I know this is just the beginning of hopefully a really big balance pass... I would really like to see where these changes are coming from. What are the thoughts from the devs behind these changes? What are they basing this on? I'm assuming they've moved beyond the whole stop watch thing to test DPS... right? All that being said: 1. Concentration nerf probably still isn't going to be enough to knock them off their pedestal of being insanely OP for the level of difficulty associated with the spec. It's a brainless rotation that packs a huge punch and can be adjusted on a whim to deal high ST burst or high AOE burst. 2. Defensive Roll change is dumb. An offensive raid cooldown like Inspiration isn't used to absorb damage... so tying the 30% DR to it just doesn't make any sense to me. Considering most uses of Inspiration are on the pull of a boss fight, where DTPS isn't an issue and it's even more confusing. Did you want to remove it outright but were afraid of pushback so you just stuck it with Inspiration? 3. Combat buffs seem good on paper. I don't play Combat but I know it's in the gutter now and needs to be brought up to a point where it's burst is good enough to take it over Concentration for burst fights. 4. The removal of Defensive Roll from Concentration is also weird... and how it was replaced is bad. Changing the passive to just be a reduction of focus costs makes the passive itself somewhat weak in general. Not a huge deal, just odd. 5. Focus changes are somewhat aligned with Concentration nerfs... probably not enough but needed of course. 6. Gunnery and Assault buffs are desperately needed. Mando and Merc DPS is absolute garbage right now... and any little bit will help. Hopefully these buffs are enough to bring them back to a point where they aren't seen as a handicap in the DPS meters. 7. Dirty Fighting nerf is lame.... it was pretty much the best sustained rDPS spec right now (as it should be...) but I wouldn't consider it OP at all. Why nerf this when there are plenty of other rDPS specs that are in the toilet? 8. Sab buffs... good I guess. I don't play Sab at all but a buff is a buff. Have we ever received word from the devs on where they think DPS should be? What is the ceiling? What is the floor? I'm not sure these initial changes will help the fact that some boss fights themselves are insanely overtuned for DPS checks in Heroic. Can we expect some changes to boss fights? Off the top of my head, I can tell you that HM Styrak from SnV and HM Tanks from EC need nerfs as the DPS checks are way out of whack. My biggest thing is... I just want to know what everything is being compared to and where would the line be?

Hey Jackie, do you all need video and/or combat logs to assist?

I'm very sad to be reading this. I was really hoping for a skip right up to the beginning of 7.0 for the rest of my alts.

I suspect any more than two would be a logistical nightmare, coding wise. Two is fine.

As someone who plans to raid and therefore have an easier time to get access to the moddable gear... I wholeheartedly agree that removing all of that seems wrong. I suspect at a later patch, when crew skills are upped, moddable gear will return but removing it straight up is a questionable choice. All the gear that will now appear on these vendors is going to be confusing and a huge mess with tertiary stats once you start upgrading stuff. Time will tell I guess.

BioWare out here taking away our fun before we can do it!

Yeah, this is a huge nuisance. I have gone the route of using Loadout 1 as my "building" loadout. I always use it to make a new Loadout and save the new Loadout to an empty slot.

Yeah it sucks we're losing things... but there's no way they're going to scrap the idea now. BioWare has made drastic changes to characters and classes multiple times and has always stuck to their guns. I'm mostly curious to see how these changes affect the highest tier of PvE... and if they re-tune the Ops to take into account all these changes, then it'll be fine. I know it's a terrible example but running around on my Sentinel and Commando on the PTS doing heroics and such, things melted just as easily as they do in 6.x.

I'm a fan of the extra combat style for every character. That's really awesome. The Loadouts are a welcomed addition too, albeit a bit clunky right now. Being unable to respec in your phase though... that's dumb.

The artificial lengthening of the abilities you pick up makes leveling at super low levels excruciating. Force Melt isn't until level 23 whereas in 6.x it's at level 10. Basically you wait around 10 extra levels for all your discipline-only abilities and are left spamming filler nonsense in the meantime. At max, sure it's fine... but that's max. I'm happy the chance of me actually starting a new character at level 1 come 7.0 is essentially null. However I feel bad for people who like creating new toons often and I feel really bad for anyone coming to the game for the first time.

They made Force Camo baseline for Sentinels. Now your choices are Guarded by the Force, Blade Blitz, and Force Stasis.

I just want to comment that having a threat drop and the raid wide mastery buff be actual choices instead of baseline is really poor design.

I just want to comment that having a threat drop and the raid wide Alacrity buff be actual choices instead of baseline is really poor design.

I haven't read through the entire thread, so I apologize if others have already said this. But... why oh why do mirror combat styles not have the choices in the same locations?? You guys did this with the utility system and it always drove me nuts. What am I talking about? For example.... Sentinel vs Marauder. Level 27 choices: Sentinel has (left to right): Critical Melt, Juyo Melt, Melting Center Marauder has (left to right): Juyo Rend (Juyo Melt), Draining Center (Melting Center), Critical Bleeds (Critical Melt) Level 43 choices: Sentinel has (left to right): Force Fracture, Flaming Wave, Cauterizing Focus Marauder has (left to right): Blood Wave (Flaming Wave), Force Fracture, Rupturing Rage (Cauterizing Focus) Level 60 and 73 choices also don't match. Just make them match please!

As others have stated, there are some issues with Loadouts right now, mainly that if you start playing around with your character and switch anything, it automatically overwrites your current Loadout. The workaround is to create a dummy Loadout that you use to create actual Loadouts.... for example, I made Loadout 1 called "Building" and I switch to it before I start making a new Loadout. I'll then save that new Loadout to a free slot and start over. Ideally, Loadouts never save without the person actively choosing to save it or at least some kind of warning. As others have stated, I really think you should do something about not being able to respec within Operations. I can understand the GF aspect of this but groups who literally walk into the ops should be able to swap freely. I should be able to swap from Sentinel to Sage for RDPS on some bosses without having to leave the operation first. Just my two cents. Or, if your tank/healer leaves... now someone has to run out to swap to tank/healer so the group can continue on. Currently, you can just respec. If I overlooked something and this actually is doable, I apologize.