I love these threads. Pre 50's that have no expertise crying about how no healer can keep them up, other classes complaining about how we're a "utility class", people trying to say the bubble is the best heal in the game and a few that you can tell actually have some experience playing a 50 sorc/sage. I was a pure healer pre 1.2 and anyone that says we are truly viable healer now is just insane. I give mad props to any sorc/sage that is still healing! You have more stones than I do and I will happily applaud all of you! Our roll as a healer in PvP now is as a secondary healer and that will end when Ranked WZ's are implemented. You will be the first class targeted and downed. Simple fact of the matter is that BW couldn't fix a bug so they just nerfed the spec into the ground. We were over powered with the double dip, take that second infusion out and that would have been the fix all other classes were looking for. As for a sage/sorc being a "utility" class, I don't remember seeing that anywhere in the class description. So by most of you non sorc/sages reasoning we are supposed to essentially CC and run away hoping that our dots and FL (ohh wait we can't cast FL while running away) do enough damage that a real DPS class decides to finish you off? At this point, I play to simply annoy the crap out of people to the point where they are so frustrated that they actually will spend 2-4 mins chasing me instead of trying for the objective. As for DPS.. Cloth wearing casters have always been the "glass-cannon" class. The simple fact is we are missing the cannon part of that. We have no true burst/sustainable dps in PvP. Stop trying to justify a nerf because you still can't down us in 2 shots. LtP and you will see the sorc/sage is really not a threat to anyone PvPing that has even half a clue how to play their class.

I completely understand this. I truly do enjoy the game when I play but, there is just something missing. My personal belief is that it is the lack of a since of accomplishment. I played very casually while leveling, hitting all areas of the maps, doing the bonus series, ect. I some how ended up at 50. I felt I had to do absolutely nothing to get there. This seems to be the case in many aspects of the game. Hell, you don't even have to craft or gather materials. Have all your little pets do it, when I hit 400 in the skills I can't say that it was more than a passing grin. Unlike other games that you had to actually invest in you seem to be handed everything here. I understand the whole catering to a casual player, I am nothing beyond that myself, but that doesn't mean that something needs to be made so easy that people are able to level 5+ alts to 50 in this time and in the mean time conquer all end game content(I realize I used an extreme but you get the point).

1. Don't see this as a issue. I am on winning teams constantly that are all solo ques, as a matter of fact went 3-3 tonight for my daily all in pug's. It's not all about them being in a premade, they are also skilled, geared, and playing with like minded people. Take them out of the group and they happen to land in the same wz you will face the same demise you are now. 2. I agree with this to a point. I think it could be dialed back just a hair, but once you learn how to work the resolve it isn't really that bad. Frustrating maybe, but surely not a game breaker as it only really affects Huttball and then, only when you are the person carrying. Fast sorcs/sages can save someone from a stun lock situation. 3. I just have to laugh at this. I turned 50 three weeks ago, I didn't PvP until I was 49, I have a average play time of 2 hours a night, didn't really start grouping until last week, I have BM title with half the BM gear. Plus.. why complain they are giving it away starting 1.2. 4. lol.. I actually find Illum calming. When I just want to zone out and watch t.v. I hit the central assault. But I have to agree here. 5. I am almost spec'd full heal and do just fine. If a team is actually focusing on one target you shouldn't even have a chance of keeping them up. The bubble is more or less a small insta heal, don't look at it as more than that. It is to provide just enough time for you to get off a heal. If you think it is bad now... I hope you have another toon you can play as of 1.2. 6. You can get 5 just off of healing and then you should get at least the 10 and 25 players killed, if you help defend at least the 1k and possibly the 3k defender. How many do you want as a healer? I understand you won't always get them all but I can get close in most matches, even pug's. Simple fact here is if you want the medals you have to work to get them.

lol.. Ok I do have to say that I thought we could to, until SWtOR came out. A game with truly no grind at all. But in retrospect I have to say ,if running MC multiple times a week with 40 people and even better, 50 man raids for hours on end in EQ orginal, wasn't a grind then I don't know what is.

What SWtOR is missing is the grind, plain and simple! I have been playing these addictive games since UO beta way back in the day and played most notable titles along the way. The biggest thing that I have seen change over these years is that games are moving away from any sort of grind. Let us consider what exactly most consider a "grind". It is the process of leveling up, right? That is part of it, another part is instances, crafting, PvP and then there is just general exploration. All of these areas are a grind in some form or another. A grind usually indicates some sort of challenge that requires a good amount of time sink and all of those are exactly that. So let us start with leveling, SWtOR has no type of grind in this area. I did the power gaming thing through many titles through out the years and decided I would just take it easy with this mmo. Even doing this I hit 50 in less than 1 month, and that was with doing most of the "Heroic" missions, the bonus series on most planets and making sure I had at least hit all areas of the map. There is simply no challenge in leveling, I maybe died a total of 10x on both my toons and that was usually because I was trying to solo a orange "elite". I could only wish that I could do this even when I was powergaming in some past titles. Sooo, no grind/challenge here. Another part of a the "Grind" is usually instances. Why I will admit that I have not done a whole lot of them in SWtOR, I have listened to guildies discuss them, read the forum remarks on them, watched "General" chat while waiting for the PvP que and I have run some of them. There is no grind in this area either. I am sorry but if people are running successful pug's through "Hard Modes" and Ops with in the first 3 months of release then there simply can not be a grind here. The grind in instances should be having to figure them out by dieing 10-20x and coming back for more just to say you have downed such and such boss. People had cleared the hard mod stuff within a couple weeks of release. You have to give people a challenge, especially in this area. In most mmo's you don't have multiple raiding nights so that you can hit multiple Op's, you have them so you can try and finish up the one you started earlier in the week. This is what most mmo's are sustained on, that instance challenge at max level that you just can't seem to get past. I will digress from this area though because even though I have personally chosen not to run these, there definitely seems to be a lack of a challenge in this area. So let's move on to crafting. Simply put, there is absolutely no grind here. I love the crafting aspect of mmo's, always have. But let's be honest, there is no challenge in the crafting. I had all of my crafting skills to 400 well before 50, had all of my companions to max affection prior to 50 and had many T1 and a couple of T2 recipes for level 50 gear by the time I hit 50. There is no gathering materials, there is no taking time out of your playing to actually craft something and there is no killing hundreds of mobs to get that specific recipe. Those are all grinds and crafters love them, in SWtOR we have all these lil slaves to complete anything in this area. Now on to PvP. PvP did/does have a grind for gear. In this area they actually did leave a little bit of a grind because of the Valor reqs on some of the gear and the way you had to purchase the gear prior to hitting 60 valor. While I will admit the presence of a grind here, it is a very small grind. It took me all of 2 weeks get full Champion Gear, hit Valor level 60 and start in on the BM gear. That was playing about 2 hours a night and not pvping at all until I hit 50. Well, even this little grind is gone as of 1.2. Finally, all of the Easter Eggs. Well these are a grind to a point. But in most mmos these are rare items that you are lucky to get even if you put in the time to get to where they are supposed to be. Simply because they were on a lengthy respawn timer. In SWtOR, get past the bugs and get there and you are guaranteed to find said item, grab it and move on to the next one. Not to mention this is usually something most folks do while completely bored on an off night and most don't even consider doing simply because they were usually novelty items. In SWtOR a lot of these easter eggs are datacrons and there for a competitive player will either get them as they are leveling up or grab them all in a good night of playing once they hit 50. I won't even go into codex items, simply put these are pointless items that most folks just stumbled upon while leveling. Most won't even consider going back and getting all of these, there's no point. Google them and you can read them all any way. Personally I will continue to sub simply because I have gotten older and have taken a REALLY casual approach to SWtOR. It is exactly what I was looking for when I purchased it. That being said, I really can feel for those that are looking for a challenge/grind. They flew through leveling not because they were rushing to 50 but because there was no challenge along the way. Hell people don't even have to worry about getting level appropriate gear simply because they know that on the next planet they will basically replace or upgrade it all. Then they hit 50 in anticipation of running some raids and getting on to the harder content. When they start in on the HMs/Ops they come to realize they can fly through these as well. What it all boils down to is that there has to be a "epeen" value to any mmo. The people who put in the time to accomplish things in any game want to be able to show off said items and not have every player be able to accomplish the same thing 2 weeks after they hit 50. This is a VERY casual game and will be great for casual players as long as they continue to add content as fast as they are. As for the true power gamers out there, I feel for you. I really do. But considering that it is 3 months in and ALL content has been beaten does not bode well for this MMO holding your interest . So for all of you casual players out there, take some time and consider what these people are saying and stop with the "well quit" statements. Simply put you should not be able to conquer all of the content in 3 months on any MMO. And for all of you powergamers, accept the fact that this game is perfect for casual players and will probably never change. BW has chosen their audience and it is not the hard core MMO players. Unfortunately they made a massive error in this area because casual players will always stayed sub'd because they always have something to do, you all on the other hand have already started looking for the next challenge. What is truly sad about this is that it is such an easy fix. /End wall of text

Over the last week I have noticed a large increase in my companions crits in regards to gathering missions(specifically Underworld Trading). At first I just wrote it off as a streak of luck and enjoyed it for a couple days. Then I went to the GTN to throw all of this great fortune up for sale. I was a little taken back to see the amount of Epic lvl 6 materials that were available compared to 2-3 weeks ago. They all sold and I moved on. I continued to send off my lil minions over the weekend and continued to get these crits at a alarming rate of 25-30% varying between comp. gifts, fabrics and metals. With gifts being the higher end numbers and fabrics being the lowest numbers. So I set aside the portion I keep for my own use and set off for the GTN, I almost hit the floor when I saw the countless pages of epics available. Almost 19 full pages of epic comp gifts, so I lower my prices and just write it off as supply vs. demand. So I move on to metals and fabrics. I think my jaw actually did hit the floor when I edited my search for epic UT materials, 8 pages of metal and 3 pages of fabric. When the norm is maybe 1-4 listings of fabric and maybe 2 pages of metal. So I undercut the prices by a fraction and post them up. This was Sunday afternoon. Monday comes around, and I log on and not one thing has sold. I check the GTN and there are now even more postings for every item type. I started looking a little closer to make sure this isn't just someone who had hoarded and then flooded the market. Nope, most item stacks contain 2-4 and are listed by different folks, some having multiple listings of course. I completely understand market fluctuation and supply vs. demand but this seems to be too coincidental. Am I the only one that has noticed this? Was there a increase in drop/crit rates for certain skills or all skills for that matter? If this is just happen chance then so be it, but if this is something intentional or being noticed across servers then I will have to look at how I send my crew out.