I swear Toe seeks me out every game.

Raych checking in. Sorry if I've raged at you .

Play. The. Objectives. For the love of God. Play. The. Objectives. Pubs on POT5 are so bad at this it is just profound. The number of bozos that just fly around playing dogfight is just stupid. The number of times I've seen four peeps take a sat and then ALL CHASE OFF AFTER ONE SHIP has to be closing in on 100. And then because they all tunnel visioned on one guy, two more enemies come in and take the sat while everyone is off head hunting. And no matter how nicely or often you remind people not to do it, they do it.

Kitru knows all.

OP might also be running with tanks that are high in endurance and low in mitigation, or not managing defensive cooldowns effectively. For shadows at least, the Black Market Comm gear is pretty much trash. The way to really gear is to optimize for mitigation, not maximum health. I did this on my Shadow, went from 37k HP to 33k HP, and things got much easier because I wasn't taking near as much damage.

I felt the same way until I realized and really took to heart the fact that 90% of wipes are caused by DPS doing things they shouldn't.

What sort of ear and implants should I be going for? My implants are the BM MK-1 (which is trash, it has accuracy and I can't wait to get rid of it) and the BM MK-2, which is ok. I can craft the Veracity Experimental Resistance Implants which give me a big leg up on Shield and Defense at the cost of some END and willpower and I can shed the accuracy. My ear has all three defensive stats, should I stick with that or is there anything better?

So would you say that the best plan is to replace all my mods with unlettered Robust and Reinforced mods to get the maximum mitigation possible with the defensive stat mix that I want?

What's the name of the mod that drops from the Black Market MK-2 gear?

I really appreciate the help. I've upped my mitigation to north of 1800, I'm a little heavy on Absorption and a little light on defense, but I think I can fix that by moving stuff around or changing augments. Are you sure the boots and gloves drop from Mando Raiders? I've run it a few times today and Varad dropped bracers both times. I know Dulfy says that's what he drops, but is it possible that got stealth changed in 2.1?

Tanking in this game can be extremely frustrating at times due to brain dead DPS. Most of the healers are ok, and people who can't heal and refuse to learn wash out and go back to DPSing after too long. You still get a few knuckleheads who are spec'd DPS and try to off heal through a hard mode, but I've found a lot of them get enough justified abuse to kill that practice before too long. I'd say about 80% of group finder DPS is absolutely awful, and IMO a lot of the problem stems from being hugely overgeared for the content for months. I run almost exclusively with my roommate who is a commando healer, and he is pretty darn good at his job. It's EXTREMELY common for DPS to leap into a room and pull all the mobs. We've gotten to the point where people who do that don't get healed, expensive repair bills seem to be the only way to get through to some people. I'm also pretty tired of DPS not using proper kill order and unnecessarily making my job and the healer's job difficult. You can tell pretty easily who has played a tank or healer and who has only ever DPSed when you're in a flashpoint. People who have only ever DPSed will often tunnel vision the elite and strongs because that's who I'm tanking. They don't understand that when the four trash mobs are smacking the healer around, that that's time you won't get healed, and I can't grab them all because all seven guys in this room put too much damage on one target for a healer to power through in a 60 second pull. I would think that most DPSers would relish the thought of killing weak mobs because you get the trill of finishing off several bad guys per encounter. I know I do when I play my Sentinel.

This may seem like a silly question, but I'm sure this forum will humor me. Where is the best place to harvest these mitigation heavy mods and enhancements? I looked through the thread with the stat formulas and I was able to increase my mitigation score by 200 by adding a few redoubt augments ( I was low on defense and higher on shield and absorb), but where can I get the mods and enhancements to really boost that mitigation score? Also, is there a point when using the mitigation formulas where you shouldn't take more mitigation if it means drastically lowering endurance, power and such?

Hey I'm in there!

Fix the bugs then we can talk about it. With the bolster in place I've seen much less harassment or undergeared players and few people bailing out of warzones because someone has low health. PvP gear should be better, yes, but it shouldn't be outrageous like the gap was between recruit and EWH pre 2.0.

People are still whining about this?

ITT: people not wanting to adjust their tactics to account for new abilities. The roll is fine, L2P.

I try to keep my anger under wraps most of the time. The only times I chew people out are when they don't call out incomings, or deliberately break CC. Then I usually say something like, "No call?" or "I didn't lift/sleep that guy so somebody could smack him." The other thing that grinds my gears is people ignoring marked healers. I usually give two reminders about focusing marked players before I get pissed.

I noticed you omitted the part about how Juggs do massive damage in AOE. I don't need to explain why people don't like getting AOE'd four times for 6000 damage each.

When the chances of winning go up dramatically the more smashers you stack, then something is horribly wrong. Fighting one smasher is not difficult, most classes can kite to some degree or soak the damage with a CD and then fight back. Dealing with 4 or more is just not possible in certain games. I've noticed in particular that tight quarters in Hypergate and VoidStar lead to the team with more smashers winning 95% of the time. When four people jump in and 6500 AOE the entire enemy team (or God forbid have two bubble stunners backing them up), there is a massive issue with balance. It's to the point where some servers have come to gentleman's agreements not to bring smashers and bubble stunners to ranked games. When the community takes action on its own to keep certain specs out of ranked games because they are horribly broken and ruin the game, don't you think there's a problem?

Serious question: were you here at launch?

There's one of these on Ord Mantell that's a real head scratcher. There was a Cathar refugee that stole medical supplies from the Republic at Fort Garnik. You're tasked with bringing them back because wounded soldiers need the supplies. You even find out when you go to give it back to the rightful owner that there's a guy going into shock RIGHT NOW who's going to die if he doesn't get the meds. The light side choice is to let the refugees keep the medical supplies, so that (and I kid you not) a kid with a bellyache can get some Pepto-Bismol. It's dark side to tell the refugees (and thieves) to go pound sand and to take the meds back to where they rightfully belong (and save the poor guy going into shock). Saving a life should never be dark side, unless keeping the person alive only leads to greater suffering.

While the Empire does still retain most of its planets, it has sustained some terrible losses. Balmorra was lost after the Republic and Balmorran patriots were able to retake Sobrik and Balmorran Arms. To boot, new president Tai Cordan and the Balmorran Congress vote to join the Republic. So not only does the Empire lose the tremendous Balmorran manufacturing capabilities and war tech, but the Republic gains these assets. The Republic also gains the Esh-Kha, and at least one Voss mystic. The Empire wins Taris... and all of its rakghouls and urban decay. And the Empire loses Corellia and a tremendous amount of war assets and troops during the fight, including the First Son, ALL the Children of the Emperor, the Voidwolf (and all his forces), and Darmas Pollaran. The Empire also fights a civil war after Corellia when Malgus turns on the Emperor and the Dark Council, costing the Empire a fleet, their alliance with the Schism Collective, and Malgus's space station. Speaking of the Dark Council, there has been MASSIVE turnover on the council over the course of the game. Long serving members like Thanaton, Malgus, and Baras are killed and replaced with unproven Sith. Other, less influential council members are killed. People like Lachris (killed by the Barsen'thor and Zenith on Balmorra) and Arho (killed by the Republic on Ilum), and potentially Jadus depending on what's canon in the Agent story. And as said earlier in the thread, the Emperor is in a state of hibernation and is unable to lend his mind or influence with the war turning against the Empire. While forcing the Jedi off of Coruscant and creating tensions between them and the Republic was a major blow, it was not a crushing move. By the time the game starts (~10 years ATC), the Jedi have recovered a lot of their former strength and repaired their relations with the Republic somewhat. The Empire also did very little damage to Coruscant all things considered. The real purpose of attacking Coruscant was to force the Republic to agree to unfavorable terms. While reconstruction is still ongoing, all the infrastructure is still there, the Senate tower is still there, and the population is still there. I think one thing you're forgetting is that the Sith have a much greater impact on the day to day administration of the Empire than the Jedi do on the Republic. Where the Republic has the Senate, planetary governments, the judicial system, and the executive branch, the Empire only has the Sith. The Sith create the laws, administer planets (Imperial worlds and recent conquests), they enforce the laws (with the help of Imperial Intelligence), and the Emperor is the chief executive of the Empire. The Jedi are not the Republic, but the Sith are the Empire. And Sith infighting and turnover on the Dark Council has sent the Empire reeling, but Republic victories on Balmorra and Corellia has given the Republic momentum. I'd also like to add that the Bounty Hunter defeating the Supreme Chancellor is going to be a net negative for the Empire. Janarus is presented in the game as an ineffective leader much like Neville Chamberlain or Jimmy Carter. Saresh, on the other hand, is a very strong leader (you could say she's like Winston Churchill or Ronald Reagan) who gets the Rift Alliance in line (something Janarus couldn't do, he assigns the Barsen'thor to be his representative to them out of frustration), and is able to get new laws passed to grant additional funding to the Republic military. The main reason the Republic is perceived to be doing well is because all the back story and lead-up for the game was about the Empire beating the crap out of the Republic (probably why everyone rolled Imperial at launch). And if not for tremendous sacrifice (Bothawui and Alderaan) and the ability of Revan to temper the Emperor's hatred, the Republic would have been destroyed and we wouldn't have the game.

I wish everyone had this attitude.

I'd just like to add to this thread that winning a warzone after people bail is extremely satisfying. Me and my buddies (new subs in mostly 'cruit gear) got chewed out before a VoidStar for being a "premade of 14kers" and then three people bailed. We won the warzone and then I whispered the guy who called us out and told him he should have stayed so we could carry his pathetic self. Then he put me on ignore, I guess he didn't like me telling him about himself .

The story isn't that bad, it's very polarizing. I've played a Sage on my own and a Shadow with my roommates and I liked it a lot more the second time around. My Sage was also gray like you want your Shadow to be. Most of the other stories have a fantastic Act I, the Consular one is very dull. Things start picking up and getting more interesting in Act II, and things get pretty good from Belsavis to the end. Your companions aren't as interesting as some of the other classes. Qyzen is kind of odd, but is very spiritual and you bond with him through the game. Tharan is weird with his hologram girlfriend, but his high IQ comes into play at several points in the story. Zenith I thought was pretty interesting. His patriotism and hatred for the Empire will resonate with a lot of players, but he has an interesting conversation chain. Iresso has a pretty dull personality, but has an interesting conversation chain. Nadia has a very likable personality, and becomes your Padawan eventually. Unfortunately, this isn't until AFTER Belsavis. Her quest chain is about molding her into the Jedi you want her to be, and is very cool from an RP point of view. The romance options (Iresso and Nadia) are not very good. Iresso is probably the most boring guy in the galaxy. Tharan would have been a better option (and you can have a one night stand with him), but Holiday gets jealous. Nadia would be a good romance if not for her being your Padawan and her having significant personal demons she has to overcome when she joins the team. It really feels like you're taking advantage of her, and I felt guilty romancing her with my male Sage.