I have a level 50 guardian who used to run defense spec. Now she doesn't run at all. Really. 1. How do others perceive you? The gimp of the tanks. We do no damage and have less survivability than any other tank class. But our buff is nice. 2. How do I perceive my spec? Honest answer: "THIS IS NOT WORTH PLAYING." You gave the best storyline in the game to a a class that is completely worthless to play in your game. We can't keep threat. We can't do damage. We are the worst of all worlds. If we could soak-tank, we'd be better. But we can't compete in even throwing our meager HP pool at the enemy. We are the worst. If I hadn't had the character since day 1 of pre-release, I'd delete her for a shadow or vanguard. It is THAT bad.

I'm one of the very few active PvP gunslingers on my server. I play an almost pure sharpshooter spec which works well for me. 1. How are we perceived by others? PvP first: By powertechs, assassins and marauders: Lunch. An easy kill. Of course, I'm a bit more skilled than most so I take out a fair amount of these but I've nothing to counter the dots of these classes. Eventually they will burn me down. Of course, this regens my energy and I come back and harass them again. By juggernauts: An annoying gnat that keeps pushing me away. I'll burn them down but not before they get a dps to assist in beating me. By sorcerors: WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED? I can burn down a sorc, even a healer, in short order. Sure they'll dot me up and I'll die eventually cause I have nothing to counter that but I will take them with me every time. By Operatives: An easy kill. I get targetted by ops all the time. They learn quickly this is a mistake, but they just keep trying to do the very same thing with the very same result over and over again. By rated groups: _____ Gunslingers are not welcome or wanted in rated overall in rated warzones. PvE: This is where we shine. A well-played gunslinger sharpshooter will tear apart bosses and trash in raids. We can hold our own against mindless adds. We aren't needy or paper like sages. We're solid and stable. But there are so few of us. I know maybe 10 on my entire server. Something MUST be wrong. 2. How do I perceive my own spec? Now that I'm in pretty much pure augmented rakata, I'm very happy with my spec. I really wish that you'd stop messing around with the top two tiers in the SS spec. It wasn't broke, why did you "fix" it? BW claimed it was for playability reasons but now we have to activate everything. It isn't a bad thing, its just bloody annoying. I'm already watching my procs, the debuffs and dots I've placed on my enemies and my ability cooldowns... having to watch for rapid shots, illegal mods and lucky shots on top of this makes the game even less fun. These things should be procs not activated skills. Then again, watching for procs is why I don't play a DPS sage.... I love my spec in PvE content. I'm doing heaps of DPS and have great dots. My activated skills, despite my complaints, are useful. My raid boss loves it when I say I'll come along. He knows I'm great for the group. I feel like I'm doing great damage. My parses tell me I'm doing very solid numbers, although I don't trust them. I feel like I do better damage than MOX says I am. And honestly, the numbers MOX gives me are good. I just feel that I'm actually doing better than it says. I have to say that playing a gunslinger is not the most fun experience that it could be. Cover is very limited and "take cover" is broken badly. Cover does not work around corners, it only works horizontally. We are limited in our movement by our skills. Coming out of crouch takes time that we do not have in ops boss fights. Our skills are either slow casts if not procced or channeled. Our gear is silly looking. I don't want to be a space pimp, thank you very much. And even the war hero set has such a distinctive, ugly color that its not worth wearing. It is an even bigger "kill me now" sign than the green beam of healing from commandos. Seriously, that heal beam NEEDS to be removed already. I feel bad for my commando healer friends. I love my 'slinger, but she is far from perfect. Our skill set is fantastic but clunky. Our gear is horribly designed. Our survivability is low. You really need to be skilled to succeed as a 'slinger. I love it. Short version: 1. We're easily replaceable in pvp/pve. We are not wanted in rated warzones. We are too squishy and better replaced by dps vanguard. 2. Quality of life blows. Damage potential is intense but not user friendly. Gearing is horrible. Cover is broken. Movement is horrific. No one plays this class but me feeling is real.

It is still bugged but those of us who have been playing our cover-classes have acclimated to it and don't see it quite as often as we used to. It really, really does need to be fixed. Badly. Yesterday. Of course, Bioware is acting like Nexon used to and are denying that it, and hunker down, are broken at all. Yesterday I bugged badly with cover, every time one of my attacks that required cover went off I'd roll into cover again.

Did you really just complain that you died when you were fighting six on one? Really?

Yeah, I'm totally Gabe. You got me. /sarcasm Some people are beyond help.

You have three instants off the top of my head: weaken mind, project, and slow. Arguably I'd include tk throw.... The procs I referred to were the instant tk wave and the sped up channel on tk throw. Both of these proc all the freaking time. But hey, if you just want to whine, I'll let you.

Capslock and piles of profanity make your case for you. Don't raeg man, respawn, go back and get your revenge. If you're really having such problems in warzones as a TK focused sage, you really need more practice or need to review your rotation. You should be proccing your instants like mad. What is your build and your rotation? It isn't Bioware, or our, place to teach you how to play but hey, I'm feeling generous.

You can still steamroll people through Flashpoints, Quests and Heroics at this point. The lion's share of xp is from completing the quests, not from monster slaying. The xp from mobs is really small compared to that from the quests involved.

I really wish this game didn't have the built in crippling of helping your friends. If you're overlevel and try to help them, you both get punished for it. The quickest fix would be just to remove the mechanic that drives down the xp given when you're grouped with other people. @Ellvaan: Its been nearly two months since that Q&A thread. Can we please get an update on the system from some sort of official source? Please?

When you are close to the person guarding you, the space near his feet glows blue. Also when he does it and when you get too far away and go back, you get a little spark between you and him.

Do you not realize you can buy the wristband from the bartender and access the CE lounge and buy this equipment? You can even if you're an Aussie.

I use my mac to pick up art school girls. True story... bro.

Make moar rules so we can cheat to win more! Its encouraged!

I've seen more people everywhere I've been since the transfers. 50+ on Alderaan, 150 on Nar Shadaa, 70 in the Black Hole, etc. It isn't just the fleets that have had their numbers increased, there are people EVERYWHERE. Its awesome.

They really, really needed to remove the artificial number of characters per account limit prior to starting this... My characters on the Kath Hound are now doomed to live on a dead server.

That guy in recruit gear is going to tear through your 25k hp cause he's doing +12% additional damage to you and taking 10% less damage from you.

The only chance that this flies is if you can somehow sell that book to Del Ray who is the publisher of the existing Star Wars novel series. Good luck though, Drew Karpyshyn is their go-to author for tie-in works in the KOTOR/SWTOR storyline and he seems to be doing a damn good job of it.

Thank you, I thought there was a change in 1.2 that caused issues with this but perhaps I was reading it wrong.

I agree wholeheartedly with the Tionese point. I'd rather equip my alts (since I'm nearly full Rakata) with recruit gear than spend my Tionese tokens on them. I'd suggest a slight increase in stats on all token based pve gear (a very slight one) and maybe some additional designs so we have more choices of not looking like everyone else. (And kill whoever designed the sage bananahands please.)

But you shouldn't need to... Your aimed shot after that string of attacks should be procced down to less than 1.5 seconds. If you have to worry about a short-cast like that, you'd have trouble getting charged off and you don't hunker for that.

Apparently I was smoking crack yesterday... I knew this.... What was I thinking of?

I was in a pre-50 queue yesterday as my telekinesis specced consular and had four imps focus on a guardian while I forcequake spammed them to death. Easiest multitarget kill ever.

Um, in point 8 you are wasting your hunker down. Why would you pop this if you were about to move out of cover? That's like saying drop scrambling field then stand up and walk away.....

Am I correct in assuming that if I use this and I have a guardian tank in the party, it would mess up his ability to use sundering strike and power up his guardian strike since they changed armor debuffs to be first one placed is the only one that works?

If I was the guild leader and people abused my fellow players by going inactive after using their guildies to get their gear and then going inactive until the next patch, I'd blacklist them from raiding. If your guild is like this, you're in a bad guild. Find a better one that remains active outside of the "post-update" rush.