I think making tracer missiles instant would take Merc DPS back to the dark ages and breed a new generation of tracer missile spammers. No...we don't want those bums and losers back in WZs again.

New recruit geared players have about 14-15K health and are really easy to spot on a war zone by this number by Marauder DPS. BM geared players are usually somewhere between 16 and 17K. Usually WH and EWH geared players are 19K plus. Any idiot can work out the easy kills as melee DPSer in a WZ. There is a case for using some PvE gear with recruit at first to give you a bit more in your stats. Generally when at BM level you will start to drop all that. Medpacks are your friend as new guy in PvP to start with also.

The amount of dmg Smash does depends on gear, and yes it is actually a problem in warzones. A max geared "Smasher" can do a lot more than 7K dmg on recruit geared players. A recruit geared player tends to have about 15K, and a BM player a bit more, maybe 16K or so health. A smashed recruit or even BM player can lose over half their health bar to one smash from a geared player. They really are just too easy meat to the overpowered melee that Bioware has let SWTOR PvP become.

I think Bioware could possibly give sage a cool down, but I sort of think that would help the lesser skilled healing Sage / Sorc compete making the class easier to play. That might be a good thing for PvP. As it is, though, I have seen skilled Sorc/Sage in warzones survive very well, but I think it likely not easy, and may even be above and beyond what the majority playing the class at the moment can achieve. So, yes, you may well have a point.

ANd maybe this why Smash needs to be toned down? A Sniper (other pure dps class) can't do that so why should you?

This reads like a crazy Merc fantasy posting ;-) No the tracer missile spammers (most of them) have never become good.

No. learn to play your dps class better. We live in an era when DPS can AoE smash for nearly 10K on recuit geared players, these guys usually have 15K health! Likely you ran into a skilled healer who knows how to handle your dps class. Bioware shouldn't nerf healers to make PvP easy for DPS classes. Rather, DPS classes should learn to master their classes better in PvP. At the moment DPS, and especially melee dps is if anything overpowered.

It's hard to tell if it was a stealth buff or just a bug. However, this weekend I saw a team of 4 recruit geared players from a social guild obliterated in a WZ match using smash! Bioware this is just plain wrong. Why not fix the problem for 1.5 as it isn't fair and unbalances PvP. /mourn the death of balanced SWTOR PvP.

It's something Bioware could improve by balancing team composition in war zones queues and indicating in the raid frames which players are healer classes. Then simply put in a few tips about class roles into the PvP screen and problem largely solved. However, that would be very progressive from Bioware. At the moment as a healer you have to learn to run and heal and if in a weak team just keep going for a few medals or quit the team.

I think you have a point or two in that, but are going a bit over the top. 1. There is something to be written for tank classes in an mmo never to have better DPS than any of the pure DPS classes, but to have better survivability always. I think assassin tanks probably should have a minor damage reduction. 2. Maruader/Sentinels do need to have the burst clipped a little. Problem at the moment in PvP is that a WH/EWH geared Marauder can chop through most players in a few seconds unless they are similarly WH/EWH geared players. There is a case for either reducing the burst due to skills or lower the DPS stats on their WH/EWH gear. 3. Warrior smash should be toned down asap in a future patch. It is too OP, and basically can obliterate players in less than the best gear. 4. Sorc are OK at the moment. A different style of healer from Operative, but one of each complements well in a team. DPS Sorc should be less dps than Sniper or Marauader since they aren't a pure dps class (they can heal). 5. Merc is sort of alright, again they can heal so shouldn't be a top dps class in the game. 6. Operative stuns, and stun in general should be toned down, or stun breaking skill for classes increased. Operative dmg is about OK, but the multi stun abilities make them tricky for most to handle, and in less than WH gear their targets are too easy for them to kill.

I think you have to bear in mind that pre-50 PvP isn't balanced, but that as a 40-49 PvPer you will for most classes have an advantage over the 10-20 players despite stat boosting. That happy time in PvP is not dependent on gear though again that can help. It only takes an afternoon to get a level 10 toon, so you can always head back there. Level 50 PvP is a gear treadmill. You can start off with the recruit, then gear to the Battlemaster, then the War Hero, and finally get those weapons to Elite War hero and optimise the gear in a sexy shell. That is a lot of work now in terms of WZs for a new player and it can feel like hitting a wall at 50 where it is hard to get to War Hero gear. That is for the good, it shouldn't be easy to get the best PvP gear. It means that you will be killed in a few seconds solo by geared Marauders and Operatives. It does means geared players will drop from your warzone team as some don't like to play with recruit geared players. Ranked warzones largely failed in PvP because it's a pain putting a team together and then sitting in a queue hoping enough will join for the WZ to spawn. The weaker teams get scared off anyway by the pro teams with players in the best gear. Solo ranked warzones would have helped as it would have increased the pool of players playing ranked warzones, but Bioware pulled this. A shame as ranked should really be for War Hero and Elite War Hero geared players and unranked for the guys getting to that gear. So you are in a world of hurt where Maurauders will kill you in under 4 seconds and you will find it impossible to even scratch them. But, Bioware can likely improve this by giving back ranked solo.

Sorc is a pretty good healing option for PvP now. Works well with an Operative healer in WZs. However, caveat is that in less than WH gear in either you will be easy kills for WH geared marauder/Sentinel.

I think we should be talking 16 vs 16 or 24 vs 24 for a re-worked Ilum. Should have objectives and could even have PvE aspects within. Problem with Ilum in the past was the zerg and performance issues, but make it fixed numbers then it will still feel like large scale PvP, but, it won't have those problems.

At the moment any reasonably geared PvP Sage healer should only ever go down to to being focused by several geared PvP players on the other team. If you are going down easily 1 on 1 with a Marauder then you are doing something wrong, be it gear, spec, pressing the right buttons, or a combo of all of these issues. Even maxed out gear Marauder shouldn't be able to chop you into pieces as long as your reaction time is good, once he bursts his dps cool-downs and snare the marauders dps plummets, so just kite to your team and hope they have the common sense to nuke that sucker down, you can even DoT the Marauder while kiting to help take him down quicker, and always have slow cast onto him after surviving initial attack. Operatives/Scoundrels can get lucky with crits if they jump you, but as long as you react fast they will find it hard to kill you and again just kite them to the team and hope they nuke him down for you.

I've seen a Marauder in War Hero gear solo kill 5 Recruit/BM geared players guarding a turret at Alderan. Bioware surely this cannot be right, should there really be a Melee DPS GOD class in the game.