I still run into this problem pretty regularly with my Balance sage. Missed FiB is big, two misses is huge--the difference between killing a core myself and needing help. I've used several different tips as read on these forums, and I still can't get my "accuracy" to 100%. Every time it's my turn to hit cores, I wish I was running a sentinel.

It's been QUITE a while since I leveled my sage (my launch toon), but I would say that FiB, now that it hits 5 instead of 3, does all the aoe you need for leveling. Balance is so sturdy I joke with my guild that I tank with my sage. The utility is just phenomenal--passive healing, great cc, FiB + Forcequake to clear the trash, terrific mobility and rolling damage on "bosses." Any question of TK vs Balance It's really just style imo. The perks of TK, like tremors and alacrity cd-reduction, are just not going to show up in the endless trash pulls of the leveling process.

Willpower.

I sympathize with bad GF experiences. However, you're not thinking through your options very well. If you are better off wiping on Dash'roode so your options stay open, then you're also better off getting votekicked on Dash'roode so your options stay open. There's really no downside to you speaking up and trying to get the Guild of Bads on track. If they suck and votekick you? Hurray, now you can try to hook up with a Guild of Not-Bads. If you get yourself into a situation like what you describe--locked to OpIX with bad prospects for finishing--then that's really more on you than it is on them. I once had a hilariously bad guild votekick me from Xenoanalyst before we even started because of something like this. My only regret is that I didn't quit on them myself sooner--the writing was on the wall from the word go. Be the master of your own destiny. Fix it or cut bait and run.

Gut>IR>IP>PC(+3stacks of PG)>HIB>SS(if free)(*should proc HIB)>HIB.... Gut, Incendiary Round, Ion Pulse, Pulse Cannon (only at 3 stacks of Pulse Generator buff), High Impact Bolt, Stock Strike. If you don't know what these skills are then you just need to play the class until you know the basic moves. It's not going to do you any good to learn the names of things out of a book. Oh, and "proc" refers to all those skills in the game that give you X% chance to trigger effect y. That triggering is referred to as a "proc."

No, it's not. But a spirited argument like this thread brings forward a lot of fruitful information and viewpoints about tanking mechanics. The more they fight, the more our collective knowledge of tanking increases. It doesn't even really matter who is right and who is wrong. Readers benefit, as long as they know what to look for. Yay for internet arguments. Thanks to all who kept going at it (and may you continue to do so).

Ok, this is my super-fresh eyes, super-nubby take on the class so far. Questions peppered throughout. The priority system is actually pretty simple. In a perfect world, we'd just use FR/SF over and over. Sadly, the EAgods have decreed that we can only shoot first...first. And then we do other stuff. Priorities: 1. FR/SF. BOOM. You will only get to use this on opener and on DA every 90s. Aside concern: if you use DA to accelerate your dps this way, you won't have a stealth res available. Obviously not an issue if your raid is pro and no one dies, but...probably worth a mention. I consider stealth res to be one of the great perks of a stealth class; notable that you give it up (potentially). 2. FR/BB. BOOM! Every 12s. Never miss this. 3. VS. Dots are good. Every 18s. Question: is this ever an energy issue? The resource management is the part I don't really get yet. 4. SP. Of our no-CD moves, we would like to use this every time, right? I think I'd get suckered into flying fisting my way right past a BB if the procs were hitting repeatedly. It's hard to stop! 5. BW. Just to get to 2UH so we can SP. My big Qs: Before we factor in Flyby, isn't this all you really need? Stuff like Sabo Charge and QS just seem to junk up the energy for no/not much dps. Why not pre-cast Flyby as per the raiding standard? Can you not get into position in time if you do that?

I've been thinking about switching out of my Sawbones--I hate healing--and into this spec. This is a great starting point for me to give it a try, so thank you. After I make the switch today and get in some reps on what you have provided, I'm going to pester you about what this "normal rotation" is. Based on what you have written, the priority system seems daunting. EDIT: wait, I think I see it. "Normal Rotation" is what you are covering in the Single Target/Boss Fights section, right?

Ok, Balance rotation question/observation. (I'm perfectly happy to be argued off this point) I really doubt the wisdom of WM-FIB-SF as an opener. I take for granted that we are aiming for perfect dot uptime. That means recasting exactly when they drop off. But in that case, the WM-FIB-SF sequence builds a permanent CD in between the two dots. There's no natural way to fill that 1.5s except for Project, which is a huge resource drain and we don't take the talents to buff its damage anymore anyway. Disturbance fills the time but it's not reliable and you're likely to screw up your MC uptime. I strongly recommend WM and SF be cast together. Either throw FIB before them in your opener to maximize the debuff use, or throw it immediately after so you can use the CD on FIB to time your refresh perfectly. Or clip your SF on the second cast so that WM and SF synch up. (Side issue: For really hectic fights where lots of dots are in play and there's a lot of confusion/downtime, I *permanently* throw FIB after WM-SF. Building in a permanent 3s of downtime into the FIB rotation is a small dps loss that gives you perfect dot tracking through the mess. Obviously only use if you think you're going to lose more than 50dps from the chaos).

I found that I had to constantly set my healing comp to passive so he would not get nuked or not stand around in front of the boss doing nothing while I got axed upstairs. Wiping out the adds with the mortar volleys is a great tip--use the two terminals that summon the little melee spiders, not the ranged bigger guys. Then just herk-jerk your way out of mortar bubbles a few times and the spiders will go splodey. Still a pretty tight finish though...I was surprised at how big a step up in difficulty it is from the rest of Makeb.

Everyone has to like everything in a game. The internet told me so. I really like the binocs and the seeker is perfect for Saturday mornings while I'm waiting for some peeps to wake up and roll with me. It's very zen and beats doing dailies when you don't feel like it. Fantastic addition to the game--more things for different kinds of players.

Awesome work as usual Nibbon. Balance Q for you: You say you pop CDs after the WM. That means SF eats up your second Potency, doesn't it? I was under the impression that you always wanted Potency to go to TTx2 or FiB+TT. Am I out of the loop on the theory there?

I didn't realize the shackle was an aoe attack centered on a player. That's helpful. However, I've definitely seen some trolling with the shackles. Player 1 goes over to unshackle Player 2, and both get hit with a shackle. Not cool. Agreed that it's a good mechanic though. Fight is just different, not a dps race of any kind.

Overtuned? Gawha...wha? Hammer and Athiss are extremely easy. Cademimu is PUG-unfriendly with the shackles, but even that is not too bad. Still haven't gotten into a Mando :*(

I completed it just by entering group finder. Weird bugs there.

There are a few sites out there that give a pic of the solution. It's worth looking at one of those before/after pics so you can understand what you are trying to get the pipes to do...you never know when the thing will bug on you a bit, you misclick, someone goofy starts solving and doesn't really know what they are doing, etc. Being able to find the solution from any position other than start is a good thing. Or at least just stare at it for a bit after you solve it once. The basic idea is you are connecting the two pipe ports on the left to the two pipe ports on the right.

Lol yeah I was running D7 with a sin who kept leading with his knockback. It was really weird. Not enough to ask him to stop, but damn...don't you like being able to toss Discharge and Wither on everyone?

Narrowing the level range eligible for the flashpoint would cause a new problem--only being eligible for 1-2 flashpoints at a time. People already complain about how often they get Flashpoint X. How ugly do you think it would get if the ONLY options were X and Y? There are not enough "leveling" flashpoints for this way to work. If they alter the way xp penalties work, then people can level to 50 while farming trivial content. Maybe that doesn't matter but it just seems wrong. Find most efficient flashpoint, grind to 50. Meh. And what happens when knowledgeable tanks/healers start kicking over-leveled dps to get around this problem? Tough problem to fix.

^^ I'm assuming Xeno was designed to be PUGed. It's very easy to PUG him on 16m HM; I think in all the weeks the event ran, I was only in one group that did not one-shot him on HM. In the early weeks of the event I was in groups dropping this guy with many people in columi and even some tionese. Once people started worrying about it and reading the forums, groups got way more restrictive about gear. I even got kicked from a group for refusing to get on vent to run him once (...???...). On 16m, all of that is just not necessary. 8m is a different story, but that's always been true in all ops. The dps budget is always tight on 8m. Mechanics weaknesses in the group are exposed much faster.

There's only once place I find keypad movement helpful--the bombers on the Station Defense mission. The move-and-aim combo lets you burn them down with guns only without taking much damage. Makes the later part much easier. Everywhere else, mouse movement alone is plenty. Incidentally, I found a far superior approach to the Station Assault than what I had been using before. If you completely destroy the first frigate at the beginning of the mission and then take out all the high position satellites before the sith/jedi ship first shows up, then you get a free, easy look at a torpedo shot on the comm array you wouldn't otherwise get. Very helpful; makes the whole mission a snap. Like the lower level station assaults, you end up flying around waiting to drop off one last torpedo at the end of the mission (the bridge of the captial ship in this case).

I agree that's a great summary of the consular story line. Consular was my first and I still enjoy parts of the story looking back. The problem is that the ideas (create an alliance, defuse political tensions, hold summits, etc.) are not effectively executed. There's way too much FETCH THIS ITEM (so that a meeting can happen) instead of fetch this item SO THAT A MEETING CAN HAPPEN. The story still has its moments, and if you really get into the lore and such it's pretty cool. But there's no signature moment that stands up to some of the other class stories. Agent, Sith Warrior, and Bounty Hunter all have a OH YEAH moment (or six). The consular, even when it's conceptually awesome, never quite pops. And I say that as someone absolutely dedicated to the consular as my first, my favorite, my conceptual choice. It's like they had the right parameters but put the worst lead designer on the project. Except for trooper; that story blows way worse.

Two basic pieces of advice: 1. Unless you are already super skilled or talented (not apparently the case), you're going to die a lot learning the route. These mission involve a lot more necessary steering (your flight path takes you into objects if you don't move), a lot of "use your specials HERE and not THERE," and a lot of defensive flying to avoid gunfire. Focus on surviving and take note of when you have clean shots for your mission objectives. Once you learn the steps to take, the missions fly just like any other. 2. DO NOT TRY TO SHOOT DOWN THE TRASH FIGHTERS. There are only a few (very few) places where you need to gun down fighters to pull off the mission. When you are learning the missions, learn to completely ignore fighters. You'll be amazed how little damage you take if you are not trying to gun them down. In almost every case, fighters are designed to distract you from ROCK! or MISSION OBJECTIVE! or waste a bunch of shield right before a sith ship/jedi corvette pops out. Just let them fly by.

Even the ones I find the most difficult (station defense by far, station assault to a lesser extent) are totally clearable. My favorite part about the heroic ship missions is that the two easiest missions are the weekly.

Anyone having trouble completing the Station Assault mission on the Imp side (Far Cradle, I think it's called)? I've cleared all HM ship missions on the Rep side many times, easy farm. But now that I'm working my Sith through them, I'm finding it impossible to get a second proton torpedo lock on the station's comm relay. I nail it on the first pass, I don't have time on pass two, and then on pass three--as you go under the capital ship--you have your longest and clearest shot. Every time I go through, I am losing lock for no discernible reason. Haven't filed a ticket yet, but I'm starting to consider it. Again, I've bullseyed this mission a dozen of times as a Rep.

If you encounter trash at all during DoI, you are doing it wrong.