RNG + grinding = finally cancelled my ongoing subscription since launch. I still found this game worth playing through all the years, but this just doesn't sound fun in the slightest. I started off a RPer, but ended up really getting into ops. Even with the lack of content and all the achievements, I found it fun to lead people new to the game through them. I liked having lots of alts so I could fill multiple roles. I could get around KotFE being boring on repeat playthroughs by ignoring it except on my main. Playing the same old ops was fun on different classes and different specs and with different groups. It's also easy to ignore the cartel market and its RNG. A lot of great changes have been made to the game with legacy gear, outfits, strongholds, level scaling (though I still sometimes don't like it), etc. But I just canceled my subscription. There's no where I could see to say why, so I'm saying it here. 5.0 doesn't sounds like fun. If you're trying to encourage people to subscribe, I think this might have the opposite effect.

I'm a returning player who really hasn't played in a year and I'm doing DvL. Got my sage up to 65, swapped over legacy heal set (full set bonus mostly 220's, one 224) and did the best I could for the left side and queued up for Hard Mode flashpoints. Finally get a pop for Battle of Rishi. I'm shaking out the rust and don't notice much about the group other than that the tank (VG, level 60) is not holding much, but the trash is pretty spaced out and we've got a TK sage (60) and probably SS gunslinger hitting everything. I'm mostly thinking to myself that I hope no one wants to do the bonus. I did it once with some of my then ops group and would not want to pug it. Gunslinger goes afk during trash, then comes back to leave, so we queue and get an awesome looking commando, who is notably heavily armored, but with her body type 4 thighs exposed for what I can only assume is for the intimidation factor. There is some minor typing during the wait, but nothing odd. I should have checked gear then, but I was checking my DvL log. We get to the first boss duo and I toss out a quick explanation from what I recall. Tank proceeds to not hold either boss and the sage stands in everything (possibly due to lag). I'm healing my butt off and watching for ground effects, so it takes me a while to notice what the tank is doing. Or isn't doing. I check his gear on the way back after the inevitable wipe since I and the dps ended up tanking. He's in insta-60 dps blues. When we get back: Let's call her "Commando Thighs": *Insta60*, Have you ever tanked before? Insta60: drop dead me: ? Insta60: **** Commando Thighs: Uh, what? Insta60: (spells out with spaces a 4 letter word for woman who sleeps with a bunch of people) and he left the group! There was absolutely nothing to indicate this level of trolliness in his previous behavior. I asked in allies if someone would kindly queue up because "who doesn't want to tank for *****?" and we got a really nice replacement who sadly had to leave at the last boss because they forgot they had an ops to run. So we requeued. AND GOT THAT INSTA 60 back again! Insta60: It's me again! I had forgotten to add him to my ignore list. I voted to kick, but he left immediately anyway. We gave up at that point because it was late (and the sage had repeatedly stood in everything and died, so it wasn't likely we'd one shot the last boss with a new tank). And here I thought I was being clever by overgearing and bringing in a character who could save a group by healing the stuffing out of them. That'll learn me.

We have in the past, though I can definitely say we'd prefer to stay two days a week. Shoot me a PM with some info on when you're available. You can contact us in game, though I (and the other officers) area usually only on our mains on ops nights.

Updated with new links and info! Still looking for an eighth member!

Updated for 4.0! Please contact me in game (Rehn, Orrehn, Orbiana or Eudokia) or in forums if you have any questions. Your best bet to find us in game is in the evenings, or just fill out the application form on our website - http://underworld-alliance.enjin.com/

Updated to reflect current roles needed.

Just to confirm, as op, we are still looking for roles and please message the guild leader, Farius, or one of the officers listed in the original post.

[R] <Underworld Alliance> is recruiting for our progression team. Server: Ebon Hawk Schedule: Tuesday and Fridays nights from 8 to 11 EST Faction: Republic Roles: Skilled dps - Vanguard, Commando, or Sage preferred. Other classes will be considered if the player is exceptional. UWA is an established PVE guild whose membership has Deposer of the Dread Masters and other achievements. Our progression team is very experienced with all ops, many of them having them when current, and we're looking forward to clearing them all again. Mumble and StarParse are required. Guild has a strict “no exploits” policy and while we are a fun bunch, we do require a level of courtesy and respect between members. Outside of regular progression nights, we often form up alt runs or storymodes on other nights at about the same times. To apply, please use the form on our website - http://underworld-alliance.enjin.com/recruitment If you have any questions, contact us through our enjin page or find one of our officers online. Guildleader is Farius and officers are Sedna, McFodder, and myself (Rehn). If we are on alts, please search for guild name and ask. UPDATE 10/11/15 to expand sought roles.

Jedi Order black and yellow banner Location: Voss Orbital Station

I do think anyone capable of healing should throw a heal at whoever has threat and is under something like 20%. A dps at full health with a taunt should taunt then, too! Sometimes stuff happens and emergency heals replace medpacks when you're bolstered to 55 with only level 20 medpacks. And I have to say my favorite runs are nonstop 3 dps and a a healer. But SERIOUSLY, stop demanding people who "queue as a healer" to be a full time healer, because as I keep explaining, if you queue for both healing and damage, you are assigned healing, no matter what. People queue for tacticals at the same time as other flashpoints, so they may have both selected, but they do not intend to primarily heal a tactical. Yes, they should heal in an emergency, but don't expect them to heal if they are spec'ed dps.

Green uplighting pools like from the Collicoid nests on Balmorra. I have some of my favorite screenshots from standing in them and having a bubbling toxic green pool would be a nice ice breaker at parties. Malgus' throne from False Emperor that would actually lift you up high to where he is at the start of the cutscene Portraits like they have in the houses on Makeb, but of our faction leaders or just random choices we can pretend are whoever. Holos of KOTOR heroes like on Corellia, except new models using the new gear from the cartel market so they actually look more like Carth, Bastilla, Juhani, Mission, etc.

Please, please remember that people can queue for KDY and regular flashpoints at the same time. If they select two roles for a regular flashpoint, say if they are leveling dps but have field respec and will switch for a regular flashpoint, if they get a KDY pop, they are AUTOMATICALLY labelled as TANK OR HEALER. Never dps. Regardless of how they are currently spec'ed or geared. So they load in thinking it's better to stay dps because it's KDY, especially because you can get a group with a couple of healers. Or they don't have field respec and queue by the vendor to swap if it's a reg FP. Just ASK if they're planning to heal. Don't assume. And while they can throw an offheal, for something like a sage/sorc, it's just faster to kill everything.

2 stories, pronouns are character's: Lowbie Athiss on my new scoundrel, who is just below mob level and actually not overgeared for once. Everyone else is a level or so above - another scoundrel as healer, shadow "tank", and guardian dps. My 55 scoundrel is a healer and I don't really dps, so I'm excited to get a chance to try with a group. But the shadow is in the wrong stance and doesn't pull. The guardian dps does. Repeatedly. Even after the healer and I both ask him not to. I whisper the tank at the start. The healer is trying, but keeps healing the tank when the guardian or I is taking all the hits. No, I do not get to use my back blast because I pull right off the guardian despite my gear (I had inheritance stuff because why not and I'd logged off thinking I'd gear up next time I logged on and naturally I forgot). With the use of tank markers and a tank actually taunting, we get past the first two bosses with the guardian dying half a dozen times. On both, naturally both the tank and the guardian completely ignore the adds, despite both healer and I saying something about it. I am very glad to have legacy markers to put down to explain things. We get to the tunnels and all the sith-y golds. The other scoundrel has her out of combat CC and uses it. So of course the guardian jumps to it, the tank pulls a second guy, and later runs into the third because he won't sit still and tank. We wipe. Several times. And we keep telling the guardian to stay dead whenever he alone dies and he finally listens to us. So, last boss. I explain the run away from flames bit. The tank decides to kite the boss and then stand in flames. But first the guardian dies because standing in flames is fun and the healer has either completely given up on him, or is ignoring the debuff (no cleanse yet, but you can heal the person whose health is randomly dropping, you know) and he was half dead from that. So as the tank is starting to kite flames, suddenly the dead guardian is gone. Ok, he released. Not ok, he RAN BACK with FRIENDS. SO MANY FRIENDS. Healer and I rage quit. The end. Second story, where everyone is bad, but we actually finish. SM Cademimu on my baby vanguard, who is slightly under level but way overgeared. I actually get a dps pop and swap gear and respec. I shouldn't have. The tank has had just enough experience to be worse than he should have been. The healer starts off by responding to my "Hi all" with "guard me" and repeats this throughout the fp. No guard goes out. Ever. Tank should have guarded me since I easily pull off during the first group. I hit my shield, medpac, burn like crazy, but the big droid finally gets me while the tank is not taunting ever. Here's a case where that stupid 5% reduction would have saved me. Because the healer wasn't anywhere near us, but back at the vendor droid through this long fight. I snark a little about not needing guard if you don't heal. Nope, healer says she's actually a dps. And needs a guard. And keeps telling us to wait. And complains about any single mob that hits her. Tank rushes and sometimes I, recuperating health, am not there for the pull. I immediately take care of adds on the healer, but this is not enough. Every blow is pure pain I guess. I assume she respec'ed during one of those waits, because she actually heals and isn't too terrible the rest of the run, but I was bitter about dying and annoyed by her wanting guard so badly. She does try to CC trash, which tank leaps to. I die again on the big pull after the shortcut because I'm not getting heals and doing all the damage. Tank and other dps are fine. Other dps and tank DO tunnel the boss when the droid activates and after the droid switches targets to the tank, he doesn't move and gets stunned. He lols and wonders how that happened, even though I quickly typed out what to do for the fight before he managed to pull. Wookie boss. I'm typing out the two main strats as we go, but tank just says "leap on here", so shuttle it is. I hate shuttle. Healer agrees. I stop being bitter about dying because I love people who hate the shuttle strat in an absolving way. Tank pulls, then proceeds to stand 1) in front of the shuttle then 2) on the shuttle. I sigh, pop tank cell, and leap off since I have aggro anyway. Adds go down like butter with the flamethrower and die to the explosion just like it should happen. Then tank decides everyone knows to run through the next mobs to the elevator, though of course other dps and healer don't (no real indication they haven't been here before other than them getting confused about what destination to click for the shuttle when there's only one you can actually select) and I try to save us. So we all wipe. Healer starts complaining again about getting hit during parts where mobs are spread out because I am the only one going after any of them. I hate the healer again. Why do I even try? The other dps is a gunslinger. With blinders like a cart horse. After all that, General Ortol decides to not fire up the place where we're standing for the entire fight, so we don't have to move, and no one dies. Thank you, Ortol. We needed that.

Hammer Station HM, first boss. I'm a merc healer with legacy 180's set bonus with good stats and bleh everything else, with 2 merc dps and I don't remember the tank, but all decently overgeared for a 55 HM, though the dps is low for their hit points, which means terrible stats balance. When this fp first came out, I'd reassuringly say something like "I'll cleanse on 5 stacks" when playing a healer. I haven't needed to in months. The tank also charges right in, as I've been keeping everyone at very high health the whole time prior. I get ready to cleanse and the debuff is gone. I end up cleansing when it hits 2 stacks, but before mine comes off cooldown again, the tank has been cleansed at another 2 stacks. No one's health has dipped in the slightest in the meantime, but the boss is still terribly healthy. I can't tell which dps is cleansing, but I catch both of them with their target as the tank. Not in the same guild, they don't throw out kolto bombs, they both seem to be high in pyrotech... I just don't get it. And the fight just takes forever, but otherwise a fine run. Just weird. It's not like it's horribly bad to help cleanse what is a stacking debuff, but the tank was robust and mitigation-y and the healer was on top of things... and your darn dps was really low! You waited a long time to get that dps queue pop! Shoot the things!

Could you please remove: Dread Forged Supercommandos Device Rehn 800K + Mats I've had to move Rehn to Harbinger and I've sold my last one. Sorry EH! I did make nearly a dozen last weekend and this week, so hopefully you've been saturated!

Your group was a mess, but you really, really shouldn't be doing 55HMs with a wrong stat in your main hand. The only thing that could be an upgrade is the enhancement and maybe the crystal. Your mainhand has a huge effect on your abilities in any class and you are seriously reducing your effectiveness. Get a makeb vendor barrel or a cheap crafted 28/53/other number! And just because you could clear the same FP with a different group now makes no difference. With well geared dps and tank, you could be doing half of the heals you would do with full cunning mainhand and be fine. But seriously you think that's a vindication? Please don't use the wrong stats because it's an "upgrade". That is not an upgrade. It is the opposite of an upgrade. It sounds like the whole thing was terrible, with dps not on the dogs, but they randomly attack everyone, including the healer, so you just have to suck it up and heal yourself. Stroytime: I've been leveling up a sorc and it seems like every Athiss I've run the tank tries to tank the Beast in the middle of the area and inevitably ends up getting chucked off the side into adds. Even when I and others have repeatedly said to get your back to a wall and I've even used my raid markers and offered to go clear the area and tank by the pool or whatever they need, they've somehow each done this several times. The thing is, up to that point they give no indication they don't know the flashpoint or how to tank or even follow directions. Is the Beast really so scary that it causes tanks to panic and run around (because this was seriously 3 different tanks)? I'm biochem, and after a wipe, one tank actually asked me to make sure I use the little akk dog pet on the pull, implying that was why we wiped. Bless your heart, tank. A little akk dog who would get killed with one hit will save us!

Thanks for the update. I'm still super excited about strongholds. I'm very happy to hear that companions, pets, etc can be used as "decorations" and won't automatically show up. I do both progression raiding and RP, so I'm planning on having at least one stronghold for trophies and one for in character stuff. So my question is - is everything in a stronghold going to be like a decoration? Because while I love operation training dummies, I don't necessarily want one standing in the background during a very important conversation or something. Being able to toggle off companions from inside your house was something a lot of roleplayers wondered about, so I guess I'm just asking about the rest of the stuff you can have.

One small correction for you Enalis - you've misspelled "Rehn" as "rhen" for the supercommando's device. Thanks for doing this and keeping it updated!

Earpiece: Dread Forged Supercommando's Device Crafted by Rehn (Rep) Materials + 800k credits

Advanced Skill Barrel 34 - Saavartha (Rep) Dread Forged Professional's Blaster Pistol (shell) - Saavatha (Rep) (Imperial contact - Angharas) Advanced Adept Enhancement 34 - Angharas (Imp) (Republic contact Saavartha) Free with mats.

OK, so when I was healing on my scoundrel with a sage and we got the server first on HM Corruptor Zero and weren't guarded and had to heal ourselves like crazy on the first add wave, we were all just worthless. Guard would have done absolutely nothing to help us other than knock off 5% of the damage, but our tanks didn't guard us because they are mediocre and incompetent. While you're not wrong about a lot of things about tanking and threat, you are insultingly wrong about applying your experience to everyone else and judging the worth of a tank by whom they guard and I really hope you're trolling. When you run ops, do you have your group in parsec so you can keep the threat meter up? And do you watch what is going on? DPS going all out can outpace a tank on a single boss with no swaps even with taunt fluffling. Tanks swaps make threat ridiculously easy, but look at the initial pull on council for example, where the tank who takes Bestia at the start has to make sure they have threat for the first knockback, then the positioning before the second knockback. For a lot of the time during that opening, you're flying in the air or moving, so you can't do damage to solidify your threat. Mechanics like that are there as a challenge because they make threat difficult. The "silver platter" may exist on easy content, but you're claiming NiM progression here. Granted, TfB and S&V don't have those challenges except on trash, so if that's your experience, then sure. But good luck with NiM Nefra, especially if you're going to guard the other tank. Depending on the level of skill of the players and difficulty and tactics of the fight, you sometimes will caution dps to start slowly or go all out at the start. Depending on the fight, you may want to change your guard. There are a lot of methods to tackle fights for progression ops. But guarding a dps is absolutely not a sign of a mediocre tank.

You may be a really, really, really good tank with predictable dps, so that you know they're going to frontload a lot of damage for you to taunt off of and multiply. If you're working together really well as a team there is no need to guard anybody or have anyone use a threat drop. I know of progression groups who insist dps don't threat drop. (Probably because the most common problem with threat drops is that dps use them too soon and the tank is taunting off nothing, which allows the dps to pull ahead on threat.) But outside of progression teams, it's a sign of either a PVP player or a really, really, really bad tank to guard the healer. 5% damage reduction shouldn't mentally help your healers to prevent distraction. Also, ????????? Really, really, really bad thingsTM happen when you lose threat to a dps, too. Like the first boss of TfB or a boss with a front cone attack turning around on the entire group. And a dps is so much more likely to pull off you than a healer. It's ridiculously hard for a healer to pull threat except in special circumstances (like a commando who has probed the entire ops and then raid-wide damage happens and your commando simply disappears. True story.) But I do agree that in some fights you want to guard a healer because dps are seldom on the same target as the tank, tanks are taunting off each other, etc. and there's raid-wide damage, because why not? Might as well guard somebody and the threat management is the negligible part. But those fights are very rare. We're talking about leveling flashpoints, or just general flashpoints, once you have some aoe damage and especially once your tank has an aoe taunt. If you damage all the enemies, they shouldn't run towards the healer. Guard is a threat management tool in pve. Use it to manage threat. End of story. I almost wish it didn't have that 5% damage reduction because that is a cause of so much stupidity about guard. Healers should want a tank to guard dps. If a dps pulls, the healer will have to heal them more than they would the tank, which would generate more threat. If a dps pulls, it could swing a conal attack around at the group, including the healer. Just guard whomever pulls threat and forget about the measly 5% (generally) and banish from your mind the pvp portion (unless you are fighting a player)! (Also, if you have seen a commando healer - she is still missing, presumed eaten by droids.)

Yeah, tanks are great for grouping things up and honestly, on an actual mitigation geared and spec'ed tank, they often take so little damage it can speed up the downtime between pulls, at least around level 40 when you can get tank gear. I have been in groups with 3 tanks where we whittled it down to just one. I always have field respec for my characters and if you ask, a bunch of people GF deems tanks have queued for both roles and were only going to respec if they got a traditional FP pop. But in KDY I have also seen: people designated DPS (which means they specifically clicked off the tank option) who are in tank stance, people yell at others marked heals when the person healing is dpsing and in a dps spec, and most egregiously, people saying "hold on a sec" at the start so they can go respec to whatever KDY assigns them as, even if the group already has one healer or one tank.

I haven't read through the thread, but the silly thing I've wanted ever since kotor: Hoversled pulled by gizka.

Buddy and I run lowbie KDY. It's Guardian tank (me), two VG dps (one is my friend), one sage DPS. It's classic (already? yes, already) KDY. Sage runs around trying to chain pull, the other VG dps plays at range despite being the highest level and taunts randomly, group pulls the hardest part while the tank is recovering health because they never need to because I'm tanking. Mostly it goes ok, because everything dies quickly since I focus on grouping things up and they use their aoes except for the ranged vanguard. And when the other VG pulls the two golds and a silver during the Hanger Bay, I rush in and gather up the 2 he's not on and let him get pushed off and run around on the bottom floor and die so that his gold runs back to us just as we are finishing the other two. It's okay to be dumb if you only kill yourself. The funny part is one of the load lifter droids. I leap in and we go to work then the VG harpoons it because maybe he figured out he was melee or was just randomly pushing buttons (I'm betting the latter because of the random taunts). Then the sage pushes it away. This would be tolerable nonsense except my leap has a cooldown and I am a baby guardian with no range abilities whatsoever. So I push the droid back at them and watch the sage and the "ranged" VG run off. I wish the fight had lasted long enough for me to keep throwing the droid they were so afraid of right at them. I ran another KDY a week ago with someone who really loved the votekick thing. I respecced to dps because we were both marked as tanks after asking if he was really a tank, but he really didn't tank. We wiped on the first group of trash because he pulled a gold into a big pack while people were still running in and it was too much, especially since one dps dc'ed. He votekicks the dc'er immediately. We get a replacement, who is labeled as a healer, but doesn't say anything in chat. A few pulls in, he's berating the "healer" for not healing. Then a little later there's the next votekick, reason "Not healing". I don't vote, but I guess the other person does, and off goes the "healer" without a word. I then type in chat "You know that groupfinder labels someone a healer or tank if they even have that checked and most people don't bother to respec for kuat because you can do it with 4 dps. Just fyi." So it's silence from the votekicker for the rest of the run. I think the only other thing typed was me going "ADDS ADDDS AAAADDDDS" during the grenade boss because with three dps and a tank you wouldn't think we'd be leaving 2 out of 3 alive each time. I was leaping to them, but I often had boss aggro and got pulled back.