So now that Diablo 3 is coming out Tuesday, I feel less and less inclined to log into TOR. Between my enthusiasm for D3, being jerked around by BioWare's phone support, and generic copy and paste responses to tickets that have nothing to do with my problem, I find myself in a conundrum. To keep paying for a game I will only log into on raid days or just spend the $15 on the RMAH in D3? I feel very disenchanted with the state of the game right now, am I alone here or is there anyone in the same boat?

As per http://www.torstatus.net/shards/us/stats, the top 5 most populated servers are: The Fatman Jedi Covenant The Harbinger The Swiftsure Canderous Ordo All of these run an average of just under standard population except The Fatman which runs with an average of half way between standard and heavy.

I'm definitely not running at a 20% rate. Of 50+ crafts I have 5 crits with a 10k aff and a companion with a +2 crit. *sigh*

Why is it that the droid mod vendor one can buy for their ship does not sell +crit mods for each crew skill? I feel like I'm getting the shaft as an armormech here.

How would you describe the economy?

Is this normal? Ever since taking armormech I have yet to get a single augmented armor piece when crafting with Ensign Temple who has a +2 critical chance with Armormech and she's at 10k affection. What's the deal?

So far I've heard it called the Contagion Cuddle and the Herpes Huddle. What does your server call it?

Why are you complaining about this rackgoul thing? Just let it run its course and get DNA samples for it, sell them, and make money. It doesn't prevent you from competing in pvp unless you just happen to pop while playing.

I have been saying this exact thing without the numbers to back it up since the news came out. If people want to use the same exact rotation then they will be hosed. However, if people actually take the time to look at it, it's a blessing in disguise. All we have to do is revert back to pre-36 times and add in HS/AB

Fun fact: I have played an OP. In both beta and live so I do in fact know, don't assume someone is ignorant of your plight just because they don't jump on the soap box too. I know all too well how much this will suck, but I'm trying to put up some ideas to come up with a new system of doing our job. Against two enemies of course you have to use your other buttons, you're right. What I'm saying is against a single enemy (non tank type) it doesn't take but a hidden strike, backstab, shiv, lacerate to knock them down to half. I do this all the time. Hell, more times than not I get a second lacerate off with my TA. Guess what comes next? Shiv. After that? Lacerate then backstab again. So you're right, it's not 3 buttons, it's 4 My mistake. All I'm saying is after this patch we will have to use both our stuns and it will take a little longer to kill an enemy.

That's the thing, I have played it. Several times actually. In regards to getting close to an enemy, that's what stealth is for. You get close and open up on them. Without the Jarring Strike you have a full resolve bar to play with and can debilitate or Flash bang if they start to get away. Hell, you can even sever tendon (whatever it's called) to snare them, it has a decent range. Our job as a melee dps in pvp is to get up on the enemy and wail on them. Furthermore, backstab is not hard to use on someone, you have almost a 160 degree range 'behind' them which you can use it. Opening up with a backstab, shiv, lacerate, and then debilitate should give you enough time to get another shiv and then lacerate again. One that is done it's not hard to get in another backstab. Worst case, flash bang and wait for it to come off cooldown... You now have another full cycle to play with.

What are the winning lottery numbers in CA this week? You are clearly clairvoyant and must know. It's not the end of the world, just figure out how to use all of what you have instead of three buttons.

Really? I realize my personal experiences aren't the same as everyone else', but it couldn't have been that horrible. If you are going against someone with full life or with a group you're going to lose obviously. However, if one decides to pick off a straggler with low life then odds are you can hit and run as the class was intended. I hate to say it, but this class wasn't meant to melt faces all while under a single stun.. Even if it was down to 20% life. If we can open up and knock down half the life I see that as a sufficient advantage or way to level the playing field if you will. I hate to make the comparison, but if you look at rogues in WoW they have a similar style. Stealth, stun, attack, and restun if possible. Now we have to stealth, AB/HS, debilitate/flash bang, other attacks, debilitate/flash bang if needed, attack more. We have plenty of ways to keep the scales tipped in our favor without Jarring Strikes. Point of fact, not using it may end up helping us in the long run. TL;DR It's not the end of the world, it's just the end of melting faces down to 10-20% and mopping them up. We are now forced to use all of our stuns and snares to win since now jarring strikes is now clearly not worth it and shouldn't be specced into.

No, it wasn't that significant. Our play style will just have to shift back to when we didn't have hidden strike and we will be just fine.

Let's all assume for a second that BW has in fact done some in house testing with this upcoming patch. Granted, it couldn't be more than two weeks of testing, but it has still be done. Let us also assume that Jarring Strike is now useless as the GCD and KD are the exact same. What does this mean for us as OPs? Simply put, we need to adapt. Firstly, we need to take a hard look at how our class PVPs. Pre patch, we acid blade, hidden strike, backstab, and lacerate (or similar variant thereof). We just can't do that anymore plain and simple. As it looks to me, it seems we will still be able to AB/HS as an opener, but without the Jarring Strike talents. What does that do? We still get our nasty opening hit in primarily. The knee jerk reaction of most players is to run away from the evil OP and let's face it, out of habit people still will for a time. This gives us the time to get in a back stab before they spin around and start hitting us. Heck, even if they spin around immediately, we can still flash bang them in order to A. Get a free back stab or, B. Get them to blow their cool down. Either way, you are more than likely behind them enough to get your back stab in anyway. From there, it's a simple shiv, lacerate, debilitate, and anything you have available. Long story short, we have to remind ourselves that for 35 levels we didn't even have hidden strike and we did just fine in PVP.. at least I did. This patch isn't the end of the world by any means. No, we won't be able to just maul people like we see on YouTube, but we as a class will be just fine. Take those two points out of Jarring Strike and put them in Inclement Conditioning. It's stupid, I know, but it will help out with survivability if nothing else and BW will realize that JS is no longer viable and correct it.

Has it occurred to anyone that possibly BW doesn't want to add in a dual spec because it's a money sink? It's a perfect way to keep millions of credits flowing into oblivion and out of the GTN, keeping prices lower. I really don't like the idea of having it, but I wouldn't argue if BW decided to put it in at a ridiculously high cost to offset the money spent in the long run.

You want a reward for not committing to a side? You get to use any color crystal you want currently, there you go.

Why would I go back to EQ when I have a perfectly good game here that has none of the listed above? You may go back to WoW now, thank you.

Awesome job on the site! I really like the design.

I know NASA engineers and physicists that have no clue how to solve this problem.

Wait, most people won't get get 5 days early access? Over half of the total pre-orders were made from July 21st to Aug 1st and the numbers of pre-orders significantly dropped off after that. How does that mean most people won't get 5 days? You mean YOU won't get 5 days. got it.

No offense, but no matter what they would have done there would be just as many angry paying customers. Had they let everyone in, there would been a fire storm because of the huge queues. Had they made it a random draw to be let in early people who put in a code on the 21st and didn't get in would be angry. The system they are using has been known for god knows how long now, this is not news so deal with it. If this system is that horrible, cancel your pre-order and go play something else. It's that simple.

At least you guys could see questions. I was in there for an hour and saw no chat cycle. What a joke.

You're getting in on the 20th. There, now you don't have to sit and wait a week without having a tentative date.

This is a bit flawed as your reasoning requires that all days have the same number of pre-orders when in reality July 21st had a huge number, the 22nd had slightly fewer, the 23rd, and slightly fewer, and so on. The graph would look something closer to an inverse exponential graph.