I just played my 83rd warzone at level 50 on my Gunslinger, and I wanted to share my blunt thoughts on the state of SWTOR PVP at endgame, from the perspective of a new character.

Let me open by framing my preparation for making my Gunslinger as effective as he could be as a fresh 50 character. Prior to dinging level 50, I did the following:

1. Reached the limits of 3500 RWZ (Ranked Warzone) commendations and 2000 WZ commendations, so that I could immediately purchase the War Hero mainhand blaster weapon at endgame
2. Saved up the credits to purchase a full set of Recruit gear (aside from the War Hero mainhand weapon)
3. Stockpiled Warzone Adrenals, so that I would not need to spend WZ commendations on them
4. Leveled Biochem to 400 and crafted the reusable Rakata Medpac, so that I would not need to spend WZ commendations on Warzone Medpacs

I am probably in the very small minority of the population who undertook steps 1-3 above (especially step #1). So keep in mind that my experience was probably better than people who were not as prepared.

As I wrote over a month ago, Patch 1.2 had a very negative effect on the quality of PVP.

Some of the issues were addressed by BioWare:

• Prices of warzone consumables was reset back to what they were pre-1.2
• Rewards were improved for the losing side of a warzone match
• Recently BioWare also changed the PVP daily quest to be based on warzone participation not wins, which was another positive change because it discouraged quitting mid-match

That being said, I was expecting 50 PVP with a new character to be a fairly rough experience. And it’s even worse than I expected.

Issue #1: PVP gear scales too much across tiers

Before stepping into a 50 warzone, I acquired the War Hero mainhand weapon and 13 pieces of Recruit gear. With the Trooper 5% HP buff, that put me at ~13.4k HP, but with a Recruit weapon that would have been ~13k HP.

The issue is that the Recruit gear doesn’t provide a sufficient amount of stats to enable a fresh 50 to be competitive with players decked out in some or mostly War Hero gear, because the latter have:

• ~17k+ HP, or even 18k HP with augmented War Hero gear for non tanks. A 17k HP player has 30% more HP than a Recruit-geared player
• Higher stats in every category: more Expertise (which affects damage done, damage taken, and healing), higher primary stats, and higher secondary stats. So they hit (or heal) harder, crit more often, have higher crit bonus damage, avoid more attacks, and have their attacks avoided less often

On top of the gear scaling, a compounding issue with SWTOR’s PVP itemization is that the type of stats on a given slot changes between tiers. The Gunslinger Force Tech’s Battlemaster gear is woefully under-budgeted for Surge, whereas the War Hero versions of Force Tech have a lot of Surge. Surge equals burst, and as the old adage goes, burst damage kills but steady damage is easily healed through. My understanding is that the lack of Surge on BM gear is not isolated to my class.

This makes gear a primary determining factor in PVP performance, just as it was back in Vanilla WoW. This was the exact same problem with RIFT last year, where the gap between Rank 2 gear and Rank 4, and R4 and R6, and R6 and R8 actually increased the higher rank you reached. It created a faceroll advantage for R8 players in RIFT Patch 1.4 – even after Valor (the PVP stat) was normalized.

Unfortunately, BioWare has repeated RIFT’s mistake of having PVP gear scale too much across tiers.

It took months of iteration for Trion to sort out the gear scaling. As you may recall, RIFT went through the following progression:

• Having ranks of gear with increasing overall stats (those related to HP / damage / healing) and an increasing PVP stat (called “Valor”, which provided mitigation only), to
• Having ranks of gear with increasing overall stats but with the PVP stat normalized across all gear tiers (e.g. the Valor normalization that I was a huge proponent of), to
• Having gear scale much more gradually, with more ranks than 8

Let me state that even the 2nd bullet point above was insufficient: R8 still had a faceroll advantage over R2. And such is the case when comparing WH-geared players to Recruit-geared players.

Is having gear such a big factor in PVP outcomes healthy for a game? My strong belief is no.

It’s a deterrent for new players to try PVP at endgame and enjoy it because they’ll get their ass kicked repeatedly until they can gear up (hundreds of warzones), and it’s a hurdle for existing players to gear up alts at endgame. This is not to say people won’t do it – the most hardcore PVP guilds on my server are full of FOTM re-rollers (notably Sentinel/Marauder, Shadow/Assassin 31-pt tank, and for healing Scoundrel/Operative).

Issue #2: Class Compositions Influence Outcomes

As I stated consistently before Patch 1.2, SWTOR had the best class balance of any MMORPG on the market.

This was not to say it was perfect – pre-1.2 Watchman Sentinel/Annihilation Marauders, Shadow/Assassin 31-pt tanks, and Assault Spec Vanguards/Pyrotech Powertechs were overpowered, and Scoundrel/Operative healers were underpowered.

I loved PVP in SWTOR pre-1.2 in both the 10-49 and 50 brackets. Raved about it consistently here and elsewhere. Why? Pre-1.2, we could run comps with a wide variety of classes/specs and do well in warzones. What mattered the most were the players behind the keyboard. That’s the way it should be.

But after 1.2, that is no longer the case – the class balance gaps are too significant to ignore from a mechanics standpoint. With the sweeping changes to classes in 1.2, PVP outcomes are now heavily influenced by which classes your group contains. The same healer playing a Sage/Sorc versus Operative/Scoundrel will heal much more effectively with the latter. I know this from talking to multiple players who re-rolled and from killing them.

The parallel between RIFT and SWTOR in terms of the progression of class balance is striking. RIFT was trending in the right direction in terms of class balance from 1.0->1.4, and then 1.5 and 1.6 went in the wrong direction. SWTOR PVP in terms of class balance was trending in the right direction from 1.0->1.1.5, but then 1.2 launched

Issue #3: The Grind

If there is one word I would use to describe the experience of playing Patch 1.2, it’s “grindy”.

With respect to PVP, to be competitive you not only need to grind hundreds of warzones to get a full set of War Hero gear, but you also need to acquire augmented crafted War Hero gear, which requires purchasing crit-crafted gear and then paying to yank out the mods from the vendor War Hero gear so that you can insert them into the augmented gear. You also need to purchase augments, which as acknowledged by James Ohlen typically run for 75k+ credits each on the AH, roughly the same pricing I’ve seen on Ajunta Pall.

Closing Thoughts

My server, Ajunta Pall, has been consistently top 10 in terms of active population according to torstatus.net since January. In recent weeks, we’ve gone from having a critical mass of players – typically 100-170 on the Republic Fleet during primetime – to 50 or less. The result has been increasingly long queue times – for much of the weekend I was waiting for 10+ minutes per pop.

SWTOR is losing players, and it’s not simply because other games have launched. As BioWare has previously stated, PVP has been (unexpectedly) very popular ever since launch. But the majority of players I’ve talked to agree that the quality of the PVP has tanked with 1.2.

There are some players who believe that the Ranked Warzone system is the silver bullet for keeping PVP players engaged. While it is a much-desired piece of content, the issues with SWTOR PVP are more fundamental: the emphasis on gear and increasing class imbalance need to be looked at. SWTOR 10-49 PVP is still very entertaining, but there needs to be sticky PVP content at endgame to retain players.

This video is my first look at the Warrior class in Structured PVP from the April 27-29 Beta Weekend Event. I discuss Warrior mechanics with two weapon setups:

• Axe/Axe and Rifle
• Greatsword and Sword/Axe

Here are recommendations for abilities:

• Of the 3 healing abilities, Mending seems to be the most useful, based on the short 20-sec cooldown. The passive regeneration from the Healing Signet (~180 every 3 seconds) does not offset the downside of the long 40-sec cooldown, and once you activate the Healing Signet you lose the passive regeneration
• Of the 3 elite abilities, Signet of Rage seems to be the best choice due to the long 30-sec duration of the 3 buffs
• Endure No Pain is a solid utility ability that is not heavy on defense/shield; the 5-sec invulnerability can buy time for your heal to come off cooldown or for you to finish an opponent
• If your spec lacks a charge, consider picking up the utility ability Bull’s Charge, which provides a knockdown effect

Here are recommendations for traits for any spec:

• Embrace the Pain trait (builds adrenaline when hit) rocks
• Heightened Focus synergizes well with Embrace the Pain, since your crit % jumps up to 9% with a full adrenaline bar

Please share your feedback, questions, and tips.

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My first look at the Elementalist class in Structured PVP from the April 27-29 Beta Weekend Event. I discuss the core mechanics of the Elementalist class with illustrative footage from the Battle of Khylo and Forest of Niflhel battlegrounds. In this video I play an Elementalist built for a mix of DoT (Condition) damage, direct damage, and offhealing.

The spec:
http://www.gw2tools.com/skills#el;fakkk;caaaaaUcagdaUea;Ybaa;YYUSZ

Condition (DoT) damage comes from multiple sources:

1. Bleed effect from Earth spammable Stone Shards chain
2. 60% chance on crit to proc a 5-sec bleed from the weapon sigil
3. Burning effects from 2 Fire abilities: Ring of Fire and Flamestrike
4. 20% chance when hit by a melee to apply burning effect
5. 20% chance to cause burning on a crit

Healing is provided by:

1. Signet of Restoration’s passive effect to heal when weapon abilities are used. For the Stone Shards chain, this can proc 3 x 170 (510) healing. Note that the Hurl ability, which is a follow-up to Rock Barrier, does not proc the healing probably because RB is considered the actual cast
2. Signet of Restoration’s Active heal
3. PBAoE heal Cleansing Wave in Water Attunement
4. Ranged AoE heal Water Trident in Water Attunement
5. PBAoE heal when attuning to Water from the 15-pt Healing Ripple trait
6. HoT that ticks for 80 from the 5-pt Soothing Mist trait while attuned to Water
7. Temporary PBAoE regeneration buff that ticks for 90 from Elemental Attunement

Errata

• I incorrectly referred to my spec as a “Containment” spec, but I meant “Condition” spec
• The 90-point heal ticks were from the optional trait Elemental Attunement, which provides an AOE regeneration buff when you attune to Water, not from Signet of Restoration

Thanks to my guildee Top for helping me ramp up on GW2 mechanics and the Elementalist class. As I blogged earlier, the learning curve for GW2 is rather steep!

UPDATE (2012/05/02): After I posted the video, I did some theorycrafting and there are a lot of improvements I want to make to emphasize Condition over DD and provide more survivability:
http://www.gw2tools.com/skills#el;aapkk;aaaaaaUcdgdaUea;Ybaa;YVUSZ

Here are the key changes:
1. switching from Amulet PvP Pow Pre CritDmg to Amulet PvP CondiDmg Pre Tuf
2. moving the 10 points in Fire to Earth to pick up Signet Mastery and the buffs to Malice and Toughness
3. swapping the DD Arcane Power utility skill to Signet of Fire for the heavy burn

Between the Signet of Fire (usable every 16s) burn, the Ring of Fire burn, and the crapton of bleeds from the weapon sigil proc and Stone Shards, this spec should output very high sustained Condition damage, while providing high survivability (~1.8k Toughness plus all the healing).

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GW2 has the steepest learning curve of any PVP game that I’ve played. Some folks believe that the curve feels steep because you get to see endgame PVP immediately, but it goes beyond that.

Here are the driving factors for the complexity of GW2:

1. There is an incredible range of specs / builds for a given class. You can customize the following:
   • Your weapon set(s), which determine your abilities on the 1-5 keys
   • Your healing ability on the 6 key (3-4 to choose from)
   • Your 3 utility abilities on the 7-9 keys (18 to choose from)
   • Your elite ability on the 0 (3 to choose from for PVP)
   • Your traits (70 points to invest in 5 trees, which means you’ll have 7 talents to choose from among 60)
   • Your amulet, which is a key lever for your desired stats
   • The socket in each of the 6 armor pieces (many dozens of “gems” to choose from)
   • The socket in each of the 5 jewelry pieces (about 10 gems to choose from)
   • The socket in each weapon (several dozen gems to choose from)
2. Positioning and movement are critical. When attacking, you have to maintain the appropriate range and line-of-sight (and for some abilities character facing) to ensure that a given attack has the possibility of landing – otherwise you are simply wasting your cooldowns and the global cooldown. While there has been a lot of talk about the action combat system for TERA, which launched over the week, in my opinion GW2 has nailed action combat. The dodge-roll functionality makes combat feel very fluid – you evade attacks when you take evasive action.

The implications of the two points above are:

1. Players and the community are going to spend countless hours researching and experimenting with various specs for each class
2. The game has a very high learning curve
3. The game has a very high skill cap

Aside from the above game mechanics, the PVP content was impressive.

The WvW 3-faction system rocked (as expected). It made me realize how much I’ve missed open world PVP with fortress fights, which I haven’t meaningfully experienced since Warhammer Online. GW2 WvW is Warhammer Online RVR on steroids. The 4-map design and scale are awesome. I streamed several hours of WvW action on Friday night, check out the replay.

I also enjoyed the design of the battleground maps for the Battle of Khylo and Forest of Niflhel – the terrain was very complex.

So my first impression: thumbs up.

The game takes a lot of time to get used to, which was frustrating at times. But the more you start to wrap your noodle around the combat mechanics and viable specs for a given class, the more enjoyable it becomes.

As I write this article, I’m uploading an Elementalist PVP video to YouTube. I’ll be working on a Warrior PVP video and other general videos to help players through the learning curve for GW2, so stay tuned. I played Guardian and a little bit of Thief this weekend, but I don’t have footage for those classes so that will have to wait until another Beta event.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the game, so please share them!

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In this video, I discuss the mechanics for the Sharpshooter tree for the Gunslinger class in SWTOR, using footage of my 37 Gunslinger in a Huttball match (queued solo). Sharpshooter Gunslinger is the mirror to Marksmanship Sniper.

While the Sharpshooter tree contains talents that buff cast-time nukes, it also offers instant-cast nuking capability, defensive talents to boost mitigation and control gaps to opponents, and improved “mana” (Energy) management. Between Trickshot and the Foxhole talent, I rarely have to weave in the mana-free ability Rapid Shots. So more non-stop pew pew

Here is the spec used in the video

• Gunslinger: http://torhead.com/skill-calc#700bcrrdRoRZrz.1
• Sniper: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400bcrrdRoRZrz.1

At 50, if I don’t go 31 points into Sharpshooter, I am targeting the following 23/16/2 spec:

• Gunslinger: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700bcrrdRoRZrI0boRZb.1
• Sniper: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400bcrrdRoRZrI0boRZb.1

I’ll have to see whether Shock Charge with the 30% snare for 18 seconds is worth investing 16 points into the middle tree. A snare is the main thing Sharpshooter is lacking. TBD.

Let me know if you have any questions, tips, or feedback!

If you want to watch footage of a kick-ass Sharpshooter Gunslinger playing an almost identical spec at 50, check out Revy’s Gunslinger video:

To see me PVP’ing live, check out my TwitchTV channel. My stream features real-time commentary and between matches I interact with the Chat Room.

UPDATE (2012/04/26): I’ve changed my target spec at 50 from 23/16/2 to 28/13/0, to get the Surge talent toward the top of the SS tree. And I’d still have the 30% long-duration snare if needed.
- Gunslinger: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700bcrrdRoRGZrI00oM.1
- Sniper: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400bcrrdRoRGZrI00oM.1

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“Vertical scaling” is the de facto way that most MMORPGs are designed: gamers level a character up to max level, then they grind out tiers of gear in PVE or PVP. And if you roll another character, you repeat the same process.

Here are the issues with the vertical scaling:

1. It’s grindy
2. It creates brackets. You can’t do content with other players unless your character levels / gear scores are sufficiently close
3. It causes power creep. Content is initially too difficult, but once players obtain the gear to do the content, it becomes progressively less difficult until it’s trivial
4. It creates dead zones and content. This happens when the bulk of active characters are at level cap and whenever expansions are released with new content

I believe that “horizontal scaling” – where new characters have a baseline set of necessary tools and progressing your character is about broadening your capabilities instead of centering on gear acquisition – would provide a much better solution for both gamers and developers.

Here are the benefits of horizontal scaling:

1. There are no brackets due to level or gear score. You can roll a new character and immediately group with other more-experienced characters
2. It levels the playing field in PVE and PVP. Performing well isn’t about your level or gear score, it’s about your ability to play your character effectively and work in a team
3. Content (zones, instances, etc) stays relevant forever

Here’s how would progression could work in a horizontal scaling system:

1. Take achievements to the next level, so that the game tracks performance at a granular level…
   - What’s my fastest time-to-clear for this instance (because this instance is never outdated)?
   - What’s my fastest TTC for this boss fight?
   - What’s my fastest Huttball match win ever?…and then have these stats feed into Leaderboards…- Which players / guilds have the fastest TTC for this boss for this week / the past x weeks / all-time?
   - Who had the highest DPS on this boss fight this week / month / all-time?

   So doing content for competitively-minded players is about excellence in execution, not getting geared up.

1. Support customization of the character’s look (armor / weapons / clothing) and guild heraldry based on achievements and performance
2. Have weapons with different capabilities, so that “gearing up” is about building up a collection of weapons that you can use in various situations or to support particular playstyles. So you acquire a Cinderburn staff if you want to buff up your Mage’s DoTs capability, or you acquire an Earthbind staff if you want to buff your Mage’ earth-based CC capability. But you just have to acquire each weapon once. There isn’t a +1 Flaming Sword, +2 Flaming Sword staff, etc – there’s just a Flaming Sword

I believe horizontal scaling would create a much more fun experience for gamers and also provide better ROI on content for game developers.

Let me know what you think!

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In this video, I explain for Patch 1.2 how to avoid “false” procs for the Accelerator talent in the Assault Specialist (Pyrotech) tree for the Vanguard (Powertech) class.

Prior to 1.2, to apply a burn effect on a target within 10 meters, it made sense to use Ion Pulse (Flame Burst) instead of Incendiary Round (Incendiary Missile), because Ion Pulse delivered more damage in a shorter timeframe, cost less mana, applied a snare effect, and could trigger the Accelerator talent to make the subsequent High Impact Bolt (Rail Shot) free.

However, in Patch 1.2, an internal 6-sec cooldown was added to the Accelerator talent, so you want to trigger the proc only when your High Impact Bolt (Rail Shot) has been used and is on cooldown. Remember, even if your High Impact Bolt (Rail Shot) is not on cooldown, by using Ion Pulse (Flame Burst) or Stockstrike (Rocket Punch), you can trigger the Accelerator talent.

Therefore, in some cases you may want to open on a target with Incendiary Round (Incendiary Missile) on your target instead of Ion Pulse (Flame Burst).

Effective PVP gameplay of Assault Specialist (Pyrotech) requires getting the most mileage out of your cooldown resets for High Impact Bolt (Rail Shot), so this is a critical concept to get right.

Let me know if you have any questions.

To see me PVP’ing live, check out my TwitchTV channel. My stream features real-time commentary and between matches I interact with the Chat Room.

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It wasn’t until Q4 2011 that I gave any serious thought about trying to monetize my content. Prior to that time, I was busy with work / RL, my gaming content was a hobby, and I wasn’t clear how I might monetize my content without alienating the people consuming it.

Late last year I decided to give it a go as a full-time blogger. The past 6 months have been, in many ways, a “startup” experience. I’ve learned a lot about online broadcasting, growing an audience, monetizing content, and improving the production value of my videos. That said, I’ve also come to realize that this isn’t sufficient to make ends meet financially, for now. Therefore, I’m in the process of transitioning back to the corporate world.

What does that mean for this blog? Well obviously I’m going to continue playing games, because they’re fun! And I’m going to continue blogging, streaming, and hosting content about games – but mostly on nights and weekends.

I want to thank y’all for your feedback, insights, and support along this journey. It’s been awesome having a community that constructively and intelligently dialogues about games, and I look forward to continuing our conversation.

Cheers,

Ed Park aka Taugrim

P.S. if you work in the gaming industry, I’d welcome the opportunity to speak with you. I have skills / experience that might transfer to that space, and I’d appreciate your perspective for someone coming from outside the industry. You can contact me @gmail.com, my username is the same there.

The Good

1. The UI customization is excellent
2. Game performance seems significantly improved
3. The addition of Recruit PVP gear provides a viable option for fresh 50s to get decently geared quickly

Since SWTOR launched back in December, the UI has been the main source of criticism across the playerbase. The new Interface Editor provides a high degree of customization, is usable and intuitive, and allows for sharing of the UI settings across characters. My only nitpick is that it lacks “snap-to” functionality for aligning interface elements. But overall, big thumbs up.

Tip: make sure to turn on your Target of Target frame in the Interface Editor. You can do this by clicking on the Target of Target frame and checking the Enabled box.

The other sticking point for many players pre-1.2 has been the poor or inconsistent game performance. Players suffered from low / inconsistent FPS, lag in populated areas, and issues related to animations and their timing. In 1.2, the game performance is significantly better – the game plays faster.

I’m glad the Recruit PVP gear was added to the game, as fresh 50s were cannon fodder pre-1.2. Of course, not all fresh 50s will have or be willing to fork out the ~320k credits to buy the whole set. But the option is there at least for those who can afford it and want to help their team.

The Bad

1. Ranked Warzones were delayed
2. The PVP commendation rewards are out-of-whack with the cost of PVP consumables
3. 9 of the 14 War Hero gear slots require the corresponding Battlemaster piece

PVP fans have been eagerly waiting for Ranked Warzones (RWZs), so it was disappointing to hear just 2 days before the Patch went live that RWZs were being delayed. That being said, as I wrote earlier, the planned temporary “flexible” and “mixed” matchmaking systems were unattractive, as they respectively paired solo-queued players against premades and RWZ-queued players against non-RWZ-queued players. In addition, these matchmaking systems did not address the real underlying issue: some servers have low populations and there is no cross-server queueing functionality. I am relieved that BioWare pulled the plug on RWZs instead of going live with those matchmaking systems and risk having them flop out of the gate – especially after the failure with World PVP in Ilum.

The PVP commendations rewarded from warzones no longer cover the cost of actively using warzone medpacs and warzone adrenals because of 3 synergistic factors:

• The amount of warzone commendations earned from matches (particularly losses) has been reduced, and
• The cost of the warzone medpacs and adrenals has doubled (10->20), and
• The cooldown for these consumables has been cut in half (180->90 seconds)

Some of my guildees are getting around this by relying on their re-usable Biochem medpac, which is great if you went Biochem. While some folks stockpiled PVP consumables pre-1.2, many players will experience a commendations deficit per warzone if they use 4+ consumables per match.

Most of the War Hero gear pieces require the corresponding Battlemaster piece to trade-in. This is fine for players who only play 1 spec, play classes where there aren’t multiple viable sets to choose from, or already have all the Battlemaster pieces from various sets that they might use. And keep in mind that Battlemaster pieces are competing for the same commendations that are used to purchase the overpriced PVP consumables.

The Ugly

1. The quality of the PVP experience experience has suffered due to much lower Time-to-Kill (TTK)
2. Class balance is heading in the wrong direction

I hadn’t played on the 1.2 PTS due to the lack of character copy (there’s no way I’m going to re-level a character on a test server, that’s rubbish), but my guess was that TTK in 1.2 was going to be roughly the same or higher (due to the number of nerfs to burst damage and talents across classes, and Expertise scaling). For whatever reason (lower Endurance on gear, gap between damage and mitigation provided by Expertise, etc), the opposite is the case. TTK is down dramatically, and this has taken away SWTOR’s best attribute in PVP: drawn-out fights that allow for tactical gameplay. Fully-geared Battlemaster players melt under any kind of focus fire. PVP is now a gibfest.

Since November and up through 1.1.5, I have stated that SWTOR had the best class balance of the major MMORPGs. Of course, the balance was not perfect, but I thought BioWare was taking the wise approach from 1.0->1.1.5 of incrementally making class changes to improve balance. However, in 1.2 BioWare decided to make multiple, significant changes to 7 of the 8 Advanced Classes. In my gaming experience, so many class changes at once has rarely produced a positive overall outcome (with the exception of WoW’s Cataclysm expansion, which streamlined talent trees and added new class mechanics).

In 1.1.5, here is what I thought was overpowered in PVP and needed to be looked at in future patches:

• 31-pt Shadow / Assassin tanks had it all: high survivability (Resilience, Deflection, plus self-healing), high mobility, very good damage, good debuffs, and Guard
• Sentinels / Marauders had too much on-demand survivability and the best group buffs in the game
• The friendly pull and sprint for Sages / Sorcs gave them a significant tactical advantage in group PVP, especially compared to the other 2 healing ACs
• Assault Spec Vanguards / Pyrotech Powertechs had too much burst capability due to Ionic Accelerator / Particle Prototype Accelerator proc’ing multiple times in a short window
• Scrapper Scoundrels / Concealment Operatives could easily gib people in smaller-scale fights (although they faced the same issue that other Rogue classes have faced in longer-scale combat)
• Commando / Bounty Hunter healers were too mana efficient

Of the above issues, the latter 3 were changed in 1.2 but the first 3 were not. Sentinel / Marauder was buffed and Shadow / Assassin tanks were untouched. Simply put, the class balance in 1.2 is the worst I’ve seen since the game was launched, and I no longer believe SWTOR’s class balance is positively differentiated from other games on the market.

Closing Thoughts

I’m getting a sense of déjà vu: the sweeping changes in SWTOR 1.2 remind me of the sweeping changes in RIFT 1.5 and 1.6, in terms of having a negative impact on the quality of PVP. Yes, I know 1.2 went live yesterday, but I’ve been fairly accurate in projecting the impacts of live changes in the past.

I greatly enjoyed PVP in SWTOR from Beta through 1.1.5, even with the bugs and issues, because those are par-for-the-course with any new game. I am, simply put, bummed and disappointed with the PVP in 1.2. Things that were “broken” in terms of class balance were not addressed, and many things that were fine are now “broken” – and I mean in terms of how they work not bugs. I’m also concerned with the shift from careful, pinpoint class tweaking to across-the-board class changes. Is this going to happen again post-1.2, like it did with RIFT in 1.6?

P.S.:

• If you play a Vanguard / Powertech, give me some time to sort out the changes
• I haven’t had a chance to try my Gunslinger in PVP yet
• I’m not planning on re-rolling as Shadow or leveling my 20 Sentinel, although both are fun classes and are very strong
• Yes, I know Guild Wars 2 is coming, and yes, I pre-ordered it on April 10th as you probably did too. And yes, I know TERA early access on live is happening later this month. It doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been a huge SWTOR fan and want the game to flourish. The more games that are successful, the better it is for gamers and for the industry

Follow Me

Twitter: @taugrim
YouTube: http://youtube.com/taugrimtv
Stream: http://twitch.tv/taugrim
Facebook: http://facebook.com/taugrim
GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/video-game-shows/star-wars-the-old-republic-video/the-republic-swtor-show/

In this Play of the Day video, I buy enough time under heavy focus fire to line up 3 opponents for a one-way trip into the fire pit.

Here is the spec used in the video:
- Gunslinger: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700bcrrdRoo.1
- Sniper: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400bcrrdRoo.1

I play as a Sharpshooter-spec’d Gunslinger, which IMO is one of the most underrated specs in the game. One key defensive talent is Spacer, which adds 2 meters to the distance for your knockback. Those 2 meters make a *big* difference

To see me PVP’ing live, check out my TwitchTV channel. My stream features real-time commentary and between matches I interact with the Chat Room.

Follow Me

Twitter: @taugrim
Stream: http://twitch.tv/taugrim
YouTube: http://youtube.com/taugrimtaugrim
Facebook: http://facebook.com/taugrim
GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/video-game-shows/star-wars-the-old-republic-video/the-republic-swtor-show/