Ok heh.

So mercs are actually rather good in regs. They're not the best pug-carriers in the game, but I seriously don't remember the last time I ever finished a reg warzone and thought I'd under-performed because of my class. As many have said, the problems occur in arenas - specifically yolos where you can't pick your own team. In regs the key is positioning. More important to mercs than many other classes - positioning is half your defense.

As for the sniper comparison - that's just a bad matchup for mercs UNLESS the merc can duck behind LOS to heal repeatedly. Any sniper who can't facetank a merc and win is doing something wrong, assuming they have cooldowns. If the merc can LOS+Heal, the story changes. Sniper defenses are designed to eliminate a LOT of white ranged damage, which is a big part of merc dps. On the flipside, merc defenses aren't really geared towards snipers. That's cool, it just means the sniper is a better turret - which is as it should be.

http://www.youtube.com/zachariahpvp

(shameless plug)

well lets see, swtor dropped in november 2011, so that would be almost 5 years not counting beta. i'm not sure what kind of backward logic runs through your head, but do you even read what you wrote?

Wow, that long? The logic is that it took me 10 months to get one toon to 52, three others to over thirty, and sixteen others to above twenty, and make those three-thousand-plus kills. When conquest goals demand 100 kills I usually have that done within 24 hours. At that pace, how long do you think before I'm lapping you like Steve Rogers in a park, son?

http://38.media.tumblr.com/9de645145f28e0102e21a701554d84e8/tumblr_njyl4altL61tlgqkgo3_500.gif

What can I say, that annoying little mission for Pierce gave me a taste for blood.

As for the sniper comparison - that's just a bad matchup for mercs UNLESS the merc can duck behind LOS to heal repeatedly.

That makes sense. These guys were trying to charge up the south hill on the beachhead WZ with no cover. Probably the worst possible scenario for them. If they'd had a PT guarding them and taking point then the fight might have gone a lot differently.

snip

Just to adress the e-peen rubbing going on here. 3000+ kills in 10 months is really not that much, even at a rate of 4000 per 10 months. It would take you 50,000/4,000 * 10 = 125 months to get the Manhunter title. Also you seem to underestimate how much more valour you'll need to get to the higher ranks. Getting your valour from 1 to 20 is a lot easier than getting it from 90 to 91.

I'm not saying you're bad or inexperienced. But I am saying it's nothing to rub your e-peen over.

you really don't even understand what a fool you sound like do you? you really don't have any clue what you are talking about do you? you think that getting to 50 in 10 months is fast and don't even understand that the game practically gives valor 50 to everybody that does pvp once in a while. to answer your specific question at your rate, you will get your first elite warlord in 500 months or almost 42 years. ironically, this is exactly the point i was trying to make, so thanks for that. you don't understand nearly as much as you think you do, and every time you try to prove different you sound like a fool.

Well, tbh Elite Warlord looks hard but many people did it in less than a month during the ilum fiasco.

Well, tbh Elite Warlord looks hard but many people did it in less than a month during the ilum fiasco.

exploits aside, elite warlord is hard. not so much in difficulty but in commitment, i don't know of any achievement that takes more investment.

exploits aside, elite warlord is hard. not so much in difficulty but in commitment, i don't know of any achievement that takes more investment.

I do - 10 solo kills x50 in all the possible warzones.

I do - 10 solo kills x50 in all the possible warzones.

I still don't understand why people are spouting valor. Queue enough warzones and go afk and you will still get there. Valor means nothing.

And to answer the sniper vs Merc scenario. If there is no LOS sniper should win every time. If there is LOS Merc should win every time. As someone else stated it comes down to positioning. Mercs only draw back is that they don't have an anti focus fire button. But honestly, if they have the proper team support they are still just fine. Hence they have the most issues in yolo's. In regs they are great. I'm glad you found a taste for pvp. Pvp is great fun. Just be willing to try out the suggestions to improve. We all get salty on the forums especially when people have differing opinions. Keep trying. Focus on line of sight, kiting, and positioning and you will be fine.

Like I said before, I rarely die more than 2-3 times in a warzone. I am almost always top damage and also almost always have the most damage taken. I just am good at kiting and LOS.

I still don't understand why people are spouting valor. Queue enough warzones and go afk and you will still get there. Valor means nothing.

 

And to answer the sniper vs Merc scenario. If there is no LOS sniper should win every time. If there is LOS Merc should win every time. As someone else stated it comes down to positioning. Mercs only draw back is that they don't have an anti focus fire button. But honestly, if they have the proper team support they are still just fine. Hence they have the most issues in yolo's. In regs they are great. I'm glad you found a taste for pvp. Pvp is great fun. Just be willing to try out the suggestions to improve. We all get salty on the forums especially when people have differing opinions. Keep trying. Focus on line of sight, kiting, and positioning and you will be fine.

 

Like I said before, I rarely die more than 2-3 times in a warzone. I am almost always top damage and also almost always have the most damage taken. I just am good at kiting and LOS.

it became a question because one guy tried to use his low valor as an appeal to authority. your point that that is a fallacy is correct, but i chose option b, of pointing out that he hadn't achieved enough to be considered an authority by that measure. your claim, however, is the fallacy of oversimplification. you cannot just load into a wz and then go afk to get valor, and valor doesn't "mean nothing", it is a measure of how much time a character has in pvp. if i see that someone has 100 valor on a class, i am going to pay a lot more attention to what they say. maybe i will agree with them and maybe i won't, but i don't believe it is possible to get to 100 without learning a lot about a class.

to the original question, mercs can feel weak to some because they have the same flaw as snipers: they don't have a leave me alone button to force a focus change. everyone figured out that we don't have a lmab and started targeting us first, and that is really bad since we don't have any way of making them leave us alone... heals are not as effective as absorb shields when getting focused so mercs are in an even worse spot than snipers, BUT...

this is only an issue when they are getting heavy focus. in ranked arenas it is easy for 4 people to quickly coordinate on a single target before the match starts and good enough to follow through on it. occasionally you will find a premade using ts that will do the same, but the lack of ability for players to coordinate that in 8v8 and the quality of play one usually finds in reg arenas make it a small problem. i wish that they had a lmab. i wish my sniper had one too because that is the toon i am best on, and would love to prove that in ranked, but the title of this thread "why merc are so bad in pvp" is so far off base it doesn't deserve honest and detailed explanation or discussion. i should have just trolled it.

it became a question because one guy tried to use his low valor as an appeal to authority. your point that that is a fallacy is correct, but i chose option b, of pointing out that he hadn't achieved enough to be considered an authority by that measure. your claim, however, is the fallacy of oversimplification. you cannot just load into a wz and then go afk to get valor, and valor doesn't "mean nothing", it is a measure of how much time a character has in pvp. if i see that someone has 100 valor on a class, i am going to pay a lot more attention to what they say. maybe i will agree with them and maybe i won't, but i don't believe it is possible to get to 100 without learning a lot about a class.

 

to the original question, mercs can feel weak to some because they have the same flaw as snipers: they don't have a leave me alone button to force a focus change. everyone figured out that we don't have a lmab and started targeting us first, and that is really bad since we don't have any way of making them leave us alone... heals are not as effective as absorb shields when getting focused so mercs are in an even worse spot than snipers, BUT...

 

this is only an issue when they are getting heavy focus. in ranked arenas it is easy for 4 people to quickly coordinate on a single target before the match starts and good enough to follow through on it. occasionally you will find a premade using ts that will do the same, but the lack of ability for players to coordinate that in 8v8 and the quality of play one usually finds in reg arenas make it a small problem. i wish that they had a lmab. i wish my sniper had one too because that is the toon i am best on, and would love to prove that in ranked, but the title of this thread "why merc are so bad in pvp" is so far off base it doesn't deserve honest and detailed explanation or discussion. i should have just trolled it.

You don't have to do hardly anything to get valor in a warzone. I've seen people who tout high valor level who only play one class and who aren't good at it. Valor truly is meaningless. Pvp achievements is a bit better of an indicator as you actually have to do certain things, but even that doesn't always indicate if a player is good or not.

I respect that you have your own opinion though so we will just have to agree to disagree on valor.

Are you really saying you want Energy Shield to work like Shield Probe? Are you mental? Shield Probe and the like will break once a certain amount of damage is taken irrespective of how much damage is being dealt to you. A DR increase will ensure damage is significantly reduced for the entire duration of the cooldown. This makes it a lot more useful as you take more damage. Let me give basic formula:

 

Damge taken = Dame done to you - Absorb shield

This is for a cooldown like shield probe.

 

Damage taken = Damge done*(1- damage reduction)

This is for a damage reduction increase.

 

As you can clearly see, Energy Shield will reduce your damage taken by more as damage increases. This makes it more useful against high bursts damage. And, oh yeah, multiple people attacking you.

maybe so but i also play mando same spec and see how things go there

same story

but now i did 4 vs 4 i had 2 sagas with me and a vanguard

imps had 2 snipers 1 mar and 1 opertive i think ouch gonna be hard sniper are already very very tanky

and opertive are just a pain in pvp

but thx to the 2 sagas i was able to kill them with out them i was dead in no time

but mostly team work in pvp is very sad

but like i said earlier ad imps almost no1 play them in pvp

its always jugg opertive and sorcs and i see more and more assassins now

and am the only merc around XD

when the pvp end juggs are 1 2 and 3 place sorc are 4th and so on

and players always pick a class that are atm OP in pvp and jugg is atm king in defense and damage

and good pvp players always go for the weaker classes first and yea that are merc and mar atm

they always go after you first with so 2 ore 3 players dead in seconds

some even w8 till i go back and repeat the story

mostly i die 15 times when others die only so 2 a 3 times

some times am lucky when the other teams are bad and dont focus on me then yea am mostly 3th place

then i can do my high damage and kill allot off players

but its very rare i can do that

maybe so but i also play mando same spec and see how things go there

same story

 

but now i did 4 vs 4 i had 2 sagas with me and a vanguard

 

imps had 2 snipers 1 mar and 1 opertive i think ouch gonna be hard sniper are already very very tanky

and opertive are just a pain in pvp

 

but thx to the 2 sagas i was able to kill them with out them i was dead in no time

 

but mostly team work in pvp is very sad

 

but like i said earlier ad imps almost no1 play them in pvp

its always jugg opertive and sorcs and i see more and more assassins now

 

and am the only merc around XD

 

when the pvp end juggs are 1 2 and 3 place sorc are 4th and so on

and players always pick a class that are atm OP in pvp and jugg is atm king in defense and damage

 

and good pvp players always go for the weaker classes first and yea that are merc and mar atm

they always go after you first with so 2 ore 3 players dead in seconds

 

some even w8 till i go back and repeat the story

mostly i die 15 times when others die only so 2 a 3 times

 

some times am lucky when the other teams are bad and dont focus on me then yea am mostly 3th place

then i can do my high damage and kill allot off players

 

but its very rare i can do that

Yes most teams don't do team work very well. That's why players have to become self sufficient. The single most important skill to get good at as a Merc (and some other class) is kiting. Kiting is usually what sets apart the good from the inexperienced. If you are exceptional at kiting you will prevent yourself from dying that many times.

Honestly, it just sounds like you need more practice. I was better in 2.0 than I was in 1.0. I was better in 3.0 than I was in 2.0. I'm better now than I was in 3.0. It all comes down to practice. I used to die more often, but now not so much. Only time I die is when several people gang up on me and I am unable to escape. Getting good at single encounters will deter people from hunting you. Getting good at kiting will help in single encounters and in gank situations. Positioning is so important. Run around next to the sorcs on your team. Even if they aren't helping you at all it will deter people from attacking you because people will think the sorc is helping you. Always know where to go to escape. Just takes a lot of practice.

One more piece of advice that I give to ALL players: level up and play all classes and all specs in pvp. It will help you identify each specs strengths and weaknesses better than anything else you can do.

Yes most teams don't do team work very well. That's why players have to become self sufficient. The single most important skill to get good at as a Merc (and some other class) is kiting. Kiting is usually what sets apart the good from the inexperienced. If you are exceptional at kiting you will prevent yourself from dying that many times.

this is absolutely correct and people who have trouble with kiting are almost always doing one or both of two things wrong. either they stop running too soon, or they run away from the rest of their group. the last one is especially problematic, but is easily corrected. the thing is, if you have a jugg or other melee on you and you run him so that he is right in front of two of your teammates, they will stop attacking whatever they were, and switch to that jugg, just because nobody wants a jugg in their face if they can help it. good kiters understand, and use that to get melee off of them.

It's also worth learning when to kite and when to stand and cast. You want to save your CC's and movement abilities for burst windows ideally (gore etc), and use softer 'semi-kiting' strategies combined with DCDs (energy shield, supercharged defense) to create castable openings the rest of the time.

By that I mean things like rocket-punch root with a few steps to get just out of melee range followed by hard casting. Or running *towards* a meleer to cast within their minimum leap range etc. You're not going to be able to kite everything (unless the opponent is just terrible), so eat the small stuff when you have to and deny the big.

I see a lot of mercs either not using chaff, or blowing it the moment they get attacked. Learn when to use it just before a major yellow burst chain. You can eat practiically all of a PT's burst with it used at the right time. Same with operative used just before either the first or second CC (they'll often reset if you use it just before the first). Just before the force scream on warriors if you can time it right.

All classes have predictable rotations (to a greater or lesser extent) if they're going to maximise their damage output on you. So learn them.

On the whole 'positioning' thing, Sumquy is absolutely correct - you need to learn how people tend to pick their next targets. Part of it is the mechanics of tab-targeting (try to never be 'next in line' for that), and part of it is just straight psychology. People tend to go for attractive isolated/vulnerable targets, or to the biggest 'perceived' threat. Melee threats look scarier.