Just did this with two folks. Fairly easy, but you have to be smart about it, can't just go charging in swinging sabres. Our group was a Commando (heals) + Aric companion (dps) and Shadow (dps) + Qyzen companion (tank). Each group has 3 elites and 2 strongs, except a couple of the pulls which are easier than that, and our strategy was to mez 2 of the elites, put the tank companion on the remaining elite and kill the 2 strongs, both of which die very quickly and you don't need healing for. Then the healer would heal up the tank companion and we killed the 3 elites one at a time, remezzing as necessary. This got us through all the pulls. Remember you have all the length of the instance to kite through and all the mobs are melee with no tricks, so if you get into trouble you can always have someone kite up and down while you recover. The suggestion that this should be reworked as a 2+ is unnecessary since it can already be done with 2 people. The good thing about doing it currently with 2 people is it will teach you a bit more about how to play your class, and I learnt a couple of things in there that were very handy. That's what clucth situations are for... dribbling through easy content doesn't teach you anything.

Amazing... thanks for adding your erudite commentary. You really added something to the discussion. I ranted, you trolled, forums ftw.

What is up with the new "Guard" graphics in the 1.1 update? 1> The pulsing chicken-wire grid beneath your feet is plain unnecessary. There is already a toggle-selector light on the skill quickslot to indicate if Guard is active or not. This is consistent with all other toggle skills, there is no need for a new way to show information that is already available on the screen. 2> Even if it was considered somehow to be important to have a secondary indicator for the Guard toggle, a bright white pulsing chicken-wire grid beneath your feet has got to be one of the worst choices. It may have seemed cool when a mockup was done for the dev team, but try running around 24/7 with this thing on and then come back and say how nice it is. Other secondary toggle indicators are quite subtle, such as the Vanguard blaster cell holograms, or the Smuggler temporary cover grid. The new Guard indicator is completely out of whack with those type of nice subtle choices. If we had to have something, perhaps a small blue holo-shield icon on the back of the character that matches the Guard target bubble graphic? Something more consistent with the design choices used elsewhere in the game, at least. 3> The pulsing blue light beneath your Guard target when you are out of range is also unnecessary. The Guard target already knows they are out of range because the enormous blue bubble around them disappears. You don't need an indicator to show a "lack of effect" (i.e. the off condition), since you already have an unavoidably prominent indicator showing "effect enabled" (i.e. the on condition). 4> As a tank spec in PvP, Guard is best used alongside taunts to dramatically reduce the damage on a healer or bait character. Being able to remain anonymous while doing that is a big part of what makes using the taunts worthwhile. The enemy can either choose to repeatedly do much less damage for 6 second intervals, or they can spend the time looking for you and trying to figure out which Vanguard/Guardian/Shadow is doing the Guarding + Taunting and focus them down. It's the second choice that makes remaining anonymous while Guarding of some benefit, and why having a big glowing white light singling you out removes a big part of why the Guard+Taunt tactic is of use. It makes the choice a lot easier for the opposing team since they do not have to put in any effort to identify you. Since we have heard several times recently from Bioware that they are disappointed in how quickly PvP encounters are finishing, and that they want fights to last longer before a kill, this removal of a key strategic element is completely contrary to their stated goal. 5> Similar bubble effects from other classes do not apply a caster-effect indicating who has applied the bubble. Force Armor, for example, doesn't leave the caster with a throbbing white light beneath their feet for everyone to see. If a non-tank class can apply defensive bubbles without needing this type of effect, why do dedicated tank classes have to put up with it permanently? Finally, is there some official rationale as to why this was seen as a feature that had to be added, and why it was so important that it was implemented as a brand new feature when there are so many bugs that are yet to be fixed for existing features? How on earth did this get to the top of the stack? EDIT: I had a rant here earlier, so I have cleaned this up to be in point form and be more coherent.

Update: I have since respecced for DPS, and sadly find that I actually have a much easier time holding threat on targets using an Assault-hybrid spec than I do as a Shield spec (both using appropriate Columi gear etc). This is across all flashpoint HM's, haven't done EV that way yet, but no reason to think it would be different from a threat perspective... probably easier even, given the length of the fight and the DoT heavy rotiation. I gather this is something that is going to be looked at by the devs as it is a bizarre situation and reminds me of the neverending Champion-Tank flip flopping from the devs in LOTRO. --- I have also been experiencing a few issues in recent hardmodes now that my DPS guildies have started getting the best gear. Leading up to that, threat has been a complete non-issue in the game, where a single Neural Jolt and the occasional Hammer Shot has been enough to hold agro on just about anything, including normal mode bosses. So this recent experience of high DPS classes getting threat on things like Elites and Bosses, basically anything where there is enough time for their DPS to overtake mine+taunts, is something that stands out as being very different to everything you learn while levelling. I'm not saying that I want the threat to be trivial, but it makes a mockery of the tank-spec idea if you also have to somehow spec for more damage just to keep threat up. If you look at the roles, DPS only has to spec for DPS. Healers only have to spec for healing output. But tanks are being asked to spec for both defence *and* damage at the same time? No thankyou! If you are running in your Threat stance (e.g. Ion Cell), then in that case your threat holding should be reasonably easy. That then frees you up to be doing a more interesting job than just being a meat shield, and can take advantage of your other skills to better control the fight. This is especially true for Vanguards, who have quite a lot of CC and are clearly supposed to be more "active" tanks, using their mobility as an advantage, rather than just standing there spamming Stockstrike and HIB every time they are up. Having said all that, we've still completed all the hard modes in the game, but only because our team is good at rotating threat between all people in the group and using each other's health pools as soaks until the taunts are available again. Hardmodes being as they are with Enrage timers means you cannot ask a DPS to ease up on the damage, that's just not an option, so we just work with the system as is and as a shield spec tank that is fairly depressing, lol. As a side note, it's hard to judge in boss fights because a lot of them have scripted threat mechanics, such as wiping threat on their stun skills, or favouring melee range targets for threat etc. Personally, I don't mind those types of things because they are part of the boss mechanics and can be adapted to. I mention it only in case some folks have come from games that don't have that type of thing and wonder why some bosses in particular seem to have such odd seeming threat conditions

Yep, you're right about the skills. Not many of them seem to actually fire "blaster" type fx. Don't get me started on the "poop" noise of High Impact Bolt and the Shield tree capstone. I'd like to see the following changes: - Ion Pulse changed to one of - Tracer Round, fires a bright phosphorous tracer at the target, burning it - EMP Dart, fires a taser-style dart at the target, electrocuting it - Pulse Cannon changed to one of - Suppressing Fire, fires a stream of blaster bolts in a wide arc, like an AoE version of Full Auto (yes I know Commando has something similar - so?) - EMP Net, fires an electrified net over the target area, electrocuting enemies - High Impact Bolt sound fx needs to be less "poop" and more "zzzzzzt" Since it's unlikely we'll see any name changes, I'd at least put the above up for animation and fx changes

Just sitting on the sidelines for this discussion has been a big help in just making me think about some of these things more carefully. Cheers for the thoughtful comments guys, I anticipate a weekend of build testing coming up

Just to throw some observations in here: I am not sure if it is a rule, but each tier of equipment seems to be +2 levels over the base. For example, a Blue level 20 item will have stats roughly equivalent to a Green level 22 item, that sort of thing. Similarly, a Purple level 20 will be roughly equivalent to a Green 24. This is how I have been spacing out my armour mods, and it seems to be the general idea. So if I come across a purple Armoring Mod that is level 20, and I already have a Green Armoring Mod less than 24 in a bit of gear, I will usually swap it out. Always happy to be corrected if somebody has hard facts on this, but these are my observations anyway.

While I applaud the effort here, and recognise you are genuinely trying to help, telling people to disable things that are using memory and/or CPU via MSConfig is a "Really Bad Idea". You have no idea what they have on their systems, or what needs to be running in order for them to keep using their PC the way they expect to. This is especially true for people with multiple peripherals and/or laptops that have exotic hardware. Combined with the fact that the people most likely to read this type of thread are those who don't know any better, telling them to randomly disable things is going to cause more harm than good. As several other folk have mentioned, #1 should be "turn down your settings to Low". e.g. putting Shadows from High to either Low or None has the biggest single impact on performance in the game. However, +1 for recommending against "registry cleaners", they really are nonsense.

What is even more galling is that while the mundane masses are blindly clicking Option 1 for every single conversation choice and racking up Light side points to access items, they aren't even penalised in terms of in-game rewards. Whenever there is a choice to be made for things like "No I don't need the reward! (+100 Light Points)", the very next thing the NPC does is say "Oh but you must take it, I insist". So they get the points, plus the rewards. ***? This is Bioware's idea of "Innovative Storytelling"? Sure, if you are comparing to children's books it's about on par. This kind of nonsense no-consequence #1 clicking is ridiculous. They would have been better just forcing people to choose Light/Dark at the start of the game and not confusing the issue by pretending that characters actually have a choice of any kind.

If you are a raid leader and you need a meter on your screen to tell you which of your team needs some help learning how to perform their role better, you're the one failing, not them. That's what being a leader is all about. Please don't ruin the game by adding anything at all like meters for DPS, Healing or Threat. Let's leave it as a player cooperation and skill based game, rather than an inane bar-watching spreadsheet.