Yeah, I'll go back to Treek when she's fixed to not repeat the same one line 10 thousand times per heroic.

Companions didn't "need a nerf." If you thought they were too powerful, don't level them to 50, or change them to tanking stance. Some of us liked them as they were. Buffing our companions was the least Bioware could have done after stealing all of our existing companions.

Character * 65 Sniper, Marksman spec (Also 65 Gunslinger in Saboteur spec, 65 gunslinger in sharpshooter spec, and 65 Sorcerer in lightning spec) All with 50 companions. - Full 220 armor set, 216 mainhand and offhand weapons with 220 barrel/hilt in main. 216 earpiece and implants, 208 relics. All pieces augmented with 208 mastery augments - 50 influence “Deadeye” Leyta in heal spec. (DPS spec was suicidal) - Character has all currently available companions Experiences * Leveling – N/A * KOTFE Chapters – Character leveled on day 1 when companions were OP. That they were strong made the story tolerable, since without stealth we had to pretty much kill everything we saw. I enjoyed the story because I was made to feel “epic.” * Heroic 2 – Still *generally* easy on low level planets, but on Belsavis, Voss, etc., my companion is now just incapable of keeping up with incoming damage. Rather than do heroics in these areas, I’ve chosen instead to just farm boxes on lowbie planets. * Star Fortress – Completed on day 1 with OP companion. Easily cleared with 186/208 gear mix. No reason to repeat since. * Heroic Star Fortress – Until Tuesday I soloed this without issues and without dying. I had fun despite receiving “trash” 208 drops. Since “the Great SWTOR Companion Nerf of 2015,” I’ve been unable to complete this solo, even if using the terminal at the start of the instance. My companion can only heal for approx 1% of my HP, while knights, etc. are hitting me multiple times for much, much more damage. Shield probe is great, but is near useless under those circumstances. Current H2+ Star Fortress status: FAILED * “The One and Only” – Last week I completed a H2+ Star Fortress solo without using the buff terminal. After killing the final boss, I was unable to loot because the drops seem to have materialized below the floor level. I relogged, looted, but received no title. FAIL. With the current nerf status, I doubt I’ll work to complete this. ********************************************** I realize that Bioware wants to “stretch” content, but nerfing our companions was the wrong way to do that. Over the past four years many of us have grown attached to our original companions. (You know, the ones that you decided we should no longer have?) “OP” companions helped to get us past that loss by allowing us to participate in content that many of us “casuals” were excluded from. We could finally do things to gear up without being laughed at by OPS groups, or kicked from HM flashpoints. My OP companion allowed me to be a player rather than just another casual scrub, and that somewhat made up for my empty ship that was once “alive” with MY crew, Post 4.0.2 many of us are at a loss. Our crew is gone, our ship is empty, and we’re relegated to second class status once again by Bioware. In the past it wasn’t as big an issue because we could always craft our own gear, but after 4.0 Bioware has pretty much gated ALL 200+ gear behind Conquest, HM flashpoints and OPS, which has totally demolished the game that many of us enjoyed. Now we have no armor we can craft, and are limited in where we can grind for upgrades. There’s little doubt that Bioware thinks that this is the best solution, but many of us are standing up to tell you that we absolutely disagree. Destroying a casual friendly game isn’t the answer. As things are, I don’t even feel like logging in anymore. Is that your intended business model?

FWIW, it's not that we don't want to group, nor is it a case of never grouping. It's that some of us have very select circles with whom we group. A random sampling of "social level" for some of my characters. A person who never groups would probably be social II or III maybe? http://s21.postimg.org/o7gfmwtcn/Lady_Vixx.jpg Current characters/alts on Jedi covenant: 31 @ Lv65 18 @ Lv60 4 @ Lv55

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=854305&page=2 I read your post yesterday. I'm one of the few people that runs on Jedi Covenant at that time of day, and have decently geared (220) DPS characters on both sides. Normally I'd have jumped on the opportunity, but your posts really seemed kind of rude. Not everyone plays your way. That doesn't make them wrong, it makes them different. As it is I can do everything but solo Star Fortress heroics, but having all of my companions (including the PVP ones) I'm better off just blowing through planetary H2s anyway. Good luck in finding a partner.

Yeah, you're a tank spec. Try it as a DPS and see how much of a faceroll it is with a minimal armor rating, no shield, little to no mitigation, and an "OP companion" that can only heal for 1% of my HP. (a companion that stops healing the second it takes damage) Doing it as a DPS character is now damn near impossible due to the 4.0.2 changes. I'm glad you can blow through it, two days ago I blew through it too, but now I only survive 15 seconds against the final H2+ boss once he melts my 50 companion. (MM sniper wearing 208 relics, 216 earpiece/implants, 216 mainhand/offhand with 220 barrel, full 220 armor, all pieces with 208 augments)

The planetary ones are generally easy. The ones that most are complaining about are the Lv65 Heroic 2+ Star Fortress ones on Odessen. While it may still be doable by well geared, tank/healer spec characters with self heals and high armor rating/mitigation skills, it's (largely) no longer doable by DPS classes like snipers. Last week I was able to solo those without issue. Yesterday I died a dozen+ times trying to kill the final boss.

Guild meeting last night. Results: -18 subscribers from SWTOR over the next 30-60 days. While the companion nerf was certainly a factor, other considerations included the increased complexity to crafting recipes, and the lack of any realistically craftable main hand barrels or hilts with ratings over 186. Members also objected to the selling of legacy perks that many of us worked hard for, and the inclusion of max level crafting skills for "instant 60's."

My companions average heal is 800-900, or approximately 1% of my total HP. As a DPS character with less armor rating, minimal defensive skills and no self heals, my companion is simply incapable of keeping me up long enough to survive. 2 days ago I blew through H2+ Star Fortress content without problems. Today I can't even finish it solo because my companion can't heal fast enough to keep up with incoming damage, and I'm in 220 gear!

Congratulations for accomplishing that on a tank character with a healer companion. Your next challenge should be to do it on a sniper with nothing but shield probe for mitigation, no self heals, and a healer companion whose 800-900 heals (i.e. ONE PERCENT OF HP) is incapable of surviving 10 seconds in some fights in H2+ Star Fortress. Please let us know how that works for you.

If you want challenge, there are still ops or warfronts that you can run for that. Those most affected by this change are those of us with lesser gear and without the guild connections to get into ops.

On my companion, (Lv65 character with max presence and max 50 affection) attack dropped from 5,792-6,274 to 3,769-4,334. HP dropped from 106,949 to 83,260. Still need to try this companion out to see how it feels. 4,600 Armor rating was added to companion stats, as was an addition 11.9% damage reduction. *updated*

On Jedi Covenant, the 20 rounds were quick and fairly painless on my Empire characters. My Republic characters, though, all got slaughtered continuously.

Yet the Star War Prologue starts with "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...." Wouldn't that, in itself, be traveling back in time?

Rather than pay outrageous prices gearing all of my characters, I use legacy gear and transfer everything via legacy storage. 1 set of legacy DPS armor (220) 1 set of legacy Tanking armor (216/220) 1 legacy lightsaber (with 220 hilt) 1 legacy double bladed lightsaber (220 hilt) 1 legacy main hand pistol (220 barrel) 1 legacy blaster rifle (220 barrel) 1 legacy sniper rifle (220 barrel) 1 legacy cannon (220 barrel) It took some time and credits, but through my legacy bank I can pretty much equip any of my characters and mask their armor so they don't look totally horrible. I still have to get offhands for everyone either via commendations or from teh GTN, but it works. (for now) My only serious gripe is that the legacy Odessan weapons that I predominantly use are absolutely ugly, and we have no way to mask our weapon appearances.

1. It's a freebie. I have tons of those clogging up my inventory. It is what it is. 2. You can go through the hassle of doing that, but, in my opinion, you're better off getting the freebie 190 sets on Ziost, then once you get to 61 you can purchase a cheap 200 rating weapon on the GTN to carry you to cap. KOTFE content is stupidly easy, even on my characters that did it in unaugmented 178 gear.

I don't intend on continuing KOTFE chapter 1. He's not going anywhere.

1. Very doubtful. Raiders are stereotypically creatures of habit. They raid because it's scripted and something they can memorize. A person who enjoys a different scenario everytime goes by another title: PVPer. 2. Doubtful. Answer #1 applies, but many raiders are fickle, and demand groups that meet their prerequisites. We can see how (un)poplular "tacticals" flashpoints are. Do we really believe that expanding that to 8 or 16 people would make it more popular? 3. Raiders don't need an incentive to raid. They do it because that's the game mode that they enjoy. One must ask why others don't raid in order to address how to increase raid participation. People who refuse to raid do so because raiders can often be elitist jerks. If you're not part of a raiding guild, if you're not perfectly geared in gear only obtained in ops, if you don't already have the fights memorized, if you even die once, you're blackballed and NOT WELCOME to raid in SWTOR. That, my friend, is why I and the non raiders I know don't raid often. It's not that we don't want to, it's because we don't want to deal with the drama. Cartel coins as an incentive? I have thousands that go unused. Bioware giving out 20cc wouldn't change a thing. 4. Trying to "properly train" people to play their classes is a raid environment is like trying to herd cats. It's impossible. There are too many variations of "perfect" class executions, and many of the "pros" are often truly clueless.

C'mon Bioware, I thought that being in Texas you guys would have had half a clue on what a sniper rifle is supposed to look like. My tac HUD rifle is fine, but all the rest of the sniper rifles in game, ALL OF THEM, look like they were designed by someone who transferred from Playskool or Fisher Price.

When will there be new content for Raiders? ********************************* There is new content for raiders. It's the same new content that everyone else got in 4.0. Welcome to SWTOR.

A couple of years ago I played another game with many level capped characters. When my husband died I was caught up in a whirlwind of tasks, and left the game for about a year while I sold some of our homes around the country. When I returned, I found that the game had a name purge in my absence, and all of my carefully picked names were gone. I swore that I would never return to a game that stole my names from beta, nor would I ever spend $100+ per month supporting games that do so. If circumstances were to change and I were called away from SWTOR, and in the interim you demanded to take all of my character names in your grand search for a name you lacked the foresight to grab back in beta, then I would most certainly ditch SWTOR as well. They would lose at least two of my subscriber accounts, and I would most definitely encourage the dozen+ real life referrals I brought to SWTOR to follow me again to a competitor game. You say that your demand for a name purge would have no impact, but I'd claim that a purge with no guarantee would have a tremendous impact. The name you want may not be free. It may belong to a storage mule of an existing subscriber. Finding out, however, could be very costly for Bioware, because purging a characters name is the best way to guarantee that a player never ever return to the game.

If you can run the content that you enjoy, then you're as geared as you need to be.

ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! Thank you for your summation of the boondoggle known as SWTOR 4.0 crafting. This expansion absolutely killed my participation in crafting, largely due to the changes outlined in your post. Thanks again.

While I wholeheartedly support legitimate charities, Extra Life isn't an organization that I'd classify as a worthy recipient. Rather than donate to Extra Life, I'd recommend sending donations directly to organizations like Children's Hospital. - a retired MD from Children's Hospital

They should merge AFAIK.