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I'm a Focus spec Guardian and don't feel all that squishy. Of course i'm easier to kill than when I was Defense Spec but then I felt like an unstoppable behemoth most of the time. Just a shame the behemoth was armed with the latest in Wet Noodle Offensive Weapons technology. But when I was Defense spec I couldn't leap in, stun them all, drop a focus bomb and do 4k damge to 5 enemies at once, slow them all and leap back to my team. Or leap in to a furball, taunt them all to reduce thier damge output by 30% for 6 seconds and leap back out to my healer.

I bought the tanking set as I was Defense spec at the time but if I could go back i'd save the commendations until 50. The set looks great and came in very usefull but wasn't much better than my PVE gear as it didn't have any Expertise. You'd be much better off saving the comms and using them on level 50 equipment. Also as you can only have 1000 commendations at a time, spend 200 Mercenary Coms (costs 600 WZ Coms) and buy a Champion Bag and keep it in the bank till you hit 50 (you can't open it till you hit 50 and can only have one at a time). Then buy Mercenary Comms so when you get to 50 you'll have one Champ bag ready to open and enough comms to buy 5 more. You should get Centurion and Champion Coms to get a near full set of level 50 PVP gear with lots of Expertise. Also 40 to 50 can go past pretty quick.

I think you posted this in the wrong forum. I assume you meant to post it in the WOW forum, or frankly anywhere but here. Levelling in SWTOR is more immersive, less of a grind and far far more entertaining than any other MMO i've ever played. And i've played a lot of them over the last 12 years. EQ, EQ2, DAOC, DDO, LOTRO, Anarcy Online, COH, EVE, WOW, AOC, AC, GW, WAR, SWG

Thanks for the comments guys. Second day experience update incoming as promised: Doing Dailies as Defense with Doc out my health rarely dropped below maximum so it seemed to be fairly quick as there was no downtime. However, my Wet Noodle attacks were prolonging the fights and as Focus they're considerable shorter. I think doing dailies as focus is much faster and a lot more fun. The childish appeal of killing 4 or 5 mobs at once may wear off but it hasn't yet. In PVP I switched to Shii-Cho form but didn't really notice any improvement in damage (i'm sure it was there) but I did feel a bit squishier. I think i'll stick with Soresu for now at least until my gear gets a bit better (I only have around 90 Expertise). I was fairly consistantly at the top of the medals and at least in the top three for damage. I'll post a screenshot of my stats later as i'd like a bit of feedback on what I should be prioritising. Apologies in advance for the Trooper look but its the only unmodded Orange gear I had free to turn into dps gear

Thanks Marqhill. Here's my build. Happy to answer any questions. Focus Build I did PVP last night in Soresu as I was concerned i'd be really squishy. However I seemed to die less than when I PVP'd in Defense. Maybe I just killed people before they could grind me down or (more likely) the playstyle of Focus is better for me personally. Using Guardian Leap definately adds to your survivability. I'll be trying tonight in Shii-Cho form and will update with my experiences.

Same happened to me, its definately caused by using the Fleet Pass, you need to go back and fly your ship to the Fleet and the quest will update.

And then you get a 22a thats not quite as good as the 23 mods you get from doing daily heroics. Add in the fact that you get credits and other drops while doing those dailies and making purple mods (with the additional cost of reverse engineering) is just not cost effective.

I respecced yesterday to Focus, equipped my gear and tried it out. I started testing it out on Belsavis dailies so my learning curve wouldn't affect anyone else, quite agood chioice as I died a couple of times while I got used to the changes. Next I tried some group stuff (Correlia Heroics) with 2 guild members it performed really well. I did need to watch my positioning to avoid breaking CC with my Sweeps but it wasn't as hard as I had anticipated. My sweeps were hitting around 4k. I was really interested in how it would perform in PVE so queued up later in the evening and got into Voidstar. It felt like it was working pretty well but considering I had no Expertise I wasn't expecting to make much of an impact. Imagine my surprise when I saw I was on the top of the list for damage! I got pretty much the same number of medals as usual (later I worked in Guard and used my taunts more often). My biggest hit was about 3.8k. I've got some more work to do on my gear, (definately need some more Expertise) but the change so far has been a good one.

I came to the GS forum to see if it was worth rolling an alt and read this post. I'm sorry you aren't having fun OP and that your going to re-roll. I can't suggest anything about Gunslingers as I don't play one (yet). But as my main is a JK, can I just suggest that they are more broken, do less damage and also smell of burning tires. You won't enjoy them so do yourself a favour and don't roll one. Really, you won't like it, they have cooties and everything. Try a Commando or Bounty Hunter, they are amazing, do tons of damage and smell of cookies. Honest! Sent 1: 'Do you think that might make him stay away from our class forums?' Sent 2: 'I really hope so. Did you tell him we smell of burning tires?' Sent 1: 'Shh, I think he might still be listening!'

I understand that Vigilance is better for sustained dps on bosses so probably the logical choice for PVE HMs and OPs. Add to this the opportunity to do a bit of off tanking and it seems like the only choice. But it just looks boring. Also I do like to PVP and Master Strike is just too situational for me. I do clip Master Strike to get the first and second (and third if they're dumb) hits but very few players in the 50 bracket fail to get out of the way and using a stun just to get off a MS seems like a bad idea.

Thanks Dee-Jay I'm leaning more towards Focus at the moment. When you look at the cons you identified the most offputting is the boredom rating of Vig over Focus. I'm good at managing resources and planning ahead so the cons of Focus don't worry me as much as playing a spec i'm just not going to have fun with. The only thing i'm a bit concerned about is being hamstrung by not being able to Focusbomb if the group is using CC. Anyone have any input on this, raiding focus spec guardian's views would be very welcome. The spec i'm planning is this: Focus Build

I quit WoW over a year ago when I realised I was only logging on to talk to my friends and the gear grind had become a ridiculous treadmill. I could probably be considered a Star Wars fanboi. I've loved it since I watched a New Hope when it was released in the mid seventies (I was 7) and with the exception of a couple of things (Jar Jar & Ewoks) I still love it. SWTOR is a great game, maybe its not what a hardcore raider or pvp'er is looking for (yet) but it'll get there I think. The game does have a few issues, the fairly low rez character textures for instance and far too many loading screens when travelling from Fleet to Planets. But none have stopped me playing and the same goes for my friends who came with me. None have quit and they all love the game still. I can wait to see what Bioware do over the next few months, who knows what they'll pull out of their sleeves, a greatly enhanced space combat expansion perhaps? Tauntaun/Dewback/Bantha mounts maybe? Whatever it is i'm confident that it'll be great. We'll just have to wait and see, just like we waited patiently for The Empire Strikes Back to come out three years after A New Hope.

Hi guys, I hit 50 a few days ago after levelling exclusively as Defense (and I loved it even if it was slower). But now our guild is getting ready for HMs and Ops and frankly we just have too many tanks. As the Guild Leader and because I seem to be pretty wealthy compared to my friends (and can afford to buy/make the gear I need) I agreed to switch to a DPS spec. I've built up some pretty good gear, i'm a Cybertech so mods, armouring etc are all purple Deft or Potent 22A's and purple Might 22a's and i'm doing dailies so I have the hilt and am working on the rest. I'm not focussing on any one stat like Surge or Crit so its pretty balanced and i'm nearly ready to respec. Now the question is as what? I like to PVP but obviously need to be viable for HMs. Which is best for me, Focus or Vigilance or maybe a Hybrid.

If you go with a cheesy 'Darkstrider/Lightbringer/Shadowind' name you'll get bored of it. And its really cheesy. Did I mention its high cheese content? I'd go with a surname thats in use now but is unusual and don't be afraid to change the spelling to make it more Star Warsy. Something like: Burr, Conway, Heaton, Hogan, Morgan, Reed, Reese, Connor, Hammel, Holden, Yager, Coster, Manser, Vogel, Wyman, Beckett, Ames, Ashby, Aston Belcher, Avery, Ballard, Cann, Cassidy, Drake, Amery, Baldwin, Hurst, Angle, Judd

When someone disagrees with you in a meeting and you say 'I find your lack of faith...disturbing'. And when you come to the conclusion that if you log off and go to sleep right now, you would only get 5 hours of sleep before work......and decide you could probably be ok on only 4.

This is the sad result of an entire generation having the word 'Ironic' defined by Alanis Morrisette. 'It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife' This isn't ironic, its just annoying. Now it would be ironic if you were the CEO of the Handy Knife Company and were trying to open a package of ten shousand spoons.

No no no, just keep doing what your doing. Your making me rich! Seriously, you need to identify what you want to achieve from crafting long term and shhort term. If you want to make money short term go with Slicing, Underworld Trading and Scavenging and sell the materials. Slicing is a cost neutral way of getting schematics which make you a lot of cash. In the Long Term I anticipate that Bioware will introduce schematics for all professions that will be in damand and therefore be profitable. It might be BOE Speeders for Cybertech, Augment Slot kits for Artifice or things like that. I went Synthweaving til I hit around 150 and decided I didn't like it and was always broke. I switched to Cybertech with Slicing and Underworld Trading and initially made some money before the Slicing nerf (which I agree with). At this point after a bit of a spending spree I was down to 150k. I then started doing Purple level 340 Underworld Trading missions and selling the Mandalorian Iron, Deneb Star Silk and Ciridium. The companion gifts I used and all the other fabrics I send to a friend. I now buy those 340 missions when they're under 30k each and generally have 4 companions running them once or twice each day. My bank balance is now at 2.4million.

And the thing those 15 people have in common other than playing SWTOR is you. Do you think your negative attitude might be influencing them perhaps?

Buy some Purple level 340 Underworld Trading missions. On my server they cost around 30k, take two hours to complete and return on average: 4 Mandolorian Iron 8 Ciridium 4 Denebrian Silk 8 Nanosilk 1 blue Companion Gift 1 Purple Companion Gift The Mando Iron sells at around 9k each, the Denebrian silk at 5k each, the Ciridium at around 2k each. I send the Nanosilk to a synthweaving guilde member but that would sell at 400 each (but slowly) and use the gifts on my companions. Net result = 72k sales making 42k profit. If you need the Mandalorian Iron for crafting then keep it and you should still make 5k profit (after taking off 3% GTN commision)

They drank coffee on the Titanic, so logically that caused it to sink.

"The British Health and Safety Executive recommend that a net flash rate for a bank of strobe lights does not exceed 5 flashes per second, at which only 5% of photosensitive epileptics are at risk." If your getting 5 GCDs per second then your obviously not playing the same game as me. There is no way that the current ability bar process could cause a siezure in even the worst sufferers of (Grand Mal) Epilepsy and to suggest otherwise greatly undermines your alleged 'trained medical opinion. The effect is not a strobe, simple as that.

To OP. Server maintenance isn't an insult. An insult is asking what your going to do for a face when the monkey wants his arse back. Just thought i'd clear that up for you. No charge, its a public service.

Well I haven't figured out the ratio between sell value & length of auction but I only put things up for 1 day anyway, for this its 13%. The commission on a sale is 3%. So if I put up a stack of 20 Mandalorian Iron at 9k each (180kcr) the deposit would be 23,400cr. If it sells (and they do on my sever at that price) I will get my 180kcr plus my deposit less the 3% commision (5,400cr). End result 174,600cr (8,730cr each). If you end the auction early you lose the deposit anyway so its only ever worth doing if you have put something up with a drastically low price and the deposit is lesser of two evils. If you don't sell you get everything back including your full deposit. If the commision is an effective moneysink as it affects those that can afford it based on their ability to earn. The deposit is a fairly effective brake on massive inflation by discouraging people from putting up ludicrous prices on rare highly sought after items.

Did I say that? Nope, certainly wasn't the impression I was trying to give at least. I am pointing out that not all problems with FPS are Bioware's fault. And flashing your e-peen about your 2000 euro rig doesn't do anything for me, i've known plenty of people who can spend lots of money and still not understand the basics of power management, airflow control or component compatability. However, i'm sure you have a beautifully designed computer that presents no issues at all and the fault is entirely with Bioware. /sarcasm Just interesting that my self built £400 Phenom II 960t Hex core with 8gb ram and a HD6850 (I would say this is a midrange build) beats the crap out of this game and I get a consistant 60+ fps in open world and 35+ fps in WZs and Fleet. Yes, I do a lot of pvp before you suggest otherwise.