^THIS If the hard mode was too easy, Bioware will also loose money as lots of people become bored with content that is too easy. If you want an easier difficulty, play normal mode.

Ilum PvE dailies are staying in the game, it is the Ilum PvP which is no longer in the game.

The point of this restriction is to prevent a single player from getting their own personal guild bank. Suck it up, create the alts, and move on.

Bioware doesn't want personal guild banks. This is the key you are missing. They want a guild bank to be for guild usage and not for your alts. I'm not sure why you would even need a guild bank for your alts. It's hard just to fill 2 tabs in a personal vault unless you are an hoarding for some odd reason.

First of all, you have this reversed. Shadowsight increases defense and I personally take both points in this skill. Mental Fortitude increases endurance and I only take 1 point in this as filler to move up the tree. I don't take additional points since by the time you have your full spec, you will have way more hitpoints then you really need. My build is this.

So having to make one extra move with the pieces is better than having to move to a new gun?

Really? Our guild has never done that. We generally put the healers on the assassins and tanks on the Jugs. Although occassionally we switch the main tank to take Kahesh if that healer is having issues.

This math doesn't add up for me you start wtih 12 ammo and use Incendiary Rounds which takes you to 9 ammo. You then fire High Impact Bolt which costs 2 ammo but refunds 1 due to High Friction Bolts. So ultimately the math is 12 - 3 - 2 + 1 = 8. So you are still ok for regen. So then use a Hammer Shot or 2 to recover some ammo and then fall into a normal rotation. With this in mind, you should stay at 8 or above. and grenades.

Do you have a scenario in mind in any of the raids or flashpoints where you would possibly guard the healer rather than the DPS? I'm not trying to be confrontational. I am genuinely curious if you have found a place where you feel this is a necessity.

I absolutely love shadow tank. If I had to fall back on another one I would probably do Vanguard. Vanguard probably is the easiest one, but the others aren't bad at all. Shadow requires a little more effort but also comes with more utility than a Vanguard. Guardian can also be very effective but it requires the most effort of the 3. In my guild, most of the Guardians have changed to a Vigilence spec for DPS since I handle main tanking and we have a Vanguard off tank.

It would probably very between tests since mitigation is based on the random number generator. Generally a high defense character will take more spikey damage. They will avoid some attacks outright but when they do get hit it will generally be for more damage (since they likely have less shield/absorb). A high shield/absorb character will take more smooth damage. They will not avoid as many attacks so they will get hit more often, however, when the get hit they take much less than full damage. Ultimately it is up to playstyle. I find personally that I prefer shield/absorb. While at times I may take slightly more damage, my damage taken is more predictable making life easier for my healers in group settings. While leveling, I didn't really notice much of a difference either way.

The easiest way to get more absorb is switch out defense mods for absorb mods.

RDeanOU, the 9 points is to get the first 1%. I get that it isn't static. If you went to the link I gave you and read through it, you would see that not only are the formulas listed but towards the bottom of the orginal post, there is an explanation of how the formulas are derived and what the values mean. I am not making up my own calculations. Instead this is all based off of calculations done by people spending hours and hours of time verifying these values. As for class bonuses, I am not including them when talking about the initial calculations since they are added after the percent from stats is calculated. I am talking about base stats. I agree that it isn't always 100% a certain way, but in most cases Shield/Absorb is a more effective way to go for mitigation and it definately makes life easier for your healers. That is actually the first thing my healers noticed when I switch from defense to shield/absorb.

While this is a nice thought, most boss fights the tank shouldn't be running around. They should be planted and somewhere to position the bosses a certain way. In doing this, they become more stationary. If you plant at range and start tanking the boss, he will simply move to you in melee range. So effective, range tanking only buys you 1 or 2 ranged attacks before the fight begins and then you are being a melee tank.

I can honestly say I have never encountered a need in any flashpoint or operation where I needed to guard the healer rather than the DPS. It doesn't make any sense. If anyone is going to pull threat from the tank, it is the DPS. If anyone is going to be taking large chunks of damage other than the tank, it is the DPS. Yes healers can get hit with area damage but they are healers so they can heal through it. It is better to protect the DPS who will have to wait for the healer to heal them.

Defense rating (from stats) is capped at 30%. Shield and absorb are both capped at 50%. Also, defense scales the slowest of the 3 stats (absorb is the fastest). See SithWarrior.com for details.

You are absolutely correct. The cap for Defense (from stats alone) is 30% where shield and absorb are both 50%. Also at level 50, it takes 9 points to get 1% absorb, 16 points to get 1% shield, and 27.5 points to get 1% defense. So while defense is nice in that it avoids all damage, it caps sooner and takes more effort to increase. This information is all available at SithWarrior.com. As for mitigation, 50% Shield and 50% absorb with no defense will equal 25% defense with no shield and absorb. However, since it takes less points to level shield and absorb, you can get a higher overall mitigation by focusing on shield and absorb. I am not saying defense is worthless but it certainly is not far and away better than shield and absorb.

You have to be careful how you phrase things. Juggernauts will AVOID more damage than a PT but they will not necessarily MITIGATE more damage. The PT will SHIELD/ABSORB a lot more damage than the Juggernaught will. Juggernauts will have more cooldowns since stacking defense will provide more unpredictable mitigation. PT's have more shield/absorb so they are less reliant on CDs to "smooth" their damage mitigation.

Shadows/Assassins are in a really good spot. I can only guess that there complaints are spawned from PvP. Hopefully Bioware ignores these suggestions so that PvP crying doesn't ruin PvE balance.

Veracity Nano-Optic Resistance Implants. They have the Will/End/Acc/Shield/Def and you can crit them to get an augment slot to add Absorb or additional Shield or defense. They are better for defensive stats than the daily vendor Rakata items. You do have to trade some endurance and willpower, but the better stats more than make up for the loss in max HP.

It add's 30% if you are taunting from range and 10% if you are taunting from melee range.

Trade out all PvP gear for PvE gear. PvP gear wastes space for expertise which is worthless in PvP. Also, get rid of Rakata implants and earpieces if you can get a hold of the top crafted ones. The crafted ones give much better defensive stats than the Columi/Rakata ears and implants.

Agreed. It's nice to see that they got rid of most of the Accuracy in the new 1.2 armor set.

You mean chestpiece right? Because Malgus drops the Columi chest not head.

If you really want to make life easy on the DPS allowing them to unload at will, include 1 or more Guardian, Vanguard, or Shadow DPS characters. At the beginning of the fight, the tank can start getting aggro. Then one of these classes can taunt followed by a DPS burst, at which point the next of can taunt and DPS burst, until all of these classes have had a turn, then the tank can taunt off of that, at which point the DPS have inflated the tank's threat to very high levels early on making it possible for the DPS to unload at will.