It worked perfectly for me. I was able to mix-and-match power/alacrity and crit/surge pieces until I found the combination that gives me maximum HPS for my current gear. Here are my numbers, in case they're helpful for people with similar gear (starter): Stats Aim: 1418 Cunning: 100 Crit percentage: 33.45% (with talents) Crit rating: 239 Surge percentage: 80.50% (with talents) Surge rating: 233 Alacrity percentage: 12.52% (static, with talents); 17.52% (with First Responder up) Alacrity rating: 271 Power (power + techpower): 1398 Results Current HPS is 1305.76 Your stat weights, normalized to Power, are: Power: 1 Aim: 0.986522 Crit: 0.926941 Surge: 0.491064 Alacrity: 0.771722 Cunning: 0.232921 Despite Crit having a higher weight than Alacrity, when I replaced more of my Power/Alacrity pieces with Crit/Surge pieces, HPS went down by about 30. I think I have a fair idea why. We have two sets of competing stats (one secondary vs one tertiary): Power vs Surge and Crit vs Alacrity. Power is stronger in relation to Surge, than Crit is in relation to Alacrity. Based on these values, it doesn't seem like a good idea to replace Power/Alacrity enhancements with Power/Surge enhancements, especially if the Power value is static. What seems beneficial is getting more Crit on the non-moddable items, as well as more Aim/Power wherever possible. Also, I think that using a Power clicky/adrenal would be the most beneficial, but I don't think that was debatable (except for 0-Alacrity builds perhaps using an Alacrity clicky for high-burst periods).

Thank you for the reply, RuQu. I apologize about forgetting the Power value - it's about 1500 (1494? 1495? something like that; my pet is wearing my healing gear and she's on a mission, so I can't check). I'm going to try Power/Surge enhancements then and see what I can do about getting some Crit on my non-moddable pieces. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible for a Power/Crit enhancement to exist, since they seem to consider Crit/Power/Defense as secondary stats, and Surge/Alacrity/Shield/Accuracy as tertiary stats. They always combine one secondary with one tertiary, so I think that Torhead has some datamined stuff that didn't actually make it to live.

I could use your help figuring out these results. I've been working on my Sage alt and my Gunnery set, so I haven't had the time to change anything about my healing set, although I've been following your thread daily. Hence, this gear set is loaded with Alacrity, since I just have the enhancements from dailies. My friend can make me different enhancements, but I'm trying to figure out which combination would give the most mileage. My stats (yes, crappy gear, but that's what I have to work with for now): Aim: 1418 Cunning: 100 Crit: 30.16% (of which 9% from talents - 6% from Field Training and 3% from Special Munitions; 142 Critical rating from gear) Surge: 73.27%; 155 rating (I have 5/5 Potent Medicine, for a 15% Surge bonus) Alacrity: 14.49% static (349 rating; 4% from Weapon Calibrations); 19.49% with First Responder up, which is most of the time. Results - stat weights for my current gear Power 0.29040570896177 ---> 1 Aim 0.29254716182163 ---> 1.00737400400122 Cunning 0.058598637517207 ---> 0.20178197504003 Crit 0.31944026697261 ---> 1.099979294879 Surge 0.18123433188612 ---> 0.62407289627345 Alacrity 0.21262979679614 ---> 0.73218187602547 The way I read this, and this is where I'd appreciate some assistance, is this: 1. My Crit is very low, to the point where its weight is higher than Aim's, so any further modifications or item replacements need to have Crit on them. 2. Aim is only slightly better than Power at this point. 3. Despite the fact that my Alacrity is at obscene levels, it's still better than Surge? Questions: 1. How do I calculate exactly how much Crit I need? 2. I have no idea what enhancements to use instead of my Power/Alacrity ones. It seems like the ideal one would be Crit/Power, but I don't think it exists. I have some Crit/Surge ones in my DPS set, but they hardly seem ideal. This Surge nerf messed up my plans to plug in some Power/Surge enhancements. I feel like I'm missing something, since Alacrity should logically be bottom of the barrel for me, given that it far exceeds the caps you calculated.

Random items you get from boxes and drops are not specifically itemized. The base item has a certain amount of endurance/armor/weapon damage, but the exact itemization is completely randomized. That's why you see Cunning BFGs or Cunning pieces with tanking stats on them. They are not meant to be used by anyone in particular - they are mostly vendor trash. Yes, it sucks when you buy a blue/epic box and something like that crawls out, but it's just RNG screwing you. It's not the devs not knowing what stats each class uses. Items from the commendation vendors, or which drop in instances/raids are always correctly (if not ideally) itemized.

It's simple, compact, and non-flashy. I like it better than all my other ships, even if it's not the fanciest. By the way, the bunk beds make sense. You have your own bed, and Forex doesn't need one. I highly suspect that Elara sleeps in the Med Unit because she finds the rest yucky and germy

Do not buy him techblades from the planet vendors. They are way, way too expensive for the quality, and any Armstech with an ounce of sense should have Redoubt techblades for all levels. If you can't find them on AH, just ask in Trade for someone, or look at the crafters' names on techblades of other levels and send them a message.

You need to get him a Scattergun for his off-hand. Unfortunately, there are no moddable scatterguns in the game, including for players. You need to gear him like a Scoundrel, even if his heals are closer to a trooper medic's, and his attacks - to a Gunslinger's. However, Armstechs can make green scatterguns every 4 levels, and have select blue recipes. The other problem with scatterguns is that they are currently bugged and can't be RE-ed to blue/epic, but the green ones with an augment slot aren't too bad, especially for pets.

The only common ground between Commando and Scoundrel is that both have healing trees. Other than that, it's a matter of whether you prefer ranged vs melee, and the only one who can answer that question is you. In terms of healing, Medic is stronger right now. Sawbones is very efficient, but lacks burst. The problem, the way I see it, is that it's a spec designed to rely on HoTs, but the optimum rotation that people have figured out doesn't really include them. Both Medic and Sawbones don't have much in terms of AoE healing, but at least Medics have a pretty clear niche as tank healers. Sawbones can heal forever through even damage, but then so does every other healer. I don't think they have a clear idea of what niche they want Sawbones to have and how to adjust them so they can fill it better than Seers/Medics. They'll probably get buffed, but right now I don't think they are as strong as Commandos or Sages. For DPS, I can't help you much. I do play Gunnery as an off-spec and it's awesome - not too difficult, tons of fun, bursty, etc. Very easy to solo with, at least at 50, but I leveled as a healer, so I don't know how their survavibility is pre-50. I'd assume it's pretty good, since you get Elara on Taris and you do have some basic heals of your own. You have CC and an AoE stun and you melt face, so I don't believe anyone is having trouble leveling with it. No idea about Scoundrel melee, since I've never played it and I don't intend to. I would have been much happier if they put Sawbones into Gunslinger, but I guess they didn't want it to be too similar to Commando.

Strength adds a bonus to melee damage and melee critical chance. Aim adds a bonus to the following: - ranged damage and ranged critical chance - melee damage and melee critical chance - tech damage and tech critical chance There is no question that since Aim affects all his attacks, it is a far better stat than Strength and Cunning, which add bonuses to either melee or tech alone. Look, Troopers (players) get a small benefit from Cunning too, but we don't stack Cunning because it does jack for a good part of our abilities. We stack Aim because it affects both our ranged damage and our tech damage/healing. Also, if you strip Qyzen of all his gear, you'll notice that his base Aim is about 5 times higher than his Strength, at least at level 41 (my Sage is 41, so this is what I have to go by). Here's a list of his base attributes (i.e. no bonus from gear): - Strength - 44 - Willpower - 44 - Cunning - 89 - Aim - 225 This means that even if you never use his Tech abilities, he will always perform better in an Aim set versus a Strength set with identical stats because his Aim bonus will always be higher than his Strength bonus.

I think that, with some exceptions, many of the people who are particularly vocal about how "boring" this class story is haven't gotten past Act I. It feels like the reverse of the Trooper story, which starts out strong and ends rather anti-climatically. For me, the Consular story got increasingly more interesting as I progressed through the acts. I just wish they could have done a little more with Zenith and Iresso, and that Zenith were romanceable. On the other hand, I really don't think you're supposed to stockpile a bank tab of gifts and burn through their stories via back-to-back conversations I loved it, but I wish there was more. I would love it so much if content patches added mini-chapters to our class and companion stories, rather than just more raid bosses.

If the main complaint were that we can't solo anything without an interrupt, I'd agree with you. However, you seem to be missing the point and contradicting your own conclusion: precisely because it's an MMO, every class needs to bring roughly equal utility in a group setting, based on what various encounters require, or they simply don't get taken. This isn't about people not knowing how to play, but about hardcore groups tuning their set-ups to perfection. When they bench players, it's not because those players are bad, but because the classes they play don't bring enough to justify their spot, whether that be enough burst DPS/healing, enough mobility, enough interrupts, the correct CC, etc. Nipping these problems in the bud ensures that down the line, they can have more freedom in designing encounters without worrying about some classes being left out. PvP is a completely different can of worms, but if they are contemplating the introduction of a ladder system, they absolutely have to fine-tune their balancing. The idea that gross class imbalances add "flavor" (or whatever tired cliches people use) is antiquated and proof of lazy and inexperienced MMO design from the old days. Players have proven over and over again that they want balance. Also, hopefully you know that Sages also have a CC which works on everything. We're not comparing our AoE stun with their single-target stun, or our full-ammo regen CD with their constant Noble Sacrifice - tools which accomplish similar things, but in different ways. We are comparing the fact that they have an interrupt and we don't.

Hopefully, you realize the absurdity of this suggestion for Commando. A melee interrupt has zero synergy with ranged specs (and all our specs are ranged), which are all designed around maintaining distance, rather than gap-closing. In PvP, the ones you want to interrupt are also ranged, and they can kite you just like they kite melee. Even if you try to slow them, they can also slow you, and you don't have a gap closer to help you get past that. Good luck getting in a Sage's face when they can slow you, stun you, knock you back, and sprint away. For PvE, moving into melee range is an unjustified DPS/healing loss. It makes as much sense as giving melee an interrupt which can only be used at a 30-meter range. So no, it's really got to be ranged, especially since Sages/Sorcs have a ranged interrupt and they are also an exclusively-ranged advanced class. That's an awesome plan for Medics.

Either you always go for the exact same personality type, or you have very limited experience with women. If I threw hissy fits without provocation, I would have zero expectations to find myself in a relationship the next day. Neither I, nor my partner have any tolerance for hysterics and immature behavior, which is why we do our best to treat each other (and anyone, really) with as much decency as we can muster.

Or have her audition for The Bachelor.

You only need three shards to make a cube. Unless you were pointing out the absurdity of this concept. However, we don't know the exact geometrical shape of these shards.

And you just put your finger on it. Those who object to dual spec do so out of childish selfishness. They don't want it; therefore, no one should have it. There is absolutely no logical advantage to not having dual specs, but a lot of advantages to having them: personal convenience, group flexibility, knowledge of multiple specs, and that horrible concept called "fun."

The chance depends on whether your companion has a +Critical bonus for Cybertech and, possibly, on affection. The affection part I'm not 100% positive about, but it would seem so. The chance doesn't seem that small to me. All my companions have 10K affection, none of them has a Cybertech +Critical bonus, and all of them crit augment slots regularly. I haven't kept track and my sample wouldn't be significant anyway, but while you don't get them every other craft, they aren't exceedingly rare either.

No. They intend to buff RE in an upcoming patch. Hence, it doesn't make any sense for the skinning nerfs to happen now, in the absence of a live RE buff. Not yet. They said they would address it, probably in the same patch as the RE buff.

Very much /signed. I would also like the following things: - enabled raid frames while not grouped - raid frames for companions

Because they are buffing RE, and they didn't want people to find crafting too enjoyable all of a sudden. It would have made sense if these two changes went live at the same time.

Trauma Probe on tank helps reduce spikiness. It may not tick for a lot, but it's free healing for the cost of 1 GCD and there is no reason to permanently keep it on yourself because you will not be consistently taking damage. You can obviously put it on someone else if they are taking heavy unavoidable damage, such as a focused attack (untauntable) or an undispellable DoT. You can also put it on yourself if you're taking unavoidable damage while having to move, since you can't HS yourself. Monitoring it isn't an issue, since you're not running multiples.

I double-checked my character and you're right about that. The Rendili Beam Generator is the quest drop, while the Sienar Beam Charger I can craft. My bad there. EDIT: I may have been wrong about Kuat dropping from tier 5 missions, since I run tier 4 and 5 almost exclusively. Still, here's another thing to consider: I run 4 and 5 constantly, and rarely see the other schematics; I've run a tier 6 mission maybe once a day the past few days, and I had 3 of the Kuat drop.

I've never had a companion crit on a mod/armoring/barrel, so I don't think it's possible (I've made thousands to RE or sell). I don't know about Artifice mods, but I doubt it. I've seen mission crits (epic mats, schematics, mission discoveries, blue boxes, epic augments, etc), mastercraft crits (augment slots), and crits on Biochem consumables (2 medpacks or stims from one set of mats).

That I do agree with. I think they should nerf mat requirements for armorings and mods from 4 pieces of each component to 2 (armorings) and 1 (mods). Then we could crank out more leveling mods and be able to able to sell them relatively cheaply, even with the crafting mark-up. Of course, they'd also have to remove the stupid 50-item limit, which makes no sense considering how many item variations there are.

The final item, level 150, should also give you a new title - The Masochist. I understand your reasoning, but it wouldn't be just a massive credit sink, but also a massive time sink. The only result would be that everyone with an ounce of sanity would be making mad money selling epic missions and epic mats, while a select few would farm their Level X items and cry on the forums that the next patch is giving all the noobs the same ilvl stuff they busted their nuts for. The worst repercussion would involve guilds denying raid spots to those who don't have Level X items, even if they aren't doing any serious progression. A more palatable way of implementing your idea would be to get a quest from the trainer, requiring you to turn in a few crafted epic blasters. The reward could be a Level 2 epic blaster recipe. Every patch, they could add in a new quest for a higher level blaster. At least this way, there would be a bit of a credit sink every patch, but people could actually get to use their shiny new widgets for a month or two.