I gotta agree with the "just don't use the second combat style then" comments. I get where you are coming from, it would be nice if they were separate, but I genuinely don't see a real problem.

Yknow those giant turrets at the end of the train segment? Designed to be unkillable and force you to drop down? Yeah they still pull no matter what. And since you can't exit combat in stealth anymore, it softlocks you in the FP. Doomed to /stuck or jump off the side and keep trying to click the door until you give up and leave the FP. Gotta fix those turrets.

I think this is related to scaling. Sorry if it's been mentioned already, but why do stats like accuracy, crit, and alacrity scale down when you go to lowbie planets? I have a full set of 322 gear, accuracy is at 109% on fleet, and drops to 104% on Nar Shadaa for example. If there are three stats that should never be scaled, it's alacrity, crit, and ESPECIALLY accuracy.

I'm a combat sent main of about 8 years now. That level 73 choice irks me a ton. I use each and every one of those abilities on live right now. Nuking 2 of them from my versatility is a HUGE change that negatively impacts the experience of the combat style. And not having Fanged God Form hurts a TON. The critical chance portion was built into Valor Blade at 43, but the resource management was HUGE for that. And The level 27 choice also feels bare bones. Driving lance's extra range REALLY isn't needed since, yknow, we're a melee class, and while Zen Lance seems like a fantastic buff on paper, you run out of focus WAY too quickly to get any real use out of it or working your rotation around it. It isn't like the adrenaline boost item you get on Uprisings. And the balancing of this ability is more frustrating than helpful imo. So, what changes do I think need to be made to fix this? Put Fanged God Form back. And Descent of the Fearless bonus has to show up somewhere. (Unsure if it already does or not because gearing in a short term for PTS feedback is a pain). Fix the level 73 options. Those are all 3 heavily useful options and making us pick between them is lame. We need Guarded by the Force for the extra defense for some mechanics in Ops and PvP, and even heroics and some harder solo fights. We need our class stun. And while we don't need Blade Blitz and I honestly hated it when it came out, I've grown to appreciate it's usefulness in versatility and mobility. It does come in handy. It does feel like part of the Sentinel's options. So removing it now of all times feels unwarranted and frustrating. I feel like the devs making these decisions are playing a COMPLETELY different form of combat than the majority of the playerbase on live. Playing your discipline and combat style should feel rewarding, it should feel like that class, and the current state of the PTS continues to demonstrate that the dev team has no clue what this is, despite new players finding this groove on live fairly easily.

Source: https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20210806

Medicine Operative has been my secondary for nearly as long as I've been playing. Most of the changes, unlike other disciplines and combat styles, are actually fine. But I do have some issues. The level 15 and 30 passives are what I was expecting for everything, and the type of changes I do want to see. It expands our options. That's always a good thing. Ability pruning goes against this. When I watched the live stream for the announcement, these are the types of choices I expected to be making in my ability tree. This is what I want! Level 20 potentially has you lose your class stun, that's such an important ability. Not for bosses, but ads, normal single player content, and flashpoints with lots of trash mobs especially. The class stun should be available on every discipline. Level 35, I'm honestly okay with having to give up Tactical Overdrive for a passive. That's perfectly fine. This ability always was more used for the passive boosts for me than the CD resets. The level 50 passive choice are all 3 important utilities I always have on me on the live server. All 3 of these are extremely critical to survivability, The level 60 passive is kinda in the same vain as 50, but I'm okay with having to pick between these. Still, I know I use at least 2 of these passives on Live right now. Giving up one, again, is a huge nerf. Leading into level 70, which again, I use all 3 of these abilities frequently and regularly. And now we have to lose 2 of them? Ability pruning is once again nerfing every class to the ground. Level 80 passive choices are fine. No complaints there. But where is my raid buff??? Even as a healing class the raid buff is super useful and removing it, once again, is a HUGE NERF. So far, Medicine Operative is the least affected by the ability pruning but it's still hit quite substantially. As I have in every single PTS feedback for 7.0, I beg you to do a full reverse on ability pruning. Options are fantastic. And outside of 1 or 2 abilities per class (most meant for PVP), I use all of my actives. Taking away our options on how to react in a situation is not a good strategy. Many players have been comparing these changes to the NGE that helped nail the coffin in Star Wars Galaxies. I get that you want people to understand the correlation between passives and actives and rotation easier. But honestly, I don't think many classes need this. There are disciplines out there that I am not fantastic with. But even with my limited understanding, I can still be effective in SM ops, and even HM ops. And by the time you are doing HM ops, you should be investigating and experimenting with these correlations and effects a ton and have a good understanding of your class. All this ability pruning will do is nerf everyone to the ground, and it doesn't feel fun. And if it isn't fun, why bother? The passive choices at level 15 and 30 are far more in line with what I was expecting from 7.0 combat changes and I beg you to switch your focus to this style over the ability pruning that will kill the game.

deleted, wrong thread;

I think this comment I saw on reddit describes our issue with ability pruning well. "I enjoy the fact that I have abilities to choose from in any given situation. I'm not over-powered by any means, but I have some nice utility that makes me feel not only useful, but grounded in what my character is" Choice. We want the choice to fit any situation. Each ability has it's use. Forcing us to chose between being good in one situation and bad in another is awful game design, when we already have the ability to utilize different abilities in different situations. Need to speed on out of the way of some enemies or they are in a line? Blade dash. Need to stealth past this troublesome mob or self cleanse? Force camo. Need to buff your damage during raid buffs? Force clarity. And to add to that, RAID BUFF. Don't make us chose between these situations. Every class and discipline has it's strengths and weaknesses, and these abilities with fair cooldowns help balance their weaknesses for those moments you absolutely need them.

I've been a Carnage Mara/Combat Sent main since I started playing in 2.0. This really feels like I'm going to lose key abilities. Force camo is a huge one that should remain baseline. Force camo is a huge part of the Sentinel build imo and should remain a baseline ability, with similar speed options to what we have now with utilities. Blade Rush is a huge mobility gain. I feel Sents fall into one of two camps, speed/movement based or more stationary options with def/atk bonuses. I personally value the movement options very highly, and Blade Rush is a huge part of that, even with transcendence. The biggest concern is transcendence vs force clarity. Given Descent of the Fearless is the optimal set bonus right now, there's no real choice. Transcendence will simply never get used. (And this is coming from someone who wasn't a fan of force clarity originally). As someone who loves transcendence, this is going to be a massive nerf. I have a feeling that despite your protests, you really don't take PTS feedback into consideration. I'd prefer keeping the same baseline of classes we have now, and adding/tweaking them. We shouldn't have to chose between key active abilities.

red reaper

Oh my god...are we really getting triggered over gender pronouns in this post? I play a **** ton of female toons and get called "her" all the time. I don't even notice 99% of the time. As for Quinn, YES. I ALWAYS WANT TO KILL HIM THERE. I'd say bring back the choice, but now that he's on Iokath...

The only reason I'd want Quesh heroics is for the "Complete Missions on Quesh" daily conquest objective.

A lot of people will only select hammer station when they queue vet mode. It is the fastest FP, and unlike KDY, you get gear and mats from multiple bosses.

Can confirm. They are gone. Why...why remove them? Nothing in patch notes about them. Please be a bug? But if it is a bug, how in the hell did it happen? Was someone really messing around with code in Athiss?

As of 5/17/2020, this bug is still active. You get to retain all your level 75 max stats and one shot grey level 36s. Here's why it's an issue. A majority of the bosses (around 5) don't drop their default/old gear, but they drop your random item. Meaning if you go in with an item rating of 306, you can get more 306 gear (or whatever the cap is for SM fps) for your alts in no time. A full run takes like 10-15 minutes now. And even if you don't have a 306 geared toon, you still get drops that will gear up your armor until you get to that point. So by running it just two to three times, you could have a full 306 set to transfer to an alt. Something thats supposed to take a couple weeks to do. And you just did it in a couple hours. I think this level scaling issue always existed on SM. Even in 5.0. Could be wrong. But while in 5.0 it would've been harmless, because they would only drop the level 36 gear, now, they drop the full level 75 gear.

I have an idea for an ops boss. I imagine this as some kind of spider boss. Boss Lair: Just a large room. No hazards, nothing. Only the main boss is present on engage (no ads). Phase 1: Standard tank and spank. Boss Abilities -Cleave -Small AOE burst that damages anyone within 10m away -Extra DPS taken from Melee attacks (passive) (to balance out the aoe burst and allow different DPS/Heals setups to work) -Spit (random DoT on someone. Does 50% of normal DPS hp on SM, 100% on HM, and instant kills if not cleansed on NiM (200% damage while active)). 10 second DOT. -Screech (stuns entire group for 5 seconds) (which means you or your healer has to save a stun break if you are on NiM, as the spit will kill someone in 5 seconds). Phase 2: Boss is immune to all damage and does nothing for 30 seconds. 10 Ads come out. Phase 2 is triggered at 80%, 60%, and 40%. Boss has 7/5/3 stacks of "Forgiveness." Each ad that dies removes 1 stack of forgiveness. Should Forgiveness be dropped to 0, boss gains "Revenge" stacks that increase it's damage each stack. Now, you have to ensure you leave a certain amount of ads up. Ads are silvers. Ads can Sap (slow down target for 25% total movement, stacks up to 4 times). Phase 3: Once boss is back up, any ads you did not kill will remain up for 30 seconds longer before dying on their own (which doesn't affect boss). This 30 second mark is also when any buffs from "Revenge" pop off of the boss. Phase 4: A final phase triggered at 20% hp on the boss. Any ads alive die at this point, all stacks of Forgiveness/Revenge fall off. Boss screaches and stuns room in prep for final phase, which is just a burn phase. Think Dread Council ending. All movement is slowed on everyone during this phase as well. Small AOEs drop through the room during this phase as well (just red circles randomly). I really think an ops where you have to worry about not killing too many ads would be cool. Challenging, yes. But cool the same. Also, no BS insta-kill mechanics like HM Queen. Enrage timer at 10 minutes. At NiM, should have 10% of hp down around every minute on average in the second to top gear (no augs).

Don't join them. They are indeed Eltists, and are proud of that. They are overall toxic to new players and those trying to learn ops.

Ubercharge seems good for tanks due to the no stun ability, but I never have a need to use a second force leap. This also negates one of the Jugger's utilties making me not pick it even more. Sap will be great for PVP. No downside. Positioning again, seems well for PVP. I don't really use Mad Dash in PVE, but getting out of a tight spot in PVP and getting damage reduction will be great. Blinding Fear seems just like a good passive. Probably more useful in PVP than PVE, but I still see it as a good thing for PVE. Critical Focus will definitely help with wanting more crit than mastery/power on Annhi maras, and just boost Carnage Maras even more. I love it. Vicious Thirst also seems like a great passive that will help when dealing with ads in PVE. Gives more incentive to focus on ads as a single target oriented dps than just focusing the boss while others with their AOE's handle ads. Overall, I think these are great.

The new ability will be great. Will definitely bump the Mara up, especially Carnage (which is currently 3rd worst discipline). I'm thinking between the tactical items, I'll want Hyper. Almost every time I use massacre, I do it 3 GCDs while waiting for my other rotation to go. Depending on the new ability, I can see Always Ferocious working well. Bloody Focus could work well for your PVP carnage mara, adding a DOT. Unstable Focus is the way to go if you want more AOE punch. Like I'd get Unstable Focus right now for VM Queen, but we'll have to see how the new ops will be on ads and AOE. The default mara tacticals, eh. Apex Predator is meh, since you usually have Predation on its "no longer needs 30 stacks of focus/fury" with the self cleanse and reduced cooldown on Force Camo. I also usually use them at the same time, so that's just a 15 second gap it would open up for using Force Camo, based on CD differences. I don't see this one being useful. And Hidden power could be useful if you stay in Force Camo the full time. But I only ever do that if I'm sneaking past a mob, and not fighting them. It's very rare for me to use it full cooldown in a fight, and usually is only when I'm low on HP. Annhi I don't use enough to have an opinion on much. Exterminator seems good, and can help the Annhi Mara in leveling or farming dailies, but I don't see it doing well in MM FPs, Ops, or WB fights. Fury, is *** and I will never touch it. It's a DPS with extra defense really, which as a Mara is an awful combo. Could work as a skank on PT, or Jugg, but not on a Mara.

That's bad game design. I just replayed the entire chapter because of that.

If you pick up the quest from the original quest giver, the cutscene still occurs. If you pick it up from the Heroic Mission Console, it skips it and drops you off at the entrance of the heroic. I think this is fine, as people who typically want to do the heroics for loot will use the console.

I think we all know by now how flawed Tactical 15-65 Flashpoints are. It might be okay if there is a full group (Tank, Healer, 2 dps), but if not, you are beyond screwed. The old tacticals (Forged Alliances/Shadow of Revan) were able to be done with 4dps, 1 tank 3 dps, etc. Now, after being buffed, it can't be done without a full group. There are several options to this. 1) Require groups to be Full. A tank, 2 dps, and a healer. 2) Buffs from level scaling to 65 must be greater. 3) Have high levels scale down to where the original flashpoint level was, and have it so you unlock more flashpoints as you level. Another issue, the complete level 60 tactical mission (which is the only tactical flashpoint mission available for weekly) doesn't count on all flashpoints. It needs to be redefined so all tacticals count, and change it so this quest can be gotten at all levels. Also, bring back Loot Crates in flashpoints. Even if it can't drop gear anymore, make it drop Crystals (comms) or credit boxes. I have yet to see how OPs have been plagued, or HM65. I bet its similar. I love 4.0 story wise, and even am okay with the end content (Heroics, Star Fortress, etc.), but Flashpoint Group Finder and old end game content has been ****ed over.

Thanks for the info. My only concern with Level Scaling is what about in phases? How does this play into effect? Also, how will this affect parsing for DPS and HPS? Does the Combat Log write that your level has been scaled so Parse Programs can interpret this? And I assume tomorrow we will have Group Finder changes? Im curious to hear how you deal with every flashpoint being tactical (10-55) and how SM Ops for things such as Eternity Vault, Explosive Conflict, and Karagga's Palace will work considering that they can be 3 manned on SM currently.

Well, its a good thing Jaesa is okay with sharing (as seen in the Vette v Jaesa decision). Still, I hope we can regain our Vanilla companions, otherwise gearing them will have been wasted and we can no longer do affection with them. Also, will we be able to switch from the pre KOTFE era and the Post KOTFE era then? Each with seperate companions and revisits to worlds? Also, I wasn't sure if it was confirmed for Lana since I couldn't find OP,

So its been discussed that Lana might become a companion for the new expansion. So now, I have some questions. My character is already married, and since that has caused issues pursuing two companions at once (Vette and Jaesa), how will that work? Also, does this mean you don't have you old companions when you start KOTFE and are thawed out of carbonite? Any ideas?