Ummm...YES, there was. DFA in practice does less damage now (even in PvE) because of the imbalance between its blast radius and its knockback. If you're not seeing this, you must be blind. Simple example (I even explained this earlier in this very thread): Group of 4 Eshka trash mobs in Belsavis... Pre 1.2 - All mobs knocked down and either dead or close to it. Post 1.2 - The mobs that manage to be in the blast radius the entire time (maybe 1 or 2 of them) get up with half their health remaining. The ones that get knocked OUTSIDE of the blast radius barely have a scratch. And this isn't even accounting for the mobs I can no longer even hit because the radius was reduced so much. The whole point being...DFA used to be a good situational AoE/CC skill in PvE. But now it's broken and practically not worth using anymore.

But what I don't think the devs really understand is that DFA's damage was significantly reduced (perhaps unintentionally) by the following two things happening: 1. The radius is reduced by 3 meters. 2. But at the same time, knockback is the same. I tested DFA on a standard group of 4 Eshka trash mobs on one of the Belsavis dailies. A day ago, that attack would have dropped that group down to almost nothing. Now, 2 or 3 of them will get knocked back so far out of the damage radius that they barely get hit. 500-600 per tick (compared to 1k-1.5k per tick), if I'm lucky. And some of them won't even get hit after they're knocked back. Subjectively speaking, DFA is effectively doing half the damage it used to. That's a pretty big nerf, if you ask me. There was really no reason to fix this skill. It wasn't broken. It didn't even make BHs overpowered. DFA has very situational use and it's rarely used in PvP anyway (I only use it as an interrupt in PvP). Plus, its 1-min. CD makes using it more than once per battle a pretty rare occurrence. Yet, it seems that BioWare keeps listening to the crybabies that apparently have never heard of interrupting channeled abilities -- or simply running away from that big red symbol on the floor. If anything, keep the reduced radius, but adjust the knockback to compensate. But honestly, I think DFA should go back to how it was. This skill is almost completely worthless now.

You're also assuming that every Merc specs Arsenal. There's a lot of Mercs in the game that are spec'd Safeguard (healing) and Pyrotech (more gadget-oriented DPS) as well. But needless to say, easy to master, ranged DPS "hunter" classes will always be the most popular in any MMO. And for the record, Arsenal Mercs really aren't any better than any other DPS speciality. They have their pros and cons, too. For example, Arsenals need to be stationary to do maximum damage. They're aren't nearly as effective on the move.

I don't really see how that would add any value, unless they were super-cheap items to make. But as it stands, crafted consumables in general get priced well beyond what most sane people would pay for them. They would quickly become more of a convenience item than a money saver. The other crafting professions just need better things to make at end game, period.

Orange armor pieces were supposed to be the equivalent of what you're talking about. The problem is that in practice, they really aren't. At least on my server, it's rare to see complete sets of orange armor on the GTN. Even when there is, there isn't enough variety in the available armor schematics and drops for anyone to look truly unique.

Then I suppose you detest practically every capitalistic venture that goes on in the Western world. Take a comic book dealer (which I am), for example. Now say someone comes to me with a big longbox of books he wants to flip. Out of the books that hold inherent value (1% of them, in most cases), I'm willing to pay a certain amount to take them off his hands. If the buyer agrees to my offer (no pressure whatsoever), the books get marked up and resold at prices I believe I can get for them in my market, while still turning a reasonable profit. I created a risk for myself by purchasing new items to stock that may or may not sell. In some cases, people don't know what they have. But in the end, it's the job of the seller to do proper research and understand the risks involved before conducting the transaction. Capitalism 101...

In Armstech for my merc, I made a grand total of TWO pair of barrels for myself (Advanced Reflex 17 and Advanced Reflex 21). They took hours of RE grinding to make and I out leveled them quickly. Prior to that, I didn't even bother because the cost of materials would have drained me at earlier levels. And then after realizing that I could get an Advanced Reflex 23 barrel doing 30 minutes worth of dailies, I completely stopped making anything in Armstech. We don't get ANY orange weapon recipes until Armstech 400. And by that time, you can already get better weapons and barrels than you can make doing simple end game dailies. Heck, you even get excellent orange companion weapons with very little effort from dailies. Armstech has got to be the most pooed on crafting profession in the game. There's nothing of value they can provide in trade, unless a rich player with alts is willing to buy your lower-level blaster barrels and companion weapons. I haven't ditched Armstech yet (perhaps I'm just hopeful that it will change relatively soon), but Biochem is starting to look very tempting...

You're preaching to the choir, OP. An "unorthodox" solution is to send a companion on a cheap low-level mission skill (like a T1) and the higher-tier ones should reset. The T1 mission skills are only 5-6 minutes.

Well, the devs were talking about nerfing the mat requirements for making blue/purple items, but IIRC, there was no real mention of doing the same with the base green items. IMHO, nerfing the base greens would have the best overall effect, especially with the non-linear schematics that have several blue variants (like weapons, earpieces, focii, etc.). For all of this, I'm talking about crafting in general.

Perhaps I should have elaborated here. Grenades ARE awesome, but their usefulness leaves something to be desired when they have a 5-minute CD on use. Right now (at least on my server), grenades rarely pop up on the GTN - not a huge market for them. I imagine there would be a much more lucrative market for them if the CD was perhaps, 2 minutes. And a lot of us are giving the OP reasons why this is - and sadly, this can attributed to how easy it is to end game on gear that costs nothing. The way crafting in general is currently implemented, people are easily power-leveling all the way to 50 using blue item mods purchased from commendation vendors. And then when they hit Lvl 50, running the dailies on Belsavis and Ilum yields better item mods than Cybertechs and Artificers can actually make (upgraded color crystals being the notable exception - these sell for obscene prices because there's no other way to get them). So in the case of Cybertechs, they'll likely focus on making item mods that directly benefit themselves and their companions while leveling the skill and simply ignore the others. Why bother making other variants knowing it's so easy for players who want them to obtain them by other means? Profit killer, if you ask me. Hence, the scarcity of specific blue/purple mods available for sale on the GTN at times.

As a Cybertech myself, I think the profession will continue to be broken this way until BioWare makes some changes to the system. 1. It's much easier to obtain item modifications through planet accommodations and dailies. At Lvl 50, modifications become completely irrelevant because you can get purple Lvl 23 item mods (which Cybertechs can't even MAKE) rather easily, without spending money. There should be an incentive for crafters here (like unique, craft-only armorings and mods), but there simply isn't. There are also certain item mods at certain tiers that Cybertechs have no access to, yet they're available at commendations vendors. As an example, Cybertechs don't get schematics for Guardian Armorings before T4 (Guardian Armoring 14, I believe). That's pretty whacked. 2. It takes too long and costs too much to acquire the blue/purple materials required to make the better armorings and mods. For example, a T3 Underworld Trading mission can cost 500-600 credits and 25-30 minutes to return enough of these materials to make maybe one item. There might be two or three missions available at once that actually return these materials. On my server (Vornskr), I'm lucky to sell a lower-level blue item mod on the GTN for 2000 credits. And it's nearly impossible to sell a purple version of the same thing at a profit (lower-level players simply don't have the funds). And that doesn't even account for the stacks of materials consumed reverse engineering items to get better schematics. Sometimes, I get lucky. But most of the time, I have to RE an item like 15-20 times to get a blue schematic and then go through the same dance trying to get a purple. Because of this, I would tend to focus on getting schematics that directly benefited my own characters and companions at lower levels. Again, I would never make back what I put into it on the GTN. 3. Earpieces seem to be the only thing Cybertechs make that there's a market for throughout the course of the game. Ship upgrades tend to only be profitable towards end game and droid parts are pretty useless (you're crafting for T7-01 and ship droids...big deal). And I don't know anyone who actually uses grenades. All in all, I think a lot of crafters outside of Biochem are in this same boat and get easily discouraged from crafting. I have also have an Armstech and notice a lot of the same thing. Most of the main hand weapons I make are useless to most players because they're already rolling with orange weapons they can upgrade throughout the course of the game with commendations. Armtechs don't get orange schematics till 400. By that time, players are already getting better main hand weapons running end game flashpoints. Blaster barrels share the same annoying economic imbalance with practically every other item mod (outside of perhaps color crystals, which are pretty rare outside of crafting before end game).

I beat him at Level 45, as a Merc spec'd Arsenal. Here's what I did (it might work for you): 1. I used Mako. I put her in Med Watch stance and turned off ALL her offensive abilities for the fight. 2. Opened up with a fusion missle for a bit of DOT. 3. Kited the boss around the room, hitting him with Rapid Shot and Missile Blast. I had burn Kolto Overload and a medpack while doing this but between that and the heals I was receiving from Mako, I stayed alive. I also had to burn Vent Heat (missile blasts stack heat rather quickly). 4. Boss dead within of a breath of death! Phew! (I think I had 500 health left). So, it is possible (even at 45), but it's a difficult fight, even on-level. I can agree to certain extent that a class story quest that's MEANT to be solo shouldn't be this hard. The boss literally hits you for 2-2.5k health per blow if you don't keep moving.

Your "combined" WEI score will cap at 5.9 if you're using a mechanical hard drive for boot. Only SSDs get awarded higher scores. It's stupid, but true. It can be a single disk, or even a multi-disk RAID pushing 350+ MB/s - it will always cap at 5.9. IIRC, 7.9 is the highest score you can achieve for combined or subsystem (on the current scale) in Windows 7. But incidentally, my 4+ year old GPU (8800 GT 512MB) scores a 6.9. The problem is that Win 7's scale hasn't changed one bit since version launch and there's now GPUs out that are literally 3x powerful as the "7.9" cards from yesteryear. For these reasons, WEI has very little basis in reality - if you're building a gaming rig, at least. WEI mostly exists for the non-tech types (i.e. the majority of PC users) that have a hard time making sense of hardware requirements for software.

I'm pretty well convinced at this point that REs do not exist for off-hand weapons...period. I've crafted DOZENS of Vibroknives and Scatterguns only to waste tons of time and stacks of mats. I think that at the very least, if something cannot be RE'd, the option to do so should not be there.

I think you may be exaggerating a bit. Macs (at least the notebooks and iMacs) generally do keep up pretty well with modern CPUs, but they have always been at least a generation behind on GPUs. Apple never uses high-end notebook GPUs. They've always used midrange parts at best. But also consider that high-end GPUs are generally only found on the heaviest PC notebooks with ginormous 200W+ power bricks. Really, it's design decision more than anything else. Apple wants to make notebooks under an inch thick that can run up to 8 hours on a battery charge. You can't really get those numbers with a power-hungry GPU. This logic even applies to PCs. A laptop with comparable GPU performance to a midrange gaming PC is going to be big, brash and weigh a ton. That's mostly because notebook GPU drivers are more often than not, specific to the make of the notebook. Other factors are in play such as the notebook's native display, power management, etc. The beta SWTOR client ran decently on my 2008 MacBook Pro (2.6GHz C2D, 4GB RAM, 8600M GT 512MB) using the latest Boot Camp drivers on Win 7 x64, but the release client just doesn't run acceptably anymore. I'm not sure exactly what changed. Now I just avoid playing on the MBP altogether. The game actually runs pretty well on my 2008 Mac Pro (2.8GHz Xeon 8-core, 16GB RAM, 8800 GT 512MB) at 1920x1200 at medium settings. Again, Win 7 x64. I'm getting 35-40 fps average, with occasional dips to 20 fps. Thinking about a new GPU though to turn more eye candy on...