This is so obvious, it's painful at this point. I'm just going to have to lay it down for that vocal majority who are against combat logs because you guys are too much. First off, it's very disappointing to see that in this age of information and analysis, a majority of people are against combat logs which scientifically quantify every action you perform in the game. This is invaluable on so many levels, I shouldn't even have to explain the benefits gained from such knowledge. But that resistance to change, that negativity, that fear of numbers has to come from somewhere. The vocal majority who are advocating against the implementation of a public combat log are keeping this stance because of the likelihood of a negative personal (or anecdotal) experience directly related to the combat log. Whether it'd be being called out for performing poorly during an encounter or being called out due to dishing out low DPS or crappy heals across the board, that seems to be the only logical conclusion. For that vocal majority, the combat log is an impediment to their progress within the game; since they see a game as a medium simply to be used for entertainment, more complex analyses simply have no place in this game. Okay, valid argument: you want to keep the game simple and do not care about the historical, quantifiable data behind every single one of your encounters. But that, my friends, is called ignorance. Now, let's investigate the opposite end of the spectrum. Currently, http://www.sithwarrior.com -- all you combat log haters should head there, you might learn a thing or two about your class -- is the only website with any kind of theorycrafting and given the abysmal amount of data available to players, the folks over at SithWarrior have done an incredible job in figuring out all of the mathematical formulas behind each ability; how threat is generated beyond the vague words of Stephen Reid that "taunting automatically puts you on top of the threat table;" and created a complex and complete Excel sheet which lets you theorycraft potential builds given different sets of gear. This is amazing. You see, some people like to discover thing; they like to analyze and understand the consequences behind their actions whether it'd be in a virtual world or the real world. By vocally rallying against the implementation of a standard, public combat log, you are essentially giving the middle finger to statistical and mathematical concepts which developers use every-fricking-day to keep this game running. The irony doesn't get better than that. A good example of what the community over at SithWarrior has done was to debunk the general understanding behind the Taunt mechanic. The process was excruciatingly manual and simply laughable given all of the automation available to us: a few good members of this community actively spent hours hitting Champion mobs in Tatooine and manually recorded every single ability and its related damage; every single parry/dodge/resist; and every attack and damage done by the mob. This was not done in an hour. It took days. And they still discovered the mathematical equation behind Taunting. Now imagine if those folks had a combat log, they could provide us with 100% accurate data that is not reliant on manual human entry that is prone to error. So even though they were able to come up with an equation regarding threat, it is still hypothetical, or in essence theoretical, and cannot be proven with 100% certainty. It's speculation but solid speculation. Anyways, the folks advocating against a combat log fall in the same category of folks who wanted Galileo to be burned alive at the stake for claiming that the earth was round and that it revolved around the sun and not the other way around.

This has got to be the biggest amount of crap I've ever read on these forums. Did you seriously just claim that scientific methods of gathering data then interpreting that data (essentially math and statistics) to "optimize" the game are useless? How do you think your damage is calculated? How do you think this game was even developed? *GASP* That's right! Mathematical and geometrical equations! It's people like you (risk-averse; resistant to change) with their old habits that date from decade old MMOs that are doing a disservice to everyone. You know what I think? A combat log would just show how imbalanced some classes are and how bad some players are. And the vocal crowd against these combat logs probably fall in the bad player category. If you know that you are performing an optimal level and you know how to play your class, a combat log is asinine; it proves nothing since you already know that you're a good player. However, if you're insecure and have doubts about how you play and if your rotation is not the most efficient, a combat log will demonstrate with cold, hard facts that you are, indeed, not playing optimally and aspects of your game are lacking. And there's nothing you can do about that because a combat log is accurate and un-biased without human tempering. Which is exactly what you're advocating: that we should blindly keep playing with our "gut" feeling since it makes the game more fun not knowing precisely what consequences your actions have on the game world.

Wound in the Force is skewed 60/40 Imp/Repubs and I see a BM Republic in every WZ that I participate in.

In terms of defending CDs, I always try to pop Clock of Pain against a melee target (also useful against force casters and ranged too of course) since the spell will last you for 30 seconds if you're consistently being hit while if you wait 6 seconds, the effect will go away. Saber Ward is an amazing defensive ability with an, unfortunately, high 3:00 minute CD. I would use Saber Ward for 1 v 1 and other important fights against melee users since it reduces melee/ranged by 50% and tech/force attacks by only 25%. It's a great skill overall. Use it aggressively too, it will make a huge difference in many fights. Just don't use it if you're being jumped 1 v 3 or more since it'll be a waste and you will most likely die. It's good to use in 1 v 2 situations if you see back up coming or if you think you can take both players out. Undying Rage should only be used when you have <25% hp since it'll cut any amount of HP you have in half. It's also situational such as you can pop it and walk through the fire in Huttball or if you're getting focus targeted like a madman, you can pop it so people will target others instead of wasting 3-4 seconds DPS'ing a target that's technically immune to damage. And Predation is also a great escaping tool. That 50% speed increase is great to run away from fights.

Quick edit: didn't see that I had 2/2 Defensive Roll over 2/2 Enraged Charge. Changed it to 2/2 Enraged Charge. My current build: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bIrRrRMchzZhMbZh.1 It's similar to the above poster but differs in a few ways: - Empowerment is situational; that one extra rage is negligible and you shouldn't have too many problems generating rage if you have a solid rotation. - 3/3 Malice is very important since with the 15% crit guaranteed towards DoTs stack additatively, you have a 21% added chance to crit on your DoTs. This is amazing. - You could take two points out of Subjugation and put them into Phantom -- just remember than a 6 second interrupt and a 45 sec CD Obfuscate is amazing and should not be passed up (however Phantom is also an amazing skill). - You could also take two points out of Subjugation and put them into Empowerment but I wouldn't recommend it. - Some people put two points into Defensive Roll instead of Enraged Charge in the Carnage tree but I personally believe that that one extra rage gained when you Charge in is paramount to a successful Anni rotation. - Some people also don't put points into Seeping Wound (and put them into Phantom/Empowerment/whatever) but I found that having to sneak in Crippling Slash in my rotation instead of relying on a native slow added to one of our most important skills was just too good to pass up -- and it really destabilized my playstyle. Let me know if you have any more questions but I'm sure more people can add to this thread. More tips and techniques: - You want to avoid Charging into fights. You want to run up to your enemy, get him to blow his KB, then charge in. With Close Quarters, if you're fighting a Trooper/Sorc or an enemy that is reliant on casting skills, definitely use Charge as an interrupt as well. You should have three interrupts technically: Disruption, Charge, and Force Choke. Save these abilities when the other players are blowing their best abilities. - Your rotation should be the following: Charge While Charging, activate Deadly Saber Battering Assault Rupture Annihilate Assault/Obsfucate/other abilities until you maintain more than 5+ rage to always be ready to cast Annihilate since its CD lowers at each cast - Don't jump in 1 v 2, 1 v 3, etc. If you see a teamate is being jumped by a bunch of enemies, don't try to be a hero and save him or sacrifice yourself by taking one enemy down. You're not helping your team. Try to play a support role by assisting your teammates and staying close with them and focus firing targets. Your damage should help bring targets down fast but only if you focus fire. Don't sit on that BM Sorc that's self-healing himself/herself for 30 seconds until you can finally kill him/her (sure you're keeping him/her out of the fight but you could be doing so much more). - Use Predation as an escape tool or as a tool to grab health packs and damage bonus tokens before enemies and your teammates. Also use it if you're playing Huttball as the speed increase is invaluable. - Make sure to always have 2/2 Short Fuse so each of your abilities will generate 4 fury. So 8 abilities will generate 30 Fury (which is very easy to get) and you should be able to spam Berserk on a target consistently. Save your power trinket for when you have 30 Fury, pop trinket, Berserk, then Rupture -> Annihilate. That's usually a big damage maker. Save your crit trinket when you're about to hit someone with Annihilate to increase your chance of a big hit. That's what I can think of on top of my head. Just remember that you're not rambo (not yet anyways...) and that you're fragile. Pick your fights carefully and don't hesitate to run away from fights to go hide and heal if you see you're going to lose miserably. Last but not least, practice, practice, practice and don't get discouraged while getting your PvP gear since a good chunk of your time will be spent getting your butt kicked for a while.

Right. It's been said many times in this thread that Rift's macro system which automatically prioritized your rotation for you was just a bad idea and led to those 1-button-I-WIN macros. Blizzard, however, absolutely got it right and should be used as a model for the development of macros.

This is a slippery slope argument. Besides the static and non-customizeable UI, BW has done everything just about right with their default UI, map, and character pane navigation. Just by enabling the inclusion of third-party add-ons on SW:TOR, it doesn't mean in any way that some add-ons are going to be required to get the full experience. Once again, this comes under the concept of having a choice as to whether or not you will use the tools provided to you. We're not talking about QuestHelper here (that's already implemented). The things people are asking for would be threat meters, DPS meters, new chat boxes, different look for the UI, etc. By opening up their development structure to the community, BW could focus on the big issues and developing new content at a faster rate instead of having to internally design, develop, and deploy every initiative by themselves. Every action behind a design or functionality decision has a budget behind it hence why designers/developers love cheap and efficient fixes. Could you imagine if the community had access to an SDK (Source Development Kit) to create their own plug-ins and add-ons? It would save them time, money, and resources to work on more pressing issues. This is the same kind of reasoning of people who are against OSS (Open Source Software). Proprietary code is a slowly dying dinosaur. Some of the most succesful technologies to come out function on an open source platform (Cassandra leading the No-SQL movement is a great example). Anyways, I'm rambling but keeping the doors closed to the community in terms of add-ons is simply a disastrous long-term decision.

Excellent, excellent post. LizardSF is obviously on his own personal vendetta against anyone who is pro-macro. His reasoning is baseless, dubious, and stems from irrelevant anecdotal experiences. He also completely ignored my definition of efficiency in regards to potential SW:TOR macros: to streamline the automation of a repetitive activity which would result in the same expected outcome even if that activity were to be performed manually. Moreover, I completely agree that the macro system introduced within Rift was prone for abuse; the developers should have never created a system that automatically prioritized your skill rotation even if you were to dump all of your rotation into one macro. That was not smart design but it made somehow fun creating those complex macros. I thought I was pretty explicit in my OP as to what I wanted macros to do. It's the con-macro community that stirred up the asinine issue that macros "play the game for you and make the game easier." Thank you again for clarifying your stance on the issue and hopefully educating LizardSF a bit on a subject he seems to be completely misinformed about.

Voting for real combat logs.

You're level 23... You don't get all the good skills until level 40 and you don't even have the 31 point talent. At this level, you're better off spec'ing into the Carnage or Rage tree. I'd recommend Carnage because of the 15% increased speed buff. That should introduce you nicely to the painful world of being a melee and consistently having to run after other players.

I'll quantify efficiency for you: the less keybinds I have to press, the better. That's efficiency: the streamlining of a repetitive activity with the same expected outcome. In our case, this is the efficiency that I'm looking for. I'm not looking for efficiency to give me a lopsided advantage over someone else. Macros don't provide that; they provide you with the ability to spend your time on other elements of the game than fighting a poorly designed and static UI. And as to your example, that's exactly the point of having macros. Or how would that even provide an advantage over someone else who is not using the same macros as me? An ability that is enabled-based on an RNG is not skill based nor does it require any kind of supernatural reflexes to use it faster since it's off the GCD. By tagging it on all my offensive abilities, I am more efficient in every other area and will have to fight less of the UI and pay more attention to the battle at hand. How is that a bad thing? How?

I'm really liking these last few answers to this thread. It makes me happy that there's an intelligent and articulate community that is PRO-macro. Too many people are against things they don't understand.

Do you know who taught me my first macro in WoW? Some casual player who was surprised that I was turning on my trinkets manually. Another misconception is that macros are only used by the elite for the elite. If macros were implemented, at least some of the void-of-life forums other than this one would have a little more to talk about by optimizing macros that people could just go copy and paste so they could use it themselves. You're acting like people created macros in WoW and copyrighted them. Are you kidding me? Even in the official WoW forums, every class forum would have a sticky with a Macro Comprehension Guide which would explain everything from what is a macro to how to create your own macro. Again, this huge imbalance that macro would create if implemented into SW:TOR is baseless fear-mongering. Don't make stuff up, at least paraphrase what the developers said: they are scared to alienate players by adding another layer of difficulty onto the gameplay since new players could find the whole macro creating thing confusing. It has nothing to do with potentially breaking balance or creating uneven levels of inefficiencies -- those factors already exist and their evidence is overwhelmingly abundant in the game.

To re-iterate, since people seem to have a very wrong conception of what macros actually do: macros do not make the gameplay easier in any way. You are still going to have to use the same abilities to DPS down that target; you are still going to have to heal your teammates in the same manner; and tank in the same manner for that matter. You're just doing it more efficiently. Efficiency does not equate to a reduction in difficulty. That's simply false and a misconception that's flying around these forums.

I think he was claiming that they are catering to the majority of the playerbase, which is casual, by not including macros since it may confuse the "normies."

Re-quoting this because it is 100% accurate.

For most people (read: all the people who don't understand how macros work), they believe that macros will enable a "one-button" rotation to work. There's already a one-button rotation class and it's called Bounty Hunter/Trooper people. I don't see people complaining against the insane macro that is Grav Round/Tracer Missile.

No, no you're completely wrong. That was purposefully done as a design choice to increase the difficulty of the game. Don't you understand?! Including macros would do nothing more but to make an easy game even easier! Gosh, you guys who are complaining that this game is easy enough already want to make it even easier! (I hope you can discern the sarcasm but that's literally the gist of the argument of the against-macros population. It's sad and pathetic; it lacks any kind of technical reinforcement for their argument. It's simply a group of people who are risk-averse, non-technical and are extremely scared of anything that takes them out of their comfort zone. It's so obvious to see it's painful to witness such resistance to change whenever something new could be introduced).

You are not really informing anyone when you say that macros automate the manual function of pressing keybinds. That's the entire point. What I find funny, however, is that your entire macro anecdotal experience is revolved around people who use emotes along with their skills. You're someone who has probably never used macros in any games you've ever played since you view them as "easy" way to get things done in a game. What do you know about a functionality you have never used? In line with your logic, pressing an extra two keybinds amounts to a challenge that requires situational awareness? Please explain to me how using an ability that automatically enables itself after parrying or dodging an attack based on an RNG mechanic can be related to difficulty in any way? I guess you skipped that entire part of my thread that deals with ability and resource management. The amount of mis-information that is in this thread is staggering. People really think that macros are going to automate every action in this game. This is depressing. Very depressing.

Let me correct that for you: "Under the logic of this thread I feel I must start the following threads also...... The forgotten Playerbase: Where are my add-ons? The forgotten Playerbase: Where is my third-party UI customization?" I included typos and everything to make it close to the original. You fail at logic my friend. It's not because I'm asking a feature that's in WoW (and every other MMO for that matter; even FFXI) that I'm asking for dragons and what not. For your sake and that of others, please don't use logic anymore. You'll just end up hurting yourself -- or at worst make a fool out of yourself.

You have no idea what macros are. Please don't spread false information. By your logic, you already playing the game using your keyboard and mouse. What kind of nonsense are you talking about?

Thanks for the clarification. Been almost 3 years since I played WoW so I had forgotten whether or not you could set priorities for your abilities... I believe you could in a "ghetto" way by setting your abilities in a specific order and having /stopcast after every ability call -- I'm still talking about WoW. But in Rift, you were absolutely correct. My Thief which was the build that had to do with explosives was using a 1 to 2 macro rotation -- I mean, the class was based around 4 skills, might as well reduced them into 2 macros. Did it break the game, make it unbalance, and create all sorts of confusion? Absolutely not. Those who didn't like macros didn't use them and those who did enjoyed more creative and specific talent builds. How is that a bad thing?

BAM. That part in bold is why all those folks who came and said: "Well, simply buy better hardware which enable macro functionality!" have absolutely no say in this topic. You are technically cheating by using third-party software to let you play for you! See what I'm doing there? How easy it is to spin the need-for-macros vs. no-need-for-macros debate?

Yes, thank you. At the very least that's what we're requesting: - Focus/targetting macros - I-WIN macro (Popping CDs + Trinket) I'm sure that if BW gave us those functionalities, the game balance would be completely broken and they'd have to go back to the drawing board for all classes.

Well, think about it for a second, if they aren't willing to include a native functionality such as macros, what makes you think they will provide us with third-party add-ons (besides the combat log)? What makes you think they are going to improve or innovate on any existing MMO functionality when they refuse to provide even the most basic one? What does it tell you about a game that does not have the infrastructure to promote an 8 v 8 premade PvP Warzone? What does this tell you about developers who claim that the GTN is very healthy regardless of whatever anecdotal experience players are relating to them directly and on the forums? What does this tell you about developers who claimed for a long time that population imbalance wasn't as bad as it seems when it's skewed 57% Imperials and 42% Republic? This just does not bode confidence for any MMO gamer who is interested in the long-term future of this game. For me, and I know others feel the same, so far, everything BW has done gives me the "I-can't-wait-until-another-game-comes-out" feeling. My expectations have been consistently unmet and there's only so much I can take.