Not to sound offending but hate to break it to you, BW is EA and I just came back to SWTOR after leaving in 2011. And I still see the same bugs I seen back then. And I was surprised SWTOR was still around. But they never added things just about all MMORPG's have now. Swapping specs and the action bars and gear would swap automatically. That is just one example I can think of right now. But that is just a basic thing they could add for QoL. Then also, letting any gear level into a MM FP. This is something any MMORPG doesn't allow until you have the right gear for the FP! It is after seeing these bugs from beta not fixed, the serious lag issues on empty worlds and QoL never added that surprises me SWTOR is still popular and "working". I do like the idea of this game. But I see EA's hands all over how it it managed and it is really sad. SWTOR could be a damn good MMORPG if really taken care of.

So awesome and sadly, so true but you left out the worse of the worse. The Governor EA. He tells what all those fellas are supposed to do. Gov'ner EA also fired the original Sheriff. So what we have here is Gov'ment EA putting all the towns to ruin. SWTOR included.

Ok good. That is where I am at with stims and all. Thanks you. So far, the most DPS I can do after 5 mins is between 1626 - 1600 with mostly BH gear and a few Hazmat mods and both DG relics (clicky power and elemental one).

Right on man! Didn't think about leaving out MS to test. Thanks again. Oh and about the crit question, was meaning was the 32%-33% crit with or without stim and just the buffs? I ask because some people call "buffed" with a stim and some without.

I confess I am definitely not a math person either. All I did was 5 min MOX on the Ops dummy with 33% and 5 mins Ops Dummy at 34%, 32% and 35%. Keeping the same rotation (like in the guide) on each. Oh, and before I forget, are the crit numbers with or without stim? I see buffed but didn't know if you also include the stim and either exotech or rakata. Though I assume Exotech. One thing I have noticed as well as lag seems to play a factor. I do my test on my ships Ops dummy to reduce server lag as much as possible but its still been bad since 1.7. I have noticed my number will vary a good swing with the server lagging on some of my attacks. As in I hit my hot key and it shows the animation but its not actually doing it. So I have to spam the attack until it "hits" so that will affect the numbers. Got to include that DPSing on a Guardian as Vigilance is the most fluid and cool looking whether soloing, pvp or in a raid. And surprising to those that think a Guardian DPS is not good, love to show them wrong.

Really great guide, Matt. thank you. I did find out something interesting while testing on a Ops dummy. I swapped out 41 power for 41 crit to bring my crit chance to 35.10% (with buffs and Rakata Might stimmed) and was doing 500 more DPS. So with 35% crit, I was doing better on damage. Is that normal?

Oh wow, I had that guide bookmarked but forgot about it! Thanks for the slap to my head and recalling it! lol Ok, so by that, I am doing pretty good. Just got to get some more gear..but the RNG hates me...

I just want to know what are the "official" percentages for crit, surge, accuracy and power. I put those in that order as I have been seeing sort of mixed percents (yes I use percents as it is easy to just look at in a glance). Right now, with buffs (not stimmed): Acc: 101.35% Crit (Melee): 33.55% Crit (Force): 36.62% Surge: 77.36% Force Bonus Damage: 985 Would like to shave that 1% off Accuracy for some more Power but not as easy right now. I am BH and a smidgen of HazMat gear right now. In MOX, I parse for about 1500 DPS after 5 mins and have hit 1800 and a little higher in bursting. Any tips that I probably should know would be great!

Oh really? Well that's nice, I have been told wrong by my friend then.. Well crap, my apologies then... except for the first responder. OK then, I feel dumb now. Don't get to have much time to look at all the times for this event. Thank you for letting me know! And I will go find a corner now... And no, if I was the type as you say, Mr. I am better, I am not, if you would read the whole thing. Thank you.

At least the Gray Helix's should be Legacy bound or account bound. That would be much better.

Really? I didn't know that! Brilliant! Should have known a troll would jump on first. Now when you get outside and have a life with less time to play games, then you can talk. And don't come up with the "Oh I have blah blah, 12 kids, 5 jobs and sleep an hour before I get up" lie please.

Just a question. If we don't get to do the Heroic everyday and, as a DPS, never get to be in a WB or HM, we basically get the shaft to get enough of those Gray Helix to even get anything cool, like a weapon? Didn't get to do the WB or HM yet because as a DPS, we are a dime a dozen and everyone else has done it or DPS wasn't lucky enough to get in a group. Loved the other events much better as I was able to give stuff from my alts to my main. But these are bound...really?

The OP may have a game problem and not his fault. I was just in Esseles HM for the daily and at the last person to talk to and finish the long freaking run, the game crashes. It will not finish because of it. Plus, there is also that problem with Taval V (maybe fixed by now) and the room sealing the group up after the talk with Kilran and he is bombing the place but the dorrs will not open, stopping the run there. Sadly, the devs and people on the game now are not the ones originally working on SWTOR. So the new guys and gals have to do the best they can because of EA's f'in up the whole thing. What happens now is every "patch" will have something breaking something. This is worse than WoW's worse year! Its like a football game where the coach at halftime, pulls the pro team out and puts in all subs for the 2nd half and then wonder why they lost! The worst part is the new team gets the blame for the loss and not the coach.

I have searched around and seen people have been asking for a DoT timer as its its a mini-game just trying to know what your DoT's are at in a 16-man. Or heck, even a 8-man! Since nothing has been released to have addon's in this game, why has nothing been made for DoT and HoT timers in the UI? You guys did great for a CD timer on the UI Action bars, how about some "bar's" or something that helps us see our DoT''s?

Awww, aren't you just the special little snowflake. Ahem, no you are not. You statement is usually from players that are very casual people that play maybe once a month and want the world to revolve around them. The rest of the PLAYER base has ran these FP's for a very very long time. Just because you run them maybe once every 2 months does not (thankfully) set the rules of what the real player base wants. Sorry, I cannot help but rant on snide comments like, "I feel sorry for these people". On topic, if there was more reward, reason, chance for something new or even good money, finding a group wouldn't take almost an hour (unless you are a tank) to run a daily.

So strange to see people are still in the mind set of "it will get better, no company is perfect..." etc. EA started feeding poison to SWTOR early in the game. Just a little after March, many of the great people that made this game happen left, let go, gone. I was hoping that maybe...MAYBE EA wouldn't move into SWTOR but there EA was, from the beginning. For a long time, I kept talking to friends that were thinking of unsubbing or have already, telling them SWTOR will not fall. That it wouldn't go the way of the mainstream games of today... yet, I am hear to say I was wrong. All my RL friends left a while back, not even interested in coming back. Really not sure how much longer SWTOR will be around or worth subbing anymore. And I hate saying that. Same old fail, out dated PvP, gear > skill MMO crap standard as the rest of the MMO's. No events for months to change up a little of the old grind. CM becoming more and more the "game" and core of SWTOR. I have really started to move to other games (and I don't really want too as I want to love this game!) Sadly, I am starting to see switching from sub to F2P might be the way to go for me. TL;DR version - I will wait until probably Jan 7th to make up my mind. Been a CE, Headstart subscriber and hate to see EA kill a great game as it usually does with everything EA is in. At least its a good thing I can switch to F2P and maybe raid once a week or a FP as it wouldn't cost anything else.

Though I do like my double-bladed saber, I remember seeing a staff weapon that had small saber blades at the ends. Basically, a longer hilt, shorter-bladed saber. Is there something like that in the game?

I did that and nothing yet. But, imo, the last option didn't seem like that was the non-marriage option. Even though its not a important part of the game or game breaking, still would like like to be able to go back on that and marry her if we did make a mistake or it didn't look like a non-marriage option.

The problem is its not PvP, its Gear vs Gear. Plus, add in class imbalance, Empire heavily favored and still have cheats that go on in the game, its the death of one part of a game. And when its the death of one part, people start to leave if its the only thing left to play. I have said it before, I have played a F2P (pay to win game really) that was starting to see the problem like in this game for PvP. You know what? It didn't take them but a MONTH to fix the problem! They had the game match people with close to similar gear rating. The game became more fun again because there was no more steam rolling (well, not even close to as bad as it was). But MMO's just don't get that. Even after 10 years, this companies seems to be at a loss on how to do it. TL;DR - Stop using the old, dead Gear Vs Gear system. Try a Gear rating system so something on that line.

I know one thing that would help a lot. A F2P first person shooter was starting to have the Pay 2 Win problem, people that spent hundreds of real money and got the best in the game was just steam rolling everyone else. They seen a lost in players so they fixed it. A very simple idea that has been told should be in PvP for years...group people in a war zone that have similar or close gear. If a F2P game company can do it, why a multi-million dollar company can not is baffling.

I was around WoW since Sept 2004. Yes, in beta. And yes, you had a few but, as many many people cried and cried about, its was less than 1% that had that gear. Funny how less than 1% is cried about gear but people cried the game was tailored around the very small less than 1% that played, saying that small amount of people shouldn't change a game. By the way, the 1% high end raiding people didn't break fun in PvP or in PvE either, the 1% of PvP only people did.

Actually, it worked very good. Its what made WoW one of the best selling and subbed games in MMO history. You had a few people that didn't want to do anything and get gear or that wanted a console Halo game in a MMO that cried and the companies bowed to that 1% and killed the fun in PvP in MMO's since then. But the mass of people on the servers I was on had a great time. There was world pvp a lot, everyday and night. The battlegrounds were so full, queue times took a very long time and was so laggy because of a lot of the people doing PvP in towns and BG's. But we had fun! AND you didn't have to have fill up your bags/bank with tons of gear for both PvE and PvP. But its a fail system of not fun but locked into a invincible mode complex because of a stat, not skill.

Stop with the old, dead system of one stat, gear based pvp. OR, if you want to stick to a old dead system that fails, then a fix would be to make matches based on gear. But the queue time would be even longer. Or, just remove the Expertise stat all together! Pre-50 pvp is actually fun. Its a crazy thing I know but there have been many threads and people taking how pre-50 pvp is more fun because its not even close to gear based as level 50 steam roll. That is when pvp becomes not fun at all. Only for the small few. Oh, and ever wonder why Open World pvp is dead and gone? Again, gear and pvp stats. I hate to bring up the "other game" but before they killed it by putting a pvp stat on the gear, open world pvp was a lot. There was fun in battleground (Warzones) and even though gear did still play a part, the same gear you got from doing pve, you used in pvp. What a awesome concept! No, it was not a perfect system but much more fun. No, its a not fun system anymore. Just a bully system for those that love to steam roll people that have no choice but just to walk out, die, walk out, die again and again. Again, not saying its a perfect system. You still can get beat with someone better geared BUT the difference is you have a chance to fight because you are not handicapped with a stat. TL;DR version: The PvP stat gear system is a dead, old system that killed PvP for most people. You will not make people come to like PvP if you still keep the old dead system. How about being able to get gear with BOTH PvP and PvE? It worked before.

I have both a DPS Vanguard (Assault spec) and a Gunslinger (Sharpshooter spec). Right now my Vanguard out gear my Gunslinger with a few more augments and rakata gear. And yet, on the Character pane, under Ranged, my Gunslinger does more damage (Damage (Pri) and more Bonus Damage then my better geared Vanguard. Both are at about 35% crit and 75% surge. The Vanguard has 1725 Aim compared to my Gunslinger with only 1435 Cunning. So am I not factoring in something? Maybe in the combat style? And just to be clear, this is not any complaint or QQ of the sort. Just trying to understand the Character pane numbers and if one does "more" DPS or is that just numbers and technically my Vanguard DOES do more DPS with the better gear. Maybe some smart person can help this dumb person here.

All they would do is like on "that other game", limit the stun in PvP, but normal in PvE. Easy fix.