Ah... this must be their way of making things more challenging for us... remove all mitigation from the game Now every sage's dream of main tanking can come true. Edit: Ah well, looks as though the servers are back up... time to survey the carnage I guess

When I respecced tactics last night I noticed that they'd added an extra tick to pulse cannon and reduced the damage by about 25% per tick. So, instead of 3 ticks for 2.4-2.5k self buffed I'm getting four ticks for 1.8-1.9k I didn't try PvP so I didn't really see if the slow was working. PG does still affect MV and SG though. And yes, if the RNG gods smile and everything crits, the combination of SG/MV/pulse cannon with 5 stacks of PG does absolutely insane AoE damage. (3k+6x1.6k+4x1.8k, or just under 20k damage over 6 seconds). Of course, the chance of everything critting is pretty minimal, even with cooldowns and you can only do it once a minute.

Ah right. I was at work today, so I missed all the patch shenanigans. I'll take another look at it when I get back online (server downtime in prime time? Looks like some people at Bioware are having a busy Friday evening) later tonight or tomorrow.

Very odd, when I checked it out again last night, there was definitely a tick as soon as you activated the skill. I wonder if it's possible to have a bug on some servers and not others?

15% runspeed isn't huge, but it does seem to work. Try turning off sprint and then having a race with a class with only base runspeed... you will slowly pull away from them.

Well, pre-1.2 I was getting 3 ticks for around 2.6k on crits. Now it's 4 ticks for about 1900 Overall damage seems to be the same with 5 stacks of pulse generator, but it starts doing its damage instantly as you activate the skill rather than 1 second into the channel. Sticky grenade and MV seem to be about the same as they were overall too. SG hits for about 3-3.2k and MV for 1600 per tick on crits, rather than 3.2-3.3k. Fire pulse is hitting slightly harder than it was and I do like the lack of skill delay on that one. Not to mention that it stacks PG now too, making the rotation simpler.

No, you have stock-strike and fire pulse for the 3k crits

Counter-attack is now 6% rather than 10%, so we lose 4% shield chance. Absorb is down 2% from ceramic plating, but up 4% from the new stacking buff. The changes to riot strike and energy blast are very welcome. Also, checking out the stat balance for the new sets, they're far better itemised than the old sets (much more shield/absorb and much less accuracy and these changes are also happening to Rakata and older sets too) and Shield Spec vanguards can expect a big buff to shield/absorb ratings which will more than counteract the slight reduction in shield chance from traits. All in all, I think vanguard tanks will be in a very nice position for PvE in 1.2

I seem to remember one of the devs saying that the game is based around pure (or almost pure) builds, which is why we're seeing all the possible hybrid specs slowly removed in successive patches. I play mostly as a SS with occasional forays into Assault when we need another dps and aside from the reduction in AoE diameter I can't see this as anything more than housekeeping and (for PvE) in the case of assault, making resource management easier by giving us a more reliable, less RNG based way to regen ammo. For shield spec, depending on the numbers for the changed/new absorb traits, it will most likely end up being a buff to PvE survivability and for PvP it'll make specs like Taugrim's even better with the free interrupt. Tactics isn't a tree that I've played much, but that seems to be getting some love too. Vanguard is already a strong class in PvE and if anything this makes it slightly stronger than it was. Besides... at least we won't have to learn a completely new playstyle *peers over at the sorcerer/sage forums*

I'm not sure that orange items can be RE'd right now, notwithstanding the 3 biometric crystal per item cost, which would make it a bit impractical. What you can do is crit craft them, which gives an extra augment slot and (after 1.2) will make them potentially the best available in the game.

First off, scoundrels and operatives get a 10m range interrupt so it's going to be hard keeping them at longer range than that. Secondly, the only two channelled skills I can think of as a vanguard are full auto and pulse cannon. Full auto is sub par on vanguards and suffers from pushback on damage - I don't even use it in PvE, let alone PvP. Pulse cannon is great when specced deep into tactics, with 5 stacks of pulse generator, but it's a very obvious animation and takes a second to fire up (i.e. easy to interrupt) - handy for tagging multiple people trying to cap and who then have to move or if people are stunned, but that's about it. In assault specialist I would guess that Dotting them up and kiting would be viable against a dps operative as you can keep them snared with Ion Pulse (procs plasma cell) and IR/Plasma cell dots are fairly decent (especially with the odd HIB proc inbetween). They'll be able to cleanse your DoT's and snares but on a 4.5 second cooldown (i.e. slower than you reapply them). As a shield spec you're a bit more limited as the only way to guarantee a proc is with stockstrike (melee range)... hammer shot has a decent chance but isn't as reliable. I don't PvP much and mostly use tank spec.. I'm sure Taugrim or one of the other guys will point out if I'm way off here...

I've not really tried out the tactics tree in PvE so far. I've read that the damage is underwhelming but looking at the talents, it'd make Pulse Cannon hit like a truck with 5 stacks, along with auto-crit HIB's and free stockstrikes. Probably slightly lower single target damage but higher AoE with the buff to pulse cannon. I'd suggest playing around with both and seeing which you prefer.

I find storm to be an invaluable tool in PvE, letting you get back in the action very quickly after a knockback (such as the first boss in Eternity Vault), or allowing you to intercept a bunch of adds. For PvP I've found it to be useful for the 3 second root that it gives to stop someone escaping (when harpoon is on CD) and also as a quick way to get up to people who are pewpewing from a platform.

I've had a play around with the 4/6/31 spec assault specialist in a couple of instances and the single target damage (burst and sustained) is great. Getting a string of HIB resets in a row brings a smile to anyone's face AoE damage is more limited - sticky grenade, pulse cannon, mv, es are about it but they do hit harder than in shield specialist talents/gear. Essentially you trade survivability for a big increase in single target damage, is what I've found. But survivability shouldn't be too much of an issue in solo pve if you take a decently geared Elara along with you.

I levelled 1-50 as a shield spec vanguard. Yes, some of the quests got pretty tough towards the end but that just encouraged me to use some of my less used skills on my hotbars. If you do all the quests on every planet you'll end up hitting 50 somewhere on Voss, after which you'll notice that mobs start to hit harder and harder (as they catch up to your own level). Once you get to 50 and do a few FP's and dailies for mods, things get a lot easier. But there is a tough time around starting Ilum where your gear will most likely be underlevel for the planet. Getting the PvP shield/absorb (220 rating to each) trinket was a nice boost to survivability and when you use it along with energy shield it amounts to 12-20 seconds of near godmode.