This thread is a pipe dream btw. BW won't read the thread and nobody in the MMO business would stick out their neck to attempt this model. WoW is a proven model and its currently generating profit for BW so why change it?

The PvP "grind" is about a week long atm. I find 1 week is a fair investment to be geared. My concern is with vertical scaling. What happens when a new tier comes out? And the next? When you keep up with vertical scaling, its not so bad. Its when you level an alt and there are 8 tiers of gear to work through before you are relevant.

I like the idea of 1-49 vertical scaling but I think it should be more story driven and revolve less around random filler quests. at 50 there should be a level 50 class story chapter that slowly gives you your level 50 gear as you progress. once you're done that you are equally well geared as any other level 50 and now you can start making your character your own by fine tuning your look, feel, abilities, etc.

bump.

Yes. Yes times a million. The best example of horizontal progression itemization is TF2. There are the basic items everyone has, and then sidegrades of all sorts of variations that can be unlocked/crafted/etc Imagine every sniper had a basic snipe shot that dealt 1000 dmg. You could unlock incendiary rounds that deal 800dmg and then 350dmg over 12 seconds, freezing rounds that deal 700dmg and apply a slow, explosive rounds that deal 500 aoe damage, etc These numbers are obviously just made up on the spot but you get the idea... There is no clear best ability. They are sidegrades and let you fill whatever roll you want to fill in a team and let you gear your playstyle to your own liking. This type of progression is far more fun to "grind" through because you don't feel you NEED to do it to be competitive. You do it because you want to try it out and flesh out your character to your liking. Grinding towards something fun and cool is way more rewarding to grinding so you aren't terrible. The other advantage is flashpoint/operation/whatnot balancing. They can set up normal/hard/nightmare difficulties knowing how strong all characters will be. Its no longer a gear grind to be able to advance. Nightmare is for hardcores willing to put in the time to practice and perfect execution of an encounter. Having unique looking gear or crafting schematics drop from these harder instances gives players status as the elite (aka baller status) that truly sets them apart and that will never be cheapened. (By cheapened I mean this: in wow we were alliance first to kill Illidan. We had status because our gear and people stopped to look at you because you had gear they could look up online. Fast forward a few months and everyone had cleared BT and pugs were doing it weekly. Our once amazing gear was now commonplace. It severely cheapened the experience for me and is the reason I left wow. What we poured hours and hours into every night was all for a few weeks of being unique. ) People will often bring up that there is no reason to play a game when you aren't grinding gear. I can tell you that this is false. I have 2000+ hours on TF2 because it is fun to play and learn all the difficult playstyles possibly with the different items. Playing against other people on a level playing field is exhilarating and rewarding. The progression you see will be your own abilities getting honed instead of your gear getting a stat boost. When you beat that player 1v1 after weeks of him mopping the floor with you... you know its because you as a player got better. Not that his gear fell behind. I've been saying for years that horizontal scaling is the breath of fresh air that MMOs need in this era of WoW clones. Idk who this Tagrim is but he's absolutely right!

For your assault build, I would forgo Field Training in favor of Steadied Aim to make concussive round more reliable and charged bolts more spamable. Gunnery and CM/Gunnery hybrid will probably be popular in ranked WZs

Rotating your character can be done via the "a" and "d" keys by default. Your skill tree can be accessed via the "k" key. If you'd like more info, please be more specific!

Don't have any parses confirming, but afaik you cannot stack vortexes beyond 5.

Yes; we will roll with 2 commandos, I believe. I think that gunnery will shine in rated WZ when your team will be able to support your positioning and let you run your rotation freely.

This is pretty much what these forums consist of: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=154012 Glad to see another commando enjoying their class and makin' it happen!

Assault is the way to go. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=443181

Oh, was there a competition? How does one rank survivability? 10s stun usable in combat from 30m, 4s stun, knockback w/ slow, talentable 0 cost 50% slow, adrenaline rush (can be talented to reduce CD), 25% DR shield (can be talented to break snares/roots, make immune to interrupts, increase healing received by 20%), heavy armor... I can't see what else you want.

30m vs 4m range. I'll take it. I would prefer the damage output be instant instead of channeled but that would probably be OP. I would be unstoppable. My survivability is already great. This would put me over.

I would support this 100%

I would gladly give up that alacrity talent :\