He is a healer apologist. The thing is, scoundrel heals is 100% fine. Merc is slightly underpowered (kolto shell needs a ~20% buff, kolto missile a ~10% buff). Merc in patch 2.10 was exactly the type of healing power that merc should have. They should have to use kolto shell, aim kolto missile for multiple targets, while having to watch their heat. Roaming mend needs to bounce once per 1.5 seconds (even with resurgence), and dark infusion and innervate need to cost ~10 more force power each. This would force sorcs to actually use consumption. Right now, a sorc can heal strong DPS for around 2 minutes before even needing to use consumption. Consumption should be mandatory to use every 10 seconds.

There are reasons to jump as a healer.

I'm not talking about defense rating. I'm talking about defensive stats. Sorry about the confusion. I'm saying use full shield absorb (since shield works better than defense rating in PVP), with high endurance mods and enhancements. It works, despite what some people on the forums will say. However, since 4.0 launched, running DPS gear on jugg tank is better than defensive gear, because of how much crushing blow and ravage hit for. A tank's job in PVP is to bullet sponge for a healer or melee DPS (occasionally ranged, but melee typically take the most damage). A tank is supposed to "hold aggro and tank" the other team's DPS, so endurance is far more useful for guard than defensive stats.

He's not clueless about tank gear, although I disagree that everyone in SWTOR PVP is meant to die. If a tank healer combo is more skilled than 2 DPS, they should be able to hold out indefinitely. If 2 DPS are more skilled than a tank healer combo, then the tank healer combo should be beat. Tanks in PVP with full defense, high endurance gear, can last for literally 2-3 minutes with a healer against 2-3 DPS, even if the DPS are skilled. I've played as a healer with 2 of the best tanks that played SWTOR. 2-3 players literally wouldn't kill myself and my guild's tanks. The thing that causes tanks to use DPS gear in PVP is because Bioware decided to buff jugg tank's DPS instead of its threat generation. This caused jugg to turn from a "best to guard, worst for DPS" tank, to a 100% viable DPS tank for ranked and regular WZs.

That's not why tanks are running DPS gear. The reason that I play jugg tank with DPS gear is because I'll routinely do over 2500 DPS, while doing around 1 million protection. Jugg tank with DPS gear does so much DPS, that gearing for defense isn't the best option. If jugg and assassin tank didn't hit for 15k (jugg tank crushing blow, assassin tank deprevating bolts), then high endurance, high shield chance would be the way to go for PVP. It is not uncommon for a tank to do over half of a DPS's damage in team ranked.

It didn't cost Bioware much if anything to keep ranked 8s going, but they discontinued those.

Please post patch notes and make the PTS commentable on. Right now I can't post there. Thanks for bringing back the PTS. It was very frustrating for you guys to keep pushing out content after content, without testing it on the PTS. Players have historically done a really great job of finding and reporting bugs (2.0, 2.4, 2.8, 3.3, etc). 4.0 and 3.0 may have been smoother launches if you guys had done open betas.

http://i.imgur.com/IZczsZy.jpg I do over 3k DPS very often (almost every WZ where the other team has at least 1 healer). Note, that screenshot is of arsenal merc. That wasn't a "fluff tab dot" round. Alexsamma is overexaggerating how many players do over 2k DPS consistently, but 2k+ is very easily achievable for some players.

Double merc, or merc and AP PT. The AP PT would bring taunts and carbonize, to help out with keeping the merc DPS alive. A merc DPS isn't going to die fast if he has the 30% damage taken reduction while stunned, and there is a jugg tank and PT DPS taunting.

2 accuracy enhancements for sentinel, sniper, juggernaut (vengeance), assassin, and mercenary. This gets to 105%, and bypasses the 5% defense chance that non-inquisitors have.

There are very, very few people left who do over 3k DPS. There may be 4 or so on TEH that play SWTOR more than once a week.

Jugg tank has had similar defensives that it has now (except enrage defense rework and mad dash (note, mad dash is frustrating due to the fact that in order for it to be usable while rooted, a tier 3 utility has to be used on it). Jugg tank is 100% fine, and has been for most of SWTOR history, if not all of it. The only real issue in regular WZs and team ranked is how roaming mend can hit a target twice for 10k each bounce. Sorc healer has more single target healing than commando, and commando's claim to fame is single target healing. On a side note, DPS immortal is very tanky for a DPS, but it is squishier than a real tank, and is still weak to elemental/internal specs (i.e., madness, lethality).

You're using carbonize wrong then. Carbonize in regs and solo ranked should be used when the other team's 2-3 rage juggs jump, or if 2-3 melee are attacking a healer. It's best used defensively in regs and solo ranked. Other than a team of vengeance juggs (which I don't see very often), carbonize is excellent for negating opening burst on a PT, as a PT is normally a first target other than maras.

The way to deal with AP PT would be to make carbonize give a bastion type buff to where carbonize can only be used on a target once per minute. That would get rid of double carbonize comps in team ranked. In regular WZs and solo ranked (which solo ranked is horrible, but still exists), AP PT 100% needs carbonize for defensive use. The thing is, is that stacking PTs is like stacking madness sorcs and healing sorcs. The more of them that get stacked, the more effective they are.

Marksman sniper was broke in PVE, and was broke in team ranked PVP, and close to being broke in regular WZs. Two snipers could global a player (25k ambush, 7k followthrough, 11k takedown). That being said, Bioware went overboard on marksman sniper. Bioware should've nerfed ambush's damage by 15%, and left the rest of the spec alone, but they didn't. They pulled a typical Bioware "nerf a spec until it's unplayable". For PVE, there was literally not any reason to not run 4 marksman snipers, since it was a top parser, and target switches only second to AP PT, while being ranged. On topic, AP PT's burst isn't anywhere near as scary as the forums paint it to be. AP PT is broke because of 2 stuns, jump, pull, taunts,and hydraulics. If Bioware hadn't given AP PT jump as a baseline ability, then AP PT would be fine. Currently, AP PT is unkiteable. I do not care how much a sorc DPS tries to kite, it is impossible to kite a skilled AP PT, due to how many gap closers AP PT has. I can handle AP's damage. The issue is the fact that AP is unkiteable. The only weaknesses AP PT really has is a very well played mara (top 1% of maras), and a lethality sniper (can't be jumped to or pulled). Mara can win out against AP because of better defensive CDs, while sniper is the only class that can somewhat keep an AP PT at range.