Well, I can only say this: My first Char at 50 was a Jedi Sage healer. I loved the mechanic because the effects all played well together. Never did the double-dipping, though, and after a few days went off to level a Sith. Now, my third alt will soon be 50 and it'll be a sorc healer. Why? Because I loved the way the healing mechanics worked together on my Jedi (whom I havn't touched in months, though). I was really looking foreward to healing OPs. What did I like? The speeding up of my big heal after the instant. Having to use the channelled cast and to look ot iif it crits so I can regen force. Forcing crits by not using the big heal after the instant but the channelled cast. All the different heals were complementing one another. And now? The big heal is getting cheaper, not faster. Oh great. I loved the way the speed-up felt. You don't feel reduced costs. I loved the flow of a heal-rotation that would weave force-restore in whenever it was a free cost. That, too, somehow feels more clinky now. I won't deny that we were a bit overpowered in 1.1. However, why not simply reduce all base-heals by 10% or 15% and on top of that reduce all bonus healing by 10% or 15%? You know, if you think we do x% too much healing, reduce our healing by exactly x%. But no, they hat to break the part of the mechanics that was actually fun. You know when I quit healing in WoW? Back in Northrend, when they introduced exactly the same changes to the paladin healer with Ulduar. You know, instant speeding up heals (in that case making the small heal injstant, allowing me to cast it while moving). Right now, I'm 45, I'm a sorc healer and I'm looking for spect to turn to when I hit 50. DPS specs.

More like 70 with the gamecard I recently redeemed. Rift patcher running while I'm typing this.

What? I know that with the massive grindfest the endgame has become, coupled with the shoddy patching, the massive downtimes, I'll either return to Rift or look for something new. Still, I have time left on my gamecard and 30 free days, so I'll not delete this game right away. I just won't give them another Euro.

They just achieved that, although I'll have to pay for it myself

Given Biowares patch-history, it's a valid concern. But after all, you gor 30 free days and in 30 days, you can rebuild whatever you lost, right?

Bioware has the wort record regarding patch quality and server downtime of any of the 4 MOs I played to endgame so far. Not buying another gamecard.

I'm in the same camp as you. From what I've seen of 1.2 so far, I don't think I'll still be playing come 1.3

EA/Bioware wants SWTOR to be a grindfest. Since I hate grinding and this is what 1.2 mostly feels like, I'm losing interest fast.

5 XP. So you have more time grinding for relics.

This is a rant. If you don't like rants, please move on. About myself,my first 50 was played about 2 days at that level. The second, a tank, is what I currently raid on. My next alt, a healer, is in its thirties. I hated the daily grind for 360 commendations for earpiece and implants but I felt that as a tank, I should do my best to be well equipped at such a vital position. Now the grindgame has been upped to 760. On my alt, I could solo the dailies on Belsavis and Ilum in about 2 hours (except Poison Strategy, never tried that one alone, always did it with my wife). Now we have corellia tossed in, but in ruturn Lights Out now requires killing a boss at 102k hitpoints. So what are we talking about? Three hours a day? Three hours not doing anything that's even remotely "fun" once you've done it a dozend times? Plus, the legacy thingie now makes levelling alts - a favourite pasttime for me so far - seem somewhat like grind 2.0 for buffs and legacy stuff as well, thereby ruining the fun for me. If I want to play an aisiagrinder, I'll do just that. Maybe I will. I don't like the elimination of party-items I don't like the removal of the giggle for tactical advantage I hate the click / bleep for spammed keystrokes I think the grindfest this game is becoming is disgusting I'll be tanking the new OP tonight, maybe that'll keep me interested. But the way things are developing, I'm not sure I'll be around when 1.3 comes out. Let's just hope something else will be out by then.

Aggro resets happen mid-fight, when, in contrast to the beginning of the fight, HOTs are rolling and heals are incoming. HK can sniper anyone randomly. I've had many runs where the healer was the most squishy. In fights with random damage, I like to guard the squishy one. Of course, I could do FE HM without guarding. I've done the first half of FE hm before an irritated question from the healer (guildmate) about the amount of damage I took made me realize that I was still in lightning charge. OK, that was late at night and I was tired... ...anyway, for me, minimizing the amount of work others, especially healers, have to do is basic courtesy. That includes guarding the squishy one in fights where random players can get substantial damage as well as keeping the -5% damage debuff active on as many mobs as possible, as long as possible. Not because it's needed. Because it makes live just a little bit easier for someone else. If only so the healer can pet his cat during tha boss-encounter. Cats deserve that simply for being cats.

That's where taunt comes into play. As assassin, I have a taunt on a 15 second CD and an area-taunt on a 45 second CD. I'd like to see the DPS that manages to pull aggro so fast that those taunts don't suffice and at the same time is so squishy that this is a problem (the gear would have to be uber-fantastic and that usually comes with some endurance...) No, you wiped because the tank didn't find his taunt button. You probably also wiped because the tank positioned himself so badly that power punch kicked him all the way so it took him too long to close the distance and start building aggro again, if I may put a wild guess out there. (Hint: you can stand, for example, with your back to the frame of the doorway and you won't be kicked out of melee range.) EDIT: You are slowed after Power Punch, so it takes a while to close distance. Additionally, during this time the robot usually uses his full-auto ability that'll hurt a freshly 50 tank badly. Also, the slow means that you take a while to come into range to interrupt the full-auto. All of this is a problem only if you allow yourself to be kicked out of melee range. You (again, probably) wiped because the tank didn't know what to interrupt (hint: not the power punch). You (probably) wiped because the tank didn't coordinate interrupts with the DPS. Having said all this, I normally guard melee DPS as well, in most situations. In this fight, it shouldn't really matter, but it's wasted on the healer, since the healer should not take any damage at all.

Well, there are fights with random aggro / frequent aggro resets. There are fights where the healer will invariably stand within 15 meters. I like to switch guard to the healer in such fights. FE hm... HK47, healer normally in range (if only to be able to drop a bomb on a gun in time, so we can kill it more quickly once HK is down). OK, I rarely lose aggro on the guns, but the healer can still be targeted. Later, Malgus himself. Shield on Healer if they are the ones fighting malgus alone for a while. They usually stay in place and heal through it. This way, they have a little less to heal through. Just basic courtesy. So you see, it's not that simple. I'd agree to "Always guarding healer is wrong, always guarding DPS is better, but still wrong, knowing the fights and guarding whoever will probably benefit the most is right."

So, what you're saying is, DPS should have the same survivability as tanks and healers, right. I fully support this notion. As soon as tanks and healers deliver the same amount of damage as DPS-classes or DPS-specs. In other words - You kill stuff quickly, you finish quests more quickly. Sometimes, though, you have to do a corpse-run. Oh wait, no, you don't. You can rez in place. You know what the difference between me on my tank or on my healer and me on my DPS is? On my DPS, I just kill trash that's in my way (hello XP!), on my tank and healer, I mastered the art of "not running into things"; I run in circles around stuff I don't want to pull because it's not a requirement for my quest. You'd be amazed where I can go without pulling any trash I don't need to kill. Why? Fights take too long, plain and simple. So, you come here complaining that you who can kill almost anything in a heartbeat sometimes have to use CDs, sometimes has to break the damage-rotation to do something for your survivability, sometimes might have to use CC? Go, learn to play.

That... that's not the real thing, right? Someone re-enacted this to sound horrible, right?