If they are indeed bringing them down to Energized stats, then you are correct. Exotech is currently better than Energized. Tell me BioWare, how does this equate to cost-savings? I am a BioChem, dag-blast-it! I chose this profession solely to have access to the best possible stims and adrenals around the clock. If I am going to be forced to use expendables just to achieve these stats, then I might as well be buying them from someone else. Lord knows I don't need all of these credits I am sitting on. And on that note, why on earth would anyone with these recipes actually bother making them to sell? Stims and adrenals may well become the 'Stone of Jordan' of SWTOR, given how pointless credits are. You know what? Let's get this kicked off right now... Trading 100 stims/adrenals of your choice for 'The Choppa' w/ Aug slot. Mails to Fsac on Prophecy of the Five.

The larger, intended initial heal of this spell is GONE as of today's patch. Instead, it is providing a tic of the HoT upfront. Watching my health as it is being casted, it is clearly tic'ing right away, even though the flytext is delayed, making it appear as two tics at the first tic. From all outward appearances, this wasn't even an actual bug to begin with, merely a visual one. Seriously, stuff like this should not pass QA.

Just a friendly reminder for all the kiddies that you should never post anything to the internet that you don't want the entire world to see. At least it wasn't a nude photo.

Hi Asphen Quoting in the erased OP... maybe because I'm trollin'... maybe because I want to see where this topic goes. IMHO, solely based on the fact that is has such a "high" focus cost, Riposte should be kept off-macro. Reason being, that it could interfere with your rotations. The lone exception might be with a Combat build, which I feel is considerably less rotation-minded and lacks focus-intensive abilities. Riposte, to me, is something only to be used when you have plenty of excess focus or when short-term, burst DPS is desirable (such as in PvP.) Now, I can no longer log in to check the numbers due to account expiration (bugs got the best of me,) but if I'm not mistaken, in any given build, Riposte is actually one of our least efficient focus-to-damage skills. It could be argued that, since it resides off-GCD, it will almost certainly be better DPS than whatever else you might have had planned for that focus, even in an extended encounter. To that, I would suggest that any PvE build worth it's salt being used in an environment in which DPS is a critical issue should not be taking damage often enough to proc Riposte on enough encounters in the first place such that it is worth maintaining the high focus (using Strike more often) needed to ensure no disruption to their rotation. As always, there are exceptions, so if you find yourself in such an encounter, maybe it's worth considering...

I may (stressing may) have one more month in me, if only to reserve my seat to watch this train wreck happen. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you, BioWare. This is the second valor-related mishap you have seemingly decided is best to just sweep under the rug. If what has gone down today is the full extent of what is being done regarding yesterday's Ilum goof-up, then there is clearly no hope for this game... Star Wars franchise or not.

Only 50? Man, my ability to count masses of people must be waning. Punishing 50 per server would only catch only the most egregious of offenders. I'm sure there are tons of people who would otherwise be honest players that simply followed along. Sucks for them--sucks worse for us. The beatings will continue until morale improves! That seems to be BioWare's stance at this hour. Surely they know that Republic players are the one playerbase within this community they simply cannot afford to piss off.

What could they possibly do at this point? They've already let the problem run rampant. A rollback is a pipe dream, this far into the patch. At absolute best we can expect a slap on the wrists in the form of a short suspension... solely reserved for the most obvious of exploiters. IMHO, anything less than hundreds/thousands suspended on each server would be a complete and total slap in the face. At least if they did that, if only for a mere three days, the Imp:Pub ratio would be fairly equalized. You want to speak to BioWare on this issue? PULL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION! It doesn't have to be permanently. Just go without the game for a mere two days when your free time is up. The only words these guys will ever understand are those spoken with our wallets. I have and I encourage everyone else who is upset by this situation to as well.

Anyone that is happy people are leaving over this is clearly looking for this game to go TORtanic. Given mob mentality, I'm sure a lot of otherwise "honest" players got roped into going this stuff... and so far as I am aware, the only mobs around are Imps. It stands to reason then that Republic players are going to be the most upset if something isn't done about this issue; the one group of people that BioWare simply cannot afford to piss off if they ever hope to have a healthy PvP community (which, let's face it, is a pipe dream with current imbalances anyway.)

If you wait until the last day of your active sub to unsub, you are just asking for hassle with your CC company and BioWare support.

If you see this, then yes... because I've already canceled my subscription (if only to provide feedback that might actually be read via the unsub comments.) In a couple of days, after my playtime has run out, then no, I don't expect to be able to.

1. Oh, right you are. Had the wrong tooltip in my head for Rebuke's focus gen talent. 10, tops. It would actually likely be 8-9 in actual use, given minor delays between it's first trigger and other weirdness. 2. Using Cauterize less would allow for more Slashes. Actually, now that I think about it, given the focus generation issue you pointed out beforehand it may actually equalize rather quickly. Too tired to math this one right now. 3. The overwhelming majority of the AOE in these encounters can either be avoided entirely or easily mitigated through other means (Rebuke, for example) due to their early warning systems (bonethrather's agro switch, Gharj's warning text, large red circles, etc...) The one obvious exception is in PvP, where AOE is a fact of life around key objectives that the Sentinel is so often forced to fight around. 3.2. For the record, I do believe I tend to favor the defensive build. I only recently switched over to the offensive just to see how much of a difference I could feel while I taking a break from PvP, waiting for the brackets. 4. Three seconds is plenty noticeable when you are waiting for that cooldown. Nevertheless, the same sentiment could be applied to a good many talents that are used to reach others that clearly make them worth having. In this case, it is good towards the 15% Slash crit chance, which the jury is still out on. 5. Perhaps more poor wording on my part. Frankly, I rarely use Zen as I find the DPS increase to be questionable at best. I pop Transcendence early and often in PvE for the tank to receive that avoidance bonus. Even moreso in PvP. The only time I really hold it back is when there is a knockback mechanic to the encounter (thus making Transcendence equal out to more DPS gained than Zen, thanks to melee in my party, self included, reaching the mobs easily a GCD sooner than they would otherwise) or when there is a random aggro mechanic which might require people to create a gap (such as with Bonethrasher.) 6. Same argument as Master Strike. When you are waiting on it, you'll be glad that -10 sec is there. But I agree, it's not often that this talent is a huge boon to this build in PvE. 7. Hmm, that's news to me then. That particular part of the attack is clearly listed as Force in the raw data as seen on the likes of TORHead. Without proof of my own (lack of parsing) I will gladly resign this point. 8. n/t, agreed. 9. Is there a setting to show refresh flashes that I've missed? For me, one GCD it's solid gray, the next it just blends right on in with the rest of the GCD resets. There is nothing fancy like a noticeable flash, as seen in other titles. I figured things like this would have become convention by now in MMOs, but this UI is just atrocious; so many missing features and lack of customization. 9.2. Perhaps, in a day or two, after I give this offensive build it's fair shake, I'll try going back to Mind Sear. I don't know if I will be able to move that hotkey (damnit, OCD!) but it might be worth adding a second in a different spot. We shall see. ...and with that, I've got to go catch some ZzZzZs.

No, I am not. Hence the reason for the inclusion of the word "just" which you yourself highlighted in the reply. I was simply trying to show how that particular aspect of Mind Sear stacks up in the grand scheme of things. Yes, crits would widen that gap. It is also something that is heavily reliant on the stats of the individual, hence my inclusion of that statement. I am not trying to skew numbers or hide anything here. And yes, you've caught another oversight in the lost potential centering. Though it is still not enough for another trigger of Zen, I'll give you that. So, another ~1200 damage in favor of Mind Seat over a 3 minute fight. Sound fair? Finally (for this section, anyway) the choice between Defensive Forms and Jedi Crusader was not one I took lightly and are easily two points which can be flipped at the users preference. Honestly, I don't even know which I prefer right now. I've been a long-time user of Defensive Forms and only recently ditched it for Crusader. My reasoning behind that choice was entirely PvP-based, as I would rather be generating focus than centering when I am wailing on someone and they are wailing back. And on that note, Crusader-buffed Rebuke is potentially 20 (16-19 is a more realistic expectation) free focus once ever minute, if you are being targeted. With this build, you use Slash much more often than with Mind Sear. I would not call that counter-productive, no. I would call that synergistic. Also, I linked two specs; one offensive, one defensive. If you are at all concerned about being a liability (or have foreknowledge of AOE-intensive encounters) then absolutely, forgo that extra DPS gained from the Focus tree to pick up more defensive talents. When you are not so concerned with any of that, there is a lot of extra DPS to be gained from the Focus tree. Now, regarding "wasted points" in the focus tree, I tend to use Master Strike on cooldown. Yes, I know it doesn't generate focus or centering, but it does generate DPS and given that I often sit on my centering for defensive use of Transcendence/Zen, rather than offensive use of Zen, I am less concerned with milking every last ounce of centering out that I can. For PvP (and to a lesser degree, in PvE) I like the -10s CD on Force Stasis. Also, I hardly feel as though Insight is wasted points. If I am not mistaken, it affects both Overload Saber and Cauterize (tics only) as well as Force Sweep, Dispatch and basically everything else 'yellow numbered' that we have. I'll have to do some more math on the actual DPS decrease involved with waiting out the Cauterize cooldown, but I really don't think it is all that bad. On average, you wont see a Cauterize refresh until your second Slash (or when the cooldowns align, a first MercSlash at the 6 second mark) so the 7.5 second thing is, as stated, an "ideal world" calculation. Shall we call it 9 seconds? So assuming an average of... I'm going to call it 800 damage difference between the average Slash and Cauterize. That's ~6400 damage over a 3 minute fight, bringing the grand total up to around 10k damage increase. No small beans, no doubt. I've wiped on Ops bosses with less than that. For me, though, removing Mind Sear from my build has increased my enjoyment as a Sentinel tremendously (and I was never really one that was disappointed with the class.) What I lose in offensive capability, I certainly feel as though I make up for defensively and protectively (not as viable in Ops, but plenty so in HMs) just based on the fact that I can now better pay attention to the fight, rather than having to glance down at my hotbars for a solid half of the fight.

This is incorrect. The refresh can only occur once every 6 seconds, meaning you would only be able to reapply a Cauterize every 7.5 seconds. The calculations in my previous post were of the absolute best case scenario. In actual practice, the odds of you achieving 24 straight resets on your first attempt (with a 33% chance, mind you, because MercSlash will not be up for this) over the course of a three minute encounter is about as likely as ... something not very likely (thanks Wolfram Alpha, you were a HUGE help there. )

Thank you for bringing that up. The focus generation was actually one of my biggest concerns in making the switch to this build. Having played with it for more than a week now, I find these fears to be unfounded. Paper-math time! Running the numbers on it, there is (as would be expected) a definite difference between the two builds in this area. Over the course of a three minute fight and under the most absolutely ideal circumstances (one Cauterize every 7.5 seconds, as opposed to once every 15 seconds) you only stand to gain, statistically, 22 focus. Since no one should really ever be focus-starved in this build, I will go ahead and then assume that means using Strike 6 times and Slash 5 times, as opposed to using Slash 11 times. Before factoring in criticals, that is a difference of 2,400 damage. A (mere?) 2,400 damage over three minutes under absolutely ideal circumstances that will never happen in practice. But again, this is just the damage gain from the bonus focus aspect of using Mind Sear. Also, I don't believe your math (or lack thereof?) is correct regarding the DPS gains directly from more uses of Cauterize itself. For one, depending on your spec, Slash can have an equal crit rate bonus (technically slightly higher, since the initial hit for Cauterize is not effected by the 15% crit rate.) For two, the difference in damage is not quite as large (at least for me) as you claim. Doing some quick headmath, Easymode's numbers actually appear to fairly reasonable, if just a bit on the low side.

Devs don't appear to be posting anywhere in any class forums, nor in the PvP forums. Understandably so. Nothing they could say would be pleasing to hear by everyone involved.

Yea, as I said, I tried using MercSlash both on cooldown and as a Cauterize reset. Both 'felt' about the same to me, DPS-wise, but until we get a combat log we will never know. When using MercSlash on cooldown, I was generating more DPS through MercSlash. When MercSlash is used instead to refresh the Cauterize cooldown, what DPS you lose by holding back your MercSlash feels like it was made up with the earlier reapplication of Cauterize and lessened use of Slash to reach that end goal. The bar-staring (perhaps poor wording, as I doubt anyone just actively stares at their bar the whole time. Looking down often, such as when using skills that may possibly refresh Cauterize's CD) has more to do with monitoring Cauterize for maximum uptime. Crabbok suggests that he is able to see Cauterize refreshes in his peripheral vision--more power to him. I guess I am a bit OCD about my skill placements and Cauterize is smack dab in the middle of my bar, making it a bit harder to detect without a dedicated glance, taking my attention away from what should be more important things, like who just grabbed aggro and whether or not they need any of the help I could provide them in that instance. Is it a net loss in DPS? The odds would favor yes. Is it major? I don't believe so.

Absolutely. I'm not even asking for those evil Rift-esque infinite skills on a single button macros. If they could even implement macros that only allowed for a maximum of two skills per, I think it would free up a lot of time to tear our eyeballs away from the hotbars. I was plenty fed up it before removing Mind Sear. ...now it's just bug after fun-sapping bug that keeps me from enjoying this game.

We have a saber throw that can apply a healing debuff, in addition to dealing damage. It can be spec'd in the Combat tree to provide a 3 second root effect. There is big difference there. And if you can't find a way, as a Sentinel, to get within 10m of a target, then something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. That's like... our thing. We have a thing and that is what it is.

In another recent thread, I noted a choice I've made regarding my Watchman build. In an effort not to derail that thread and to open up discussion on this choice, I've opted to give it it's own thread. Fair warning, there is a good chance that this will become a very controversial topic and quickly devolve into little more than "L2P," "yeahuh" and "nuhuh" comments. So, how best to begin? I suppose it's best to just come right out and say it. I do not use Mind Sear in my Watchman build. Absolute insanity, I know. Call the loony bin, make a reservation, this guy has some wires crossed! But hear me out for a second. As I explained in the other thread, Watchman had, for the longest time, always felt a little too bar-focused to me. In order to maximize DPS, I always felt as though I was better served staring at my hotbars than the actual goings-on around me. Moreover, in an effort to maximize the likelihood of Cauterize refreshes, I was ignoring one of the biggest boons of the MercSlash skill; it's own cooldown reduction mechanic. Because I was holding off on MercSlash, I found that both Zealous Strike and Force Leap (encounter permitting) were also being backed up and left up off-cooldown. All of this could be traced back to one little passive in the Watchman tree: Mind Sear. For a while, I even tried adjusting my play to use MercSlash on cooldown while relying solely on Slash for cooldown resets. The bar-staring=at became even worse and DPS felt none the better for it. I knew something had to change. A little over a week ago I came up with a build that, blasphemous as it may sound, did away with Mind Sear altogether. I've been using it ever since. For me, the biggest advantage is that the build is much closer to a rotation-based build, rather than a bar-staring contest. MercSlash will always keep you on your toes to a degree, but comparatively, it's a night and day difference. Instead of staring at cooldowns and focus, I am now afforded the luxury of paying more attention to the encounter/fight at hand and am better able to respond to events as they occur, rather than react to them after the fact. I am now able to use Zen as a healing supplement, rather than a DPS booster and Transcendence as an errant aggro buff rather than a fun little gag for PvE. DPS-wise, we all know the story... no parser = no clue. I will just say that in my little circle, my tank gives me Guard every single time over an Ops and Commando buddy, simply for the aggro reduction. And I still pull aggro. When I am not in the group, the healer often notes the visible difference he sees. Would I do even more with Mind Sear in my build again? Maybe. I'll let you know just as soon as Bioware gives us a combat log and macros, because I personally will not be going back to that anytime soon. Offensive build: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501bIbRrRroGzZhZG00M.1 Defensive build: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501bIbRrRrbGzZhMr.1 Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Hollacall at ya boi!

Smuggler... or Trooper? You specifically mentioned Full Auto, which is definitely a Trooper skill. And not even one that rings a bell as being one of their best. If I'm not mistaken, it's their version of our Master Strike. And unless we are talking levels under 20 here, it should not be enough to outright kill a mob on it's own. Perhaps there was something else at play that you weren't aware of, such as their sticky nade or a quick follow-up to Full Auto, such as us using a Master Strike followed immediately by a Slash.

The reduced cost to Dispatch isn't terrible. For most builds, it allows you to simply incorporate Dispatch into your rotation in place of a Slash, as opposed to having to scavenge for an extra point of focus to fuel that DPS booster. The cooldown reduction on VC just doesn't do anything for me, though.

I feel this is a very common logic-leap being made by Sentinels (and others) which may not hold as much weight as one might think. The thing you have to remember is that all of these guaranteed crits are on a cooldown. What do you do in the interim? At best, as a Combat, you have 7.5 seconds in between guaranteed criticals; five potential skill uses. With Focus, 10.5 seconds or seven GCDs. Watchman, at the absolute best, 8 (9, I think, figuring in the time it takes to burn off Zen under an ideal rotation) GCDs, if not many more. If you are already invested into Surge for your guaranteed crits, wouldn't you want to crit more on the rest of your skills as well? Power just feels so... meaningless. The gains are just a hair above those gained from Strength, but lack the benefits of additional crit. At least with crit rating you are still pulling usefulness from another stat (surge.)

That is certainly a fair argument; however, don't forget that there is a 6 second lull in your rotation that occurs any time MercSlash or Slash triggers a reset of your Cauterize cooldown. 1.5 seconds of that will be consumed in the reapplication of Cauterize, so 4.5 seconds. Depending on your ZS and Leap (encounter permitting) cooldowns, it may be more advantageous to use Master Strike during this period to generate some free DPS and neither have cooldowns ticking down, nor lingering around. This is not the case for me, even as a fellow Watchman. Ready for some blasphemy? I don't actually use Mind Sear in my build. "WOAH," right? "Giant noob," right? It is because of all of the above that I have opted against taking what would otherwise be considered a must-have. When I used Mind Sear, I always felt as though I was having to watch my bars more than I was the fight, just to attain maximum DPS. Cooldowns like ZS and Master Strike were being left up far too long between uses just to appease the Cauterize gods. And worst of all, I wasn't enjoying the class like I used to; it became a chore. Quite honestly, I don't feel as though my DPS is much the worse because of it. I traded using MercSlash for Cauterize resets for using MercSlash for MercSlash. I traded tirelessly grinding centering for the next Zen for sitting on centering for Transcendence. I traded staring at my hotbars for actually paying attention to the encounters/PvP, affording me better timing when using defensive cooldowns and Centering buffs. In my books, completely and totally worth it...

It should also be noted that Strength gives you 0.2 damage per point, as well as critical chance. Power, IMHO, is a last resort stat for a Sentinel.

MercSlash has a better chance of refreshing your Cauterize CD, so, focus permitting, you should use it before Slash. Additionally, you want to get that cooldown running as soon as possible if your end goal is sustained DPS. It will definitely take some getting used to, if for no other reason than it's self-adjusting cooldown. It's important that you hit that first re-application, as the second becomes much more manageable, allowing a bit of room for error in the focus department. I would not recommend trying to juggle 5 focus at all times, though. In time, you will just know it in your bones when to grind out a little more focus for an upcoming MercSlash.