*Bump* Currently looking to recruit Ranged DPS and Tank.

*Bump* Currently looking to recruit Ranged DPS and Tank.

Choices Matter Apply We are mainly an ops guild which has been founded by three raid leaders, running 3 active teams. All three teams are currently working our way through NIM progression while having some good banter in the process. While we are an operations focused guild you will still find us doing the odd bit of PvP, alt runs and on the very rare occasion even be tempted by some conquest. We just aim to have a relaxed atmosphere and a good time while we play. If you feel you lack the gear or experience do still apply as we are looking for the right people not the right gear. If that sounds like something you are interested in make an application on our website. We run ops on Tuesday, Thursday & Sundays start at 7:30 / 8:00 (GMT +0) to 22:30. Currently we are looking for a Marauder, Merc Healer and Tank. Even though these are the classes we are currently looking for we will consider all applications. For questions you can contact Speedhay, Zamborg or Caladen.

Choices Matter Apply We are mainly an ops guild which has been founded by three raid leaders, running 3 active teams. All three teams are currently working our way through NIM progression while having some good banter in the process. While we are an operations focused guild you will still find us doing the odd bit of PvP, alt runs and on the very rare occasion even be tempted by some conquest. We just aim to have a relaxed atmosphere and a good time while we play. If you feel you lack the gear or experience do still apply as we are looking for the right people not the right gear. If that sounds like something you are interested in make an application on our website. We run ops on Tuesday, Thursday & Sundays start at 7:30 / 8:00 (GMT +0) to 22:30. Currently we are looking for a Marauder, Merc Healer and Tank. Even though these are the classes we are currently looking for we will consider all applications. For questions you can contact Speedhay, Zamborg or Caladen.

I'm the RL and I use Master Loot. This is mainly due to the fact I hate making loot complicated. Essentially its a roll system but I have the option to choose to give it to another person if I decide. Golden rule being that other person is never me. Relics always go to DPS first since I feel personally they garner the biggest benefit for the group. I'll always try to be fair and everyone may not always agree with my decisions, they can speak to me after raid if they disagree and I'll explain my reasons. If they still don't agree and its to that big a problem its pretty simple, they get the "Good luck in your future endeavours" chat. Outside those little caveats its highest roll wins and we will all get the loot quick enough anyway.

I'd be really interested to know your findings on this as its been something that's been bugging me since 3.0 launched. Sadly I'm a slacker and haven't been able to get the gear to test, so I've just been hoping someone would look into it. My gut feeling is old 4pc + new 2pc is the highest dps but hey what does my gut know. Now just need to do some crit and alacrity testing of my own when I get better gear and time, oh what fun.

I can be guilty of this but from my perspective I know if the healer is ready then I can tank anything in a Flashpoint this game has with my Marauder. Though I never moan at the tank if I'm the one doing the pulling.

Your Mara seems a bit low, I'll post my avg figures as context as why I'm saying that. For reference I am Carnage spec and fully what I consider BiS. T&Z:- I average around 1350-1550dps, though that normally involves me holding of dps on Toth to keep both bosses level. Can often see 10-15 gaps of 0 dmg or times where I just slack to make things easier came the final push. Fire/Storm:- I tend to avg between 1850-1950dps on this fight. I was avg close to 2k dps on this fight the other night up until after the last shield phase, then things went a little wrong with the other dps and where the DD went meaning I had a 15sec period of no dps followed by having to run to Fire then back to Storm for the DD. Ended up with 1870dps for the fight. If the dps on Fire could keep up though I could easily see constant figures of 1900+ and even 2k at times. Vorgarth:- 1100 for the most part, I hate this fight and normally just go into autopilot for it and just do enough to get through it. Warstrider:- On average I'm doing 3100-3400dps depending on crits during the first phase.

There's a couple of solutions to this issue. 1) As previously mentioned stack 3dps on Storm, this can be done in either two ways. The one already mentioned of taking Storm to 20% and then all dps on Fire or by getting a range dps on Fire who does 5-10 seconds worth of dps on Storm after every shield phase just to tip the balance. The first version will work on HM but not on NiM, the second will work on both. 2) You can slow the dps down slightly so that the second DD hits at a slightly higher % and you go into the shield phase as normal. The most obvious problem being that you are further weakening what is already a dps issue and make enraging more of a issue, though its possible. 3) When the second DD comes have the tank drop to the ground and stay there till the shield phase (will only be for about 5 secs normally). This will mean the lighting bubble hits the ground and not on the tank like you are experience. The tank must drop to the ground on the second DD though if he does not or goes to the ground and then back on the tank then the lighting will place itself on the tank as well. All are viable though 1 or 3 are the better solutions with 3 working quite well once the tanks get used to dropping to the floor on the second DD. While these are all solutions to the problem you face I'd use the reprieve to do what a few others have suggested and look at ways of improving the dps.

The toughness of LI is overrated though as its more of a co-ordination check than a gear one and from that point I don't see a recommended gear level helping matters other than from a over gearing perspective. Just recently did a 3-man LI run though sadly we couldn't quite kill Lorrick (got him to 4-6% on three occasions) due to my mediocre dps falling just short. The group composition for clearing up to Lorrick and almost getting him was as follows. Tank: Powertech - 4pc Columi, the rest a mixture of recruit and tionese. No Augments. Healer: Mercanery - War Hero and Tionese mix. Augmented. Dps: Jugg Vengeance - 2pc Columi, Rest mostly Battlemaster with a Champion piece thrown in. Also ran with 3 tanking pieces being both implants and Relic. No Augments. I was the dps Jugg in this run, the reason for the weird gear is the char hadn't been used since 1.2 at which point I was just switching from tank to dps. Hence the use of tank pieces (had nothing else) and Battlemaster gear, plus that lovely bit of Champion thrown in. Most of the time these places can be done if people co-ordinate and co-operate. I'm not saying people don't go into places under prepared but its from a often tactical fight perspective rather than that of a gear one imo.

I can't say I've found any of the Heroic 4's in the game tough at all or require the need of a well balanced group. I can't say I have done them all so can only comment on the ones I have, which can be challenging at times when I've ran them 2-man but never an issue when I've had a third along. Certainly never found the need to look for a specific composition for the ones I've done though. I can't imagine any of the Heroic 4's being harder than a pre 1.3 Lost Island and that particular instance could be completed by 3 people with no recognised tank class (Mara tank in this case). Though if anyone can recommend a Heroic 4 that is tougher than a pre-nerfed Lost Island then I'd be very interested to try it out. Suppose it all comes down to content will feel balanced differently for the individual involved. Then its a case of trying to find that perfect area where its not to hard for some but not to easy for others.

Yeah force camo is also another way to go with the beserk stomps, I've personally just never had any need for it on that fight..

I can give you the perspective of a Mara on this fight and I'd advise against the meele dps moving away from Toth at any point during the fight. The only reason I ever come of Toth is if his % in comparison to Zorn is to low and at that point I normally jump to Zorn to help out as I rarely have fearful. As a meele imo you lose far to much time if you come out during Toth beserks, my advice for the meele is to pop Saber Ward just before he does so and that should eat up a fair chunk of Toth's first beserk stomp. After that keep up cloak of pain as much as you can and even be ready to use Undying rage if healing is that much of a issue during that phase. Best option healing wise is to have a Sorc put down an aoe healing circle next to Toth for the meele to loiter in.

I've got to agree with Bleez on this that there isn't much difference whatever side your on. While I agree there is some idiotic decisions made on Imp side at times I've seen just as many made by Pub players. Most days I win about half my matches, the other day I won about 80% of those I was in and on occasion if I have an unlucky few hours with either my or enemy group composition I may only win 20%. Fortunately those losing streaks are very rare and for the most part it's pretty easy to get the weekly done by the end of Wednesday unless I'm really slacking. Yeah it can be insanely frustrating at times in matches watching ppl do the silliest things but I don't believe it's inherently worse on Imp side.

There must be something going wrong with the group is all I can think, though to what exactly I'm not sure with limited data. I'd just recommend persevering with instance and looking to see why people are dying and what to exactly, this might give you some ideas to how to survive the encounter. Its possible to do LI with 3 people with a Marauder as the tank, so if you are dying it suggests the group needs to figure out where they are going wrong.

1. Planescape Torment

Personally don't have either Cloak of Annihilation or Defensive Roll on my Annihilation Mara but both would make the task easier. The hardest fight is actually LR-5 Sentinel Droid for me as Sav-rak tends to be a cake walk with Lorrick being interesting during his first phase but easy as hell once you get him to transform after 40%. If you work the 3 defensive CD's Mara's have well enough then you can make things much easier on the healer though its still harder than if it was a tank class. As for a healer well Sorc/Operative would be the preferred choice for either the HOT's or AOE heals but wanted to go with a Merc as many think it's the weakest healer. I don't really rate trash high enough in LI to ever CC anything other than 1 medic on the last pack before Lorrick. The rest of the time its just charge then some AOE followed by as much single dps as I can to take the targets down.

Try it with this set up. Tank = Marauder Healer = Merc DPS = Sorc

I will most likely avoid Titan for the reasons of it's sounding more and more of a non challenging game play experience. I'll just have to find another game that caters to my needs unless something changes with Titan. As for success well that's something that can be measured in many ways and not just from a financial stand point. The best RPG (Planescape Torment) and RTS (Total Annihilation) I've ever played and what I consider the two games that are at the pinnacle of their genres were hardly financial successes at all. In Planescape Torment's case it actually did abysmal on the sales front this among many other examples across many different industries will always be the reason I never use monetary gain as a judging tool. Also why it's something I find least important when looking at a product.

Not really sure what the issue with this flashpoint is, in all reality other than the first boss the rest is pretty easy. While I applaud Bioware for increasing the difficulty in their game with the inclusion of this new flashpoint I'd be hoping that any future content would rack the difficulty up even more. Have done this multiple times as a Marauder who is in half Columi/Rakata gear without any real problems at all, cleared it the other night in around a hour in a non guild group. First experience of the instance though was with the following group composition: BH Healer - Columi/PvP/Rakata gear mix Marauder - Mostly Columi, 2 piece Rakata (50 less than a week) and a couple Lvl49 Orange mod pieces inc OH. BH Tank - Columi mostly, no Rakata (50 around a week) Sorc - Pretty much full Rakata Droid - Downed first time, though Mara died with around 10% HP left on Droid. Sav-Rak - Four attempts before killed but most of that was a confusion due to having reading different tactics and positioning tweaks. Doctor - Downed first time after three kolto tube phases, no deaths. Only the Sorc and BH Tank had done the instance before though the BH Tank had been as a different class. So a mixture of experience and 3 completely new classes to the mix. It's certainly a step in the right direction for Bioware as a instance but after multiple attempts only really the Droid keeps somewhat of the same initial challenge. For me personally I hope this is a insight into the direction Bioware wish to take the game.

For those looking at this and thinking what's Glance, it's just another name for Shield though you will never see such a name in game you would come across it if you data mined any of the code. As for Strength increasing Shield Absorption that's a new one on me, nothing in the character sheet would suggest it does but then again that could be bugged. I'd be grateful if anyone could give me a source that backs up this point as my understanding was Strength effected no defensive stats.

Regarding Accuracy, my understanding is you will want to get to 100% so not to reduce threat generation by missed attacks. The 3% talent is worth taking to reduce the amount of accuracy needed to 7% and it does appear possible that this can be reached, I even think the cap of 30% can be reached if you so wish but not needed by us. As for Vicious Slash, it does ok damage with no CD is a nice rage dump if you need it, its just once you start getting your other talents they deal more damage and appear to have higher threat modifiers. With rage being eaten by Smash, Crushing Blow, Backhand, Retaliation and Force Scream you'll only really be using Vicious Slash much like Assault when other things are on CD or you have excess rage.

Your understanding of he two roll system is the same as mine I was just misunderstanding your initial statement slightly in regards Hit/Attack. It's hard to comment on any of this with a degree of authority from my part as I'm only 40 and haven't the experience yet of how things level out at 50, so at this time I'm making some assumptions. I've not had any problems yet in regards to single target rage generation especially since I've talented Revenge but it's possible I might in the coming levels. again it really boils down to looking at how many hits your avoiding with that increased defence and how much rage it's losing you. I don't see it as being enough to justify the decreased survivability in a class that's main point is such a thing, though rage and by association threat is a major factor also. Will just need to get to 50 and do some testing to find out it seems.

I would have thought it would be the chance of an Attack to crit rather than a hit since it's based on a two roll system. The first roll being Accuracy vs Defence to determine if its a Hit or Miss and the second roll then being a face off between Shield and Crit to see with come out on top. I hope I was understanding your question correctly.

Thanks for pointing out Sweeping Fury and yes it was blatantly just staring me in the face. I don't have Saber Throw as of yet so the tool tip I was looking at must have been an old one as it didn't have a min range but it appears it does so that out unless there's adds in range that we can use as quick rage generators. Force Choke while not taking Elite/Champions out of combat like it does with other weaker targets still does the damage and rage generation I thought. While using Vicious Slash as little as possible myself, normally just a rage dump when needed, I still use it at least once a minute to get the 2nd part of the Sweeping Fury talent. It might be the case that rage generation becomes a problem later on that such a scenario of having reduced defence to take hits in selected fights against slow swinging enemies might be a solution. I'm just very reluctant to have decreased damage mitigation for what seems like a situational fight unless I find some serious rage/threat problems. Still I could be wrong and there's still plenty I'm finding out about the class mechanics, especially how the talent threat generation stack up against each other.