I've played every class to Act 1 or beyond except the IA, SI, and Trooper. Of those stories, the Sith Warrior was the most epic (finished Act 1 in beta), followed closely by the Jedi Knight (finished the entire storyline). The Bounty Hunter had a good Act 1, slow Act 2, and good ending for Act 3, but otherwise it was just above average. Smuggler Act 1 had a good pay off but it was still very slow and despite wanting to make this class my Pub main I haven't been enticed to go start its Act 2 storyline yet. If you really want to have fun with the SW story, though, I suggest you go Light Side. I can't give spoilers out of principle but also because you don't want to hear them, but trust me that you will be pooping bricks because you chose to be a Light Sided as opposed to Dark Sided Sith Warrior; it is THAT good. Without spoiling it, since someone did mention how the JK is your "KotOR 1" story all over again (it is basically the same exact story even written by the same exact person, thanks for the epic stories Drew!), I can say that the SW story is sort of like the evil version of the same thing. However, it's more than that; there's a lot of soul searching to see where you fit in and the need to prove yourself to the galaxy whereas with the JK it's an understood that you are "Master Jedi," the wise sage who can do no wrong. With the JK, the missions between planets and Acts focus on stopping Dark-Sided individuals, period. With the SW, interplanetary missions focus on your own morality, what you are bringing to this universe, and so the LS and DS decisions differ much more greatly and have a more profound effect on your entire storyline.

From my experience with a Kinetic Shadow to 30 (beta), Carnage (respecced Rage later) Marauder to 30 (beta), and Vigilance Guardian to 50 (live), the most acrobatic character is a wash; NONE of these classes were acrobatic. Without Spinning Kick and the PvE-only Tumult you are just a caster with a clunky looking Double Strike as a Shadow. The Guardian is very much as stiff as a Juggernaut. The Marauder attacks rapidly but even he is very stiff because he doesn't move his legs during any of his attacks. I wish Plasma Brand for Guardians did the KotOR 2 style "Power Attack" animation where the Knight somersaults in the air, his entire body parallel to the ground, and slashes the target with only one hand on the lightsaber. This would make sense, too, seeing as Overhead Slash is the KotOR I "Power Attack" animation. Guardian Slash and Hilt Strike could use some animation adjustments because they seem very clunky and non-fluid for an acrobatic warrior. I recall Hilt Strike on a pre-release video mimicking the attack Ven Zallow did to Malgus in the Deceived trailer where the the hilt was perpendicular to Malgus's face (in game Pommel Strike and Hilt Strike instead smash the bottom of the hilt instead of the grip-side of the hilt into the opponent's face). IMO the coolest looking lightsaber attack in the game is a simple Slash attack that the Shadow/Assassin do. It's the one where if the resourceless attack lands a killing blow on the target your character spins and twirls his saber with him. Just spam your "1" key on low health targets with a double-bladed saber out and you'll see what I mean after a few kills. I really hope we can get yet another animation pass on the lightsaber-using ACs because they don't feel nearly as acrobatic as they seem to be described everywhere else.

Combat ratings have changed drastically with this patch, most noticeably Expertise. If you feel your class is nerfed (i.e. EVERYONE feels their class is nerfed), take a step back and analyze the situations in which your damage seems to be significantly lower than normal. For instance, before this patch I was critting my Flame Bursts (Ion Pulse for Vanguards) for 1.7k to 2.2k consistently against targets (the lower end vs BM, the higher end vs non-PvP-geared). Last night I saw a Flame Burst crit for as high as 2.4k and as low as 1.1k! Flame Burst wasn't even touched in this patch! But I observed the warzones and a few key takeaways justified this damage variance: 1) Many players have come back from the dead for patch 1.2, some in full BM gear since February and others severely undergeared. My Flame Burst hasn't changed but the pool of gear against which it is hitting has drastically done so. 2) For PvP purposes, Expertise has had its mathematical formula fundamentally changed in which it is now the supreme PvP stat (don't be wearing PvE gear to PvP unless you severely outgear everyone). Against lower Expertise targets you will hit even harder than before but against higher Expertise foes your attacks will hit like wet noodles. If this weren't the case, there would be no point to PvP gear progression. 3) Now that PvP has so many objective-based medals, players I have noticed are trying to play more like a team. As a result of healing being significantly nerfed in PvP (it was out of control pre-1.2), healers need to rely on tanks to Guard them, who in turn need to rely on those same healers to stay alive (tanks are still squishy if two guys are beating on them after all). Your damage against a Guarded target AND when you yourself are Taunted is going to be miniscule. Your abilities are untouched; it's the teamplay that is annihilating you, teamplay that has seemingly improved over night for some weird reason. 4) Many abilities and talents were changed so there may be some bugs, but overall these changes serve some sort of purpose and you will find you can still be as effective if you vary up your rotations. For instance, some AOEs such as Death from Above and Mortar Volley tick more frequently for less damage. The overall damage is exactly the same; please watch your ticks as opposed to only the numbers that pop up above people's heads. Please factor in all the aspects of an ability or tree skill before you say it is buffed or nerfed. Now I am calling out Commandos/Mercenaries and PyroTech Powertechs/Assault Specialist Vanguards here but I am sure other classes are in the same boat. Yes, Tracer Missile/Grav Round is weaker. Yes, Rail Shot/High Impact Bolt will only refresh once every 6 seconds. THIS IS INTENDED. The goal is to vary up your rotations so you can't just own with one button whenever it is off cooldown. The three mentioned specs should be using Unload more frequently. Arsenal/Gunnery should be using Heatseeker/Commando equivalent and PyroTech should be using Incendiary Missile/Thermal Detonator (and Assault Specialist equivalents) as part of your normal rotations! Generally speaking if the talents in your skill tree mention a certain ability by name you should probably be using that ability. If you are not using it, there's a very good chance the lower tier skills will be modified (i.e. Prototype Particle Accelerator and Tracer Missile) so that you are using those other abilities. Each tree has a certain design and if players are able to bypass that design then the talents will be modified so as to conform those playstyles to the intended ones as the latter are easier to balance around. 5) Finally, some classes/synergies did get straight up nerfed. Yes, Madness Sorcs can't instant-cast Chain Lightning anymore. Scoundrels/Operatives I hope still can't stunlock you to death, even if it means using adrenal + relic. However, any unbiased observer would tell you that these were broken synergies that were not fun to fight against (or even remotely close to balanced) and this is why they were nerfed. In some cases you get nothing in return because you really didn't need it; you were powerful enough. In other cases there is something that mitigates the blows by improving an aspect at which you may have been underperforming (i.e. Scrapper/Concealment damage should be more sustainable than before). In the long run the changes to the classes and the gear in this patch are good for the game. There may be some hiccups and some crazy issues that pop up by the end of the next week, but overall healing and damage have been reined in as they were scaling to levels that would be very difficult to manage in the coming months. So my advice to everyone is just to sit tight and adapt to the new game. Get geared out and play the game "by the rules" (i.e. no more DMing in warzones, go get those objective-based medals; play your spec like it was intended) and I assure you that you will reap the rewards of better gameplay without feeling the sting of "nerfs."

I had the same problem since beta but got over it over time. Since it's on a mere 30 second cooldown it's better to use HO and waste it than not use it and die or get robbed of a kill as a result.

What about the visual flame shield indicator?

This. When I was spy checking... I mean stealth scanning with Flame Sweep I noticed I got a stack of PFT every time despite hitting air. I go into every fight with a full stacked PFT charged every time now. It seems like a bug more than anything, but I hope it is an intended feature because it's so awesome! And to confirm no this was not the case prior to the patch or even back in beta. This is new functionality. I guess it could be intended if you are spamming it looking for a stealther who will otherwise burst you down. By letting you stack up your attack preemptively as you try to destealth the stealther you have more of a fighting chance.

I have had no issues with PFT at all for eight hours yesterday. What everyone isn't understanding is that Expertise has changed considerably. Against lesser geared enemies my attacks hit CRAZY hard (I crit for 3.3k with Immolate and 2.2k+ with each tick of PFT lol) but against BMs (I still wear mainly Champion) those numbers are reduced significantly (PFT for a mere 900 per tick, and 1.5k on crit). It's been less than a day people. Play for a week week before you start complaining about balance issues that may or may not exist. Sometimes it sounds like people have never played an online game before.* *This is for all the threads about AP and PFT sucking, not just this one which is aimed more at pointing out a potential bug.

This. Let's kill the silly names. We are bad -sses, not high school tweens.

Slicing missions are your source for Augment schematics. As far as REing Augments, I was under the impression doing so would help you learn them, but maybe it's only for the crafted Augments (i.e. you have to learn a schematic rewarded from a Slicing mission).

For every point of damage you deal to an NPC, you gain 1 threat (let's say). For every heal you cast on a friendly who is engaged in combat with an NPC, you gain 1/2 threat or something. With Ion Gas Cylinder, you gain 2 threat per damage dealt thanks to the 100% threat increase. Thus, so long as you are doing at least 50% of the DPS of your highest damage dealer in your group, you are guaranteed to not lose aggro. When mobs CC you they do tend to drop aggro on you so you do need to taunt and what not, but if you find yourself blowing taunts every 15 seconds on the same target your damage rotation is at fault. As a Shieldtech your priority rotation should be as follows: Death from Above (if AOEing or against a very tough fairly stationary target such as almost every boss) Rocket Punch (this gets refreshed a lot, always use it ASAP) Explosive Dart (if AOEing) Unload Rail Shot Flame Sweep (if AOEing) Flame Burst Heat Blast (when Heat is greater than 40) Rapid Shots (when Heat is greater than 40) For the most part this rotation stays solid in 1.2 as well even though your shield absorb will be based off your Flame Burst spam, but the abilities listed above should be used on cooldown, Heat-willing, to maximize your threat in both single target and AOE situations.

It's really not that difficult. It's a priority rotation; just make sure you are keeping Immolate on cooldown, using Rocket Punch only when it is Heatless, and otherwise spamming Flame Burst to get more PFT stacks and unleashing Flame Thrower at 5xPFT stacks. If you want to use RB and RS, feel free to throw those in liberally (only RS when it's a crit, which should be often enough tomorrow). It is more involved than PyroTech's FB/RP into RS rotation for sure, but that rotation was a broken rotation that is going to be drastically changed tomorrow as well. PyroTechs will be weaving many more abilities, especially blaster attacks, so there will be more cooldowns to juggle for them as well.

You might want to save yourself time if you prefer a ranged DPS character and reroll Mercenary ASAP. The closest to a ranged character you can be as a Powertech is via the PyroTech tree. There are a couple of problems with this: 1) Depending on how strongly you feel about being a ranged DPS, you are locked into one skill tree for the rest of that character's life. This defeats the point of having skill trees. 2) You still have to be in close range often enough to use Flame Burst and Rocket Punch to maximize the effectiveness of the spec, so you are really not as ranged as you may want to be. Every spec of the Mercenary is a ranged fighter, on the other hand, and the class uses blasters and missiles, both ranged weapons, very frequently to Powertech's melee gauntlet and close range flamethrower attacks. If you want to be a ranged heavy armor class, choose Mercenary. It's a great class and equally effective and you will enjoy it a lot.

Keep in mind that PyroTech is going to require a playstyle change as well if you fully wish to embrace it. If you played Firebug in beta then you know what to expect, but if you did not then here are some tips: Don't spam Flame Burst; weave in Unload, IM, and TD more frequently with lots of Rapid Shots to help manage Heat. You aren't supposed to be frontloading all of your abilities. Since it's the shared tree you want to play the PyroTech more like a level 1-10 Bounty Hunter who mainly operates at some range but with some melee mixed in.

Yeah, I pointed this out in another thread. The problem with non-targeted attacks is that there are a fair amount of sync issues in PvP where your enemy isn't actually where he appears to be. Fortunately these issues were worse in beta, though, so at least Bioware is on the right track to ironing them out. Because your opponent can sometimes be in a location other than where they are displayed on the screen, you can end up missing an entire Flame Thrower channel. It also doesn't help that the damage ticks from your Flame Thrower are delayed - often you see all 3 ticks pop up on your screen at the same time - so you can't adapt to the situation quickly and reposition yourself.

Not if they tweaked the values. AP needs that kind of survivability boost anyway.

Correct, the 25 in my post is damage, not Power, using Aim Matrix cube and 1.2 BM Combat Tech set (which has 984 Aim). You end up with something like 1330 Aim in the end, and the 0.3% crit and 25 damage boost is to both Ranged and Tech. It's a playstyle/quality of life choice. Boosting all attacks by a small amount vs getting a slow on a spammable single target attack and an auto-crit 30m range attack.

I never said you would avoid Heat issues by doing the RB/RS rotation; that just gives you some extra damage to soften up the target before finishing them off from 40% to 0% with PFT. The Heat issue won't be avoided until they make it so Immolate adds 2 stacks and/or Rocket Punch/Rail Shot/and/or Retractable Blade adds 1 stack of PFT. That might mean a nerf to the damage of PFT, though, since it will be easier to stack up. First off, GCD is 1.5 seconds - FBx5 = 5*1.5 = 7.5 seconds. Secondly, yes, if an ability has a 9 sec cooldown, then after the GCD ends it will be at 7.5 seconds (that means you get to fit in 5 instant abilities between two RPs). On live if you do Imm->RB->RP->5xFB->RS->RP->FT, you have 6 instants between the two RPs, meaning you are delaying your second RP by 1.5 seconds. However, since Immolate is adding a PFT stack in 1.2, you can remove one FB and the first rotation gets cleaned up quite nicely with no wasted time between the first two RPs. Still, this spec like most other specs in this game operates more on a priority rotation so after the first cycle it doesn't really make sense to analyze the rotations. Instead, you should analyze the playstyles. Is it better to stack up 5xPFT and unleash it constantly or is it actually a damage loss to not include the RB ticks and auto-crit Rail Shot? We won't find out until Thursday it seems. On the general topic of speccing for RB/RS over 9% Aim: In 1.2, the rotation will be very clean if you include RS and RB, but Heat is still an issue due to FBx4 spam. I'm not 100% sure on including RS in your rotation either if speccing this way (though you are less reliant on blowing people up with PFT if the opportunity doesn't arise for whatever reason). However, with the new BM set, 9% Aim (including 250 base, Aim DPS Matrix cube, and +30 to +40 from Aim datacrons) will give you a whopping +25 Power and .30% crit chance for 3 points. Don't get me wrong, Power is Power (hehe, Game of Thrones quote), but that little bit just isn't worth the potential of bursting down a target with CG and slowing them with Hamstring. The 9% Aim talent really lends itself more for PvE over PvP (like with most other classes) as PvE gear lacks Expertise which otherwise eats away at the item's budget to slot Aim instead. For Thursday I would still recommend speccing 5/34/2 because of the utility of the RB slow and the potential to kill an enemy with crit RS (or further soften them up before using a PFT). Though for best results, we should all try the different builds we are proposing and at the end of the day compare notes.

Just to reiterate: you never want to use RP right after Immolate. Immolate's Heat cost is null by the time the GCD is over, and since that is your opening attack (after ED) you will most likely be at 0 Heat. A Heat-free RP doesn't do anything if you are already at 0 Heat; it's better to use RB, or FB in a non-RB/RS build, before you consume the Flame Barrage buff. Now that it's Tuesday I'll respec back to the non-RB build I was playing around with before but take it more seriously; last time I played it was when DoTs prevented node caps, so not having RB was a huge disadvantage. Because enemies smarten up depending on the time of day, getting a full stacked FT channel to go off without a hitch can be frustrating. I'd rather have more opportunities to unleash it so even if one messes up I can quickly get back on my feet for a second in the same fight.

The slow is definitely worth the 4 extra points. A lot of times you don't get kills is because the enemy runs away from you, retreating behind his friends. Also, since the other melee classes have better defensive CDs, you will need to kite them a little bit in order to outlast them and RB helps a great deal with that. @TheOpf Indeed; the FBx5 spam makes you overheat easily. That's why Flame Barrage is so important and a good rotation where you use RP after Immolate and after FB spam allows you to buy some time before you unleash your Flame Thrower. To reiterate for those who haven't seen me post it: ED -> Immolate -> RB -> RP (Heat-free) -> RS (only if CG procs) -> FBx5 -> RP (83% chance it will be Heat-free) -> Flame Thrower (5 stacks) In 1.2 this changes to: ED -> Immolate -> RB -> RP (Heat-free) -> RS (68% chance CG procs before next RP) -> FBx4 -> RP (76% chance it will be Heat-free) -> Flame Thrower (5 stacks) -> RS (90% chance CG procs after 2x RP and full RB initial + ticks) Of course, this is a priority rotation which resolves around stacking up Flame Thrower ASAP, so Rocket Punch and Immolate will have to wait if you are sitting on 5 stacks of PFT. @Coramac Everything you said, exactly.

The way Bioware handled this situation is that they tied the primary stats to a specific look of armor. In turn, they had to set each companion's primary stat in such a way that a certain type of armor looked most appropriate on them. Of the four Strength tanks, one is a Force user (so Strength heavy armor looks appropriate on him) and the other three do not visibly wear their armor (so it doesn't matter what graphics their armor has). Of the four Aim melee tanks, however, all do wear their armor on their bodies but none are Force users. It would look very odd if Skadge or Qyzen wore Strength-based heavy armor which is typically Jedi/Sith robes and armors so instead they decided to give these tanks Aim as a primary stat so they can wear the more aesthetically appropriate BH and Trooper gear. In short: 1) Companions' primary stats will be tied to what type of armor looks best on them (i.e. Mandalorian/BH/Trooper type companions all possess Aim as their primary stat, whether they are melee or ranged, DPS or tank or healer). This is to keep companions such as Skadge or Torian from ever looking like Jedi/Sith, which would not make any sense. 2) If looks don't matter (i.e. Bowdaar doesn't visibly wear the armor he has equipped), then by default the melee companion will instead use Strength as their primary attribute as it makes the most logical sense for a melee companion with a vibro weapon to be Strong.

I would love my Marauder or Guardian to be able to use a staff, hell yeah!

The Flame Burst spam is what kills it. A Rage/Focus spec can stack up its Smash/Sweep with a single GCD and waiting 4 seconds (and Zealous Leap/Obliterate in the meanwhile) whereas an AP requires a minimum of 5 GCDs (and tons of Heat) to stack up their FT. The Immolate will help a great deal in condensing the spam rotation a bit, but even then it may not be enough; you still have 4 FBs to spam in order to get the stacked up Flame Thrower of destruction. The question is whether it is better to focus solely on Flamer attacks and stack up FT as fast as possible so you can use it as many times as you can (this will destroy your Heat, however) or play the role as intended by the talents and throw in your RP, RB, and Rail Shot to soften the target up before murdering them with one FT at the end. Often, because we are a melee spec with weak survivability that's hardly worth mentioning, you will be dead before being able to unload that FT or you will get knocked away/stunned, interrupting that channel you worked so hard to build, meaning the former avenue of ignoring RP/RB/RS entirely may make the most sense. 1.2 can't come soon enough. I can't wait to experiment with the changes.

That's a buff icon. Almost every other proc in the game has a sound or graphical cue on your character itself, i.e. PPA makes your character laugh and puts a fiery shield around you. The poster was referring to such an effect, which Flame Barrage, Charged Gauntlets (it will in 1.2) and Prototype Flame Thrower, which could benefit from this type of effect at 5 stacks, do not yet possess.

I don't believe Flame Barrage has a visual or aural indicator when it procs, no. As far a interruptible PFT, I usually just Unload to make someone waste the interrupt before I Flame Thrower unless I know the enemy is poor with interrupts (most are, surprisingly).

Fair enough. Theoretically I hate the fact that everyone has all these movement speed boosts which then get nullified by spammable single target slows, but I guess they do serve a purpose to slow down enemy movement so that players don't have to suffer carpal tunnel due to swinging their mouse 360 degrees all the time (that's what Quake is for). But yes the AOE ones are terrible, especially since Guardians/Juggernauts can make it resource-less. In beta, Mar/Sent could talent Smash/Sweep to spread Rupture/Cauterize, which when specced also slowed enemies; you got to spread a DoT for more damage/healing, slow a lot of people thanks to said DoT, and do burst damage in an AOE with one ability! Roots suck because for half of the ACs (melee classes) they are basically stuns that operate independently from Resolve in most cases. Not fun to fight against, but I am glad they are so few and far between (Charges being the exception).