I might not have been following the development of these questions as cloesly as I ought (and so missed the reasoning behind it), but I'd consider changing the line: "We still lack the basic ability to heal ourselves with our default heal (Rapid Shots) -- a basic function all the healers have." As someone who has Commando and Operative alts, it's always been a frustration that for an unknown reason Rapid Shots can't be applied to self, but Diagnostic Scan can. However, as someone who Mains a Sage, it is more frustrating that there is no such skill comparable to Diagnostic Scan or Rapid Shots on a sage. Basically, what I'm saying is that I agree with what you're saying and Rapid shots should be usable on yourself, but just tighten up the wording on that. Not 'all' healers have that basic function. You don't want them to give any room to tell you that you're wrong. About anything. Also, making comparrisons to Sage regen is a bit difficult, because it's so different. If you leave it in, I'd fully expect them to respond with answers about how Sages don't have regen tiers because their base regen is slower, instead of getting a helpful acknowledgement of any problems. But on the whole, great questions.

As far as I'm aware, any skill that we have that gets a second attack from a proc will/can use a second charge of Recklessness, as can hitting more than one person with an AoE skill.

What I find even more disturbing is that unless I'm reading it wrong, it looks like players who already own it get a title. Players who don't already own it but get on and buy it before the 12 of Sept get the title AND get a bonus 1050 Cartel Coins. I don't think I have forum-worthy words for that... but if I did, I don't think they'd be complimentary.

Agree with Laiov's post in regards to PvE. You'll put in more effort than many other classes to do similar DPS. Oh, and you'll take more damage than any other class, and so will be a little more of a strain on your healer's resources. That may or may not be a problem depending on your healer's skill. If you are exceptionally skilled or are content not to be parsing at the top of your raid, it isn't a totally unenjoyable experience. Personal PvE advice: If you want to play a ranged character, roll a sniper instead. You will be more likely to be considered for a DPS role in raids on this class. As to PvP... as you've noted, there's a lot of discussion about this due to the recent developer dialog we've had. Again, it's only my opinion, but in PvP they are one of the weaker classes, who's role and play style is self-contradicting. Lightning is a turret spec that, while having good burst, is easy to get to and shut down. They have some kiting utility, but their damage drops off considerably while doing so. If you want to play a turret, Marksman Snipers (see a pattern?) have much better tools to do this. Madness is a DoT spec that just doesn't have the resource management for PvP. With the expectation of having to multi-DoT and having your main resource regen regularly interrupted, you're left with trading life for force as a means to get back your power after your initial pool has been drained. This tends not to work well in PvP. If you want to play a DoT spec, I would suggest that Lethality (in either sniper or operative) plays better for PvP. Ultimately, you might be able to make it work, if you are exceptional. Lightning can provide some excellent burst when you have a group with excellent teamwork. The only question I'd really ask then though, is with the same excellent teamwork, could a Sniper not be even more lethal? TLDR: If you coming to this to choose a new class to level, ask yourself what you want out of it. If you want to be powerful and obviously desirable class, Sorc is probably not the best class to pick. If you specifically want to experience the Sorcerer story and THEN want to carry on with him, with a lot of effort and skill, you can make it work. You will probably have to prove yourself a lot more before you'll get an invite to an arena team, for example.

Whether or not it's a troll post (and the idea to Reroll is probably not far off), he does demonstrate exactly why there are so many "Changes to Sorc" threads, and why they'll almost exclusively not get Dev attention. All the while that the design concept is that "Classes who 'could' heal MUST provide less DPS/Utility or both" persists, Snipers will be the favoured Ranged AC, and Marauders the favoured Melee AC. Even where the other design is contradictory, such as tight enrage timers in the harder operations, it will remain unresolved until.. well, I actually don't know when. Honestly, I think they should just re-work the healing AC's. Take away all baseline heals (except for ones that are supposedly defensives, such as Adrenaline rush and what have you), and make you spec into them ALL in a healing tree. Then they can give you fully capable DPS trees that can be balanced without off-healing being considered a utility, with the option to trade DPS for Healing at the cost of lowering your DPS. Even if healing were to remain more or less the same, they could at least see with their metrics exactly how few people felt taking off-healing would be a worthy trade off.

I think that mechanics wise, madness just doesn't synergize with itself half as well as Lethality (and I'm referring to Operative Lethality as opposed to Sniper Lethality, because BioWare has stated that off-heals vs pure DPS is, in their opinion, an invalid comparison) in terms of PvP performance. Infiltration Operative Lethality has one less DoT, I'll give them that. However, Neither of them being on a cooldwon, DoT protection and the fact that one of them is also an AoE means far better all-round application. Their resource management comes in the form of DoT crits, which free them up to keep mobile and be uninterruptedly topped up on resources. They have Weakening blast, execution enhanced DoTs for low health opponents and Cull to really push single target damage for a meaningful kill. For kiting (or staying in range of an opponent), their AoE DoT has a 6s snare component, their single target snare has a CD and Duration that match, Shiv grants a speed boost, their 4s stun likely has a 30s cooldown, their 8s daze is AoE AND instant-cast AND won't break from damage from their own DoTs. They also have exfiltrate to use on a more regular basis than force speed, because of their superior resource management. While the escape element can be blocked with an appropriate root/slow, it can still in turn proc free, instant case heals. Finally, despite being a short-range class and having the compensatory stealth, medium armour and use of cover when needed, their actual DoT's and many other skills are still 30m ranged. Madness Sorceror Madness Does have three DoTs, although the cooldown on CD means you won't be spreading it, and you need to keep the root element of CT for kiting, so it'll also probably only be on one target, but even if not, two at most. Force management relies on channeling a skill, preventing you from kiting and making your force regeneration vulnerable to interrupts, meaning a high likelihood of getting out of force in any lengthy encounter. We can front some non-execute burst, but it relies on having a a wrath proc, our AoE and Recklessness CD sitting ready to use, and because of the way that AoE skills eat multiple charges of Recklessness, we have to get to extra careful of placement. As for kiting tools, we have force speed on a 20s cd, though it's easily shut down by the plethora of roots. We have a short knockback with no snare attached, and a daze that needs casting and is open to interrupt, beyond which any of our DoTs will break it if currently applied. Our 4s stun has, at best, a 50s cooldown. While it has a longer range, that extra 6m is rarely needed as without it's previous 30m range, our primary use of stun is on a melee offender with their many ways to get quickly into melee range. Our single target snare has a duration half of it's cooldown, meaning 50% uptime at best. We have a 2s root attached to one of our DoTs, so you're either holding off on DoTing to save for the root, or using the root at the wrong time. Likewise with Mental alacrity. You "could" use it as a kiting tool, but then you're yet again losing burst potential because you're moving and not gaining from the alacrity boost/interrupt immunity. Madness does at least get healing in a slow steady trickle from DoT crits, but between the current crit rating and prohibitive resource costs of spamming affliction, the odd 2% here or there will make a marginal difference when you're out of force. Someone said it either earlier in this thread or in another I've read recently. The reason there is such a range of suggestions to help fix Sorcs is because there are so MANY flaws with the class, by direct comparison to others. If I were a Dev, I wouldn't even know where to begin making small tweaks to try and balance that without breaking things.

Equally, Lol @ your bias. Perhaps it had escaped your notice, but there is a world of difference between "up to 10s invulnerability" and "up to 10s invulnerability combined with the inability to do anything during that time". I'm not saying that it doesn't have uses, I'm saying that in an arena, it's use as a DC pales because you don't need to stall for time holding a capture-point. The fewer people on the team, the bigger the impact that your voluntary "time-out" will have on the outcome of the match. Use it in 8 vs 8, and your team is down 12.5% of it's strength. Use it in 4 vs 4, and your team is down 25% strength. The design is that you can't even use it to outlast the opposing team in the acid cloud, should you miraculously survive to a stalemate. Oh, and for the record, I'll do just fine in Arenas. I'll be doing the sensible thing and take my Operative when I want to heal, and bring my Gunslinger when I want to do RDPS. They're both far superior at those roles than a sorc/sage has been in my experience on PTS.

Firstly, mass dispel... what game are you playing? Unless I've missed something huge, you can't dispel any effect (positive or negative) on an enemy player in this game. The only comp I could see it working AT ALL in would be 2 dps 2 heals, because if you had 1 tank, 1 dps and 2 heals you're really going to struggle to kill anything. But if you wanted multiple healers, wouldn't 2 operatives be so much better? So if you can't Force Barrier and get healed by an ally, you can get a good health boost for a full channel with Force Armour and Resurgence also ticking away. However, 10s is an eternity for your team to be without 25% of it's composition. At present, the only really good uses I've been able to make of Force Barrier have been to stop and get healed by another healer, or to buy time so as to be able to prevent a cap just a little bit longer till help arrives. Being that neither of those scenarios are going to be very likely in Arena's (No objectives and limited likelyhood of dual healers), at BEST this will be a second Stun-break with a massive cooldown, not a defensive CD at all.

I would suggest that clearly he doesn't mean that, because he mentions Outlaws Den. That'd be Tatooine, not Hoth.

And I was so nearly ready to agree with you until this paragraph of your post. So, you're saying it's fine for people who solely enjoy one playstyle (PvE) to HAVE to do another (PvP) if it only grants access to what you have branded as "optional" content. Does that mean that it would have been equally fine if, before being able to play Novare Coast or Hypergates (these are new extra warzones, so are totally optional), that you needed to finish TfB and S&V HM to unlock them? Personally, I think the event quests should be tailored to the server type they're on. That aside (Because what PvE'ers chose to do should be irrelevant in a PvP discussion), I don't think we're ever going to see World PvP the likes of which people remember with fond nostalgia. The way that people play MMO's has changed drastically over the years since early MMOs. If we do see it again , it certainly isn't going to be SWTOR. There just isn't enough scope for it here. Organic OWPvP happens when you meet someone who you are capable of attacking (in this game, someone of the opposite faction). But in SWTOR: Faction are kept largely separate during "normal" gameplay on planets. You're less likely to encounter enemies, call in reinforcements and start something naturally. Low-level ganking (which despite being a really jerky thing to do is an excellent way to goad the other faction into defending it's lowbie areas) is impossible before Nar-Shadaa 20+, but more realistically won't start till Tatooine 24+. Flashpoint entrances are all in safe-zones. Travel is not quick or fluid (current location -> taxi -> shuttle -> space station -> ship -> space station -> planet -> taxi -> combat), so people don't bother as much getting to something that could be over before they get there. For all that the onus is on the players to make OWPvP happen, and for all that they could organise it (but because it's so oversubscribed you break the server) or go out actively looking for it (in which case you might not find people interested in staying and fighting), the only OWPvP I've experienced and ever really enjoyed has always happened in an unplanned and organic manner. This game just doesn't have enough opportunities for things to start. Bioware's design choices are as much to blame as the players are in this.

Some interesting ideas in this thread. From a healing standpoint, I've recently been doing the Gree dailies (specifically the heroic) with a couple of my friends who aren't the best players by a long stretch of the imagination, and provided many a missed interrupt. Even on such a small scale environment, the difference between me healing on my Sorc (Sage, actually) and on my worse-geared Operative is really noticeable. The amount of time I spend (both in terms of GCD's and making sure I'm going to get appropriate heals after consumption) makes a big difference to my healing output. My initial suggestion would be to take Consumption off the GCD. We'd still maintain the unique feature of sacrificing health for resources, and we still wouldn't have the effectively "Auto reset" button the other two healers have. It would leave us with a lot of extra time on our hands which would be great if we could fill it with a new no-cost small heal when healing requirements are light, and more big heals for heavy requirements without killing our force pool so thoroughly. My only concern then would be cross-healing sorcs in PvP. This might also help Madness DPS keep on top of their force pool without dropping DPS. For Madness, it just tends to feel like a worse version of other classes. In both PvP and PvE, it would be nice to see some form of execute. I really don't understand why Assassins got the DoT + DF execute in Madness when they already have an execute skill, and sorcs don't have any. Secondly, considering the lack of burst outside of using CDs I think there's a real limit on cost-effective AoE pressure in PvP. You 'could' spam affliction, but it's only 1 of your 3 DoTs, it's easily cleanse-able, and it's pretty costly in terms of resources, especially when you consider Corrosive Grenade. I'm not saying we should get a baseline AoE DoT, but it would be interesting if DF caused our DoTs to splash + refresh on all targets in the area while PS was running. I'm probably not qualified to comment largely on Lightning, because I only really play it as an PvP "off-spec". But when I do play it, it actually feels pretty good. Burst potential, even without an execute, is reasonable given the range. In many ways, it's a shame the Sniper class exists, because the combination of better burst, better CC tools and leap protection make it much harder to appreciate the bubble, self heals, speed etc in turret spec.

Personal advice: Move with the guild. Not because SWTOR is bad or worse, but because trying to enjoy a game that was most fun because of people who have left is hard. Besides, if Marvel is good, it'll be worth staying, and if it's bad, your friends will likely come back, and you with them.

Yes, to the best of my knowledge, Collections are set of Cartel Items only. That being said, you don't need to have had any Cartel Coins yourself. You could Earn in-game Credits and then just buy things from the GTN, although given the prices, you'd never get any decent full sets with the credit cap. Yes, Crystals being referred to here are colour crystals for weapons/off-hands.

I honestly think they've got the prices "more or less" right for some of the crystals. I just finished getting the all 4 Silver-Blue ones, and at 240CC for Hawkeye, Eviscerating and War Hero, and 60CC for Indestructible the only complaint I have is that I think War hero should be 60CC, given that anyone with a PvP weapon gets +41 expertise by default. Moreover, with the prevalence of Legacy weapons and the confirmation that it is NOT an exploit to move crystals around in that manner, I could conceivably pay 240CC for the convenience of a Hawkeye unlock, but anything more than that and I'd just use a legacy weapon to transfer it over and BW get nothing instead of me spending 240 of my Cartel Credits. What bugs me more than anything about the costs is actually the ambiguity with which costs are assigned. The Orange level 35 crystals that you can buy with CC direct from the store cost 450CC to account-unlock. Other crystals, with exactly the same stats but a lower min level requirement cost 240CC, or 60CC, or 600CC (As with the white ones). It's not as if the rarity of these items isn't already accounted for in the availability and cost of acquiring those items to put in your collections listing in the first place.

I used to exclusively use my healer companions on all classes that I played. In the early days, speccing DPS (irrespective of class) and having a healer companion was definitely the best way to do things. However, as you get more legacy perks, the lines blur somewhat. Not because the Tank/DPS companions scale better than healers, but because the combination of More health from Presence unlocks allowing them to survive longer and the ability to reset your companion in the space of 1.5s (Turn on Rocket boots, then cast self buff to dismount) mitigating the long channeled resting times in between pulls. With 500 bonus presence, I tend towards DPS companions for trash (unless I'm playing a Shadow or Scoundrel with positional damage requirements, in which case I occasionally pick a tank if I really like them). But for anything that is above solo difficulty, I always use a healer companion. And with all that being said, I don't really care if it's a problem or not. Whether or not healer companions are "literally" better than DPS ones, it has always frustrated me that each companion is set with one skillset and role (I wouldn't take melee tank in DPS stance if I wanted a DPS companion). I think it would be much better if you could "Train" you companions with different skill sets so you can use the ones you like for the roles you prefer.

I just made my main 8 characters (one of each AC across both factions) to look like my other half. He's rubbish and doesn't play games much, so at least this way I still get to play with him.... sort of. After that, I ended up making some leveling groups for fun with friends. Best one is the Charlies Angels trooper group, although keeping in line with the personalities is pretty hard, especially when what you actually say doesn't relate that well to what's on the dialog wheel.

Collections work like: 1:- You collect a whole set of something. In this case, all the bits of Revans costume. 2:- You then equip all the bits at the same time, on the same character, and it adds the set to your collections menu for that character. 3:- That character can then duplicate the whole set as wanted, free of charge. The duplicated items are bound to you though, so it's just a good way to store costumes. 4:- For a one-time Cartel Coin fee, you can then unlock the equipment set for all characters on your account to duplicate as desired.

If it ever did happen, I can't help but feel a better method would be to put this is as a slider unlock in the options menu, not as a specific item. Set the default in the middle at 0%, and let people change to anywhere between -100% to +100% XP gain. That way you make one unlock and it can best serve the largest number of people. As far as restrictions go, I do think it should be pretty costly though. I definitely think legacy 50 (And if not, at LEAST 40). Despite all the people saying how they're not even 30 yet, I think I reached legacy level 50 before I'd gotten 3 characters to level 50. Dailies are an incredibly good source of money (which you need in large supplies to buy anything worth buying anyway) and also offer excellent XP for your troubles. Even more so since 2.0's level 55 dailies. Given the current development trends, I'd hazard a guess that it would only be available via CC and not in-game credits, where I would suggest a 500CC per character/2000CC account unlocks to be reasonable without being too cheap. If it were available for in-game credits, then I'd suggest 5million (just a little more than a fully upgraded rocket boost perk). And no, I don't have that king of money sitting around. I'd have to go out and grind it like most other people if I wanted it. However, if they DO put that sort of thing, they would be shooting themselves in the foot, so to speak, because then they wouldn't realistically be able to run a double XP weekend in the same way. Either people end up with +400% xp, or people who paid for it don't get any bonus xp while everyone else gets doubled.

As I said, this whole threat has devolved into a 'debate' about something being free purely because some people are unwilling to let go of the fact that it is just semantics. There is no legal ramifications. Nobody is going to take it to court because it doesn't change a single thing. No worthwhile court would even ALLOW any sort of legal proceeding based on this, except to make money out of the chumps who feel the need to contest it. Person A pays $15 for a subscription and gains subscription level access and "Free" 500CC Person B pays $15 for a subscription and gains subscription level access and 500CC to spend as part of that. Person C does not pay $15, and gets neither the subscription level access or 500CC. Either way, the people that pay $15 get 30 days access and 500CC. What would be the reason to take it to court? You're not getting more or less for your money dependent on whether they are supposedly 'free' or not. All your continued posting is achieving is to prove me right. This thread continues because there are people on both sides who seem to only be capable of adhering to their own point of view. You yourself are a "Person A". You appear to be unable or unwilling to even entertain the idea they're part of a subscription. A much more constructive debate would be to discuss how it actually affects you that that Cathar are only available for 600CC and that the Kiosk with be CC only. And then go on to give suggestions as to other ways of doing things, and describe how that would be better. Are you honestly telling me you can't see how contradictory those two sentences are? If I could be bothered, this would be the point where I trawl the internet to find an appropriate picture with the caption "Can't tell if trolling or serious".

It is hilarious, but not for that reason. All of your statements are true. The problem is, it's all perspective. Depending upon context, 'free' is as open to interpretation as "Glass half full" and "Glass half empty". Say there is in imaginary sale on [item]. It normally costs £2, but is on a buy two, get one free offer: Person A might say: I paid £4 for two items, and got one for free Person B might say: I paid £4 for three items. Both of those people are entirely correct. Both paid £4, and received 3 [item]s, but due to a difference in point of view, only one of them would use the word "free". The thing that makes this thread hilarious (and the thing that makes me want to continue watching it for the golden comedy value it holds), is the fact that some people can only see one or the other of those statements as true.

Surely it's more of a mix of the two (or maybe just personal perspective, I suppose). I'd say that people didn't leave because of the bugs exactly, they left because the number and impact of the bugs made a lot of people feel like the sub money they were paying wasn't worth the product they were getting. Especially if you were to compare it to other games with similar subscription costs. To be honest, I don't even think that SWTOR could support itself on a subscription-only model in it's current state. It's strongest feature is the leveling process (Story, voice acting), which has a very limited repeatability. Beyond that, Raids and flashpoints are pretty easy, PvP isn't balanced that well, space combat is an "aside" at best. This game still needs a way to keep people paying a little when they aren't willing to pay for a full subscription. I'd love to see a game try a multiple-tariff system (e.g. a cheaper PvP subscription that lets you play unlimited PvP and limited PvE etc) instead of F2P, but the Sub+F2P model is probably the next best to make the game remain profitable.

Personally, I think that the people who consider the 500CCs that are coupled with subbing to be 'free' are deranged. My personal opinion is that I get them because I subscribe. If I did not subscribe, I would not get them, so they must be part and parcel of my subscription. However the debate about "whether or not the 500 CC's a month are free" doesn't actually affect anything when you stop and consider it briefly. When I first thought about it, I'll admit I was pretty annoyed that the Cathar and the Customization Kiosk were to be CC only. In my frustration, I did the maths to work out what my subscription was actually worth to me. I would need to use 5 or less weekly passes (altogether) in a month to actually be gaining CCs by not subscribing. To maintain my current playstyle, I would probably use 10 or so. So I'm not pretty annoyed any more. I'm still slightly irked. Personally, I think Cathar should be available in game, even if it's not easy. I think it'd be great if unlocking all 9 current species gave you the Cathar for free, or you had the option to pay 600CC for it instead. I believe they may even make more money out of it, because I imagine that instead of attempting to boycott it for being CC only, the majority of people either: Have already played (and/or probably payed) a lot to unlock them all already. They deserve a pat on the back. Would gladly pay the 600CC for Cathar after seeing what they'd need to do to unlock it. Possibly pay more than 1 lot of 600CC to unlock "those last few races" to get the Cathar for 'free' (Sorry, I couldn't help it given some people's opinion of free in this thread). Don't care about Cathar, and wouldn't use them even if they was free. From my slightly selfish completionist/collector's point of view, I'd also have preferred the Kiosk to be in-game credits so I could fully enjoy it all. But as a subscriber, I can't actually complain about the Kiosk being CC only. I think the idea of giving subscribers a discount is a very sensible resolution for it. When games have gone F2P in the past, I am often saddened by how little effort is put into making a subscription remain an attractive proposition as time passes. It is a nice change to see that they are still adding to the reasons for subscribing (in this case a kiosk discount) above and beyond what F2Pers get.

Awww, come on, it's not THAT weird. I'd play SWTOR with my boyfriend, only he's defective and doesn't actually like gaming. It's kinda weird actually, but I'm afraid that if I take him apart to find the problem, I won't be able to put him back together again quite right. Like a broken toaster, only messier. And to answer the question... I used to almost exclusively solo, to the point that I would just wait till 4m Heroics were grey and then go and do them (The first time round anyway). In the past I've found that more often than not, other people tend to detract from my enjoyment of the game. However, after playing all the class stories through at least once, the same content all on your own gets pretty old. I've since found a couple of RL friends to play with and made a couple of groups that we level together, and am having a real blast again while doing that, especially when people mix up their Light/Dark side choices. 2 x Commando + 2 x Vanguard is an awesome group to play... Havoc Squad to the rescue!

This is the weirdest thread ever. I find myself actually agreeing with both yourself AND Biowareftw. I'm pretty sure the world itself will soon collapse in some universe shattering paradox. I came here with a reasonably sized guild from LotRO and Rift. Every single other person from the guild (to the best of my knowledge) is either back in their original game, or moved on to Perfect World, of all things! So I only play nowadays because I have RL friends who keep the game entertaining. Playing a 2 commando + 2 vanguard group through the levelling process, picking conversation options purely for comedic value rewards you with priceless moments and is hugely entertaining. There is still fun to be had in the game if you look for it, but it's not at end game, where you really need it to be to keep customers in game in the long term. Once we've seen most of the voiced content, us same 4 people could have at least as much fun on Minecraft as we could get out of SWTOR. Makes me a little mournful that there aren't more of the private UO servers still around.

Don't agree with the premise, but it is an interesting idea nonetheless. However, I'd say it's not going to happen if for some pretty straight forward reasons: If Crafted Oranges > Other oranges, Cartel market gear will become entirely redundant to anyone who cares about getting the best gear. That's not an avenue that EAWare will want to take. Many people pick orange items for the look that they have. Many orange items aren't available to craft (event stuff and rep stuff, as examples). The Devs are trying to get away from that scenario, which is why augment slots kits came in in the first place. Adding an extra armouring slot would make tanks far too good with the extra armour rating. Your idea might work out if you could only add an extra augment slot, but then everyone who know what they're talking about will just pick up "Mainstat" augments. The end result will be PvE content easier than intended, and create a need for a whole lot of content balancing, coupled with increasing the gear discrepancy between dedicated and casual PvPer's while still refusing to sort/match them in any meaningful way. This is the sort of system you would have to implement during a level cap increase, and sadly, they've just missed this opportunity.