So, this may better belong on the test server forums, but I think it belongs here just as much. Brief context: there's a rather extensive discussion on the test forums about sniper damage reading heavily reduced from 1.2. A lot of the comments trying to figure things out keep mentioning yellow and white damage, and armor mitigation not affecting yellow damage. From what I've understood from running my own tests and reading tooltips, there are two types of damage mitigation. Attack-Type Mitigation: There are three attack types, being weapon (composed of 'ranged' and 'melee' attacks) which does the typical white damage, force and tech, which do 'yellow' damage. Attack-type mitigation is done from Defense chance and shield chance. Defense completely ignores the damage and shield reduces it. Damage-Type Mitigation: There are four damage types, being elemental, internal, kinetic and energy. Weapon attacks always do either kinetic or energy. Force/tech attacks may do any type of damage. Damage mitigation is different, depending on what type of damage is being done. Armor reduces damage from kinetic and energy ONLY, and does nothing from internal and elemental. The SI buff reduces damage from internal and elemental only. The reason I'm asking this is because people are saying yellow damage isn't reduced by armor... which isn't true, if I understand correctly. Yellow attacks can be any of the four elements, two of which ARE reduced my armor. Yellow simply means it can't be defended/shielded and has a higher base hit rate. Am I wrong in this?

I have run this FP repeatedly without ever getting this bug. I am not sure it exists as a bug. However, I CAN tell you that if you DPS him two quickly, he will do two at once. This is not a bug, it is simply you activating two event triggers in close succession. He has no enrage, and the fight is easy to heal; just slow down your dps.

I'm 99% sure the answer is no, but does BW have any API to access any game account information at all? I'm not talking about in game access, but access for third party sites. Like, a guild page that lists members and their current level. Probably not, but its worth a try. Maybe there's a secret I'm missing out on

I only know Empire side, sadly, but I will list them in order of easiest to hardest in my opinion. Whichever FPs overlap, I imagine would be of similar difficulty. Black Talon (Esselles) Boarding Party Foundry Battle of Ilum Kaon Under Siege False Emporer Directive 7 Note the Directive 7 isn't all that hard if you get away bug free. In that case, it's probably in between Battle of Ilum and Kaon. The only truly hard boss is Replicator (optional), if you have a low health group. As long as you know the fight mechanics of the other fights, it's not that hard. Bulwark does have a fairly quick enrage timer, so make sure your dps is up to snuff. False Emperor is hard because one boss in particular does hefty group damage, has a lot of different mechanics, and a short enrage timer. The last boss is rather a pushover.

Bioware devs made mention of this at the Guild Summt, notes from which you can find on various 3rd party sites. They said they want to make it so the loot is tradable for a short time after being looted, but this isn't possible yet. It'll come. Also, I have not experienced your HM loot imbalance. Perhaps it is just bad luck. Random, and all that. Also also, destined loot only occurs on normal mode. Normal mode is, really, just practice for hardmode. If you want to get geared, do hardmode.

This is odd, because it seems any time someone asks in general "which class has the best healing?" someone always replies "operative." As far as HoTs go... the other two classes don't exactly have a lot, either. Single target, sorcs have one, and bounty hunters have one that procs off their med scan. And to be honest, all healing classes seem rather dull in this game. They all have a very limited number of abilities, and a very boring rotation.

It is actually a very quick way to farm trophies. Due to taunt reducing player damage, the effect of guard, etc, tanking is very viable. However, in my experience (and I"m not very good at pvp, so my word isn't terribly reliable) being strictly a tank does reduce your one on one viability. Two on two goes up quite a bit, though. Can't comment on PT tank, as I'm an assassin.

First - and last - bump. A little more exposure never hurt anyone.

My argument wasn't that there was no precedent to companions with large combat abilities in any game. In KotOR, your 'companions' were party members and had as many abilities as you did. That is not the case in this game. Solo difficulty is currently based on the abilities of companions as they are in this game, not in dragon age. Allowing in companions as fully capable alts would break that difficulty, and make you as strong as two full players. If I was leveling a tank, I would create an alt healer, use their 1 minute CC, use my one minute CC, use their healing, and solo just about all of the content (most of the 4 mans can be two manned... some are harder than others, but still). This is why I said there would have to be a reduction in vocabulary.

I realized I made a rather serious typo; however, it seems most people saw through it. I meant to say that your current characters have a much larger 'vocabulary' of abilities, not your current companions. Also, companion affection is not just for storyline - it affects their performance on crew skills. There are further consequences to simply saying 'don't allow them to do crew tasks' as well. The number of free companions would increase and, until you get your sixth around level 50, that would enable more crafting to people with alts. I can get more behind the level 50 perk option. Doing so would eliminate a lot of issues of imbalance, as long as they are not allowed in World PVP (as, even with a 'one bar' limitation, they would still have REALLY long CCs available, etc). Because, at that point, the only imbalance they could acheive would be allowing 50s to solo certain heroic dailies... and who honestly cares about that? It could also be a very difficult to reach legacy skill.

I see no reason (in a 4 person group -- again, I suggested expanded it in operations) why I would need to see more than the next in line. All I need to know is how close they are to taking aggro. If people are below them, they are irrelevant. They are not as close to taking aggro. Also, DPS is a mathematical measurement, so yes. Of course math can determine their DPS. Their skill and gear determines how much dps they are doing, but dividing damage by time (math) gives you DPS. That is the definition of DPS.

They would have to have some sort of limited ability list for those companions. This is because your companions in game currently have a much large 'vocabulary' of attacks that make them far more powerful. Also, the current companions do not have a resource pool, and so a resource management AI would have to be written. In short, I don't see it happening. It would require a massive rehaul of the system to achieve, and companions are already fairly highly customizable. Also, what would determine their personality for gifting, affection gains, etc? More specific thought would definitely have to be given for it to become viable.

As a tank, I have no indication whatsoever how close I am to losing aggro until its too late. And, after it's too late, I often have no indication I have lost aggro (when tanking groups) until I see someone's health bar go down, as its difficult to watch what direction bodies are facing in certain fights. Some sort of threat indicator is needed, and it shouldn't be difficult to implement. I know various suggestions have been made to a threat indicator before, and I would truly appreciate ANY implementation of them, but this particular implementation could possible fix two birds with one stone. First off, to fix the issue of not always being able to tell when I lose aggro: When combat commences, show a number (preferable resizable/movable/toggle-able) that indicates how many enemies are attacking me. If an enemy dies, the number simply decrements. If an enemy is pulled off me, the number pulses, then decrements, or something to symbolize loss of aggro. This is super simple, and shouldn't take long to program in, considering the game already know how many are attacking, and when they die, etc. The other possibility would be to do what other games have done, and graphically represent aggro on the party/ops frame with a red border. I personally would prefer the number, but, again, anything is better than nothing. Now, for the threat indicator. I acknowledge that in many ways a threat indicator can be used as a pseudo-dps meter, and I recognize the reasons many wish to avoid these. I think, however, that this implementation will solve a lot of those problems due to individual observation being limited. Threat is only monitored on the current target. I know this causes issues with AoE-heavy classes, but I can't think of a 'clean and simple' implementation that works for groups. Threat indication is as follows: If you currently have aggro, it shows a 'full' bar at 100% with your name on it. Next to that bar, it shows the person who has the next highest threat, and what percentage of threat they have, also represented graphically. Only the next in threat is displayed is displayed. This could possibly be increased in Ops groups, but there is no real need to see lower threat levels in a 4 person group. If you do not currently have aggro, then the person with it currently is displayed, with 100% represented graphically. Next to it is your threat level. This way you cannot see anyone else's but (hopefully) the tank. I think this implementation would solve a lot of issues, and make a lot of different groups happy, because there is no way to get a comprehensive picture of who did 'the most' damage without collaboration. The tank may be able to tell who did the most, but the second most could be quite close the whole time. The only way to determine where everyone fit in is to ask everyone. Additionally, a person with lower threat could easily be doing more damage due to skills/abilities that reduce threat. However, the skills (that I'm aware of) list the threat reduction numerically, and the abilities can be opted to not be used. This would allow groups who WISH to determine DPS for theorycrafting reasons to collaborate and do so, within a certain percentage of error. (No actual numbers given, but representations of a part in a whole) Finally, any implementation of a threat meter will allow for greater tank proficiency, as the tank can make small changes in rotation to increase threat, where needed, or increase focus on mitigation, damage done, etc, before aggro is lost. Comments, suggestions and criticisms are welcome below. Happy TORing. EDIT: Relatively accurate DPS numbers could actually be discovered in groups concerned with theorycrafting with a little work; the total health of the enemy is known, and the duration can be timed. Then some math could determine what each character did. However, this is still impossible without collaboration.

The issue with that is that in this game, it is not just an appearance change. there are different responses available in certain dialogues based on your gender, and romances would be incompatible... Long story short, I doubt it. Its not worth the effort for them to code it in a way that would satisfy people (look how much people complain about everything!).

It is unfortunate that you encountered a bug. I will be the first to admit that there are quite a few bugs in this game. That being said, however, when I encounter a bug that is not listed in BioWare's known bugs list, I submit a bug report in game, not complain in General Discussion. If you truly want the game to improve, and not just whine or troll, submit a bug report, or, at the very least, post on Customer Service. General Discussion is not the location to file a complaint or a bug report.