I have just done it, all unlocked basic class companions are still available + I've got a couple of new ones.

Though I agree that sorcs/sages need dps buff not defencives. And I understand that PVP has no joy in it , only pure suffering: people happy with their classes farm UC, pvp forums are meant for the rest. I even understand that posting the full list of possible utilites will always be the best argument in any discussion, even if there's no way to have all of them at once and all know it. But why everyone keeps forgetting that while you are somewhere behind the pillar healing to full you don't dps? If you are standing in force barrier you don't dps. If you are all "sorry, folks, I have to go" with phasewalk you don't dps. Well, you are alive and healed to full for a 3rd time in a row probably... somewhere. Meanwhile other people are playing WZs. Being some kind of cripple semi-healer isn't exactly a golden dream of any dps class and surely isn't "fine".

1. Depends. Common knowledge - atm only the heal spec is worthy. The best healer in game. The most comfortable to play at least for sure. Actually both dps specs are viable for everything but ranked wz and NiM content, but it's not your case for now probably. Lightning is higher burst , no force management issues, more mobile, offhealing is easier. Madness - DoT spec, more sustain, has slightly better damage output - theoretically. Madness is better for PVP due to DoTs and passive selfhealing. You need to try and choose what you like most. 2. http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=8558157&postcount=6 start from here for PVE gearing. In PVE accuracy at 110% is priority for dps. For PVP pretty much the same except accuracy, which you don't need there at all as sorc in either spec. You can invest these free points wherever you like - either add mastery/power or go on with crit and alacrity. 3. 4. http://dulfy.net/2016/12/22/swtor-5-0-class-guides-master-list/ Guides for pve and pvp for every spec. Including gearing, utilities choice for different situations and other useful tips. Pick whatever you like and read, no point to repeat here. -- Things some sorcs/sages tend to forget and guides usually don't mention: PVE 1. You are not tank. For example, if you are doing some endgame pve content and going to open up on a large group of heavyhitting trash with recklesness+force storm, make sure 1) force barrier is off cooldown; 2) tank is nearby and friendly. 2. Using Overload on cooldown is mostly a bad idea even if it seems cool-looking. PVP You are still not tank. LoS, kite, heal yourself, never try to facetank anything. Any content. The most pathetic sight is some dark lord spamming Force Storm on a lonely enemy. Even if it looks cooler than Overload. -- Solo content (except veteran and master mode story chapters) If you have your companion with you it's possible to do it with saber strike attacks only and be fine.

Reminds me. Manaan aswell, back in 4.0. Jugg 65, I am on my sniper (veeeeeery noob sniper atm I must admit since I've never played that advanced class before that), tank assasin (dps with tank icon next to his name) and level 15 sorc. Ortuno. 1st try. Ortuno's immediately at me, I'm waiting for tank to taunt it off, which never happens, dead, others - dead because of adds and boss combined a half minute later. 2nd try. Ortuno's immediately at me, I'm waiting for tank to taunt it off, which never happens, chasing koltos, desperately rolling through my cds, dead, others - dead because of adds and boss combined a half minute after. 3rd try = 2nd try, we last a bit longer though. Frustrated-me to sin: Shouldn't u keep aggro, at least for a while? Sin: Pfff, do I look like a tank to u? Me, looking at his gf icon: U surely do! Whatever. But then sin starts a vote kick for a sorc. Reason - sorc's level, ofc. I'm arguing with him, since sorc recently stopped dying to "Flow" and started to hit koltos and thus became more useful than sin, in my eyes at least. Sin insists, I vote to kick him. Forever silent jugg does his silent choice: vote to kick sorc is confirmed. Me: >_< Sin: LOL... Vote to kick sin is confirmed <-- silent jugg turned to be an agreeable guy. Sorc: LOL! Both leave at the same time. Well. We pulled out companions (mine had the highest level of influence - ship droid level 8) and completed it with minor troubles to put comps on and off passive mode. I'm still sure it'd be easier with sorc running around and hitting koltos (doesn't require BiS gear or top level).

In my experience there are always too many skills untill you've learned your class/spec. Then everything is just where it should be and have it's uses. even if some of them are situational. Also I'd like to see what people consider overlaping abilities. Not that I gave a lot of thought to it but nothing comes to mind right now.

Veteran mode fp for daily reward. Sin and sorc from the same guild, me and lvl 33 mara. After the first boss sorc voted to kick mara. Reason: ugly gear. It failed , so I decided "well, very bad joke, but at least his guildy declined it". Ten seconds later sin voted to kick that mara. Reason " ugly gear 2". Me -> o.O Mara was kicked. Asked "why?", got the answer " Next time wear better gear. I left fp after that , put both on ignore. I have no idea what mara was wearing, pretty sure though it wasn't body type 4 male character in pink Nar Shaddaa slave outfit , but even if it was who cares. The only ugly thing there was the situation itself.

It was the last boss of Cademimu with no mechanics involved. And since I've already used even combat stealth to drop aggro It would be plain stupid to taunt boss back. Thanks for sharing information about you being a responsible player though

^ this What's any good reason why on tactical with 4 dps my half-geared infiltration shadow should taunt boss off overgeared gunslinger (not dying, full health bar)? And I was demanded to do it actually? When gunslinger can sit happy there doing damage and relying on his cd-s and all my defencives are already on cooldown including combat stealth and it's simply not comfortable without being able to use maul (can't remember rep name for ability). The only thing I can imagine it's because I have taunt.

Hope you or Raansu have screenshots with these numbers, preferably the ones where fight was longer than 5 seconds ^_^

Have done it several times since 4.0. Couple of times it went without any issues, one time we were just persistent enough - you can do damage occasionally, so group ready to spend 5 minutes working on rotation on the immune droid will succeed eventually Every time I happened to heal it, so not absolutely sure, but i believe that attacking shielded droids (with reflective shield) doesn't kill you, it's just some (not very impressive) damage + knockback.

I was the weird one. Needed one more hm fp to finally finish weekly. It popped , I logged in only to find out that it was Directive 7, the group screwed up mechanics on 3 droids boss, so they had one left alive with shield on (tbh i have a very faint understanding of how it works myself, but whatever), and right when I ran to them they decided to /stuck it and start again, cursing developers and bugs. Well, repair cost is 9k+ , so I told them it was not a bug. but mechanic and that I was not a fan of repair bills and left the group. Pretty sure they were calling me names through those 30 seconds, though I didn't recognize the language.

Shadows. Being asked to cc mob, they go to it, straight to it, 0 metres range, unstealthed! right to it! And then they cast "force lift", little brave shadows, through all pushbacks and damage they are taken. First time I thought it was a unique person, new to the game or class, but no. Probably a new trend. If i ever see it again I'll find a very dark corner and cry myself to sleep there.

:/ Oh, thank you. My bad here, the lowest level toon I had since 4.0 was at 19. Doesn't change a lot though.

GF is lvl 10-65

Actually would be nice of new players to give info they are new, as it was told before a billion times. The hardest fp mechanic can be easily described in a few sentences... at least the things one needs to survive and succeed. But no explanation can teach you your rotation and to use defensives and, of course, it can't make up for the lack of abilities. TBH... Though I still believe that lvl11 toon has nothing to do with Blood hunt or Manaan - doesn't matter newbie or pro, sometimes i think the idea wasn't that bad... I'll bless the day when an average pug player starts using an interrupt. Also an average pug player spams chat with "skipskip" and "gogo", always goes straight to boss/golden mob (if dps. Sorc/sage, dps and healers both, prefer to open with aoe on the whole pack and melt) ignoring everything else (shooting them), generally can't be bothered with adds and dies in seconds. Maybe repair bills reborn will help with l2p? Or even learn-to-think?

LOL. Thanx, man, really. So much whining, omg xD

Maelstrom prison. 4 dps 3 lvl 30-45 and my shadow lvl 65. 3 of them are about 60k hp, shadow - 77k hp. Bonus boss. Scoundrel is offhealing, I use adrenal for a bit higher dps, I use dcd, i use battle readiness, i use medpack, but i'm dead when boss is on 30k hp still. All the rest are dead by that time already ofc. One of the other guys is leaving instantly, I summon influence lvl 21 shipdroid, no issues till the very end of fp. Final boss? Easy. Manaan. 1st boss. Level 37 healer is eaten alive by boss. I dn't aggro boss because i'm on sniper and i have yet to survive 2 droids hanging on me. Healer requires someone to "tank" to let him heal, gets no answer and leaves. Shipdroid with lvl 12 influence makes Ortuno and final boss easy. The same as when we wiped endlessly on Ortuno till 2 people left (kicking each other, lol. The third guy was polite I guess and confrimed both requests). 2 dps + 2 healing comps (max influence level was 8. or even 6) finished fp easily. I'd say it either should be doable for 4 dps of low level or should start only with trinity group.

When you get teleported in you are instantly wrapped in bubble which prevents you from taking any damage (you probably can't move though but you can't hurt yourself this way so be greatful) and you are watching some ugly droid doing your quest.

"Hardmode" can be easily done with players who have no clue. And no gear (well. they have storymode gear... from previous expansion, lol), but it drops best pve gear in game. NiM maybe drops it while requires more afford and skill. The most stupid thing I've ever read on this forum. Probably next patch tacticals will start dropping 228 and ranked warzones - MAYBE a few comms. Isn't it the same logic?

It's not. 90% of healing required depends on your group. If people stand in AOE, tank doesn't taunt back asap after push and (my favourite part) everyone runs like f chicken placing circles on other people, the amount is insane indeed, but it has nothing to do with fight difficulty, DPS who use defensives if dropping low while healer is focused on tank or just sucks are rare like gems aswell. Same about BH HM. I remember we managed to do it in 3.0 prenerf with 3 guardians and sage healer in comms dps gear. And i've seen quite a few "furballs" enraging at 50% even after nerf. Actually tried it twice in 4.0 1st try: me - 4.9 dps, not even close, the other dps being asked about dps silently left :/ 2nd try: me - frantically healing through all aoe's and electronets. boss enrages at 70% Guildies are all about raiding and 224 rating loot so no chance to get them in and try to do it. /sigh

It does (as absorb): for you - always. Also for any group member who currently is in your raid group in parsec. It counts operatives'/snipers' defense screen or slingers' ballistic shields the same way

Done it with pug. No video though and it took us about 2 hours (we had no clue about tactics and figured it out step by step) but we made it. Dps were average pug dps - we hit enrage a couple of times here and there and were not even close on bonus boss, tank - above average. And I healed it on hm/nim geared sage and pulled about 8k ehps on that jumping beast (those are numbers without bubbles absorb). Could probably heal it in pvp set but highly doubt about comms 208 gear :/ BTW bonus boss has 2 m 30 sec enrage timer and half the time you run avoiding icicles. Again i highly doubt that average pug dps can do it.

Happened a week ago. Someone calls for healer for ops. I decide why not, join the group. I'm the last one, group is ful now, we are about to go (ops is not in gf). The raid leader asks how he finds that ops, then says he's going to bed and leaves the group :/

If he wiped the raid multiple times, why didn't you kicked him out? Fluff dps and failing mechanics are enough reasons, not to mention being a dick generally. No offence but you, guys, are being weird to tolerate this for so long.

Decided to gear up merc for pvp, but i needed comms so i did some unranked on sage-healer. It was Voidstar, and i'm totally rusty because since 4.0 was focused on pve. I had ****** positioning, kept forgetting about phase walk and increased cd of force-speed hurts a lot, so i ended up standing in the middle of the open place and healing. Freecasting actually. Because guess what? THE ONLY enemy player who tried to shut down a healer was some jugg. Sometimes (!) a sin went to me, hit a couple of times and went away (!). Not a single interrupt on core abilities. =/ DPS, pls, stop complaining and learn to play.