Actually, most skills are affected by armor in the game. You're confusing the fact that most skills go through shield, which is true, but most skills are still mitigated by armor. Check the spell tooltip on sorc's lightning skills and Op's knife skills, they are energy based force/tech moves, which means they are affected by armor but bypasses shield 100%. Here's the breakdown: damage typea 1. Kinetic mitigated by armor 2. Energy mitigated by armor 3. Internal bypass armor 4. Elemental bypass armor attack type 1. Melee avoidable by shield and defense 2. Ranged avoidable by shield and defense 3. Tech bypass shield and defense 4. Force bypass shield and defense For more info check out the in dept explanation: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1030602-SWTOR-Attributes-and-Damage-types sorc's lightning does energy damage and is a force attack, it is NOT elemental damage as most people tend to make this wrong assumption. The mirror versions being sage's rock throws which are kinetic force, both versions are mitigated by armor and bypasses shield 100%. Same with Op's knives which are also energy damage and mitigated by armor, and is considered a tech power which means it bypasses shield 100%. There are actually very few Direct damage that is elemental based, fire pulse being one of the few exceptions. Most elemental/bleed are DOTs only, which makes sense that they bypass armor completely. Although most skills are tech/force, even direct damage tend to be tech/force, which means most skills do bypass shield 100%. I think most min/maxers will tell you that the best PVP Vanguard spec currently is full assault spec running ion cell. Survivability is just as important as dps in PVP, and this will give you the best of both worlds. And this is pretty much something unique to SWTOR, in that they allow vanguard to spec full dps while running ion cell without giving up much at all, and stuff like full dps spec Ops and commandos being able to top themselves with heals behind pillars when their ammo regen is maxed out, etc.. things like this is pretty much non existent in other MMOs, but this game kind of rewards hybrid, and smart players don't even need to give up much to gain the benefits from their alternate roles. There is really not much point in using shield though since you're not putting points in shield, couple with the fact that most skills bypasses shield completely in PVP anyway. There is still a notable dps difference running plasma cell(fully specced) vs ion cell(non specced), but the survivability you gain when running ion cell is like night and day. Vanguard without ion cell is a squishy, just like commandos, you'll drop like a fly when more than one guy starts beating on you. Ion cell gives you the ability to tank damage to the point that most people will just ignore you while you're dishing out pure dps level damage. I've always been full assault running ion cell with a generator. But I'm testing full assault in plasma cell for the past few days and it feels too much like a glass cannon, but I do enjoy the dps boost which I admit is noticeable (plasma dot damage +3% tech crit chance from tactics tree), but maybe not as noticeable as the loose in survivability without ion cell. I find myself taking 1.5sec cast time to switch back to Ion Cell when things get a little hairy. In the end it really depends on your playstyle, but I assure you Assault in ion cell is extremely viable if not the best way to go currently for a PvP vanguard. -

Cool, that clarifies it, thanks for the info guys. And the pic of the republic Zabrak helps a lot too, much appreciated. So it looks like the skin tone doesn't change at all for the republic Zabrak other than the additional black circles around the eyes and mouth, and of course the eye color change as well. Anyone got Mirialan sith corruption they want to share? I can put something together if there's more interest in this. -

I used to think that too, until I saw a pale white Twi'lek with blood red eyes in warzone the other day, then looked up online and realized that some of the aliens will change their skin color as well. The game has been out for some time now and information about this still seem really scarce. At this moment, if you're using a character other than a human, you pretty much won't know how your character will look after sith corruption until you get dark points and see for yourself. Because there's just not enough information about this. I'm willing to make a compilation of all the species' sith corruptions if we get some good photos of how each one look like. I've found a few examples online with links below. http://i39.tinypic.com/10elswm.png http://www.corruptionexposure.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/051-480x300.jpg From what I can tell, the imp alien species will turn pale white after sith corruption, meaning a red skin zabak will turn white/pinkish, a blue skin Twi'lek will turn white/blueish, etc... I'm wondering on the republic side, does the Mirialan (green skin species) and the republic Zabak also change skin tone as a result of sith corruption? Anyone who plays a darkside alien character willing to sceencap your character showing your sith corruption and contribute to this? This subject is still virtually untouched and I think there should be a place where people can go and find out how their character would look like after sith corruption before they actually go through the dark path with their character. I can make a new post on this subject with a graphic guideline after we get a few examples going. --

I was wondering what does a republic Zabrak sith corruption look like. Does the skin tone changes? Anyone can describe theirs or post photos of their sith corruption would be appreciate!

If you like the Horde, go republic. Especially the Jedi classes, they are very in tune with nature and can give you that same tribal feel that the Horde has.

I think OP is trying to describe that auto face forward feature of the camera, it happens when you try to view around you while walking, the camera will force back to forward view as soon as you let go of the mouse button when you are moving character. Lots of people complain about this and I'm sure it's one of the many things that will be worked on, for now we just have to deal with the annoyance i guess..

PvP healing in general is fine, except I do feel in this game having such high energy regen for a healer is what's making it feel off. In most other games, a healer in PVP may seem godlike until his mana bar eventually runs out, in which case you can still exploit their weakness by outlast their mana bar til it's depleted. But with this game you can't really do that, because essentially you have healers with high energy regen rate but short energy bar, like a rogue's energy bar but used for healing. It regens so fast that it's basically giving them enough energy every few seconds to cast another heal and they can do that indefinitely as their energy continues to regen. You know something is wrong when there's situations where a healer can naturally regen more energy than their need to spend it, that right there means they can last forever if they manage their energy properly. I think the OP does have a point, most games fix this problem by giving healers a large but limited resource so they can't just heal indefinitely.

The fundamental problem is that there is only one magic caster class in the entire game. What this means is that players who want to play a mage roll a sage/sorc, players who want to play a warlock roll a sage/sorc, players who want to play a priest roll a sage/sorc, etc.. If there is only one melee lightsaber class, you would pretty much see the same thing where there's whole bunch of people playing that one class, instead they split it into three classes; Jedi Guardian, sentinel, and shadow. Only way to really fix this is if they add 1 to 2 more caster class in the future expansions, so people can actually pick a different caster and do something other than shooting lightning/rocks.

I think they should keep the 3 win daily, think about it, that's not really that unreasonable if the matches were actually fair. The problem is the matching system, I think they should make a league tournament where more serious players who want to create a team can join and fight other teams, in the league you wouldn't be able to solo que, you would need to create a team to actually fight in the ladder. Then the regular matches should not allow team que at all, so that all matches there are pick up group vs pick up group only. Point is that you separate those who just want to play casual in pick up group and have fun, from those who actually form a team with friends and practices strategies daily/weekly over ventrilo or whatever. I always felt that allowing group que for a game where most players would join solo is probably the most unfair thing in MMO PVP. There is really no reason why a PuG need to match against a pre-made ever, the two should be separate. If I join a game of Battlefield or CounterStrike or whatever, I don't expect to be fighting against a clan. There's really no reason for premades to exist in the normal PvP matches.

Biggest reason is because the trooper armor actually look like they're from the Star Wars universe, can't really say the same about the bounty hunter armor unfortunately. I don't mind originality but If I'm playing a Star Wars game, I want to feel my character actually belongs in the Star Wars universe.

there's pros and cons to changing the damage type to elemental. classes like sage/sorcerer can have a high elemental defense, something like 30% if I'm not mistaken. So if they changed HiB to elemental it would actually do less damage against certain classes with high elemental defense, considering the current HiB goes through all defense types, including 90% of armor if your assault vanguard. The small chance of it getting dodged by a tank is a small price to pay and well worth it IMO. If they changed HiB to elemental, it would no longer be weapon damage hence there's no point to the armor pen attached, in which case it looses it's uniqueness as being something that goes through all mitigation. HiB is the only move that should stay as weapon damage with 90% armor pen, since it's designed to go through both elemental defense and armor. I wouldn't mind if it becomes immune to dodge like jedi knight's deflective move, but if they changed it to elemental damage it would be a nerf IMO.

I don't know guys, the thing that really sealed the deal for me is that Shadow swings his lightsabers AND can throw stuff using the force. If you watch the different opening movies, you see the Jedi's do that move various times, the fact that they implement it into actual gameplay is awesome. It would suck if they took out that animation and replace it with something generic and uninspiring... If you don't like the rock animation i guess you should have picked sentinel instead, or went with Assassin if you want the same class. moral of the story: don't order spicy if you don't like spicy. Why would you roll a Jedi Counsular with a whole theme based on throwing objects, only to request it to be changed to something else?? What you REALLY want already exist in the form of a different class. IMHO the Sage rock animation is a solid 10, creative, unique, and awesome looking. The sith lighting animation on the other hand is kind of uninspiring. Its like when I see a mage fireball, or froststrike, or lightning shock, that stuff is everywhere in every single game... yawn.

Earning credits isn't a progression, sorry. A secretary and a CEO are also different kinds of work, but you shouldn't expect the same kind of salary and reward just because they are both real work. You can still buy full purple gear with credit, but some rewards are just not meant to be bought and you have to accept that. It's like, you can't buy an Oscar, you have to win it. You can't buy an Olympic gold medal, you have to win it. Right now you just sound like a really rich man frustrated that you can't buyout everything with money. BOP fixes this problem. If you can't raid or pvp, then be satisfied with the countless full set purple gear that is still available to you through various sources in the game like GTN, com rewards, etc. You won't get the set bonus from the PVE/PVP set, but you can gear from head to toe with purple using just credits and questing. and I'm not someone who's trying to keep the "elite" circle exclusive or anything like that, since I don't have any pve or pvp full set yet, I'm working on my pvp set now, one piece at a time and I'm enjoying it. -

isn't there a pure shockfrozen water reusable health item that's available to everyone? Or did they removed it? edit: nevermind, just realized that's an out-of-combat health potion, so not quite the same..

If you want to compare the right mirror class, personally I think the trooper have far better armor look than the Bounty Hunter. The trooper armor actually looks like its from the Starwars universe, can't really say the same about Bounty Hunter. End game armor though, they are both just as bad, but I have high hopes that next tiers will have much better designs..

I think throwing rock is way cooler than shooting lightning, only because I've seen lightning attacks like a thousand times in every single game that has magic in it... If you look past the Palpatine factor, lightning attack is pretty much the most generic and boring animation in a video game. The whole flinging-boulder-with-the-force animation is much more unique, honestly I can't say I've seen that before which is quite refreshing. If anything, I'd say Bioware put more thought and man-hour to brainstorm and create unique animations for the Sage, so BW was actually biased towards the Sage, and budget cut the Sorcerer by reusing the lightning animations over, and over, and over , and over.... -

The problem with these midnight maintenance is that the gaming community undeniably have lots and lots of night owls; there's a huge group of gamers who only play during late night, while they do "normal" day stuff during the day like going to work or school. The best downtime is actually mid-week morning when most people are either working or in school, those prime time early hours are needed to do more important things other then gaming, hence those are actually the best hours for MMOs to go off line for maintenance. Midnight hours are perfect gaming hours for a lot of people and I always felt MMOs tend to get the maintenance hours wrong in this regard. Gamers are known to loose sleep over gaming!!

I'm not someone who would camp low levels but this is part of the fun of an open world MMO. The best counter is to gather 4-5 low levels together and gank that one high level guy who was killing you, and watch him attempt to run for his life while the 5 of you tear him to pieces, priceless

hm.. not really.. Jorgan never really cared about losing his rank, he only wanted revenge and he had absolutely no problem following your leadership as long as you make sure Tavus gets what he deserves. I think that proves he is man enough, because a lesser man would have turn down the offer and quit, whining about how he wouldn't go back to Havoc Squad if he can't be the leader anymore. Jorgan being a veteran had no problem being the subordinate of a new recruit, which is kind of a huge deal, that proves he got what it takes to get the job done, and not letting his Ego get in the way. He was only mean in the beginning when you're a new recruit, which you still had to prove you are worthy of being in the top elite squad... When things have turned and you ended up being his leader, he shows you the respect that you deserved, never once had he given an attitude that he's better than you in anyway, and never implied that he's the one whom should be the leader instead. (it may be your own guilty conscience since you took his job, but he definitely was on board with following your lead since day 1 of his demotion, he did made suggestions and voiced his opinions loudly, but IMO he never crossed the line.) He also was there to teach you the ropes early on in your career as the new leader just to make sure Havoc Squad will have a strong and capable leader, if you carry the attitude of "I'm the leader now, I don't have to listen to you.. blah blah blah" that just means you're still green:D I don't see where this negativity is coming from other than the beginning where he treated you like crap, things have changed so much since the beginning it would be dumb to hold grudge over such little things. Besides, the whole mean belittling attitude he had was just an act anyway, that's how new recruits are treated in the army to harden them up for battles. ( maybe a little over the top but that's the idea anyway) Also if you let General Garza pick for you (which is essentially letting the developers decide for you) she'll pick Jorgan, because obviously he is the right person for the job that was meant to be when the story was written. in short, Dornes is the better person, Jorgan is the better soldier/squad leader.

I think around 35ish is when you get access to all of your class/advanced class skills, that's when you'll feel there's no real incentive to gain another level, since you wont get the feeling of testing out that brand new skill for the first time, and it feels like you already know the whole class already so what's the point of keep leveling? Admittedly I felt the same way. Ultimately this is the big turning point to decide whether you've picked the right class for yourself, lots of people make alts after leveling their main to 35ish after they learned all the class skills and have no more motivation to keep going. I personally enjoyed my class and felt it's a right fit for me (Trooper Vanguard), and what I did was set new things to look forward to, namely stuff from the talent tree, which offers a few new tricks and new skills outside the class trainer. By lvl 50 with all the talent points, your character will play quite differently from lvl 35, so if you like your class, it's well worth it to reach max level, then you can look forward to obtaining the lvl 50 pve/pvp set bonus. (another incentive to go on)

regarding the issue about having to redo the same story twice in order to play both advanced classes, you can always play the opposite faction's mirror class instead. For example, I currently have a lvl 50 Vanguard trooper and may decide to lvl a Commando as well, but instead I could lvl up a Mercenary Bounty Hunter, which would allow me to play both advance classes while experience different stories and companions. So to me this isn't really a huge issue, if anything it would give me incentive to try out the different storyline, otherwise I would feel like I'll miss out on the Bounty Hunter story if I already have a Trooper. The advance class gives you a reason to experience both factions' mirror class' storyline.

My trooper's original name is Fett-Clone, as in I'm one of the many clones of Jango Fett from the Clone trooper army. I wanted to take Jango as the Legacy name but wasn't allowed, tried "Boba" and somehow that worked, so I ended up with Fett-Clone Boba. Then last week BioWare forced me to change my name so sad cause I kind of wish I can stick with that one. Now "Fett" is no longer even allowed as part of a name anymore, so I'm still thinking of what I should change my character's name to.. I wish they allow a little more flexibility naming your character as part of the Starwars universe...

Have one grappler ready at the spawn point for both teams, now both teams have a goalie that you need to work through in order to score. Also, to score while a "goalie" is guarding, easy way is just have a vaguard/shadow pull the "goalie" out of the spawn point so he wont be able to instant kill your ball carrier. Remember the basketball game never intended people to do slam dunks, when 7ft+ tall players started dunking in basketball back in the 40s and 50s, it was often times considered an exploit back in the days. But this eventually changed the game completely, imagine if basketball today still doesn't allow dunking.. That being said, I'm sure Bioware will eventually change it so there's an invisible wall blocking the opposing side's spawn point like most games do, instead of the current method where it would instant kill you if your character touches the opposing factor's spawn point. --

people like to point out how the Commando gunnery has 30m range advantage over melees, but they forget that the spec can't function well between 1m-10m against said melee. It's actually quite balanced with the Vanguard in this regard, here's how it breaks down: Commando gunnery spec 20m to 30m: full damage potential, at max distance they are hard to interrupt, monstrous damage as some would say 1m to 10m: constantly gets interrupted by melees, can't cast or channel hence dealing crap damage when at close range, dies easily with melee beating on him Vanguard tactics spec 20m to 30m: unimpressive damage output at max range. 1m to 10m: full damage potential, great interrupts. Once he gets into melee position, hard to peel off. Assult Spec a hybrid of Commando and Vanguard put together little bit advantage of both. Assault isn't really part of this comparison since both classes can pick this spec, you would have to compare Commando Assault to Vanguard Assault, which would be a whole different discussion So to sum it up, Gunnery needs to stay at around 20m - 30m range to function properly, and tactics need to stay at 1m - 10m range to function properly. The idea of Gunnery going from 1m - 30m at full potential is false. (Assault can function at both long range and melee, but both classes can pick Assault and even then, your respective class will still determine which range will favor you more.) So there is actually no distance advantage for the Commando over the Vanguard, the only difference is in their distancing position where each class can maximize their potential and efficiency at a given range. When you are no longer at the range which favors your class, you will start to put yourself at a disadvantage. -

Dorne is really the only companion that I use, but I picked Jorgan because story-wise he's the right person for the promotion. Jorgan lost his rank when the old Havoc Squad became traitors, and this promotion thing just screams "undo the damage that was done." So for a goody-two-shoe Trooper that I'm playing, I went with the most obvious choice and gave Jorgan the rank that he lost earlier in the game.