I've been experiencing exactly the same problem, if you happen to figure it out please let me know, I feel like I've tried just about everything at this point.

Sounds great. We're still working out exact raid times and whether we're actually going to be fielding 3 full 8 man groups and whether or not we might have a more informal group for some of our less experienced members to learn the ropes alongside some of our veteran players in a fun, low-stress environment rather than dealing with impatient PuGs. I'm sure we can make the timing work. I'll keep an eye out for a message in game. If I'm not online you can also shoot an ingame mail to Baerric and I'll respond as soon as I see it.

You sound like a really great fit for us. The dates and times for the second group are still to be determined. We've got one or two more runs planned with interested recruits and from there we'll put together the second group and schedule times that work for everyone involved. We are definitely also interested in getting a third group going as well as a separate group for some players who are new to all operations to play with some of our really experienced members on alts so that they can learn the ropes in a fun, friendly environment rather than having to deal with some of the less patient people you meet in PUGs on the fleet. I'll add you to my friends list in game and hopefully we'll have a chance to talk soon, but it sounds to me like you and your friends would be a great addition to the guild.

I was lucky enough to get in on the first Republic side Crest run with Provectus. Great experience from start to finish. Look no further, this is the guild you're looking for.

Group one raids Monday and Wednesday 5:30-8:30 PST. Groups two and three raid times are TBD.

The plan is to eventually combine the two groups into one 16 man, so although we're not actively recruiting for group one right now, we'll all be together before long.

Hey there, I've decided I really want a Crest of the Dread Master, and I just don't see my progression group putting HM on hold while we go and learn content from like 2 years ago. So, it seems like running through Hateful Entity with a guild who can already down it without any issues is my best bet. If you're a pub side guild who does Hateful runs hit me up and we can settle on a price. Feel free to respond here or just whisper me in game on my main Baerric. Thanks!

Hey Harbinger! <Rude Dudes> is one of the longest continuously operating guilds in SW:TOR, and we just moved to The Harbinger from Prophecy of the Five to recruit some new blood. We're looking for active level 60 players for end game PvE and PvP. If you're an experienced raider, that's awesome. If you're new to end game, but eager to learn, that's awesome too. Our 8 man hard mode team is currently 3/5 in Ravagers and 4/5 in ToS with regular kills on hard mode Colossal Monolith, and we're looking to expand to 16 man and start some new Ops groups as well. We've got some great PvPers who regularly participate in both ranked 4's and solo queues, and we're always willing to help a new player learn the ropes. We're a low drama guild that values progression, fun, and a great group dynamic, because if you've got those three things, t3h ph4t l00tz will follow. We've got a guild ship, a TeamSpeak server, and guild repairs for raiders, and aside from scheduled raids we run pick up groups and events pretty much every night. If interested in joining, or if you have any questions, respond here or message/mail Baerric, Finnrod, Finnwe, or Fiddle'r in game. Cheers!

I know exactly where you're coming from. Trying to clear content with a player that refuses to put in any effort after you've made every attempt to help them is exhausting, and when you encounter people that refuse to meet you half (or even part) way over and over again you start to lose faith in and patience for the community as a whole. I have a little trick that helps restore my faith in humanity, maybe it'll help you too. When I notice myself getting frustrated and annoyed with other players I'll look in General Chat for someone politely (this is important) asking for help on a low level flash point and just run them through. If they're new to the game I also offer to answer any questions about their class, or gearing, or whatever and sometimes buy them a few pieces of orange gear off the gtn so they can start modding them. Being able to spend 30 minutes or so doing something really easy to help someone with something they couldn't do otherwise feels good, and most players are really grateful for the help. It just kind of recharges my compassion batteries. I do agree that The Underlurker needs to be addressed. I think making the cross mechanic more forgiving would mean fewer deaths and fewer deaths would make the DPS requirement more reasonable, but you might be right and it might need to be tuned down a little as well. Do you think they should just lower his health? Give players a little longer before the enrage? Give the adds lower hp? The thing that I like about the fight is that the group does need to be on the ball to finish in time and it'd be a shame if that incentive to really push hard was totally lost because I think the sense of accomplishment would go with it. One thing I could see working as a kind of compromise would be to tweak the enrage. Make the enrage mechanic deal more and more damage over about 30 seconds so that groups who can't quite finish the last ~7% would be able to down the boss, but still be able to work toward downing before the boss enrages at all. If it were up to you what would you like to see changed to being the boss in line? Also, DF and DP are awesome. I think they'll still get some attention from players because the mounts in NiM are so awesome. I never got my Wings of the Architect before 3.0 launched and it's my favorite mount in the game. I've tried it a few times since 3.0, and we've gotten so close on Brontes, but NiM Brontes is still pretty challenging and I've never been able to get the same group together for a second night of pulls on just Brontes. I think once that happens we'll get her down and then start doing it every week until all the group members have their own wings. Both DF and DP were great Ops.

I've been really pleased with the Reactive Warding / Shield Amplification combo and I too really appreciate you taking the time to show your work on the numbers. Still being pretty new to the class it really helps my overall understanding.

I only very ocassionally play my Marauder and I'm terrible with it so this is coming from observing other players rather than personal experience, but, I do not agree with the conclusions reached by the Devs here. I think the primary reason that Marauders and Sentinels appear to be performing well in ranked matches is that, in my experience, those players who choose to play their Mauraders/Sentinels in PvP are very, very good at their class. This is further accentuated by the fact that they're underperforming so much currently that only the very best players even bring their Marauders/Sentinels when they do ranked. As I said previously, I rarely play my Marauder so I don't have a vested interest, but I don't think it's fair to basically require anyone playing a Marauder or Sentinel to have total and complete mastery of their class to achieve the same results that a moderately skilled Assassin/Shadow, Vanguard/Powertech, Sage/Sorceror can achieve with relatively little effort. I'd be curious to see what your metrics say about the number of players consistently bringing their Marauders/Sentinels into PvP versus other classes. I imagine they would be very telling.

I always appreciate it when I take the time to read someone's entire post and then they obviously don't read mine. I didn't say that Ops should not be for unskilled players. Everyone starts unskilled and I was pretty clear about that not being a problem. The problem is people who have no interest in putting in any effort whatsoever. It's not lack of skill, it's laziness. People like to pretend that story mode DF and DP were always ridiculously easy, but when they first came out they were not. They were difficult for new players (like me) and it took time, practice, and gearing before they could be beaten. Then after a few months of getting geared even those people could be dragged through. I don't see a problem with that. Operations are group content. That means working (if only very loosely) as a group. I've done plenty of flashpoints where we couldn't finish because some of the players in the group refused to even acknowledge very simple mechanics. Those same people are never going to complete a story mode operation until it's made absolutely trivial by time and overgearing, but I don't think it's good for the culture of the game to cater to those players. They obviously don't care that much and they'll have a chance to be a burden on their entire team in a few months. If people want an epic Star Wars story with absolutely no effort they can pop in Episode IV. I'm mostly in agreement with you on all of this, but I did want to address a few things. As I said above, people forget that DF and DP were also very difficult when they first came out, and I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. The biggest problem with Underlurker is the cross mechanic and it's tendency to fail a group even when everyone appears to be positioned correctly. I would be all for making the, "pass" area of the cross more generous to help because that is a frustrating and demoralizing mechanic. Beyond that though I think it's exactly as you say: the reintroduction of a healthy supply of ultimate comms will allow people to gear up more quickly and that in combination with overall familiarity rising will mean more and more groups clearing the Operation. Also, I'd like to say that I absolutely belong in story mode. I'm sure I come of as a bit of an elitist ***** in this post and the last, but in reality I love helping new players because I was given a lot of help by some very talented (and patient) players when I was first learning. I try to always help new players asking for advice on the fleet, I run people through lower level flashpoints at least a few times a week, and I like bringing new players into story mode runs. I enjoy helping people through an operation for their first time and I never, ever ask for achievements when forming a SM PUG. I like giving players an opportunity to run content that they might otherwise be rejected for, and I'm happy to help people through mechanics and fights they've never seen before. Like I said in my first post I'll wipe dozens of times with an inexperienced group and I'll to carry them when I can as long as they're actually interested in doing the content. I was very unskilled when I first started, I had never raided in any mmo prior to this one despite having played almost all of them. What I don't have patience for is players who won't even try, and I don't think that's wrong. I don't think the developers should cater operations to players that want to stand in one spot and spam force quake. There is plenty of content for those players. Should the developers really spend time and resources creating a separate difficulty level that is essentially standard mobs with a ton of HP? I guess for some people the answer is yes, and that's their right, but it's mine to disagree. I hope this didn't come off too harshly. Let me know if there's anything I need to clarify.

First of all, not everyone's first language is English so try not to be an insufferable jerk about. Second, perhaps you should take some grammar lessons as well considering your inability to spell, "you're" correctly. Third, did you seriously make a post with nothing to contribute to the actual discussion other than a grammar insult that was, itself, grammatically flawed? Now to contribute a bit to the actual discussion... People keep claiming that it's impossible to bring someone still learning their role because actually maintaining 2.5k DPS on this fight isn't realistic under the circumstances. What they're not considering is that every experienced player present further lowers the DPS required of the new player. If two of your DPS can maintain a very reasonable 3.2k, and your third and fourth DPS can hit the 2.5k target, then your new player needs to pull 1.1k DPS. That's nothing, and with a group of experienced players trying to teach a new DPS the fight it's easily within reach. It's not unreasonable of the devs to expect players, even in story mode, to have a basic understanding of their class. This is not rotation mastery, this is is not even having all your skills bound, this is using skills other than your basic attack in no particular order for the duration of the fight. The mechanics of the fight are not unreasonably challenging. You need to be able to differentiate between left and right, not stand in red circles (with plenty of warning time to move), and switch targets when they erupt loudly out of the ground and slam up and down making noise. Is that really too much to ask? Story mode operations should be more challenging than Flashpointa. They should require some small amount of coordination and cooperation. That's the entire point of having content that requires more players: to work with a team to tackle bigger challenges. If someone has no desire to do that, then Operations are not for them. The end. The real problem isn't the required DPS, and it's not the mechanics. The real problem is people who don't think they should have to do anything. The Underlurker is buggier than I'd like and here are times when groups have wiped even though on my screen everyone was positioned correctly for the cross, but that's not what I'm talking about. I run story modes every week with a group composed of at least some, occasionally all PUGs. What separates the succesful groups from the unsuccessful ones is, without exception, a willingness to listen, learn, and actively participate. I can't count the number of times I've asked before pulling Sword Squadron or The Underlurker if everyone knows the fight or if anyone needs it explained and not only do I not get a, "yes" or, "no", but I don't get any response at all. I politely ask people to respond even if only to say, "yes" and still no response. So I ready check, everyone is ready, I pull, and almost immediately it's clear that multiple people have no idea how to do the fight. So we wipe, we come back, I explain the mechanics, I ask if anyone has any questions, and again, no response whatsoever. So again we pull, and everyone is making the exact same mistakes. So we come back and I start to try to explain more clearly and, without fail, one of the biggest failures makes some snotty comment like, "zzzz bored." I ask one last time if I can answer any questions or clarify anything for anyone, no one says a thing other than the impatient failure from earlier who says, "ug just go zzzz" we wipe again and I decide I'm done being the only person putting in any effort. And I still get whispers from people afterward about what a mother$&@!?er I am for leaving. I don't expect anyone to understand mechanics just from hearing them described without first seeing the fight. I fully expect us to wipe a few times (even a lot of times) as people start to get a feel for the fight. The difference between succesful groups and unsuccessful ones is that when the succesful ones wipe I get people asking me to clarify a mechanic, or taking ownership of a mistake they made, or helping someone who was next to them to understand what happened when they died. I see people who don't make the exact same mistakes they just made. They might still make some mistakes, but they're different. They're trying to learn. That's when I know we'll get it eventually and I'm happy to wipe and wipe and wipe for a group that _wants_ to learn. That's the way learning new fights goes, and I make sure everyone knows that we're right on track. These fights are only impossible if people in the group are unwilling to make any effort. They don't deserve to see the new Ops, and I hope the devs never make a single move toward accommodating them. People in this thread look back on Dread Fortress and Dread Palace and they forget that it wasn't always as easy as it was after a year of runs. I came back to the game about a month before the introduction of Oricon. I learned to do Operations in Dread Fortress and Palace raiding with a group of experienced players and when they first launched story mode was hard. Tyrans and the tiles were tough. I can still remember how loud everyone cheered when we finally downed the Council after weeks of pulls. The new Operations just came out a few months ago. Providing a small challenge is a good thing that helps new players learn and grow. Catering to players with no interest in growth will only hurt this game, it won't help, and those same people complaining about how hard it is now will be whining about how easy it is then because that's what they do, they whine. TL;DR - If people in the group are open to learning the new Ops, they'll pick it up quick. If not, they'll never pick it up and that's okay. Don't enable lazy players, support new ones.

I haven't heard anyone claim that there is a better choice for guardian tanks than endurance augs so that's what I'm going with. I will be pretty bummed if that's not the case, hahaha.

Hey everybody, I recently started doing PvP on my Defense specced Guardian, and realized I really enjoy the tank playstyle in PvP as well as PvE. I'm just starting to gear him up in non-ranked gear and I can't seem to find any information anywhere on the most effective Relics for a tank specced Guardian in PvP. I've checked here, /r/swtor, dulfy, google, everywhere. No dice. I've tried to ask on the fleet, but I've been getting conflicting answers and the answers I do get don't seem to have any kind of reasoning behind them. Some people say that going with tank relics is better, some claim that the whole left side of the equipment sheet should be dps oriented on a PvP tank, and some claim that I should get one tanky relic and one dps relic. Considering how much defense underperforms in PvP (at least that I'm aware of) I'm guessing that Fortunate Redoubt is out of the picture. I also think that if I were going to go half and half a MS relic would be preferable to a power relic. As such, these are the possible combinations that I've been told would work/directed towards: Reactive Warding / Shield Amplification (all tank) Reactive Warding / Focused Retribution ( half and half) Focused Retribution / Serendipitous Assault (all dps) Shield Amplification / Focused Retribution (half and half) Could anyone please give me some advice on which relics will be best for PvP? I want to play a PvP tank, but if PvP tanks are more effective with DPS relics, that's fine. I'd just like some insight into what would be best for this role. Thanks. TL;DR - Which two Relics will be best for a tank specced Guardian in PvP?