I would never criticise someone for having that preference, but I would take issue with you saying its better. 2 EWH is popular because its set and forget, you never have to worry about clicking it. Also I only said sub-optimal in relation to the encounters that call for the click relic, which is enough to reason that having a click relic on hand is sensible, and weighting your stats with assumption of 2 EWH is not wise.

If anything, 2 EWH is just as situational as a click relic. The campaign sh/abs click is better than EWH in enough endgame encounters to warrant having the freedom to swap it in. Unless of course you just don't like having to click a relic, and are ok with having a sub-optimal relic loadout in said encounters. On an unrelated note, pushing into 63's it seems the dread guard absorb proc is being overtaken by the EWH, even for a vanguard. Weighting some vanguard and juggernaut BiS AMR profiles and comparing the two relics in each, the EWH is better in both cases by a small amount. So I guess if your in high mitigation 61's/63's, the dread proc is obsolete. Sad considering I have always felt the need to defend this relic on my server, but its finally worse off than the pvp ones.

The suggested stat distribution for juggs is optimal, but not possible due to itemisation. Trying to artificially lower your shield chance wont do anything other then increase your endurance / accuracy, and wont bring you any closer to those values, as you can't trade shield rating for defense. Just take your ratings and punch them into this spreadsheet if all you want to do is optimise your stat spread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=548796

Pretty much any of the tank companions. The melee dps companions and the healer companions are the only ones worth using. The ranged dps companions have crappy aoe moves and worse damage, and the tanking companions are just hopeless at everything. The easiest way to remedy this problem would be to let you set your companions move set. For example If I could set Blizz to a tech healer loadout (like Mako and Malavai) I would use him all the time. As long as the moves distinguish between the companion as a force or tech user, it wouldn't feel out of place or compromise the characters in any way. It would let you use the companion you felt like using purely because you like that companion. Unfortunately Bioware feel differently and see the companions combat role as a part of the characters backstory and personality. I hope they change their mind on this at some point.

Dallas Dickinson with his on again off again beard and arousing running commentary on the Esseles flashpoint.

As long as you are looking at your critical rating, not your total critical chance (which includes what you get from aim). When people talk about diminishing returns on crit they are talking about the crit rating stat specifically. The common mistake is that people refer to the crit chance number on the character sheet as the benchmark for diminishing returns. In best in slot 27 mods crit rating sits at around 265 for pyro powertechs if your using the battlemaster pvp set bonus. Its important to keep in mind though that stat priorities change as your stat budget goes up. Lots of great info here: http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/thread-446.html

As far as I know the damage inflicted by relics is not influenced by any "+% damage" of that type from any stance ability or skill. They are self contained. The biggest factors that do effect them though are armour debuffs and force/tech crit. For example, full advanced prototype bounty hunter in high energy gas cylinder would get increased bonuses to internal damage, but that bonus does not effect the internal damage from the proc relic. The exception to this would be classes with armour pen built into their stance, against targets with fully debuffed armour. So to answer your question you want to be using the Internal damage proc so it uses your tech crit. And replace your matrix cube with a pvp relic until you can get a dread guard on use power relic.

The points spent in the shien line can be put anywhere, they are only taken for personal preference. 1 point for shien stance is pretty good considering your already that far up the tree. You of course don't use it for tanking, its more a quality of life addition. Those 2 points could be put in pooled hatred or unyielding.

No, you are wrong. When most say hybrid in relation to jugg tanking this is what they are talking about: http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/juggernaut#26j6k2i-211j282k3-0 The common misunderstanding, is that all the tank classes are not viable without the full 31 points in the tank tree. With assassins and powertechs, this is mostly correct. Assassins and powertechs can't spend those top tier points in anything else that is comparable to what they give up. However with the Jugg, the higher tier is essentially devoted to removing the rage penalties to soresu form with the capstone skill being a threat builder with a situational AoE effect. The 4% shield chance and 4% internal/elemental damage reduction from the immortal tree are traded for 4% overall damage reduction and higher uptime on sonic barrier from the vengeance tree. Hybrid also picks up impale. The result is better damage mitigation and on par single target threat generation, but it does give up the rage generation benefits of the top immortal tier. Both full immortal and hybrid are completely viable in current content, with the hybrid being more attractive to those who wish to squeeze out more damage mitigation.

Are we really having this discussion again. First of all, what one person considers "HP stacking" seems to be different to another's. I would consider HP stacking to be using endurance augments and enhancements. That trade off is never going to be worth it. If your talking about mitigation and health in a 1:1 ratio, mitigation is better. However, when it comes to mods, they have a significantly higher stat budget in favour of endurance, a much better trade off. Swapping a few unlettered mods out for lettered is the only way you should get more health. I wouldn't consider a tank with 2-3 lettered mods a health stacker. Also Keyboardninja makes a good case for assassins using 27B mods if your using the correct rotation.

Scaling up HM TFB and NiM EC to 55 will be essential, as dread guard gear will be expected going into the new tier introduced in Makeb. I'm not sure if story modes would need a bump in challenge, considering they are already extremely easy, it could be redundant. Basically, they will scale the ops up to keep them involved in the tier structure (gear from a lower tier is needed to progress to the next tier). But considering its very easy to bypass the tiers of gear and go straight to campaign on a new toon, people will skip tiers anyway. KP and EV are already bypassed in ops progression. Keep in mind that NiM TFB is yet to come as well. I'm imagining something like this: KP, EV hardmode/storymode no changes. Lockouts removed. EC, TFB storymode no changes. Lockouts removed. Hardmode/nightmare EC scaled up to 55. Hardmode TFB scaled up to 55. New operation and nightmare TFB, difficulty tuned to dread guard gear and level 55.

I just can't believe expanding the class stories is as expensive as they make out. All the infrastructure is there, they are not making an entire new game. What happened to having all the voice actors on long term contracts? Also keep in mind that all the content released this year, including the upcoming Makeb, was already in the pipeline well before swtor was released. This shows that there was NEVER an intention to expand the class stories, regardless of how well the game did. If swtor was as successful as they planned, we would still be asking the same question "Where is the class story?"

You could even make an argument for fights like Vorgath and Operator IX, where the mechanics don't demand a tank swap in the later stages of the encounter, but Its still a good idea.

They have mentioned in the past that companion content is incredibly expensive to make, and that they have no plans to add to the current companions. So perhaps something on the scale of HK-51 (which is shared between all classes and factions). I'm not sure if we will see new class specific companions, or for that matter, content involving the current companions. I still wonder though, because of this: Seems to indicate that VO has been recorded for the game not just in advance before it came out, but voice actors were brought in to record new VO in May. How they handle same gender romance content could be a clue to how they may go about adding companion content in the future. My biggest fear is what will happen to this game after they run out of pre-recorded VO to use.

You get enough free tionese tokens at level 50 to buy a full set of 50 pve gear. Once you hit 50, you get a full set of pvp and pve gear for free to let you participate in both parts of the game from the get go. I can only assume you were not aware of this.

http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/thread-1024-post-24331.html#pid24331 support the dread guard relics and multiple logs have been provided to confirm the formula. In comparison your proof is more akin to "Napkin Math". Nellsterzzz has not posted any links to such logs to support his claim, other than saying "You don't need logs or log proof to prove that my method is correct." He has mentioned a particular fight and reasoned that the wh hero relic is better than a click in that fight due to his AC and encounter specifics.

@Nellsterzzz If you feel strongly about it, then perhaps you should be swapping in the wh relic over the the click relic when its appropriate (lots of dps downtime with dots still up on the boss). However you are still incorrect regarding the proc. It passively provides more dps than a wh relic. Your justification is that you don't like how it works, but that doesn't change the results.

As long as they don't do crazy things to the stat budgets on each item, a level 55 green from a quest on Makeb should still be worse than Tionese. The real kicker will be if they decide to make stats on Makeb gear have a better stat distribution that reflects how players are currently statting, which will make anything else undesirable. Retroactively upping the level requirements on all raid sets would be the simplest solution, but I think they have something a little more extensive planned for end game armour sets. Perhaps re-evaluating all the sets, changing mods, changing how you get them ect. (Or make the final step into having raids only drop commendations, with armour tokens rewarding orange shells, and the vendors being stocked with individual mods.) But yea, I would think Bioware would find a way to keep the current ops relevant in some way, considering the on going story arc that connects KP, EC, TFB may be continued in future ops.

Your reasoning is flawed, the situations you mention would also impact on 2 war hero passive relics. In fact it would devalue them more, as you can leverage the dps cooldown of a click to burst in phases where you can dps, and have it on cooldown when you can't. If your not constantly attacking you are not getting the benefit out of that passive 240 power that you are convinced that you're getting. The ability to control the relics uptime is a bonus, and the fact that if you push it on cooldown it also provides more averaged dps makes it even better. And for sustained dps, the proc is better sustained dps than the pvp relic, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't use it if that's what you are after. You haven't provided any proof otherwise. And while I can't speak for healers, 2 war hero relics are not optimal in enough end game encounters that they can't be called BiS for tanks either.

Both the Black Talon and Esseles flashpoints represent border skirmishes that directly contribute to the breakdown of the treaty. I think these are the most significant events that basically mark the start of the new war.

Contrary to how I used to think before following the forums more closely, tank relics can't be broken down into a simple "these are BiS". If you simply don't want to think about relics that much than go with 2 war hero relics and forget about them. But don't assume that this is the BiS relic load-out, as there are some different lines of thought on relics that you should take into account: One goes for the highest overall benefit which is usually 1 proc with 1 war hero, or 2 war hero relics. 2 war hero relics does provide slightly more overall survivability at end game stat budgets than 1 proc and 1 war hero (this choice will come down to how geared you are). Another related reason is that 2 war hero relics provide a constant static benefit, perhaps making your damage profile more predictable and easier to heal (I don't like this particular justification.) The other line of thought is that the current end game content has lower tank uptime, which makes a click relic and the proc together much more useful. Their respective cool-downs are largely made irrelevant, especially so if the click relic is leveraged correctly. Kitru has posted a breakdown on this reasoning here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=5285275&postcount=7 Also keep in mind that different tiers of click relics are not consistent and linear in the benefit they provide, due to an oversight on Bioware's part. The Rakata Relic of Imperilling Serenity is the best you can get for a defence click relic, as it has a 10 second greater duration than the campaign and dread guard versions. Campaign Relic of the Shrouded Crusader is also the best relic of its type for the same reason. I personally don't like weighting my relics into my stats as I swap them out constantly depending on the encounter. Weighting your relics is more optimal at the cost of being non-optimal if you decide to deviate from the assumed relic load-out you have stat'd for.

EDIT: I have removed the subjective adjustments to the proc and shield on use to keep the scope of these changes as close to current in game relic implementation as possible. Also, some power was added back onto the relics in place of endurance. The ratio of endurance to power I have used is just an example. @Kitru I'm veering off topic, but you bring up a very relevant point about tank damage. Each new tier of gear seems to increase damage and healing output much more than a tanks damage (threat). Going from rakata raiding, where I never had to taunt, to dread guard, where against certain classes I do have to taunt purely because I'm GCD locked in my ability to burst out enough TPS at the beginning of an encounter. There are some times when I don't taunt, and its fine, but I just put that down to dps (mr marauder and mr powertech) stuffing up or not getting a proc, and not my magical tanking ability. Going forward I wonder how Bioware plans to scale tank threat. They could just do a regular threat bump to all the tank stances again, but that would be so lazy.

I would have to say I disagree with this. The changes I proposed for these relics, are just the same changes they made to the on use power and damage proc relics, making them better all around then the pvp relics. These changes are just supposed to mirror that, making them not only situational on tank swap fights, but also better when used on cooldown for the greatest mean benefit. I'm not sure why you're in opposition of bringing these relics in line with the relative value of their dps counterparts. My changes to the shield on use relic and absorb proc though, as far as changing the proc effect, and removing absorb from the on use, I'm not really satisfied with either. I do like the idea of having more varieties of tank proc style relics.

These proposed changes to tank relics are meant to make the dread guard relics the superior relics to use for pve gameplay at best, and at worst, competitive with static pvp relics. I have made simple changes that mirror the modifications to the dps and heal relics Bioware made in 1.5. EDIT: I have removed the subjective adjustments to the proc and shield on use to keep the scope of these changes as close to current in game relic implementation as possible. Also, some power was added back onto the relics in place of endurance. The ratio of endurance to power I have used is just an example. Duration changes to "on use" relics have been increased to 30 seconds to bring them in line with other similar relics. Tanking stats and power have been added in place of some endurance to increase overall mean benefit and to keep a portion of the boost to threat generation that was provided by lower tiered relics via power. [Relic of Imperiling Serenity] +40 Endurance +24 Power +47 Defense Rating On Use: Increases Defense Rating by 350 for 30 seconds. [Relic of the Shrouded Crusader] +40 Endurance +24 Power +47 Shield Rating On Use: Increases Shield Rating and Absorb Rating by 215 for 30 seconds. [Relic of Shield Amplification] +40 Endurance +24 Power +47 Absorb Rating On Equip: Shielding an incoming attack grants 455 Absorb Rating for 6 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 20 seconds, and shares this limit with similar defensive effects.

This. Though from early bits and leaked info on what chapter 4 will be it may look something like this: Class Quests = Main Planet quests. (With class specific dialogue, and perhaps some unique solutions and characters showing up from your class story). I think this would still retain the great narrative feel with VO, while letting bioware save some valuable development costs to spend expanding game-play systems and adding content. I hope they don't back down from this direction. Betting the farm on excessive VO work was a big mistake in the first place. VO on some random dude wanting me to kill things unrelated to my class quest/planet quest is pure excess.