It can go both ways. sounds like your alt-ness is burning you out. others it wont do that to. Im in the middle....I like having a few alts to play with (switch when I get bored, leave the others to gathers rested), but I can always tell when I have too many is when I log in, and I can't decide which one to play, and walk away not playing at all. Quick tip: I speak from experience. DONT DELETE YOUR TOONS. even if you never play that one again, its still A: extra bag and bank space, and B: crafting potential. the only reason I delete alts is if i need the space for a new one. You may change your mind and want to play that class again, and you'll regret the delete at that point.

I chuckled a bit inside Nothing to see here folks...move along....let dead thread die. (yeah, I no. i just fed the zombie more brains. couldn't resist)

Yeah, don't pay attention to the light/dark meter. It only reflects the result of choices you made, it doesn't dictate your personality. do you want to save a group of innocent villagers? pick the nice option. do you want to saber-slap a jedi cause he is whining? chose the "you die whimp!" option....either one could have dark or light points attached to it regardless of your choice. there are even some quests that I still can't figure out why they assigned light/dark points the way they do. there's one quest on repub side where your choice is A: steal some vital info on a corrupt politician to help a freedom movement, or B: let him keep it and let "democracy" decide when he releases it the way he wants to. oddly enough. choosing to get the info to expose the corrupt politician is dark (even though its the "good" choice), but allowing democracy to run its course is "good". whatever. ...moral of story is: dark and light points don't impact your characters personality. but the choices do. so choose based on what you think your sith would do..not based on whether they are dark or light.

I wouldn't be suprised if they had tanks in mind when they made the HK. Don't like using him on my healers (he holds aggro on only one while the rest pummel me), and on my DPS alts if im not using a healer I prefer someone that can hold threat on all the mobs. But tanking it's perfect...you hold mob group, he guns them down one at a time (wow...almost like a properly played DPS toon!). and His single target DPS is great, doesn't break CC....I could see that being worth trying.

This is actually a realistic observation OP. It can feel clunky initially. when I first tried the class (as a guard actually), i gave up at lvl 14...it had no "flow" in my mind at all. it was my first toon, so i started a jedi consular as a comparison. got him up to the mid 40's, and decided to try the guard again. pushed him to early 20's, was feeling better in less clunky, but I didn't enjoy the animations, so I tried jugg instead. got hooked on the animations, and pushed through the "clunky feel". once i was in my 40's, it started to feel much smoother to me. It's a very distinct skill approach...I find that you either like it or don't like it. I pushed past the initial clumsy feel and really got into the class...and it started to smooth out. got 3 of em now! I guess the moral of my story is...it can feel clunky, and it is something you need to decide if it's worth pushing past to get used to. I did, cause I love how the class feels in all other ways...and now it doesn't feel clunky at all. But the class may not be for you..it's distinctly possible that you just aren't getting anything from the class, so you may not have the motivation to push past that barrier. that's happened to me with my agent...I've started and stopped her many times. she's crawled from lvl 1 to lvl 36 over a years time (started her early Jan last year) I know people love the class, but the playstyle doesn't appeal to me, so I don't put allot of energy into mastering it...and she feels clunky to me (though i know many that love the class). so if your not liking it, and you can't get past that barrier...it's not a horrible thing. put the toon in the closet, let them be a craft hoar/bank alt, and perhaps sometime in the future you will pick the jugg back up again....or let them collect dust Edit: Just as an FYI, they do put out excellent DPS. they just don't do it fast and whizzy like a Mara. When i play my mara, the picture i get is of darting cobras. when i play my jugg, the image i get is a mack truck. heavy, slow hits. mara is fast and rapid. these are just personal images, of course but just wanted to emphasize that they both put out good damage, just in different ways

Not sure if its a theme song, but its what I prefer to start off listening too when doing daily jugg stuff: My curse - Killswitch Engage

excellent point. I was referring to another persons post though, where they brought up the mauraders defensive CD's as a "reason" for bringing mauraders. I was simply providing a similar comparison is all.

this. Allot of Juggs are realizing that rage = DPS, and free rage (along the lines of 4) every time you leap is big. if your using intercede correctly, its pretty frequent too. I switched over awhile ago, and I've noticed it allot. especially in solo play

Your question about why people don't tank DPS has already pretty much been answered. even those who like to tank of heal will often give up for periods of time due to simply horrible groups. this is more often then not due to DPS classes that don't learn how to play the game well enough (new players are the exception, i enjoy working with new players who have a good attitude). Until people stop being jerks in groups, and until groups start picking up some responsibility, there will probably always be a shortage of tanks and healers. Now, your idea for a Healing only or tank only is interesting, but not effective for this game type. certainly is an interesting idea, if it was in the right environment. But the traditional environment we are in does not support it. No One would play it. due to the sheer necessity of class balance, the DPS of said class would be extremely low, and most people would not enjoy the trek from 1-50+. it's the same reason no other game that follows this design has pure "tank' classes or pure "heal" classes. to me what would be more interesting would be to give EVERY class some healing abilities. they would have to balance things allot (so it probably won't happen either), but fi every class was responsible for keeping up part of the healing (including keeping themselves alive), then some of the burden would be spread out. but interestingly enough, most people actually enjoy the trinity. most people prefer to "just" DPS, or tank, or heal, and have the option to switch if they want (but not forced to).

I think it's the "First Time" thing. usually your first experience in the industry sparkles in it's own way. just like anything else (first relationship, first car....). Although my first experience was DAoC, it was fleeting...much like the beauty you dated for 2 weeks in sophomore year in HS. My real first time was WoW. Brother got me sucked into it, but i waited until I had a rig good enought to play it. the immersion into the world, the experience of seeing your actions impact more then just your TV screen..so much of it ws different then the console games of the past that I played. So they both hold special places in my heart. DAoC for the exposure to a totally new world (literally and figuratively) of gaming...and for WoW, that fully got me immerssed in what MMO's were all about (stories, questing, repeated efforts, raiding, rechign for that high level gear). there was a newness...a mystery. discovering and exposure. It wasn't just a "New" MMO with a different mechanic...it was ALL new. no d-pad. or simple set of instructions. You didn't know what "Game mechanic" or "Threat" meant. you didn't know exactly how many of plant X you needed to farm in order to get to the next tier of craft Y. it was all new..."Ohhh...check it out! i can get my own plants! and make potions! muahahahahaha....." I remember running around teldrassyl (I know I butchered the spelling, but the old school Teld, back in early AQ days) and exploring every new niche. It felt so HUGE! the last time I started a new toon in WoW I pretty much didn't even see the tree...I was focused on little exp numbers flying off my screen, and how fast I could get to the next area. newness gone. Flashy sparkly turned to grinding my next alt to level cap. things have not necessarily changed...just our perspectives of it. We've all played the games with the detailed crafting systems, complex character design, tactically complicated huge fights with 40 or more players in them...we've scaled soo many heights in the gaming industry, that many of us can safely say, "been there....got ALL the t-shirts". But I think thats the issue as well for MMO Dev companies now. they fight a huge industry that really (and in some cases literally) have t-shirts...and been there many times. Also, we've all played enough games to know how many of the mechanics should work, when they do. so potential bugs that we would have ignored in our first virgin experiences (go back and check out the original evercrack...tons of bugs. so did early WoW), we just can't tolerate that any more. the newness is gone, the freshness...so all we have left is a love affair that were hoping the next new Dev team can spruce up for us, which they probably won't be able to...because we all know that it's never as good as your "first time" last statement was metaphorical...Im sure plenty of us have had a horrible exIerience with "first times" of many varieties. but our first MMO time I think is a bit special. Not to mention that usually our "first" MMO is the one that defined the industry for us, and not necessarily the first one we really played. it's part of the reason so many people will refer to WoW when doing comparisons. for many of those people, WoW really was the "first" MMO for them. Take a look at most serious SWG fans. they probably played other MMO's before that, but when they hit SWG they found their idea of what an "MMO" was to them...so that became their first, even if it wasn't their first chronologically.

I agree that the Rep vendors could use more. One of the things taht I looked forward to in WoW (and to a lesser extent LotRO), was that rep got you some nice leveling items, quality starter gear for raiding, in addition to the play stuff (play stuff is everything from custom gear to pets to...whatever). Of course, Bio had already made some decisions about those options before adding rep (in most games its the reverse...rep is already in game, and they expand on it later on). but they could still use the rep system for that. Some examples would be generic ilvl56 mods, or perhaps a new remake of ilvl 58 armoring with set bonuses! you grind one fraction for your chest armor, another for your legs, etc. mods could be randomly or evenly spread out amongst the fractions. that way you can collect some nice rakate level mods for your custom gear as well as the custom gear itself. Ship items is another. or extra bag slots (no clue how to add this, but it would be great) new pets, etc. make the pets based on the planets native populations so people can look at someones pet and go, "ooh...they have top rep with the Voss'ka (or whatever)" they could definitely go beyond. another kewl idea would be companion custom kits. Imagine a Mako or a Jaesa with Voss glowy eyes in a seers getup...that woudl be fun. there's plenty they could do. on the other hand...this may only be their "initial" offerings to whet the surface, and see the reaction. So it's entirely possible that they may expand on it.

if you are having to wait to use abilities on your jugg, then you are either A: not 50 yet, or B: not using or aware of all your skills, or C: using Rage. Jugg's DO mature later then Mara's...shatter isn't until 40, and throw isn't until late 40's. but as vengeance I can maintain an almost solid rotation with no waiting with: sunder impale smash scream shatter ravage and thats it. not in that order BTW, and there's allot of optimizing with those, but thts all i need to never be stuck with a CD at all. unlucky RNG can net an occasional few seconds, but those can easily be filled with saber throw, interceded (with the leap back) Force choke (if your using it beneficially...it doen't maximized DPS, but its fun) and an occasional taunt. If your Rage, then welcome to the Lolsmash builld (hope you didn't come over here just for that). Rage was DESIGNED to have open spots in it. you only have a few abilities that build up your smash proc. But it's an advantage, especially in PvP...the extra time allows your for more movement, more opportunities for using control/CC/whatever...so Rage is set up that way, Veng shouldn't have it at all (unless you are doing it on purpose...) In all honesty, I find my mara less interesting to play then my jugg's.

actually, Juggs can come surprisingly close to the maurader when played well. They are more difficult to get the DPS out of that's for sure, but a well played DPS jugg can kill quite. Not putting down immortal play, they are both fine. but dont avoid a jugg DPS spec because of lack of damage...its there, you just need to pull it out. but it isn't a process that is to everyone's taste, so I support doing what you like.

there's not much in the vengeance tree that will break your survival in a raid. maximizing damage may be a slightly different story.... Avoid the obvious things that won't improve your damage in the venge tree...right now the only thing is pooeld hatred. everything else you will pretty much need. some other variables are deafening defense and saber throw. with the current state of the jugg, ST is probably the optimum choice for DPS, especially if you have the 4pc bonus (which is a critical thing to work towards BTW...). accuracy is another optional, but there's not much else to sub in for it at that level. the real options involve the other two trees. none of those lower tier abilities will severely impact your DPS at this point, with the possible exception of Battle Cry(immortal) vs. brutality(rage). at this point, my personal belief is battle cry is better...your saving a ton of rage with it each time you leap. but its close enough that others may have different opinions.

OP,. there isn't enough of a difference between the two to make a decision on class design alone. you will have to end up choosing based on what you like. Personally, I like the single blade approach of the jugg, and their animations (I don't like the guard on repub side because of this...animations are king). Also skill execution...they certainly aren't identical, so some of those differences can impact your choice. the only other impact would possible be external opinion. People in general ignorantly assume that Mara = better damage (when skill is a critical factor). so even if you outplayed 99% of the mara's in the game, people may still assume that a mara does better damage and prefer the mara over the jugg. PvP I can't say....I refuse to play it in this game.

Yes and No. it's circumstantial. a jugg can drop into soresu, and with the Vengeance mitigations they are surprisingly sturdy. many top playing juggs actually run a mostly Vengeance build in Soresu form to tank...something no maurader can do, even with their defensive buffs. Where the Mara shines is in shorter burst situations, or controlled damage situations, where their CD's can really be optimized.

No, OP, you do not. there is no class in this game who's sheer DPS ability is so high above the others that skill ISNT a factor. Even if Mauraders could outdps a jug by enough of a variance, few people who actually played would do well enough for that to matter. If the raid group is having trouble progressing, then the LAST thing they should look at is class makeup...though it is the EASEST thing and usually the FIRST thing they do look at. Why? because no one wants to admit that they suck, and very few people really are aware of it even if they do suck. we all have ways to improve ourselves, but more often then not we aren't completely aware of how. And if we become aware...we usually change to improve. So if you ask someone if they suck, you will usually get "no." which means RL's have to resort to generic ideas to improve raid performance. So...inclosing, are you gimping the raid? probable no more then any other DPS is gimping it. Will your raid leader see it that way? maybe not...but it's not your fault, and if your RL refuses to bring you along as DPS, then it's his issue, not yours. ...this is, of course, if you really are preforming well I'm going to assume you are, well, because of my second paragraph up there.

this is what I see happening...a serious downtrend in flashpoint involvement. I don't mind helping new people...but I don't see myself running HM's with the off chance that 2 days worth of dailies will get rubbed out because people are too inane to warn me before the fight that they've never done it before. Course, most of them will be too scared to bring it up because there are a BUNCH of jerks who would kick them simply because they don't want to take the time to teach someone. Which I would teach them...i want all of us to enjoy the run, and i am willing to take the time. Many aren't. But i wont take the time to wipe. so Good by to flashpoint runs, and GJ Bio...if that was a bug, the working level was not well designed. You guys thought that waiting for tanks was bad before...most tanks wont bother now, it's too expensive. randoms are going the way of the dodo. i'm one of those tanks, btw. sorry guys, I want to have money to spend on stuff other then repairs.

this is simply sad. This patch has overall been the most negative, enjoyment killing patch this company has put out. it's actually sort of ironic that it's also the first patch that they didn't put on the PTR....makes you wonder ( I know they may have been making changes to the PTR servers for allowing transfers...but too little too late imo). I honestly don't think that I found anything in this new patch positive (with the exception of the fractions....except the gree debacle). Bio, this is simply horrible. this is a game killer, literally, for many, if you continue in this line, I hope that you lose enough players that you can't continue any more. you need to change it, and change it fast. Your forcing players to PvP for their new events...your killing crafting with the change to "improve" GMT efficiency, and your now going to kill the casual player or alt player who is tired of dailies. simply sick. Your devs need to get back in touch with this game, THEY'VE LOST CONNECTION. I hope that this is all just in preparation for changes coming in this next update. but im sure that Bio will not communicate this like the never communicate other stuff. Ya know...i just got back from reading an open Q&A sessions with the class dev's over at LotRO. THEY GET IT. their class devs actually INTRODUCED themselves in the forums, and are responding to player concerns. Bio...increases repair costs. adds mroe reskins to the market. and...breaks the GMT for crafters...and ignores class development. hmm...yeah, thats really a step forward. I think my sub is ending today, for both accounts. and i will simply stop playing if this stuff doesn't improve. Not a threat, but more like a communication to others. stop playing. it's pretty obvious that they don't really listen to player concerns...they listen to charts, and graphs, and player populations...and they apparently read what we put on the "why" column when we quit. so make sure your getting your voice out. I've loved and played this game since early launch, and I was watching if for years during the development (I opted out of the beat purposefully so i could just enjoy the full release). I feel very sad that I feel like quitting out of sheer frustration, but it's getting to that point.

Excellent point Lost. Do you know what I like about those two as well? ( I play Rift and did the WoW thing too) I could do them if i wanted to do them, or if i didn't want to do them they were OUT OF MY LIFE. Do i want some PvP rewards? queue up for an AV or head over to wintergrasp for some serious lolfest gank extreme. Do i want to tiptoe thru the tulips smelling the roses with no PvP in sight? right at the fork please. none of this heading into a zone only to find out later that it was FFA and there's two score of the opposing fraction waiting to ruin the only hour you have that evening to play the game. It's simply Bio. Put the PvP in THAT direction, and the PvE the OTHER WAY. don't mix the two please.

In my mind, the problem with this was combining a rep grind with a disappearing event. Having event rewards is one thing...but reputation is a standardized system...i think the frustration (mine as well as many others) is that they tied reputation to an event rather then a regular fraction. Now, it's entirely possible that they are simply trying a new approach. a convergence of a few ideas to see how the player base responds. So feedback like this is critical. Personally, I Don't like the idea of how they tied the rep system into the event....It would probably be better to give the event certain event only rewards, but keep the fraction rep as a regular fraction with it's own rewards. you just get more during the event. it's not like the gree aren't already in the game..it makes no sense to suddenly create a rep fraction that is linked only to a silly spaceship that pops up once every....whenever. So new idea....I don't like it. and I hope people freely give feedback. they need more.

Joveth, here's some feedback for your dev's 1) This was simply a stupid idea. I cannot remember anyone seriously complaining about GMT performance. "My GTN searches are too slow! fix this nao!" yeah...don't think so. More then likely this was an attempt to reduce stress on the engine. which was a poor choice. I agree that this kills crafting, trading....a host of things. Please improved the game where you can, but not at our sacrifice. 2) This shows that the Dev's have ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION WITH THE PEOPLE THAT PLAY THIS GAME. i haven't even logged in yet to check these changes out, and after reading the first post here I knew it was a bad choice. WHY DIDN'T THE DEV'S UNDERSTAND THIS AS WELL !!!!! the reason is simple. they don't play the game seriously, and they don't have any firm connection with the player base. Im sure they are sitting somewhere in a cubicle far separated from the player base and they wait for CSR's to interpret whats going on with players. they probably get their info about player responses in the forms of a graph on an email. horrible idea. simply horrible. And I really fear for the changes that are coming to our classes, because I play my toons EVERY DAY, and I'm pretty sure that whoever is making these changes DO NOT. reverse this...if you guys are having issues with efficiency in your engine or game mechanics, DON'T PUNISH THE PLAYER BASE BECAUSE OF IT. Man...the more changes they make, the more they irritate the player base. I am playing another game that I can say is thoroughly enjoyable... and pleasant to play. the dev's are actually active....in the forums...talking to the player base! and their changes usually improve the game, not brake it more. and when it breaks, fixes are usually only days away, not weeks like that one time where Bio broke an entire classes quest storyline, and didn't fix it for weeks. players had to level another toon because of it. and no, this amazing game isn't an indie company, and it isn't some new game that's going to be a flash in the pan. It's actually a rather large one that has beena round for many years, will continue to do so, and set a standard in the f2p industry...LotRO. It's been around long enough to learn from it's mistakes. I hope Bio learns from them, and starts to get involved with the people that pay the bills. Please stop putting more cartel items in the ship, and fix the game. you can start here.

I too was frustrated last night. Logged on to try it out...got into a decent group of peeps, and didn't realize that one of the ranged was PvP flagged until I interceded (for his benefit) over to him. we only had one pylon left to do after that round so figured it wasn't any big deal. I think it was just really bad luck that a few minutes later, a troop of almost 30 repub came sailing over the hill...I could almost hear my whole group sigh lol... It was really frustrating, I ended up quitting that group (by the time one of us got the flag off, the other would end up tagging him again), and switched instances, waited 5m, and found an instance with no gankers. completed solo in peace. So the temp solution is to find an instance with no griefers, and get it done. What sucks is that for some getting a group may be necessary, which means a more populated shard, with a higher chance of griefers. I have nothing against PvP. I played it (quite intensely at various times) throughout my MMO career, sometimes on games solely made for PvP. I don't play it anymore...Im just worn out with the immature behaviors and the constant rat race. It's personal choice for me and many others that we don't want it involved in our PvE worlds, and Bio should recognize that. I know that those who actually thrive off the frustration and grief of others won't care, but I could care less about their opinions. Many who do not wish to PvP simply are choosing not to, and those opinions should be respected as much as those who solely wish to PvP. Bio....the solution is simple. if it has PvE objectives in it, it should be forced manually chosen flag. none of this damage or assistance crap. give the PvP quests really nice PvP rewards, to the PvP'ers can have something worth reaching for. Keep PvP to PvP, and PvE to PvE. mixing this stuff has got to be the silliest thing in creation. it takes quite a bit of ignorance to not see how every other MMO has failed in this attempt themselves (WoW even admitted it publicly), I have no clue why Bio thinks they're "special" and above everyone else results. It's gonna turn out the same. you either design for PvE (and make PvP a side game like in LotRO), or design it for PvP and make PvE a side game. mixing only dissatisfies both parties.

This is probably better discussed in a different thread...good question, but it's a different topic. the threads about someone who wasn't looking for PvP in the area in question, but ended up being griefed. I personally played PvP allot early in my career, but got burnt out on the childish behaviors and attitudes and the constant balancing act PvP forces on PvE classes. so I'm not looking forward to this event...but I can perfectly capable of not using my AoE in areas where griefers will be present. I've certainly played my share of PvP oriented games, So I know how to avoid the deep water. though this is a tough design issue, You think that Bio could have understood that the only people that would probably enjoy this setup ARE the griefers. the best solution would have been to simply keep the areas very separate...then the PvP folks could enjoy the PvP qeusts AND the PvE ones (in a PvE safe zone), and the PvE players could just enjoy the PvE ones, free of griefers. I to this day still fail to understand why game force players to access both styles of play, when they are so obviously different, with very drastic feelings on the subjects of both. the systems (PvP and PvE) should be separate, but accessible by both, not merged.

kewl thanks guys guess I just accessed it differently then many. appreciate it