The butt missile? Screw that noise, I love the new animation, it looks awesome.

Then Jet Charge gets nerfed too since it's the exact same skill. How about instead of constantly whining and asking for nerfs, you man up and get better?

Now write up advanced classes, something to make it different from being Smuggler, and create an Empire Mirror class version. Write up new quests too, and get a lot of new voice actors for speaking parts too. Don't forget creating new armor looks and animations for powers. Then there's whatever they'd use for their ship. The bit I mentioned for a mirror class? Yeah, apply all that again to keep the factions balanced.

I agree. Also, I do giggle a little when the 'hardcore' types talk about how it'd make things too easy. Here's a hint guys and gals, the game itself is already easy and doesn't punish you at all really for dying. Oh, repair bills, right. Yeah, see, I almost miss the days of a corpse run to get back all the gear you had on you (naked through hostile territory) and hoping you didn't die again, possibly losing levels in the process. The option to change between specs was even implemented into City of Heroes after a good long time, but you had to have enough enhancements for both specs (think gear) and had to go to a trainer to swicth the current spec, and it was on a timer. The equivalent would be going to a class trainer to choose a second talent tree spec that could only be changed at class trainers on each planet.

I'm a huge fan of the first game, but I only ever played that one. Only a couple classes can actually get any meaningful amounts of stealth detection, and the powers like the probe BHs get is just a warning sign to avoid that spot for a bit. The ability to pick and choose your targets in both PvE and PvP cannot be underestimated, my Sniper struggles whenever he accidentally aggros two groups at once, something an Operative/Scoundrel wouldn't need to worry about.

Thing is, it only works if there are members of each role that can easily pull their own weight without dragging everyone else down. It works when everything a part of it works, when a part (role) or two is missing, then the flaws become very obvious.

Q approves of this.

I am not gonna lie, the last two had me laughing, especially the third.

Raids in EQLive really felt like raids. Even EQ2 could only handle at most 24 players in a raid, 48 was the outright limit I think. EQLive however, was like 56 or so per raid minimum. The largest of raids, like the Sleeper Zerg event included a few hundred players effectively zerging that beast, and promptly showing SOE that an unkillable monster certainly can be killed so long as it has hp that can be lowered via damage.

Again, any player of City of Heroes/Villains will tell you the exact opposite. It worked not only fine, but damn near perfectly without the Holy Trinity system. To a veteran team, advertising yourself as a healer meant being laughed at and mocked for holding onto an ideal that carried no merit there. Enemies simply did far too much damage later on for a straight up healer to mitigate. Two healbot Empathy Defenders were not gonna save the team when a pack of 8 or more Council Warwolves started firing off their fast-hitting several hundred hitpoint damaging attacks left and right. The Alpha Strike alone wouldn't be survivable without prior mitigation.

Man, I remember keeping a PuG of 6 alive after they accidently aggroed two groups of Tsoo on my Earth/Storm. I did my thing which was controlled chaos, fun days.

That last part just described how City of Heroes/Villains did it. Defenders/Controllers/Corruptors could heal if they have the right powerset, but much more emphasis was placed on buffs/debuffs/controls. Those games saw the virtue of proactive mitigation over reactive mitigation. Why heal at all if your tank has had his resistances buffed and the enemy's damage has been heavily debuffed at the same time? No need to heal if the group of mobs are constantly flopping on a localized earthquake, unable to attack, or being suspended in mid-air via controlling gravity/The Force and cannot do anything to defend themselves for half a minute. Enemies in the later stages of CoX could push out enough damage so fast that you had to mitigate it because heals were just not enough, and it was great. I've pointed out CoX in many different forums in many different MMOs for a reason: it did things very differently and pulled it off wonderfully.

City of Heroes just smacked the holy trinity upside the head and laughed. You could easily feel important on a team. City of Villains then came along and promptly viciously curb-stomped the holy trinity on a street corner to leave it crying and bleeding all over, everyone could contribute and pull damage and then perform their secondary/primary roles, often at the same time they are doing damage. Heck, Brutes tanked and did more damage as a result of tanking, their damage shot up the more they attacked and more they were attacked. The holy trinity works, but it's archaic, and it makes people who don't fall into the FotM holy trinity aspect feel unwelcome or even useless to a team. The trinity system did go through a rethink, it happened almost ten years ago.

This is probably the biggest issue for companions using more exotic weapon and stat types. Those like Mako, Corso, Kaliyo, Kira, Elara, etc, use weapons that can be found as loot from FPs as an orange drop that can continue to be modded up the levels. Qyzen, Khem Val, SCORPIO, etc use very rare and difficult-to-come-by weapons and it does hinder their effectiveness.

The problem with new classes is making new animations, new armors, new class quests, the intros and text crawls, maybe even a new intro planet for an extra new class (origin planets contain two classes), and above all else, more voice acting. Sound files add a whole lot to the game. It wouldn't be practical to add two things so huge. An imperial trooper would basically be a Republic Trooper only Imperial aligned, so there'd be no real distinction from the 'new' trooper from a Bounty Hunter, Dark Jedi from a Sith, etc.

I've got a Shieldtech in the low 40s and a Juggernaut who I just specced towards Veng but leveled as Immortal and I think the best way to state their survivability methods is that Immortal relies heavily on melee/ranged defense when you look at the talents in their tree. Shieldtech relies almost purely on shield absorb to do it's magic on top of armor reduction, and as you said, sin tanks seem to rely on self heals, cc, some armor, and procs. So it's like Immortal Juggernauts are mostly dodge-tanks, Shieldtechs are meant to block and absorb most damage, and sin tanks use more exotic methods. Those methods have their key weaknesses however, if something is force/tech then it negates defense (dodge) and shield absorb, and elemental/internal bypass shields entirely, so Immortal Juggernauts and Shieldtechs perform great when something isn't sporting their kryptonite so to speak. So while sin tanks are more frail, their only real glaring weakness after they get fleshed out is heavy burst damage, would that be a correct assessment of all three tank talent trees?

For a powertech, I'd highly recommend Biochem. If you're going the tanking route, the commendation/daily mods are biased towards tanking as it is, and you'll possess nice tech elemental damage anyway. It's expensive unless you have an alt who can provide the credits to get the materials via mission skills or GTN. Some of the laster blue stims can take at least 20 minutes to craft, and I've found RE'ing a stack of ten gives the best shot at getting the reusable version, but others can chime in if that is incorrect.

I ended up taking my new Inquisitor as an Assassin w/ Artifice and such and I am wondering, how badly was Darkness nerfed in the lower levels? About when does it start to pick up? I'm glad Khem is the first companion either way no matter the spec.

Assassin, hands down. The ability to stealth past a lot of enemies so you can pick and choose them goes a long way. You'll be able to tank while putting out very good dps (in comparison to some tank specs at least), you have more reliable forms of cc as well to limit your opposition too. You may have to go Biochem until you get your healer companion. I say this because outside of HK-51, most of the companions are very frail and can't quite hold up to do their job under fire, unless you've given them all orange gear that's modded out by either commendation vendors or a cybertech alt.

Actually, if you take a few steps back and look at what a LS SW is really doing, it's downright devious and manipulative. Instead of killing everyone like Baras instructs him (in the case of romancing Jaesa) to do, the SW instead spares his supposed enemies to often have them swear loyalty to him. He knows Baras will eventually betray him, and is preparing for it. The Jedi you encounter actually expect you to embrace the Dark Side (like some posters here as well) and you completely throw them for a loop by going LS. Heck, one Jedi can be convinced to leave because he now questions if you really are evil, and the one who stays to fight you can be turned to the Dark Side merely by reciting the Jedi Code after he's beaten. Then there's Jaesa's parents, Baras wants you to kill them, but if you go Light and spare them, he actually believes you intend on having them serve him to have Jaesa be tormented. Not once does it enter his head that a Light Sight Warrior is telling them to serve Baras and the Empire so they can finally have a better life (in comparison to what they were at before) and to help in Jaesa seeing that not all Sith are evil. What's the guy's name? Ajunta Pual or somesuch? You encounter his Force Ghost in the first KOTOR in his tomb and he even straight up tells you that the constant betrayal and evil nature of the Sith is such a screwed up mess that as they stand, they have no chance at completing any real long term goals. You can even tell him that even after all this time, he can still be saved, he questions it until he finally tries and finds that his old master, back from the first schism is actually waiting for him to become one with the force. The Light Side Sith Warrior knows he has to kill and won't quite shy away from it, but he knows that pointless cruelty doesn't serve the Empire at all in the long run. He realizes just how bad the more obsessed Sith Lords can be for the Empire. They're so concerned with increasing their own power right away that most cannot see five minutes past their plans, and even Baras, as stated above, can be tricked rather easily by a Light Sith Warrior into believing merciful, compassionate, and even actions bordering on preparing for the inevitable betrayal (Sith always betray each other) as furthering his own goals exactly as he planned. The Light Sith Warrior lacks that elitist arrogance and acts in such a manner that people who expect him to be typical and visibly thrown for a loop and start to question things. I suppose the quickest way to say is that the DS SW is your typical, predictable psycho Sith we see everywhere in the game, but the LS SW is someone who values a good challenge and a worthy opponent to battle/kill. One is very short sighted, the other is always considering the long term aspects and how they can eventually benefit him far more than the Dark Side acts would provide for a brief bit of time. Bit long-winded, but I'm tired of people saying LS SW is a pansy who isn't a real Sith. The real Sith are technically the aliens who downright hate the current Empire and the so-called 'Purebloods' as well. Also, sometimes the Light Side's actions can be even worse for the victim than the Dark Side's actions. Black Talon's The General being spared could easily be seen as worse than simply killing him for defecting.

The entire ops team I take it?

Sadly my luck often has me end up using a speed boost power only to get rooted/knocked-back later, so my experience with the movement buff has been lackluster as a result.

It consumes 30 stacks of Fury to give 10 seconds of 10% melee and ranged defense. Since it's useless against force and tech attacks (yellow always hits), the usefulness is dependent on what the opposing team has for sources of damage.

Since when is anything server-first since the server merges? It's impossible for a group of crafters to not know a lot of the more desired schematics. I don't mean 5 or 10 either, I mean 30+ or so at any given time.

I thought only subscribers got those, so even Preferred players had need of them.