Single most frustrating fight in the game so far...bad news is, it's not the only one of these you're going to face either. Your next act, pretty much the same fight though slightly different with a better companion selection. Took me a good 10 - 12 tries to finally squeak out a kill. I suspect I'll never finish my end of game quest to become a darth without help. On this one, I finally broke down and "cheated"...I hauled one of my L50 guldies in and he pwned the tart for me in about 5 seconds flat. The most frustrating part of this fight for me (other than the fact I was never able to get her down even 1/4 of her HP before dying) was the sheer amount of stuff you're being required to manage at one time. Stay out of AOE, Keep Companion out of AOE, Keep shield on Khem or yourself, interrupt heal and/or AOE, heal and do damage. All of which requires you to have a SEPARATE target selected every time. I can't see what Zash is casting without her selected, but I can't heal khem with zash targeted...and trying to maneuver myself and khem out of AOE lightning is a pain all around. Interrupt *is* the key to this fight. Interrupting the RIGHT spells at the RIGHT time. That leads me to believe YOU should be the one tanking the fight, NOT khem. This was a 180 degree jump for me (and I never got to try it as my guldie was on the way when I came up with the tactic) since I've been playing healer to khem since level 10. Your best bet is probably to put khem on DPS mode, turn off his taunts and let him go agro on Zash, while she follows you around with lightning. A few DOT/Lighting strikes should keep her attention focused on you and chasing you while khem stands back and beats the crap out of her....generally out of AOE range since she's trying to catch you as the main threat. This also allows you to switch between bubble/heal without losing target since your bubble / heal will automatically affect you while your damage/dps will automatically affect zash. Being the tank in this scenario takes out alot of the complexity of the fight and may just make it do-able. I won't know since it'll be a LONG LONG time before I ever see that fight again. --Illydth

Subscribed, this is awesome information, thanks for the time it took to compile it!

The answer is actually that you've hit the nail on the head. If you have 5 pieces of orange gear and your companion has 3 you're looking at something like 110 commendations on a single world just to upgrade all of the equipment. That's not something you're going to get even if you select absolutely no equipment at all and only EVER select commendations (which is a BAD idea btw). You're correct on the costs and they are maintained all the way up: 7 Commendations for a Hilt, Barrel or Armoring Mod Slot Item (Blue) 2 Commendations for a Mod or Enhancement Mod Slot Item (Blue) Green mod slots DO NOT keep pace with your equipment level, don't buy them they're useless to you. In general your best method of upgrading multiple pieces of orange equipment are as follows: * When presented with the option to take an armoring, hilt or barrel mod, you should probably ALWAYS take that option...they're always blue and 99.9% of the time will be as good as or better than what you currently have. * Orange items obtained from quests (particularly heroics) are going to have better mods than you have right now, or at least AS GOOD. NEVER hesitate to take an item you can't use that has mods you can and savage the item. Heroics can be done multiple times, so if you get a head slot orange item with an armoring 60 mod on it, and you have 5 pieces of gear that have armoring 50 on them, don't hesitate to run the heroic multiple times to get that head slot item over and over again. You may not be using the item, but it's like getting 7 commendations every time you finish the quest.

The point Mok is not that class complaints aren't there, of course they are, some people just like to complain and won't be happy unless they can. The point is that right now, without real numbers, you have no PROOF that sorcerers are behind snipers in dps. Each time you run an instance you may be able to say "we got through last time with a sniper but failed with a sorcerer", but for each of those you're going to also experience a slothly sniper and a damn good sorcerer. You may be able to go to PVP and see "who's best" but that rarely carries over to PVE well. I play a sorcerer, I have gotten through content I don't feel ANYONE has a right to get through, I feel my class is overpowered and I expect to see a nurf to it. Then I get talking with my friends and find out they also got through the same stuff and I no longer feel I'm so overpowered...or I feel they are. They then get farther and I feel they are passing content I can't pass...till I get there, and realize I can. Right now, it's all guesswork, and any given player of any given class can get it's chance at end game because numbers aren't available to determine who's best and who's not. It's a much different ballgame when the player community can empirically determine who is and isn't better than who else. You don't need damage meters to see if your group mate sucks. You need damage meters if you want to determine if your class sucks. That's why I don't like them.

That's not how I am complaining about DPS meters being used. But then again, in this situation as you point out you don't NEED dps meters to determine the 4th guy isn't pulling his weight do you? DPS meters are used for Class vs. Class comparisons. It's used to determine that when I want a tank X class is who I should be looking for, with "Y" class being unable to properly perform that job because they're some % behind class X. THAT is where elitism comes from and THAT is where the class ************ comes from.

Exactly. My initial statement still stands. I used Recount religiously in WoW, I had an offline DPS meter in EQ that I spooled logs out to...hell I even WROTE one in my EQ days when the DPS meter I was using didn't do it exactly how I wanted it to. They're bad for a game...period. You want to throw WoW's balance problems into Bliz's lap as their issue. In some way's you're right, Bliz was ultimately responsible for balance in their game, no other entity could have fixed the problems...I apprecaite it. Have you ever considered, however, how you modify balance in an MMO with classes and races and millions of players worldwide? It's not just something you can tweek and tune overnight, there's not a database table somewhere where you can put a number into and poof, all classes DPS are now balanced. The problem with making the numbers available is that the player base doesn't run a business, they're not involved in a programming project of this size and magnetude. They feel "I've proven that my class is worse than your class, I should get fixed. I'm waiting till the next patch and I'm done." They're right, they HAVE proven that their class is under-balanced...that doesn't help matters...no company can react as fast as their player base can "prove" a problem. And in many times, acting can be considered detrimental to either the revenue stream or to game balance overall. Let me give you two examples: * Assume 60% of your players play rogues. Are you really going to throw a nurf out at rogues? That's a revenue stream issue and marketing is unlikely to let you. * Assume your end game raid for this content was balanced with rouges doing twice the DPS as any other class? How do you re-tune so melee warriors are in balance with rogue DPS? The skills aren't the same, the timers aren't the same the abilities aren't the same, you can't simply turn a switch halving rogue DPS and multiplying warrior DPS by 1.5 and say "all's well". You could totally invalidate your end game content, all of it, through a simple tuning of classes. You don't run an MMO, you have NO idea what kinds of things the developers of an MMO face or are expected to perform. Claiming it's Bliz's fault they don't have balanced classes is uninformed at best. And that leads back to the playerbase and the information you provide. Right now, in EQ and in WoW The playerbase drove who got nurfed and who got buffed. No MMO Producer would acknowledge that, but we all know that's how it works. If enough classes ***** loud enough that Class X is too powerful, a nurf bat will find it's way down on class X. This is done BECAUSE the player base has access to the data, they can aggregate the DPS data and determine who's best and thus they'll let the axe fall on the "best" if it's not them. It's a bad system. As much as I LIKE being able to tune my character to be the most efficient it can be, as much as I LOVE theorycrafting and testing rotations and equipment, it's TERRIBLE for a game for the players to have that much information. They have no idea how to use it, they become elitist when they min/max and they feel that data should drive changes that they have NO IDEA what the full effect would be on the game as a whole. Players are Short Sighted, Data Driven, Elitists who, given a piece of data, will decide that their proof should drive how the game is developed. I am 100% against giving players any data that allows them to compare themselves against another class. Class Strife may be rife now, but it's all guesswork based off of incomplete information. Give them a DPS meter and now, all of a sudden, the real eletist stuff will start. --Illydth

ABSOLUTELY NOT. Damage meters is the death to games. There's a thread on this already somewhere, look for it. Basically, the moment I can determine that class X is L% behind class Y in something, class X no longer gets to play the game due to the min/maxing mentality of upper end players. The longer no one knows if Sorcerer DPS is behind Sniper DPS or that BH's mitigate 5% more damage than Juggernauts the better this game plays for EVERYONE. --Illydth

*shrug* Why not do the following with the Belkin N52: 14 buttons, shifter, thumb movement. Macro buttons 1 - 12 to ability bar 1-12. Macro Thumb button + 1 - 12 to the following macro: < select player 1 > < click cast heal > < select previous target > (you can do previous target through focus if you want to by changing the macro to: focus current target select player 1 click cast heal select focus target Set this up for all buttons 1 - 14 and you should be able to "focus cast" at least 14 targets in the raid. Not sure what max raid force size is so this might not cover everyone, still it definitely works for flashpoints. Why post this? Simple enough, all of you complaining about click to cast being OP or otherwise problematic don't seem to realize that there's hardware out there that allows you to do this pretty quickly and easily (N52, there's another one with like 20 buttons on it that does the same thing, Logitech G15 Keyboard, etc. etc. etc.). Anything I can macro to a programmable hardware button should be able to be shortcut through the game itself in some way...otherwise I'm simply required to have specific hardware to be more efficient at playing my class. -Illydth

@ Braushh: "Casual people can group with other casual people and completely ignore/laugh at the damage meter. I've never once heard someone suggest they are leaving WoW because they allow meters or addons." You're right, no one has ever said they're leaving WoW because it allows addons. However, how many people have left WoW because of the information those addons provide? How many "I'm quitting because my class sucks!" posts have there been in WoW/EQ's history? Christ dude, the class boards are RIFE with practically every post being either about how horrible another class is because it's better or how horrible that class is because it's worse. How do you think these people come up with this? They're not just pulling numbers out of some warm dark smelly place. They've got hard data from Recount and other Damage Meters. So no, no one's ever left because WoW allows mods...but hundreds of thousands have left because WoW ALLOWED mods. (I'll leave that last statement up to the reader to figure out it's meaning.) --Illydth

Er Zaph: Macros have not been allowed within UI Mods since EQ's time. Since DAY 1 it has been illegal in WoW to create a UI mod that allows your character to perform an action based upon a condition. You're absolutely correct that this would cause an unfair advantage, even at the point where a player with a faster computer or internet connection would aggregate and react to a situation than a player with a slower computer. No "macroing" has been allowed in MMOs in many many years.

Because the numbers lock players out of content. Let me start by saying I'm a raider, always have been through 4 years of EQ and 7 years of WoW. I install any mod I feel will give me an edge and I min-max as best I can. Let me also say this is a great way to get burnt out on the game. There are several REALLY GOOD reasons why you DO NOT want, particularly, DPS/HPS numbers able to be obtained within the game. * The moment you can see that class X's Max DPS is L% worse than class Y's Max DPS, Class X no longer gets group invites. Look at the threads already about "only looking for X Class, no others need apply". PLAYERS MIN MAX, particularly end game raid players, and what that means is, if you aren't the top DPS player, you don't get a slot as DPS in a hard mode instance. Remove the numbers, and you can no longer TELL who is max DPS and who's not, thus, no classes get locked out of being able to play the game at the top level. * Maxing Numbers = Class Warfare. And for good reason, when the community figures out that my Sorcerer's DPS is perpetually 5% behind the Sniper's DPS, I get locked out of content. So my only recourse is to come to the threads and ***** about how much my class sucks because we're not max DPS and thus don't get group invites. This causes the rest of the classes to HATE ON the top class in whatever factor (tank, heal, dps) they are because they're not best so they don't get invites. * Maxing Numbers = Game Sagnation: The longer you follow down this path the more you realize that patches become the nurfing/buffing of everyone over and over and over again to provide someone who isn't currently getting an invite an invite at the expense of someone else who will now no longer get an invite. It's no longer about fixing content, it's about who got nurfed and who got buffed this go around and "OMG i'm Quitting Sorcerer because Sniper is SO MUCH BETTER!" 11 years of MMO play has taught me, the numbers drive facts and the facts drive changes. While this is a GOOD thing, you have to look at the facts: There are 8 classes on each side of the game, there are only 4 slots in a group. This means 4 classes are going to be on the out. Once the numbers are available to figure out which 4 classes those are, the class warfare begins. IN THIS CASE Obfuscation is an ends to a means. The less you know about the internals of the game the less you'll be able to force your min/maxing view on others. "Let them go run with the casual players then". You are equating casual with sucking, that's not the case. For a time, the BEST DPS warrior in WOW could not out damage a majority of the DPS classes. That didn't mean the DPS warrior was a casual player or that he sucked, he just wasn't a DPS class, and that locked out DPS warriors from properly playing the game. That's bad for any MMO. "Let them find something not so hard-core to do then!" - Like what? It's been said multiple times, there are very few things to do at level 50 at this point. You have a set of operations and hard mode flaspoints and that's about it. If the majority of the community is, as you're saying, attempting to obtain the best equipment possible then it goes without saying they're trying to do it as efficiently as possible. And in doing that they're going to put together the best group they can...which will NOT include the second, third or 4th best healer class or the second, third or fourth best DPS or tank class. The numbers are AWESOME to the min/maxing player, but they're NOT awesome for the GAME or for GAME PLAY. And from a business standpoint they're NOT awesome for BioWare because they start the MMO down the track of class warfare and players /rage quitting the game because they can't be the best. I'm all for a moddable UI that provides better ways of viewing what is already being presented to you (incoming damage, etc.), I am actually entirely against meters of ANY kind, simply because they cause too many players to focus too much attention on what's "best" and not on simply playing the game. --Illydth

Sorry for dredging this back up from last night but the final post needed responding to. "Bring Friends" I'll tell you the same thing my guildie told me when I was asking him (who has finished this) how tough this is and whether it was tuned for a group or not. "It'd be pretty hard for them to tune the ending of a class quest for a group. Who are you going to get that is willing to ruin a crucial moment in a class quest story that they haven't experienced yet to help another person out with it?" "Bring Friends" is more than you think on this one. The plot twist (while it's been lead up to several times before this and isn't a huge surprise) is still a twist and asking someone who may wish to play this class in the future on a second or third play through to ruin it for themselves by coming to help someone out is poor design. As well, as I mentioned above, ALL class quests up to this point (and I don't know if this is just our class quest or all of them that are this difficult) have been tuned to be beatable/accomplishable by you and a party member, this is NOT tuned that way. Obviously it can be done, but right now it's tuned to a level SURE to frustrate. "Get Friends...this is, you know, an MMORPG" is not an answer, it's *a* solution, but it's not an answer.

Khem is so slow to respond that by the time I move, I hit ctrl 2, he ***walks*** to me, the force storm is over and he's taken full damage. If this is going to require a group, mark the damned thing heroic, at least then people who have soloed their bloody class quest for 30+ levels can be warned. There's NOTHING LIKE THIS BATTLE anywhere in the MMO before this point. Not in the flashpoints, not in the story quest, nothing. I understand it's not impossible...but i'm not going to be the only person to have trouble with this. There's TOO MUCH to keep track of in this single fight. If the fight were against a strong with 5 - 6K hp, I get the complexity...you only have to keep the madness up for half a minute or so. She's got 15K hp, heals, CC's, AOEs, and has a really high direct damage. Jolt is an every 12 second interrupt. She casts a heal or force storm more often than every 12 seconds, for force storm not to be a problem you'd pretty much have to already be OUT of the storm and if that's the case how the hell does khem even come into play in the battle? I was hoping someone was going to come back and say "You ARE wearing the mask from Whoozits Right? It removes the damage you take from Zash's force powers making you only have to worry about Khem." As no one has said anything, I'm going to assume that's not the case and that there is no shortcut to this other than to be able to react quick enough like a GD FPS game. I HATE FPS games, and if there's anything else like this in the game, I might as well quit playing now. I've played EQ for around 4 years and WoW For almost 7. I've NEVER been unable to complete a solo based quest in 11 years of MMO play. This is rediculous. --Illydth

32 is the top level alderaan is rated for, i shouldn't have to overlevel in this case. Even then 2 - 3 levels is NOT going to help this case. At the end of the day I have 4 things I have to focus on all at the same time...where I am standing, where my pet is standing, what zash is casting and what my and my pet's health is, all of which requires me to have a DIFFERENT target selected each time. THat's not something a couple levels is going to cure. Focus is a useful suggestion, where's the documentation on how to set and use a focus in this game?

WHO THE HELL THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD QUEST? Let me back up, I'm at the final part of the Legacy....Kill Darth Zash. Oh sure, whirlwind force storm force lighting healing. REALLY? In 4 attempts I've lasted less than 15 seconds at BEST, I've managed to take her down by 3K hp AT BEST. THIS IS CRAP. I don't know who's idea of a good time this was, but this is looking pretty damned impossible to me right now. Frustration doesn't even BEGIN to explain my feeling right now. Yes, I know the first thing that will be posted back is "Interrupt" I cannot keep her targeted to interrupt her heal, move to stay out of force storm and keep khem selected to avoid her force storm and stop her whirlwind all at the same damn time. Not to mention healing Khem. I can't stand still for more than 4 seconds in the entire fight and I cannot heal, bubble, interrupt zash and keep out of force storm all at the same damn time. I know this is supposed to be POSSIBLE but I am just not all FPS / PVP enough to handle this. THis is an MMO it's about TACTICS not fracking run and gun and hit 99 buttons at the same time. I'm about -> <- Close to throwing both the class and the game away. IDIOTIC DESIGN. There's either a bloody trick I'm not seeing or this class quest was only meant to be passed by those with 30 years of FPS experience under their belts. HELP --Illydth