Not to mention that HM EV and KP are easier than SM Ravagers or ToS or EC. It's easy to get to the end of the run and even easier to run away with the loot. I've been pugging in Harbinger and haven't seen a ninja, but if you want to play it safe stick to guild run or lead the ops yourself.

Even with level sync, a geared level 65 will decimate mobs in one or two GCDs. Heroic mobs will maybe take half a rotation but they'll still be dead with you barely losing health. The only reason why anyone bemoans level sync is that now they can't gank low level players.

Yeah... No. Anyway, iirc Dulfy has everything except EV, KP and EC. The mechanics in EV and KP have been changed that most of the bosses are tank and spank, while EC has sort of become pug killer especially in tanks and minefield. The guides for TFB SNV DF DP Ravagers ToS were written on the patch they came out in 2.xx and 3.xx respectively but they're still relevant as 4.0 just scaled them up. Some of the fight mechanics have been removed; DP in particular at Calphayrus there are now only two phases instead of three and at Council you don't have to run crystals and Brontes doesn't do electric fence thing. TFB Kephess will pretty much stay still until you hit 50%, then you'll have to drop pillars and avoid circles. Underlurker cross now only requires each end be filled by one player. Those are ones I have on top of my head; with exception of Ravagers most of SM mechanics have been simplified. My advice is to first experience all the Operations as DPS/heal and pay close attention to what the tanks are doing. The guide gives you the bare minimum information of what to expect in the fight, but tanks usually have their own strategy. Regardless of difficulty our raid group always tanks Raptus in the middle, while some other tanks might prefer tanking Raptus near the crystals.

IIrc Dreadtooth has threat drop mechanic, that one where he knocks away the tank and places a damage increasing debuff. Sonic Paralysis if I'm not mistaken. That's probably what happened, the tank got knocked away and the offtank didn't immediately taunt.

First time I've ever seen a complaint on Sword Squadron. Usually it's Underlurker. Master Blaster does feel overturned SM and HM, but passable if nobody derps. It's mostly tank and healer check; if the healers are inattentive, the tank taking Master will be killed really, really quickly. The pressure for DPS to be responsible for their own well-being by not standing in circles or overlapping mine is higher in this fight, or they'll waste the healing resources that could've been used to save the tanks. There is DPS check, but if a group cannot survive the first round of mines the DPS check is the least of their worries. As for Sword Squadron... I honestly have no idea what could've caused a wipe. Did the tank eat Rapid Fire? Bombs not run correctly? People dying to stupid? Enrage? One unit not killed fast enough after one went down? I find it fascinating that instead of thinking what went wrong and aim to improve the first impulse is 'fight is too hard pls nerf'.

Sparky enrages at 7 minutes mark more or less. Ideally adds need to be DPS'd as fast as possible and then ignored when Sparky reaches 30% with offtank tanking them away from the group for burn phase. In SM the adds can be ignored altogether and be killed by the offtank alone (that's what I do, the DPS of Sintank is incredible). I know the frustration; in early 4.0, guild once took new players to Ravagers and Sparky enraged at 60%. We made them parse in the next pull and none of them reached 3k DPS. Had to have the other tank and healer switching to DPS to finally make the kill. Sparky is a good indicator for DPS nonetheless. Master-Blaster does have hard enrage at 6 minutes mark. You want to push Master as soon possible; if it flies away and you see Rain of Pain, you might have to push your DPS. The fight itself overall is more about coordination and a challenge to tanks-healers. Just finished a DF SM run. We had a Juggernaut in Vengeance spec who thought switching to Soresu alone would make him a tank. It didn't; Nefra poked him once and he went down. Revived, died again, until finally a Sniper took his place with the other tank. Raid group spent the next ten minutes trying to convince him to switch to Shii-cho and let the other tank solotank, but he insisted that he could 'tank'. We let him have his way; it was quite amusing to watch him jump at mob, AOE taunt and be destroyed in seconds. Couldn't imagine the repair bill he must've had at the end of the run.

Hardmode flashpoint is a good way to measure whether you're ready to heal in ops. If you can pass Tyhon, Rishi or Blood Hunt HM, you're ready to heal in ops. Some of the fights in those hardmode are harder than majority of SM operations, in fact I'd say healing in operations is easier because there are two healers and they can depend on each other whereas in HMFP you're pretty much on your own.

IIrc it can't be cleansed. Josh will keep building Execute stack until it reaches 10 and whoever has the most stack will take increased damage from his attacks. Back in pre-nerf 3.0 HM his Maul would oneshot the tank, fun times. Shouldn't be a problem though in Tactical; if you have a lot of stacks, be prepared to blow your defensive cooldown or kite him around so he can't hit you until the stacks expire. Bloodhunt is one of my least favorite fight. The knockback radius isn't as atrocious as when it was first released, but it's annoying to be knocked off when I'm trying to reach a kolto station. What gives?

They're both very good in PVP; Deception Sin and Concealment Op have insane burst that can take out most classes in one rotation and they're excellent to ninja nodes. Their DPS specs are on the weaker side in PVE unfortunately, they definitely have to struggle to get even with Sniper, PT and Merc. Darkness Sin however is an excellent tank and Medicine Op healer has the strongest AOE and unique playstyle of all healing classes. Story-wise I like Agent the most; SI feels like it's meant for Sorcs and ill-fitting for an Assassin.

Nowhere in their post OP stated that the 'other side' doesn't have the right to complain. They understood and even acknowledged the disappointment of the old time players, but this is kind of overwhelming (and I agree, I haven't frequented the forum much for that reason). Imagine that someone is interested in trying out the game, and when they check the official forum all they see is threads about how bad the game has become. How is that going to encourage new people to try the game? New people = more revenue = more content. Here is someone who returned to the game and having a blast, and the first few responses basically condemned OP for having fun and not miserable as the rest of the community. Two wrongs don't make one right, silencing one side won't make your side heard.

I personally think that he is a well-written character. In fact to me his attitude highlights the difference between Zakuul and the two factions; Zakuulan people in general seem to think that Valkorion is okay, and to be fair they have not given any proof to believe otherwise. Koth is by far the loudest when it comes to the defense of Valkorion, but you don't see Senya agreeing with Lana that they need to get rid of Valkorion either. She even asked if she could talk to Valkorion, didn't she? Seems to me like reverence to Valkorion is just a Zakuulan thing. Koth is a decent guy, maybe a bit too overzealous and overeager but his heart is in the right place. Most of my toons would keep him alive.

Has it gotten so bad that now we antagonize people who are having fun with the game? To OP, don't pay too much attention to all the threads you see. The game is fine, and there are likely a lot of people like you who are having a blast. As long as you're having fun, it's money and time well spent.

Play as tank/healer and you'll understand why there are so few of them in Groupfinder queue. I consider myself a laidback guy but there is so much I can take when DPS blames their death by standing in stupid on me. Why play tank and healer when being a DPS seems to free you from any accountability? It's funny to get blamed for boss hitting enrage though, as if enrage has anything to do with tanking/healing at all.

Me as Sniper filling in for friend's guild run in weekly DP SM. Some of the raid members were new; one Sin tank kept losing aggro and one Sin DPS died in every fight including trash pulls. It wasn't too bad overall, funny moment in Tyrans where we almost ran out of platform... then we got to Raptus. It's a fairly challenging fight so my friend asked the newbies to get into TS so he could explain fights. Sorc DPS said he'd be helping with heal challenge, not sure why since 4.0 DP SM heal challenge can be solo'd but okay. RC'd and off we went. Grabbed crystal, went into challenge room as usual, but I was the only one in the DPS challenge. Jugg DPS disconnected early in the fight, Sorc DPS went to help healing challenge, and Sin DPS didn't grab her crystal and cluelessly ran around on the main platform. I did my best, but failed the DPS challenge. Ah well, should be fine. No way we could fail tank and healing challenge, right...? Except that we did. Turns out when the Jugg tank got challenged the Sintank didn't go into the tank challenge and tried to tank spinning Raptus instead. As for heal challenge and how could three people fail, I have no idea what happened. So we failed all challenges, and wiped. Whelp. We went back to Raptus, except the Sin DPS. She started to rant about 'stupid boss mechanic', 'who was the idiot who designed the fight', and 'why does it has to be so hard'. The Sin DPS was frustrated by the mechanic to the point of near tears and wanted to quit, but friend convinced her to stay. We spent the next fifteen minutes making sure that she (and everyone else) knew what to do in the fight. Thankfully it was a guild run, couldn't imagine PUG group being so patient. It took several pulls before we killed Raptus (mostly because the Sintank kept derping and got themselves thrown off the platform) but we did. Council went down without too much of an issue thanks to the nerfs. If we still had to fumble with Bestia knockback, crystals and Brontes clock phase we probably would have struggled. First time ever failing all Raptus challenges, also first time I had someone being so frustrated in a SM run. If she think that Raptus SM is hard I wonder what she'll think of Master Blaster and Underlurker? What I find the funniest is when I assured her, "It's okay, mate. We've all been there." she replied with, "I am not a 'mate'. I'm a female." Um, okay?

Only if you're aiming to get the One and Only achievement. You can walk in 190 gear and then get bolstered to 216-220. Technically the 208 drops would still be an improvement.

I think 216-220 is the appropriate gear. Aren't you bolstered to average 216-220 anyway if you use the buff terminal?

Blood Hunt has always been pug-killer ever since it was were released. Blood Hunt first boss has much higher DPS requirement than Underlurker; iirc it was 2.9k per DPS in 3.0, which means one DPS have to pull at least 3.9k in 4.0 to beat the enrage timer. It's not a bug, just a tough DPS check. I haven't experienced Maelstorm Prison bug, but with regards to Blood Hunt not even top-tier Gear can help you if you don't know how to DPS on the move.

Rather than spending Data Crystals, do a bit of PVP until you can afford a full set of Cynosure armor set. PVP set is better optimized than vendor PVE gear, but the thing that truly makes them superior to vendor PVE gear with how bolster works now in SM Ops and HMFP is because PVP set has set bonus, which boosts your performance immensely.

The Dark Reaver set that I have on my Operative is the DPS one and I use the same set for healing and DPS (too lazy to switch). It's fine in regs, but I don't recommend it in ranked as healing boost from set bonus can mean the difference between winning and losing. If you're planning to exclusively heal with your Merc, you should invest in healing set now that Exhumed set is easily obtainable.

I have similar experience, but with a tank. A couple of days ago I joined a ToS run forming at fleet in my Sniper. Jugg tank's name (only one as ToS can be solotanked) was familiar, but I couldn't remember where had I seen his name before. I didn't give it much thought; I raid everyday, I'm bound to run to familiar names once awhile. We got all slots filled, and off we went to Yavin. Everything was fine until Sword Squadron, where things got... weird. This conversation ensued: Raid lead: <Tank name> will be on Unit 1, <PT DPS> will faketank Unit 2. Can you run bomb as well? PT DPS: Sure, no problem. Jugg tank: No, I'm not going to tank. PT DPS can tank instead since he liked to taunt bosses so much. Apparently during Malaphar PT DPS accidentally single taunted the boss. PT DPS explained that it was a mistake, the keybind for threat drop is next to his single taunt. Mistake happens, we all have those off days, but apparently this was a great, unforgivable offense to the tank. We all started to call him out on it and tell him to stop being a drama queen, but the tank wouldn't have any of it and had started to change to DPS gear. Fortunately the PT DPS brought tank set and agreed - albeit grudgingly - to swap role with the now DPS Jugg. Ready check ensued, Jugg kept clicking not ready. Until suddenly he threw a saber at Unit 2. Raid lead: What the heck are you doing? Jugg: See, it's not so fun when someone "accidentally" makes things difficult, isn't it? (At this point he had moved to the edge of the map and away from the fight.) Raid lead: Get back into the fight. Jugg: No can do, I haven't picked my utilities yet. It was an "accident". We were caught off guard and nobody was running bombs, predictably we wiped. Everyone was getting fed up and threatened to leave if the Jugg was allowed to stay. I whispered raid lead to kick Jugg and I would replace him as tank. Jugg got kicked out, my Sintank got invited in, and we oneshot everything. The best thing about having five tanks is that you don't have to put up with entitled tanks who think they can get away with anything. Annoyed me that my Sniper got locked to SS though, fortunately the next group was alright with it. Later I remembered that indeed I had run with Jugg tank before. In every single run he always started drama and threw a massive tantrum if things didn't go as he wanted. I have him ignored on all toons, but the Sniper had only recently dinged 60 and I forgot to refresh his Ignore list. If only Ignore list was legacy wide...

I don't think you and the tank would make it when the boss had that much HP left. Idk if the second bosses have timer-based hard enrage, but once awhile electric bubble thingies will spawn and they need to be run into lest they reach the tower in the middle and wipe the group via lightning storm. The longer the fight goes the more of those things will spawn, and anyone with more than three stacks risks getting oneshot (can confirm, my tank accidentally ended up with five stacks). It was a losing fight, you did the right thing by /stuck.

My Shadow mostly picked DS choices. To be fair, he is a well-intentioned extremist who is determined to win the war at all cost, even if that means bloodying his hands and going against the Jedi Code. Every imperial that he kills is one less imperial he has to fight later. The best way to enjoy the story is by turning off the alignment and pick the option that makes most sense to you (or your character's personality, if you roleplay). Not every LS choice makes sense either; a mission from Taris that I vividly remember most has you choosing between saving a NPC, or a datacron that contains cure for a deadly disease. Many would be tempted to save the NPC (LS choice) but logically speaking saving the datacron would be more beneficial in the long run. Just one example that sticking 100% to an alignment may not be the best approach story-wise.

It's been awhile since I did both, but afaik the bosses you mentioned shouldn't be able to kill you so easily, assuming that you are properly geared as tank and maintaining your defensive buffs. Did you kill Officer Xander before you kill the big robot in Cademimu? If you did, it would cause Xander to enrage and deal 200% damage. Possibly that was the cause of your death. Can't remember anything in Athiss that could've killed a tank so easily though... Maybe adds were hammering you and burned your Kinetic Ward, and causing huge spike that healer couldn't cope with? Unfortunately I can't give much advice unless you tell me more.

Top tier content is always about 100% execution of mechanic. You simply cannot brute force your way through it, not even being overleveled and overgeared can save you from mechanic that is designed to wipe the group if not executed properly. Most of the mechanics in HM/Nim are already present in SM, but taken up to eleven and buffed so groups have no choice but to deal with them. I still see people dying to being Doomed in SM TfB. Level 60 and wearing 192/198. Most pugs can clear all SM content, but HM and NiM require coordination. It's simply something that you won't see much in a group of strangers.

I'm pretty sure 172/178 is overgeared for L55 HMFPs. What are you struggling with? Keeping aggro, surviving fights? L55 HMFPs have some oneshot mechanic, someone in the group could've messed up and cause a wipe. Deaths in HMFPs is not necessarily a tanking issue. It's entirely possible that you could've been grouped with healers who couldn't handle the damage, or had a lot of derp moments.