i just went and checked for you, imperial masks are the same as the republic ones. voices were different though which was nice

if you're seeing them kill NPCs then you're in the wrong part of Ilum. The area where the true Ilum PvP occurs doesn't have any NPCs that could really be attacked. you need to take a speeder to the westernmost area of the map and go to the area called the central assault

needs to do holy damage when a charge is used imo

if you did have a true ranged, basic, free attack and you used it.... that is the kind of action that would get you booted from a lot of groups. you should never run out of Force as a sage. not ever.

Well let's say you have to kill 2 elites that hit hard. You can lift one into the air and them have one minute to kill his friend while he just floats there helpless. That's for a sage. A shadow has less use as its shorter and we have mind maze but we still do it in pvp as 8 seconds is a long time in pvp. You can lift someone and plant a bomb right behind their back without anything they can do about it

if you dont have enough mobility as a shadow you're doing it wrong... this is one of, if not the, most mobile class.

you guys are losing money on treasure hunting because you dont know what missions to do. if it says moderate or abundant, DO NOT waste your money. those will return a white lockbox which will often be a net-loss. im not even sure of the benefit of bountiful tbh. what you want are rich yields, ever and always. you will notice that the level 49-50 bracket doesn't have many... that's why good players go down a notch to 41-48 bracket and do the rich missions there. you will recieve a blue item almost every time, often an epic. even if you have no use for it and nobody else wants it. the vendor price will get you a net profit at the very least. i have both skills, my main is a slicer. slicing gives me much more hard cash but i make a decent amount from the TH too, it shouldn't be thought bad just because some people dont know how to do it

damn, that's pretty lame indeed

the icon for companions wanting to talk to you and then disappearing is a bug that everyone gets from time to time. they dont actually have a conversation for you most likely. i'm sorry but i think you just explored your way out of a very hot, forbidden padawan-master love affair

first time i've heard of this. are you sure you're not talking about particle acceleration and force potency not workin properly together, which loses project its 50% damage bonus under certain circumstances?

if you want to aoe and use FiB like that, you're going to need to use a tank pet of some kind, iresso or qyzen. most people dont like to do that though as the heals from theran are too good. in that case i'd suggest just not using aoe. instead do a mind crush, force breach, sever force opener on a single mob after theran has that heal agro you mentioned you like. then just kill them 1 at a time that way. they will die very fast, balance has nice dps even without the FiB buff

how would shadow step compliment the balance playstyle? the only tree that would benefit from shadowstep is infiltration

Ah thanks Kitru. I thought it was just a hard cap that anything beyond 50 % rating was useless. I feel much better now lol

I never paid attention to this til last night when I realized that my shield rating with kinetic ward active is 51%. The cap for those not in the know is 50%. This means any and all shield rating I might pick up from now on is 100% useless except for those situations with lots of AoE causing the charges to drop fast. My question to my fellow kinetics is what do you suggest as the alternative. I mean what are you guys doing. Sadly I'm not aware of any defense/absorption enhancements. And I don't see sacrificing defense/shield to get absorption/accuracy as being the answer, though maybe it is. Your thoughts?

Honestly I've wondered the same thing. The changes to the tree itself are slight and there are very few generic shadow abilities that are overwhelmingly impressive for balance. I enjoy balance a lot myself and whenever I feel like going DPS for a day that's where I go. But... I made this character to tank. If I made a character just to be dps balance from the start I can't see much of any reason that I'd take shadow over sage. Seems like they are both exact same thing except one has 3 times the range