Arena's were really fun in Season 1 & Season 2. They started to screw them up when they started requiring ratings for gear, then personal ratings to compensate for the cheaters. I personally never had a problem getting the ratings required, however what it prevented me from doing was jumping teams to play with my friends or helping people just get their games in. The other thing that made arena's bad for the game/PVP was that they were the ONLY way to get the best PVP gear. If Arenas are added to SWTOR, they should simply be there as an alternative way to get the same gear. That would also help to make it like Season 1 & 2... where you could do it for fun.

That begs the question... how do you know they aren't seeing a loss on their screen as well? It might be a draw and treating it as both teams losing.

Basically, what he is saying is that allowing people to complete their dailies is helping to keep things going. On my server kill trading has helped build the community between Empire and republics. It's helped us get to know each other, and we'll set up some matches between premades on each side by queuing at the same time. As far as using it to get the dailies/weeklies done, it's kind of a necessary evil on servers with a large population imbalance. A good example happened this weekend. Us Republics (the weaker side on my server) got a good group of 12 people together. We were able to take middle for about 15 minutes. Then the 50 imperials show up and over run us. No amount of strategy/skill can overcome that. For a while we try to do some hit and runs, but they catch on quick. After about 1/2 hour of that we were trading as it helped everyone get their quests done.

I like many of your ideas and mechanics. The only thing that I see as a negative is that it is going to still give the faction with the greater numbers an advantage. The way you have it I see that advantage growing over time (not too dissimilar to what is happening now). My server is a good example. Empire has a huge number advantage, so they almost always win. This means that they get more bags, dailies, commendations, which means they also get more gear faster. So right now, not only do they have a numeric advantage, the also have a sizable gear advantage. Anyhow... I believe for your idea to work they need to come up with some sort of bolster (or Tenacity, to steal from WoW) that goes up and down based on how outnumbered a particular team is. Ultimately, the best matches, are the ones that are two equally matched sides. Some of the best matches I have in WZ are when I'm running with a premade group against another premade group.

You need to better learn how to use LoS to avoid getting assist trained like that. If you're standing out in the middle, you're going to get wrecked. In voidstar, stand by the boxes/pillars. In Alderan, use the guns and walls. Also, when they start to attack you start kiting them. You should be able to do that with some success. When you have 3-4 of them kiting you that leaves the other 7 of your team-mates to accomplish an objective.

I'm sorry for your bad luck, but I like the new system (I'm just missing a few Champion Pieces). This will allow me to work towards them. Also, the Centurion items are decent and are a great starter set and can be gotten pretty quickly AND concurrently with getting champion items. After this changegearing an alt is not so bad now. As for playing Warzones... That is kinda the point of getting the gear. If you don't like playing them then why do you want the gear so bad? They are a lot of fun. I'm sitting at 414 expertise and I do just fine. As a healer, I'm tough to take down and can contribute to my team.

Great OP. The thing is, though that I think BW is doing a pretty good job of fixing what it can fix. Bags are going to be better by this time tomorrow. Bugs are getting ironed out. Class Balance is getting ironed out. Really the only complaint that I have is the lack of foresight with what happened in Ilum. It used to be a good way to get daily/weekly quests done to bolster bags and gearing. Now it's either a dead zone or a kill trading zone for easy valor. Other than that, I enjoy the hell out of the three battlegrounds when 2 equal teams face off. This is happening more and more as people are hitting 50 and starting to get a little big of gear.

Say what you will about the trading or getting BM in a legit fashion. Honestly, you shouldn't care what other people get. I could never understand this mentality. While the gear is nice, it doesn't make you a good player. Same thing goes for getting to Rank 60. If he's a better player, he'll win. If he's not he'll lose.

The problem isn't that people are doing it. The problem is that they didn't see this coming. With population imbalance the way it is the zone is basically useless. On my server, Republics are outnumbered about 5-1. I go to Ilum on my republic toon and there is MAYBE 8 people and most of them are doing the PVE dailies. I go there on my empire and there is always at least 50, and all of them are circling in central for the slow Armament spawns. The only way for either side to get the daily quest done in under 3 hours is to trade. The other thing that makes it that ways is the stupid battlemaster system. It's just a way of forcing people to play a significant amount of time. It doesn't require wins or skill... just time. Trading is a way around another stupid system. Now that said, I'd much rather them have figured out a way to have a set number of people on a team for Ilum so games could be played fairly, but right now it's not that way.

You're quite wrong on this. There are screenshots from CSR tickets saying that it's OK to do this. Not only that, they'd basically be banning 2/3 of the server population on most servers.

Well, I don't want a 1 button class. Mainly I'm looking for utility stuff like knockbacks, pulls, and CC.

Sage is really a great PVP class (lots of people complaining about them being OP). I'm a sage healer and at 50, once you get some gear it's a lot of fun and you can really influence a game. Sages/Sorcs have great utility... CC/Knockbacks as well as force speed (great for huttball) and rescue (allows you to pull an ally to you - also great for huttball). The DPS specs are very good as well.

Hey guys... First this is not a which is better than the other question. Basically here is my story.... I've got a Consular Sage (heal spec) that I raid with and just hit Battlemaster with and I'm going to start and Empire alt. I'm primarily looking to PVP with this toon as my raiding guild is republic. Also, since may main is a healer I'm looking for something that does good DPS, and has quite a bit of utility (CC, knockbacks, pulls) So if you guys don't mind could someone go over the advantages & disadvantages of both AC's DPS options for PVP? Much appreciated.

Hey guys... First this is not a which is better than the other question. Basically here is my story.... I've got a Consular Sage (heal spec) that I raid with and just hit Battlemaster with and I'm going to start and Empire alt. I'm primarily looking to PVP with this toon as my raiding guild is republic. Also, since may main is a healer I'm looking for something that does good DPS, and has quite a bit of utility (CC, knockbacks, pulls) So if you guys don't mind could someone go over the advantages & disadvantages of both AC's DPS options for PVP? Much appreciated.

Alacrity is very important for PVP healing. It's not always about output or resource management. As a sage healer alacrity helps me get the heals out to those who need them faster. .3 seconds off of my big direct heal is huge. Having my channeled heal tick faster is huge. That .3 seconds might be the difference of him dying or not. It's not like PVE where you might just primarily be focused on the tank. You need to heal many targets quickly. Alacrity assists with that. Likewise, my small fast heal is 1.3 seconds instead of 1.5. Not a huge deal, but 1.3 seconds is a bit harder to interrupt.