1. Zeltron 2. Togruta 3. Voss Surprised that Zeltron hasn't cracked the top 5.

Wouldn't really make sense since the Warrior ending happens chronologically before the Inquisitor ending, what with Thanaton being present for the Warrior's ending and all.

Every shield talent taken has an additional effect that makes it worthwhile; Lightning Reflexes gives 4% defense and Hollow gives a 10% heal when using Overcharge Saber. The alternative dps talents you're speaking of are so trivial for Dark Charge-users that the utility of the shield talents is generally accepted as a better investment. Additionally, by dropping 1 point of Shroud of Darkness (1% End), you can invest in Dark Ward to make yourself a more than adequate tank for the occasional pve foray.

Back! I drive this horrible abomination of necromancy back to the grave!

Make a new character

The dps difference between the classes for pve are much closer than people are making it seem. I personally don't think a hybrid tax really has any place in current mmo's since in practice a half dps/half tank jugg or a half dps/half healer sorcerer would just be mediocre at fulfilling both roles simultaneously. Marauders and snipers both bring valuable raid tools (bloodlust and raidwall equivalents) which more than earn their raid spot; there's really no reason for classes to have any appreciably different dps numbers when each class has raid utilities associated with it to make them uniquely valuable.

Many of the ability comparisons made in that image are only related by name and not by function. That said, there are many similarities between the two classes, but I don't think there's really much room for unique interpretation when designing an "ironclad juggernaut" type character. I feel that despite the similarities in the two classes' ability names and functions, they play significantly differently that they can't be considering a carbon copy of each other by any means. As far as the image goes, the comparisons made which aren't quite legitimate include: Vicious Slash/Heroic Strike: Both are standard rage dumps, however Vicious Slash is on the gcd. Smash/Thunderclap: Not similar at all since tclap is really only used to apply the attack speed debuff and spread rend, not as a legitimate source of damage itself. The SW's smash is a powerful aoe ability which forms the backbone of the "Rage" talent spec. Sundering Assault/Sunder Armor: Sundering Assault is the primary rage generating ability for SW's, the armor debuff is and added bonus. Sunder Armor is a much less integral part of the wow warrior's rotation than Sundering Assault is for the SW. A more apt analogy would be Sundering Assault:Devastate, however these abilities still differ in rage generation. Retaliation/Revenge: Similar defense-activated abilities, but Retaliation is off the gcd and applies a defensive buff to yourself when used, so it has an entirely different function within the rotation. Saber Ward/Shield Block: This one is certainly clutching at straws. The types of defenses granted by each ability don't really correlate at all other than the fact that they are defensive cooldowns. Guard/Vigilance: I see guard as more of an evolution of vigilance rather than a copy, but certainly the idea of a targeted protective aura will raise eyebrows. All of the other comparisons made aren't explicitly defensible and I'm sure BW drew heavy inspiration from the wow warrior, which in turn drew heavy inspiration from warriors of past mmo's. Take out the abilities I have listed from that image and what's left? Cleave? Baseline mmo tank cd's? Charge? Taunts? I don't think Blizzard holds the sole right to the warrior archetype, but that's not to say BW couldn't have made the ability names a little less similar if only to prevent criticisms like this (surprised Blade Storm wasn't brought up in the image, although the abilities aren't similar at all). Regardless, at the end of the day these two classes don't play siginificantly similarly to cause worry in my mind, and I would even argue that the SW is more like a warrior/rogue hybrid in playstyle than a pure warrior. I just hate to see an image like this spread around among people who don't play swtor, as there are many unfortunate ability name similarities which aren't analogous to each other as suggested by the image.

See, I hate these comments. Just because wow has a basic mmo amenity doesn't mean another game is a "clone" when they have it too. There are just some things that all mmo's should try to implement because they're standard quality of life features the mmo community comes to expect. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy this game, but it's pretty ridiculous that some of these high profile issues have persisted for as long as they have. It's beyond defensible; it's not an issue of community patience with fixes, it's an issue that any self-respecting company would have fixed these things by now. I'm surprised by the amount of people who adopt this "we should roll over and take what the company gives you" policy, as the time for patience has passed. This isn't the stone age of mmo's, bugs and exploits on the level present in this game should have been fixed after nearly two months of live play (not to mention months of beta where the same exact issues were present). I don't expect things to be fixed the day they are recognized, I expect them to be fixed in a timely manner and I believe that time frame has passed. Each set of patch notes promises a fix, yet the same issue persists each patch, which just gives a sense of dread and fear that bw really has no idea what they are doing. Specifically for the wz wins not counting, I don't understand if the wz wins are somehow always counting on the ptr and not working on live, or if they are simply lying to keep players hopeful, but there is definitely a serious problem at hand. Maybe the issue is more deeply ingrained in the game coding than they are able to remedy immediately, I could understand that. But the fact that they promise a fix then don't deliver is what I have an issue with. Here's hoping some of the fixes come through soon, it's getting harder to keep some of my friends playing.

Between alacrity only affecting non-instant spells, the very low % gain per point of alacrity, and the hard diminishing returns on it compared to other stats, it just doesn't stack up compared to any of the other stats at this point in the game. I imagine alacrity will be balanced soon to rival crit, surge or power, but for now it's just a poor stat for nearly every class. Hopefully they balance willpower soon as well, because frankly it doesn't compare to how beneficial other classes' primary stats are to them.

I was excited to play an SI what with their story's whole theme being climbing the rungs of the ladder of the sith hierarchy through deception, guile, and power. I played through Act I patiently; I understood that a truly great "rise to power" story required substantial background building, so I was content to collect trinkets for my master before inevitably overthrowing her. The problem was that I never really felt that my character advanced beyond this "collect things for Zash" phase. Even with Zash technically under my command, she was the one calling all the shots and determining where I should be heading towards next in my quest. The Thanaton story never really gripped me, because I never fully understood his motives. The reason given for why he wanted to destroy me was weak, and it could have been flushed out significantly more than it was. They did made Thanaton a sufficiently intimidating bad guy (and I was right pissed when he has my apprentices killed, probably the part of the story where I felt most in tune with my character), but in doing this they also made another error. In order to overcome a foe as powerful as Thanaton you're forced to subdue 4 separate ghosts in order to augment your own power, which makes your own character seem horribly weak in comparison. The whole forcewalking aspect of the story made me feel as though none of my power was my own and I was using a cheap trick to beat my betters. Upon finishing the story I felt as if I hadn't truly deserved my seat on the dark council. Sure, I had beaten a council member in fair combat, but my list of sith-y things I've done for the benefit of the Empire was almost nonexistent considering that any class can do the baseline planet quests. My entire quest thus far was for personal gain and not really worthy of becoming one of the 12 most powerful sith in the empire, in my mind. None of this really bothered me too much until I started playing my agent and found myself immediately drawn into the story. As an agent I find myself performing tasks which are pertinent to the entire galaxy rather than feuding with other sith for trivial personal gains. This discrepancy in the importance of the tasks I was completing has left a bad taste in my mouth for my SI. I suppose the silver lining to this is that this is only the first part of a developing story and I imagine as an SI you will be partaking in much more significant duties as a member of the dark council once the next story patch arrives. I'm sure the story will gain strength now that the foundation has been laid, but it's just sad that you accomplish so little as an SI compared to other classes in this first chunk of the story.

Not worth it at all imo. The trickle healing is so minimal that it will never save you in a pve or pvp environment. It's not that trickle healing is bad, but the magnitude of the healing needs to be scaled up for the talent to have any significant purpose. Considering most sorcerers are around 30% crit with decent gear, you're looking at a full 21 second affliction returning 2.1% of your health and a crushing darkness returning 2.4% over 15 seconds, for an averaged total of .26% health/second (39 hps if you have 15k hp). The day a pvp or pve death is even occasionally determined by such paltry health changes is the day I will take parasitism; as it stands, the increased movement dps via Chain Shock is likely a better investment in both pvp and pve.

You most certainly can. When I was getting the datacron in the Balmorra droid factory, I jumped down onto the pipes from the secret room after being attacked by a pack of droids. I was at low health so I figured I would seethe and then drop down to the datacron. Naturally, I seethed right off the pipes and the fall killed me.

I believe the author's spec is designed to be a middle ground between pvp, and pve solo/group play, thus some talent sacrifices must be made. The centerpiece of the build is really the incorporation of Resurgence, so some talents must be foregone to make room for it. I can't really see a Madness spec going anywhere without either being a Chain Lightning hybrid or going far enough to pick up Creeping Terror, so there is really no way to accommodate Haunted Dreams unfortunately. Haunted Dreams is fantastic, but it would be gimping the spec too much to have passed on Chain Lightning imo. Granted, this is all my take on the spec and the author could have had an entirely different reasoning.

It's confirmed by a field test. It is simply a tooltip bug, the talent functions properly, as does Exsanguinate.

It's been confirmed that the dot duration-increasing talents now increase the damage as well as duration, so they are very worthwhile now.

Looks like it's mostly speculation on which exact spec will be optimal for pve until a combat log parser is implemented. I've been using a 7/13/21 build since I feel it picks up the greatest amount of "must-haves" with as few pve stinkers as possible. Obviously this build would not be as good for pvp as a deep madness/chain lightning build or the build suggested in the op since they end up picking up a lot more pvp-focused talents along the way, but I've been having great success with it so far. Thinking about switching to a 7/18/16 build to get Lightning Storm back, because it was great for aoe and I don't know that I gain enough from Deathmark to justify Parasitism and Haunted Dreams. Was also thinking about spec'ing far enough into Lightning to pick up Forked Lightning, but the talent ends up giving a 9% average bonus to CL, which is less than that offered by Force Suffusion and forces you to take several medicore pve talents along the way. Looking forward to the verdict on which spec is optimal, my respec cost is starting to get ridiculous.

I really hope that info is true, going to have to check for myself in a bit. When I checked back in early access it was *not* increasing Affliction damage, so I've been spouting off about how bad Exsanguinate is =/; I hope I haven't been giving misinformation and it has been fixed for a while.

Edit: Seems like Exsanguinate functions properly now, so disregard this post.

Ah, I just edited my post to include that possibility. Unfortunately I don't find many of my opponents stacking up often, so I'm hesitant to take the talent.

Is there a benefit to taking the talent Lightning Storm that I am not understanding? I've been pvping as lightning recently and am looking to switch to madness, but I'm not seeing where the talent will be useful considering the relatively low amount of Lightning Strikes casted. I also don't find many situations in which Force Storm would be useful (ie 3+ grouped targets), but I definitely see the benefit if you find yourself playing against people who like to stack together. Granted, there aren't many decent alternatives but I don't really see a situation where you would favor LS over FL at max level. I suppose you can force a Lightning Storm proc and hold onto it due to its long duration in order to finish off a low health enemy. Your specific explanation of this talent choice would be appreciated. I'm also interested in whether 3/3 Sith Efficacy provides sufficient benefit over 2/3 to warrant the extra point. Again, not many other options, but I don't know that the third point in the talent is worthwhile either. Finally, it may be a good idea to drop Exsanguinate until the bug (if it is indeed a bug) is corrected. Currently the talent increases the duration of Affliction, but nothing else. Affliction still does the same damage, however it is now spread across 2 additional ticks. All the talent does in its current state is reduce the amount of globals you will spend over a significant period of time, and it actually counteracts the effects of Deathmark since each tick of Affliction is hitting for less, with more overall ticks to steal the damage bonus. Overall I think there are still improvements to be made on the general Madness pvp spec, with there certainly still being a good deal of room for personal preference. Again, I have not pvp'd as madness yet, but I'm thinking of trying something like: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201Zfc0rd0rZcrrRsMk.1 and changing talents around to suit my playstyle from there. I prefer Supression to Electric Bindings in general, but if my server's trend of 9/10 warzones being Huttball continues, I will likely switch to Electric Bindings just because nothing makes me happier than trapping someone in a hazard. I'm not a huge fan of whirlwind spam, but I have a hard time justifying *not* taking the talents just to keep it as an emergency with a shorter cd and an instant cast. There are other options I can pursue if enemy resolve really turns out to be problematic, but it's poor cd management to blow all your stuns early anyways and it seems like the alternative talents are very insignificant dps/survivability increases by comparison.

I noticed the same exact thing when I first leveled my SI. I had assumed it was a tooltip error, but upon testing it seems that the talent does indeed merely increase the duration and not the actual damage done. I suppose it is still technically a dps increase since it saves you a global every once in a while, but it's definitely not as good as it should be. I imagine if enough attention is drawn to the issue we could get an answer out of Bioware on whether this is working as intended or a bug.

I believe I might have a possible reason for why this occurs. After going back to my ship to use the intercom and begin the Hoth quests, I found that Khem had a new affection quest waiting for me. This quest only became available after accepting the quest to travel to Hoth, and the quest itself involved going to Hoth so it obviously doesn't unlock until you are that far along in the story, even if your companion meets the affection requirement to unlock it. After traveling to Hoth and accessing the intercom again I found that I was gaining companion affection again. Based on this experience my theory is that the game blocks you from affection gains/losses from conversation while you have a companion quest "in queue", but can not accept it do to not being sufficiently progressed in the story. Now, this may or may not be correct, but it could be a possible explanation for the event. It could also be simply the case that there are no affection gains during the entirety of Quesh and this is all just coincidence. If it is indeed a bug with having a companion quest available to you but not accessible due to story progression, this should probably be fixed since I tend to max out my companions' affection as quickly as possible and it would only limit me in the long term.

So my SI is level 39 and I'm ready to go to Hoth, but ever since late Taris and all through Quesh I've noticed that I haven't gained a single affection point for any of my companions. I've restarted each convo to pick all available options to see if I was missing the "correct" options and have brought out different companions to be sure my high affection (7954) with Khem didn't prevent me from gaining further conversation affection with him. Not quite sure if this is a bug or if I've just hit an extensive dry spell for affection gains, but it's been nearly 4 levels without gaining any affection so I'm worried something is wrong. Has anyone else experienced a stop in affection gains?