as everyone has said, its about rotating cooldowns. he frenzies once every min (almost exactly), as a vanguard i just pop smoke grenade (-20% accuracy for 20sec), then reactive shield or adrenaline rush on alternate ones (both have 2min CD). we also run a shadow tank, so he puts up another -5% accuracy (im guessing they stack) and 5% damage reduction. guardians might have a tougher time, but still doable if they use a "on use" defensive relic, or you can tank swap after each frenzy to get a fresh full set of CDs for the next. basically put, its not that had a fight if the tank can properly use his CDs and debuffs, and the healers can time their CDs when he is the squishiest.

yes he is bugged, but still doable with the blessing of the RNG god. floors disappearing, floors not spawning, invisible lightning balls and puddles, sometimes the lightning balls teleport, RNG throwing people at the wrong times (technically not a bug, but when he throws someone at 30%, and 1 person doesnt notice and continues to dps, and the platform stage starts, theres no way to save him, he just lives in limbo).....where was i... the AoE orb debuff staying on soa no matter the amount of times you kill the pyramids, the plyons falling on soa but not removing the buff (even though he kneels), the pylons falling on soa but doing nothing except damaging the tank (can work both ways, as last soa kill i did, the pylons landed on me, and i didnt take any damage but soa went down). probably missing a few bugs, but those are the ones i ve noticed in the last 2 weeks (all on hard mode mind you), so yes he is still bugged (a lot), but he is still doable with enough tries, luck and teamwork. edit: forgot about the bug where if the tank gets trapped he despawns (but we usally run it with 2 tanks, both in full dps gear, so we taunt off when 1 tank is trapped)

i play vanguard tank in near full rakata, in full tank spec and gear i can get 2.8k crit stockstrikes, if i put on my t2 dps gear, i can hit 3.5k stockstrikes and HIB (all without using adrenals/relics), so no, we cant do what you say. i do agree guardians need a buff dps wise, but ammo/energy/focus managment is all part of the game, guardians get it the same way all the other tank classes do, on shield (iirc), and before you say that ammo auto regens and focus doesnt, dont forget your focus builders give 2 focus every 4.5sec, with a proper rotation you shouldnt be running out of it when needed, just learn to manage it better, as no class can spam specials all the time without throwing in 1 basic attack every so often.

i play a vanguard tank as my main, and recently i ve been lvling a shadow tank up. and i ve got to say, they play almost exactly the same, kinda annoying tbh, i dont need to learn an all new style, i just put abilities that do the same thing in the same place on my vanguard, and its basically the same. sure there are diffrences between vanguard and shadow tank (shadows have to keep their shield buff up, and watch the proc for tele throw) but its basically the same. commando/gunslinger/sage dps play very similarly too, i just miss the uniqueness of each class, that made it fun to lvl a new one instead of "oh, this ability is the shadow version of this vanguard skill"

a guy in my guild (zero, although his JK is called cless) has already done this on his jedi knight, but think you are the first to do it as an agent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVsR0X4fqKM&feature=related and props to you, i ve watrched him try to solo golds and he takes ages and goes down so fast. so i do understand that it is an extreme hardmode.

i thought the basic theory was, normal mode for pugs, hard mode for guild runs, and nightmare mode for the hardcore guilds. shame pugs can do all 3 as theres no real challenge, im hoping in the next op, they will go the way of other mmos and make it much much harder, so it takes atleast a week for Nightmare mode to be cleared

none of the fp are impossible, most of the so called "hard" bosses are only dps races, like the BoI boss who spawns the adds, everyone has a knockback or aoe stun, to control the adds when they spawn. aoe taunt shouldnt be used on every pull, its for when you lose agro and need it back fast, a quick aoe will get most mobs back unless some dps is going to town on them (and if they are, it means they will die soon anyway), compared to other games where aoe taunt has a 3min+ CD, a 45sec CD is already nice enough. basically the most important tip i can give is to learn the tactics, i dont mean browse youtube for them or ask on the forums, just watch the bosses buffs, debuffs, adds etc, theres always a (simple) solution, and if not, its just a dps race to the enrage timer. oh and if you are getting hit for 10k, its either a boss mechanic (such as the laser eye guy in taral V you have to LoS), a skill you need to interrupt, or when they hit enrage, all of which you can avoid with teamwork and good dps.

i just want to say they should fix defensive stats for pve too, as there are some bosses where you dont shield/def anything (annilation droid, soa etc.... please tell me if im wrong) and i find it stupid that there is no reason to stay in tank gear, when using a tank build in dps gear gives the same tanking advantage but with more dps.

cant tell if serious.... shield does ok damage, nothing to write home about, in full tank gear i can get 2.5k stockstrikes. with tactics i can get 3k fire pulse, 2.5k ion pulse, gut, and then do insane damage with a 5x pulse cannon, all while in tank gear, the dps boost from chosing a dps tree instead of a tank tree is evident and obvious.

the only fault i can find with badges is the way this game does them, for instance to get columi legs, you either need to grind D7 hard, or do EV hard, and weekly/dailies for 67 columi badges. it takes a good 2+ weeks of grinding to get the legs via badges, but only 4 or 5 runs (on average) to get it as a drop, the risk vs reward ratio is kinda weird. otherwise i think its a good system, as you can fill in the gaps in your gear (if you are really unlucky with drops) by buying 1 piece after a few weeks.

nightmare has the exact same loot table as normal, and even if they fixed rakata weapons to be lvl 62 it still wouldnt be enough to improve dps by 1000. again, read the maths, this isnt a problem of a small dps boost from gear or fixing rotations. its IMPOSSIBLE currently unless theres a secret set bonus for full rakata gear + weapons which is "doubles your dps".

it IS impossible, there are some top tier raiding guilds which already have the best gear in the game (its not hard as it drops in hard modes) and even the best dps in those groups cant sustain enough dps. 220k mind traps are so broken its stupid, i cant imagine they programmed it thinking someone could actually do it even after 6 months of gear farming. they WILL nerf it in the next few patches, as its just a way to slow the end game progression. the OP even went and showed everyone the maths of how much dps is needed, yet people arnt seeing the over whelming facts that with the current "best" gear, its impossible (unless someone finds an exploit) and its not just "oh i need another 100 dps, if i tweak my rotation, or move skill points around i might be able to hit it" its flat out impossible, no tweaking of skills/rotations/mods will grant a 1000dps boost to all the dps and tanks in a raid. im guessing from the maths, 80-120k mind traps would be balanced yet still very challenging (due to the enrage).

it was a bug, it was actually hard mode they fought. (was fixed last patch). anyone who has seen the new nightmare mode, and can read this basic maths can tell straight off its broken. and for people reading it and thinking its just a quick burst damage.... he throws mind traps out 1 after another (theres always going to be 1 up) so you cant just use CDs to burst it down, its got to be 2.2k SUSTAINED dps, which is impossible even if you had full rakata gear and BiS everything, using the best rotation (well, best you can figure out without a combat log). im starting to think its going the way of wow, where they make it so stupidly overtuned that no one can do it, then nerf it and have all the raiding guilds clear it the same night as the patch.

lol luz, they called you a medal whore. even me as a full pve tank spec get between 9 and 13 medals a game (only 1 i cant get is the 5k crit, the 2.5k is fine with a stockstrike and the expertise buff), and i can also get the 50k protection one with a good healer and a bad enemy team which just tries to kill us instead of going after the squishier guys or objectives. true he may be medal farming, but how do you farm medals? defend objectives, guard players and keep them alive, kill enemies, the same basic things which win the game if other people cap things while you're tanking the enemy team. the fact he lost that game is bad, but you cant win them all, and luz can usally get 10+ medals each game, the only hard ones are the assassin (as people interfere), 5k crit and trauma (as so many times i ve got 4.99k heals and have to wait 90s to use it again and lose that much health). and yes, biochem is overpowered in pvp, free buff, free heal, free adrenal, if used right it can equal 3 or 4 free medals ( the 2.5k and 5k heal, the 75k healing one (although its hard and needs you to spam it as often as possible with adrenaline rush) and the 2.5k and 5k crit ones (adrenals are awesome)).

its a bug, all rakata weapons are lvl 51 (except the crystal), where as they should be lvl 58 or so, im hoping it will be fixed in the next few patches as it sucks.

why bother reverse engineering them, they are already reusable.

once you kill the boss, the quest ends, thus meaning you cant get back in. sucky i know.

there are no hard modes of those ones. there are 6 hardmodes, the 2 on ilum, directive 7, the 2 for a quest line in the 30s (cant remember the imp ones, but for rep its taral V and maelstrom) and esseles/black talon.

well there are people who do it 6 dps, 1 tank 1 healer on nightmare, if you are experiance enough to solo heal it, have one of the healers just go dps the whole time (on hard mode the only one which kinda needs 2 healers is soa on his last phase when he mind traps and throws people around often, and even then a dps can just offheal it)

the 2 and 4 piece of the tank set work fine for me, i get the extra time on shield and it says i get the bonus on smoke grenade (although i havnt timed it when popped, so not sure if its still 18sec there)

aye, this is annoying to tank (some ground marker where they land would be nice), basically the area they hit is quite big so you dont have to get him exactly under it, i usally find where it is, then run directly under it, and stop 5m or so on the other side so that he moves under it. you have to keep looking up with the camera, and try to predict from experiance where they will land. after a few wipes you should be able to get him hit by them all (provided they dont appear too far away).

its pure RNG, for instance today we did a lot of hard modes, most of the loot was for consulars and smugglers. yesterday was jedi knight loot. just keep doing it and the stuff will drop.

the way i ve been doing it, is to put stealth scan down as soon as he goes invisible, if you run without troopers/bh, then your best bet is to aoe like mad.

as much as i dislike this (i only got 1 useful item from an EV run, where as my friends got 3+ pieces), i do like the basic idea, just wish i could trade items i loot to other people in the raid. from what i can tell loot is always, 2 crafting items, 1 schematic and 4-6 people get random piece of loot.

basically they all can be main tank, for each advantage the others have an advantage of their own, no one has more damage resistance (the armour + % reduction equal about the same, vanguards are currently ahead a bit, but it will no doubt be tunned in later patches). it really depends on your playstyle, i didnt enjoy JG as it wasnt as fluid (i cant really explain it, but it just felt... slow) vanguards play with more dynamics. so just test each tank out till 20 or 30, and find the one which suits your style.