not necessarily all, but some abilities of some classes that have a heavier reliance on hard casts

this would lead to bringing higher dps abilities up sooner after an interrupt, but wouldn't address the other issues with hard casting - other reasons you are forced to move/t the use of stuns in such a function (low slash). Also it wouldn't work with abilities without a cd. I'd be down for easier solutions, and i think that the other suggestions I made would take far less work and still be steps in the right direction. Thanks for the feedback and let me know if there is anything else i can clear up.

The scaling wouldn't have to be linear (half cast time does half damge, full cast time does full), so "little" could be a presumption and a minimum damage could be set Also, it could tend to give a lower limit of a gcd in duration of charge, meaning gcd triggering at beginning of charge - though this could change w/ ability Another thing to keep in mind is the class power curve. A novice player might end up using much more "short-charged" abilities and this couldn't be punished too harshly (It wouldn't have to be viable for endgame competition, but that it is utterly useless isn't necessary either) Targets could be set, whether it is doing 10% or 150% damage could be adjusted more easily, so i'm not looking at specific ability damage here, just the concept of a different interrupt system However, thank you for the insight, and to address that concern specifically. For a TB cast (base of 2 seconds?), means with one gcd attributed to it (75% of the cast time), doing say 60% of the damage would still be a damage/time penalty - but not as serious of one (and for critical "burn" phases you would still be hitting for something, whereas with the current system, you'd be hitting for nothing during that cast time) Another possible resolution for this could be having the higher charges give longer cd's when compared to the lower charges (again, wouldn't have to scale linearly)

While playing this game I have come to thoroughly dislike the interrupt system (though not strictly interrupts). I feel that it leaves certain specs with too much power to lock down and others overly vulnerable to the affects of such lockdowns. These are some directions that I see as having potential to help alleviate this situation. Interrupts and ability costs: Specifically with abilities that have their energy cost deducted at the start of their cast - mainly channeled abilities. My understanding of the current system is that when a channeled ability is cancelled by an incoming stun/interrupt or the character is forced to break channeling by moving (in order to los in pvp or get out of the red circles in pvp/pve) it still costs the same amount of energy resource. Over the course of longer fights I believe this contributes to certain specs running thu their resource pools more quickly than is intended. What I would like to see is the cost for such abilities deducted on a "per-tick" basis over the course of the channel. Opportunity Cost and Hard Casting: I believe that hard casting specs without sufficient protection from pushback and interrupts are too often faced with poor choices in terms of casting options. I often find myself holding stuns/interrupts for use at the end of a player/npc's ability so that more time is spent on the soon-to-be wasted cast (instead of other future attacks). I would like to see abilities with longer hard cast times (~>1.5 sec) changed to a "push-and-hold" system for their cast duration instead of the current "all-or-nothing" one. For example if a player is hard casting an ability it is treated as "charging up" the ability over the cast duration. Ultimately if the cast is interrupted prematurely at the beginning of its cast, it will hit for less damage that if it would be interrupted at the end of its cast, which is still less than if it is not interrupted at all. (I would also like to see the ability energy cost scaled with this) Possibly replacing the "push-and-forget" with a "push and hold" option allowing players to choose how long to "charge" their cast for. PS. another option for this might be allowing certain abilities to "overcharge" by allowing the "charging" to go beyond their currently set cast times (possibly addressing the fact that all of the hardest hitting abilities are currently almost all (if not exclusively) instant casts) Casting Pushback I feel that this system is redundant in the fact that if the player is being hit with damage and casting pushback, they are being punished twice. The first of these being that they are taking damage which could be minimized by kiting instead of casting. The second of these is the fact that their abilities take longer to cast. As a baseline I would like to see casting pushback removed for all but off-abilities (i.e. healing pushback for dps specs - as an additional punishment for moving outside of the spec - I would like to see this added with more powerful abilities later in the dps trees which make the trade-off evident and worth it) Conclusion: This is a statement of my own experience/viewpoints and are not to be taken as exclusive, complete, or perfect . I am glad to have people correct, criticize, and add to these, but please do so in a constructive manner. Also, I don't want this to be taken as a critique on class balance so much as on the current system implementation. Lastly, I apologize for my spelling/grammar errors - I plan on another proofreading of this shortly.\ PS. I also would like to see the removal of interrupt use stopping the using player's channeled abilities - and thereby no longer being a "self-interrupt" - I just see this as a penalty solely to classes with such abilities

possibly true, but by particularly devious and underhanded methods - "Oh you wanted to heal w/ that sage/sorc, well sorry we already have one for our group and need another class for that encounter - better get back to leveling ;)" <-- Not acceptable occurance

never ask another to think on the internet, it could have dangerous consequenses

this is not the same thing as having ops encounters be passable w/ any 2xtank 4xdps 2xheals combos - snowflake moments shouldn't amount to you being forced to bring one healer/dps/tank over another healer/dps/tank (respectively) solely due to their class

I am in full agreement with this, if there is a boss debuff that requires healer cleansing - any healing class (properly specced) should be able to cleanse it, same thing for tank survivability, and both dps/healing throughput. (not necessarily equal in all regards, but definitely doable) ps I also see occurrences where this goes unattended as a big "screw you" to the affected classes - completely unacceptable - also here's hoping to a quick resolution to this!

but it is ok for lvl 1's to have "the wealthy" or "hyperspace legend" - legacy titles for pvp makes sense in that cumulative valor levels - across several toons- should have legacy titles associated with them (3 toons at valor >80 or whatever) and as for your lvl 1 "conqueror" that specifically is a character title and would not change to a legacy title- u would add new ones that were exclusively legacy

i agree that bolster could be used as "training wheels," but the idea that players would be experienced in pvp at max lvl ignores the fact that players can level to 55 w/o doing any pvp i can see something being present to allow these players the chance to more easily enter into pvp - however, why does bolster exist in ranked? idk

given the length of the wz's, having a time frame of greater than a minute reserved for the player to return could be a major disadvantage to his team (in non-rwz) i'd rather see the player loaded back into the wz from the character select screen, but with ~30 sec grace window and after which they are put in "competition" with other players in the pvp que - first to accept or re-load into the wz gets the spot

i think he is referring to leveling as "pve" content and i think he is in dislike of having segregated "types" of endgame gear... i.e. pvp and pve - because of a specialized stat (expertise)

i'd suggest having bolster applied when you are "in combat" with the pvp dummy and i agree about how bolster handles the older pvp gear - given that many potentially returning players left during a period where that was the best gear that they had - it would make sense to have bolster account for that, beyond not working with it. I'd suggest a system that worked on a mod-by-mod basis, instead of a whole piece at a time

after a bit more thought, having the brackets be shifted so the last one is 51-55 makes sense to me. at this point the players will have all of their skills and the few remaining talent points won't have a significant impact (usually) on the play style and since bolster is included in max lvl play, i don't see any reason this shouldn't be the case...

i see discrepancies between the functionality of various endgame gear as presenting barriers between the pvp and pve communities having gear obtained by a single means be useless in the other means that you are quite effectively dividing your community into distinct groups the goal of bolster is to allow pve players to experience pvp with a minor penalty (i like this concept) however, it doesn't work both ways (there is no pve bolster, nor should there be) i'd rather see bolster done away with, and both pvp/pve gear given bonuses tied to the mods/pieces (where applicable, possibly in the form of a unique stat) in the end having a full pvp set give a slight "expertise" boost - like now but to a lesser degree and a full pve set given a slight pve stat boost - like expertise, but only working in "boss" fights (for both, all other stats the same) finally the result would be that pvp gear would be best for pvp, pve gear would be best for pve, and both could be interchangeable with the other, but only in a pinch