The buffs to healing are still fairly minor. They will give us a slight survivability increase and the kolto shell buff will give us some of the AOE healing we've been lacking which tends to bring our overall numbers down. I think the boost to our raw healing output will bring us more in line with the other healers as far as the scoreboard is concerned, but with that aside merc healers still need help. Healing mercs will still suffer from exactly the same problem DPS mercs have. The skill cap is vastly higher than the other classes. We have to put in much more skill and effort to compete with, or even match some of the other classes, most of which can faceroll their keyboard and still be more effective. Not to say mercs can't be competitive even in their current state though. I firmly believe they can, but only the exceptional players/teams make that cut and just barely. But to answer the original question, if you're used to playing Arsenal I would just stick with it. The pushback changes are a joke, but at least it's something. Its not worth switching to a spec you'd rather not play when its buffs were also so minimal. I would actually argue healing mercs are still in a worse position than DPS mercs to be honest. Either way I would just stick at it and hope the pushback changes make more of a difference than you expect. It has been known to happen.

This is great. +1

Dirty Fighting is indeed far superior to Scrapper in PVE. However ignore that last part, they are by no means not fit for nightmare mode. They are in fact only MARGINALLY behind the top few dps classes (slinger, sentinel) right now. If you are a better player than the sentinel in your group, no matter how OP his class is you should be well ahead of him.

Just found yet another bug with this armor set. The "rockets" from the rocket boots ability show as though it has a jetpack, which it doesn't, and as a result just float in mid air. http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/1928/rocketboots.jpg

I wouldn't be too bothered normally but the meshes are getting worse and worse. It's beyond a joke now and if they aren't going to bother fixing anything the very least they can do is hire some new 3D artists, clearly the current ones just aren't up to it. The fact that cartel market sets, sets you paid money for, are using these careless models as well is disgusting. I would bet a lot of money that there is very little testing at all in their current development process. The latest patches are ridiculously bug ridden with issues you would see even without any significant testing and then there's the serious issues which aren't so obvious but are ultimately game breaking. They say graphical improvements are upcoming. I hope this includes fixing all these eye soaring mistakes with gear sets and some serious engine optimization. I don't care for new graphical options, fix what you already have in place first. I hope someone with power sees that link you posted, that is just horrific to look at and shows exactly how careless their artists are being.

I realize this is not a game breaking bug, however these screw ups in some of the newer gear models are becoming more and more common and quite frankly it is starting to seriously annoy me. As someone who has MINOR experience in 3D modelling I have no idea how your guys can possibly make such blatant mistakes. I'm a modelling noob compared to the people in the industry and I wouldn't make these mistakes. Do you not test the models at all? Simply put, the Conqueror and Underworld armor sets for troopers have some polygons which distort and appear to be attached to the head animations. (if my character turns his head he pulls these selection of polygons with it) I originally thought this was only present on larger body types in which it distorts the wire and canister attached to the backpack. The wire/cansiter thing looks fine on the standard body type, however, the neck bandanna also has some polygons which are attached to the characters head motion and is still a problem even on the standard body type. Screenshots of the distortion in action (keeping in mind it is ALWAYS visible no matter what pose your character is in. Larger body types with wire/canister bug: http://imageshack.us/a/img23/8526/largebodytype.jpg Standard body type with neck bandanna distortion: http://imageshack.us/a/img35/8177/standardbodytype.jpg I have also seen similar issues with other gear, including cartel market items. An example I believe is the conservator chest on large body types. We should not be paying for this shoddy work. There are plenty amateurs and hobbiests who can model things more efficiently than this. I think this particular trooper set is one of the best looking designs in the game to date, but when I see just how badly it has been modelled it makes me wonder how that guy has a job. As unlikely as it may be, please take 5 minutes out of your day to fix this.

Very true, but as I said that is just a bonus. Even if shrap bomb only hit 1 target I'm more than positive we'd still be beating most classes on the meters, and most definitely beating scrapper.

My system has always been more than good enough to run the game, my problem is that since the most recent patches I've seen a huge hit. I'm all for general optimization but there is clearly an issue with the latest patch which is causing massive frame drops even for people with well beyond the requirements. If you aren't experiencing this you're lucky. The hit in operations is minor, but in pvp I've had warzone groups where the entire team commented on these strange spikes we were getting all at the same time. Even with the lag spikes aside most of us were getting less than 30fps on average going as low as 18fps. With regard to the spikes in particular we had a few moments where it was like a slideshow for around 4-5 seconds. It's almost feels like latency lag but it's actually being reflected in the FPS. You know there's something wrong when going from maxed out settings to the bare minimum doesn't offer any fps gain at all. If you're pulling 100+, hell even 60+ fps in warzones you should be extremely grateful lol.

I'm not going to comment on there being a lack of content in 2.1 as the expansion hasn't been out long and these quality of life changes have been desired for a long time. I'm as excited as anyone for these changes. However - and I say this directly to you Bioware - If some major FPS optimizations are not part of this patch you are going to get some serious criticism from an awful lot of people. I'm at the end of my tether trying to enjoy pvp. On top of the awful FPS the massive 4 second lag spikes the entire team feels simultaneously are getting ridiculous too. As a subscriber and someone who has pored plenty money into your beloved cartel market, I think it's only fair we got some type of formal acknowledgement that you have been listening to the numerous performance complaint threads and your progress on solving the obvious issue on your end. Struggling to stay above 25 fps is warzones even on the lowest settings is not acceptable and the strange team-wide freezes are taking it a step further. I couldn't care less if there is no new content for the next two updates if it speeds up fixing these massive bugs.

Both specs are very fun and have a unique playstyle. However, all the scrapper enthusiasts are thinking of DF wrong. The huge numbers Dirty Fighting pulls at the end of warzones are just an inflated side effect, one might call it bonus aoe pressure. But if you actually take the time to play the spec a bit you'll see their single target burst is the same if not stronger than scrapper. Wounding shots hits like a truck with Unfair Advantage. If you let a dirty fighter get their dots on you then you die no matter what class you are, it's as simple as that. Last night a PT and sorc tried to take a point I was guarding and I killed them both without even dropping under 70% health. I never died once that entire match in fact. For a scrapper if your target survives long enough to pop a CD, medpac or cc you're in trouble and will most likely end up having to run or vanish. In the same situation as DF you dont have to run and due to your survivability talents you can stay alive far longer than a scrapper can before having to resort to vanish. And the final bonus of DF, you aren't reliant on stealth. It becomes an optional utility in most cases, although you will generally want to open with Shoot First whenever you can. Scrapper on the other hand has no choice as stealth is it's entire gameplay mechanic.

This is an issue on Bioware's end. The most recent patch has caused this. I too get it only in pvp and lowering the settings and resolution as much as possible (given that I usually run maxed out) yields exactly the same awful fps. Poor FPS has been a big topic on the forums lately so hopefully Bioware have got the hint by now. There is currently nothing we can do on our end to gain more than 2 or 3 frames, but generally in pvp it will still be below 25 no matter what settings you use.

I strongly doubt we'll ever see addon support. It was discussed prior to launch as a very good possibility but this far in I don't think it's on their agenda anymore. They need to address the FPS problems though without any doubt, it feels like every patch has lost us fps and 2.0 in particular has killed the games performance for what now appears to be a hell of a lot of players. The game has never ran well, but it's never ran this awfully either. There's only so much we can do on our end to try improving performance, and as I've tried each and every one of them this week I can tell you for a fact it doesn't make a difference anymore.

I am hoping Bioware have taken some initiative and some major optimization will be part of the upcoming quality of life changes. I want hood toggle and all that stuff as much as the next guy, but since 2.0 dropped I'm getting an average of 26fps in warzones and it just isn't acceptable any more. It's never been a secret how awfully optimized the game is, but whatever you did in 2.0 made one hell of a poor impact on fps. Even if I turn off AA and put every setting on low the fps doesn't increase. When you're getting the same terrible fps on maxed out settings and the absolute lowest that just shows how ridiculous it is getting. I've wanted character customization stuff added forever, but seriously, these performance problems outweigh everything for me right now. It is becoming frustrating trying to play your game.

Well actually PVP is my main commitment. Your point is kind of negated by the fact that perhaps with the exception of Kolto Probe (although slow-release is definitely more audable), the Operatives animations are just as subtle as ours, perhaps even more so. Kolto Infusion for example not only looks cool but the effect is subtle and appears on the target, there is no green travel trail giving the healers position away like we have. Even Emergency Medpac we have something which gives our positon away while their version you have to look out for the droid dropping down on their target which isn't always obvious to people. Kolto Infusion's green effect is far less visible than our heals as well although certainly louder than ours. You're right about the interrupt baiting but any half decent player should see through that so it isn't relative in terms of competitive pvp. In terms of normal PVP you could argue that point is a vague imbalance between the two classes. When I say animation changes would be nice I don't necessary mean bling up our green FX. I mean more in terms of character casting poses more so than actually overhauling the effects.

So I noticed in 2.0 there have been some animation fixes and improvements, especially for operative abilities. There do seem to be some small fixes for a couple of Scoundrel abilities as well but I was wondering if anybody else within the Scoundrel community would like to see some more variety to our healing animations specifically? Emergency Medpac - Looks awesome and very unique to our class. Slow-Release Medpac - Again a very cool looking ability although a bit noisey. Kolto Cloud - Nothing really wrong with this and there's really no way to differ it between the two mirrors anyway. But Underworld Medicine, Kolto Pack and Diagnostic scan all essentially have the same casting pose and animation. Operative healers have a different animation for every single heal. I mean even casting their version of underworld medicine on themselves has a different animation similar to Emergency Medpac does for us. Not to mention their Kolto pack looks awesome and I'm sure they're very happy they actually get to use it more often now. Even their diagnostic scan looks slightly different to ours. Not only that but their Kolto Probes got a bit of a graphic improvement in 2.0. How about it Bioware? Quite frankly companion healers have more animation variety than we do right now. Even giving one of our 3 identical abilities a SLIGHTLY different animation would be a welcome change and a significant change would be even nicer.