A level 55-59 player in full 162 PvE gear will have about 5k more HP and 200 more main stat than an equivalently geared player of a lower level. And still have 2018 expertise. This gives ~40k HP and 2800 main stat. Midbies are completely busted until Bioware fixes this. But half this forum will just tell you to get over it, the other half will say only 60s matter, and Bioware won't do anything anyway because EA doesn't put a dime that this game earns back into it.

We also need to balance Merc utility. -Remove Hydraulic Overrdrives -Remove Electro-net -50% overall damage decrease Mercenaries have been dominating 8v8s since 1.0 and still have the general community convinced they're ****! This outrage must be stopped!!!

And therein lies the problem. Lack of matchmaker for other game modes is annoying, but it's downright gamebreaking for arenas. I want to play Player vs Player. Not Player vs Matchmaker.

What the hell is wrong with this thing? I love arenas. But regular matchmaker nearly always makes teams completely imbalanced. Why does it sometimes, even in same faction matches, give one team 2 healers and 2 dps and the other 4 dps? What possible reason could Bioware believe that was okay!? Please fix this. It's awful. Yes, blah blah regs don't matter blah blah. Who cares. It's annoying an hell to be thrown into a match where no amount of outplay can secure a victory because the teams are so stacked against you. The only thing making healers not completely broken in pvp is that both teams get one. Take that away and gg.

Personally, given how bad the client is at updating the position of people when they roll, I don't think ops should be able to roll with the ball. Especially concealment "lol immune" ops. Most of the time when I see one with a ball they roll and then are instantly upstairs at the goal line due to latency.

Bolster gives you the equivalent boost of a 198 tier hilt/barrel if you're wearing proper pvp gear in warzones. PvE hilts do result in slightly more damage outside of warzones, but they're much worse in warzones due to the expertise loss.

For 60s pvp, to make best use of bolster, you want to use either Exhumed or Dark Reaver gear pieces, or 162 rating pve gear with no expertise. ANYTHING ELSE will not bolster you maximumly. Lower rating PvE gear will still get you the expertise (you should never, ever pvp with less than 2018) but less other stats. You, fortunately, get a free set of 162 rating gear by doing the Forged Alliances questline. You should wear that until you have enough comms to purchase your Exhumed set. For some reason, you need to use lower than 162 rating relics. Dread Guard relics, 150 rating, bolster the correct amount of expertise. Your mainhand and offhand might not bolster correctly with full 162 modifications. People have found that a 162 barrel/armoring, 156 mod, and 140 enhancement with a non-expertise crystal will bolster to the maximum expertise. The worst possible thing you can do is wear old or lower level pvp gear. It will not bolster correctly. Also, please don't augment for accuracy. Tanks aside, you should not need more than 95% for the majority of warzone play. Using augments for accuracy is trading power or main stat directly for accuracy, which is in nearly every scenario a terrible trade. Get the accuracy you need from your enhancements. Also, bolster adds a blue endurance 36 augment into every non-augmented gear slot. These give endurance and power. If you put worse augments in there, or in your example, accuracy augments, which give accuracy and endurance, you will lose power.

I really admire you playing carnage marauder despite their.. awfulness right now.. Question, do you solo queue at all? If so, how do you deal with the pub 4-man premades always getting paired together? It's been really frustrating for me as someone trying to get into ranked on PoT5.

Again, the issue is NOT expertise. It's bolster. Lowbies and high levels BOTH get 2018 expertise. If anything, expertise is actually preventing it from being MORE broken, since if a 59 tries wearing gear over 162 rating they lose expertise. Bolster isn't working correctly. But expertise is.

Vengeance is actually completely unplayable without Shien Form, so I question this change as well. Shien form's rage refund is vital for the spec. Might as well play rage spec until 41, because otherwise you'll just not have fun.

Expertise isn't actually the issue here. It's bolster bolstering 55-59 more than 30-54. Or not bolstering 30-54 enough to match the stat gain from leveling at 55-59. Either way, 55-59s have a much, much larger health pool and main stat.

I'm not saying mercs are fine. But they're not anything close to as bad off as marauders. They have a lot of damage potential, 100% immunity to dots (at least commandos), and electro net. Yes, they can be cc'd and globaled, but the same can be said for every class. Even sorcs after barrier has been spent. Electro net is a ridicously powerful ability. Electro netting a melee attacker when he's out of melee range is a free kill for the merc. Yes, sorcs are better. Way better. Sorcs are crazy good at the moment. Mercs need buffs, for sure. But they don't need sorc survivability, not when they have way more burst potential. They shouldn't have their cake and eat it too.

Sorcs don't hit 14k demolition rounds or 12k railshots. If you're perfectly min-maxed for power surge you MIGHT hit 10k with chain lightning on equal expertise players. Unlikely, though.

Every time I hear a merc complain about survivability I look at their 5.7k dps parses and just laugh. They have the highest damage potential in the game at 30m, and that does in fact translate over to INSANE burst in pvp. If they weren't squishy they'd be completely bonkers.

I suspect that she was wearing one of the bugged Rishi offhands as her mainhand, and when they were fixed in the last patch it became unequipped, so she can't use any attacks because she has no weapon equipped.