At lv32 your spec should look like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801rMMrdoroM.3 For trash pulls you have 2 options- Storm>Stock Strike>HiB>Explosive Surge>Stock Strike(proc)Ion Pulse>Explosive Pulse The other option is to Mortar Volley before the Storm, then the above. By pushing ES out you do 2 things- gain easy AOE threat on the 3rd action AND because its free after storm you gain 1 GCD of cell recharge. So a pull looks like this for cell management---- 100 (Storm) 84 (Stock Strike) +5 regen=89 cells 73 (HiB) +5 regen=78 cells Explosive Surge (free) +5 regen=82 cells Stock Strike/Ion Pulse(64 cells) +5regen=69 cells ES (free) +5 regen=74 cells Your goal is to use Stock Strike, High Impact Bolt, Pulse Cannon/Explosive Surge (with proc only until you get the hang of it), (and later on) Energy Blast and Shoulder Cannon on cooldown. Those are your bread and butter threat generators. If none of those are available to use follow the simple rule of: 3 arrows on cell regen= hammer shot/4 arrows=Ion Pulse. That will serve you well for typical flashpoint runs, later on for operations you will learn to weave in Recharge Cells+Reserve Powercell to get the most threat on a pull without killing your regeneration rate.

Seems like it might be a good fit. I'll try to find one ya tonight, got a few questions after browsing the guild site

Just returned to the game after a fairly long break. After toying around with some old characters I brought my old main (VG) over. Now that I'm back I'm looking to start raiding and PvPing again. My VG (Tank) is mostly Arkanian geared, still have 2-3 mods to optimize though. I've raided in nearly every MMO out there at some point. I started back in the late 90s and played MCO, SWG, WoW, Rift, AOC, GW2 and more that I've forgot. Spent most of the last 3 years in EVE and SWTOR. Ended up not liking the recent changes to EVE's nullsec and wormhole space so I came back to SWTOR! As I said I raid, PvP and once I get the feel for it again I'll be back into GSF hopefully. I am not interested in joining a guild to sit on a waitlist and raiding once a month. I wouldn't mind joining a new guild/op group and even starting out gearing people in SM and working our way up. As for raid times, anything 8-9pm Eastern and later is good for me*. If you have a guild that sounds like that hit me up on my VG - Whitelightr. *I do have an on call shift at my work every 5-6 weeks. During that week my times to play can be less.

I know Juggs and Guardians are in a real good spot right now in pvp and in general, but I've faced a few I've had problems with. I get it out of the way, I'm not an ELITE pvp'er but Im well above the average scrub too; it may be a few I've faced are simply better than I am so I won't discount that. But as a Madness Sin I've ran into a few Juggs I just cant seem to win against. I stop actively attacking when I see ED pop, but I havent checked into if DOTs will proc it anyways (I assume they will). I've tried doing a opening burst, and dps through. I've opened and tried to disengage around 60% to let my DOTs wittle them down some more and jump back on them. Neither strategy has worked so far. So I'm looking for input and tips against them. I'm currently leveling a Jugg to better understand the class, its the only one I've never taken to 55 so I know I will learn something from it. If we assume fairly equal gear and skill of players is a Jugg just the hard counter to me? Assuming every cooldown is available (mine and his) is that a battle I should even attempt 1v1?

Beregen Colony-Republic Whitelightr Scouts

I fly a scout almost exclusively, only using my other ships to burn off the bonus req or to try and be fair in a match vs 2-3 ship players. Ive never been one-shot by a gunship. And yes; I fly against GS pilots that I know are mastered and using bypass. Personally I think the scout pilots claiming this happens so often are either: A.) not paying attention and thinking its a one shot when they are already damaged (IE <3/4 hull with full shields) or B.) Using the wrong ship components Could a one-shot happen in Gunship vs Scout? Maybe, I've never done the math to be honest. But it would be RARE, not what people are claiming to happen every match. You have to understand how to play vs the meta, just because someone claims on the forums to one-shot everyone and never lose with "x setup" doesnt mean a thing. If you gear for speed+damage you WILL lose a little defense. Take a minute to step back and rethink you're ship components, see where you can change stuff and improve, or negate a Gunships strengths. I've done that, and now my FlashFire is perfectly setup for dogfighting and killing, and my NovaDive is almost finished for capping and chasing off reds. I'm curious about you other scouts claiming this is happening, go to here and then post your loadout, I bet theres improvements just waiting to help solve your problem.

AC/DC- Highway to Hell

Bingo! It would be nice, but its not NEEDED. What would it change? If the shot is evaded or not, you're still gonna fire shots until the target is dead; or barrel rolls to the cap ship lol.

Ive been seeing an interesting trend on BC lately. Last night was the most effective so far. Against a double premade, made up of average/slightly above average pilots. We were just in a 3 man premade, rest were pugs. People have been flying groups (2-3) of Pikes/Strikers to counter the scouts. I know it sounds crazy. But people are starting to put groups of 2-3 of those on a node. The issue becomes you simply cant LOS enough. Had one instance where it was 3 pikes on B vs me and another. They would focus more on one of us and using missile breaks/LOS just wasn't enough. My lock-on alert was literally going off constantly for 1-2 minutes. . Of course it takes a certain amount of coordination to pull off, but if the meta changes to that and it gets perfected a little better it could be a viable counter for strikes against scouts. Even more so when the new EMP missile is released. I'm not saying Strikes are fine, just saying maybe they are more of a group ship than a solo ship. As for the idea to link blasters for more alpha; I like that idea, and to balance it perhaps they would use 25%/50% more weapon power. Then you would have the blaster damage strikes need, but you couldn't simply spray-and-pray, you'd need to make each shot count

its odd, we had enough repubs queue'd for a 8v8 but nothing for almost 30mins. then we got a pop of Repub vs Imp. Can't understand it at all. This was around 7:45pm EST this evening (18th). Last night we couldn't get anything to pop PvP related.

Surprisingly its a mix. I'd say around 50% burst, 20-30 Light Laser, rest are either a mix Rapid/Lights. That is of course just observing through combat with them.

Same on BC. You'll see 1, maybe 2 GS on a side. A few of us Scout pilots have them too scared to fly them I think lol.

For the most part I agree with you. Its usually one sided and a boring match. But this morning the Imps that queue'd brought their A-game and did pretty dang good, even lost a few to them. As for the last part, believe me I've tried to keep it interesting for the Imps. Matches that end 1000:100 are no fun for anyone! But people usually dont want to listen and 3cap anyways .

Just wanted to give ya'll some props, had some fun GSF matches this morning. Ya'll steppin it up now! Lots of new names too so hopefully it keeps going. I needed more Imp targets for my FlashFire

Some basic tips based on what I've been seeing: 1.) Avoid getting into the spray-and-pray style. Yeah you'll land some hits, but generally you come up 1-shot short of the kill. Usually 2-4 well placed shots is enough, hitting 3/11 shots just isn't effective. 2.) Learn when to use missile lock and when not to. While the first thought is lock it early, remember you're giving the enemy a warning you are there. 3.) Constantly work on improving your target selection, defensive flying and how-to counter Defensive flying. You can always improve there, and it helps regardless what ship you fly. 4.) Don't try to fly whatever someone else deems OverPowered this week. Fly what suits you. I know players that fly strikes great, but the can't fly a scout to save their lives, even though people claim scout is EZ-mode and overpowered. Its about what fits your style. 5.) Grab the cheap upgrades first instead of going all out on one component. The first 1-2 upgrades in every tier provides great little boosts for nearly nothing. Get those to help you out. Then start mastering whatever components you want.

I'll try to give a good in-depth guide to you on how to hit things. It incorperates a few different variables. Weapon Range: Each weapon has 3 ranges so to speak. Close Medium Max. The closer a target is the more damage your shots do, also your chance-to-hit increases at closer ranges. Weapon Accuracy: is tied to the current distance to your target. Firing Arc/Tracking Penalty: Each Weapon has a firing ARC (the kind of semi-circle you cant move the target reticule out of) and a Tracking Penalty (shown in a X% per degree) With that out of the way heres 2 examples: You firing on a basic scout that has, lets say, 20% evasion; using Light Laser Cannons Flying absolutely dead at each other, dead center of each others FIRING ARC. At Max range (4160m) your Chance-To-Hit (80%) vs his evasion (20%), means its possible only half (60%) of your shots will hit. At medium range-3100m, it improves to 70% you'll hit. Finally at 'point blank' range-500m, its 90% chance you'll hit! Next Situation: Same weapons/target- but explaining Tracking Penalty You sit still, he flies directly across your FIRING ARC at 3100m from one side to the other. Keep in mind the Light Laser Cannon has a FIRING ARC of 32degree and a Tracking Penatly of 1% per degree. When he gets inside the FIRING ARC on one side, you suffer an ADDITIONAL -32% to hit. So 90%(base)-20%(evasion)-32%(Tracking)=38% chance you'll even hit him. BUT the closer he gets to the center of your FIRING ARC, the more your chance-to-hit improves! And as he flies towards the other side of the ARC it gets worse again. Now of course in the above, evasion doesn't work like it may read. Its like a characters Dodge, its just a chance. You may face someone with 41% evasion and hit 5/5 shots under horrible conditions. That same target you might miss 5/5 under ideal conditions. Such is the sucks of random rolls. That being said, do these 3 things: 1.) Go into the games Options menu, under GSF and turn on DETAILED TOOLTIPS 2.) Try to keep your target close to the CENTER of your FIRING ARC as possible! 3.) Try to keep him with-in MEDIUM range atleast. and you'll notice an improvement.

I'm confused. You come into this thread and say you fly with friends and blah blah, then in another thread on the first page here you complain the pug groups on your server suck and you want to group with other good pilots. Which is it? Perhaps its Option:C, You need attention?

Rest my case.

Wow someones a little butthurt that people dont think premades rolling over the enemy is impressive aren't they?

They are. Just let them believe they/POT5 are just the best thing to hit the spacelanes since Han Solo and laugh.

So congrats, I guess? Keep it up and before long you'll come crying "no one on my server does GSF anymore!'. Its amusing to see it once. If you constantly slaughter the other-side, be it same faction or not, then they will stop queueing. On our server I've actually been trying to push fellow Repubs to atleast let the Imps keep it a game. Let'em rack up 400-500 points, you DONT HAVE to 3 cap them just because you can! THAT is the real problem most players have with pre-mades. Its not that they win, its HOW they win. Its not enough to win, some fill the need to completely humiliate their opponent just because they can. Call it E-Sportsmanship or whatever you want, but encouraging more people to play and improve only benefits everyone. But hey, keep it up! As long as you're having fun then who cares right?

Honestly? It seems like you've already made up your mind about it. Now you just want people to agree with you. You said you were flying with me earlier, we may have been on the same team but we never talked and weren't flying together; we just got matchmake'd into the same group. I don't know what all the premades do, or when they do it. I know last night there was atleast 3 groups running at one point. We fought 2v1 a few times, at the end it was always one of our groups vs the other group of ours. We qeren't queue dodging or anything. When it came up us vs ourselves we slaughtered each other like we would anyone else then laughed about it. Only thing I can say is if you can't or don't want to use Voice thats up to you. Grouping or not is up to you. But its a CHOICE YOU are making. I've ran solo in games for years now. Here, Rift, EvE, GW2, if you decide to play a MMO in single player, theres some things you just have to accept.

A.) Yes, always B/C.) its more fun but its not REQUIRED D.) Yes. Try to get some kind of plan pre-match. Its better than the headless chicken approach. But no plan survives the first 5 minutes of battle anyways. E.) Overall a good rule but its situational sometimes. F.) Yup. Most people will sit down and BS with ya about loadouts, flying tips, tricks, etc. Just ask! The worse they can do is say no or ignore you. G.) Thats the only way to truely get better! H.) The main difference between a good PvPer and a bad one is situational awareness. I.) The only one I 100% disagree with! Its just personal but if you attack me and run away, and I know my node is safe, I WILL hunt you down on principle lol.

Last night I flew with a PvP-premade for the first time since I played SWG. I've always preffered solo queues. We went up against premades, Imp and Repub, that were using in Voice Comms. We still rolled them. We ended up queuing 2 4man groups and facing each other, none of us used voice comms (atleast that I'm aware of lol). My point is this: no matter where you go, what you are doing (ground or space), you will find premades. I don't know if you are Repub or Imp; if you're Imp then I'm sorry, you guys have a huge issue in GSF there, if you're Repub then hit me up, hell I'll fly with ya. Last night we had a 8man op queueing as 2 4man groups facing each other, one fight I died 5-7 times. Was the most fun I've had in GSF in a while. And none of us were using TS/Vent/Mumble. It was the first time since I left SWG that I PvP'd with a premade group lol.

First of all, they aren't IMPRESSIONS. I've tested and fraps and went over it. Perhaps some of the fighters I was testing on were using damage reduction components, but I know I see 15dmg ticks about 30-40% of the time. In theory it should do 20/tick. I could see the math allowing for occasion 19s though. Reality is I just dont see it averaging 20. My observation is the average is closer to 17 range. Yes the damage is there once it hits, the problem is the damage is laughable at best. I purposely took enemies to low hull and watch the DOT not able to kill them with 3-4 ticks. Yup and thats the problem. Its a measly 15% damage upgrade. While 15% can be massive, 15% of a little is unimpressive. I wasn't trying to imply that it should overpower blaster fire. But to even make the DOT truely attractive it needs to offer more. Currently if you attempt to weaken a enemy and let the dot finish them, you cant be sure because the dot is so weak. If the DOT was stronger you could engage more knowing the DOT would help finish off enemies letting you switch targets faster. Besides the numbers I used were just for show, nothing more than an example to show the point I was making. True but 2.6 close. And after having 2 back-to-back patches related to GSF I'd wager we won't see anything for a while after this. Any changes, balancing, sugguestions should atleast be made now while we have a SLIM chance of something being done.