Makes sense to me. Why buy something that expensive if you will only make full use of it some of the time? I like that they are adding in more options for colors. More options tend to make things more fun in a game like this. I am all for that. As to if this vendor will make it to live, I don't see why not. Unless they gave everyone millions of credits and let them start at max level on the public test server, I don't see how they could test that vendor's functionality or the crystal's functionality in a decently small time frame. This makes me think it should make it to live. But I am no expert on game development, so this is little more than my opinion. Should the vendor and crystals go live, I do wonder if they will keep the prices the same. The way I see it, they are doing this to soak up excess credits in the endgame economy before they make the sweeping changes in 1.2 Either way, I've already started focusing on building up more credits. (Had been helping friends and my alts with whatever extra and over the top my main had been making before I saw this vid...) Hopefully I won't have this dilemma of having to choose between stats by the time this comes out. (I also hope they add these patterns to artifice in 1.2....as well as willpower shield generators for tanking shadows....) >_>

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it is because WoW was the first MMO that many people played. *shrugs* OP: Some terms have just been used so often and by so many people for so long that they simply have become standard for the genre because they are the most widely recognized and understood. I'm sure the same could be said for many other things outside the MMO realm. It is just the way humans work.

I saw a video recently on Youtube that displayed the new color crystals currently on the PTR that are due out in patch 1.1.5 (If that dropped today, I don't know...) I've been one of those looking forward to getting a white crystal since playing in the first beta weekend. Seeing these prices made me pause, however. I play a Kinetic tank. Right now I have a green endurance crystal as the only other option for me atm is crit. It is not likely that I will have enough credits to buy more than one white crystal at the listed 2.5 million price. I am fairly certain that crit is nearly worthless to a kinetic tank, so that crystal is ruled out. This leaves power vs. endurance. Which would be more beneficial? (leaning towards power) Or is crit more viable than I thought? And for those of you who are not interested in tanking as a shadow, if I were an infiltration or balance spec'd shadow, would power or crit be more beneficial? (again leaning towards power with the recent nerf to surge rating effectively devaluing crit) Thanks for any replies.

I am not sure what kind of coding changes they would have to make to do such a swap of abilities, but this does make sense to me. I can easily see a cast bar under the project animation and I can just as easily see not having one under the disturbance animation. Good call. (Probably won't happen, but it would be cool if it did.)

Force lift can be quite powerful if you know when to use it. As others have said, the ability will change depending on your AC (Sage or Shadow) and your spec. -Balance Sages and Shadows probably get the most utility out of this ability because of the perks received via their talent tree. (Instant cast and multi target affecting) -Sages in general also have this ability last up to a full minute. -Infiltration and Kinetic shadows will find the use of this ability highly situational. I play a Kinetic shadow so I rarely use this ability. But I do still use it. Mind maze is usually the best crowd control ability a shadow has imo. But it has one drawback in that it cannot be used on a target already in combat. Force lift can. In PVE Force Lift gives me 8 seconds of breathing room if I need it. If the pull looks really rough, you can even mind maze one mob, then move out to range and force lift another to begin the combat. Then you have two less targets to deal with for a short period of time allowing you to survive a few seconds more and thus do a few more seconds worth of damage. It could mean the difference is living through the pull...or run away. In PvP 8 seconds is an eternity, as others have pointed out. Objective taking, or even just evening the odds by removing that healer (or any other player) from play for a bit.... Force Lift has its uses, probably even more than I list here. A smart player is one who figures out how to use as many different abilities in as many different ways as is possible. In doing so it gives them multiple options for most situations and the ability to handle situations they would normally not be able to handle. In short, be creative! (But more importantly, have fun!)

So after reading 15 pages of comments I decided to post my view on this. Most of the previous comments are on pvp and how dps or healers or tanks are better or worse off. But I think everyone is missing something.... The real winners are the npc's! : p In all seriousness, MMO's run on constantly shifting grounds. Players must adapt or they will be left behind until the ground shifts back their way in the future. Will you always be able to adapt? Probably not. Will it always remain this way in the future? Probably not. *shrugs* Tis the nature of this type of game. And do remember that it is just a game. ; )

I believe the respec cost is bugged atm. I have respec'd my Shadow one time. That was a week and a half ago. Yesterday I went to move around some talent points in the hopes I'd see better combat performance. The respec would have cost me 1.2k (A drop in the bucket.) But then I remembered reading how costs are supposed to reset after a week back down to 0 credit cost. Anyone else having this issue?

The consular story isn't for everyone....but what story is? I found it a bit slow to start, but I was much more interested even by the time I was on Coruscant. The best thing about the consular story, in my opinion, is that the excitement factor follows an upwards slope all the way to the story's conclusion. When you look at where you started and all the effort your character has put into making the galaxy a better place by where it "ends" you feel like you've accomplished something. (I don't know about you guys, but I love seeing "Interlude" on my loading screen on my lv 50 shadow....can't wait to see what happens next.) The Consular is not just a warrior, they are a diplomat and a seeker of knowledge. They are the intellectuals of the Jedi order and I felt that this story captured this idea well. If you are planning on trying the consular, keep these things and things other posters have said in mind. Know that the story will seem slow at first, but that as time passes and your consular grows more distinguished, your character will significantly alter the course of events as they play out in the galaxy.

@ Powerr: Good Advice. My current setup makes the mistake of using the default setup then adding from there. I think I may give this a try and change my bindings around when I next log in. It doesn't make sense to always be looking off to the sides for some abilities. OP: I won't list off my keybindings as I'm the rare left handed gamer. I.E. my right hand is the one on the keyboard and my left is on the mouse. It took me a while to go out and buy a left handed gaming mouse. Probably one of the best purchases I've made....even if it is only a pair of buttons more than a usual mouse. Between that and the default positioning on the keyboard, I seem to be doing just fine. (Though I am using shift variants on some abilities) I would add that experimenting with various keybindings and positioning for skills is something everyone should do. The ability to customize your UI may be a bit limited in this game atm, but it is still unlikely that you'll find any single person's suggestions perfect for you. Good luck!

I must have been VERY lucky as it was day two when one of my companions came back with omenbringer's bracers from Treasure Hunting. (I'm fairly certain as I was picking up quests from NPC's not in a combat area.) Since then I've only very rarely seen orange bracers on the GTN and only seen orange bracers actually drop from a mob once. (Working on my third toon...that's a lot of kills to only see one drop.)

I figured it more like something else entirely. Shatterpoints http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shatterpoint As such, the animation looks fine to me.

As a shadow tank who occasionally dabbles in pvp, I do enjoy being that annoying guy who refuses to die and just has to be around at the wrong time for the enemy. Even without a single bit of pvp gear (I didn't start until I was 50 and I only play maybe 1-5 warzones in a given day so gear buildup has been....very slow.) Be it on Alderaan where I can make my team take much less damage. Be it on voidstar where you can be that guy who ghosts about a door on defense or gets into the thick of things around one door then force cloaks out to the other while nobody is paying attention. And even in huttball when forcepull is used to pull ball cariers into the fire or acid or just away from the goal line at the last second. *warm fuzzy feelings* And in general watching as large scuffles break out then stealthing int and taking objectives when everyone is too focused on killing one another. That moment when they all swivel after the bomb announcement or the turret change....priceless. The class and spec has always felt right to me. Now if I could just get a little more damage output via some gear, I may actually be more than just an annoyance. *chuckles*

Yes and no. They are addressing a few issues we have mentioned on this thread...just not all of them. I'd be fooling myself if I though they'd address all of them at one time. I've started submitting in-game tickets for several of these issues when they crop up. Between that and posting on the forums, I hope that they will at least be aware of the issues. This will only work if others are doing the same as I am though. *shrugs* Perhaps I just don't give up too easy, but I suggest we keep this thread alive and continue to update it as we find issues.

This is one issue that I haven't been able to confirm for lack of time, though it was something I wanted to look into. I'm happy to see others have been able to confirm that it is an issue and will be more than happy to join in on the chorus to get this fixed. (I wonder if this affects assassins and their shock ability too...or is this another unbalanced aspect of the ability.) There are so many issues plaguing the project ability....so many issues. I believe that the sheer amount of them should put project very high on the Dev's list of things to look at fixing. (It may very well be...) I know some of the issues are getting fixed in the next patch, but others haven't been addressed in any official capacity that I have seen. *shrugs* All we can do is bring it to their attention and wait. I'll be submitting another bug ticket today detailing this issue. (Since they take feedback from both the forums and in game tickets.)

I know...I've been using a mastercraft str based shield on my shadow for the past few weeks as I've waited for friends to catch up. I think it was an oversight and one that I hope they fix soon. I refuse to use a pvp willpower shield in the mean time as that would mean a loss of significant amounts of defense. (And from what I hear, shields are nearly worthless in pvp anyway.) The pvp shield is the only one I know of that I can get without running heroics/opps....which isn't something I'm allowing myself to do until my friends catch up. As a 400 artificer for almost a month now, it would be nice to see some willpower shield patterns added to the trainers so I can stop using my muscle increasing str version shield on my jedi shadow. ><

To me, the delay is highly annoying in pvp and pve. As I play both I've run into more situations where it has caused a problem than a pvp only focused player would. Regardless, the classes are supposed to be mirrored. Why? Because it is easier to balance the classes and thus the factions. So when one of the primary abilities for a base class is not balanced with their mirrored counterpart, this is counter to design and needs to be fixed. It doesn't matter if it is an advantage or a disadvantage. One could argue that just about anything could be an advantage. I could argue it is an advantage to be dead when The Sun Bakes the surface of the Earth in x amount of years or that it is an advantage to be handicap because I can park closer to buildings or a just about anything else, but where does that get me? What matters is this is not how the design of the game is supposed to be. People on both sides have reasons to complain. (I doubt anyone at BioWare wants that.) The fact that project just happens to have several other issues around it puts this one in a bigger focus. (Especially as a main ability for several specs.) Voice your concerns (both on the forums and via bug report if you feel so inclined) and move on.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist posting this... I understand your desire for more diversity in looks, but they wanted each class to have an iconic look. Sadly it seems the "dress look" was decided as the iconic look for consulars.

Post edited by me....for misposting. : p As for the animation, I've since shown it to several friends who play other classes and they agree it looks pretty good. Glad it wasn't just me who thought this.

Valkenheineken, Has anyone mentioned the Harnessed Shadow tooltip error? (The tooltip states that Slow Time does the same thing Project does in adding another stack.) I'm fairly certain this is in error....or that slow time has a bug not letting it add a stack. (Which would be a big deal to tanking shadows.) Granted this was pre today's patch...but I didn't see anyone mention it was fixed yet....or any other issues plaguing our shadow class.

I like this. Just like the Sorcerer/Assassin having a similar theme behind their lightning/shock, this would play into project quite well. Plus throwing larger objects > throwing numerous pebbles. Thanks for putting some effort into getting this changed. ^_^

Obviously we need to figure out which button we are hitting that is switching our rocks to our rear deflector screens. : p

I did wonder about this...if that is true I am going to wonder if ANYTHING related to the ability project is working as tooltips state. > > I may roll another shadow and test this out. (Give me something to do while I wait for friends to catch up with my main. : p)

KINRAD mentions Mind Maze in this post. (I almost missed it too.) This ability is very handy and is probably one of the best CC abilities we have as shadows. Force Slow and Slow Time are two different things. But I wasn't aware either applied a DoT. I knew both did damage and that both slowed a target. Slow Time applies a debuff to your enemy's damage. Did I just miss the part where they are taking damage over time as well?

Personally I haven't used it in a long time as I have Slow Time which does the same thing and a few more effects in one general cooldown. But the main use for an ability that slows your opponent's movement speed is usually kiting. As most of the shadow's abilities are instant, we have the potential to be very good at kiting. (If you can get past any agro issues that is.) I've taken to kiting a certain mob during one of the max level dailies simply because it has a stacking DoT that really starts to hurt if you don't kill him fast. Without kiting I can kill him with about 60% health remaining. (Not an issue, but I like to test myself on how little damage I can take from a mob. Call it survivability training. : p) Kiting that same mob it is lucky to do more than 10% damage to me by fight's end. So if you have an issue with a mob that can be slowed, you may want to try this method.

I consider knockbacks as part of CC personally. So force wave fits in there. Also helps with repositioning mobs in some situations. Same can be said of Force Pull. (Keep in mind force pull is supposed to produce a lot of threat.) You technically have Force lift though it doesn't last very long. (Sages get this power to work for up to a minute at a time.) You should have force slow, though I don't remember what level you get that one at. You don't have Slow Time which will help you out considerably in AOE situations. (It reduces target's damage, slows them, and hits up to five enemies.)