Frogdogs score!

[Threash]

My bounty hunter looks like some sort of retarded space orc, while leveling i had bad ass blue mandalorian armor. 

[Fordel]

The Trooper PvP suit would be fine if they just removed the decorative rockets/spoiler/wing on the shoulder and toned that backpack down some.

[Nevermore]

The Shadow PvP set makes them look like homeless people.

[Khaldun]

Yet another thing I don't understand not being standard at this point: allowing people to use the appearance of any gear item they've acquired to express the stats of gear they've upgraded to.

[eldaec]

The thing I don't understand is programming such a system in, then taking it out again for no appreciable reason.

[Falconeer]

What's depressing is that basically the PvP gear looks the same (or very close to the same) across the 3 tiers. The differences are so laughable you really wonder how lazy were the artists or how small (probably not small at all) was the budget for arts.

Let's face it, I remember complaining about the graphics (among a million other things) during the beta only to be told that whatever it was just my taste and it doesn't really matter. What I believe instead is that a MMORPG, something you spend hours and hours everyday for weeks if not months only to impove your virtual self of a digit or a pixel, is a sum of many parts, and among those parts there are lots of tiny rewarding elements that can be discounted in the grand crush that we experience at launch, but gets to feel really shitty once the honeymoon phase is over.

So not only the grind for the PvP gear is not fun because it has to be done only in Warzones for the most part (as it's better to pretend Ilum doesn't exist considering how pathetically imlpemented it is), which is bad cause you can't organize your game with friends since you are forced to play with random monekys, but finally working your way through the tiers (before the changes, so hard hard hard!) feels utterly disappointing when you realize that you look quite horrid, and you don't get any significant visual cue of the fact that you "achieved" something. I've been a Battlemaster Vanguard for a while now, and I am so so tempted to just get Champion gear from other classes and just mix and match mods and enhancements to create my own unique looking clownshoes PvP outfit. I already have a friend who plays a Jedi Knight with a troooper looking armour. I guess that's the way to go, damn you Bioware.

Is this a major issue? No, just the one at hand, and one of those "tiny elements" that constitute my overall satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a given game.

My beef with SWTOR is huge, and travels across many planes. The majority of which I mentioned before it was even launched and it's not changed at all, actually it got worse considering how disappointing Ilum and open PvP is, something I couldn't check in beta. There's no way to explain how much of a wasted opportunity this is, how many great things they could have done with PvP and how bad they failed so far. Hard not to ask yourself "what the hell were they thinking at Bioware?".

On another note, I've been toying around with Tera beta in the last few days. This is not new, but hell, feels like there's about ten years of developing and technology (and talent) between one game and the other. Considering SWTOR is probably the biggest budget MMORPG coming out in the West in the last few years, I rest my case about what a low quality product it really is, and how we, the MMO players, sometimes would play anything if we are starved enough and silly enough. Oh, I ranted.



FAKE EDIT: Since I spew so much loathe on SWTOR all the time, I want to celebrate here the ONLY thing I thank the Bioware devs for and I hope will be present in every future MMORPG. The resolve bar. Being able to see if an enemy player is immune to Crowd Control and for how long is just brilliant and awesome. This is seriously something I am grateful to SWTOR for, and I know I will have lots of problems in the future with any game without it. Everything else? Terribly sub par, terribly underwhelming, terribly uninspired, terribly disappointing.

[Falconeer]

And since we are talking about it, I don't usually care about class balance. Neither I think this is a problem of class balance, more like an oversight on class potentials and roles.
I am sure many are going to disagree with this statement, and I can't prove it, but reality is that all you need to win PvP warzones is a team of just Sith Sorcerors and Mercenaries. (Theoretically Jedi Sages and Commandos are the same thing even though as we all know there are some subtle discrepancies between the two factions).

So can I prove such claim? No, and there's no way to prove anything when it comes to this things, neither this nor the opposite. But it's obvious enough that both classes have access to an insane amount of utilities combined with ridiculous damage and crazy survivability.

Extreme long range? Check on both classes.
Extremely high DPS? Check on both classes.
Self heal? Check on both classes.
Shields? Check on both classes.
Situational immunity to interrupts? Check on both classes.
Knockback and snare stuff to keep enemies away? Check on both classes.

And channeled spell that takes away insane chunks of HP _while_ snaring from 35 meters away? Fucking clownshoes.

So seriously, whoever thought of two classes that can dish insane damage from insane long range while managing to keep themselves alive with shields and heals and keep enemies away is a complete cretin.

You are free to disagree and provide your hardcore techniques that melt teams of Sorcs and Mercs away and show in details while I should l2p. It's OK.

[eldaec]

I do find it odd that range seems to be ignored by EA in making balance decisions.

[Nebu]

You are free to disagree and provide your hardcore techniques that melt teams of Sorcs and Mercs away and show in details while I should l2p. It's OK.

I look at it like this:
- The pvp seems very rock-paper-scissors balanced.  Smugglers/shadows are the bane of sorcss.  Use stealth to close distance.  I often hit sorcs with my shadow and use a stun early to see if they have their cooldowns up.  If they do, I vanish and come back.  They are easy to kill without cooldowns or between bubbles.
- The key to beating merc/sorc is to win the interrupt war.  If you can keep them interrupted, you win.  You have to be very judicious in which spells you choose to interrupt.  Letting them spam tracer missle is a key to a quick death.
- This is not a 1v1 game.  Team play will dominate a wf regardless of the class balance involved.  Good coordination is vital to success.
- Sorcs big damage numbers in any wf rely on heavy use of AE.  If you don't cluster together, they won't do more than 300k.  All ranged classes can manage that.
- Gear gear gear.  It's not enough to have battlemaster gear any more.  You need to be thorough about mods.  The sets often have some crappy stat choices in them.  The best pvp gamers in my guild will buy multiple sets of gear to get all the mods they want for a custom set.  It's crazy the lengths people will go to have a 2% advantage.

On a side note: Granted that my sniper is a ranged class, but despite what the whines on the forums say about snipers it can beat any class 1v1 if I play my cards right.  The classes that I have the toughest time with are sentinels.  A well played sentinel can keep me perma snared and dish out more single target damage than I know what to do with.  Similarly, a well-played vanguard gives me fits.  I consider smugglers and counselors to be free kills the vast majority of the time (see rock-paper-scissors above)  

[Falconeer]

Exactly, this is not a 1v1 pvp game, Nebu. That's why I wasn't talking about class vs class imbalance. I said that a team of 8 Sorcs+Mercs is pretty much ridiculously better than any other team. It melts things too fast and when needed can stay alive. Exceptional players aside, I can't see how any team composition could be better than this, and I think it's a design flaw.

I agree with everything else you say, but that's because it doesn't really address my complain. The counter-classes you mention are, in my experience, going to be erased from existence before they can do anything by a barely decent team of sorcs and mercs.
Just as a side note, I've been exploring the PvP of this game since day 1, and I've been digging and undigging everything in game for weeks, learning as much as possible from other players, forums, guildees, exploiters, everyone. I am by far not the best player in the world/server/househod, and I am not even remotely trying to say that "I know better than you" but I certainly am not in that phase where I need to be told that it's about gear and mods (I know), or interrupts (I know), or teamwork (I know). No offense Nebu, you know I hold everything you say in high consideration and respect, but the issue from my perspective isn't the kind that can be solved with common gaming sense. I researched a lot, and I think that, given the actual build, a couple classes are outperforming all the others in TEAM PvP (Huttball aside, which is still sorcs/sages heaven anyway). Hell, I am actually tempted to say that a full team of 8 sorcs/sages is unbeatable, due to that fucking ultra-ranged damaging snare thing.

[Nebu]

I can think of a number of teams that could destroy 8 mercs, 8 sorcs, or any combination of the two.  Sorc heals are interruptable... they have no instas.  Merc's overheat too fast to be viable healers.  They also have noone to guard their team's healers effectively. 

The team balance is better than you think with gear being equal.  That's what I'm saying.  You have to get by the gear cockblock to have fun... that's my issue. 

[Falconeer]

I am way over the gear cockblock. And what I'm saying is that theorizing about a team that can wipe out 8 sorcs is one thing. Actually seeing one is another. Also, just as a proof of how easy things are on paper but they are different on the field, sorcs can become immune to interrupts (so can mercs). Also, once again, you can interrupt a sorc or two FOR 4 SECONDS, not the whole team while they are wiping you out during those 4 seconds.

[Nebu]

Have you played a sorc or Merc in the endgame pvp?  You should try it.  It will tell you a lot about their weaknesses.  Hell, just play a sorc into the mid 30's.  

A good player on any class will make them look dominant.  I'm far more terrified of a well-played sentinel or vanguard than either of those two classes.  Both can dish out a ton of uninterruptable dps.  Mercs and sorcs rely on cast times and channeled abilities for their dps.  In pvp instas, cc, and interrupts are everything.

[Evildrider]

Any good player with an interrupt kills Aresnal Mercs.  This seems to be some huge secret that people can not grasp.

[Der Helm]

Which reminds me, what kind of interrupts do mercs get ? So far I have Electrodart.

[Nebu]

Which reminds me, what kind of interrupts do mercs get ? So far I have Electrodart.

Almost none that I'm aware of.  It's a huge weakness of the class.

[Nevermore]

The thing I don't understand is programming such a system in, then taking it out again for no appreciable reason.

If you mean the chest color matching, that's supposedly coming back again in 1.2.

[Nevermore]

So not only the grind for the PvP gear is not fun because it has to be done only in Warzones for the most part (as it's better to pretend Ilum doesn't exist considering how pathetically imlpemented it is), which is bad cause you can't organize your game with friends since you are forced to play with random monekys

There's nothing stopping you from making a group with your friends and joining the Warzone queue as a group.

I've been a Battlemaster Vanguard for a while now

For someone who seems to hate the game so much, you sure do play it a lot..

Edit so I don't have 3 posts on a row:

Re: Sorcerers.  They're nothing new.  They're Shadow Priests with an AoE Knockback instead of an AoE Fear.  If I remember correctly, Shadow Priests were also very popular in early WoW because they're easy to learn so you can be effective without having to master anything complex.  I don't think their ceiling is as high as some of the the other classes, though.  A good Vanguard, for example, can be much more powerful than a Sorcerer in my opinion.

[kildorn]

Which reminds me, what kind of interrupts do mercs get ? So far I have Electrodart.

Almost none that I'm aware of.  It's a huge weakness of the class.

None. You're expected to use knockbacks and your stun to function as interrupts. It's extra fun in pve, since it forces you to play really stupid LOS games with some elites.

[Falconeer]

So not only the grind for the PvP gear is not fun because it has to be done only in Warzones for the most part (as it's better to pretend Ilum doesn't exist considering how pathetically imlpemented it is), which is bad cause you can't organize your game with friends since you are forced to play with random monekys

There's nothing stopping you from making a group with your friends and joining the Warzone queue as a group.

The fact that I am gonna get 4 more monkeys beside my guildees and such monekys are probably gonna quit as soon as the win is not obvious?

Also, everyone seems to think that interrupts are such a big deal. I wonder what game are you playing. As I said above both sorcs and mercs can get immunity to interrupts under certain circumstances. Also, an interrupt doesn't silence the class of spells, it just silence _that_ spell, so it's not like an interrupted sorc/merc is sitting on his/her ass for 4 (FOUR) secs. They usually use such circumstance to cast a heal, a knockback, a shield or some other damage.

On Vanguard/Powertech, that's exactly my class and I am very efficient, thank you. I can kill and interrupt like hell... the things I can get close to. What part of a team of well placed/spread sorcs and mercs hitting you from different directions 30+ meters away you think you can solo or take as a team before they wipe the floor with you?

If we take into account player skill and gears, everything can happen. But to deny that Sorcs and Sage dominate in PvP is bold.

Finally, yes I play a lot cause I have very good friends I'd play Shit Online if they developed it, and don't care if Sorcs are the carbon copy or any WoW or Asheron's Call class, what I know is that they should at least not fucking slow you down with that ridiculously long cast which constantly defies LoS anyway. At least Mercs don't slow you down, but they can still disgregate players from the other side of any map WAY before you can even get to them, or get in any kind of cover (as if hiding behind a column unable to heal yourself ever won any PvP match).

[Threash]

To be quite honest i feel like my powertech is far superior to sorcs or mercs.

[Falconeer]

To be quite honest i feel like my powertech is far superior to sorcs or mercs.

Superior how exactly?

You are not going to pull out their dps.
You are not going to heal yourself or others, nor protect for what they can heal.
You are not gonna be able to kill anything from long range.
You are not gonna be able to kill a Sorc/Sage or a Merc/Comm if you cannot get close to them.
You are not gonna be able to kill them or even interrupt them if you cannot get close to them, which is something they are quite good at preventing.

So superior in what? You having fun? You bashing some noobs to a pulp? Good, me too.

But the funny thing is I am not complaining about some classes being overall inferior to others, they actually did a good job in giving each class a reason and a way to have fun. I am just saying over and over that making two classes capable of superior ranged dps, the ability to preserve such range, and good survivability with heals shields and immunities, wins matches with an alarming consistency. I am curious to see what will happen when the rankings, and team rankings, will come out.

[Threash]

Superior as in i run into one and i kill the fuck outta them.

[caladein]

We just went over on the last page or so how organized Huttball games go.  Mercs can play good defense but can be charged to which is a massive issue.  Healer Sorcs can pull friendlies, but that's it.  The classes lack stealth, any team cooldowns/taunts, guards, and most of the gap closers.

The complaints you're making Falc aren't unique to your class or even this game, they're the complaints all non-stealth melee make of ranged classes in every game when they think they can do everything in their toolkit at once.  They can't.

[Fordel]

Just because the raw protection number is smaller on the score sheet, doesn't mean it's actually less effective. The ability to nullify the burst and smooth out the damage is just as important as recovering from it. Most folks still haven't actually caught on that tanks are the ones enabling those unstoppable Commando's or whoever.

Like they'll see the Sage, see it's healing and their decade of MMO PvP training tells them to zerg that Sage down asap. "Kill the healers first" and all that. They'll ignore the dude in the armor beside the sage, the one that whenever he stands near the Sage, causes this weird blue tech bubble to show up around the Sage. They also ignore that they are only doing at best, half their normal damage to this Sage, and just keep merrily beating on it.

Turning otherwise lethal amounts of DPS into perfectly sustainable and heal-able damage. Freeing the Sage up for other tasks, like healing people in the group or contributing to the DPS train, instead of focusing solely on keeping himself alive.



Odds are, if you are in a WarZone and you are cursing Merc/Sorc's name in a match because there were 5 of you on him and you still couldn't make a dent, he has a little guard buddy that no one is paying any attention too but is the cause of all your problems.

[Zetor]

I really recommend shield spec for a vanguard, something like this. With that spec I can beat most classes (though not very quickly)... merc/commando is probably the easiest as they only have one scary ability and I can completely interrupt-lock them (riot strike, charge, riot strike, ae stun, riot strike, stun, riot strike, charge, riot strike, dead). All this while I'm tossing out an AE taunt in the enemy zerg, and probably having guard on a healer. I can't really be kited either (15 sec charge that roots, 35 sec harpoon that also roots, built-in snare in my autoattack). Of course it's not so hot for pve tanking, but considering that nobody runs hardmode FPs/pug ops on my server... yeah.

Damage sorcs have a lot of instants, but they aren't bursty... and locking down their main nuke (force lightning / chain lightning - thundering blast) really hurts them. Healer sorcs are tougher to lock down (since they have 4 heals + 2 instants), but it's usually enough to interrupt them once or twice, yank them out of their friends' LOS (harpoon) and stun them. By the time they get back to the fight, their friends are already dead.

That said, I don't really like pvp in this game either, but that's kind of expected -- it's a diku after all.


Edit regarding interrupt immunity: I thought mercs/commandos only got interrupt immunity when using their 2-min cooldown shield with 11+ points into the healing tree. What is the sorc 'immune to interrupts' ability?

[Fordel]

I don't get the fascination with Gut at all. I see so many tanking Vanguards go for it. If you are going that deep into shield spec, go all in and get EnergyBlast, it's going to do more damage then Gut once you factor in the energy return.

This is what I'm running: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GoGrdorogzZMcbM.1  if I was super duper serious about PvP, I would swap Ceramic Plating and Defensive Measures... maybe.

[eldaec]

The thing I don't understand is programming such a system in, then taking it out again for no appreciable reason.

If you mean the chest color matching, that's supposedly coming back again in 1.2.

I was talking about how in the original design all stats were delivered through swappable mods in all items. This separated appearance from stats exactly like an appearance tab which someone mentioned above my post.

EA took it out because players started using it to develop their own personal look and stuck with that rather than using the horrible end game gear models.

[Zetor]

I don't get the fascination with Gut at all. I see so many tanking Vanguards go for it. If you are going that deep into shield spec, go all in and get EnergyBlast, it's going to do more damage then Gut once you factor in the energy return.

This is what I'm running: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GoGrdorogzZMcbM.1  if I was super duper serious about PvP, I would swap Ceramic Plating and Defensive Measures... maybe.

Gut isn't really the most important part of the spec (2 seconds off Riot Strike is - you can't get that without skipping EBlast either)... but it's a nice enough addition, especially for fights that last a while.

I did run an energy blast spec for a bit... main problem is slow interrupts and shield being useless in pvp (so you waste at least 5 points getting to EB). Ammo is not really an issue for me since I weave in hammershots for the snare anyway... yeah, it's probably more useful in pve for energy management. Rebraced Armor isn't that hot in pvp either, unfortunately.

[Fordel]

The 'uselessness' of armor and defensive stats is very overblown I'm finding. There's more then enough shield-able and mitigate-able junk flying around to warrant them both.


For starters it basically lets you ignore Jugg/Guardians almost entirely. 

[Nevermore]

The thing I don't understand is programming such a system in, then taking it out again for no appreciable reason.

If you mean the chest color matching, that's supposedly coming back again in 1.2.

I was talking about how in the original design all stats were delivered through swappable mods in all items. This separated appearance from stats exactly like an appearance tab which someone mentioned above my post.

EA took it out because players started using it to develop their own personal look and stuck with that rather than using the horrible end game gear models.

That's coming back, too.  I don't remember the eta on that one, though.

[eldaec]

Reading between the lines, I suspect they were experimenting with a colour dye system which they believed would keep the artist egos intact while still supporting customisation.

Now that they've realised the original design was perfectly ok, colour matching just means reopening the option whereas the slotting system will mean reitemisation, which I guess will require more work and more internal pissing contests. I wouldn't be surprised to see happening principally for new rather than existing drops. I'd be perfectly happy with that since existing content will probably be out of date and worthless by the end of the year anyway.

[murdoc]

The thing I don't understand is programming such a system in, then taking it out again for no appreciable reason.

If you mean the chest color matching, that's supposedly coming back again in 1.2.

I was talking about how in the original design all stats were delivered through swappable mods in all items. This separated appearance from stats exactly like an appearance tab which someone mentioned above my post.

EA took it out because players started using it to develop their own personal look and stuck with that rather than using the horrible end game gear models.

My Merc is running around in full Sith warrior oranges  Hooded cloaks and dual blasters.

My favourite, is watching a Merc stand there doing nothing but spam a Tracer Missile button that doesn't work when you interupt them. A decently played Merc knows that there's more to it than spamming Tracer Missile Tracer Missile Tracer Missile (though, that does happen when you're being ignored).

[Threash]

The customization was removed because you could get a whole endgame set from killing one single boss over and over and using your shoe stats on all your pieces.

[Amaron]

Superior how exactly?

You are not going to pull out their dps.
You are not going to heal yourself or others, nor protect for what they can heal.
You are not gonna be able to kill anything from long range.
You are not gonna be able to kill a Sorc/Sage or a Merc/Comm if you cannot get close to them.
You are not gonna be able to kill them or even interrupt them if you cannot get close to them, which is something they are quite good at preventing.

You need to switch to the cookie cutter 31 point assault spec.   Sorcs are crazy but they are not going to outdps a vanguard.