That's definitely Mando Raiders. It's the metallic hallway with the kolto tanks on the sides; I know because it was the first 55 HM I got when I started queuing for them and I spent most of that pull bouncing between 20-30% life with the help of Kolto Overload. The biggest lesson I've learned from the 55 HM FPs is that dogs are the most powerful beings in the SW universe.

I just did this HM for the first time last night and was a pretty easy one-attempt fight. The only thing I noticed that I thought was strange was that I could not break another person's shackles if my Hydraulic Overrides was active. It would break mine but I had to click it off to be able to break anyone else's.

They changed the stats at some point on the PTS again and essentially flipped defense and absorption's importance. Now absorption is pretty much garbanzo beans compared to defense. None of the tanks really want accuracy since it occupies the same itemization as mitigation stats, and none of the tanks can use absorption to any appreciable degree over defense or shield ratings until way into the defense and shield DR curves.

I play both a Juggernaut and Powertech tank and noticed this immediately as I started gearing the latter in 66+ stuff. Hopefully an oversight because as you said, that accuracy/absorption thing is... yuck.

It must be a knockdown then if it works; I'm a PT and was given this ability with 2.0 as well and the only thing it doesn't really work on is actual stuns. Good to know for when I finally get Hammer to pop.

I realize this is OT, but I thought Hydraulic Overrides did not work on stun effects. Does the attack on the Hammer Station bonus boss count as a knockdown?

This bug has been in the game since it launched. I gave up hope a long time ago it would ever get fixed, but I agree it is an embarrassing bug to have in a game when it involves compromising the primary function of your gameplay.

I find your comment about the boss difficulty bizarre and completely contrary to my own first experiences with the 55 HMs. I've done 3 of the 4 new HMs as a tank, which I did not start queuing for until I was in mostly ilvl 66 gear. In all three of them (all but Hammer Station) my experience was pretty similar; relatively simple and low-damage bosses with very high-damage packs of trash between them. I feel far more threatened by the trash packs when a CC is broken (or simply not used at all) than I do any of the bosses I've fought so far, and this is with a fully random group (solo queue). As far as the loot rewards, I agree somewhat, but mostly in regard to the bonus and final bosses dropping random loot instead of tokens. It's far too common to get drops that nobody can use because it is for a class that is present but a spec that isn't being played. I think if they are going to use randomized drops like this there should be one or two more opportunities for them to drop in each FP.

No. The way this game's pulls are designed, it very much is the job of DPS to go and kill the weak and often out-of-position mobs on their own. Often times at least one of the weak mobs is in an optimal tanking position and that's usually handled by the tank, but part of the reason DPS classes have a bunch of free CCs against weak mobs on their attacks is for this very purpose. Not only that, but weak targets have an extremely high damage:health ratio compared to other trash mobs and actually NEED to be eliminated first to draw down incoming damage on your tank at the outset of each pull. No tank should need to waste threat and resources trying to corral 2-3 weak mobs that are nowhere near the silver/gold targets when DPS can very easily eliminate them without risk while the tank is still initiating on the larger targets. This is one of your fundamental tasks as a DPS class and if you aren't doing this, you're doing the easiest job in the game wrong.

The sets that cost real money aren't even full armor sets...? What in the world?

No, they're also available for Daily Commendations I think.

I did, and I'd like to know what idiot over there thought that the belt and bracer schematics weren't necessary to include. Nobody in the game after 1.6 that doesn't already have those pieces will be able to finish the set now, because they apparently aren't important enough to include in the schematic box. These things have been on the vendors for months and nobody fixed this?

Definitely get him the subscription in my opinion. He'll get some CCs every month that way and can hold onto them for a few months if he sees something in particular he needs. Otherwise it's worth the huge amount of conveniences subscribers get; there's just far too much quality of life stuff that you don't get as a preferred member that it's a no-brainer to me.

Nobody talked about physically removing Datacrons from the world. If you still wanted to go after them for collection purposes, you'd be able to.

I'm not sure I agree about Valor because it's basically the only per-character metric you have to gauge the amount of time spent on that character in PvP. That amount of time spent specifically in PvP on that character has some minor informative value. I'd leave it. Social I don't really care either way. There's also some informative worth about the social rank someone carries, but for the most part the value there isn't character-specific really. Given that the current implementation is fine for this, I wouldn't bother messing with it. Datacrons and their bonuses, however, I agree should be Legacy-wide. Repeating the same steps for such minor bonuses is irritating even if it was enjoyable the first time. These aren't tied into anything more important on the per-character level, so I don't see any reasonable objection to moving them to the Legacy.

I don't think people are looking to remove Rage's ability to burst at all. But being able to burst as hard in AoE - consistently - as any other class is only able to do on single targets has to go. Burst like that simply cannot be AoE. I'm already sick enough of it that I don't care what solution gets applied even though I have a Juggernaut myself. Just get rid of it. One of the three biggest class balance issues in the game right now, and it needs solved (along with the stupid stun bubble and Operative PvE DPS being in the bin).

Hilarious. You really have it rough, straight white guy. Stay strong.

Or maybe you're just making up stuff to make your rationalization easier to justify. I can tell you which one is more likely. Love the random bit at the end about black people, by the way. You're definitely making a point there but I don't think it's the one you mean to.

For me, the biggest issue still remaining since launch is the "phantom GCDs" where you press a skill, trigger a GCD and the skill never actually activates. This bug has existed since before launch and still happens, at least once per play session. In this kind of combat system it's a very serious bug and it's pretty disappointing to not see it corrected still.

For me the Juggernaut is just about on the edge of where I will tolerate skill bloat. There are definitely some buttons that aren't anywhere near interesting enough to deserve an entire slot to themselves, but there aren't so many that I can't fit everything into around 30 hotkeys for skills. The Sniper is the same way; a handful that are so trivial I hardly care about them but not so many that I'd need to crack a 5th hotbar open to fit everything (including my non-class stuff that needs hotkeys). The one that crosses the line for me is Scoundrel/Operative, especially as a healer since all three skills you pick up from the tree require high priority hotkey slots. Unfortunately that doesn't leave me very optimistic about what will happen when they increase the level/skill point cap. I play GW2 alongside TOR and they're so much smarter about how they handle hotkeys versus the total number of skills you have access to. My Engineer in that game has around 30 skills at any given moment but only needs 14 hotkeys. If TOR plans to ever actually moves the classes forward at some point they're going to need to do some cleanup work in this regard.

I'm sure this will get added into the Cartel Market at some point. It's too obvious and too easy of a grab for them to ignore it. I don't blame players for wanting it, either. Right now, if you want to switch ACs on a level 50 means you either have to level through an entirely different mode of gameplay or simply repeat all of the content you've already experienced. There's not even any variation in leveling paths in this game for PvE, so you'll just get stuck doing the exact same story missions on top of the exact same planet missions you did the first time. Bad enough that you'll already be repeating the same linear planet progression on any other class you make, but at least you get a new story to follow. With so many different classes needed just to see the unique story content, it is pretty crummy to also ask players to make yet another character of the same base class just to see a different AC.

I have to say I'm surprised they handled it this way. It's very lazy and seems like they care very little about how disruptive it is to the consistency of the game's setting. Weren't there very similar floating Senate chair things in the prequels? Why not create a similar "Republic Senator's Platform" for the Republic? I don't think it is unreasonable to faction-lock certain Cartel items in the case that they are so clearly specific to one faction or the other. It's a much better idea than seeing a Jedi Knight floating around the Republic Fleet in a Sith throne adorned with a neon Imperial logo wearing Nihilus' mask.

Well, if ten seconds out of every two minutes being sort-of immune-ish to certain debuffs is really disturbing, maybe kill two birds with one stone and compress the effect down to five seconds to improve the HPS closer to usefulness. Five cleanses over five seconds every two minutes seems reasonable for a defensive cooldown. Considering tank Assassins wind up with FS with the same duration every sixty seconds I think it tank balance would still get on just as well. I also don't think adding an entirely new CD is really necessary, at least until the level cap goes up and skill trees expand. Not when they currently have one that we know needs improvement that can just as well help cover that gap.

I have had a 50 Powertech for a long time and have recently come back to finish up my 43 Juggernaut. I don't have an Assassin yet, but that is going to be the final class I pick up to finish off my buff unlocks. Between the Powertech and the Juggernaut, the Powertech definitely has less buttons and lower amount of mental focus going towards resource/cooldown management compared to the Juggernaut. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that the Juggernaut gets a lot in return for all the extra work. I do enjoy the increased mobility from Intercede a lot and they definitely have better defensive CDs; overall they're short an entire CD and one of them (Kolto Overload) is really terrible. Besides the CDs and Intercede, most of the time I feel like I prefer the functionality of the Powertech's skillset. Speaking of CDs, I'd really like to see them do something new with Kolto Overload to make it more relevant, maybe have it remove a debuff every time it ticks. Something to justify the rather serious 3 minute cooldown on it. While I don't have an Assassin yet, looking over them it seems to me that they have slightly less activity and resource management pressure than the Juggernaut, but more player focus taken up by the decision making process during combat.

Hmm, where do you see this? I don't see it on this page: http://www.swtor.com/free/features