Please address lack of balance between DPS specs

Then why even have them? If any kind of diversity and utility are left at the front door to the raid if would have saved 10's of millions of dollars by having just three class's with one ability each.
Tank that can only taunt
Heal that can only heal
DPS that only has one attack
There no need to worry about class balance in raids or pvp or dps disparity of course every part of the game outside those would be pointless.........

Show us the parses. You people who keep claiming DPS operatives and scoundrels can melt face have NO EVIDENCE to back up your claims. There are thousands of parses on Torparse and AskMrRobot, and I haven't found one parse showing a Scoundrel pulling 1500 on HM TFB fights where Sentinels and Snipers can pull 1800-2000. Not one. That is a 15-25 percent difference. Go search for Scoundrels on Torparse. You are hard-pressed to even FIND a DPS Scoundrel. I wonder why that is.

Survivability? Seriously? You know that Marauders have some of the best survivability. In Anni spec, they can self heal, heal the group for little ticks (which makes a difference in AoE fights), have great defensive cooldowns on short timers, and aggro dumps (something PT's don't have - I believe). On top of that, as someone pointed out, Marauders have Bloodthirst and Predation, the best utility in the game for a raid... so how do you explain they're amazing utility and yet topping dps?

And yes, I'd still pick a marauder if an Ops could do as much sustained dps. Seriously, asking a DPS Ops to spot heal and such is so counter-productive to them dps'ing. You don't seem to get it: Boss Kills are done by people doing their job. No role, in this game so far, has been expected to fill 2 roles at once. I can't find one fight where you need the dps to off-heal, or the heals to dps. Seriously, plz learn about proper raiding before touting "utility" and such.

And I would love to see your DPS ops dps meters to see how they're hanging with the rest of the group... and plz try to show me in a HM TFB Run... HM EC was 5 months ago and isn't really relevant to dps checks.

Once again, the utility skills each class brings to the table are supposed to serve as motivation to bring a variety of classes. CC's, Defensive cooldowns, group buffs, etc. all fit into this category. Ideally you would want to balance your group to get a range of these utility skills. But that only works if they are somewhat close in DPS output. If a Sentinel can put out 15 percent more DPS than a Scoundrel, no utility the Scoundrel brings is going to matter enough to make you bring one along. That's why DPS Scoundrels are virtually extinct from the game.

Pure dps classes are still played as much or more than hybrids in WoW, where most hybrids can do as much or in some cases more damage than the pure dps classes. People have made that hybrid tax argument for years and ultimately lost.

Also, it's not true across the board in swtor that "pure" dps classes are performing above "hybrids". Powertechs/Vanguards are often dps chart toppers these days. Even Juggs typically perform better than Operatives. Mercenaries have a lot of complaints in the PVP dept. but they are fairly competitive in PVE.

Having said that, I don't think the balance is quite as bad as it could be. I also know Operatives who are really awesome, but you can't deny that they have become perceived as the most undesirable class to invite to an operation. I don't think I've ever seen a top 100 rankings list that had an Operative/Scoundrel on it, but every other AC is at least represented. (if you know of one, I'd like to see it)

I emailed Community Relations with a link to this thread to pass on to the devs so they can hopefully chime in here and either confirm or debunk people's opinion about this issue. Because regardless of how any of y'all feel or all the parses you may post, nobody knows how the devs feel about how the see DPS or any class in this game. Or what metrics they choose to use to determine the viability of different classes.

The parses and such may prove one thing, but who is to say that the dev team views things in an entirely different way from what any of us think when it comes to DPS, Healer, tank or whatever. So hopefully this gets forwarded to them to see the many varied opinions and numbers and will put all of it to rest by saying that the OP is right, is wrong, that rest of us is right, or is wrong or that everybody's opinion/facts is wrong.

15 % is somewhat close 25 % is on the outer edge. If the DPS has to be 10 % or less not even considering 5 % or less then again I ask why bother? There really is no point because the game/content was not designed to handle any thing other than the trinity and hybrids/utility class's are not part of that and any time/money/people spent on them is a waste or resources.

Its just like PVP you know why PVP works so well in all those First Person Shooters? Its the simple spastic chicken dance game play. run around shoot people add more people and it works even better because everyone is exactly the same running around doing the exactly the same thing.... shooting people

It just does not work well in an RPG where you have a diversity of class's and abilities with strengths and weaknesses just like hybrids/utility class's fall out side of the strict ridged structure of the trinity

The whole point of this thread is to get those answers. The community relations people read the forums. This thread has been on the front of the general discussion page for nearly a week now. I'm not holding my breath that they plan to give us any sort of answer.

The only thing we know on this topic is the devs said months ago that their intent is to keep all the DPS specs within 5 percent of each other. If that intent has changed, I'd love to know that. If not, I'd love to know what their measurements are showing and whether they match what we are seeing from sims and parses. And finally, I'd love to know if they plan to make any changes to fix the perceived disparities.

I know what the point of the thread is. That's why I emailed Allison a link to it in hopes that she will forward this on. I too want to know the answer because the back and forth bickering between everybody is really pointless because we aren't the ones "in the know". We can speculate and discuss all day until the cows come home about who is right, who is wrong, who has evidence and who doesn't. But it all doesn't mean a thing until the devs chime in and tell us what the deal is.

But like you, I'm not holding my breath either to see if they will respond to this. At least I can say I at least tried no matter how I feel on this particular subject.

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlo...w#d=0,f=55,b=1

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlo...w#d=0,f=21,b=1


Old, but the only ones I can find.

I'm just saying they can be competitive in the right hands. With the new gear I'm sure they'd be doing just as well as everyone else.