I finished Blood Hunt HM last night for the first time as a tank. The Jos and Valk encounter is a serious awareness check for a tank and the group as a whole. Up until both Jos and Valk join the fight the encounter is fairly easy-the adds are more difficult than either of the bosses alone. Jos's Aerial Strike hurts A LOT if you lose focus and are caught by any of it-the initial blast off, the fire DoT, or the landing. My group recommended that I tank Jos near Valk. Valk's Sweeping Blasters hits everything in front of her and she doesn't move beyond doing her leap, so the tank needs to keep her faced away from the group. Jos, being mostly melee, will follow the tank around. Since our characters can parry and dodge attacks from behind (and Jos has no backstab type of ability) your tank need not worry about turning his/her back to lead Jos back toward Valk after Aerial Strike/being knocked around. Jos also has an aggro drop-I could be wrong, but the mechanic seems tied to his wife's taunts-when you hear her talking smack to Jos, your tank needs to be ready to taunt. When they're both in the fight doing so can be difficult if RNG is against you (stuns/knockbacks). A few of our wipes happened due to RNG-either from something like the above happening, or worse, Jos stunned me while Valk was launching her rockets. That much is just unfair. The only thing the tank can do is hope the healer can keep him/her alive during spike damage. Positioning makes or breaks the last phase of the fight. During all the chaos of knocks, aggro drops, and AOEs, the group needs to move as a unit so heals don't fall behind.

I also want to hear them justify the 178 Custom quality reward the boss drops.

The first boss of Blood Hunt is simply overtuned for Flashpoint content. I never understood the logic behind creating small group content more difficult than large group content. Also, the recommended gear level should be stated as 192.

Last night I completed Depths of Manaan and I just finished Battle of Rishi on HM. Neither gave me credit toward the weekly? What's the dealie?

The author recommends preserving the old 4 piece set bonus until I acquire the new 6 piece. Does the author mean: 1-to keep my old armoring mods (140 in my case) and upgrade only the Mod and Enhancement slots and 2-withhold from equipping the new gear until I 6 pieces (in other words, do not gear piecemeal)?

Simply put, the fight bugs out and the last standing droid never drops the immunity shield.

Polish is a must for any MMO to thrive. Visuals and character customization are just as important as content. As has already been asked, what about the hood toggle? I'd like to see my Sentinel's hair for once.

I'm a fairly casual gamer with little interest in Hard Mode Ops. Having said that, my Shadow's DPS gear is mostly Tionese quality. I have the 4 piece set bonus but I'm wondering about it's worth when compared to the Black Hole gear. Does the raw stat increase from the Black Hole armor pieces outshine the Tionese set bonuses? I currently have enough comms to purchase one armor piece and am willing to wait until I can afford more to prevent any loss in DPS. Here are my stats at a glance (Balance): Crit- ~33% Accuracy - ~100% Power - 254 Crit Multiplier - ~73%

A hood up/down toggle was a feature I was really looking forward to. The misleading quotes already mentioned in this thread cause me some disappointment. I'm tired of every Robe for JKs having a hood unless you display your head piece (which is apparently a bug).

Iresso's a cool dude. I don't have a use for him in combat as a Shadow, however. If I could hook him up with Nadia Grell, I would.

There is totally a moddable techblade available from Coruscant. It's called the Prototype Battle Techblade. You can buy it with comms.

I've only used Nadia and Kira. I prefer Nadia to Kira for her AoE. Nadia can hold her own against Strong enemies once in decent gear. All force DPS companions can if you krrp them in good gear. I can't see Nadia dual wielding. It just doesn't suit her character. I also see her as more of a double-bladed user, anyway. If Sage companions were an option then I could definitely see Nadia as onr with a lightsaber. Kira, however, I could see dual wielding. I'm all for it!

You could always get her into at least Rating 124 gear and have her at your side as your mainstay companion. I ranhave with Nadia at 50 after passing her my Rating 118 DPS gear. She does great DPS once in Rating 124 gear and beyond. If my Shadow or Sage were male she would be wed.

I didn't have a need for Qyzen on my Shadow. I initially tanked. I DPSed as Infiltration from 35 to 50 and my DPS output trumped Qyzen's threat. I'm going to stick with Qyzen primarily on my Telekinetic Sage. She booms hard enough to annihilate standard and weak targets before Force Shield fades from Qyzen. Qyzen's finicky behavior irks me. He often backpedals when an attack command is issued. His Flush Prey also has poor range. It's an annoying trade-off for the convenience of remaining relatively free of spell pushback. It also cuts back on "downtime" of using Meditation to regen Force (less Force Shields vs. using another companion).

There has to be a grind in MMOs. The Daily Missions really aren't bad at all. In about 10 days time you'll have both of your relics. You can also get 6 Black Hole Commendations a week. That is VERY lenient in the current implementation. Adding additional Commendations to HM dungeons makes getting your gear even easier. Some people consistently clear HMs on a daily basis. Take an extra hour or so with your Group Mates to stomp through the Planetary Dailies and you'll be done with the Daily grind in record time.