Should have clarified. I've seen those (I live by them), but the question was specifically regarding augmentation. Given a pool of X available points, A should go to defense, B to shield, C to absorb, yes, I know - but the question is if A is achievable given mods and enhancements, and thus I should augment for B instead, or etc. Does that make sense? Basically, I'm just wondering if I stack defense augs, will I end up over-compensating on defense and then need to swap out for shield, etc., or if we're intended to stack defense and then use absorb mods instead of defense, for example.

Relatedly, I've been debating augment choices - should we be full defense augd, or should defense get to 20% with normal gear, so we should shield or abs augment instead? I haven't seen any breakdown threads like I did with my shadow, but I might have missed them. Thanks!

Focus gets bigger numbers and loses 1v1 because their main attacks are simply AOE damage. They're called smash noobs for a reason - they can be played very well, but for many, they get big numbers by jumping in and smashing on a group of 3-5, which gives them their big damage numbers.

Sages and sorcs do have an early AOE heal. It's right at the bottom of the tree, the knockback heal. It's not amazing, but it works just fine. At the beginning of the game, you're going to rely more on your shield and your big heal; you just need to know how much to space things out so you can keep your force regeneration up. Use your noble sacrifice and your immediate self-heal as well.

No, he's not saying you should augment for surge (you shouldn't). Your augments should be nothing but willpower, you get sufficient alacrity and surge off of your enhancements - and that should be 6 enhancements' worth of alacrity, 4 of surge, the last I checked.

Explosive surge/flame sweep is actually a pretty solid threat gen, and is exceedingly useful off of the gap-closer when you get two free ones (assuming you specced it, and you usually should, imo). For AOE threat, I usually mortar volley, storm, surge, pulse cannon, grenade, surge, and stuff is manageably within my control throughout that. It's not bad on energy management, either.

Yep. A powertech tank is fun and a pretty friendly class for newer tanks. You have several good AOE options, plus a ranged AOE taunt that no other tank has, and you won't put out assassin damage numbers, probably, but you can do good DPS.

Personally, I use the rating 66 Imm/Sturd until I get the Underworld Bas/Bul, which I think many do.

I was fairly sure there weren't any 31 immunity/sturdiness from my gear checks and other forum posts here, but I might be wrong, I guess. If you're getting them off of an item site, I agree they're better, I just don't think they're actually in game anywhere. Kitru was talking the other day about how the devs haven't put them in because they're so obviously better in every respect.

Pretty sure he was talking about Bastion/Bulwark at Underworld level or higher. Anything below that is Sturdiness/Immunity, yes.

lol. What a quality addition to the thread!

The other problem with moving FB up (or to a more 'necessary' position in the rotation) is that it's not intelligent. If something's CCd, FB will destroy that. Any solution that requires more frequent use of FB means we're going to potentially cause more problems with those situations.

Your listed playstyle is just "PVE with a little bit of PVP," it doesn't tell us much about how you like fights to operate or what kind of abilities you enjoy. If that's all the info on the table, combat is probably your better choice. At endgame, I run watchman, and put out a fair bit more single-target damage than I do in combat spec, but that's just because of how I play. There are combat specs that can beat me as well; both are viable.

Sounds like one of the AOEs the Ilum Jedi do in Poisonous Strategy, the heroic 2 daily. Player characters never get an ability like that.

Went and tested. A 38-6-2 (which I normally run) at my stat level (mix of BH for set bonus and BM, 30.7k HP, 2k stat budget) does 1400 on a normal rocket punch, 2100 on crits, and an extra 4-700 from ion cell ticks. Flame burst in the same spec does 1200 normal, 2000 crits. For the alternative spec that stacks skills in AP, non-crit RP still does about 1300 and 2k crits, while FB moved up to 1300 non-crit, but stayed around 2k crit. In other words, equal damage, but with RP still getting ion cell ticks. Seems mostly like personal choice and play style; if you spam flame burst, it's probably not a bad idea to spec a bit for AP, but for me, I spec hard into shield and make tons of use of Hydraulic Shield (the RP proc), so the added damage on RP base and crits seems useful to me. Don't forget, not only does Hydraulic Shield give 50% chance to proc, it also increases crit chance on it and flame sweep. My two cents! Hope it helps clarify things.

Excellent points I left out! Thanks. Yes, try to bring a force user with you. The same bot drops a guardian shield as well. ISS-994 Power Droid drops Esseles Guardian's Shield Generator

Esseles should work, though you may want to bring an aim user with you and do the bonus. ISS-994 Power Droid drops the Unwavering Powertech's Talon Shield Generator You can look through other drops here. Just look for any offhand that is a shield generator and has mods in it that you can swap.

Run flashpoints! They will drop fairly regularly, and if you get a shield generator for any class, it'll work for you when you swap out the mods.

Has anybody tested the RP with the 8% boost vs the flame burst with the 6% boost? Forgot to last night.

Out of curiosity, why would you take the 6% damage increase on flame burst rather than the 8% damage increase on rocket punch, which I believe (I'm not at my comp at the moment, or I'd check) hits harder than flame burst anyway and frequently resets upon shielding attacks? RP is one of your hardest-hitting attacks and best threat-improvement mechanisms (both due to damage and to it proccing ion cell for a rail shot), so I'm curious how often you're spamming flame burst and if it really equates to higher damage output than the 8% boost to RP.

The vast majority of my heals are mouse-bound. I can do most of my healing with my right hand only. Click somebody's name on the ops panel, trigger a heal or two, click somebody else, heal, click somebody else, heal, etc. You can do the healing with hotkeys as well (some of mine are there, and the most important modifiers like force potency and the alacrity booster), but the best way I've found for player selection is clicking on the ops window. Minimal movement, maximum effectiveness.

For the Hammer Station bonus boss, as you enter the area, to the left of the console you click (and down off of that mini-platform), there's a little pillar. If I stand there and tank, the ranged and healer can stand off by the boxes in the left corner near the door where we entered, and that's right about 30-35 meters. Perfect for slingers, and then the healer just has to make a quick backwards step or two to avoid the rampage. It's a 1-second cast where the icon is a blue fist slamming into the ground, so yes, that's what you need to watch for. The most important thing is this: get the tank to have the boss either perpendicular to you or on the opposite side. For example: Boss---Tank--------------------------------Healer or Boss Tank-------------------------------------Healer (The second one is the only valid one for Hammer Station due to the knockback, unless there are some other available boxes I've not noticed in my runs.) This gives you the best chance of avoiding the stun, since you can be within 30-meter range of the tank and potentially more than 30m from the boss - or at least closer to 30 meters than you could in a normal setup like Tank-Boss--------Healer. If you can have the tank position himself and the boss correctly, you will have the minimal distance possible to escape the rampage. And yes, with a powertech or vanguard tank, absolutely have them use Hydraulic Overrides/Hold the Line for every other rampage, and some other cooldown for the others. (I do HO for the first, then oil slick, then HO, then shield, then HO, then oil slick or adrenaline rush, etc.) Easy peasy!

Damn it all, misread again, you're right. It's a little over 1k for the crits, not for the non-crits. 600 for those. Apologies! Somehow I manage to ignore all the little numbers. You're right on, we're on par.

I don't care as much about which class is OP at the moment, I play my powertech because it's fun! Rocket jumps, flame twirls, speed-procced flamethrower... lots of fun. But yes, essentially no changes with 2.0 aside from the proc and the changes to heat screen. Still excellent tanks and easy to play, though.

Misremembered - just a bit over 1000 per non-crit tick of salvation for people with no health received boost, 9200ish deliverance crits. Clicky power relic pushes it up to 9.5-9.6. 2700ish WP (still have old augments), 1150ish power, ~2k force power. 0 crit rating gives me 23.38% chance, and I've not had much trouble with that.