This was my first MMO and I was one of those who bought simply for the single player because of KotoR. Despite never intending to join a guild, I threw caution to the wind and one day did just that and it is because i joined this guild that I play this game to this day. I fell in love of this game playing Lost Island with my tank friend back when it was a relatively big deal. I was forced to get to know and become proficient at my sentinel. We played that instance to death eventually pulling in other guildies; by the end doing it 20 minutes and not controlling the medics for fun. We even ended up doing it two man just for fun (micromanaging our docs was a bit difficult) and when we did pug people we left them very happy and some even sought to join our guild based solely upon their run. We ran LI not because of the Rakata chest that dropped at the end; we ran it because it was exhilarating to master it together. This is the kind of content this game sorely needs. Excellent, challenging, 4-player content on a daily lockout or none at all. It needs to drop some sort of gear that makes people want to do it at first (perhaps an Underworld piece), but its chief value needs to be in its design so that you find yourself replaying the instance weeks after it has ceased to become relevant to your gearing needs. As of now there is nothing worthwhile to do on a day to day basis for a PvE player; about all I do with my guildies now is raid two nights a week. The rest of the times I log in I am mostly wasting time either parsing or just aimlessly walking around hoping that someone will come up with something cool to do together. Perhaps I log in too frequently, but still some of those times I should have something worthwhile to do with my game friends. There are many other places where this game has failed to live up to its original design as it has transitioned to a minimal service for subscribers and a cash shop, but this is by far the biggest in my mind. If I had a new LI to run with my guildies, I would be thousands of times more satisfied.

That appears to be an old tier gear helmet, if so its dead as of 2.0. I think the old pvp gear hat was similar, not sure if it had a mask though. The old pvp hat can be found on gtn, battlemaster set.

I switched to watchman with 2.0 from combat. A large part of that was watchman's greatly increased fluidity and the utter chaos that combat had become both because of rng and perpetual focus starvation. I got tired of HoJ proc'ing on force leap right as i started and what not. Also watchman's damage output debuff on the boss and sustained rather than burst dps model is a lot more tank friendly and the group heals are a nice help to the healers too. As my guild moves into doing NiM perhaps I'll have to move back to combat for sheer dps reasons, but unless your group is weak in dps or aoe it seems that watchman is the pve spec to be. That said i will parrot what other people have said about the merciless stacks. Phase switches can be rough on those stacks atm especially given that one dps does not have sole control over how fast things die. For instance Olok the shadow the middle part with the droids or the lightning adds in Styrak. If those adds go down at an awkward time the buff is going to fade. With olok it isnt such that large a deal as it like almost all of hm is super easy on dps, but with styrak i panic a bit when i see our scoundrel healer coming to help on my ghost. I dont want that guy to die before i get off a final mercliess. This goes back to what Oofalong asked above, should sentinels be encouraged to be proficient in all the specs and respec between boss fights or is Biowares intent that all the fights be friendly to all the specs? Perhaps I'm too attached to the nice pve utility watchman has and should just relearn combat for certain fights, but that brings us back to the rng issues with combat. And also ill agree with oofalong on the mdps in raids thing. I want a fight where i feel im more useful on a sent than a gunslinger for a mechanic not inspiration. So my questions would be: 1) Is Bioware considering lengthening the time on merciless? 2) Is Bioware working on making HoJ triggering more player based? 3) Does BW intend to make bosses that actively encourage mdps?

So sad this is going to live as is per the released patch notes, as Ninja above said people still can do decent in combat but the spec is no where near as fluid as it used to be and it has you always in resource crisis mode. I have played combat sent a long time and i really like the spec. It is disheartening to be thinking of switching to juyo. BW didn't have to return zen to its pre-2.0 glory but i would appreciate at least some buff to focus generation in return for this change. Really, the best part of ataru zen is now in the set bonus i feel which is horrible. With that and the load of useless perks (for pve) combat sents have to talent into, it seems BW really wants to make it a PvP spec and have PvE'rs migrate back to juyo. I really do not understand or appreciate this direction. Very disappointed in you, BW.

I heal, dps and tank in this way. It is by no means hard on the healer if the tank/dps know what they are doing. In fact chain pulling in a skilled group is incredibly rewarding. I mostly do this as a dps or a tank as my healer is sadly an imp, but on the occasions that I do get to play him with guildees I love it. I do not pug often and usually when i do its a second dps we are in need of but there are times we pug a healer. We do not make their life hell. In fact, we often get complemented on how fun the run was. Recently recruited a new scoundrel healer in this way. If you mostly pug I can understand your concern more as in the few pugs I have run alone or just with other dps I have noticed a tremendous decrease in quality of pugged players since as late as the summer when I pugged more frequently. A lot of the few new full pugs have been downright awful with people doing the mistakes listed above by several posters. I don't know if I just did not notice this all before as I was less skilled than I am now or if it is just that ftp has tanked the skill level of the average player. Perhaps a combination of both. In any case I would advise you find a good guild to run with and I am sure you will see the virtues of fast pulling a fp. That said dps and tank need to know what they are doing as i said: it bears repeating. They need to know the encounters and how to dps or tank them well, i.e. how to kill the group and hold aggro most efficiently for the least damage. If they do there is really no disadvantage to the healer unless they cannot manage their heals at all. In such cases, me and my guildees do slow down but with a skilled healer there is no need. That is to say it is not "catch up mode" unless one of two things happens: the dps and tank are unskilled or the healer is. Most often it will be the former as it takes a lot to mess up healing good dps and tanks in fps. But there are casual healers and learning healers who understandably do. Also I must say it is irresponsible to leave accidental aggro messes to those that made the mess. 90% of the time they do not engage in the pull purposely desiring to do it alone as was suggested. It may just be that they do not pay complete attention or do not know the flashpoint or that they screw up. If they keep doing it, yes it is obnoxious but calm down and realize that flashpoints are casual content. Do not expect every player to play to a high level of skill: they do not need to and they are not committed to. As such it is just plain rude to leave them to die. Learn to respect other players' game. Not everyone is here to play their class optimally and beat the hardest bosses, some just want to taste the lowest hanging fruit of the eg and there is no problem with that. So when you are among them, be respectful and courteous.

I can log in, but I get a blank server list.