Not precise at all, the margin of allowed errors is quite huge comparing with certain datacron hunts. Yes, it's something new and unusual to do, but it doesn't mean it's stupid, just require some additional skills.

I have the opposite opinion - the quests are quite fun. Searching for the seed of rage - yes, it's outrageous because of enormous time consuming and bad after-digging hints. However, the heroics at the end of those quest lines are pretty interesting - I wish they have flashpoints like those. But they really have to put those heroics to the Group Finder or provide other means for grouping. And a notice aside - elites (not bosses) are easily killable solo. I had no problems with any of classes I played (however, I never play undergeared 50+ as I see many do in the hopes they'll be carried on in the flashpoints to gear up).

It's not only about saving time, but also about having some challenge. After get used to do DF/DP ops on a regular basis a relaxed style of the gaming is a little bit boring, rushing through the flashpoints enforces the group to do their best. Personally, when I'm tanking I just quickly inspect the gear of the team mates, and if it's decent, use a fast pace. But if anyone dies, then certainly slow the pace and ask them do they know the fight or want to have a more relaxed run. But if our group consists of my guildes, it's a disaster for other pugs who are unfortunate to be with us. DPS pulling, not stopping at all, no CC, chainpulling. I pity those pugs, but as already said, after clearing hard ops it's just boring to play "by rules". I wish we would have "ranked" PvE, in that case the GF situation would be much better. I have to admit that recently I noticed the shortage of healers indeed, tanks are not always insta-pop, sometimes have to wait more than 10 minutes!!! Frankly I think it's partially because players become more and more geared and indeed rushing through the content to get it faster or more challenging. However, there is another reason (the same reason I stopped playing healers) - Oricon quest line enforces solo healing players to respec to dps, and it's so much fun that some players just abandon healing altogether.

http://dulfy.net/2013/04/14/swtor-level-55-endgame-gearing-guide/ Without flashpoints and operations the only way to get Elite comms is doing CZ, Oricon and Makeb weeklies, which give you 36 in total. Not much, but at least you'll save some money. Also Black Hole and Oricon have very good money/time ratio, so just doing dailies will help too. For example, BH (30 minutes) + Oricon (1 hours or less depending on your skills and heroics teaming) gives near 300k. Not bad for 1.5 hours of gameplay. But anyway you'll have to consider playing flashpoints. HM FP 55 is the only way to get Ultimate comms (from weekly) without operations. 69 gear is not bad for all SM content (including DF/DP), so actually you can try to do operations too.

There is nothing wrong with rushing through the content (at least in HM FP when everybody knows the fight and did it tons of times). Just try to change a point of view - imagine that you're doing very long ops fight. You can't regenerate force points during the fight, so you have to use Noble Sacrifice or other tools available. Yes, it requires some skills and good energy/mana/heat/whatever management. However, it's definitely possible, and you don't have to enforce others to wait for you. Surely I can understand the desire to play in relaxed style drinking some booze during the process, but if other players don't share that opinion, I would not enforce them to wait for me. Rushing in SM - that's a completely different story. Low levels don't have all the required tools and skills, and it's necessary to have few stops just to make the gaming experience more pleasant. Unfortunately, not everybody understand that and begin to blame healers or tanks. However, if I have any problems with players I don't hesitate votekick or just leave, I'm not crazy about comms and XP to tolerate stupidity and posing.

Sith Efficacy reduces certain pushbacks, and personally I don't feel any problems with pushbacks (I guess certain rotations could have come problems, but frankly there is only one rotation which should be used for fully specced Madness tree). But I could certainly feel pushbacks using Lighting tree despite of having Subversion. Actually, I was referring to a bug Deathmark improves dots not only for oneself, but for other players too (they can consume those 15 points). I guess they'll fix it eventually, but for now it has the good utility in ops. And I'm not saying that sorc utility is better than sniper's, it's just not bad (considering that bug). Nevertheless, I agree that sorc is mediocre class, but not all people are crazy about getting the highest dps/ehps. We're playing for fun, and sorc class is definitely fun class to play.

I doubt about those particular numbers (especially about sleeping part in 5 min dummy parse), but surely snipers deal a lot of damage. However, Sorc with madness skill tree has much better mobility and great utility for the ops groups. For certain content when you have to move a lot sorcs could do really impressive damage numbers. But if the topicstarter cares only about solo content, then yes - there are better classes comparing with sorcerers (better as heals and better as damage dealers, unfortunately it's always imperial agents). Besides numbers, the story is good, pretty fun, lightnings are fun to use too. But if to choose between AC for inq, I'd prefer an assassin. When I got tired of lightnings I could switch to melee skill tree and back. And sintanks are great too.

5000 HP is pretty low for 26lvl - you need to gear up. You could kill the boss with 42k HP, but you will need to get a top-notch gear (including augments), have good presence, use stims (presence + willpower stims), probably get some datacrons. Obviously, you need to know how to fight (kiting boss, use heroic moment and unity skills). Because of the kiting, you will need to use Balance skill tree to improve your dots. Generally speaking, it's not worth it unless you like real challenges. Also, as mentioned before, you won't get any XP, just comms.

Temporary respeccing to Balance skill tree can help a lot (FiB increases the dots damage, the overall periodic damage will be increased too and even heals you!) Kiting bosses with dots would help in Voss H4 too if you're going to solo them. Also few hints just as reminders: Get datacrons to increase your stats including presence Use heroic moments and unity skills Use stims (presence stim - usually a cantina drink, can be mixed with other stats stims) Augment you gear (can temporary put prototype augments which increase your offense stats, they are pretty cheap)

Looks like we have a little misunderstanding. I was referring to pug fp when one can meet a tank with 69 gear and dps with 72+ gear. Those tanks will have hard time due to reasons I said. There is nothing wrong with being not overgeared (however, I see a lot of people overreact for not geared players), but tanks got bashing for not holding aggro. I guess you know that gearing a tank is not easy task (yay, alacrity mods) and bashing for being not geared enough (hence a little bit low tdps) is just not fair. But if you refer to HM/NiM ops - it's a completely different story. Tanks should know the fight and the gear required. Let me just mention that few weeks ago I met a shadow tank in SM DF who has cunning and strength in his gear. And unfortunately this is not the only case, many tanks in ops are not good enough - either because not geared properly and not knowing the fight, or because are too egocentric and posing hence being bad team players (especially overgeared tanks).

Tanking is not only about pressing the correct buttons, but also observing the situation and attacking correct mobs. From my personal experience when I have to move a lot (any melee class) it breaks my rotation and pretty much messes my gameplay. Unfortunately, all tanks in swtor are close-range classes, but VG/PT have a little advantage for range attacks, so it's a little bit easier to play if you are not comfortable with moving a lot. However, the number of buttons to "push" is virtually equals for all tanks, so if you're trying to have the easiest rotation, it would be better to stick with the dps skill trees.

In SWTOR it's pretty easy to steal aggro from a tank. Just hitting won't work, so the tank should run like insane to keep all mobs attacking him. Huge cooldowns on taunts and leaps also not helping. In ideal world dps would wait until the tank establish aggro, also they would drop aggro, but in pugs it barely works. Also geared min/maxed dps can steal aggro even from a good tank because of the insane damage he/she does, for example, my sage literally has to use basic/weak attacks in FP, because FiB crits for 7k dmg to 6 mobs at the same time almost always steal aggro at least for a couple of mobs. Healing even worse (9k crits heals generate a lot of threat). So, tanking is not easy, and I would recommend to play tanks a little bit more before blaming them. However, I have to admit that many tanks suck (just yesterday was in pugged fp where VG spammed a cryo grenade as almost a main attack). Heavy armor or a double-bladed stick make it very appealing to play those classes (and as a bonus, instant pop in gf), but many players just don't bother to l2p.

The only way to get bonus set Ark is running SM ops: http://dulfy.net/2013/04/14/swtor-level-55-endgame-gearing-guide/ Follow the gen chat on the fleet and just join pug ops. Let me notice that your guild probably sucks a lot if they don't want to carry you through the ops. My guild carried my undergeared (!, mostly artifact gear from the Oricon quest) sentinel (!!) through the full run (!!!) DF, so let me assure you there are good guilds around. offtopic P.S. Being mdps sucks a lot in DF, especially with those blowing adds, thankfully transcendence allows to outrun them.

GTN price for prototype augments is around 10k, don't wait but just buy and make better stat distribution. Also skill tree matters (e.g. many VG making mistake selecting Soldier's Endurance and Blaster Augs). Completely agree, I've stopped counting times when I see overgeared TK sages spamming disturbance without Tidal Wave proc, sentinels spamming AoE attacks, running out of rage and switching to basic attacks (no proccing, no rage management, just dumb hitting the buttons). Mostly when I see dps >35k HP, I inspect the gear immediately, became dissappointed (really, who cares about accuracy and crits, POWER ME, GIMME THE POWER or even ENDURANCE) and they prove my concerns by horribly playing the class later. Just a small example, one day I've seen a gunnery commando dps in HM TC in full 180, he refused to attack adds ("because I do a lot of damage, I'll concentrate on the main big guy"), but it didn't stop him from using Mortar Volley (expensive aoe attack which would fit perfectly for attacking adds, however he used it on the main boss).

HM FP 55 are rather pleasant, SM FP/HM FP 50 is a hell, I agree. After playing FP too much, I still enjoy HM FP 55, but literally afraid to pug lower FP. Also I got another phobia - seeing 50+ players with less than 20k HP

The most power leveling I had was a tanking FP non-stop. As a tank, you get almost instant pop, with bonus XP you'll rush through levels in no time (I don't recall exactly but it was like 5 levels per evening minimum). But you must have steel nerve, because pugging FP is not a trivial task. Also you would probably need to gear your alt to be top notch (because comms drop will be too low for rush leveling), so you can email your alt near 1mln for his/her needs from your mature alt. I guess it can work for healz too, but it's not an instant pop, have to wait few minutes, however it's less stressful. Obviously, it will never work for dps.

Actually, you missed one more point - different skill trees. Surely you can respec, but if you really want to feel different play styles, you can play with the mirror classes but with the different skill set, it actually would be completely different experience. For example, I played with Sage as healz few months, but eventually switched to Balance tree (dots rdps) and not going to switch back to healz (at least, as a main spec, sometimes it's required to respec for ops/fps though). That sounds about right, but I would suggest to do few changes here. Agent -> Sniper, Smuggler -> Scoundrel (because sniper uses an actual sniper rifle, gunslingers sniping with blasters feels weird). Also personally, I'd choose Sentinel & Jaggernaut (pub side quests were a little bit yawning for me, so having dps allowed me to rush through the content faster). Also, personally, Commando healz are not so exciting, I'd prefer to switch to dps tree.

GF is definitely used, especially for HM FP 55, for tanks it's insta-pop in 90%. GF gives additional commendations, and considering comms/time ratio it is a good deal. For Elite comms it's must-do unless you're in a guild running ops fairy regularly. The only way to get Elite comms without ops is just 3 weekly (CZ, Makeb, Oricon) and GF.

The original question was about jugg vs mara, but if to take a little off-topic here, and mention which classes are the easiest, I'd vote to healz operative and pyro merc (and yes, I have 12 too, but only 8 of them are 55). First one can stealth somersault through the content like a boss (assassins too, but considering mobile healz even if you've been caught by elites, you can easily heal to full). Second is rdps in heavy armor, you can just tank a content.. well, like a boss too However, end game content is not so easy for my pyro, I prefer other classes.

I have another good story, about 8 men SM DF. It was my guild run, and they are very decent and skilled folks. Don't have much time to play though, but occasionally we do guild ops. This time the most problematic player in the ops was me - I was undergeared sentinel (66+, even not full basic, so like 26k hp, but buffed near 1200 dmg bonus, 109% accuracy, and near 30% crits, so it's definitely doable). First we stuck at Draxus. mdps alts like mine have a lot of problem with that fight + it was first run for some players. After few wipes one player left due to personal reasons, so we pugged and got rdps. We spent like 20 minutes trying to connect him to our TS server (he never used TS before). In the guild chat we already decided that he will be a burden. Also it was his 1st run too. But surprisingly he did a good job, and after couple attempts more we did this. Other bosses were pretty easy, and we stuck again at Brontes. Another player had to leave, and we pugged another dps. It was a nightmare - when he arrived, he begin to rage about me being undergeared. Like there is no possible way to do this without decent gear. Lolwut, dps should do damage, if his damage skills are good and he knows how to drop aggro and use defensive skills (like Saber Ward etc), it's perfectly doable. Still we had few wipes, but not because of me - our healers had few problems mostly because of the few staged fight. Finally we decided to switch roles and put better geared healz to heal us through. While we are doing it, the enraged dps left swearing to us about time he wasted and repair bills. Luckly another player from our guild (also combat sentinel) came in, and we continued. Surely we did it, it was not easy, and it was extremely challenging, but we did it. I enjoyed it a lot and other players too, because mostly SM ops don't have any challenge, but those fights require good team work, the mechanics is interesting and you really feel like accomplishing something if you win. Team works and knowing your classes (should I mentioned that double Transcendence from 2 sents is extremy useful?) mean much more than uber gear but inability to play correctly especially in a team.

I guess the opinions about pugged gf could be opposite for the same run. For example, when my guild members or me tanking, we keep very high pace. We stop only if someone's health is less than 70% or sage healer is completely out of mana. Surely many like it - very fast, we take all shortcuts and mostly FP run takes 20-30 mins top. But some folks are really stressed by that (especially healers). Or by the mess we have (high defense stats, aggro management and defensive CD in time allow us to chainpull enemies group by group non-stop). Not everybody like challenges and prefer smooth slow pace, pew-pew and so on.

All melee classes are not so good for clickers, because you have to use a lot of attacks (including procced). Also you have to move a lot, and it's not easy if you click too. Ranged dps are much easier to play (you don't have to move a lot, and have more channelled attacks thus you will have some time to move the mouse cursor to the next attack). Surely, one can click through playing any classes, but if you want to be a good dps/tank, maybe it would be better to think about ranged classes (snipers, BH or sorc). Or begin to use keys

Originally the question was asked in the Vanguard topic (sigh, cross-posting again), and for VG defence rating is the least priority. And "advanced"? Really? I'd rather put prototype's to all slots, and then gradually replace it with advanced (considering that with the gear change one have to use different augments to keep stats in balance). But in overall, I completely agree - perfecting tank stats is a hard work (especially if one is not in a guild, or the guild is not active enough).

Agree, I would not bother about companion stats too much. And actually putting DPS gear is not a bad idea at all, especially if we consider Oricon quest line - to successfully solo it, it's better to have good dps rating (unless you have good gear): - you rely on companion healing, you fail (companion can't heal through the massive dps attacks from Oricon quest bosses) - you rely on companion tanking, you fail (companion just die because he/she/it can't get the same mitigation stats as given by skills and various stats to players). - you rely on companion dps,... well, maybe you will not fail so miserably Surely, if you have good gear, it doesn't matter, it's up to you. But relying on companion tanking.. I didn't work for me, only switching to dps companion allowed my dps alt to solo Oricon.

Generally speaking, you would want to keep mitigation stats in balance. Just to clarify things: - high defence rating increases the chance to completely avoid attacks. But it's not applied for all types of attacks. - high shield rating increases the chance to shield the attack (so if attacks is not defended and not shielded, it directly damages the tank) - high absorption reduces the damage which was shielded (so it's useless if you don't have good shield rating) However, some attacks can't be shielded at all (or be defended from). In tank stance Treek gets 20% shield chance, but it's far from perfect. I guess you don't want to min/max tanking gear for Treek, but in overall, rushing for absorption will be useless if you have low shield rating. I guess you would prefer this order for gearing: defence rating, shield rating, shield absorption (or keep the both latter stats on a par, because if you have high shielding chance, but low absorption, you'd get a lot of damage anyway). I don't know does shielding has any perks for Treek (like it has for VG), but it's pretty safe to assume it's not and just go for the generally accepted gearing advices.