All in all I'm disappointed by the change. The nice thing about Re-Usables was you could, eventually, stop doing Biochem. This matched other professions where you don't have to constantly keep crafting to enjoy their benefits. You could keep doing Biochem and selling the results for money, but you didn't have to just like other professions. With the new system I'm pretty much forced to constantly run Diplomacy missions trying for crits for Purples (which half the time give that stupid Cybertech mount). In 12 hours yesterday working up Diplo to 500 and continuing after I only got 6 purple items for use. That makes 6 med packs per. Talking about stims that have a 480 minute duration is great but medpacks get used much quicker by comparison. This forces me to use blue stims instead meaning I can only fully take advantage of my profession some of the time. All in all it feels like it's far better for me to simply throw Biochem and Bioanalysis on an alt and keep Diplomacy on my main since there's really little to no benefit to staying Biochem anymore on my main.

I have a tankasin and it's pretty good. The class just has the right mix of survivability and enough damage (especially after Expertise healing nerf) to pretty much take anyone I need to on out and survive if things get hairy. I don't find it ridiculously OP and find most of it's damage burst revolves around the guaranteed Shock crit and all the boosts to Shock (Chain Shock, etc). That said I look at the history of these forums and it's not hard to tell it's going to get nerfed alongside Marauders. Everyone whined holy hell about Operatives and they got an axe taken to them. Everyone whined about Tracer Missile/Grav Round and it got nerfed. Everyone whined about healers being too strong and heals got nerfed. Just going to be a matter of time at this point of when they do the big nerfs to Sin damage and Marauder defense. It doesn't matter whether or not you agree whether or not those are problems they're simply the latest thing people whine about.

My favorite part is people keep suggesting to just Purge their DOTs as if any other class other than a Sorc could remove the DOTs. Both Mercs and Operatives are Tech/Phys and Mental if heal spec'd.

You do realize that Sorcs are really the only class that can reliably remove Force dots right? So your advice to beat a Sorc is to play a Sorc?

See this is why I went Combat Medic (full heal spec with DPS gear in 2 piece Columni rest PvP gear for 15% crit with Power Shot). The healing spec really does make you into a Juggernaut of defense that rarely loses 1v1 (and that's usually a gear issue). I almost never run into anyone I can't turn the fight around on by just turtling up defensively with heals then once I'm comfortable and back in control of the fight start pressing offense with Power Shot. Supercharge gives me 10 seconds of zero cost Power Shots which when combined with a Power Adrenal and Power Relic hit EXTREMELY hard. Marauders generally are easy to kill, but there's always 1-2 out there who are pretty good and can pressure you full time into staying defensive. I had one guy who was very good and even knew what to expect (IE: Supercharged Gas combo above) and knew to pop his dodge maneuver when I did it. They are fairly rare however and most are a joke to kill. The same goes for Operatives now that they hit like a wet noodle most of the time. Big key with both classes is to use your dispel to remove bleeds/burns/poisons which significantly reduces their damage output. Honestly I am surprised we don't see more whines about combat medics. I regularly top DPS and Healing meters and always get 8-9 medals a game almost always with 25+ kills and under 5 deaths (especially Huttball). It's always funny tho watching these threads complaining about Tracer Missiles when they don't even know the real power of the Combat Medic

The only thing I kinda consider OP about Tracer Missiles is it's damage type. Because it's a special attack, all those defensive moves against regular attacks are pointless against it. Like a Jedi can pop all those fancy defensive cool downs but it means nothing. Or those Snipers who sit in Cover and think they can dodge a special attack, super awesome. That's half the reason to spam the attack, because Power Shot/Unload/Rail Shot can all be deflected/dodged/covered but Tracer Missile can't. Otherwise the damage numbers itself really aren't all that much higher than other spammable attacks on other classes. People complaining about it just ain't making a very convincing argument.

It's not really the tools but rather the combination of their tools that makes the package ridiculous. The shield really isn't that overpowered for example. It'll eat a good chunk of damage/hit and has a fairly decent debuff timer preventing it from being spammed. All in all, a fairly balanced tool that has it's benefits and detriments. HOWEVER...when you take that tool and combine it with their Sprint tool now we got a class who can absorb pretty much any attack in the game and the ability for them to move faster than anyone else in the game giving them pretty much invulnerability in the combination. It would be one thing if they were slow and defensive OR speedy and vulnerable but the combination of the two is simply ridiculous.

I don't really get what the problem is. Arsenal spec is mostly tracer spam, but it's the same for every other class in the game. As Power Tech you mostly spam Flame Burst/Rocket Punch. Sorc you spam Force Lightning. DPS classes in the game is going to be spamming one thing or another unless all their abilities have cool downs (IE: Concealment Operative). The same goes for Merc as Tracer is your filler when Rail/Unload/Heatseekers are all on cool down. Even then the only main reason to keep using Tracer Missile as your filler beyond the procs is the fact that it's yellow damage meaning it's not subject to deflects/dodges/cover/etc. Later on in Arsenal (at your level you should be around there) you'll be regularly firing off Unloads when they proc Barrage. Even then really most of the things you end up taking on are multiple groups anyways which you usually end up relying on Death From Above or Fusion Missile/Sweeping Blasters anyways. It is true that I found the BH quests to be pretty elite intensive, but just the same there's always plenty of packs to AOE. Personally I found later levels (40+) much easier as a "combat medic" healer spec (25 in Bodyguard, rest into Arsenal) however even with Mako out. With Kolto Shell Mako was actually effective enough to keep me alive which without she sometimes wasn't. Since most of the things you encounter are still AOE, none of your AOE got any really less effective and you can still easily single target elites down with Power Shot as you could with Tracer Missile. I liked Mako because she was the only one who usually wouldn't die if a few things got on her since she could heal herself without me keeping tabs on her (which I had to constantly heal up Gault which I found annoying). And quite frankly skipping all the quests/bonus missions/etc is usually a horrendously bad idea. Mobs who are 4+ levels than you have a HUGE chance to evade attacks and always will hit you. When I leveled up my Merc I always cleared out each planet's missions/bonus series before going on (skipped most of the Flashpoints). I had to do Hoth at 45 (almost grey) because that's just how far ahead of the system I was. I still have never done the regular quests on Voss or Corellia lol...

I don't even get why people are complaining. After hitting 50 in the new bracketed warzones I can tell you right now I would have LOVED this system. My first weeklies and dailies were nothing but 3 Centurion Commendations (10 bags, nothing but 30 Centurion Commendations). I had one piece of Centurion gear going up against guys with full Champion for a full week that was nothing but pure misery. Comparatively in this new system I would have had 150 Centurion Commendations. That's 5 pieces of PvP gear (2 implants, 1 head, 1 offhand, 1 set piece) which translates to roughly 200 Expertise rating (around 5% PvP damage/heal/reduction) to start out with compared to the whooping 40 (around 1%). That doesn't even begin to count the 70 Champion Tokens too. You're mad if you think this is a poor or bad system. I'd much rather get 15 Cent, 7 Champ commendations than the FOUR duplicate helmets while still needing multiple pieces of Champion gear.

I play a sage and I have died in warzones therefore the class is balanced. (PS: I almost never die)

2 piece Columni (healing or dps...personally I prefer the 2 piece Eliminator as a combat medic) rest PVP gear I find works best.

Been loving this Mercenary. Operatives tickle me now and haven't lost 1v1 to one yet. They nerf that I'll make a sorc. It's pretty easy to level and don't really buy into the whole "fotm" garbage that people go on about.

Pretty much this. 1. CC is ridiculous in this game. They regularly talk about "epic" game play by there's nothing epic about being stunned for 4s then stunned again for another 4s before you're finally immune to CC (or being knocked around 4 times). It's the same BS that went on in WAR without good immunity timers. 2. They mentioned doing a point value system for class balance (IE: Each skill has a value) which rarely takes into account the tool set. While individually each tool in the set might not seem overpowered, when combined with the other tools they play off each other and become stronger as a result. We saw it with Bright Wizards/Disciples in WAR, and we're seeing it with Sorcs/Mercs here in SWTOR. 3. Where's the AGAINST ALL ODDS buff from WAR? That was enough to keep people fighting even when they were hopelessly outnumbered. Not having this in pretty much guarantees Ilum will never be worth the time.

Only time I feel pressured on my Merc healing is during AOE fights because Kolto missiles only hit 3 people leaving me to fill in the gaps with single target heals. The fact that Sorcs get a heal that hits everyone in range is pretty crazy by comparison (with the numbers they're putting out with it hard to imagine it won't get nerfed in a future patch). Single target wise though we're strong as hell. We can always keep +5% healing (Kolto) and 10% armor boost (rapid scan) on a target. We can pop out huge burst healing as well. My question is how did you come to the stat breakdown of crit vs surge vs alacrity vs power?

Juking is really only good against someone you know for a fact is interrupting you repeatedly. Also you have to memorize most of the interrupt rates, for example a Warrior/Knight's interrupts are on a 8s cool down with a 4s lockout while an Inquisitor is on a 12s cool down and 4s lockout. In addition, most of the interrupts aren't readily noticeable except the Agent one (which is a dust cloud on you) so you can't even tell if they really used it. This is not to say it's impossible to juke, only that the game mechanics certainly make it much harder than other games. I'm heal spec'd but when people interrupt my Power Shot Barrages I usually just turtle up then really punish them by by completely healing anything they've done to me during those 4 seconds. That said a lot of people save their interrupts expecting us to try to just heal when we get low so I find I rarely get interrupted while casting my nukes.

Sorc tool set is pretty ridiculous for both healing and DPS. For all the complaints I ever saw about Operatives I never saw nearly 1/3rd the amount of Operatives that there are Sorcerers. Thankfully rerolling takes no time at all in this game (2-3 weeks tops) so remaking into a Sorc is no problem at all. Eventually so many of us will make Sorcs they'll have no choice but to nerf

Bad players are bad. Between an Assassin and Sentintel are you telling me neither one of them would interrupt the one skill he was using over and over? Neither tried to stun or CC in any way? Really this video just highlights the point people are trying to make about Tracer Missile, people don't even use the counters that they do have to counter the ability. How can you really fault the class if people refuse to use the abilities of their own?

Right click the PvP icon and Leave Warzone

This would be like someone complaining about Sorcs doing nothing but Force Lightning

Deserter debuffs do nothing effectively. If you're going to lose a game, usually that's going to be around 15 minutes of your time wasted anyways. Take for example Huttball where one side 5 caps in the first 3 minutes then farms for the next 12 minutes. A 10-15 minute deserter debuff basically just gives 10-15 minutes to spend doing something productive rather than waste my time still and solves nothing. Now lets say you make it longer, like 30-120 minutes or something, and people will just mostly afk through games. Every 2 minutes they'll come out of the starting area, die, and pop back up and you still lose. You can whine, gnash teeth, but all redesigning the system will do is ultimately change nothing for them and you'll punish those who might leave for legitimate reasons (solo queue instead of group queue, friend just gets on and wants to queue, etc).

Why are you pretending that this is all being done completely from scratch with no input on the matter. There are NUMEROUS examples of what has been done already. Even if you strive for something that has never been done before, you are at least aware of what has been done before (and whether or not it's worked or not). Claiming ignorance when you have a 200 MILLION DOLLAR game budget and really think they were ignorant in their game design decisions is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard The truth is they made a lot of assumptions with their systems. They assumed people would fight for control over Ilum objectives. They assumed people would want to farm for valor. Now again they assumed they would fight over the Armaments. They need to stop making these ridiculous assumptions and start making sensible changes: 1. Give reasons for people to keep fighting in Ilum once their daily is done. You could really go on for hours on methods and ways to do this, but this is one of the biggest problems with Ilum currently. Once your weekly/daily is done, you are done. 2. Give Valor a meaning besides just hitting rank 60 if you're going to use it as your motivating factor. Renown worked in WAR because there was more than just a gear rank to hit. It also meant extra points, extra talent points, etc. While those ideas may not work for SWTOR, other rewards and incentives need to keep driving players to go after farming Valor (again, especially if you want it to be your motivating incentive to PvP). I mean really we could go on all day with numerous ways and methods to fix the system, but really it's up to them whether or not they're going to do something about it. I'm willing to give them some time and the benefit of the doubt, but I've certainly heard "Coming soon!" far too often out of MMO developers before.

I usually give game companies a few months to pull their act together. Most of the time when a game gets released it's not really the game developer's decision but a decision of the parent company looking to reap rewards on their investments (In this case, EA). That said I can't see myself staying subscribed after month 2 if they don't fix some of the issues. Ilum is a complete disaster. No one thinks it's fun either fighting your own faction for armaments or camping outside the Republic base farming up kills as each side plays literally "Red rover" and pulls kills into each side. The solutions are simple and have been implemented by their sister company Mythic for ages. I like most of the Warzones, especially Huttball, but playing Huttball over and over and over and over and over and over...is making it get old. It's design also highlights the advantages of certain classes (specifically Sorcs) who have tools that are invaluable for the style of map. I hear a new map is coming out in the future so hopefully that will fix this, but again there's a wealth of ideas from Mythic's WAR for Scenarios and good ideas for warfronts there. We'll see if they can deliver on some of the stuff they're talking about, but we've all seen that song and dance before throughout the last few years with games.

Actually a faction imbalance is entirely Bioware's fault. First of all, faction imbalance is nothing new and it's been plaguing faction vs faction games since they came out for years. You're not going to convince anyone with half a brain they designed this game in a closed room and never did any kind of research. The fact that they don't address it in any manner is really all on them for poor design. Second of all, they (Electronic Arts) have a whole other company in their family called Mythic that has been dealing with large scale faction vs faction combat for years. Here is a very, very valuable source of information and methods of how they handled large scale combat and what does and doesn't work. From objective based world PvP to scenarios/warzones/battlegrounds there's a wealth of knowledge that they could have tapped at any time. Finally even failing all that they still had their own wealth of server data and information to pull from both beta as well as nearly a month of live data. They can easily setup server logs on how many people go out to Ilum, complete the daily quest, etc. They can see with truthful facts just how badly the factions are really imbalanced and choose what plans to implement. People have been saying for weeks that farming people will be a disaster with how imbalanced the factions are and they need to find a different solution. Bullheaded they plowed forward. There's really no one to blame here except Bioware. Personally I'd rather they either take the time and do it right or not do anything at all. If you're going to do a job, do it right. All they're doing with these knee jerk reactions and quick fixes is pissing people off.

All these "jetpack on my back!!!!11" comments are hilarious. You realize that anything they give to one mirror they will need to give to the other mirror (Commando in this case) which what will they get? I like the idea of a blink, or leap, but could lead to some questionable scenarios. For example a lot of the game's environments are not designed for this kind of mechanic. Could lead to some sort of potential exploit within the environment that may not be seen or thought of currently. The rules of blink in WOW for example are fairly finite (must have a direct path to the target area) which may not be easy to implement in this game. A more simpler truth is that I've almost never seen a thread like this really go anywhere. You could come up with the most bomb diggity idea of all time for a class that would be perfectly balanced and easily to implement but at the end of the day it's up to the Devs. You're better off posting scenarios that you're having trouble in, waiting for a dev response (see if that's intended, designed, or needs fixing) and then decide what to do (wait it out, reroll, quit the game). Kinda glad their first patch was devoid of any knee jerk reactionary nerfs/buffs. We'll see if they can keep it up.

My alt is a Merc so I can take a break and just spam Tracer/Unload/Railshot.