As topic states, at this point we REALLY should not have to explain to you just how pathetic mercs are in pvp right now. Every player knows the winning strategy is to zerg the merc. Frankly, it's getting old. Mercs should not be a liability to a team. It's pathetic that I have to even bring this up. No spec should be in as bad a state as mercs are when focus fired.

But I should not be FORCED into a support role when no other class is. The merc player who wants to do objectives like guarding a node NEEDS a pocket healer and guard from a tank to START to be effective. ESPECIALLY when you have assassins and concealment ops blowing mercs up in 7 seconds. Last time I checked, there was no prewarning that mercs NEEDED suppor to be effective in pvp.

So, losing to concealment operatives most of the time (the best 1v1 class) as a merc means I am the bad player?!?! I play just fine and I have carried many battlegrounds or warzones in my lifetime...as long as I am not against a premade. I can help a team that is lacking, but I cant do it against a premade. This is not up for debate...the FACT FACT FACT IS THAT PREMADES HAVE A SEVERE ADVANTAGE OVER SOLO QING PLAYERS OR PUGS. There has been enough PVP "warzones" played on a number of games now over a period of 20 years now that absolutely PROOVE that premades have an unfair advantage vs the pugs. What you CLEARLY fail to understand due to your incessant projections that "its not t he premade, its you" is that when players face premades, its more frustrating than fun....when someone is frustrated, they are not happy, when they are not happy (in this case) they stop playing the game. The FACT IS premades RUIN PVP and we are seeing it happen right before our eyes. I have won against premades sure, many times....but no where NEAR as close to how many times I have lost to them. But you know what buddy, I am trying to help revive the pvp community by addressing a very very seveer problem, but FU and everyone you know. My account is cancelled and I CANT WAIT to see this game shut down because bioware listens to morons like you vs taking some measures to solve the problems.

Well it was a well known problem that many people faced. I had the best time, today...every single match I have qued for has been a premade stomping the group I am in. EVERY SINGLE MATCH...do you realize the kind of frustration that occurs when that happens?

There was an issue with the quing system that did not allow people in parties to que up and get the same warzone. This meant very very little premade action last week.

You clearly miss the point. Many people do not want to play with friends and there are a gazillion reasons why and none of them have anything to do with being anti social. I agree a couple people in a group can make a difference, that is the crux of the issue. Team vs Team should be balanced. My proposal does just that. As far as not being accepted by players who just want to to regs, I believe you incorrect. Anytime you offer something for free, in this case a buff for quing solo, many people will get behind the idea. I have already had people I have talked to who play this game agree and felt it was a stellar idea. I am not sure why you seem to be so vehemently against the idea? Unless that is of course you are one of those who like to run in premades and who likes that advantage they have over the other team. I am not like you, I believe in balance and fairness and so do most people.

I understand and respect that, but this game has very small groups of people in pvp, vs wow which has 10v10 up to 40v40 a small party does not make a large difference. In SWTOR, even a small band of 3 can change the tide of a battle with an extreme advantage. I do not propose the entire side gets a debuff, just people in parties. It is much easier to communicate through speech like a lot of friends or premades use than it is to type things out while you are getting your *** kicked outside of the fact the rate at which messages race through the chat box. Most people in combat don't have time to look up and read, this is where voice communication comes in handy. Any added benefit that allows a group of people to move as a unit vs a group of people who can do is unfair. Unfair gameplay might be fun for the person who is winning, but its completely not fun for the person losing. Its not much different than the feeling you get when playing against people who exploit or hack. Its an unfair advantage.

I have a solution to negate the unfair advantage that premades have over pugs. As many of you know last week (and I believe the week before) people were not able to que for warzones inside of a party. This coupled with the new wz and quing with opposite faction players greatly randomized and balanced the playing field. Many of us had the best time in pvp that we have not seen in a long time, if ever in this game. Today, that was fixed and people are once again allowed to que with their friends, and its been lose lose lose lose all day long for many puggers again, this is frustrating and not fun and frankly makes a lot of people want to find a new game to play. From a business perspective this is just bad and really needs to be resolved. I do not begrudge people playing with friends. Nothing better than playing with friends..but we also need to consider how that advantage can affect those who choose to play solo. As everyone knows, premade groups have better communication and some times gear checks and in the best cases composition checks (certain number of healers, tanks etc). This places people who solo que at a severe disadvantage which makes playing frustrating, not fun. As everyone also knows, Bioware seems to not care about the frustration the PUG player takes on when facing a premade, either though the fact they will most likely lose and get less comms or that they will get focused by multiple people in any given confrontation with little chance to win. Regardless this is not fun for the solo quing player and in some cases causes that player to find a new game to play where some semblance of balance exists. I have the golden solution that I do not think has ever been done in a game and its simple. It would require some balancing for sure, but it's a simple proposal. I think we should allow premades to exist, I just feel that they should go against other premades. Of course the issue with this is that the premade group would have lenghy que times. So. We do two things. A. We make all pvp faction blended like the new warzone. This helps to pick people who que as solo players from both factions increases the chances of the random side you are placed on. B. People who are in parties when they join will join as that full party, but they will be debuffed. The premade group will take lets say a 15% hit to all their stats decreasing the amount of damage they do and they amount of healing they do. Currently the premade has an advantage though tactics and focus targeting, while a pug has no advantage. This system would allow for the pug to have a strength advantage that the premade would need to counter wiih team work and communication. This helps to bring balance for PUGs, this makes that teamwork and competitive gameplay that premades so desperately desire come to fruition and with the cross faction blending this would help to keep premade groups from solo quing at the same time and getting onto the same side vs a true pug. Of course, like the current system it will be exploited somehow, but these are good steps at realizing a true balanced scenario for all players reglardless of the class you choose and your play style. The other solution is to force people into a voice chat when playing....and that will go over like a lead balloon.

Yep, they are fixed.....and PROOF that premades RUIN PVP. Last week, had a blast. Felt like any warzone I got into was a chance at a win. Today, nothing regardless of what class I am on, its been lose lose lose lose, did not have that problems last week. Today has been atotal joke. I guess its back to sucky pvp again.

That post is fpr PVE. In PVP you need the burst to catch healers off guard. Healing sustained DPS is easy, healing through burst is not.

I am not concerned with how the class played in the past, that has zero effect on todays game play. I respect you, but you are dead wrong if you think madness would be viable without dot spread if it were taken away without some form of single target compensation. I see mercs, operatives, jugs...all topping charts with damage done and most of that is single target mind you, not spread...which means its overall more impactful. Same reason crit and heavy hitting is preferred in pvp vs haste for most classes. Heavy hitting attacks can come out of no where and make the match...sustained damage in pvp has always been easier to mitigate for healers, its predictable. If dot spread was taken away from madness right now, you can bet your bottom dollar that the DPS compared to other classes would be very very weak. If understand that it would force madness sorcs to apply dots individually again which itself would cripple the spec. You can't consider the spec in a vacuum, it has to be considered in relation to all the other classes and the changes they have also received to "balance" the game. As it stands madness is extremely weak against jugs 1v1, operatives 1v1, asassins 1v1, powertechs 1v1, marauders 1v1, and snipers 1v1. Mercs are a balanced fight. If you truly believe madness needs nerfs, it can not be in survivability or mobility because for as moble as they are, melee are still MORE mobile. There are more gap closers in game than gap openers. Melee's hard hitting fast attacks > the slow crawl of all stars aligned dots. hell this is the first MMO I have played a ranged class on where I am completely unable to "kite" the melee. Most of this is due to the fact that ranged in other mmo's have 2x the range of attacks vs the melee gap closer. In swtor its 30 yards v 30 yards or 35 v 30. Also. something that NO ONE considers is latency and how it affects casting classes vs mobile (usually melee) classes. Classes that are standing still casting have a visable fixed x,y,z coordinates on the playing field, mobile classes do not. Mobile classes are usually closer to you than they appear on your screen. This makes it tough to kite even when you have 2x the range of their gap closers...in swtor this makes it impossible. In vanilla wow I had two accounts. I had a hunter main who was lvl 60 and I wanted ot level a rogue. I leveled the rogue on the second account. So I ran both clients at the same time from the same computer. The server I was located on (Sargeras) at the time was located in the Dallas Data center before blizz moved that cluster to chicago. I lived in Dallas and have extremely low latency. Hunters have a spell called aspect of the pack which allows everyone in the group to get a 30% run speed increase. I had my rogue on /follow and I moved around on my hunter from quest hub to quest hub. This was before low level toons had mounts, this is why I used the hunter to run him around, not kill stuff. While I was running on my hunters screen zoomed out to max my rogue looked like he was about 40 yards behind me, on my rogue screen he was right on top of my hunter. When I stopped on the hunter, the rogue stopped on his screen. On my hunters screen he kept running until he caught up to me and then stopped. I have had melee with 20 yard abilities charge me in every MMO I have played when I was beyond max range to shoot them with 40 or more yards. This happened in Warhammer, in wow, in rift, in Gw2 and in swtor. It is much easier for melee to keep up with ranged than it is for ranged to escape melee, mostly in part due to latency. This is al little known fact that is rarely addressed in regards to balance. So, if we are going to nerf madness dot spread, their team effectiveness in TODAYS game will be greatly diminished. If we don't buff single target or defenses, this will make the spec undesirable. If lightning is not buffed people are either going to quit the class and roll a jugg or heal...neither of which I want to see.

^ this.

So wait...you can solo every class in the game except healers and you want that too? WOW the entitlement from the concealment community is mind boggling.

No question I have a better percentage of wins now. PVP has been less stressful except for when an operative or assassin, or powertech, or jugg is sticking to my sorc or mercs bottom...just no winning against them and as someone who likes to do the objectives (defending often) it's important for me to be able to hold my own...but when 1v1 does not exist or when another class has a severe advantage over another it kinda ruins pvp. It has been fun seeing some pubs on my side (or my toon on their side). I did come across a huttball though that clearly had a group that was working strongly together. Their movements and how they reacted were too smooth/fast for a pug, that game sucked bad.

Sorc madness is fine, lightning needs a serious buff. Concealment operatives, juggernauts,IO powertechs and assassins need nerfs. I had an assassin on the fleet showing me his burst, dude could take down a full 208 augmented geared 73k health character down in about 5 seconds., consistently. Melee hit WAY to hard for all their instant attacks and ranged are not hitting hard enough for casted/channeled attacks. If madness did not have dot spread, it would be the lowest dps of any spec in game.