PVP: - Darkness -- I haven't played pure tank spec in PVP in quite a while, it just feels too restrictive and immobile compared to Juggernauts/Guardians and PT/VG tanks when Force Speed isn't available. - Deception -- burst is fine, but if the target survives the initial burst, it's usually not going to end well. Also, practically no ranged interrupt capability -- this is why I use a hybrid spec, purely for the 30m interrupt with Death Field/Force in Balance. - Madness -- the non-cleansable DoTs change were supposed to help us, but actually they make very little difference to us, whereas it has hugely empowered Sorcs/Sages. This really doesn't work well when the only thing we can proc is Crushing Darkness/Mind Crush by using Thrash/Double Strike. Burst damage is non-existent, and it takes far too long to "set up" the damage. PvE - Darkness -- increase timer on the Dark Protection/Shadow Protection buff by 3 seconds to 15 seconds. This is purely a quality-of-life issue, and does not affect "balance". (*perhaps* instead change the way Thrash/Double Strike triggers Energize/Particle Acceleration chance such that each activation puts up 1 stack of a buff (with say a 6 second duration itself), and at 2 stacks it triggers Energize. This would keep the average number of Energized procs the same, but give an ability to activate Energize "on demand" by keeping 1 stack of this buff on-hand -- I have not really worked through the rotation impact of this, but it "feels" as if it will give us more control rather than being at the mercy of the RNG). - Deception -- again, burst is fine, but sustained needs to be increased. I think this could be done by reducing the rate limit on Surging Charge/Shadow Technique, which would not significantly change our burst damage, but would help with the sustained. - Madness -- the rotation is clunky. Allowing the DoT timers to line up better would make it more accessible. There should also be some burst capability, maybe by allowing Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw to "use up" remaining duration on certain DoTs (or perhaps just on Death Mark/Force Suppression charges in a similar way to how Cull/Wounding Shots works). Or, this could be given to Maul/Shadow Strike. (Both abilities are pretty much absent from the Madness/Balance spec and this would be a way of giving them some purpose). Wildcard - Make Phase Walk instant-cast, and last 5 minutes. It would still be a gimmick, but of more use than it is now. (Just as flavour stuff, allow Force Speed wearing off to reset the cooldown on Phase Walk, or allow Teleporting via Phase Walk to reset the cooldown on Force Speed).

For me, the TS3 overlay worked most of the time, but I also discovered that it caused me to crash to desktop when changing areas, so it's now off, and I rely on the LCD display on my G150 keyboard.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong on this, because during the last Gree Event, when I was on my Gunslinger, I was often healed by flagged healers while doing the Pylons H4 in the PVE area, but never once became flagged. I see no possible exploit with a Flagged healer healing an Unflagged player. Please enlighten me if you know different.

It's not "2.6". We did him with no problems last week (2.6 dropped on Tuesday 4th Feb). We also had not seen Raptus change target to someone during the Force Execution cast, and that caused at least 2 wipes. About the push, this week my co-tank got knocked right out of the circle from the square in the middle of the area at least 3 times, and I only avoided such a fate one time because I hit one of the archways to the Trials.

Bust Volley? Is that some new Beach Volleyball move, to go with all these skimpy tops from the cartel market?

Well, if it was intended at PVP, it's completely missed. Flyby/Orbital Strike are mostly used in Warzones to prevent caps, and the faster cast time and lower energy cost actually make it better for that. It might not persuade people to get the heck out of the area as much as it used to (once they realise that it only tickles) but it certainly does act to prevent someone capping a node for the full duration (which is in fact 3s longer with the 4-piece PVP set). All of which leads me to think that it was in fact aimed at reducing its' use in single target rotations as they stated, even though they've done it in a very stupid way, and gone the wrong way -- IMO giving Flyby a longer cast time, say 4-5 seconds, would probably have done the job in preventing it being used in a rotation, while preserving its' iconic "level 50 smuggler trademark" ability role. (See the 2.7 Smash spec changes for what a PVP-targetted AE nerf actually looks like).

(my emphasis) None of your examples achieve anything that Force Speed can't do. At best, they're effectively ways of making Lemonade out of the Lemon we've been given. I agree with Kayriel's 2 suggestions (make it instant cast, and let it last 5 minutes) -- they would improve the usability of the ability immensely.

Surely in that case just decreasing the rate limit a little on Surging Charge/Shadow Technique would do the job (i.e. reduce the internal proc timer so it can proc more often)? Burst remains pretty much unchanged, sustained goes up.

If you have old Rakata gear, the set bonus on those will still be valid. If not, ditch anything that still has Expertise on it (with the possible exception of the old War Hero/Elite War Hero relics). It's quite sad to see people turning up in the 30-54 warzone brackets wearing old Centurion/Champion/Battlemaster gear that used to be cutting edge when they last played, and getting destroyed by people wearing greens -- sadder still when they can see that their stats actually go up when they unequip those pieces and leave the slots empty, but refuse to do so... (If you had old War Hero gear, you'll find the Expertise has gone but the gear itself will bolster really well, and will serve you fine till you replace them at 55).

I'm pretty sure he means, "don't hit FB when there's a CC'd mob next to the one you're hitting", not "don't waste Force on a single target" (since, unlike Slow Time, Force Breach isn't "smart").

I also believe something has changed in the latest patch (on Monday 10th Feb). We'd been doing Raptus every week with little difficulty for months, then Tuesday we wiped twice on him at the end of the evening (we'd already done all of DF HM) -- we assumed it was because people were getting tired and we'd easily finish him on Wednesday. It actually took us over 2 hours on Wednesday to beat him, and only once we'd noticed the weird aggro switches to the person that had been kiting him during the Challenges phase and watch aggro like hawks. Whichever developer has been fiddling with that event, stop it, and put it back the way it was.

Speaking as a Shadow that's tanking Oricon hard-mode Ops, I spend a lot of my time glancing at the buff bar/hotbar to make sure I am keeping up the stacks on Shadow protection and to make sure I don't refresh Kinetic Ward too early/too late (too early and you waste the stacks of Kinetic Bulwark, too late and you lose 20% shield chance). However, if you want an easier life, you can just refresh KW/DW on cooldown and not be an awful lot squishier, since not having the 20% shield chance is much worse than losing the Bulwark early). As for the DW animation itself, those screenshots do indeed look rather horrible, although it did take time for me to get used to the KW floating rocks too.

Getting the codex entries for the Loremaster of Voss achievement explained an awful lot about the Voss, and it doesn't paint them in a good light at all. If the codex entries are "truth", then the Jedi Order's misgivings about their path make a heck of a lot more sense.

Easiest thing to do for the cash reward would be to add it to the completion reward, and that can much more readily be varied by level.

DPS specs use a Focus. Again, see the Dulfy.net guides for Shadow DPS specs.

During combat, the only way to "instarefresh" (which I interpret to mean getting full stacks from zero stacks) during combat is to use the 2-minute cooldown Force Cloak, and the way to "refesh" it (interpreted to mean "maintain 4 stacks") is to use Telekinetic Throw with 3 stacks of Swirling Shadows. I'm not really sure how that becomes "SO MANY ways". If you prefer another comparison, look at the duration of Upper Hand for Scoundrel Healers -- 2 stacks on uncloak, and at least 3 different abilities that will probably proc a stack, lasts 16 seconds. For PVE, 3 seconds more (=2 extra GCDs) will put it into a comfortable place where it can be maintained 100% even allowing for problems -- as you can bet that any balancing Bioware do will absolutely assume 100% uptime, this is a fair way of allowing us to actually maintain that.

I'll have to check my log files, but you need at least enough accuracy to hit 105% F/T accuracy (equates to 95% melee accuracy) to overcome the 5% basic resist chance that everyone except the Sorcerors/Consulars have. So if you have zero accuracy from the talent tree, and 1% from your Legacy Companion, you still need to get 4% accuracy from your gear, which equates to 279 points of accuracy rating. So I guess, the trade-off is, does the extra damage on double strike crits outweigh whatever benefit you could get from 279 extra points of crit or surge... I guess I'll play with it and see.

While you're clearly working on the assumption that multi-boxing is not a violation of the terms of use, the example you were responding to has no such explanation. If the player were actually there, their behaviour would not be to revive on top of a mob, regardless of how stupid they are. So, please, stop defending the actions of someone who almost certainly IS running an automation program, seemingly in order to make yourself feel better about your multi-boxing.

Another option would be to prevent other people attacking (including taunting) a Locked mob at all. There are other side-effects of this, including being unable to genuinely help someone else who got into trouble with their mob, but if it were reserved for Champion mobs, it would address many of the exploits seen recently in those Tunnels.

Well, I guess it depends on how much Accuracy you have on your gear. I am at just over 95% with the 2 points, and that gives me enough to make sure my Force abilities, including Force Lift and Mind Maze, won't miss on any non-Consular/Inquisitor, and leaves more of my Enhancements available for Power+Surge.

I think he's assuming that, since 75 gear is the next step up from 72, he needs to be getting that. Oriconian is the next upgrade if you have full Verpine, but the Underworld pieces (which you can get from some bosses in the new 16SM ops) can still be better. (For implants/earpieces, I believe the Veracity crafted implants/earpiece are slightly better than Underworld in terms of Mitigation, although their Endurance and Mainstat are far lower). For PVE, as a beginner, DaiKaede's "Kinetic Combat Shadow - Simple Guide" should be very readable and useful. For PVP, I personally play a 2/31/13 hybrid spec but I have 2 sets of gear, one Tank set and one DPS set (I always keep a Shield Generator equipped), and switch as required depending on the Warzone - for example, if it's an Arena (or more rarely, one of the other Warzones) with a single Healer and no Tank, I'll switch to Combat Technique, put on my tank set, and Guard the healer. Similarly, in Voidstar I'll be in Shadow Technique with DPS gear when attacking, and (usually) switch to Combat Technique with Tank gear when defending.

While I don't have Guard on a Keybind (yet... I will set one tonight) switching guards even in PVE can help significantly. For example on HM Brontes, in the down-to-50% phase, our Combat Sentinel jumps on the Kephess Clones to turn them away, while our DF Gunslinger continues to plug away at the Boss - so we keep the close-in Ranged DPS guarded for that part, then switch to healers once we're getting to the 6-fingers phase. After that, aggro is shot to pieces anyway by Brontes' "fire and forget" so it's a taunt-fest.

Nice stuff. Regarding your Infiltration/Balance hybrid (0/31/15), I personally use 2/31/13 (2 points in +2% accuracy from the Tank tree vs. +50% surge on Double Strike). Any particular reason you prefer that? Also, regarding Resilience, does that really block Interrupts (as opposed to Stuns or Knockbacks)?

Yes, the guide is helpful. In particular, it helped change my mindset of "I must get 3 stacks of shadow protection ASAP by proc'ing Particle Acceleration by spamming Double Strike", and "I must channel all of my TkT even though I now have 4 stacks of SP". However, the constant refrain of "12s is plenty, L2P, deal with it" does absolutely run counter to the general "Quality of Life" changes handed out to MANY classes since 2.0 -- I'm sure the same argument applied to Watchman Sentinels and their Merciless buff, but I'm also pretty sure I haven't seen KBN telling those classes that they need those tight timings in order to act as a badge of distinction. TL;DR: Thanks for the guide. But 12s timer is poor for Quality of Life.

IF the Reputation Levels were more gradual (and linear), AND that the reputation could continue to be accrued "somehow" when the event was not active, it would make some sense, but neither is true. In particular, the first few ranks, almost up to Hero, can be gotten in 1 week, but the rest will take much much longer -- a casual player that only has 1 character doing the dailies say 3x during one Event Week will probably not experience the "final content" for several years. Also, you seem to not have understood my suggestion, in particular, the week-by-week unlocks. Let me try and explain again: - week 1: You receive a Message leading you to the first stage, which might involve finding a missing agent on Alderaan -- they could be found in a spaceport hangar story area, scaled to your level, and they aren't coherent and attacks. As you finish subduing them, a GSI team arrives, and scans him - they scan you also to make sure you aren't infected, before telling you that there might be a bigger problem, but ask you not to broadcast it and cause a panic. - week 2: (the previous mission is still available) If you completed the week 1 mission, you get a follow-up message from GSI saying there does seem to be evidence that there is a Rakghoul colony on Alderaan and they're looking for it. You might get a mission to scan various areas, or talk to various people, to help narrow it down. When that's reported back, they tell you to be ready, because things are about to get bad. Week 3-- next stage is available. Then in week 4, the event proper kicks into high gear. In other words, if someone isn't eligible by their level for the first mission, if they get it on week 3 they can then run through all the preceeding missions and "catch up" with the story -- but for higher level players, they get a new piece each week. (Even casual players that only play once a week can catch up as needed). The Staged missions could award reputation items week by week.