I don't think this has anything to do with elitism in the negative sense. This has more to do with players who want the rewards but not willing to do the work required to get them. The bottom line is: If you aren't normally doing hardmode raiding, you shouldn't really attempt pugging HM Queen before you learn your class, join a hardmode raid team with voice comms and starparse, and improve. Most skilled players are skilled because they bootstrap themselves through those humps, criticism, and frustrations. They are all part of one's growth. If folks are really motivated to become hardcore and clear content, then they'll end up becoming one. And then they become qualified to earn those rewards that come from HM/NiM clears. Plus there are a lot of guilds out there recruiting to teach hardmode and nim mechanics to raiders. I used to know a guy who was obsessed with having the top gear. But he didn't do anything other than storymode EV, KP and vet flashpoints. I had a hard time convincing him of skill > gear. He had little skills. Because he did nothing to improve. He just wanted the rewards. The difficulty with HM Queen is fine as is imo. Nothing to be nerfed. The problem with 16m is due to the game's engine causing fps / lag issues. As with 258: Bioware released those rewards so that players can go and tackle NiM Gods. Again, very big rewards for those who work at it to get them. If you want them to get easily and only end up doing hardmode and storymode raids, it nullifies the whole reward-effort system that's at the core of MMOs. So, no easy meal.

I've noticed this issue after 5.10 dropped Here's my original bug report. I play weapon sounds on (because hey, I derive more fun that way and feel the spec punching!) This glitch is making the gameplay extremely annoying after a while. The problem is affecting my account; not because of (1) PC, (2) server, or (3) guns (you can see it on my original report). So rolling another slinger isn't really helping. The reason I'm posting it here because I want to see if there are other gunslingers affected by the update (plus my original bug report got pushed into subpages fairly quickly). I've noticed at least one more player reported the same issue. Here's hoping this issue can be rectified. Thanks for your attention!

This issue came up after 5.10 patch. Gunslinger>Dirty Fighting spec's "Wounding Shots" sound effect is significantly off to the point of making gameplay really annoying. Here's a sample of the issue: In case wondering (for those haven't played DF), this is what the normal sound is: I've ascertained that this is an account-wide problem that cropped up after 5.10. I've tested three hypothesis: (1) It's because guns are glitched. ---I've tried three different types of guns with different sound effects. In all versions, Wounding Shots' sound effect was broken. (2) It's because of computer issues. ---I've tested my slinger in two separate computers (a tower PC and a laptop) with different graphics cards, ram, and etc....so it cannot be due to graphics cards and/or computer related issue. (3) It's because of server. ---I've also tested my slingers on two different servers. The problem ensues....so it cannot be due to a server-related issue. In addition, Virulence Sniper's Cull is fine (DF's impside counterpart). The problem is isolated to Wounding Shots only. Is anyone else experiencing this issue after downloading 5.10? While it doesn't detract from the dps performance, the sound of a delayed, irregular Wounding Shots does become very annoying after a while I've already filed a ticket on this issue. Thanks for your attention.

Eric, what about the other Operations-related issues? - Currently Scum and Villainy HM/NiM is unplayable beyond Oasis City. Killing one of the adds on the red team and/or green team results in an immediate failure of the city infiltration. - Also, in the Revanite Commanders encounter, killing Sano Thrica while any of the other bosses are still alive causes all the bosses to become immune to damage. I guess this is meant to fix the issues reported during Tyrans and Brontes encounters in HM/NiM. Please add, anyone, if I am missing another outstanding Operations-related issue.

You deserve all the stars lol take it But seriously. The chief reason the new gear is released so that you can beat Gods from the Machine in nightmare mode. Sure it will also help pvp'ers get some advantage....but player skill with a class > gear in most cases. For any other content, I doubt you really need 252 or 258 gear. As it stands, the other nim operation bosses still have the same HP and difficulty ratings adjusted for 242-248 (and even less for some bosses). I've heard from many in the community that this patch is bringing back memories from 3.0. ---that people will go and farm timed runs and wings and stuff....I doubt it'll be the same. Game's population is smaller this time. And people still need to do the mechanics, have high uptime, and good raid awareness if they want to clear Styrak, Brontes,Terror etc... in apex mode.

Last Resort <Yesterday's Scrubs> is a new HM raid team looking for 2 Healers. No specific class preference except good competence as a healer, raid awareness, and motivation to learn and improve. Raid time is 6-8pm PST on Mondays. This team's goal is to allow people to play alternative classes and roles and gain experience with them towards nightmare raiding. Prior HM experience is desirable. PM me if interested. (Discord: Biofrost #4619)

It's a really bad FP due to lagginess and bugs. I usually drop out when I get it on group finder.

If you aren't doing ranked pvp or nightmare raiding, you really don't need that gear.

It's a serious issue. Just logged in my other toon. My entire settings are reset -- sound settings, interface settings...everything except my UI. My conquest points are also reset, and I cannot see the guild tag under my name when I am on my ship or go to other planets. Seems the only place it doesn't bug is when I am at the fleet.

Hmm let's see. So Bioware takes the whole Ravagers operation and turns it into a stronghold and says "here's new content for you." What's next? Turn Trapjaw into an operation boss? Just tells a lot about the state of affairs in their studios: low on cash, low on headcount, and low on bunch of other things. How about a new operation? Or a new planet where we can explore and do stuff? As the game continues to wither away in front of my eyes, I weep for the missed potential the swtor could've been. Should've been. The only consolation is that they're planning to move back to Mass Effect with Hudson's return, that sparks some optimism i guess.

I support this idea. NiM community is already small. And the majority within this small community don't have patience for transitioning raiders (except very few guilds that have NiM training and prog squads). So who's gonna help new players learn this stuff? With EV-KP, at least there used to be a stepping stone for transitioning raiders to practice their skills. Those two don't need remastering, all that's required is maybe some tighter enrage timers and mechanical tweaks that would test coordination skills (maybe shorten the Soa floor drop time, or add aberrations like those seen in Revan). Schwarz put it well when he said ToS, Rav, and Gods don't serve well as transition raids. SV is at the easier end of NiM, but Warlords and Styrak are different from the rest of that raid. I wouldn't know what kind of budget would be required to bring EV-KP back with some polishing up. But there's no content coming anytime soon and people are leaving the game because of lack of content. If you guys can bring EV-KP back, at least that'd motivate folks to renew their subs, take up their guns and lightsabers and learn that stuff on their own. Plus the titles, Infernal and Unyielding, would be nice to have.

Swtor has nothing to do with spinoff star wars films. Old republic has its own lore and background. As far as I can see, I haven't seen any data that shows any correlation between the interest in the movie franchise and swtor, or some causality that going to star wars movies engender interest in swtor, or vice versa. BW is on notice because swtor isn't their top priority any longer. They downsized and moved their staff to work on Anthem and other projects in the pipeline. Swtor is currently in ICU without the C in it, so to speak.

Raiders are still around, but they have diminished substantially in numbers since there's been no new content. NiM raiders - especially impside ones - are very cynical; the people I talk with say hated the Gods ops and they're not generally hopeful about this game's future. Some of them are bordering on malcontent because they've been doing the same raids over and over again. And some have ADHD or other mental problems, so stay clear of those cos they won't be caring about your learning. This game's player quality has substantially declined over the last few years, cos BW isn't doing any moderation....I heard Blizzard is using machine learning algorithms to detect problem players and toxic behavior, sure BW could've learned a few things from their playbook. There are very few groups that's willing to recruit and teach how to play a class and learn the mechanics. You gotta find those and if you can prove that you can commit to those raids regularly and show improvement, they'd be happy to take you in I'm sure. Best raiders in this game (i.e. in terms of overall attitude and skill level) are at Satele Shan and Malgus; Star Forge has a few guilds that do serious progression but the in-game toxicity has gone worse there since the merge, I don't really recommend it. And don't join NiM guilds with no teaching emphasis because they usually don't have any patience with anything and won't be teaching you the mechanics properly. TL;DL: People are moving to different games. BW-EA has abandoned Swtor and slowly retiring the game; it doesn't take a genius to figure it out, it's there for everyone to see....So log in and find a raiding guild to clear content, fights are still fun. Try pubside raiding guilds if you want minimal toxicity.

I agree that at this stage, the last boss lockouts is like a drug for conquest addicts. A "rehab" that can wean people off of it can turn things around and actually improve the swtor gaming community (hello, not a lot of HM/NiM raiders left, because cheese is everywhere now). Maybe something like this: the full conquest reward should be granted for a full completion of the raid. If the whole raid grants 5000 per run, then each boss should grant 1000, including the last boss. This could force players to complete the entire raid and mitigate the mindless farming. In the end, the whole conquest system as it stays is broken and dumb. People are on some type of ego trip to get these "titles" and whatnot. They're wasting hours on farming lockouts, flashpoints, warzones like mindless zombies...maybe as opposed, doing meaningful team content and races to get those points. Also: Operations is one of the biggest gameplay features that generate revenue, because they require subbing. So sadly, it's unlikely that the lockouts will go away. As long as there are players farming, the water's gonna keep running.

Attention Bioware Team: It appears that the Relic of Devastating Vengeance is unavailable in unassembled gear token vendors. All versions (Eternal Commander, Iokath, and Gemini) and both factions (republic/imperial). Just wondering if it's an oversight and can be fixed in the next patch. Thanks for your attention

My friend and I are looking for a HM/NiM raiding guild at Starforge. We are mature folks and are serious about raiding, and leaving SS camps (*cough* Harby *cough*) to join a decent progression team. Republic and imperial toons to be transfered soon, BiS gear, refined rotations and excellent raiding acumen. Can lead raids if there's need. Thanks!

As the WayofWarrior fellow speculated in PvP forums a few months ago, Bioware is slashing all classes and align them to what they call "target dps, target healing, target tanking lvl" etc. As a result, you can expect almost all classes to be nerfed / buffed until they are done with it in the next few cycles. Clearly, this will cause problems for endgame players. So to offset the damage, BW is adding additional gear tiers that will ultimately make every class nuances significantly dependent on gear. If your DPS Mara or healer sorc is underperforming in DF NiM, slap a 250+ gear to meet the required dps or heals to pass the boss fight. This spells increasing gear dependence on the game to be able to progress in the endgame content, thereby, locking players onto the trajectory of continuous gear grind via the command xp system, while the quality of the game continues to suffer further with increasingly poor outfit fashions, unattended bugs, subpar game content like the recent Umbara FP, and ghost town servers that can barely hold 100 players. Some openly expressed that they do love the gear grind via command xp. Some openly hate it. Some have mixed opinions. Others are indifferent and may be rage-unsubbing. Personally, I have mixed feelings about the direction Swtor has taken. It clearly is a business decision on their part to ensure long-term sub player retention, but I am unsure at this stage if this RNG-based gear grind to keep people play day in and day out will turn out okay. As some folks noticed, this direction already has psychological ramifications, like the PUG players you roll with who just speed run everything in order to get their cxp, and when you are a bit slow, you are effectively set for harassment and abuse. In these days, I tend to see the same mindset during SM raids. I'd like to know where you stand as a player, whether you are new to the game or a veteran, factoring all the things this game has accomplished as well as failed to deliver. For me, the Roadmap 2017 doesn't tell a lot, but rather strikes me as something that delays the inevitable. On the other hand, I see tons of potential improvement opportunities in swtor, starting with a general polish-up that I believe will guarantee the return of many old subbers and keeping the new implings and publings. When released, this was the most expensive MMO ever created. If the company doesn't have the budget to make a general polish-up, or if its making more economic sense to churn out new tidbits of content and poorer outfits, and a raid boss in every 3 months rather than a proper expansion, then I fear for the future of this enterprise. Civil and mature discussions please. Leave your snide and asinine comments at home or take it elsewhere Let us send a collective feedback to the devs about how we feel about the game's direction.

If you can nail it's rotation (especially critical bleeds and reaching 5 stacks of Annihilator), Anni Mara is a great friend in HM ops. Carnage is great to play in PvP, fast and deadly with that Ataru form. But I find it a bit impeding in HM ops because it has a rage generation problem; after consuming those burst attacks, you might end up facing 0 rage and resort to spam attacks to build rage again. I find that Anni does better at focus generation and thus has more prominent sustained dps potential over time; with some increased alacrity rating, you can line up your attacks for prolonged boss fights without worrying too much about focus loss. Anni also does more AoE damage with the dot spread combos -- in ops when clearing trash adds, it comes in very handy. I will give you a recent example of mine (and this happened before the 5.3): I did TC in HM with a moderately experienced ops group. The group composed of people with mostly Tier 2 gear. We experienced 3 wipes before defeating Golden Fury. As an Anni, I got the adds group in the first 2 rounds along with a Juggernaut tank. By the time we finished off the adds, we had already been in the range of Golden Fury's Red Lasers, so both the tank and I couldn't get back to the boss to add some dps to it. The boss enraged around 24% of HP. Third round, I switched places with a lightning sorc and got the boss, and sorc player got the adds group. We finished it off without the enrage.... That's how much difference Anni makes in HM ops boss fights with that sustained dps oriented rotation. All the bleed dots Anni places on the boss pays off in the long run. And clearly lightning sorc is much better at burst AoE. Different players find different Mara specs useful in different situations - I personally love playing Anni in PvE and Carnage in PvP. It's yours to discover. Take them both out to different HM ops and see which one fits the bill. P.S.. One class I haven't tried yet after all these years is Fury. After the patch, I will give it a shot. I keep hearing it's a more bursty class, but curious to see about it's sustained dps potential myself.

I main Annihilation Mara and find force camouflage useful in both pvp and pve. The utility Hidden Savagery gives some damage bonus to melee attacks after accumulating 6 stacks. I saw that making difference in HM ops fights if used in combination with bleed attacks. Further, I found it useful in FPs, with that temporary stealth can help pass some mob groups -- a bit more trivial, but useful nonetheless. In PvP, it really depends on the map and situation. I saw players making very poor use of it (e.g. popping them while they are in my LoS and uncloak and force jump) and players making better use of it. I think any form of stealth - temporary or permanent - is advantageous, so FC retains its usefulness

No, nobody wants that. Then again, I never recommend fixing queuing system as "the" solution, but one of the alternative solutions. I am sure devs don't have all the answers, neither do we,; but it is very clear to me that another nerf/buff hammer will not make problems go away.

Class imbalance is ultimately an "experience." Release all the charts in the world, all the mathematical accuracy, it won't change it. You will continue to see some players always saying X class is OP and Y class is UP (underpowered). Because it is an experience, it is easy to fall into the self-deception trap, and jump into the bandwagon of OP/UP train. You are in the dominant discourse, neglecting the problem associated with the queuing system. Once you begin to think differently from the crowd, it might occur to you that the problem has "other" causes as well and that nerf/buff hammer won't fix them.

By pointing out a historical problem that continuously causes at least 1 class to be a disenfranchised party in the following pvp patch? How is that B.S.? You are not even hearing yourself when you say "It is now worse than it used to be pre 4.0"? Ask yourself "why is it worse than before?" The answer is because nerf-buff hammer is the only trick Bioware ever used. It is time for a different trick, don't you agree? You are approaching the issue emotionally, like majority of players who do. The only time I see a merc or sniper or sage healer being problematic is when there are 2-3 of them in the same area doing the same thing. Deathmatches are a good indicator of this - you can see 4 tanks in the opposite team, just as you are likely to see 4 healers. How is that not a problem of queuing system? My position is: I do not favor another nerf-buff class strategy. That's an old trick. You'd be naive if you think that it will make everything perfect and balanced. Wait for a few months and you will here players complaining "why is the Marauder so OP? and such and such. History will repeat itself. Making some adjustments in the queuing system might do some remedy. It will disallow 4 healers to be on the same team, or 4 mercs, or 4 juggernauts, and so on. I do not deny class imbalance, but it is impossible to make any class to be balanced to one another. Each class has unique strengths and skills. On that note, you are underestimating individual skill. Some players are good and shine despite all odds. I know someone in my server that burns tanks with a lightning sorcerer, despite everyone was saying it is not viable. Apparently it is, as I found out, if you are using the right utilities and rotations and have good timing and situational awareness.

Nerfing/buffing a class will not solve the problems in PvP right now. Haven't you learned anything from previous patches? I mean a majority of players who really can't play this game are almost always resorting to "let's nerf this, let's buff that" --- it's getting old really. And that's emotional feedback to devs. Put things through the train of logic first. If you wanna improve in PvP, for your part, you need to "learn" to gear up according to your class specs, L2P your class, and duel a lot to improve your skills. Mercs and Snipers look OP only due to class stacking. That's not a problem with the class, but with the queuing system. That's for Bioware to fix. Unless some maintenance is done in that system, you will continue to see legions of mercs/mandos snipers/slingers spamming their electro nets and plasma probes. And no, sorcs/sage healers are not OP, nor any other healing class. Healers are supposed to last longer, along with tanks. If you wanna stop them, then learn to nuke them and interrupt them. It all comes down to individual skill, situational awareness, and discipline. If you don't have these, that's not Bioware's fault.

The solution to class imbalance may lie in rehauling the queuing system. Writing algorithms that will prevent a team to have 4 mercs/mandos, healers of the same class, dps of the same spec etc.... ...Right now, it is so randomized and messed up that it cannot prevent players from choosing the lowest hanging fruits of the PvP tree (mercs, specifically). Randomization becomes PvP's Achilles here and creates imbalances in WZs. Rehaul the queuing system, you prevent class stacking, and there will be no need for nerfs or buffs, upset players, "I'm leaving Swtor" tantrums and such and such. I can still kill a merc one-on-one with my dps Assassin and find a way to mitigate a 2nd merc's onslaught. I can't if there are 3 or 4 of the same kind in the same area over and over again. Then it becomes frustrating indeed. My 2 cents.

Same issue. It was fine before 5.2. My sage's Swift Rejuvenation works fine, but my sorcerer's Galvanizing Cleanse doesn't give instant activation after expunge. Part of my healing rotation and can't use it now.