Frogdogs score!

[Arinon]

I disagree, I think a great deal of thought went into their PvP process.

I don't think a lot of thought went into the PvP gearing process.  The random loot bag approach with booby-prize commendations is pants-on-head retarded.  After about five days of PvP dailies/weeklies I have eight slots Champion'd out but most other people with similar time invested have maybe two with a purchased Centurion piece. 

The win trading on Ilum could have been easily predicted, as could someone using all the damaging consumables available to them.  (Assuming that level of burst isn't something they intend.)  Not to say it isn't going to turn out well but if someone with dev powers is giving PvP serious thought s/he needs to speak up more in meetings.

Totally agree with Nebu though.  Having way more fun than I think I should be. 

[Mazakiel]

I tend to avoid PvP in MMOs, but I find myself enjoying it in TOR.  Though I prefer the other two maps over Huttball. 

[kildorn]

So there's a cute thread out on the swtor forums doing some research into damage and tanking in pvp.

Basically what it found was that almost every attack in the game cannot be dodged/blocked/parried. If it says "____ Weapon Damage", you can shield it, or dodge/deflect it. If it says anything else (kinetic, energy, whatever), it ignores shield chance as well as dodge/deflect.

This is why operatives are dismantling tanks (almost all of their skills are Kinetic), why knights/warriors have a rough time against some classes (almost everything they do is a weapon attack), and also explains why some heroics/FPs absolutely destroy people: the mobs are spamming special attacks, and pretty much ignoring every tank stat you have except Armor.

I'll go ahead and say:  At the very least shielding needs to work against special attacks, at least to proc all the tank on shield/avoidance abilities.

[Fordel]

That would explain so much in PvE. So damn much.

[Sky]

This is why operatives are dismantling tanks (almost all of their skills are Kinetic), why knights/warriors have a rough time against some classes (almost everything they do is a weapon attack), and also explains why some heroics/FPs absolutely destroy people: the mobs are spamming special attacks, and pretty much ignoring every tank stat you have except Armor.

I'll go ahead and say:  At the very least shielding needs to work against special attacks, at least to proc all the tank on shield/avoidance abilities.

As a tank I agree! 

But the Op does Internal on specials, right? Iirc, armor (and avoidance/absorbs) only works on weapon and kinetic. So pretty much any special is going to avoid that anyway, some classes will have an edge over others of course. The BH can deal fire damage, but at a high resource cost, short range and flamethrower is channeled and aoe cone; so one of our better pvp tools isn't great for pvp.

Kinetic not being shielded would explain a lot, for sure. I got tore up by two agent-type silvers last night - actually died once! Second time was pretty damned close, too. Interesting.

[Fordel]

I wonder if that's a bug or by design, because if that's true, as is, it's going to make boss fights either incredibly one dimensional or it's going to make defensive stats virtually useless.


If the important mobs are blowing past all our defensive stats, we might as well be stacking DPS stats, since there isn't any way to stack endu/armor.

[kildorn]

This is why operatives are dismantling tanks (almost all of their skills are Kinetic), why knights/warriors have a rough time against some classes (almost everything they do is a weapon attack), and also explains why some heroics/FPs absolutely destroy people: the mobs are spamming special attacks, and pretty much ignoring every tank stat you have except Armor.

I'll go ahead and say:  At the very least shielding needs to work against special attacks, at least to proc all the tank on shield/avoidance abilities.

As a tank I agree! 

But the Op does Internal on specials, right? Iirc, armor (and avoidance/absorbs) only works on weapon and kinetic. So pretty much any special is going to avoid that anyway, some classes will have an edge over others of course. The BH can deal fire damage, but at a high resource cost, short range and flamethrower is channeled and aoe cone; so one of our better pvp tools isn't great for pvp.

Kinetic not being shielded would explain a lot, for sure. I got tore up by two agent-type silvers last night - actually died once! Second time was pretty damned close, too. Interesting.

Ops do almost entirely Kinetic. Their DoTs are internal. What a lot of Ops (and mercs/commandos) have is a shitload of armor penetration built into their attacks as an extra fuck you to mitigation.

[Threash]

On the other hand i've ran into plenty of tanks in pvp that take 5-6 people beating on them to bring down and it still takes quite a bit of time, i am not sure outright survivability buffs are the answer.

[UnSub]

I wonder if that's a bug or by design, because if that's true, as is, it's going to make boss fights either incredibly one dimensional or it's going to make defensive stats virtually useless.

It certainly sounds like one side of the power development team doesn't know what the other side is doing. Because giving each class a few armour piercing attacks is fine, but making one class mostly AP is a big problem.

[tmp]

Basically what it found was that almost every attack in the game cannot be dodged/blocked/parried. If it says "____ Weapon Damage", you can shield it, or dodge/deflect it. If it says anything else (kinetic, energy, whatever), it ignores shield chance as well as dodge/deflect.

You mean, someone finally took time to read with comprehension what it says in the tooltips for "accuracy", "defense chance" and "shield chance", on the characters attribute sheet?

("weapon damage" are melee/ranged attacks, other types are either tech or force abilities. Only melee/ranged are subject to defense and shield checks. Tech/force is only reduced by passive resistance and armour --though armour doesn't reduce internal/elemental damage-- Having accuracy above 100% means the target suffers reduction of the passive resistance, though, when subjected to tech/force abilities. For melee/ranged accuracy decreases the target's defense score)

[Ingmar]

Yeah I just lectured Kild in IRC about this, but PVE tank stats beyond health not mattering in PVP is same as it ever was.

[Rendakor]

Anyone have any experience as a Powertech in PVP? Looking to know which talents to focus on, I figure the Defense tree is probably the way to go to make earning medals easy, plus so I can FC in Huttball.

[Threash]

go 21/2/18, you waste a couple talents in the dps cylinder but you are basically a tank with great dps.  You gotta be at least 48 to make it work though, before that i had great success as pure pyro. 

[Sky]

So hit 50, decide to pvp a bit to at least start building a set of pvp gear (and learn how to pvp! :))

First match, Alderaan, for the daily mission. We lose by a decent bit (my team always loses), but I rack up 7 medals. Then die just as the warzone ends, it spawns me back at the fleet with no rewards and a repair bill. Awesome start to level 50 pvp. 

[Nebu]

So hit 50, decide to pvp a bit to at least start building a set of pvp gear (and learn how to pvp! :))

First match, Alderaan, for the daily mission. We lose by a decent bit (my team always loses), but I rack up 7 medals. Then die just as the warzone ends, it spawns me back at the fleet with no rewards and a repair bill. Awesome start to level 50 pvp. 

Just wait until you get a few wins in a row and none of them count toward your daily! 

[Nonentity]

Anyone have any experience as a Powertech in PVP? Looking to know which talents to focus on, I figure the Defense tree is probably the way to go to make earning medals easy, plus so I can FC in Huttball.

I run a 26/13/2 hybrid build that gets me Gut, but drops out a lot of the mostly worthless for PVP tank stats (I'm looking at you, shield chance). Dropping a Stockstrike + Gut combo makes them feel a bit worse about themselves. I run the 4-piece DPS PVP set as well, so my Stockstrike crit chance is hovering somewhere around 70%.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GoRrdRroMZMsrMoZb.1

Adjust as you will for BH equivalent. You rarely have ammo issues in PVP, as you're autoattacking a lot anyways to apply the snare.

[Evildrider]

So hit 50, decide to pvp a bit to at least start building a set of pvp gear (and learn how to pvp! :))

First match, Alderaan, for the daily mission. We lose by a decent bit (my team always loses), but I rack up 7 medals. Then die just as the warzone ends, it spawns me back at the fleet with no rewards and a repair bill. Awesome start to level 50 pvp. 

I'm Valor 58 and this has never happened to me and don't know any of my guildies that have been gotten by that bug.  Not saying it doesn't happen, just that it's rare.

Just wait until you get a few wins in a row and none of them count toward your daily! 

This happens the most in Voidstar for me.  In Hutt Ball it usually only happens when you go 6-0.

[Zetor]

So hit 50, decide to pvp a bit to at least start building a set of pvp gear (and learn how to pvp! :))

First match, Alderaan, for the daily mission. We lose by a decent bit (my team always loses), but I rack up 7 medals. Then die just as the warzone ends, it spawns me back at the fleet with no rewards and a repair bill. Awesome start to level 50 pvp.  

I'm Valor 58 and this has never happened to me and don't know any of my guildies that have been gotten by that bug.  Not saying it doesn't happen, just that it's rare.

Happened to me twice so far (valor 41). Seems to happen if you die after getting the 'final warzone heal' when the scoreboard pops up (you're pulled / rooted in acid/fire, die from voidstar fall damage, etc).

[Falconeer]

Hello, I am a DPS Rank 50 Vanguard, and I melt your face. You are welcome.

(was: PvP equip changes everything)

[amiable]

My PvP experiences on Keller's void as a heal specced agent (about 350 expertise) have been pretty bad, Empire here is terrible and I will be lucky to win one out of every 6 or 7 games.  The only game I won last night is when a tank FINALLY decided to throw guard on me.  I basically followed him around the entire match as we wrecked face, holding off 4 or 5 opposing players at a time.  I now am desperately looking for a tank spec guard to play with, it completely changes your play experience as a healer.  (one of the guildees is at 40 and I am begging him to level faster).  Icing on the cake:  I didn't get the credit for the one damn win I had the whole night.

Normal match:  I will heal and and pillar hump until 2 or 3 enterprising opponents realize I am the healer and all go after me simultaneously, I kite for a bit but eventually am beaten down and stand as a target for the rest of the match.  Not a single dps gives me a peel or even attacks the folks who are bashing me, instead they are tunneling some dude over in the corner who is being healed and thus not dying.  I will easily top the healing charts (at least for my side) but not a single player will vote for me for mvp, that distinction going to the asshat who did nothing but farmed the middle and is siting on 350k dps and 3 times as many medals as me.

I am a determined son-of-a-bitch though and I will keep playing until these jackholes get better or they give up and re-roll republic.

[Zetor]

To be fair, playing pug pvp as a healer in any game is always a recipe for frustration - either because it's weak and plagued with UI issues, or because healing won't win a game if your entire team consists of keyboard turners who don't know how to prevent damage with their defensive cooldowns, use interrupts, CC... or their damage is so weak that they can't kill a single target before you OOM.

In SWTOR it's worse than most games, as burst healing is relatively weak and relies on cast time abilities. I have been in games on my sage where I wasn't touched the entire game and kept our entire team going as a steamrolling engine of destruction... but yes, if your opponents are any good you need someone with guard who isn't terrible (knows how the objectives work, uses interrupts, survivability cooldowns and taunts). On my server MVP votes seem to be split between 3 categories:
- most damage
- "active" player / organizer: used ops chat, called out stuff, directed people, protected nodes, etc. This only applies if the game was a win, obviously.
- most healing (I -always- give it to the healer with the most healing because I know that getting medals otherwise as a healer is a huge pita).
This MVP distribution is fine for me as a tank - I sometimes get MVPs from the first two categories - since tanks have it easy when it comes to medals.

[Nebu]

Playing a healer in a pug in ANY pvp game is a nightmare.  Nobody ever peels for you, few will guard, and fewer will keep line of sight in mind. 

On the bright side, most people playing SWTOR haven't learned that their class has interrupts or what a healer looks like.  I've been in matches where 6 people will beat on a tank while the healer sits in the background keeping him alive.  It's humorous.

[Threash]

I always give it to the most healing, unless i am close to him using just my medpacks.

[amiable]

Playing a healer in a pug in ANY pvp game is a nightmare.  Nobody ever peels for you, few will guard, and fewer will keep line of sight in mind. 

The funny thing is that I play with my wife sometimes, who is sitting right next to me as I heal her (she is an SI) and even she doesn't do these thing.  "Peel, PEEL!"  "What's a peel hon?  Look, I'm top of the damage meters!"

[Sky]

How is one to learn without a teacher?

[amiable]

How is one to learn without a teacher?

Part of it is that, part of it is that this games UI and key bindings are very difficult for left handers.  I lot of the shift and alt keys do not work with numberpad for some reason.  As a result she can really only effectively use a toolbar full of skills as switching toolbars or clicking are a bit of a pain.

Also, I prefer having a healthy marriage over the "You see you are doing this all wrong honey..." speech.

[Nebu]

Question:  How is population balance on Shien server?  I want to level a Republic toon to 50 and it would be fun to kill you guys in the warzones.

Any of you playing Republic side anywhere?

[eldaec]

Ingmar has a guild on the republic side.

Empire plays huttball all the fricking time so I assume queues will be short for the republic. I haven't seen any shortage of pve players around my (low level) rep alts.

[Sky]

Question:  How is population balance on Shien server?  I want to level a Republic toon to 50 and it would be fun to kill you guys in the warzones.

Any of you playing Republic side anywhere?

I just started playing my newb JC a couple nights ago. We could group for an hour before you blaze past me. Took me three nights to make level 10 :)

[Zetor]

So apparently in the 1.1 Ilum you get valor for killing turrets in the enemy base. The turrets respawn quickly. They are also on top of the Rep/Imp spawn points (that they are supposed to protect).

Given the population imbalance, the obvious result is Republic characters getting permanently corpse camped at the spawn point while the Imps rack up the valor super-quick with a zerg: http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/9164/ilum1j.jpg
Free Battlemaster in 2 hours, as long as you're imperial*. Woo!
edit: video from the Bloodworthy  server here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL0kDP_Cexo#t=9s


* yeah, this probably works the other way around in republic-heavy servers... if there are any.

[Threash]

Those towers are no joke actually, one of them is mowing several raids worth of imps on my server with only small repub support.

[Ingmar]

I'm not sure any of us besides Fordel and proudft are ever PVPing, but I could be wrong. I keep meaning to try it but getting distracted by alts and crafting.

[Fordel]

I'm not sure any of us besides Fordel and proudft are ever PVPing, but I could be wrong. I keep meaning to try it but getting distracted by alts and crafting.

I probably won't PvP anything serious for another month or two yet, let all the Illum nonsense settle and get some more 50's going for it.


Maybe some low level Warzones for the level 40 gear again. I really like matching armor.

[Sjofn]

How is one to learn without a teacher?

Part of it is that, part of it is that this games UI and key bindings are very difficult for left handers.  I lot of the shift and alt keys do not work with numberpad for some reason.  As a result she can really only effectively use a toolbar full of skills as switching toolbars or clicking are a bit of a pain.

Also, I prefer having a healthy marriage over the "You see you are doing this all wrong honey..." speech.

There are ways to explain what peeling is without being a mansplaining dipshit, though. I have faith in you. 

The other part (it not being lefthanded friendly) is the price you pay for marrying a mutant.

[Ingmar]

Speaking as a left handed person, people who use their mouse with their left hand are crazy.