the chest piece is dropped either in taral V or the maelstrom prison, one of the two. i think it dropped for me on the robot boss halfway through taral V.

i run this spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500fMhZhrrMrhddMR.1 basically it revolves around being mobile and assisting on my groups main assist (usually a shadow). i guard the shadow (+5% damage bonus from war leader set), run soresu form, force leap onto target, sunder, plasma brand, blade storm, force sweep, follow up with another sunder and overhead strike. i don't have "insane burst", but i'm certainly a threat on the battlefield, i can take just about anyone 1v1 unless they're a tanky specced healer, and in my group i provide all the utility of a tank, great mobility (defensive leap + guard to a healer), and decent damage to go with it.

want to know the best thing to do? get 4 piece War Leader set for: increases damage by 5% when guarding someone. get all of the vindicator pieces swap all of the vindicator mods into the war leader armour you now have a permanent 5% damage bonus, as well as all of the accuracy/power stats that the vindicator armour gives.

this is a selection of ideas that both i and others have come up with that could help with the problems that exist in the game. they are by no means a "one tool fixes everything", and certainly they are just a starting point to go on. so let's start with the current problems, some are fixable, others aren't... this is a two faction game - this cannot be fixed, it's way too late to change it, and it will be there forever... if you don't like that, there are other games that are different. find them. there are population imbalances - due to being a two faction game, this will always be apparent, whether the difference is large or small depends largely on the playerbase but there are things Bioware can do to remedy it somewhat. faction pride - because you can roll both factions on the same server, the majority of players will feel very little pride in their own faction, there is no ownership or accountability. if you don't like how things are going... just alt on the other faction for a while! rather than actually try to push the rest of your faction to rally together. the powerful get more powerful - currently due to game mechanics, the dominant faction has an easier time becoming more powerful, this has the knock on effect of making the underdog side feel even less inclined to compete... why compete when you're almost certain to lose, right? pvp stats - a controvertial issue to be sure, many people feel it's necessary, many feel the opposite, we can explore it but it's doubtful that there will ever be a solution that everybody likes. sometimes the minority might have to tip it's head to the majority. vertical progression - intrinsically tied into MMO's nowadays, especially ones that heavily involve pve content, is vertical progression... this is due to the mindset of most players that they simply "want bigger numbers". this is something that is quite possibly the biggest problem in PVP in any game, and always will be. so let's tackle each issue one at a time, make some sense of it, and see what we can do to potentially solve the issue. 1. two faction game. As i stated above, this will not change, it's too late to even think about it, sorry... however it is heavily tied into... 2. population imbalance. Because this is a two faction game, one side will invariably outnumber the other. there are a few things that the developer can do to remedy the issue, such as imposing hard-caps on server factions, giving bonuses to the underdog faction, give penalties to the overpopulated faction, imposing instance limits per faction. but ultimately it all comes down to the players choice. regardless of anything the developer does, it's the player who makes the choice to roll on either faction. 3. cross faction players. the ability to roll both factions on the same server is the most detrimental thing in any pvp game. it promotes "spying", and it also dissolves any form of "faction pride" that could ever have existed. it results in a fractured community of players who neither trust each other, or even in some cases want to even talk to each other. it makes organising the underdog realm very difficult as any potential gathering could be leaked to the dominating faction with disasterous results. 4. the great snowball. this actually ties three things in together, each one is bad on it's own but when combined they make for a snowball that just gets bigger and bigger until it becomes unmanageable. it's sad to say that we're almost at that point already! but what are those three things? pvp stats vertical progression imbalanced populations we've already covered population imbalance to a degree, but in this context it's important to note that due to current game mechanics, the overpopulated realm is just reaping huge rewards with little penalty. they're able to capture and hold all the objectives, whilst simultaniously dominate the underdog faction due to pure numbers, on top of all this, when (for example) 40 people "tag" a single enemy combatant, when that person dies all 40 people get the same reward as if only one person had made the kill... this is unacceptable by ALL standards. combine this with vertical progression, and not only do the dominant faction have an easier time getting higher tiered gear, but when they get there they become more powerful, making them not only harder to kill but also making it easier to kill the underdogs. and to top it all off, there's a pvp stat involved... one of the worst things to grace mmo's everywhere has been addopted here, and what it means now, is that because higher tiered gear has higher base stats, AND a higher allotment of pvp stats, the dominating realm is well and truly on its way to being unbeatable. when "new 50's" come into the fold, there really will be no place for them, and no means for them to challenge the overpopulated side. But what can we do about allof this? nothing, it's in Biowares hands... and god i hope they can fix it. I'm sure they have ideas of their own, but then i'm also sure they thought the ideas they've already tried were good ones. disregarding the fact, of course, that those ideas both tried and failed in other games... So, here are a few suggestions that might make BioWares life easier. a couple of things they could do to make things more enjoyable for players and make the game a better place all round. 1. Heavily incentivise the underdog faction by doing the following: when the serverwide population is imbalanced by 1.5:1 or greater, grant a +100% valor bonus SERVER WIDE to the underdog faction. when the instance population is imbalanced by 1.25:1 or greater, grant a 25% valor bonus which scales up to 400% when the population imbalance reaches 4:1. make valor per kill, and the bonus attached to it, become divided by the amount of players involved in the kill. so rather than 40 players gaining (20 valor + 180 valor bonus) for killing a single player, they would instead recieve (1 valor + 5 valor bonus) each. this will round UP to the nearest whole number. this will grant a NON stat oriented incentive for the underdogs to get out there and fight. it will mean that in the absolute worst case scenario of being outnumbered by 4:1 or greater, the underdog will recieve the same valor per kill than the dominating faction will, even if the dominating faction controls all the objectives. it will also promote the idea that you are better off roaming in small groups looking for good even fights, than you are blobbing up in an almighty zerg, since you will gian less valor per kill as a zerg. 2. remove pvp stats from the game immediately, and do the following for a patch in the near future: tag Tionese, Columi, and Rakata gear, so that as soon as they enter a warzone, or initiate pvp, they recieve a 5% debuff to all stats. this would work similarly to how a player gets tagged with a trauma debuff when fighting, and the debuff vanishes when combat ends . i realise many people see pvp stats as a way for pvp players to compete with pve players who have better stats on their gear due to the progression of pve gear. i get that, it's a reasonable argument. but it's been dealt with in completely the wrong way. what it's ended up doing is alienating any and all players who don't have the gear now, or in future, who are going to be faced up against high level players, probably on a dominant side, and it just all mounts up to having too much work to do, for too little gain. there is still "progression" for all of those who wish to have it. the pvp gear still has tiers of stats, so you still get more numbers. but you will still struggle to complete high end pve content due to having lower stats than the pve sets. while at the same time, the pve gear will be great for pve, but will be on-par with the pvp sets, so there is no unfair advantage in that regard. due to the way the bolster system works in warzones, this would also allow them to remove the 50 bracket, decreasing queue times to a globally accepted level, with minimal problems (after all, without expertise, there's little difference between fighting a 49 or a 50 with the bolster system as it averages out stats, moving high stats down where needed). thanks for reading, i hope someone somewhere takes some notice. cheers.

that's untrue, you can reverse engineer purples for better schematics that have [superior] in them.

but expertise makes no difference does it?

as oposed to now, where all the level 50 schematics that are dropped create bind on pickup gear? so not only is the schematic BoP, but so is the item it makes... you know the impact that has on the economy? roll biochem or ****.

i don't know who's bright spark idea it was to make level 50 schematics produce items which are bind on pickup, but it's a terrible idea. it stifles the economy it "gates" content (ie: roll biochem or don't bother) it stops crafters being useful at all in endgame make all of the level 50 schematics produce bind on equip items, and you'll see a flourishing market, a happy playerbase, and an actual need for anything other than biochem. just saying...

this is a selection of ideas that both i and others have come up with that could help with the problems that exist in the game. they are by no means a "one tool fixes everything", and certainly they are just a starting point to go on. so let's start with the current problems, some are fixable, others aren't... this is a two faction game - this cannot be fixed, it's way too late to change it, and it will be there forever... if you don't like that, there are other games that are different. find them. there are population imbalances - due to being a two faction game, this will always be apparent, whether the difference is large or small depends largely on the playerbase but there are things Bioware can do to remedy it somewhat. faction pride - because you can roll both factions on the same server, the majority of players will feel very little pride in their own faction, there is no ownership or accountability. if you don't like how things are going... just alt on the other faction for a while! rather than actually try to push the rest of your faction to rally together. the powerful get more powerful - currently due to game mechanics, the dominant faction has an easier time becoming more powerful, this has the knock on effect of making the underdog side feel even less inclined to compete... why compete when you're almost certain to lose, right? pvp stats - a controvertial issue to be sure, many people feel it's necessary, many feel the opposite, we can explore it but it's doubtful that there will ever be a solution that everybody likes. sometimes the minority might have to tip it's head to the majority. vertical progression - intrinsically tied into MMO's nowadays, especially ones that heavily involve pve content, is vertical progression... this is due to the mindset of most players that they simply "want bigger numbers". this is something that is quite possibly the biggest problem in PVP in any game, and always will be. so let's tackle each issue one at a time, make some sense of it, and see what we can do to potentially solve the issue. 1. two faction game. As i stated above, this will not change, it's too late to even think about it, sorry... however it is heavily tied into... 2. population imbalance. Because this is a two faction game, one side will invariably outnumber the other. there are a few things that the developer can do to remedy the issue, such as imposing hard-caps on server factions, giving bonuses to the underdog faction, give penalties to the overpopulated faction, imposing instance limits per faction. but ultimately it all comes down to the players choice. regardless of anything the developer does, it's the player who makes the choice to roll on either faction. 3. cross faction players. the ability to roll both factions on the same server is the most detrimental thing in any pvp game. it promotes "spying", and it also dissolves any form of "faction pride" that could ever have existed. it results in a fractured community of players who neither trust each other, or even in some cases want to even talk to each other. it makes organising the underdog realm very difficult as any potential gathering could be leaked to the dominating faction with disasterous results. 4. the great snowball. this actually ties three things in together, each one is bad on it's own but when combined they make for a snowball that just gets bigger and bigger until it becomes unmanageable. it's sad to say that we're almost at that point already! but what are those three things? pvp stats vertical progression imbalanced populations we've already covered population imbalance to a degree, but in this context it's important to note that due to current game mechanics, the overpopulated realm is just reaping huge rewards with little penalty. they're able to capture and hold all the objectives, whilst simultaniously dominate the underdog faction due to pure numbers, on top of all this, when (for example) 40 people "tag" a single enemy combatant, when that person dies all 40 people get the same reward as if only one person had made the kill... this is unacceptable by ALL standards. combine this with vertical progression, and not only do the dominant faction have an easier time getting higher tiered gear, but when they get there they become more powerful, making them not only harder to kill but also making it easier to kill the underdogs. and to top it all off, there's a pvp stat involved... one of the worst things to grace mmo's everywhere has been addopted here, and what it means now, is that because higher tiered gear has higher base stats, AND a higher allotment of pvp stats, the dominating realm is well and truly on its way to being unbeatable. when "new 50's" come into the fold, there really will be no place for them, and no means for them to challenge the overpopulated side. But what can we do about allof this? nothing, it's in Biowares hands... and god i hope they can fix it. I'm sure they have ideas of their own, but then i'm also sure they thought the ideas they've already tried were good ones. disregarding the fact, of course, that those ideas both tried and failed in other games... So, here are a few suggestions that might make BioWares life easier. a couple of things they could do to make things more enjoyable for players and make the game a better place all round. 1. Heavily incentivise the underdog faction by doing the following: when the serverwide population is imbalanced by 1.5:1 or greater, grant a +100% valor bonus SERVER WIDE to the underdog faction. when the instance population is imbalanced by 1.25:1 or greater, grant a 25% valor bonus which scales up to 400% when the population imbalance reaches 4:1. make valor per kill, and the bonus attached to it, become divided by the amount of players involved in the kill. so rather than 40 players gaining (20 valor + 180 valor bonus) for killing a single player, they would instead recieve (1 valor + 5 valor bonus) each. this will round UP to the nearest whole number. this will grant a NON stat oriented incentive for the underdogs to get out there and fight. it will mean that in the absolute worst case scenario of being outnumbered by 4:1 or greater, the underdog will recieve the same valor per kill than the dominating faction will, even if the dominating faction controls all the objectives. it will also promote the idea that you are better off roaming in small groups looking for good even fights, than you are blobbing up in an almighty zerg, since you will gian less valor per kill as a zerg. 2. remove pvp stats from the game immediately, and do the following for a patch in the near future: tag Tionese, Columi, and Rakata gear, so that as soon as they enter a warzone, or initiate pvp, they recieve a 5% debuff to all stats. this would work similarly to how a player gets tagged with a trauma debuff when fighting, and the debuff vanishes when combat ends. i realise many people see pvp stats as a way for pvp players to compete with pve players who have better stats on their gear due to the progression of pve gear. i get that, it's a reasonable argument. but it's been dealt with in completely the wrong way. what it's ended up doing is alienating any and all players who don't have the gear now, or in future, who are going to be faced up against high level players, probably on a dominant side, and it just all mounts up to having too much work to do, for too little gain. there is still "progression" for all of those who wish to have it. the pvp gear still has tiers of stats, so you still get more numbers. but you will still struggle to complete high end pve content due to having lower stats than the pve sets. while at the same time, the pve gear will be great for pve, but will be on-par with the pvp sets, so there is no unfair advantage in that regard. due to the way the bolster system works in warzones, this would also allow them to remove the 50 bracket, decreasing queue times to a globally accepted level, with minimal problems (after all, without expertise, there's little difference between fighting a 49 or a 50 with the bolster system as it averages out stats, moving high stats down where needed). thanks for reading, i hope someone somewhere takes some notice. cheers.

why would you need that? pve = strength/endurance/power/accuracy, giving more sustained damage that is required in pve. pvp = strength/endurance/crit/surge, giving more burst damage that is required in pvp. OH ITS MAGIC. as for the whole "WAR pve lol" comment... i agree that WAR's pve was pretty bad, in fact terribly bad. but the premise that the pve/pvp sets had equal stat values but different stat distributions was great. it allowed for much better gear mixes for min/maxers, it allowed people to decide which sets and stats were more important to them, and it meant that no matter if you were pve or pvp oriented, gear would never be the thing that cost you a win. that is, until they revamped sovereign gear to stupid levels, and made it even worse with doom/warpforged gear.

edit: sorry, thought you meant the stun. ehhh... we're a tank, we kinda need CC to perform our roles. snares being one of them.

i came from WAR... and i had always wondered what it would be like if Witch Hunters had a self heal

using your cc breaker works... except when you're knocked down. if you're knocked down and you use it you have to wait for the "get up" animation to finish before you can do anything.

who messed up? it's the players choice which side they roll. BioWare didn't hold a gun to your head and say "roll imperials or else!"

it'll never happen. just reroll, farm warzones to 50 in guild premades, and you'll pretty much step straight into battlemaster when you ding 50. you'll have the benefit of almost instant warzone pops too.

you're missing the point.

well, to all those saying that operatives are squishy, and die fast out of stealth if they can't kill someone within the first couple of seconds etc etc etc. there are already quite a few operative/scoundrel videos out there proving that to be completely false, in fact there are even some which show them murdering people within seconds WITHOUT stealth.

there are players i know, in fact some are in my guild, who played guild wars and are INSANELY proud of the fact that they were awarded a gold cloak, for being the top on their server. that's what kind of pvp rewards we should be trying to get. things that people will see us wearing and think "damn he's the one to beat"... not "moar numbers!"

well the problem there is that while a lot of people THINK they're into pvp, they're actually not. they can't take losing and will quit a game claiming imbalance/cheating/exploits etc. before they will ever admit that they're just not that good. not saying there aren't imbalances (there are), just saying from past experience in pvp mmo's, that there are players who just aren't as cut out for pvp as they think.

i'm going to ask this question in hopes of getting a reasonable response: how do you justify operative/scoundrel having more burst than assassin/shadow, while also having more group utility, armour, and the ability to self heal?

people said this about WAR for... well, for ever. but as a core tester for WAR, i can tell you that actually, the programming was never there, and actually the game was hard coded at such a low level that there could only ever be two factions. what makes you think SWTOR is any different?

1. you can't do that, or everyone would do warzones and ignore open pvp. 2. you can't do that, because then you'll have imperials on every server standing around doing nothing because of population imbalances. 3. i never played WoW so... can't comment.

and who says they couldn't increase valor in openworld pvp to compensate? so that instead of 20 valor per kill, it was say, 100 (and bonuses on top). that way, if players still wanted to zerg around, they could... a guild running two ops groups could forseeably jump a group of say... 12 randoms. it would net them a total of 100*12/48=25 valor per person in the raid. or, if they control all of ilum, (100+(100*7))*12/48= 200 valor per person in the raid. compare that to now, where killing one person = 200 valor to every person in the raid, and surely you must see the problem? now what if that same zerg ran into a 12 man zergbusting squad... for sure the 12 would struggle, and struggle a lot, but let's say they actually killed the zerg. they would get 100*48/12=400 valor per person in the group. thereby making it more attractive to run smaller groups, because even with full control ov the zone, a massive zerg won't gain as much in that one encounter as the zergbusters would. and buddy, let me tell you right now, zerg mentality will kill openworld pvp faster than almost anything else, full stop. especially with the massive imbalances on most servers.

the idea behind it is that it would encourage the underdog faction to simply show up and fight where right now there's no incentive... due to the fact that zergs are promoted through valor not being divided by the attackers involved in a kill, the best way to maximize valor gain (excluding kill swapping/farming) is to simply roll up in the biggest group possible, and stomp everything in front of you. which puts the underdog at an extreme disadvantage. yes, it would likely encourage some people to reroll the underdog faction, which ultimately would cause the buffs in question to diminish, and finally disappear all together as the populations become reasonably balanced. and finally, if too many people roll the underdog side and it becomes the dominant faction... then the other side becomes the underdog, gets buffed, and people reroll until balance restores itself. at the very least, it will give people cause to actually go out and fight against much bigger numbers, purely because one kill as the underdog could potentially give them more than four kills as the dominant side.

graphics settings have nothing to do with it. i can run the game with everything on high and forced AA/AF in tray tools (ati), and get 15 fps. and i can turn everything on low and disable AA/AF in tray tools and still get the same 15 fps. the low frame rates on ilum have NOTHING to do with graphics settings. i'm running: i7 2600k @5.2Ghz (i'm a character artist, i need the processing power for apps like mudbox/zbrush/3dsmax) 8GB RAM @2Ghz ATI 6950 2GB @ 6970 specs (flashed bios)