I just don’t understand how people still hate smashers so much.. then again I think I know why.. I rolled one lvld it and geared it out w/ the purpose of doing pure dps (I’d previously only healed and done hybrid dps – tank..) I rolled people in lowbie so badly it was ridiculous, however when I got to 50.. I really wasn’t satisfied. In reality It comes down to the aoe affect.. and smash just not being that good if you’re not pulling off multi person smashes. Against a single target the common smash are not all that great at all, and it tends to be that way against better players… So for lack of a better way of putting it, generally the build outperforms dps wise against bad players, and under performs against good ones… hence always going to appear ridiculously op to a portion of players.. I think the question is more, if their is a mechanic that a player does not understand, how big should the disadvantage be? Smash is definitely very much on the high side, in terms of punishing people who don't play against it correctly..

Assassin is not really a 600k class. Darkness can do it, its extremely rare though and requires at least a perfect game during a full length voidstar.. In ideal conditions madness can do it easy, that’s not really relevant tho, since in the average wz madness is not all that viable.

I feel like in the naïve “close gap and dps nearest target” mindset (which is how half the people in this game play 95% of the time), marauders wreck. Yes in a face tanking dps competition, they plain own people. They “cut down everything.” They are however the least versatile class in the game tho.. They lack significant cc. The only classes w/ worse mobility have maintainable 30m range dps.. No class has less 10m and 30m range attacks. They are the most clustering prone/aoe vulnerable class in the game. Essentially they can’t really be stacked because of their weaknesses… else you start getting situations where a single bubble stun hits 4 people and healer gets away and half your team gets neutralized for 10 gcd, b/c no ones w/ in 4m and all their gap closers are on cd.. I don’t think most experienced players think any more than 2 is all that optimal due to their shortcomings…. I think this last point is the strongest one on class balance.. If teams the the general pop think are optimal only roll 1-2… I just don’t see big changes coming. Hitting 1 exactly is not possible.. and you cant get to "0-1 on an optimal team class" w/ out making another class a 1-2… Hopefully someone gets my point..

Only armorings from belt and bracers are generic to my knowledge.. lvl 27 armorings from offhands were not the last time I tested it, although 26 from offhands are generic. The fastest way to gear up to bis is to start w/ shells that have the set bonus you want (either have to have old bm shells or use a pve set bonus if your class has a good one) then buy ewh belt/bracers for the armorings and mods.. For some classes its very very efficient.. Literally can get to bis for less than half the cost of going the standard route, and you get 80% of the bump 1/3 of the way in (e.g. you get full bis 27 armoring + 27 mod + bis 26 enhancement, at the point where you'd be 60% of the way done buying ewh the standard way once..)

I find it somewhat odd that the OP brings up he plays a sage.. Its somewhat discredits everything you say when your rolling probably the 1st or 2nd most fotm class right now which everyone complains about because it pretty much effs melee classes with downright disgusting amounts of cc, and then… your topic is about how op a melee class… Literally makes me want to cry..

I'd second that... Vanguards/pts can murder smashers.. Range dps in general is tough.. I feel like alot of classes shouldn't really be able to complain about smashers.. Vanguards/Snipers: Largely counter classes, And since they Can Dps from range, if they get caught clustered its pretty much their own fault. Bub sorc: Sure.. a couple smashers can kill them almost instantly.. they are the ultimate melee counter class tho when not dead.. Healers: Again, kinda there own fault if they get caught in it.. no reason you can't stay away from your teammates and heal from range Mara/Jug dps: Since they roll the spec.. cant really complain about it. Assassin: Has every tool in the world to react to the smash build up and prevent it from going off at inopportune times Really would say in general i only feel bad for people in the tanking roll. Trying to peel a smasher off you healer means youre inevitably going to be eating some 1.5x smashes due to your guard.

Tankasins also have auto crits. I don’t think of auto criters stacking power as gaining an advantage.. more as removing a disadvantage. They get no benefit from half their stats otherwise, unoptimized they are terrible. Would have to think bw already balances classes assuming everyone stacks power, given its the most optimal secondary stat to stack for all classes.

People just need to understand how op healing works.. Generally super efficient, slow, spread out... They can concentrate it if and only if: 1. They sacrifice efficiency 2. Targets are low health In order to counter it you need to.. 1. Not spread damage out over multiple targets 2. Kill focused targets quickly, especially towards the end Would say practically the first thing anyone rolling an op healer learns from lowbie is that op healing w/ out surgical probe is terrible..

After leveling a jug to 50 and gearing it almost to wh since the buff.. I’ve played a 100s of games in lowbie perpetually rolling people doing multiples of the next best dps.. and effortlessly got most of wh at 50… however I can’t say I’ve come to the conclusion that they are op at a high level of play.. However would say more than any other class they punish people who don’t repond and just play as usual when facing them.. People complain about “burst aoe”… however its also the longest to set up and easiest to avoid.. when your playing people who know what they are doing, its painful, they anticipate it and hitting 2+ people becomes the exception, not the rule… A huge portion of players do use non adaptive/non responsive straties in wz tho… and just spamming derpsmash can be so ironically dominant against non adaptive strategies that it’s a bit absurd.. when you want to just midlessly dps/heal/tank, its no fun to play against smashers, b/c they’ll always win. So essentially, am not sure it will be nerfed… If this game was brand new I think bw would.. because very basic strategies that are much more dominant than other basic strategies cause mass rage b/c everyone is at the basic point in terms of learning the game and they only have 1 toon.. however at this point I think it could stay. And last patch definitely seems to indicate it could. Jugs afterall got the biggest buff in 1.6.. being able to respec out of smashing when on maps its not as good is pretty huge..

There is still hope.. I think it takes them 7+ days to respond now.

Most effective tanks in pvp roll dps gear. Its just how it works. Would also say you need to be in voice com w/ a dedicated healer.. As a tank, if youre not working as a team w/ a healer, your just not going to be effective at all. Once you got that down start trying to guard swap to any target the opposing team is focusing when your healer has no one on them, and you'll increase your protection numbers and your healers healing numbers.. Would say some of the highest healing #'s i've seen are not due to healers.. they're due to tanks that not only free their healer up to free cast, but also guard switch/never are at full health and always have hots/are in their healers aoes.

Would say it has one definitive positive effect in normal wz. It allows you to sometimes turn what would otherwise be a very imbalanced team into a balanced one.. allowing you to remove one of the negative effects of having partially random teams in normal. It does benefit some classes though more than others which is not really fair… For assassins the option does almost 0, for jugs its huge… I did not think its possible but would say rage jugs got buffed again in this last patch… What would normally be Jug smasher players can now respect to tank on voidstar defense and huttbal and what would usually be jug tank players can respect to smash on voidstar offense. Can even see the situation happening in ranked where you determine you don’t have enough dps to take a node back and opt to respec one of your tanks to dps… on alderaan jugs will probably be able to do it at no cost on the speeder right down every time they swap offense/defense. The possibilities are endless.. am sure there are more ways to abuse respecs intragame yet to be discovered.. Really just want to know at this point from bw if its permanent or restrictions around respecing are going to be made.

Isn't it the other way around? Less healers -> Exertise has less advantage over main stats. Just saying...

I think the solution is just to make the non reusable ones cheaper to produce... I've used low level seisimic grenades on all my toons because they are still good and also cheap...... if their was a cheap + good cryo/rakata freezbombs that would fix the problem. I have recently given into switching all my serious pvp toons over to cybertech... There are just to many situations where an extra aoe mez, stun, or even slow(for some classes) will win or lose you a game...

Would agree that jugs can run into serious dps problems post smash which theoretically would compensate a little for having op smashes.. Would say 2 things negate the effect tho, the first is how front loaded jugs dps is, their average dps in the first few gcd is clearly the best/near the best, however even up until the 2nd smash, it is still very good. The 2nd is if the opposing team does not have enough heals and enough opponents are low health, jugs are able to add vicious throw to their rotation, which is enough to give them very very good single target dps between smashes..