You guys all have a healer that heals you while you kite Kephess around D:?! My healers are ******es D:<. That's not entirely true, but they do let me get pretty low sometimes. As an Assassin Tank, I always pull the first and second bombers to the middle, so that my DPS can beat the stuffing out of them. I also always knock him down and stun him on Hard Mode -- not because it buys us extra time before he explodes, but because I don't like eating the rocket to the face if I don't. During the 3rd bomber, when Kephess has dropped down, I am the one that gets to kite him around. I pop my armor adrenal and my shield relic to soak up the first few seconds, allowing everyone but me to beat up the bomber. When Kephess leaps into the sky, I force sprint into the mix and throw out a Wither and Shock, then start running to wherever the red circle has appeared. If I'm feeling particularly randy, I simply taunt Kephess and pull the bomber near my group, then run away with the boss. Everyone focuses fire on the walker after that, because our Marauder pops predation and I only get hit when Kephess jumps to me.

I can't recall where the information specifically came from, but a fellow officer in my guild -- who frequently scans the multiple community messages and other locations where content and FAQ discussions are known to pop up -- mentioned that the Nightmare Mode won't be launching with 1.3. If I remember correctly, the cited reason was due to the fact that 1.3 was mostly just a small bump in content to throw some things in, while they're saving most of the "new" content for a big 1.4 release. They mentioned that 1.4 will have a much shorter timeline being released than 1.2 was, but that seems like a very vague window given when 1.2 was expected and when it was actually delivered. We haven't particularly lost anybody in our core group, but the vent is sitting rather empty after Wednesday's and has been about a week after everything reached farm status. It's basically log in, rush through HM EC, and then save the rest for Wednesday. There was a slight extension of content this past week simply because the only thing we had left to do was clear some other world bosses for our Coral speeder's, but now that even that is done, most people log in, check if anything is going on, then go about their business. My guild leader and I have been passing time around in TERA, which is a nice change of pace, and we even managed to pick up a couple of recruits this week (which I think is a positive sign), but at least one of our DPS is rarely even remotely in vent (this is a guy that I personally know and haven't even talked to in awhile) because he's attracted to the real money side of D3 (no amount of talk can persuade him otherwise). A couple of others are dawdling around on the Republic side, messing with alts or simply grinding credits to prepare for the costs of the next legacy perks. For the most part, though, it's a log-in-win-loot-wait-til-next-week sort of rotation. Short sprints to the end game usually have this problem and it's no stranger that the design wasn't focused on the end game. I admit, I was simply looking forward to Nightmare Mode EC, but as more time passes, I'd really like to have more than that.

If you think it MIGHT be the enrage timer, just time the fight and see what you come up with.

I leveled 1-50 with 3 other players. By the time I hit 50, I was Social VIII. With the changes from 1.2 patches, completing quests and bonus quests now grants social points, as well as conversations. Remember to start and end mission conversations together. This includes Flashpoints. I'm not ashamed to say I spent the last social level and a half, to X, by doing some Black Talon runs. The unfortunate part about being Social X is that it affords me absolutely nothing special. I get a vanity title, Big Time, and free access to the /doublelasers emote, but they removed my Galactic Party Bomb ( ). Social Gear used to be bugged (it needed to be unequipped and re-equipped for the armor/mod/enhancement to take effect) and, at this point in time, it can't be reverse engineered into augmented gear to serve a viable purpose. It's fun for leveling, if you have the access to it and want to waste some credits by ripping the armor/mod/enhancements out of other pieces, and it has a few vanity items (Alderaan has Social VII pet and mount, though you'll be very hard pressed to have that social level by the time you get to Alderaan), but it remains more a "Yeah, I got it." and less of an important contribution to your character (unless you're a completionist.)

I believe the OP is one of the most successful trolls that I have ever met. If he isn't actually trolling, then there's something wrong with his entitled attitude and his own elitist opinion of himself. PvP and PvE are, obviously, not the same thing. There is a disparity between the numbers that you have in PvP gear and the numbers that you have in PvE gear. Your expertise versus another player is what helps you wreck in PvP. Your expertise will do nothing for you against PvE mobs, meaning that the people who are in PvE gear and have higher main stats will mathematically do more damage. There's always the user error disparity in dps, concerning who presses buttons better than someone else, but since we're all assuming, I'm going to assume they were competent, which means they'd have higher numbers as a simple truth of formula. The raid leader was wrong for inviting you, leaving you in the group for such a period of time, randomly removing you from the group, and then not saying anything about it when he removed you and when you sent him a message. You are wrong for believing you were going to be the highest dps in that run and for any lack of explanation as to the state of your gear. Another poster brought up a very good point: I highly doubt that you, the OP, would ever allow someone in PvE gear to go into a warzone with you. Why? Because PvE gear doesn't belong in PvP if you want maximum effectiveness and PvP gear doesn't belong in PvE if you want maximum effectiveness. If you want to do operations, you need to meet some people who are willing to bring you along. At the Hard Mode level, you probably don't have to jump in someone's backpack, but if you ever want to advance beyond that, then you have to understand that there is going to be some element of you being carried instead of you contributing your full weight to the operation. Tolerance is a good thing. Ignorance is not.

Someone already made a good guide about this . http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=409021

Space missions weren't included in the estimation and your perceptions of my intentions are not my intentions. Perception of reality =/= reality.. I'm not going to be some CKN nub and say l2play because it takes you 3 hours, but you should start figuring out ways to do it faster.

Someone can't count. It takes ~10 days to get all 3. God forbid someone actually be accurate about something. It's cool bro, I understand. Your epeen was in the way.

Tionese Commendations and Crystals come from completing Hard Mode Flashpoints. Every final boss of a Hard Mode Flashpoint drops a piece of unassembled Columi gear. The Lost Island Hard Mode Flashpoint drops Columi from every boss and then drops a Rakata chest from the last boss. The weekly quest for completing 3 Hard Mode Flashpoints provides Columi and Tionese commendations. The daily quest for completing Hard Mode Flashpoints provides Columi and Tionese commendations. Story Mode Operations provide Columi pieces. Hard Mode and Nightmare Mode Operations provide Rakata pieces. A guild isn't REQUIRED to complete the content, but it can help significantly, simply because you'll be more readily visible to people who are doing the content. That being said, our guild leader has quite a few friends on his friends list that we sometimes substitute in for one of our regular ops members in case of something like an emergency or a crash with a bad queue.

My guild ran our weekly Nightmare KP for Black Hole Commendations tonight. As always, we start the fight by stacking Tracer Missile and Sunder. We had a couple of new guys with us so they could get the gear and the puzzle mechanic was a little slow, so we hit the enrage timer just at 100k health. He killed us, scuttled back to his place, and despawned. We did a full exit of the area, with the group forming back up on the outside. We waited for everyone to be out of the loading screen and physically moving in the space outside of the instance. I went in, by myself, and traveled all the way to Fabricator. He was up. We got a chance to test it again when our battle rez bugged (it loves to do that lately) on one of the puzzle solvers. Same deal. Complete exit, wait for everyone to completely zone out, then I went in again. He was up. So, the work around for the Fabricator bug seems to be making a full exit of the zone, wait until everyone's loaded back into fleet, and then re-entering the area. I suggest doing it the same way we did, with sending one person in all the way to the boss, and then having everyone else zone in.

My guild ran our weekly Nightmare KP for Black Hole Commendations tonight. As always, we start the fight by stacking Tracer Missile and Sunder. We had a couple of new guys with us so they could get the gear and the puzzle mechanic was a little slow, so we hit the enrage timer just at 100k health. He killed us, scuttled back to his place, and despawned. We did a full exit of the area, with the group forming back up on the outside. We waited for everyone to be out of the loading screen and physically moving in the space outside of the instance. I went in, by myself, and traveled all the way to Fabricator. He was up. We got a chance to test it again when our battle rez bugged (it loves to do that lately) on one of the puzzle solvers. Same deal. Complete exit, wait for everyone to completely zone out, then I went in again. He was up. So, the work around for the Fabricator bug seems to be making a full exit of the zone, wait until everyone's loaded back into fleet, and then re-entering the area. I suggest doing it the same way we did, with sending one person in all the way to the boss, and then having everyone else zone in.

As an Assassin Tank, I still solo all the daily quests and heroics. The most difficult out of these is Poisonous Strategy, since I have to Mind Control a mob, activate the vent, make a clean pull of the two elites, and then position myself with the two mobs away from Talos. For Averon, I stealth past the mobs. At the entrance, I simply use the little outcrop of the wall to go around . For the line of mobs, I hug the wall, use the outcrop, and Force Sprint by. At the very last line of mobs, I use the outcrop again, but use Blackout to make sure that the Elite doesn't get me. I pull the champion as I approach with an Electrocute, then sprint a little past him so that Talos is well out of the Sweep AoE when Averon triggers it. I've never had an issue with this fight. That being said, in keeping with the OP's question, I can't speculate on the DPS part of it. I do know that I no longer go into the Heroic areas with my Lightning Charge and Willpower stim on. I always go Dark Charge with my Endurance stim, just to make it easier on myself and so I can guard my healing companion. I take a lot more damage in "DPS" stance.

B. Working as intended. The developer post from above doesn't say anything about a bug, just that Hard Mode flashpoints are not taking group composition into account. Once more: Hard Mode Flashpoints no longer have a lock. You can run them repeatedly. The loot system for normal mode Operations was changed, because it's a once-a-week event that had a bad auto-assign system.

I solo this -- and every other -- daily heroic.

His question was how to gear up to do Hard Mode Flashpoints. Reading. I duz it.

I got stuck doing False Emperor for a literal week until I got my columi chest. I'd gladly do it 7 times in one day versus one time over 7 days. If you want to see the harder content, you have to work for it. If that means re-running the flashpoint to get your gear, c'est la vie. Unless they were carried by a guild they joined, all fresh 50s have had to do this. The only other option is don't do it. I also need to point this out: What do you think you're going to do once you finally move on to Operations? There are only 3 Operations in the game. You're going to be doing the SAME THING every week, at varying levels of difficulty.

For the best information, refer to the sticky in this forum: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=409021.

You cannot enter an Operation with people who have not killed the 3 bosses. You may only enter the Operation as the leader (which will set the instance so that only the last two bosses remain) or with a group that kills the first 3 and then invites you in for the last two.

Assassin Tanks can't leap. Instead, we have this cool thing called Force Sprint. I've received the reticle as the Zorn tank during Berserk phase. I ran over to Toth, set up behind him, and poked him with my lightsaber until the reticle turned purple. As soon as it turned purple, I force sprinted back to Zorn, who had all of half a second to start to take a step before me being in the same position stopped him from moving at all.. This business about him moving because the tank can't make it back to him as an Assassin is silly.

Hard Mode Flashpoints no longer have a lock out. If you didn't get the piece you want, run it again. If your schedule doesn't allow for gathering that many people and you consider yourself "casual", congratulations, almost every class has a Cunning companion. That means that your buddy just ended up with a new piece of gear to make doing your dailies that much easier. Or whatever it is you do when you aren't playing with other people. I can understand that there might be some frustration when Hard Modes locked out for 24 hours, meaning that the day could have been seriously wasted if your item hadn't dropped. Now that they're open for running repeatedly, there's less room to complain about it not dropping on the ONE run you did. Pro tip: If you decide to take the party in multiple times or if you're running the instance with different people, try changing who the party leader is. Going in with the same people with the same party leader has proven, in the past, to be pretty effective in making sure you get the same loot. Also, I don't remember "casual" players EVER getting /rage over the fact an item didn't drop for them. My experience has always been that they go "Oh, well, maybe next time :D" and continue on their way. If you consider yourself "casual" and you're getting this upset over it, maybe it's time for a little re-assessment. I smell excuses and shenanigans..

Every run with my guild involves pre-stacking of Sundering Blow and Tracer Missile. He has never bugged out on us at any level of difficulty, including Nightmare. We've done Nightmare KP every week since the patch, for Black Hole Commendations, and he's still not bugging for us. We haven't run KP this week, yet, but I'll post back with the results of the run, just in case this is something that's started recently. We might run it tonight, depending on whether or not our inter-guild Nightmare Pilgrim run happens.

We wait anywhere from 3-5 seconds after the button becomes clickable to accept the rez, just for extra precaution. I've had it kick me out, even still, but only once versus multiple times.

To compound on what Chirality said, we mainly notice this bug when there's not a complete wipe of the instance. Some people are able to Exit Area, I can vanish if I'm the last person in the instance to reset the bosses, etc. We frequently notice this will tend to bug our combat rez. We think the debuff is sticking onto the person that stayed alive and is triggering the flag that it's been used.

I'm a tank. If he has to heal me through incinerate, there are 2 issues. 1.) I didn't interrupt, I'm a *******. 2.) I clearly don't know how to play Assassin, because I didn't use Force Shroud to immediately cleanse myself. On the flip side of that, I should DIRECTLY communicate to him that I have incinerate and need cleanse, if he doesn't already see it and is already doing it. I'm a tank. If I'm taking AoE damage from spheres, I'm a *******. I have these keys on my keyboard that let me move my virtual character to different spots of the virtual world, preferably spots that aren't also being filled with health depriving lightning shields. So, what I'd really like to know, is how my gear has ANYTHING to do with those mechanics.