Thanks for the insight. I haven't done much HM tanking in 4.0 yet, but I've heard about the likes of Raptus from guildies. Saw my co-tank take a gigantic hit from Thrasher last night, too, so I'll be sure to start stacking more of those B mods.

I acquired a 4th piece for the tank set on my Sin last night, and also had two old 3.0 armoings in my gear. I noticed that the 2-set bonuses (Wither reduces damage by 2%) are double-proccing. So I'm curious for opinions: assuming that I'm receiving 4% in damage reduction, is it worth keeping the 2 old armorings, and foregoing the Deflection 6-set bonus?

As we wait out the last month til KotFE, 2 of our ops groups are looking for new members! Night Whispers Schedule: Thursday and Sunday 10pm-12am EST Openings: 2 of any class Obsidian Guard Schedule: Tuesday and Thursday 8pm-11pm EST Openings: 1 healer (Merc or Sorc)

You can view the progression status of all our teams on our website here: http://www.pandamoniumguild.com/forum/m/2738859/viewthread/13025302-swtor-team-openingsprogression As of this past week, our furthest teams are at 6/10.

Several of our raid teams are now looking for some DPS to bring the pain, and one team is in need of a healer to triage those Torque burns: Chaos Theory: 1 DPS Schedule: Tues/Wed 9pm-12am EST Crimson Nova: 1 DPS Schedule: Sun/Thurs 8-11pm EST Deletion Protocol: 1 rDPS (Sniper/Merc) or Tank (PT/Jugg) Schedule: Mon/Wed 8:30-11pm EST League of Shadows: 1 Healer Schedule: Wed/Fri 11pm-2am EST Obsidian Guard: 1 DPS (ranged/Merc preferred) Schedule: Tues/Thurs 8-11pm EST Panda Express: 1 DPS Schedule: Tues/Sat 11:30pm-1:30am EST

Interested in joining an active, relaxed, and all-around-good-kind-of-crazy guild? Look no further! With 3.2 and the return of 12x Exp, Pandamonium is going to get into all kinds of trouble, delving into Ziost and designing insanely fashionable outfits. And if the tried-and-true raid setting is your preferred flavor, there are various spots open among our teams: Deletion Protocol: 1 rDPS (Sniper/Merc) or Tank (PT/Jugg) Schedule: Mon/Wed 8:30-11:00pm EST League of Shadows: 1 rDPS & 1 Healer Schedule: Wed/Fri 11pm-2am EST Panda Express: 1 DPS Schedule: Tues/Sat 11:30pm-1:30am EST

Congrats on NiM TFB kills, HMD! Inebriati got HM Styrak down tonight! http://i.imgur.com/XA1fNU5.jpg http://i.imgur.com/n93pJSu.jpg

Lol, my guild is listed as Republic, but I don't think I've posted in this thread yet. <The Inebriati>, Empire-side, is terrible at taking screenshots of raid achievements when we earn them, but as far as progression goes... HM S&V: Dash'Roode: http://i.imgur.com/3fvDjcX.jpg Titan 6: http://i.imgur.com/HY7jsVF.jpg Thrasher: http://i.imgur.com/GPqreKZ.jpg Operations Chief: http://i.imgur.com/BKro8Bi.jpg Olok the Shadow: http://i.imgur.com/YjZ5Win.jpg Cartel Warlords: http://i.imgur.com/5oey4ou.jpg Thanks for maintaining this! It's nice to see how our server is doing.

I'm a recent tanksin (but I've played a jugg tank since launch), so I can't really answer in class-technical terms. However, based on observations from running both of my tanks in 55 HMs, I can say that spike damage on trash mobs is very high. There are a couple monster pulls in each fp that I can think of off the top of my head: That early pull in Hammer Station with 2 elite droids and some silvers/normals Dog packs in Athiss; the droid pull right before the 1st boss Dog packs in Mando Raiders Dog/humanoid silvers in Cademimu I really think these pulls are intended to be pulled with defensive CDs in mind, as well as CC tactics where available. As for DR stats, as far as I know to answer, the across-the-board reductions in %s means that all tanks, even in the new gear, are going to be taking more damage. It gets easier once you get your stats back to where they should be, though. I referred to these 2 theorycrafting threads to get a general idea of where I ought to be: KeyboardNinja's Ideal Tank Stat Distribution dipstik's Tanking Stat Weights You didn't mention whether or not you kept your set bonus via Campaign/Dread Guard armorings, but I would also suggest that you go back to using at least the 2-set bonus if you have them, and ideally the 4-set bonus.

I was following dipstik's theorycrafting stuff pre-2.0, and I'm messing around with finding a nice balance between his updated numbers and KeyboardNinja's. MMO-Mechanics is also worth browsing for formulas (for everything, not just tanking): http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/forum-5.html

I don't really understand alacrity on tanking gear either, but the amount it is present via enhancements is very low. This makes me think that it was placed on the gear for the sole purpose of being swapped out as a part of 'necessary' optimization. And to slow down gearing progression...I was almost completely out of my 63s before early access ended, lol. Alternatively, my guess is that alacrity is there to shorten our GCD, but for it to make a significant difference I think we'd be taking too hard of a hit to our defensive stats. Here's what I'm planning to do: Get Arkanian/Underworld armorings for the set bonus Buy Verpine belts/bracers for Elusive Mod 31Bs (74 end/46 defense rating) Keep 66/69 defense enhancements as needed Augment defense or shield for balance I'm aiming to keep my defense rating ~1000+ (unstimmed) throughout the optimization process. I have a feeling that I'm going to end up with more absorb on my gear than the math says I should, but that may be unavoidable.

IMO the amount of absorb on the jugg tank sets is atrocious until you get to Underworld. Myself and the other jugg tank in my raid group stuck with stacking defense; it was what we were doing pre-2.0 and theorycrafting math seems to continue to support it for the class. I got lucky with some BM drops from 55 HMs that had defense mods/enhancements, but otherwise I've been buying the BM/Verpine belt and bracers to swap out the defense mod, and using the 66 shield & defense enhancements from crafting.

<The Inebriati> on Empire cleared 8-man SM S&V tonight and had a victory dance party on the throne!

<The Inebriati> on Empire: 8-man SM Golden Fury on 4/14/13 No screenshot for it, but we also have 8-man SM S&V to OTS as of 4/16/13.

I seriously don't think the direction that raids are going, in terms of mechanics, is accommodating to using companions. TFB Operator IX has already been pointed out, but several of the bosses in S&V, even on storymode, require positioning that a click-to-passive/click-to-attack command can't accomplish (e.g. getting 'lost' in the desert on the first boss; Titan 6 burn phase; Firebug mob in Thrasher; and the credit panel in the Olok fight). And in general, mobs and bosses in the newer raids either hit very hard or have all kinds of debuffs/additional mechanics that will likely blow through companion health, unless you actually spent time optimizing their gear. So unless you're talking about letting companions into EV and KP (which require less coordination), then I really don't see how it's going to be viable. And let's be honest, here - if you're running EV/KP and can't get an 8th/16th, underman it like the true, non-pugging elitists we all know Mr. Rogers thought we could be.

PvE-wise, I've played around briefly with a build similar to the one posted above, and I didn't enjoy it. It felt way too energy-hungry for my liking (Cull costs a lot of energy when you don't have the cost-reduction talent), and I was missing out on the resource recovery buffer you get from Weakening Blast, and/or the spike damage from Acid Blade.

Operative* DPSer here, and I agree with everyone else here; stick with it and definitely wait for 2.0 to drop. On the test server, I parsed against one of my guild's marauders, and my Lethality spec was easily keeping up with his Annihilation spec. I parsed a little lower in Concealment, but I don't play that spec as often on live. I imagine I just didn't know what I was doing. *I also have a Sniper and honestly, I don't find him to be as fun. And besides, with 2.0 they're bringing back the giggle on the Tactical Advantage proc. You HAVE to play the Operative just to hear it!

I'm leveling a Scoundrel at the moment, but I play a dps Operative as my main Imp-side and spec into the Dirty Fighting equivalent. You're correct in that the tree is very effective in raid situations where you have to move around a lot--it's very mobile and gives you a little bit more range than Scrapper (or Concealment as the tree is called for us Ops). I actually parse the opposite on my Op on dummies, too; I can pull about 50-60 more DPS in Lethality than in Concealment. I have a lot more real raid experience with the former, though, so I imagine that it's an instance of skill rotation familiarity.

I don't use Lokin on my operative (who I play more than my sniper), but my sniper's Lokin is in the PvE Columi healing gear, and can keep me up through just about everything. I can't comment on the PvP sets since I've never used them for my Agents, but I'd hazard a guess that Lokin would make more use out of the Alacrity in the healing sets over the Accuracy in the rest of the DPS Agent sets.

I don't typically heal the harder endgame raids (HM EC/TFB), but this is my Operative's healing build and I get by healing everything else very well: http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/4b5c7117-5b87-46a9-9edd-7c577b39d9ab ^That is mostly 61 rating gear (Black Hole), which is where you'll be aiming before diving into the hard stuff. I like stacking Cunning/Power > Crit/Surge over Alacrity, because I don't like Alacrity on my gear (outside of PvP healing). Granted, I do use the +4% Alacrity trait from the Lethality tree. My overall suggestion would be to play around with different mods if you can afford swapping things around, and find a build that suits you and your playstyle.

One of my oldest and most-loved toons, my Operative: http://i.imgur.com/3C2ek8E.jpg And my Sniper, who I'm finding surprisingly fun at endgame: http://i.imgur.com/E0fF0sd.jpg Their outfit colors correspond to their respective alignments, though this was actually unintentional.

Wow, didn't know about this! I wish my guild had enough to field a 16-man HM...but we're going to go look at the cave anyway. Hopefully someone figures this out soon.

I play a Lethality DPS operative for endgame PvE, but I see many running in Concealment spec also. I think it boils down to playstyle preference and individual fight situations. Personally, I feel like Lethality has more mobility while being able to maintain some sort of damage output, without having to be in melee range (e.g. if you ever need to get away from the boss, your DoTs can still tick for a nice bit). That said, I haven't run very many raids in Concealment, so I could be doing it completely wrong. I just didn't like having to pray for that extra TA from the Collateral Strike proc. I've done some parsing on the training dummies on the Fleet and generally pull about 30-50 less DPS in Concealment, though.