What level is your companion? Master Mode chapters were basically intended to be completed by players in top gear with level 50 companions (this was before the first nerf to companion heals and the second nerf to companion heals). Many of the chapters force you to use specific companions (theron, lana, koth and senya mostly) which means you have to level a lot of them to 50. However, I don't really know if they're still doable on Master Mode now that companion heals have been nerfed so much and boss health and damage has been buffed. If you have alts, remember that you can run these chapters on different characters depending on their abilities. For example, there's one fight against two overseers (in the chapter with Kaliyo, another companion to level, lol) where you can really only pass it with a character that can stun one of the two while you fight the other (Sorcerer, Operative, Shadow). Let us know how your progress goes! Also, if you just want to do it for the achievements, you can also invite other players into your instance to help you out.

Crit/accuracy and alacrity matter for all LVL 70 capped content, which basically includes all PVE content except for the Corellia flashpoint and DXUN operation. PVP is apparently different, because while bolster can lift low-level players higher, there is no cap to your stats. It's possible for you to have more power or mastery than someone else in PVP. Augments operate under the same principles. Crit/alacrity/accuracy augments can boost your stats in capped content. Basically, if you're really serious about PVP, as in ranked PVP, you probably want to get and augment 2 sets of gear: one for PVP/DXUN/Corellia and another for other PVE content.

Also, crafting professions such as Cybertech can be used to make augment kits, so they're not entirely useless. Artifice can make dyes and color crystals, but can't craft augment kits. Biochem isn't able to craft augment kits either, but can make stims. It's hard to compete on the GTN as a new player (at least long term) selling any of these things, however, because other crafters with an army of alts and large guild benefits can make a larger quantity for far cheaper. Augment kits are an option, and you can make them for yourself, which saves you money. The same thing goes with stims for biochem. Even if you don't sell them on the GTN, you can still use them yourself.

Do you have any links for that? I would love to watch them, because I think that would add a lot to the discussion.

Found it. http://www.swtor.com/community/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=9735252

I should've copied the exact post, but is was during the Reddit Q&A. I'll look for it again in the Dev Tracker. They said that amplifiers would not be taken into account for balancing of any content except for MM operations. I totally hate amplifiers, as far the credit costs, rng, etc. are concerned. It would be different if we're talking about a totally F2P game such as Warframe, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking SWTOR is f2p.

I think you'll find that over the history of the game, the devs have continually taken away power to sell it back to you in some form. I'm sure they wanted to take advantage of 6.2 to make you feel weaker again, because maybe players are starting to stop caring about the gear grind. I suspect they'll also release some new "OP" tacticals and set bonuses in a few weeks, just in time for them to "adjust" the ones that have been "OP" so far.

I actually went back into the Onslaught pre-launch dev threads and whatnot to check. It looks like the devs always said that amplifiers would be taken into account in MM operations. So, basically, unless you're min/maxed with gold amps, you shouldn't be able to complete NiM stuff anyway. That may be one reason for the change. Maybe they saw that players weren't caring enough about amps. They need their carrot to work properly! At least for the small percentage of players who have the time and money to spend on those kinds of runs. I have no idea whether this is a good decision or not, since I stick with Vet runs. I dislike Discord, so NiM obviously isn't for me. One thing I will say is that many MMOs have this struggle between increased rewards for a tiny minority of the players and the rest of the subscribers, and only the devs have the numbers of who's paying the bills around here. The same thing happens with ranked vs unranked pvp discussions. Only your wallet can speak in a way the devs actually care about.

They have to subscribe within the 13 day period. If they subscribe afterwards, you don't get anything.

No, of course tanks require guard, it's part of what being a tank is all about. I'm not even saying that dps need to have guard completely removed or taunt removed, just that it's possible that the recent meta of introducing tacticals may have had too much of an effect. It's something to keep an eye on. The individual I'm speaking with simply refuses to accept that it's physically possible for any ability or any character power to be too strong, or too weak, or a bad idea, which is quite frankly ludicrous to me. That would imply that the devs never make mistakes or release abilities that have unintended consequences, which I think we've seen is totally false. However, I do agree with him on the fact that the devs need to separate PVP changes and PVE changes.

Ah, you're right. My bad. The Hard Mode converter got stuck in a loop.

NVM, I'm noticing that you haven't been around long enough to have experienced what I'm describing, and don't seem have PVPed close to that era either, so it's not worth trying to convince you.

Now it suddenly is (as in 3.0? 4.0?) because the devs made changes to how the class abilities worked. These changes, when not correctly balanced, lead to issues. Or, let me see if I understand what you're saying... the devs should simply invent numbers for everything out of thin air, and no matter what the values are, players should simply adapt? If new abilities are too weak or too powerful, we should just all either dump those abilities or switch to a different class?

Sorry, but l2p doesn't apply when something is actually broken. Healing in PVP was broken during 4.0. There is no question about it. The inability of the devs to separate PVP and PVE changes doesn't mean the players need to learn how to counter an entire team of sorcs that are suddenly unkillable. Sometimes balance changes are necessary, that's the simple fact of life when new abilities are introduced to the game.

Welcome to the new "content." Lol. This happens in every MMO that introduces "customization mechanics." Why actually make raids and operations when you can get people to run the same stuff for exciting new TEXT TOOLTIPS!!!

That's a good idea. I'll have to check out how to do that. I just remembered the one thing I hate more than anything... maybe you've had it happen. Where the person will send you a message asking you for help with a favor ... and then literally three minutes later they send you a "???" because you haven't responded yet. I'm normally a very calm, relaxed individual, but those three question marks just seem soooooo disrespectful? rude? selfish? Not sure what the right term would be. Even worse, they usually don't even phrase the request as a request. "I need you to send me Gerald's phone number ASAP." "???" "???!!" Ah, the cultural collapse of society as we know it. At least we get to have augmented reality.

Lol. One of the reasons I avoid Discord wherever possible. Maybe I'm just too "old," but I tend to be very private when it comes to giving out personal info even remotely related to IRL. I HATE it when a GM invites you to the guild then "pulls you aside" into a group or tells you get into Discord to have a "chat." One guy started saying, "so I'm from Texas, what about you?" "Our guild is mostly adults around 30-40, what about you?" Even if his questions were innocent in nature, it took me all of about 5 seconds to quit that guild, lol. Kind of makes me scared for parents who let their young kids play MMOs without supervision, especially with voice chat.

There were veteran's stacks in Master Mode Ravagers last night. Are you talking about NiM stuff?

Depending on the set, you can get 4 pieces or 6 pieces and you're good to go. You don't need to get the whole set unless you like the way it looks or you want to get an achievement for it. Many players keep a full set of amplified champion gear in their legacy storage to fill in the rest of the slots after you have the bonus you want. Amplified champion gives you extra dps amplifiers to work with.

You have a nice writing style, and a good point. I share a lot of your same pet peeves. I can't stand the way many people equate "has a smartphone" with "must be available to respond instantly to every text I choose to send." It's like the concept of respect and politeness has completely gotten turned on its head. In the past, you thought about the other person before calling - "Is it too late at night? Is the person at work and busy right now?" Calling a 7 a.m. or 11 p.m. was usually considered rude. Now, you're the one who's rude if you don't respond when someone texts you at 11 p.m., lol.

I don't understand what that has to do with anything. Healers were overpowered by far in ... 4.0? They were also just "using class skills." The game is constantly evolving, and these changes can obviously cause some situations that were negligible before to have a much stronger effect. This isn't about premade vs. pug, unless we're not talking about ranked, which I assumed from the 4 person layout. They should all be pugs. It's about only certain classes having a specific ability which may have become too strong in the current meta.

So you preemptively ban players... who aren't in your guild... but who AFK in a GSF match? That's ... interesting. I dislike those individuals, of course, but I think I understand how you reached your limit so quickly.

I just stopped in to say how catchy your thread title is. Very nice flow to it. "What is up... with your DOWN LOAD SPEED?" "I feel like ... it's gonna be the end of meeeeeee!!!!"

x =/= y x = $$$$$

This is absolutely true as well. If they can't balance PVP and PVE separately, they shouldn't have taken on something like set bonuses and tacticals. It's absurd the amount of times PVP affects PVE and vice-versa.