I came back around when 2.6 came out after not playing for about 6 so months. Before that, I don't remember anyone ever using this shuttle strat (I certainly never did as a tank). First run back, the tank is telling everyone to jump on the shuttle. I'm lost but I do it anyway. Even as everyone is standing on the shuttle, healer is still getting hit by the adds through the ship and tank just ignores the adds. Healer dies, I die (trying to keep adds off the healer) and we barely avoid a wipe only because we managed to down the boss fast enough. I've seen strat work a grand total of one time and that was because we had a vanguard tank and everyone else was ranged. All other times, it just causes more problems than it needs to. I personally hate it, too many tanks use it as a crutch and they get lazy, thinking that standing on the shuttle immediately solves all the add problems, not realizing that you still can still get hit through the shuttle if you don't los them properly. When I tank, I just do it the old fashioned way, hold aggro on the adds and drag them through the fire. Kills them just as fast, dps is free to focus on boss and healer is completely safe without worrying adds running around them. I've had several groups yell at me why I wasn't using the shuttle and I told them straight up that it wasn't necessary. Some groups get so reliant on exploits and shortcuts that they forget how to just play the game.

It's possible but you have to run a lot of flashpoints/warzones. I have 16 characters on my main server so I constantly switch back and forth between leveling and max level toons. Most days, I may just run bunch of flashpoints (not much of a pvp person) on several leveling toons each and call it a day. Before you know it, the levels add up and I start massively out-leveling each planet. It gets to the point that I have Jugg and Powertech both at lvl 32 and I haven't even bothered to start Balmorra/Nar Shadda yet. It works though because whenever I get the urge to go through the story, I can just blaze through the class quests and ignore everything else.

SPACEBAR PLS spammers and the people who want to skip every single solitary mob in a flashpoint. Seriously, fighting mobs that are out the way is one thing, but it boggles my mind when people want to skip mobs directly in front of them, going to the point of running far past them just to evade. Maybe I'm old fashioned but my idea of a flashpoint is actually fighting/killing things, not watching 2 stealth classes cc'ing everything and taking roundabout shortcuts for 15-20 mins.

Healers are always welcome imo because it keeps people from stopping to heal, thereby making the run faster. Tanks can be useful as well but their effectiveness diminishes if they dont have a healer. 1 healer + 3 dps is probably the fastest set-up but I still like the rare trinity group (tank, healer, 2 dps) because the flashpoint seems to be a lot less stressful, assuming everyone is doing their job right. There are exceptions though. I ran Kuat the other night with 2 tanks and 2 dps and I initially cringed because those groups usually go a little slow but with 2 snipers (me and other guy) and 2 assassin tanks, we ripped through it like it was nothing. In the end, it all depends on the group set-up and how good/not bad each person is.

I always felt they should implement a "need for companion" option and in doing this, keep players from needing on gear that doesn't fit their class (why this check isn't already in the code is beyond me). Basically it would go Need > Need for Companion > Greed > Pass. For example, if a Jugg needs on a heavy armor Str piece and say, a SI needs for companion (the regular need option would be greyed out), the Jugg's roll will overwrite it. However, if that same SI needed for companion and everyone else rolled greed or passed on it, the SI would win. Obviously this would only go for gear/mod drops, for rep items/mounts/pets/ etc, it would be as normal. And on that note, I always felt secondary items should be greed/pass to prevent one person rolling need while the rest greed. Either greed it to give everyone an equal shot at it or pass if you don't care/already have it.

I would go with Temple. Yes she is cute but more importantly she's dependable. While she doesn't have a very strong personality and she'll never "rock the boat" for lack of a better term, she has your back when it comes down to it so I would be able to trust her with my life. Kaliyo on the other hand is different story. She has a very strong personality and she's probably for more fun to be around. Also, its good to have a someone who is willing to question and buck status quo. That said, its hard to completely trust her and her motivations. Yea, she may have your back in a nasty scrap but how much is that because she really wants to help you and how much of it is because she just likes to fight? And whats stopping her from leaving you at the worse possible time for her convenience? So yea, Kaliyo is the better character overall but I couldn't trust her with my life. I wouldn't mind her on my team but I would keep her at arm's length. Temple on the other hand, I could trust her with my life if it came down to it.

My Cathar sniper in action. http://postimg.org/image/k2n0ai2ix/

Force-sensitive: It would be tough because my personality wouldn't fit in with the Sith (caring, generally nice guy) but I don't particularly believe in the whole no emotion thing with the Jedi, would be kind of tough for me. I guess I would be a gray Jedi. Non-force sensitive: Probably be a tech guy for the Republic or something. I could see myself working on a space station or a massive starship.

http://imageshack.com/a/img36/2771/32z2.jpg Outfit I put together recently, lowbie assassin with Khem. I really like it, only gripe I have with it is that the flap from the top clips with the bottom.

In the Balmorra class quest, one of the officers refers to the scientists that worked on the Collcoids as possibly being insane and only the SI would respond: I prefer the term "differently rational". Leave it to the inquisitor to possibly justify being insane.

My only problem with the giggle is that you can only get it on the initial stack of TA. I need more giggles!

I prefer Vette overall as a character and while I didn't romance Jaesa on my Jugg, I watched some videos on it and I have to say I still prefer Vette's romance over Jaesa. I would say it would be nice to be able to romance light-side Jaesa but as I think about it, I would still pick Vette over her because LS Jaesa has the personality of a toenail. I thought it was cute how Vette was completely surprised at first that you're actually interested in her because you're a big bad Sith lord and then eventually down the line, how excited she gets when you finally ask her to marry you. I just like the overall growth of the relationship. And one interesting thing I picked up about Vette's personality through the romance, she may be chatty but she isn't really the mushy type (but she is kinky though. )

When asked by Akaavi why I still work for the Republic: "The Republic is a big self-righteous pool of money, and I've got swimming privileges." It summed up my smuggler's motivation to a tee.

+1 I wish there were more quests like this across the board, maybe at least one or two per class. I liked it because it kind of expanded on your companions individual skills beyond them being just npcs that follow you around or craft things for you.

IA - Female. Jo Wyatt was great in DA2 and she's great here. Male isn't bad though, just very low-key, which fits the class I guess. BH - I really like both but I'll give the slight edge to the male, it just fits a bounty hunter. SW - Again, I like both but I'll give the edge to the female. Very sultry. SI - Female, she has the perfect mix of sarcasm and craziness in the voice. It really gives you the impression that the character isn't all there. JK - Female. I leveled a DS guardian to 50 and I'm currently leveling a LS sentinel and I noticed her voice rather comes alive during DS choices, it has the perfect amount of malice in it. The male voice put me to sleep, which is weird because it's Snake. Smuggler - Female by far. Overall, I think it was the best set of voice-acting in the game. She delivered pretty much all of her lines with the right amount of snark you'd expect of the smuggler's character. Trooper - Both. I love Jennifer Hale to bits but the male voice is growing on me as I level a commando. JC - Female. I play mine LS with a bit of a snippy side and the female VA does that pretty well. The male voice is kinda just there.

On my Mara, I've used Quinn almost exclusively since I got him. I don't like constantly stopping to heal if I can avoid and since I keep Quinn geared almost equal if not equal to myself, I usually don't have to stop. For my tanking Jugg, I pretty much use only Vette, while bringing Quinn out only for Heroic 2s or Champion mobs. I just prefer to have Vette as my dps because I know she won't be caught in any aoe 95% of the time. Plus, I just prefer her personality to Jaesa's.

One thing I've Iearned about healing companions and classes with a charge is that you should be careful about leaping from the max range because the AI often isn't smart enough to move in to heal you. I always take a few steps before leaping so I know my heals will be in range. Leveling a guardian to 50 and having Doc not heal me several times because he refused to move out of his spot taught me a hard lesson.

I actually enjoy tanking for the most part but I have to give myself a break from time to time. Between groups where dps queue as healers or actual dps have no clue what their doing, sometimes it brings a lot more stress than I want to have playing a game.

Just yesterday, I was looking to buy the Relaxed Jumpsuit Jacket for my smuggler and the cheapest I saw was like 180k at the time. I'm not rolling in credits by any definition of the word but it was doable for my budget. Then when I switched over to my main with the credits, I happened to see the same thing listed for 5k. I don't think I ever bought something that fast before. I actually waited like a minute before going to the mailbox because I was hoping it wasn't a bid refund. I lucked out and saved 175k, which is big for me because I'm always broke.

Well Akaavi is technically a melee dps but I found her to be a better tank sometimes than the two designated tanks. Plus, I never felt anything for Bowdaar and Corso started to annoy me by the time I got to Alderaan so she gave me an excuse to bench the both of them Personality wise, I feel Akaavi fits the smuggler well (at least a DS leaning smuggler) and I love her because she plays an excellent straight man to my smuggler who cracks jokes at every turn. However, she doesn't fit with the overall team because she is a bit of a loner. The only other companion she respects Bowdaar because he's a warrior. In my opinion, It seems like Akaavi would've fit much better if she was the only companion you got.

I'm probably one of the few people who actually liked all of the JK companions. As for the topic, I don't think there's a companion so far that I out and out hate but for some reason, Cedrax just annoys me. I think after leveling a BH and JK to 50 with both Mako and Doc, both of my favorites, Cedrax is...meh to me.

My Gunslinger's theme song for everything She's always after the credits.

I did this the other night myself.

So while trying to raise Ashara's affection today (which is a pain btw since my SI is a female), I saw this interesting quote by when randomly clicked on her. "Passion, peace. Strength, knowledge. Power, serenity. Victory, harmony. Freedom, the Force." I got a real "Grey Jedi" vibe when I heard that. Any thoughts?

The IA's ship is pretty stylin', I can give you that. But my favorite is the Sith's ship. Compact and it looks really comfortable and relaxing to me for some reason. I think its the color scheme.