There's a guild-finder quiz in this forum on the first page right now. I'd recommend using it, as the guilds it kicks back have actively listed themselves there. I did the quiz and it kicked back five recommendations, four of which are guilds I've seen while playing frequently.

I've leveled two tanks to 55, two healers to 55, and four damage (two range, two melee) to 55. I can confirm with certainty that you get much faster XP just doing missions (regardless of role), especially when the group finder is landing you in Flashpoints like Collicoid, which doesn't even have much to kill. Even though the XP from a flashpoint will likely surpass what you get from a sidemission, it takes a lot longer to do. The fastest I've managed to level is to just grab the storyline/class/side missions in each area, and bang them out. I skip Heroics, simply because they aren't worth the time investment for the XP. Note that I still do a daily groupfinder for the planetary comms (and to keep my grouping skills sharp). While a tank or healer might not clear bad guys as fast as a damage role, you have essentially no downtime, so any difference is pretty negligible. Only issue I had leveling my last alt (healer) was boredom because it was so thoughtless. I would occasionally use a damage companion just to liven things up. I could keep my tank pet healed through anything but an elite by just dropping my AE heal on the ground. For an elite, toss my HOTs on and resume DPSing.

Like the post before says, if you don't see "You will be billed on xxxxx" then it's not recurring.

I've got a string of alts hitting 50 and I want to gear out their tank companions for Makeb. Assuming I'm just putting them in blue 66 gear (148), and I'm not going to augment them, I should just go for total defense & shield as they have no bonus to Absorb and will never have high enough mitigation budgets to need absorb, right?

99% of the guardian class missions are about interrupting the boss. Use that interrupt well. Also if the fight is close, send Kira in first, let her tank for a little then jump in. You'll take aggro before she dies and it's little buffer of health. Which fight is it specifically? By the way, if you're going Defense, use Soresu.

I rarely have issue with a melee weak/standard getting on me. I just kill it and or Flash Grenade it. It's the 4 weak RANGED mobs that are shooting PAST the tank to shred me. Then I LOS them, and the tank (and damage) still don't pay attention to them, then I Flash Grenade them and run to where the mobs WERE standing, and they run back through the tank (and damage) a second time. That's when the tank said, "Stop pulling the mobs to you." So I reiterate: "Ugh." I've been tanking for roughly 14 years through various MMOs, and played damage and heals as well through all of them. A tank with tunnel vision is a bad tank, period. A damage that doesn't kill off the weak/standards first in SWTOR is a bad damage, period. I don't think I'm holier-than-thou, but I do know that my job in the flashpoint is not to kill those mobs. This is a healer support group thread, not a "please explain to us that we have no right to vent" thread. We're venting. Go make your own "I had a self-absorbed healer" thread, please.

I've leveled 7 characters to 55 now. First was my Guardian tank, I've played tanks as my primary role since the early days of EverQuest, so it's pretty natural to me. Had a great time leveling him. (There's a point, stick with me.) Next I did a Marauder, I was just playing the polar opposite of my Guardian, and he's probably my second favorite character. I love the in-your-face damage role. Then I played a Commando ranged, and played him paired with a buddy for every single quest all the way to 50. I used M1-4X and he used the healer, and it was great. When I got to 50, I respecced to healing, but only healed my guildmates who I've been playing with since EQ, so everyone knows what they are doing and we're on teamspeak. I leveled to 55 doing heals, but I've still got a lot of damage output and it was my last 55 to level so I already knew what to do and where to go, pretty simple. Then I leveled up a Shadow melee, a Gunslinger range, and a Sorcerer range. Again, damage dealers, and never really had too many problems. I'm leveling my last character up now; an Operative healer. I've never leveled from the start as a healer. I actually really like it, and I think I've really gotten a better feel for the timing on healing because of it. But holy crap, when I do my daily GF PUG for comms... what a nightmare. I've run into more tanks that are DPS specced, don't use a shield (careful though, sometimes you can't see their offhand on inspect even though they have one), or have zero awareness and just get tunnel vision on the biggest mob. But honestly? I have more trouble with Damage than don't do their job. I think that's also why I never had trouble with PUGs on my damage characters. When there's a pack with two elites, two strongs, and 4 weaks, it's not the tanks job to keep all of that on him. First, there should be a CC on an elite, if not both. Good damage don't need a tank to tell them that--when I'm on a damage character I just mark the one I'm going to CC and go do it. Second, the tank should really only be worrying about the strongs and an elite (if you can't CC both). The weaks should be obliterated by the damage dealers before they can bat an eye--and when I play Damage, the first thing I do is burn down all the weak/standards, and whisper the other damage to do so if they aren't. When I play a tank, I'll start the FP off with a quick, "Damage, could you please kill the weak/standard mobs before helping me with the big stuff? Makes tanking easier." Then they do, and the FP is easy. On my healer? **** I can't count how many FPs I'm just getting PUMMELED by four weaks that are running free because the DPS are playing "biggest crit" with an elite. I actually find myself asking DPS to kill weak/standard first MORE than when I'm on my tank. I've faceplanted so many times because I've vanished, dumped aggro, and popped defensives in a desperate bid to stay alive while ROLLING heals on myself. Ugh. Just yesterday I had a tank ask me to stop pulling the mobs over to me. He would jump in, full tunnel vision, no AE opener to get initial aggro, and the damage would just attack the elite he was on. Four standards are just blasting away at me, and I'd hide behind something to break LOS, then flashbang them and find another place to LOS them desperately trying to type "HELP HEALER". "Can you stop pulling the mobs away?" Seriously? Ugh.

I'd probably just get an AMD FX if I was going to get an i5. Similar power, but cheaper when you count in the motherboard. I'll second the comments on Dells being reliable. I'm the primary PC support at my company, and we have over 1000 Dell machines on our network. Customer service is superb, and they are affordable.

My main recommendations would be an i7 processor (or a beefy AMD FX if you want to save some money), 8+ GB of ram, and a solid video card (something in the $200 range). If you want you could look into a SolidState hard drive, but it's not critical. That also means you'd need a second regular hard drive for your data/documents, so you might not want to mess with that.

I'd recommend taking a look at Noxxic.com and checking out the recommendations for your opening abilities as well as the continued attack priorities for continued fights. You'll likely find them useful. Not everything on Noxxic should be taken as gospel, but it's a very good start for a new player, and as you become more experienced you'll figure out what you disagree with. On my guardian I open most fights with Saber Throw (+3 focus) then Force Leap (+3 focus) then Force Smash (-3 focus) then Sundering Strike (+6 focus), Blade Storm (-3 focus) and Guardian Slash (-3 focus). I'm left with 3 focus plus whatever my tank stance gave me (usually 2-3 more) from getting hit. Then I use Strike and Slash till the last three abilities are ready to use again. I mentioned a whole lot of abilities I'm sure you don't have yet, but that's just an idea of what I mean by "priorities". At low level I used Force Leap, then Force Smash, then alternated between Strike & Slash as my focus permitted. When you're low on focus and have a stronger enemy, toss in Master Strike.

Note that at endgame, oftentimes unlettered mods are not available. The order of preference is still Unlettered > A > B. That's for healing/damage classes. For tanks, typically only the B variant is available at endgame. The unlettered is always going to be the best at a given tier though, if you can find one. And to answer the earlier question, yes I'd use the same setup for any damage class. In fact, here is a quick, dirty breakdown of what I'd take for the three different roles (highest priority stat first): Damage: Hilt/Barrel/Armoring: Mainstat/Endurance Mod: Mainstat/Power Enhancement: Accuracy/Power till 100% basic accuracy, then Surge/Power Augment: Mainstat (If critical isn't 25%, you might swap a mod or two out till you hit 25%, but it's really optional.) Healing: Hilt/Barrel/Armoring: Mainstat/Endurance Mod: Mainstat/Power Enhancement: Alacrity/Power Augment: Mainstat (Same 25% crit option, my characters in 156 rating gear (basic comms) needed 2 crit mods.) Tanks: Hilt/Barrel/Armoring: Endurance/Mainstat Mod: Mainstat/Defense (Guardian/Vanguard) and Mainstat/Absorb (Shadow) Enhancement: Shield/Defense (Guardian/Vanguard) and Shield/Absorb (Shadow) Augment: Defense (all three tanks) While the Healing and Damage gear is pretty set, the tanking stats I'm showing are just a quick and dirty, get you started setup. You would ideally want to read the Tanking Stat Priority thread in the Roles > Tanking forum to better understand your targets. For up to 156 rated gear (Basic Comms, purple 66) the above is a good guide. In truth you would likely want some Absorb on the Guardian/Vanguard, though the amount will vary depending on your ear/implant contributions. (My guardian's augments are 8 Defense, 4 shield, and 2 absorb, in 156 rated gear. With 162 rated gear--Elite Comms--I would need 6 defense and 8 absorb.) As I said, this will get you started, and read up on mitigation stat priorities if you want to get more serious about tanking stats.

That looks a lot like the stats priority line from Noxxic for a Gunslinger. While it's theoretically sound, it's not practical (current gear won't really let you get to those values). As folks have mentioned, you want Cunning, and lots of it. You'll get Cunning from barrels, armor, mods, and augments (you don't really need to worry about augments till 55, really). Anyway, I think it's better to interpret stat priorities based on the item modifications, since there are mutually exclusive stats. Barrels/Armoring will always exist in a Cunning > Endurance version, and an Endurance > Cunning version. I'm pretty sure the former is Skill, and the latter is Patron. You want Skill ones. Mods will give Cunning & Endurance, plus one more secondary stat--either Defense, Absorb, Power, or Critical. By eldergame, there are three versions of each mod (Artful is Cunning/Endurance/Power for example). The three versions dictate how much each stat is prioritized. Artful would have Artful, Artful A, and Artful B. The non-lettered one has endurance as the lowest priority, and is what you want if available. (At elder game, Arftul A is probably the best you'll get, which is Cunning > Endurance > Power.) Anyway, I recommend getting Power on your mods. Enhancements will have Endurance and 2 secondary stats. The first secondary stat (always higher) will be Accurancy, Surge, Alacrity, or Shield. These are mutually exclusive and will never occur together. The second stat will be just like mods, Defense, Absorb, Power, or Critical. There will be three versions of each stat combo (Accuracy/Power/Endurance for example.) Always try to get the enhancement with the lowest Endurance--again at eldergame those enhances usually aren't available. For enhancements, take Accuracy/Power ones until you hit 110% tech accuracy, then take Surge/Power after that. Augments can have any stat. I recommend taking Cunning ones, because you'll get Power & Critical from them, and I don't take Critical anywhere except ears/implants already. So to recap: Barrel/Armoring: Cunning Mod: Cunning/Power Enhancement: Accuracy/Power (till 110% Acc) then Surge/Power Augments: Cunning (or Power) If your critical rating after gearing up isn't 25%, you might swap in a Critical mod or two until you hit 25%. I don't bother, but the amount of Critical you get from 1 rating diminishes very rapidly, and Power is typically better.

I agree with everyone here. Take all the missions in the same area, go out and do them all the return for turn ins. Sometimes you will have more side quests open up which I take and go complete. Your class quest is the only special circumstance; I never do my class mission until my planetary chain takes me near it. Frequently your class quest will be located in the same area as the last planet quest for a zone. If you do it right away you'll waste a lot of time travelling there twice, plus have to clear the area out twice! Taris is a prime example of this happening. So save your class quest till your planet quest brings you near it.

Your drift comes off very patronizing, with the tone that if only new players would just listen to how damn smart you are, they might aspire to someday be as good as you. That's a really big brush you're painting this forum with. Any player coming to this forum is already trying to help themselves, and not the target audience you are "helping" by letting them know they don't think. It's possible that when someone tells you, "If you would just think then you might be as good as me someday," you don't find it insulting. I'd be willing to place a sizable wager that you are in the minority with that reaction. You sound like an elitist jerk, and you decided to post this in the one place that someone asking for a level 55 to kill the Act I boss when they're 20 is not going to read. Just accept that your post has no place here. Lecturing new players about how they should just THINK and then they wouldn't need YOUR help anymore is extremely insulting. I believe that if you would just think about that, you might be able to realize this for yourself. Do u c wut I did thare? P.S. I have never had a player ask me for help with a mission that they were too low level to realistically have. I think helping a level 25 with a level 28 mission on Tatooine is the worst I've seen, and I suggested he do some more FPs, space combat, warzones, and stop stealthing past everything.

Please add the red error text box to the things we can customize in the UI. PLEASE.

In before Mainstat vs Power bickering. (Incidentally, I like Mainstat, since I don't take any crit at all on my mods/enhancements.)

Please do not devote any development resources to getting rid of orbital stations. I'm much more interested in: + Cross-server GroupFinder + New Character Story + New Planets + New Flashpoints + New Operations + Ability to manipulate/turn off Red Error Text Thanks.

I think the OP and those agreeing with them are D-bags. I'm leveling my 8th character now, and I frequently will get a whisper from someone: "Could you help me with a mission?" I reply, "Most likely, can you link it in chat? Shift+Click it." "{Soandso Quest I haven't done yet}" "Sure, I'm just about to start that one. Meet you by the speeders." Then I go over with them and absolutely destroy the mission. While laying waste to everything in my path, I watch the person I'm helping and invariably see some major mistakes they are making. Poor resource management, no synergy with ability use, or sometimes just really slow reactions to changes in the combat. Instead of being a D-bag, I'll offer them a few tips, and typically point them to Noxxic, which is great for rookies that don't know what they are doing. By the time they are "veterans" they'll understand what parts of Noxxic aren't really accurate. Then they might even come back here, and help other New Players. Hit the nail (and OP) right on the head, buddy. This is the New Player Help forum; of all the things you could post in this forum, announcing to new players that you're sick of helping them (putting it nicely) is like the biggest jerk thing you could post. Don't come to this forum then.

I disagree. You can level just fine with F2P. You level faster if you pay. This is accomplishes the same thing as buying "boosters" in other F2Ps. Do you really think anything selling for more than 350K on the GTN is what the F2P crowd is browsing for? You can unlock artifact gear with a one-time purchase. Seems fair. Yeah, I'd like to see a limit of like 1 per day as well. Preferred gets four action bars already. You can play the game just fine as F2P. You can do much more as a Preferred, and you can further unlock things really important to you. It takes $5 to unlock much of the game; it takes $20 to unlock a ton of it. I definitely don't have an issue with the current F2P model, outside of the FP/WZ limits; they seem too strong, without a permanent unlock that I'm aware of.

Errm. The creation of The Rule of Two is not a mystery. There's a whole trilogy dedicated to it. Darth Bane created the Rule of Two, after facilitating the destruction of his fellow Sith 1000 BBY. There's nothing to speculate there: for 1000 years, the Sith lived in secrecy under the rule, until this process created a Sith powerful enough to destroy the Jedi--Sidious.

My medic operative just hit 29 this morning, and I'm SLEEPWALKING through the quests with my tank companion. Send her in, drop 2 HOTs on her, and start lobbing grenades and stabbing stuff. If there's a strong in the pack, toss my 1.5s heal on her after the little stuff is dead. If there's an elite, refresh the HOT before it expires and maybe toss a regular heal too. Otherwise, keep throwing grenades and stabbing ****. There is absolutely zero downtime. I'm doing level 29 missions at the moment, FYI. I do one Flashpoint a day for the comms.

55 Guardian Tank: Heal 55 Shadow Melee: Melee Tank 55 Commando Heal: Range Tank (I love M1-4X!) 55 Gunslinger Range: Heal 55 Marauder Melee: Heal 55 Sorcerer Range: Range* Tank (But he usually melees) 55 Powertech Tank: Heal 29 Operative Heal: Range Tank (don't have melee tank yet)

I used Vette until I got Quinn on my Marauder. I didn't turn off her abilities at all, but one thing I'd recommend is NOT ordering her to attack. When I would engage a new pack of enemies, I try to leap into the biggest concentration of them, then immediately use Smash. Vette will automatically engage when you get attacked the first time, but you'll have another second or two before she drops that AE in there and draws aggro, leaving you chasing them. Note that Smash does not require you to have a target, so after leaping I'll get right in the middle of them upon landing and hit my Smash. Also, if one or two of them do go for Vette, I just let them--as long as she's not dying it'll be fine. Usually she only aggroed a straggler that I didn't catch with my Smash though.

I have an i7, 8 GB Ram, Intel 4000 HD graphics, and I run the game no problem. I just set the graphics to the preset Very Low, then I raise the textures all to high. Looks decent, runs smooth (30 fps is the lowest it falls).

I used my planetary comms to get the purple 58s from the Makeb vendor when I was leveling on Makeb (50-53). Once you hit 55, ask a friend with Artifice/Armstech to make you blue 66 hilt/barrel(s). Ask an artifice to make you blue 66 enhancements. Ask a Cybertech to make you blue 66 Armorings/Mods. Bam. 148 Rating geared. The materials to make all that isn't all that expensive, and after hitting 55, you should be rolling in credits anyway. Only thing I use Basic Comms for is to buy relics. Augmenting all your gear will be very expensive (~470,000 cr) but for your main character definitely worth it to pick up blue 28s (that's 448 more stat points). Anyway, I've got five 55s and three more getting close to 50. All of my 55s have blue 66 gear. I gathered so many blue components while trying to get purple components for my main, I could still make 7 or 8 sets of blue 66 gear with the materials.