Huh? Try to reread what you wrote here. This is neither of your scenarios. This exploit was found due to the oversight in the PvE/Naked bolster issue. Since items can be broken down into 4/5 different parts (Shell, armoring, mod, enhancement, augment,) someone decided to figure out how each part of armor had a specific effect on bolster when they discovered that stats could be artificially inflated by a certain removal of these mods. This person in all likelyhood was specifically looking for any possible exploit to the system. Though I agree that Bioware is going to do nothing against the people that have performed this action, this is very easy to reproduce and is knowingly being done so to purposely gain a statistical advantage over other players, thus being an exploit. Under the TOS (that all players have agreed to), these people should be penalized for performing this action. They are using an admittedly unintended design flaw to their advantage.

Perhaps not hacking, but exploiting is a possibility. I've seen many of these high numbers screen shots of people that have seemingly high health totals while many others happen to omit health totals. I'm not about to call out anyone on using the known exploits (I myself played naked for a weekend of good times in the under 55 bracket, though have never and will never use the current exploit.) Until the augment/mod situation is dealt with, there will be some high numbers that were not obtained legitimately. I don't know all the workings of the augment exploit, but I would assume that removing the item and replacing it just before the match is to end would just put the stats back to where they should be, so including health totals and/or character sheets would not go far in being legit or not.

Lets just get this out there for everyone to start doing since it would appear that exploits are not something to be actually fixed until larger portion of the player base is aware of it Apparently, if you are able to do an enemy pull, you can stand at the edge of the center area of Voidstar and pull a player into the pit area.. however, doing it in this manner does not kill said pulled player. The only available action for the player is to /stuck. Problem is that the pull CD is far shorter then the /stuck CD. Players can be removed from all action with nothing more then a second pull in this manner.

Just logged in and went through all the 400+ recipes that I have (it's not a lot of them, just enough to get to 450) and appears that I'll be stacking up on some more Viral Residue hoping that some day, it will be used for something. Edit: I on more positive note, the increase of crafting mats from missions means that I'll be stacking up on the useless material even faster then before! Yay! /sarcasm

This lovely gem is from the Jedi Cov pages... http://i.imgur.com/qbIm4Kq.jpg

So, I decided to level up my least PvP geared Sage first to 55 and am confused on what to buy first for the new Partisan gear. My gear is a mix of War Hero and Champions (which was not affected by the PvE conversion) What to replace first here? As I understand it, the War Hero was changed over to PvE due to how Bolster is supposed to work. Does that mean that my since my Champion gear still has expertise on it that it is seen as a PvP item and bolster does not have any effect on those items? Or do I swap out the War Hero first and keep the little Expertise I have from the champions?

This is been the only one that has failed for me so far since the patch and I have 3 characters with analysis. Off topic for a moment, but green (impeccable medpac / nano-infused stim) reverses to blue in turn blue reverses to reusable purple? or is there a one time use purple and a reusable?

Telekinetics/Lightning - The bad: -Bubble stun on team members - The upkeep needed to make it work pre 2.0 was very high, the removal of it turns out to be not so bad since it is now something you don't even have to worry about at all... meh, no one gets your bubbles if a seer is in the group because of the heal it gives. However, PvE side of it. No bubble stun with your companion is rough. Perhaps I just got so used to it leveling a 3rd sage/inqu, but it was a very nice survival tool to have. -Bubble stun on yourself - The range of this SUCKS! Most melee are not effected by the stun and is very often resisted by players/mobs that are of the same level, don't even think about working on it with some mob/player that is a level above you. On top of the terrible range that the stun has, the duration is far too short and may appear to be a little buggy with ability queuing. It appears that if a player/mob is queues up the next attack (but before the attack actually goes off) the attack still hits even though the stun has gone off. Sure, latency can have some effect in this but typically running at ~45ms, It rarely seems like 3 seconds have passed from one attack to the next. -Force Usage- Does seem a little bit of a non issue most of the time. It slightly gives me the feeling of pre 1.2 healing. In turn for having to actually manage force usage, a lower damage free cast (perhaps one that regens force) would be a nice addition. Something at least for when you do get in trouble with force usage that you are not just doing the oh so fun idle combat. The Good: -Damage- Finally the class has a decent ability to do some burst. The increase in damage overall was a nice. -Rotations/Priorities- The whole spec now seems to feel smooth and responsive when played correctly, It no longer feels like a game of status bar / proc watching. Though it is still very heavy on different procs, I think that the changes to alacrity have made it so that everything seems to flow proc or not into the next ability. Balance/Madness - The Bad: Instant lift - where to start... This was the bread and/or butter to the spec. The spec was never really about damage in my opinion. It was all about control. I understand removing it from the hybrid Shadow, but it was the killer for me in PvP. With so many classes getting movement enhancing abilities, the cast time is still often too long for it to be of use. The damage is simply not there to support removing this and Barrier is not even worth it as a consolation prize. I don't see where it is "a lot of extra lockdown" as it was put. If the resolve mechanic was not in the game, yes, I understand that the ability would be perhaps overly strong, but as it is, 1 minute CD that provides a lot of resolve and is broke on damage. Also, the same enhancement can be found in the middle tree. This almost defined the spec as "oh crap" tree. The spec that almost save a bad situation with quick reaction. Now, meh, you can get the same advantage with all the damage in the middle tree, why bother with the spec at all? Other then the bad that I see, the spec hasn't been improved in much of any ways. It still has the tab / attack / tab / attack / tab / attack feel to it. In PvP, it is often just DoT up everything in range, then do it again. It takes a Balance Sage three or four seconds to get damage rolling out, but can be nulled by a single ability of cleanse. Why does it take so long and 3 casts to start getting damage out that can be erased by a single one? or even worse, erased while that person is getting healed. I'm sure the is more, but since 2.0, I was only able to do a couple warzones before I felt that I was too much of a liability to my team based on spec choice alone to continue playing as it. The middle tree appears to be the only viable spec in PvP and that is a shame, I enjoy having a choice, be it a damage spec, a control spec, hybrid, or healing. Balance now only offers a ranged 2 second snare that like collapse, has virtually no effect on ranged classes though has even a less of an effect on melee classes.

But but.. I have no friends. I'm all alone in this strange world. I thought he was going to be my first!. I do find it amusing that I can somehow gain ignore list spots with saying as much as "then leave." I didn't even get a chance to have any sort of troll attempt back either. I doubt the scenario you have described will be one in which I will be following.

It's more the point that this player singled me out to message about "delete the game." I tried to tell him that I was going to fulfill his elegant and well written request, but alas, I already claimed a spot on this persons ignore list. For that, I am truly saddened, I felt a strong connection with this player and think we could have been BFFs in a short period of time, I fear that my loss of this possible friend may have long lasting negative effects on my well being. Since I am now unable to confirm the request of the particular player, my options were to honor the request and delete Swtor or play the game as if I did in fact delete the game. I can not very well go and completely ignore such a request. My choice is to take the 2nd option in this particular instance and will continue to play the game to the worst of my ability. Meh, just bored waiting till Monday and no Unicorn posts on the front page.

Well, it isn't exactly obvious. I wasn't sure if they fixed naked right off the bat (today/now) and will get the rest of the stuff on Tuesday or all of it was being done on Tuesday. I'll do my laundry when I get home so at least I'll have pants if I need to wear them or not.

LOL at 4 hitting someone.. Try Tera PvP, can kill someone 4 times over with one hit in equal gear. I think this has more with people having the chance to reroll the FOV type character with the double exp weekends and with currently everyone being on a more equal ground results in much quicker deaths due to damage outputs of these FOV classes.

Errr, hmm, the TLDR version says changes are right now, yet if it is actually read, it would appear the changes will be made on Tuesday during maintenance. Does this mean I have PvP with pants on when I log on tonight?

rage quit all-star? http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/854/screenshot2013041123503.jpg/

Yes, Thanks for doing this ASF.. If you ever need a puller, door or bridge person, send me mail to either Sonika or Kayko on when you run it next.

so early for a Saturday... Well, I hope I can be up at this time. I would really like to get this at least for one of my Sages before the X-pac starts up and running.

Oh, sorry, I didn't intend for my points in the spoiler to be a part of any sort of beginners guide to PvP. Those are very specific to the Sage/Sorc in the specific style that I play in. Some Sage/Sorcs have managed to pull off the stand and turret strat yet I have no clue how that is pulled off. However, since stealth is not exclusive to a single class/spec, it may be something that could be added (of course that is if I am correct on this sort of assumption of how stealth should be played.) At least newer stealth class players will start to learn that exposing yourself too early is often far worse then letting someone die. Or others may understand why that stealth standing next to you just sat and watched you die in a 2v1. Though I often get it, I never expect to get help from a teammate that is stealthed near me.

How about adding a special Stealth section? Though my play time and just about ceased since getting to 50 on my Sorc (Started watching Fairy Tail and can't stop!!) I did notice that stealthers more-so on the Imp side like to "help" too often and way too early. Perhaps this is just my perspective of what the role of stealth classes should be, but I see way too often a stealth player will come to "help" someone attempting to train defenders away from an objective or even worse, the ones that respond to an inc call then pop out of stealth just moments before the person that was defending is killed. Please, stop helping! Stealthers are supposed to be "dirty" fighters, they should be getting last hit on targets. If your team member that was solo defending is about to die.. just let them. Stay in stealth and protect the objective so there is time for that player to return to the fight before you go and get involved. As for attacking healers, IMO, that is not always the best option. In fact, for myself as a Sage/Sorc, it is often the last option. In a response to a question a while back for how people prioritize targets in the PvP forums, I wrote this (see spoiler). It may be wrong for what most people think of a Sage/Sorc, but it feels like the right play style for me.

I really do like how some people can go and post their one time self achievements when they go and pick and choose select warzones they remain in. Only been 50 for a very few moments on the Imp side and already seen a certain "syyde" that went 0's across the board in two matches. Hmm, it sure must be nice to get carried then claim this amazing forum "fame."

Keep in mind that the heals do nothing unless you are already low enough on health to make use of them. In 7 steps, you have basically done 5-6K worth of damage for this duration, blew every CD you have (might have a bubble back up for a third time) and white barred them leaving them able to go wild and burst you down without as much as an eyelash being out of place. Sure, you can survive, but what kind of ability does it take? Perfect execution of your entire set of keybinds? Hmm, go figure, someone might have a chance if they play PERFECTLY. Strange how that works huh?

........................Oh my, these are all such compelling arguments on the reasons that bubblestun should have been changed. I can now see the error in my judgement and understand exactly why Bioware is making the change.................... Umm, ya.... Ok then. Well, I do enjoy reading on how people complain that it is an extra stun for the entire team yet miss that whole "team" word. You do understand that you can has bubblestun too? Though really, does a bubblestun spec player mean it's an auto win against a team with out it? Even better, the mention that it is a counter against melee. So, it is ok that melee continue to have very high mobility on targets to keep doing damage vs a target that has to eventually STOP MOVING to CAST to do any sort of damage or attempt to keep their entire team alive. Melee vs Melee, this isn't an issue since the target would normally remain in position to continue to attack. Lets add that the bubble when broke by an at range attack has absolutely no effect and is wasted all together. Last I checked, Melee classes have a ranged attack that is often does a high enough amount of damage to break a bubble. So perhaps when you see a bubble go up, you move out of range to break the bubble and run back in? I don't know, just a thought.. ya know, learn the mechanic, learn to defend against it, learn to react to the player.. aka l2p?? It's one mechanic that can be rendered useless if treated correctly, bubblestun can be avoided. Also, if players want to manually remove the bubble for the stun, in those 4 seconds ( assuming not a single attack or DoT goes out) do you really think that you will be capped on? A single smash is going to have a much larger affect on a warzone if your team is all grouped up to eat a bubblestun. Without the ability to place bubblestun on your team, there is virtually no reason to have a choice in the middle talent tree for a sage/sorc. The damage output by the talents is not enough to make them a reasonable target. Allowing them to free cast takes the focus of perhaps half a healer. To bring back the whole "team" word. It takes multiple players to be able to lock down a single melee class with the bubblestun/cheap grenade combo. Even in a 2v1 situation, you come out ahead for your team by creating a player advantage for the rest of the team The bubblestun argument has never been about team play, it is all about melee play. Melee already gets additional damage coefficients due to expected travel distance and downtime, getting increased movement abilities, though that isn't good enough. Spending months of complaining using the same reasons as quoted above to get an ability that was avoidable removed. I believe that Bioware simply got fed up with the sheer lack of actual argument towards the ability and have made the changes to clean up the forums a little bit.

Well, I did not think that people would actually pay attention to this to keep it on the front page for more then 2 hours. Non-the-less, I know the point of the video was for fun but it does do a good job in showing that bubblestun can be used offensively as an annoyance. I can assure you that even the a slightly competent group of 2 healers and 2 dps would take down 3/4 pugs. There is a moment were the first to die was the bubblestun specced player showing that even when it is being rolled from player to player, it will not create a "iwin" situation. A response to whomever wanted to hear my "qq" once 2.0 hits and so forth. I don't intend to stay with this game much passed 2.0, and/or my time will be limited back down to the founders/free status. This game does not provide the atmosphere I enjoy the most with MMOs in the area of Machinima. I really don't care too much what happens, i'm more defending the option for players to choose a spec rather then be herded into a specific one for what they prefer to play. Ok, as "evidence" this video was linked to me as defense for someones "bubble is OP" argument. I don't think bubblestun being on other players is much of an issue. With that, I am not specced as a healer, tried it, didn't like it, moved on. I however can see that from a healers perspective, the ability to put a stun bubble on your healing target just might be very strong giving those healers some extra time to get another heal in. Instead of removing the bubble stun component all together for healers, a compromise can be met in allowing all self bubbles come with the stun effect and allow a talent high in the tree to be cast on others with the stun. In PvP, this would at least make the having of the highest talent skill (Turbulence/Thund Blast) being a 2 second cast and hits for less then melee classes instant cast ranged ability does for, not to mention that smash (an instant AoE) paired with leap is basically a ranged ability as well. I do believe that every class is given an interrupt, yet very few are dependent on cast times. Seems a little bit unbalanced here. To add to the survivability of a sorc/sage. Aren't all classes getting some sort of major movement ability? Even a perfect timed sprint will be no match as a means of escape. For a class that relies on distance and the following must stand still to cast does not stand a chance without these abilities. Any melee can close the gap with ease, follow up with a stun or interrupt and keep a caster locked down. As far as I can tell, the argument for bubblestun has been "it's OP" and that is about as far as it goes. I haven't seen much of anything at all that has been evidence of the ability being a game changer. If it was, it would be the standard spec to go in PvP yet many shy away from it because of the upkeep needed in order to make it slightly effective. This type of change creates a FotM play style that has been seen in many other games and ultimately brings upon more frustration with additional nerfs and tweaks until very few people are happy with specific aspects of the game. I see a lot of people complaining about lack of ranked warzones across all the servers, do you think that FotM will help this at all? People having to gear up another character in order to be competitive with those who happen to be top flavor already does not make for an exciting environment in my opinion.

In a particular stream, someone put up the argument that bubblestun is "OP" then continued on with a video link. So, with that, I present this evidence of how "overpowered" bubblestun is. For those who do not wish to watch the video, it is of a 4's premade mostly against what appears to be primary pug groups. 2 healers (one member BS spec) and 2 dps. These people are actually using bubble offensively and manually removing the bubble for the stun along with doing good target switching to allow the full stun effect to work. Only once during the entire video (multiple clips of different warzones) does this team actually take an objective. Multiple occasions they out number the people they are against and still do not manage to make a kill or complete an objective with this tactic. In fact, other videos that they show that do not use BS spec, they seem to be performing better. So with that, BS spec appears to be handicap for the teams that have it. I know many people will continue to go with the "OP" argument, though really, you just want to QQ cause you are slightly inconvenienced by a stun, I propose that Bioware puts in a hacky sack or perhaps a dance dance rev style warzone for you that don't wish to actually have to fight or perhaps having your character die in a warzone. In conclusion, Bubblestun as it stands on live is not overpowered. It doesn't need to be changed. It is not a free win in the slightest for teams that have it. It takes a lot of work to maintain bubblestun and should remain as it stands for those who are skilled enough to use it as effectively as possible. Changing the ability in the manner that they are just deters people from having a choice in their play style. No point in herding more people into specific cookie cutter specs because the majority can not differentiate between strong and annoying.

....................................... I hate you........................ You must not be from the US huh?

At first, I wanted to get to level 50 on my Imp for the purpose of adding to the recruit geared Imp list.. but now, oooohhhhhh, I can't wait to hit level 50 on my Imp.. There are some ... ummm.. special... players coming up the lowbie ranks.. this Imp experiment is going to be FUN!! Just got out of a lowbie warzone with a healer that was marked within the first 30 seconds of the warzone overall taking the least amount of damage.