.

Congrats on choosing the hardest class to master in SWTOR, the DPS rotation for annihilation spec by itself is already more complex than most other classes entire tree and by the time you learn to dps effectivly, youll really only be half way towards learning the class, the *utility* the class has and when to use all your other cooldowns just takes experience and more practice.. I can help with learning the utility portion, but youll need to practice to learn the DPS part untill its second nature... nobody can do that for you. I can teach somone to play Pyro spec merc or arsenal merc in 5 minutes, because the rotation never really changes and uses 3-5 skills pretty much exclusivly for damage dealing.. but Annihilation spec the rotation is priority based and uses 10+ skills to achieve the same goal... practice is the only way to become a good Marauder. The best bit of advice i have for any recruit geared Marauder in 1.2..........Buy a pvp dummy from legacy tree.. PRACTICE your rotations while using a real-time parser like ACT so you can watch your DPS as it happens, keep on practicing and experimenting with rotation priorities untill you see your numbers climbing into the 1100 dps range over 5 minutes sustained damage... remembering that this gets better with GEAR, once you gear up youll see closer to 1500 dps sustained AND well over 2000 dps in bursts. All this practice does pay off and its somethign to do between war zones(ive spent literally tens of hours beating on the pvp dummy since 1.2, without that ability to parctice and watch parser numbers i wouldnt have gotten much better) In my case the difference between being fairly unskilled and becomming well skilled was about 30% improvement in raw DPS output while still in recruit gear, just getting better at cycling skills and hitting the high priority ones as needed...making it second nature is the key. Make sure you roll annihilation spec if you want to get good, it gives a faster interrupt and a heck of a lot more survivability than the other 2 specs, its also more damaging//match winning cos its single target focus and takes key players off the field, while those same players laugh at rage spec marauders pitiful single target damage...they wont be laughing at you when you burn them inside 10 seconds Annihilation is also the MOST COMPLEX spec to play, but once learned its simply astonishing...hence the advice to PRACTICE. Once you are getting it right youll be managing cooldowns on around 10 attacks, the payoff is in your single target damage becomming very very good, while your survivability and utility is also "good" Onto individual skills and how *i* use them Force camo is your friend against annoying ranged targets like snipers... use it to RE-close the gap after the inevitable knockback happens and they cant pop you for 6k ambush while you get back in range. It can also be used to RE-close on healers who are trying to kite you. lastly its sometimes useful in voidstar to slink off and grab the health powerup by the 1st doors.Also good to "reset" the ball when you just killed a carrier near your goal in huttball. Force Charge... as annihilation, you talent this to 0 range, 12 second cooldown and optionally also 1 extra rage point. Its a great skill then just as a rage builder...ignoring the fact its also a gap closer with short immobilise and great in huttball because of that. Force choke, use once you have stacked your beserk and bleeds asa "Finisher".... your target hangs there ticking for 2k+/tick bleed damage and another 800/tick choke... very very stong, optionally team up with another marauder and time your choke to begin when his ends... trade off ravages while the other chokes... fantastic skill for stopping healers dead while your team burns them down...many many uses and GREAT with a coordinated team. Intterrupt, use it every chance, its off global cooldown, its free, it recharges in 6 seconds when traited and it messes with your targets ability to fight back, even if just a little but.... there is no reason to NOT use it every chance you get. Intimidating Roar..., Free AOE Breaks on Damage MEZ.... use it whenever you are outnumbered and surrounded to slow incomming damage. Can be chained with force choke to allow door and turret caps by another player ( combined they provide 11 seconds of MEZ )...learn to use it in a "clever" and "disruptive" fashion (huttball carrier support etc) and its often enough to give an edge and win games because taking out 5 players for 6+ seconds often turns the tide in skirmishes, some will always pop out of it, but usually 1-2 dont, the only downside to this skill are idiots on your own team who AOE mindlessly and break the mez... again, the better the people you team with, the more effective this skill becomes. Sabre Ward... try not to stack with cloak of pain, its better to chain one after the other... only stack both when you dont expect to last more than 5 or so seconds and have no other choice Cloak of pain, mainstay resist cooldown.. dont use it till your being shot!, you need to be taking damage or it lasts 6 secs instead of 30. Undying rage, never ever use this if your above 25% life (unless huttball and your scoring goals..situationally its good there)... but DO use it when you need to and are below 25%.. chances are your dead anyway, this just gives a little time for parting "good byes" to the enemy healer your likely focusing on. Ravage... now its FREE its also good DPS and uninterruptible...use it everytime its off GCD and especially use it when your target chooses to try to stand toe to toe and NOT run from you (good pvpers will always try to kite you because they know your class is lethal in melee range) Beserk.. Mainstay fury burner, 100% to crit bleeds is reson enough to use it Predation... Huttball to help gank ballcarriers (its a team game remember), equally usefull in huttball when you have a runner with the ball to help THEM score. Novare... switching between bunkers in a tight situation...predation delivers your team and saves turrets... good TEAM based skill Bloodthirst... Great in TEAM situations when you need to burn down defenders fast, giving everyone a damage boost helps a lot..... any capture/plant map can benefit from this skill to give your team a boost/edge in damage for a few seconds. Mostly... PRACTICE DPS on a PVP DUMMY with a PARSER running untill your fingers bleed. There is no real rotation for annihilation, just learning to juggle 10 ish cooldowns and keep most on cooldown consistantly is key. Once DPS becomes second nature, its easier to learn to matser the other tools you have for survivability and utility... so PRACTICE!!!!!!!

There are only 2 classes which can threaten Op/Smug healers and assassins dominance on the game once 8man queue comes. BiowarePVPDev and Diablo 3

Actually the ratio for Mara/Sent is more like 25 bads to every good one simply because to play the most effective spec (annihilation) Requires managing 10+ attacks which you use every single engagement... add in 2-3 more situationally, 3 CCs, 3 situational buffs, 4 situational defensive CD's...and its power is in its versatility, but with that comes COMPLEXITY which is why so many roll with carnage or rage which are both much simpler, put up nice numbers occasionally (AOE dmg padding rage spec anyone?), but less effective at taking players off the field too. Basically Annihilation has 2 or 3 times the number of attacks in the vanilla priority rotation compared to every other class, complexity is the cost for no resource management and its the resource management which gives maras/sents a nudge up the sustained pressure ladder compared to other DPS, but ONLY when they are played by players who can manage the 23 or so cooldowns needed to play the best spec without having a meltdown. Most OP class in terms of utility, simplicity to play and effectiveness in all warzones is hands down a Tank Assassin in DPS gear, 5 tankasins and 3 healer ops = stealth dream team. Stealth is king in a world where focus fire face melting with superior numbers rules the day Best PVP healer = Operative , STEALTH, CC, Kite, mobile as all hell while healing. 2nd most survivable healer=Sorc , only reason its #2 is because Ops are more effective at avoiding focus fire and keeping the heals up.. sorc is only slightly behind with mobile bubble spam in terms of survivbility, its only better then op when the enemy DPS are idiots and let the sorc stand still and spam heals. KITING is the most important skill for a healer to learn in todays PVP... no more healer/tank lolmode , merc healers suck because of there complete lack of mobile healing, they are very easy to nullify.. marauders and snipers will own any healer who sits still to be shot/stabbed because both have heal debuffs nowdays. For the above reasons Tankasin Healer Op 20% gap REST (heals/tanks/DPS) Worst by a small margin : Merc DPS Operative DPS

15-16k hitpoints//1000 expertise is where the DPS/Concealment operative starts to hit its "break even" point , thats somehwere around 8 pieces of battlemaster with the rest recruit.... and even then your relegated to "vulture" status, picking off targets already weak or under pressure. Id advise going heals simply because its more useful to a team right now than an undergeared concealment op which is just not good as dps.

Try guarding a marauder or sniper in cover...assuming the sniper knows how to play, their mitigation is so high you take next to no damage as a tank, especially an annihilation spec, their bleed heals during beserk will keep the tank healed up somewhat...while thier DPS output is high enough to compete with the best healers HPS output if they arent being killed down. Still... its always a tanks best interest to guard the healer who will keep him alive. But not all DPS are squishy mercs with no mitigation.

2400x9= 21600 in 9 seconds (6 globals) is enough to melt NON healers and people without guard on them in 1 rotation...thats *typical* dps, not maximum if everything crit dps. Seriously. if you dont know what DPS and HPS are you shouldnt bother posting in a thread about balance. Healing is in a good spot right now, operatives and sages especially have GREAT ability to kite and heal a ton of dmg (or bubble and kite in the sages case), merc healer is a bit weaker cos it lacks mobility and kiting = survivability now... get a merc running away and it cant heal effectvily...it may as well be dead at that point An example, 1 voidstar match. Scoundrel healer had 698k, Sage had 600k and 2 other healers in support (less skilled commando and another sage put out 500k between them and their lack of skill was probably the difference maker) DPS on the other side wasnt bad either, we had heals marked and focused them down... 6 players all over 300k dmg... top 600k, next 500k and 4 others 300k 4 healers output approx 1.8 million heals between them, avg per player 450k Heals each. 6 dps put out 2.4 million between them while focusing down healers, avg 400k DMG each. Basically the game flowed with 30-40kills because 6 decent dps (2 exceptional, 4 average, with only a sinlge below average healer) could counter 4 healers(2 exceptional, 2 barely average)...but only just....and only because they focused fire. Healing is totally fine right now, if not still slightly OP... ive been playing my operative as healer a bit and even in bad gear its hard to kill and will out HPS a better geared DPS by a small margin... adding gear will make it brokenly good.

healing is still stronger than DPS... even with my *good* dps spec that is bursting 2400 dps over 9 seconds... a good sorc will easily outheal that... the change just means TWO dps is now equal to ONE healers burst healing, not 3 or 4 dps. Healing is perfectly balanced now

Max HPS is still roughly double max DPS. its just not as bad as it used to be....even a proper dps class has trouble...healers are supposed to be focus fired not soloed because without that focus fire becomes too strong versus healing. Right now its about perfect heals vs dps

That exactly...if the guy i was fighting in the parse above hadnt healed and bubbled he would have comfortably been popped inside the 1st 10 second burst ... which is what i see a lot of players do. If he'd kited and interrupted/stunned/slept...which he is a master of.. he simply wouldnt have died to my merc...despite the spike damage. My marauder is a different story simply because of the heal debuff and interrupt + snares, its *made* to hunt and kill healers. even then because of his skill hes no easy target. I guarantee there also not a DPS or tank anywhere in the game that can take 93k damage from self buffs/self powers and not die... without heals most dps will die inside the first 15 seconds, with ease...but only bad healers will do the same, gear or not.

You just need to learn to play your class better. Sorc healers stay up extremely well Heres a parse vs a PVP geared sorc (champ/BM mix with ~16k hp and 800 expertise)who sat still and shielded + healed while i poured DPS into him, avg 1100 dps vs his ~17% resist from gear and his resists from armor and buffs. Which is in line with the 1500 ish i see on the dummy as a pyro merc. Admit my crits were a bit low (yay RNG) given my tech is listed as 42% with ~73% surge and ranged is around 37% with same surge... but the point stands...he stayed up for a bit over 90 seconds or around 60 global cooldowns My spike is typically 2400 dps over 1st 10 seconds and he EASILY stayed alive for that , he lasted a bit over 90 seconds WITH stuns etc to slow his heals but no interrupt, he didnt *need* to kite to live for a long time.... he only died when his force eventually ran out. TYPE DAMAGE ENCDPS AVERAGE MINHIT MAXHIT HITS SWINGS CRIT% Damage Done 93,128 1,103.20 392.95 0 3,369 237 237 30% Healing Done 0 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0 0% Threat Done 93,165 1,103.64 371.18 0 3,369 251 251 28% All Outgoing 186,293 2,206.84 381.75 0 3,369 488 488 29% Damage Recieved 0 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0 0% Healing Recieved 0 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0 0% Threat Recieved 0 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0 0% All Incoming 0 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0 0%

Actually i was testing with an actually GOOD Sorc healer a few days back... we decided to test with him cranking out heals and self shielding and me doing DPS/stuns to see how long ittd take to kill him It took 93k damage dealt to finally drop him (i have parses to prove it)... nuff said , thats a lot more than 2-3 globals and he didnt even kite or LOS

Learn to play your sentinel... interrupt is your friend and will leave the said commando with sod all burst for 4 seconds, while your doing full damage, 2 seconds later you interrupt him again and rinse and repeat ... if you cant faceroll every commando or merc you meet you need to pick an easier class

yeal like how green lightning is OP but blue lightning isnt and pink lightning needs a buff cos people with orange lightning 2 shotted me!! (when you look you see color selection for lightning is just a costume option and the damage is the same) Seen in every MMO ever :D

There is a reason why the best special forces units in the world all use the motto "Who Dares Wins"..

Your misquoting the press release. Its not since 1.2 , 1.2 was released AFTER the period which the report covers...and you have no basis for saying it was from PVP servers , in fact the most populous server in NOAM region is a PVP one... the PVE servers are far less populated. They also dont include how many subs theyve GAINED from the 38 countries they have launched in since december. Your trying to take disparate and unrelated information to back up your opinion, which others dont necessarily agree with... Theyve simple stated that you being stomped in PVP isnt necessarily biowares fault, especially since you refuse to get proper gear.

Yes and after someone actually shoots you, youll end up with LESS hitpoints in PVE gear than you will in PVP gear after the same amount of damage. If my burst rotation is hitting you for more 6-7k more damage when you wear pve gear, having 5 k more hitpoints and losing the other Expertise bonuses to healing and damage doesnt make much sense now...does it? The longer combat goes on, the bigger the advantage that 18.5% damage reduction becomes.. even ignoring the +healing and + damage bonus you get for "free" with expertise. Add to that if i see someone whos obviously taking full damage a DPS might just focus them cos those are the only players a merc sees the 5k damage medal on nowdays...kill the easy healer marked with the star 1st so the hard one marked with crosshairs isnt getting help is something ive said in warzones a lot lately 1.2 has definitely made it a game for TEAM play, guards and heals are more valuable than ever.

You will if your in PVE gear, sit still, dont use shields, dont kite, dont ask a friendly tank for guard (aka symbiotic relationship)......... Your assumption about PVE gear survivability is wrong and it gets worse the more players who focus you. You mention 18 k hitpoints vs 13k, the figure is closer to 14k in full recruit than 13k..and adding a BM piece is easy inside of a day. So against my merc which can easily burst over 24k in 9 seconds and does so often on dummies (including the one on my ship and those who PVP in PVE gear). In PVE gear you take the full 24k... and good healers heal you for ~3900 instead of 5000 on crits or 1800 instead of 2500 on non crits. In PVE gear you take 24,000 damage and get healed back ~5 times with a really GOOD healer who has amazing reactions, assume 2 crits, 3 normals... your healback without PVP gear is ~13200, leaving approx 7200 health left. In PVP gear you receive 18.5% less damage, even in full recruit...you take ~4440 less damage or 19560 instead of 24000. During the same 5 healbacks, because of your PVP gear you also receive more healing back... around 15,000 healback or 9440 health left after the same attack. So in your PVE gear your left with 1800 LESS hitpoints than in your PVP gear after a typical burst rotation...add to that healers wont heal you if theyve looked at your gear and seen your in PVE gear with 0 expertise... and it becomes obvious which one is better. Quit gimping yourself and your team by wearing PVE gear.