1. When SWTOR launched in the APAC region (which was a few months after NA/EU launch if memory serves me correctly) there were 3 Servers - Gav Daragon (RP-PvE), Master Nala (PvP) and Dalborra (PvE). The server were shut down back in 2012 when BW made what could be argued to be a financial decision. 2. BW has a history of misleading statements when it comes to the APAC region players. Please note - APAC region is not only Australia and New Zealand, but also covers SE Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong etc.), Korea, Japan, Hawaii and number of other countries (my old guild had members from Russia's Eastern Seaboard who reported better latency to APAC servers, India and even Bangladesh) We were strung along for over 6 months wondering whether we are being merged with Dalborra or we are being merged with NA West servers. Around Dec the final decision was to merge with NA West servers ( GD got merged with BC, MN got merged with Bastion and Dal got merged with Harb). During this period, communication from BW was next to Nil. End result, only a fraction of APAC region players shifted to their "new home". Even more left after they experienced the significantly increased latency affecting their PvP/PvE performance. So yes, APAC region got burnt once before. It has left such a bad taste in our collective mouths that we are distrustful, and dare I say, somewhat hostile towards BW right now. In the end, This is a business decision. But, as members of major stakeholders in this system, BW has done a poor job of taking into account the impact on APAC region players. BW maybe able to coordinate with their infrastructure providers to reduce the latency spikes and/or stabilise the latency by rerouting traffic through more stable and less bottle necked pipeline, but they will not be able to address the actual latency itself for APAC region. THAT is the main gripe Icy has. Have a good day and Happy Hunting.

A Lot of guilds will welcome non-guild members to observe their RP events without interfering. It allows them to discreetly advertise their guild's story and nature of their RP (you can pick up a bit from their RP chat/emotes etc). You did the right thing by observing from a distance without interfering. OP, I applaud your attempts to convince RPers that patience is a virtue and they "should" wait to see how much grief they suffer from trolls before abandoning ship. On the other hand, do note - there are A LOT of bored people online who will relish the opportunity to layer it on thick on RPers who are only minding their own business. I have personally experienced it myself even on RP servers. Ignoring them doesn't work as they will cycle toons to continuously harass your group. While a "RP Instance" sounds like a good idea, some lingering concerns remain. E.g. what is stopping said troll to switch instance to continue trolling? what is stopping a conquest guilds to cycle instances to kill World bosses who may serve purposes for RP events? Ultimately, RPers may very well be forced to abandon the fleet and remain holed up in their Flag ships or guild strongholds. I observed a lot of RP on EH, and some of the guild stories are intricate, well developed and highly engaging. Sadly, trolls will push these guilds out of Fleet / Planets and onto their SHs / Flagships with not a lot of effort from BW to discourage or punish the trolls. A lot of RPers will feel strongly enough to walk away from the game, and nothing can convince them otherwise. I have yet to observe this behaviour in PuGs, be it FPs, be it Ops, be it Uprisings. This only happens in guild only groups. A Significant number of RPers you may interact with in GF FPs/Uprisings, understand the difference between an RP event and a PvE run and during those PvE runs, they are OOC (Out of Character). Granted, some RPer may feel like counter-trolling after "PvEers trashed his RP event"; feel free to utilise the Vote kick function in those cases. TL;DR - One thing we can try to do post merger, show respect for the playstyle of other players. PvEers - if you feel THAT BORED that you need to go and troll an RP event, then log off and do something else. RPers - Understand you are now in a mixed playstyle environment and in Group Finder FPs / Ops, it is more prudent to remain OOC. PvPers - not all PvEer/RPer are interested in OWPvP - no point in hammering them about how they're too scared / too much of a scrub / too much noob / too much of a carebear not to accept that duel invitation. If you want the thrill of OWPvP hop in PvP Instance and have at it. I wish you all the very best .

Hi Nemisin! First of all, welcome to SWTOR PvE Tanking! You will notice there is a new world of hurt when it comes to PvE Tanking . But I kid. I am the Main tank in my progression group, but I also do pug tanking so I will attempt to provide some observation from both points. A lot of these observations are valid for HM FPs as well. 1. Gearing and Augmentation: For PvE Tanking, it is strongly advisable to focus on Mitigation stats over Endurance. Depending on which tank class you use, your mitigation stat priority will differ. E.g. Jug/Guard tanks prioritise Defense rating over Shield/Absorption while PT/VG tanks prioritise Shield rating over others. A lot of tank's passive procs depend on your mitigation so I highly advise to take note of the procs and prioritise gearing and Augmentation accordingly. In a lot of HMFPs you wont need augmentation, but in others, such as Blood Hunt, Lost Island or Battle of Rishi - augmentation can help a lot. 2. Situational Awareness: It has been my personal observation and experience, PvP players tend to have more situational awareness than PvE players. Needless to say there are exceptions to those observations. Situational Awareness will allow you to quickly adapt to key mechanic shift and react accordingly. Adds jumping in, loose trash gunning for the healer etc. Try to keep an eye out for what is happening beyond the boss. You will get better at this as you get more experience with HM FP tanking. 3. Tanking Prioritisation: This has already been touched on, but I feel I should mention this again - Your Job, as a Tank is not to hold threat of EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. Many people will attempt to tell you so. Your Job, as the tank is to hold threat in the order of Champions > Elites > Strongs. While weak and standard mobs can and do tend to hit harder in HMFPs, your DPS has DCDs of their own which they can utilise to survive those hits, quickly dispatch them and get in the DPS burn order. Of course there will be loose adds and if you see they're beating up the healer, feel free to pick them up and hold them until DPS can get on top of them. In Practice though - that doesn't always happen and a lot of DPS tend to tunnel vision on whatever the tank is holding onto, forgetting the kill order. 4. Tanking Strategy: This one is slightly interesting as it has a lot of dependency on your style of tanking, gearing etc. As a general rule, there are multiple ways to approach a boss fight. experiment and find out which one works for you. in HM Athiss for example - the giant dog can be pulled into a little cave to the back right and negate the knock back. While others will tank it by taking it inside the door behind Pooch. There is no right way or wrong way. whichever works for you to tank bosses effectively is of more use. Some bosses will not move from where they are (The droid in Korriban Incursion), in those situations, keep it turned away from the group as much as possible while tanking it where it is. second thing to note - a lot of tanks I've noticed opens up with their taunts. Now in some cases (mobs are widely spread out) it can help, but in single target fights- I strongly recommend you do not open up with your taunt. The reason explained a little better in the next point. Also note, tactical versions can vary in mechanics than HM versions. So depending on which one you're doing, the execution strategy will differ. 5. Aggro Reset Mechanic: Some bosses/bonus bosses in HMFPs have an aggro reset mechanic you need to be aware of (e.g. Gil in HM Mando Raiders). keep your taunt handy and pop it as soon as you see your boss going for someone other than you. You can also lose threat in the initial few seconds of the fight as DPS opens up. Smart DPS utilises damage ramp up to allow tanks to build threat to hold aggro. Hold your taunt until DPS have cycled through their opening rotation and use your single target taunt along with high threat generating skills to maintain top position on the aggro table afterwards. 6. Practicing Tanking: This point has been touched on in a previous post, but I will still add it in, to truly learn mechanics of fights, you need to actually do them. You can watch videos on youtube of the fights and think you'll get it, unfortunately, until you actually do them, you wont quite pick up some of the nuances in boss fights. So, I strongly recommend that your healer buddy and you jump in and actually do them. Of course initially you will mess it up, get it wrong or forget mechanics shifts. It is normal and is expected. Let the group know you are new to HMFP tanking and are learning. 9 times out of 10, people will offer suggestions on certain fights. Be open to those suggestions and if possible, incorporate them in your style. You may find a lot of them are more effective than how you would've originally approached the fight. TL:DR - for gearing, your PvP gear for the most part is fine, but if you have enough comms, grab a set of 208s bar relics, modify them to prioritise your main mitigation stat and pop in some augments to give you a bit of an extra edge. For fight mechanics, you can watch videos on you tube to get an idea of what happens, but best is to grab some friends and actually do them. you will learn a lot more that way. once you feel you're in a comfortable spot with gearing, jump in and do a few tacticals to get a feel for it and then head on over to HM versions. If you are on EH, feel free to send me a PM with your toon names, I'll be more than happy to join you on some runs to offer some suggestions. Rest assured, repeatedly wiping as you learn does not bother me in the slightest . Good luck!!

I have noticed the same - my PT tank is getting crap ton of DPS implants and earpieces, but nothing of other slots, added to that, I am having to roll for them. In HMs, I have yet to see any individual loot, and i've so far done 16 of them on 3 different toons. As I recall, dev blog mentioned that all FP bosses will drop individual class specific (not role specific) drops in FPs (both TFP and HM) and in Ops. I'm chalking it up to bad RNG, but rather difficult to call it RNG when George Smith confirmed in his blog (http://www.swtor.com/blog/operations-and-flashpoints-fallen-empire).

http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/tr1l7

There is a very fine line between Criticism and Constructive Criticism. It is also a fact that providing someone with constructive criticism requires you to convey your message without the receiver perceiving any insult or an attempt to publicly shame his shortcomings. In most pugs I've observed, there is always someone who's "Constructive Criticism" is along the lines of - "YOUR DPS SUCKS!!" or "L2P SCRUB AND GIT GUD". This is not constructive criticism. over 90% of the time, I can safely guarantee you, it will be ignored and you will come off sounding like an arrogant blow hard. Please be aware, by "you" I am not singling you out, but I am using "you" in a more general sense. If you want someone to take note of your suggestion, then my recommendation is, instead of dropping those one dimensional and frankly cringe worthy cliche lines, make it an actual sentence. Allow me to provide an example. In HM Battle of Rishi, I see lot of tanks engage the Wookie boss and completely forget the operative boss (I'm sorry, their names escape me at the moment), who, as per mechanic will start shooting up the healer. After the inevitable wipe, healer will feel compelled to let the tank know about being shot up. Now, if the healer throws a line along the lines of "L2TANK SCRUB!! I GOT SHOT TO @#$%!!!" it will be received with zero attention. That same sentiment, delivered along the lines of - "Could tank please taunt the operative boss, I was getting shot up and couldn't heal properly"- this will be received more positively. Same sentiment, delivered 2 different ways with drastically different results. Note, it took me 10 seconds to type that one line (I am a slow typist:p), but message was conveyed to the tank that he'll need to be aware of the operative boss while tanking the wookie. Some will argue that people need to grow a thick skin and not take offense to everything. I disagree, this is not about "hurting the feelings of that special snowflake" or "Growing a Thicker Skin". This is simply a case of ignoring communication standards. Please keep in mind - unlike voice comms, words typed in a chat box do not communicate the emotion behind them. short but well constructed sentences go a lot further towards positive reception than the shorthand sentences that I so often see being thrown around. Then there is the other side of the coin, who, no matter what you say or how you say it, will flat out ignore any hints, tips or suggestions, as they feel they know everything there is to know and there's nothing more they need to considering, despite the glaring holes in their knowledge. This category of people, I suggest, let them be. If they fail at their jobs, we can simply exercise our right to quit that group and save us a lot of headache. As a lot of people here have already mentioned, and I add to that sentiment- if I am to provide someone with suggestions on how to play their role (not their class, but their role), then the onus is on me to ensure it is worded in a way that is not offensive, is coherent and succinct. I strongly recommend you give it a try, I'm sure you'll see people be a lot more receptive. On a side note - it is actually not an ideal option to open with harpoon. Instead, as Ferkwork mentioned - opening with Storm followed up with Explosive surge (for mob situations) is a better option. I will sometimes use Sticky Grenade >Storm> Explosive Surge in a mob situation. As sticky grenade does have a very small splash damage and it allows for generating additional threat in a mob:D. Take care Good luck with your future endeavors .

Not a Weird person I met in GF, but members of a guild I joined 3 days ago.... Rolled a Merc, used up my spare elites and ultimate comms, and built a set with nice stats and queued for the the weekly HMFPs. first 2 goes no hitch, after I finish the second one, I get a blind invite to join a guild. figuring why not, I join, go through the greeting process. Get given a rundown of a mandalorian themed guild, but with force users as mandalorians as well. The GM tells me that as part of my initiation, I will have to prove my worth in a trial. He grabs me, a Sin tank and a Sorc healer for a GF queue. GM is a merc as well. Get queued up and get a pop for HM Manaan. After we zone in, I get a bit of a shock. When we grouped, I didn't bother checking group portrait. Now that we're in the FP, I have a look - the Sin tank has over 61k HP, GM Merc and Sorc have over 57k HP. I bring up the rear with a "paltry" 53k HP. Curious as to how they hit those numbers, I start inspecting gear. all three are in straight comms bought 192/198s (see no sign of itemization on their gear) and fully augmented - with Fortitude Augments, all three of them. I'm geared in 192/198s comms gear with 100% accuracy (crafted 186 implants for the accuracy rating), 28% crit (boost from Combustible Gas Cylinder) and 68.5% surge, fully augmented with reflex augments. After zoning, I habitually run to the med droid to make sure I'm repaired, the Tank shouts at me - "GET BACK IN LINE MAGGOT!!! BREAK FORMATION ONE MORE TIME I'LL BREAK YOUR BONES!!" Amused, I say nothing and get back in a diamond formation with tank at the Apex, me and GM Merc on his left and right and the healer at the rear. Once in formation we start WALKING (that's right - Walking) for the fight. as we get in the research center, tank orders us to draw weapons which we comply with. at the entrance mob, Tank orders us not to attack until he gives the order. I'm thinking this will get interesting... tank doesn't even bother with dark ward and opens with Taunt and gets pulled in. healer and GM Merc stands there doing nothing, I start attacking (habit kicks in) and off heal the tank, but tank is dead and the mobs are running for us. Now the GM merc opens up and healer starts casing force storm. we wipe and respawn at the entry point. The Tank chews me out for disobeying orders and opening fire when he didn't give the order. I reply back - "Since you died, the squad exercised best case judgement and my best case judgement was retaliatory action." Get chewed out again and we start walking again. This time, before tank opens up, healer bubbles him up and tank tells us - as soon as he engages, we are to open up. tank dies again, but this time, we manage to drop the mob. we pick up the tank and move on. second set of mobs, tank tells us - "Engage at will as soon as I initiate". Ok, no problem. tank rolls, no stealth, no dark ward and opens with mass taunt. we open up with the GM Merc opening on the elites and me picking off Weak > Strong. the healer somehow built aggro on one of the jumper droids so I try to peel it off him, but Merc GM Shouts - "GET THE *********** DROID ON THE TANK YOU *********** NOOB!!" healer dies, tank dies, us mercs shortly follow. 2 wipes on trash and we're not even at the first boss, I'm dreading this run. Merc GM tells me I'm severely undergeared and using wrong augments (SAY WHAT?!?!?). I reply back I'm in 192/198s with reflex augments. followed by - Tank - ROFL!! NO WONDER YOU CAN"T DO ****! YOU GOT WRONG AUGMENTS ON *******! YOU'RE A MANDALORIAN!! YOU NEED TO SURVIVE TAKING HITS! YOU NEED TO USE ENDURANCE AUGMENTS!! Me - Errr..no, I am a DPS, my job is to kill ****, survive, peel whatever trash you didn't pick up and ****** the healer. Merc GM - **** Noob, we've been playing this **** longer than you! You wanna learn from the best you listen to the best! We been clearing this **** since you were born Boy!" with that, he proceeds to link NiM EV achievement. Me - well, funnily enough, your highest achievement is NiM EV that was done 3 days ago. and you're all stacking endurance up the wazoo, if you want to know my experience - here... **start linking pre 3.0 NiM TFB, SNV, HM DF and DP achievements.** Tank - "LOL!!! so you're a *********** noob, and you're linking achievements after getting carried, **** off ********!" Get kicked from the group and land back on the fleet. About an hour later, the GM Merc, the tank and 3 other officers call me to the "guild HQ" and tell me that if I want to advance in the guild, I need to obey orders. And the first order is to strip my gear of reflex augments and put in endurance augments. Then report to the Armory for training. Without saying another word, I /gquit and go my separate way. For the next 2 hours, I get hounded by members from the guild, warning me they are going to put bounties on my head and I better watch my back because there are 50 missiles with my name on them headed for my head. I still constantly receive PMs from the members of the guild - mostly impotent rage and QQing about what a disgrace I am to call myself a mandalorian. If nothing else, the comedy factor alone is worth sparing them from my ignore list . Begeren Colony Delivers yet again.....

Weird Story 1: SM ToS, I see call for 2 DPS and send out a invite request on my Merc. couple of mins go by and I get an invite along with another Merc. my Merc is in a mix of crafted 186 and 192s to get close to 100% accuracy with 2 pc set bonus, augmented with old mk-9 mainstat augments in the gear (been busy rolling another merc who's locked out of ToS). Another Merc joins the group with around 52.5K HP. Raid leader then invites a third Merc DPS who turns out has over 54k HP. As soon as it is evident there are too many dps (the other 2 dps spots were filled by a jugg and an operative), The raid leader tells me, being the lowest HP of the group, I have to give up my spot for the 54k Merc. Apparently both of us assured him we have ToS clear on other servers. But being lower geared, I get the chop. I wish them luck, told the raid leader to look me up for future raids and proceed to Yavin for a round of dailies (hey, free money is free money ). 10 mins later I get a whisper from the Raid leader if I still want to run the op. I asked him what happened and reply comes back - 54k Merc admited he has no clear of ToS on any toons on any servers and he lied to get in the op, hoping his gear would hold out and he can "follow others". After 2 wipes on sword squadron, the 52k merc left and opened up a spot. I join in and proceed to the entrance. as I run to SS, I notice something interesting - Both tanks are ready to pull Unit 1. Perplexed I run in position and get ready to open up on U1. Suddenly, chat comes alive, 54k Merc is complaining about wiping and why an undergeared DPS (me) is even in the op as we wont beat the enrage timer. Raid leader tells him to put a cork in it and tanks open up (seems I was wrong about both tanks jumping to U1 ). as the fight starts, I notice with utter amazement 54k Merc valiantly gets shredded by Rapid fire while tank is avoiding it. thanks to some amazing focus heals, he survives. Shield comes up, bomber gets the shield down and we start pounding U1. 54k Merc buddy gets grenade and runs right INTO the raid, instead of AWAY from raid. His excuse - he always thought white circles are good. the raid puts him in the "Need to Carry" basket and we proceed to finish up SS. 54k Merc needs rolls on everything, wins nothing and has another meltdown in ops chat about me hacking (not sure how he got to that conclusion, I didn't get anything either ). we move onto UL and tanks ask if we all know it. I ask the raid leader which side of UL he wants me on and get ready. Fight starts and I notice 54k Merc valiantly pounding away UL with adds up. Real clincher - Rocks come down and he gets splattered and informs the raid "We suck and a bunch of noob hackers" and he's quitting. As soon as he says he's quitting, raid leader asks us to wipe it so he can boot said Merc. Get a replacement from his guild and proceed with no further issues, winning the mainhand from the big man and getting on the tanks' friend list for future runs. Story 2: HM Rakata Prime on my PT tank (4pc 192 Set bonus, full augged). My guildies as Merc healer and Engineering Sniper (both 192 gear, fully augged with the helaer sporting 4pc Setbonus). we get a random Jugg dps in group in full 186 un-optimised gear. I throw my guard on my Engi sniper guildy and start moving. Jugg - "Why are you guarding the sniper" Me- "Because he'll out DPS you." Jugg - "You're a moron. you got no clue how guard works do you?" Sniper Buddy - "since you've brought it up - why don you explain to me since the impression I'm getting you're God's gift to tanking and a walking SWTOR Encyclopedia" Jugg - "*********** Neck-bearded moron, don't give me attitude if you don't know your class" Healer Buddy - "He sports a meticulously maintained French cut, not a neck-beard" Jugg - "Sigh- Throw your guard on the *********** healer so he dont get chewed up like a dog's chew toy from dmg" Me - "we do our jobs right, healer wont be touched by adds" Jugg - "Yo dipstick, 50% dmg healer takes gets thrown back at you, helps him survive longer" Me - "that is in Pvp, in PvE its a flat 5% dmg redux, but guard is more useful for threat reduction of high dps - like my Sniper buddy here" Jugg - "**** this! Yo Healer - keep me up, I'll tank this **** and show him how its done" Three of us on TS - "this'll be fun" Jugg switches to Soresu form, charges to the first bunch of mobs and gets melted in about 7 seconds, didn't see saber reflect or ED. Me - "Well, I've certainly learnt how to wipe within 7 secs of a pull. thanks for the lesson" Jugg then throws out a vote kick to get me kicked and suddenly realizes- the rest of us are in the same guild and he's the lone one out. Me - "thanks for the lessons, but I think its about time you stopped wasting our time with this nonsense" We kick the Jugg, get a replacement and finish up, with torrents of abuse flowing in the form of PMs to me and the healer. Must admit - people like that Merc and that Jugg do tend to keep GF interesting

thanking you kindly, I'll keep my eyes open and pop it in this thread as soon as I get it.

This is a stupid question.... I redeemed a code and got the speeder, want to return the good gesture, but I can't seem to find the link to post - could someone please explain how to get the code so I can share it here? thanking you kindly

Hi Randle, Thanks for your reply. You are correct. The Gree Event area PVP zone was not giving me full bolster. The bolsteriser console on the fleet put me at 1936 expertise rating in full 148s (blue lvl 53 mods), lvl 54 hawkeye implants and a lvl 53 microfilament earpiece I am not using ANY expertise crystal as I noticed it drops my expertise rating to 1815, so using power crystals instead. while I am getting my *** handed to me by my opponents (a situation I'm fairly certain will continue until I hit expertise cap) I am also managing to rack up some damage which I suspect will get better as I get more practice in 55 WZs. I intend to swap out the pve gear as I get comms. my current progression plan - Implants> Earpiece > 4 piece obroan gear as I gather comms. one clarification that I would like to ask - I believe you've mentioned I can't have expertise and non-expertise rating mods in the same gear. But if I have a mix of pvp and pve gear (Obroan headpiece + 148s modded chestpiece), it should not have any reduction in my expertise rating - is this correct line of thought? Right now that I have a baseline to work with, I'm going to start doing some chopping and changing to see if I can bring my expertise rating even higher. Once again, thank you very much for your help it is highly appreciated.

Hey Randle! I had a good read through the original post to get my sage in some pvp. I did pre 55pvp and maxed out reg WZ comms, but then my sage got left on the way side. so far I have 2 Obroan relics and 1350 comms left. I followed (as best as I could understand the whole bolster thing....) the PvE gear in pvp advice. I have noticed in blue 148s, my expertise rating barely reaches 800. With purple 156s, its marginally better with 919 expertise rating. All mods are crafted 156s, implants and earpieces are the purple lvl 53 Microfilament implants and earpiece. My MH and OH has no expertise crystal in them. the figures that I am seeing are from my tests in the Gree Event PVP area. My question (and this may sound like you're repeating yourself and I apologise for any frustration) - for a DPS sage, is it possible to provide a breakdown of what rating mods I should be using to maximise bolstered expertise gain. for example - for armorings, use 156s. for mods using 162s, for enhancements use 158s etc. I can work out the secondary stats once I get an idea. Please note, this is NOT for ranked, but for regular Warzones as I have no intention of stepping inside a ranked match unless I have fully augmented obroan gear. I have yet to slot in any augments and that will be the first thing I will be investing in once I can get my expertise as close to optimal following your advice. I am aware 3.0 will implement bolster gain from augments, but for the time being, I am happy to shell out the creds needed for augments Thanks very much in advance for your help. It is highly appreciated.

They have been released at random times, and they have also been put in the cartel market after a patch drop. Hence my question (a question that I do not expect an answer to at least until Monday, if they deem they can answer).

The Antique Soccoro sabers are not too shabby. My only erm slight objection with the is that at first glance they look like erotic entertainment toys (trying to put it delicately without getting an infraction.....), the tech weapons...well...think I'll pass..... If they are sold separately like Satele Shaan's sabers, that would be ideal. If they include weapons which follow into SoR then I'd personally buy more hypercrates than my usual allotment

Is it safe to assume that we may be getting the Czerka weapons with this patch? Or can we expect the Czerka weapons to be bundled into the next cartel pack? There hasn't been any further update about when we can buy them from the cartel market or that has been scrapped to be included in the next wave of cartel pack.