It's not like you have much of a choice really. END will be on your tanking gear and there is no diminishing return on END, while there is on everything else you could get (except WILL). Unless you completely overgear content, you'll have to use the END gear. Once you overgear content, then you can start removing END for more WILL, just to make HM runs quicker for example. Also, one thing that was missed, is that pure END (and of course defenses), will give the tank longer to live during enrage phases. Could be one hit, two hits, but that's 3 seconds that can make the difference. END stacking is great in situations where healers simply cannot keep up.

That's like saying a level 50 character shouldn't be able to breeze through everything in a level 10 HC4. SWTOR is an item/level based MMO system so it's entirely logical to have 4 people in perfect top tier gear do what 8 people with low end gear can since, effectively (unless specific boss mechanics require more than 4 people), Rakata gear stat is almost DOUBLE the basic level 49ish/50 blue gear in same slot.

Nicely done and funny little video. Good combination of perfect execution, perfect classes (all with range potential, all with very heavy AE potential) for this and top end gear. Don't see any problem having 4 people in such a setup clearing out EV normal mode, which is meant for people barely in blues and 49ish crafted and is overall easier and more forgiving than most HMs flashpoints. When you see the stat differential between entry level 50 gear and rakata gear, it's like everything's doubled or close to it so now that even the 140 weapons are working, it kinda makes sense that 4 people can do what 8 people with entry level gear can do

Seeing how Bioware handled even a simple thing like sorting guild members by level in a guild panel, how many cunning defense items are still in the game, how some companions simple don't have options for weapons (Qyzen Fess anyone?), I don't think it's a stretch to think that there could be something odd with loot "randomness" in HMs. I played many years of MMOs with "random" drops from a given loot table. Never have I had a problem with it, because overall it made sense and it was down to just luck or bad luck, period. If you take WoW for example, mods allowed the parsing of thousands upon thousand of drops and it was clear that some items where rare, while some were more common. It also showed that there was a logic and that overall, it was just down to pure luck. Here, as said previously, things seem fixed as soon as you set up a group, or close to it, for no apparent reason. If there was a flat 25% chance for each tokens to drop, there is NO WAY so many people would see insane stretches of drops like this. I've run 19 HMs so far (Shadow tank, Shadow DPS, Sage healing and Sentinel DPS), usually with the same people and I have NEVER seen a single willpower token while I've seen 14 smuggler ones (with no smuggler in group) and 5 trooper ones (no trooper either!!). My healing companion is currently nearly full columni (just head and boots missing)...I got 2 pieces, from operations. Now, we simply stopped doing HMs

+1 here. Simple solution: If Master Looter is set, have it so the Master Looter sorts out the loots. If Master Looter is not set, handle loot as usual (and by that I mean via need/greed rolls, NOT auto assigned). Running normal guild runs with people new to raiding and the like only to have drops for people who do not need it, while people who do need it go multiple runs without any luck is a good way to keep people interested. Auto assigned loot in raids is just...an aberration.

Just adding my +1 here. Led an operation with mostly new people (barely geared, new to raiding, no voice chat and the like). We one shotted all encounters but SOA and Pylons, due to bugs. Pylons: - Consoles on the south pylon simply stopped spawning after 3rd lock on our first try. Was fine after reset. Infernal Council: - Our sage got the debuff for no reason whatsoever on our first try. We had no guard up and no AE/buff used. He was also properly linked with the target since once the debuff faded, he could DPS normally (but not fast enough of course). After reset, we cleared it no problem. - A Marauder type mob had the title "Assassin" instead of "Marauder" which led to a nice DPS race for one of our healers since downing 78k (I think, instead of the usual 28k for assassins) HP within time frame is...rough SOA: - Ball still pursuing people after platforms fell. The balls were UNDER us, nowhere to be possibly seen and yet we all got hit as we were bunching up between platforms. Almost wiped. - We wiped once during platforms and the encounter did NOT reset properly. When we came back, 3/4 of the platforms on upper level were missing, making it impossible for a push to phase 2. Forcing a reset on phase 1 put platforms back properly. - Aggro reset on phase 3. This made it almost impossible to position SOA. 2 tanks helped by rotating taunts a bit, but not enough. Couldn't down him because of it. - Multiple times we had our tanks perfectly position SOA under a pillar, only to have SOA reset aggro and move toward someone else for some reason.

Double shadow tanks with very heavy surge ratings and willpower/power focus. - Hard to kill - Nice Cooldowns (short CD 100% tech/force resist, 50% defense boost CD, Improved Battle readiness, boosted crits for bursts via potency) - 4 taunts and 2 guards depending on who is attacked, excellent to prevent burst combos. nearly spammable Accuracy and damage debuffs. - 1 interrupt each, 2 stuns each, 2 AE slows, 2 pushbacks, 2 8sec CCs, Stealth long duration CC (comboed via a double vanish to put out of combat once the trinket anti CC has been used). - Massive burst possibility via the double projects with relics/implants/potency combo with 75%ish surge rating, repeatable very easily. These are perfect finishers, followed by quick heavy htiter spinning strike. - Self heals via proc from combat technique, little but steady, improved battle readiness and improved augmented telekinetic throws. - Two vanishes on 2min CDs if you need to get out of combat and rest up a bit. VERY handy, even for a few ticks.

- By default, make all HM class tokens (columni drops) universal (while keeping the gear slot of course) - When at least one person rolls need, the winner will get a class token for HIS class. - If nobody rolls need, the winner will get a random class token (for companions).

+1 on this. Out of the recent 12 HMs, 9 had 100% cunning drops while nobody in there was a smuggler based class. 2 had trooper aim gear, with no aim people either! We had 1 or 2 relics dropping as well. Running a HM with nobody getting any loot but the tionese crap is a waste of time and very frustrating. That's 1 or 2 hours of utterly waste time. Make the tokens UNIVERSAL! That way everyone rolling need and winning will get THEIR class token and if everyone rolls greed, then it's a 100% random class token for the winner (for companions, etc). That way, there will NEVER be any token that isn't useful, unless people want to gear up their companions because they all already have that set piece.

True, 1% net gain. However, streaks of bad numbers appear to be a wee bit worst now, though of couse, it's just stats. My max double strike without proc before was 11 and that was REALLY the one bad luck, usually it could go for 6. Today, had a 19 double strike without proc on a champion. It's just stats, it's just a feeling, it's just bad luck, I KNOW. Just saying Love the change on spinning and whirling though.

Kolto is a rejuvenative liquid used widely at the time (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kolto). For hammer shot, it's quite simple to believe that it's an encased Kolto concentrate, held together by a particle beam, which dispers es on impact, providing a small healing factor. You can easily switch between this and regular impact ammos (for enemies) by a switch near the trigger, as long as you're using the proper cell. Or whatever

Don't attack them then? As a Shadow, unless there's nothing else, I never ever touch anything with heavy armor and above ~14k HP. For mercs, I just try to disrupt them while DPSing something else. There are many ways to do this: 2 stuns, interupt, KB and you can also just lure your current target out of the healer's LOS. And in worst case, just bail

An instant AE (with only a very slight delay from animation and 5m range, granted) is a wee bit harder to avoid than a long cast with a huge ground marker and beams everywhere. Plus, any jugg/guardian with experience will do this after a root leap/choke/freeze combo (for snare) and your stuns CDs are not gonna last the 15 seconds and are mostly very visible. As a Shadow tank, I usually save my speed burst for when I see it coming and that helps, but most classes don't have that and are stuck with the snare/root effects. If you trinket out of it, they just push/leap again and you're done for just the same. Properly played, a Smash/Sweep is one of the most damaging ability in the game currently, almost unavoidable, instant, AE with a 5 player hit cap, and always crit (which means shielding won't help either no matter what btw since 100% crit pushes shielding off the table completely). It's also on a 15sec CD and the 2 abilities boosting it are on a 21s and 1m CD, but while they help, they're not needed per se to already do a lot of damage. Means during a 1 minute fight, you can do 3 crit boosted sweeps. In all videos you see about this setup, no matter how well or badly the character is played, this ability is what defines them, and that's it. A vigilance spec is way more interesting to watch (and play) any day of the week.

That might work yes. Always getting kill counts (not killing blow of course) as soon as you heal someone that then kills someone is needed as well. That way healers would always get some decent kill score if they heal people who kill other people

The thing is, it's very, very easy to cheese healing all alone if you want and if they add more medals, it could push people to do this more and more. Already you can see thread about how to get the 5k heals and people actually advise to FAKELY take damage, wait for a specific time at the end and heal up or something. Or threads about people just going into fire, then just healing themselves for medals. DPS, you can't really fake it. While there is more important DPS than others, all DPS while be in some way useful. That said, there should be exactly the same number of medals and steps as healing. Tanking, you can't really fake it either and in many ways, it's even more important than healing (ok not more but on par). A proper tank will take 50% of ALL the damage done to the one he protects AND reduce the damage he takes (taunts) all the while doing damage. And when you think about it, there's only 3 or 4 tanking medals anyway. One major thing needs fixing however, it's objective based medals. In Huttball, it's so silly it's not even funny. In voidstar, it doesn't even seem to matter and in Civil War, it's just a push to AFK camp a spot.

While they usually legally cannot make what you say public unless they have court orders and the like, everything you do and type in any media can be read by someone, unless users are allowed to fully encrypt it. That applies to your SMS/Mails too btw. I remember that most engineers while working in telecom usually spent lunch breaks reading SMS and the like for fun. If you want anything private, do it in person.

It's decent play, but without THAT one ability combo, you'd be pretty much as everyone else damage wise. Everytime you fight someone, it's pretty even until you bomb that smash, then it's all over. I mean, no matter how you play, unless you're really, really bad, when you hit people for THAT amount of damage with pretty much no effort, you put them into such a HP deficit that the rest doesn't matter much. Don't get me wrong, you're mostly "aware", there are some nice plays and that's what counts, but one hit kill buttons on an AE ability don't scream "skill" to me, nothing personal.

It's not really a nerf, but a feeling. With 50%, you can already go 10 or so hits without getting a single proc and when that happens, it's aggravating already. With 30%, even with double strike hitting twice, there is still a big chance you'll never see a proc for an even longer time and in theory, an even bigger chance It's all random so of course, math wiz might come in and say all kind of silly things. But in actual play, that means long painful streaks with nothing happening and that's not good for PvE (threat) or PvP (damage). The fact that it can proc on each hit of whirling and now on spinning is nice though.

Assassin/Shadow have a stance (combat technique) that proc a little kinetic damage and leeches two or three times that. It's a "tank" technique kinda. Not a game changer, but it's nice to keep the pace going while questing and the like.

Really one of the greatest battlezones I've played in among various MMOs. It has everything and a bit for everyone. It's fast paced and it is possible to make spectacular comes back, unlike most WZs. If you think this is a "Jedi" only WZ, you're just thinking that you need to be the one scoring, which is a grave mistake in my book. Everyone has roles to play and this makes for very various and hectic plays. Only sad part is that most people don't really understand it and spend way, way too much time just DPSing randomly or putting ball carriers into full resolve for no reason whatsoever

Though there are little improvement to overall responsiveness, as a Jedi Shadow, Kinetic Ward and Mind Snap are still affected by delays and sometimes you need to press them 5 or 6 times before they even go off, which for Mind Snap in particular (being an interupt), is kinda useless.

Exactly! But to me, and this is only my opinion really, in most MMOs, you just kinda suck it up at some point. Here however, once I finished my first class quest, I had the EXACT same feeling as when I finished a sRPG such as Mass Effect or DA:O (just using popular ones as example). I had completed the lifespan of this character's story. I was fullfilled with that character, just as I was when I finished other sRPGs. The shock between THAT feeling, and the "let's now do nothing but dailies" syndrome, just left me completely uninterested. Worst, I WANTED to spacebar through everything because I've already heard it just the day before! 50 levels no spacebarring, not a day into 50 and BAM, I do nothing but spacebarring? What the heck? As you said, I can play most MMOs to date and get my share of dailies, operations and hard modes, they're all pretty much as good as the other. Heck, there's way way more variation in other MMOs because they've been around longer. SWTOR doesn't bring anything to the table on that front and to be fair, novelty with dailies die in 5 minutes. Operations and the like, sure why not. I'll probably come back in some month just to check them out for a bit. But a choice between that "meh" feeling of being 50 and rerolling another char, and another char, until there is nothing left...It's a no brainer to me. (edit: rephrased) To put it simply: - If you're going the MMO route, you want a barely decent journey and a good time when you arrive because you're gonna be there for a long, long time. - If you're going the sRPG route, you want a great journey and not care about the arrival because once the journey is over, nobody sticks around (ever tried to keep playing ME AFTER you finish the main quest? Geeesh boring). They've gone the sRPG route..on a MMO. It's not a bad MMO, but the journey's WAY better than the arrival...hence the fail in my book.

Well, it's a pretty decent single player game, i'll give it that! All MMOs I've played so far, which is pretty much every single non asian one that came out since Meridian 59, have been MMOs. By that I mean that the levelling process was a means to an end and grouping was encouraged to beat hard content at endgame (or during levelling). I've never been a hardcore raider but I've done my fair share. In these games, nobody really cared about anything before 50 before it was just...blahblahblah. Ok, you may care once somewhat, because of the novelty, but you don't really care about the story, what that means for your character and the like. You get my point. The difference here is that for the ENTIRE levelling process, people are a pain as I explained because having them around goes AGAINST the levelling process since it's so single player and story oriented (which I love btw). So if you're like me, you LOVE the levelling process (unlike most MMOs where it's just ranging from urghhh to whatever), you play the game like it was ME or DA:O or whatnot, very story focused. Then you get to max level and it's like..what the heck? Dailies? HMs. But I had that before, where's the fun I had while levelling gone? And that's my point really. An entire game developped with two completely different concepts, both opposing each other directly. In one, people are a pain, in the other, people are needed. In one, it's a sRPG, in the other, it's an MMO.

Leveled Powertech to 50, loved it. Got 50, spent half a day doing various 50 stuff, came back the next day: was boring as heck..rerolled and never went back. Leveled Commando to 50, loved it. Got 50, spent half a day doing various 50 stuff, came back the next day: was boring as heck..rerolled and never went back. Now leveling another character and I'll go round and round with this for a bit. Then planets will become too repetitive, characters will be the same, I'll stop playing. I don't see a problem with that personally, it's like any other game. You play while you have fun, you don't when you stopped having fun. I can see a problem for their business model however As for people, community? Well, nearly everything involving people actually goes against the core gameplay of the game and is there to actually ruin your own fun. - you have to wait to engage conversations - you choose something for your character and the result is not what you picked - people make you lag, no people, no lag! (was so awesome with all planets with only 1 or 2 people on it!) - people talk..sometimes they talk complete crap. Couldn't /ignore everyone so just removed all channels. Works great! - people compete with your objectives. You need to kill the boss leader that is terrorizing everyone in this sector? Oh, sorry, it was just killed, you need to wait. Duh! - people ruin immersion. Hey, wait, I HAVE Mako as my companion and I just married her! How the heck do you have her?! Duh! - people just say stuff to stay stuff. Hey, bye, let's group, selling or buying x or y. Who cares? Sooo, there. Two great concepts, completely opposed, put into the same boat, tearing each other apart. That's SWTOR to me

Thing is, you don't need to do anything but have the time for it to get PvP gear, just show up in WZ, lose or win couple hundred times and whatnot. No matter what, you WILL end up with that neat purple stuff (well, unless you're REALLY unlucky on bags and stuff, but same goes on for loot tables). Queue up, rack in, queue up, rack in. There is no downside: you got the time, they got your loot, guaranteed. PvE gear however, you need to organize people, get them to an operation or run flashpoints, actually put effort into running these and hope you can do it (you don't get ANYTHING if you lose, unlike PvP), then you're locked out so you have to wait a day or a week, then do that AGAIN, for a long, long time. I mean, that can take months even if you succeed all the time. So, apart from the pure PvE "challenge" of it, or someone playing couple hours a week and just running ops, PvP is the way to go to gear up, even if you lose all the time since you still get something, all the time and it's repeatable ad vitam. Why do you think nearly every single 50 out there is in PvP gear? Heck, on my server, there's barely anyone doing HMs, nobody ever going into operations. They just semi-afk on the fleet or on Ilum near boxes, pop into WZ, do whatever, rack in, and repeat. For the very few doing HMs, they are already in nearly full purple PvP gear so go and explain them what's the point As for the expertise stats...it's just like all stats and gear. The more you have, the more potential you have. That's part of the RPG systems kinda. If it's not expertise, it's gonna be more crit, or HP, or power, or whatever. Doesn't mean it's a 100% auto win. It's just a helper.