Well, they could open up server transfers, for a start. I would love to play SWTOR on a server with decent ping for the first time ever, but at the same time I'm sure as hell not starting over again either. If they don't offer cheap mass transferal for people located in the APAC region, then I'm just not going to bother with it, I'm not spending an arm and a leg shifting all/most of my toons over this late in the game's lifespan. Personally, I'm of the opinion an APAC server should have been created back when they ninja'd the West Coast servers over to the East Coast without telling anyone beforehand, but it wasn't and now I think it's too little too late. That debacle, combined with the slow decline of the playerbase throughout 6.0 and 7.0, means there likely isn't enough APAC people left to bother with the new server, doubly so if using it is going to be a hassle because 'hurr durr muh economy herpity derp fresh start', to say nothing of the effect it might have on Satele's already dwindling playerbase. Would also be nice if they'd release some actual content to do instead of rehashing the gear grind every damn expansion. This thing with Malgus has been dragged out since Ossus, however many years ago that was now, and the Mandalorion faffing around is just as bad. Why would anyone come back when nothing much has happened in several years? What's the point in returning to the game when they completely ignore PTS feedback and release expacs full of grossly unpopular changes?

Unless it's a gunship, in which case you should absolutely go off sat to kill it, because either it will reposition for a clear shot at you, spam Ion at the node, or something else will come along and flush you out and the gunship will nail you while you're distracted. I'd also argue bombers are sometimes worth going off node to kill, because having one (or more) roll in unopposed and start dropping mines/drones everywhere is a recipe for disaster, unless you have EMP on hand or the bomber is yolo'ing around by itself, in which case you can sit and wait for it.

Kinda depends on the match type, and what ship/components you're using. Though if you're new and don't have fully upgraded (or close to it) ships yet, I'd recommend staying away from fighting gunships for the time being. Keep in mind they have a firing range of 15km, so try to monitor the positions of enemy gunships if you can and stay out of their range. Bit of an acquired skill, but match/map awareness is a big part of not getting hit by them. If you are going to take a dig at them, don't approach them head-on unless you absolutely have to, that typically doesn't end well. That's not to say it can't be done, but it generally isn't a good idea, unless there's a sizable discrepancy between you and them in terms of skill/components. Try to come at them from the sides, behind, above or below, which will typically force them to start moving away. Chasing them off can be a victory in itself even if you don't kill them, the time it takes them to run away, regen their engine power, then move back into position is time they aren't spending shooting at your team. Running full sensor dampening can help get closer without being spotted, and this ties into the previous point about approaching from an angle. Try to pick a path around the enemy team to evade detection, sit at about 20km from your target to regen your engine power (in cover if possible), then boost in from 18km or so to attack. Also worth checking the map/tabbing through the closest targets before beginning your attack run just to make sure no-one is lining you up in return. Try to work out an escape vector as well, so you can bail quickly when you need to. Weapons with good burst tend to be the best choice for attacking gunships, because you may not have time to wear them down with anything else. Burst Lasers + Rocket Pods on the Sting/Flashfire are a safe bet, as is the Ion/Quad Laser + Heavy Laser combo on the Rycer/Starguard. If you're using missiles, try to hold off locking them until you've starting shooting at them, starting the lock at max range only serves to tip them off that they're about to be attacked, though if you're running something like the Blackbolt/Novadive with EMP and Thermite Torps you can sometimes get away with it. Having damage boosting abilities equipped also helps to maximize your burst window. If you're having trouble with the gunship running off before you can kill it, then movement/energy inhibiting abilities might also be useful. And if it's TDM, the engine recharge & damage overcharge powerups are rather handy if you can grab them. As for their team covering them, there's not much you can do about that except try to co-ordinate your own team-mates in response. Good luck with that though. Ultimately, if you want to hit gunships you have to pick your moment, which comes with practice and experience. Watch the map and keep an eye on where everyone is, if you can get around or through their lines to attack, fantastic, but if not then it's best to hang back out of their range and try to support your team instead. Having said that, they are usually easier to get at in Domination than TDM, given the more spread out nature of the fighting. Attempting to get at them in the Giant Blob of Cancerous Stupidity that is 12v12 TDM is an exercise in futility and frustration, so I wouldn't even bother in that case, it's not worth the hassle of spending all match getting chased around by a gaggle of insufferable dingleberries in Strike Fighters holding down their right mouse buttons.

Yeah, I've been trying out the Bypass/shield piercing/hull damage combo over the last few days, and I'd agree, it's quite good, but Wingman edges it out. I'll probably stick with Bypass Pub-side though, and run Wingman Imp-side. just because of Crew choices. I've discovered in recent times that I quite like running BO with Light's, can do some horrific damage in a hurry if kept on target. Using Light's kinda defeats the point of playing battlescout in the first place, but I tend to get more consistent results out of Light's compared to Burst's anyway, so it doesn't worry me. After playing with Quad's and Pods a bit more I have to agree, not worth the hassle, feels too restricted in what it can do. Think I'll stick with Burst's + TT or Light's + BO. Cheers for your input, 'tis appreciated

1. A balance pass for 7.0. Doesn't need to be any grand, sweeping changes, just tweaks to a few things. Some bug fixing wouldn't go astray either, primarily the component de-select bug. Happens to my blasters all the time. 2. Fix the damn matchmaking. If I've seen all/most of the inexperienced players get put on one team once, I've seen it a thousand times, and I'm really sick of it. It only leads to one-sided stomps, it's a waste of everyone's time, and I can only imagine how discouraging it is to newer players. I don't expect every team to be perfectly balanced or anything, but it would be nice to have closer matches more often. 3. New maps, new modes, a better tutorial for new players, Nodaro's idea about decoupling copilots from abilities would be cool too. Be nice to just select whichever passives you want, which copilot you want, and which ability you want. 3: Replace Battle Over Iokath with something fun. FTFY, no need to thank me

Think I know who you're talking about, does his toon name start with P? If so, I've started avoiding playing on Star Forge entirely because of him. Doesn't matter so much in Dom, but his constant SD'ing just ruins TDM's, he seems to rack up 20+ every game. I was in a match with him a couple of days ago, which wasn't helped by the fact the matchmaker had done it's usual trick of putting most of the inexperienced players on one team, and between the lopsided teams and his self-destructing we were losing 30-something to about 5 or 6 within a few minutes, at which point I left the match. That was the last straw for me, I'm sticking to Satele Shan for a while.

Some more thoughts. Been playing around with Laser Cannons and Ion Missiles a bit, and I think Rama is right about them not being terrible, but not particularly good either. They do the job, but why take them over anything else? I'd suggest reducing the LC's tracking penalty slightly, but I can't come up with much else that doesn't turn them into something that already exists. As for Ion's, I keep coming back to the idea of locking the shield ability/severely inhibiting shield regen for a few seconds, or maybe marginally increasing their firing angle/decreasing their lock time to make them more useful within blaster range. Other than that, I don't know. Bursts: The shield piercing choice seems too low to be useful in contrast to the other option's reduced tracking penalty. Though I know making it higher would be a bit absurd given a) how much damage Burst's can potentially do and b) they already have AP, so I don't think I'd advocate buffing it. Is there something more useful that could go here instead, or am I missing something? Guess it might work in conjunction with Bypass, but Wingman has better uptime. Rocket Pods: So obviously I was wrong with my earlier post about choice 2 being a no-brainer, but now choice 1 is bugging me. A firing arc buff to a weapon with massive tracking penalties seems very out of place (though I suppose it could have some niche use against sat turrets), and extra ammo is quite handy considering how fast you can go through the stuff. Would the firing arc option be better off turfed for something else, or massively buffed so it actually does something? Blaster Overcharge: Nothing inherently wrong with this one, and I do use it sometimes for something different, but the higher uptime + accuracy of TT seems to pretty well relegate BO to second place. Worth tweaking a bit, or leave it the way it is? Quick-charge Shields: The combo of strong shield regen + decent uptime/low cooldown makes QCS very useful, but I wonder is it maybe a bit too good? Also, am I correct in assuming the 'engine power recently used' bit is a bug and shouldn't be there? Directional Shields: How useful is DS? I've tried it out a few times on Bombers, and it hasn't really blown me away. The cycling trick to even out shields after one side has gone down can be handy, and it does a reasonable job of facetanking most blaster fire set fore in F2 mode, but beyond that, it seems a tad underwhelming. Also annoying that it cycles even > aft > fore instead of even > fore > aft, but that might just be me. Overcharge Shield: Pretty rare that I see anyone using this, and I recall seeing a couple of posts around here somewhere alluding to it not being that great as well. Ran it on one of my Bombers for a while and it did feel a bit average. Strong damage will still bring shields down, piledriving T1F's especially, and yet it takes forever to regen it again. Does have decent uptime in it's favour, but with slow as molasses regen, what's the point? Drones: The survivability buffs don't strike me as being all that good, in my experience if someone is shooting at a drone it's going to die regardless. I wouldn't advocate for huge buffs or anything, especially on the longer range drones, but it'd be nice if the extra DR/health/shields did more than just delay the drone's death by 1 second. It's a choice on the Interdiction Drone, but why take a small amount of extra DR/health when you can take the option for 2 drones instead? Similar story with the Hyperspace Beacon, why take survivability for something that should be out of the way and not getting shot at over a speed boost? Copilot Abilities: The idea of unhitching copilots from abilities was mentioned in thread recently, which I'm all for. Would be nice to have the copilot & ability of choice rather than taking/not taking certain crew members with the passives you want to get whichever copilot you need. So that got me thinking, do the copilot skills need looking at? Wingman is an obvious standout, it's very very useful, and probably Running Interference as well. Hydrospanner is also quite handy, of course. The others all have varying degrees of usefulness, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. Lingering Effect seems a bit weak though, 200 dmg over a long-ish time period seems a bit pointless, unless it serves some other purpose I'm not aware of, and Nullify is relegated to the bottom of the barrel by AP proliferation. Lastly, a battlescout question. Is there much use for Quad's + Pods apart from jousting & popping Gunships? I tried it out for a bit and didn't really like it, although I did manage to nail Roland with them in a Lost Shipyards Dom match while he was in a Gunship, which I was very pleased with. The smaller (relative to Burst's & Light's) firing arc plus the higher tracking penalty feels quite restrictive when it comes to dogfighting around Sats, which is what I mostly do in the battlescout, I'm not a big fan of jousting.

Fair call, I can appreciate not wanting more CC, don't want GSF going the way of ground PVP with slows/stuns all over the place. Great when cc's are on your target, not so great when they're on you every 5 seconds. Yeah, that's true, I get where you're coming from. I could probably come to enjoy 12v12 more, or dislike it less, if I put some time into flying ships more suited to it, but those tend to be ships I'm not fond of. As I mentioned further up somewhere I mostly fly Scouts, which generally isn't so bad in objectives, but I find trying to fly a Scout into a giant blob/wall of Strikes and Gunships backed up by a couple of Bombers is just an exercise in futility. Can't get anywhere near the Gunships or Bombers without being chased around by the half-dozen Strikes that are always nearby, and trying to dogfight with the Strikes is equally pointless. Or maybe I just need some more practice, dunno. I'm with you on the Kuat B thing, that's always a fun place for a dogfight, zipping around all the beams and girders. Got a question for Drak while I'm thinking of it. I was a reading some threads a few pages back, and one about testing sensor ranges in custom maps caught my eye. You mentioned there that all ships have a minimum sensor range of 15000 they can always see at regardless of dampening, and that the Sensor Focus passive actually gives +5000 instead of the listed +3500. Do both of these still hold true? If so, I'm slightly miffed that dampening is getting shafted by that 15000 min range. I usually run full damp on my ships that can run it, but I may swap out the +sensor range/+dampening crew member I normally use for +sensor focus/+comm range instead, and just keep dampening on the sensor component.

Bit of a shame, that. Hopefully they get jazzed up a bit if Bioware ever do another GSF balance pass. Now this is quite interesting, I didn't realize the rocket dot functioned that way, I'd never looked very closely at it. Makes sense though now that I think about it, given that player dots in this game generally don't stack. I hadn't really considered accuracy in regards to the range increase either, that's quite a good point, gives me a few things to think about. Cheers for posting that, good stuff. I agree on not wanting it to become meta/replacing Protorps, and I still think a small lock decrease wouldn't push it that far given the skill required to land it and finish off the target, but fair enough, if people aren't keen on changing it I'm cool with that. Yeah, that's my main issue with it, the ship carrying it loses a tad too much ability to contribute much else, not very ideal for Scouts. That's why I was thinking a Bomber instead, they're parked on nodes anyway and they generally don't have much in the way of missile breakers either (depending on what exactly they're equipped with), so the increased lock time debuff would benefit them. The T2&3's are typically carrying around Hyperspace Beacons/Repair Drones, but the T1 doesn't have anything particularly special, so maybe it could carry SB's? Yep, kinda seems like an answer in search of a question. I do like Rama's take on it, though. Agreed, the question is how? Adding more slows is a bit oppressive, and while I like inhibiting shields further + locking out the shield ability for a bit, or even locking the co-pilot ability just for giggles, I can't really come up with much else. I might have to play around with them for a bit. Agreed, which is why I settled on the T3 Scout. Would give it some more utility than just Tensor, and Scouts aren't always the easiest things to fly either, so I think that would help keep it in check. Well that's a bummer, making AP all or nothing is a very odd design choice. My reply to Rama's post covered the torp bits. You are now my new best friend, I despise 12v12's, I'm very glad they've been toned down. I generally don't get them very often on Satele Shan, but they do appear quite a lot on Star Forge, which I'm guessing is just a combination of Galactic Seasons + higher server pop. Certainly did, thank you kindly. I can't think of much else to discuss at the moment, those were all the components that really stood out to me when I was flicking through them, but I'm always up for these kind of discussions. I've been working on personal mods in various games for many years now, so picking through all the assorted info for weapons/armour/abilities/effects etc. is almost always interesting.

Maybe it's just me, but Laser's feel like I'm hitting the target with a wet noodle. I haven't used them recently though, so I might have to try them out some more. I do feel they're a tad expensive to fire for what they do, though. I had a feeling the game engine might be a limiting factor in the proxy fuse idea, bit of a shame but oh well. Actually, that reminds of another bugbear I have, missiles clipping through solid objects once they've been fired. Not very common, but rather annoying. Though I guess if the engine doesn't support proper collision detection there isn't much that can be done about it. Yeah, I've only seen the SB hang around for any length of time once or twice before, and it certainly made a noticeable difference, until our team made a concerted effort to root the damn thing out. Every other time I've seen one they get destroyed just as soon they get placed. I'd like to try them out some more, but they aren't all that useful in TDM and I really don't like giving up EMP/TT/Tensor. Good to know, that's something else I might have to test out. I am partial to sneaking around the backlines in TDM, and running either Speed or Regen on the thrusters is good, but not always quite sufficient for running away from the inevitable gaggle of Strikes which aren't very happy to see me attacking their gunships. Pox on them, I say! I've used it a few times as well, and came to a similar conclusion; it's not terrible, but doesn't do anything spectacular either. If you can catch whoever you just hit with it, there's the potential to trash them with blasters before they run off, but as I mentioned, more often than not they have their Magical Shield Regen button ready and the whole exercise is rendered moot. Thus I think a shield ability lockout might be worthwhile as an addition of some kind. That's a shame, I quite like the IM's but I'm not a massive fan of flying gunships, the playstyle doesn't suit me. Had some good success with the IM's the few times I have flown the T3G, though. Was amusing watching people come charging in at me only to turn around and run once they realized the error they had just made when I started locking them, nailed quite a few with my Bursts that way. Though at that point I might as well just be playing a Scout. Agreed, partial AP would be much better to work with 0 or 100. Seems kind of odd they went with that, especially seeing as various other weapons (ie mines/Concussion Missile) have partial AP. The Spaghetti Code monster strikes again, I guess. As a very roundabout and probably-not-worth-the-effort way of solving this, would it be worth turfing the 100% AP options entirely, and dropping armour values to suit? That way armour could still be useful and the existing low-AP options would continue to function just fine. I get where you're coming from re the Protorp, but considering it can one-shot Scouts and and severely damage any other ship, is low dps/rate of fire really an issue? The AP I don't mind, but I'm not sold on that 100% shield pen, seems excessive. I wouldn't be unhappy with a lock time increase, as you say to something like 2.6 or 2.7. Maybe a small reduction in firing angle? I'd also suggest that 15% range increase on option 2 could come down as well, 10k is already plenty, 11.5k seems, again, excessive. Or maybe the 100% speed boost could be reduced to 70 or 80. Just some thoughts. Truth be told I don't use Protorps all that often, I prefer Thermals. Speaking of which, I should clarify, when I suggested reducing the dot time I was refering to the damage part, not the debuff. Though I suppose using 2 different timers doesn't make a huge amount of sense, and knowing Bioware the damage & debuff are probably intrinsically linked anyway. I do agree the debuff is fantastic to have though, that's mainly why I use Thermals. I'm not keen on the extra 3s debuff though, I take the extra damage. This might just be me, but I find that once the torp has landed, either I/someone else will finish the target off before the 15s is up or (particularly if I've fired from long range) the target will bugger off somewhere before I can get hold of them, at which point the debuff is useless. I solo queue though, so I'd imagine it's a bit different if you're flying with a team.

That's what I figured. I get the impression they're supposed to fill some sort of middle ground between the shorter range Rapids/Lights and the longer range Quads/Heavies, but they don't do a good job of it, and I can't come up with any sort of other niche they could fill. I'd suggest they need their power draw reduced slightly at the very least, I think they cost about as much as Quads/Heavies to use and don't have the performance to warrant it. Fair enough, though I disagree. I still think that 10% range option needs to be changed to something else or buffed, taking the +damage of the other option is a no-brainer. I agree that being Sabo'd is a particularly irritating thing, and that's part of the reason I suggested only a very small decrease in lock time as a starting point. Plus the snare effect can always be brought down slightly if it's too strong. Even if it is made marginally easier to use, the ships equipped with them still require higher-than-average skill to use effectively, and if hordes of people decide to start flying scouts for Sabo Probes all of a sudden, I'd wager the vast majority of them will get eaten up by Strikes in a hurry. I'm not worried about there being more of them, because there's hardly any around as it is. If a weapon is seeing very little use, what purpose does it serve? If no-one is using it, it might as well not be there, just a waste of a missile option, may as well swap it out for something else entirely. I make a point of staying away from battlescouts unless they're already engaged anyway. And as you pointed out, it is possible to get away if the attacker isn't sharp enough, a decrease in lock time won't change that. Just personally, as much it sucks, I'd rather get killed by a more skilled pilot using Sabo Probe than someone parked 10 or 15k away, I find getting killed from long range far more annoying. I can agree on not having more slows, that's a fair call. As someone who primarily flies Scouts, having my legs taken out from underneath me is never a fun time, and getting slowed as a Bomber is Alt+F4 inducing. So for Ion Missiles, perhaps they could lock out the shield ability for a few seconds in addition to stripping shields? Or maybe lock out the co-pilot ability as well, I can't think of anything which does that, for what little it's worth. I really like the idea of having Interdiction Missiles on the T3 Scout, would give it some utility beyond just Tensoring. Currently, apart from Tensoring, it doesn't really do anything you can't already do better with a T1 Scout or a T3 Strike. The idea of encouraging people to use blasters more is a good one, which is also why I'm advocating for things like Sabo Probe/Ion Missile/Interdiction Missiles to be more useful, I much prefer the idea of smacking something with some manner of missile debuff then following up with blasters for the kill. That's the main reason I use Thermite Torps a lot, I really like that shield bleedthrough debuff they provide. I don't mind the Efficient Targeting nerf, trouble is that doesn't affect everyone, and it could effect non-problematic ships/missiles in the process. If Protorps are the issue (and in my opinion they certainly are), they need to be addressed directly, I think messing with ancillary systems will only cause further issues. Just goes to show how people can perceive things differently I guess, reducing it from a flat 100% on blasters was the first thing I thought of. I'd be inclined to leave railguns and missiles alone, I think they're mostly fine, and I wouldn't go overboard nerfing Rapids/Bursts either, 'cause surgical strikes on hardened targets is kind of what Scouts are for, but I would absolutely bring Heavies down, they're quite powerful as is and combined with being mounted on lots of Strikes and Bombers, I feel they're too common to have as much AP as they do. I have to disagree somewhat here, 12v12 in Lost Shipyards is just too many people in too small a space, more so in Domination than Tedious Derp Match. Denon is largely fine because it's huge, and even Kuat and Iokath aren't as bad 'cause there's still some room to avoid the crowd, but LS is horrendously bad. Having said that though, I agree that there's too many people with too much range flying around, and fixing that first before messing with other things is something I'd be happy with, there's certainly plenty of merit in it.

I've been mulling over a few things lately, and I'm curious to see what people think. Laser Cannons: Is there some reason to use these I'm not aware of? Stats-wise they don't seem particularly impressive, and they feel just as lackluster in combat. I can't see why anyone would want to take them over Rapids/Lights or Quads/Heavies. Would a buff of some description be warranted here? Rocket Pods: Kind of a minor thing, but the +10% range increase for the second option choice doesn't strike me as being very useful given the unguided & slightly inaccurate nature of the weapon, especially for a 7500 req upgrade. So I got to thinking, it might be cool to have some sort of proximity-fuze effect there instead. If a rocket misses the target but still travels within, let's say 50m for argument's sake, it will still detonate and do some damage. Maybe half or so, seeing as it isn't a direct hit. I feel like they could do with a smidgen more shield or armour pen as well. Sabotage Probe: This could do with a slightly shorter lock time, maybe bring it down from (upgraded) 2.7s to 2.3s or 2.4s and see how that goes. Wouldn't go much shorter than that, otherwise it'd become stupidly powerful. Given the shortish range and the fact you're potentially vulnerable to getting taken out by someone else while you're flying up your target's butt to finish them off once the probe lands, I don't see why it has a longer lock time than other things that have longer range and do more damage, ie protorps. Doesn't seem to get used very often either, think I've only been grabbed by one maybe 2 or 3 times in all the games I've played, and I'm lucky if I land 1 or 2 in any given match, quite often I won't get any. Having said that, I am playing on 240+ms, so achieving full locks can be a bit of a hassle regardless. Sensor Beacon: Does this have much use? I only see them very rarely, and they don't tend to survive very long either, they're mostly just a nuisance. While I get that the various buffs & debuffs it provides can be handy for defending nodes, even though the sensor range seems a tad short, I can't really see why anyone would take it over EMP or TT or Tensor. Kinda seems like something a bomber should be carrying around. Booster Recharge: Much like Sensor Beacon, I'm struggling to see why anyone would take this over EMP or TT. Refilling engine power is certainly useful, but is it worth taking up an ability slot? Does it need something else to make it a more attractive pick? Ion Mines/Missiles: General consensus seems to be that these aren't very useful, and while I haven't bothered with the mines much, I do feel like the missiles are a bit lackluster. Especially against anything with a magical shield regen button (ie Strikes), they just shrug it off and continue on their merry way. Perhaps needs to be more debilitating vs shields, and/or have a more prominent/longer lasting slow effect/engine drain, so following up the Ion shutdown with blasters to finish off the semi-crippled ship would be more viable, because currently it doesn't really seem to be. Interdiction Missiles: Kind of a left-field idea here, but these seem to be a bit wasted by only being present on the T3 gunship, further compounded by the T3 apparently being the least popular of the 3 gunships. So I thought it might be cool to stick them on another ship as well, Scouts being the first thing that came to mind, given that Bombers already have Interdiction stuff available and Strikes are irritating enough as it is. The T1 & 2 already have Sabotage Probe though, so maybe just the T3, which, other than the paltry slow on Ion Missile, has no real way of snaring opponents. Deflection Armour & Charged Plating: Rendered largely useless by the amount of armour-piercing weapons being thrown around. Might be worth bringing blaster AP values down a bit, from 100% to somewhere in the 50% ballpark and see how that goes. I think AP values on missiles are mostly fine. I do have a bone to pick with protorps, though. Is penning 100% of shields and armour on top of having long range and high damage really necessary? Seriously, why? Having high armour pen I can understand, makes for a handy weapon against hardened targets, but why 100% pen on shields as well? Seems excessive. Also really annoying getting one-shotted by them in a Scout, but I digress. And speaking of torps, it'd be nice if the Thermal Torp DoT was quickened up a bit, 15s seems a tad long, maybe make it 10s or so. Lastly, as a side note, I think 12v12s could stand to be restricted to larger maps (ie Denon) and left out of smaller maps (ie Lost Shipyards), because in my experience thus far, giant blobs of protorp-armed Strikes are pure, unadulterated cancer. Thoughts?

I was with a larger guild for a bit, which attempted it once and failed at, I haven't had the patience to try any others. I disagree about needing comms, it's not that complicated, just requires people to pay attention to what they're doing, ie not attacking Dog if they have Bloodmark or if Pilgrim's shield is up. I know, it's been that way since at least 4.0. I haven't had much luck with pugs, they can't do it more often than not, but you're right though, if people know their stuff it's easy. Last time I cleared it we had basically a full group of raiders, and it was a cakewalk. Can't seem to get raiders for it anymore though, presumably because they have more interesting things to do. Probably doesn't help that Satele Shan's pop is slowly dwindling in favour of Star Forge, either.

Does anyone do regular Pilgrim runs on Satele Shan anymore? I know various servers in the past used to, but I haven't seen a group on Hot Pocket in ages. Doesn't seem to be much interest from /endgame for it either. I've been sitting on 2/3 for the Aratech Coral quest for several years now, and I'm sick of looking at the damn thing.

Dunno if I'd go so far as to suggest a whole new ship, but I wouldn't be opposed to some sort of stealth ability for Scouts, seems like something they should have had to begin with. Probably a short duration - long cooldown kind of thing to prevent people abusing it, make the ship invisible visually and on radar for a few seconds. Be useful for sneaking up on Gunships. I've always thought Sensor Beacon should have some form of stealth as well, and maybe some mine types too. Perhaps not the damage-heavy ones, I'm thinking more Ion and Interdiction. Would also give some use to that 'dispels cloaking effects' thing that Targeting Telemetry's tooltips are always telling me about. A new map would be cool, maybe something planetside for a change. Forests to fly over, canyons/valleys to fly through etc. There was a big space battle over Corellia in the semi-recent story, so maybe set around the Project Meridian complex? I'd also like to see objectives added to Battle over Iokath, though I'd imagine quite a bit of wreckage would have to be removed to accommodate the sats, dunno how well that would work out.

Can confirm this is true for Engineering Sniper and Sin's, I haven't tested any other classes yet. Explosive Probe isn't functioning properly, Cluster Bombs aren't being applied, and the aoe Tactical for EP isn't working either, it does no aoe damage at all. The Audacity utility isn't applying the third stack of Recklessness it's supposed to, which subsequently means you also only get 2 stacks of Reckless Slaughter from the Death Knell set bonus instead of 3 as well.

Gathering Storm for set bonus, then either Tempest of Rho (single target) or Slow Mercy (aoe) for tactical. I use Devastating Vengeance & Primeval Fatesealer for relics, though you can also use the typical FR + SA combo, just keep in mind you won't get any real benefit from them in capped content.

I like the idea of making Lifesteal more useful, I remember in a Hatred Sin thread a couple of years back someone suggested that stolen life should keep accruing over max HP, let's say to 110% for arguments sake, and could thus be used to mitigate damage instead of just going to waste. Also like Force Storm generating Wrath stacks, would make for a nice AOE to single target transition. Be nice to have Death Field's range bumped back up to 8m. And yeah, Dark Echo needs a buff to it's damage an/or proc chance, it's current damage output is terrible. I'd like a way to generate Wrath stacks on the move too, or just make Demolish castable while mobile as a compromise. My main gripe with Madness though is the rotation, having to either clip dots or piss around clipping Force Lightning to keep things flowing kinda sucks, be nice if that was smoothed out somehow.

They do work, but only in combat. This is because movement speed buffs don't stack, so the 15% is getting over-ridden by Sprint's 35% out of combat, rather than added to it. Sprint is off in combat, so the 15% applies normally. I take the 15% buff on my toons that can access it, but truthfully, it doesn't make a huge difference. Incidentally, Merc & PT's Hydraulic Overrides suffer from the same problem, the 30% movement increase is lower than Sprint's 35%, so it's useless for speeding up movement out of combat, unless you take the PT utility that boosts it.

Yep, I came to a similar conclusion from roughly applying their nerf numbers to my own parses when they announced them, should have come down from 5.1k/5.2k to about 4.6k-ish. Also, after inspecting my parses a bit closer, it looks to me like we've taken a flat damage nerf across the board, instead of just to the 4 stated abilities, damage has gone down on everything, though I'm not sure if Pyro Shield and Reflective Armour are affected, can't test them on a dummy, obviously. I noticed the dps/threat comparison numbers Ayix put up on Reddit tell pretty much the same tale, and yeah, Juggaluggs (and Sins, to a lesser degree) have gotten away with a much smaller damage nerf in exchange for a threat gain, while PT's have taken nerfs to both. Would have been nice if they buffed our survivability a bit to compensate, but no. Hard to say, considering that they didn't state what the issue actually was with Power Armour, but you might be on to something. My first thought was it shouldn't have changed much, because the only damage-related thing in PA is the 5% (down from 10%) cylinder buff, and the cylinder only makes up a small portion of overall damage, certainly not enough to constitute the extra dps that seems to have gone walkabouts. Then I got to thinking that maybe the issue could have been something else within the cylinder, rather than PA's buff to it, of which there's only 2 damage-related items (or 3, if you want to count the 110% accuracy). One being the actual damage of the cylinder itself, which seems to be working properly, and the other being the 10% reduction to dps all tanks have, which I'm guessing is/was the issue, given the overall damage nerf we've received in addition to the stated nerfs. So my theory is that the cylinder buff from PA was conflicting with or overriding the 10% dps reduction somehow, and that leads me to one of two conclusions. They either: a) Fixed whatever the PA/cylinder bug was, but didn't take into account the fact that would end up being an extra dps nerf on top of what was already planned b) Fixed/changed things as needed, but broke something else in the process Maybe both, who knows. Or I could be entirely wrong, and have thus just wasted the last couple of hours.

Hasn't happened to me. Just tested my PT & VG, both worked normally. The overall dps loss is a kick in the pants, though, as was expected. Ran up a couple of parses pre-5.9 with the PT and another couple just now to make a comparison, gone from about 5.2k on the 500k dummy and 5.1k on the 1.5m dummy down to about 4.1k and 4k. For reference, the only dps gear my tanks use are Lethal mods and just over 700 alacrity for the 1.4s GCD, rest is tank stuff, including the relics (Shield Amp and Shrouded Crusader). So, now the one advantage PT's had over the other 2 tanks is gone. Yay.

Probably too late for this to be included in 5.9, but I'll bring it up anyway. Seeing as you're improving Enraged Defense's health scaling, is there any chance you could do the same with the Assassin's Shelter utility for Sins? Currently (in full BiS) it only restores about 3k health over 6 seconds, or up to 4k w/crits, which is practically useless considering most people are running around with 120k-ish HP. I'd suggest bumping it up to somewhere in the region of 10k over the 6 seconds, and maybe even increase the 5% DR slightly as well. Because at the moment, 3k HP over 6s + 5% DR on an ability with a 45s cooldown that only affects group members within 15m, and doesn't affect the user, is a waste of a utility point. And why exactly it is that Assassin's Shelter, Sonic Rebounder, and Sonic Wall don't affect their user while the 4 raid buffs, Predation and Ballistic Shield all do affect the user, anyway? Having those 3 function like every other group buff wouldn't break anything, surely. Especially considering Shelter and Wall don't do a whole lot, and while Rebounders can be quite strong, the ability to negate single big hits is something PT's are sorely lacking. As a side note, I also wouldn't be unhappy if you took Obfuscate away from Maras and gave it to Sins.

Couple of ideas, most of which should increase dps slightly, though I don't know how much by, I'm not a number cruncher: 1. Improve Lightning Burns. Currently gives Force Lightning and Force Leech a 20% and 60% chance respectively to deal X amount of damage plus restore a small amount of force points. To start, I'd swap Force Leech for Lightning Strike, because I can't figure out how exactly Leech would apply a 'lightning burn' to anything (though I'm not sure how this would work for Balance, I haven't actually looked it at), so Lightning Strike makes more sense. I'd also up the % chances from 20 and 60 to something like 50 and 100, as Lightning Burns currently contributes very little in overall dps. Would also make Lightning Strike a bit more useful, as it currently doesn't contribute a whole lot either. 2. Improve Dark Echo. 50% chance for a very small amount of extra damage on a lvl 68 passive is next to worthless, and requires a very aoe-heavy situation to be even remotely useful. Up the activation chance to something 70%, and at least double the damage it does. 3. Lightning Barrage passive, ditch the -25% damage, but keep the 33% tick rate, or maybe even increase it slightly, in the interest of trying to eliminate the Force Lightning clipping that some people's rotations suffer from. 4. Increase the number of Deathmark stacks from 15 to something like 18 or 20. Probably not strictly necessary, but having all 3 DoT's active at the same time (in my experience) leads to all 15 stacks getting consumed within the duration of Demolish's DoT, which seems a bit quick to me, so a few extra should help stretch things out a bit. 5. Increase the DoT self-heals from 10% to 15%, as the amount they currently provide is barely noticeable. Force Leech recovers a decent amount, though, so I wouldn't go much further than 15%. Alternatively, add Demolish's DoT to the passive as well, so it can self-heal too. The 10% would probably be fine in that case, as the Demo DoT is quite strong.

I agree that Resurgence is a better place than UP for the buff, and that it's needed more for PvP than PvE, but if that's the case then it should be a utility. Why attach it to something that'll be used in one game mode and not the other? That's what utilities are for. Which is why I suggested proc'ing it off Force Leech (or something else in the rotation with a 10sec-ish cooldown), so that it's useful in both modes without having to force it. Though I suppose that could make it a bit too easy to use and maintain uptime with, but on the other hand, constantly using Resurgence could also lead to force points issues in sustained situations, so it might be a case of weighing up when to use it rather than mindlessly spamming it. I also agree that the Lightning buff isn't fantastic. Neither is the Madness buff, incidentally, what good is 10% armour when Sorc's have very little armour anyway? Nevermind the fact that armour rating doesn't mean a whole lot, I mean, PT's and Jugg's have heavy armour, and they're two of the squishiest dps specs. Even though an extra 5% DR isn't much, it isn't hard to maintain a high uptime on De-ionized, GCD issues aside, so we can't expect too much from it. Though considering Lightning already has extra DR from Lightning Bolt stacks, I don't see why we need more. In fact, if they want to give us more DR, sticking with the LB stacks would be easier, just up the max of 3 stacks to 5 or 6. Or leave it at 3 stacks, but increase the 3% DR from each stack to something like 5%. And maybe increase their duration from 10secs to 15 or 20.

While it's nice to see dps Sorcs get some defensive love, though it doesn't make up for the constant nerfs, I feel this isn't the best way to do it. Problem is, both Resurgence and Static Barrier are on-the-GCD, meaning we have to stop dps'ing to use them. Not really a big deal in PvP, but far from ideal in PvE. A decent portion of our defensive options are already on the GCD, we don't need more. DPS Operatives suffer from a similar problem, we're the only two classes that have to stop what we're doing to mitigate damage/not die, and it's a silly imbalance. For Madness, that buff would be better attached to Unnatural Preservation, which is off the GCD, or alternatively, give Resurgence a proc from Force Leech or something that makes it off the GCD for one use. For Lightning, you can easily benefit from the new buff if there's a Sorc healer with you, assuming that they can spare the GCD's to constantly bubble you, downside being that their De-ionized duration is slightly shorter. Otherwise, Static Barrier needs to be off the GCD for self-use. Using it on other people should require a GCD, that's fair enough, but on ourselves? C'mon, it isn't that great. I don't know if the game can actually differentiate between off GCD for self-use and on GCD for placing on others, though. Alternatively, attach the buff to Force Speed instead. Seeing as Convection makes Force Speed proc 2 Lightning Bolts anyway, it's a slightly more logical skill to use it with. The whole lack of stun DR thing with PT's and Sin's is concerning, though as others pointed out, the slightly vague wording makes it hard to tell exactly. Neither dps class can really afford to lose the stun DR, they're squishy enough already, especially PT's. There's two ways I can think of to fix this: 1. Take out stun/aoe DR from passive trees, have a utility that contains stun & aoe DR, but only applies both DR's to the dps specs, so tank spec only gets stun DR. 2. For Sin's, leave the stun DR utility as it is, leave the aoe DR where it is in Deception's tree, and just add the aoe DR to Hatred's tree somewhere (which I think is what should have happened back when they took the aoe DR out of the utility). For PT's, leave AP the way it is, put the stun & aoe DR into Pyro's tree somewhere, and put stun DR into Shieldtech's tree somewhere. Or a combination of the two, maybe point 1 for PT's, and point 2 for Sin's, whatever works. Oh, and PT's still need something in the vein of Force Shroud/Saber Reflect for mitigating spiky damage. Sonic Rebounders could work as a stopgap measure, if it applied to the user instead of just everyone nearby except the user, which I never saw the sense in.