Rawne - Biggest hit (13511) - http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=k2goy&s=5 Rawne - DPS (2226) - http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=23s8xs8&s=5

Khem Val would be a more interesting romance option than currently available, especially if you had the option of keeping the dual-personality. My Inquisitor would jump on the bandwagon.

It took them long enough to make the change, but at least it has finally happened.

Just thought I'd point out that you can cleanse mid-cull to remove one of the ticks of damage due to the delay in the re-application of DoTs. Also, a healer cannot cleanse every GC because of the cooldown. Another point is, why wouldn't a healer cleanse when the DoTs do so much damage, cleanse is a negligible cost, cleanse is instant and cleanse heals for ~1k? As has been stated previously in this thread, lethality/DF is not a bad spec. However, the niché that is fulfilled by lethality/DF is often times overshadowed by the other two specs. It is a case of the other two being more viable in RWZs due to the fact that their tree strengths are more useful in most situations. Good players using lethality/DF in RWZs is not a case for the spec being better. They can use lethality/DF instead of the other specs for a number of reasons (e.g. familiarity, gear optimisation) that would be unrelated to the RWZ viability of lethality/DF. To re-iterate: lethality/DF works for RWZs, however most players would see an increase in performance (on average) given the same amount of time dedicated to one of the other specs.

Are you sure this is the case? You have even done the Ion Pulse/Flame Burst test and come up with different results several times. The only reason I can think of that would result in such a difference would be because the ability costs are the same. If you are correct, and the only difference between the two systems comes from the ability cost difference, is the difference in cost really large enough to make the tests we have done result with the Bounty Hunter getting such an advantage? If what Dr_Kid says is correct, then the difference would be in the ability's cost. I find it hard to believe that a difference of 0.08 ammo per Ion Pulse will create such a disparity in the results attained.

Hopefully, with the developers trying to respond more to PvP oriented issues, this problem can be resolved by a higher authority.

To tie in with what ZeroPlus has said, the weapon damage is fairly irrelevant half the time. This is because about half (or more, depending on specialisation) of the Trooper's or Bounty Hunter's attacks are Tech, which use the Tech rating on the weapons (which should be the same). Thank you for posting your support, I'm glad I was able to convince you of the severity of the situation. The title is a bit of a misdirection, it was designed more for attention (even though the post is about nerfing Mercenaries). I want to urge people that support the ammo and heat equality to post their support, to help get this issue noticed and resolved. If you still do not agree, please post and bring reasoning to back up your claim.

The people I play with can train a Commando using grav round faster than a Mercenary using tracer missile. Does that mean that the Commando's animations are worse? No, it does not. It means that the people I play with are used to killing Commandos. Thanks for your support on the heat vs ammo issue. As I have shown earlier in the thread, a Mercenary that hits with both of his weapons will out-damage a Commando that hits with the assault cannon. The accuracy debuff means that the average damage is roughly equal between the two characters. It is always good seeing more people realise how big the discrepancy between heat and ammo truly is. Hopefully we can keep the thread alive and get this issue fixed.

I fail to see how trying to balance factions for a fair and competitive PvP environment is silly.

I did a manual run-through of the situation to eliminate any white noise. I put it in spoiler tags to save space (there may be errors). The assumptions I made: 0-39 high heat regeneration, 40 - 79 medium regeneration, 80 - 100 low regeneration. 12 - 8 high regeneration, 8 - 3 medium regeneration, 3 - 0 low regeneration. As you can see, the Trooper gets 19 rotations. The Bounty Hunter gets 33. 33 > 19. I'll assume the difference in values (from the real-world tests) is due to the white noise. There is still a substantial difference though. Feel free to point out anything that is inconsistent.

So you're saying the game will die?

Those issues have no mechanical impact whatsoever. The problems you are describing can have a range of causes: 1) Bad positioning. 2) More players playing Empire, resulting in more Mercenaries than Commandos (people are more familiar with their animations). 3) The Republic having better PvPers on your server. Once again, this is a player related - not a game mechanics - issue. Also, please try and include something on-topic (heat vs ammo) if you continue to post.

Tech Override is the Commando equivalent of Power Surge. You can also use the hill too.

What happens if you make a thread about both?

Solution 1) Games with closer skill levels are generally more enjoyable. With that said, you cannot separate players based upon skill by using valor. Valor is an indication of experience, not skill. You would have to introduce a separate statistic to keep track of skill. That would create even more issues (losing rating because you only ever get 7 'bad' players on your team). The easiest solution would probably be to hide the skill value. Solution 2) Some people try to make the best of a bad situation. The issue is with people leaving warzones early. If they did not leave, there would be no back-filling required. You should put your focus on making leaving a warzone more unattractive. Solution 3) Not all groups of players are the top-tier PvP players. I would say that most groups are formed to initiate a buffer against some of the players you have been describing (along with friends just wanting to play together). A group would result in a maximum of 4, rather than 7, potentially less-optimal players. A group vs group queue would not work, simply because being in a group does not mean you will win. It is very possible to beat an enemy group with a full solo queue team. This is where Solution 1) comes in. Groups would simply need a modifier added to them, to factor in the communication advantage. Solution 4) Sorting by class is not feasible. If you sorted by AC potential, then you would still end up with your example of 4 healers vs none. If you sorted by specialisation, then people could just change their specialisation in the warzone (which would also end up with teams of no healers). You would get people queueing up as a healer to get a faster queue pop too. How to fix that exploitation? Do not allow people to re-specialise once a warzone queue has popped (people waiting for a pop, then refund points). This also then creates the problem of people forgetting to swap to the correct specialisation. My point is that many of your gripes with the system cannot be easily remedied with exploit-free solutions. Trying to fix the problem can (and probably will) create more issues than it solves.