It's always like this. I don't even bother hoping for any different outcome anymore. Whatever they announce, will stay, regardless of anyone's opinion. Period. Welcome to SWTOR!

THIS!! It about covers it all. I think at this point it's very clear that almost everyone is against this change. No one asked for it, no one want it! You did this crap in the past, where we had to farm PVP and PVE and everyone hated at the time, and you are doing it again, and for no valid reason at all. The question is, will you actually listen to the community this time and call it off or you just gonna ignore it and go ahead anyway? I guess everyone knows the answer for this one.

Signed! Totally agreed! Masterwork crystal should be legacy. This was one of the biggest mistakes they made with this patch and that is saying A LOT! And the weekly for GSF is a joke. A very bad one. No one cares for that crap, at least ppl that do NiM and will actually need the gear.

Like everyone said, I agree that this intended change was completely unnecessary and clearly it was made to increase the grind time (and apparently to piss ppl off). What SHOULD BE DONE for the future: If you really want to improve things, in my opinion, the only way to start to fix things on that regard is to bring the 4.0 gearing system back. I'm not saying to get rid of the Command Crates or anything, keep that. But the only way to solve everything for everyone would be to bring PVP gear back and make the PVE BiS gearing from the hardest content again. You MUST separate things. Otherwise it will be a mess forever. Our current system sucks for PVEers and sucks for PVPers. You are forcing people to do content they don't want to. As a consequence the quality of PVP matches dropped significantly and PVE Ops groups too. When people do content they don't want to they really don't care about consequences or quality, they just care about the mat they need or the Weekly. Bring back the PVP gear and the best gear (PVE) drop from HM/NiM content and forget the grind for mats and quests and weeklys etc, because everyone knows it, hell, YOU know, that it's ****. Maybe by doing that you would actually be able to bring back some of the old players, that are long gone. Everyone loves the game and wants it to succeed. But you have to actually listen to us and do what we ask. I'll give you one example, Bungie was completely lost with Destiny 2, but within a year, they listened to the community and they did a complete 180° change in the game with those changes. Result, they conquered the players back and are actually doing really well now. Anyway, hope you can make some use of this feedback.

Hey! So currently we are running Gods Nightmare twice a week, for this week it will be Thursday, 20:30GMT-3 (Like 4:30 PST?) and Monday, same time. On the live server our guild name is "Entity", on PTS is "RNG Gods" for the lolz... We are a Brazilian guild and we have completed all the content in the game for Ops (All Ops, including Gods on Vet for tittle, SM, HM, MM+Timed Run) and we are looking forward to try Gods NiM and help where we can. If you want details about our group config and flexibility for testing, let me know!

Guild: Entity Server: Satile Shan 8M Kill, 04/07/2018

Right? I can't believe some people would be so innocent to believe that they are withholding information about the fight just because they want to provide an incentive to people to progress by themselves. Yeah, I'm sure they are not doing it to be one of the few to have the tittle and achiev after 5.8. That's probably the bs of the year. It makes absolutely no sense at all. And to think that actually sharing intel (after being for a loong time figuring things out about the fight on PTS, that only a few groups were given the opportunity to) would actually help other guilds to progress in the fight, providing actual incentive, considering the game is almost dead in content and a lot of people are leaving, to win something new and exciting after years of nothing. THAT would be helping the community. Besides, like someone said earlier, it's pointless to withhold information since people have friends that were on the PTS that will be sharing info anyways. (those that are not d.i.c.k.s that is). But sure, let's play along. Also, I blame BW for having a closed PTS with hand picked groups. It allowed this kind of bs. PTS should be always open to avoid this kind of thing. Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. Cheers.

Exactly our point! Of course that there are different player skill levels within the game and some groups will have more difficulty to accomplish things than others, but the point here wasn't to say "hey we can do this and you can't" but rather "hey if we can do this with 4 people, surely a vast majority in the game can make it with 8 without issue". Overall, the fight is balanced well enough so that any group, with a little coordination and patience, can easily complete it. THAT, was our point and I think it is a important one either.

So, I know some people are complaining that Nahut encounter is too difficult in SM, so I got a few friends together and decided to contest these complaints before BW actually believe them (wouldn't be the first time) and decide to nerf the thing. Tyth and A&E I believe is common knowledge that we can clear them with 3 people only. And even though Nahut is indeed a little more complicated than the first 2, it's still a pretty easy fight once you understand the mechanics. We managed to clear it with 4 people only. (1 tank, 2 dps, 1 heals). Here's the video: We also have in our channel A&E 3m SM, if you are curious. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37FFYW_mHCw&t=36s) So I hope this will clear things up to those people that rather come here and demand a Nerf than actually learn the fight and improve themselves. I also hope that BW won't listen to them and nerf the fight, that would be ridiculous. Anyway, thanks for watching. Peace out!

In raw numbers? Snipers are slightly better atm with both specs, Virulence and Eng., when comparing with Merc IO. Merc Arsenal is way below in numbers, but still viable for most fights. But it all depends on the player's skills (duh!) and what boss you will be facing, spec you are playing etc. For PVP tho, they are both pretty decent, maybe sniper being a little better in some scenarios. But even more than PVE, it really depends on the player skills and experience with the class. With the same skill level players playing against each other I would say they are pretty much alike.

Merc IO is the best spec for the class atm and by a good difference too, however its one of the most difficult specs to master in the game. So, if you don't want to spend a fairly amount of time trying to learn it I would recommend going with Arsenal since it's still viable to do almost any content in the game if you play it well. And yes, parsely is up to date with the numbers and still a good source of info to analyze the best specs in the game.

Thanks! And yeah, it could vary a little indeed. Btw, that new set bonus, I think its more for a nerf than anything else. I really hope they change it before release. Can't really say for sure without testing it properly, but it doesn't look like a good trade (100% crit chance every minute or 20% crit chance every 30s?...hmmm);

Can't say for Arsenal, but for IO, we use around 1280 alacrity for a reason. If you use more than that, you will break your procs, your dots will burn faster than you can renew them and you will screw your rotation in the end. IO has a very precise rotation and stats, really annoying to mess with. I've tested a lot of new things over the years, and right now, the best stats I've came up with are around 1800crit and 1280 alacrity (1300max). About the rotation, I've made some adjustments over the years as well and I've a kinda of unique way of doing it now, for a few parts of it. Marise rotation relies on dividing everything into 3 parts basically, Opener, High rotation (2 pwr shots, thermal), Low rotation (2 rapid shots for GCD as fillers). It works really well, but the problem with this is, in certain situations it can be a problem, as you have too many casts to do and as a result, less mobility in a fight with too much movement. Also higher risk to overheat if not executed well. What I did was, I broke it down to just 1 part instead of 2 (High and low). More stable and mobile. I replaced 2 power shots for just 1 power shot and 1 rapid shot. Every GCD I'm able to use thermal and keep up the pace, manage heat better and keep moving more easily as I've only 2 cast skills instead of 3. As a result, I find that it can perform slightly better with this rotation, whether it's in a dummy or in a real fight. At least for me. Well, you can see the results at parsely over the months. And like I said before, they fixed the set bonus bug at December 12th with the latest patch, and I don't think it had a 500dps difference, more like 200~300, as we can still reach around 10.4k or with some luck, more, today with IO.

Thought that would be the case for Arsenal. Passive Alacrity in the spec should be enough indeed. And they fixed the bug December 12th. But it was somewhat 200dps more than it should be. It's still possible to reach around 10.4k, probably a little more with some luck, for IO.

For burst specs I'd go with an alacrity build, which seems to perform better for most classes. Unlike IO, you don't have to worry about huge amounts of alacrity with arsenal as far as I know, so, would be something like ~1860+ alacrity, ~1564+ Crit (acc stim). Must be more than 1860 alacrity to be actual worth it tho. Arsenal gives you a alacrity bonus during rotation tho, so you will have to test it to see if its worth it or not. I only play IO so I can't say for sure. Give it a go and see for yourself. Works pretty well with Maras, PTs and other classes/specs. Good luck.