1. How do you think your Vanguard spec is perceived by other classes? Shield - a cool tank that can cruise through flashpoints and holds good aggro on bosses and packs of mobs alike. Assault - Flavor of the Month, overpowered 2. How do you perceive your own spec? Shield - cool tank spec I can cruise through flashpoints with and not worry too much about aggro. Assault - omg amazing. way more powerful than my commando. so fun to play, great mechanics and solid execution. I just love fire so lighting people up with lightning and fireballs is awesome! My only complaint is the hidden icd on Ionic Accelerator. I liked it more when I could spam ion pulse for a chance at high impacts Also the whole melee/ranged hybrid thing is really neat. I wasn't sure I'd ever like it but the ranged classes in this game aren't as interesting and it helps a ton having range as a tank.

1. How do you think your Commando spec is perceived by other classes? Medic - a decent healer that can keep up with incoming damage on a few targets, other healers like to be around a medic for buffs. Gunnery - grav round spam. it's not necessarily a bad thing or even true, but other classes see gunners as nothing but grav round turrets 2. How do you perceive your own spec? medic - love it, fun spec, powerful heals when I need em with just an ounce of ammo management. I liked it more when ammo costs were lower, but I can live with it. I feel like I could use more heals, like another aoe heal to include in my aoe rotation and maybe a meaningful cooldown to get mad heals on the whole op group gunner- I try to love this spec. I love everything about it except the damage is pathetic. Maybe my rotation is off but it seems like it should be simple enough. No matter how well I gear my commando, I cannot do more damage than my vanguard. Vanguard is decently geared in mostly Rakata with some columi surge mods. Commando is decked out in mad rakata and black hole/campaign gear with way higher stats than vanguard. Cmdo pulls 1300 dps if I'm lucky, VG easily pulls 1700-1800 dps up to 2k if I'm lucky. I played commando because I wanted to nuke the crap out of enemies with my giant gun, but the nuking has been nerfed too hard in my opinion.

I've posted this before but it's seriously the biggest issue I face every time I play. The splash screen (loading screen that shows satele and malgus and the jedi/trooper etc.) is bugged and stays up way too long. Maybe it's just because I play on a low-end computer but that shouldn't mean I have to deal with game-breaking bugs. Every time I load a new zone, the splash screen pops up and stays on my screen long after the zone is loaded. I can move around and click on things but can't see anything past the splash screen. Often I can even see everything fully loaded up for a second before the splash screen appears and ruins my day for more than a minute. I say it's game-breaking because I'm often kicked from warzones because the splash screen stays up so long I can't leave the spawn area. Please fix the splash screen or remove it entirely.

Would be really neat if the mission terminal could be rolled into the group finder - so I never have to go to the terminal again. Same for warzone queuing, for that matter.

With the implementation of "smart" aoe attacks for tanks, why are there still no smart aoe heals that only target the lowest health group members? On a related note, why no changes for healers at all in 1.3? All 3 heal specs are balanced fairly well and are capable of healing current content, and most healers will agree with that. However, the biggest issue most healers complain about is "usability," which is an area the devs have specifically stated they want to work on.

This was kind of already addressed, but would it be possible to get some sort of "fringe ideas" blog where bioware can share information on stuff that may or may not make it into the game? With some sort of disclaimer so it's not like BW giving their word that we can hold them to. We get all sorts of answers like "we can't talk about this until it's 100% sure" so it would be really neat if those kinds of answers would be directed into this sort of blog or whatever. It would at least give us an idea of what the devs want to do, regardless of whether they're going to do it or not.

LOL the devs play WoW instead of SWtOR This isn't WoW Damion, it's called hard mode. Devs don't even play their own game, no wonder they're out of touch.

Will something like dual spec (field respec?) be coming with group finder to allow us to queue as 2 different roles? Will Ranked Warzones or Nightmare Denova be coming in 1.3? According to Daniel Erickson: "New armor sets come with new sets of content difficulty. 1.3 will not introduce any new armor sets." ........the answer is no Can you elaborate on any class balance changes that may be happening in 1.3? Why did you pick server transfers instead of server merges? Where do you expect us to get all the credits for Legacy unlocks? it takes like 2 weeks of doing all the dailies to afford some of the current unlocks... and with the upcoming costs of adding augments to our gear it seems like my credits will disappear faster than I can earn them

Name: Gravityround Spec: Gunnery Commando Gear: All Rakata except Columi OH, implants, ear. 2 on-use relics i didn't use in this parse Buffs: all classes, no stim, no adrenals, no relics DPS: 1267 Screenshot: http://i45.tinypic.com/35d3s0k.jpg

The splash screen with malgus and satele and the trooper and such really has to go. It shows up inappropriately and covers the screen so I can't see anything. After loading any new zone the splash screen shows up and stays for quite some time. I can move around and click on things as though the splash screen wasn't there but I can't see anything except malgus's ugly face. Sometimes I can even see everything for a second before the splash screen shows up but then it stays for a while. It's the worst on Carrick Station, Belsavis, and warzones but affects almost every zone change. The problem has been like this since launch but it is getting pretty annoying. I play on a very low-end computer (laptop) and there are plenty of other ways this game tortures low-end computers (like not showing the bad stuff on the ground until too late - Sentinel Droid, Dr. Lorrick, etc.) but the splash screen is really the worst imo.

The rez timers wouldn't be an issue except they also happen when revived in combat by another player. Timing a battle rez takes some skill and reviving a fallen comrade at a key moment can mean the difference between victory and a wipe. Except when u cast the combat revive, the target player has to wait up to 2 minutes or more before accepting it. During that time, the group wipes and runs back while you're still sitting there waiting for the rez timer

In this example the commando uses several 2 minute cooldowns, while the marauder uses none. That obviously can't always be the case and cooldowns favor the marauder. Simply using cloak of pain would make grav round crit for less than 2k, so grenade+grav+demo is only about 5k damage tops. Not nearly enough to put pressure on a marauder. Also, force leap interrupts so using that combo after using a knockback is completely worthless. As for your guide, it's kinda useful but you forgot to mention how to counter the obscenely long string of defensive cd's

Devs have replied to a couple threads to say the arsenal skills are working as intended but ignoring the skill that's broken. Another patch goes by and this skill still doesn't work. "While Armor-piercing Cell is active, critical hits with rounds and Full Auto have a 100% chance to generate 1 energy cell. This effect cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds." Full Auto actually has a 0% chance to generate 1 energy cell, only rounds have 100% chance on critical I tested this skill today. The simple test involved engaging the target dummy for a while using just the basic rotation. I avoided using Recharge Cells or Recharge and Reload so the only ammo gains that show on the log would be from Cell Charger. Here is the log of that test: http://www.torparse.com/l/32928 (my commando's name is Gravityround) Using Ctrl+F I found all the crits and all the ammo gains. "Gravityround gains 1 ." appears 47 times "Gravityround gains 0 ." appears 2 times (gain 0 instead of 1 when I'm already full ammo) "Gravityround's Grav Round critcally hits" appears 42 times ("critically" is misspelled by torparse) "Gravityround's Demolition Round critcally hits" appears 12 times "Gravityround's Full Auto critcally hits" appears 45 times Sure enough 49 ammo gains and 99 crits. Some of these can be explained by two Grav Round crits in a row but in the log every ammo gain appears next to a Grav Round crit or a Demolition Round crit but never Full Auto. Thus Full Auto crits never proc Cell Charger. Also, according to http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=446863 , Deadly Cannon doesn't work with Full Auto either. I have no comment on that, but I would believe it from the numbers in my log (73.03% surge).

The only bugged ticks were the first one when applying plasma to a target that didn't already have it, and high impact refreshing it. Ion pulse has always immediately ticked plasma when refreshing it. The fix for high impact refreshing the dot has substantially boosted dps at all ranges.

People who think pure DPS classes have no utility don't know anything about the pure DPS classes. The utility Snipers and Marauders bring to a group with Ballistic Shield and Bloodthirst and such is so much better than the weak heals a DPS spec merc/sage/op could possibly provide. A Mercenary can toss out a 3-5k heal here and there without having much heat issues from it. Ballistic Shield can easily prevent 10-20k damage. Bloodthirst can easily boost your healers' total output by more than 10k while also boosting group DPS. The question isn't "why bring a sniper who just does dps when we can bring merc who dps and some heals?" it's more like "why bring a merc who just has some weak heals when we can bring sniper who has so much utility?" This goes double for PVP where Trauma makes a DPS spec's heals almost totally worthless.