Hello all, I've recently started playing again, with all my characters on The Harbinger. It's pretty apparent (both from experience and what I've read) that republic is extremely dominant in normal queues. However, from what I've heard, ranked queues on The Harbinger are in a pretty unhealthy state. I get that they may not be great anywhere, but a few have mentioned Pot5 as the go-to server for ranked PVP queues. Considering making the switch as my "end-game" that I'm interested in is ranked arenas. Is Pot5 the way to go, or is there another server I should consider? Thank you!

Generally, gunslingers are bad.

Rev, u a turd Sincerely, Gryphius I come back and then you leave. Thanks bro. Either way, it's been real. o7

Going to go ahead and say this is a troll.

That's exactly what I'm hoping for. If cartel store purchases are limited like that (as they should be), I see no problems with this.

Absolutely- amen to that. And this is 100% my opinion- I did preface the whole thing with "IMO" Just trying to provide reasons for people to agree with me, not syaing you should or shouldn't.

Goodness, things are moving fast right now. I'd like to bump to see what people have to say.

A lot of people are upset about the game going F2P. That makes a lot of sense, but IMO it's the right move and will not do much to negatively impact the game. The primary advantage is a greatly increased playerbase. I know that I, personally, have many friends who want to play the game but are turned away by the price- now they've got a way to enjoy a much larger portion of the game and even move to a paid account later on. Case in point: player numbers of both types will undoubtedly increase. We'll have healthier WZes and FP groups. The already active GTNs will become more active (despite limitations to max # of items at one time- in my experience only "power players" put up a large number of sales at a time). I think we'll see a better experience all around. The flipside to this is that you get (potentially) get a larger number of inept players. I don't really disagree here, although I've seen some pretty incapable players paying the subscription fee for this game. I think more than anything, the influx of bads is just a function of more people playing in general. Not all free players will suck, and not all paid players are good. We know that at the very least, the latter is already true. If the ratio of goods-to-bads goes incredibly skewed, I might be surprised. Game's already full of bad players. "Pay-to-win" content can't be an issue. This only crops up with games that are engineered to be F2P and then throw in real money guns or armor or w/e that gives paying players huge advantages. SWTOR IS a P2P game, and that side of the game still remains. What they've done is added an F2P mode. So, what exactly do F2P players lose compared to P2P players? (taken from this) - Some species. No idea what this will be specifically, but we all know they're just recolored humans. - Limited WZ access. Fine- they have access to the same gear, it'll just take them longer to get. Many F2P games have a "premium" feature that increases experience gain to accelerate leveling, but doesn't confer any statistical benefits. This is just the same. - Limited flashpoints. Same as above- will take longer to gear up. - Limited space missions. Again, same thing. (not that I really believe space missions are a huge deal for most people) - NO Operations. This is where it gets a little tricky, but I believe this is the right call. Paying players have an advantage here because they get access to end-tier PVE contents and, most importantly, gear sets. At the same time, I stress that this game really isn't designed to be F2P- I don't see why limiting free players from the best of the best in PVE gear is a problem. Besides, it isn't like paying players immediately gain access to gear- they still need to put in the time and effort to grind out full Rakata or Campaign or w/e it is they want. If free players get gear envy, that's fine. They need to start paying for the game and demonstrate that they too have the skill it takes to run operations. As a side note, PVE content isn't competition-based so I don't see "pay to win" really being an issue here. Besides, black hole gear will still be available for the truly dedicated free player. - Limited travel features. Fine- generally increases the length of time it takes to level. A common theme in F2P games, and doesn't restrict anything- just makes it harder to get. - Non-priority access to login queues. Hell yeah- us paying players deserve priority access. - Limited GTN auctions. Fine- again, just makes bulk sales less convenient. No limitations here. I see nothing that really makes "pay to win" a viable argument against why this game won't work as F2P. As long as BW strays away from "PAY MONEY FOR INSTANT CAMPAIGN GEARSET," everything will work out just fine. Subscribing players get access to all of this game's content and have a more streamlined experience compared to free players. One more thing worth touching on is Cartel Coins. Not much info now, but according to this items are strictly cosmetic and convenience-based. This has never been a problem in F2P games. I don't care if people can pay for a silly orange shell. Ended up being longer than I expected, but I'm happy this game has gone F2P. Hope you read it and, if anything else: /flamesuit on

As people have said, DF is the way to go for a "run n' gun" slinger. However, don't ignore the benefits of cover and still be prepared to go into it from time to time. Speed Shot will still be part of your rotation and you must be in cover for that, while dropping into cover during your Wounding Shots channel isn't a bad idea either because you can't be interrupted.

I rarely have to weave in FoB as an SS spec 'slinger. Try and "plan" your energy to do the Speed shot + burst volley + speed shot combo while you're still at >60% energy. Below 60 the effectiveness of burst volley is reduced, considering that it's a percentage-based increase. I'd also stay away from charged burst unless you're at near full energy and other abilities are on cooldown. It's not very energy efficient and spamming it will eat through your energy like nothing else. Also, as a personal choice, I only use sab charge in similar situations- if I have high energy and I need "filler." It doesn't have quite the same amount of oomph as it does when you're sab spec. One of the few times I really make an effort to use sab charge outside of the aforementioned "filler" situation is when I need extra burst to kill a healer or perhaps take down a marauder before he realizes he needs to pop undying rage. This is all my personal opinion, I'm sure many SS-spec slingers will bring the rain down on my head as to why sab charge should be woven into normal rotation. tl;dr: plan to use burst volley whenever you're above 60% energy. Stay away from spamming charged burst and personally, I don't use sab charge as part of my normal rotation. I have no problems with energy management and my DPS output is more than adequate, as figured by parsers and end-of-WZ stats.

I ran a hybrid spec for a few days. Originally I didn't think the shock charge counted as a bleed for Wounding Shots, but that video would indicate otherwise. Probably won't be able to tell without some combat log parsing.... The problems have already been enumerated- the big one is that the energy cost per rotation is simply too high. On a side note, if SC does indeed proc wounding shots, does it also proc fighting spirit?

Sith Inquisitor: I love assassinating assassins. They always look so surprised. Inquisitor in general had some pretty funny lines, I liked (at least the male) voice actor. Kind of a shame that lines got recycled as many times as they did.

I used this exact spec for a couple days. As long as there aren't any crafty healers cleansing, it definitely works well- I was pulling some good numbers at the end of WZes. Despite that, I'm not 100% sure I can recommend this over DF or SS (what I run), simply because of energy management. Shock charge is a neat ability but I'm 99% sure it doesn't proc fighting spirit (not counting as a "bleed" effect), making your energy management that much harder. When I wanted maximum burst, my rotation was something like this: Vital Shot -> Shrap Bomb -> Shock Charge -> Sab Charge -> Wounding Shots -> Speed Shot So it took you about 6 seconds to get to the real "bursty" part of the rotation, which was Wounding Shots with the initial sab charge detonation + 4 contingency charges. The damage is great but the ramp-up time to get there is also very long. And, because shock charge doesn't proc fighting spirit, you can see a pretty big energy deficit after you do the full rotation. Even so, it was a lot of fun. It's unique and the wounding shot + sab charge/contingency charge combo is pretty addictive. If someone really put their mind to it, I'm certain they could run the spec better than I did- I was only trying it "for fun." Just watch that energy, and make sure you pick targets that aren't liable to be melted in seconds by the rest of your team

I need to step in here and state that accuracy over 100% decreases the target's defense, so that extra 30% accuracy will provide better damage (particularly) against tanks. The only trouble is that BW doesn't state exactly what "decreasing target defense" does, but I assume it acts to reduce damage mitigation or perhaps lower defense chance. Or both?

You will rarely ever see a queue to log into the server. If you would rather stay put, that's up to you- but one would think constant PVP queues, an active GTN, and people to do heroics with would make the tradeoff worth it.