In the same way that being unemployed and having no life shouldn't be a requirement to play WZs competitively (grinding your way to full WH--just so you can be on a level playing field gear wise), having to be in a guild, let alone an active PvP guild with 3+ players on the same time as you shouldn't be a a requirement to play WZs. The fact that WZs are completely broken in SWTOR is not up for debate, and hasn't been for a long time. The only ongoing debate at this point is how & when EA/BW plan to fix it.

<class A> is OP! <class B> takes skill to play and needs to be buffed! Fill class parameters at random, post repeatedly in all forums.

That's not a paradox, that's the difference between regular/casual players and angry 13 year olds with low-self esteem and no life that have nothing better to do than grind grind grind and grief grief grief.

The thing these kiddies don't understand is that when those 1.5 mil "casuals" un-sub (or leave the game when f2p) that SWTOR dies and they turn off the servers. War-Zones weren't made just for the 5% of the players with low self-esteem that think it's "fun" to make premades of fully augmented WH-gear players and boot-stomp fresh 50s in recruit gear all day long. EA/BW can either fix pvp to make it enjoyable for the 95% of players that are "casuals" or they can keep it the way it is now and watch as the playerbase & revenue continue to decline at an ever-increasing rate.

Agreed.

At first this tangent may appear to be off-topic, but I think you actually nailed the heart of the problem: as time goes on SWTOR is becoming more and more like warcraft--even to the point of repeating mistakes warcraft made instead of learning from (and avoiding) them. I'd love to see the EA/BW VP that said "Forget fixing the hundreds of bugs that are killing the player experience, let's give them PANDAS--er, I mean--CATHAR! For the HORDE--er, I mean--EMPIRE!" I would bet money that in 12 months the only people playing SWTOR will be the same unemployed, "I have no life" kids (of any age) that have zero social skills, the maturity of a 12 year old (and the education level to match) that plagued and finally took over warcraft like maggots on a rotting corpse. ...and then EA will scratch their heads, wonder why they're still losing money & players...

Your opinion is hereby invalidated again. The only value your argument has is that it (ironically) lists everything that is wrong with pvp, simply proving OP's point--yet again.

There's a reason they now call refer to warzones as "stunzones"...

I think it's funny (in a sad way) that BW now breaks stuff with every patch.

Amen. One day I hope BW makes PvP about skill and not gear. (What a novel concept...)

Go into your ship and view all the holo-logs...your "helper" (from lvl 10 or so) has many messages that again leave you begging for the next chapter in this story.

Anyone else find it humorous & ironic that the same people that say it's all about skill and not gear, are the same ones that foam at the mouth when you mention narrowing the stat gap between recruit/BM/WH sets?

"I did the incredibly long boring grind, so everyone else should too" is not a valid argument. If anything it just proves my point: if it feels like a grind, then it's broken. BW can fix it, or they can watch as players quit and move on to other games with less or no grind.

I deliberately excluded that and the many other problems with PVP because I thought they'd cloud the issue even more. I agree 100% with you though, and that's been my experience too: as soon as people on the losing team see the differences in gear they start quitting--which just makes it that much more lopsided. And as someone who's on the winning side of things too, it's boring as hell to queue up for a WZ just to have the other team start quitting to the point they have 5 or less players and the match ends (automatic win).

A lot of players don't get this...and they never will. Some players compensate and invest their self-worth into a video game. (Yes, I said video game.) They then feel upset and resentful when they perceive someone not "working" as hard as they did--as if playing a video game is about work and not having fun! It's really quite pathetic.

Fact is... being unemployed shouldn't be a requirement for playing an MMO.

Disable the option of changing gear once you've queued for a warzone. Problem solved.

Warzones have (for the most part) become nothing but a Slot Machine; you pull the lever, cross your fingers and then as the queue finally pops it's determined if you win or lose--all before the game has even begun. There are only 3 possibilities when queuing for a warzone now: 1) WH wearing premades vs Fresh 50s in Recruit gear 2) WH wearing premades vs WH wearing premades 3) Fresh 50s in Recruit gear vs Fresh 50s in Recruit gear The first possibility happens about 90% of the time (with the other two comprising the other 10%). 90% of the time I queue up for a warzone the outcome is already decided before the game starts and is determined simply by which team has the better gear. The difference in stats between augmented War Hero and Recruit gear completely trumps any difference in skill between the players & teams. 90% of the warzones are decided by gear and not skill. This is not fun. In response to the inevitable accusations that this is merely crying on my part because I'm a fresh 50 in Recruit gear with no clue how to play and no guildies to make premade groups with, I say, it's not fun on either side of the equation. When I queue up with guildies in a premade and we face a team of fresh 50s in Recruit gear, we faceroll over them--it's boring and doesn't require any skill. This is not fun for the losers--this is not fun for the winners. There are a few steps BW could take to fix this (though I doubt they will): - Decrease the huge stat difference between War Hero and Recruit. It's ridiculous. If you want to grind pvp to obtain better gear, that's fine, but decrease the stat difference so it's not so absurdly huge. - Match equal geared teams. Disallow players to change gear during a match, and then match teams based upon gear ratings. In short, if BW has any interest in improving PVP they need to make it less a slot machine where the outcome is based upon gear, and instead a competition between two equally matched teams where teamwork and skill will be the sole criteria of who wins and who loses.

7? Most of the WZs I play in we only have 6 people on our team.

I haven't tried it yet, but since "burning" is elemental damage, would the elemental damage on proc relic benefit from the other talents (including self-healing)? Doubt it would add a lot of damage/healing--I'm just curious.

If everything is on cooldown, then yes I've got nothing to do but spam slash until something finally comes off cooldown.

That's how I feel about Focus too; I'm flooded with focus--which going back to the original poster's complaint I would like to use Zen for something other than a quick 4-stack of Singularity. Between throwing Force Exhaustion or Force Stasis on someone I don't find myself needing help getting stacks of Singularity either. Zen isn't necessarily "broken" for Focus builds, but it's utility is very lackluster. Something like increasing armor penetration X% for Y number of attacks would have been nice...

I think both Combat & Watchman are viable, all the buff to focus did in my opinion was bring up equal to the others. I think Watchman will still be the easiest spec for solo'ing PVE content. At the end of the day though just play the spec you enjoy the most.

"This team isn't good enough to carry me to a win, so I'm rage-quitting." I despise cry-babies that only want to be carried much more than a pug full of casual players.

Personally, the only real competitor I see SWTOR having is WoW, so I would assume any decision for SWTOR to move to F2P would be in anticipation or mirroring WoW's move to the same. Sure there are plenty of F2P MMOs out there now, but I think the percentage of SWTOR players that has any interest in them is probably in the single digits. I could be biased though because I think BW hit a homerun with the server transfers and I'm having the most fun I've ever had playing the game.