Just because you can squeeze out another percent or two doesn't mean that you should. If a tank can take two 15k hits without being healed, he's got more survivability than a tank who can only take one. If a tank can take three 10k hits without being healed, he's got more survivability than a tank who can only take two. The RNG is not always in your favor, and you very well could eat a whole series of hits. At the top end of the spectrum, the extra health is beneficial, especially if the mitigation numbers are already high (I have nothing good to say for tanks who stack things like accuracy). Yes, you need mitigation, but more health takes stress off of your healers. Because there are always situations where your snipers are lounging in goo and your marauders are on fire ("Why are the marauders on fire again?") and time-to-kill is the most important metric for a tank. And you maximize time-to-kill by making intelligent choices about mitigation and high endurance. And that means stacking endurance once mitigation has gone asymptotic.

I went and we had a great time (and I managed a trivia question). They did not really answer questions about upcoming features so much, but we did get a pretty good perspective on what they are interested in, and in turn, they got a pretty good perspective on what we're interested in.

Once you take the mob, assuming it's not a weak that will be dead in a GCD or two, run TOWARDS the tank. This does two things: (1) it puts the mob easily in range of the tank's taunts, and (2) it makes it much less likely that you will run out of your healer's range (as healers tend to position to remain in range with the tank). Healers should do this as well. Sometimes mobs are very spread out, and thus it is likely that a taunt might miss one or two. Your tanks will thank you.

Plummin is <Empire>.

It's easy to be tolerant of a DPS who actually follows directions when it comes to fights and makes an active effort to do his job. Seriously, you did very well for a guy who'd never seen the content before (though it helped that the tanks knew the drill) and you should have no trouble continuing if you keep up at that rate. That was kind of an amazing run, since we had several people who were new to Eternity Vault, but no wipes.

I am currently standing in the midst of a mob respawn point, waiting for them to spawn. Another guy is waiting at the other mob respawn point. And there's plenty of time to read the forums while I wait for these guys to respawn another 4-5 times, since I've killed them about that many times and I'm still at 0 of 3. This is really not fun.

This is really the best advice possible. Use resolve augments. They increase both your willpower and your critical rating. Put one in all fourteen available slots. Minimize the amount of alacrity that is on modifiable pieces (mods and enhancements). There is plenty of alacrity on your earpiece and implants. One alacrity/power or alacrity/crit enhancement can be used if you want a smidge more, but I wouldn't go more than one. Get your power and surge as high as possible. Surge should be around 75-78%. There is no cap on power, so use it as the secondary stat everywhere. Make sure that you are using Resolve armorings, never Force Wielder. FWs are for assassin tanks, Resolve are for DPS/healers. Acquire a couple of Resolve armorings that are not slot specific and put them into modifiable (orange) belt and bracers. This will allow you to squeeze out even more stats in these slots. They may be expensive, but they are very much worth it. It is my opinion that the PVP War Hero Relic of Boundless Ages remains the best in slot for healing sorcerers, although the new Dread Guard version seems optimal for DPS sorcerers. In optimized 61s, I had well over 2000 Willpower before buffs and stims. Buffed and stimmed, I was sitting close to 2300. Those numbers only went up in optimized 63s. Optimization is key.

Vanguards/Powertechs have no threat dump ability.

You're right. It's the operative jacket. I'd referenced a screenshot, and the two looked identical. I had to go check the name.

#1 sign that you are bad: you are more useful to the group dead than alive. The case that established this level of bad was a tank on SM Kephess the Undying, who managed to run through the raid, the middle of the raid, with the lightning debuff every single time. Not just once, but every time. And if he was chosen for Kephess's cone attack, he'd manage to share the damage across as wide a swath as possible. It was easier to heal the group when he was dead because he was no longer getting the DPS hurt. Other examples include the assassin DPS who kept knocking the mobs out of the range of the orbital strike that a sniper had put down. Punting mobs out of a hard-hitting AoE with a weak knockback gets people killed.

I have the Black Talon sniper jacket. On my sniper and on my operative. I'm pretty sure I've seen the bounty hunter armor drop (I'd have to check my BH's cargo hold) and I know I've seen it around the fleet.

What he probably means that threat from damage is not as good, but that's not how tanking is generally done in SWTOR. You generate threat by doing your high threat moves, then taunting. Most threat generation is done via taunts. Taunting when you already have threat only increases your threat. High threat moves have a threat multiplier and do not rely solely on damage. If your taunts are constantly on cooldown, you are unlikely to lose threat. Many main tanks are full defensive, and it certainly makes sense when doing difficult content. It's probably easier, in fact, because it was designed for tanking and includes some high threat generation moves. In general, hybrid specs can be made to work, but they frequently require more care.

I'm a sorc healer, so I'm going to try not to get too confused by the different names for the same heals. I'll go with "bubble," "circle," "hot," "channel," "big," and "personal." Plus "crit-bonus" and "resource-management." So you can certainly use circles in most of these fights, but they have to be predictive circles. Essentially, you have to know the fights well enough that you can guess where people are going to stand when they take damage. This sounds a little crazy, but it's really not. In fact, if you drop your circles in the right spots, your DPS will gravitate towards them, thereby making them even more effective. Kephess is one of the easiest ones to do predictive circles. Even before he picks a target during phase 1, you can tell which lightning tower he's attached to. Go there. Drop a circle. The tanks and DPS will come to you, bringing the boss. Everyone will be in close proximity so that when someone is chosen by Kephess, they don't have far to run. If the circle's already down, you're not waiting 1.8 seconds before you bubble them and then channel heal them. For the Dread Guard, you'll want your circles either near the boss or away from the green doom-circles. This is largely true for the Writhing Horror as well, and there are some obvious places for circles with Operator IX. For TFB phase 1, drop a circle at the tentacle, then focus heals on whomever is dealing with spit, alternating with the tank. The maintenance from the circle will help keep the tank more level while you direct heals at the ranged. If you're the one dealing with spit, you can easily use your personal heal. For phase 2, circles are mostly useless and nearly impossible to place well, so just use your hot, your channel, and your big heals. You'll also need to use your resource-management ability after it procs off your channel, and you can use your personal heal to counter it. Note that there is no shame in being healed by the other healer, especially after using resource-management. You'll recover faster if they heal you. They'll recover faster if you heal them. Cross-healing is love. Don't forget about your crit-bonus ability. If things are going poorly, you can do a ton of healing relatively quickly by burning it, then dropping some big heals. Force speed is also your friend. If you can get to where you're dropping your predictive circle very quickly, everyone will benefit. And, for the most part, if you actually are where you belong, the raid will follow you. You need a lot of raid awareness, just like a tank, although you'll be paying attention to different things.

I just did Taral V for the first time this weekend. My infrequently played Sage hit the mid-30s, and I realized that I could do flashpoints I'd never seen before, so I got excited and added myself to groupfinder. My group was slightly overlevel for the instance, and though they admitted surprise that I'd never done it before, they were cheerful and helpful about showing me the ropes. We skipped nothing. We watched dialogue scenes. We did every single bonus. It was an excellent experience and I leveled enough to be able to queue for Maelstrom Prison. Despite never having done that one either, I had an identically positive first experience with the flashpoint with an entirely different party obtained through the groupfinder. (Thank you, Ebon Hawk mid-level Republic-side players.) However, on my 50, I generally go into groupfinder HM flashpoints with a different goal. I am not there to immerse myself in the story (usually, I enjoyed the story at some point earlier, leveling up). I am not there to get XP. I am interested in maximizing the fun I get out of the flashpoint and in getting my BH coms. I am delighted to omit pulls that are boring. However, I like playing the game, and I expect some actual playing to happen as we run through the flashpoint. (And I am willing to be polite and patient with those who are learning it all for the first time.) If I have already gotten my BH coms for the day, then I simply want to maximize the fun I get from the flashpoint. On Shien, we had a channel called LFG50, where people would put together groups before the groupfinder and before BH coms. And it got used plenty. You could be more picky about who you grouped with, though, and what sort of style of play you were going for. Groupfinder makes it easier and increases the rewards, but it also limits your ability to dictate how the group will run the instance. If you want to be able to demand this (less skipping, more story, whatever), you need to arrange the group outside of groupfinder. Otherwise, you take your chances. There are plenty of people out there who are perfectly happy to run things the way you like. Sometimes you get lucky and find them in groupfinder. Sometimes you just have to manually arrange a group. In this case, effort is rewarded.

If you've never played KOTOR, Revan is a somewhat unremarkable nutter who keeps making claims about being light side even though he's clearly not, what with the genocide already noted. The first time I met him, I was like, "Oh, neat. It's the guy that the cult on Dromund Kaas was named after," because I love it when they tie storylines together. And then Revan went on and on about having once been Sith and now being Jedi, and I was like, "Oh, and he's delusional to boot." I happened to remark to my friend, who was a huge fan of KOTOR, that Revan was a crazy fallen Jedi who talks too much, and he sputtered and choked and nearly fell out of his chair. "Seriously," I said. "The guy just goes on and on about how awesome he is." This prompted my friend to then go on and on about how awesome Revan was. Revan is a formidable opponent as a flashpoint boss, but when you don't have the rose-colored glasses, he's not that much more special than say, Mentor of Directive Seven, who also wants to commit genocide, likes to hear himself talk, and is pretty impressed by himself. Revan's memory has clearly made a cult both in character and out of game. And the characters in the game think that the Revanite cult on Dromund Kaas is a little crazy for their worship of the fellow. He was great, I get that, but his time has passed, and his story has an interesting ending.

I'm impressed that you lasted as long as you did. "Um sorry, guys. My, uh, guild needs me for something. Something dire. I've got to go." We've all been there. Thanks for sharing.

From the healer's perspective, I'd note that it's almost never about the size of the hit. If the assassin is using his damage and mitigation properly, he is no harder to heal than a juggernaut or powertech. There might be more spikes, but large spikes are infrequent (as noted by the Ninja above) and can generally be healed from easily. No, the most dangerous thing to a tank's health is injured DPS. A healer who is trying to patch up DPS isn't healing the tank. And when the tank goes for a long time without heals, his survivability drops precipitously. Judicious use of cooldowns helps with this, naturally. Although a tank who cannot hold threat will certainly have issues with injured DPS, some mechanics do damage an entire raid without being avoidable, and the DPS themselves failing to avoid avoidable damage is the major issue rather than anything the tank can control. I am given to understand that assassins are complicated, and as such, people are more likely to play them poorly. However, a well-played assassin is a joy to heal. I do not think there is anything at all to fix here. Except stupid. I can't heal stupid.

First, you read some strategy on it. (Recommended, but not strictly necessary.) Then, you join an ops group. How you obtain this ops group may come into question, but gathering together friends, going with your guild, or advertising in general chat are all possibilities. Then, you take a shuttle from the Imperial spacedock to the Ziost Shadow and walk all the way down to the south end of that ship on the mission deck. The door should be solid purple without a symbol on it. The door will not be accessible unless you are in an ops group. If you have the quest for it, it will be denoted with a quest marker.

It is the job of the tank to take hits. That is his primary role. That he additionally does damage is a benefit. Assuming that you will never drop below 50% seems foolish to me. Even an excellent healer can face issues that will interrupt healing the tank. Line-of-sight, movement, avoiding damage, healing DPS: these are all things that mean a tank might have to wait a GCD or two before getting the necessary heal. If you take a 12k hit and your health is only 20k, you are already below 50%. If you take that hit with 24k health, you are right at 50%, but another hit is still likely to kill you. If you take that hit with 28k health, you can take another hit and survive. That buffer is valuable. Healers are human and make mistakes. DPS are human and make mistakes. Tanks are human and make mistakes. Having a tank with a large health pool increases the odds that a group will recover from a mistake. Many fights at the highest levels have very little margin for error, and increasing the chance for recovery is important. Yes, a good healer can keep alive a tank with a mediocre health pool. An incompetent one will struggle. Therefore, you are best served by maximizing mitigation stats, then raising your endurance to the point where you have a comfortable health buffer, then working on increasing your damage. It is absolutely possible to manage all three of these things.

A lot of classes are designed to overheal. The operatives need to get their tactical advantage. Sorcs can buff armor with a HoT. It's not uncommon to toss heals on people at full health because of the secondary benefits. Furthermore, if you start a channeled heal in anticipation of damage, often times, when the heal goes off, the damage has already happened. If the tank somehow dodges or soaks, then the heal is an overheal. As long as you're managing resources properly, overhealing is completely not a problem.

If you're tanking, damage really shouldn't be a problem. Especially not if you're communicating properly with your DPS and other tank about when you're throwing out taunts and such. Once you have threat secured, it should be very difficult to pull off of you, regardless of how much damage you're doing or not doing. Damage done by a tank should be fairly irrelevant. Once you've stacked your mitigation to the point of diminishing returns, it's expected that you'll stack endurance on top of that, because for the most part, your damage can be negligible. Extra endurance on your part takes stress off of your healers because it means that the DPS don't have to be perfect ("Why are the marauders on fire again?"). 20k is probably sufficient health on a tank for everything but EC and TFB, but those require a higher level of gear and you will end up with higher health anyway.

You don't need a main healer for Nightmare Pilgrim. Healing strategy for NMP is "focus heal the tanks, stay out of bad AOEs, put down good AOEs for the rest of the raid, and don't carelessly put DoTs on anything." As long as the healers are capable of managing their resources and cross-healing, it is not a difficult strategy to follow. If the DPS are doing their jobs (doing as much damage as possible to the boss while taking as little damage as possible) and interrupting the gores and not attacking the dog when they have the bloodmark and not attacking the pilgrim when his shield is up, they will not need to be healed beyond AOEs.

Even in 16-man, you don't really want to do that. You want healers to cover as much ground as possible. There will always be situations where range and LoS are issues. And depending on fight mechanics, the raid may universally take damage, etc.

I'm a healer, so I tend to gauge tanks on a "how long can I ignore this fellow and have him survive" metric. However, I think that rather than looking at effective HP, what you should be looking at is the largest effective hit that you're likely to take. That's a much more useful metric than looking at averages which don't take into account spikes of damage. If the largest hit you take is effectively 15k, it doesn't matter if the boss swiped you for 23k. You took a 15k hit, and you're not going to survive another one. As a healer, I've got to pay attention to you immediately. If the average hit you take is effectively 6k (and again it doesn't matter if the boss swiped you for 10k or whatever), then you can take perhaps 2-4 more hits before you're dead. As a healer, I've got to give you priority, but it's unlikely you're going to immediately die on me. I have a few GCDs to fix you up. That being said, the first scenario is the more important one. You want enough mitigation to make that hit as small as possible, and then you want enough health to survive more than one hit. That's the balance you want to achieve. Because sometimes you'll be in a situation where the snipers are lounging in green goo and the marauders are on fire, so your healer needs another GCD or two to catch up and save you.

I have been in similar situations, where a healer was only healing those in his subgroup on the operations frame. My tank friend and I had pugged in, and he was in my frame, so I was 'supposed' to be healing him. He whispered me to complain about getting zero heals from the other healer, so I whispered him a warning and then quit healing him, though I continued to heal the rest of the ops group. When he got down to about 30%, the other healer clued in and started healing him and the rest of the operation, and things went smoothly from there. In my opinion, the 'main' healer is simply the healer responsible for communicating strategy to the rest of the healers, be it where to stand or when to drop purple drink to best coordinate. Beyond that, healers generally need to be healing everyone within range and sight.