[Presenting the Boba Fett Armor]

Where can I find the belt in the picture, I need it for something

 

To my knowledge, it's not available right now. It was part of the sandperson legacy set that was available during the Chevin event that led up to the first Gree event back in Jan/Feb.

[The Ewok Fiasco]

Except when they hit themselves in the face with their own weapons and get knocked out cold. And pointing out how hilariously the 'finest' of the Imperial Military failed to do anything to secure their positions, and how they just randomly scattered into the forest the minute they came under attack, is not really a great way of arguing that Endor wasn't a hilarious failure on the part of the Imperial Military.

 

You're talking to the wrong person here. I'm not arguing the Imperials weren't laughably incompetent on Endor. I'm merely of the mind that ewoks are more than stupid teddy bears. You can disagree, but ROTJ shows ewoks to be very deadly combatants in their forest.

 

Secondly, your example is flawed. It was Wicket who hit himself in the face with the sling. Wicket was a child, so he's not the best representation of an experienced adult ewok warrior.

 

That moment was also put in for humor; something Star Wars had always incorporated.

 

/I like ewoks.

[The Ewok Fiasco]

I've had this post in my archives for years. It's not mine, but I loved it so much I kept it. Enjoy.

 

I'll go ahead and rationalize the Ewoks taking on the Empire like I'm doing a History Channel documentary.

 

Ewoks are an aggressive hunter/gatherer species that live at treetop canopy level despite lacking tails or prehensile feet. Obviously they live up there because the ground floor is littered with large mammalian predators. The logs, snares, bolos, rams etc ala are all standard for primitive species that trap and herd huge prey creatures (their nets are built large enough to ensnare 2 humans, 2 droids and a wookie); they could be using the logs to trap 20-foot tall timberwolves and merely lured the Empire into their traditional kill areas. What's odd, is despite all of these tools, the Ewoks' primary weapons are short spears... meaning to actually kill their prey they have to expose themselves to danger. Probably a mark of bravery. Ewoks are hardcore.

 

They build permanent homes and wear clothing which means civilization and implies tribal warfare with neighboring Ewoks. The use of siege catapults, arrows and gliders supports this.

 

Ewok weapons are well-suited to forest combat against the Empire. Sometime around the 90-minute mark you can actually see an arrow (non-CG'd, practical effect) penetrate clear through the back of a Stormtrooper's armor. The weapons penetrate armor. Their bolos use stones weighing at least 2 pounds and they throw them as easily as a midget in a fursuit would throw a foam prop. Conclusion: Ewoks possess chimpanzee-equivalent arm strength and are physically tougher than humans.

 

Surprisingly, Ewoks are superior when it comes to tactics as well. They open the attack by infiltrating their primary striking force to within 60 yards of the Imperial force, and begin the attack with a multi-coordinated surprise assault. They employ textbook guerrilla concepts straight from Mao, hitting the Empire at its weakest (dismounted infantry) and fleeing from its strongest (armored walkers). Attacks that fail (catapults, gliders, hand-to-hand combat) are abandoned and replaced by better options (armor is neutralized by terrain, Ewoks begin using Imperial equipment such as bikes, captured walkers and Stormtrooper blasters).

 

Contrast all of this with the Empire, which sends a Legion of its "finest" but not necessarily most-suitable troops to Endor. Stormtroopers are designed around shock attacks in areas where superior firepower dominates areas of little concealment: Leia's ship in Episode 4 is perfect Stormtrooper terrain. Place them in a low-visibility wilderness where their armor is more a hindrance than a benefit and you'll see their firepower doesn't matter. Armored walkers are best employed in areas of wide, flat terrain where they can blast targets at range and rapidly close with the enemy: in other words, Hoth. Simply put, you don't put armor in dense terrain with poor maneuverability where the enemy can choose to strike first and in 3-dimensional zones your weapons cannot cover. Once the battle started the Empire scattered its troops, with the AT-STs running off unsupported by infantry to be picked off one-by-one. They lost the one remaining tactical advantage of Stormtroopers, massed ranks, when they let their men chase the Ewoks deeper into the forest.

 

The Empire came prepared to fight the wrong battle and the Ewoks came ready to fight the right one. It's that simple.

 

Will this explanation work for you?

[Mercenary Changes Brainstorming]

I've been playing my dps arsenal merc almost every day since a month after launch. So I'm quite familiar with the class and spec.

 

Damage-wise, I'm pretty happy with it right now.

 

The two biggest issues I have with my merc, are defensive cool downs, and the high cost/lack of reward on some abilities.

 

1. Fusion missile - This move does not deal enough damage to warrant its high cost. It needs either a massive damage boost, or a reduction in heat cost. I'm fine with either option.

 

2. Missile blast - Again, damage vs heat cost is not equal. Either higher damage or lower heat cost. I'd personally prefer lower heat cost on this move.

 

3. Thermal Sensor Override and Power Surge - These two moves need their times normalized, and preferably need a time reduction. 1 mintute 20 or 1 minute 25 would be sufficient for both I think.

 

4. Power Shot - Do something with this move. Anything. It's completely useless right now.

 

5. Energy Net - Again, cooldown is too long. One minute 20 would be fine, or increase it's damage. My jugg has a saber reflect on a one minute cooldown, and it's at least as good as the energy net.

 

-----------

 

Defensive cool-downs are lacking as well.

 

1. Kolto Overload - This move is still not very useful. It needs to heal for more and quicker. It also need to probably kick in at 40%.

 

2. Energy shield - Shorter cooldown, or a slight increase in the damage it absorbs.

 

3. Electro dart - Bring back the 30 meter range. The merc is ranged class.

 

As others have mentioned, the merc needs some sort of disengage move. When I'm focused, I really feel like there is nothing I can do. An escape move would be nice.

 

Again, I'm happy with the damage, but these areas I feel I'm lacking in: lackluster defensive cool-downs, high energy cost of certain moves, stupidly long cooldowns on certain moves - thermal sensor override, power surge, energy net, and the complete uselessness of power shot.

 

A lot of these concerns also tie into the heat resource system.

 

I think it would only take a few small tweaks to fix any or all of these issues and you'll improve the merc a lot without making them OP.

[Marauder Changes - Game Update 2.5]

Bloodthirst's debuff thing, that's what angers me. Why did that get changed? Was it a trade-off for the 40 meter range? If so, i would rather take 30 meter range and no debuff over longer range but high downtime. Just my 0.02$ there.

 

Partly because if you're literally bringing a player to a raid for one ability, you're not doing it right.

Blood thirst is good, but it's not that great. My guild has cleared HM Scum and HM TFB without marauders. In fact we only ever had ONE marauder for our 8 man progression group until recently, and his attendance was spotty at times.], so we ran without a marauder.

 

so far, my guild cant get past Op IX in TFB SM without Bloodthirst Chaining.

 

Do you mean HM? Either way, if you can't clear it without Bloodthirst chaining (which implies your stacking marauders solely for the buff), your raid group has much deeper problems than the upcoming bloodthirst changes. I'd suggest your group needs better gear, or you need to start parsing dps on their rotations. That fight in no way requires multiple bloodthirsts on SM or HM. It doesn't even require a marauder.

 

No offense intended, I'm not being mean or elitist here, just offering some friendly advice.

 

My guild recently picked up a second marauder, and we have no second thoughts about bringing both of them to our progression group, regardless of the upcoming nerf.

 

The reason being? They're both skilled players who can avoid damage, use cooldowns, and know their rotations in and out.

 

Marauders still have more interrupts than a sniper or merc for bosses with multiple adds, and they have one of the best single target dps specs in the game.

 

Lastly, it's not bloodthirst that has the best raid utility on a marauder in my opinion, it's PREDATION .

 

I honestly feel our raid group gets better benefit from that, than Bloodthirst when we do have a marauder in our group.

 

When we don't have have a marauder, we run all ranged DPS (mercs and snipers), which is usually easier for the healers, but when we do have one or both of our marauders in our group, the boss fights are noticeably faster because they do a ton of damage and know their rotations.

 

Just my two cents.

 

I'm also happy with the annihilation buffs. I have an anni marauder, and that will certainly make her more fun to use.

[Mercenary Top 3 Answers!]

My main is an arsenal merc and has been since launch. I love the class and will never change.

 

That being said, here's what caught my eye.

 

Heavy Armor:

 

Heavy armor is not an advantage in this game. It simply isn't noticeable to me, unless I'm on my sorc.

 

If they're going to keep on with that nonsense, mercs should get a talent that buffs heavy armor with more damage mitigation.

 

 

Thermal Sensor Override/Power Surge - Cool down needs to be one minute. The current time is ridiculous.

 

Resource Management - Some kind of tweaking is needed for sure. Fusion missile costs too much heat for the damage it does (and I'm happy with the damage, just not he cost).

 

Missile blast cost too much heat to be viable as well.

 

Casting and interrupts - Yeah, the casting spells should be mobile maybe? Or the interrupt system needs reworking.

 

-----------------

 

Overall good answers in that they admit all our concerns were essentially correct.

 

I'm mostly happy with my merc and feel it's in a pretty good place, but snipers and maras are simply better at damage (which is fine) but they're utility and cooldowns surpass what I bring as a "support class".

 

Now Bioware needs to step it up on the class buffs. It should not take another 6 months or a year to address these issues since they have been known by the community for the last year and a half.

[Makeb: Could we remove some of the trash?]

I do a lot of dailies. I have the wealthy title, and 80% of that wealth was obtained through dailies, but I ONLY go there for Golden Fury. I simply refuse to do dailies on Makeb due to the enormous amount of NPCs in certain areas.

 

When I do go to Makeb, I rarely see the population over a dozen.

 

I remember Section X had this same problem when it was introduced - way too many NPCs and trash. Bioware pretty quickly reduced the amount to a reasonable amount. Twice, as a matter of fact.

 

It just seems like a waste to let such a nicely designed planet go to waste since it seems like on my server no one goes there.

 

By making it much more time efficient, I feel it might encourage players to go there more often. I certainly would.

 

Just a thought.

[Tendering My Resignation]

Kirtu as the class representative lasted about as long as I expected before he left in huff.

[Got Xalek... why use any other companion again?]

Blizz is a BH companion, btw. Unless you meant it as a general statement, lol.

 

General statement on Xalex's tanking ability. I've tried him out, and his tanking ability is not great in my opinion. Blizz's for my MERC has shown me exceptional tanking ability. I've tanked HM FPs with Blizz pre 2.0. Blizz was mostly columi with some rakata. Xalex was similarly geared when I tried him out. Blizz has been better in my experience as tanking comp.

 

Well, thing is - geared DPS-specced main characters rip through packs before the companion gets a chance to show off their damage.

 

I run Torian on my merc for the extra dps half the time. My merc is full arkanian, with some underworld gear. For the various heroics, (Sec X, Torvix) and dailies, I annihilate stuff, but for packs that are spread out, I usually just send Torian after an elite mob. He wrecks them. since he gets my old dps hand me down gear. High presence also helps.

 

It's very, very steady. DPS comps seem to work better with tank characters, or healers

 

My sorc is a healer. Ashara does great dps for me. I don't use tank characters on my healer because I need stuff to die. So dps all the way for him.

 

Funny you mention Pierce though. I just went back to give him a second look on my jugg tank. I'm going to gear him full dps and see how he does overall. I think the voice actor does a pretty good job on him, and some of Pierce's dialog is pretty entertaining.

[Got Xalek... why use any other companion again?]

Because I don't like him. I think Blizz and Khem tank better; and for DPS I use Ashara in bleed stance. She tears stuff up.

[Mercenary Class Representative]

Odawgg.

[Question regarding Unload and Stabilizers]

It was 75% pre 2.0 if I remember correctly. Bioware gave us a few buffs so they had to give us some pointless nerfs too.

 

They had to balance it out you know.

[Is merc overplayed, average or underplayed?]

My main is a PVE arsenal merc and has been since launch. I honestly don't see too many endgame DPS arsenal mercs. I do see them, make no mistake, but I don't see lots of them. Most of the mercs I see are PVP healers, or PVE healers.

 

The one class I do see an abundance of are marauders; everyone wants two lightsabers I guess.

 

I also see a significant amount of dps sorcerers as well.

 

I'm in one of the more active guilds on Jung Ma and I'm one of about two or three active dps mercs. The rest are people's alts who rarely see any play, or are dedicated merc healers.

 

So I'd say mercs are about average. I noticed a lot less of them after the first hard nerf we received.

[If your thinking of rolling a PT for DPS, don't!]

In PVE, I'm still sure a PT can get through a raid, but the question still needs to be answered... Why bring one over the other DPS classes?

 

The question was already answered. Player > Class. That's your answer. If I've got a very good player who plays a powertech dps, I'm taking them over the less skilled marauder or sniper.

 

There are Youtube movies and parses showing lethality/concealment OPs, and powertech dps doing fine in HM and Nightmare mode operations.

 

PVE powertech dps is viable. It's not debatable when there is "physical evidence" and statistical proof.

 

I can't, and won't speak for PVP, particularly since the last balance update to powertechs looked to be entirely PVP oriented.

[If your thinking of rolling a PT for DPS, don't!]

I can't speak for PVP, but my guild does endgame PVE content. We're fine with a powertech dps. In pure tank form, powertechs still throw down mean damage, and the dps stance is viable. Are they preferred over a sniper, marauder, merc, or sorc? No, not preferred but they're perfectly viable. I'd take a good powertech dps over another stupid marauder with no situational awareness any day. And for a melee dps class, the heavy armor is so nice.

 

In Mandalorian Raiders, on the hound master our main powertech tank (full tank gear, full tank spec) routinely get's the houndmaster himself down to half health or less while the dps kills the two hounds. And we're all arkanian geared with arkanian mainhand weapons.

 

And on a final note, I will say the damage nerf powertechs got seemed a bit excessive to me, and I'd be fine seeing that rolled back, but to claim that powertechs are unviable in endgame PVE is not true. I've seen them perform firsthand in both dps and tank specs.

 

You'll never throw down the numbers that snipers and maras do as a powertech, but you're viable.

 

If you enjoy the class, play the class.

[pulling agro question in raids]

1. Give the tanks a few seconds to hit the enemies/bosses to generate some threat along with their taunt.

 

2. DPS make sure to use their aggro dump.

 

3. After that, make sure the tanks are appropriately geared and competent.

 

And what I mean by the last part, a lot of bosses drop aggro and need to frequently re-taunted after certain phases, leaps, etc.

 

The adds on SM Golden Fury will destroy DPS if they don't have a tank on them. The tank should immediately be on them taunting them and getting threat.

[pulling agro question in raids]

1. Give the tanks a few seconds to hit the enemies/bosses to generate some threat along with their taunt.

 

2. DPS make sure to use their aggro dump.

 

3. After that, make sure the tanks are appropriately geared and competent.

 

And what I mean by the last part, a lot of bosses drop aggro and need to frequently re-taunted after certain phases, leaps, etc.

 

The adds on SM Golden Fury will destroy DPS if they don't have a tank on them. The tank should immediately be on them taunting them and getting threat.

[PvP gear in PvE endgame]

If you're interested in endgame or pve in general, you need to ditch the pvp stuff at the door. It's not compatible. Farm Lvl 50 and 55 fps for black hole/black market gear. You can get everything you need to get you going in two to three weeks depending on your motivation.

 

I'm strictly a PVE player, and I and my other guild mates (many of whom are hardcore PVPers) don't look kindly upon PVP gear in our ops. You lose a significant amount of stats, and it matters. Also, in an operation, I don't like carrying someone in pvp gear who was too lazy to run a flashpoint.

 

For example, when the Xenoanalyst gets scaled up to 55 in a few months, my guild will be running that on SM and HM. PVP gear won't allow you beat the enrage timer.

 

We attempted HM Xenoanalyst once before pre 2.0 on HM with two people in PVP gear, hit an enrage timer, removed them from the group, replaced them with appropriately geared PVE people, downed it no problems.

 

I hope that helps.

[can we tune down LI, or take it off the random daily list please]

Its not that its difficult. The fact that its sitting on the same difficulty level as essles and black talon is kind of lame. Why would you want to run HM LI versus black talon or boarding party for the same rewards and daily.

 

Because in a semi-competent group LI is much faster than Black Talon and Boarding Party. LI can be done in 20-25 minutes. There are no cutscenes and very little trash.

 

I've pugged LI enough even with random GF pre 2.0 and gotten groups good enough to run it without much difficulty to make it quicker and preferable to Black Talon and BP.

 

That's my experience though.

[can we tune down LI, or take it off the random daily list please]

It does not need to be nerfed again. I like it when there is at least one FP that is not forgiving to bad players.

 

LI was exceptionally easy in a good group, and by good, someone who could do a rotation and be bothered to watch a youtube movie on the boss fights.

 

I ran LI yesterday on my sorc healer for the first time since Pre 2.0. I was sad to see the nerfs, but it is certainly more forgiving to mistakes now.

 

I am 55, the tank was 55, one of the dps was 55, and the last dps was 53.

 

We got through that entire FP before we wiped on Lorrick.

 

My healer is pretty decently geared (black market, dread guard, black hole). The group I was with severely lacked in skill.

 

Not a single person interrupted incinerate on the robot boss. I targeted the boss, interrupted it, then went back to healing.

 

No CC's used on the trash, lots of damage going out to the dps and tanks. There were some close wipes.

 

The medic were not cc'd, and we had no issues. It seems they were nerfed hard.

 

On Dr. Lorrick we finally wiped when the tank literally just stood in the green goo, and shot up to 11 stacks before I could even cleanse him.

 

The tank could not position the boss so his bombs avoided the raid. It was so sad.

 

And the dps was awful. We made it to the FIFTH kolto tank. This is with one 55 and one 53 dps.

 

You can't nerf a FP or OP enough to make it easy enough for players this bad.

 

And yet we still go through it, solely due to my healing; and that was not because I'm that good, it was because I've run LI HM many times, I know the tactics, the pulls, what to cleanse, etc.

 

You can still carry horrible players through LI.