Taken from the Sage / Sorcerer changes: Mental Defense (Redesign): Reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. Additionally, reduces damage taken from area effects by 30% Shapeless Spirit (Redesign): Reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. Additionally, reduces damage taken from area effects by 30% This utility was shared for both advanced classes. What happens to Shadow/Assassin Mental Defense / Shapeless Spirit?

Also, Tanks will always take damage during the blue cross, since it continues executing regular range attacks consisting of multiple hits. If several of those aren't deflected, it can appear as though you would take cross damage outside the displayed area. I have seen countless tanks yelling lag where actually it is default boss behavior.

/agree Drop both the new stuff (for the stats) and the old stuff (for the optics).

Since I was the one who suggested looking for time stamps, I'll just assume that part (amongst others) is directed to me. I have spent the last three years as raid leader (or deputy) and not once I have gated anyone because of his/her achievements. There are exactly two thing I demand of people, those are motivation and honesty. I don't know how miserable the conditions on other servers are, but here on VC people actually can read, have common sense and most importantly: they tell the truth. Achievement gating was suggested further above, then dismissed as not expressive due to 3.0, hence I suggested looking for time stamps. Yes, gating people on achievements is just as ridiculous as demanding e+e (experience and equipment). IMO there is only one reason to look for people with e+e, and that is if one doesn't have it him-/herself. Of course, these people do exist and time stamps are unambigious. Regarding the solo/naked fp part: No. We certainly do not demand anyone who wants to join us to do the same. The vid's purpose is to dislodge the classic "Nerf X, it's impossible" claim. Also, regarding the EV thing above: The [alt]+[f4] thing is a joke, telling someone to destroy their unassembled tokens or ninja-looting is being a jerk. We are the last NiM-guild remaining on our server in 5.0. I have already told my members to take part in whatever random pug they can find, in order to teach the new generation of players. The community is currently experiencing a change of the guard. Most of those who have completed the majority of the content leave to play other games, but there is a steady flow of newcomers and some of those want to play high end content. The newbies of today will be the raiders of tomorrow, so please just drop the nasty attitude and help them. However, as Yoda said: Do or do not, there is no try. Never give advice of which you are not sure it is correct. One of the most annoying tasks as a raid leader is explaining why many of those pug-tactics are actual b***s*** and often detrimental. I'm really sorry this conversation drifts further and further OT, but I dislike personal attacks. The only new flashpoint experience I could share would be regarded as elitist boasting, so I'll pass.

This. Having to grind through 300 levels with 30 characters will be very tiresome and certainly not fun. Put the rewards into your legacy-wide pack opening experience and let us use it on whichever character we want.

Just take the achievements as they are. Accept HM/NM L50 Denova, 55 Asation, 55 Darvannis, 55 Dread Fortress, 55 Dread Palace, HM 60 Temple and 60 Ravagers as they are. If someone's timestamp claims nightmare power for the current boss and (s)he claims to know what (s)he is doing, I'll trust his/her assessment without knowing the person or demanding a certain gear level. NM five levels above still requires the person to have been in a somewhat competent group and implies basic knowledge of the mechanics, HM is indeed worthless. (Except for Coratanni and Blaster, always ignore 16m achievements.) Naturally, anything can be purchased and thus cannot be fool proof, but these people are debunked easily anyway.

You do realize there are time stamps, do you?

One thing regarding guard - at least that's how I do it: The most valuable player is the most experienced one, so just check your team mates achievements and guard the one with most % ops achievements. (Obviously weigh nightmare over sm, but that's why they reward different amounts of points anyway. ) Also, bring a set of crit/alacrity gear, just in case. If your group has extremely bad dps, you may help them beat enrage at the cost of more incoming damage.

Erm... since you got the flashpoint you and everyone else in the group must have chosen to click its checkbox.

Even with level synch - a 65 losing to a 15 (which isn't even possible, since the first planet open to both factions is Nar Shaddaa, where the areas except for the promenade are stictly separated - actual open world pvp doesn't happen prior to Tatooine) would require an exceptional difference in skill level that cannot be assumed. The same in a more realistic 30 vs 65 scenario. Sure, they may be both scaled down, but just as any somewhat decent player can wade through the hordes of lowly trash mobs (when I recently farmed the kill 500 enemy soldiers achievements on Voss, I pulled all the groups I could get without them resetting, usually resulting in about two dozen npcs shooting me at once), they can cut through players half their level, given the same skill level.

L15s cannot enter hard mode flashpoints. Regarding Tacticals:

Don't you think it's a bit unfair claiming we made the challenge artificially easier by not entering a flashpoint with characters on a level one cannot enter the flashpoint with? Regarding the general discussion: it is indeed unfortunate one cannot drop old skins any longer. Always dropping current level equipment may have its use, but please just put the current level stats on old skins.

Level synch doesn't necessarily prohibit fps solo'ed, it only increases difficulty. Also, not all flashpoints have level synch. Kaon and Lost Island sm for example are not scaled and still drop the old cosmetic great. (Although it's probably an oversight.) OP, if you want to pay non synched content, do Lost Island.

This.

Great, now I can't get the song out my head. @Wayland: This is not balanced out for "top geared" players. As long as you realize what is to do, it can be done with about anything. Players are assumed to play content for profit, hence it will always drop the stuff which should improve your equipment. If something drops 208 non-set equipment (like Eternal Championship does), then the regular blue 200 gear which one usually picks up along the levelling phase is assumed. If you do not have a complete set of blue 200 gear, put aside ~150k credits, go to the nearest GTN kiosk and purchase the missing pieces or run around doing other solo content until you drop them along the way. Please be aware item level is not directly related to skill level and difficulty is balanced according to the averagely skilled player using a certain equipment on a certain item level. While unusually competent players can complete it easily with equipment far worse, exceptionally incompetent players will require a higher item level. That being said, good luck.

Muliwa wata pranka! Ya auwa gogah. Dogoni kura gawuna dogo. Goliraah doganjigo gasdonjidonban. Balajio dadah. Goga-utan ohebu dunta ulah.

If a stupid cartel item sells for 300 million, so can a statue of the oriconian warrior. This settles the bill easily for a month or two, during which gaining another one shouldn't be much of a problem. For pugs, I have to agree though.

Your poverty disgusts me, commoner. Jokes aside, I don't really see the big deal. Point is: one shouldn't die. Man learns through pain and repetition. Higher the cost, the higher the pain, the higher the motivation to do things better next time. As an experienced raider, you can carry a few incompetent people. If all else fails, always queue with a friend. Any 4m content can be done with two players (even the final mission for the macrobinoculars), even against arbitrarily incompetent pugs. Back in the old days of L50, I once spent 800k credits repair cost in a single run of lost island without clearing it (most I've ever paid in one operation/flashpoint). I'm still participating in group content with pugs once in a while. As a nm raider you're accustomed to high repair costs anyway. Sure, they're higher now but bosses will still drop vanity items which cannot be aquired outside and thus increase in value. ...Although admittedly I already suggested my members to switch to assassins and operatives. Nevertheless, assuming 60/Wipes without any survivors per week and no income at all, we're still settled for the next five years. With 5.0 we'll apparantly be the last nm group left on VC (both factions) since anyone else switched / will switch to T3 or cease the game, hence we'll be selling decorations.

Unfortunately, no. Both are purges and hence remove all stacks C9, yes. But While Evasion nets the user with +200% M/R defense, Force Shroud awards +200% F/T defense. C17 is a tech attack, thus whereas Force Shroud indeed makes the assassin dps completely immune during the channel (assuming <5 seconds C17 left), the operative dps is horribly massacred and to the sniper it has no use whatsoever, since their evasion doesn't purge debuffs anymore. Disclaimer: Tested this with L60 pre-nerf. It might have been changed since then. Other than that, very informative post. Although C9 wearing off on the tank just in time after C17 is common knowledge (and using the last cleave to top off the companion when playing solo is almost mandatory), I have never seen any group where dps or healers actually used the cleaves to their advantage. This is an innovative idea that sooner or later could help anyone who runs into problems here.

LEVEL 26 TROOPER QUITS HIS JOB AFTER WINNING 400 MILLION CREDITS IN A SINGLE DAY. You won't believe what happens next. Cartel traders hate this man from near your location: "When I first arrived on Ord Mantell, I thought **** these army types. I only signed up to pay my debts to the narshadaan StarCluster Casino. Suddenly I found myself in a F*CKIN' WARZONE and the seps hit our damn walker beyond repairs. The republic army couldn't AFFORD sending replacement parts. Can you believe it? I couldn't either. Well, guess what? Today I have my own vehicle pool complete with a contingent of fully armed main battle walkers! If the damn seps ever dare to show up on MY coruscanti penthouse, I'll show them!" John Doe was just an average private in the republic army earning a measly 800 Credits a month being stationed on some backwater planet and losing it in local bars again. One day, he found this amazing trick that changed his life. "I told my sarge to **** off, flew my new Wanderer frigate to Nar Shaddaa and bought the whole f*ckin' casino, with Pazaak and Twi'lek." Click HERE to see how. Enough with this already. Tomorrow it'll be a billion and the credit cap by Monday. Was it really necessary to create a new thread for this? Posting this once is less spam than posting the same thing in a dozen different threads all over. (Also, I wanted to post a link like this once in my life. Yeah, it's spam. You're probably right giving my a reprimand. Sorry.)

I tried it as an assassin and got somewhere halfway through using every single injection needle. The problem with force shroud is that you only need to have bad luck once - and the whole thing gets delayed. In a group this isn't a big deal. Vanish, taunt, fine. Since solo you can't vanish and the combat is too long (fs cd only drops on darkness spec by deflecting/shielding/resisting, hence you not only need to play tank but also need to wear tank gear), I really can't imagine this being done with an assassin. At least as a tank one can take the channeled heal out of the companion rotation. Still: Without a reliable way to get the stacks off (and once again: force shroud is not reliable in this case) this won't work. I didn't think of the 30% DoT-DR on Lethality, hence I assumed too much incoming damage for a companion to heal through on the dps spec. Thanks for pointing this out. Combined with chem-resistant inlays and fortified kolto you should be able to get to an effective damage reduction against most of Mokans attacks of somewhere araound 65 and 70 %. This should outweigh the higher heal output of medicine. Somehow absurdly, due to this passive lethality operatives might actually take less damage than regular tanks. Disclaimer: I didn't run the numbers. Dps have marginal defense and no shield generators, so they probably still take less. Nevertheless, lops are probably the best choice as soon as the usually useless pug tank bites the dust.

Ha! I knew it had to be an operative. Good job proving the world it is NOT entirely impossible (though I'd have expected the Medicine spec). Who was this guy claiming the bounty should be tripled a few pages earlier? S/he has to see that. Terrific. (Oh and thanks for bumping this thread by the way.) Payment details via PM. The best thing though is you displaying your equipment and achievements in the end. Showing average gear and no achievements worth mentioning is a roundhouse kick to all naysayers and demonstrates about anything is possible with enough effort. Well done, 50m well deserved.

I have streamed with this character in the past and have enough vids on YT without anyone commenting on credits. Also, the crooks nowadays just let farm bots run around 24/7 for weeks. On my server, we have eight bots farming Yavin at any given time. Speaking of credits earned per second, their income is ten times higher than mine and being scammers themselves, they wouldn't contact EA support. I appreciate the concern though.

Nobody is obligated to do so. If someone wants to invest the time and money required, why not? As I stated before: use another screen, find a tv series on netflix or amazon prime and you're set. I recommend the Man in the High Castle. Getting five comps to 50 took just a couple of episodes. I nowhere maxed more than six companions per character since the others can't work in parallel, though if someone wants to - why not? You have to understand many people have done most the game has to offer far too often but still want to spend time in it for some reason or another. Some are completionists who just want to have as much green in their achievement lists as possible. Some try to amass as many credits as they can. Some try challenges that aren't meant to be surpassed. Some look for stupid people to push their streams view count. And some want to max out companions. They don't hurt anyone and if it gets them satisfaction, let them. After reaching a certain amount of credits you just don't care about credit costs for companion gifts.

In case there are still questions. Well, maybe not the "why"-part, but at least about where the limit is.