There was a change. It's hidden in the patch notes. From the General section of Classes + Combat in the 4.0 Patch notes: "Lastly, we have rearranged how we distribute ratings on items. Now, Power and defense share the first rating slot on modifications, while the rest of the stats (Accuracy, Alacrity, Critical, Absorb, and Shield) will share the second rating slot." So now all new mods give you Defense, instead of a choice between defense, absorb, or shield. That's why all the new gear is so much more defense heavy.

It really depends on which tank you are using. My assassin was able to tear through everything, use a dps companion, and never need to stop to heal. I had biochem though, and this was back when assassins had self healing, so your mileage may vary. Damage while leveling on an assassin is the highest of any tank, so it's like running dps with a dps companion for killing things, only you have the durability of a tank at the same time. VERY NICE. Every time I level an assassin or shadow so far, I've done it with the tank tree. My juggernaut was much harder. Much lower damage, not much more durability, and no range at all. Honestly, I almost gave up on my juggernaut, it was so slow. There were a few times when I needed to just use my healing companion, because incoming damage was too much to handle alone, so that slowed things down even more. I would not even consider trying to level this tank tree again. My powertech had a bit easier time of it. At least I was able to do something while running into melee range, even if it was only mildly annoying the enemies. The down side was the companion set up. First a healer, and nothing else until level 30. I think I just used the healer because of how long I went without anything else. Overall, I'd rate it the middle of the pack for leveling speed. Still, I'm trying out a damage tree on my new vanguard, and liking it better already.

Run any of the groupfinder operations. You should have at least a chance of getting a drop called "Unassembled Arkanian" something. If you're lucky, you'll get a head, torso, hands, legs, or feet item. Take this to the fleet where you spend your commendations. However, instead of going to the counters, look at the wall between the two counters in each section. There will be two people standing there waiting to sell you things. Talk to the one near the counter for your class, and you can purchase items for that unassembled arkanian item you won from the operation. If you got one of the pieces I mentioned, you also get a set bonus on that itme. That is where you get set bonuses outside nightmare operations. As for accuracy, just no. You get 1 from your companion. If you don't have that yet, spend a couple hundred thousand on gifts for your companion, get up to 8k affection, and then talk to your companion until you get it. If you pick the right choices, that should be enough to get you the bonus. In fact, do it for all five class companions. The bonuses are pretty nice. Next, make sure you have the skill talent that gives you 3% accuracy. If you're an assassin then you should already have it. Powertechs can grab it easily enough.Juggernauts need to reach a bit for it, but it's worth it even for them. DO NOT WASTE ITEM SLOTS ON ACCURACY. To explain, after the first five to ten seconds, you can hold threat with a single ability, your taunt. You can literally stand there pushing that single button over and over, and hold threat after the opening. At least until you die because you're not using your defensive abilities, but we're ignoring that. With +4% accuracy (from above), you should miss about 6% of the attacks against operation enemies. This means in that first ten seconds, you're probably going to miss one time, if that. Worst case, a damage dealer needs to hit his threat dump once. As for gearing, I will admit, I do not replace my items with offensive armorings or hilts. That is because I am lazy about gearing, more than it is a bad idea. However, if I went out of my way to change my gear, I would indeed go for lower endurance, rather than higher. There is basically a magical number where, if your team is doing things properly, you will never die once you have x health. As you get more mitigation stats, that magic number gets lower. If you stack endurance, that number gets higher. Amusingly, if you stack endurance too much and try too hard an operation, that number could actually EXCEED YOUR MAXIMUM HEALTH, despite having double the health of the other tank. A particularly interesting example: My assassin is the main tank in my guild. I have about 40k health. On our last run on hard mode, the other tank, who had about 48k health, died on Nefra. Next time, I kept Nefra on me. We cleared the fight (though he also died at the end). That's what can happen when you stack endurance. In fact, if you're looking for health levels to start tanking operations, I've done dread fortress and dread palace with about 32k health sixteen man. I even managed dread fortress 16 man through the group finder with 32k health, before they had to go back to 8 man because 16 man broke the game. Mitigation is just that good.

There's already something similar enough to this. Go to your Legacy screen, then under Global Unlocks, click Other. Now, for Ship Unlocks in here, take a closer look at the one on the far right. It's called "Galactic Trade Network Terminal." Buy this, and any time you want, you can pop to your ship and browse the GTN.

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/15/swtor-galactic-starfighter-new-player-guide/ This might help a bit. Short version: Sensors let you see enemies. Dampening hides you from enemies. Communications tells allies where enemies are.

Or... You could push H from any location on any planet, space station, or even your ship, and get into your fighter from there. No need to go to fleet to queue up or change your fighter loadouts.

Like with hilts from artifice, barrels from armstech, or augments from the other professions, you can reverse engineer the green mods and armorings to learn a blue version. You can then reverse engineer the blue version to get purple quality mods and armorings. Further, for some of the lower end game mods and armorings, you can reverse engineer to have a chance to learn those. I think the 30 and 31 level things can be reverse engineered currently.

Yeah. First, he DIED from it, so it is pretty bloody important to MillionsKNives. Second, it proved your "rule" was wrong. So, it should be important to you.

This is a WONDERFUL demonstration of what I mentioned right above Nursejenna's post. Notice: No parses, no videos of a fight. Just a testimonial that "Shadow tanks are a joke to heal" and nothing more. Neither comprehensive nor useful, considering it is more insult than testimony. NOT something that should be considered when analyzing whether there is a problem.

Just a slight comment/correction on this. When you add USEFUL and COMPREHENSIVE evidence to QQ. One or two parses showing a single shadow or assassin having problems doesn't mean much. Some random person saying "There's no problem. My guild clears X easily with shadow tanks" means less. Dozens of parses, from different guilds, with different group compositions, and using different tactics and methods of cheesing the mechanics, ALL showing the same issue, even in the cases where the tank is able to survive the fight, will show an issue is serious. I'm pretty sure the people "QQing" over shadows HAVE collected enough evidence to show that there is an issue, but I think it's worth mentioning that quality and quantity are important, not just the existence of "evidence."

Erm... Ocho-Quatro, I'd just like to point out that the person you are quoting posted in March. As in, BEFORE 2.0 actually came out. So, they kind of didn't get to see the full view of how things changed. They didn't know that the operations were going to be balanced around large single hit spikes, which is the main problem with the shadow's RNG failings.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=655108 Answers your question quickly and concisely, and answers it for every class, not just one.

1: Common parse programs I see used are Mox (don't remember where I got it, sorry) and torparse, which you use by going to torparse.com and uploading your parses there. I think they also have a program you can download as well, but I just upload my parses, personally. 2: Harnessed Shadows and the Combat Charge are your big sources of healing. You also have your Battle Readiness for a burst of healing. They add up quite a bit when you get going on a boss. 3: Yes. The healing relic is considered to be the best relic in the game for shadows and assassins. It's kind of not so good for healers, interestingly enough. As for gearing, I would start with 66 mods, enhancements, and armorings. These can be crafted without any special operation materials, so should be fairly cheap on the GTN. They are also better than you would get out of the 50 hard mode flashpoints. Once you have that, if you can get a good healer from your guild to join you for a 55 hard mode, you should be okay, but remember to keep your cooldowns ready, as several trash pulls are VERY difficult for someone who is just gearing up. An example of a 66 mod would be Advanced Robust Mod 28B. They are also minimum level 53, so that can help your search. As for the skill tree, here's a decent place to start for putting your tree together: http://www.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/20/?build=020322201121023002120203020200100300000000000000000000000000000003220000000000000000000000000000&ver=20 And to answer the question about some of the skills, they might be designed for pvp or other aspects of the game. For example, Applied Force is basically designed for dps shadows, so as a tank, there's not much point in taking it. Conversely, Jedi Resistance, despite being in a dps tree, is REALLY good for tanks, so you'll rarely find a decent shadow tank skipping it. A quick edit: When I say that's a place to start putting your tree together, I mean that's not necessarily the optimal setup. For example, you might find spinning kick useful for some trash, so moving a point out of endurance to be able to use it might work for you.

So, what guild are you in, if you don't mind my asking? Also, if you don't mind, could you post some of your parses from torparse so we can bask in your awesomeness and see how to improve please?

Oh, come on. It's not THAT laughable! Kitru should TOTALLY read the tooltips! Then rewrite them to make them ten times more comprehensive. I want to see the entire screen be filled with a Kitru style tooltip! Add a scrollbar to the tooltip just for how much Kitru would write to explain Shock!