That's interesting, because I have never been able to patch the game (be it expansion/major/minor patch) with altered/removed loading screens, so got used to adding period in name and removing it before every patch. With altered name launcher would just hang during installation.

...Because popping Saber Reflect as soon as they finish cast is not enough. I can find excuse to use it, sure. But heal/dr on sin? Eww. There's always a better utility, be it extra reck stack, speed on shock or cc immunity. Though I occasionally spec into Shelter to troll healers when they slack. Since I prefer sins, I sometimes go with healer gear (don't have no accuracy dps set, sadly) and swap once stuff starts to hurt (think Styrak when he summons dragon). Though healer gear works on other classes better. So far my best is 4.2k Revan HM Core dps as pt tank. Well, I consider crafted MK-26s to be best relics. Running with Shield Amplification + Shrouded Crusader on most of my tanks. You see, 30+ assassins across 4 servers, sometimes hard to keep all of them similarly geared. Shrouded Crusader is especially great on assassins, because of synergy with Recklessness.

By any chance you know when it started happening, or was in game all that time? I've noticed on multiple occasions that my absorb per second is way too low on jugg, but typically was ignoring it, explaining with healers being allergic to barriers. No kidding, with some of them I was getting stuff like a total of 1-2 barriers per 7 minute dread guards pull Question is, why would you use it at all (cept very few fights) I'd also set up timer for RW relic if one haven't already to track it's proc and delay scream if needed. It's very minor, but wasting a proc that happens only once per 40s just feels so wrong.

Quality over quantity, eh? They released new raid lately, though (well, part of it, duh). n people voted to move to WS, n-1 voted for WoW, n-2 for staying (lol), n-2 for "smth else". Majority lost, most united minority wins. Democracy at it's finest

<No One Important Died> are leaving for Wildstar. Few people will be left for ***** and giggles, but main raiding team will be off in a matter of a week or two, second team is long gone. <B a d a s s i t u d e> will probably raid til 5.0, but ain't staying after either.

You won't believe how many sintanks don't even have it on their quickbars Threat is binary, you either keep it or you do not, everything above required is a waste. CD is a nice dps boost in opener, but eats up just so much force it may be not worth it if boss doesn't do enough hits to compensate for it. I dropped using it in opener almost completely, only abuse it for pre-cast on transitions and whatnot.

Zahik may correct me for best parsing, but speaking averages, from math point of view, Lethal Shot beats Takedown in every single scenario except for capping energy. With WB up or under 30% it's a no brainer really, and while not Takedown is barely ahead, and Lethal is preferred due to it's poison part granting energy on crits. Farming lucky parses is easier with excessive TD usage; but on average spamming Lethal will yield more stable results (kinda important in raids). Then again, if you cap energy and use non-instant Lethal, it's bad even under 30%, with WB up

Quite often or literally never depending on how many melee/ranged attacks enemies do. Ranged/Melee attacks are more often split into multiple hits (like tfb tentacle's slaps are split into 5 hits, or operation chief's terminate is split into 7, even basic mobs have their "rifle shot"s and "basic attack" (sic!) typically split into 3) and there's high enough chance to dodge something -- especially since most of them have baseline 75% accuracy. Is it worth it? If you have surplus rage, sure. But without extra rage from builders and, more importantly, refund from shien your rotation is screwed anyway, so best you can do is throw away ravage completely prioritizing on shatter, impale and scream; spending remaining gcds on builders and occasional retaliation if you have excess rage due to much aoe or knockbacks (it's more resource-effective than slash).

And I do not argue for full endurance even though I consider it a slightly better option than full mitigation I know about Starparse... point was, difference in rating is only noticeable "negative" thing one may notice from gearing for extra endurance. As long as you use cooldowns somewhat properly and use tank stats, there's no possible way to gear yourself to become "unhealable". I even have an assassin with 104.7k hp (only missing 224 relics for max possible endurance) that I bring in raids for fun (well, I also bring it for Warlords, but it's pure "because I can" rather than necessity). Main build is 224/220b/224 (with 2p 186), left side Mk2/Mk26. Theory to get gear for single bosses is so casual. Try modelling particular fragments of encounters, minmax for it and then hot-swap mods between phases, then you're a pro. I mean, UI in this game is so ****ed that since 4.4 or so game randomly freezes for ~10..15 seconds when I mouseover items, but it's surely can be endured by healers, if not, their fault P.S. It's a tank's fault if you aren't fast enough to blame healers/dps and they get a chance to blame you first. Better macro it

You just don't get what I'm talking about all the time. It's not about how "elite" my group is... no matter how good/bad others (and me) are, **** ups happen. We have pulls with textbook execution, we have pulls where everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. My gearing method (high endurance and sick 70% shield) allows to survive better when **** hits the fan and potentially salvage more such situations, while losing... umm... possibility to get 99% rating from starparse? Or, speaking game theory, I prefer to use strategies that have the least outcomes with "negative" payoff, without even looking at the value of it when it's positive; I'll probably get rekt in Las Vegas but hey, losing at blackjack doesn't hit you for 70k Seriously, give me one scenario where non-bis mitigation can matter and I'll re-evaluate my principles, until then I see them mathematically... well, not correct, just less wrong.

You haven't done MB nearly enough in 4.0 then. Because the issue precisely is in getting 3+ bombs when no one died prior to it. Basically 9/10 wipes in first phase are because more than one person got triple bombs for no reason. One of my teams effectively stopped seriously trying MB after we got rekt by two triples and one quadro bombs on single cast with everyone alive. 2OP: have 2 people with longest bombs explode on each other with hydraulics && cooldowns, seems to be helping somewhat.

No restrictions AFAIK, but sniper rifles do more baseline damage. You can run solo content with rifle for aesthetic purposes, but by doing so in group content you are severely limiting yourself and your group.

Because I quit precisely because I had more than enough experience with improperly geared tanks in the months passed? Imbecile who thought 220/224 full-mitigation pt is tankier than sin (and got utterly rekt on dread guards). Juggernaut who swapped to full fort augs for kephass (which immediately turned him dying to spikes into a boss kill). Plenty of others. Go on, give us a layout of 100% cooldown coverage for Brontes -- finger phase starting on 2 stacks on Hands -> 6..7 + 7 slams in burn on any tank class (hint: you can't do that, unless you are veng or dec specced, and you will eat slams without cooldowns up and, if it's not your shielding day, you'll die). You know, just an example for one very irrelevant fight, yeah? Translation: "kids, don't smoke as many deathsticks as I do!"

I cleared all 4.0 NiMs cept Styrak (but it's dps/coordination/luck fight anyway) as tank, and, dunno, maybe half as healer. If I ever had sub-80k tank in group when healing, I'd just quit there and then. It's simply not viable if you want to mitigate stress. Over 8 months of 4.x, I had exactly 0 cases of a wipe due to insufficient healing. Wipes because someone got globalled or because healers were busy with improperly geared tank? Tons of em, every day. Can you survive most of spikes with low hp? Yes you can. But truth is, getting extra 4k hp can decrease chance of dying due to bad mitigation rolls in half. When will you understand, what's going on when everyone does their job is. Not. Relevant. Do you go in nim operation and one shot every boss? If yes then stick to your gearing. Did you wipe because someone died? Was it a tank? Your gearing is probably wrong. Was it someone else? You do realize, that if healer can't heal dps, say, standing in stupid, because tank got a nasty spike and needs to be topped off, it could've been mitigated by having extra hp pool, allowing healers take a break from oh-so-precious-one-bad-roll-and-on-a-brisk-of-death tank? Tanks' job is NOT minimizing damage taken. Tanks' job (except obvious stuff like mechanics/threat/etc) is to minimize chance of him or anyone else dying. Once cooldowns are done with, endurance is only reliable tool to do that. On one night on boss like Brontes or Bestia extra hp pool will allow you to save and salvage more **** ups than high mitigation over all raids you could've possibly had in swtor's history. Mitigation brings overall damage down, denying your healers top of charts and making your numbers sexier. Unfortunately, when you need lots, lots of healing in short amount of time, it doesn't matter if you're 224 or high endurance or maybe even full crit/power.

Imp. Seen them pugging dps for Calph, so their progression is at least that. Those epic guys pugging people for their nim raids on a weekly basis. Afaik they have best sorc healer eu aka "How do I keep my force" . Other members I met in pugs last few weeks seemed decent though.

That's the point, extra work for healers. Does. Not. Matter. I've seen tanks' combined dtps fluctuate by ~2k on certain fights between pulls (in same phases, ofc) and healer's were barely admitting a difference. If you survive spike, it is all that matters, extra lost hp can be easily recovered after. Healing in this game never was as overtuned as it is now. If you are not gearing for spike, you deny your healers a chance to heal someone else in dire need while you are at a brisk of death because of lacking hp and bad rolls. Point about not making extreme difference is a lie. Up to a point of assassin being unable to survive one unmitigatied hit without b-mods or reliable cooldown.

Yes, though haven't seen a single one in nim raids for 7 months or so

It's probably a terribly constructed sentence, and he meant typical "less healing, but vulnerable to spikes". However, it's really hard to argue "directly hurts the amount of damage you can take in a boss fight". Out of context for the sake of sarcasm: really, you can't take much damage from the boss if you die to spike 30 seconds in DTPS is highly overrated metric, and "sub-optimal" gearing effect on it is almost always hyperbolized to just hilarious numbers. I have a sort of drinking game especially for that, except it's not about drinking. When wiping heavily on some boss cept select few most hard hitting ones (tfb, brontes, dg, bestia), replace 1 piece of tank gear with dps one every 2-3 wipes. See if your healers will notice something is wrong before you get to offhand

I take Shelter for Council. Ironically, only reason to do so is because damage income is so pathetically low I can drop both 15% speed utility and +2s to shroud so I have much easier time kiting Bestia, resulting in a bunch of utility points with nothing to spend them on. Any sane number tweaking on dr won't save useless utility. Only big hits that matter in current NiMs are going to tanks anyway, and dr grant on your co-tank being tied to taunt is kinda redundant That way ability will stay in it's extremely small niche (like giving hilariously small survivability buff on DG lightning field and such, cept ain't no one specs for shelter on this fight now). Buffing healing part (perfectly, making it ~same magnitude or more as jugg's bubble (in tank spec) and untying it from bonus healing, instead making amount of healed only depend on level) will be slightly better: it will be ignored in pvp for being same useless **** (who cares with amount of goodies sins'n'sorcs have in all tiers) and will have slightly more applications in pve. Also will be interesting to see it re-implemented in a form of "increases healing taken by 5% for 10 seconds" (numbers are random but duration shouldn't be ludicrous 5-6 seconds).

My trusty railsho... oops, nevermind, you're outta range. Take a /hug.

There are 3 problems with tank gearing. First is no endurance on tank relics which is utter bull****. Partially compensated by using Mk-26s. Second is no Mk-2 224s, which makes it somewhat a pain to get multiple dps sets (too much accuracy and crit enhancements) and makes BiS tank gear unobtainable. At least using dps/mk-26 relics gives some reasoning to use 224 enhancements, otherwise all 224 is just pointless and even people maining tanks shouldn't spend a single 224 token on em. Third is absurd spikes met in hm/nim content, which used to be features to select bosses distinguishing them and giving some room for changing gear sets between fights for best performance, but now it's all just damn same. Having less than 80k hp as tank is not viable in NiMs period. Not a single competent enough healer gives a slight hint of **** if you take 3k or 4k dtps as long as you survive spikes. Even going full b-mods and high-end enhs won't make you that squishy btw. Raptus (HM, because NiM is a joke even when you have 2 failed dps challenges and enrage on top) hits sin for ~63k (unless baddie loses stacks) with driving/rising, basic attack is about 10k per hit afair. Unlucky mitigation rolls -> you're pretty much globalled in high miti profile and no healers won't have a single second between hits to react. Stormcaller, over 80% internal damage, suuuuure, mitigation gonna help a lot. Cartel Warlords, sitting at 95%+ internal damage (tanking Vilus for 2 phases) when I don't slack. Very artificial example, just felt like putting it in. Brontes, hands slam up to 47k and yes it hits like a truck even if you play "hybrid" and yes often healer just don't have time for you. Bestia, dat sweet 40k+ x2 cleave by monsters. What are assassins sitting at with max mitigation currently, 78k? Calphayus because endurance is better when you are ignored by healer because he needs to dps add. Council while kiting Bestia far away from raid since there are like 1.5 tanks left that can kite her without making healers a violent bloodthirsty psychopaths only wanting to learn where that tank lives. Masterblaster because scaling something to do 200% more damage while hp pool grew about 60% is so bioware. Also pretty much every boss in EC; Thrasher, The Terror, Corruptor. If somebody takes unnecessary damage, or you're all in tight burst check, or one of healers died you are getting very little heals if any at all. You goal is to survive this, and it just happens that mathematically mitigation is the worst form of survivability. Speaking simply, without healing you'll survive much longer with high endurance than with high mitigation, on average. Then we have lucky mitigation rolls streaks which make both profile almost same. But, most importantly, bad luck. If your healer was unlucky and derped and died, what makes you think YOU will have more luck? Worst case scenario, high mitigation profile is basically a dps in terms of squishiness, while mid/high endurance doesn't give a **** about shield/defense rolls in most cases. Yes your healers will have to do more work once disaster is rolled back into "impending" state from "already happening" state, but at least they will have something to heal and not rez. Minmaxing tank to minimize dtps is plain wrong, and what bioware did to our gear is just ludicrous. Even worse, nothing can be done really because the issue in the very basis (tank gear has much less endurance by design due to augments) and last time we saw balance was in 2.x -- which was achieved by... max mitigation enhancements being unavailable! Tl;dr: do not seek reason, gearing (tanks, at least) is done without any thoughts or logic put into it, in the most blunt way possible, and only difference between what we had before is that ones responsible for it did that **** without any particular goal in mind, apparently but hey that's like the diagnosis for the whole game now

After the so called "nerf", it takes about 1 minute on healing intensive fight to notice the difference in force management, and about same to fix it. If you don't have regen buff up 100% (cept burn healing while capped on force), you are doing it wrong. If you bubble people who aren't taking damage, you are doing it wrong. If you use revivification when only a few people take damage, you are doing it wrong. If your effective healing is less than 80%, you are doing it wrong. In the meantime, while keeping up force takes more than few brain cells now, burst is still godlike, and nothing was ever so close to "heal group to full" as current iteration of roaming mend. All while operatives are sobbing in the corner toying with 192/198 set 2p bonus to have some burst at all. Sorry, but anyone seriously complaining about sorcs being useless now, is useless as a healer and a burden for his group. Also, if you can't offdps at least half the time as solo healer on bonethrasher (any class, pre or post so called "nerf"), either your dps have 0 idea where to stand, or your so called "tank" have 0 idea what he is doing. Too bad I only healed 4/5 NiM TfB pug since so called "nerf", so my opinion is obviously irrelevant

What people above said. You virtually need no gear for all SM ops, and will only encounter troubles in very few select HM FPs (like Blood Hunt and Lost Island). HM ops is where pvp gear becomes not very viable, besides EV. DPS tend to use significantly less (or none at all) accuracy in pvp which gimps performance in pve, tanks are using dps mods/enhancements/augs (at least all tanks I know) which is not viable on all bosses. There are healers, though. No single HM fight that can't be healed in 208 and, frankly, many of NiMs aren't different.

What tanks? Last one I met in HM FP (thanks gf for Lost Island) was lvl64 jug in DPS gear, who got globalled on one of the first trash pulls, called me bad and ragequitted. No worries, rank 10 mako is here to help! She would make for a pretty ****** tank if I remembered to order her out of circles, but it was still much better, both on trash and first boss Then my stupidity made me to queue for replacement and we got... a sorc. Because veng jug in group was queing as tank (though I doubt he ever heard of the concept even as all his actions were following me and spamming 2 or 3 abilities). In other words, does it count as ragequit when 3 players start exiting instance at the same time?

Unless you did some behind-the-scene correction for incorrect logging, it's 6.42 seconds between CBs, which aligns almost perfectly with your estimated alacrity (~12.5%) with Zen on top of it Also, apparently, you are clipping ~100ms off BD in this sample, which is lower than your mentioned 300; then again, one can notice accumulating delays between activations so it doesn't really matter in the end. I kinda have same lack of understanding how clipping fits into this rotation, but my mind tells me not to bother for the sake of sanity and just accept it