So once again, they act like color crystals. Except of course that they're not in collections.

Most of the modifications that can be used over again and transferred with legacy come from mission rewards, gear tokens, or are crafted (hilts /barrels /mods /armors/ and enhancements),and are not from the cartel market. The only modification which does come from the cartel market are color crystals. There are crafted versions as well, but most are CM. Color crystals are for the most part cosmetic. Yes, they do have the +41 stat on them but now that +41 is a small part of people's stats. For the most part crystals are for looks, and the CM ones can be unlocked in collections. Now we have tunings which are cosmetic only, are currently only from the CM (although it's been hinted that there may be crafted ones eventually) but tunings cannot be unlocked. So the modification that tunings are closest to are crystals, but tunings are treated differently. For me this is what annoys me the most about them. The rules were arbitrarily changed, and it appears to me to be only for money gouging.

I've come to the belief that "cc" is a Latin abbreviation for "attack this first".

RiVan, I don't think I ever did an op with ya, but best of luck in your new games. I always admired that you were one of the few to try to keep raiding going, and JC will be poorer without you. It seems strange now to fly around on fleet and not see guild names like Torva, Dark Eclipse, Oblivion, Hellbent, GAF, House Lannister, and many more. And for the record, I hereby state and affirm in this virtual signature, that you were speaking for me as well in your original post. Godspeed good sir, godspeed.

My personal feeling is that they hit a high point last Oct, the movie hype slowed the decline though the holidays, but population has been getting worse since Jan. The subscriber rewards aren't enough of a hook to keep people staying with the chapter content release. I know several people who have left and plan to come back for a month when all of chapter one has been released so they can play it as one long story. The big problem is that last May was the start of 12xp, and that along with teasers released for the new expansion kept people interested enough to keep playing. Now, the only teases have been about the start of chapter two and "More of the Same" isn't enough to keep up a subscription, especially when you can leave and then get the entire story later.

Actually, yes, they do owe us the CC grant. This game started off as subscription only. The game then went free to play but the subscription price stayed the same. They devalued the game and the CC's are compensation for that. This is EA we're talking about, if they didn't have to give out CC's, they wouldn't.

While I'm glad that SWTOR will have support in the future, I have to ask : How will this future support differ from the support it has had in the last few months? I mean, I assume it's had support and yet we've had a credit exploit, broken ques, sudden death glitches in rishi arena, broken companion quests, a glitched Disavowed chapter for many people, and that's just from the top of my head. So what actions are being taken? Are you using the great success of the expansion to increase the QA department? Allocated more hours to testing? Increased communication between the teams so that each one group doesn't cause bugs in another area? What steps are you taking to prevent the recent mistakes?

Actually, when the 90cc first came they did say that it was for a limited time. However, it was also said that we would have several weeks advance notice before the price went back up.

I did a KP today where both my sorc and a mara were using them. To me the crafted black-blue and black-orange crystals look great in them, and I think I'm one of the few people who actually likes the sound of them. I would say that I see one maybe every third or fourth op I run.

Yeah, JC is fading away. I've started leveling a couple of characters on Harbinger. I don't like the extra MS I get but I'm tired of standing around on fleet giving companions gifts while trying to find something to do.

Yeah, I miss gearing companions as well. It gave me something to use radiant / ultimate comms on. A well geared comp with their own unique skills was a lot more fun than what we have now. But in regards to the warbot, I agree he's pretty poor. I lucked out with getting one from a pack and used my jawa junk to get him to 50, and then realized that my Xalak at level 32 did better. I haven't used the warbot since, and going around fleet I'd say the warbot is one of the least seen comps with the nexu being the most common of the CM ones. One thing I did notice for him though in dps stance was that putting a better barrel in his weapon upped his damage in the tool tip. Adding a level 60 barrel to his empty cannon raised his damage by about 300 iirc.

If I see a dps or a healer with defense, I will mock them for not knowing how to gear. Defense takes away from power, and power increases both damage and healing. As a dps my job is to kill things as quick as possible. The faster things die, the less damage everyone takes. If I'm taking damage, I'll use bubble, kolto overload, saber ward, or what ever my defensive abilities are to survive. That's what they're there for. And if those aren't enough, I'll use my dps to take as many of the bad guys with me.

I have to admit that I'm curious if the drop rates changed. After this much time after the last pack there were several threads here complaining about the chance cubes and the drop rates. So far this is the only thread I've seen about it. So are the drops better? Or are fewer people buying packs?

What I miss are their unique abilities. I know some of them are still around like Theran can deploy Holiday, but I miss Xalak using his thundering blast, Ashara using her master strike, Nadia her wild burst and so on. It makes them less interesting.

I would say the main point of this is to force people to use the cartel market even more. So far we've seen the commendation gear vendors removed, orange gear drops from flashpoints and heroics rewards removed, and now this. The chance for an orange drop while killing mobs on lower level planets was small, but it did happen. Since 4.0 hit I had gotten several oranges from doing heroics. For instance I had hydra boots and a panther belt drop on dromund kas and a supreme inquisitor glove from Hoth. It was kind of nice to still be able to get some of the old armor sets still. But now thanks to this improvement those chances are gone since the orange gear is at the planet's level.

Y'know, I've hated a lot of what 4.0 brought: level synch, removal of many of the old dailies, the boring heroic grind, a story not worth repeating, and all the bugs and broken events. But increasing the size of cargo stacks makes me practically giddy. I don't think I've ever said this before but : Well done Bioware, very well done. (Of course if this brings back stack exploits that ruin the game economy (again) or bugs out resulting in loss my things in my storage, I'll be one of the first to grab a pitchfork and torch, but until then, I'm just giddy with excitement :)"

Actually, when 4.0 hit 208 hilts and barrels were easy to come by. You could use comms to buy an off hand, pull out the hilt/barrel, and use it in your main hand since they weren't slot bound. But then it got fixed without a craftable replacement being provided. It just seems like there is a lack of long term thought put into it, and it takes about three months for the mistakes to get fixed.

I saw a sorc healer who stacked aim because his heals were ranged. All his mods had aim/defense.

It was implied in the OP's post that he meant currently, what with using all present tense. If he wanted to know what was the lowest gear that ev has been done in his post might have read something like: "Hey guys, what's the lowest gear that ev hm ever been done in?" And if we're going to boast about doing low gear in ev nm, I did it when it was level 50 with a group of four level 60's and we did it with no gear at all using only legacy hand to hand moves. It was really funny seeing Soa floating in the air being killed by four naked people punching his feet.

You'd be welcome to give us a try. We run ops twice a week (currently Sunday and Wednesday) and we have several people learning. Before transferring, I would suggest making a new level one character, then doing a /who for "Darkest" and search for any of the three people named above. They should be able to answer any questions you may have about the guild. I will say that this is one of the friendlier guilds I have been in.

When 4.0 came out we did it in a group all in 198's. We did hit enrage on the first boss at about 2% and we also wiped twice at Soa. People had gotten used to ignoring the lightning balls, but once we started paying attention it was no problem.

You know, there are a lot more things to do than ops. Thanks to level sych all content is now relevant, rewarding, and challenging. There's probably a list around here somewhere of at least twenty things that level synch would allow you do. Give it a try, all the old content is now relevant!

Heh, I was in that group. I was amused by the operative (with a name that had "wontheal" in it) was insisting that the sorc wasn't healing when you could see the puddle on the ground and the purple lines in the air from his heals. And yes, the second run was very smooth.

For me it depends on which dps spec I'm using. For balance/madness I find the imp side a lot more fun. Lighting is a lot more fun to use than pebbles. However, for kinetics/lightning I find pub side better. I just find it really cool that I'm shooting off balls of pure force. It's all personal preference. Leveling is so easy now I'd suggest starting both a jedi and a sith and playing to about level 7 or so, see how force lighting/telekinetic throw along with lighting strike/disturbance look to you.

Not only do 186 and 208 gear have the same mastery, endurance, and power, but so do empty armor shells. Yes, crit, alacrity, and accuracy will stay the same, but those are mostly irrelevant while fighting low level mobs. Also, the lower gear will have lower repair costs. Your best gear when going on a round of level synched heroics is to use two presence relics from the THORN vendor and a presence stim. That's why I hate level synch: it removes any sense of accomplishment from improving your character.