I can't get into specifics as I don't play a sorc, but I can give the viewpoints of my raiders that do. Lightning can be powerful, if, you're allowed to ramp up. I'm told that the first few seconds of a fight the dps is slow, but it steadily builds and eventually becomes very good. I'm not sure how well this works when having to move a lot though as the sorc that was using this build switched to tanking on his jugg before we got to the tougher fights. The madness spec is the one that our raiders seem to like the most. It has no ramp up, but it does have a lot of dots. This allows them to continue dps'ing even when having to move. The best example is the tanks in EC. When they have to move under the shields, the madness sorcs (and our lethality sniper) are able to stack dots right before the move and even while under the shields and don't have to lose focus of the adds. I know it's not a lot of help, but I always try to give advice when I can.

Point 1: Death from above is not the only aoe ability mercs have. If you never used sweeping blasters, shame on you. It is equivilant to force storm in terms of dmg and spammable. DFA is our hard hitting aoe and SB is our quick lighter dmg aoe. It's range is pretty decent, but not on par with storm's size. You can cast it twice and DFA once and still probably beat a full cast of Agent's Orbital Strike. Point 2: I do agree with point 2. The reason Mercs didn't have an interrupt to begin with was because mercs had higher dmg output than other ranged classes. This is no longer the case. Either give us an interrupt or give us our dmg back. Point 3: Not sure how you play, but I never have to worry about my heat unless I'm having to go way off my rotation. Even then, we have a get out of jail free card with the vent heat ability. The only time I have to fire rapid shots is if I'm moving and Eplosive dart, HSM, RS and overrides (gives next attack instant) is on cd. Point 4: I personally like the BH storyline more than my agent's. I feel badas knowing that my toon is independent, yet is able to take down high value targets and effect the entire war on planets. What else would you have the bounty hunter do besides hunt? Be a bouncer at a cantina? Also, the Inquisitor story was kinda meh. After the first act it kinda just flattens until the end. Healing: Again, you must not be managing your heat wisely. Our top healer in our 8 man is a merc. I've healed a few times on my merc and I've been able to heal whatever was needed. Tanking: Powertech tanks have the ability to jump to a target. Just like Kaliyo (agent's comp) they can jetpack to a target within 30 meters. Also, PT tanks have more abilities than any other tank to attack at 30 meters. My assassin tank has one ability and I have to use a second ability just to add the 20 extra meters. The only attack that I know of for juggs is the saber throw. All in all, I feel you need to do more research before you post. Run with other bounty hunters. Ask them how they set up their rotations. Find out what skills/mechanics you're not taking advantage of and apply them to your merc. Edit: forgot to mention that flamethrower is also an aoe. That brings mercs to a total of 3 channeled aoes, explosive dart, and fusion missle all without having to use talent points.

Still not quite sure what visuals this patch fixed. I ran Story EC last night on my assassin tank and on the Stormcaller boss I still could not see the visuals for double destruction the first time. I do see the channel bar, but it is hard to see whether I am able to place it on my 2 dps or not. After that first cast though, I see the rest of the attacks just fine throughout the fight.

Flashpoints and Operations General •Addressed an issue that prevented some encounter effects (such as fire or other damaging area abilities) from displaying correctly for some players. Now I've had problems before when I randomly wouldn't be able to see the first few aoe attacks by bosses. ie karaga's oil fire, LR-5 plasma balls, Dr lorik green plague, and some others. Is this a fix for what I mentioned or something else? As a tank for my raid group, this would definately help some of the headaches we've had.

Why would you start a thread for something you already know the answer to. The mods have enough bs to sort through today without you adding to it. Be considerate and pick a more unique name in the first place.

The GM of the guild has to set permissions for members to be able to set member notes. I know in my guild I only gave it to officers on the account of the amount of stupid things people would put for each other's notes.

Jarg and Sorno from story kp are not part of the achievement. Zorn and Toth from story ec are. You must just be getting them mixed up. The only bosses from kp that count toward the aratech fire are bonethrashe, fabricator and karagga.

The new system does change abilities you can use. Maybe you should actually play it before complaining. With the buff to rs stacks, it becomes less dependent on tm everytime its up. Now if you get all 5 stacks and no unload proc'd and hsm and rs are on cd like you say, using another ability is the way to go. Every class has a set rotation of 4-5 abilities. (the only class I haven't played are warriors) Just, mercs have to use one more than others is the only difference. With the changes currently on 1.3, mercs have more ability to add extra dimensions to their rotations.

I would suggest rolling a class you haven't played yet. Eventually you will be able to reunite with your trooper, but until then you should really try to enjoy what else the game can offer you.

Sorry, but the ability to use columi/rakata set bonuses means you are not using bis. With what you're saying, yes, it is possible to have almost the best gear atm. But it is still not the best and if you're willing to not be the best then I guess you're done with the game.

The fp can be done with less than full columi geared group. My group me(sin tank 3/5 columi) powertech (dps 2/5 columi) sniper (4/5 columi) sorc (4/5 columi) managed to complete it. All it takes is the ability to learn the fights and a group that functions well together. We now go through it for the weekly bh coms in around 30 minutes. This fp is challenging and that is the point. The gear that it gives is supposed to be worth it because you're not supposed to have all of your columi pieces to do it. Trust me, the first time we downed the last boss was extremely gratifying since we knew it was taking all of us everything we had to beat it.

I never had a problem with aggro either, but a rip would happen from time to time if the dps was going full throttle. For players not as skilled at tanking, aggro was a problem and if a tank happened to be undergeared compared to a dps rips were more frequent. The added threat gen basically takes away the skill at holding aggro. Overcharge saber did not get a boost. You still get the 10% if talented and it only brings your dark charge procs back up to 100% for 15 secs. Since dark charge is at 50% of the current healing now it just brings it back in line to where it was.

I only did one ops fight on the pts so I can't really be certain for too much, but heat management over sustained dmg was not a worry at all. I never saw my heat go over 40 and I never had to throw in a rapid shots. The reasoning I deducted from this is that because of channel times and the 8 heat tied to a timer and not crits, I would lose a lot of heat during channel times instead of after. Seems confusing, but you'll understand when you try it. The rs buff is actually pretty good as I was able to get to 5 stacks much quicker and was able to throw in abilites that weren't part of my normal rotation. Now, I'll have to check dps logs, but it seems like a great adjustment. I think this is what the devs wanted back in 1.2 as now I feel like tracer missle is no longer the go to ability and I actually won't be gimping myself if I use other abilities as filler. Now, they just need to give us back some of our dmg and I'll be happy.

As someone who has actually played my sin tank on the pts, the nerf is not that bad. Yes, I feel a little bit squishier, but not to the point where I can't tank anymore. I went from 42% dr to 40% dr. I know right, such a humongous nerf (/sarcasm). The only thing I think that might have been a little much is the amount of self healing reduction. Instead of 50% of dark charge and 8% (from 12%), I would like to see the %'s closer to 75% and 10% respectively. But other than those nerfs, the boost to threat gen is great. I only worry that other tanks will start slacking off now that they don't have to work as hard to not lose aggro.

I hate saying this phrase, but learn to play your class. As a tank you need to get in the habit of interupting everything as much as possible. The zash fight (as well as any other fight) is much easier if you are not taking dmg. You can't expect to go in and take damage and hope you can live long enough to kill her. Use any skills you have to mitigate and stop dmg. As others have pointed out, your interrupt, overload, jolt and later on spike all have the ability to stop enemies casting.

But the cd on railshot wasn't lowered, so you have to find filler moves that will increase heat use.

As a healer, you should not worry about dps, thats what the other members of your group are for. Any time you dps, you risk your heat being used right before a spike in dmg. Honestly, when I'm dps'ing and I see a healer start throwing in dmg, it makes me feel like I'm not doing my job and makes me resent the healer a little.

Never really noticed this while tanking. Next chance I get I'll keep an eye out for it. Just a question, what type of numbers are you seeing? Are they close to the same or is one number higher/lower than another? Also, now that I think in that train of thought, could it be dark charge proccing?

Lol, not trying to be mean or troll, but I always get a decent laugh when people complain about the space combat. Not saying that your points aren't valid though. The way I see it, the space combat is just like star fox with the on rails concept. Many people have said so. Thing is, back in the day, we used to pay $50 for an entire game with on rails ship combat. And that was it. There wasn't anything else to the game. Same levels with maybe a different path every now and then. Now, we get that same concept as a side mission and it's not enough. Maybe I'm just getting older, but we as gamers might just be getting too spoiled for our own good.

So you went into a flashpoint without knowing the boss mechanic and are now complaining that you kept doing the same thing with the same results. Really, it's no different than any other flashpoint boss. You have to learn the mechanics before you can beat the boss. p.s. if you cant figure out these turrets, I have some bad news if you ever try to run Kaon.

Just make sure any parser you are using isn't interacting with the game client. Its as simple as that. Personally, my guild uses the askmrrobot.com parser. Don't need to have parsers running while we're playing. The enrage timer will tell us if we're not doing enough dps.

Yeah, I hear you on that. Unfornately until you get the campaign gear where you can transfter the set bonus, you're kinda just stuck with it. Best advice I can give in that regard is to find a chest piece that works well and hide the helmet slot. One of my guildmates did that with his sin and it at least is different enough that you can pick him out of a crowd.

Normal endurance stims don't, but the rakata endurance stim has defense added to it is what he was saying.

If you are having problems with the colors not unifying to your liking the best thing i can tell you is to find a different set of boots, gloves, etc... I had a pair of boots that when unifyed went all white with a colored stripe and it didn't look good when it merged with the leg piece. What I did was went into my storage, and tried on every pair of boots I had until the color combination and style matched with what I wanted. Each piece of gear will match colors differently, just keep trying until you find your perfect match.

Good idea if your gear isnt all lvl 50, buy recruit gear. It's close in terms of stats to the modded out gear without augments. After that find a good group of people and start running some flashpoints. While it's not neccesary, it helps you figure out rotations and makes you more aware as a player. Also, as a merc, the best thing you can do is get a 2-piece set bonus, the extra crit on tracers helps with your heat management and the 4-piece free rail shot is nice too. The easiest flashpoints to do to get these items would be boarding party and foundry. Black Talon is the easiest, but it only drops columi bracers. Also, if you are armormech, crit craft your rakata belt and bracers for the augment slot. I would save any daily coms for buying your rakata implants and earpiece. You can get all the mods you need once a day by doing the daily heroics.