People will lie because the internet grants anonymity, and people will lie just to one-up you so they can derive some strange pride from it or something stupid.

Inb4 low valor people say they're actually valor 65+ and haven't gotten a single piece.

I know your pain. Until valor 55, I got 5 relics, 4 implants, 2 chests and 2 belts out of about 70 bags. Seeing valor20 people with 4piece really peeved me. Thankfully, I've gotten really lucky with my drops the past four days or so. Got 2 gloves, 2 helmets, mainhand, offhand, pants, another belt, and wrists. All I need now is boots and ear.

Oh, derp. My bad. Dyslexia acting up, I read that as 'heal', not 'damage'. And... I have no idea, to be honest. I hadn't even realized I got the 5k damage medal Lemme look and see if I can remember. Edit: Just went through my images, and none of them have mouseover of the medals, so how do you even know I got the 5k damage medal? I don't think any of my crits have exceeded 4.5k (I rarely grab the Exp buff).

Of course it will. But this game is already so buggy as-is, I don't make making clever uses of game mechanics to benefit me.

Get Biochem to 400, make your Rakata Medpac, adrenal, and stim, then reroll to another skill. The Rakata reusables don't REQUIRE Biochem to use, oddly enough, so once you have them, you can drop Biochem and still be able to use them.

It requires a Rakata medpac from Biochem. At the start of a match, remove your gear and put it back on, which will put me at 9000/17000 HP, for example. I pop my medpac, which heals for 5050-6175, and I immediately get the 2.5k and 5k heal medals.

The only ability I don't find myself using on a regular basis is Explosive Round. It's damage:ammo ratio is just too costly. The only time I ever find myself using it is to quickly AoE a group of enemies capping a node or something, typically followed by a Storm->Neural Surge-> Reserve Powercell+Pulse Cannon, etc etc.

This is my typical go-to spec(because I'm too lazy to switch back forth between a PvE and PvP spec, so I just do both as this). My rotation is a harder question to answer. I always to make sure Stockstrike, HiB and Sticky Grenade are on CD(in that order), apply a Gut if they're above 75%, Ion Pulse if those parameters are met, and use as much ammo as I can every 2 minutes and pop Recharge Cells to get back above 60% ammo. I'll throw in a Full Auto instead of an Ion Pulse, or when a target is farther away and Storm is about to come off CD. Mortar Volley and Pulse Cannon are generally saved for groups of 3+ people(I also like to use Battle Focus+trinket/adrenal before AoEing) or to defend doors/nodes. Explosive Surge is also useful to keep people from disarming a bomb or whatever. I'll only ever use Explosive Round if my target is >10m away, and Sticky Grenade and Storm are on CD, and I have >9 ammo. Also, of course, use your Taunts as often as you can for free medals.

Supercommando's and Combat Tech's are for Vanguards.

This is one of the reasons I love Alderaan. At the beginning of the match, my Scoundrel friend and I head over to the east node, which the Empire usually thinks is a free cap. We kill the 1-6 people they send there and cap it. They really seem to love east, because they keep sending those same 1-6 people to cap it, and we keep killing them while our team deals with what little forces they have elsewhere, resulting in a 3cap 90% of the time. Me in my half tank/DPS gear, and my Scoundrel friend with Guard on him can burst down anyone within about 2-3 seconds. It's quite silly.

Getting medals as a Vanguard (or any tank, really), is incredibly simple. Protection gives FAR TOO MUCH medals when compared to, say, healing. Hell, as Biochem, there's an easy way to get the 2.5k and 5k heal medals. At the beginning of a match, remove your gear. When the match actually starts, put it back on and use your Rakata Medpac; since you don't have the Trauma debuff(30% less healing), you get a free 2 medals. Also, I've been dabbling into half tank/half DPS gear. (All tank gear except 4piece Combat Tech and 2 Eliminator's implants). I've been having a lot of fun with it. Link because why not. The top two images are with the DPS gear, as you can see by my health, and the rest are random games from the last week or so. I only ever really queue with Fancypants, a DPS Scoundrel(except for in one screenshot, he went healer for a day). Also, pretty much all of Empire on my server loves/hates me, and Republic loves me, so I'll sometimes get pocket heals from a pug. Also, I always get 12-13 medals nowadays with my tank/dps gear mix. I've gotten 15 only once, but I stupidly forgot to screenshot.

It's much more than that, sadly. There's threads all over these forums pointing out the blatant advantage nearly every Empire class/AC has over their Republic "mirrors".

Why not just make a Republic character, and ask on the Fleet? You'll get bashed for it here (even though it's by far the easiest way to get your daily/weekly done.).

I usually do pop it at least once while out of combat, but I never seem to get the medal. Maybe I'm just not paying attention. And yeah, I know it actually has to heal the 5k; overhealing doesn't count.

I find it odd that you're getting the 5k heal medal for your Rakata medpac, but I only ever get the 2.5k medal for using mine.

Yeah, it's quite nice still being able to put out some steady damage even as a tank spec.

Come over to Republic. On my server, during my entire time PvPing (currently valor56), we've had - count it - THREE Huttball matches where it was RepvRep, only two of which lasted the full match due to actually having enough players. We also play Alderaan/Voidstar about 50% more than Huttball. Which is good, because I hate Huttball.

Here's an image of me doing 183k protection in one match. Link This is what happens when my friend Fancypants specs into healing for a day, apparently.

The underlying issue is that healing already gives next to no medals. While I see pure DPS get 8-10 medals, tanks (like myself) easily get 9-12 medals, and then pure healers have trouble even getting 4. There needs to be more medals for healing, plain and simple.

Why do people complain about this, when it's available to EVERYONE? Seriously, go buy some medpacs or ask a Biochem to make you some, and get your free medal like everyone else.

The Consular pvp set is actually one of my favourite, actually.

It's videos like this one, where people show they actually know how to play their class, that make me want to start recording. Sadly, a Vanguard tank video would be pretty boring, I'm sure. While I can fairly easily 1v3+ people, I don't put out huge numbers, I don't have very many tools besides defensive CDs. The only 'skill' abilities I could show in use would be tactical Harpoon pulls, or Stealth Scanning someone who's just vanished, etc etc. But yes. It was entertaining, and enjoyable to see a Sorc who doesn't simply spam Force Lightning all day.

I love when people make the "but you can buy things with Cent commendations!" argument. They're missing the point. While us unlucky people spend hours upon hours in warzone, are valor55+ and only have 4 Champion pieces to show for it, it pisses us off. Sure, we can buy 3-5 Cent pieces, but the Cent gear is so much worse than the Champ gear, and people who are valor20-30 have twice as much Champ gear as us just pisses us off further. They played for hours upon hours less than us, and yet they have better gear. It's as simple as that. Now, if the commendations from Champ bag could be used to buy Champion gear, I'm sure most of us wouldn't mind that too much. Sure, lucky people could get Champ gear, but we'd be able to get it as well for investing more time into the game than them. Instead, we're currently spending more time to buy worse gear than the lucky people are getting for BS RNG.

That's not true, though. People who haven't even spent 1/50th of the time in Warzones I have have better gear than I do. That's the entire point; this system doesn't reward time invested, it rewards luck. Edit: Oops, double post.