Dromund kaas commendation vendor was the first place I got an orange vibrosword for khem. Wasn't hurting up until that point.

I wish ALL companions followed my alignment. I can't get that ho-bag Ashara to like anything I do...

Shhhhhhhhh!!! *You'll give away our secret!*

I think I got 9-10 from korriban, got the blue chest piece and shortly after on the next planet got an orange to replace it with. At the time the blue was nice to have since it was way better than what I was wearing but if you don't get it, it's really no big deal. You'll get an orange to replace it with soon enough. BT is great for oranges and several blue drops. My Merc alt got the orange chest, blue boots, and 2 pistols in 2 runs. I think FP's are deliberately meant to gear you up, gold stuff drops all the time.

FML, finding that special shuttle took forevveerrrr. I had to have a guild mate come show me where it was and even then he kept getting turned around so it took awhile. I really wish I could help you out man but honestly i can't remember for the life of me where it is. But it's not bugged. It exists, it's just a major pain to find. The only thing I remember is I had to cross a bridge at some point, take a right along a path next to a river and then go left up into some hills or something. I wish I could do more for you but hopefully there's someone who's done it recently or remembers where this shuttle is that can help you out soon.

Madness is certainly a different play style. I personally love madness and I can do all the daily's solo beside the Poisonous..whatever it's called heroic on Illum. I'll die maybe once or twice doing the heroics on Belsavis but that's about it. Bring Talos along (geared-not daily mod geared but geared) and you'll be fine. This is after getting fully daily mod geared tho. Prior to that I grouped with people in my guild to get them done. Most assassins are going Darkness spec to survive longer these days it seems. I think it's a great spec but after playing a tank for the last 2+ years I wanted to take a different route. I love the Madness spec for that because it offers the hybrid of both melee and range dps. Although I admit, the survivability is pretty lacking but sometimes I'll just throw on a shield and Dark Charge if I need it and go from there.

I would start ASAP. Save up some commendations and start swapping them out for the better ones. I think you can only store 1,000 at one time though so be sure to spend some before you're gaining no coms because you're maxed out.

Yes, I'm doing normal modes right now. The only Columi piece I was going to buy was the pants since those come from D7 HM flashpoint and that was dumb enough as a normal flashpoint that I don't really want to do it again. I did some pve tonight against strong/elite mobs with the tionese/energized gear in place of my orange gear and it FEELS like I'm doing less damage... Obviously I don't really know since there's no damage meter but it seemed like I wasn't taking them down fast enough. Swapping out the crit pieces for power pieces dropped my crit to somewhere around 28%. Thanks all for the replies. I may end up switching out some of the mods in the Columi gear when I get more but we'll see how that goes once I finish my Rakata implant/earpiece.

Sorry man, I'm not sure how to price it. I've gotten this a few times from UT missions but I just pass all my schematics to a friend to build up his craft availability. You may want to hold onto it for a little bit until you see something else like it pop up on the GTN and go from that price.

Right now I'm a mix of orange gear with daily mods, crappy T1, and T2 gear. I have columi bracers from BT, Tionese focus, gloves, belt, 1 rakata implant, epic crafted 49 earpiece, and energized stalker (is that the name?) helm and pants from BT and BP HM's. It's kind of a mess right now but I'm trying to move into at least full T2 gear for the HM ops. Just trying to figure out what the best mix is of the gear that I have... I'm about 20 columi tokens away from my next piece of columi gear. I'm not in game to look right now but is the champion stalker gear more crit based? i'm guessing that would be the case...

Just for some more clarity, while 2 of the Assassin trees are more melee oriented (darness, deception) the madness spec is a hybrid including a little of both melee and ranged dps. Just because you're an assassin doesn't mean you have to be right up on the person/npc to do damage. And the rotation will be completely different depending on what spec you are within each advanced class so that's a weightier question.

I've been madness spec from the beginning of my char. I move constantly, i don't know of any skill that i use where i have to be stationary. The only time i'm stationary is if i'm hard casting Crushing Darkness, and that's only during boss fights where i want to stay far away because if i go in to melee i'll get torn up. But that doesn't happen very often. Madness is very versatile. Force return/management is great if you remain aware of your procs.

probably just RNG of a sort. I get them all the time from my UT missions. In the neighborhood of 1-2 per day ON AVERAGE. Some days I won't get any if I'm not sending my companions out a lot but on days (evenings) where I am sending them out frequently I usually get at least 1-2, sometimes more.

I made an alt with slicing so I could farm my own. And occasionally you can find a low priced 300-340 mission cheap on the gtn where someone forgot a zero.

This is exactly my problem. I still need a good amount of crit to make my spec perform the best but all the gear has power. So what is the solution? Do I just say screw it and go with what's slotted in the gear? I don't really like the idea of replacing those higher level mods with level 50 epics just for the crit...but is that what ill have to do? I have one rakata implant now and im a little less than 2 weeks of dailys away from the other rakata implant and earpiece. Will the crit on those make up for the lack of it in the gear? I suppose I could always make sure o have my crit relic active as well...that should help. Ill have to look at some numbers and check it all out...

I think this may be one of those 'talk to this person for a minuscule amount of xp' things. If I remember correctly it's a female SI on maybe the side where the class trainer is but on the far right side. If you're not seeing any green triangle things on your map it could be glitched. Hope this helps.

You may have to take a look at your rotation. I leveled full Madness and still am. Haven't had any problems killing through the story line. Mostly I used Khem with up to date gear (blue mods for leveling) but some of the harder fights I just brought out Talos and did just fine. Make sure your companions gear is up to date and the right skills are on (do you have Talos on Med Watch?). Look for your procs and be sure to keeps your dots active.

What speeder is that and where did you get it? I haven't seen that one before but it looks awesome. Much better than the usual family size yachts I see around fleet.

I'm a Madness spec assassin and so far I've been focusing on mostly crit/surge for my mods. I'm up around 32% crit and 76% surge. In HM flash points I have no problem. I'm starting to get into ops and while I'm doing fine in normal ops, I know I'm going to have to be better geared in the pve department to do well in HM ops. So I'm starting to acquire some Tionese/Columi gear (yeah I'd rather have Columi gear over Tionese since it really isn't an upgrade). But my question is, why does all (or most) of the gear have acc/pwr instead of crit/surge? Have I been placing too much importance on crit/surge? Is power a better way to go because that's where the game seems to be leading me. I've been looking at the stalker gear of course since I don't need alacrity from Force Mystic or Force Master for any of my skills but it sucks that the set bonus does very little for my spec... There isn't even a big gain of WP over my orange gear with daily mods. Kind of disappointed in anything lower than Rakata but even that leans heavily on power over crit it seems. Anyone have any insight on this that has a full Tionese or Columi set in Madness spec?

From what I hear, you 'should' have about 110% accuracy on your special attacks so you can be sure not to miss boss mobs. However, I only have about 102% accuracy with none stacked and I don't seem to miss boss mobs in HM FP's at all. I never see a 'miss' pop up on my screen. Accuracy may be more important in pvp but then, I never notice a 'miss' in pvp either...

I've been looking for ANY of these pieces on my server and I never see them on the GTN. I farmed the 2+ Heroic in Hoth with no luck. Killed the champion there about 20-25 times and got a bunch of other golds but no Supreme Inquisitor stuff. Am I farming the wrong Heroic? Do the 4 Heroics or some other Champion offer a better chance?

I think the Columi lightsaber has a purple crystal as well. Not sure if you can take the color crystal out at this time but maybe once 1.2 drops.

I've been looking for this set on the GTN for a few days now and I'll probably go out to Hoth/Taris and see if I can get some pieces to drop. (This is where I'm hearing some pieces drop (Heroic and a Jedi boss guy) from Torhead). However, before I spend the time on it I'm hoping someone out there has a pic of their char wearing at least the top and pants together. Torhead has pics of them separately but not worn together. Preferably on a male char but I suppose any would do. I want to find a new look for my sin that doesn't involve a skirt (until we get some Darth Maul looking clothes to wear). Thanks in advance.

Im not sure of it's different for biochem than for cybertech but I've gotten a few of the level 21 earpiece designs from slicing missions. I think it was either a abundant or rich mission but my slicing on my alt is on the 180-200 range. I get quite a few designs from slicing (synth, cyber, armormech...) so you may be able to find them there. I've also picked up a few from the GTN for under 800 credits.

I'm not sure if Treasure Hunting returns them at all but Slicing is where you will really get the crew skill missions from.