Sometime since launch of the stronghold, one of the small hooks in the long lines between the fountains in the courtyard has gone missing. It's almost halfway up the line on the left side. (The corresponding hook on the right side is there.)

Yeah, should be doable. Quite high damage output at times, but otherwise it seems like a decently companion friendly fp:

Here's a list of flashpoint bosses who are deemed very hard or impossible to solo: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=899196 So Korriban, Manaan, Blood Hunt, and Lost Island most likely won't work. I wouldn't try Umbara or Copero either, considering their higher tuning. (Unless you're looking for a world's first.) And as other people said - soloing is not an efficient way of playing.

In some cases you can get lucky, where the mechanic doesn't apply to or target the companion. In those cases, you "just" have to avoid dropping stuff where they stand. I don't know about those particular fights, though.

Ranged companions won't move unless their target is out of sight out they are put to passive (in which case they go to you). You can use the passive trick for placing them somewhat accurately. Two tips: Ordering them to attack is faster and more precise that toggling off passive. They can't move if they are channeling. (Common with healing companions.)

Your solution would have worked if there was actual demand for the PVE mats, but for some magic reason BW decided on a 2:1 ratio for CMT vs EMC. In practice, everyone who needs or makes augments have enough EMCs to not want more of them. Hence you can't "sell more apples". Clearly they should have had another ratio, like 1:1 or maybe 3 EMCs to 2 CMTs. Then EMCs wouldn't have been completely worthless, and your concept would have worked reasonably. (Also why they didn't add CMT rewards to regular warzones is beyond me.)

If you go high alacrity you must clearly use the proficiency stim to maximize the tertiary stat pool. If you go low alacrity, you use the versatile stim instead. With full gear you should be able to land around 1600 crit with 1860 alacrity.

The rotation as given requires some extra alacrity above the 1.4 s gcd threshold to get saber throw available on every second rotation. With 711 alacrity, you get 23.3 s cooldown on saber throw, but two rotations only take 2 x 8 x 1.4 = 22.4 s Personally I find it easier to mainly think about the shorter rotation with impale - filler - force scream - filler - vengeful slam - filler, as that is strictly fixed while sundering strike, ravage, hew, and saber throw can be swapped around somewhat freely to optimize rage management. Still, it works just fine with a more fixed rotation (padding with a saber strike when neither saber throw nor hew is available), so for people who prefer that it's a solid choice. Btw, Rydarus' vigilance guide ( http://dulfy.net/2016/12/30/swtor-5-0-vigilance-guardian-pve-guide-by-rydarus/ ) is updated for 5.0 even if the vengeance one isn't.

They are still not there. Also, you probably can't do vet mode without a group - the barrels don't allow you to kick them if you're alone. You can see that NiraneShade has group members (who are not present in fp).

Foundry clearly should have additional spawn points - at least one on the correct side of the locked door. I think a similar problem happens if someone new joins the group in progress. Another FP in need of extra spawns is Lost Island - the run back to Sav-Rak (where most groups fail) is way too long. There should be a spawn point at the top of the light bridge.

Extinction protocol is at exactly 29%, but no cast bar is shown for it the first time. It's 5 second cast and 30 second cd after that - 35 seconds in total. Extinction protocol will as far as I know not hit people who are close enough to the boss. (Melee range, maybe? Inside the orbs is surely safe.) If you are the only one in the group outside the safe range you will have a very, very bad day. What happens if noone is outside the safe range at 29%? I have no idea, as I haven't seen this happen. If anyone has a video of that it would be nice to see.

If you only want the companion gifts, then investigation is best. Its rank 5 missions are considerably faster than the other three mission skills' versions. (7 minutes vs 13:40 at companion influence 1.)

It is a bit less grindy if you start playing GSF at 50 or higher. Then you can pick up intro to conquest, use the fleet reqs to get a sting/flashfire for your first game (which at least is somewhat useful in stock config), and then after you've bought every ship in the game plus companions (from the 25k gsf intro quest) you can use the ship reqs from the conquest quest to do initial setup on all your ships. It doesn't make them competitive, but you can at least get the most important components for your ships before you bring them to battle. One thing I would like them to change related to requisitions is the participation rules. If you're fleeing for your life through a flurry of bolts and missiles, you're soon counted as not participating, when clearly you are. In addition to doing damage and interacting with objectives, being hit or being the target of missile locks should count as participation.

If you have no problems staying alive otherwise, you can put the comp ability that contains the cleanse on manual control. That way it will always be available when you need it. Otherwise the comp will use it almost on cooldown, as it's one of the better heals. With the (almost total) lack of dps checks on BoR, there's no reason to kick anyone for bad gear. If your group can do last boss, doing bonus is "only" a matter of coordination (and partially group composition). Especially if your healer has some extra oomph. The third circle is not random, but it can be really hard to know if the player who died had gotten his circle or not. If the dead player hadn't gotten a circle, the third one falls on the tank. And if that happens things tend to go downward. As a healer you might have to select who you want to save. If you survive the C17 release, the third puddle will fall on the tank the next round. It's much easier with only two people alive, as there is no third puddle then. Still, if the tank doesn't have a purge then timing on cleanses is tight. (You need three cleanses/stims in about 23 seconds.)

As I see it, there are two intentions: Promote strongholds in general. Credit sink. The current rules enforce the second point well, since you need to unlock the stronghold fully. The cost to fill the stronghold is pretty low though - it's just time consuming. The effect on the first point is debatable, condsidering it's a royal pain to fill up your stronghold to 100%, while at the same time often forcing you to overcrowd the rooms to keep your bonus. I wish there was a "Warehouse" stronghold title. I would buy it in an instant. It's easy. Base bonus on room unlocks. That keeps (most of) the credit sink from the current method and removes the big pain points. No special room for abuse, and people can decorate their strongholds for the sake of decorating.

Prestige would only mean you had to fill your stronghold with a whole bunch of different kinds of decos. That would be just as bad and just as ugly as the current version. I would prefer if unlocks were the conquest bonus. Fully unlocked stronghold = full bonus from stronghold. That would keep the money sink for conquest without causing the utterly tedious placement process.

Provided people kill the datacron (pretty much everybody does this, so it can't really be the problem), and don't step too much in purple circles (happens frequently, but it's decently easy to spot), the easiest way to get extra damage is non-tanks eating force wave. Another nice way of getting damaged for no reason is attacking him when he's bubbled. The easiest way to minimize damage is for the tank to keep mitigation good when Goh throws chain lightning (assassins can save force speed for this) - otherwise that's a 35k hit. Force speeding all those reduces dtps with about 800, which is considerable compared to the ~2500 dtps I took as tank during the whole fight in the log I found.

The one that got a reply was regarding a topic where the devs already had promised to publish information this week.

Is there room for a Star Wars themed space sim? Probably. Will GSF be it? No. It makes no sense. Make it a game of its own, so it can have a suitable engine and be marketed to the right group of people. Is stick support in GSF worth it? Wouldn't hurt, but it's probably hard to compete with mouse for shooting in the current implementation. Since the GSF rewards aren't that impressive when you just mindlessly fly around - have you considered doing something else with better rewards instead?

My guess is that it's several factors: BLCs are vastly better at short range, but nothing is really good at mid range. (Especially when the target tries not to get hit.) BLCs have decent crit chance and low rate of fire. Big hits kill ships. Small hits often just hurt them. The big hits from BLCs makes it easier to win against unprepared targets. Closing to short range is pretty easy if you're at mid range.

Well, you can't really have both instant pops and not the premade problem. If wrecked by the premade is the only game available at a certain instant, you either run the match or not. And if you don't, then you get longer queue times. Currently, wrecking is incentivised - more CXP and UCs and the match ends faster. You could possibly alter this by rewarding solo queueing more. (As in "so much better it's worth not grouping up".) Damage sure isn't the only important thing, but it's one of the easiest things to tweak if you want a handicap system. It would sure be nice to get more people to queue up, but to get good effects you need them to stay in the queue too. People who are soundly stomped a couple of times tend to take their daily and leave. Those would all be lovely things. I don't really see them as alternatives to fixing matchmaking. Also, I'm not sure you can fix this by better rewards. GSF has decent rewards if you do well. If you don't do well, then not so much. It's hard to increase rewards in a way that doesn't encourage premadestomping or afking.

That is indeed the desired long term fix, and your efforts to spread knowledge about GSF is commendable. The problem is that "It just takes effort and a dedication to fight through the frustrating matches until your skills are up to the task." currently is the equivalent of a new tennis player learning the game by trying to return serves from an ATP pro. Now, I've done pretty much all of the above, and it does work - you do get better with information, time, and practice. I've gone from "so bad my team literally would be better off if I didn't leave the hangar" to a bit below average in about 250 games. It's probably about the pace one can expect. Still, expecting enough people to go that way so that we eventually get a healthier player pool makes it seem like unbalanced games are here to stay indefinitely. However, it might be that an actual handicap system isn't needed, but retuning how matchmaker works would have enough effect by incentivizing good players to split up. One good player, while having a large impact on the match, is probably not enough to reliably turn a game into a roflstomp. Three or four good players is a whole different matter, especially in eight player games. As it seems right now, the matchmaker prioritizes in roughly this order: Get a game to pop. Prioritize getting groups in over single players. Try to make the game as balanced as possible. If the matchmaker was changed to make balanced games a higher priority - even over getting a pop, it might be enough. Especially if they make sure to account for the large span in skills. The price would be longer pops, in particular for groups of highly skilled players (since they would more or less have to wait until a comparable collection of highly skilled players materialized on the other side). In theory, the matchmaker could do other shenanigans as well, such as uneven pops (at least in domination).

The big question is - what do you do when the matchmaker cannot reasonably create a balanced match? Currently it selects to have a roflstomp, and it's a pretty common sight. The other alternative is to let the matchmaker prioritize even games over fast pops and groups, and let the group sit in the queue until a reasonably balanced match could be made.

As the range of skill in GSF is very large there are lots of cases where the matchmaker cannot compensate for a premade group of four skilled pilots. Even if teamed up with four random unskilled players, the skilled pilots will easily chew through most average teams. Thus, to increase the chance of having even matchups, I suggest a handicap system. Skilled pilots would be gimped (do less damage) and unskilled pilots would be buffed (added damage reduction, do more damage). How to do this? You'd combine roughly the following information: Pilot skill on the account level. I.e. if you're good in GSF, you're good regardless of the toon you're currently logged on. Character related info - since ship gear is on toon level, this reflects the gearing. Either this could be tracked per character, or it could reflect the state of the ships you bring into battle. The group you're in, if you're currently grouped. This is, of course, more short lived and reflects the synergy effects of grouping up with other skilled players. (As the matchmaker can't break your group up.) This should be on the account level, so alting doesn't clear this component. Possibly this could be tracked for all pilots, regardless of grouping. That would mean it handled quirks such as queue syncing. At least the pilot component should be pervasive, i.e. logging out doesn't reset you to standard damage. Possibly this pilot score could be visible to everyone, for some kind of bragging rights. (This info, if it not already is, should be fed to the matchmaker as well.)

It turns out the current bolster for HMFPs is 228. Also, if you lack augment for a slot you get compensated with 56 mastery and 37 endurance, equivalent to a 190 ilevel versatile augment (if such beasts existed). See above - you lose a lot of tertiary stats (1344 points) and get about 60% of those points (784) back as mastery instead. That makes you run very unoptimized builds if you want to reach full accuracy. Also, you lose about 4k HP. Needed - probably no. Good to have - hell yes. Since it's below bolster level, it doesn't really matter if it's 228, 210 or naked. (As long as you get to roughly correct accuracy post bolster. Plus at 210 you probably don't have 228 augments.)