I have to ask this because I'm pretty new to level 50 but there is one key thing i've observed in my Warzones so far.

Players rarely even kill each other anymore - Voidstar for example ends 90% of the time in neither team managing to blow past the first door. The pvp seems to be more about interrupts and ninja captures than it is about actually winning a skrimish.

Due to the ridiculously well geared people with insanely high expetise ratings, and a decent amount of healers being in each game, the only people I ever see die at the ones that are still trying to gear up (like myself) or the ones that get caught 6v1 (and only when all their defensive cooldowns are preventing mass damage mitigation).

Am I going crazy or is this the case? Every single game there seems to be a couple of combos of healer+guardian meaning that neither of those guys will ever die, and between the guardian taunting non-stop and the healer being able to heal all he wants, no-one ever drops...

i think that you just woke up from a dream,there's no such thing as "organized teams" in PUGs.

if you have a tank/healer able class use that tree until you get to a good gear,then respec DPS,at least that's what i do.

I have to ask this because I'm pretty new to level 50 but there is one key thing i've observed in my Warzones so far.

 

Players rarely even kill each other anymore - Voidstar for example ends 90% of the time in neither team managing to blow past the first door. The pvp seems to be more about interrupts and ninja captures than it is about actually winning a skrimish.

 

Due to the ridiculously well geared people with insanely high expetise ratings, and a decent amount of healers being in each game, the only people I ever see die at the ones that are still trying to gear up (like myself) or the ones that get caught 6v1 (and only when all their defensive cooldowns are preventing mass damage mitigation).

 

Am I going crazy or is this the case? Every single game there seems to be a couple of combos of healer+guardian meaning that neither of those guys will ever die, and between the guardian taunting non-stop and the healer being able to heal all he wants, no-one ever drops...

In general it's wrong impression. Although it's often the most effective way to respec to tank/healer for defense in voidstar. If the opponent does this, then your attack is going to be difficult, but even if both weren't able to breach through the first door -> the winner will be defined by kills count, so dps actually matters. And yep, people in worse gear will die much more then geared fellows. The only wz that doesn't really need good dps is huttball. The rest wzs need dps, ninja caps work only occasionally against completely unorganised group.

Players rarely even kill each other anymore - Voidstar for example ends 90% of the time in neither team managing to blow past the first door. The pvp seems to be more about interrupts and ninja captures than it is about actually winning a skrimish.

This is an accurate description of high level ranked pvp at this time. The way the game has evolved, the defense is stronger than the attack 99% of the time, if both teams are highly skilled. I'm somewhat surprised that you experienced this same phenomenon in regular warzones, but perhaps you played only a few matches and wound up with good players on both sides. And it is not only Voidstar. Novare and Civil War also result in stalemates at mid the vast majority of the time in top tier ranked matches. So 3 out of 5 pvp maps basically expose a breakdown in the pvp system with the current game. This was not the case early in the games existence.

There are several reasons for this outcome:

1) Tanks - early in the game's history tanks were not well played or even common. Now a good pvp tank can literally stonewall an enemy attack in any numerically even encounter (3v3, 4v4, etc.).

2) Removal of attack power ups - players moaned that TTK was too low, so the devs nerfed relics and stims. yet the main problem was simply inexperienced players not knowing how to use their defensive CDs.

3) Zero cost field respec - devs added this as a quality of life improvement, but as was the case with a lot of dev changes, this borked pvp gameplay. Moreover it flies in the face of the purported dev desire to reduce the barriers new players face to being competitive in pvp. Now to be competitive, a new player needs to have 2 suits of gear ready for use.

4) Elimination of certain dps classes - DoT dps classes which used to be quite prevalent in the game are now completely obsolete. DoTs interfere with mezz/cc strategies which are a prerequesite in high level ranked pvp.

Ultimately, DPS isn't useless in lev 50 pvp. It is just extremely weak. A top ranked team will convert to 7 DPS and a healer while on the attack in an attempt to breach the 4+4 tank/healer defender setup. It will still be difficult.

This is an accurate description of high level ranked pvp at this time. The way the game has evolved, the defense is stronger than the attack 99% of the time, if both teams are highly skilled. I'm somewhat surprised that you experienced this same phenomenon in regular warzones, but perhaps you played only a few matches and wound up with good players on both sides. And it is not only Voidstar. Novare and Civil War also result in stalemates at mid the vast majority of the time in top tier ranked matches. So 3 out of 5 pvp maps basically expose a breakdown in the pvp system with the current game. This was not the case early in the games existence.

 

There are several reasons for this outcome:

 

1) Tanks - early in the game's history tanks were not well played or even common. Now a good pvp tank can literally stonewall an enemy attack in any numerically even encounter (3v3, 4v4, etc.).

 

2) Removal of attack power ups - players moaned that TTK was too low, so the devs nerfed relics and stims. yet the main problem was simply inexperienced players not knowing how to use their defensive CDs.

 

3) Zero cost field respec - devs added this as a quality of life improvement, but as was the case with a lot of dev changes, this borked pvp gameplay. Moreover it flies in the face of the purported dev desire to reduce the barriers new players face to being competitive in pvp. Now to be competitive, a new player needs to have 2 suits of gear ready for use.

 

4) Elimination of certain dps classes - DoT dps classes which used to be quite prevalent in the game are now completely obsolete. DoTs interfere with mezz/cc strategies which are a prerequesite in high level ranked pvp.

 

Ultimately, DPS isn't useless in lev 50 pvp. It is just extremely weak. A top ranked team will convert to 7 DPS and a healer while on the attack in an attempt to breach the 4+4 tank/healer defender setup. It will still be difficult.

I do not wholeheartly agree with you saying that DPS is extremely weak in this game. If anything, DPS is extremely strong, with everyone having less defensive CDs than any MMO in the market (well except if youre a marauder).

1) Yeah tanks can be annoying in PvP, especially because the mechanics they use are too straightfoward. Guarding is too strong, taunts are too efficient in a very low CD. IMO guard should be changed for PvP, instead of damage transfer it should give the protected person a flat damage reduction (10-15%). The impact of a "shared health pool" is too big in PvP IMO. Also DPSers out of tanking stance shouldnt be allowed to use taunts IMO. You can use taunts as DPS, but not in DPS stance.

2) TTK was indeed low but the removal of on use trinkets is bad for the game IMO, better to reduce overall sustained damage across the board and keep power ups in the game, its more skilled this way. Unfortunately they cant reduce overall sustained of DPS classes because of PvE, we got shafted on this one.

3) Filed respec is a joke on warzones. Completely on spot.

4) Which DoT classes? Anni mara? Dude one of the strongest "DoT" classes in the game is a pyro PT, and they arent even a DoT based class, game balance, go figure. But yeah, on most MMOs DPS specs are divided into DoT pressure or burst classes. In this game there arent many competitive DoT pressure classes and burst classes have strong(er) DoTs, this is a core game design issue.

The whole purpose of a pressure class is to setup the kill for the big burst. See the warlock / rogue sinergy that was present in a lot of seasons on that game.

The affliction (DoT based warlock) wouldnt kill anyone by himself, but we would spread out strong DoTs to pressure the healers and make quick recoveries almost impossible.

Then the rogue burst would stunlock and open on someone who was pressured by DoTs, ensuring a quick and clean kill, couple this with CC and you have a good setup for killing anything no matter how many healers are present.

In SWTOR this kind of sinergy is not present in the game, burst classes jump players and hope to explode them in a few globals praying for an unnatentive (or CCed) healer. It makes the game straightfoward and zergy because the bursters know that if they cant score a kill in a few globals the person is going to be overhealed / taunted / guarded to oblivion thus becoming almost impossible to kill.

The "pressure shift game" that makes a game interesting is not present on SWTOR, either you stunlock and explode people in seconds or you dont kill them at all.

I have to ask this because I'm pretty new to level 50 but there is one key thing i've observed in my Warzones so far.

 

Players rarely even kill each other anymore - Voidstar for example ends 90% of the time in neither team managing to blow past the first door. The pvp seems to be more about interrupts and ninja captures than it is about actually winning a skrimish.

 

Due to the ridiculously well geared people with insanely high expetise ratings, and a decent amount of healers being in each game, the only people I ever see die at the ones that are still trying to gear up (like myself) or the ones that get caught 6v1 (and only when all their defensive cooldowns are preventing mass damage mitigation).

 

Am I going crazy or is this the case? Every single game there seems to be a couple of combos of healer+guardian meaning that neither of those guys will ever die, and between the guardian taunting non-stop and the healer being able to heal all he wants, no-one ever drops...

Not sure if serious.

If no one dies in a PUG would you like to know why? It's not the "unkillable tank-healer" combo. It's because you're leaving me (the healer) free casting in the back. I had a game the other day where I did 497k heals (on a Commando no less) without guard or peels. No one bothered to attack me. They just left me there. Every once and a while someone would leap over to me but I KB them and that would be it. To much effort to get back to me I guess.

Every screen shot I see of a game where someone had a million damage there was a healer on the other team that had just as much healing. If you leave healers to do what they will no one will die. Glob help you if you have me and a Scoundrel being left alone in the back. It seems like DPS is useless(and frankly they are if they aren't bringing down the healers) when you have 2 healers tossing out 5k heals every time you attack someone.

If no one dies in a PUG would you like to know why? It's not the "unkillable tank-healer" combo. It's because you're leaving me (the healer) free casting in the back. I had a game the other day where I did 497k heals (on a Commando no less) without guard or peels. No one bothered to attack me. They just left me there. Every once and a while someone would leap over to me but I KB them and that would be it. To much effort to get back to me I guess.

^^This.

I've noticed this more and more lately. Healers, even being marked, are still left alone. How many times must one repeat 'focus the healer, I even marked them for you'. The only time you should leave the healer alone is when he tries to kite you away from an objective, let him go at that point. He's too far away to heal his team and he'll most likely sit there and heal himself back up. That gives you a few GCD's to focus someone else till he comes back.

So don't tunnel vision a healer while not keep an eye on the node, but please go after them if they are in range.

^^This.

 

I've noticed this more and more lately. Healers, even being marked, are still left alone. How many times must one repeat 'focus the healer, I even marked them for you'. The only time you should leave the healer alone is when he tries to kite you away from an objective, let him go at that point. He's too far away to heal his team and he'll most likely sit there and heal himself back up. That gives you a few GCD's to focus someone else till he comes back.

 

So don't tunnel vision a healer while not keep an eye on the node, but please go after them if they are in range.

I've been noticing this a lot as well and it's starting to get annoying.

^^This.

 

I've noticed this more and more lately. Healers, even being marked, are still left alone. How many times must one repeat 'focus the healer, I even marked them for you'. The only time you should leave the healer alone is when he tries to kite you away from an objective, let him go at that point. He's too far away to heal his team and he'll most likely sit there and heal himself back up. That gives you a few GCD's to focus someone else till he comes back.

 

So don't tunnel vision a healer while not keep an eye on the node, but please go after them if they are in range.

Sometimes "CC heals, kill tank" is better. If they're operating as a functioning unit.

But yes, people ignoring a freecasting healer is depressingly common. I've no idea how many battles I've spent chasing operatives (and the occasional decent sorc, even merc) around the warzone like some demented valentine who won't get the message, while sub-100k dps randoms bounce off each other and complain that they can't kill anyone. Healing operatives are the cockroaches of warzones.

I do not wholeheartly agree with you saying that DPS is extremely weak in this game. If anything, DPS is extremely strong, with everyone having less defensive CDs than any MMO in the market (well except if youre a marauder).

 

1) Yeah tanks can be annoying in PvP, especially because the mechanics they use are too straightfoward. Guarding is too strong, taunts are too efficient in a very low CD. IMO guard should be changed for PvP, instead of damage transfer it should give the protected person a flat damage reduction (10-15%). The impact of a "shared health pool" is too big in PvP IMO. Also DPSers out of tanking stance shouldnt be allowed to use taunts IMO. You can use taunts as DPS, but not in DPS stance.

 

2) TTK was indeed low but the removal of on use trinkets is bad for the game IMO, better to reduce overall sustained damage across the board and keep power ups in the game, its more skilled this way. Unfortunately they cant reduce overall sustained of DPS classes because of PvE, we got shafted on this one.

 

3) Filed respec is a joke on warzones. Completely on spot.

 

4) Which DoT classes? Anni mara? Dude one of the strongest "DoT" classes in the game is a pyro PT, and they arent even a DoT based class, game balance, go figure. But yeah, on most MMOs DPS specs are divided into DoT pressure or burst classes. In this game there arent many competitive DoT pressure classes and burst classes have strong(er) DoTs, this is a core game design issue.

 

The whole purpose of a pressure class is to setup the kill for the big burst. See the warlock / rogue sinergy that was present in a lot of seasons on that game.

 

The affliction (DoT based warlock) wouldnt kill anyone by himself, but we would spread out strong DoTs to pressure the healers and make quick recoveries almost impossible.

 

Then the rogue burst would stunlock and open on someone who was pressured by DoTs, ensuring a quick and clean kill, couple this with CC and you have a good setup for killing anything no matter how many healers are present.

 

In SWTOR this kind of sinergy is not present in the game, burst classes jump players and hope to explode them in a few globals praying for an unnatentive (or CCed) healer. It makes the game straightfoward and zergy because the bursters know that if they cant score a kill in a few globals the person is going to be overhealed / taunted / guarded to oblivion thus becoming almost impossible to kill.

 

The "pressure shift game" that makes a game interesting is not present on SWTOR, either you stunlock and explode people in seconds or you dont kill them at all.

Funny that you disagreed with that previous post, because I believe he was completely correct about just about every point.

It is a matter of lack of skill and knowledge of using defensive cooldowns, that's the difference in rated warzones and even regs to a lesser degree.

Funny that you disagreed with that previous post, because I believe he was completely correct about just about every point.

It is a matter of lack of skill and knowledge of using defensive cooldowns, that's the difference in rated warzones and even regs to a lesser degree.

Check PM.