Agreed. However, I'm talking about regular drop Rakata belt/bracers -- still the best trade off I've been able to find IMO if you're not actively farming/going out of your way to get the BIS pieces

Would you not consider Rakata belt/bracers a good trade *IF* you don't have orange belt/bracers or crit implants. You're right at ~550exp with remaining BM pieces. Proc relic down to ~500exp when hungover and forgetting to hit burst relic w/ adrenal @_@

I will mainly use Predation and will throw on Berserk when I know I will need a) heals and/or b) guaranteed critted DOTs to burn an opponent quickly. Just make sure you're paying attention to what else is going on in the WZ for when you'll need to pop Predation for objectives mobility.

Has nothing to do with UO or sandboxes. Most important takeaway from that article should be the "social balance" that's missing in today's MMOs. EDIT - Anyhow, my only reason for posting it was becuase I came across it this morning and thought it was a good read, with a number of valid points.

From wtfman June 2011, oldie but a goodie "Darkblight touched on a great topic in his previous post; the holy grail of an MMO is balance. Everyone knows an MMO needs 'balance' to be good, and the better the 'balance', the greater the MMO. Balance, unfortunately, is one of those terms that no one ever understands in the same way. Most of the time, whatever benefits the player's interests is considered to them to be balance. For a trammelite, balance is being able to go out into the wilderness to make money without dying every minute. For a crafter, balance is the ability to create an item and have a good economy to make a profit in. And lastly, for most of us here, balance is the opportunity to pwn the previous two people and run off with their stuff. The balance that darkblight wants to talk about, I believe, is the balance of all these types of players, which is what made Ultima Online the epitome of MMOs to date, but instead of discussing that he does what most of us thieves, murderers, griefers do (and I'm sure I may even in this article about my point), and goes on to discuss the balance which benefits only us, the minority of players who cause grief, chaos, and anger. And this is the major problem of balance in today's MMOs. Now, I must state I've been a thief in any RPG I've played. I absolutely enjoy stealing, backstabbing, deceiving, and generally being a nuisance to everybody. If I can profit off another person's effort with minimal risk, great. But I'm also aware of the my role's position in the grand scheme of things. In order for me to enjoy this there needs to be another person for me to profit from, and in order for me to profit off of them, he needs to be able to make money with relative freedom, and this relative freedom only comes if there are a very limited amount of people like me, and you, who want **** him over in the lich lord room after he's been there for 2 hours straight. That other player, the trammelites or anyone who loves to roleplay and decorate their virtual homes with sparkles and glitter, are needed in droves in order to run any MMO, and they need to feel as though the entire world isn't out to completely **** them over. They are the sheep to us wolves, and just like in nature, the balance lies in having less, much less predators than there are prey. When you cater to only one of these types, the trammelite, thief, crafter, et cetera, the MMO will eventually only consist of that type. That's what makes most MMOs to date stale and boring as ****. No one wants to steal from another thief today who's just going to steal it back from them tomorrow. On the other hand, if you put everyone in a bubble, safe from all the evils of the world, even they will find themselves bored from a constant treadmill of levels and achievements. It's important to give everyone enough protection so they don't feel scammed of all their hard work all the time, but it's also important to provide some chaos, some destructive elements, in order to keep the world changing and to stay interesting. The key to balance then is to maintain the proper proportions of these elements. Balance doesn't lie in PvP or PvE or crafting, it lies in the mixture of all these combined. MMOs are fantasy worlds where people interact with each other, thus it's more of a social balance that needs to take place in order to truly have an outstanding MMO. Given, individual aspects such as PvP, PvE, and crafting need to be balanced themselves, but the bigger picture is a diverse and dynamic world in which politics, drama, and power struggles take place. Ultima Online was laced with bugs, imbalanced mechanics, and always was down when you wanted to play it, but it was absolutely incomparable to anything else when it came to interaction and conflict with another human. It was a melting pot of roleplayers, murderers, griefers, crafters, you name it, even though it had all its flaws and imperfections. No one cared to max their character before heading out into the dungeons because there was an enormous mix of people to run in to, whether it be a newbie who wanted to just kill some mongbats with you, or a PK who was trying to In Por Ylem you to death. Even the huge changes that made a character go from a powerhouse to a gimp overnight didn't really stop us from starting to train a new skill from scratch the next day. Everyone was kept on the same playing field because we never really knew what tomorrow would bring. I'd like to say Ultima Online had no 'end-game'; the way I played Ultima the first day, up until the very last, was to just get out of town and see what would happen. Every time I logged in I never had a goal other than to have fun. If I ran into some of my thief buddies, we'd go stealing; if I found myself needing money badly, I'd go kill monsters. There was always something to do, always somebody new to run in to, and it never was the same thing twice, and that only works when there is a diverse balance of every type of player imaginable. MMOs today always seems to have a focus on only one certain aspect of a world, whether it be PvP, PvE, or being a furry. The next MMO that realizes the balance between having free-for-all PvP, fully-lootable corpses, and a safe enough stable for my neon horses, I'm in."

Are people seriously comparing Undying Rage to Force Shroud? Sorry but the 31/0/10 build right now is straight LOLTRAINALLABOARD. With a healer you're basically a 1x4-5 wrecking machine

Wonder which will come first: que popping up or 4th and critical watertight compartment aboard the TORTANIC being breached?

QFE....when they need one.

Vicious slash.... only use Scream as a finisher with Anni e.g. against an Op/Scoundrel shield CD.

If I understand you currently you're saying that if you modded your BM gear you will not get the "new stock 1.2" mods, or are you saying that you will not be able to mod your existing BM gear at all?

I guess that is the question I'm struggling with - will they only allow 8 man to queue as a group or will you be allowed to queue a smaller group as well? One problem I could see with the 8 vs 8 is incredibly long queue times / no variety of opponents unless you can x-realm.

Is this 100% confirmed? I guess the other question is how do they segregate group vs. solo i.e. will you still queue into say a 4-man premade a solo or can you only group up an 8-man premade?

Is it me or is this going to be a terrible idea. Will the algorithm (or however BW runs this) account for this more often in rated WZs? I am going to do both but if I'm queing a premade I'd like to play against another premade and not a pug that will get rolled, and vice versa.

I played a Bright Wizard in WAR. It was like being a top a serving table on the Titanic while it was sinking. Hell of a ride into doom.

Camo, bllind, burn em down, pop CDs after blind wears off, roar through any shield. It's all about knowing when to use camo and blind against them... But you're right, it's usually a DPS race once you get up close, but I honestly have not lost to a sniper *ever* as a Anni mara - maybe just my server in particular and lack of good ones to fight against...

As an Anni mara, my favorite opponents to 1x1 are tanksassins. Great fights usually. All comes down to who's using their CDs / anticipating moves the best. Pyros can get annoying sometimes but are typically easy to counter as an Anni mara. Everything else is a faceroll.

I have been gaming since buying Red Alert for my first PC upon release and I have yet to see an online game (MMO or not) that was able to capture the below as well as UO did. Note it wasn't perfect but damn it sure was close. Open world PvP Organized PvP 1x1 PvP via dueling Balance PKing as a profession 100% lootable player corpses Meaningful guild warfare Guild towns Player housing A true player-run economy PvE/PvP taking place on the same turf Real sense of in-game community Majority of people actually playing the game for fun/interaction and not gear/loot Nothing being instanced I said it a while back on a PvP forum thread: where it started is where it ended. Would love to have a civil discussion about this and not a flame fest.

Thank you. 2/2 Phantom was only useful to me in NIM PvE. Now I don't have to re-spec for raids from PvP spec since 50% is more than enough.

Odd question but which dailies would guys recommend to run through if you have only an hour or so to spend each day on pve? Is there a guide anywhere for doing them as quickly as possible? Thanks

Anchorhead the Pubs dominate after all the good Imp guilds basically quit.

Have had this happen on my Mara a number of times when I hit interrupt on channeled Sage heals. If I was a betting my man I'd put my money on the broken resolve system somehow playing a role in this. Anyway, just takes a few more GCDs to burn them down @_@

Neo, you mad bro?

Yes, yes, everyone and their mother is rerolling Mara/Sent because of UR. Alert the press. How'd Maras get FOTM spam before Tank Shadows?

Fail. Marking is no different than a premade calling out targets in TS/Vent. If anything it keeps the playing field fair for PUGs. You play a healer you should expect to get focused.

This. Bads will be bads. Can't count the # of times I've ran at low hp with bubble off CD just to have someone attack me, while I pop it and unload on them as they are trying to unload on me completely oblivious.