Most ops aren't complete-able in beta, so people weren't able to catch till it went live that there was an issue. More on topic - I could have sworn my mission updated for this last night when my guild completed the Dread Fortress on 8 man SM (I recall specifically seeing it tell me to enter the portal to proceed to the Dread Palace), yet this morning when I looked at the very same mission, it had been reset and my credit for completing Fortress had disappeared. Is this a related bug, or am I simply remembering incorrectly?

In addition to starting Makeb, I'd recommend making a habit of starting up your dailies for Black Hole and Section X. Not only are they a good source of xp and some extra credits, but you'll thank yourself later with the Basic Commendations you get from Section X when it comes times to get your relics squared away. You can also use the Classic Commendations you get from Black Hole to grab a couple 61 set bonus armourings (or at least main hand/off hand 61s) to get you started for running flashpoints at 55. At 53 or so you should also be able to head to CZ-198 and start on the dailies there, you won't be able to do the group stuff (so you won't be able to finish the weekly) until 55, but it's another good source of Basic Comms., xp, and credits - they'll probably go faster, too, if you can get a couple friends to tag along (sometimes easier than talking capped buddies into running the older dailies with you, lol). Just my 2c after experiencing this for myself not too long ago

... Yes, this! Lol. So glad I'm not the only one with that thought on the matter. I was really disappointed with the "romance" option for a female JK, Doc just makes my skin crawl... he's like the SWTOR version of Pepé Le Pew - ew (still think it's funny that he never once got the chance to kiss or have a "fade to black" moment with my JK , she did nothing but insult him, and I *still* got the proposal conversation). Scourge is a really deep and complex seeming companion, yet they do so little with him. Hopefully we'll get more to our companion storylines in the future, there is much more that could be done with his story (as with many others). And hopefully in the future maybe we can get more romance options with more of our companions... or at least some [Flirt] options (and Scourge needs to be among them, imho, lol). My bets would be on him finding a new host. As it seems highly unlikely that he is truly dead, feels more probable that Sith like Darth Marr are simply perpetuating the rumor of his death to validate leadership and control in the Empire with the Emperor's absence.

Agreed here, Scourge is one of my personal favorite companions (second maybe only to Blizz). I always thought of his immortality much like some twisted version of your typical (Tolkein) elf - basically: can't really die from illness or old age, but can most certainly die from wounds of the flesh. My only complaint about him is I feel there isn't enough to his conversations (a flaw many late acquired companions seem to have), and much more could have been done with him. He touches on little details on the few convos we do get that would be a lot of fun to expand on... at least for me, as a bit of a Scourge fan girl

Please read my post, because I think you got hung up on one aspect. Yes, my point of reference is not a 55 guard (not for a personal perspective, I have plenty of guildies that have them at 55 and PvP), but I *have* experienced 55 PvP on a class well below a Vig Guard - a "dps" VG. I will not run down everything again, but as I stated in my other post, by simple way of mechanics a Guard easily holds up better and performs better in a PvP scene than a VG does. Therefore the logical conclusion is a Vig Guard is *not* at the bottom of the food chain and can perform well given the opportunity. But all the classes can't necessarily be compared against each other (such as pure dps to tank-to-dps) in terms of performamce in PvP. Not to mention some maps simply cater to some classes more than others (like snipers/gunslingers in huttball - ugh).

First of all.... punctuation is your friend, it took me a couple tries reading your posts trying to fully understand your meaning. That aside... If you're losing to a PT/VG, you really need to work on your rotation or something. I just got a Vig spec'd guard to level 50 the other night (this after raiding at 55 on a hybrid dps VG), and the class easily out-performs a VG. Guardians have sustained damage, little to no problems with keeping focus up, and has better burst damage not to mention CDs that make them twice as hearty. This compared to minimal capabilities for sustained damage (namely HiB/RS being the bread winner on damage, but relying on procs that can only come off 1-2 skills), ammo/heat issues if you're not -very- careful with rotations and what skills you're using, not to mention the sore lack of good CD skills for survivability. Also compared to a VG, the rotation is much smoother and more natural. Even with worrying about procs, a Guardian has much more substance to the rotation where working in an extra Dispatch, for example, doesn't even cause a hiccup. Compare to the VG, where your entire rotation is a focus in either getting HiB to proc or keeping DoTs on the target so when HiB is up, you can use it immediately. That, depending on how one is spec'd exactly, consists of maybe 4-5 skills (not including HiB or Hammer Shot). tl;dr The CDs are not long, rotation is smooth, and damage is easily sustained. I don't know what class or spec you're really playing, but I can hardly see any issues - it's still top single target dps for Guardians. Focus does more aoe damage (which inherently can rack up more PvP damage numbers due to the nature of it being aoe), and it's silly to compare to a class who's sole purpose is damage and dps.

If I'm not mistaken (I'm on the Belsavis stage of chapt 3), the JK doesn't actually go to Dromund Kaas, at least not in the traditional sense as a Imp would or a Pub would to Coruscant. I think closest an Imp character gets to the "equivalent" to the JK story would probably be the BH, but that takes place on a ship vs a Capitol world. BW would need to create alternate versions of Dromund Kaas and Coruscant (like Taris and Balmorra) for the opposite sides to visit the planet and a good reason for the rival side to be on the planet. It would, however, possibly be more practical if it was a phase part of the class stories.

Had a guild mate go from 1-55 in about two weeks of moderate/casual play (ie wasn't on constantly, paused to sort things like crafting and gear out, and got powered through fps by the rest of us). But there's another member that's gone from only 1-20 in probably a month. He, on the flipside of the former, is on a lot, but has been maxing his crafting (on 2+ characters) and spending more time running fps, wzs, and just killing mobs (no missions outside the fps and wzs) or coming up with ways to make credits. Obviously if you're playstyle is more like the latter, it'll take ya forever the former is reasonable if you don't necessarily have mass quantities of time to dedicate. But like others have said, use the xp boosts and join up with a guild and it shouldn't take too terribly long.

I agree that there's a "too easy" element to this, also to the point that it just becomes a tedious annoyance to do the back and forth. However, being as this is as short an event as it is, I think the way they have it is good. If this were something that wasn't a temporary event (just a daily for the rep), then I could get behind altering the missions to involve a bit more investigating. But as it is, I think it would be too frustrating and too tedious for people to want to grind any rep at all for the faction if they had a week to do it with the process requiring more involved time than it currently does.

My advice is to play what you enjoy, as naturally you will play it better and put the time and effort to gear up and become better. I've played my VG in PvP as both DPS and tank, and I have to say, I've greatly enjoyed tanking more. Though it is something you'll definitely want to roll with if you're grouped with friends/guild mates, as in a lot of cases (in my experience) getting any heal love as a tank (VG tank, at least) is all but impossible of you're going in "solo". Now I tend to stay away from slotting Storm when I PvP, mostly cause everything I read says it can bug out. So with that out it can sometimes make things difficult, as we lack the guardian leap, but harpoon can work just as effectively. tl;dr Try it out as a tank for a bit, see if you enjoy it and go from there. Enjoyment should be the key

Can't imagine this really happening (unless the tank misses an aggro wipe moment) if they're using taunts wisely in their rotations... just sayin'. As others have already pointed out, you need to be fact checking before spewing bad advice. Or at least give a disclaimer about it being based on unchecked assumptions and probably should be ignored. Saves people wasting time reading walls of text Also on topic, based on personal experience, gear does make a difference. Not always a big one, but for VG tanks with kind of crappy gear trying to tank... you're going to need constant babysitting from the healer. Again, this comes from personal experience from either emergency tank/off-tanking moments and when I started up the tanking side of my VG. Take away: be kind to your healer, gear up!

There's also a current/recent thread here about the ships.

Considering the thread was necro'd (after being answered originally) to ask a related question, I think Maaruin safe to assume you were talking to them, lol.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but the 6th hit down ony first Google search and I found this: http://db.darthhater.com/npc.aspx?id=30875 That what you were looking for? The site was a little slow to load, but once up seems to point to the location of the Kath Hound npcs on Balmorra.

I'm assuming you're referring to having Burnout maxed at the 3/3 vs Gut as the difference between the builds, that in mind: isn't it only 1% difference between sitting at the 2/3 vs 3/3 on Burnout in the Assault tree? In my experience, it's also more of a drain to keep IR up for a more consistent DoT (vs the Cell proc). Not to mention, at least with the way I'm setup at the moment, Gut provides a heck of a lot more overall damage (both in initial hit and DoT damage). But like you, a personal preference. I tried a workaround once by lowering what I pulled out of the tank tree to just the increase in Aim and putting the extra points into Assault, but it hasn't seemed to make enough of a noticeable difference to justify the "official" swap.

I've read over the entirety of this thread, I have searched this thread and even the whole community site, but I could not find where this particular player's parse/build was originally posted. This is the spec that I've been running and I am very curious about the gear end of this build to get up to that dps level. So does anyone know where this originally came from? Or is the player still around/active enough to respond?

I think if you look at it from anything other than a pc/laptop, it won't work. When I tried first time in my cell it didn't direct me to the spot you'd linked with. Anyway, don't know if you've seen it, but there is (at least currently) a vid up with the full soundtrack from the game. Not sure if it'll work for you (I grabbed it as a mobile link), but here it is: I believe, if you check the details on the vid, there's a bookmark for the Hoth music and it might be what you're looking for. Regardless, the music is awesome

1. Fury - I love this ship, it's simple and sleek in design and the overall feel is almost perfect for a Sith. The only thing I feel it lacks is the proper ambiance in the captains quarters for a Sith. It's just a little too plain for my tastes, but overall the tones and colors just seem perfect. 2. D5-Mantis - I've yet to put my finger on it, but there's something just "perfect" seeming about this ship. Inside and out it fits perfectly to the BH... my only complaint is that Skadge doesn't occupy some room I never have to set foot in 3. BT-7 Thunderclap - While I do like this ship, there's just something about the exterior that doesn't sit well with my tastes. Other than that, it's always seemed perfect for my trooper. But the exterior is really the only reason this falls under the Mantis. 4. Defender - I like the layout of this ship and the interior feels Jedi-like enough for me, but there's still something I feel could be better... I just can't think of what it could be (or at least can't put the words together for it). 5. XS Freighter - Like another person said, it's in this weird limbo between like and not like the Ebon Hawk (even the Falcon if you want to go that far). I feel like it could have been 10x better if it wasn't just a giant freakin circle and didn't feel like a cheap knock-off of the Ebon Hawk. Something more akin to a cross with the Mantis and the current feel of the Freighter (that home in space feel - Firefly class ship anyone? ). 6. X-70B Phantom - Hate this ship. The layout is drab, the interior is too much like some futuristic, sterile hospital. The bright white with the harsh black just clashes. Not to mention my IA thinks the higher ups were smoking something to give her this ship as a "fly-under-the-radar/stealthy ship". That thing sticks out like a sore thumb and not only couldn't be more obvious, but other that the Defender and Thunderclap, probably couldn't be more "memorable" and easy to point and say "yup, it was the guy from that ship right there". /rant It's a shame there couldn't be more of a difference between the Sith and Jedi ships, something more designed to the classes would have been great.

You mean the ones that are pigeon-holed into sounding like Jedi if they try to take something even remotely close to a moral response? ie. not being a violent, money-grabbing toolbag (this all being outside class missions, of course). Sadly, many available responses really do make non-Jedi sound like them anyway, so why not just lump them all into the Jedi/tree-hugger category? Lol.

Agreed. However, I do like Gualt and the tension he creates with my BH, I just disagree with how he comes to be part of the crew. I remember when I started my BH, I knew I'd be getting Gault at some point, but I was floored by the way he's acquired. It simply doesn't feel right, but it got worse when we were forced with a gun to our skulls to roll over and take on Skadge. If you ask me all of them but Skadge have a place on the crew. But on the flip side while Gault fits... the way he gets there doesn't fit.

DPS Vanguard is very viable and can be very effective. The 2/22/22 hybrid is probably the best launching point for a PvP build, that plus appropriate gear will help greatly with your effectiveness in PvP. I run (if memory serves, as I'm not looking at my spec atm) a 8/11/27 hybrid for PvE and I do carry it over for PvP if I'm too lazy to re-spec and it works for decent DPS in that setting, it just lacks some of the utility on slows and such that more points to the middle tree provide.

I've encountered a delay every now and then with this skill, but more often than not it seems to be a lag-related issue as opposed to an actual skill bug. Somewhat related... As someone who's leveled both a BH and Trooper, I have to say that Motar Volly has grown on me enough to be my favorite of the two. Plus, it's nice to have an aoe skill that hits like a freight train while you're leveling :3

It's all a set of ideals. Jedi vs Sith, Light vs Dark are all two sides of the same coin. The Force just is. It is neither inherently evil nor good, simply used in one form or another based upon the one welding it. Again, look at my example of the Voss. They are neither Light nor Dark, not Sith or Jedi. They use the Force, and yet they are neutral. Why? Because the Force is not Light or Dark, it's what the user does with it, how they twist it. Therefore each side is what groups (Jedi and Sith, namely) have made of it, what ideal they've created with it, not what it is.

I have a simple solution to clear this confusion up. Place Xalek in the airlock, then blow him out with the rest of the trash from the ship. He then becomes a Failed Sith and no one has to worry about any other title! All joking aside, the moment our SI takes him as his/her apprentice, Xalek becomes an apprentice. And because of game mechanics, unless you send him out for crafting missions, he can never be the independent apprentice that we were or the SW is.

I could be mistaken, but I don't think there is a way to miss any of the companion missions. They're gated behind either affection or your place in the class story. And if, for example, you advance past the trigger point in the story, but don't yet have the affection... it'll still unlock for you as soon as you do have the affection at the necessary level. Same works in reverse, you can have more than the needed affection, but not be able to advance through more companion dialogue until you pass a certain point in the story. There used to be a link that I can't seem to find now that talked about the tiers of affection to when convos unlock... but google is failing me right now >.< hopefully my above ramble helps with what you're looking for.