Honestly, I have no idea what the deal is, but I have a feeling that Bioware specifically tells their art team to make sure all of Republic characters look like drag queens. Outside of the trooper, which is pretty much guaranteed to look bad ***, every toon standing there looks like a clown. Yet, if you look at the imps, especially the Juggy and the Inquisitor, they look like walking death machines, as they should. What's the deal here? I have no idea why, and I hope to god it's not intentional, but they're really showing bias towards the imps even with the new content updates. I personally don't care about it but... there are plenty of people who are already dissatisfied with EVERY small, or large imbalance, favoring the imperials. Edit: I'd personally like Bioware to actually allow my Sage to look a bit different outside of the current drag queen/clown and hobo looks..

I never leave a game that I start. Most of the time, since I'm fairly known on the server, people will actually listen to what I say as far as the game is concerned... and if not, I can still maximise my medals and make the losing game worth my time.

Lol, pugs.. http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t23/bluefire_09/Screenshot_2012-02-25_12_38_33_499739.jpg Lol, pugs V. 2.0, healing.. http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t23/bluefire_09/Screenshot_2012-02-06_00_15_50_912129.jpg Getting 6-0'ed by a double premade of War Hero's and Conquerors... still looking like a boss. http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t23/bluefire_09/Screenshot_2012-02-25_14_23_18_856739.jpg Holly smokes... all these imps be running 5-6 Sorcs and ain't no way they can be beat.. http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t23/bluefire_09/Screenshot_2012-02-27_15_20_14_564739.jpg Lol, pugs V. 3.0, full tank specced Vanguard # 2 damage... http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t23/bluefire_09/Screenshot_2012-03-02_20_57_41_551000.jpg I have few others with higher damage and healing but those don't really count. I can tell you for a fact, any 1M+ SS are just smoke and mirrors, aka, me standing in middle of the acid pit when playing Hutt Ball and spam healing myself... and still looking like a boss.

Lol, professionals... Yea, they sure do. They're gonna fix the ridiculous FPS drops on Ilum by disabling the laser fire from the cannons on the planet. That's some professional solution right there.. only Bioware could think of.

Who cares? What should I do? Go buy myself a White Crystal with the money I don't have cuz I'm forced to pay 100k per re-spec, sometimes up to 4 times a day, depending on what the guild is doing, to slot it into my Battlemaster Lightsaber, which doesn't have a crystal slot? These changes are COMPLETELY backward and should have been done back in the beta, WHEN PEOPLE were asking Bioware to do it... yet, nothing happened and Bioware is acting like these things are something "new" people are asking for. Back before I droped Artifice, with basically every purple 49 schematic in the game, I was basically making no money of the craft. The ridiculous cost for mats, especially the Corusca Gems, ment that I basically broke even if I sold my things on the AH, which I didn't sell at all. Outside of the first few weeks, my stuff basically complely stopped selling because people realizing that it's completely pointless to buy any of that stuff, especially since the PVP gear is a joke to obtain and of course, the daily missions provide all the money and mods needed for your gear.. actually, the mods you get from the daily commendations is better then anything crafters can make. Outside of the people who wanted the Magenta crystal and at who I personally laughed at, the craft was completely useless when it comes to making items for one self and making money and contributing to the pathetic and non-existant economy that this game possess. So, I did what every other crafter in this game should have done and switched to Biochem. Honestly, outside of the instant gratificiation of possessing awesome pots, I was still making no money. I was happy with the craft and I still am, well, maybe not because Bioware's solution for their horrific crafting deign errors is to nerf Biochem, which is going to render it as useless as every other craft in the game, but still, the contribution that I'm making to the overall economic activity on my server is non-existant. However, I have found a few people who are hardcore players and have a bit more time then me as far as raiding is concerned. I provide them with certain amount of potions, which they pay out with giving me specific, power/crit mods they get in hardmode/nightmare raids. This works for me but not for the server. The auction house is barren on my server and the only people making money are the few Armormechs and Synthweavers who have the lower level orange schematics and craft them to sell at extrimely low prices. but still make money because level 1-2 missions are cheap. This of course is extrimely counter intuitive when it comes to the overall game's economy because people PURPOSLY want to get these items and when they do, they roll from planet to planet, doing their quests and getting mods with their commendations, which of course does nothing except to screw over every other craft in the game... which is mainly Bioware's fault due to the bad implementations of the crafting system. So, again, I don't see how it makes any sense to increase the speeder prices at level 50... which is already hard enough to make money at, if you're a more hardcore player, mainly due to the poor economy and the RIDICULOUS re-speccing costs. Of course, people who aren't as active, will not have these issues, but for people like myself, who enjoy PVP and want to do it as much as possible, and are hardcore as far as the game is concerned... well, I'm basically forced to grind the daily missions every day because that's the ONLY statis income of credits in this game. Also, introducing new crystals and such, in a game that hasn't had the mod changes introduced yet, makes no sense. Who's gonna buy that and gimp themselves by not using the Battlemaster weapons? Bioware shoud re-design their mod system first, so people can get used to the changes and so the economy gets rolling. Once that's up, then you start changing the prices and costs of whatever you wand and start introducing new schematics to crafters can make money. Doing it backward isn't gonna change anything and, honestly, when all these changes hit, nothing is going to change except maybe Slicing, since they're gonna be making money off Augments. While I write all this, I'm having a good laugh. I remember back in the beta, when Bioware took their mods design and radicalized it, by making it ultra simplistic into what it is right now.. I felt that they honestly taught that their customer base had the intellect that matches the size of a child's shoe... and look at it now. They've literally spent this whole time trying to undo what they changed and outside of the orange gear/augment slot, they're basically making the mod system exactly what it used to be back 7 months ago in the beta.

I don't really have the time for it big boy. After spending hours on testing different gear sets, slotting different mods and such.. This is what we came up with. Running more then 9.5% expertise is worthless. My damage taken increased by .8% going from 12.5%-9.5%. I gained over 1k HP, gained over 50+ damage bonus, gained few % surge and crit. As far as your argument about damage taken is going to be, you do make some sense. However, if you account the amount of people that need to hit you, to make that .5-1% increase in damage actually noticeable, you're going to NEED a lot more then that .5% damage reduction to save yourself. At that point, competent groups, tank and such will save your life, not the 3% increase in expertise, at the cost of much less damage and damage stats. Actually, from doing the testing, fighting everywhere except Ilum will in fact increase your survival if you do wear the PVE gear. The only class that would stick with 2 piece PVE gear would be healers and this is mainly because healers get much smaller bonus towards healing when it comes to their main stats. However, some healers, like the Sage, have MUCH, MUCH better set bonuses when using the PVE gear. Edit: I run custom mods in my BM and Rakata gear. I've collected 25A and B mods from PVE and PVP, mostly power/crit and surge with some alacrity (I can't seem to avoid this since every fricking Sage piece is stacked with this worthless stat).

How the hell does that make any sense? If they're bundled in the same exact stat, the diminishing return is exactly the same. Go ahead and put on 400 expertise and check out your per cent and then add another 200-300 more... The DR is crazy after you hit 500. I've tested this numerous times and a mix of PVE and PVP gear is the best way to go. The overall % of expertise lost as far as defense is concerned, is greatly offset by the amount of HP you gain from the PVE gear. You can easily gain 1k+ HP and gain a TON more damage and crit/surge rating with the PVE gear. It took my buddy about 3 extra hits to kill me with 4 pieces Rakata then it did in full BM, on top of me gaining what I mentioned above.

10 bucks this baddie saw an Assassin run through fire with Resilience up and saw all the immune spam..

I would like to say that being in an ops group has something to do witht his. I get a lag spike or a hitch, every time a kill is updated or a point is taken, when in full ops group. However, if I drop it and fight, with the same exact mount of people around me, my FPS seems to increase three fold.

After these "minor" performance fixes, the lag on Ilum has only become greater.. Today, my guild's biggest defender of Bioware, completely lost it after his 4th D/C in what we'd consider about a 1/5th the regular prime time numbers. Seriously, Bioware and Ilum have become nothing more then the subject of very bad power point presentation jokes on our Vent and this is seriously sad. I don't have a PC that could run NASA.. but some of our guys sure seem to think so. However, if I D/C, 99% of the time, they do as well. This issue is obviously much, much, deeper then "lower end PCs" and if this continues, I just don't see how anyone who loves PVP or RVR, will actually stay around, for nothing more then a giant slide show of people who spam AoE. I have not met one pearson who didn't admit to a huge performance decrease on Ilum, no matter what PC they have.. but recently, 99% of fights are decided by which side has more D/C'ies in their ops groups.

/cleanse in current game That's all anyone needs to know.

No, this is a REALLY GOOD change.. I have seen War Heros and Conquerors in Warzones that play like they just hit 50... and all that Valor they gained is nothing more then zerging on Ilum. This way, smaller or more elite, guilds can gain just as much valor through Warzones. This isn't a "how fast or slow you get to 60" issues, this is a balance to make Valor in WZ match the Valor on Ilum. I'm not trying to sound like an elitist, nor am I anti-imperial but if you're PVP'ing seriously in this game, it's very obvious where all the valor is made. I'm glad they're finally fixing it so these idiots who do nothing except camp people all day, have to que up and fight on equel levels. Maybe this way the lesser side will actually have a decent chance at Ilum if more of the zerg ques up. My buddies Vanguard just went from 57.5 to 60 on Ilum, and the real action still hasn't started. That's kinda absurd but I don't see a way for them to change that... so I'm glad this change is going through.

Lol, what a genius idea. Just like all the genius changes from before, like moving the AoE bauble pop from healing to low level DPS Telekinetic (by Bioware cuz of QQ from players), you're giving Sorc/Sages ANOTHER low level root, on a 9 sec cool down non the less. So what? They loose a spamable auto attack, which they will interchange with Disturbance... Nothing changes and you're giving them more control.

Either find a good res picture of what you want in your sig or take a decent screen shot. Write your name and class and I'll just slap one for you fast. It's not very hard to make good sigs with just basic pre-set stenciles and such.

One really good way to keep them in place after they force leap and they got their CC bar full is to actually knock them back. If you're specced into the root on the knockback and you have no DoTs up, it will keep them rooted for 5 sec. You can basically get two Deliverances off at that time and your cooldowns should be re-setting at that time. I generally like to time it about mid fight to 30% just so I can get my HP back up and get some seperation right as they're about to pop all their defensive cooldowns.

You really have to work hard to keep your resource pool at decent level when you're full Balance. When hybrid, you can go all out, 100% of the time and not worry about blowing your force and doing no damage. That's basically the only thing you need to look at when trying to decide which spec is better.

I know quiet a few healers who stand there, while guarded, not kiting or taking responsibility for themselves, and trying to heal their DPS and tank that are getting demolished. Of course, most of the time, we murder everyone else first and then just pick him off on the end. This changes nothing as far as the outcome of a fight . Guard is a CC tool. It's there so tanks can minimize the incoming damage at any given time. That being said, I find it a lot more usefull when tanks do a proper job and swap their guard, especially on the DPS. This way, healers can take the time to kite, CC and heal themselves while the DPS pushes, properly, without getting annihilated. Of course, nobody is Jesus Christ so getting guard slapped on you when no other options, is something that a good tank needs to do. At that time, the healers need to take care of whatever they need to cap off themselves, their team and continue the fight. I do think that this game's implementation of PVP is rather horrid and it gives the side with less people almost no way of winning a fight. It's way to CC friendly and it gives the idiots who spam stuns a legitimate change at killing you. However, I think that a lot of people expect to come into fights, stand there and kill or heal people all day without anyone taggin them. Your advice is solid but #1 rule of PVP games, you're accountable for your own survival.

So I literally spent ALL night testing **** with my buddy. Basically, we did static calculations on base damage on TK throw and of course, the HP gain % on my total wounds vs the % expertise lost for damage taken. So, wearing Rakata wrists, belt, legs and head and rest BM, I came out with the most HP, damage and healing. I do have custom mods, mostly power and crit. All my surge comes from the implants and such and I do have some alacrity, about .3 sec of my casts... which I can't seem to avoid due to the HORRIBLE itemization on BM gear. We do have another Sage that goes to our PVE runs regularly, so I can't really just snag all the power/crit/surge mods for myself, or extra pieces to pull them out of. All in all, 9.50% expertise, 4 piece Rakata is the best way to go.

yea, the guy who actually wrote that he clicked, didn't bother to look at the video just like yourself.

you don't wanna do that, lol. they're fixing that and you should not get used to it.. even if it's pretty fricking sweet.

This is the biggest issue. A lot of people lose one DPS or a healer and you can't afford that at all. Everyone has to be in point and if you are managing to keep your 8 man up, you should have no issues at beating him. It's always that one guy who dies that can screw it up, especially if he's DPS. People really need to realize that everyone HAS to be alive on the end since that's the ONLY burn phase on him. You'll only get so many chances to break his shield so having that one dude dead cuz he didn't pay attention or whatever, will make you lose the fight.

I don't know how to say this but after testing out multiple gear sets with different mods, I feel that only classes that should run Rakata in PVP are the ones who have really solid two piece bonuses off them. Troopers and such get 15% crit which is pretty awesome. I've gotten 3 full BM sets right now (I'm Valor 71 and that's pretty much no Ilum farm) and I've basically manually exchanged my mods to what I wanted in the BM gear, so whenever I test the Rakata gear, the overall stat increase is really minor, when compared to loosing 3% expertise. People say that 9% is the cut off but when I'm running 12%, I still have 1620 willpower, 16k HP and 38.57 crit.. Basically, I'm at 700 damage bonus with crazy crit rate and just about 68% surge rating. When adding a few Rakata pieces, mainly the power pieces such as the wrists and such, I notice a minimum increase in stats with about 2-3% lower expertise. Also, when I duel people, I notice no difference between the Rakata pieces or full BM. I do find Maras/Sent pretty hard to beat but you do have to think about one thing... When they hit low HP, they're literally gonna last about 10+ seconds just due to their survavibility tools. I generally like to avoid any DoTs when they're getting lower so I can either insta lift them to heal up or root them with the aoe punt. Another thing, I really do think that this is cheesy but our root, on the aoe punt, respects no fricking CC immunities. I basically destroy melee with that thing. You can use it when they full resolve bars to seperate you and them and either heal up or just get your shield re-cast back up.

Where do you people see clicking, lol?

jesus man, what the **** is that first pearson view camera?

yea, you're right about the whole validation deal... you know, not like you're accusing people of being homosexual over the internets. you obviously have some hidden sexual tendencies you need to let out.