MORE game features removed? Not even a lamp post can be left standing? What is this game coming to! Shame.

Ah so its only new companions that are not customizable. I was wondering what the fuss was, went to double check to see that I can indeed still equip Vette with gear.

Hate to say it, but most of the Bastion PVP community has moved to the Harbinger. More players, faster pops, better level of competition for both solo and team rateds. If you are playing this game to PVP, you want to be on The Harbinger. Yeah, transferring is an inconvenience. Sorting out your legacy cargo holds, losing strongholds, renaming, etc. I hate that part of it. But most of the serious Bastion PVPers have already made the move. Ive moved my mains there a while ago, probably gonna move the rest over soon.

Just wondering - about how long would it take to go from level 1 to 60/65 with the new revised levelling system? I have characters of various lower levels and just wondering whether it's worth it time wise to level them or use instant 60's instead. Is the levelling speed similar to 12xp for class stories?

It's funny cause Im switching my sin and PT to tanks, as soon as I finish up getting the tank gear that is. Until then, let the madness ensue! Err.... let the hatred ensue!

My guild only wants me to play on my PT for team 4s, can I join on my sin pls pls pls

Madness: dots, bubbles, heals, and try to stun and line of sight while the dots do their damage? Your barrier is great if you make sure your dots will last on them for the whole duration. The only real option would be to try to outlast them by using your dots and heals in the long game, as opposed to trying to outdamage them in a short fight, which is a surefire way to lose.

2 PTs I find to be especially problematic to go against, and virtually a guaranteed win when I have 2 PTs on my team. The problem here is that you have a class with insane burst, capable of throwing it all on someone within a few seconds of engaging, then you multiply that by 2. But you can easily kill one of their PTs, you say? Well, if they are good they can probably kill someone on your team quicker than you can. If your team isn't coordinated, you might not be able to kill one due to kolto overload. And if one of them gets several people on your team with carbonize, that significantly delays things. They will have 2 AOE CCs, and if one of them or even both are running Paralytics (+1s to stun), thats a potential 7s of AOE stun... And then you also get those PTs who throw their inital burst on you, then use their stuns and defensives and kite away out of sight. It's not so bad surviving as a sin or a jugg, but its real rough as a PT going up against 2 PTs. And sometimes you get a less capable teammate who just gets blown up. Or sometimes the opposing PTs just get lucky on their crits. You can't do much if you get both of them getting 10k+ crits on you at the same time. It's just a very difficult scenario, going up against 2 PTs. I don't think PTs are very OP because their survivability is fairly weak to compensate for their insane burst. But when you have 2 on one team, well, you can only kill one at a time, leaving the other to freely burst you down. (Unless your team is really good with their stuns, stun both then focus down one real fast, but how often do you get that kind of coordination in yolos?) As a PT going against 2 PTs, I guess the best thing I can do is try to Carbonize (but I usually dont take Paralytics for solos) both of them and "delay" their burst hopefully long enough to if not kill one then get him low.

I'll give you a quick lay of the land. On Republic: G-Quit, Shade, Crescendo, Akatsuki, Freaks of Legend. The first 2 do a lot of rateds, Crescendo looks like its making a comeback, Akatsuki and Freaks are larger guilds mainly focused on regs but theyve got plenty of quality players and they occasionally do ranked. On Empire: Matchless, hey im mvp, Clickers, Samurai Pizza Cats, Midian(?) The thing is that the Imp guilds who do ranked 4s tend to be smaller and don't really recruit much. Theres also larger reg focused guilds like Meet Killface and Cherry Pops, also newer guilds like Death Incarnate and Rekt em. But they dont do much ranked at all. Its better to get into it now before the season starts, because people don't have rating to care about so they are more willing to team with people they don't know or try out different classes and strats. Try asking people, maybe get a PUG team going. Right now imps are doing pug teams a lot for ranked 4s cause its preseason, but usually we fill them up with people we know or from the top tier guilds so you won't see people spamming in fleet for spots on rated teams very often. Better speak up and ask, don't hold out that someone will notice you and invite you for rateds because while that does happen, its not common especially with your class. As for DPS operatives... only one who Ive seen do that in team ranked really is Aldeez, and he does a pretty good job, so it is possible to use DPS op for team ranked, although it isn't a top tier dps class the way sins, sorcs, and PTs are. So understand that your class isn't exactly what a lot of teams would be looking for though it is usable. Hope that helps.

3 things I suggest: 1) Minimum expertise for queuing solo ranked (1936, full expertise except for crystals. I understand if some people want to run rare power or end crystals for aesthetic purposes, that small expertise tradeoff doesn't really make a difference if everything else is full max level pvp gear). 2) Some way to deal with intentional game throwers/trolls. Maybe a lockout if someone DC's 2 or 3 times in a 24 hour period? At least that gets rid of the quitters (temporarily at least). 3) Require an advanced class to queue for solos.

Arrian here, jugg tank from that vid. Looks even better on video then it did when it happened, 21k-0 in about one second. Glad to be of help with that Awe. While I take issue with your attitude, this does highlight the other team's mistake here. At the least, people seeing the video and reading this can see what they did wrong and learn from it. As a jugg, that kind of positioning is exactly what I am looking for when I awe. Catching their entire team with the awe and their healer not having CC break is the perfect scenario. The 2 sages must not have had CC break (or chose not to use it which was a mistake). When their healer and tank are both mezzed and our team is smart enough to not break it and only attack one of the DPS, if the healer cant CC break thats 6 seconds without a healer which is GG. Especially when we got awesome DPS like this. So you are right in that the sages should not be that close together, especially considering how much open space there is in that part of Corellia Square, both due to AOE CCs (our team had several) and also because its easier to target swap if they are close together. However, whats with the attitude Wonka man? You really are in no position to call them bads for one misplay in a less than 30 second video clip. Ive played many games tanking both against them and for them. When I tanked for that pub team against a very similar imp team the games were very close and went to acid a lot of times. Im actually in a good position to evaluate them and they are definitely not bad players. I would say they are pretty good players although they do still have a bit to learn for rateds. And Koozie is a great player does create a lot of entertaining PVP videos and quality content and has contributed significantly to the community with his guides and discussion on the PT/VG class forums. So chill with the negativity, criticism is fine but no need to get all worked up over it.

To give a quick summary: Tank Spec Jugg with DPS Gear: Dont bother, not enough damage to be worth it. DPS Spec Jugg with Tank Gear or just DPS Gear + Tank Stance and Guard: Works pretty great, can still do a ton of damage in DPS spec with dps gear and be decently bulky, especially if theres a healer on your team. Perhaps the most effective way of doing "hybrid" right now. Tank Spec Sin with DPS Gear: Pretty good, little low on survivability but damage is good. DPS Spec Sin with Tank Gear: Not really a good idea. Not enough survivability OR damage. Sin DPS specs just lose too much damage without their respective charge and aren't all that durable. Tank Spec PT with DPS Gear: Totally viable. Very vulnerable to tunneling but the DPS can be huge, and has good AOE damage too. Only thing is its sustained damage, not really burst. Ive had arenas with 1000+ DPS as Tank PT with DPS gear while still doing a ton of protection and managing my guard swaps and taunts. DPS Spec PT with Tank Gear: Ive seen it work against me in solos, but it could have just been poor teammates who kept attacking guarded teammates and the fact that he always had a sage with him who off healed. The survivability is alright and the damage is so-so. Its workable. It really reverses the role of the PT though, AP PT is a squishy spec with MASSIVE burst, whereas using ion cylinder and tank gear with it trades quite a bit of damage for a lot more survivability.

Sorry we didnt end up queuing tonight, some IRL stuff popped up for one of our guys. Planning to queue 9-10 tomorrow again. Maybe we'll finally catch each other, looking forward to playing Crescendo in 4s.

Did you guys end up queuing? Had an Imp pug team going for about 2 hours last night but only ran into Shade and Rampage Gang. Maybe it was after you guys stopped? Anyway, queuing again tonight prly around 9-10 or so, if you guys can make it tonight.

Last night was pretty great for team ranked. Had 4 teams queuing in the evening, then later at one point had 6 teams going after midnight. Played almost 20 team arenas last night, more that I did in all of season 2... Great to see so much activity in team ranked, looks like things are alive and well at least for preseason. Hope it continues like this.