I have a 7870 and it chews the game up. A 7850 would probably do great as well. You don't need a new copy of the game either.

I have fully augmented 162 gear in every slot possible and my repair cost is somewhere between 6k and 15k per repair. So you are exaggerating there by a lot. I got all that 162 by running 55 HM FPs with pretty mediocre 150 gear. Also, the optional boss and final boss of the 55 HM FPs drop 162 gear and that is the point of doing them. You can use basic comms to get gear that will make 55 HM FPs easier. You're also wrong about your 146 gear being better than 156, regarless of what you might think, so more power to you learning that the hard way when you try to take on some of the real challenges in SWTOR. Why you chose to spend credits augmenting 146 gear is a mystery to me, it's totally unnecessary because you should be spending that money on your 162 pieces. That way you can run hard mode level 55 Ops. I'm guessing that the reason it's so easy to gear up to 162 is to give returning players coming back to the game after a break a chance to gear up for Ops as quickly as possible. It looks to me like you just lack the ability to work with your PUGs to take the 55 HM FP content seriously and do what's necessary with CCs and kill order. Not everyone suffers from this problem.

I'm sure you're right. I got lucky last weekend. Friday and Saturday, I did 30 total runs in 55 HM FPs and ended up with a full set of 162 gear.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I ditched their snares for the damage buffs already, but I see you put more points into AP. So I am trying that as we speak in S&V tonight. There's no problem with single target of couse, and obviously no tank worth crap would be on a decent team if they didn't already know to attack mobs you taunt so that's not the issue. So far so good, but S&V is not as big a challenge so far as TFB, maybe because the fights are more mechanical and less trashy.

I'm having this same problem, and my gear and stats are basically the same as yours. I think I'm going to switch back to my previous build, which was exactly what Shatterstar is recommending. Before we started Ops I specced to noxxic's default ST build and I'm not happy so far. Aggro is tough for me and I feel like with all the work I'm doing it should be more reliable.

[edit] sorry i see I should have posted this in the powertech forum. I'm a returning player, back to SWTOR for just about a month after a year or so. I have spent the last few weeks gearing up for Operations with my Powertech Tank, using Noxxic's powertech shield tech build (http://www.noxxic.com/swtor/pve/bounty-hunter/powertech/shield-tech/talent-build) and have a full set of 162 with MK-6 and MK-7 absorb augments. We have been doing Ops for about two weeks now, four or five in total, and I notice that often I have mad trouble holding aggro and especially getting it with anything but my single-target or AOE taunt. Sometimes mobs seems to respond perfectly well but other times, and often enough to notice, they tend to peel off one after the other towards DPS or healers. I was a WoW raider for an eternity as a tank and healer, so I am familiar with all the tricks of the trade, like switching targets etc., and I believe my rotation is good but I can't help but think there's something wrong with it. I normally open with a leap and double flame twirl followed by flame thrower, then start cycling through them with heat blast, rocket punches, explosive dart, flame burst etc. I am wondering exactly which abilities create the most aggro and which ones I should never use in cases where I have to tank more than 2 or 3 mobs. What kind of rotation are y'all using? Against single targets there's no problem at all, even though I have added my taunt to my rotation. Does it seem weird to anyone but me that I feel like using my taunt and aoe taunt are really the only thing that keep me in aggro on aoe pulls? Thanks in advance for the discussion.

Ahh good to know. I actually had 150s before I went in so it's hard for me to judge the low end until I get other toons in there.

FYI, on my Powertech, I have a full set of 162/69 from HM FP drops, only one or two MK-9 augments installed so far, and I have 32k-33k health, can't remember the exact number. We start Scum & Villainy Tuesday and I feel like I'll be fine.

That's just completely wrong. Maybe you're not typing out the complete works of shakespeare every pull, but your description of PT tanking shows me clearly you've never played one. To answer OP's question, Powertech for me. I love my PT and since few people play one it's easy to gear up.

I recommend 150 or you won't be able to finish any of the optional bosses, and will definitely have real trouble with several of the main bosses.

Friday and Saturday I did nothing but tank marathon 55 HM FPs, and after more than 30 runs (200/200 Elite comms this week and now I have a full set of Black Market 162/69 gear!), I can say certainly that these are not too hard. They are harder, yes, but I only had to give up on one group, where we had a healer with really bad crafted 146 gear. The trick is communication and skill.

This fight is so fantastically easy I just can't see how you an fail more than a couple of times in a row if you spread out, use snare breaks and run to the vacant quadrant quickly enough.

Sunny Seattle WA here.

I'm very excited!

Don't buy an AMD 3700+, it's too out of date. For something right now that will run star wars at max quality and inexpensively, get at least 4GB of RAM, an AMD X4 965 and a Radeon 78790. Blam, inexpensive gaming computer that will run anything as of now. That's what I have and it laughs at SWTOR at full quality and 1920x1080. For advice on buying and building a budget gaming box, check ArsTechnica.com and Tomshardware.com. They both have regularly updated budget (and more expensive) gaming rig builder features. Here are some links to start with. Keep in mind that these may not be the actual boxes you should build for Star Wars, I'm just including them as a starting point for your searching. ArsTechnica: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/04/ars-bargain-box/ Tom's Hardware http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/pc-gaming-overclock-build-a-pc,review-32638-6.html

I did Armor all through beta and it was really really useful most of the time. But for launch I decided on a whim to go Biotech just to do something different.

High-five! I'm so excited about this.