Getting back into swtor and looking for a friendly guild that does some pve. I can level any role they need and be strong at it. Healer, tank or dps. Thanks! Just realized I had my old signature. Pls forgive the old sig until I have a chance to change it

Watch a video of an Alderaan warzone I did last night on my sage. A battlemaster geared shadow locked onto me followed by more melee. Take note of what I did to lose them, survive and ultimately kill them. ** edit, the part I am referring to starts at marker 9:28 in the video.

Good morning all! I finally got around to uploading some videos of my consular sage in pvp and hard mode operations. If you would like to see how slippery a sage can be in pvp or how to effectively use teamwork and VioP to win. http://www.youtube.com/user/blueheartgaming

I will be updating this thread soon. I've been quite busy lately. Also I finally got around to uploading some operation hard mode videos. Granted these were recorded while on my sage: http://www.youtube.com/user/blueheartgaming

I don't have much time, but I will throw out some quick input in regard to accuracy. 5 factors to consider with accuracy: 1) Mainhand hits 2) Offhand hits 3) Mainhand Special hits 4) Offhand Special hits 5) What does accuracy over cap do? 1 and 2 : from what I can tell only apply to your flurry of bolts (manual free attack) 3 and 4 : from what I can tell apply to our abilities (ex: Charged burst, Aim shot, Speed shot etc) 5) It is impossible to currently cap 2 and 4 so that being said anything above 100% accuracy on 1 and 3 will still benefit 2 and 4. 2 and 4 don't accomplish amazing amounts of dps so you will notice a dps increase by reaching say 102% accuracy but not by a large ammount. Raising 1 and 3 above 100% (from what I can tell) will only apply to PvP where you are fighting other players that have defense (a chance to deflect or dodge your attacks). Say you are fighting a player with 6% defense then you theoretically would need 106% accuracy to always hit them with 1 and 3. They made accuracy such a dang confusing system - its even more confusing for classes that dual-wield. I still don't understand it fully but hopefully this helps. Side note: I need confirmation on this; Some of our attacks generate white damage (the numbers showing damage done above your target are white in color) and other attacks generate yellow damage (xs freighter flyby). Maybe 1 and 2 are all white damage attacks and 3 and 4 are all our yellow damage attacks. If so, can someone help me with which attacks of ours are yellow damage? - Chris

Thank's for catching that - its a typo. I will fix it to say the Crit/surge adrenal.

I would go for the Crit/Surge relic. The power relic is more for healers.

Are those killing blows or just that you participated in killing 30 players? I imagine in the next few weeks there will be a truck-load more players hitting level 50 and heading to illum. I've already noticed a large increase over the past week. Give it time.

Good morning everyone!! Updates are complete for now. I really fleshed out the rotation section and changed a few things around for single target. Added aoe rotation and a priority list for movement phases. As a placeholder I added a section for Gunslinger boss fight tips. This section will have small tips for all the bosses in operations. I am hoping this inspires some good conversation for us slingers! I really fleshed out the gear section. Hopefully that will help all of the smugs that are gearing up right now. Side note, we are almost done with hardmode EV (Just working on Soa atm). The Rakata weapon bugs are really discouraging to me at the moment (see gear section), but hopefully those will get fixed soon. Also, the usual typo fixes etc. Give it a read and tell me what you think! GL and Good hunting!

Stay tuned! I'm working on a big update to my guide. It should be posted sometime tomorrow morning.

Any other thoughts?

Yes, please take out orbital stations. Going through 5 minutes of loading screens to move from 1 planet to another isn't enjoyable.

Good point, I will have to give this a try for my opener. I'm in a habit now, if I have both speed shot and aimed shot off of cd, to cast speed shot first as it is higher dps than AS and almost always procs Quick Aim. However with smuggler's luck primed into an instant CB Quick aim will be auto procc'd making the speedshot b4 AS not necessary. One thing to consider, although I'm not sure how much it matters, Aimed shot front loads a lot of threat - even more so if it crits, where as speed shot spreads its threat over three seconds. Example for the opener: SL+CBcrit > Aimedshot w/quick aim (if it crits) = You will probably have aggro on what you are shooting. I will test this out on a variety of mobs and let you know the results.

Patch 1.1 is slated to come out on the 17th (tomorrow) and the level 50 wz brackets are in that patch. Before you get too angry about the change, give it a chance. Pvping on my lower level alts will be enjoyable again, so I'm looking forward to it!

Hello my fellow SWTOR gamers! I did a search and didn't see any other posts that cover Threat meters in SWTOR. I want to get constructive feedback on opinions in regard to a threat meter in tor. Please keep the conversation on topic and be as descriptive and constructive as possible. Provide examples if you can to support your oppinions. Background on me: Level 50 gunslinger sharpshooter geared in mostly level 50 endgame purples (rakata, world boss stuff, crafted, columi). We have cleared the hutt boss, 5/5 normal mode EV and 4/5 Hardmode EV. Our tank is a geared and experienced Trooper Vanguard. I notice threat and aggro management is our biggest downfall at the moment and leads to the most wipes. I wait 10 seconds or so for the tank to build threat and then commence dpsing. Very often myself or another dps will pull aggro off of the tank after a minute into the fight. While popping our threat drops on every cooldown. Threat seems to be a big problem in the game at the moment. I have no indication of when I need to back off a little or the tank has no indication on when he is about to lose aggro and needs to pop a quick wipe saving taunt. Enrage timers are a major limiting factor in progressing through content at the moment so it is very difficult to just say that dps needs to back off or wait longer before dpsing etc. I will give examples to actual threat problems that have led to group wipes or my demise, keep in mind that I may only be listing one example this has occured many many times. 1. Last night on hardmode EV we were fighting Gharj. As you know he has a pretty constricting enrage timer. About 90 seconds after the fight started one of our melee pulled aggro and he swiped the group and followed with a quick pounce wihch led to 6 of our players dieing. We had no indicator that the tank was about to lose aggro and had no way of preventing this wipe short of the tank generating more threat. 2. On Soa (hardmode and reg) I have died many times due to threat. On the first and second phase Soa stays stationary and fires off ranged attacks. The animation on these attacks isn't very obvious as he also has a random target/attack that he does that is hard to differenciate between his aggro attack. The only real indicator I have that tells me I am currently the highest threat target (has aggro) is that my healthbar is dropping faster than normal and many cases I die before both myself and the tank realize this. I have also pulled aggro on phase 2 and the same thing occurs. This gives you two examples of why I think a threat meter needs to be put in the game asap. A target of target would also help in this. Currently threat is a big challenge for tanks and aggro is very hard to hold for experienced raiding tanks. I can't imagine how players new to tanking feel. Implementing a threat meter would definately mitigate and ultimately solve the guessing game. What are your thoughts?

I don't think it's just me, but I have a very noticeable decrease to Fps and an increase in ability delay when in warzones. I would normally say that in a thread like this, but it is very relavent to the op as I find that is the main hindering factor for me in pvp. In pve open world I have very little ability delay. EDIT: please refer to this very well put together thread and you will understand http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=167526

This is our biggest downfall in Pvp. The ability delay Fps probs and cover bugs are amplified in warzones. Throw in getting ccd and knockbacks from the other team and it can become very frustrating. I changed my Wz playstyle and now I dominate. Let others go into the fight first (I used to charge in) Once they have the enemies focus pop your cover and dps from a distance. A lot of time I will open with an aimed shot as the animation doesn't attract attention as much as speed shot and charged burst. If your enemy is down to half hp I can usually kill them with a quick combo (pop cover Smug luck prime, speed shot, instant CB, aimed shot, trick shot and finish with a quick draw = dead imp) And they will be wondering what the heck happened. Use the highground and when you see a saber class looking at you pop hunker down so they can't leap to you or cc you if they are inq.) Bind your cover in place to middle mouse. This seems to have reduced the cover lag for me. Rarely do I actually pop into natural cover as it seems to take 5 seconds with ability delay.

Very good input, thanks! The two biggest problems I am having right now is aggro and cover. On the third boss I keep getting knocked back out of cover. It ended up taking me longer to kill my guy than the healer took to kill his haha. It becomes very punishing for a SS on movement heavy fights or any fight that has knockbacks. With ability delay being what it currently is it usually takes me 2 - 8 seconds to get back into cover, even though its suppose to be instant. Cover also bugs out a lot of the time when trying to pop portable cover it won't let you pop on texture seams, when your backed against a wall or sometimes on stairs. Once they get cover all ironed out and ability delay then we will be superstars. I've also noticed quite a few times I try to shoot off a charged burst or aimed shot and the cast will go off but at the end no damage is done, no animation and aimed shot isnt put on CD telling me it never went off when everything else says that it should have fired. The only way i can get it to fire off in this situation is by moving and repopping cover.

When you say Charged Bolt you mean Charged Burst right? Typo , will be corrected thanks Energized Attack Adrenal are made by biochems like Exotech Skill Stim? Correct they are made by biochems If you never use Sabotage Charge and you avoid Black Market Mods, why go for Independent Anacry and not any other tier2 Saboteur ability? Especially Hot Pursuit, as in many cases you have to move during boss encounters, so this way you get the option to cast 2 extra instant attacks, Charged Burst + Trickshot, while moving around. - My AOE rotation includes sab charge, I will post this soon. - Original I thought hot pursuit would allow a charged burst to be able to be cast while moving which turned out to not be true. Since you have to stand still to cast it anyway, there is no reason you can't pop portable cover and get an instant cast which is even better than a hot pursuited CB. - On the move i will vital shot > Portable cover+Instant CB > continue to move and Trick shot into a quick shot or refresh flourish until i can instantCB/trick again. - Independant anarchy applies to all aoe - I think we have 4, and I almost always use XS Flyby everytime its off CD when there is more than 1 enemy and they will stay still for the duration. Hope this helps

- I unfortunately have a pretty good amount of alacrity as I am building my set of purples. The purple drops were quite a big upgrade in cunning and a few other stats but had alacrity on it. This upped my dps a lot due to the extra cunning but now I am having big time energy problems. If I am not careful I will be out of energy in 7 GCDs. Before when I didn't have any alacrity on my gear I could pretty much indefinitely maintain 60%+ energy levels without ever firing a flurry of bolts. Now that I have over 100 alacrity on my gear I have to flurry of bolts every 3rd or 4th gcd. In summary you would think alacrity would up our dps, but it screws with our energy regen/rotation so much that it balances out. The one good thing I've noticed about having a little bit of alacrity is I can Aim shot into a speed shot and still get off my trick shot proccd from the aim shot. Speed shot has a base 3s cast channel, but with alacrity its below 3s. Normally you can only cast trickshot within 3s after charged burst or aimed shot, but putting your speed shot below 3s channel means if you aimed shot and your trick shot still is not off of cd you can speed shot and get your trick shot in right after. (just a side note ) still avoid alacrity if you can.

Oh and its not really fair or respectful to say someone is losing just because they suck or they need to learn to play. I consider myself a good player and come from a competitive gaming background but I still lose almost every warzone I am a part of.

Me and a group of 3 other level 50s that all pretty well endgame geared hopped in a warzone - played like a team and still get stomped. Over the last 3 days and around 35 warzones I've won 3. We have one of the largest republic guilds in the game. Most of those warzones I played were in a premade group of 3 other good players. It felt like we really didn't stand a chance all throughout every warzone In fact the empire players we play against are now be very unsportsman like. In huttball they get the score to 5 - 0 and then they farm us near our spawn point while running the ball to our endzone and then throwing the ball to us. Dancing while we are attacking them, stuff like this. I love to pvp but it becomes quite frustrating and isn't fun at all to play in such a circumstance.

I have pvpd on all but a shadow and sentinel. All things considerred my gunslinger (sharpshooter) is not very good at pvp when going against a good team. 1) If their team knows what they are doing you will be one of the first on your team to get focused. a) why? Your damage output is very high if they leave you alone. You can cc melee that are running around with leg shot (they get annoyed and focus you). Anytime anyone sees a smuggler in cover they auto focus. 2) Your dependence on cover. a) Your biggest abilities can only be cast from cover. You are very weak (damage) when not in cover. b) cover is still buggy even after patch 1.0.2. When you are on a texture seam or sometimes against a wall it won't let you cast cover. By the time you figure out what is going on you will be killed just standing there trying to pop cover. c) Once your hunker down is on cooldown it is very easy to get knocked out of cover. any CC or knockback will drop your cover. Seems like all they have to do is breathe on you sometimes to drop your cover. (Almost every class has a knockback or cc, so don't think you will stay in cover for long.) 3) Ability delay. a) Your 3 biggest damage abilities (that you use most often) are quite buggy. Aimed shot, charged burst and speed shot. Sometimes you will cast an aimed shot, it will show a completed cast but it will never go off, nor will you get the damage from it. b) sometimes when rapidly pressing keybinds your character will temporarily stop responding making good use of dodge, hunker down and interrupts nigh impossible to time correctly. I have died many times mashing dodge, defense screen, pulse, dirty kick, or other abilities for 10 seconds and them never going off. There are definately some weird delays going on. If you have any FPS problems, Lag or other issues affecting your gameplay this is definately not the right pvp class for you. 4) No self sustainment a) We are one of the few specs in the game that don't have any self heal mechanic. So unless we have a healer nearby or drop out of combat we will never gain health that we lose. I usually only use my Sharpshooter for pve now and use my scrapper for pvp.

Updates to OP: 01/09/12- Updated Stat selection, skills section (to reflect my new build), added a key bind tips section.

Just cleared eternity vault last night and a few things are very apparent to me. 1. Aggro is a huge problem for us. a) On the last boss (Soa) I would pretty much have to pop surrender to drop threat on every phase. b) I really hope they add a threat meter and target of target soon. Soa in phase 1 and 2 only uses ranged attacks so the only indicator I had aggro was if my health bar started dropping fast. This caused me to die a couple times. Our tank is very well geared and has good threat output. I end up dieing a lot because of threat problems. 2. Gearing: 1- Stack accuracy until you hit cap your main hand weapon. 2- When possible I am going to try and maintain a 35% - 40% chance to crit (self buffed) 3- Past that crit chance I will stack surge wherever I can. We will have a high chance to crit so this stat will greatly increase our dps. 4- If its not possible to get surge then take power. (Avoid alacrity on gear) I am very happy with the talent build I am currently using (The one linked in my guide). It seems the strongest for our dps. ----------------- How I configured my bars: I orignally didn't like the idea of having a seperate cover bar but as I got my abilities I had to start using it. Why take up space on your regular bar for abilities you can't use? It does take some getting used to and I am constently moving things around to find where I like them better. My main bar is bound like this: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Ctrl+mouse5 | Mouse5 | E | ` | G | I use this bar for my main abilities. I bind the first 5 keys and the last 5 keys to things I need often and its harder for me to hit 6, 7 so I use those for less used. The bottom center bar is bound like this: R | Shift+R | x | shift+x | z | shift+z | T | Shift+T | Shift+f | Shift+g I use R, X, Z, T for abilities I use often and the shift+key abilities for less often things. The game doesn't seem to respond quickly to modifier keys for some reason. I only put vital shot on my non cover bar as I only cast this while on the move. and all my cover abilities plus a few things I cast from cover on my cover bar. My left bar I have both my relics, adrenile and illegal mods stacked next to each other along with smugglers luck. So when I pop my big burst combo I just click Illegal mods, surge relic, adrenal and smugglers luck while I am still casting with my key bindings. I think I will eventually add a section under my guide for key binding tips, but I hop this helps.