Oh, Obirayy? Yeah, he's always there. Apparently he does it on a lot of the servers.

If you wish to present them as evidence in support of your stance, the onus is on you to provide the sources. Otherwise you're just another guy on the internet citing some random numbers that seem to prove your point.

Statistics without sources are anecdotal at best.

No argument. (Group) flashpoints and the planet heroic quests (or in general, instances/quests across any MMO that require a group to do at-level) are a core part of the MMO experience. If you can just solo your way through it, you might as well be playing an offline RPG. Don't get me wrong, I've loved the 12x exp for grinding out 60's, but having that be only class quests, when I can't even have someone do that quest alongside me (of the same class, or, I would have to cut efficiency by doing both of our different class stories), man, that makes for a boring grind. Significantly shorter, but boring. I do enjoy the group aspect of leveling. I think that the "game doesn't start until the cap" is wrong. If that were the case, there shouldn't even be leveling. But there definitely does need to be enough content at the cap to keep people engaged. Eventually you run out of fresh content, either by leveling enough alts and seeing everything, or by burning out on end game.

Ignoring the OP for a minute... this right here might just be the most asinine thing I've read recently. Especially the last line. "Here's my really stupid opinion, now I'm going to ignore the most obvious and applicable response to it! *smileyface*" It's an MMO. The focus *should* be on things like PvP and raids. I'm not saying that there's no room for story (there is plenty of room, and given that this is Bioware, I expect a high level of it), but to think that SWTOR is a good MMO because it is essentially offering the content of an offline RPG? Get real.

Shave your dirty neckbeard.

Working on 16man HM EC, so it looks like I'll be aiming for 98/108, thanky.

Thanks for the additional replies, folks. I've got a spreadsheet set up where I was putting together an "optimal gear" load out, using a BH's AskMrRobot page as a reference. That's where I really noticed the stat imbalance (I included min/max damage in the sheet, but didn't note it here, just the chance to miss with OH). I know that in 'that other game', different stats had different weights within the budget, and that as you stacked more of that stat on a piece of gear, the budget cost per point got higher as well. I assumed the same held true here, or at least similarly, which was why I was really shocked by the difference between Point-totals between the MH/OH and MH/Gen. If no one minds me steering the thread in a slightly different direction now, does anyone know the actual accuracy % we (as commandos) should be looking to achieve for Ops? First I heard "Accuracy is useless", then I heard 108% Ranged, then 104% Ranged, and now, if I'm understanding it correctly, 104% is just for BH's, to compensate for their Offhand? Most of my information comes from sithwarrior, but they've got a heavy bias towards BH's over there.

Up top. Anyone?

Fresh out of the shop, campaign gear: (Stat order: Aim / End / Pow / Crit / Acc / Surge) Elim Cannon + Elim Gene: 211 / 251 / 84 / 95 / 0 / 114 Elim Cannon + Tech Gene: 191 / 266 / 90 / 95 / 95 / 57 / 57 Tech Cannon + Elim Gene: 234 / 201 / 207 / 0 / 0 / 114 Tech Cannon + Tech Gene: 214 / 216 / 213 / 0 / 57 / 57 Let's assume that I'm sitting near the "ideal" Crit, Surge, and Accuracy thresholds. In this case, the third option, Tech Cannon + Eliminator Generator, look like it's going to be my preferred setup for maximizing dps. Mercenary's blasters, fresh off the shelevs, have the following combined stats: 242 / 216 / 0 / 246 / 114 / 0 Okay, so they have a huge amount crit in their stock weapons. Keeping things equal, assume that the Mercenary is also sitting near the Cr/Ac/Su thresholds, and thus doesn't need all that crit. Ignoring the costs for a minute (yes, stripping & replacing mods is expensive, and yes, replacing with campaign mods can be a challenge, especially for a guild that is progressing and gearing people and can't afford to just hand out loot to be stripped for one or two of its mods), let's look at the combined stats on the MH/OH if those high-crit mods are replaced with power/surge mods (Crystal 41 Pow, Mod 53A/32E/41Pow, Enh 27E/41P/57Su). 242 / 216 / 246 / 0 / 0 / 114 So, with the idea of maximizing DPS in mind (and before adding in augments), the "best case" combined stats look to be as follows (given same assumptions as above) Commando: 234 Aim / 201 End / 207 Pow / 0 Crit / 0 Acc / 114 Surge Mercenary: 242 Aim / 216 End / 246 Pow / 0 Crit / 0 Acc / 114 Surge Mercs: +8 Aim, + 15 End, + 39 Pow If you add in the extra augment slot they get, then it becomes +26 Aim (+8), +27 End, + 39 Pow (+57). The numbers in parentheses are if you use a power augment instead of aim. Before augments, Commandos get a total of 409+347= 756 stat points, while Mercenaries get 2x409 = 818 stat points. Now, I understand that there is a penalty associated with offhand weapons in the combat mechanics, but does that really make up for the 60 or so point-deficit between the equipment styles, or am I missing something glaringly obvious?

Soa is a joke now, and I'm amazed that every random PUG doesn't have "the Infernal" as a title yet.

You're a Commando. You're Gunnery-specced, so you do super single-target damage. OBVIOUSLY you want the SuperCommando set! What's that, you don't think absorption is useful for you? Bah, what do you know. Trust me, You. Want. Super. Commando.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL OHELOHELOHELOHELOHELOH (deep breath) LOLOLOL. Alliance has every advantage in classic WoW (read: in the years following release). Better looking capital cities, more appealing races, better quest chains (Onyxia chain, anyone?), much smoother transitions between leveling zones, and ease of travel. Not to mention, the population imbalance was in their favor for a long time. Eventually the serious PvP'ers started to roll Horde, and things changed. But at the beginning... get your facts straight.

Freak accidents are not the same as habitual quitters, or people who go into a WZ knowing full-well that they may have to leave before it is over.

So, what you're saying is, you *do* have nights off, you *do* have free time to spend however you want without interruptions from being on-call? How about you go and play SWTOR *now*, and get some uninterrupted warzones in? Listen, I respect what you do. Really, I do. No sarcasm. And I know you supposedly aren't following this thread anymore, but I'm still going to write this. When you queue for a warzone, you are (or at least, should be) informally committing to a team effort to complete the given objective. This should take about, or less than, twenty minutes. If you can not guarantee that you will have those twenty minutes, then you should not queue. It is disrespectful to your teammates to do otherwise, *regardless* of what your excuse for leaving is. Even moreso if it is a regular thing. I know that you don't know whether or not you'll get called away, it's a gamble. But if you can't commit for the length of that warzone, please, just don't. You may pay, and you may believe that we should all "mind our own keyboards", but when you quit out on us, you are effectively wasting our time. And to some of us, that time is just as precious as yours. What if, instead of drinking tonight, you were playing SWTOR, but couldn't win a single match because people kept dropping without saying a word. Wouldn't that just annoy the heck out of you, having people ruining your chances at making progress during your limited playtime? Welcome to how the rest of us feel when you quit.