Did some testing regarding the range of Guard threat reduction, and the 5% DR and -25% threat DOES seem to work outside of 15m. So, color me very happy to be wrong about that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. The threat thing though, yeah, I remember very clearly reading Georg's explanation of threat as that thing I wrote a few posts up. Sadly the search function is failing to locate that post, so I'm not sure how I'll be able to cite it directly.

It's very easy to lose aggro to the dps on Stormcaller during the first double destruction. The fact that you're not tank swapping to let the tanks build aggro off of one another is going to hurt you a bit, but you should be able to get around it by blowing your area taunt at the beginning of the double destruction cast. I'm not sure how well it'll work for you without the full tank swap, but the taunt should hold long enough for the dd to go off and let you get back to building threat. If it doesn't work then hold the taunt until dps rips and taunt it right back for a bigger threat boost, but the risk you run there is timing; if the aggro rip happens right when an electric discharge fires then the taunt will be too little, too late. I'm a big fan of full tank swapping on this one.

Thanks for the link, Dartmoose. There was discussion a while back with the lead combat designer wherein he clarified how threat works. The reason taunts, as described above, give you 110% or 130% of current threat are because taunts trump the current threat leader by setting the taunter's threat total to enough to put them at the top of the threat table, which is +10% for melee and +30% for ranged. This is not a taunt-only thing, but it does work that way because you can trump yourself as the current threat leader to get the boost. [second paragraph redacted for a full and thorough reading of Dartmoose's link] There's the guard 15m range limit for you.

Threat generation itself does not have a range, but the threshold of threat needed to rip aggro does. If you are within melee range(4m or less) of the target you will rip aggro once you have 10% MORE threat than the current aggro-holder. If you are outside melee range you will rip once you have 30% higher threat. Regarding Guard, I believe it has a 15m range meaning that neither the 5% reduced damage nor 25% reduced threat will kick in if your guard target is more than 15m away from you. You can apply it out to 30m, but it doesn't do anything if they are farther than 15m. Guard only helps with melee dps on this fight. As was previously mentioned ranged should be far enough back that guard won't help them, and I concur that you are simply losing threat to the ranged dps around the time of the jump. Use your area taunt in the midst of the time between jumps to get a threat boost and be absolutely certain to save your single taunt to get the correct drouk onto you after the jump.

Many armor pieces have some kind of lighting effect on them, and I thought it would be cool to be able to use color crystals to change the color of those effects. The match to chestpiece option is great for keeping your armor unified to a theme, but the lighting effects often damage that by having a chest piece with a blue light, a helmet with purple, and gloves with red. It could be set up to disregard the stat bonuses on the crystals to avoid suddenly making armor with lights or glow that much more desirable for the bonus.

I can tell you the helmet for sure: It's the Ciridium Onslaught Helmet from the Corellia heroic, Wookiee Revolt.

The LR-5 droid incinerates in a predictable pattern. Sadly I don't have solid numbers for you, but I believe it's something like incinerate>plasma arc>plasma arc>incinerate. There will be other things thrown in from time to time such as his experimental cannon channel, but as you do this fight more keep an eye on the order of his ability casts. Once you learn to anticipate the incinerates you can very reliably interrupt them without getting a single stack. As far as Toth and Zorn go I'd need to know more about which mechanics are getting you to offer any specific advice.

I find using the GTN to be heavily blocked by its core design, specifically speaking to the length of time we're allowed to list items, and the manner in which the GTN takes its cut from sales. The current setup forces the seller to pony up the fee and only allows items to be listed for 2 days, after which time the item bounces from the GTN and comes back to the mailbox in its own separate message from any other items that expire. This is very time consuming and annoying to manage if we want to re-list these items. Three changes would make the GTN easier to use, would promote more GTN commerce, and would improve the credit sink function that the GTN fee is supposed to create. 1) Allow a longer list period. This makes it more likely that the items we have up for sale will be noticed by interested partied and subequently purchased. A week wouldn't be out of the question. 2) Make expired consignments simply go inactive so that they don't appear in searches, but allow them to remain "in" the GTN until reactivated by the seller so they appear for sale again. 3) Remove the deposit required to list items, and add a simple markup to the list price, say 20% for same faction GTN, 40% for neutral(or whatever numbers the metrics support as sufficient). When a purchase is made the seller gets the credits they listed the item for, and the markup is simply removed from the system as a "brokerage fee." By putting the responsibility for the fee on the buyer it allows sellers to be able to list more items, particularly large-ticket items, which can be listed for longer periods of time and if they lapse they can be more easily re-listed. You need items up on the GTN to sell them, and the current setup is a huge pain with regards to keeping things stocked.

So I had a few characters who had started but not completed the First Strike arc of missions on Ilum run into an issue where the entire thing reset. I had to pick up First Strike from the droid on the fleet again and do it all over. Until I did the dailies reset to their pre-mission status. Check to see if you can get First Strike, or if you have it incomplete in your mission log.

Implied targeting. Allow hostile actions to take effect on a hostile target of my friendly target, and allow friendly actions to take effect on a friendly target of my hostile target rather than defaulting to self.

Are there any plans to allow custom versions of non-custom schematics to be created? For instance, I'd love a suit of powered ultramesh armor for my Powertech, but the closest I've seen available in custom armors all have... less than ideal color schemes.

Will you give us some clarification on threat mechanics? Specifically: Is there a threat component to all abilities separate from damage dealt? How does, for instance, Grapple for Powertechs work as it says it generates a large amount of threat? How do stuns/debuffs stack up against damage as far as threat generation? Thanks for giving us this opportunity to get some direct feedback, it's a really excellent weekly feature.

In case this hasn't been answered for you yet you can rip the enhancements out of Rakata/Columi gloves and helmets(and maybe also boots? Can't remember at the moment) and slot them into the other pieces. I've done that a few times when I run across a duplicate piece to keep my shield rating boosted.

Powertech tank, I have this issue repeatedly when guarding a Sith Sorcerer. It crops up when the Sorcerer dies(even if it's a wipe and everyone dies), but sadly it doesn't happen every single time so I can't give you all the variables. It's happened on just about every planet, in flashpoints, warzones, pretty much everywhere.

What's your spec? As a shieldtech I do not apply any dots of any kind with flame sweep, flame burst, or flamethrower. Flame burst and sweep both apply a damage debuff, but no additional damage effects.