So the new Operation, Denova aka Explosive Conflict. Second boss (Twin Tanks, aka Stormcaller / Firebrand), in 16 man Hard Mode. My concern is whether or not this fight is overtuned. And, if it's not, what gearing is expected to be able to defeat it? My guild has clocked somewhere around 15 hours of attempts on this boss. It took us about 3 hours to figure out and down Toth and Zorn, and ever since we've effectively had that first boss on farm. After we figured out strategy on the first boss, we hit enrage, made a few minor adjustments to DPS uptime during the various phases in the fight, and it's been like clockwork ever since. But the second boss is causing intense frustration. We've had a handful of good attempts, all of which hit enrage with over 10% boss hp remaining. Due to the enrage apparently being so tight, we've called (wiped) most attempts after even a single death. There are numerous problems we've identified, only some of which seem to be strategy issues. Specifically: * Double Destruction soakers - if phase one (the DD phase) lasts long enough for a second DD to hit, it leaves the DDers still taking DD damage during phase two (shield phase), which can overstress the healers trying to keep themselves, the DDers, their shield group, and the kiting tank healed. We most often lose people to this. * Yellow Circle Soakers - this is the yellow circle that will select two raid members not in melee range of a boss, and must be cleansed to drop a Blue Damage Pole. The damage the circle leaves is high in 16m Hard, as is the damage the Pole generates if the Circle Soaker is even a little slow in getting clear of it. Combined with the need for these folks to get into a shield for phase two, and it is also causing losses. * Incinerate - this is a source of strategy debate among our officers, one of which is our raid tank. Most strategies I've seen online are using tank swapping to deal with Incinerate. Our raid tank *FLATLY REFUSES* to tank swap on this fight. Period. He insists on using a DPS Powertech or Juggernaut as a taunter about three seconds into DD's cast to pull Firebrand onto the Taunter when Incinerate begins casting as DD finishes, then taunting Firebrand back onto himself. If a damage spike comes in on the taunter (perhaps due to an early taunt), or if the taunt is late, it effectively wipes that attempt. So my general question is what do people think about this fight? Is it overtuned? Adding even 30sec to the enrage timer might be enough. *SLIGHTLY* lowering the DD and Blue Damage Pole damage might help somewhat. Or not doing either of those things (more time on enrage or lower damage) but instead adding 5 to 10 seconds on the timer that clicks off when a Double Destruction occurs might be enough. Assuming folks feel the 16m Hard is fine as is (and having taken some peeks at some World Raid Lists for SWTOR, it seems we're talking around twenty guilds total have ever dropped Stormcaller/Firebrand in 16m Hard, so that perhaps might argue in some minor tweaking for this fight to ease it slightly), I've been pounding myself silly trying to figure any strategy or gearing tweaks to get us past it. Denova Storymode mostly drops Rakatta gear. Excepting two or three people with ONE slot each, our raid is in full Rakatta or better, with an average of six augments per person. We've added about, oh I don't know, twelve or fifteen pieces of Campaign gear to the raid from 16m Toth/Zorn kills and the first chest (before it was nerfed to not drop anything useful). If the expected gear level for Stormcaller/Firebrand assumes heavy Campaign Gear on the raid . . . that seems to indicate you're looking at MANY weeks of farming Story mode to have any hope in 16m Hard. I would be more than disappointed to find the Devs expect that level of time investment in Story farming just to have any chance at all in 16m hard. Strategy wise, we've tweaked everything we can think of on this fight. Our people have assigned shield bubbles for phase two, and barring the inevitable attempts where someone screws up, get to their bubbles without problem. Phase 2 issues seem to be in each bubble group killing their add group quickly enough to be able to then return to the tanks WITHOUT delay when phase 1 resumes (i.e., max or near max up-time on bosses); some of the bubble groups leave one add on the ground when phase 2 ends; these adds tend to fire up the healers, stressing them as they try to keep themselves, tanks, and the raid up. We've already adjusted our DD soakers to be in different bubble groups, to spread that healing load during phase 2. The lack of tank swapping concerns me. The occasional issues with cleanse soakers (dealing with yellow circles) concerns me. But I'm at wit's end and have hit a brick wall in trying to figure out what else could be tweaked in our strategy. It is causing a LOT of morale issues in our guild. As pre 1.2 background, we were the first guild on our server to clear 16m Hard in EV and KP, the first to clear 16m Nightmare EV/KP (actually, the only guild on our server to clear 16m Nightmare). We had learning curves and strategy tweaks, but NONE of the pre 1.2 raids cost us so much time bashing our heads against the boss without any apparent progress. Looking for any and all comments of a constructive nature. Is it overtuned? Is there a strat failure? Thanks in advance.

My first character is a 50 Juggernaut, has been Battlemaster since mid January. If one wishes to be a guard bot and a one-trick pony (ball runner in ONE warzone), then roll Jug. Be prepared to die a lot unless a healer adopts you and is always with you in the warzone. Sure you can generate four additional medals via taunt (the 4th would take consistent and constant use of the taunt during the match), but you will be at a disadvantage against other classes. This is if you roll a DPS Jug. As an Immortal Jug, your damage will be a third (or worse) of a DPS Jug's (which is already lower than other dps classes'), without your defenses being correspondingly higher. Effectively, most attacks from most characters will cut through (ignore) your Defense and Shield Ratings. Only your armor mitigation will apply. You are a free kill for anyone. The most you can do to them is drag it out a little bit and irritate them with choke, push, snare, and ImRoar; you will not seriously threaten any other character that has two braincells to create friction with. If you want to PVP as a melee dps, Mythic is clearly indicating you should roll Marauder. The patch notes are buffing Maras and doing nothing for Jugs. DPS Jug vs DPS Mara, you are at a significant disadvantage. Mara hits harder and has several reset or I-WIN tools to guarantee a seriously major advantage in the engagement. If you are winning, they can vanish and reset against you, or pop the "Take No Damage" button without *any* penalty to their outgoing damage levels. Another of their abilities generates self-heals for a period. A Jug supported by a healer (preferably a Sorcerer healer who can bubble, speed, and pull) is a great Huttball runner. That's ONE of the FOUR Warzone types. And even in Huttball, if that healer isn't around, the Jug is easily dealt with by every other class type. In the other three (Alderaan, Voidstar, and the new zone that's coming) the Jug is a drag on their team *unless* they *again* have a dedicated healer. They will die a *lot*, and have difficulty staying in range to deal damage with the vast array of knockbacks, snares, and CC other classes have. The Jug's taunts and guard are close range abilities, and in guard's case again require a pocket healer. There really is no circumstance except the very specific case of Huttball where a PVP team is better served by having a Jug over a Mara. If a team is willing to dedicate a pocket healer to a player, they'll get MUCH more mileage by putting that healer in a Mara's pocket and telling the Jug to go reroll. And, for the record, Inquisitor classes (sorceror/assassin) are WAY better ball runners than Jugs, particularly assassins. Bubble, speed, pull, and the "can't be CC'd/Knocked Back/Dotted" ability allow them to score *at will* once they're past the first fire obstacle. Which is trivial to get into position to do when most of the rest of the assassin's team is *also* Inquisitors. It sucks. So much for pre-launch claims of "we want all classes to be viable"

This, so this. Mythic devs keep trying to do PVP games, and keep FAILING at it. They have no demonstrated understanding, or desire to, balance classes. Their games always have favored classes and don't-play classes. The only saving grace for SWTOR is leveling a character up isn't the ordeal it's been in other games; so one can simply roll the flavor-of-the-game class and go ahead secure in the knowledge they're safe and loved by the devs. For the record, Juggernauts/Knights do not appear to be on that list. I *really* didn't want to be a dual-saber toon, but it looks like I'll have to take another week to ten days to level up a marauder.

No, no, no. No in-game dps meters. No in-game threat meters. Combat logging to a file that can be analyzed out of game is perfect, covers all bases. Lets players optimize their performance, adjust, etc... Prevents meter watching and silly crap like "well I didn't CC or interrupt because I needed to boost my DPS". There is *no need* for them to be in-game. Players should learn to play, be focused on playing correctly and well. Meter watching is *NEVER* a part of playing correctly and well. Period.

SWTOR massively favors ranged. It's stupid; it's Star Wars. Lightsabers are useless in SWTOR, not how it should be. Reroll ranged. Devs wont' listen until rated WZs show solid SI/JC classes.

The result in PVP is healers are dangerous, and tanks are a joke. Tank v healer in pvp, healer wins. Tanks doing 25% of the damage of a dps spec, without any tank skills except armor mitigation (because defense and shield DO NOT WORK) . . . yeah, balance.

Everything, or most of everything, should be intended to encourage all players to go PLAY the game. In this context, playing would not be defined as logging in and crafting, then logging back out. Also, again in this context, it would not be defined as certain players logging in to buy stuff off raiders to then click some buttons and sell back to other raiders. I enjoy crafting, I have nothing against anyone who enjoys crafting. But I don't want to encourage a merchant class of players who only log in to click off recipes and never actually play. Anyone logging in should be interested in PLAYING. Going on FPs, Ops, WZs, world quests, world bosses, etc... Not sitting in fleet for three months straight chatting and watching a progress bar. The problem with crafting in SWTOR now is if you're a player looking for additional character power, only Biochemistry gives that in endgame. The other crafting skills are useful for *leveling* characters, but not *leveled* characters. This needs to be changed, and we're all waiting to see how Bioware does with their promised patch addressing the issue. What does NOT need to happen is for tier three level crafting recipes and materials to be dropping via raid and sold on the auction house. There's enough profit taking and elitist pricing happening on the GTN already. Making such recipes/mats salable by raiders to non-raiders will just dramatically enrich raiders over non-raiders to an even greater extent than is already occurring with the sale of raid-drop recipe crafts like augment slot implants. Artifice has craftable relics that seem to be best in slot, especially if the crafter crits for an augment slot. The problems with these relics now is first it takes seemingly dozens and dozens of relics to get the crit (burning stacks of hard to get mats for no benefit), and second the other crafting skills don't have something comparable. Biochem has easily accessed, reusable adrenals/stims. That's a good perk for Biochem. The answer to fixing the other crafting skills isn't to give them all their own triggerable buffs. The answer is to extend what Artifice has. Armstechs should be able to put an extra augment slot into their gun, Armormechs/Synthweavers should be able to put an extra slot into one or two pieces of armor. Etc . . . and so forth. Going a step further, keep the current (dropped) tier gear (PVE and PVP) as it is. But give Artificers/Armstechs the ability to craft and sell custom mods that go into weapons, mods that have *different* stat arrays than is currently available from the existing mods attainable by pulling them out of tier gear. Same for Armormech/Synthweaver. As an example, all the Modification mods available to snipers in Rakatta and Battlemaster (tier 3) gear each offer either a 2:1 ratio of Cunning and Endurance, with a few points of either Power or Crit, or a 3:2 ration of Cunning/Endurance with a larger amount of Power. The Enhancement mods are all Endurance with a choice of either Accuracy and Power or Crit, or Alacrity and Power or Crit. If you're a sniper that only wants a certain amount of Accuracy, or doesn't want Alacrity, you're hosed unless you're tier2 and get your hands on non-IA Columi tokens to turn in for a piece of gear off another class' gear list JUST because you want the Mod or Enhancement (and the Mod won't have Cunning on it so it sucks); this is even worse if you're Tier3 and trying to get your hands on a 'spare' non-IA Rakatta token for the same reason. Open this up; there are other secondary stats available in the game, they're just difficult to obtain without going through a huge amount of hoop jumping and lots of credits blown into the ether removing mods. One of the best things about WOW's gear system (once you had the gear) was the ability to customize it towards your preferred play style via enchantments, gems, and crafter specific things like adding slots and crafter-only upgrades. Allowing SWTOR crafters to create and sell a more open array of mods would give crafters a market, and let players have fun with SOMETHING TO DO as they tweak out their gear. As an example of this propsal, DPSers are interested in Accuracy, Alacrity, Crit, Force and Tech Power, Surge, and Power. Bioware can use their own internal metrics of item budgets to control the splits, but open it up. A sniper might want a mod that has Crit/Surge, or Tech Power/Accuracy, or whatever. Tanks revolve around Defense, Armor, Shield and Absorb. Let them access a mod that has Armor/Shield, or Defense/Absorb, etc... These recipes should drop out of any level 50 gameplay (not only Hardmode OPs), and the mats to make them should be NOT as prohibitive as Artifice's relics.

SI classes (both Sorcerer/Couciler, and Assassin/Sage) are quite overpowered. * Bubble, absorbing seeming north of 4K dmg, replaceable every 20sec. Combined with the other abilities, a 1v1 fight vs a SI/JC requires you to output at least 24K HP of dmg to kill them (minimum 16K hp basic health of the SI/JC, plus two bubbles as their other abilities guarantee the fight will go longer than 20sec). And that figure is probably low by 2-4K HP, as a Battlemaster or Rakatta geared SI/JC will probably have closer to 18-20K HP; *and* this figure assume they won't heal at all during the fight. Further, this is talentable to PBAOE stun for a second when broken. * Point-Blank AOE knockback, every 20sec. Modifiable with a auto-root after the knockback. Melee is completely neutralized by this, and Operatives/Scoundrels, and some flavors of BH/TR are heavily marginalized by it. Assassins/Sages would be neutralized by it but they have all the SI/JC advantages to counter with. * Speed. Every thirty seconds. Combined with bubble, hazards are meaningless to SI/JC classes. Worse, speed auto-breaks snare effects; speed is one of their "I'll kill you in a moment" abilities. Any melee worth anything snares any target they engage within the first three seconds. Speed completely ignores snare, allowing the SI/JC to reset the encounter back to max range. * Lightning/TK attack that auto-snares and is easily talented to be endlessly spamable - a base attack, *all* SI/JCs get this, even the stealth/tank variants in the form of Assassin/Sage. * Ranged stun - many classes get this. * Ranged 10sec CC - modifiable by talents to be a 1sec cast, and further modifiable to stun the target for two seconds if it breaks early. * Ranged slow * Healing * DOTs - some of which are insta-cast, and can be talented to heal the SI/JC on crit ticks, which typically means every third tick, at least, will be throwing healing back. Assassin flavors of SI/JC receive several additional stuns. Caster flavors of SI/JC receive AOE. Quite frankly, anyone arguing they're not overpowered is insane, or lying. Period. Their abilities make it impossible for any melee to stay on them to actually do damage. The array of SI/JC abilities *might*, *MIGHT*, make sense if either of two things were true in SWTOR that were true in *OTHER* MMORPGSs that had ranged vs melee battles. Those things were that, typically, melee had higher dps output to counter the time they spent not in melee range (meaning they did more damage when they were in range to make up for the time they spent not dpsing), and that typically ranged classes were squishier and easier to kill than melee classes when applying damage. SI/JC classes are NOT squishier compared to other classes. SWTOR has uniform hitpoint levels across all classes. The difference between a Rakatta geared Tank Juggernaut and a Rakatta geared DPS Sorcerer is less than 4K HP; between DPS variants of both they're almost identical in HP. The tank will have about 20 to 25% more armor mitigation (meaning, for every 100 damage, the tank takes usually 45-50 of it vs the sorcerer taking 70-75 of it). The tank compensates for this by having no more than a third of the damage output of non-tank classes, probably actually more like a *fourth* of the damage output. SWTOR melee also do *NOT* have increased dps. If you go in raids, most people tend to tip their hats to Snipers and Marauders as the best dps to bring, and the marauders only get the nod because of their raid-wide Bloodthirst buff. I know of no raids or guilds begging for dps melee classes to join up. So having removed the 'traditional' MMORPG melee advantage of increased DPS burst and ranged disadvantage of extra squishiness, it makes absolutely no sense for SI/JC to be designed as they've been except that ex-Mythic devs were involved, who have shown in their prior games to favor ranged. Let's walk through a theorycraft encounter that closely emulates what's happening thousands of times per day on the servers when a SI/JC fights a melee * DPS Sorcerer and DPS Juggernaut see each other at the same time, range 40m * Sorc throws Lightning at 35m with their self-buff cooldown, ticking for about 1K per, and autosnaring. * Leap's range is 30m, so two to three ticks hit before the Jug can leap. Jug down 2K HP. * Jug lands doing 1K-1.5K from the Leap attack, and if he's spamming gets Smash off for 3K (Rage spec). Sorc triggers PBAOE Knockback. Jug is now 10m away (6m from melee range of 4m) and down 3K HP since Knockback also does damage. We'll assume the Sorc isn't talented for root but that really just makes this whole thing worse. Sorc is down nothing but a popped bubble so far. * Sorc Slows the Jug and kites back out to 32-33m, taking probably about 4sec tops to do this. He tosses insta-DOT while doing it, since it's instant and takes no time. Jug can throw his saber, which will do about half what the dot will over its duration. * At this point, I don't have exact math on speed of characters, but countless encounters indicate it's about 10-12 seconds minimum to reclose on the Sorc as he spams lightning. In that 12sec, Sorc spams four full lightning cycles, each for a minimum of 3Kdmg per. Counting the dot (assuming it wasn't refreshed somewhere during the Lightning spam) and the saber throw, Jug is now back in melee range and down 2K (initial) + 1K (knockback) +1K (dot) + 12K (Lightning) 16Kdmg, or about 25% HP remaining. Sorc is down 1K and about 8-10sec until rebubble. See the pattern? Certain variations really don't alter the outcome here at all. If the Jug saves leap for after the knockback, he takes the 12K dmg initially, is knockedback, releaps, and is still down at 25%. If the Jug leaps and chooses to Force Choke, he only delays the knockback without actually seriously threatening the Sorc since Choke will do less than 3K dmg for the three second duration of choke. If the Jug triggers his Saber Ward CD, it turns a 25% HP remaining to something like maybe 35% HP remaining. Further theorycraft variations. Rage Jug, so he has Obliterate, right? 10m Leap. So he takes 3 Lightning cycles, not four. Upon landing, the Sorc can choose to stun, or speed, to break contact again. And we haven't even gotten into the Sorc's self heal. At any point, the Sorc can choose to self-heal, with or without breaking from melee range. Ah, but Jug has interrupt. Right, so the Jug interrupts a heal (12sec cooldown to reinterrupt), costing the Sorc a GCD. The sorc simply casts his OTHER heal while the first one is locked out, and four seconds later can go back to the interrupted heal if he chooses. At the 20sec mark in this encounter, the Sorc rebubbles, and has plenty of time before it drops to get off two or three heals, minimum, if he actually even needs them. And the sorc can choose to Whirlwind at any point and reset the engagment back to max range and get off 3-4 more heals before the CC breaks. The only Sorcs that die to melee are skilled melee beating *dumb* Sorcs. Average players on both side, melee wins only on a freak occurrence. And the above theorycraft is postulated in a barren open field. It doesn't include the obstacles and terrain that exist in warzones. In huttball, most engagements will occur either near a hazard or on a catwalk; meaning the Knockback puts the melee either dead or unable to reengage. The sorc then either goes on with his scoring maneuver or stands on the edge of the catwalk and finishes the melee off, as he choose. In Alderaan/Voidstar, the sorc can use pillars and platform edges to buy time to heal and maneuver while the melee moves around the obstacles to reengage. It's ridiculous, and insulting. SI/JC are extremely overpowered. Suggested changes to balance SI/JC: * Bubble either needs to be AT LEAST halved in absorb amount, or the rebubble period should be AT LEAST doubled. * Speed needs to be AT LEAST one minute (not 30 sec) cooldown, and should not auto-break snare. Allow speed to apply its movement increase rate, but calculated from the snared base, not the unsnared base (as it does now) * PBAOE Knockback needs to be AT LEAST one minute cooldown, and should not be allowed to auto-root. * Lightning's auto-snare needs to be flatly removed, period. If snare remains, cost to cast should be at least tripled, OR remove talents that enable it to be endlessly spammable. * Healing should be removed to be a Sorcerer/Councilor item only (no Assassins/Sages). Heals should be locked out for ten seconds following the cast of any offensive spell other than a dot. * Assassin/Sage triggerable ability that renders them immune to CC should break instantly if speed is active or triggered. Speed + Bubble + at-will CC Immune allows Assassins/Sages to score effortlessly from beyond the last, even next to last, huttball hazard. I PVP alot, and I'm also a member of a server-first raid guild. Some of these changes will impact our raids. Too-bad; we'll find ways around bubbles that absorb half as much, around dps sorcerers that can't just frantically tap their lightning key over and over in a raid, etc... Finally, should no changes be made, I'll wait. It's fine. Even the ex-Mythic devs will have to admit reality when the devs deliver on the ranked Warzones they're promising, and all the winning teams are 6+ SI/JC. I promise you, in a ranked/ladder WZ situation, you'll *never* see an all SW/JK team anywhere near the top. You'll see only an *incredibly* few number of 8 massively skilled players fielding a 8 BH/TR or 8 IA/SM teams near the top. You'll see *LOTS* of SI/JC teams dominating at the top. If that doesn't illustrate the problems, then there's no hope and everyone should reroll the Flavor Of The Game class, because it'll sure as heck not be a FOTM at that point. SI/JC flames will recommence at this point in the thread. Enjoy.

Objective points are either very screwed up in how they're awarded, or are just flat bugged. Specific examples: * Huttball game where I scored three (carried across the goal line), participated in two other scores (carried ball at some point and made a pass to someone else); zero objective points awarded * Alderaan game where I capped a point, defended it and another throughout the game, stopped three separate counter-cap attempts; zero objective points. * Voidstar game where I planted two bombs (that detonated) on the doors, interrupted at least half a dozen defuse attempts, and interrupted probably about a dozen bomb planting attempts while defending; zero objective points.

I am a SW Juggernaut raid tank, and a IA Sniper raid dps for my guild. If your guild is unable to manage threat in raid encounters without crutches like total agro drops and misdirects, they are fail. Period. First of all, pay attention. Second, ranged dps has the same 30% threat buffer in SWTOR they did in WOW (meaning, ranged players have to exceed the tank's threat by 30% before pulling agro). Third, almost every encounter should start with a 5-10 second threat buffer; where the raid does light dps to allow the tank to build a threat buffer. And fourth, there are multiple tools for managing threat in SWTOR raid encounters. Some classes have agro drops (my sniper does, and classes with stealth vanish do as well). SI/JC have force pull, with is a threat drop on the pulled player. Finally, the tank has taunt, which works quite well as a 'reverse' misdirect if you wish to think of it like that. Specifically, SWTOR Taunt puts the tank equal to the top threat number on the taunt target, and locks that target on the tank for 6sec. As a tank, if I have an overeager or inattentive dps who's pulled on a raid target, I have the tools to at least partially mitigate the situation. But SWTOR threat is balanced more like WOW's Burning Crusade threat than the faceroll LOTK/CATA threat. In BC, if a dps wanted threat, they had it. If they were insistent on going full out, they were tanking it. Period. SWTOR is like that. SWTOR dps' job is to know when to burst and when to not. That said, it is the tank's job to know how to roll their heaviest threat attacks in a rotation to maximize their role as the tank. SWTOR tanking is not E-Z mode late-expansion WOW style tanking. Tanks have have to have the skill, same as SWTOR dps has to also have skill. And that skill means more than "this is my maximum rotation and all I have to learn is that". SWTOR grouping is a *group* skill requiring all players to know how to manage the encounter. It is not E-Z mode where the healer and dpsers switch off and rely on the tank to correct all their mistakes and bad play. Unfortunately for SWTOR, WOW's biggest growth phases came during E-Z mode LOTK and CATA, where the tank was all but guaranteed threat by the design. This has rendered a lot of players used to E-Z mode, and unable to pay attention to an encounter. To specifically address the OP's complaints about being unable to max out their cooldowns in burn phases, my guild does not have the threat issues he's describing. When we burst on Annihilation or Fabricator droids, SOA, or Jarg/Sorno, our groups keep threat on the tanks. And to be very specific, when we burst on those, when I'm in there on my sniper and I burst, I pop relic + lase target + Rakatta Attack adrenal + 20% Alacrity boost. This happens two seconds before the bust phase opens. Orbital strike will be triggered, followed by Ambush, Followup, Takedown, Overload, Series of Shots, single grenade, Snipe, then back to Ambush. During that period, just about every pulse of damage I output is hitting for between 3K-4K minimum, and Orbital is overlapping with the other attacks. During the fight, I have been agro dropping regularly, and the tank has been rolling max threat, and none of us pull agro. When I'm tanking those same targets, I open with Throw, Leap, Smash, Sunder, Retallation, Crushing Blow. These abilities (minus throw/leap) are rolled as often as possible. If my mob turns early, I actually welcome it. I then single taunt, Backhand, Force Choke, and return to my rotation. The taunt evens me to the top of the threat table, and Backhand/Choke are extremely high threat attacks. We actually have our other sniper, and our sorcerers, go full out for seconds 5-20 of the fight for this reason, and they agro drop when they see the mob turn then turn back to me. At that point, I have a large threat buffer. SWTOR is tuned fine for pve. Skill is back in session. Bottom line, L2P. ps: our guild is server firsts for 16m NM EV and NM KP, and 8m NM KP, including the timed 8m NM KP run. The only reason our raids aren't utterly full Rakatta on each player is we're cycling in alts and a few new folks to gear them. The above examples I give are not happening in 8m normal mode operations. pps: any tank, especially a raid tank, that has taunt in their regular raid tanking rotation (absent specific fights like Foreman Crusher who agro changes after each frenzy phase), is a bad. When I say their regular rotation, I mean they're regularly triggering taunt throughout the fight. That shouldn't be happening. It shouldn't have to happen. The tank should have a high threat rotation, and the group should be managing the fight with the tank, not against the tank).

Remove premades, or implement a no-premade queue option (meaning everyone in that queue is solo queueing), and put in whatever deserter buffs you want. This topic keeps coming up, and it always boils down to "my premade is tired of our victims leaving". When the opposing team scores within 25-35 seconds of the opening, with only me at the ballcarrier (for the two seconds I'll be there before being knocked off the walkway by a SI/JC), yes I'm fricking leaving. Waste of my time. When the bomb is planted within 30 secs on the first door in Voidstar with half my team not near EITHER door, yeah I'm fricking leaving. Waste of my time. When the other team two-caps with half my team not near ANY of the three nodes, yeah I'm fricking leaving. Waste of my time. I repeat, implement non-premade queues, and you can put a fiscal dollar deserter penalty in for all I care. Some of us aren't interested in matching against vent coordinated groups of 4 SI/JCs.

Gave up on, and lost interest in finishing the agent story with ALL the POINTLESS zoning between planets. Go here, back to Drommund Kass, back where you were, etc. The last straw was finishing and zoning off Belsalvis,only to have to zone RIGHT back in for a pointless cutscene. When zoning is two plus minutes, and the game has memory leaks, its not mere annoyance that is making me angry.

The deserter threads all boil down effectively to the same thing. "We went in with a premade and are pissed our victims/targets refuse to stay so we can roflstomp them. Wahhhhhh" Give the ability to queue for a no-premade WZ and put in whatever deserter debuff you want. Put in a debuff and force people to play vs premades, lots will just sit afk in the corner. There is no point in playing when there's no chance. Do you see the 3+:1 outnumbered realms entering Illum? Unless its in a huge pack? A pack that leaves when word gets around on the outnumbering side to flood in and, you know, outnumber them into the bedrock? No? Wonder why. Those spoilsports should be forced to zone into Illum so we can do our daily by roflstomping them. Sound silly? Same thing as ALL these deserter theads. Get over yourselves.

Still looking for comment. Intended for tanks to be as squishy as dps with a third or less of the damage, or is this a mistake?

Lets see . . . Target, attempt to engage. Knocked back, snared. Ranged lights me up for 4 to 6 sec while trying to get back. Dead. Melee does NOT have the tools or damage to compete in this game. Snipers have two kbs, stun, AOE cc, root, and cannot be charged unless not in cover. Oh, and they can be immune to being pulled from cover for 10ish sec every 30. Sorc has snare, AOE kb, ranged stun, mitigation bypassing attack that auto snares, 10sec cc, dots, heals, and absorb. Oh, and speed that auto breaks snares. Stealth classes get stunlock plus increased damage during that burst period, and a one button "oh I'll just kill him in a minute when my CDs are back up" in combat stealth if you somehow manage to live through the burst. My melee is doing dailies while I finish leveling my sniper. Its a frakking STAR WARS game and lightsabers are useless. CC break needs to give 5 to 10 sec of immunity. All snares, roots, and cc need to be on resolve and diminishing returns. Stunlock is not fun; being ********ed while helpless is not fun. No cc should be AOE in pvp. CC includes kbs and snares. Being forced, as melee, to have another player be your dedicated healer, just to survive long enough to get knocked into fire SUCKS. Fire all devs that came over from Mythic. Redesign all game elements they worked on. Their prior games show a strong fetish for mega ranged and anti-melee. This is Star Wars. A Jedi or Sith is not supposed to a laughable target.

Honestly, no. FPS issues are ***killing*** me. Looking back to before the end of the year, I think the only way I got my warrior to 50 was the story and the joy of Star Wars. Trying to level any of the several alts I've started is not working. The planets are just lag city. Maybe my main got up because I was so far ahead of most everyone else there wasn't as many players to hammer the zones past 30. Pvp is a teleport fest, with abilities not hitting, targets being so far away on theserver, but not on my screen, that I'm massively kitable. The Horrid FPS thread is on its 7th or 8th iteration now with no meaningful fixes or acknowledgements. One of the lead designers gave a interview that claimed only 5% of players were having performance issues. That was a joke, hurtful, and brought much rage. My box is not bottom 5%. My Radeon5770 continues to show 0% gpu load while playing. Now new content with no fixes. Illium is a complete joke; one frame per 3 to 5 seconds. Can't even do those dailies now. Pve dailies are worse, strong mobs 7 or more levels below me take me down below one-third due to ability lag. Email to customer service gets an insulting canned response that does not even specifically address the technical issues. Faith no more. Angry. Beyond annoyed. Fix. The. Game.

Its incredibly stupid. An estimated 125 bags, at least. I have SEVEN relics, three ears, four heads, amid several other duplicates. Not. One. Frakking. Weapon. Putting up with WZ FPS lag bugs is hard enough. I want my frakking weapon. Whoever designed the random system should be shot.

They should let the players decide. Implement the option to check off if you want a premade or non premade que. Non means no premade groups will be matched in the WZ you go into. Population numbers will indicate who's having to wait longer. Not everyone wants to pvp against jerks linked in vent who always double and triple team. Don't see any non jerk reason why premades shouldn't ALWAYS be forced to match only against other premades.

Patch discussion by devs today. No comments on this. No announced fixes for this or fps issues. Lovely

Well I went ahead and respecced my Juggernaut today, since the Devs can't be bothered to comment on whether or not this is intended, or a bug. Shields and Defense Rolls are *NOT* working in PVP. Post-respec, night and day. Still as squishy and killable as Immortal; same time to live, etc... But the damage means I can actually take on one-vs-ones with confidence, I can actually threaten a ball carrier, and it's just . . . wow . . . did I say night and day already? If tank stats worked correctly, having dropped ~20% of Defense and ~20% of Shield / Absorb would have shown up in my squish factor. It hasn't. Not squishier; just as squishy. Only difference is the ability to Smash Crit for 3K+, vs 0.8K. Incredibly disappointed in the tank role in pvp. Because it's non-existent. Juggernauts, reroll Rage. Perhaps if the population of Immortal Juggernauts plummets that'll actually roust some of the Live Team out of their post-launch stupors and get them to notice the issue. Reroll Rage. Strongly encouraged. So let's see. FPS issues, no fixes; check. Tank issues, no fixes; check. Faith is falling behind.

Still awaiting dev comment on whether or not this is intended. It'd be nice to know, so I can either write off my Juggernaut as a waste of time or have any hope they'll FIX THIS.

Still looking for a dev response on this. Are sabers supposed to be second class citizens? Tanks are useless? This means they are, and need to know if that's by design or a bug. If latter, WHEN is the FIX coming?

This . . . is . . . a bunch of words the filter will never let through. That's such a bait and switch piece of frakking filth. WWWWWHHHHHHYYYY does the PVP vendor offer Tank Gear if it's utterly useless in PVP. I mean, jeeeeeeeez, like we need any more evidence what the devs' favorite classes are? Obviously none of them ever played a tank in pvp, they were too busy having a ball blasting people on a SI/JC. It's crap. Shadowbane offered a ton of race / class / point combinations to build a character with, guaranteeing lots of players would choose poorly, because there was no way most of those were balanced or working correctly. There were only a few correct choices. This is even worse than that. They made such a deal proclaiming how tanks would finally have a role in PVP. How you could not have to respec to enjoy PVP with a tank character. They offer Tank Gear with Tank specific stats on the frakking PVP vendors! So not only are the PVP bags still utterly random, and you have almost no chance of getting the item(s) you want out of the dozens upon dozens of bags you have to open, but when you finally do get a token to exchange for a piece of gear, you're wasting all that time pounding on the RNG if you select a tank PVP item. I mean. Wow. Just Wow. First the FPS bug. Followed by the unoptimized client in almost every area of the game. Now this. It does explain why operatives and sorcerers can vaporize my 50 Immortal Juggernaut. So I guess while I wait on a dev to bother to comment, and then wait weeks past that tardy comment for them to get the whatever out of the where ever and actually FIX this issue, I'll start selecting damage gear off the PVP vendor. I mean, why bother with ~45% mitigation, ~30% defense, ~36% Shield and ~30% absorb if it's just wasted points. Might as well attempt to retool to be dangerous. It incredibly sucks that I'll have to actually keep PVPing on my Juggernaut, because I'm foolishly going to assume they'll actually fix this; and if they finally do, I don't need to be one or more tiers of gear behind all the players that choose correct classes. And respend my talent points; everything in Immortal is wasted. Why bother spending 35+ points on things like +6% defense, +6% shield, Invulnerable, etc.... I could be buying things that might actually help me get kills amid the FPS teleporting lag fest. Jeez. Just wow. You've got to be kidding me. Rapidly beginning to lose faith in Bioware. Still no actual information, or fixes, on the FPS bugs; no fixes that actually let my GPU do the work it's designed for instead of sitting at 0% load while pvpers teleport and abilities lag on my screen. Now the game has launched with a balance issue like this. All I ever wanted to play in SWTOR was an Immortal Juggernaut. Had no interest in anything else. Time. Wasted. Shoulda inquired as to the pet Dev classes and rolled one of those. Those work. Those succeed. Those are not gimped. Upset does not even begin to describe.

Since 50s only is being added, and I figure the devs are in love with the current class balances (which means they won't change) . . . Is it too much to hope for a que option that puts only Warriors / Knights into the zone? So incredibly tired of aoe knockbacks, stun locks, ranged damage snares, etc... Melee has little chance to get and stay in combat in this game. After all, all three trailers showed Warriors and Knights locked in furious saber combat. That is almost impossible to have in current warzones. And if you actually do get into a saber battle, some Sorcerer / Councilor, Agent / Smuggler, or Hunter / Trooper will see it and go "ooooh, busy targets, time to light them up" Really, is this so much to ask?

Still unhapy; frames are unplayable in warzones. Have already submitted dxdiag and steps taken. Radeon HD5770 won't run at playable frames even in 800x600. That's beyond stupid. Something new I've noticed as I continue to investigate. My gpu monitor reports the gpu is ***NOT*** under load during play. Repeat, the gpu shows it is at 0 or occasionally 1% load. That means the client is not putting the render work on the graphics card. Its putting it all on the cpu, which explains why my cpu is normally pegged out at 90%+. Effectively, I have a power drawing paperweight in my card slot as far as SWTOR is concerned. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiix it. How can a 2011 game ship without proper client calls to a GRAPHICS CARD??!?!?!?!?!