Ah my bad didn't realize that it dropped 72s. That would indeed be stupid. Ah well thanks for the info

I'd certainly hope so. In my opinion it'd make sense for SM to require 72s and HM to require 75s, but given what we got in Dread Fortress that seems highly unlikely. Dread Palace should require higher tiers of gear then Dread Fortress though. we are facing the Dread Masters after all

Thanks for streaming it. Looks pretty cool. Any word on the gear rating required for SM and HM?

I only started playing a few months ago and found DUly's article extremely helpful: http://dulfy.net/2013/04/14/swtor-level-55-endgame-gearing-guide/ Gives a great run down of what gear tiers you can get and how you get them. Also a great guide on all the missions available to collect comms etc. The poster above me did a good job of explaining, this article is just very in-depth. Hope this helps!

This. As inconvenient as it is for most people, at least BW has someone on here right after explaining what went wrong and why they had so much downtime. I also don't think there's anything wrong with them spending so much time trying to fix a problem that could have a large affect on some players. Unfortunately for BW even if they had just said **** it lets just not try to fix it right now people would've also complained that the patch broke the game. I don't necessarily agree with every move BW makes but this is one of those cases where I don't think they necessarily deserve complaints. There was an issue, they tried their hardest to fix it. Sucks that it takes up playing time but at least they're trying to fix problems.

My opinion (and hope) is that they look like placeholders. I mean I like the gold and stuff but the fact is that these sets are all SO similar to each other. The only differences are in the size and the headpieces. The general idea of the armor is cool I think but the different classes are all way too similar.

Oh I'm not saying I personally don't think its reasonable to require 72s for SM if we're talking progression. BUT the general attitude with BW so far seems to be that they want casual players to be able to access SM (hence STORY mode). A casual player has a difficult time getting 72s. And if they didn't require 72s for SM I just couldn't see them jumping to requiring 75s for HM. Again, this isn't something I'm advocating, just something I think likely from their past releases. I do like the idea a poster above had about one op being significantly harder than the other and requiring a higher level of gear. Meaning Dread Fortress requires only 69s for SM and drops 72s while HM requires 72s and drops 75s. BUT then Dread Palace SM requires 72s etc. In my mind, that would require higher gear to even access SM but would still be in-line with BW's policy of casual players being able to access SM of all ops. As much as raiders (I include myself in this group) want harder content, I just don't see BW restricting SM to a high degree, thats all. EDIT: Though I do realize if only Dread Palace HM dropped the new tier, then we wouldn't have a complete set. So basically, I don't think there's any way to predict the new gear requirements. We'll just have to wait and see whats released

Has it been explicitly said that 2.4 will launch with a new tier of gear? All I know is that they said that a new tier of gear would accompany the new operations. To me, it is reasonable that NiM would drop the new tier given past experience. If HM dropped the new tier then it would have to require KD to complete. That just doesn't seem in-line with what we've seen from BW in the past (i.e. HM isn't necessarily accessible to the casual raider, but it is accessible to the casual guild). I just don't see them limiting HM to the very elite guilds that have their raid members decked out in full KD already. To me it seems much more reasonable that SM would require 69s and drop 72s, HM will require 72s and drop 75's, and then NiM (somewhere down the road) requires 75s and drops the new tier. Of course this is all speculation, as we don't know what BW will actually do and I haven't even been on the PTS. It just seems this has been the method they've used in the past.

Bump for UW weaponmaster implants. have mats + tip

Or does anyone know a crafter for the above-mentioned items?

LFC for Underworld Weaponmaster's MK-V or MK-X Package or Underworld Weaponmaster's Device. Either post here or message me in-game on my main, Tekldon.

Looking for a crafter for the UW relic of BA or SA. Either post here or pst to my main, Tekldon.

Oh I understand what you're saying about 69 gear. I agree these FP's are good opportunities to drop more 69 gear and more elite comms. But I still think set bonus should only come from doing the raids. It acts not only as a reward but as an incentive to learn how to play your class in an 8-16m group. I mean hey I'd love to get a set bonus easier but objectively I think it makes sense to require raids to achieve a set bonus. All other 69 gear is available pretty much now to those who don't run ops so you gotta leave something to entice the raiders. Either way, I do like the loot drops in the new czerka missions

Well that'd be silly. I have no problem with Arkanian non-set pieces dropping in FP's but they're far too easy to drop any set piece. Everyone would be geared in 69s after grinding it forever.

Again, I agree that grinding dailies is a pain in the *** but I think this is the way it has to be. If you got trade elites for basics and thus have easier access to isotope-5, i think you would see a lot less people in 72s who have done few HM raids. I'm not an elitest at all, in fact im plenty willing to help undergeared players through heroics or FP's or raids but I do honestly think high tiers of gear should be reserved for hard content. If there is an alternative method to obtain such high level gear, it should be difficult to do (i.e. grinding for isotope). Not to mention trading comms down to get isotope would drastically increase the supply available and thus many who sell it on the GTN would see a HUGE drop in value. Economically and gear-wise I think it makes sense for isotope to be where it is. And beyond isotope, I really see no other purpose for trading comms, except for maybe credits (now that I would get behind)

The issue I see with being able to convert comms down is the same issue a lot of people have with converting up....how easy it would be to get high level gear. I think if they introduced a system of converting down it would be MUCH easier to get isotope 5, which at least in my opinion is one of the most difficult crafting materials to gather to craft 72 gear. Not to mention if you could then also trade classics for credits you have people with even more money, which then means the purchase of MMSG's and EEE's becomes much more feasible. I do think the system is a little odd and could be improved, but I am not sure that trading comms down is the right solution either.. From my perspective, it would still make 72s available to someone who only runs 55hm FP's (elites, then converted to basics used to purchase Isotope for crafting). I understand the gear issue with converting down would not be nearly as widespread as if comms were able to be converted up. However, right now I think the grind required for gathering isotope (given the limited access to basics) is appropriate to craft 72s. You should only get 72s from high level content or spending ridiculous amounts of creds AND time to gather mats for crafting.

I actually really like how well thought out this is. The little background you give on the stories for each planets seems to fit perfectly with the planets themselves (i.e. Onderon being war-torn in the past and now the potential for it to be embroiled in civil war with the switch to the Empire). And as epic as it felt killing the Voice in the JK story I think a return of the Emperor is due, especially following the end of Malgus' little splinter empire (Empire needs some reunification to keep the story going for Imperial players). Of course, all this would be very time consuming and expensive, but I think it would be worth it. Makeb was alright, but it provided me with no replay value. I absolutely DREAD going through Makeb with my alts, simply because I've see it all before and its a trash-filled wreck. But if they could give us some stories that again depended on which class we were, then I could see myself sinking time into those storyline's across all my alts. And isn't that ultimately what BW would want? People to spend more time in the game rather than blowing through the next raid in a week (not that I'm complaining about the two new raids in 2.4). Revisiting old worlds from KoToR or II has such potential given the amount of Republic/Imperial history on those planets. If they gave us an expansion like that, I'd be plenty willing to spend much more than the $10 I did for makeb. Seems like it would be win/win. Seems like wishful thinking though

In my opinion I was a poor attempt to make the elites commendations useful for those who are already in a mix of 69s/72s or full 72s (and up). Hell I could even understand if it was just 350 elites because honestly they just sit in my inventory now. But to add the EE's in there is just silly. I guess the couter-problem though is if they made them too easy to get the price would just go down and people would be crafting 72's rather than running the ops to get them. Prices for isotope 5 have already been dropping on the GTN recently. Guess the mats for 72s should be difficult to get but this just seems absurd.

I'll throw in my support for this idea. I've yet to ever do KP or EC just because finding a pug in general chat can be a *****. No one wants to be the guy spamming general chat for 30 mins straight (unless you enjoy that kind of thing in which case you have issues ). Anyways it'd be nice to sit in GF while running daily's etc. so if this is possible, please make it so

This is the big thing right there I think. The problem is that most people run the lvl 50 operations only at HM or NiM level to get the ultimate comms from the Classic Operations Weekly mission. Most of the time if youre trying to do storymode its difficult to find a group. This being my first MMO (and I only started a couple months ago) it was tough to find a way to gear up since no one was running lvl 50 SM ops. What I did (and would recommend), is running dailys for basic comms to get that gear (66s) with a mix of campaign and start doing HM of those ops. My first ever op was a EV HM :/ Have yet to ever do a single lvl 50 sm operation. Too many people have progressed far beyond that unfortunately.

I'm not sure it would be as difficult as you think. Certainly it won't solve all the problems but at the same time there are still going to be level 50 healers and tanks who did not get the expansion pack and thus do not play the level 55 operations. I'm not saying there's going to be an abundance of them, but in my mind any queue time is better then just spamming the general chat saying DPS LFG EV HM over and over and over.......

To be fair, the highest gear of endgame content really should be limited to hardcore raiding guilds (I'm not in one fyi just a casual raider). There needs to be some sort of incentive for people to be hardcore and participate in progression raiding. You don't subscribe for right to the gear, just the right to have a chance at getting it, same as everyone else. And you get what you put into it. It makes sense that the most dedicated and skilled players have the best gear.

I'm not sure the types of 55's who would be "abusing" level 50's would be the one's playing lvl 50 ops. The elitest players who often abuse under-geared players are likely already overgeared for lvl 50 ops as is and won't waste their time with them. The focus of the argument to put these ops in GF is to allow players who don't have as much time to play the game experience the storyline of the level 50 ops. As a first time MMO player, I did not even know what an op was until I hit level 55. By that time, though, I was already locked out of GF for all ops except TFB and SnV. To this day, I've played EV once on HM and had a fantastic time with the story, but it took a LONG time to get a group together. I see where you are coming from, but even if these ops were added to GF most of the players you're worried about will consider themselves "too good" to queue up for a lvl 50 SM op.

1. What is "easy" for one person can be difficult for someone else. Yes, if you have a lot of time to kill it is easy to spam the general chat looking for a group. If you only have a couple hours to dedicate, though, you need all that time for a raid, not spamming the chat hoping to get enough people together. A groupfinder queue could help in cutting down the time (unlikely since GF is usually long as is but it at least provides another option). 2. Part of the argument for a GF queue is to stop the endless spam of "LFG blah blah 8m SM" in general chat. I can hardly say anything on the republic fleet without it getting bounced up because of people looking for groups. I am certainly all for adding Lvl 50 operations to the queue. I have cleared TFB several times and SnV a couple and have yet to do Karagga's Palace or Explosive Conflict at all simply because I don't want to spam general to find a group. I would prefer to do other things as I sit in GF queue, rather then waste time copying and pasting the same message. I don't think it would help people find groups faster, necessarily, but it would make the process simpler and allow people to enjoy other aspects of the game while waiting.

I can understand the frustration of not being able to complete a 55 HM FP but at the same time I really think the FP's are at just the right level of difficulty. I hopped in my first right after 55 when I didn't understand gearing up and everything....huge mistake got totally crushed. However, it really doesn't take too much grinding to at least grab some Basic and Campaign gear mix to at least be able to contribute in a 55 HM FP. After that, its easy to start bringing your gear up fromBM drops or from BM gear bought from elite comms. I can see how people want to experience all the content in the game but realistically the endgame focus does need to be on gearing up and for there to be progression these FP's need to be difficult. If you really want to see all the content, then spend some time gearing up. Dailies can actually be kind of fun sometimes