My $0.02 (going to say many obvious things, but they're worth stating) Myself and many others STARTED playing this game because of the awesome stories and the immersive SW universe. I played consistently for the first 4 years the game was out as a subscriber the whole time, but I recently came back and re-subbed because of all the great new story content that had been created in the last three years. After having played through it the last few weeks I can say it lived up to the hype. The promise of a new immersive story is going to bring more people back like me, and hyping that up with various articles between now and 6.0's release is a great idea. I KEPT playing for so long because of all of the things to do in the "end game." (also, playing through all of the different class stories) Customizing our character and spec was a great "mini game" through our gear and disciple and other means over the years (there is a delicate mix between individual customization and over complication that I feel has been met). Progressing through different tiers of operations, leveling up our gear, and doing the different daily areas and flashpoints was a central part of the game to me for years and something I found very enjoyable. The Rakghoul flashpoint was particularly awesome (the one where the doc turns into a beast at the end with the really hard robot fight early on) to me because it was hard enough to require a good group with real planning and coordination when it first came out, and it offered very real rewards that mattered to hard mode ops teams and felt appropriate for the challenge of the content. It really felt like a 4-person operation. Showcasing the end game options while highlighting the new choices for gear and specialization will peak people's interest as a game worth playing for a long time. Edit: oh wow, my signature shows just how long it's been since I posted on here! My current "mains" are a Guardian and a Juggernaut.

What mats are specifically needed to craft the non-modable 220 gear?

I don't know if you're aware of this, but you just quoted Jesus...

This thread has all of my answers http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=735814&highlight=parse http://parsec.codeplex.com/ <--- this is a nice tool

SO, I've been using frying time exclusively for dps parsing, but it's been down for a few days now. What other programs are out there that work for people?

I'm in full 186 gear on my sharpshooter gunslinger with everthing crafted 186 gear (ears, implants, relics, armorings, mods, enhancements, barrels). Using the rotation method here with the new top skill stim, 100% accuracy, skill augments (1 acc), and about 300 crit stat and 306 surge I have been pulling 3600-3650 on the ops dummy at 1mil This is a great rotation and guide, thanks for posting it

There is an excellent article for Vanguard DPS on dulfy.net that goes into stats FOR THAT CLASS, but there are some good points made that apply to all stats

+1 sir

I'm in the 186 gear you buy with basic comms except that I swapped out most of the enhancements for the shield/absorb ones crafted by artifice. I also have the Earpiece and Implants that are crafted (better than the Yavin gear but not quite as good as the dread master gear) as well as the relics for defense and damage shield that are crafted(best relics short of what you earn in the new ops).. I have 8 Shield augments and 6 Absorb augments This puts me at 653 defense, 1522 shield, and 939 absorb

It seems that the formula for accuracy wasn't different on the test server either.... So this appears to be the intent 6 enhancements + 1 augment isn't too far off from how much gear was needed pre-3.0 in order to max accuracy, so considering that there will eventually be an even higher tier of equipment at level 60, not changing the formula appears to have still gotten us to our desired stat distribution

I'm surprised the formula for accuracy didn't change in 3.0

So, I think what you mean is that the 192 gear you can purchase with elie comms has undesirable stats (as well as the random drops in operations). That being said, the 192 gear you buy with tokens dropped from ops bosses is in fact superior to lower level gear. Bottom line: crafted 186 gear is better than the gear you buy from a vendor with elite comms, especially those enhancements

Thank you so much for posting this. Pretty Little Sith's article is well worth the read.

That sounds pretty frustrating. This is an old thread, but one that is still relevant. I almost wish for a definite no at this point over the ever present "Maybe..."

I've posted a few times about this myself and submitted a few tickets in game for it. I will pay all the money for this.... I just want to transfer my one character in EU to be on the same server as all of my other characters in the US.

I wouldn't even think of it as weeding out as much as it is training. Having a no pressure environment to learn how to not stand in things and do your job might be worthwhile. That being said, the hours of gameplay it takes to get to 55 are supposed to do that in essence. But, between 12x experience and the leveling flashpoints not really being run anymore people are showing up in operations with very few of those skills. SWTOR was my first mmo and I did NOT know how to play my character until I had been walked through some lev 55 flashpoints by some very patient players (and it wasn't because I didn't have the gear, and I played at launch through all the content). Bottom line: Some sort of solo "training" to teach people how to play their class might be nice.

Oh wow, I've been asking for this for two years and I've never heard that before. Do you know where they said that? I almost wish I'd get a definite never at this point instead of the polite but firm, "No, but maybe..." I have gotten every time I asked. I love my first character that I started in EU with my brother. But, I'm on a US server now for all the practical reasons (Legacy and transferring things between characters wasn't a thing in the early days). I spent so much time on that character, I hate losing him.

For what it's worth... group finder q's very quickly for the tactical flashpoints

It would be awesome if we could transfer one character between an EU and a US server... one time, for money. Please, I'd pay all the money to do this.

Gunslingers have so much utility, but Commandos have heavy armor and self-heal. They both have decent AOE, interupts/stuns, and movement buffs. I'd say it's a bit of a tossup, but if I was going to do it I'd go with commando.

I read it all the way through and thought it was awesome :-)

I sure bet they wish they could after hearing these guys complain...

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=751794 This is a list of many of the crafters. If anyone can do it, then they probably can.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=742794 This progression thread gives you a pretty good idea of which guilds are teh most hardcore. I know many guilds are laying a bit low waiting for 3.0 to come out. If you're looking for a raid group now, Republic Honor Guard has 8(?) raid groups ranging from having fully cleared all hm ops and tooling around on NiM to ops groups doing storymode content for gearing up returning players.

The tank ratio thing makes sense to me. I honestly can't remember the last time I randomly queued for a flashpoint with my tank where I didn't immediately get a group.