My main qualm with merc/mando heals at the moment is the inability to increase dissipation/ammo regen while vent/recharge is on cooldown. Compared to other healers we don't really have a solid rotation for managing our heat. Sorcs can consume and go "force positive" in their rotation at any time, maintaining relatively high HPS while regenerating resource. Operatives can Diagnostic Scan during downtime to keep their resource high in additional to their adrenaline probe. Merc/mandos need another way to regen. All we can do is spam RS/HS when we go over 60/40, which really hampers our HPS. We either need a small regen attached to a no cooldown ability or a moderate regen attached to a moderate cooldown ability. I think attaching a small regen to rapid shots would be ok or possibly adding a regen component to thermal sensor overrides would be somewhat effective. I would prefer an active solution rather than just adding another cooldown to manage, but either way we need another way to get us back down to where we need to be quickly while not causing a major loss in HPS. I hate feeling helpless as a healer knowing that if $&!@ hits the fan while my vent heat is cooling down, there will be no way for me to help recover because I can't risk going over on resource with no way to get back. As a secondary concern, I feel that overall despite our heavy armor, mercs/mandos are the least survivable out of the 3 healer classes in pvp. We have less ability to escape/mitigate than others, and while it is better than it used to be, we still need some improvements in the pvp utility department.

Actually I brought up that strat long before anyone saw 7stuck doing it on their stream. Before I transferred and I joined SuckaFish we used to run that strat sometimes in Tempest on Pot5 just for $&!#$ and giggles during our HM runs. That strat is old news and we didnt have to "steal" it from anyone. It's been around for months.

Signed

Lolz

Well story modes are designed specifically for Pug raids that don't really have the time to commit to 5 hour+ raids. From my experience, you would be hard pressed to find a pug that didn't lose at least one player over the course of a 3-4 hour period...

The problem is that your average guilds do take 2-3 nights to clear a 7 boss encounter like Scum & Villainy. Only the most elite guilds on the servers clear them in a single night, at least on a consistent basis.

There really is no easy answer, is there? You can't really have it both ways. Either we police it or no one does and we rely on judgement of the individual to decide. I completely agree with you though, on all counts.

The thread you're looking for is here. There is a google document in the first post of that thread that tracks the progression of the current guilds competing. You can find that document here.

Well we could go on and speculate all day about what is intended and what is not in that list but we will never really know. I personally feel that using a specific class ability or to lessen the load on a raid such as shroud/reflect/barrier are perfectly acceptable. Where I feel the line is drawn is not in specific single mechanics being eliminated. Some of that could even be intended. But I'm pretty sure everyone can agree that turning dash-roode into a tank and spank by standing behind a rock is not ok. That's what I mean by using common sense. If its debatable then chances are its not necessarily an exploit, but people basically skipping entire fights or phases by doing sneaky things isn't up for debate, really. There isn't a leg to stand on there. I will concede that maybe some people might draw the line in different places so in those cases it's up to us as the community to set the bar. There are going to be bugs in any MMO that you play. It's up to the players to decide how and when they should be policed.

All it takes is a little common sense to see where that line is. It doesn't have to be drawn IMO. Those three examples you gave aren't exploits, and I don't think anyone considers them to be. Using a certain class comp in order to make a fight easier is just smart, and is a staple of MMO raiding. There is nothing expoitative about that, but when a guild basically renders a a fight's mechanics null by using some weird unintended positioning, hack, etc., I think most agree that is an exploit. Either way the issue lies with Bioware. Stuff like this shouldn't exist in the first place and they need to fix it before it goes live or at the bare minimum at least very shortly after it is discovered.

Very nice. It took us half a night of wipes to figure it out. >.<

This is a quote from one of their guild representatives. The hypocrisy abounds! LOL

That isn't the point. We could have easily cleared the entire instance last night if we had chosen to skip as they had, the last 3 bosses are a joke. Instead they took the easy way out by skipping the hardest encounter in the instance and discredited themselves in the process. Why should every other guild be punished for clearing the instance in the correct and obviously intended order. If they wanted the Dread Guards to be the last fight to be cleared, they would have put it at the end.

Agreed.

Except no one is counting it as progression except for your guild. Nice try though.