While I appreciate all of the feedback in this thread, please let me clarify that I do not have an issue with any other part of a guide, except for End Game Content and Operations Progression. I understand the issue of not knowing the fights beforehand, but I guess its always been in my nature to teach those who do not know the fights. While yes, if its a new raider in EC Nightmare Mode Kephess, then yes.... I might be a little hesitant to bring them. But chances are a complicated ops like this, and the soon to come Nightmare Modes, there will not be a lot of PuGs that will bring outside players to join them on their run. I, like I said before, do not mind a guide that gives hints and tips, but if you have a complete step-by-step list of every mechanic in the encounter, with what to look for and not to do, it's just stupid. Let the players explore the Star Wars Universe. That's like going back into time, showing Episode 3 before Episode, 4, 5, and 6, and expecting people to be "oh wow, cool" when Vader revealed himself to Luke as his father. Maybe that's a bad example, IDK. As I said before, where is the line of reading instructions and learning the fight without help. I don't know. I just wanted to share my thoughts with the community.

Hi All, Now, please bare with me as I type this. I do not want to start a flame war here with those who are pro and those who are con to the thought. I also do not want to hypocritical. Please be aware that my guild has used guides. Are SWTOR Boss Guides killing the game? I ask this because shortly after 2.0 was launched, a so called "expansion," I found myself wandering fleet once again with nothing to do. Max reputation, all content cleared, full Underworld, 12 alts, and avoidance of PvP (due to such terrible Imperial players) have forced me to do other games for the time being. And this goes for others, too. My only real concern with guides are the step by step instructions of Boss Encounters in various Operations. Where is the line between being an elite content clearing guild and a guild that can read instructions? I cannot answer this question, as I personally do not use guides (note personally, not my guild). I like to be able to figure things out, such as the GSI Pleasure Speeder, Archon, and other challenging missions. Operations, I feel, should be no different. Let the players figure out an encounter for them selves. Let them figure out why they wiped, why someone died, why someone got a debuff they shouldn't have, what they can do to prevent it, and how can they alter their initial strategies. This makes the kill and the loot that much sweeter and more valuable. An example from personal experience is the MMORPG Age of Conan. A small MMO with lots of tough content should be a guide within itself. Why? Because there were no guides for Boss Encounters. There were no step by step instructions to expansions, new content, or new instances. It was all on the player to figure it out and in the end, content was cleared slower, thus yielding more satisfaction from the kill that took months to figure out and practice. The third tier of raids, Thoth-Amon's Stronghold, was not completed by anyone for more than a year. But slowly and surely, guilds across the game plucked away at it until they cleared it. The same went for the fourth tier of raiding. Which, at the time, had not been cleared since the launch of Rise of the Godslayer Expansion (which was not cleared until nearly 3 years after its launch). Now, I know people could care less about another game, but I just wanted to share why that game lasted longer than it probably should have. If there were guides for that game, for guilds to read and follow, that game would have been dead within a year (after its re-launch due to horrific bugs and glitches). Should the same fate become of SWTOR? Is content being cleared SO fast that the game has become less and less about current content and more about following a set of written out instructions to get it done and stand on fleet waiting for something else to happen, instead of creating strategies and practicing? If so.... that's not good. Already there are guides on the internet about how to clear content that is not presently available yet. Just once, let the players learn and play and succeed on their own terms from start to finish. I am not criticizing the amazing work, research and effort that the people have put into creating these guides, but rather asking them if they should continue? Don't get me wrong, a tip or two does not hurt when asked for, don't get me wrong. But anyone can follow a set of instructions (generally). Thank you for reading this, and thank you for taking the time to reply. Please remember this is not an attempt to instigate a flame war, so please try to avoid such comments.

Hehe, well the speeders product number is the PmP-###. I don't think it has a unique sound. 90% of the time, the sounds for speeders don't even play. But it does have a pretty sweet animation when you move.

Lets see who in the world has enough time and patience to find the lovely GSI Pleaser Speeder! Server: Jedi Covenant Guild: Torva Nex Faction: Empire Date Completed: June 2nd, 2013 https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/296131_10201333621648382_860055548_n.jpg

Hi All, Just wanted to inform you that Achievement Going Rogue does not update correctly upon kill. I believe it has to do with the boss not reaching zero health before dieing (his self detonation at 10%). But anyway, thought you should be aware. The Codex Entry updates just fine, as a side note. -Onaga

Then you must have an alternative bug. You should not be allowed to find the dread seed armor before selecting your Light Side/ Dark Side choice at the end of the Heroic 4, enabling which armor sets you will find. As for the finishing the Heroic 4 to find the speeder parts, my guild master just picked up the Seeker Droid mission, got his seeker droid and that's it. Not a single mission further and has 5/6 parts. Also, thank you for moving this topic into the appropriate section. I did not know which to post it into. If it is in the bug report section, it might be looked at. -Onaga

Bump. I want an answer from a BioWare rep before I go wasting more time doing this.

Hello BioWare and the Star Wars Community, Summary: I have recently done some real looking into for the seeker droid, especially when it comes to looking for the GSI Pleasure Speeder parts. I believe I have discovered an unintended feature in the searching mechanics of the droid. Reasons for Post As many people know, the Pleasure Speeder and as the achievement title suggests, "It Ain't Easy." However, I believe that the finding of these parts is either VERY EASY or VERY VERY HARD to do. Ill explain in a moment what I mean. People complain of getting the Dread Seed armor over and over again when searching for these parts. I think I know why we are having so much trouble. On the flip side, I also now think that the reason people, like my guild master, have been finding parts like candy are related to the Dread Seed armor (or Star Seeker, or whatever you pubs are). Explanations of Reasoning: Very Easy vs Near Impossibly to Locate the Parts As I said before, the parts can be VERY easy to find. For example, two days ago, my guild master did not know how to use the seeker droid. In less than 1 hour, he had 2 pieces. In less than 2 days, he had all the pieces except for the reputation vendor piece. I on the other hand have been searching for the Pleasure Speeder for WEEKS. I have spent literally days (in hours played) searching, to only have currently acquired 4 parts (GSI Vendor Included). Why the differences in time? Because my guild master has NOT completed [Heroic 4] Alchemy of Evil. Why does this matter? Because the completion of this mission enables the Dread Seed armor to be found. Without the completion of this mission, seeker droid users are NOT bothered by the constant duplicate findings of this stupid armor. They are MORE LIKELY to find the Pleasure Speeder parts than anyone who can completed this Mission. I believe that this is an unintended feature for the seeker droid. And if this is intended, it has to be the stupidest logic I have ever seen. "Let's punish those looking for the Speeder, after completing the story line for the Seeker droid, having 4 duplicate sets of Dread Seed armor, and have begun to SELL excess Explorer and Exploiter speeder parts." I hope to hear back from the administration and the community regarding their experiences with this issue and I hope something can be compensated for all of us who are fed up with chasing our tails. Have a great day and good hunting, -Onaga

I would take this guys word over mine. I am not a healer.

Don't like it? Don't use it. I have proven time and time again it works. Maybe not to the 6 people that are disagreeing with me, but the many peopled I have helped in game matter more than the six of you. And your static barrier comment for, even for PvP is silly. It aids the healers to self bubble and take less damage from AoE in PvE encounters and increases survivability in PvP. Fine by me if you don't use it, but you will drop dead in seconds without it in PvP. And yes, Madness is garbage.

Then I would get the 53willpower 40 power mods and choose your enhancements as you see fit.

Yeah, thats true. I do not have any numbers off the top of my head. My parse logs are on my gaming system. But I can safely say we cleared Kephess HM without an enrage timer on any boss. Well, almost every boss. Toth and Zorn enraged because BioWares logic in fights. DPS to fast and your tank dies from Fearful. DPS to slow and you hit enrage. DPS just right just right and you will probably hit both Fearful issues AND enrage.... /facepalm

I can safely say that if spec'd right and you have the right gear, you can always top the parse. I always top the parse in any fight unless there is a ridiculously decked out Marauder. Then maybe 2nd by a close margin. I will post some numbers I have gotten from MoX when I get a chance. One I do remember is that for Kephess, I nearly hit 800k total damage. But this number is slightly padded from the Trandoshian add waves. But hey, **** needs to die right? Takes damage to kill things

What I have seen work best, for DPS anyway, is pulling the 53 Willpower 40 Power/Crit mods. I am not sure the stat variants, but I know they are similair to the Campaign sets. If you see your crit is a tad to low, just ad a crit aug. 18 crit rating = ~.50% of a crit. Also, scrap any procing Relics or your matrix cube and go for the 103 power ones. Or 113 for War Hero. It will increase your bonus Damage/Healing about ~70.

Stomped me? Owned me? How? She is doing the same thing as me lol. He thinks/ she thinks. Except I have the Operations kills under my belt being top DPS. But of course that means nothing to you... we know. rofl

I like a good flame war. While your here, can you stick this thread please?

3/31/7 is currently the dominant. I will be happy to link my build. http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/Sorcerer#i-1vj26d2e3f-2023

Holy crap we agreed on something! SS it for the record books! lol I don't understand the numbers. I will get another parse reading when I get the chance. Going to a baseball game tomorrow and chilling on the boat Sunday until ops time. Ill try and get a reading after Ops.

I am at work. You are going to be waiting a while. On my Sorc, I did (pre 1.3) on average 1.2k DPS and would parse the highest total damage in any encounter without hitting enrage timers. I did a parse a while ago for HM preparation, still wish I had it, and it showed that I did about 1.17k DPS and around 467000 total damage in 5 minutes on that champion training dummy. This was without armor debuffs or anything. And that sucker has I think 35% armor. What I am trying to say, and say very kindly, is that I think the High DPS means high damage is partially true. It does contribute, but how does my sorc do 1.17k DPS and 467k total? To pull off this much total damage over 5 minutes, I would need 1556.667 DPS.

First off, your fights are 6 seconds difference which completely voids your numbers. Secondly, your total damage is more, even if the numbers were void, without Crushing. IMO, Damage Per Second is worthless. Total damage is where it counts. I have seen 2500 DPS on some fights, looked at the numbers, and saw they fight lasted 20 seconds because they pulled aggro and died. Ok, so yes, you lost 50 DPS. But you gained 3k total damage. I see nothing wrong here.

You know what, I am done in argueing with you Daellia. I have tried to be nice to you. I have tried to be political, and clearly none of the above work. So I am going to be blunt with you. Your numbers mean NOTHING to me. They mean NOTHING to most people. I tried using Force Lightning more and my DPS dropped like a dead bird. Contradictory to what your numbers say, the outcome is different. When you can show me some PvE numbers in which you come close to my damage output, then I will proudly and honorably admit I was wrong.

I think your tooltip might be bugged. My Shock does about 600 more base damage than L.S. Double check your numbers. I am not going to argue with anyone. This is MY guide for the community with what has worked for ME. If you want to make your own guide with your own audience, feel free.

Maybe for Madness spec, yes. Crushing Darkness and Force Lighting is useful. Not for lightning. Chain lightning is there. Its under Thundering Blast. I am thankful that you finally "agree" with me about Force Lightning. I will take the slide rather than pointless arguments. Shock is not a DPS loss even stationary. But it is best to use moving, which is why I stated use occasionally. I know the main cast for L.S. is 1.5, but I don't think there is a way to completely avoid some alacrity if you are Rakata or better. Almost all of the implants and/or earpieces have Alacrity. If I remember right, all you need is ~100 alactiry to reduce cast times to 1.4.

Well crit does not increase the damage of the critical hit. Surge does that. Crit only increases the frequency of a critical hit. I have 4 toons with the class buff so I always have them. I would suggest rolling a toon and powering it through to get your class buffs.

Lightning Spec A GUIDE to the dominant PvE Spec. Hello SWTOR Sorcerers, My name is Onaga and at the request of my members of the community, I have compiled information about the Lighting Spec. Sorcerer and why it dominates any spec that varies from mine. I have killed every Hardmode/Nightmare Encounter in the game, as well as World Bosses. I am always number one and rarely number two on the parse list for any encounter during 8 man Operations of any mode and 16 man world bosses. My information is accurate and credible, because I use this in game and have been using this spec since launch. Please note that damage and all other game play situations are not solely based on feats or ability uses. Gear, set bonuses, mod replacements, augment slots, and other factors the overall success of this tree, as with most trees of any class. [section One: Feat Tree] Here I will explain each feat in the 3/31/7 Lightning spec by tree and why it is useful. Corruption o Seeping Darkness (3/3) – This one is pretty obvious. Increased critical chance for all abilities. You can tweak mods if you get to much crit from the Force Masters bonus to increase other attributes. Lightning o Electric Induction (3/3) – Reduces force cost of force attacks by 9%. Gives better force management for longer encounters. Presents the ability to assist heal and static barrier. o Reserves (2/2) – Increases total force by 100. While this is not a necessary feat, there are really no other feats in the tree than are worth the points for PvE in the Lightning Tree. So extra reserves are best. o Convection (3/3) – Increases damage dealt by 6% for Lightning Strike, Chain Lightning and Thundering Blast. Also increases for Crushing Darkness but you will almost never use Crushing Darkness. o Lightning Barrier – (2/2) Since the Sorcs are light armor and do not have any defensive cool downs, an extra 20% of absorbed damage to your static barrier is a plus. o Subversion (2/2) – This is a very conflicting feat throughout the community, but I can safely say it is the most important ability for Lightning. It reduces the pushback suffered for all of your major attacks (Minus Crushing Darkness again. I will force C.D. out of your rotation). It also increases your force regen rate by 10% up to three stacks for every use of Lightning Strike. In other words, your force regen goes from 8 to 10.3. o Exsanguinate (2/2) – Increases the duration/damage of Affliction. This is most valuable when Thundering Blast becomes available. You can get two Thundering Blasts off for the cost of one Affliction instead of two. Also allows for more chances for crit proc’d Lightning Barrages. o Lightning Barrage (2/2) – Affliction has a 100% chance on criting to cut the channel time of Force Lightning in half. Instead of ~3 seconds of channeling, it does the same amount of damage in ~1.5. o Chain Lightning (1/1) – This is your HARDEST hitting attack. Grand AOE damage as well as Single Target. Activation timer is 3 seconds, but can be instant cast when proc’d through the use of Lightning Strike and Force Storm after feating Lightning Storm. o Lightning Storm (1/1) – Gives your Lightning Strike (30%) and Force lighting (10%) chances to finish the cooldown of Chain Lighting and make it instant cast. Absolutely crucial in maintaining hard hitting hits. o Lightning Effusion (2/2) – Force attack crits have a 100% to reduce the force cost of all force abilities by 50% AND reduces the cooldown of Force Speed for the quick get aways. Crucial for managing force. o Polarity Shift (1/1) – Every two minutes you can engage this ability to increase your alacrity by 20%. In other words, a Lighting Strike that casts for 1.4 seconds can now cast for 1.1 seconds for 10 seconds. o Forked Lightning (3/3) – When you use Lightning Strike or Chain Lightning, you have a 30% chance to hit the target again, doing 30% of the damage of the attack. In other words, your attack hits 30% harder when proc’d. o Conduction (1/1) – An awesome spell that increases your force bonus damage by 1% and stacks up to three times every time Forked Lightning Procs. Increases damage is good. o Reverberating Force (3/3) – The second most crucial passive buff in the tree. This increases your critical damage dealt by 50% to Affliction, Chain Lightning and Thundering Blast. So take your current surge rating and add 50% to that. Sexy. o Thundering Blast (1/1) – The pinical to the Lightning Spec. This beast is internal damage and auto crits anything affected by affliction. It only has a 9 second cooldown too! And with your surge + the 50% bonus surge, this attack is the most valuable in burst damage. Madness o Calcify (3/3) – Increases the damage dealt by Shock, Force Lightning and Affliction by 6%. Sexy. o Will of the Sith (2/2) – Increases total Willpower by 6%. More crit and bonus damage. Yummy. o Disintegration (2/2) – Increases the critical chance of Force Lightning and Lightning Strike by 6%. In other words, 6% more chance to gain bonuses like Lightning Effusion. And that’s it. That is your 3/31/7 Feat Tree. [section Two: Abilities] Crucial Abilities o Lightning Strike: 1.4 Second Cast time. Very high crit rating. Increased damage. Grants abilities like Forked Lightning, Conduction, Lightning Effusion, Subversion and Lightning Storm. o Affliction: Instant cast. Does internal damage. Grant auto crits of the ability Thundering Blast. o Thundering Blast: Does internal damage. Auto crits on targets affected by Affliction. Increased surge rating. 9 Second cooldown. Grants ability procs like Lightning Effusion. o Chain Lightning: Hard hitting energy attack. Can be instant proc’d. Hits multiple targets. Useful Abilities o Force Lightning: Does channeling damage over 3 seconds. Does not grant any useful bonuses besides Lightning Effusion. ONLY use when Lightning Barrage is proc’d! o Shock: A hard hitting instant cast ability with a low cooldown. Good for mobile attacking. Use sparingly. Useless Abilities o Crushing Darkness: Low Kinetic Damage with low DoT. Too long a cast and too long a cooldown. No ability benefits. Use maybe at the beginning of an encounter. [section Three: Tips] The lightning spec is all Proc based. Use abilities that use procs to gain the advantage of it. The earlier use of these procd abilities ensures more uses throughout the fight. Avoid Crushing Darkness during the middle portions of a fight. Lightning will always trump Madness in PvE.