It's not pugged frequently, because the probability of success with random people isn't high. Problem is even if you get at least half competent people, the operation is rather long. It takes a long time to get through the trash between bosses, add few likely wipes on Nahut and Scyva, time spent on the pre-Izax puzzle thingie and you are easily over 1.5h. And then comes exhausting fight that can take about 15-20 minutes and can go wrong in tons of ways, especially in the last phase. And if you are wiping there after all this time in the instance, people will start leaving because nobody is in the mood repeating this tedious fight more than twice.

Also, command tokens aren't exactly terribly useful nowadays. I mostly just use them to buy tons of Iokath recombinators when I hit a cap, and then vendor those immediately to get a bit of cash.

In case you are talking about Nim, even if you pass Toth/Zorn (swapping DPS after each jump should do the trick), you will have a hard time on the second boss. Generally, if you have some stable group and want to do HM/Nim ops, you would have it much easier with one or two people swapping to ranged classes.

It definitely makes a lot of difference, especially if most of the group has one. If it's worth it is mostly dependent on your ability to clear nims without it:). Some DPS checks are pretty difficult regardless the gear level, in those cases few crystals can certainly push you over if your group is having troubles.

If you get carried. Good luck beating enrage timers on HM Styrak or in HM EC with full group in tier 1 gear. And I don't even want to think about Ravagers or ToS.

1) Open the map, in the left bottom corner check "show exploration missions". Lots of sidequests are now hidden by default. 2) Start with level 1 character, take it slowly, you will learn everything step by step. 3) Don't overthink it, don't try to absorb all the info at once. A lot has changed, but before you hit 70 you will be familiar with tons of new stuff without having to spend hours burried in web guides. 4) Have fun.

Uh, what? What does group finder have in common with veteran ops? And how would wasting DPS by offhealing or putting useless tanking gear on DPS role help finishing veteran ops? Are you sure you aren't talking about veteran/role neutral flashpoints? Veteran (formerly hard mode) operations are completely different universe difficulty wise than veteran (aka easy mode) flashpoints. If you are talking about veteran flashpoints, they are doable with any combination or roles. Bosses have healing stations around them if you haven't noticed. If you click those, you will get heals. You also have some defensive cooldowns, use them.

My main is a sentinel (watchman), and I don't have problems getting into ops. I am in a stable raiding team of our guild (nothing too crazy, mostly just HM and few nim bosses for the moment, as we are casual guild) and I think one sentinel in a group certainly brings a good value. Not only melee can really dish out higher damage than ranged in many fights, sentinel/mara also brings a lot of utility, like raid buff and speed boost. It also has very strong defensive cooldowns, so if you know what you are doing, you shouldn't pose much more stress on healers than ranged classes.

It doesn't. Bant's stats don't take into account the effect of alacrity on GCD. For many classes with instant attacks (especially melee classes) the alacrity amount is wrong. It's been discussed for example on reddit: Basically, if you want the alacrity to speed up your rotation, there are thresholds. For whole range between 703 and 1859 alacrity, the GCD stays at 1.4s, so for most melee it's better to either stay at 703 or go for higher threshold of 1860 for 1.3 GCD. Bant's stats waste significant amount of alacrity that could have been used for power for instance:). Personally I quickly tested Watchman with high alacrity threshold vs. Bant's stats and I had almost 200 DPS increase on average. In regards to some ratings, I wouldn't worry about those. All specs are viable, and their usefulness will vary from fight to fight. Play what you enjoy.

You will still be able to get to Taris even when you don't have any active quest there. Just look at the galaxy map, find Taris and travel there. If you haven't noticed yet, scrolling your mouse button zooms in on the sectors, allowing you to see the planets and other points of interest. If you really can't find the planet on the map for some inexplicable reason, just pick up some Taris heroic on the fleet (combat training section) and travel there that way.

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Simple to play and with shooting? Gunnery commando (burst ranged spec) or its imp counterpart. Not particularly tough, but one of the easiest specs to play. And a bit boring to be honest:).

You should have a quest on your ship terminal, it appears there around lvl 47.

If you haven't played for a while, I would start at lvl 1 to learn all the changes gradually:). Leveling is fast and easy nowadays, you can play just the main class and planetary stories and still level fast enough to keep up with the planetary levels. If you really want to jump in high level straight away, I would definitely play through Kotfe. Kotet is a direct continuation of that story and both expansions are well made and worth playing.

Just to make it more accurate, it's true that you keep content after your sub expires, but only to a point. You keep the story chapters and the level cap, but you will lose access to command leveling and purple gear (apart from the one you are already wearing). You are also locked out of ops. Preferred status is sufficient if you just want to play the stories, but for endgame activities you do need to subscribe for optimal experience.