The past few weeks, I've run numerous tactical flashpoints and, yes, some of them were abysmal runs. But with so many new players flooding the game this was to be expected, right? I had level 50 guardian tanks who were absolutely sure they didn't have that form I suggested they should use (you know, the tank one). And of course, there were some lowbies who just didn't have the abilities required to get through the mission. Biggest problem in those runs though: communication - often they wouldn't answer or flat-out ignore anything written in chat. Lately, I've to admit I've had very good experiences though. In my opinion, what would really help remedy that situation, is to make the flashpoints unlock at the level they were originally designed for because this way each player has the abilities they need - whether they know how to use them is another story entirely though. I mean, doing Hammer Station or Athiss with inexperienced players shouldn't be a problem, but something like Cademimu, Red Reaper or even Rakata Prime...it's just not doable if you don't have a grasp of your class and the appropriate level .

I tried again with the operations dummy on my ship and debuffed it with that thingy I bought from the droid on my ship. Now, I get about 3.5k on average, but I noticed I got up to 4.9k or something at one point. If I understand correctly, this is the right thing to expect from Combat discipline, that specific one being a burst damage discipline, right? So I can get some heavy hits on a target, I just can't hit that hard continuesly. Anyway, thanks for your advice - I think I'm gonna queue for some HM flashpoints and see how I'll fare...

Yes. I'm not usually one to parse my combat (not much of a min-max guy, don't really care to be honest), but I hit the operation dummy on my ship for a few minutes and Parsec told me I got just above 3k. I guess this was on average, as I said, I'm not really into these kinds of things. Why do you ask?

I'm a bit at a loss here... So you can queue for HM flashpoints in groupfinder once you reach level 50, right? But then the description states you should have at least 212 gear, a gear rating I've yet to see in-game. So far, I've come across 208 gear, available at level 65 for common data crystals, and 216 gear, available at level 65 for glowing data crystals. How can any level 50 player get gear with a rating higher than level 65 gear? That doesn't make sense to me. Also, I read in the forums here that your DPS should be at least 4.5k before you even try to queue for HM flashpoints, but for example with my combat sentinel (in full 208 gear with two 216 pieces even) I can get about 3.0k which apparently makes me a lousy DPS I guess. Well, I have numerous level 65 toons, many of which have a full 208 set of gear and I really like to do the flashpoints with the usual "trinity" and all. I know them all from before 4.0, "normal" and "hard mode". But the requirements stated in-game and in the forums tell me I shouldn't dare to queue 'cause I'd be kicked immediately anyway... Am I missing something here?