I would love an in game Recount. The current combat log is complicated to use and I want something that works on the fly so I can test different rotations and different skills. Knowledge is a good thing, and the more we know about how we work the better. There will always be jerks who use this info to be mean to others, but that happens with or without Recount. We shouldn't keep something useful off the table just to work around those people!

Using all your defensive cooldowns and a med pack makes these class quest fights much easier. Save them up for these enounters. Use your 20 minute cooldown to get 2 saber wards in, and pop the cooldown early so you can make use of the healing it gives throughout the fight. For sand demon I send in Kira (as a guardian), let her got down to about half then put her on guard and taunt off her. Pop your saber ward as soon as you're getting hit, and then pop the 20 min cooldown to refresh saber ward. You don't need to use the 2nd saber ward right away, but you will maximize the healing from the skill this way. From there just use the rest of your cooldowns as needed and it shouldn't be too bad. This basic formula works on most boss encounters, don't underestimate the power of the cooldowns (and using the 20 min early to get the most healing). Good luck.

I have played both Jedi Guardian and Sentinel and based on your listed criteria I would say a focus specced guardian would be the easiest to play. The attack combo system can just be the same 3 abilities in a row (not optimized, but basically) and it does good AE damage. It will work for getting through the main story line very well. Vig spec is actually much more to manage and the sentinel is very fun, but I would not call it a forgiving class. You really need to manage your cooldowns with a sent, and it sounds like that is not what you are looking for. Good luck and hope he has fun!

Most PvPers would be fine with this as long as the Rakata bio chem stuff was not usable by ANYONE in pvp. You can't have it both ways. If it can be used in PvP, it becomes a "required" item for any serious PvP player.

You are forced to do it if you want to be competitive because they allow it in the war zones. There is no such thing as "not a big deal" stat difference in PvP. Using stims or med packs that aren't reusable is not economically viable when you die as fequently PvP entails, and the persist through death stims are very expensive (and make you seeth at long queue times wasting away your timer!). I agree that the biometric alloy should either be tradeable, purchasable with PvP currency, or the items made from them should be deactivated for war zones. At the very least there should be persist through death stims available for purchase with commendations that are only usable in war zones.

Why do people keep saying the only difference between the classes is the animation delay? It trivializes how important that delay is in PvP. If you don't think animation delays of .1s all the way up to just over 1 sec is that important you are either in denial or don't understand PvP. Do you not see how much easier it is to interupt a spell cast with instants over something with a built in animation delay? How much alactity do you need to make your cast spells .5 seconds faster? Does it feel significant if you think of it as a huge alacrity buff on those specific skills? This is one of those cases where if it's not your char that is affected it seems like no big deal. It is though, and it's just sloppy on Bioware's part for creating it in that way. The guys in charge have extensive PvP experience across multiple games and are quite aware of the importance of delays in PvP. It is absurd to think it was intentionally done due to an inherent like of empire or dislike of republic, the more obvious answer is 2 different teams coded each side and didnt communicate well with each other. That doesn't make it ok though, it just makes it careless and sloppy. It should be addressed quickly, but with the current bug prioritization system, things are done in order of who complains the most often, and with so many more players on the Imperial side, it is hard for things that affect only republic side to break into the top reported issues.

Why do people keep saying the only difference between the classes is the animation delay? It trivializes how important that delay is in PvP. If you don't think animation delays of .1s all the way up to just over 1 sec is that important you are either in denial or don't understand PvP. Do you not see how much easier it is to interupt a spell cast with instants over something with a built in animation delay? How much alactity do you need to make your cast spells .5 seconds faster? Does it feel significant if you think of it as a huge alacrity buff on those specific skills? This is one of those cases where if it's not your char that is affected it seems like no big deal. It is though, and it's just sloppy on Bioware's part for creating it in that way. The guys in charge have extensive PvP experience across multiple games and are quite aware of the importance of delays in PvP. It is absurd to think it was intentionally done due to an inherent like of empire or dislike of republic, the more obvious answer is 2 different teams coded each side and didnt communicate well with each other. That doesn't make it ok though, it just makes it careless and sloppy. It should be addressed quickly, but with the current bug prioritization system, things are done in order of who complains the most often, and with so many more players on the Imperial side, it is hard for things that affect only republic side to break into the top reported issues.

I never realized how much I hated the speeder ride until I read this post. You're right though, it's pointless and just screws the defending team.

It is possible to be over powered AND have a horrible PvP class at the same time. You can be powerful and just not fun to play. The answer isn't to buff the class, it is to change it so it is balanced and yet still fun to play. It is not ever fun to be rooted in PvP, imagine if you were effectively rooted just playing your class. I would make the class more mobile and reduce the damage they do to balance out the change. All in all, I whole heartedly agree with your other game points. I hope they are addressed sooner rather than later because this game could be great, they just need to do some more common sense things like give incentives to the lower population side instead of giving further incentives to zerg (Ilum for example). Good post.

I have been looking for a thread that clearly described the faction imbalances to the class mirrors. Thank you. I hope BW at least comments on these issues, and hope even more so that they are addressed soon. It feels like bug fixing has a priority over balancing pvp right now, which I can live with, but I would like someone official to acknowledge the imbalances and discuss a future plan to fix them.

Good summary.

I agree, and it breaks my heart to reccomend it. It is the lesser evil though, as a zerg fest where the higher population side is disproportionately rewarded is even worse. It only spirals out of control further as Republic people get fed up with getting screwed and reroll to Imperial for "easy" Ilum rewards (this happens much more than people rerolling to even out the sides). Smarter people than me could think of a more clever way to make it a true world pvp zone, but a glorified war zone is better than what it is now. I would support something more creative if it solved the basic problem of creating incentive for both sides to participate though. It could even be fun being the underdog team using guerrilla warfare tactics, it just needs to have some clever way to be supported and advantageous to do, otherwise it is too difficult to convince other players to try it. Hopefully someone at BW starts asking the right questions of the PvP content, which are "How will this change make both sides want to participate", and then come up with a great answer. Unfortunately, up to now, by the answers they (BW) are producing, they are not asking the right questions.

The MMO genre has progressed far enough that certain things should not be over looked. Add to that the testing community was very vocal about the issues the Ilum changes would have considering the population imbalances on servers and you have a situation where professional developers should have known better. This isn't like a professional baseball pitcher walking a batter, it is like walking 4 batters in a row. When you're a pro, eventually you need to just throw a gosh darn strike.

Capping the population for both sides is the only realistic solution. It will mean many imps don't get in when they want, but let them adventure or do war zones while they wait, and when they DO get in, it will be into a zone with some potentially worthwhile PvP. Right now it is boring for 100% of the players in the zone, so any improvement on that is a good thing. In theory you could buff the lower pop side with roaming NPCs or buf thier stats, but this would be incredibly difficult to balance and it is likely the buff would either be way too much or too little. Hitting the sweet spot would take a miracle.

The exact numbers may be too extreme, but I agree with the concept.