(Ashley Schaeffer voice) If I recall correctly, Benedict Arnold used the same excuse to justify his traitorous ways. No, in all seriousness, the line about traitors is just poking fun at my old imp buddies who rerolled around the time Infidels left for GW2. No harm intended, you were just lumped into the category of good healers who quit for pub side. Although it seems I may have struck a nerve ^_^. I don't mean to derail this thread talking about all the imp baddies, especially madbads like darkmagician, please continue. Also in all seriousness, grisha/flak/cates is Benedict Arnold and CM/rippernine is John Wilkes Booth. -Eked

Wrong. Sorcs we still have (in no particular order) durwin, nova, klinsmann <3, psychospider. Ops anna'ka, shatterwoman, strykez, dize, jalblurr. Mercs reighner, regis, moonrunner, amigo?... Pug healers are depleted except for the occasional sorc but to say all the top imp healers are gone would be incorrect. It's my opinion that we are missing top end dpsers, that's why I often run dps to pick up the slack. A lot of my healer buddies still play minus Vandis but the vast majority of top dpsers on my friends list are gone. Sure there were traitors like combatmedic, amigo, okku (on vanish), neb, and especially grisha even though he doesn't heal, but there are still quite a few top imp pvp healers around. In pugs I find that imp dpsers don't focus well or peel which leaves the healers at a big disadvantage running solo. Can't tell you how many times I am the only person attacking Neb in a pug, even after I put a big target on his slippery ***. Sorry to pick this line out but I have to respectfully disagree. To the OP- run merc we need more quality healer tanks. It is more difficult to heal as a merc in high end pvp due to properly timed interrupts/CCs but when played right they are a force to be reckoned with. -Eked

11 deaths: +100

100% agree. Some people will argue that EQ truly hit its stride with the release of the Velious expansion and the Temple of Veeshan. Bioware could learn a TON from studying how Verant/Sony designed ToV. It had 3 different wings of difficulty with 2 armor sets for each class and the boss of the entire dungeon, Vulak'Aerr, dropped the pieces of uberness described in this post. I had the first Hobart's Helm in the game and it was absolutely thrilling when it dropped on our 2nd kill. The northern wing was the most challenging and it also had about 13 bosses to kill that all had a rare drop that made them worthwhile to kill. The Cloak of Thorns is a perfect example, this cape was so über I used it well into the next expansion because it had a self-click damage shield. Where are these unique items/item effects in swtor? Fast-forward ~6 years. Some people will argue that WoW truly hit its stride with the release of Blackwing Lair. Bioware could learn a TON from studying how Blizzard designed BWL and copied EQ. It had 8-9 bosses of varying difficulties, including several gear-check/gateway bosses and the boss of the entire dungeon, Nefarian, dropped the pieces of uberness described in the previous post. The most difficult bosses dropped set pieces, however each boss had a rare drop that made them worthwhile to kill. I can remember the wing buffet dragons dropped an uber warlock piece we waited a long time to see and Nefarian dropped the BiS healer offhand that I waited quite a while to acquire. Farming the instance for these rare drops proved to be invaluable in progressing faster through the next major dungeon, AQ. Why hasn't Bioware picked up on this yet? To conclude, these items of uberness are what make or break endgame itemization for hardcore raiders. Being able to be the only person in the game or on the server to have the aforementioned item of uberness is something we hardcore guys strive for! Damn right I was pimping my robe off Nefarian or helm off Vulak'Aerr when I knew nobody else had it yet. Bioware is kinda sorta on the right track with Kephess itemization. The armorings and ear/OH that only he drops somewhat fit this mold, but mostly miss the mark. So what can Bioware learn from these dungeons that put their respective games "on the map" so to speak? 3 things; #1. You cannot make all itemization cookie-cutter style and expect hardcore raiders to keep running endgame content without a carrot on a stick in the form of these items of uberness. #2. Create a long and difficult dungeon with ATLEAST 2 gateway bosses that people will get stuck on for a week or more. This dungeon must be your masterpiece in order to set swtor apart from its competitors. #3 From studying these dungeons you will see that Swtor's boss mechanics are right on par (if not better, as they should be) with its predecessors, keep it up! But I would ask for an increase in difficulty, sure the casuals will complain, but when they see me rolling around with one of these items of uberness, guess what? They will be motivated, they will get better, they will down it. Fin. P.s. before anyone asks, NO I don't want space dragons! =D

The new gear set for NiM EC is prefixed Hazmat (found this on torhead I believe) and is a halt step up. So itemizing must be taken into account for the development time as well. I would love to see a time-consuming legendary item quest released with NiM EC. Something that required a rare drop from each boss in NiM EC plus crafting/farming would be ideal to keep the progression raiders interested. I know this is a stretch but it would be a relatively quick fix to the stale end-game that we currently find ourselves bored with. I think they could hammer out one solid quest-line in a matter of weeks that could keep us occupied for a month or two until 1.4.

Im at 2125 willpower, 970/755 bonus dmg/healz, 31.5% crit before agent buff. You are right on point with your surge/alac ratio. I think 77/8.5 is my sweet spot. My power to crit rating ratio is 790-250 so I'm a little higher than the 2.5 estimate. I would suggest dropping one crit/surge enhancement for power/surge and switching out all mods with the 60+ willpower for ones with 41 power. That should help boost your bonus damage a bit. Also don't forget you can get an extra 1% crit/surge from max companion affection. In the end, the difference between 1350 and 1500dps comes down to min/maxing, how effectively you can execute your rotation and proper use of recklessness, trinkets & adrenal.

Let's bring the healers in on this one. My biggest crits. Thundering blast: 5713 DF: 4923 Dark Infusion: 7899 Innervate tick: 2287 With raid buffs I have 2137 willpower, 800 power, 950 force damage, 730 force healing. The 7k crit TB is possible in WZ if caster has 1000+ expertise and target is squishy with 0.

I think everyone is missing the part where it said "coming this year". Meaning the highlights include 1.3, 1.4 and possibly 1.5 (if they can push it out by December). With NiM EC not coming with 1.3 we've got a long while until a new operation drops. I'm thinking September or later.

At all? This is the most healing intensive fight in the game. If you don't have great healers you will never see kephess sub 60%. Good positioning for bombers/ walker dps phase reduces the need for insane dps. Good positioning for adds/pulsar droid phases reduces the chance of a raid member getting insta-gibbed. Healing during the kephess phase cannot be reduced or mitigated except by excellent healing. This fight is a positioning and healer fight however you break it down. Even on 8m where there is more emphasis on maximizing dps, you only have two healers, which makes their skill level even more important. No boss in the game delivers as heavy and consistent damage as kephess (only comparison is nightmare Jarg). You can make it up to kephess dropping with mediocre heals/dps but once he comes down from the walker, if your healers are not skilled/ready it's a wipe every time.

HM Kephess is a positioning and healer fight. The OP here wrote a lengthy segment on proposed changes to healers. These threads are getting hijacked by healers but that doesn't mean it's off-topic from the discussion at hand.

/agree. The expection to my rule of keeping the bubble in your pocket is when you can anticipate a spike. This is a lesson most good sorcs/sages have learned innately a la bonethrasher swipes and Soa ballz. I guess my point is that before resurgence/force-bending was fixed we could heal through any burst with the rejuv-innervate-dark infusion or rejuv-DIx2 combos, now that those are gone the shield becomes our primary tool for mitigating burst whether it's used proactively or reactively. I have found that the few times kephess has dropped our tank I had used my bubble too early and allowed it to be eaten by boss melee damage right before the burst. My strategy is aimed to avoid the situation where the tank takes unexpected burst while bubble/innervate are on CD and he dies before a 2.3s DI can land.

#2 I'm gonna have to disagree. Especially on heavy tank damage fights like Kephess you need to reserve the bubble for the heavy burst dmg. Once he uses arching slash or whichever ability hits for 7-8k I use bubble-rejuv-innervate to recover. If you don't have the bubble for this burst you can lose the tank if big heals aren't already incoming. As far as when to tap(noble sac/consumption) during kephess encounter. I tap regularly throughout but I find it necessary to use it 3-4 times at two points of the fight. First, following the 1st walker burn phase right before the adds spawn I will tap to about 50% health, shield/rejuv first AoE taunt tank and then drop aoe heal to top myself/mitigate raid dmg. Second, during the droid phase I will tap 3 times on both the 2nd and 3rd transition once we are all safely in position and an aoe heal is down. The reason for choosing these two points of the fight is because they require an aoe heal for the raid and they follow a walker dps phase. I do about 100k dmg on this fight by helping burn bombers and dpsing during walker burn phases 1&2, so it is especially force intensive for me and tapping following the walker burns is a must. If done correctly, I go into the kephess 100-60 phase with about 70% force.

Nope. We've never had a problem with this. Focus fire the first warrior where he stands then myself (heal sorc), our dips merc and dps sorc all drop AOE. Usually 4-5 seconds of downtime before 2nd wave spawns. I imagine it's even easier with a sniper AoE. We run 2 maras so they leap to the warriors and kill them where they spawn.

I like Duffy's idea to tank the add phase behind the walker however I think less experienced guilds will have trouble downing the bomber should he pop at one of the two spawn points on the far wall. We found it easiest to tank the adds next to the bunker until the walker aoe drops right next us then transition to mid once aoe pauses (about 2/3rds through final wave). This allows us to pull/kill bomber at mid before walker aoe makes its way back to us. Another useful tactic is to have maras/sents leap to the warrior on the 2nd/final waves and solo them away from the group. Heal aggro will draw the rest to the bunker but the maras/sents will need to be topped between waves.

407 crit rating is too high. Switch out the crit mod on the saber and both crit augments for an aptitude 26 & resolve augs. Also I would lose one surge enchancement for a quick savant to better min/max the DR on your alacrity and surge.