I am having a little trouble getting the picture in regards to the various types of power. So let me get this straight : Tech Power applies to some technological device, like a blaster or a light sabre. Force Power applies to "casters" like Force Sweep, Force lift, etc. Plain POWER applies across the board to healing and DPS. Is this correct? Please elaborate as needed. But stats apply too. And it gets tricky. For example, I see under TECH menu for my BH that Cunning applies as well as the primary stat, Aim. So other than stepping through all the menus one by one, is there a good way to figure out what secondary stats your toon will benefit from? Thanks for any help you can offer !!! - not spell checked -

Is the Tionese Mystic set the stat road map I should follow for healer Sage gear ? I may have been using the wrong stats all the way to LvL50... I assume the Tionese set for a healer Sage is "Mystic". But when I review stats, I see that compared to my current gear, it is really a lateral change to different stats and no big improvement overall. In fact, in some cases I'd be going backward. Correct me please, but it looks like the Mystic set focuses on Willpower, End, Power and Alacrity. Up to this point, I have focused on Willpower, End, Crit and Alacrity and only used Power when I couldn't find Alacrity. Should I follow the Tionese set stats and/or will I notice I goodly improvement in my healz if I make the lateral switch to Tionese away from my current Crit/Alacrity gear that is similar in overall rating? Any other recommendations for acquiring entry level to End Game Gear ??? Thanks in advance guys !

My guild is called House Cat Mafia. Cathar are a must! Mine may/will be: Felix, Fritz, Isis, Mewsette And since my Legacy name is Mars: Mynx Mars Although, I have to give this some more thought. In WoW, one guy played one of those tanking Owl beasts and named his toon: Owl K Pwn. I really need to try to come up with a name of that caliber...

to the OP: I don't understand. We already have the hide-helmet toggle. Are you talking about for a companion ? I could be wrong, but I think we have that too, although I have really not payed close attention. And last time I looked, I have 6 toons on Harbinger. I thought someone said we have 12 toons per server. You mentioned a limit of 2 for subbed players? That can't be right. So, I really don't understand your questions...

I started a new Agent on the Left Coast RP server. I was talking to some new players and realized they were having fun but were frustrated and needed some generic advice. The way they were going about things, it would take a while to level. So here is my noob advice to help minimize frustration when you are just starting out: Create a toon, park it in a rest zone, and play second toon with EXP boosters (if you can afford). Then just toggle between toons and always play the one that is rested. You will gain like mad. Your very first toon should NOT do crafting - only harvesting. You can sell everything you harvest for cash while avoiding the expense of recipe costs. I never had any trouble selling all my matz for what I consider to be ridiculous prices - I still do. Then whatever gear you lack from quests and comm dealers, buy off the market. And finally I am on topic: Group for the Heroic zones/quests/Area4s. Run them with anybody/everybody who seeks a group. A large server population helps in this regard. Doing so increases cash, drops, exp, and by God you might even get invited to a helpful guild. Yeah, overall, a large server population works out nicely.

There are pros and cons: - Datacrons - on a crowded world you can usually find a group or follow someone as they search for them. There are more than one that cannot be soloed. Same for end game content - most runs cannot be soloed. And think about how hard finding the HK part at the Dark Temple would be solo. - Clicky competitions - on a low population world, there is no waiting to click on stuff for the quests. Same is true of havestable stuff - no waiting. - Heavy population --> lag. The lag has only gotten worse ever since the last patch. And when Harbinger crashed yesterday, I was #467 in the queue with a 30 minute wait time predicted. - Low population - no Chuck Norris jokes in chat. OMG, I can't be starved of Chuck Norris jokes! Wait, I was going to say, no market to buy or sell crafted goods. Those are just a few simple examples. Overall, I am happier with the higher populations. If the lag would get fixed, I'd really have no substantial complaints.

Excellent guys ! Thanks for the info !

Our guild has mostly vaporized. Our guild leader has been offline for a growing quantity of time. Some of us want to rebuild the ranks. Does anyone know if one of the other guild members can petition to be granted guild master status ? If so, what are the conditions, and how do I go about this ?

The rage and the hate are not necessary. I really don't care if somebody spends their rent money on SWTOR, or if they have huge disposable income to devote to non-essentials. I plan to do what I have been doing in LOTRO. I pay the sub and allow my monthly allotment of "coins" to accumulate. Then make some sensible purchases. I will not be spending extra cash. Having said that, there are lots of people who are happy to spend freely on their hobbies, whether or not they can afford it. For me, that represents more money than I want to spend. But whatever floats your boat. Now, if I was forced to pay out of pocket for what I would consider to be part of the sub, then I would rage. So far, I'm good with the F2P change up. --- not spell checked ---

Oredith, thanks for the input! What you describe is what I have noticed too. Also, an elite/champ (or two) will typically get CCed so using AoE for threat generation is limited at times. If I'm not judicious, the healer will get overwhelmed. There are also times, like in Aurora Cannon, when we need to kill the NPC healers first. I'll bet this is an example of allowing the DPSers to do their thing, while I hold aggro on the main pull target.

Coolness - thanks for the input guys !

First of all, I guess nobody has complained about my tanking skills but I am not in control of the aggro the way I feel a tank should be. Can someone point me at links for ood guidle/tutorials on tanking ? Should I be studying as many walkthrough vidz as possible so I REALLY understand the fights with different group compositions? If so, can you point me at links ? Any other comments on being a badazz tank would be appreciated!

As the subject line asks: is the gear from "advanced Gear" freebie mission good enough for the False Emperor FP as part of the HK-51 series ? I've heard a mix of reviews from "no way" to "yes, yes we can". What is the real answer?

Thanks for the info! Guess I'll start a program of slicing ... which I guess is an affordability issue.

I started Armormech explicitly for the augment capability. Then I found that there aren't any augment schematics on the Crew Skills Trainer. Furthermore, the low end schematics on the GTN are priced well out of reach for my noob Agent toon, which again seems crazy - the schematics needed by poor toons are the most expensive. So, how do I get augment schematics independent of the GTN? Does the RE trick still work and/or is it still not considered an exploit ? I suppose that would be a way ... There must be a legitimate way to get the low end augment schematics so my low end toon can take advantage while he works his way up the ladder..

^^ This. sorry for using "prefix" incorrectly. All I was thinking is that, by now, most players/crafters have figured out what stat combos they like best. Since there are a zillion combos, what names are the most sought after. And yes, I have been paying attention to what my toons need. My tanks benefit from Bastion and it's cousins that trade off shield/defense/absorb. Personally, I find my healers need alacrity and crit, although I'm sure what names are the best for that combo. Anyway, thanks for the input folks !

Problems since the patch: 1) unrelenting lag - constantly, always, all locations, all toons, all times. 2) Gold spammers in abundance (probably because they can now create unlimited accounts for free). 3) Social Bias against the F2P crowd - which is not nice for the game culture in SWTOR in general 4) Noob zone overload - which should fix itself in time. 5) In my particular case: there are like 3 players left in my guild who are even remotely active. The Guild master has not been on in 29 days as of last night. I am the only one who is still consistently active. I will be looking into how to takeover the guild and try to rebuild it.... I guess, if the guild master is still paying a sub, then I'll be unable to take it over. This is kinda sad. I may be looking for a new guild, which is probably the best solution.

Thanks for the reply! Looks like we will have lots of high end PvE in our future !

If you have seen the prices of mission lately, it is apparent that this is not a solution. For example, 100K for a purple lvl300 Underworld mission. If I'm not mistaken, that won't even get you Grade 6 stuff - I may be wrong about that, but it is still a far too expensive method of acquiring crafting matz.

How do I acquire the high level schematics? It seems like there is no pathway through reverse engineering to acquire them. Do I need to run a zillion slcicing and/or Underworld missions ? What do I do ?

Correct. But this frees you up to go out and wipe out the enemy.

One of my toons has Artifice = 400. My plan all along was to ignore reverse engineering on lower level items. Well, the time has come to start really gaining some higher end schematics. There are a zillion prefixes, and it's hard to know which few are the most sought after/useful. And I'm sure whatever is "hot" depends on the class and role. With that in mind, what are the hot enhancement prefixes that seem to be the most useful//sought after ? The areas I want to focus on are Smuggler/Agent(DPS), Consular(Heals), BH(tank), Jedi(DPS). Any info you can provide will be very much appreciated.

I'm still having this problem on the Left Coast. Bumping...

LEEEEEROY JENKINS !!!!! I've had a few of those, but I cannot blame F2P for players of a Leroy J caliber... Mostly, I encounter way poor gear and generalized incompetence at the keyboard. This has gotten worse in the few days of F2P.

yah, it can be fun. That is, unless you are a healer or a tank and the group starts blaming you for not doing your job, when in fact, it is impossible to support a group of poorly geared players making errors of stupidity through a HM FP. I have a Consular (healer) and a Bounty Hunter (tank). Either side, Rep or Empire, the PUG problem is amplified greatly since F2P. So much so that I would rather not run FPs and avoid all the negative team dynamics that invariably result. As a healer, if some noob repeatedly takes all aggro from the MT, I let him die. That has it's problems as now we are hurting for DPS. But if I have to mana dump to keep him healed, I've got nothing left and the tank goes down. Heat and aggro management on a BH tank is fairly technical and are the name of the game. Usually, I use all my tricks to take and hold aggro, minimize damage taken, retain interrupts for key moments, retain aggro direction skills for key moments (like addz). But if some noob keeps taking aggro, then I have to use up my tricks and generate way too much heat. Then what was a manageable situation becomes impossible. Bottom line, I don't like taking the blame when group composition is a recipe for failure. Edits: I also wanted to add that I find a lot of lvl 50 former subscribers that have returned as F2Pers. These guys are some of the worst ... not all, of course.