I love this idea. Would add some freshness to "hey, BT again..." At least for awhile.

The odds are pretty good you'll end up running with people with gear over and above tionese anyway, so as long as you let the group know if you haven't done it so they can tell you anything funky with any battles, you should be fine. If you happen to get matched up with a group of first timers, there's always the old fashioned wipe-and-learn which is more likely with lower gear

honestly, while it hurts the low-level crystal market, I think the current end game ones would sell, especially purple, red-black, etc. as people RE them. I and several friends find the cartel crystals dull-colored and unappealing. I was given one when my tank was low, and crafted a better looking one the weekend he was going to hit 50, then sent the cartel one to a low-alt tank.... Now, it would certainly be nice to sell some of those low-level artifact crystals I ground up, but its not going to make or break my character's fortune...

Really, spec doesn't matter too much while leveling. And, until you get gault, dual-healing with mako will make things take a loooong time. That being said, I agree with the above poster about just building up the tree - I pretty much fill the lower levels as that spec showed, although there are some things you can probably pass on in order to hit higher abilities. (i.e. vent heat, while useful, can probably be bypassed when you first could train it).

even though I've only run my Artifice character around Makeb, I agree on the nodes - although now I finally have more than a handful of green polychromics I want to say I hit about 2 dozen nodes while playing through the first couple areas, and only 5 or 6 of them were for the new mats. Can't speak for anything else, but my impression on gathering so far has been "can't I just go to belsavis/corellia for these?"

iirc (it was in either an interview or a dev comment somewhere), they have records of your mission completions, but there's no way to track kills. in a way it sucks, as I probably have enough fills on my marauder to get vette, jaesa, and quinn.. on the flip side... it doesn't take a whole lot - just going from 50-51 got me the first jaesa kills unlock. Its REALLY going to suck on my merc healer though.... going to be a looong unlock time trying to run with Mako (or I suppose I could start leveling a PT)

I used Mako until I swapped to healing at about Level 40, when I also swapped to Blizz (and now I run with HK). But that was my first character. Now, when running dps, I usually dual-dps unless I'm soloing a heroic or in some boss battles, when the healer comes out - I personally find it faster to melt the opposition and self-heal, although others will say its faster to use the healer and have little downtime. I can't speak for Gault's damage, since I didn't gear him until recently (as soon as I found out the 6:1 tionese conversion ratio), but Torian did ok with damage once I got him in some gear. I would go with either of them or stick with Mako - you have little need for a tank when doing your standard quests, and since you have both dps npc's by then, they should give better dps than either tank can.

Yes, a number would be nice. I don't care too much on my healer or tank, but my marauder... the wait gets to be irritating frequently. I could start getting a good ballpark of eta vs. time of day with just the "how many are ahead of me?" The problem isn't so much that I need gear (mara's almost fully optimized BH... which is great for another coupld days O_o), its that I actually LIKE running Flashpoints, and I like playing the marauder.... and there are only so many dailies to run through and so much time in the day (especially when you're also trying to gear up your tank).

Let me know if you figure it out... My main's a healer and I've been wondering about that since day one - "dude! hit your seethe already!" Maybe it comes from wow. habits? (I'm sure someone more familiar with that one could tell...)

Wow. I tend to be very patient with people (if 3 of us know what we're doing, we can compensate for one idiot pulling before the tank, etc.), but Id've initiated a vote kick after the 2nd pack or so of that happening. I tend to find less idiot healers than other types, but they obviously exist...

Outside of points in peacekeeper, that's my spec as well (although 2.0 more or less forces us to use peacekeeper, so I may as well put points in and get used to it). I dps'd with Mako until about 40 when I switched to healing with Blizz since my guild was short on healers. Now I run with HK out, but I'm probably overgeared for anything I'm doing with a companion, so I'm not missing the tank (Makeb may change that). Now I almost can't imagine not healing (and am very surprised when GF puts me into dps...)

Lies & slander!

Also a 50 merc, and I'd rather have the marauder guarded, given a choice. If everyone is doing their job, the healer shouldn't be picking up much aggro. I've actually been yelled at for NOT releasing... even though I know full well that me running back in would reset the boss (Athiss, anyone?) *sign* can't win... The only things I would add is to the occasional ToaMs you get (Tank on a Mission)... I get that you want to get through the FP as fast as possible, and that we really have enough gear to not worry about cc's... But make sure your healer is following you to the next group and not still using his OOC heal to bleed heat off from having to max it... The 2nd thing (for ALL classes) is your OOC heal... use it, love it - why should your poor healer deplete reserves to top you guys off just to either have to stand and use it himself anyway, or have you guys go on before they're ready...?

I usually grade papers while waiting for a pop on my dps, its rare that my healer doesn't pop within 15 min or so. *shrug* The only FP that has given me issues is Kaon - some people don't like it since its long, and I had two in a row the other night where a dps drops, and the tank uses that as an excuse to leave (2nd time), and the first time the tank told me he's leaving because "you need gear" - Full columi+ (couple BH pieces, couple rakata pieces, and have run Kaon wearing less... he must have thought we were in LI... O_o ) . The issue is more that, even if everyone else leaves and drops group... I'm now back at the BOTTOM of the queue, even though I wasn't the one who flaked out... That's my vent for the week there - had a good couple weeks of low-issue pugs on my dps to brick wall all of a sudden

Its not restricted to space either - they had the same issue with the pirate game a few years back - sea combat was phenomenal, boarding and land missions were almost an afterthought.