While it would have been nice to see a new event, I'm kind of glad this is coming back but with some concerns. Unfortunately I missed out on most of the previous Gree event so my reputation is quite low. I'm sure this applies to many others as well. That said, with this event only lasting a week, is there any chance that some of the item costs and/or reputation needed to purchase them be lowered? On that same note, can the weekly reputation limits be raised or, even better, removed altogether? Lastly, having x amount of Helix required to even buy some of the items seems a bit harsh for a one week event where new players will never be able to get any of the items in that time period. Would it be possible to make these items purchasable with either credits or classic/basic comms in combination with reputation (hopefully lowered)?

I'd need to get a MH 72 barrel to check on this (both on my BH are 69's) but so far I'm very convinced that full pve MH/OH is better. I'd need to get both Conquerer ones to look at the numbers but as of now all PvP gear + PvE MH/OH is working out to be ever so slightly better off in my case than all expertise gear. I'm hoping to get both barrels soon so hopefully I can update this thread before it gets buried.

As a followup to my above post, If I fought myself in the open world, no amount of PvE gear would stop me from destroying my PvE geared self as the expertise gap becomes even more pronounced.

WARNING!! The following post has numbers!! Below you will find some numbers from my Mercenary PvE and PvP sets along with tooltip damage noted at the beginning of warzones. Any damage listed is unbuffed from procs and is always used in every warzone. All gear is augmented using 18/12 aim except for my PvE set which uses two 32/28 aim augments. PvE using mostly 69's with some 66 mods/enhancements. Relics and implants are PvP. Ear is Black Market. Aim 3012 Endurance 2717 for 31486 hp Ranged bonus damage 822 Tech bonus damage 1340 Damage reduction from armor 28.08% Expertise 1587 in warzone Exp damage boost 47.30% Exp damage reduction 32.11% Tracer Missile 3003-3304 Heatseeker Missile 4932-5052 Rail Shot 2708-3147 Unload 2055-2450 Death From Above 7768-8251 Electro Net 4946 PvP using all Partisan (min maxed for power/surge) except for PvE MH/OH weapons (using 66/69 barrels/mods/enhs). Aim 2757 End 2475 for 29036 hp Ranged bonus damage 768 Tech bonus damage 1286 Damage reduction from armor 28.81% (more on this later) Expertise 1933 Exp damage boost 57.62% Exp damage reduction 36.55% Tracer Missile 2896-3197 Heatseeker Missile 4763-4883 Rail Shot 2598-3037 Unload 1976-2370 Death From Above 7493-7977 Electro Net 4779 Right off the bat some might look at the main stat difference along with bonus damage and say PvE is the way to go. Granted, I don't use high end UW/DG gear but even then there's a trade off. In any case, the boost gained from Expertise alone is a huge difference in the 2 sets. Yes, I lose over 2k health by but I gain .73% in damage reduction using PvP gear from bolster (out of WZ's that same set nets me 26.57% reduction) which doesn't include the extra almost 4.5% reduction from Expertise. The ranged/tech bonus damage is not that far off since I'm using the same PvE weapons in both sets. The tooltip damage is quite telling however. While the PvE set gives roughly 4% more tooltip damage, the PvP set more than makes up for it with the boost gained from expertise (nearly 10% more bonus). In the long run, if I fought myself in a warzone I have a good feeling that my PvP set would beat my PvE set more often than not (all things being equal with crits). Mind you that this is based on my gear sets. This could very well change in any direction when factoring in fully min/maxed Conq and UW/DG gear but I feel the more drastic loss in Expertise would be enough to allow PvP sets to be superior. I'll be doing some swapping of gear here and there to get a better idea of what looks better in the coming weeks but for now I'd say to use mostly augmented min/maxed PvP gear and the best PvE MH/OH you can obtain for optimal stats.

Was only able to play a couple of games but I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary as far as anyone's HP going up (usually obvious glitcher) before the match started. Nothing seems to have changed on the bolster side. I use mostly 69's on my Merc with PvP implants and relics but tend to have around 1650ish exp. My Sin runs with full PvP gear (including new relics) but uses 66/69 MH/OH and gets 1928 exp. I think a happy medium would be to use as high end PvE MH/OH as possible while still maintaining a fairly high exp (1800+) with a mix of gear. I'm sure someone has done the actual math to see what the best mix is.

Depends on the mods. Some slots are poorly modded so holding on to those power/surge enhancements or other goodies can be used to fill those bad ones. Seriously, alacrity for a Sin? /boggle I normally pull the power ones and trade in the shell with armoring unless its an upgrade for my comp.

I went into this quest after reading some of the horror stories and was able to finish it once.....after a few wipes and better communication. While not overly difficult, there are some improvements/changes that I'd like to see. -This quest needs to be repeatable. The more people its open to, the more likely it will be to complete as the content gets older. -The reward for such a long chain is not that great. At the very least if it was repeatable and an entire set of armor (one piece per completion) was available it might be worth it. As it stands I doubt I'd repeat this on the rest of my alts. -There really needs to be priority transports on the planets involved for this and the seeker quests. Also, the order of both chains needs to be reworked a bit as you find yourself repeating planets you've already been to in one chain or the other. -Add this and the seeker heroic to group finder? Just a thought. The only reason I wound up doing this was because someone was asking for a DPS in gen chat on fleet. The "healer" wasn't specced for heals but we had enough DPS to get through it with me taking lead after reading a guide on it. This isn't a quest I'd go into purely as a pug unless you knew you had the confidence to communicate with the rest of the group. Again, not overly difficult but I can see where the patience would wear thin in a pug. I wish I remembered the names of everyone who did it with me the one time as they showed the utmost determination to finish it and listen to me.

Known issue but I highly doubt it's happening that many times to one person in one fight. I can see over multiple tries though. That said, cc break, force speed with root break talent, Hydraulic Overrides, and other anti root talents/abilities do work and are normally on fairly short CDs. While not a novel idea, I'd suggest respeccing when this FP pops for you. If its not something you want to do, you could always just leave the FP, wait out your queue CD, and queue again without this FP selected. So far it's only been an issue once when our group wiped 3 times because of it. I usually play my Merc or PT so it does not affect me as much as other classes. Hydraulic Overrides FTW.

Most understand why it's in the 55 bracket and just need to get to terms with it staying. That said, the real issues that are on most players minds are when the augment glitches are going to be fixed and bolster itself going to be tweaked further. I have to be honest here in saying the augment issue alone makes me not want to queue up any more. This is made worse by the fact that not only have you guys acknowledged the glitch but have yet to fix it after months of knowing of its existence. If this was a PvE glitch (namely Operations), I'm sure it would have been fixed already. I understand the devs were pressed for time to release the expansion but it's no excuse to leave a glitch like this in for months on end (since PTS). I know they're probably hard at work on 2.1 as the 6-8week deadline is looming ahead but trust me when I say the PvP community would gladly put a cosmetic update on hold so that their issues get fixed promptly.

While I agree, I would expect the advantage of PvP gear to be minimal. Don't hold your breath. Expect many revisions to bolster until they feel they got it right. I'd be truly shocked to see them put out another type of recruit gear. The reward is that when you come across players who dont have pvp gear on in the open world you will melt their faces off (if your server rules permit). At best you will have a few percentage points worth of damage boost, reduction and healing boost in WZ's. I'm still waiting for their so-called "mathy" post on how bolster works. It'll never happen. Again, don't hold your breath. LOL. They've been saying they're "listening" since way back in beta yet some areas in the game still have issues since beta. Devs won't make promises they can't keep. At best you could expect a "we're doing our best" type of pseudo apology (without ever having said sorry).

They can still do the ops as well, they just can't queue up for them thru group finder. As for why I do L50 FPs it's because of the dailys. While a couple of my 55's are fairly well geared, the basic comms can stil be used to buy gear for alts and sent thru legacy gear.

Here's a simpler solution. Increase the credits per WZ. The end. Seriously it wasn't that difficult to come up. I swear. Just to throw an arbitrary (but fair IMO) number at this idea, lets start with 20-25k per WZ at level 50 and 25-30k at level 55. Another option could be to scale credits per level. In other words a level 10-19 could get 100 credits per level for a minimum of 1k per WZ and max of 1.9k. Level 20-29 could get 200 per level. At level 55 you'd get 27.5k per WZ (basically in line with my first number).

Then the discussion should focus on those classes/specs/abilities. I agree, some of the damage is downright stupid (I have a 55 Sin and Sniper myself). However, I'd rather see them knocked down a few notches than yet another class having insane burst.

Yes I do. I'm currently paying AP spec and loving it. I played with Pyro a bit but prefer the play style of AP.

Looks like posts from Mercs of pre 2.0.... Easy mode is gone... And replaced with skill.... Respec to another tree... New rotations might be needed. The spec isn't that bad off... Once you play around with it. Perhaps it's the player.... Likely..... Absolutely..... Yes.

Yes it is intended and states as such in the tooltip. They can be loaded at any time as long as its not on CD (90s). You'll see an orangish icon with numbers in it. Not in game and forgot how long you have until the buff disappears. Advanced Prototype PT and Tactics VG can spec into this for a total of 7 rockets (4 initially, 3 more over time but can have 7 preloaded). Can't speak for anyone else but I've seen mine crit for as high as 2.5k per. Might be able to get this higher with relic procs.

Have you or anyone tried using 2 Partisan ones? Since they don't share CDs I would think you could get 2x proc as well. It would also be much cheaper for those starting out.

Explosive Dart DFA (optional) Grapple (optional) Immolate Retractable Blade Rocket Punch Rail Shot Flame Burst x2 or Flame Sweep x2 for AOE Explosive Fuel when off CD (optionally you can use this after Rail Shot) Flamethrower Rinse and repeat. Don't forget to use Thermal Sensor Override for a 0 heat attack that normally costs a lot (Flamethrower, Flame Sweep, or DFA). Alternatively, you can use Shoulder Cannon (L55 ability) to help cool down if your heat gets too high and you don't have Vent Heat on CD. I rarely, if ever, use Rapid Shots and don't normally have heat issues. Timing and rhythm is key. Spamming your attacks too close together will cause you to overheat quickly. You could add Unload to the rotation at the start after Explosive Dart or after Flamethrower but that just stretches out the rotation. However, since its a channeled attack, you'll actually reduce heat after the initial cost (16 heat) which could help If you normally run into resource issues.

I've noticed this on my DPS PT quite a bit lately. Today alone I think I got 3 tank drops with 2 of them being back to back Athiss. While I'm sure some dev will say they looked at some spreadsheet to double check and that everything looks fine, I still think the system needs to be tuned a bit more. For example I still see the occasional drop for a class not even in the group or multiple same class/AC drops per flashpoint. I've never seen as many heavy armor strength drops as I have since 2.0 was released.

While I see decent damage with it as AP spec, I'd hardly consider it burst as you need to keep spamming it every second for 4 seconds minimum (AP gets 7 missiles). The main issues are the CD, which IMO needs to be a minimum of 45s, and how long it takes to load. You basically need to preload it before you think you're going to need it. They should change it so that your missiles are ready to launch at all times and the CD start when the final missle is launched. It would also be nice to be able to use it during channeled abilities (DFA, FT, Unload).

No, the real solution is to redo the whole expertise and bolster systems. If BW really wanted parity they'd fix bolster so that EVERYONE has the exact same stats and truly let skill determine the outcome of matches. Expertise should then be relegated to open world PvP only (as if much of that even exists anymore) and even then, needs to be balanced to a more respectable level (ie 60% damage increase against a non expertised player is just rediculous). I know that'll never happen. Once they have their systems in place there's no going back for a long time, if ever. The current system is a hot mess and becoming less enjoyable as the days go by.

I'm using 10/36/0 for PvE. PvP is the same except for having swapped out Advanced Tools for Stabilized Armor as I mostly solo Q and can't rely on heals to back me up. I don't have the best gear at 55 but I consistently pull aggro from the tank in a lot of the FP's I've run so far. I don't use meters or anything but I love the feel of the class and think it performs exceptionally well. True, in PvP there are some really stupid abilities out there doing crazy burst but I tend to hold my own and find myself at or near the top of the damage, protection (taunts), and obejectives. It could only get better once I have better gear.

The timer "pauses" when you log off.

I wasn't 51 yet when I wrote up my post but YES. I love SC, especially in WZ's when you just know you're gonna get stunned. You could almost sense the other player (usually a stealth ganker) wondering "*** who is attacking me?". As it doesn't respect the GCD, they should make it so that it doesn't interrupt channels or casts (Unload for those that still use it and DFA). However, Riposte (Knight/Warrior attack) interrupts your current channel if you use it and it too doesn't respect the GCD. I'd assume Shoulder Cannon was meant to work this way.

The second link I posted above yours should do quite well for PvE. There are a few changes you could make depending on your play style. For instance, if you want a little more DPS at the expense of armor you could swap out Rebraced Armor for Iron Fist. Stabilized Armor is another you might swap out as well if you find you're not doing content where mobs have a lot of AOE. This could be swapped for Advanced Tools or Hitman. However I feel both of those combined aren't as useful as the talent they'd replace, especially for PvE. Starting with Steely Resolve for your first 3 points will give you a nice bang for your buck. Follow with Puncture and Rail Loaders then work your way up the AP tree and you'll do well. Here's another link to the spec I'm using. http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/powertech/231/?build=003200320000000000000000000000000223120002120212211102300230001000000000000000000000000000000000&ver=20