Hmm, I will give you the benefit of the doubt on this one. Bare in mind the OP didn't mention any PVP vs PVE preference. So a simple "Use smash to stun the opponents and then use pommel strike" would have sufficed. Still, it is rather frustrating this is a non-pvp ability. It's flipping cool and hits like a truck!

Damage wise, at lvl 50 I've been stacking power after accuracy hit 100% (110% with specials). Yeah, crits are nice but I would rather do 1250 with a regular attack all the time than 1500 crit with my regular attacks only hitting for 1000. (a rough example... don't jump on me for the lack of any nth degree theory crafting here! ) At lower levels I would take anything with power on them, it has worked out for me. Ignore accuracy stuff, as it really won't make all that much of a difference especially in pvp. You simply will be gimping yourself if you try to hit cap yourself early on. re: pvp armour... I've been doing way better than full pvp geared marauders, and I'm not hardcore pvp. I have a grand total of 1 pvp item, that I got last night and haven't used yet. Skill > Gear... and IMO Skill > Power > Expertise > Crit > Surge > Colour of your lightsaber (yes, note the 'u' in colour.. that is correct... it is how it is spelt in ye olde world) the biggest differentiator in this game, for me, is skill. Just cos that guy has spikey shoulders and looks like he just came out of the latest crytek game, doesn't mean he's going to kill you. All that means is he does pvp a lot. Now, that guy could be amazing at playing a marauder.... in which case you should probably call your family and tell them you love them one last time... but then he could be someone who just farms commendations. The guy next to him could be in pve gear (i.e. like I am)... if he knows how to play the class, call home etc etc.. 6k crits are great, but if you jump in and do your signature ability and stand there going "Ah haa, I have you now! hahahaaaa" looking all smug and proud then you're gonna be back at the start waiting to run in again. Not saying that's what most people do... but you get my meaning?

I really dont get why people think this class is broken? is it that the abilities are difficult to understand in terms of what goes with what? there are a lot of abilities that work off other abilities. e.g. berzerk for annihilation spec. It relies on you knowing what to do with rupture and deadly saber. We have 2 saber throws, especially one that acts as an execute. It hits like a truck. Here is my top tip... find yourself swamped in a 1v3 situation but still want to kill that healer/ball carrier/guy who has annoyed you thus far? Hit camoflage, run back and charge back in. Hit undying rage. Now, you got 6 seconds to kill that guy and go out in a blaze of glory! I actually managed to kill 2 guys (they were both low'ish on health) who were chain stunning me. Managed to hit camo, charged one guy down killing with a brutal annihilation crit and then dropped the other guy with saber throws. It was half luck, half knowing what abilities are at my disposal but luck is often all you need.... And one for the e-peen catalogue 2012, I scored twice in hutball, got the most objective points of anyone and still scored 100k more damage than 2nd place. The trick? always be where the ball is... it's where bad guys hang out.

Never underestimate charge + savage kick (tab to next target) + smash + pommel strike when facing groups of normal mobs. If you dont take down a mob with the kick, it won't have much left fight left in it. I've hit both abilities and got crits before now and left myself with 2 less mobs to worry about. Remember, utilise all your abilities! Some of them are far more useful than they first appear. And Pommel Strike, for the record, hits like a truck.

What's this then? "Corrected an issue that caused poor performance on some machines in indoor areas with shadows enabled." That's the big one for me! My FPS suffers immensely on my Fury starship when I look in a particular direction. Hopefully that will get fixed!

Sorry, but I disagree with the OP. I'm a marauder and play alongside my very experienced MMO tank friend who has main tanked our guild through the entirety of WoW and other MMOs that we have played. He tanks the big mob and aoe tanks whatever else he can. I take one mob (regardless of level) and burn it down asap, and move onto the next mob. I have defensive cooldowns, self heals (anni spec) and camo if things really get hot. Never had a problem at all... ever... However... in a PUG situation, I fully admit I could and would never trust the abilities of others and would treat each encounter accordingly. I also wouldn't pay much attention to a tank who insists on tanking everything if the group is blasting their way through a flashpoint. Apologies if that is against the grain, laughs in the face of the principle of the MMO holy trinity. But there you go, my friends and I are all skilled enough to deal with encounters on the fly. End of.

If this is the only game you've ever played then your statement is correct. But you're not, so there.

No offence, but you've had an official response regarding slicing. It's called the V1.0.1 patch notes. There is all the information you need regarding BioWare's stance on this issue.

Yeah, but lets be frank... there isn't that much variation in the dialog beyond the light/dark choices...

Yeah, Black Talon and in fact I would say Esselles more, showed a heck of a lot of promise. This is a story based MMO right? and yet only the first FP for both sides has any real story to it. My friend did put a good counter point to this though... "thinking of the longevity of the game, would you want to listen to the same dialog day in day out when you're grinding hard mode FPs?" It's a fair point... I dunno if I would like to partake in the ensuing rage quits from PUGs because such-and-such chose light/dark (even though it doesn't matter), and hearing the droid instruct you on your next task in black talon got tedious after boosting my guildies for the 3rd time. A story should progress... it shouldn't be experienced over and over like groundhog day.... However, I can't help shake the sense of awesomeness I got the first time I did those FPs. Story did add to them on the first playthrough and it did make other FPs seem really empty in comparison.

It's funny how this point is lost on a lot of people... And most if not all DPS have some form of agro wipe right? so what's the big deal? you pull agro, you either: a) deal with it, and suck it up like the man/woman that you are b) move your mouse, across the screen, and.. wait for it!... click that ability thats been sat on your bars since about day 4 or 5 and hand agro back to the tank / unlucky overexhuberant healer c) die... quickly

My favorite 'rotation' is based on how cool I can look whilst killing things. For a pack of normal mobs in pve, charge + kick one mob, smash + pommel strike another mob, generally wreak havoc on the rest of them. Oh, and force choke off cooldown and saber throw a mob that's on 10% health and is out of melee range. That's a real satisfying kill. But like what has been said already. When you're knee deep in champion level mobs, your basic rotation should be to ensure you have enough rage for rupture, annihilate and deadly saber when they come off cooldown. After that, you either spend rage or you build rage depending on whether you have a lot of rage going spare or you're running low. Battering assault off cooldown will ensure you have a lot of rage to mess around with. In later levels, you will need to make sure you understand interrupts. You can use force choke as an interrupt on a lot of mobs (not all, but a lot more than you'd expect). Disruption is obviously your major interrupt, but intimidating shout will work on strong mobs too and is a good CC move if you're facing a large pack. The situation dictates the ability and make sure to use the full suite available and dont just stand there clicking vicious slash, keyboard turning and mouth breathing.

Trolling? yikes, you're quick to jump on the trolling excuse aren't you? Sorry but I have had the same experience as the guy you're half accusing of lying. Sorry but if you're sensible with your crafting and dont go over the top with it you can easily have enough money for whatever else you want to do and max out your crafting. I'm lvl 45 and I have maxxed out artifice, basically the stuff I can create is 5 levels ahead of me so I've not been going slow by any means. Craft blues, never go for purples as they're not cost effective.

Hmm, no offence intended to anyone who find the game too hard. It's hard, in places, or more specifically, in the right places. There are elite/champion mobs. They are a challenge. There are packs with large numbers, they are a challenge. There are flashpoints, where some of the mechanics require you to communicate and co-ordinate, these are possible challenges. All the above raises the difficulty above and beyond the usual groups of mobs, and for good reasons... they are supposed to be that way. I do get the feeling reading alot of opinions on this forum that people expect all content to pretty much be the same difficulty. Maybe they do expect some mobs to have more HP than others... To say the game is too hard, is possibly over egging it a little. You may want to utilise all the tools of your class of which all seem pretty balanced. Games like this are punch and counter punch. You want to survive that big attack? interrupt, stun or out heal it. Don't just mash your damage abilities hoping you'll out DPS a mob that is intended to have a higher rate of DPS than your character at the same level. I suppose it's a bit like boss fights in single player games. If you stand still and hit punch repeatedly you'lre gonna die. You need to jump to that safe platform or stun the boss by whacking its many varied eyeballs etc... I wouldn't say that this game is by any stretch of the imagination too hard...

I can understand the reasons behind a single patch update of all servers in an MMO this young. They may only have expertise to implement these upgrades in their US studios at present. They may want to tie down their upgrade procedures and be thorough over their implementation especially on the first 2-3 patches I suspect they will at some point change their mind about this, especially once their Irish base of operations is running smoothly Their argument about peak times is valid, for the majority of the year a 10am - 6pm slot is when most people will be working / at school / etc They actually do acknowledge that this is the holiday season and the down time was likely to cause upset for EU players So, my thoughts are that once the game has been running for 3 months or so, BioWare will be confident enough to have the Irish IT team patch servers on an EU schedule. You guys have to understand that the patch procedures are not necessarily fixed in stone and may require a lot of communication. Transcontinental communication is fun but not necessarily the easiest way to get finer points across. Whilst yesterdays downtime was painful, it did give my friends and I a good opportunity to catch up and discuss what we did for Christmas.

Sorry? Bioware said that they felt it better for people to look for groups on the planets that the quests are for. So for those heroic missions the only people who can help you and who may have not already done the heroic mission are those people on the same planet. What part of that doesn't make any sense? It's an MMO, it is about using /1 and actually talking to people. Now, I'm sure for a lot of bedroom teenagers, this concept might seem completely foreign compared with clicking a button on a LFG interface. Sorry guys, the game doesn't cater for your social ineptitude. Maybe you should get out more? 'Level up' your social interaction skills by 'talking' to people, and then translate this new found talent into the games you play by 'being nice' and 'communicating' with people. Yikes, with an opinion like mine I should be hung for heresy! Anyway, I've never had a problem looking for a dungeon group or a heroic 4 man group. I don't see the point of this tool. Use your flipping keyboard and get over it. Who knows! You may even attract a group that doesn't fall apart on the first trash pack because one of the guys is actually afk.

Basically, I agree with the above. If you're struggling with the content you are not using all the tools available to you. I also don't understand why people think we're underpowered. I'm always top 3 on damage in pvp (I basically use this as a yard stick to see how I compare before getting back to more important pve issues!) It's not as simple as... for example... a bounty hunter, or a sith sorc (who always seem to just blast me with lightning until I'm dead on huttball!) We have a complex rotation and can't just press a couple of abilities to do insane damage. That's what we signed up for! That's what we got... enjoy it! it's far better than just hitting the same button again and again surely?

Answer me one thing. Where were you the day WoW rolled out? I was sat in a 2 hour queue for Crushridge (EU) only for it to crash constantly and be renamed Crashridge... But seriously, where were you? I think a lot of people appear to have very short term memories or they weren't actually in WoW until TBC or later.

for me, and I'm annihilation spec, it's all about using deadly saber and rupture. I don't use force scream on cooldown as its a 4 rage 'force' ability and hence doesn't pair up with your abilities that boost saber abilities. So really, deadly saber + vicious slash and that other ripost ability (name?). That'll stack up the bleeds on targets. However, the real big damage comes from combining that with your bezerk ability. That means all your dots crit. So deadly saber + bezerk + 3 saber attacks (really doesn't matter which as it has no impact on the dots). That'll give you some pretty awesome dots ticking away. Normally I use this in combination with battering assault so that I get the bleeds up and then have a lot of rage to use whatever else I have available. If I'm stuck for rage and battering assault isn't up, I force choke. If I have a lot of rage but everything is on cooldown I'll use force scream. Oh, and if we're attacking NPCs, a force scream and a pommel strike is a great way of reducing body count by 1 very quickly.

You should learn a rotation against champion mobs. They last long enough for you to go through more than 2 'rotations'. And it is a priority. You need to time battering assault to ensure you have enough rage to spend when ruptures become available. I have force choke now which is a great ability to use in those stop gaps where you have run out of rage and cooldowns worth spending rage on. Remember to use cloak of shadow if you're soloing and bear in mind if you go up against champion mobs you will also need to use your defensive cooldowns. Berzerk works wonders in combination with deadly saber + 3 saber abilities as a way of maintaining your health so ensure you prioritise that into your rotation when available. Oh... and no matter what people say. Killing a normal mob with saber throw or force choke is an absolute must on style points alone!

I think he will throw that at people but given that you would normally be running away from a bomb, the next bomb will tend to land in a different location / at a different member of the team. It's a difficult fight (especially as we were running this one 3 man + 1 companion). If you move the boss into some clear air you should get enough DPS time on the boss to down him without worrying too much about the bombs. There were a truck load of other abilities, but I can't remember what they were. Adds plus some nasty AOE IIRC? either way, it's pretty well signposted what is about to hit you. Those bombs are annoying though I completely agree.

I'm sorry but that guy is right, with a geared up healer and annihilation spec you can tear through most content. I'm even solo'ing Group 2+ quests. They're not a walkover by any stretch of the imagination but they're do'able. Use your cooldowns, understand what abilities play of what other abilities. Keep your gear upgraded too. I'm an artifice and it really helps. Especially if you have custom gear on more than just your sabers. Grab any and all available. It really helps keep you up to speed. Also PVP, even though I'm anni specced, my damage on the battlegrounds I played (and I'm not much of a PVP'er) I was top 3 all the time.

I'm sorry, on what evidence is there an imbalance? Please provide metrics of actual data and prove your point. Secondly, what don't you like about the PvP?

Everyones? or just yours? Hey, I pre-ordered on the 22nd, but Game in the UK didn't send me my code until the 26th. Ah well, I think I shall go raid a real world dungeon and drink a few potions instead. Ahhaha, haha... (and by that I mean I'm gonna go down t' pub for t' pint)