With abilities that require you to face your target, how dead on must you face them? It's from a different game but I use a few of the general principles from this guide when I have to kite on my vanguard.

Getting that Belsavis datacron nearly broke me. Getting the Correllia and Alderaan datacrons on a body type 3 was a lot less stressful. I'm hoping all three are fixed before I decide to go through that again with an alt.

I had to learn to taunt more when I switched from WoW to Warhammer. In WAR taunts had the 6 second fixate but they also generated 2500 points of threat per use. It was a real adjustment after playing a tankadin. Although in WAR, guard didn't just reduce another player's threat. It transferred it to the tank. Very cool paradigm. I wish SWTOR copied it more than they already do.

When a healer pulls aggro it is after a threatwipe or on brand new adds that have not been touched by anyone else yet. While their threatgen is on every mob in combat, it is very low. Reducing this low number by 25% won't achieve much. It certainly won't stop them taking aggro from fresh adds or a mob that resets its aggro table. In terms of there being lots of DPS and not being able to guard them all, this is not necessary if they're focusing their fire. Edit: If you're doing it for the damage protection then I hope you realise that it's only a 5% reduction in PVE. The big reduction only works in PVP.

Combat macros.

There is a similar animation delay on the Trooper abilities Mortar Volley and Full Auto compared to their BH mirror. We are assured that this issue will be addressed in 1.2 (here) and presumably sorcs and sages will be fixed at the same time. What is not clear is whether the delay will be removed from the Republic or added to the Empire.

I'm told that the 30 sec CD will be history in 1.2 and that gifts will also be stackable in your bags. http://ootinicast.com/2012/03/ootinicast-episode-17/

So I heard that grav round was being nerfed? http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=343328

I bought the HJ-07 parts for my two droids from the equipment commendation vendor on Quesh. However, as the previous poster said, droid gear is typically from specialty goods vendors not found on the fleet. You have to visit each planet's market.

On the contrary. I own a Naga myself. I bought it because I felt I needed another ~14 buttons to bind to my overloaded bars. I'd recommend it to anyone. The argument is not that people don't deserve nice things. It is that skill should always be more important than a sleek mouse and that the notion of macros creating a barrier to entry falls apart when people just use even more technical (software based) or paid-for (hardware based) external macros. If Bioware is to control how macros are used in their game they need to be the ones to implement the macro system. If barrier to entry is such a concern then they can create a simple drag and drop gui for building simple macros.

WoW's macros were actually simpler than the fully automated strings of gaming keyboards. They were a TOS approved alternative and users of programmable peripherals risked bans if they got out of hand. The average player puts in no less than 5 hours a day so just how casual do they think their subscribers are? If Bioware implemented a macro system, Bioware can control it and define it's limits. Not doing so drives more competitively-minded players to MacroGamer and expensive peripherals that really can automate play.

Macros do raise the skill cap. But they do not raise the barrier for entry if they are available to every player and kept fairly simple. Allowing hardware macros but not in-game macros creates a player performance gap based on irl cash and not skill.

Good post OP, summed up my thoughts. The macros people want are not I-WIN buttons that play your class for you. They're a lot more basic than that and an essential extension of UI customisation. This decision leaves no in-game alternative to programmable keyboards and mice. I realise that there are deals with Razer at stake but surely ownership of a G-15 or Naga is a higher barrier to entry than whatever they're worried about?

This is a potential dealbreaker for me. Combat macros, 1-press-1-action ones at least, raise the skill cap and add a lot of potential for finesse and creativity.

Ok. This isn't what I was expecting but overall I'm fairly happy with it. I really hope this doesn't rule out an ingame Bioware-supported (via API hooks or fully implemented) threatmeter.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=123306 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=173190 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=237704

Better loot drops from easy HM endbosses than from difficult bonus bosses. Nobody is so desperate for tionese crystals that they will do these bosses. Ops don't really start dropping better gear than FPs until nightmare and some heroic difficulty. This game just feels backwards to me.

It depends how early in the fight this burn is coming. Your 25% threat dump would create a larger gap later on in the fight. Further, if the tank was manipulating the buggy taunt mechanics he could be snowballing his threat by 30% every 15 secs on top of his own tank rotations. Bossfights only though. Don't do this to the poor guy on trash.

Dead wrong. His whole point was that those abilities are to the edge of the mob but threat is from the middle of the mob. Just inch back to the maximum at which those 4m abilities will work and you'll count as "ranged."

You'll be able to rip high rank hilts out after 1.2

Enrage timers are what stop my GM from kicking every DPS player out of the guild and replacing them with healers (even bad healers) so that we can patiently grind down each boss with 100% chance of success. While that is true the more serious answer is that boss damage sets a minimum requirement of gear/ability on your tanks and healers so why shouldn't there be a minimum dps requirement?

I miss Warhammer's guard. Worked mostly the same as TOR's guard except the guardee's threat wasn't simply reduced, it was siphoned to the tank.

I don't understand why people say that meters will allow guilds to dictate specs. My own experience of meters (in world ~250 WoW guilds) was completely different. * Nobody cared about spec. They cared about performance. You keep up on the meters? Then clearly your oddball fringe spec was working for you. * Going back further to when I started playing, meters also broke down a lot of prejudices. There was a time when druid and paladin healers were second class citizens because they were not "pure" classes. Priests got priority on healer gear in raids. Hybrids got their leftovers (and lets not even mention dps or tank items). This prejudice was strongest when people only had gut perception to measure performance. The meters proved that hybrid players were "real healers." TLDR: There are things I'd like Bioware to prioritise over combat logs but I don't believe that they ruin the game. On the contrary, I believe they allow players to be recognised and accepted for playing well and not for their conformist spec or class choices.

Floating guard of course. No point guarding anyone outside of 15m.

The ammo return is really really good. Some sort of dot or damage buff would be nice though.