FFB/OS was my favorite ability in the game. I agree that the damage nerf is certainly overkill and logically doesn't make sense (why should my puny little grenade do more damage than a bomb?). None the less I will note that I am very cautious with using FFB as the 40 energy cost is super detrimental to energy management. When it came down to both 1v1 and group play FFB was not very sustainable as it is already easily avoided and required a flurry shot or 2 just to be able to stay in that ideal 50-60+ energy range. End of the day weaving trick shot between charged, AS, QS, and QD is considerably more effective than hard casting a FFB which wouldn't come into effect for at least 5 seconds. With that in mind, as noted by others in this thread, FFB was an amazing defensive ability. It was pivotal in arena and in 1v1 situations. This is especially true when fighting against melee classes. If a mara is forced to eat my FFB while I'm hunkered and putting crazy pressure on him with all my other great abilities, chances are he was doomed from the start. In response to this, the damage of FFB was for sure too high to ignore. But what is a melee going to do? In open field fights he can't afford to stand out of it for 9-12 sec while I unleash hell on him. All things considered, change that could benefit both the smug/agent and the enemy. The current change is the right direction but the coefficients are frankly dumb. A 10 energy cast is way too low. The cast time change could use slight retweaking depending upon how they re-adjust the energy cost and damage. But if there's one thing that's for damn sure, 62% damage nerf is outrageously outrageous. These current changes are not OK. I hate to admit it but this is a real testament to this Dev team's notorious linear thinking in a multi-variable game. Nerfing an ability into oblivion just to prevent its use in PvE single target rotation is beyond illogical. I could not think of enough negative adjectives to describe this idea. If you don't want players to use this ability purely against boss fights change the ability to a unique tech damage type (like blast damage or something) and give boss' defensive passives against blast damage. But even that suggestion is dumb. The real solution to this problem is something that solves a bunch of problems wrt to spells players believe are OP in respective PvP or PvE situations: Have different spell coefficients for PvP and PvE. I never understood why this is such a hard concept to grasp when it is such a direct solution to class balance. Besides it is already utilized for time duration on certain CC spells such as sleep dart or force lift.

While the 3 node first to 1k points structure is both classic and a straightforward, I believe the current redundancy in maps/strategy is the biggest detriment to GSF replay value. In general I also feel as though there is a lack of context behind current objects; what's the point of getting 1k points? Can we redeem these points for stickers? With that in mind here are some future map ideas: Siege of Cornet Setting: Industrial district in Cornet. Lots of heavy machinery, scaffolding, half-finished ships, and damaged structures as physical obstructions. This provides an environment similar to Kuat shipyards however more iconic and well, look like an actual shipyard. Structure Both teams start from capital ships on opposite ends of the map. Capital ships have equal value of shields (that slowly regen) and hull strength. 5 nodes on the map in the formation of a square with a node in the center (2 nodes closest to each starting point with a central equidistant node). The closest nodes are a Ion turret and a heavy laser turret. Ion does heavy damage to shields and low damage to hull, heavy laser does static damage. Central node is support station that increases power to respectively captured nodes. Goal is to incapacitate the enemy capital ship. Mechanics Turret nodes are on elevated platforms and the central node is a tower located closer to ground level (making capturing it trickier). Nodes have target-able signal generators that must be destroyed to take control of the node. Once the generator is destroyed, a new one is reconstructed over a dynamic time frame with respect to the amount of pilots in proximity. The reconstruction rate is slower than current cap rates but also scales to the ratio of pilots in proximity (countering the ability for one pilot to keep a node from capping by kiting enemy pilots). Only upon complete reconstruction does the enemy capture the node (no neutral phase). Unlike the current WZ's turrets, these generators have no self defense system but have considerably more health. A health bar for each generator is displayed on the HUD (similar to how the number of turrets up are displayed in current WZ) 15 min time limit, which ever capital ship has the highest hull strength wins. Skirmish of Hoth Setting Ice field in space. Lots of interesting ice formations that range in shape size. Some of the larger formations will have tunnels. Some may have destructible walls that require clearing to pass. Structure Both teams start from orbital space stations at opposite sides of the map. In the center each team has two war ships (Destroyers for imps and Cruisers for pubs) and a single capital ship. Both the war ships and capital ships will be decked out with target-able components including cannons, shield generators, damage capacitors, and such. In addition the capital ship will have ion cannons and a bridge deck that can be target once the shield generators have been destroyed. The first team to take out the enemy capital ship's bridge wins. War ships will be placed offset at the side of the capital ships. Though the ultimate goal is to destroy the enemy capital ship's bridge, neglecting the war ships and focus firing the capital ship will be very difficult to pull off since you will be flanked from the war ships, capital ship, and enemy pilots on defense. Mechanics The most significant aspect of this WZ is targeting of ship components and how components interact with each other, providing a situation-ally ideal order of operations. War ships will have shield generators on their top, bottom, left, and right sides. Each shield generator provides a shield for the cannons, capacitors, and such on their respective side. Taking out the left shield generator would result in taking out each shield on all of the left cannons, capacitors and such. As a result clearing the left cannons, capacitors, and such will be considerably easier. Taking out the weapon capacitors (such as a frequency capacitor) would result in slower cannon fire. Clearing the cannons would result in eliminating damage. Capital ships will have similar components however they will be beefier and of course the bridge cannot be targeted until all shield generators on the ship have been eliminated. Components have respective objective point values and taking out components rewards the pilot/team objective points. 15 min time limit, team with the most objective points wins. Makeb Isotope-5 Interception Setting Makeb (surprise!). Tons of crazy rock formations, caverns, timed exploding volcano traps, and such obstructions that you frequently see in makeb. In addition there will be tremors which cause the objects to shake slightly, making it hard to fly through a tunnel or crack. Structure Both teams start from opposite ends of the map, the pubs from the plantation and the imps from the skyliftdrilltowerthing. three nodes across the horizontal in the center of the map at offset elevations but equidistant to both teams starting location. The outer two nodes are mining facilities that slowly collects isotope-5 in the unit of fuel cells. these nodes will be structured very similar to the current WZ's satellites. The center node is a plateau guarded heavily by Hutt Cartel NPC turrets and has a shipment of isotope-5 that pilots can intercept and carry similar to the huttball however activated simply by proximity. Returning the shipment to a captured mining facility rewards the team with a static value of points (similar to how cubes work in hypergate). Given the volatile nature of isotope-5, the carrier is burdened with a debuff that saps their engine power and prevents afterburn boosting. If the carrier is shot down they will explode dramatically which will damage nearby pilots. The shipment will be dropped in freefall and unless caught will be gone....until a new shipment respawns seconds later at the center node. Deaths result in a static fuel cell loss (counters intentional crashing for missile refill) First to 1k isotope-5 fuel cells wins. Mechanics Fairly self explanatory. Very similar to current WZs but more interesting. anyways those are just some ideas, nothing in stone and I welcome people to comment and criticize. I will note however I thought about a TDM style map however I don't believe it is appropriate because of gunships.

When I first opened this thread I knew this would eventually be related to GW2. With that in mind: wut? GW2 was the most imbalanced game I've ever played, especially WRT to CC mechanics. There were professions that had clearly better CC mechanics than others. Hell, there were professions that would actually stun themselves! (Engineer over charged shot). Not to mention given the generic mechanic of objectives in sPvP professions that had strong knockbacks (Guardians especially) had outrageous node defending advantages. WRT to a DR system, no way. In WoW the contingency of how effective a CC would be based on how recently a player was stunned was silly and created great imbalances between composition synergy. I had to reroll from warlock to play 2's with my best friend (who was a priest) simply because our fears shared DR and put us a huge CC disadvantage compared to comps like warrior druid. Not to mention some shared DRs were illogical (ice trap shared with poly). Without addons that monitored each individual players DRs (which cluttered the hell outta ones UI), we really couldn't predict how effective CCs would be, and the cost of a global is always fairly significant. WIth this in mind, Swtor's resolve system is not bugged, it is good and creative system that lets us know exactly how effective CC will be and when players are vulnerable or not. It is the only system I have played that does keep us from being stun locked because hard stuns (4 sec) fill 75% of the resolve bar, any following stun fills it. Assuming we save our CC breaker appropriately, the longest anyone should be stunned for is 4 or 5 seconds. Which is considerably less than any DR implemented system (a rogue using a Cheap shot / Kidney shot combo for 9 seconds or a destro lock using a fear, shadow blast, skill coil combo for 6+ seconds). Every class in this game has a 4 s stun: knight/warrior statsis/choke, consular/inquisitor force stun/electrocute, Trooper/BH cryro grenade/electro dart, and smuggler/iA dirty kick/debilitate. Every class has a mez (generalized as 8s CC breakable on damage). Sure some classes have 2s stuns, but these are trivial and resolve fillers. To put it simply, no class has a clear stun locking advantage. WRT to CC breakers, I cannot think of another game where everyone is given a free standardized CC breaker without having to sacrifice gear, talents, or active abilities. In WoW we had to give up a trinket slot for our CC breakers. In GW2 we had to spec into CC breakers, which is significant given the minimal amount of active abilities we already had. In SWG we had to talent and armor attachment into anti dizzy, KD, and position changing effects. SWTOR is the only game I've played with true get outta jail free card (besides Monopoly of course). WRT to your argument that after being CC'd we should be immune for 30 or so sec, if we trivialize CC with ridiculous anti CC passives it will really dumb the game down. CC is dire in mmo pvp because it is what separates us from normalized play styles focused purely on rotation to more of a situational style. PvP shouldn't be about DPS races and going cast for cast, it should be about strategy and delivery. TLDR: SWTOR's CC and anti CC mechanics are actually well thought out and more balanced than any other game I've played. Incoming QQ and hate responses.

As one of the die-hards that bum rushed a fully upgraded first ship, now that I am starting upgrading my second ship I can definitely feel your pain. However it is worth noting that players like me are starting to upgrade our second (or hell even third) ships. Sure there are some players who will only fly one, but imo what I love about mmos (and GSF in particular) is the gear/upgrades progression. The beginning is always rough and challenging, but once you get on par it is quite gratifying. Bit of a digression, might still lightweight apply to the topic though. edit: The post above also nails it. GSF certainly has a higher learning curve than ground play and those of us who have logged 100+ matches have a playing advantage because we understand the mechanics and tricks of the trade. In addition we also are experienced with the different components and know which ones are better for respective ships. I wasted a good amount of req on different components for my first ship before I figured out which load out works the best for my play style.

Hey guys, before I go into a couple of suggestions for GSF I just want to note that I really enjoy playing it. Everything about GSF is great in my opinion. Continuing on... 1. Ability to display information text on self and target displays. This would be no different than the ability to display information text on your displays in ground play as provided through the interface editor tool. Reasons are obvious. 2. Slightly reduce concussion missile lock on time or slightly increase damage. I fly a T1 strike fighter and I've found that the conc missile is not on par with the cluster missiles. This is because of a couple of reasons: lock on time, damage, and upgrade trees. The cluster missile upgraded to the double volley puts out about 70-80% of what the concussion missile can deal. Mix that in with considerably lower lock on times and it simply is a superior choice. An argument can be made that the conc missile range is what provides the edge however given the nature of the objective based game play (heavy emphasis on dog fighting around the sats) and the ability to dodge a missile with an active engine ability makes it inferior. 3. Adjust capping satellites. I'm sure I'm not the only one slightly frustrated that one ship can throw on their shield boosts and with decent flying, keep the opposing team from capping even when there are 4 other ships on the sat. Not to mention I'm sure I'm not the only one who does it frequently. My suggestion is that past a 3:1 ratio of fighters on a sat, it starts to slowly cap in the favor of the team with more fighters. 4. Make directional shield easier to control. Currently adjusting between front, end, and normal on a cycle style is just too risky imo. Granted this is a result of the nature of the single button for the shield active ability, however I cannot count the number of times I got lit up because I was cycling through shield directions. Not to mention I don't believe the first upgrade in the tree works... Anyways, these are just suggestions, please don't interpret them as the coming GSF apocalypse lead by the evil Needalight. I recognize that these are my opinions and in a MMO it is important to respect everyone's 2 cents. With that in mind, I would like to open these suggestions to constructive criticism. Cheers.

I'm currently working on my second T1 strike fighter (love to be able to jump between cannons). Here is my current ships load out and my work in progress load out. This is my TZ-24 Enforcer load out: http://dulfy.net/2013/11/16/swtor-galactic-starfighter/?link=dGEAAAERBAUEBAsA9ALqAPQB0AHgAOAC4AHgAeA= This will be my FT-8 load out (work in progress): http://dulfy.net/2013/11/16/swtor-galactic-starfighter/?link=dGEAAAEQAgUEAgcC9ADqAvQB4ALgAuAB4AHgAuA= I'm sure some people might question Guss Tuno as my TZ-24 co-pilot, truth is it is for his commentary

Hi guys, just thought I would share some minor bugs I've experienced so far in GSF. 1. on my TZ-24 Enforcer Ive found that if an orange or black-red color modification is applied on one of the primary weapons it also takes over on the other one. 2. On my FT-8 Star Guard ion cannon sometimes takes precedence over my quad laser cannon aesthetic (small but I like the quad laser cannon look!) 3. Occasionally when holding afterburn (boost) it does not stop once released (potentially a result of latency spiking) 4. strafing locks after being held for a second+ (not sure if this is intentional)

Today I was trying out an ion cannon, rapid fire, cluster missle weapons load out, I found it pretty effective. I've been considering looking into the turning thrusters, would you say they make a noticeable difference?

I'm glad you said that because I'm actually really on the fence over using Heavy vs Ion. Both are sitting at rank 2 upgrades in their respective tree and I can't decide which one to proceed with.

Hey guys, it's been about a week of GSF and I figure might as well start fielding advice on load outs. By Tier 1 I am referring to the FT-8 Star Guard, the F-T6 Rycer, and TZ-24 Enforcer / Gladiator. I currently use the following load out: Primary Weapon 1: Ion Cannon Primary Weapon 2: Rapid-Fire Laser Cannon Secondary Weapon: Concussion Missiles Shield: Quick-Charge Shield Engine: Retro Thrusters Capacitor: Frequency Capacitor Magazine: Regeneration Extender Reactor: Large Reactor Thrusters: Power Thrusters How have you guys been building your Tier 1 Strike fighter? I am curious and open for suggestions.

Good to know, I'm going to try some new key bindings as opposed to the stock set but I'll keep in mind that it is subtle.

So I noticed in my key-bindings menu strafing is bound to shift+w, s,a, & d respectively, however when I use these buttons... nothing happens. Am I missing something?

GS agility while in full stop is completely imba.

When your ship blows up does he scream, "HUDINIIIIIII" ? That would be jawariffic.

... for the other 7 classes that can't have Guss Tuno for a co-pilot. Hashtag best backseat driver ever. "BOOM goes the detonite!"

tyvm, will do. /thread

Hey guys, So far I really enjoy GSF. However I have a bit of an issue with controls due to me running 3 monitors on my computer lined up 2-1-3 (1 being my primary monitor that I display swtor on). In swtor I have noticed that when I drag my cursor past my middle monitor it will continue on to my left monitor or right monitor respectively. This occurs in fullscreen and fullscreen (windowed) modes. This wasn't game breaking in regular swtor play considering most movement and targeting in ground play is done within small mouse movements. However in the heat of a GSF dog fight, I'm moving my mouse as radically as possible. This often results in my cursor going onto my left or right monitor. I guess what I'm looking for is a means of locking my cursor into my swtor client. I know starcraft 2 does this (which is completely necessary for map dragging). Suggestions?

I didn't read pages 2-4 because I'm too lazy. None the less OP clearly doesn't know how to play a sniper/gs. OS/FFB people behind pillars. If that isn't enough to flush them out, go eng/sab and use plasma probe/incendiary grenade. On those 2 moves CD, you can take the fight to him. hightail to gain LOS, legshot to root, hard cast an AS. Or you can stun him. Or you can KB him and root him. Timing all those abilities appropriately should make it so there will be at least one of those abilities available at all times. Truth is it's an uphill battle for other ranged classes to go cast for cast in an free LOS situation. This is even true for snipers and GS who start with less HP or didn't get the opening. If you don't use your environment as damage mitigation against snipers and GS you're gonna have a bad time. This said, snipers and GS are gonna have a bad time if they sit there hoping you decide to pop your head out and /loiter for a couple of seconds while they cast AS, channel speed and interrupt your thunder blast or tracer missile. You must learn how to use your aoe's to flush a target out or nut up and effectively fight in melee range. Sure it isn't as pleasant as free casting on suckers who arn't focus firing you, but as the cliche saying goes: when the going gets tough, the tough get going. TLDR: Sniper and GS are fine, OP needs to buff himself. RAGE QQ INC

bingo; CC is strategy. A stun or mez gives you 75% resolve, a following stun or mez fills it: CC break then. Plenty of classes have means to counter roots and slows. Plenty of classes have means to actively mitigate damage. All classes have interrupts. Some classes have healing reducing abilities. If you don't use these moves correctly, you're gonna have a bad time. Haters gonna hate, lovers gonna love. No one is forcing the haters to play this game. The lovers don't want this game to be dumbed down.

I actually used to switch between SS talent (acc) and the UW hardships frequently. UW hardships really kicks in when you have full ob gear and adds about 1.8k hp for me, which brings me to 32.6k hp. This makes a huge difference in 1v1 situations, holding a node, and tanking a focus fire. It is always a bummer missing aimed shot every now and then, but unless I miss with both pistols it procs trick shot (which is what SS is all about). Not to mention most of the time attacks are mitigated by active deflection abilities. If my hitting the target is make or break, I save illegal mods for the situation. Besides that, as the age old saying goes, I can't do damage when I'm dead. In example, I just got out of an ACW in which I was solo holding mid. A mara and jug come and get on me. I pop wz adrenal, hunker, FFB on myself, illegal mods, and start melting the mara. Hunker and my HP makes smash feel like a wiffle bat, and when ravage comes I dodge. I ended up killing both in a 1v2. Both of them at 30k+ hp. WRT to smoking barrels, I try to keep my charged burst use to a minimum. I primarily only use it to proc trick shot and get stacks of charged aim. However I'm a firm believer in dividing damage by cast time less GCD to get a more accurate value of burst for each attack. I try to avoid hard casting charged burst and only use it when snap shot procs. It is worth noting since I go between cover every 6 or 8 seconds to primarily proc ballistic dampeners, I get that snap shot as well. From my experience, due to a conservative use of charged burst, I do not experience much energy management problems caused by the difference of 20 vs 15 energy cost. Perhaps this is a result of timing Cool Head and Burst Volley appropriately. None the less you raise good points and there are advantages to talenting into SS and smoking barrels.

BTW if you wanna try SS out, here is a link to my build: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700rkbrdRkRrfodzZbcMM.3 I find it pretty effective

Truth is, they're all viable specs, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. If you enjoy DF go with DF, there really isn't a superior GS build.

you guys are over looking the most OP move sorcs have: thrash

Hey guys, I'll keep it short n sweet; has any one else noticed slightly higher latency as of today? I usually sit at 50-75 ms however today I'm jumping between 250-375 ms. I have already reset my router and wireless stuffs. I live in Seattle WA and play on Bastion. Suggestions?

We got way ****in better since launch edit: I would advise reading all the patch notes, cntrl + F gunslinger to make life easy