I am back after a couple months off from this game. I return to a backpack full of seemingly decent starter pvp gear. I'm not terribly interested in pvp, so my main question is what content in pve is appropriate for me to do with that gear? Hard mode flashpoints, story mode ops? I'm a BH healer, any feedback would be greatly appreciated as I really do not want to queue up and ruin it for other people.

Remember how that was 8 years ago?

It makes perfect sense, as a consumer I don't care about your $15 a month, I simply care about mine. So complaining that my issue isn't fixed but yours was makes perfect sense. With my $15 a month I only care about what pertains to me. I couldn't care less that they fix your issue, doesn't affect me in the slightest.

As someone who played since vanilla, I've run hundreds of dungeons, both before lfd and after. The main difference in the "rudeness" is that prior to lfd even if a dps was pulling your group down you were inclined to deal with it because getting a replacement was so difficult. I put up with way more ninjaing/rudeness prior to lfd because someone could effectively hold your group hostage, or at the very least put you on hold for 15 minutes or so if you found them to be intolerable. Many times would I sit through the hour + of the group leader spamming "LF Healer then g2g" only to finally form, someone has to leave, group fails on first pull, etc. Then the group just falls apart. So yeah, I see it differently, its not that people were nicer, its that they were always after efficiency and without lfd its more effiicient to put up with the ninja/rude player because god knows how long it will take to replace them. At least with lfd its easy to boot the problem players and quickly move on.

People who don't care how much dps their teammates do have never hit a wall with an enrage timer. Tell me how to figure out how to see who is being a drag on the team and causing us to hit enrage without a meter and I will accept the fact that I do not need meters.

So what you're saying is you can watch a dps, potentially a class you've never played. And tell every single move they do, just by looking at them? And in order to know what their dps is, you know every class/spec's rotation and what kind of dps they are capable of? I have to say, you're a better player than I if you are already at that point. Most of us need a little help and don't have the superhuman ability to see every single move the other 7/15 people do, and how to put said moves into context. My hat goes off to you sir.

And good for them, they'll get to have fun on a level they enjoy. Combat logs being private/public should be optional. Your casual joes can have a blast doing content they are able to do with no hassle, and your min/maxers can turn theirs public and analyze their spreadsheets until the cows come home. Everybody wins.

Exactly, which is my point, damage reduction cds are prediction based not reactive. Only worthwhile when you know something bad is going to happen. Way off topic now.

Kind of. When tanking there are typically 3 types of cd's in my experience with other mmos. Ones that prevent death, self heals, and damage reduction. Only the first two are of any use reactively. From everything I have seen all the tanking cds fall into the last category of damage reduction. If you get into an emergency situation where you are at say 10% health its unlikely damage reduction is going to save you. In order to get the most out of a damage reduction cd they are optimally used when you know a large amount of damage is coming your way. If your issue is with gear or heals it is very doubtful that taking 50% less damage for 12 seconds out of every three minutes is going to save you. Maybe I am wrong about what kind of cds tanks get in this game and there are big self heal/prevent death ones. I don't know

If the tank doesn't need to use his 2 and 3 minute cds to tank raid bosses the game needs tuning. Those cooldowns are there for a reason, whats the point if you don't need them?

This is the best solution in my mind. Seeing how many people are opposed to metrics, there will clearly be a demand for groups who leave the meters off/private. Making off/private/public optional should make everyone happy.

Not to sound elitist, but as long as enrage timers exist, you are hurting not only yours, but 7/15 other people's chances of successfully raiding. Its possible you'll be grouped with superstar dps that makes up for your damage, but my understanding is anything beyond normal mode has very tight enrage timers. People don't boot people for low dps just because they like being jerks (well not most people) they do it because everyone has to do their job or bosses don't die. Not the worst thing in the world, but if Bioware wants to go down this path I think it would be best if they found a better mechanic than enrage timers.

Also, expanding on my earlier post. Without concrete data healers tend to get blamed for everything. Why? Because dps/tanks don't always realize they are standing in the fire, standing too close to someone else and spreading the damage, etc. If they did realize it, they wouldn't be doing it. I hate to beat a dead horse, but especially as a healer I get blamed for everything anyway. I've always found it incredibly helpful to show people "No you died because you were taking avoidable damage." Just pointing out to most people that their death was their fault and they get upset, tell you to learn 2 heal and whatnot. Basically all the abuse you dps fear gets shifted to the healer because without a way to prove otherwise people are rarely able to objectively look at themselves and admit they made a mistake and then shift all the blame outward, at me, the poor healer.

See, I perceive detailed logs to resolve this kind of situation. Some people are jerks about it, but maybe your wife actually was the issue? Maybe she wasn't and people were standing in fire. With detailed logs, as someone who heals frequently, I find it immensely helpful to go to the tape. They blame me and I can objectively prove thanks to logs "no you died from standing in fire". Without logs tunnel visioning dps/tanks will claim they weren't because they didn't realize they were taking tons of avoidable damage. When you can go to the meter you can prove definitively one way or the other. It sounds like your problem came from not having all the data. Only being able to see dps people were left to guess about the rest. If you think without meters people won't make their best guess at whats wiping the group, you are mistaken. At least when you boot people because of what your meter tells you, you're making an objective, fact based decision.

You know addons work the other way too? I mean I always hear the argument of the player in best in slot gear who is the worst player in history because he stares at meters. Lets say currently you're doing a boss and you hit enrage over and over again. You have 1 dps in awesome gear, one in bare minimum gear. When you hit enrage who do you think gets the boot? I always hear the argument its the player not the gear. Without concrete evidence it becomes about the gear. If I have 2 dps in vastly different gear levels and have issues with dps, as it stands now I will boot the person in bad gear and keep the person in good gear. I don't like that, but odds are its the person in bad gear thats the issue, I have no way to know for sure. I've seen in many games people play way higher than their gear level. With concrete data I could know if the person in great gear is really bad and he is the drag on my group. More information with which to make educated decisions can never be a bad thing.