I'm pretty sure dyes will come in the near future (hopefully 1.7 or RotHC), because of two things stated by Damion Schubert: Interview from Dulfy.net: Dulfy: "Armor dyes can introduce a great detail of personalization and variety for players in addition to all the unique armor models. Is there a plan to introduce this feature in the Cartel Market or are there technical limitations that would prevent this?" Damion: "No comment. Oh, how I would love to. But I can’t. Yet." And on the changes to Spymaster, Phantom and other gear sets: Damion: "We care a lot about the fact that you care about the appearances of your characters. In fact, the Mod system is my baby, largely because it allows players to customize their appearance to your liking. We have another, similar, one of my babies coming in the near future, which will allow even greater customization (you guys may have seen me hinted about it in recent interviews)."

Shield rating only increases your chance to shield an attack with an off-hand shield, which is only usable by assassins, powertechs and juggernauts (and their mirrors of course). Absorption rating increases the amount of damage shielded by the off-hand shield. Static Barrier and some other abilities also "absorb" damage, but that doesn't have anything to do with shield/absorption mechanics. Willpower gives you a bit less bonus damage (around 10% less as far as I know) but it increases your critical chance a little. I personally prefer willpower over power, but there are actually numerous threads about which is better for what.

The easiest way to find out such things is go to your character sheet and look at the bottom portion where it shows your stats. If you hover over an attribute, it shows which stats affect it. E.g. Force bonus damage is affected by willpower, power and force power. The power and such affect your damage, no matter what piece of gear it's on. Absorption & Shield rating only work if you're using a shield as an off-hand (which you can't as a sorcerer). Defense works, but it's only recommended for tanks. Critical rating increases your chance to get a critical hit. Surge rating increases the damage your critical hits deal. Power increases your bonus damage (better base damage). Willpower increases your bonus damage (a bit less than power) and also your chance to get critical hits (much less than critical rating). Force power increases your bonus damage (same as power, but only found on weapons). Weapon damage increases your melee damage (which sorcerers never use). Accuracy decreases your chance to miss an attack and also decreases your target's defense chance (don't use if you're a healer). Alacrity speeds up activated and channeled abilities (normally only found on healer gear).

OMG. You sir... you made me giggle!

I personally use the healing companion (in this case Talos) with all my non-healer characters. Even as a tank I find using a healer more effective than using a dps companion, because not having to recover after combat makes up for the slightly longer duration of fights.

They should send us all a shirt that says "I reached Legacy level 50 and all I got is this lousy T-shirt.".

^This. It wouldn't even have to be the same defence/shield chance and absorption as against ranged/melee. But making tank stats completely useless against tech/force with most specs relying heavily on those attack types is just plain retarded.

At this point it doesn't matter what it "should" look like. Many people bought the packs because of the look on the picture (the "fixed" set) and many other people bought the gear because of the item preview (the "broken" set). As I see it, the only way to fix this issue is to have both appearances in the game and give people the possibility to exchange one for the other.

Bad move, BW. Bad move.

I've been playing since Beta and I can't say I've ever been this pissed with BW. I spent almost 5M creds on an outfit that's built around the original Phantom Chestguard and now it looks like ****. Thanks a lot for that. Oh, and this:

I'm one of those Darkness Sins in DPS PVP gear. When I play PVE, I queue as a tank and I haven't had any problems tanking any of the Heroic 4s and Tier 1 HM FPs (no LI and no Ops). My point is: The Charge decides your role, not the gear. So Darkness -> Tank.

Energized Shocks that consume a charge of Recklessness deal an additional 50% critical damage.

I LOVE that bug!! I guess they'll fix it someday, but I really hope this inspires BW to create some less conventiional lightsabers (Guard Shotos, long-handle lightsabers, lightsaber pikes, a War Dragon rider's saber, etc.). (See: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber#Variations_and_specializations)

Red Mainhand & Blue Offhand seems to be very popular. I personally gave her 2 Purple ones (Champion Lightsabers).

Basically, the Stalker set is for DPS Assassins, Survivor set is for Tank Assassins, Force-Master is for DPS Sorcerers and Force-Mystic is for Heal Sorcerers. Since Black Hole gear doesn't have a set bonus, you can just mix the sets to your liking. I don't know much about PVE itemization, but in PVP I use the Heal Sorcerer's Implants and Earpiece, because they have better stats (as an example).

Respeccing is free once a week and doing it twice a week is still very cheap. I suggest you try out a few specs (Deception, Madness, Darkness, Darkness/Madness hybrid) for a couple of days and see what you like best.

It counts for the daily (1 HM) but not for the weekly (3 HM's). This could be resolved if it was a tier 2 FP, but - as you said - it's not.

I can't give you a complete list, because I simply don't know everything about every abilty. However, Leg Shot is definitely ranged. If it doesn't work, it's because of defense and has nothing to do with Force Shroud. Same with Low Slash, which is melee, for example. You're right. I took the information from the tool-tip in-game, which apparently is wrong. True. I just felt it was still worth mentioning.

1. I'm not sure about the other "special effects" you mentioned, but there are roots and mezzes that aren't Force/Tech based. So if a Sin pops his FS, you can still root him, move/stay 10m away and watch him do absolutely nothing. This works wonders in Huttball, when they think they can safely walk over the fire trap... 2. FS gives 100% Force/Tech resistance. If your Force/Tech accuracy is >100% you still have a (small) chance to hit them. 3. I'm not sure if it's a bug or just because of server lag. But I constantly see shrouded Sins being stunned, pulled, pushed, etc.

The difference between Willpower and Power isn't very big. Power adds slightly more bonus damage than Willpower. The latter increases crit chance by a small amount in return. As for the Expertise augment: I know it's listed on Torhead (and others), but I've never seen one in the game, so I'm not sure if they even exist (yet).

The gear doesn't have an influence on crew skill missions. Their affection towards you does, however.

You start gaining legacy experience once you unlock your legacy with one character, so yeah, you better wait until then before you create any alts. I don't know what you mean by "enough legacy points", though. You will still get legacy XP from everything you do from now on, even after your characters reach level 50 (character level, not legacy level).

The only difference between pieces of custom armor is what they look like (assuming they're the same armor type i.e. light, medium, heavy, adaptive).

It doesn't matter if you use orange or purple fully-moddable shells. The only stats that come with the shells are armor rating (light, medium, heavy, adaptive) and set bonuses for some gear (Tionese, Columi, Rakata, Battlemaster). What really counts are the stats on the mods you put into the shells.

Tionese, Columi, Rakata, Battlemaster: The set bonus is on the shell. Campaign, War Hero: The set bonus is on the armoring.