Hmmm ... in my last 4 GF pops, we were put at the top of the GF queue because one DPS didn't respond to the pop. I would have thought that they would be on it immediately since DPSes wait a long time to get a pop. Or perhaps they are used to waiting a long time that they are AFK most of the time. Anyway, got Athiss HM again tonight. Alarm bells should have started ringing when the tank had much less HP than the healer (me). Anyway, I managed to keep people alive even though the group is taking a lot of damage because the tank can't hold aggro. OK, except once when the tank jumped in at 70% health and pretty much got one shotted. We made it all the way to the Prophet when the tank disconnects. So we wait for a bit before vote kicking the tank. One of the DPSes then said that the tank was geared in DPS gear, not tank gear! Doh. We then tried using a tank comp for the fight but wiped. When we finally got a proper tank we cleared the Prophet without any problems. I'm quite inexperienced with MMORPGs so this is the first time I have seen a DPS queued as a tank. Still, the rest of the group managed to finish the FP and the DPSes thanked me for good heals. Always nice to get compliments.

Had a weird pop for Athiss HM last night. The tank says at the start of the FP "I'm a bit rusty, haven't tanked a HM FP for 3 months". I'm like, ok, let's see how we go. We clear the first two bosses, The Professor, and The Beast just fine. Then as we are about to enter the temple the tank says "I just spent the last 3 months in jail." OK ... "Don't do pot in Kansas. I didn't have computer access for 3 months". Not sure if he was trolling or not but that was completely random.

I did read one post that speculated at the change in commendations required to buy gear (Basic buys Black Market, Elite buys Verpine, etc) but not much else on the forum. It was logical to assume that this would happen since the new 2.4 Ops drop 178 rating gear. I suppose BioWare didn't want to make any announcements on this because it would have affected the prices of armour / mods / enchancements on the GTN if they did. I'm glad I saved my Ultimate Commendations. Time to work out the most bang-for-buck sequence of gear purchases based on my current equipment and Elite Comms ... Ah yes, Dulfy does say that the new Oricon missions drop Level 156 gear. OK, the thread title should have a suffix "from fleet commendation vendors". What purpose would Level 156 gear serve now that Basic Comms will get you Black Market gear? Equipping companions?

Whoa ... looks like my toon will have gear with Rating 168 pretty soon! http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/2.4.0/dread-war Copy-pasted from the patch notes New Vendor: Operations Gear Vendor! Players can now exchange Arkanian, Underworld, and Dread Forged gear tokens for the appropriate armor piece via the new Operations Gear Vendor on the Republic and Imperial Fleets. Basic Gear Vendors now sell Arkanian Relics and Black Market gear. Elite Gear Vendors now sell Verpine gear. Ultimate Gear Vendors now sell the new Oriconian gear.

Ah for some reason I was feeling very generous and I went through my combat log to get the name of the people in the FP and sent them ingame mail to explain why I did what I did. The 2 DPSes replied saying "don't worry". Didn't get a reply from the tank ... Got HM Czerka Labs today. Not very social and the melee DPSes couldn't get out of the charged water quick enough for the first boss. Had to put out lots of heals. And then we wiped on the security chief because of lag and the red AOEs. After that the tank said we needed to hurry up as he had to leave for work in 8 minutes. So the group started running ahead without full health and I had to keep up to heal them. Didn't even have enough time to recharge my force in between pulls. I can't believe no one died during this stage. Looking back, it was actually ... fun. I was on my toes all the time as a healer due to the group rushing in to every mob towards the end. Not something I would want for every PUG but not bad to have every now and then to keep things abit hairy. Got Hammer Station later today and the tank said "Nice heals" after the first boss. We managed to kill the last boss despite not having a tank for the final quarter of the fight. I think the tank got knocked off the platform as it was an insta-kill for the tank.

Long time lurker, first time poster. This is my first MMO after playing a few single player RPGs. I originally intended to play SWTOR as a single player RPG (KOTOR 3!) and I reached level 55 without doing any Flashpoints as I joined when the APAC Dalborra server was becoming a ghost town. Once I transferred over to Harbinger and reached Level 55 I slowly learned to do FPs by starting with Level 50 SM, working my way up to Level 50 HM and I am now on Level 55 HM. I have been PUG-ing it all this while and the experience has been easily 99% positive. I have got a lot of help and advice from more experienced players and I appreciate them putting up with me as a newbie. I may have over-reacted like a precious princess on Hammer Station today though. We started the FP, and I see that there is a bit of un-coordination in the group and the tank seems a bit spiky in terms of damage. But so far so good, I'm the healer and no one has died. Then we make it to the 2nd or 3rd thrash mob and the tank jumps in to a mob at 65% health ... I couldn't heal enough and the group wipes. I then tell the tank that he shouldn't jump in at 65% health and he replies "fuk up" (verbatim). I must have been too tired as I had run a half marathon earlier in the day and I took it as a direct verbal insult to me so I told him "if that's the way you want to put it, I'm out. Cya later". That was the first time I had ever quit a Flashpoint. Looking back, I was being too precious ... oh well. Apologies to that group. I ended up with another group for Mando Raiders. It was fun and everyone was supportive ("ask if you have questions"). No wipes.