If I may offer some input. Been playing the game since beta, but more off and on since KOTFE timeframe. The tanks and healers are still here, they just don’t PUG as much. Namely because of the issues random groups bring. I can’t tell you how many times I run into dps that want to ‘go, go, go’ or pull something first just because they’re impatient. Most people play this game to relax and having to deal with ADD riddled idiots who act like they’re on speed takes away from the enjoyment of the game. Why bother with all that when I have a set group of friends and guild mates who enjoy pushing content while socializing and having a good time? Most MMO don’t have a tank/healer ‘drought’. Most of them just got tired of dealing with a toxic player base that is the equivalent of ‘Karen’ wanting to speak to the manager....

Personally, if we have the worst survivability of all tanks it should be balanced it with us having the highest dps (of the tank classes). Now, after several years, I’m used to getting screwed over by the devs at every turn because they have starry eyes for all Jedi/Sith classes, but come on. Give us a little affection this time around, please. I’d take either another DCD or top of the tank damage charts. Actually having some range again would be nice as well. People like to yell ‘you have to tank up close anyway’ but you’d be surprised how often I could hold a strangler away from the main group with hammer shots and sticky grenades. Man I miss those.....

They’re kind of doing a semi-revamp with the new tactical slot. That’s actually more than I expected them to do at this stage. While SWTOR still makes good money it’s nowhere near what EA predicted it would be at and since their greed is even more powerful than Valkorian I can’t see them investing any significant capital into a rework of that caliber. As much as we all love the game, this is simply a petty cash flow for EA to use for other investments, same as the madden and FIFA series. Nothing improves, but you’d better believe that cash shop will continue to put out overpriced items....

Pretty sure they’re going to ignore PvP completely. At least that’s the feeling I got from their presentation. They spent 10 minutes talking about what they’ve done for PvP in the last 2 years but only released upcoming info on PvE stuff. More than likely it will just be a mad scramble to balance everything a few months after it drops and then they’ll piss off everyone because no one likes things being taken away. I just hope they decided to give us Vanguard tanks a hug this time. After 7 years of being beaten into the ground by the nerf bat l, a little affection would be a nice change of pace...

I can fill one of the tank slots if you're still looking. Returning to the game after a break due to RL commitments. I have a Jug and PT both GL 246. I'm open to play either, though I feel with the recent changes the Jug is probably the better utility character.

2023 can not come soon enough. Can't wait for the IP to be out of EA's money grubbing mitts.

I have never been more intimidated by Vader before. That was literally insane. Now we see why he was feared....

Good call. The Dirty Dozen is a good comparison

Saw it at the opening show...gonna see it again today. I hated FA but this....this could be just as good as Empire...

That would have been sweet, although both of them were defenders of a Jedi Temple on Jeda so there may be more to them. I hope they come out with something about their backstory. The movie focused on the heist (as it should have) and it was amazing as all hell.

His 5 minutes completely eclipsed his entire run time in Episode 3 though. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't watch it, honestly.

I rank it up there with Empire as possibly being the best SW movie ever. People just want hours and hours of character development, due to SW having been out for so long. We've had this universe and characters for so long and they've been developed across so many mediums that we hold the movies to unreal expectations. Go watch New Hope again with an open mind. There was very little character development. Vader had basically very little screen time. Luke was discovered and wrapped up his backstory in 15 minutes. Han got nothing more than the 'fastest ship in the galaxy' line. The story was about rescuing the princess and stopping this unimaginable death machine from obliterating everything. The characters back story came over the next 2 movies and the 30+ years of video games, cartoons, books, and other things we ravenously devoured because the IP is so immersive. While I want to know more about the characters in Rogue One, where they came from and how they got there means jack. This was about the heist. PS: I hated Force Awakens. It was a just bigger, flashier rehash of New Hope with half the heart and plot holes big enough to fly that planet sized death star thru. Rogue One was simple and contained while still being a Star Wars adventure. And thank god, no one instantly became a master in the force like freaking Rey did...

Disney has already stated that there is no cannon outside of the movies. They axed the EU completely. Leia at the end is now the cannon. I didn't mind the ending much but there were some good stories in the EU that I think Disney Killed way quickly. Regardless, everything we've read about Leia not being there is no longer relevant. I do agree about the rushed character development. There were many people, Yen and his buddy, a few others I wanted to know more about but this was literally Oceans 11. No one complained that we didn't get the whole backstory on the characters in Oceans 11. All we cared about was the heist. This was the exact same thing.

Lol...the took all of the PT's fun skills at the launch of the xpac. Now we just get smacked harder than the other tanks.

I saw this too, and it makes me scratch my head. Yeah, he had a power base to work with, but the motivation wasn't there. You helping the Republic came down, I felt, to being the smart economic choice in the class story. I mean, maybe a smuggler would want to be king/emperor but the way it's laid out just didn't feel right. Just like the BH, working within the rules and for the Eternal Empire would be the smarter choice.

Jedi have some tactical knowledge, but once again they're not invulnerable. Force choke is great, but it also doesn't stop said individual from tossing a grenade/electro dart/poison dart your way. Force control depends on the individual just as much as speed, strength, mental aptitude does to us. Revan was unique, he was one of those 'top tier' characters. Boba Fett killed hundreds of Jedi, the Mando's did a fine job against them, Thrawn out maneuvered them on the battlefield at every turn and it was dumb luck they beat him. Having the force isn't the end all be all. It's cool, I agree. Loved the SW story line and, imo, he's the best fit for the new content. Former Wrath tracking down the Emperor who is threatening everything his fought so hard to maintain. But in the end, it's just another skill set not God mode.

I still feel people miss the point on the non-force classes. Being a Jedi or Sith doesn't instantly make you into a powerhouse. They ran the gamut of power/ability just like non-force sensitives. The non-force using classes are just as powerful, thru the honing and training of their own abilities. Yeah a jedi may have the force, but I doubt he has the tactical or warfare knowledge that a Trooper has (just to put it in perspective). The only thing that felt weird, imo, was the horribly animated cut scenes with the PC using a blaster (seriously, there are multiple one in the class story of the BH that can be pointed to as being much better) and the political landscape/motivation. I main a PT so most of my points will come based on that. My character wasn't a total ********. His loyalty was to his crew and who paid him. He wouldn't complete mass genocide just for cash, but if someone was slightly an *** (think of the Alderaan incident) and he was paid to off them, he would. So what's my motivation? At first yeah, the Emperor was a douche and needed to be taken down. Darth Marr was still rolling the Empire into a much better place than they were before so helping them isn't a stretch. End up with more profit in the long run. Now they Emperor is dead and I get froze for 5 years. Yeah that sucks, but after I get out, why would I fight Arcann (and why would he give a crap about me anyway)? They tossed the line about the Mando's fighting him, but honestly, they're always fighting someone so that's not a good motivator. Cause I did a few missions with Lana? We had a working relationship, that's all. I'd consider her an asset but not someone I would help over throw a powerful (and probably super wealthy employer) just because the Empire and Republic are getting stomped. All my PT wants to do is find his team, find some jobs, and go back to collecting bounties and getting paid. But instead they kept throwing him into this BS without any clear motivation, so in the end I just accepted it. Everyone else is incompetent so it might as well be me calling the shots on a galactic scale since I won't screw it up as much as everyone else in the universe apparently does by default. Side note, felt the Trooper fit really well. SpecForce commander, guerilla warfare against a superior enemy, developing and leading a rebellion. Fit like a charm, just as good as any force character. Figure the same could be said of the agent. Smuggler probably has same issues BH does. And remember, battle droids killed hundreds of Jedi. And those schmucks were the most incompetent force the galaxy has ever seen.....

Yeah, this one felt like a personal slap in the face. To nerf it than come back 2 days later and offer it for more money.....that's some shady *** **** right there. Ultimately, we don't have to buy it, but whoever came up with this idea should feel dirty and ashamed. Like 'your mom just walked in on you wanking it to granny, midget ****' ashamed.....

I literally had to check the CEO/board members list of BioWare just to make sure Smedley hadn't taken over......

Yeah it destroyed the whole concept of a semi ranged tank. Now you might as well wield the saber because the range is the same and your abilities don't feel half as clunky

Agreed. PT has always been my main, but with the changes he felt like he was wearing lead boots and the 10m rng bs is to silly, especially when you're armed with projectile weapons. Was gonna take my Jugg as a main until I saw how awful ravage looks. Now I'm gonna reroll as a guardian or shadow

See I just looked at him having the mind set that we're basically mice in a huge experiment for him. Kind of like we do to monkeys and chimps nowadays. He'd tweak something here in one to see what happened, and then do the opposite in the other to see a different result. Granted, that's me reading a lot into it in a vain attempt to make sense of the crummy direction BW has taken it. But it made it less retarded, at least to me. But yeah, they reset everything and then gave us this drivel and expect us to be pleased. Feels like a repeat of when Disney nuked the EU, although honestly the only thing I was angry about was losing Timothy Zahn's work....

The story hasn't bothered me as much. I can see old Val having two Empires. The guy was a power hungry bastard who enjoyed playing with people's lives like they were pawns. It made perfect sense that he would be using two different cultures to 'experiment' with what works and what doesn't. I'm just not really enjoying the fact that we literally get 5 minute long cut scenes of how awesome our companions are supposed to be while we just kind of pander around. I haven't seen my PT launch a damn rocket at anyone in freaking ages. But you can bet we've seen Theron (a simple spy), Lana (a failed Sith in all reality), and Koth (basically a pirate wannabe homeless dude) throw down like they're the biggest bad *** in the galaxy. Meanwhile, depending what you play, you were either this amazingly powerful figure in the force, the greatest military/tactical genius to ever live, or the embodiment of the light/dark side of the force who defeated and banished the Emperor himself. But now, Arcann drops you like a bad habit, you apparently can't handle his bratty little sister (don't worry though, Mom will fight her off forever cause she so super bad ***). We've been regulated to basically nothing more than a figurehead while the characters BW really cares about dance around us. I wasn't to broken up about them moving away from traditional raiding because they kept saying they were going back to BW story telling. But when you give crap like this, which takes your player base and turns them into support or 2nd rate characters, they might as well go back to playing with Blizzard. Their game plays better (this bastardized HERO engine is still wonky), they don't nickel and dime you with the CM and call it content, and you're getting about the same treatment when it comes to being 'involved' in the story. (Spoiler alert, I friggin hate WoW but right now, their dev team is treating their player base of malcontents with more respect)

I'm just a lowly bounty hunter too. Can't imagine how pissed off I'd be if I was, say, the chosen one (JK) or space Jesus (consular). That fall would be way worse than just being the merc for hire.

Just a quick question for the rest of the community. Anyone else feel like their character is taking a back seat as the story progresses? Granted, I didn't expect the same amount of immersion we got in the original class stories, but the longer we go on, the more I feel like my BH is 'just along for the ride'. Never mind that my PT had zero reason to really start this rebellion against the Eternal Empire. I had basically accepted the 'well the Mando's are fighting Arcann' line that was given early on by BW and took it with a grain of salt, but the whole scene in chapter one with Senya fighting off hordes of baddies to protect the ritual just reeked of 'look how cool she is'. As I've gone further, it seems like I'm just here to push Lana, Theron, and Koth forward instead of leading the fight myself. Reminds me of Warcraft. Just a cog in the wheel so 'cooler' characters can be shown off.