Again, you are completely missing the point of this thread, ignoring the actual narrative, and replacing it with your own. You are absolutely correct, the vast majority of the populace in this game will never look at damage or logs. Why? Because they are not doing NiM content, and the like. The entire point of this thread is in regards to the hardest content this game has to offer. What I am going to say next, I am going to put in bold so it is noticed. There are certain classes/specs that cannot meet the numbers required to defeat certain content. A boss has a set amount of health and a timer with which the group has to reduce that amount of health to zero before the boss enrages. This means that each member of the group needs to pull a certain amount of damage per second to beat this timer. Currently, some classes cannot meet these numbers, making it numerically impossible. This means that if you play one of these classes, and you want to clear this content, you currently cannot. This is because of flaws in the current class design, and not because of elitism.

I was having lag spikes last night, but the issue seemed to be related to AT&T. Myself, and other friends from various other states, were all experiencing issues with AT&T. It may be worth looking at if that is your provider as well.

You are completely missing the point of this thread, and the point the others you are refuting are trying to make. There is no elitism happening here. People are actually advocating for others to be able to play what they want, and NOT have to worry about their class under-performing. This isn't an issue of elitism, spreadsheets, parsing, etc. The issue is that how scaling is currently, you literally CANNOT clear certain content, if you bring certain classes, in certain amounts. It is just numerically impossible, no matter how well the person plays. This is broken design, and it needs to be fixed.

Little late to the party on this thread, but here is one screenshot of the actual effect: https://i.imgur.com/PM1ROts.jpg No black smoke effect, just a heat wave. Intensity of the effect seems to change based on the angle you look at it.

I left the link to the artist's page in the OP: http://artlon.deviantart.com/. Send him a note on Deviant Art describing what you want, and see how much he would charge. His charge is based around many different factors.

I shared this over on r/swtor, but I wanted to share it here too! http://i.imgur.com/RHzwhSz.jpg Here is the artist's page: http://artlon.deviantart.com/, and this is the album I sent him: https://m.imgur.com/a/isPfM

I'm sorry, but your post is not constructive, quite rude, and the point of my original post is being missed entirely. Names being held by low-level characters on inactive accounts has always been an issue in online games. Bioware is not the first company to do a name purge, and they won't be the last. Just as one example, Blizzard purges World of Warcraft names at the start of every expansion. Name purges are a good thing, not bad. This has nothing to do with "stealing" names. If a name purge were to occur, would I attempt to get the ONE name I have attachment to? Of course. However, as I said, if I didn't life would go on. A name purge helps new players, new server transfers, and in the event of server mergers it helps to eliminate potential name conflicts. When these purges occur, there are strict guidelines that are followed. New, old, and even unsubscribed people are notified via email that it will occur, and what they need to be made aware of. If people truly care about their names, subscribed or not, they will take the measures to make sure they are secure.

If that were to happen, then so be it, life goes on. Would it be unfortunate? Of course it would. However, I would continue to use the alt code variant I am using now. I prefer not to use alt codes simply because it adds an extra hassle for some, and I just generally do not care for them. But, if I have to use one, I will use one. The major point is there are a plethora of names right now being held up by inactive level 1s, especially on the larger pop servers.

Is it possible for another name purge to occur, or is there one planned for the future? IMO, the first purge was fairly successful, and there has been ample time since it occurred. As a veteran player who moved from a dead server to Harbinger, well, naming toons was rough. Fortunately, most of my names were unique enough that I was able to get them. One I didn't get, which really upset me, was Vecte (same as my display name). I've used Vecte in all games I have played for 15+ years. It's a name I came up with years ago, and one I have stuck with. I've used it not only in games, but forums and other online venues as well. However, luck would have it, a level 15 Bounty Hunter on Harbinger currently holds it, so I was forced to use an alt code. Naming the last three toons I needed to make to finish off the story lines was a different story. Naming them was nothing short of a nightmare. The in-game random name generator is next to useless on Harbinger, as everything is almost always unavailable. Even some of the incomprehensible names show up as unavailable. On some of the more comprehensible names I used alt codes, but would still get the dreaded unavailable notice. I resorted to loading up other games that have name generators in an attempt to find names for my last three characters. This was, for the most part, successful for me, and I was able to name my final three toons. After the naming debacle, I took to investigating many of the names I attempted. I found that the vast majority were level 1s, who I can only imagine have not logged into the game for quite some time. Some where higher than level 1, but the highest I saw was 15, which just so happened to be Vecte, the main name I use. Seeing this only reinforces my belief that it is time for another name purge. P. S. I do know that spaces are coming to names, and this will definitely help. However, having names held up by alts that will likely never be played is still an issue.

Character Name: Veyl'rahn Server: Harbinger Just got this today, and I am completely unable to continue the romance.

EDIT: Scratch what I said, I was thinking about something different.

Looking to buy a White Hawkeye (+41 Power) Crystal. Post here, or PM me, if you have one for sale. Thanks!

There is one strategy that we use when a group of us are playing. In the beginning of Civil War, the four of us will start running off-node to see if we can bait the other team. It usually works with 3-4 people from their team running to defend. We go about halfway, then I will Predation us back to mid. The success rate of this is surprisingly high, and almost always results in a mid cap.

I will be the first to admit, I'm guilty of this on my Marauder. I know it's bad, and I shouldn't do it. There are some games though where it's going so bad it couldn't possibly hurt us any worse. There was actually one occasion I was able to go off-node, kill the stealther, and capture Grass. This ended up helping us win, but it was dumb luck the stealther sucked, and apparently didn't call me Inc.

What you describe are traits of BAD stealthers. A good Assassin is one of the best assets to have in a node game. If played correctly, a good Assassin can delay multiple people by themselves to allow time for backup to arrive. On top of that, their burst is incredible. Also, damage isn't everything, and honestly, I don't care too much about it. If I see someone with 800k damage, and 0-1 killing blows, all they did was increase the other teams healing numbers. However, if I see someone with 300k damage and 10+ killing blows, I know they actually took players down.