I still play WoW and love my guild, but mostly I just raid there. I play SWToR for PvP for several reasons. 1. Bolster Mechanic means that even as a fresh 55 you can compete in Unranked. I finally decided to level a character to 55 and with a few gear adjustments and some credits invested I have found myself able to compete in unranked, even as a scrapper scoundrel (always been my favorite class). I don't want to PvP in WoW because they still use the outdated 'gear as a crutch' model to make PvP viable (even with the base resilience added in battlegrounds). 2. Most of the classes in WoW aren't as interesting, and the balance seems way out of whack compared to SWToR. Even though it is common knowledge that scrapper scoundrels are below average in terms of PvP usefulness, I still feel I compete and contribute. I don't feel that way in WoW, and I don't feel like rolling a flavour of the month class and spending the time leveling it to compete. 3. Leveling is a lot more fun in SWToR, I have most of the classes either at 50 or well on their way. And with bolster in lowbie PvP I can contribute even at low levels there. Bolster really is just an amazing mechanic that makes this game so far above WoW when it comes to PvP. Now some of you reading this will realize I am a bit behind when it comes to leveled characters and what not. Which is true I have quit and come back a few times. I quit after about 6 months, I didn't feel like grinding out War Hero gear to be competitive. I came back when FTP started and played for several months leveling new characters. I quit again when I started playing some new games and trying to wean myself off MMO's a bit. Then I came back for GSF and because I resubscribed I got RotHC for free, so I finally leveled a character to 55 and found that the 55 bolster mechanic really was a lot better than I expected.

Balance is the DoT tree for Sage, it is called Madness for Sorceror's. Darkness is the tank tree for Assassin's, Kinetic Combat for Shadow's/

Pushback - When you get hit by damage (mostly direct damage, not DoTs, not sure about AoE) your cast bar retreats a bit (example if you are casting something that takes 2 seconds to cast and are hit 1 second into the cast, the cast will be bumped back a bit and take an extra 0.2 or 0.3 sec to cast, similarly if you are channeling a spell, it means your channel will finish faster and likely lost the last tick of damage or healing) Pushback prevention talents either prevent or reduce the amount of pushback you get, many times until it is barely noticeable. You can get a decent feel for the two classes by about 20, but they don't really start to shine until the 30's. Part of the reason why PvP brackets are split between 10-29 and 30-54. As for the differences, Sage is healing and ranged DPS. Shadow is tanking and melee DPS. The shared Balance tree is still much more melee as Shadow and ranged as Sage mostly from the limits in range of telekinesis and some of the other spellls that are given range increases when picking Sage. Shadow is a stealth fighter, they can sneak around and open from stealth, Infiltration in particular is a very burst heavy spec, allowing you to rip into things quickly. Even the tank spec can stealth and sneak around, just not as efficiently as infiltration. These specs use a double-bladed lightsaber, and use the lightsaber for far more attacks, infiltration in particular uses mostly lightsaber attacks. Sage is all about throwing around force powers, telekineticly driven rocks and force waves. They can't stealth but attack from range, or heal themselves and allies. Telekinesis is a very turret like spec, meaning it requires alot of standing still and casting spells with large cast times. Balance is far more mobile, a DoT heavy spec with lots of instant cast spells, but still requires some cast time ones. Healing allows you to put force bubbles on yourself and allies to absord damages. It is somewhat mobile with an instant heal over time and instant bubbles. But alot of the other heals require cast times or channels. Hope this helps, both are a fun to play, as long as you realize what you are getting into with each advanced class.

So Combat ability, as in hand-to-hand? or all encompassing ground based combat? Starfighter Combat? Dejarrik? Sabacc?

I am not entirely sure who to nominate. I think about someone like say Wedge Antilles, he could vape any other non-force sensitive in starfighter combat easily (Except maybe Baron Fel, his nephew Jagged, and Tycho Celchu). But put him on the ground and while he was capable with blasters, vibroblades and hand to hand, he wouldn't stand a chance against Grievous or the Fett's. He was also an above average tactician, though most of that came in Post-RotJ. The Fett's too were both above average pilots, their hand to hand skills and weapon mastery was nearly second to none. But I am not sure they had much experience with large scale engagement tactics (small group sure) and both were loners who had pissed off or scared away anyone who was ever close to them. Send them against Thrawn or Antilles who both easily made allies and could command them in such a way as to make easy work of either Fett.

Also he wasn't only Post-RotJ, he was in Tie Fighter, and his brilliance was shown when he took down the traitorous Grand Admiral Zaarin. That happened before and concurrently with Endor.

I would have to say Grand Admiral Thrawn would take the #1 spot. Not only was he a tactical genius, but he was able to circumvent the Imperial prejudice against non-humans. After all he was the secret 13th Grand Admiral, the rest of the Empire beyond his own Fleet for pacifying the Unknown Regions didn't even know of his existence, or at least of his rank. So the remnants of the Empire had no reason to trust him, but he emerged at the head of their navy and sent the New Republic reeling until his assassination by his own bodyguard. He outwitted just about every other tactician of his day, and those are some of the greatest in history too. Admiral Ackbar Garm Bel Iblis Grand Admiral Zaarin Gilad Pellaeon, himself a masterful tactician was nearly always at a loss to comprehend Thrawn's ability to see several levels below every action and stay multiple steps ahead of the enemy. He often wondered how differently the Battle of Endor might have been had Thrawn been there, and the Empire had Four other Grand Admirals there. His one fatal mistake was not anticipating how the Noghri's reverence for Darth Vader would be a weakness his enemies could exploit, specifically that one of the Noghri would be able to identify Leia and not finish the job Thrawn had requested of them. His fatal oversight was not seeing how easily the Noghri could be turned against them, looking upon them as disposable troops and not working to earn their trust for more than just Lord Vader's caretaker. Granted as an individual I'm not sure he would rank as powerful, but since the title of the thread is GREATEST, an ambiguous term at best, I think he deserves the #1 spot.

As Ambush is a 2.5 sec cast it doesn't help his point, it is pretty easy to LoS if you are a DoT class.

Considering you don't get followthrough until 30 I'd say your just lying out your ***.

I am loving PvP again. I initially quit before server transfers when my server's PvP consisted mostly of Huttball matches between 2 premades from my guild. I was also sick of the gear treadmill and having to play endlessly to keep my gear on par with other people. But the release of RotHC gave me an opportunity to enjoy PvP as much or as little as I wanted, but without the gear treadmill forcing me to do it if I didn't want to. Or on characters I didn't want to. So now I have 2 50's that I consistently PvP on, and I am enjoying myself to no end. The PvP for the most part seems to be fair, I don't seem to lose more than I win, if anything the win column may be larger. Also as I level up more of the characters I abandoned before I quit, none of them will level past 50 and I can PvP on them as much or as little as I want. As far as I can see I have months of fun ahead of me, if not more before I will even consider upgrading to the expansion. Lowbie PvP is so much more fun, and you don't really need gear to participate on equal footing. If anything I had to change out a bunch of my gear to replace my old Battlemaster stuff so that I wasn't gimping myself.

It is my second relic, I had no plans to change it out. I mostly just wanted to replace my battlemaster one because it has expertise on it, and so bolster ignores it and I get the stats on it as is.

Hmm I didn't notice that, but I sold it back once I got the message during a warzone. So I just bought a new shotgun instead. Ahh well, maybe there is a different one I can use, or I can still use my Battlemaster one since the 107 power on it is pretty nice.

Hi all, I currently don't have the expansion and so am enjoying playing low level PvP without having to really change my gear. I made sure to replace my old Battlemaster gear with stuff using crafted armoring and mods. However I found that one item I could not easily replace was my Battlemaster Relic. I have been doing dailies and got the 150 classic comms required to purchase the Dread Guard activateable Power Relic (Boundless Ages or something like that). However, now I have found that I can't activate the relic in PvP. Is this intended? I was away from the game since last may and only came back about a month ago, so I may have missed them removing PvE trinkets from PvP. Thanks in advance for any input.

Kolto and Bacta basically serve to increase the bodies natural healing properties. Examples: - They help the body fight back against disease by strengthening the immune response. - After conventional surgery to remove shrapnel and what not, you are dunked to speed the healing and recovery process. - Broken Bones are reset then a bacta/kolto sleeve/cast is used to speed the healing process. - In species that regenerate, a bacta/kolto cap can speed the regeneration process. - Blaster burns are healed through either a bacta/kolto bandage or full immersion depending on degree of damage. - in the case of limb reattachment or prosthetic attachment, immersion or at least a cast or stabilization use of bacta are used. - Bacta is cycled through the lungs in the case of prolonged space exposure (EV pilot encased in only flight suit and person magcon field) or inhaled poisons. - healed scar tissue can be removed with reconstructive surgery, then treated with bacta to let the skin heal over the old wound. So for the most part bacta/kolto are used to speed healing processes, conventional medicine is still used in initial treatment of wounds. Bacta/kolto wont stop a person from bleeding out, a wound must be closed before they can be properly treated. Internal organ damage is dicey, I imagine it requires some amount of conventional treatment before the bacta can be used on the organs.

Another way to look at this is to take away lightsabers. Lightsabers tend to be a great equalizer when it comes to force powers, in that they can be used as a conduit to enhance the defense against force abilities. If Windu hadn't had his lightsaber he would have been fried. As stated, even with the Lightsaber he couldn't quite absorb all of the force lightning Sidious was hitting him with and it would have been moments before his defenses fell. That is why Sidious is more powerful, even the most potent defense a Jedi could muster, was not fully sufficient to defend against the onslaught of Dark Side energy. Lightsaber combat is all well and good, but it is hardly the single best measure of power when it comes to force users. Sure most powerful force users are extrememly good duelists as well, it is part of the whole package thing we are talking about. Luke isn't the best simply because he wipes the floor with anyone in a lightsaber duel. He's the best because he is far more deadly when he doesn't have his lightsaber, the things he can do defy everyone's expectation of what a force user can do. Sidious was the same way, he was even more powerful than Luke at the end of Empire's End, but Luke has 30 more years of experience because he survived. This is the same reason I put Vitate high on the list, very few people have seen him use a lightsaber, but the sheer power of his onslaught stopped Revan, Surrik and Scourge in their tracks. Those 3 weren't exactly slouches either. Not too mention the power he may have attained through the ritual on Nathema.

What you fail to realize, is that Sidious may have lost to Windu (Which only proves that Lucas doesn't have a subtle bone in his body). But he lived for another 23 years until endor, and then another 1-2 during Dark Empire. Palpatine continued to grow in power, whereas Windu was limited by death. Windu was 2nd to Yoda, that is canon, but he might have overcome palpatine because he had one tool that could overcome a more powerful dark side user. But had he face Yoda or Luke in similar life or death circumstances, he would have been obliterated. So Palpatine and Yoda were fairly even matched absolute power in 19 BBY, yet Windu could beat Palpatine and not Yoda. Therefore you have to assume that it was the tool responsible for Windu's defeat of Palpatine. As for your point that anyone who used Vaapad could have defeated Palpatine, this is true to the extent that the person would have to be a master of Vaapad or the form would consume them. They would have to be able to dance the fine edge between dark and light and not lose themself. That is why Windu and Sora Bulq were considered the Forms only masters, while Windu's apprentice Depa Billaba was proficient with it's use. Sora Bulq also fell to the Dark Side, so really there is only one true master of the form, nobody else had the correct mindset to dance the line. Therefore, we can only judge Windu properly by his power relative to Yoda and other Jedi and not Dark Side users who were weak to his style. The only reason Windu didn't make my list (other than my assumption that Sidious let him win, which I still maintain would have been a better way to tell it and show just how cunning Sidious was), was that his power relative to the other Jedi of the Clone Wars era was indistinct. Was he closer to Yoda than the others which would put him closer to 4th rank than anywhere else, or was he that much farther behind Yoda that he like the other Jedi of the era just sort of fall off the chart.

I don't know that Kyp or Kyle deserve to be in the top 10, especially not over Vitate and some of the other old Sith or Jedi. I like Cade and I like his potential, but while he defeated Krayt (fully healed from his YV implants) I don't think he quite compares to some of the older Sith and Jedi either. His healing, while effective, was only special in that it was unique, I don't think it was a good indicator of his overall power (Kind of like Nomi and cutting Ulic off from the force). While nobody can argue with the first 3 (they are pretty much fact extrapolated from many sources) I think arguements can be made for many others to be put into spots 4-10. Vitate is one, particularly with the additional power given him by his force ritual, but then most of the power was put into prolonging his life which prevents him from crossing the threshold past Yoda or Sidious. Arguements can be made for Jacen/Cadeus, but the only time he actually hurt Luke was while Luke was trying to protect his son. Then he got a beat down from Luke that began his progressive spiral that lowered his power until Jaina could take him out. I am not sure I would give him more power than some of the Old Republic Jedi/Sith, but he definitely had a leg up on the Jedi of his time (Though Mara did nearly take him out, but that was before he had fully taken on the Sith Mantle) Kyp Durron, while he was touted like a prodigy at the beginning, he started to become very normal after Exar Kun's hold on him was removed. I imagine that at their heights several of the Jedi, like Saba, Mara and maybe even Leia could have given him a run. Kyle Katarn, I am not sure how much this ranking had to do with his video game legacy, which as with the case of Starkiller, tends to overpower the protagonist to the points of stupidity for the benefit of game mechanics. But at least Starkiller got to face off against Vader (and defeat him) and Vader was a known quantity at the height of his power. Kyle I didn't see anything in most of his appearance in the books, other than the mention that he was the NJO lightsaber combat trainer. This could be taken as being he was second only to Luke when it came to lightsaber combat. Or that by the YVW he was one of the only Jedi with lightsaber combat experience, and by the end of that war many of his students had surpassed him. I also don't necessarily agree with the fact that you can order Sith Lords (particularly those of the Rule of Two) by starting with Bane as the lowest and then progressing upwards to Sidious. Sidious after all killed Plauegis in his sleep, and while he did end up becoming supremely powerful, it doesn't mean that others became so. Look at Darth Zannah vs Darth Bane, I don't know for certain that Zannah was more powerful than Bane, her alchemy gave her a surprising advantage based on the fact that Bane had little understanding of it. She also had homecourt advantage and knew to expect it when Bane tried to use his spirit transferrance. Who's to say that Congus or the other Lords between them and Sidious necessarily earned their place as Master merely by being more powerful. As for examples of force users that could be added, it is very hard to compare the pre Ruusan force users with the Clone Wars era force users as there are not good barometers between them. Luke and Sidious are obvious as they have accomplished more with their powers than any other force user in history. Yoda is also up there given his ability to stand toe to toe with Sidious and get out alive, even if he didn't emerge victorious. Mace Windu is harder to rank, when it came to lightsaber combat he was second only to Yoda, but we don't know where the other Jedi fell on the list so we don't know how far below Yoda he was. His fight with Sidious was obviously a ruse to seduce Anakin, though we don't know that for sure, but for sake of arguement I am going to say it was. This also does not give us a good idea, sure he was more powerful than his other council members that came with him, but considering the ease with which they died it's not saying much. So really beyond the first 3 it comes down to an arguement of theories and anecdotes. Many will argue until they are blue in face for a particular figure because they are their favorite. In the end though, all we know for certain is that Luke is most powerful, Sidious is second and Yoda is 3rd. If I was to hazard a guess at a top 10, was still have to make 4-10 fuzzy because I just don't know for sure. 1. Luke 2. Sidious 3. Yoda 4-10 Vitate Caedus Jaina Solo Exar Kun Cade Skywalker Darth Zannah Darth Bane Revan Now this is only a list based on their abilities particularly relative to those of their time. Revan is on the list, primarily because he always seemed like he was only second to Vitate in power. Darth Bane and Darth Zannah make the list because they far outstripped any force user of their time, even before war destroyed the Army of Light and the Bortherhood of the Sith (Bane was already the strongest amongst the Brotherhood, even before he really began his solo studies). Could Lord Hoth or some of the other Jedi have been more powerful? I am not certain. Could the Jedi have beat Bane and Zannah in that 5 on 2 battle had Johune Othone not been there to be such an impediment to the other 4? Again I don't know, but I also know that none of those 4 Jedi were on par with the Sith Lords. I admit that this list is mostly current era force users, with the strongest force users from some of the older eras thrown in. But with no real ability to compare them, this list becomes indistinct beyond the obvious.

Personally I like the B-Wing better as a Bomber, can take more hits and it has the ion-cannons that the Star Wing has. It has a larger profile, so it is easier to hit than the Star Wing, and probably doesn't handle as well in atmosphere. But as a space superiority Bomber it is better.

They still have to get through an X-Wings shields first, so really whether using lasers or ion cannons it takes roughly the same amount of damage to take an X-Wing out. What's more is that ion damage is a lot more easily repairable than laser damage, so if an Astromech is undamaged it can repair a partially disabled X-Wing mid battle, or they can go for a cold restart. Granted the restart means they need to be ignored for a bit, but it is possible. Also X-Wing torpedo's can take out gunboats with one shot, a gunboat needs at least 2 missiles to down an X-Wing and X-Wings are more agile and harder to lock on to. 12 on 12 I would rather be in an X-Wing fighting a squad of gunboats. Edit: 1 on 1 I would take an X-Wing too.

I get that it is tough, I never said it wasn't, but it is slow. Slow enough that a TIE fighter (or even more so Interceptor) could easily get behind one and stick to its tail. It is neither fast enough or agile enough to shake another fighter in a dogfight. Sure it may have lots of missiles, and could wreak lots of destruction in the first moments of a battle. But when it comes down to a dogfight, the gunboat has no way to shake something off its tail. Squadron on Squadron, Gunboats would take Tie Fighters though. Not Interceptors though, and definitely not any actual fighter the Rebels have (X-Wing or A-Wing). Probably couldn't take B-Wings either. Only Y-Wings and Headhunters were really vulnerable.

In which case the fact they they are slow as hell means even a Tie Fighter would have no problem sticking to their tail so they couldn't use all those missiles... They'd make a pretty explosion when they detonate though.

I have always liked the B-Wings, the cool rotation around the cockpit to deploy the S-Foils for combat was a neat touch (though I think the X-Wing S-Foils on the tie ball cockpit for the Twi-Lek Deathseeds was even better). It's a good thing they could take a beating though, the abnormally large cross section gave ample area to hit, I remember them being great target practice in Tie Fighter. I guess that's the problem with bombers though, they sacrifice small size, speed and maneuverability for a devastating payload. I bet they were a ***** to fly in atmosphere too, make them more of a space bomber than a ground pounder.

I wasn't so much requesting that, it was more trying to get a source for the information. I didn't know if you had the Star Wars Encyclopedia of ships that gave a "canon" ordnance load. I'm not trying to be difficult, I just like debating the merits of the different starfighters. The X-Wing books and the X-Wing and Tie Fighter games are my favorite parts of Star Wars so you can imagine I have strong opinions on the capabilities and performance of the different starfighters. Edit: I was looking over the Wookiepedia entry, it appears the 40 Concussion Missile load is from the 2009 Star Wars RPG Guide. Therefore it is newer information, which I guess means that the Gunboat carries 40 missiles and none of the heavier ordnance. This would make them more a fighter/interceptor than a heavy bomber.

Out of curiousity, where are you getting the ordnance loads numbers from? Because some of the numbers seem off according to what I remember from playing Tie Fighter, and the Gunboat isn't seen in many other media. If you go by Wookiepedia, it says the Gunboat only has Concussion Missile Launchers. But if you go by Tie Fighter, the missiles can be swapped for heavier ordnance, but the numbers seen in Tie Fighter are much smaller (I think Heavy Bombs is right at 4, but I think Rockets is 6, Torps are 8 and Missiles are 12 (to match the launchers visible on the graphics of the gunboat). If that's the case, you can't pick and choose the sources when they conflict like this, either they have very high capacity missile loads or adaptable ordnance in smaller quantities.

I don't know if I would qualify it as amazing, but it certainly had its uses. It would have been far more useful if it could carry the same payload that was shown in the original post. But I am pretty sure it was limited to 12 or 16 concussion missiles in game. I think it was best used instead of the Tie Bomber, or during a fight where a ship needed disabling so you could do it yourself and not have to rely on the AI to do it. One other thing I might add, its payload is concussion missiles, not proton torpedos or any of the other higher yield ordnance. This indicates that the missile systems were meant more for starfighter combat than attacking capital ships. So having 40 missiles available might seem like a huge deal, but when you consider that the proton torpedos on a X-Wing will do nearly the same damage (still less, but has a bigger impact when hitting in more concentrated bursts, more time for shields to be recharged or the ship to be rotated to compensate). Consider that an X-Wing Squadron has enough fire power to take out anything smaller than an Impstar Deuce, particularly if they concentrate their firepower, they can bring down the shields with the first 24 torpedo volley, and a second volley on the bridge or engines will basically leave it dead in space, and while the gunners can fire, the ship isn't going anywhere. So if an X-Wing Squadron can take out most of the capital ships the Empire has, with the ability to fight off Starfighters (logically they can't do both at the same time, but they can at least defend themselves.), I am not sure why you would want a gunboat instead. Sure they can disable the capital ship with enough concentrated ion cannon fire, but they would have a harder time bringing down the shields with the concussion missles, since they don't hit nearly as hard as proton torpedos. You have already conceded that the B-Wing is better, and to be honest it is a newer starfighter (developed by Ackbar and others in about 3 ABY as opposed to the Gunboat which was developed pre-Yavin), but the fact that the X-Wing is arguably better than the gunboat in most regards is clear evidence of why the Empire ended up losing. It focused on quantity over quality, hoping to overwhelm the Rebels with sheer numbers instead of better equipment (that it could surely afford) and better tactics.