Ok, I give up. Moderately geared Jugg at level 70 on Story difficulty, these guys pretty much one shot me without fail. I haven't gotten them below roughly 99% much less killed them. On previous toons, I don't even remember the fight it was so non-descript. What gives, they discover steroids or something?

Ki Sazen. Sergeant Jaxo Overseer Harken

I think the companions system in general was poorly thought out from a replay perspective. Only Jaesa has any variation, regardless on how you treat the rest all the interactions are based solely on how many trinkets you've given them. Also, every class having the same 5 companions regardless of player choices just seems lame. As, for example, a Bounty Hunter, why can't I kill/carbonize Gault and get Thana as a DPS companion? Why are all Troopers stuck with Elara instead of Sergeant Jaxo? The drawbacks of voice actors I guess.

It's pretty sad how tiny and cramped the 'fleet' seems. Hell, adding a dueling area (with observation lounges) and a huttball arena would be pretty nice, and people have been asking for it since before launch. Make the VIP lounge actually have a point...oh well, until they figure out how to monetize it nothing will happen.

You left out: Items: Khem Val/Bowdaar/Broomark will have their Devoted Ally weapon upgraded to 192 like all the other companion weapons. Ashara Zavros' offhand sabre will not be set to mainhand only. Also, forgot exactly which, but some of the level 178 earpieces have worse stats than level 148 ones.

The problem with all the companions is you're locked into them by the storyline. Every class has at least 1 or 2 companions that honestly can't fit with the others...what possible rationale is there for having both Skadge and Mako? One or the other would leave (or get killed I guess). Look at the agent...Kaliyo and Lokin? Kaliyo and Temple? Vector and anybody? The Republic side has the same issues....which trooper honestly would have both Elara and Vic at the same time? Fortunately, at this point in the game, companions are basically window dressing, but back going through the class quests the first time, they were a big disappointment for me. So much wasted potential.

An argument can be made that by forcing server consolidation, the player may never have created more than X on a server, why should he be forced to either delete a character or pay extra to create a new character. In any case, it is a blatant cash grab on the part of Bioware. I personally have max toons on 2 different servers...several are just there to hold names, but in both cases 3-6 characters got 'joined' to max by involuntary merges. I have no problem deleting some since with the merges, obviously no need to save the name. But if I just liked fiddling around with tons of alts, this would make it harder. So, basically, they're forcing players to pay for the solution to a problem Bioware created.

Given a choice between equally skilled players, I think PT/Vang pure tank is the single worst spec to bring to a WZ. The only situation I'd want one is to protect a healer, but only if no better tank were available. They have, compared to the other 2 tanks (not even talking about the hybrids, which is what you should have anyway) worse CDs, worse defenses, equal or less DPS, and less utility. There is not one single thing the PT/Vang can do as well as, much less better, than the other 2. Well...they have stealth scan.

Fully talented Orbital Strike/Flyby could theoretically hit for well over 60k without even critting....with crits, I'm guessing at least 100k. That is a 12 seconds easily avoided well-marked attack though, with 3 seconds of warning before the first tick.

It's on the Armoring, only. Also, armorings are slot specific, other parts are not, so a chest piece armoring can only go in a chest piece. The mods and enhancements are not slot-specific.

On the Republic side, most of the LS/DS choices seem to make sense, or are at least not blatantly stupid. Sith side, the sanity is just missing. Yah, we need you to kill a bunch of innocent people...you'll get light side points if you murder them in a less painful fashion though. Yah, ok, fail.

Even the quests with unique dialogue, most are not actually branching...you may get a different response to one line, but it just jumps back to the trunk of the tree after that, choosing one or the other option may net dark or light points, but won't change the actual quest, rewards, or objectives. Some of the choices may affect things (i.e. the Captain's death in BT, spacing the engineers in Esseles) but the vast majority...don't do anything except alter the response you get, after which the cut scene goes on exactly the same.

I think the issue people have with BM (now WH) being so useful in PvE is that it basically puts PvP on the ladder for end-game raiding - and looking at the stats above, it should be obvious why. As a fresh 50, before 1.6 what would you rather have, someone in recruit/BM or someone in 50 greens with some 45-50 stuff? At least the recruit gear has been free for a while, so you didn't HAVE to PvP to get free basic 50 gear. With 1.6, the choice is possibly even worse....Tionese or WH. Is there even a choice? Really, I think the issue is that basically, when you ding 50, all the gear you have accumulated for 49 levels becomes, except possibly for cosmetic choices (and your level 49 augments), completely and utterly worthless.

Honestly, some of the companion choices are mostly so horrible and forced that it's not even funny. Smugglers get a wookie, a princess, a farmboy, a bad***** bounty hunter and a failed jedi....Agents get a psychopath, a psycopath, a psycopath, a gunslinger who's abilities have nothing to do with her storyline, and an insane robot (which, admittedly is kind of cool). Thana, Ki Sazen...Watcher X...all of these would have been awesome, interesting and actually fit the story, both as individuals and as part of the agent's team. The other mirror classes aren't quite so bad, though comparing the BH's stable with the Trooper's completely lackluster companion set (well, M1-4X is kind of funny to have around) is pretty close; the selection of companions is pretty lacking, just considering the many great NPCs that SHOULD have been options (SGT Jaxo, I'm looking at you!).

I really like my snub X-55 riot queller

The issue here would be that everyone would skip the earlier tiers. Whether or not that is desireable is another argument, but that is what would happen. Since PvE progression doesn't have this sort of turn-in nonsense, I'm not sure why PvP does, but oh well.

Easiest 'fix' would be simple: turn in any WH piece for the same slot to get the EWH piece - so any chest will get you EWH Stalker's, for example. That way the musical stats won't matter quite so much (will still mess with set bonus) and the side effect will be that people can swap specs with out too much pain in re-gearing.

It's part of the lag-o-rific Hero Engine . I've been killed at what looked like full health by 2k damage many times.

Once you get Cover Pulse and Leg shot, he won't ever get to kill you again, assuming you're as skilled as he is, so he's getting his shots in now. Seriously though, see the above post.

Also, some shared trees are viable for both ACs...some not so much. Madness Assassins are extremely rare, and having been playing since early release, I've seen exactly 1 (ONE) lethality operative. The shared trees for those two classes are simply not really viable, unless you are doing it just for fun. The lethality one in particular, you're actually going against your core mechanics (stealth, heavy opener from stealth, need for TA) to use. Requiring a 3-4 ability set up to use a channeled ability from melee (with no real gap closer)? No thanks. OTOH, Smash Marauders, while in some respects less potent than Juggs, compensate in other ways; and Pyro mercs are at least better than arsenal mercs, even if they still underperform compared to pyrotechs

Dodge is mainly useful against....other snipers/gunslingers. Though it also counters ravage/masterstrike, maras/sents have too many other abilities it doesn't stop and in any case it only last what, 5 seconds if specced?

The problem is, bads will never get better if their first (and almost certainly only) WZ they get rolled by fully aug'd WH premades on teamspeak. The under-50 WZs do little to prepare the 'bad' for the facestomping Biofail has decreed he or she must submit to for a week or more just to have BM gear. True, you learn from failure, but the amount and magnitude of fail that this game requires you to submit to in order to learn (and, as importantly, gear up) is a little too steep. Sadly, the facestompers seem to be a majority of the surviving PvP population - many of them have 49 uber-twinks just so they can continue to not face actual competition. But it's ok, bad n00bs are what are causing the mass unsubs right?

No, some of the classes have only 2 options at BM level, and 3 at WH - so two of the WH options can be chosen for one of the BM. I have only noticed this for belts, wrists and some main-hands.

Is it hacking or is it lag? Thanks to the Hero engine and Bioware's total lack of communication, you'll never know!

Basically, it's a great ability only if it were free. But instead, it's in tier 5 of a mediocre spec, and essentially just cancels roots/snares for 8 seconds out of every 30. Since, last I checked, every melee has a spammable snare that will be on us the entire time HO isn't, it's only 'nice' not the best by a long shot, especially since you will be stunned for most likely 4 of those 8 seconds anyway. It's useful for preventing KBs too, and actually that is all I really use it for. Well, that and charging snipers. Frankly, without it AP would be completely impossible to play, but really, having to build stacks, use a CD, then hope for no stun? Especially since the knight/warrior version stops this too, as well as stuns, slows, mezzes...at tier 3, so hybrids can get it more easily. Oh, and is ATTACHED to a gap closer, instead of BEING the gap closer.