Just one quick question on your numbers Seeing this and doing a quick bit of napkin math (ie taking that number and adding 30% to it) are you using a screwy lethality spec without explosive engineering? This closes the gap significantly Also in a rotation of that size you havent factored in the additional ticks from both DoT's Both specs will get these however full lethality will have 4 of them (unless CD ticks twice there will only be 4) effected by weakening blast which again closes the gap by another 1k or so. If the first point is correct and factoring in the second one we then have almost identical damage in said burst rotation... and full leth can do it twice as often for the same energy which is where my energy management point comes in. Both specs do the same rotation again 18s later. Lethality loses 3548 damage for 20 energy less. Hybrid loses 7252 damage for the same energy cost (as you now lack the energy regen from cluster)

Whilst I do agree that lethality is subpar when compared with MM and Eng (in majority of pvp based circumstances but this is due to the gain in utility and survivabilty rather than damage) your mistaken about the Leth/Eng hybrid. Since 1.2 changes full lethality will destroy and leth/eng hybrid happily. Burst Dps Weakening Blast will easily add as much damage to a cull (plus the 4 dot ticks that would go off in the same time it takes for the clusters to explode) as well as crit for ~1100 itself. Looking at some eng videos I'm seeing the cluster bombs hit for ~4-500 per where as your easily looking at 200 damage added per dot tick under weakening as well as the damage itself. Not only will it match and most likely surpass the damage from cluster (due to the poisons it effects having +12% crit chance and +8% for on cull) but its also usable twice as often. AE pressure I'll grant you this one with the caveat of if it was terribly useful a lethality sniper can happily also spec into toolbelt with little to no loss. 90% of the time its not. Energy Management Again the hybrid actually comes out worse... Cluster bombs simply refunds the energy that the probe used so you basically gain free damage. However you now have to spend that energy on int probe and reapplying poisons more often. In reality the tradeoffs for going hybrid vs full lethality are you lose damage and long term energy management for more mobility with an additional attack that does not require cover and the permanent snare component that can be attached to the probe. As a side note don't underestimate the value of multi-dotting. Since 1.2 healers are resource limited rather than time limited and combined with the TTK being so low it is actually significant pressure with CG happily critting for 700 and CD the same but with the chance to tick twice. Also (and this to me is the big point) if you run in CD everyone, CG so that it hits 2-3 people you now have 30s worth of time in which you can happily target swap to any of those targets and negate the huge ramp up which is lethalitys biggest weakness.

Basically translated to flame burst/ion pulse becoming 4m melee range rather than 10m. Also possibly a shorter range on thermal/plastique? I can kinda agree with this. Its a direct PvP nerf without rebalancing PvE dps to much

Pretty sure folks have tested it not entirely sure as i can't find it. It affects the initial explosion but not the DoT component

As much as I dislike the look of the WH rifle as Lethality and would like to use a cooler one I'm keeping it. Why you ask? Because since they changed cull it has the least obnoxious firing sound effect that I have to hear repeated over and over

Hits like a truck... but having your burst tied to a channeled cone attack has obvious disadvantages (client server issues not showing enemy positions correctly, having to remain stationary, if you don't tie it with HO its easy to stop with a knockback/down/stun). Can crit over 3k a tick for 4 ticks in an AoE if all goes well though

Lethality Sniper 14-15k (depending on double dart ticks) Setup time 7s CG -> CD -> WB -> EP -> Cull

Dunno about the first 2... but scoundrels/ops are damn scary when played well. See Lion (link is to lion V but they all good) or the one floating around the op forums atm Vyel (whole new level of Op respect after watching this one)

PvP success based on arbitrary numbers instead of skill = smart business model. Do I agree with it, not terribly but it works. Why does it work... because it rewards time spent. More time spent = less time playing competitors. It appeals to the drooling masses who are not always good but demand to be rewarded simply for spending time playing the game. If skill becomes the only factor these people lose over and over again stop playing and the company loses money. This is unfortunately the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia in effect here. These games don't exist any more in large enough numbers to actually make PvP worthwhile good sir. Again I don't like it but you gotta realise what you can't change and go with the flow. Even the FPS games which were the staple of 'everyone is the same skill plays the whole part' have tiered reward systems that make you better the more you play

On a dummy yes they will both pull very similar. However the difference comes in that MM is more heavily penalised for movement as well as lethality gets a much larger bonus sub 30% which the dummys do not take into consideration. The biggest thing i found personally was that I could match my lethality numbers as MM... however it was much harder to do which detracted from my overall situational awareness in an operation enviroment

http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/thread-953.html = ftw Taken from that

Wonderfully impressive how EA can not only take Mythic (gogo DaoC) with a Warhammer IP (massive worldwide) but now Bioware (who everyone knows made fantastic RPG's) with a Star Wars IP and manage to completely screw them both sideways... well done.

You need to note however that an successful for an MMO is really maintaining over a 1mil subscriber base. The break even point is less than 500k (this games is 500k and it was considerably more expensive than most). WoW should not be used as the benchmark for success... no one expected that level and no one will ever reach it again. Subscription gaming in general is dying out as more and more people want instant gratification. Look at even WoW's numbers... 3 million lost this year, 25% of their subscribers... and I wouldn't be surprised to see the actual losses at twice that but with 3mil new ones gained to balance.

I play from Aus so generally sit between 150 and 250 myself. I found that the latency definately hurt as MM. As lethality I can happily get by setting the queue time delay in the settings higher but as MM you have to wait till the game registers the hit from ambush/snipe before you can FT so you can't have it queued up. I noticed this even more with the instant snipe from snap shot

The campaign armoring overrides the shell though.. so you think the extra cunning from picking up a enforcer/field medic campaign piece is better than the 2pc bonus? (which while not stellar has helped in a few energy screwups as lethality by bumping up into the higher energy bracket again while bursting)