"Watcher" throughout the IA's story line. Very likable voice.

I've been experimenting with various build since 1.2. None is obviously anywhere near as fun and effective as old Focus was but here's my experience. Focus PvP in Sorensu - Ignore most of the Shii-Sho form talents and you come away with decent survivability and the ability to Guard. Overall this was quite decent although the damage output is a little disappointing. Smashes only range up to ~4000 and are only available every 12 seconds. My big gripe is the sodding poor Focus generation in Sorensu. Focus PvP in Shii-Sho - Damage is respectable and Focus generation manageable but it's still only a Shadow of it's former glory. Survivability though is piss poor, worse than even pre-1.2...which I'm not sure why. Deep Vigilance - Pitiful damage and very little pressure outside of Overhead Slash and Dispatch. At least Focus generation isn't an issue. I know it has a lot of vocal fans out there but I can't for the life of me see why. Hybrid Vigilance + Zealous Leap - I found this to be superior to deep Vigilance. Not only does Zealous Leap deal more damage than Plasma Brand it also adds more mobility and range to the spec. Constant free Blade Storms make Focus generation a non-issue and Overhead Slash still ensures you regular crits.

I understand why Bioware adjusted the Expertise damage boost and reduction percentages. Under the old formula survivability actually increased more over time as your Expertise increased. Example: Two participants: each 1000 DPS / 10000 HP Zero Expertise: Fight lasts 10 seconds 20% Expertise (old): 1200 DPS (20% increase) -> 20% DR (1200x0.8) = 960 DPS / 10000 HP Fight lasts 10.41 seconds. 20% Expertise (new): Fight lasts 10 seconds again. However one thing Bioware disregarded with this change is that player damage increases more through gear than is off-set by the increase in Endurance. As our gear increases, our damage increases at a much faster pace than Endurance can compensate. Ergo, although Expertise damage reduction overcompensated for the Expertise damage increase, it didn't overcompensate for the overall damage increase seen by gear improvement. So I'd argue that although there was a mathematical flaw in the old Expertise formula, this flaw actually served a purpose and made the game more enjoyable.

I'm fine with random loot in PvE. It serves a purpose. But having bosses drop two identical items/tokens is not. And this seems to happen a lot. This is especially aggravating when none of the token is needed by anyone or if the class isn't even present in the raid. Can we please implement a system that prevents double drops of the same token?

I too am utterly disappointed by Vengeance in PvP. I knew what was in store for Rage in 1.2 and it really was as bad as I expected. I then switched over to Vengeance, a spec I normally just played in PvE and was furious at how little pressure it could apply. The damage Vengeance puts out in PvP is laughable. It's so low that most people just chose to ignore me as I was hardly worth the trouble. A 2-3k crit every ~9 seconds or so is a joke when everything around it is hitting for half that much. The only redeeming quality of Vengeance is Unstoppable and nice Dispatch crits. But outside of that, it's an utter joke. I think the core problem with Vengeance is that it requires you to be in melee range almost 100% of the time, something that's impossible in PvP. That coupled with the fact that damage is spread out over too many lackluster abilities results in Vengeance's poor performance. Juggernauts currently have 3 options for PvP-DPS -Play Vengeance and hope Unstoppable is enough to carry you through Huttball. If not, enjoy hitting like a wet noodle throughout the other warzones. -Play Focus DPS in Shii-Sho form and die like a fly while waiting idle for your abilities to come off cooldown. -Play Focus DPS in Sorensu form and spend 90% of the time Rage starved because Sorensu absolutely ruins Rage generation. Why do Juggernauts have to do these stupid trade-offs when Marauders get smooth game-play in every one of their three specs?

Ok, I'm still not clear on why or how damage supposedly increased with 1.2? Afaik: -Most classes received damage nerfs, only very few came away with a DPS buff. -Notorious burst specs like Rage/Focus and Powertechs/Vanguards had their burst abilities nerfed. -PvE gear was pretty much rendered useless for PvP, so everyone should be wearing PvP gear. This also means a lot of previous gear-optimization went down the drain. -Expertise change was merely a mathematical correction to avert scaling issues and should impact PvP survivability in any way. -There seem to have been some minor alterations to stat-DRs but nothing to write home about. Expect for the healer nerfs, I see no reason why PvP should suddenly be burstier than before. In fact, the opposite should be true unless people on the receiving end are still wearing some PvE gear.

So, I've been collecting warzone commendations just like everyone else. I'm been hesitant on spending them just yet because I'm not sure what the most effective way is to go about the matter. I have a full BM set, which until today I used to mix with a couple of special PvE items. Here's what I have to consider: -Expertise > all for PvP: PvE gear is no longer a viable option for PvP and far from desirable. -BiS gear will be orange crit-crafts with PvP Armoring/Mods/Enhancements. -How does this apply to Earpieces/Implants? You can craft them but you can't add Expertise. -What about orange Bracers/Belts? I assume that adding a PvP Mod + Armoring will be superior to just taking the base-line gear. So, assuming these assumptions are correct I should aim for: War-Hero: Ear Piece, Implants, Relic Custom crafted + Augment: Chest, Legs, Helmets etc. (throw in PvP Armorings/Mods obviously) Regular custom craft: Bracers, Belt (are there crit-craft belts?) And that should pretty much cover it. PS: I noticed I might be able to save some commendations by purchasing gloves exclusively for Armoring/Mods/Enhancements. Would that work or is there some sort of restriction in place?

So, I've been collecting warzone commendations just like everyone else. I'm been hesitant on spending them just yet because I'm not sure what the most effective way is to go about the matter. Here's what I have to consider: -Expertise > all for PvP: PvE gear is no longer a viable option for PvP and far from desirable. -BiS gear will be orange crit-crafts with PvP Armoring/Mods/Enhancements. -How does this apply to Earpieces/Implants? You can craft them but you can't add Expertise. -What about orange Bracers/Belts? I assume that adding a PvP Mod + Armoring will be superior to just taking the base-line gear. So, assuming these assumptions are correct I should aim for: War-Hero: Ear Piece, Implants, Relic Custom crafted + Augment: Chest, Legs, Helmets etc. (throw in PvP Armorings/Mods obviously) Regular custom craft: Bracers, Belt (are there crit-craft belts?) And that should pretty much cover it. PS: I noticed I might be able to save some commendations by purchasing gloves exclusively for Armoring/Mods/Enhancements. Would that work or is there some sort of restriction in place?

Nobody does. They nerfed Guardians just because we actually had a niche we were better at than Sentinels.

Except the opposite is true. Both Rage Juggers and Powertechs received a massive curb to their burst damage. Same applies to Operatives.

If you'd actually read my thread you'd have noticed you liked to the same thread I already posted.

If it weren't for the horrendous cost I think it would be fine. Bioware obviously wasn't intending to make us vastly more powerful. It's just a step in the right direction towards addressing our poor survivability.

So, with the addition of raid-dummies and combat logging I thought it would be cool to create a thread about combat logging and DPS performances. I just specced Vigilance to see how well it performed. Class buffs: All (except Soldier) Gear level: Approximately Rakata gear level + Biochem stim (~1900 Strength) Procs: Relentless Winds + Matrix Cube used. No "on use" trinkets. Target: Operations Target Dummy Duration: 0.10 hours (aka. 6 minutes) Spec: 2/35/4 Gear was still largely optimized for Focus DPS with very low Crit-% but lots of Power. DPS: 1185 Log: http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/371da11a-ca8b-4180-8bfd-5c5b8fab7840#d=0,t=1 Guide on how to upload logs: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=3853517#post3853517 Priority: My first priority was to use Sunder Strike on CD as I found myself running into Focus issues quite frequently. In a raid situation this would probably be somewhat alleviated by passive Focus generation. 2. Overhead Slash 3. Plasma Brand 4. Master Strike (when available) 5. Blade Storm (when sufficient Focus) 6. Force Sweep (when needing to fill a GCD) Overall I don't think I got the most out of the spec due to Focus starvation and a few lost GCD due to server-lag. In a raid scenario and with better prioritization I'd expect about 1300 DPS.

Yeah, I concur, I can live with the 12 sek. CD on Blade Storm but on Sweep, it just sucks. The instant 4 Singularity are nice but don't really off-set the higher CD in any way. I've actually opted the play without Shii-Sho form for now as it really doesn't add much without Force Alacrity. It also saves you a bunch of talent points. It's a shame the spec was gutted in such a fashion. It was really the only thing I enjoyed about Guardians. And Focused Defense.....yeah way too expensive to be of any real value.

It's possible, although some fights might be significantly harder with her compared to Doc. Since she has your only noteworthy companion quests you won't be missing out on anything either. Just remember to gear up T7 before the final fight.

I agree with this, in fact, it's probably good the delayed RWZ. I just didn't see them being feasible without cross-server queues. But why wait so long for the announcement?

First off, the visual clues are so subtle most people don't even notice when Rebuke is up. Second, in a 1v1 very few players can afford to wait for Rebuke to drop off when fighting a Sentinel. Third, in an actual fight involving multiple players on both sides there's so much random damage and AoE flying around, Rebuke is bound to stay up most of the time.

They should all be pretty much equal in terms of PvE DPS. Elemental and Internal Damage are not mitigated by Armor, Energy Damage is. Bosses have roughly 30% mitigation making all 3 procs pretty much equal. Should you use them in PvP however, the internal/elemental ones will probably prove more useful as there are a whole lot more mitigation-effects flying around.

I believe the focus on "non-repeatable content" is the real flaw of SWTOR. A huge amount of time and money were invested into the "consume once" content. This isn't a feasible concept for an MMO. Look at Warsong Gulch in WoW. That warzone alone much have delivered billions of hours of enjoyment. Same goes for pretty much any open PvP zone. If it works, it provides hours beyond hours of entertainment requiring very little upkeep and maintenance. Had Ilum actually delivered I would probably feel very different but there really isn't much to do at max level.

If you're comparing yourself to Sentinels purely from a DPS POV you'll never be happy. DPS wise Sentinels do everything we do, just better. Our redeeming quality is that we can serve as off-tanks when switching gear. However if you don't use that potential for utility, then no, there's no need for DPS Guardians.

I'd rather have ~4 new Bosses every ~2 months instead of having a new raid-instance once very ~6 months. Not only does it keep people engaged for longer but it also makes older content less redundant. With WoW, old instances were totally irrelevant once new instances were released. With SWTOR there's still plenty of reason to go back to the old ones. That said, I do think the 1.2 expectations are a little overhyped. We aren't really getting all that much "new" content. A small raid-instance, a handful of dailies, a new warzone and "rated warzones".

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Tell us which classes won so we can QQ about them already.

Yeah, I think people need to differentiate between the two: 1. Sentinels/Marauders excel at killing stuff ______________ And yet, as awesome as that may sound, killing your opponents isn't nearly as important as it may seem at first. Holding an objective is far more important. And that's what makes Assassins so powerful. 2. Shadows/Assassins excel at winning ______________ A Tank Assassin can easily hold out 60 seconds at a node waiting for reinforcements to arrive. They make the best Huttball carriers in game thanks to sprint and tanking CDs. Their pulls can control even hostile ball carriers. They might not be awesome at killing stuff, but their will improve your chances of success more than any other class.

Marauders are really the only class that can frequently come out on top of a 2v1. Tank Assassins probably too. Marauders have every tool a well-rounded DPS could hope for. It makes them very potent in the hands of a decent player. It's hard to call them OP because they don't really overwhelm enemies, launch surprise attacks or burst somebody down instantly with stuns which is the most common cause for QQ. They always give their opponents an opportunity to fight back. More often then not however, this will be in vain. As a DPS Jugger I'm jealous of their awesome CDs which no other class comes anything close to. Some might say it makes them OP, and it probably would in a 3v3 arena, but in 8v8, it's not that big of a deal. So yes, Marauders are OP in small scale PvP. But since SWTOR isn't about small scale PvP in most cases, it isn't quite as apparent.