Imperial Tier 3 Preview!

During E3, Bioware showed some new gear set and probably, this is the 3rd tier for the Imperial classes.

Tier 3

Ranked Warzones are coming at 1.3!

Good news everyone! Rated Warzones are officially announced for 1.3!

Mindspore: Any update on Ranked Warzones in 1.3?

Daniel: Ranked Warzones is on track for 1.3. All the heavy lifting (ratings, group persistence exiting warzones, etc) is done and right now we are working through some emergent conflicts with Group Finder and the process of queuing for multiple activities at once with multiple temporary groups.

SWTOR's James Ohlen shares the formula behind PvP nerfs

Massively: A forum post states that the expertise stat is now a lot more valuable in PvP than it used to be. The slope on the diminishing returns appears to be less steep now, and PvPers definitely seem to like that concept a lot more than when they would mix other armor types together in order to level out their stats. Can you explain the reason behind the changes, and specifically, what that means to players stepping into PvP with a fresh level 50?


James Ohlen: One of the functions expertise serves is to divide our PvP gear and PvE gear. For example, we don't want a situation where you want to play the PvE operations endgame, but the best way to do that is to spend several weeks playing warzones in order to get a PvP gear set. Thus, a PvP set will have significantly lower raw stats than a PvE set of the same level and will receive a budget of expertise to compensate. The bonuses you get from that expertise in PvP should effectively reverse the situation, so a player in a PvE set will be at an equivalent disadvantage if he jumps into PvP without earning the lower-level PvP gear set first.


What we found prior to patch 1.2 is that because the PvP endgame was much more accessible than the PvE endgame, many PvE guilds were using warzones to get endgame gear instead of playing through the flashpoints and normal-mode operations. In addition, the original PvP gear only had expertise on the armoring, hilt, and barrel, which made the modifications and enhancements in that gear more effective than intended in PvE.


To address these issues in patch 1.2, we increased the gap between PvE and PvP on the new War Hero gear, sacrificing a greater percentage of stats and giving more expertise in return. We also extended this to the modification and enhancement item mods, introducing expertise there and further increasing the total expertise budget. In fact, the final expertise budget on War Hero was so high that we had to retroactively add some "bonus" expertise to the existing PvP gear in order to avoid creating too much of a gap between the top and bottom end PvP players.


Unfortunately, this also meant that players stepping into PvP with a fresh level 50 who has no expertise will be destroyed by players with expertise, leading to a very frustrating experience (and this experience was already pretty rough prior to patch 1.2). To address this, we introduced a relatively cheap "recruit" set of PvP gear designed to give them enough expertise to get into the PvP game and allow them to starting earning the good stuff. As PvP gear continues to advance in future seasons, new "recruit" sets will be introduced to ensure fresh 50s always start at a reasonable point.




Prior to 1.2, the stat bonuses to damage, damage reduction, and healing from expertise were fairly even across the board. Now we are seeing pretty significant differences between those three bonuses. I understand the expertise stat is designed so that changes like that can be made fairly easily without disrupting the PvE game. What were you seeing prior to 1.2 that prompted that type of significant change?


Expertise was designed so that the damage bonus and the damage reduction effectively cancel out for two players with the same amount of expertise, and this should remain true in patch 1.2 as well. However, the way the damage bonus and damage reduction are applied changed in patch 1.2, and this resulted in the two values no longer being the same on the character
sheet.


Prior to patch 1.2, these values were additive, like so: Damage * (1 + Attacker_Exp – Target_Exp)


This system was simple and worked for players with similar amounts of expertise but breaks down for large differences in expertise values. For example, consider player A with 50% expertise fighting player B with 0% Expertise. When A attacks B, he does 150% damage, and when B attacks A, he does 50% damage. This means Player A gets a 50% damage boost as intended, but that 50% DR boost means he gained 100% survivability (player B is doing 50% damage, so he now must deal twice as much damage to kill player A).


In patch 1.2, this formula was changed so that these values are now multiplicative, like so: Damage * (1 + Attacker_Exp) / (1 + Target_Exp)


So using our 50% expertise example again: When A attacks B, he still does 150% damage, but now when B attacks A, he does 1 / (1 + 0.5) ~= 67% damage. On player A's character sheet, this shows up as 50.00% damage boost and 33.33% damage reduction, which are inverses of each other (player A deals 50% more damage to player B, and player B must deal 50% more damage to order to kill player A). Note that they'll still cancel out for two people with the same Expertise value, just as they did pre-patch 1.2.


Healing is on a completely separate balance axis, where we use expertise vs. trauma to get the healing rate we want in PvP. We were pretty happy with the healing rates before patch 1.2, but the expertise budgets on the PvP items increased dramatically, and that in turn increased the healing bonus to unacceptable levels. We considered increasing trauma to compensate but didn't like how much this penalized healers without expertise, so instead we decided to reduce the percentage of healing boost per point of expertise. The goal was that a player in full Battlemaster should end up with approximately the same percentage of healing boost before and after patch 1.2, despite the increased amount of expertise on his gear.




Sorcerers and Sages were hit pretty hard in the update. Some players have said, "Good, they needed to be nerfed," because there have been instances of Operatives and Mercenaries being passed up for flashpoints and operations because Sorcerers could "do a better job." However -- and I'm sure you've heard it -- Sorcs and Sages are complaining that their viability in PvP has been greatly reduced because when they face, for instance, a Sentinel, he can literally prevent them from ever being able to drop their major heal. Did this change accomplish what you'd hoped, and why do you think players are having these reactions?


We've actually answered this question publicly several times, but it seems when players don't like the answer, they keep asking hoping it will change. The fact is, Sorcerer and Sage healers were in a position where they could completely bypass resource management, which is intended to be a large factor of successful healing gameplay. In PvE, they're right where we want them. In PvP, there are ways to counter the health hit you take in managing your resources, and short of telling players what to do and when to do it, we're comfortable with how things are playing right now. That's not to say that we're "done," and things won't change again. But healers are actually closer to target than they've ever been in the past.


In PvP specifically, I think it would be a fine argument to make that we've increased the minimum skill required to play a Sorcerer or Sage healer, but currently we're not buying that they are ineffective or have less potential than other healers. What I am concerned about and have my eyes on, specifically, is that this skill requirement is too high for comfort. The difficulty in addressing this issue comes from finding just the right way to improve ease of use and accessibility without affecting throughput and resource management. Again, we're never "done," and it's likely that future changes to Sorcerer and Sage healers will aim at addressing this specific issue, but it's extremely unlikely that we'll go "whoops, we went too far" and undo what we've already done. So don't keep asking if that's what you're hoping to hear.




The post says, "We will likely take some minor to moderate action about the overall DPS being higher in the near future by adjustments to the magnitude and duration of offensive relics." Can you elaborate on what some of those changes are going to be?


In PvP, we've found that the combination of relics, adrenals, and powerful, short-duration buff abilities have led to more burst damage and shorter kill times than we originally intended. However, we are happy with the amount of sustained damage the relics offer, and our PvE content has been balanced around those values. Our current plan is to reduce the magnitude of the relic buffs but increase the duration. So they'll contribute less burst damage to a short PvP fight, but their damage contribution to a flashpoint or operation boss fight will remain approximately the same. However, this plan has not been finalized yet, and we are looking at other ways to reduce burst damage as well. So this plan may differ significantly from what eventually goes live.


Also, the post mentioned an issue with stacking debuffs. Do we have an update for that yet?


We're actually in the midst of finalizing and verifying the code that prevents like debuffs from stacking with one another. If we like what we see, we'll have this fix live "soon."


I love the overall vision for PvP in general, and it's been said that SWTOR has some of the most balanced PvP in MMOs. Where do you feel you sit with that balance currently? And what provisions have you taken to help maintain that balance or improve on it?


Balance is hard to quantify on paper but relatively easy to qualify with first-hand play experience. That means that everyone has an opinion, but those opinions are very difficult to validate. Like I've said before, all of our math comes with a great big coefficient in front of it called "assumptions," and it has a massive effect on the end result of that math. Such a massive effect, in fact, that so far whenever we find an imbalance, it's our assumptions that change and our formulas that stay the same.


Currently, we're "happy" with where we sit balance-wise in a global aspect of the game, but all that really means is that we're not up all hours of the night pulling out our hair screaming, "How do we fix this?!" Instead, we're coming in to work each day calmly asking, "How do we fix this?" That's the job, after all.


Balance going forward just means keeping up our vigilance and staying aware of current issues and coming up with valid ways to address them. Everyone has an opinion on ways to address the various balance issues that surface, but the truth is we spend the vast majority of our time finding and addressing issues that we hope to never allow to surface. The rest of the job is figuring out which fix works for the game and doesn't mess anything else up. I'm not sure it's possible to install balancing provisions (at least not any players would welcome), but we are being as proactive as possible.


Thanks, James for speaking with us. We'll talk again soon!

1.3 would launch sooner than what we expected?!

Every Friday is a Community Q&A where SWTOR’s Devs answer to some questions from the community. I was thinking covering the Q&A and give my 2 pennies for each answer but instead, I decided to write about something that was caught in my attention. The signs are showing that 1.3 would launch sooner that we expected!

What are my clues? Here they are:

Lovarboy: Will we get dual spec with Game Update 1.3?

Daniel: Unfortunately, no. Game Update 1.3 is being kept a bit leaner to get the Group Finder and the next stage of Legacy in the game as fast as possible. After that we’ll be returning to some bigger updates and we’re hoping dual spec makes it for the next one.

The above answer along with the sudden pull of rated warzones makes me to believe that they did it, not because the system was broken but because launching server-only rated PvP would just be pointless. Groups would fight the same opponents all the time and there would be no point on the rating system. I believe that they decided to leave it rest for a while and when they will have the cross server queuing perfected, they will launch it. The other side of the coin is the server transfers. Right now, they don't have the technology to pull it out, to copy a character and transfer it to another server. If you remember, during 1.2 PTS, they were copying the level characters manually. So, they want to solve the cross-server problem once and for all.

Another of their big announcements for 1.3 is the group finder. I know that they said it would be server specific but don't say lies to ourselves. When they'll have the technology to do cross-server PvP, cross-server flashpoints would be followed. I don't know what they are going to do with the leveling PvP though. They should either allow a cross-server queue where they'll have brackets or they'll stick with the already existed, bolster system.

So, I won't be surprised if 1.3 is similar to 1.1. They would might add Nightmare Mode for Explosive Conflict and that's it for PvE. Unless they pull some more bosses to the Operation, but I find it very unlikely. I expect the next tier to be launch probably around the end of summer.

That's it for now. I'm thinking about doing a revamp of what we already know about 1.3, so if you are interested, stay tuned!

1.2 state of PvP

With 1.2 being live for a couple of days now, it's time to talk about the state of PvP. To be clear from the beginning, I won't go through classes' nerfs and buffs as I've done it in a previous post. So, let's start.

One big change is the adjustment to the expertise rating. They have changed the curve of the diminishing returns and now, expertise gives a hell bigger advantage in PvP making PvP gearing up a true upgrade. If we add the healing reduction for all healing classes, you understand that damage dealt means more right now. Melee classes seem to have gotten an overall buff, as they stand better toe-to-toe against ranged dps. Overall, fights are faster and more bursty and for me, Bioware hit in the nail in the head with those changes as their battle system has been accused many times for being clunky and slow.

Sadly, they let a of people down as they didn't solve the low population servers problems. They could either allow cross-server queueing or/and allow server transfers. The second big dissapointment is the withdraw of the rated warzones. Let's hope that they make the correct changes and make rated PvP a smooth and enjoyable feature.

As far as the new warzone, Novare Coast, I'm having a blast and Ι have to admit that it's now, along with Huttball, my favourites. I really really hope, they add some new warzones soon, even if they are different stadiums for Huttball.

To coclude this post, I can't say that I'm dissapointed with 1.2 but I feel that they could do better. Giving free game time is a way to appease the subscribes but if they don't solve the problems, especially the low population servers ones, soon, people are just gonna lose their faith in BW and leave the game.

Small changes that would rise SWTOR above competition!

SWTOR is doing good since launch. The first couple of days were a blast for BW that show more than 2million copies sold. In the past 3 months, bugs have been corrected, issues have been addressed and the game is polished enough with some exceptions of course.


Some would say that SWTOR is doing fine and everything is great but... even I really enjoy the game, there are some things that should be changed. Guild Wars 2 are coming this year, in a month more or less people would play Diablo 3 and last but not least, Mist of Pandaria is somewhere in the horizon. 1.2 is good, would make the game better overall, but would definitely won't save SWTOR against competitors. There are things that should be done, I'm sure Bioware has some ace hidden in their sleeves but if they don't use them in time, SWTOR will fail. I'm not saying that it won't be good anymore, I'm saying that EA, Lucas Arts and Bioware wanted to make the best and most successful MMO and with 2million subscribers you can't say that they'll reached their goal. If they don't kill the competition soon enough, they won't make it. Now, here some ideas that would make SWTOR better in my opinion.


I've put this post in the official site, please visit, read and comment: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=3740918#post3740918


1) Competitive, balanced high level PvP. Don't be afraid to make the game a e-sport. Ranked warzones must be something that would make people want to play the game. A competitive PvP player base would generally help improve the status of the game and would attract more subscribers.


2) Links to stream in www.swtor.com . Pay people to stream to educate others. People that play for lots and lots of hours everyday, people that are good with their class would help and educate worse players. See what Swifty, Hydra, Athene for example are doing to WoW. That's free advertisement!


3) Custom PvP and Tournaments once in a while with big prizes. Promote tournament streaming and make events where the best players will compete with each other.


4) More customisation in the UI. Macros are a must, better ops portraits to help healers, Power Auras and finally ADD ONS! You should restrict add-ons from the official site as to control and permit which ones should be used, something like the Apple Store (but free). By giving tools to the players, you can make harder and more challenging PvE content.


5) A LFG tool There's tons and tons of content, many Flashpoints and I see very few people doing any. Seriously, I am not bothered in creating a group from the general channel but LFG is necessary. I don't care if it would be cross-server or not, it would help people jump in a group and spent their time playing the game, instead of searching for a group. Let people vote for MVP or something after last boss and give prizes for good tanks, good healers and good damage dealers. It could be something like credits, commendations, crafting materials or a shorter queue time for the next Flashpoint.


6) Instead of dailies solo quests, create big ass hard quest that need 2 players to complete. Create something like a smaller scale of a Flashpoint that would take several time for players to complete. It could be done to a new planet, in a group-phase area with mobs to kill, puzzles to solve and some bosses that would require some team play to kill. You don't have to create many of those, just a single one that would have a different enemies, puzzles and bosses each day. That way, people won't get bored and would have something to spent their time.


Those are my suggestions, I really want to hear you opinions and thoughts

Changes in Juggernauts/Guardians that makes me happy

I believe that people that have been to this blog and my youtube before, know that my first character is a Sith Juggernaut. It was my first character at SWTOR and I've spent a lot of time doing end game PvP and playing some PvE. As I've experienced most of the end game, I really wanted to try some other classes and after a while, I changed server and faction. I haven't played my Juggernaut since then and the thing is, I'm not really looking forward to do it. Focusing mostly in PvP, I was a little disappointed from the class. Juggs are a melee class that is missing a healing ability and even though they have great mobility, people could kite them easily. AoE tanking was a challenge, Vengeance has ok dps but more fitting for PvE and Rage's dps output relies on one strong hit. I'm not saying that the class is underpowered, I'm just feeling that it has a moderate performance in all fields.

Hopefully, 1.2 will make me play my Juggernaut again. Lots of changes for Juggernauts; they change and increase the dps rotations of all dps specs, better AoE for all three trees and finally, some self healing. So, let's analyse the new additions:

CRASH: You get this passive ability at level 10 and will cause Force Charge to stun your opponent for 2sec. This effect cannot occur more than once every 12sec. That will help a lot, as it can be combined with a Force Choke or Chilling Scream to pin your opponent after closing the gap. Don't know if and how much resolve it cause but definitely, a great tool for a melee class.

ENRAGE DEFENCE: The Juggernaut spend rage to lower threat and while active, one point of rage is spent each time damage is taken, heals the Juggernaut for a small amount. This ability is usable while stunned and is doesn't respect the global cooldown. AWESOME! Much needed, Juggernauts of all tree specs can use it and combined with Soresu Form and Saber Ward would make them un-killable. Enrage is mandatory for this skill as lot's of rage is needed and Vengeance specced would be more benefited, as they generate almost unlimited rage from Shien Form.

On top of those changes, some talents are relocated in different tier of their tree and some other have their effect change. The most important are:

VENGEANCE TREE

Single Saber Mastery: Now benefits all the three Forms.
Stagger: Now in the Tier 1 of the Vengeance tree. Good filler choice for all PvPers.
Rampage: Also generates 2 rage when is triggered.

Not a lot of changes on Vengeance, after all it was a decent spec, with a proper rotation. Still not the best for PvP but more viable now, very reliable in PvE.

RAGE TREE

Decimate: Is now relocated in Tier 1 of the Rage tree, a great filler choice for all speccs that need more AoE damage.

Force Alacrity is now gone. Good riddance I say as it's replaced by OVERPOWER, a new ability that would make Vicious Slash to generate to rage when it criticals hits. Much needed.

Force Crush: It's CD is reduced to 18sec from 21sec. COOL!

Obliterate also immobilizes the target for 1 sec that means it makes it a mini Force Charge.

Relentless Fury is now gone and it's replaced by EMPOWERING RAGE. Empowering Rages requires 2 points in Shockwave skill to be unlocked causes Enrage to immediately grant 2 stacks of Shockwave for each point spent on the talent. Another Smash is good.

Shockwave: now last 20 secs, up from 15.

As you can see, Rage is getting buffed in next patch. More stuns and control and more burst for this spec that were much needed as Rage still is the best PvP spec.

IMMORTAL TREE

There's only one big change for the Juggernaut tank, Thrown Gauntlet no longer reduces the CD of Threatening Scream. It would change their playstyle but with the Decimate in the first tier of Rage tree, level 50 tanks won't have a problem with AoE tanking anymore.

Overall, 1.2 finally buffs the Juggernauts and makes them stronger and more durable. Having access to parsers and combat log will help us evaluate our DPS and compare it to other classes but most of us knew that this class was kind of weak. Especially the nerfing of the Surge rating reduced the base of Rage juggs dps, effecting them more than almost all classes. I can predict from now that Juggernauts would dominate in rated Warzones. They would finally have enough survivability and damage to do what they were designed to do. Taunting off, controlling the battles with their charges and peel their opponents.

1.2 Novare Coast PvP video!

I've played my Sage in the PTR for the last days and I've spending my time on PvP and Class Quests only as I want to finish Act 1 and see the new features. I have to say that the changes in medals have made matches more fast paced and that something I really, really like. Needless to say, I've tried Novare Coast and I LOVE it! This WZ has a lot of fighting, as the objectives are close to the bases and it's easily to turn the table. I've recorded a full match, hope you'll enjoy it; I know I did. Expect a guide coming soon, so stay tuned!

PvP Changes in 1.2

With the introduction of 1.2 a lot of changes will come in PvP

CHANGES IN DAILIES AND REWARDS

Right now, daily missions require players to win 3 matches. From 1.2 daily missions will require players to win a certain number of medals. That will make a lot of people happy, as people that don't play WZ in groups, tend to get steamrollered from premades. One day, a friend of mine that was PvPing solo had 9 consecutive loses... It took him more than 5 hours to get 3 victories. I know he's excited about this change.

Now, remember that winning and losing both reward medals. Hopefully this will address the situation where people that had a bad group would just leave the WZ. They said that they will be some restrictions for people abandoning the WZ before it finish but they din't give any details. I speculate that they'll do something like a penalty for leavers that would prevent them to queue for another WZ that would last for some minutes. 

Luckily for us, there are 18 new medals, many of which are objective based, like scoring a goal in Hutball or defusing a bomb in Voidstar. Healers right now are in disadvantage against other classes about wining medals, the new ones will boost them too. Like if an ally you are healing gets a killing enemy point, the healer will get one too. Now, to prevent medal's farming by dragging out matches, there's a cap of medals that can be earned in every match. To encourage faster games and more activity from players, finishing a match fast gives more medals. For example, finishing Huttball under 5 minutes will give you one more metal, finishing it under 4 will give two more metals. Now, there's a lot of AFKers in PvP, especially in Civil War and finally we have some good news: In order for players to earn medals, a minimal level of activity is required and  Vote to kick inactive players is in 1.2 where the open spots would be filled by players in the queue. There are measures in place to prevent abuse, like kicking someone because his level 10.

RANKED WARZONES AND RANKED GEAR

Ranked warzones will be introduced in 1.2. There will be a ranking system for bath group and solo play. For 1.2 Ranked Warzones will be SERVER SPECIFIC ONLY, cross-server matches will come later. Coming in the future will have cross-server queueing. When the new feature will be implemented will have a pre-season period. Each ranked game will reward a specific currency that would buy the new PvP gear. There going to be more than one tier of gear  but all tiers will have the same stats. Gear that require a higher rating are going to have different colours, only for prestige reasons.

NEW PvP GEAR AND VALOR CHANGES

Valor system will not be centralized from now on. It will still be in game and will also provide titles but will not be fundamental for acquiring the PvP gear. A new intro PvP set for new 50 players will be introduce to fill the gap in gear. More emphasis on expertise will be given on PvP to make it less powerful in PvE as they want to address  issues where people with Battle Master gear were raiding Eternity Vault and Karagga's Palace. 

NEW WARZONES AND SAME FACTION MATCHES, NEWS ABOUT ILUM AND WORLD PvP

The new warzone will be Novare Coast. It can also be played with two teams of the same faction. It would be object orient and would has 3 points of focus. Two out of three must be captured from a team to 'do damage' to the object. Existing Warzones will be made same faction. That would either happen in 1.2 or 1.3. For now the matches will be from same servers. Sometime in the future cross-server matches will be introduced.  They want to introduce Tournament brackets to allow for mini-tournaments between PvP teams. Another new feature that would make a lot of people happy, YOU CAN NOW QUEUE WITH A FULL 8 PERSON GROUP AND YOUR GROUP WILL NOT BE DISBANDED AFTER A MATCH. They also enlightened us about some world PvP changes. They will pull back Ilum for a while to redesign it as they are not very pleased with it's current state and there were some technical difficulties. PvP in Outlaw's Den will be supported from now on. For world PvP in general, they said that they'll add a reward drop for world kills.

Republic Gear Sets Preview!

For the past two days I've spent my time playing a fresh Scoundrel. When I got to the Republic Fleet, I though to spent some time and take some pic of the republic gear sets. Hope you like it!

PVP JEDI KNIGHT GEAR

 PVP SMUGGLER GEAR

 PVP TROOPER GEAR

PVP JEDI CONSULAR GEAR

FINALLY, THE PVE RAKATA SETS

Add-ons, Combat Log, Cross-Server, Ranked PvP coming soon in SWTOR!

Game Amatangelo gave an interview to an Australian site and said this things:

Gear/Warzone/Commendation Changes
-Lesser end-game commendations (Champion, Centurion, etc.) will not be exchangable.
-There will be two levels of warzones. Regular and Ranked warzones.
-Regular warzones will give out regular WZ commendations, and Ranked warzones will give out ranked WZ commendations.
-New intro PVP set for new level 50 players to fill gap in gear.
-There will be some “fun” uses for commendations you dont need anymore.

Ranked PVP
-Phase one will be server specific.
-Phase two (coming in the future) will have cross-server queuing.

UI Changes & Add- ons
-Combat log coming soon.
-DPS meters/Parsers will be done by 3rd party addons via combat log.
-Free/Paid Server transfers are being worked on but no date provided. They want to make sure the process is perfect before releasing this.

Cross-Server Queuing
-Coming in phase two of pvp changes
-Priority is on playing with people from your own server.
-As soon as you start choosing certain things (which warzone, ranked, etc.). It becomes more difficult for you to get a WZ with server players so you go into the cross-server

When he says phase two he means after patch 1.2 that is meant to come this month. I don't know about you guys but I'm very excited about this changes! Especially for Add ons that were much needed from hardcore players

PvP Suggestion for Arena and Warzones

SWTOR's PvP is quite good right now. Open world PvP in Ilum is good, excluding the bugs and exploits that benefit some player, is actually what it was advertised. Big, open war. The truth is, Rated WZ will do wonders for the game and will attract more players. Even better, a small scale PvP that would be ranked would provide a big time sink and also create a good competitive environment that'll push the game to a better experience. I suggest an arena ranked and unranked battleground where people will fight in a deathmatch.

Only one bracket should be made. A 3v3. You can balance the whole game around arenas and most of the times what is balanced in a small scale it will also be balanced in the large scale. 2v2 is too individualistic and very limited. Instead of creating some healthy competitive arena, 2v2 would be actually be a combination vs combination that decreases the skill and creativity required from the player and would lead to a huge flaming and crying forum outbreak where people will demand from the developers to adjust the game to their class' combination. 4v4 even though would be ideal since the whole game was build in the number 4 in mind it would not work in arenas. 2 healers and 2 dps or 1 tanks 2 healers and 1 dps would make really slow and long fight. On the other hand 1 healer and 3 dps would make zerg battles that would be frustrating and unsatisfying. 5v5 and more is just overcrowded, zergy and messy. 3v3 is optimal, the base of the mmo genre and the holy trinity. Tank, dps and healer or 2 dps and a healer would make a fight last enough, won't be crowded and every member of each team can coordinate without problem.

Balance the PvP around 3v3. The problem for the developers is the performance some classes have between PvP and PvE. Instead of nerf and buff every time, just give a bolster to dps in PvP if healers are overpower or on the other hand put a debuff of the healing received. Exactly what the devs did with the Trauma debuff.  It's obvious that you can't balance a game around PvP and PvE at the same time with the same damage and healing multipliers for both.

As for the maps, don't make anything more than a basic, normal arena map. Avoid eruptic cannons, flame that rise every 5sec. No RNG elements in general. Let the best team win, with no luck involved. The winner should be decided by his skill, timing and coordination. Also avoid a map with many different leveled platforms. Being knockback to the ground to run up to the platform to be knockback again is not fun. Put some platforms that are easily accessible, some crates or other items that could get in the line of sight and maybe a pit of acid like in Huttball. Please make functional maps that will allow for competitive play.

I have to add here a little something. Make interrupts/knockbacks/standing up instant! Make it happen at the beginning of the animation so it would land as soon as the player wanted. The server lag, the internet lag, the human reaction time are already making it hard to land a interrupt. Having to wait for the animation to end, that means almost a second- only makes the things worst. Also, sometimes if I'm knockdown from an Operative in to the pool of acid in Huttball, I find myself dying not because of his attacks, neither for the damage from the acid. He throws me down for 1.5 sec and it gets 0.5-1sec to stand up. Please, make it so I can react instantly to the attacks of my opponent and not be restricted because of animation. A lot of people are raging about giving Imperials a lead. For example, It seams that Telekinetic Throw has the object that is threw to hit the target for the damage to be dealt where as the sorcerer's counterpart Force Lightning is instant. Same goes for some Bounty Hunter's abilities in comparison to the Trooper's ones. If it's just an animation thing, it's easy for you to correct it. To be honest, almost all of the abilities should has damage be dealt at the end of the animation. Especially for PvP, gameplay should be an priority over animation, so please, make it so.

My final suggestion for PvP is an introduction of two new type of Warzones. The first should be Team Deathmatch. People really like Ilum because it gives them the chance to play against other players without any other goal than killing or be killed. I believe it can be easily constructed and would be a huge hit from the community. Two teams of 8 people, 100 tickets, each death cost a ticket, first team to reach 0 tickets lose, no PvE element involved. Simply enough. You can add two chokepoints, like a bridge or a cliff and if you believe that would be helpful for more strategically playstyle, add two bases that would provide a 5% bonus to all damage and healing done to the group that controls them. The second one could be a map like League of Legends or DOTA. Two bases, each with an Inner Sanctum to the center, and only two or three different paths that connects them. Every faction has 3 turrets along the paths to their base to protect them. The winner is the team that gets to destroy the Inner Sanctum of the enemies' base. I'm not sure if it can be implanted into SWTOR but would totally make a lot of people happy and willfull to try PvP.

PvP Juggernaut Rage built!

PvP Juggernaut Rage

Yo, fellow SWTORians!


For the past few day I have focused my play time to Jugg PvP. I used to be specced up to Vengeance tree for PvE. After checking the two DPS tree I decided to go Rage.

SPEC

This is the spec that I use now: 0/10/31


Now, let's break it down. I didn't take Strangulate as the pushback for a channelling ability that stuns for a melee class is not a priority for me. I didn't take Unbreakable Rage as Ravage in general is not mandatory to your dps rotation. I would come to this later. I put to Interceptor just one point just for filler. My other option was Brutality but I rarely use Vicious Slash and I think of it as a waste of rage in most situations. Interceptor is not to mandatory to juggs as the class is very mobile.


For my final 2 points at Vengeance tree I was in a dilemma. Playing Rage you'll find yourselves with less rage than playing Vengeance (pun intended). Unyielding would be my original choice but as to right now, geared half centurion, half champion I don't have enough accuracy to reach 100%. For that reason I decided to put my last 2 points to Accurecy. If you have enough accuracy choose Unyielding.

ABILITIES

DPS ABILITIES




Retaliation. hit it as soon as it procs.


Assault. Builds 2 rage, weak but mandatory


Sundering Assault. Use it to build 2 rage and stack 4% armor reduction up to 5 times


Vicious Throw. Our finisher move. Only usable on target's at or below 20% max health. Deadly indeed.


Smash. Main AoE ability hits up to 5 enemies STRONGEST ABILITY for Rage Juggs 


Force Scream. Hitting like a truck and has 10m range.


Force Crush. Our point 31 talent, slows our enemies, puts a DoT that last  seconds and at the end, deals more damage.


Ravage. 3 secs channel ability. Interrupted when moving or pressing another attack.


Vicious Slash. Use it as filler when you got rage to dumb and all of your main abilities are on cd.


Obliterate. Small charge (only 10m) costs 3 rage. Mostly a dps ability, use it with a snare to catch up ranged opponents that try to get away.


Saber Throw. You generate 3 rage, use it before you charge.


Sweeping Slash. AoE damage in a front cone a la Chuck Norris roundhouse kick. Still, pretty weak.


Enrage. Generates 6 rage. Use it after your burst and when you are under 6 rage.




STUNS AND SLOWING ABILITIES




Chilling Scream. Slow AoE ability.


Disruption. Use it to interrupt your target and lock their interrupted ability for 4 secs. In comparison to WoW, SWTOR's interrupts don't lock school abilities. That means, only the ability that you interrupt is locked.


Unleash. Removes all of your incapacitating and movement-impairing effects.


Force Choke. 3 sec channel ability. To stun and generate rage.


Intimidating Roar. 6 secs AoE fear




MOBILITY ABILITIES




Force Push and then use charge.


Force Charge. No description.


Intercede. Use it on friendly player to jump to him.




FORMS AND DEFENSIVE ABILITIES




Shii-Cho Form Dps form,


Soresu Form Tanking form. Use it only when you know that a lot of damage is incoming and you can't be on target to dps. Also, soresu form is needed to use Guard. Switching forms resets your rage to zero!


Threatening Scream. Use it to reduce the damage all enemies around you do to every other except you.


Taunt. Don't use it on PvE! Only in PvP to reduce the targeted enemy damage on every other except you.


Saber Ward. Main defensive cooldown. Increase your defence by 50% for 12sec. The passive ability Blade Turning makes the 2 first secs a 100% defence


Endure Pain. Main defensive cooldown. Increase your healthpool by 30% for 10sec.


Guard. Only usable when Soresu Form is active. I only use it on pvp. 




SECONDARY ABILITIES




Channel Hatred. Your off battle recovery ability.


Sprint. Keep it always on.


Unnatural Might. BUFF UP!

PvP SET BONUSES

• Bonus for 2: Intercede heals you for 8% of your total health.
• Bonus for 4: Increases all damage dealt by 10% for 5 seconds after using Force Charge.

DPS ROTATION AND PRIORITY LIST

To begin with, Rage's dps is based on Smash crits. So, let's analyse Smash.

-Smash is a Force ability

-Smash with the Shockwave skill stacks up it's damage up to 100%

-Smash with the Decimate skill increase it's damage by 30% and decrease it's CD by 3secs

-Smash with the Dominate skill makes your next Smash used within 15 seconds an automatic critical hit.

-Smash with the Dark Resonance increase the critical multiplier for or Force abilities by 30%

-Smash has a 9sec CD if you're specced

That means that with no surge considered your smash will have 100% critical chance (after a charge), 130% stronger (if you have 4 stacks of Decimate) plus 30% increase to the critical multiplayer to the total of 80% (base critical multiplier is 50%). In my warrior, the tooltip says that Smash hits for 1410-1501 kinetic damage. Let's say that my attack is 1450, we will add the 130% of it. That's 3335. Plus we will calculate the critical multiplier of 80% and we have 6003 kinetic damage. Now, add more surge, a relic usage, an adrenal, the expertise buff. Smash can do up to 9k damage easily and it can hit up to 5 people in a 9sec CD. (For each opponent it strikes, different base damage is calculated).

Our rotation must be build around Smash to maximise it's huge crit hits. So our basic rotation goes like this,

Saber Throw ---> Charge ---> Force Crush  ---> Sunder ---> as soon as 4 stacks of shockwave are up Smash ---> Enrage ---> Force Scream ---> Sunder

To be more exact my priority list is:

1. Enrage on CD if you have less than 4 rage

2. Saber Throw

3. Charge

4. Smash if you have 4 stacks of shockwave

5. Vicious Throw

6. Force Crush

7. Sunder Assault

8. Force Choke

9. Force Scream

10. Obliterate

11. Vicious Slash

12. Assault

13. Ravage

So, to sum it up, you goal is build your Smash hit. Get 4 stacks of shockwave by either Force Choke or Force Crush and try to Smash as soon as possible after you Charge or Obliterate. I would suggest to use it after you Charge as Charge will make the next Smash used in the next 15sec a crit, plus your 4 set bonus from your PvP gear give you an extra 10% bonus to your damage. After that, keep your rage high enough to be able to burst.

STATS

You don't have to be a genius to know that Strength and Stamina is your main stats. After that you should check for your secondary stats. Expertise is the strongest stat for PvP. It will increase the damage you deal and decrease the damage you take. Expertise should always be on your gear. After that, go for Surge and Critcal ratings. That way your abilities and especially your Smash will hit harder. My experience tells me not to get more than 40% of either of those two stats as you'll need much more to achieve bigger percentages. After that, go for power. Power is a straight increase to your base damage of your attacks. That includes the base damage that your criticals are calculated.

TIPS

As we talk about PvP, your opponent will try to react to you. That's why you have to be use the correct abilities in the right moment. Here some tips for you:

-Apply your Chilling Scream to slow them for starters. Keep them slowed all the time.

-As you built up your Smash hit, they will hit you as hard as they can. I suggest you pop Saber Ward as soon as the opponent starts to fight back.

-Don't use Unleash (trinket for WoWers) if it's not a really need. More people will increase your Resolve with their knockbacks than their stuns. If your Resolve bar is filled you will be immune in every CC. Unleash will reset your Resolve bar so be careful!

-Have with you relics and adrenals with crit/surge and power. Use them in pairs, pop power relic and crit/surge adrenal and then pop crit/surge relic with power adrenal. That way you more burst damage.

-If your opponent pops his defensive or CDs from the beginning of your battle, try to sabotage his advantage as much as you can. Choke him, Push him, Charge him, Fear him. That way, his burst or his defences would have expired with no benefits for him. Remember, in most cases the one that uses his CDs first, is the one that loses.

-Your set 2 bonus from your PvP gear will make you heal after you use Intercede. To maximise the profit, first use Endure Pain and then Intercede. That way, you'll heal for more.

-Don't interrupt all the time. Your interrupt will lock for the interrupted ability only. For 4secs. Interrupts should only be used on spammed ability like Tracer Missiles and Force Strike or to interrupt the healer from healing himself.

-Beware of your surroundings. Most people will try to knock you back as soon as you charge them. Don't put yourself between your opponent and the edge of the ledge, or the acid pit or the fire.

That's all for now. I will update my guide with more informations and more tips in future. Stay tuned!