Pretty much what he said ^^^^^ PvE gearing: Mitigation stats beat endurance stacking, because like OP rightly points out, less work for healer for same overall effect. PvP gearing: Shield/Absorb and defense as well give very little (especially the former). Only effective against white damage (defense more so). However, most of your cooldowns feed off of a high endurance value: Here is what I do in pvp, and it pisses people off: Pop endure pain (max health +30%) Pop pvp medpack: 35% of maxhealth healed (so more with higher endurance, and more w/ endure pain buff) Intercede to teammate: 8% of max health healed (w/ vindicator 2 piece... again this is better with higher endurance and endure pain) Pop enraged defense: 3% of max health healed per tick... again more w/ endurance and endure pain... if you have the talent from vengeance, it will also give you 15% damage reduction Also charge back, and get 20% damage reduction from unstoppable And I haven't even touched invincible and saber ward. I know, off topic... but I love me some immortal-vengeance hybrid.

I'm leveling up an assassin at the moment, and I was shocked to find out some days back that force cloak popped me right out of combat in most cases (DoTs). I don't even have shroud yet, but even when I eventually get it, it's kinda crazy to blow it just because I want to cloak and speed away later. If marauders need camo to close in, then my juggernaut could use it as well. Or, god forbid, my powertech, since he needs to be in range and has neither camo nor a leap... LOL! (And no, I don't use grapple to close gaps at the start, just like maras don;t usually leap to a class w/ knockback). Anyway, back on topic... I believe force cloak should work at least for a few seconds (8 seconds?) if you have a DoT on you before it pops you out of stealth. If you do not have a DoT, it should continue to function correctly as it does right now. There is no reason why a stealth based class' cloak should be worse in design than a melee class, which doesn't really need it in the first place.

^^^^ THIS!! To give it to you in a nutshell, you have to maximize the time that a probe is on the ground. There should be little to no time spent on the minefield when you are NOT fighting a probe. Some pointers to get this done. 1. Initially we send 3 people in the tower. As a tank, I will start uncovering cells immediately, to find the optimum path. One ranged dps will hit the probe-finder button immediately, holo down, and find a probe. The third melee dps will kill the add and go back down. When our ranged dps finds the probe and is teleported back to the tower, he takes down the next elite AND fights the probe from the tower (since he is ranged). By this time, I have uncovered enough of the puzzle to know where to place the yellow cell marks. 2. When you mark a cell yellow from the tower, immediately click on the probe-finder button. It takes 8 secs or so to actually channel the button, so while your team is defusing the bomb downstairs, you are starting the probe fetch in parallel. If you time this right, you will be teleported down just as they are done defusing. 3. When you uncover a probe, try to aim for the probe closest to the raid. This way, no time is lost in travel for the probe, and sometimes if the probe is too far it might disappear on you guys. You haven't asked for the later part of the fight, but here are some pointers to how we do it: [Note, turrets are un-ccable in hard mode]. Initially everyone jumps to the cave side of the map. This is done so we are farthest from the turrets, which will appear at 75/25%. When the turrets appear, half the raid takes out only the turrets on the south side. I keep the turrets on the north side aggroed on me. Everyone is still dpsing the boss. If another set of turrets comes up at 25% (sometimes they do, sometimes they do not for us), then we kill the north side turrets this time (since I bring them close to 0 health, but do not drop them before this). I now aggro the south side turrets and keep them on me, while the raid still dps the boss. Hope that makes sense.

lmao!!

Don't think we have seen bugs on the tanks in HM EC. However we did see the following bugs occasionally: 1. T&Z, HM EC, sometimes the yellow circle during berserk will randomly disappear from underneath the dps, even though dps is alive and well. This leads to a second yellow circle, but due to dps going too fast toth will jump and have berserk from previous phase before baradium toss. 2. HM kephess, walker 3rd dps phase, random bomber sometimes comes out (4th bomber) when walker is being killed. We usually cc him, so this isn't game breaking. 3. Minesweeper... sometimes the stealhed probe will NOT unstealth when tank tries to unstealth it through holo, but tank will be transported back up and has to fight elite again, and then summon probe again. Other than that, we have the random lag spikes etc, sometimes leading to a wipe (e.g. taunting point on kephess or Toth jumps not showing up due to lag, and then when it shows up tank is dead or close to dying).

Good choice in skipping lash out and blade barricade. You basically saved yourself 5 points and skipped 3% defense. In return, you could invest 2 of those points in intimidation (which is a must for pvp). I'm kinda wanting to say that you want the 2 points in savagery so that you can impale the target in pvp around 30% ish, and then scream and vicious throw to finish off. But it is hard justifying removing points from quake (which is a must for pve) or even battle cry (which procs a lot in pvp since you jump around a lot in pvp). Maybe move points from draining scream into savagery? The bleed is kinda weak on the draining scream anyway. Or from the accuracy talent, depending on your gear. Stagger may be worthwhile for pvp as well, to get that third tick for ravage. Also I wish there is some way to pick up shien as well, so you can change stances when needed (2 v 3 for example with 3 friendlies) to help finish off opponents more quickly in pvp. I know you want a tanking build (for which 18/23 is excellent), but doesn't hurt to have some extra utility (shien), more chance to get ravage to hit (stagger), and better finishers (savagery). I would move 2 points from accuracy into savagery, and 2 points from draining scream into stagger. Just my 2c.

You recently started threads on all the class forums, requesting "class feedback" from players. While I appreciate this involvement from the devs, can you tell us more about how you will be using this feedback, and when (if any) we could see changes/results? Certain classes have very specific issues that have been identified by the community. It would be nice to know that devs are really paying attention to our feedback...

LOL, just want to say that this is sig-worthy!

First off, mercs need some love for sure. /signed on this request/petition. I have a 50 merc, 50 PT, and 50 juggernaut, and I *never* pvp on the merc, it is that bad. Also on my PT pyro, arsenal mercs are a quick meal in 1v1, because I can interrupt-stun-interrupt the 3 consecutive TMs rendering him completely helpless. This 12 sec gives me more than enough time to burst him down. I actually feed bad for the merc when this happens, because it is not his fault that the class is so horrible for pvp dps. I saw some very good ideas in this thread, but since I'm skimming through it right now I can't reply in detail. Just be careful of asking for too many changes, since that can quickly make a class OP. A few quick points: 1. Like someone mentioned, arsenal mercs need tools to keep melee off of them, just like a sniper does. A short-time cover mechanic is actually a pretty clever idea. 2. Pyro mercs need a way to make powershot insta-cast (sometimes) and unload uninterruptible. Compare to raze in the madness tree for assassins, which when procced makes crushing darkness insta-cast and 0-force! Also compare to harnessed darkness for assassins, which when available makes lightning uninterruptible. Such skills need to be high up in the pyro tree so arsenal mercs cant get uninterruptible unload (which would be OP with barrage procs). 3. Knockbacks with 2sec root and 2-sec slow would make a world of difference for both specs. Also afterburners should be moved lower in the tree, so pyro mercs can pick it up. Regarding the 30% vs. 60% armor pen issue. I don't think mercs should be incresed to 60%. This is because the additional 60% for PT pyros applies only to railshot, while the additional 30% for mercs applies to rail shot and unload. It's not as simple as that, but essentially it is 60% armor pen on one attack vs 30% each on two attacks. And unload is an important part of the rotation for both arsenal and pyro mercs. Hell imagine 60% extra armor pen + 35% HVGC + 20% TM armor pen for arsenal mercs!

Just wanted to say real quick... Bravo... well said Elyx! I have a three 50s and a 25 assassin at this point, and the immortal tree is by far the ABSOLUTE WORST TREE I have seen in the game so far. Look at what the assassins get in darkness, and especially their upper tiers, wither, harnessed darkness, mounting darkness, nerve wracking, electrify... . Compare to immortal... LOL... In fact once I level up my assassin I will do a tier by tier comparison, should be interesting.. Anyway, hope the devs take some serious notice and redesign this poor tree.... Also vengence needs stronger DoTs. Kthxbai

Very nice guide, I like it! Makes me nostalgic thinking about the old days when I PvP'ed on my juggernaut. I think I may just retire my PT pyro for a while and go back to PvPing on the jug!

Yep, seen this every week without fail. How do I deal with it? I usually file a bug report with all the details about what happened. Then I get an automated response along the lines of "this is working as intended, and we hope you will continue to have a positive experience playing swtor". After that we /ragequit for the night.

The two notable differences on HM are quick-spawning trandoshans, and touch at the end. For trandoshans: Stay inside the little cove at the door next to the walker. Its aoe does not hit you there. Also, make the second mob walk towards you, so you get some more time dps-ing the first mob. We also have one dps jump to the warrior, and keep him there while the other adds are aggroed on the healers. For the third mob, as a tank, I first drop aggro using my aggro drop. Then I let the mob aggro on healers, and saber-throw the warrior. This makes him come after me while the others go for my team in the aforementioned cove. If needed I can single-target taunt the warrior also. My team kills all the adds, and I kinda just stand at the other corner with the trandoshan warrior *without killing him*. This gives my team time to top off dps, time to get their heat down etc. Also we wait for the walker to finish aoe on the region between the two doors. Then when we are ready, we drop the lone warrior. We are ready to burst the bomber again because everyone has full energy/0-heat etc. Kephess sub-60% phase As a tank, it took us some tries to figure out the mechanics at the end, but some very important things are happening there, which the tanks need to be on top of. I'm talking about the sub-60% phase, where the tanks will have to swap. Things to remember; 1. Never taunt right on the knockback. Wait for him to start casting breath and only then taunt him off. Otherwise one tank has breath and the other has touch! 2. *Any damage* you take when you have touch will 1-shot you. It will appear as a one-shot due to "savage arcing slash* with a value equal to your maximum health, which can be confusing because Kephess wasn't anywhere near you when you die to it. The various ways you can get 1-shotted are: 2. a. when the other tank does not taunt in time before breath cast is finished. 2. b. when you dont kite circles properly and stand in it too long, the minor damage from the circle will be converted to insta-1-shot if you have touch on you. 2. c. when kephess knocks you back when he gives you touch, and you happen to land on a previous purple circle. 2.d. kephess' frontal arcing slash attack has a huge conal range. Needless to say, the tank pooping the circles should never be behind the tank that is actively tanking kephess, else he will eat the slash. Hope this helps.

^^ pretty much nailed it on the one-shot part. Tank-1 gets touch on knockback, and when kephess starts casting breath (not before and not after, but during) tank-2 needs to taunt. The tank-1 runs around dropping circles. And this is the most important part... when you have touch, *any* damage you take will 1-shot you. So if you are slow in moving from the small purple circle, the little damage you take from standing in it will one-shot you. What's more, when the other tank subsequently gets knocked back and gets touch on him, he needs to make sure he is not knocked back into a purple circle, which may be there from the first tank dropping it. Because if you get knocked back into a purple circle when you have touch.... it will 1-shot you! Hope that makes sense. This is a phase where tanks have to be on their absolute best game. As far as the bug concerning the instance being depopulated.... it's not related to the mechanics. But I feel sorry for you. We have had this happen a few times, and it pretty much cancels raiding for the night, because the thought of going through the trash again is just mind-numbnig.

How is this working as intended? If I understand OPs post (please clarify OP), his group had to reform because he got "ACCESS DENIED" related to the Denova instance closing. In other words, the game depopulated one of the Denova instances, he couldn't get inside because the system wouldnt let him. When they finally managed to make it in, obviously a lot of time had passed, and the chest shut off. IMO this is a bug with the game, plain and simple. Every week now in Denova (story or hard mode) my group gets the dreaded "depopulating he065 instance" or some stupid message like that. No one can go back in, and you even get locked on the fleet without being able to go anywhere. This isn't a mechanism that is "working as intended". If this has happened to you, then you know exactly what I am talking about. If it hasn't happened to you, either you are lucky, or in for a rude surprise sometime soon. I don't blame him for not being able to get to the chest in time.

Read through 7-8 pages of this thread so far... many have already pointed our the discrepancies in your discussion regarding SINGLE GCD. And wait, you have 4 DEFENSIVE COOLDOWNS? With the amazing dps, 8-sec flash, and knockbacks already at your disposal? Know what a PT pyro running into 2 gunslingers at a node could do? Pop a ****** 12 second bubble... that is the only defensive cooldown he has. Not to mention that he would get annihilated before getting anywhere close to your duo-gunslinger combo. You want to talk about nerfs, how about telling me what else a pyro has, besides situational taunt/grapple and his amazing burst? Look man, I get it, PT pyro burst may be a tad high, could use some minor tweaking. But snipers/gunslingers should be the last people complaining about PT pyros. Give us all your defensive cooldowns, the knockbacks, and 8-sec long mezz that you have, and the ability to not be jumped to under certain circumstances (cover), the ability to not be interrupted (hunker down/entrench), and you can adjust my burst to your level ok? Otherwise please refrain from making threads about nerfs and adjustments.

^^ This. I forgot to do this and didn't get a reward. I filed a ticket and got an automated response saying the system cannot confirm that I did not receive any rewards. Whatever... I'm tired of filing 2 tickets for every issue just to get someone to look at it.

I for one appreciate the OPs post. While we all know not to use AoEs under the shield, the case with crushing blow isn't that simple. Let's look at crushing blow: Crushing blow is NOT an AoE if the target does not already have 5 sunders. Crushing blow is a *smart AoE* if the target has 5 sunders. While I agree that the shield generator shouldn't count as an incapacitated target, the fact is that it is hard to predict whether it will be an AoE or not, unless you keep a constant watch on the number of sunders. And most people that are used to using crushing blow under the shield prior to 1.3, won't be expecting it to now damage the shield generator post 1.3. Anyway, the best practical solution is to not spec 31-immortal at all for tanking... but that is a different discussion.

Excellent post by parthenon. This is exactly why I run 18/23 for HM EC and 8/31/2 for everything else. Just one thing I would like to add to the above post: We have 4 attack types (melee, ranged, tech, force) and 4 damage types (kinetic, energy, elemental, internal). The first 2 attack types are defensible/shieldable, the latter two are not. The first two damage types are affected by armor, the latter two are not. Now here is where I take a leap of faith. While you can have any combination of attack types and damage types, *generally speaking* melee/ranged will be kinetic/energy (call it group 1) and tech/force will be elemental/internal (group 2) (exceptions exist, I know). The point I am trying to make is this: One talent in vigilance is arguably better or at least on par compared to 3 talents in defense. Inner peace will give you 4% damage reduction against group 2. Blade barricade and shield spec (along with say a respectable 50% absorb) will give you 3% + 4%*0.5 = 5% damage reduction against group 1. You invest 7 skill points to get this reduction. Compare this to commanding awe, which will give you 4% damage reduction against group 1 and 4% against group 2. You invest 2 skill points to get this reduction. Both are very comparable in terms of mitigation, but one needs far too many skill points. Again, I know that the attack and damage types don't match up as nicely. Also I am ignoring the effect of increase in enure duration, but then again, I am also ignoring the effect of focussed defense + commanding awe together for say pvp, or used in conjunction with taunts in pve. EDIT: If someone is interested they can do a detailed analysis (theorycrafting) of the exact damage reduction againts the various combinations and/or double check below. This analysis only takes into account the talents I discussed above. -------------------------- 31-defense --------- 8/31/2--------------- 18/23/0 ----------- skill pts needed ------ -- 7 -------------------- 2 -------------------- 5 m/r + k/e------ --------2 + 3 = 5% ------------ 4% ----------------- 3+4 = 7% m/r + e/i------- ------2+3+4 = 9% ------------ 4% --------------- 3+4 = 7% f/t + k/e------- ------------ 0% ----------------- 4% ---------------- 4% f/t + e/i-------- ------------ 4% ---------------- 4% ---------------- 4%

Short answer? Because the same Bioware folks that can tell you with a straight face that mercenaries don't NEED interrupts by design, will also tell you with a straight face that juggernauts don't NEED endurance talents. /sarcasm TL;DR version: We absolutely need the 3% endurance boost in our trees. Longer answer: (correct me if I am wrong on some things below, but this is my understanding). The main tank stats are: armor, damage reduction, defense chance, shield chance, shield absorb, endurance Other secondary factors that affect tanking are: accuracy debuffs on boss, damage reduction on boss, self heals, additional bubbles (sonic barrier, etc) Vanguards: most armor and damage reduction, and high shield.... low defense... basically meat-shields. Shadows: Most defense, shield pretty good as well. Armor low. Make up w/ self heals. basically avoidance tanks. Guardians: armor and DR in between above two, defense in between above two, shield lower than above two. Supposed to fall somewhere in between the above two prototypes.... but in practice end-game tanks lack about 2k HP compared to above 2. You know what, I wouldn't even mind having 2k lower HP than the other two, if they opened up fury-mechanics (dunno what the pub version is called) for jugg tanks. Using 30 stacks of fury for a good RAID-WIDE damage reduction cooldown would make us valuable and give us that niche category... i.e. I would gladly trade overall low HP for better/shorter cooldowns.

Too little too late for us I guess... we wiped on kephess HM EC at approx 745 ish PST, and since then NONE of us could get in or do anything... ops was a huge fail, and it will reset tomorrow, so no campaign main hand or head piece tonight... whatever... I put in a ticket, but like all other tickets will probably get an automated response saying it is "working as intended".

Thanks for taking the initiative to gather feedback Bioware. I will be providing feedback for all three 50s (juggernaut, powertech, mercenary). Immortal PvE 1. How do you think your Juggernaut spec is perceived by other classes? Gets the job done, but not the first choice... nor the second. 2. How do you perceive your own spec? Immortal is a joke, I'm sorry. I run 18/23 for tanking HM EC, and 8/31/2 for tanking everything else (in soresu with tank gear and shield of course). Tank DPS tickles, and was further nerfed in 1.3. All the upper tiers in immortal need to be looked at seriously and we should get something valuable for our 31-point *crushing-blow-that-does-not-crush-too-hard*. Vengeance has better talents than immortal for *tanking* purposes. Many threads have been written on this subject, so I will not re-hash them here. We could use an endurance boost in our skill tree as well. Vengeance PvE 1. How do you think your Juggernaut spec is perceived by other classes? Not too bad for DPS. However why bring a juggernaut warrior, when you can bring a marauder with their superior DPS AND raid-wide benefits AND superior defensive skills as a dps? 2. How do you perceive your own spec? Actually great fun to play, and great synergy with using the various abilities. However we could use some lovin... my suggestion is to make fury mechanics a baseline warrior abiltity. Our DPS could sure use the bloodthirst, and our tanks could sure use a good defensive usage of fury. PvP Great at Huttball, great at guarding healers and provide nice DPS without being overpowered and invincible like our brethren *cough* marauders *cough*.

Thanks Bioware, for taking the initiative to gather feedback from us. I have three 50s (merc, powertech, juggernaut) and will be providing feedback for all 3. I have played only arsenal and pyro mercs and will comment on those. PvE - For PvE there is little to be said. Both arsenal and pyro are excellent specs with good rotations and damage. Any serious PvE guild views mercs as a good DPS addition to a team. PvP - My views match the views of how others perceive this AC, so I will just comment on the two trees. Arsenal: Viewed as very damaging if left alone. However, 1v1 VERY EASY to shutdown. On my other toons I view arsenal mercs as a quick free kill. Kiting is available, however not the best in the game. More can be done about that. More of a turret spec, mobility is bad. Pyro: More mobility than arsenal, better kiting due to sweltering heat. However having to be stationary to cast unload or PS which procs RS can be a problem against melee. Would be nice if we got some root abilities like snipers. Or maybe give us an uninterruptible bubble skill. And more important than anything else, please for the love of God give us that interrupt!!!

First off, thanks Bioware, for taking the initiative to gather feedback. For my answers, I will restrict it ONLY to the pyro tree, because that is the only one I have played so far. 1. How do you think your Powertech spec is perceived by other classes? Most people think we are overpowered. We indeed have the best burst in the game, but that is balanced by how squishy we are in the pyro spec. Most people don't realize the latter, and are quick to call for nerfs. I do not know if you guys are thinking of nerfing us again, but if you do, I ask you not to make the class borderline useless because burst (and some situational grapple/taunt) is all we have. 2. How do you perceive your own spec? I have three 50s (juggernaut, mercenary and powertech) and for pvp I like this guy the most. I love the mobility of the powertech, and with taunts and grapple I get good utility. Like I said, I think the excellent burst is balanced by the squishiness of the spec. Haven't PvE much with this toon, but when I do he usually gets the job done. Overall, excellent playstyle, and good balanced aspects.

Ahh.. so you just get the dps to taunt when FB raises his turrets up in the air right before incinerate? Good call! We don't run with any powertech/shadow/jugg dps, so we dont have an extra taunt. :-(