This was my experience today as well.

Ehh, I wasn't putting any effort into it - with your five healers, what's the point of even really trying? Also, wasn't my idea to pull it that way; I was just kinda along for the ride at that point.

No, my DPS is fine; you bringing five healers is just plain unfair.

Your jeers need a lot of work.

Seconding this in addition to the need for dummies as a decoration.

You, sir, have read - and, thus, blown - my mind. My hat off to you; well played!

Kinda have to mix them to optimize. The armorings are exactly the same, but some pieces of each set are riddled with crit while the others have power, and some of the enhancements on either set have alacrity. Gonna want to aim for primarily power/surge gear, with enough crit to suit your personal comfort level, and no alacrity (while maintaining 100%/110% melee/Force accuracy, of course).

The changes to Combat have nothing to do with hybrids, and, yes, Combat is in dire need of a solid damage buff. Watchman already got a massive damage buff a patch or so back, so they're only getting a QoL change this next one. I was initially very much against the announced Combat changes, but, more I think about it, I don't even necessarily see it as truly changing much. The former star-aligned parses will simply become the norm, and DPS swings of a significant margin will be eliminated. While such swings do desperately need to be addressed for Combat, I still feel that the current method of doing so is too ham-fisted.

As they stand, Combat changes in 2.10 are gonna force me to shelf my Sentinel. It's great for PvP, sure, and smoothing out the RNG could be nice in PvE, but boring, uninteresting rotations are terrible. Between this and the Gunny changes from awhile back, both my favorite classes will have had their rotations gutted to bland predictability and may well force me to quit. Easing the RNG on Hand of Justice would be welcome, but we do not need everything to be static and lame.

Parsec has the functionality you're looking for, though it has the caveat that it will only display group member's number if they choose to share them through the program. Great tool for guild-led operations groups, when it wants to work properly; it has a history of crashing mid-fight, but I haven't used it for an op in a long time so I'm not sure if that has been corrected. As far as a general shared logging system, there is no call-out shaming program like Recount - and quite happy for it, since we don't need crap like that ruining this game, too.

Even the weakest PvP relics (Obroan) are better than Underworld. This is good if you want strong relics without the masochistic hassle of grinding ranked PvP.

Dread Forged gear does not drop raw, as in a Dread Forged War Leader's Helmet will never drop. Instead you will see an Unassembled Dread Forged Helm, and you will then use that to purchase whatever is appropriate to your class/spec. Once you get all your class/spec set armoring and good mods, the tokens are still valuable for that reason because it should also be pointed out that no one set of gear is perfectly optimized for any class/spec; I main a Commando and have been buying Sentinel gear strictly to get enhancements (the only thing without main stat on it in a piece) to fully optimize my Commando. Basically, once you get your War Leader armorings for your 4/4 set bonuses, and you get good mods in all your gear, you can take tokens you win and look at the Inquisitor vendor for Survivor's gear, or the Bounty Hunter vendor for Supercommando's gear, to find the enhancements you may need to fully optimize your gear set. It's a long, arduous process, but reaching a full best in slot setup is intended to be time consuming to give people incentive to continue raiding.

Ehh, there's really only one number you can take away from that as gospel: accuracy to M100%/F110%. Hard surge numbers don't really apply since anything after accuracy is capped goes straight to surge - my Sentinel, for example, has ~76% surge - because alacrity is pretty much worthless. Crit is also more of a comfort stat; I've always run more than 60 rating, and recently pushed up over 100 and have seen an overall increase in output (anecdotal evidence and crit RNG being what they are, you may, of course, experience different results).

That's actually kinda funny to hear since most of the other Gunnys in my guild ignore HS altogether. Thanks for the tip on Full Auto, though; I'll try mixing that in more. I've tried not to rely on it as much since it doesn't get the raw damage boosts that is does in Gunnery, and was focusing on a CB/HS woven spam for resets and to keep APM up.

I'm still not overly comfortable with Assault, myself, either, but, at a glance, your APM seems low for Assault. I've been parsing with it a lot recently, in an effort to improve, and I'm beginning to consistently hit the 3200 DPS range (my Gunnery range) and ~40 APM. The only thing that really jumps out about your log (and I'm looking strictly at the log posted in your edit) other than the APM is that your Hammer Shot total is significantly less than mine (your 56 vs. my 280), which means you're probably not using it enough to fish for the Plasma Cell debuff. If you tighten up your rotation by mixing in HS more, your APM will come up and, since you'll have fewer empty or wasted globals and more PC burns, your damage should come up. But, again, I'm no expert on Assault. Just sharing what seems to have worked in boosting my own numbers.

And here I thought Christmas had come early. Better explanation of set bonus gear, too; I'm tired and lazy, and was trying to fix a late dinner, so I kinda skimped on my explanation.

A "proc" is a triggered action. The talent First Responder triggers a bonus to alacrity when you crit. At 1/2, I think it's only a chance at getting bonus alacrity when you crit. So it's a random chance at a benefit on something that's already random. With Weapon Calibrations, though, the alacrity is a constant passive benefit on which you can rely. EDIT: Oh, right, alacrity reduces the global cooldown (the cooldown triggered on most skills after using an ability), not the individual ability cooldowns. It also reduces activation, casting, and channeling times. For Bounty Hunters, it also increases the rate at which you naturally reduce your heat. Yeah, I wasn't a fan of Saga/4th Edition. Seemed over-simplified, and I like to built really complicated and random characters. Like a Fighter2/Monk3/Bard3/Drunken Master2 Dwarf with a greataxe. Find gear with surge once your accuracy is where it needs to be. Set bonus gear applies different effects based on how many pieces of the set that you have. This, for example, is the Arkanian Eliminator's Chestguard. The wall of text at the very bottoms denote the bonuses you gain and at how many pieces. The Eliminator's is the set you want as Arsenal, and the prefix simply denotes a different quality - Arkanian is the weakest version (item rating 162) of the 55 set, and Dread Master is the highest (item rating 186). The primary differences between the armoring is the amount of armor rating, endurance, and aim you get from the piece - and the bonus is tied to the armoring only, which you can move to another piece in that same slot (mods and enhancement can be moved freely). KDY, as with most FPs, leaves from the fleet. There's a one-time quest line for it if you go to the Starfighter Launch Hangar on the fleet from the Mission Departures turbolift. You can also, of course, use the group finder to queue for it. A "55 in 148s" refers to a character that is level 55 character and wearing gear that is of item rating 148, which will be weaker than a 55 in 162s. It just means that KDY, while below level cap, boosts your stats to a level at which the FP is considered "challenging" but not impossible.

And then makes it annoying to reply to specific things. LOL Anyway, Noxxic's tree isn't that bad - but the tree are pretty hard to screw up if you go through looking for raw DPS talents. The only bone I have with that is the 1 point in First Responder; I go 2/2 Weapon Calibrations for consistent alacrity, rather than 1/2 WC and 1/2 FR for proc alacrity. Runs a bit smoother to me, and makes ammo easier to manage. The overall difference in DPS shouldn't be much (anyone with math, feel free to correct me). With Mako and Blizz, you're still getting perks - a flat increase to your HP and to your healing received. Both are nice survival perks, but they're not really directed towards DPS other that you can't DPS if you're dead. Force Surge must be a thing from the new edition of the PnP RPG. Haven't played since the Revised (read: 3.5) edition ruleset. So, yeah, simple enough mistake, easy to correct. Arsenal can get some juicy crits out of Heatseeker Missile and Rail Shot, and surge rating will help beef them up nicely. With the two-set bonus gear you can get from operations (any [Arkanian, Underworld, Dread Forged] token for the primary gear slots - chest, helm, gloves, pants, boots), your Tracer Missile will crit quite frequently, too. And, lastly, KDY is the leveling tactical flashpoint, Kuat Drive Yards. The bolster effect (which raises your stats to be comparable to a 55 in 148s, I think?) makes it such that gear is typically a non-issue in that FP while leveling. As there's no need in tacticals for tanks or healers (though runs can go more smoothly with either or both), queuing KDY over and over is common as a method to leveling aside from the typical quest-grind.

I was doing neither, and apologize if it seemed such. I've never seen any truly good information come out of Noxxic - I played WoW for years, too, and had to constantly correct people that used it to set up their characters. It's not all necessarily wrong, in places, it just really is not as clear as it needs to be. For example, trying to put hard or soft cap targets on surge and crit rating, when accuracy is the only thing with a true cap. Crit hits diminishing returns a lot faster than other stats, so you don't want too much, but a general "percentage" target isn't advisable since that will fluctuate based on your main stat and companion perks. Speaking of which, for each companion for which you go through all their conversation options, they each give you a passive stat boost. For your melee DPS (Torian), you get 1% free surge; for your ranged DPS (Gault), 1% crit chance; and your melee tank (Skadge), 1% accuracy. These are not gains in ratings, these are flat additions to your base percents - so, with all gear off, you'll have 51% critical multiplier, or 91% ranged accuracy, as an example. To the surge thing, it just baffles me a bit since, around 30~40, I think, you start getting quest rewards with tertiary stats on them, so I assumed you'd have some rating by now. I seem to recall when I leveled my first character through to 50, I was able to find surge gear easily enough as quest rewards. However, I suppose if you ground out levels through KDY, it would make sense that you'd never have had access to those quest rewards.

Focused Retribution. He doesn't want a tanking relic as a Merc.

That's your biggest problem; Noxxic is terrible, never use it for any game ever. I will say that I'm honestly baffled as to how you can have 0 surge even in the crappy gear it seems like you have, based on your stats. Only thing I can think of is that you haven't upgraded your gear in about 20 levels. And that's really the only problem, it seems, is that your gear is just really bad and low item level compared to your character level. The only real hard-target you should have as far as gear ratings is to get your ranged/tech accuracy up to ~100%/110%, preferring to be a little high rather than a little low. After that, surge is the only tertiary rating you'll want (shares slots on gear with accuracy, making it easy to get after accuracy cap), but primarily you want to stack power and mix in a bit of crit (I run ~240 crit rating on my Gunnery Commando [Arsenal mirror], in fully optimized 180s).

Responses to abilities in bold. Also, apologies if I implied you were too[/] old, but you said you were looking for something rather easy, and Sentinel really isn't. I play what is usually considered the most difficult Sentinel spec (Combat), so pretty much anything else seems easy by comparison. Gunnery, in particular, is achingly dull since the 2.6 changes, but it can be pushed enough to where it doesn't make me fall asleep (and, of course, always have to watch for mechanics). As to endgame, there is a bias against melee as there is in all MMOs, but it's difficult to punish ranged and melee equally. ToR seems to often get the ranged as good as the melee, though, as far as forcing attention to mechanics - but ranged do still have the advantage, I feel. Sentinels are the only class that brings Introspection (raid-wide +5% damage/healing), so good ones always seem welcome. As far as specs for raiding, Focus is the weaker of the three. It's ST DPS is somewhat lower than Combat's, and neither compare to a good (or, after recent buffs, average) Watchman, but Focus does bring more AoE than either other spec and there are fights where that can be a boon (Draxus, Bestia, Calphayus, Corrupter Zero). The best point to try either other spec is probably going to be in the late-30s/early-40s, when you have enough points to fill out most of their tricks. You need to be 45+ to really have all the tools that make each spec work right, but 37~43 should have enough of the important bits to get a feel for what it's really like at cap.

Yes, it is, and is one of the primary reasons I haven't done SecX dailies since reaching legend. Not that making the heroic soloable would in any way entice me to go back.

If you're looking for an easy rotation, Sentinel is probably not the class for you. Focus is, in my estimation, the easiest of the three trees, but it also seems to have the lowest single-target potential (though it does have the highest AoE potential, which does make it great for leveling). Watchman has the next easiest rotation, as it's mostly about filling spare globals while waiting to apply burn DoTs. There's a bit of a ramp up time before it reaches maximum potential, which is detrimental to leveling, but, at end game, it's the highest potential DPS spec available to Sentinels. Either way, you're going to rely on quite a few buttons. If you'd prefer something with fewer buttons to manage, I'd recommend Gunnery Commando. You can get by with a main rotation of as few as four buttons if you manage your ammo right, and anything beyond that core is situational or has a (relatively) long CD.

Housing went up last Friday, didn't it? And, yeah, I was expecting flagships/conquests this Friday, too, but the cancellation of the stream, for me, casts that into doubt.