You must have some pretty bad dps then. When we did Denova in the first week our dps was mostly columi, with a few rakata pieces here and there, and we never hit an enrage timer, with the exception of the 3rd puzzle boss turrets when we were still learning the encounter and didnt know the turrets could enrage Also, we did have problems with the bomb adds on the last boss but we found a way to beat them once we switched to burst dps rotations.

The new raid certainly is hard but take into account that it is a new raid and maybe slightly overtuned: it is easier to bring out something hard, and then enrf, rather than beginning with it easy and having to buff it. Overall, I think I'm satisfied with the new raid: so long as you do things correctly and follow the tactics you will be fine. I also like how the fights are designed. Boss 1 is basically a tank fight: switch properly and its fairly easy. Boss2 is a dps awareness fight (which hurt us cause it took awhile to get used to the DD beams....) Boss3 is a stupid puzzle fight that isnt as hard as it seems (though it is abit of a dps race). Final boss is....well, we couldn't down him in the first week because the tactics were nowhere near comprehensive and we didn't really have time to figure it out. Still, he will probably go down thsi week in my guild, and in many, many others I suspect, so its not like the new raid is so overtuned on story mode that you can't complete it. I will admit its very unforgiving for the gearlvl: since it drops Rakata, I assume we are meant to be in full Columi to be able to do this raid. Most of the raid we had were in a mix of Columi with a few Rakata pieces and we still found it quite challenging so it probably is just overtuned and, if so, will be nerfed in a week or 2 so there is hope

Ah ok ty. I'm not actually synthweaving yet just curious. Also, love your sig

Is it possible to reverse engineer Rakata gear to learn the recipes? The new 1.2 jedi knight campaign gear looks so ugly that I would not want to RE it...... Also, can you RE the strength augments to learn blues and then purple ones?

From a pure dps perspective, the only comparison I can make is the council fight in EV. I am a Guardian dps and I usually raid with a sentinel who has slightly better gear than me and he manages to kill his mob faster than me but it varies. One time, he was as much as 5secs ahead of me; the other times, I kill my mob right after he does. However, sentinels also have utility (damage buff for the 4man group on a 5min cd) which pretty much trumps anything and everything other classes can bring. Ultimately, an ideal raid won't have a Guardian dps. However, an ideal raid at this point would only have 1 sentinel and the rest ranged, preferably commandos because their grav rounds all stack with each other. And this, of course, assumes that they are all similarly skilled ie. not idiots. Needless to say, its harder than it looks to get an 'ideal' raid. In the end its simple: bring the player not the class. Plus I can also offtank if needed, though considering Karagga's design I'm fairly sure that Bioware want raids to take 2 dedicated tanks so offtanking will be a mute point in 8mans (perhaps useful in 16mans?).

Just did 4/5 EV HM for the 1st time (ignored buggy Soa) and every single boss dropped trooper gear... sometimes even 2 pieces of trooper gear! Needless to say, the single trooper healer in our raid now has awesome healing and dps gear Bioware plz fix the looting system. This sort of crap was seen in vanilla WoW years and years ago - and removed for obvious reasons - yet you still decide to implement a similar system? I understand you need to make players raid a lot because of lack of content but this is an incredibly cheap way of doing it.

The change to Zen Strike: does your master strike cd actually have to be refreshed ie. its been used and the cd reset to give the 2 focus or can the 2 focus be refunded even if you don't use master strike?

Yup. I recently started raiding and have had no problems doing normal operations (loleasysauce). HM's I can see a problem but its not a Guardian problem: the operations in this game are heavily skewed towards ranged dps classes. Every encounter I have seen and read about would be made infinitely easier with a full ranged dps setup. Having said that, my guild has downed the 1st boss in EV HM with a full melee group so its not impossible: just slightly harder Also to the above more experienced player: do you find urself using master strike/ravage often in ur rotation? I normally dont dps long enough on a target to run out of rage/get into an empty spot in my rotation so I just hit Plasma Brand/Shatter on cd and clip the dot. This is the best way when rage isn't an issue, right?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but atm even when a player has a full resolve bar they can be rooted/slowed. So even though Force Clap adds to the resolve bar, and I do see a problem in not being able to control ur cc, it will still root the target regardless of resolve, right? So at the very least we will be guaranteed a root

I'm probably being stupid/tired but where does it say the cooldown to Blade Storm is being increased? Can't find any mention of it in the patch notes.

Any particular reason the servers are shutting down from 6pm - 9pm GMT? Delaying a patch for a few hours shouldn't make a big difference....

But then you have 1 and 2/3 gcd time to use another skill which might increase dps, no? Or am I completely wrong? It just seems odd to me to deliberately clip a dot....goes against my instincts.

Title says it all. Shatter has a 9sec cd but a 12sec dot: do I use Shatter every cd and clip the dot or let it run?

So, Plasma Brand has a 9sec cd and a 12sec dot. I'm wondering if I should use it on cd all the time, thus clipping 3 secs from the dot, or leave it running?

Any other suggestions?

EU. Specifically, UK.

I'm trying to decide on a rp server and these are the 3 english ones available to me. I'm planning on going Republic but I have no idea which server to choose. Ideally, I'd like the server to do some PVE and PVP as well as RP, but the lvl 50 population seems quite low on the RP-PVE servers, and on Lord Calyphos there doesn't seem to be much RP going on at all. Many thanks for all helpful replies!

Just curious: Does Shatter and Impale share the same animation as Plasma Brand and Overhead Slash? Just curious because the animations have a small effect in combat (eg. the Warrior's interrupt seems to be slightly more reliable because its a simpler animation in my experience).

Generally, Watchman is a better levelling spec simply because it has more survivability in the Zen effect and defensive talents. Combat, generally, doesn't start showing any improvement until you get your Ataru form talents at 24ish. Focus I wouldn't bother with until lvl 40 when you get the final talent. As for companions, generally I would either stick to a tank, T7, or a healer, which you won't get until Balmorra at 36ish. Useful tip for companions: if they are damaged you can mount and then dismount, or dismiss and resummon them, and they come back with full hp. Usually faster than waiting 10seconds with ur self-heal to bring them back up to full hp. But, really, its more about which playstyle is more fun. Watchman relies alot on dots, Combat doesn't really use dots and instead focuses more on physical hits. Focus, once you get pretty high up the tree at lvl 40, is pretty much just building up a sweep to auto-crit and kill.

I don't know what you guys do but for me Master Strike is simply a filler ability. Usually after I leap, use sundering strike, and then burn throw my main damage abilities I have a period where I can either use strike to build more focus, which I don't normally need, or to spend that time using Master Strike as a filler ablility. And, as a filler ability, Master Strike completely blows strike/sundering strike out of the water

Title says it all. I'm leaning towards Watchman because it seems to hhave slightly more survivability (heals from crit burns and 100% dmg reduction for a few secs) but I may be mistaken. Any thoughts?

Title says it all. I'm rolling a JK, probably sentinel, and thinking of going dark side as a change of pace but not sure if the dark side story/choices make sense for a JK? Would the story be better if I was light side?

bumpsies

When I was relatively low lvl, 25ish or so, Vette gave me a red quest on Nar Shadda called Star of Ryloth. Afterwards, once the quest was completed, she didn't talk to me and has not talked to me so far even though I am now 32 and on Alderaan. Her affection is now over 5.5k and still no new conversation options: is this normal or is it bugged? Thanks!

Title says it all. Just dinged 30 and got Impale: shoudl i remove vicious slash from my hotbar now?