You can 2 man the seed quests. I did it with my tank trooper and a buddy on his slinger.

My fun toon names: - Typo-negative (sniper) - Anti-Gyro (pronounce Anti-HERO) - Epic-Fail (Tank) - El Guapo - (it means "the handsom) - Zap-Brannigan (I have a sexy desease, what is it Kip? "Sexlexia ./groan"

Can anyone confirm this is the case? That the "lvl 164" purple gear for HK is actually closer to columi level than anything "awesome". Stabilizers for Columi = ********

Hi Community, Quick question regarding HK-51 and making him as OP as possible. Currently I purchased the 164 lvl parts and have lvl 61 mod/enchance/armoring in his other parts (augmented of course). Was thinking of buying all the rest of the 164 parts but I am now thinking DESPITE the high lvl # they are crap. I added up the stat totals ignoring aim and endurance (they are about equal), and got 120 stat points from the HK motor/core. The same item with 3 BH mods (lvl 61) give you 142 stat points. That means if I replace my BH moded stuff with the HK lvl 164 I lose about 20 stat points. Am I missing something? Or are my stabilizers best spent and HK best setup with 61 mods instead of the motor/core that costs less stabs but has 20 less points of stats. Seems like bioware should have made this so the parts were hard to get and supreme in value.

HI community, I was running Mox last night for an alt. My main kept appearing in the dmg meters, and I could never get a correct dmg break out. My guess is that it may have something to do with the toons names. I reconnected to the raid key several times also, no change. RhinoB Rhinoceri Both start with the same 5 characters. Is the parcer truncating these names and merging the data? Any ideas? Already tried restarting etc etc. Thanks, Rhino-B

Yes you taunt DURING the cast. The tank not tanking Kephess needs to have him taunted BEFORE that cast finish. The reason? His next move will hit the tank for a TON and kill him. So look for the KNOCK BACK, when you see it, wait for his cast to start (immediately), and have the other tank taunt him before he finishes casting

Hi gamers, RhinoB here with a question regarding HM Kephess. My guild has beat this content a few times and are half way through TFB HM but are now having some serious trouble with downing Kephess. Specifically we are getting rail shotted on the droids. From what we know we are supposed to walk over as a group after burn phase, stack up in his hit box and keep a tank 5-10 meters away (no attacking/jumping/saber through until everyone is there). This had never been a problem in past pulls. Now every time we pull, it the railshots are all over the place. Hitting people we know to be in the hit box. Is there something in the mechanic I am missing??? For instance could it be there is a min and a max range (meaning if the tank starts moving from robot A to robot B 5 seconds after the rest of the group (meaning I am EASILY the farthest away) is it possible I am TOO far away to be considered "in range". ? The last pull we did 1 of our melee was running ahead of me by about 10 feet. We were both a bit late getting to the droid (me on purpose), but I was behind him. He took 1 rail shot, then got to the hit box, while I was 5 meters outside and it hit him for 2 more rail shots killing him. There is something here I am not getting. Short of having the team move together, not attack the droids, and stand inside the hitbox with tank outside. ANY TIPS OR TRICKS to make the ez mode? Or idea's on why people in the hit box are still taking shots? Thanks for any ideas. RhinoB

Thanks for the write-up dipstick. I have one HUGE hairy question that I would very much appreciate you or someone helping me out on. How does the Absorb proc relic (BiS for Vanguard) effect the "optimal" stat distributions. Without any math I can see that during a long fight in my character screen with proc up and stacks of screen my absorb goes as high as 75% (up from about 58.5% pre-screens/proc). This seems DR to me big time, however that up time is not 100%. Obviously having that large chunk of absorb periodically up must effect optimization numbers. Without calcing it out I have just shifted some abs to shield. Buffed at 18.5% def, 61%shield, 58.5% absorb. Roughly 27k HP (3 b mods) So how do I factor this in, since not 100% up time it cant be the full stat # increase, but seems like needs to be accounted for. Thoughts? Rhino-B (LotFM)

Quick Question. Anyone know what the best item to buy with Columi commendations to sell back to the vendor. I.E. Highest sale price vs lowest commendation cost. I have 1000 commendations and daddy needs to get PAID. P.S. For Rakata I know the KNEECAPPER is the best item to purchase and sell back.

Hi SWTOR community. At the ever present risk of being flamed back to the stone-age. I have a question regarding HK-51 and his gearing for serious players. Currently I have 2 of the lvl 157 parts and the remainder rakata/dreadguard armoring. Since I had tons of BH pieces from my Vanguard my HK is rolling very Aim heavy. I made all of his Augs cunning and his barrel. (For those that do not know HK uses both Aim and Cunning, current theory to best of my knowledge is he uses them equally and diminishing returns really doesn't come too much into play at the current gear levels (I think you would need 2000+ in main stat to start seeing issues.) So my question. Sniper rifle or Blaster Rifle??? The big difference seems to be damage output range on the guns. Sniper rifles = 438-535 (Black hole). Blaster rifle = 324-486. Does this mean Sniper rifle is hands down the way to go? Also what stat pools should HK focus on... I do not have a sniper/operateive type character which I guess he is most like. Crit/surge/power obviously... but how about alacrity? +hit is probably worthless since you wont be using him on any boss fights. Currently his crit is pretty high at 35% surge through the roof. Wondering if I should be adding in some alacrity. He has SOME channeled spells? Any suggestions on stat point focus areas within crit/surge/power/alacrity/hit would be very welcome. Thanks in advance for the help!

Wanted to pop back in and say thanks to all who posted. Even though tempers flared and feelings may have gotten hurt. TONS of good info was presented. I personally feel like I know the directions to take now as I progress into Nightmare mode. Quick final question. SR vs. Absorb has been stated to be optimal at the same percentages (60/60, 59/59, etc). Would the shield being a proc and the absorb being in relation only if the proc happens mean I should probably go a bit higher with the SR (also we have the ion boost of 4%). After carefully weighing both side I have optimized into the following Def: 18% SR 59% Absorb 58%. Tanked a bit last night and felt VERY "tanky". Thanks again for all the great posts.

Thank you Cae & Gideon (sup bro!). VERY insightful and amazing to hear these set-ups from those that know best. I'll be re-posting it on my guild forums. Thank you for taking the time to post. Rhino-B

Wow, nice to see we have close to the same idea's on spec. I only took 2 in endurance because having the extra dps/threat boost from the 8% ion cell boost is monster for raid. (your prototype cylinders). Also nice to see I am building my low defense percentage in the right direction. I bought the Hazmat Defense relic to sub out absorb for defense. Looks like I just need to buy one more of those and aug it with defense I and should be MUCH closer to optimal. So unless another UBER tank can school me up. I am going to "aim" for roughly. Defense 20% Shield 58% Absorb 57%.

P.S. From everything I currently THINK I know... my defense is still low and should MOST LIKELY be closer to 20% fully buffed. That is if I am not totally completely lost.

Hi SWTOR community. I am looking for some assistance with stat allocation for CURRENT end game (HM Asatia) stats for a vanguard. I am hoping to find a complete bad-*** tank in a first-kill guild (or something close), who can clue me in on their stats. There is a billion sources for info (most of it OLD), spreadsheets, forums etc. I feel like the more I read the more confused I am. I am gearing for max mitigation and not EHP. In conclusion. My current stats are DEF: 15% Shield 57% Absorb 60%. This was after I changed out some absorb for defense based on all of my research so far (previously was at DEF 12%, Shield 59%, Abosrb 64%). Can someone who has downed most of HM Asatia please list their working percentages for tanking? THANK YOU SO MUCH IN ADVANCE. Rhino-B

After reading this thread I had to login and post support for Just, along with a thank-you for the time spent. Truly there is HORRIBLE misinformation from ***-hats like the this troll that posted back. I've tanked most of the content in this game. Current stats are 54% shield, 58% absorb, 15% def. Accuracy @ 95%. I spent countless hours (on work time of course) researching sites and info for min/max stuff. Just's post is accurate and comprehensive. Rely on it. The other guy posting is a complete idiot and needs to re-read your post and re-spec. My only addition to what was said here is that Endurance is more worthless than you might think. Yes you only get a SMALL increase from 3% but that's not the important thing. Whats important is that in a boss fight you are going to go through your ENTIRE health pool about 20+ times (lose health, get healed, lose health etc.). You come out FAR FAR FAR ahead taking less damage on all hits over the course of that 20 times you are going to go through your health pool than just tacking on more base points to your starting health. Adding say 500 HP is great, for the beginning of a fight. Once you take a shot though you will be consistently fluxing from X health to Y health, and RARELY ever get back up to 100% full. This means that the additional health is meaningless. I.E. if I am in middle of a boss fight, and my health is rocking from 50% to 80% back to 50% the entire fight due to heals and hits... my MAX health doesn't really factor in. Before the haters start YES it is beneficial to have more health... of course it is, but it is MORE beneficial to have defensive stats. --RhinoB Oh and the down and dirty way to distribute your stat points is this. Add up all your POINTS for SC AB and DF. (not your talent spec totals, just the RAW # of gear/aug points you have in each. Take that total and divide each stat by this #. So SR\Total = AB\Total = DEF\Total = . Those numbers should be roughly distributed as 40% AB 40% SR and 20% DEF. KEEP IN MIND we are NOT talking about your final percentages for SR, we are talking about the # of points you have in SR, which after spec and talents will end up being a much higher %. Hope I didnt just confuse everyone.

Thank you for laying this out in such an understandable comprehensive way. Been looking for solid info on Vanguard tank stat distribution for awhile. I also would like to inquire about stat-caps. Currently I'm rolling with 14.5% Defense, 52% Shield and 54%. By your write up it looks like I may need a tad more def and to flip the shield rating and absorb percentages. I'll have to wait till I get off work to run the actual point totals you discuss above. From researching other posts it does seem there is a cap, however most of the stuff I was able to find showed the cap at 50% for SR and absorb for diminishing returns, theses were pre 1.2 however and even mentioned that 50% was impossible to get at that time anyways. As I am now over both of those thresholds in SR and AB, I want to make sure I am not pissing in the wind. Would love to find if there really is a set drop off % where stacking is no longer viable (even with correct distribution). Any additional intel is appriciated.