You want anything by Timothy Zhan, Kevin Anderson, Michael Stackpole, Troy Denning, or Aaron Allston. The Thrawn Trilogy above is one of the most important pieces of SW Lore post-Return of the Jedi. I would also recommend "The Truce at Bakura" for some information on the startup of the New Republic. "The Courtship of Princess Leia" is also an absolute MUST, as it explains, among other things why there are "force-witches," how Han and Leia got married, and why the heck the Hapans decide to save the day several times (tho they got kinda screwed in a way here...) "Champions of the Force" is also another absolute MUST, detailing Kyp Durron's fall to the dark side. None of the Yuzhang-Vong personnel will make any sense unless you have also read the X-Wing series, and "I, Jedi." They are by Aaron Allston and Michael Stackpole - two other amazing SW authors. Among other things, this series details how the New Republic recaptured Courscant ("Wedge's Gamble"), the destruction of the Lusankya prison and death of Ysanne Isard ("Krytos Trap" and "Bacta War"), how Wedge Antilles became a flippin amazing tactician and commanding officer ("Wraith Squadron" thru "Solo Command"). "Isard's Revenge" is one of the most startling times in all of the SW lore novels that have ever been written IMO. You can actually skip "Starfighters of Adumar" but it gives some good reference points, and is generally hilarious. You CANNOT skip "I, Jedi" - it's the entire story of Corran Horn becoming a Jedi. The Young Jedi Knights series is actually pretty good background information on many of the characters. It's not really written for adults, but it's still good. Last but not least, you MUST read the ENTIRE "New Jedi Order" series - it's absolutely pivotal to understand anything written after it. In short, you ABSOLUTELY MUST, MUST READ: (in chronological order) Wedge's Gamble (Michael Stackpole) Isard's Revenge (Stackpole) Courtship of Princess Leia (Dave Wolverton) Heir to the Empire / Dark Force Rising / The Last Command (Timothy Zahn) Champions of the Force (Kevin J. Anderson) [Also, Jedi Search and Dark Apprentice] I, Jedi (Stackpole) Scepter of the Past / Vision of the Future (Zahn) Entire "New Jedi Order" Series - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jedi_Order Entire "Legacy of the Force" Series - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Force Note that both of those series will feel much more complete if you read the "Young Jedi Knights" series.

Looks like the dev tracker page has some kind of bug. Here's how it looks on my machine: http://blueglowtech.biz/host/images/forumbug.jpg Looks like a CSS size mismatch between div.mainContentFullBody, div.contentPadding, and table.tborder. Long story short, the table is 958px trying to fit a standard 960px wrapper div, but is poking out (I would guess) the 56px from the two 28px margins. That, or someone possibly screwed up their tr:nth-child statements. Edit: Browser is Chrome.

Exactly... working as intended... There's a great resolve sticky here somewhere. It really is a great solution to the chain cc problem. HOWEVER, it is "broken" in that I've heard it sometimes bugs. But the mechanics of the system are not broken - just the implementation.

Reserved for more...

Just a note on where I'm coming from... I leveled as balance up to about level 40-ish and then respecced as a hybrid class. At level 50, switched back to full balance, mostly to take advantage of the greater CC capability and higher internal damage as a way to partially compensate for my lack of pvp gear. As I'm gearing up with more and more pvp gear, I'm going to go back to a hybrid spec. I did consider trying a Seer/Bal hybrid but I figured why be mediocre at two things (not to say that it wouldn't be a valuable spec in a premade)? Here's a quick rundown of what I looked like while leveling: I've tried these specs at 50: And last, but not least, the one I finally am now: 0/13/28 - http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600Zfc0MdZfMfosrkMc.1 ************************************************************************** I want to talk about some of the talents in a hybrid spec as well for a minute. One of the issues I find in PvP is force regen. It kind of sucks if you are not consciously managing it. A TK/Bal. hybrid's regen comes from the Psychic Barrier (Bal) talent, which gives you 1% force each time Telekinetic Throw does damage. You may be tempted to pick up Concentration in the TK tree, but you should not do this unless you are very sure of how you want to play. Concentration causes disturbance to stack a 10/20/30% force regen buff for 10 seconds. It becomes a HUGE gimp to your damage, and I would not recommend it unless you are also picking up Tidal Force. The logic behind this recommendation is that using Disturbance to improve your regen comes with a high cost. You will be sacrificing Presence of Mind procs to Disturbance or hard-casting it. However, since its cast time is the length of the GCD (shorter with any alacrity), you aren't *also* losing time, but rather mobility. With the faster-paced nature of PvP, mobility is highly important, as is using your time for "fire and forget" abilities like Weaken Mind or Mind Crush. Also, I did spec into it for a bit, hoping for improved regen, but I found that it was actually fairly hard to reliably keep multiple stacks of it active because of the 10 sec time limit. Consider that once placed, you eat the 1.5 sec GCD and then try to proc Presence of Mind with a 3 sec channeled Telekinetic Throw. Now you are at 4.5 sec, and maybe you got a proc, maybe not. Usually you do, but if not, you lose at least another 1.5 seconds channeling another TK Throw (now at 7 secs), and you've gimped your damage yet again. I have not experimented *extensively* with playstyle over long periods of time with Concentration builds, but I would imagine that they provide slightly more stable dps, but with a large loss. The major dps loss is here - your Presence of Mind procs should ALWAYS be used on Telekinetic Wave because you get the 20% damage buff to the talent. My instant TK Waves usually hit much harder than my Force in Balance, even though Force in Balance is internal and TK Wave is kinetic. Talents Balance Tree: Psychokinesis - It's largely worthless. I don't even have doublestrike on my bar because if it's close enough to melee, I've done something wrong, or I'm in the midst of escaping it. A 6-force reduction to the Project cost is nice I guess (making it 39 force) but hardly worth two talent points. Pinning Resolve - This is a leveling talent... an AMAZING leveling talent. It's PvP usefulness is 10 seconds off the Force Stun cooldown, which is admittedly pretty good, but I can't say that I've found myself wanting a 50 sec cooldown on it rather than the 60. Psychic Absorption - Worthless if you don't take Focused Insight. Mostly worthless even if you do. We're talking about 20% increase to 1% of your total health when your dots crit. If you have 15k health, that's the difference between a 150 and 180hp heal... when your dots crit. 2 Talent points is not worth an occasional 30 hp heal. Sever Force - I would almost drop a point in Psychic Projection to pick this up. Whether to skip it is indeed debatable. Lots of internal damage over a long period, AND a 2-second snare. Once we can make 8-man premades I may pick it up for the CC value - it's amazing on Alderaan. But for now, Psychic Projection wins in my book. Telekinetic Tree: (See discussion of Concentration above.) Disturb Mind - Weaken Mind is already a 15 sec dot. Increasing that to 21 seconds doesn't seem to have much utility at the expense of 2 talent points. It's already great for keeping people off objectives, but I don't think an extra 6 seconds will improve it THAT much. Mind's Eye - Since the only one of these three abilities you would be using is Telekinetic Wave, which already has a 30-meter range... it's just not that useful. Force Wake - It can be useful... but this is a talent to give up in order to get Psychic Projection. Kinetic Collapse - For those of you considering a 0/20/21 build, keep in mind that this is an incapacitate, not a snare, and is basically an aoe resolve generator for your enemies. Blockout - Again, useful, but given up to get Psychic Projection. I should note here that if you are running with a group where your job is that of the CC'er, you would probably want to drop Psychic Projection and move those points into Blockout. Also, drop Jedi Resistance and move those to Pinning Resolve. Rotation/Priority There are basically two schools of thought here. First is to get your dots out first; Second is to nuke with Force in Balance to proc the 20% dot buff from Force Suppression. My opinion is that your dots have more "value" than nuke. The reason for this being that they do more for you. For one, the longer a dot is ticking, the more likely it will proc Focused Insight. And for Weakened Mind, the longer it ticks, the more likely to proc Psychic Projection. So I would recommend this order: Weakened Mind -> Force in Balance -> Telekinetic Throw (till Presence of Mind Proc) Once Presence of Mind has procced, Telekinetic Wave, followed by Project. If Telekinetic Wave is on cooldown, the proc can be used for a Mind Crush. But you just said dots are worth more than nukes!! Yes I did, but Presence of Mind ALSO gives a 20% damage buff to the next ability, making the nuke WAY more valuable here. Another option if you are able would be to hard-cast Mind Crush. The 2-sec cast means you can chain a Weakened Mind onto it to start your rotation. There are some other considerations: 1) Clipping dots - generally don't do it unless you are going to lose the opportunity to do it later (i.e. enemy is escaping and you can't follow). 2) Clipping Telekinetic Throw - generally don't do it. Exception is if you have a Presence of Mind AND Psychic Projection proc. Clip the existing TK Throw, cast TK Wave, and recast TK Throw UNLESS you can finish the current TK Throw, cast TK Wave, and recast without losing the Psychic Projection proc. 3) Disturbance? Don't bother with it. Project and TK Wave are always going to be a better use of the GCD. Stats There are two basic schools of thought here. First, Willpower > Power > Crit >= Surge; and Second, Willpower > Crit > Power > Surge. Having played as the latter of these two for quite some time and seeing a large dps increase switching to the former, I'm going to advocate the first. Here's why... I think it's beyond question that Willpower is the most useful stat, even though it becomes devalued at higher levels for specific applications (i.e. 1 WP is worth much less that 1 Crit FOR CRIT at level 50, despite their much closer relationship at, say, 20). Power affects your "base" (non-crit) damage. Crit affects the increase to your base damage. Surge affects the amount by which Crit increases your base damage. So immediately, the stats' relationships are some indication of their relative worth. Forgive the lack of citation, but I've heard that Crit softcap is about 35-40%, Surge is about 75%. Power, on the other hand, supposedly has no softcap. Let's suppose your TK Throw ticks for 800 base with +200 base crit. We'll also assume that there is a relatively normal distribution of stats. Let's play with them a bit. Normal power + 40% crit + 40% surge (stacking crit) Expected 1.6 crits on 4 ticks = 3x 800 + 1x (800+(200 * 1.4)) = 3480 Normal power + 25% crit + 70% surge (stacking surge) Expected 1 crit on 4 ticks = 3x 800 + 1x (800+(200 * 1.7)) = 3540 Stack power (900 base + 250 base crit) + 25% crit + 40% surge (stack power) Expected 1 crit on 4 ticks = 3x 900 + 1x (900+(250 * 1.4)) = 3950 I'll make sure to insert the caveat that this is armchair theorycrafting, but at the moment, ALL swtor theorycrafting is armchair, because we have no combat logs. However, the idea of increasing your base damage instead of increasing your chance for a larger occasional bonus seems to make sense. Also, increasing your base damage ALSO increases your crit damage. Long story short... IMO stack Power. Playstyle This spec is incredibly mobile. 15% Increased damage to Weakened Mind (from Drain Thoughts) makes dot-tabbing in objective games not only incredibly powerful from a defensive standpoint, but also decent "fire and forget" dps. The only ability in this spec that you NEED to remain still to use is Telekinetic Throw. There is nothing more frustrating to your enemies than a spec that can pop out from cover and nuke you with instant-cast abilities. I'm not going to get into the core sage mechanics like how to use Force Speed - I assume you already know that... Also, keep your shield up at all times. AT ALL TIMES. Admittedly, this spec does better aoe damage than single target. I would guess it is that way for purely TK Sage spec, but not for the Shadow specs (I don't know - I don't have a Shadow). However, the two main nukes can be used without (much) waste on single targets. Especially for Force in Balance, I have no compunctions whatsoever about dropping one on a single target. Finally, a couple warnings... First, you WILL irritate your enemies, and sometimes they will make you pay. I'm certain I've been marked by the other teams more than a few times and just stomped into the ground in retribution. It makes sense though. You can dot up your target, line of sight them, channel a quick attack, then nuke them for huge damage and race out of range. And you have a shield. Second, beware the bounty hunter. Those missiles eat me for breakfast. If there is one around, I would save your force speed so you can quickly LOS or get out of range. Interrupt them if you see them in the air at all... just kind to your other teammates. Snipers also seem to be kind of a problem if you can't catch their snipe while casting or get out of range/LOS. Third, I think it goes without saying that Operatives will tear you up if they get a hold of you. Other melee really aren't too bad so long as you can get some range quickly. Classes with a distance closer are kind of a pain if your speed is on cooldown. ************************************************************************** Depending on comments, I will add, edit, etc... these are my observations, and I'm always willing to take others' advice. Thanks for reading!

Mainly because it takes one of two exact same paths down. There's some slight variations, but we played around with it for quite some time. There was other behavior too - for example, when we would get in range, if there were multiple people, it would stop, think a moment, and then lightning the nearest one. Basically, it exhibited the exact same behavior over and over and over. I think at some point the actual user returned because it finally started going to the other objective points and fighting with some modicum of intelligence... Definitely a bot though.

... and we farmed the crap out of it. But that's really beside the point. User: Andra Server: Rakata Mind Prison Occurred: Jan 30 about 1am PST Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNk9_-k9d8

I'm confused how people think the bag system is unfair. Your chance to get a usable piece of gear from a bag is, roughly put: [Chance to drop] * [Open PVP gearslots]. If you have 2 open gearslots, obviously you have a lesser chance to get a usable piece than if you have 6 open gearslots. Yes, it kind of sucks that duplicate drops occur, but that doesn't make it UNFAIR. It's not as though another player who got better drops or more gear from their bag is somehow subject to different drop calculations than you... they just had better luck. You are both still equally disadvantaged. I think the way the bag system works is, frankly, nucking futs, but it's by no means UNFAIR.

Reading score = 0/10

I guess I'm confused what you mean then. If, as you say above, expertise grants a large damage output, damage reduction, and healing throughput, how does it not effectively counter pve gear? Drawing an analogy to WoW, your position comes off as one who is surprised that someone in 384 pve gear killed someone in 339 pvp gear. Perhaps it's just a language thing - but if you need to drop the pve stats "down" to make them on par with pvp stats, that's a gearing issue, not a mechanic problem. Another reason a simple % reduction is a bad idea is that pvp requires different stats than pvp. I suppose they could change the mechanics of the game a little, but they cannot change the underlying issue. Pve is about consistency - healing for the entire fight, being able to deal damage through the entire time. Pvp is about survivability and burst damage. Debuffing pve gear to match pvp gear is like trying to cut bread with a dull steak knife... why not just get the bread knife instead? Here is the problem: Why not just change the stats on the pvp gear? Why is it such a problem to have a pvp gearset and a pve gearset, especially since you probably need different specs for the two anyway??

Supposing for a moment that damage scales directly with expertise/debuffs that are proposed above, here's the difference: Expertise: +5% damage output and -5% damage taken. Debuff stats: -5% damage output. Let's suppose we have players of differing gear levels with only 2 stats - offense and defense. Player A with 55 offense and 35 defense; and Player B with 60 offense and 20 defense. Under the expertise system, A hits B for 57.75 (1.05 * 55) and B takes 35 damage (55/1.05 - 20). Under the stat system, A hits B for 32.38 (55/1.05 -20). Ok - so the numbers aren't that impressive. But that's about a 7% net difference. Scale that up (very roughly) to the larger hits we see from the gear in TOR and you're looking at upwards of ~150 damage per hit between the two systems, which is more than negligible.

This doesn't really surprise me that much. It's not so much an unkillable healer as it is the mechanics of the game. I'm just tossing this out there as a "this could've happened" - but without video or screenies, it's hard to say either way. But I kind of doubt it's purely the gear - the amount of expertise available even to full Battlemaster isn't *that* much above Champion. So you pull people off of other classes to nuke a healer... Right away, any guardian worth his salt around will toss guard on the healer. That's 30%. And any sage worth his salt will bubble it, saving another 2K ish damage. Then that guardian uses his next gcd to toss an aoe taunt, reducing people's damage against non-him-players by (I think) another 30%. Also, by not, that healer has popped their expertise consumable, which works defensively too. Add to that any other hybrid class with their paltry heals that can now focus the healer for a moment to save them...

I guess you mean the RP walk that nobody ever uses... you want us all to RP walk, while some classes retain their sprints and charges? Riiiight... good one! Obvious troll is obvious.

I LOL'ed pretty hard at this one... Once you are in combat, you are forced to walk ANYWAY. Besides that... sorry you get movement impairing dots?? Would you like those talents removed from pvp too?

Go to Organize => Folder and Search Options => View Tab => Show hidden files, folders, drives radio button. Or just type \AppData in the address bar after your profile folder name. Or if you're REALLY lazy, press WinKey+R (or start/run) and type "shell:local appdata" .

Ah - that makes sense then... Although for Sages, it also doesn't use a charge when you activate TK Throw...

Tooltip reads: But the tooltip for TK Throw states that its range is already 30m. Closest I could get either way ingame was to determine that the threshold for TK Throw really is 30m. It's enabled at 29.99m, but disabled at 30.02m. Popping Force Potency at 30.02m does not seem to increase the effective range. Explanations? Known issue? ****Edit**** I guess this could have gone in general too, an increased range would be really nice in PvP... as would some clarification on exactly how this works, so we know what talents to wreck people with.

There is a very simple explanation for this... Now that the normal WZ matchup isn't 8 level 50 Imps vs. 3 level 50 Reps and an assortment of lowbies, the Imps that were facerolling without learning really how to play their class can't compete. Prior to the 1.1 patch, on my server it would take Reps a couple days to get their 3-win "daily" quest done, never mind the 9-win weekly. After the 1.1 patch, we can faceroll the imps because they suck. Just shows that expertise is no match for REAL expertise, no pun intended.

Yes, you can see them, but it switches back to yours when you change the dropdown panel... very annoying. Encountered this because I'm trying to get some numbers on how consular stats scale, but can't inspect people to see their stats.

Because when I inspect another player, and go to look at their stats from another dropdown (e.g. Force instead of Melee), I see my own stats in the panel. Workaround? Or is it busted?

Bumpitty-Bump... nice to have such an active forum but p2 in one min?

What do people use with this game? I just tried Fraps for a moment and my framerate dropped from 70 to 3, and then spiked between 3 and 30... i.e. unplayable AND unrecordable. Other options besides fraps? Could dual monitors be causing a problem?

Just to quickly comment on a couple other smuggler posts I've seen... Bowdaar has better survivability than Corso depending on the situation. One's a ranged tank, the other is melee. Apples and Oranges. The Bowdaar AI is a LOT stupider than Corso though. But as I progressed towards endgame, I started using Akaavi Spar as my tank because she has more survivability than either of the tank companions, even in level-appropriate gear. Why, you might ask? Because survivability isn't just about hitpoints or mitigation. She puts the mobs down fast enough (STAY DOWN, FOOL!) that she doesn't need to be tanking 3 of them at a time. THAT'S good pve survivability in my book. The real issue I have with our so-called "tank" companions is their just absolutely dumbfoundingly STUPID AI. It's so bad, we call Bowdaar by his other-other name - Bowtard. Here's his thought process tanking: Oh, well it looks like we're in combat. Let me sit here a second and let the smuggler get the aggro. Hmm, her health is at about 80%, better look like I'm doing something. I guess I'll hit this thing. Huh? It's not attacking me. Better use my taunt. OMIGAWD LOOK AT THAT HOVERING CC'ED DROID!!! MUST HIT IT NAO! Oops, lookee - I'm dead. Bowdaar constantly breaks CC's (as does Nadia [yes, I know she's not a tank, but close enough] and Qyzen). I actually had to respec DPS and use Theran on my consular because Qyzen's survivability is SO bad that I couldn't keep him up (no pun intended). So I respecced balance, pulled out my healing toon, and now I can just faceroll the groups of mobs that were killing Qyzan. BW really, really missed the bucket on tank companions. Some of the other ones, however are great. I absolutely love Akaavi Spaar, Kira, and Nadia (four-way, anyone?). They are all great in combat, even taking on limited tanking roles. Risha is another great one from a storyline perspective, and I'm saving my smuggler for a same-sex relationship with her (though the are already VERY involved, trust me... if these walls could talk...). Tharan is also pretty good, and seems to be the obvious choice for a female consular, though he came on a little strong. I think I'll sleep with him to spite Holiday...

McCoy (ATCC CRL-1696) - do I win?

Ah, so the map is messed up =P Well - guess this just became a bug report.