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GarfieldJL

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  1. Sentinels are quicker at getting up to combat potential in the early levels, however both classes have their perks now. Guardians have the ability to be either a tank or dps, which means you can respec to tanking if you absolutely have to. Sentinels are quicker overall, and one of their class trees features a self-heal and another features quite a bit of mobility and a lot of defensive perks (not to mention a huge boost in weapon accuracy). If you're playing a guardian, I'd recommend the Vigilence tree for dpsing.
  2. If he's leveling a char with his gf, then that shouldn't be an issue. In all honesty I'd actually recommend a scoundrel over a gunslinger, while a gunslinger might be more straightforward, the ability to actually use stealth and the ability to do some healing actually could make things easier for her. This is especially true if you are lvling up chars together (if the chars are different classes), because enemies in class quests seem to often be particularly vulnerable to other classes. An underleveled commando mowing down Darth Angril in under 15 seconds back when the jedi guardians had serious control response issues is a good example. On the flipside I took down a trooper mission boss for him on alderann when I was at level for that mission in a very short period of time as well.
  3. QFT. Okay this will be rather long-winded and may seem like rambling, but I think this is a complex issue. While my main char is a DPS Guardian, I'm kinda geared to handle both roles just so I don't have to wait hours to que. I know what I can and can't tank, anyways: First, people with the most experience concerning a flashpoint should be the ones taking charge and briefing group members. In all honesty, if the DPS is the one that knows the flashpoint like the back of their hand, they should be the one taking charge, not a tank that has never ran that mission. The developers went on overkill when it comes to knockbacks, and yes it makes life difficult for a tank guardian but that isn't the core issue. There is a lot of things that a tank has to keep track of, and regardless of what some DPS think, tanks do have a limit to how much punishment they can take. Pre-2.0, there were a few instances where a tank got slammed hard and I had to switch from dps to tank and try to buy time or serve as tank to finish a boss off. I'm currently leveling a sentinel cathar char because I want to play through the Jedi Knight storyline again without rerolling my guardian. I've noticed that sentinels have quite a few damage reduction skills, I'm guessing that other dps have similar skills (particularly gunslingers), and could generate large threat values if the tank needs to be bailed out for a short period of time. To be frank when I started playing Old Republic, the previous game I played had no real skill tree, and I could do tanking, dpsing, and healing with the same char just depending on my mood at the time, since I've never played class based games until this one, I approach things from a slightly different standpoint. When I dps, I try to pay some attention to other people's hp (particularly the tank), if I think the tank is in serious trouble I will pull the aggie from the tank briefly in order to give the healer time to heal the tank, and then proceed to dump threat using focused defense. This is actually harder to do now post 2.0, due to stat reductions, however that doesn't excuse the fact that DPS need to pay attention. People that have run flashpoints before, need to explain things in detail for people if they haven't run the FP before, I don't care if you're a dps, a healer, or a tank... Another thing and this applies to tanks, healers, and dps: Learn some patience people and try to at least have a rough understanding of the mechanics of other classes. For instance people here complain about DPS sentinels jumping too soon... Well Sentinels and Guardians along with their darkside counterparts operate on different mechanics compared to the other classes. For Sentinels and Guardians, the longer they stay out of combat the less effective they are from a dps standpoint, because they have to build focus before they can use their more powerful attacks, time out of combat to regain health causes the other classes to regain force/energy/etc. A Sentinel DPS player is thus more inclined to want to move quickly and keep their focus bar up. This doesn't excuse the fact that sentinels need to sometimes learn to slow down and let the other classes recover their strength before charging in. Shadows and scoundrels need to understand that most classes don't have stealth... Finally, there are some missions that a group just won't be able to handle either due to personality conflicts or the lack or a ranged dps, lack of a melee dps, etc. other times you might just be plain unlucky. Instead of yelling at each other over who is at fault for what, people should try to sit down and work through what went wrong, how things can be improved. Don't bite people's heads off for this and that, analyze what went wrong and try to figure out how to make it so that issue won't be a problem next time. Two good DPS and a good healer can get through a fairly difficult FP with a mediocre tank, just like a good tank and good healer can get mediocre dps through a tough FP. People just have to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of the charecters in the group, the play style of the gamers in the group, and then work out how to use that get through the FP. If people know how to use their defensive skills, a sentinel for instance can take a pretty good amount of punishment and is hardly a glass cannon. If you can get everyone on a chat network that helps enormously, if not you need to make sure the players that can't join that network the gameplan ahead of time. There are a lot of fiascos that result in wipeouts because a member of the group is unaware of what the rest of the group intends to do. If a player isn't up to a mission yet, but is clearly trying it would be better to add the person to a friend list before getting them to leave and compliment them on their effort but suggest they work to get stronger gear before attempting the mission again. I've seen obnoxious tanks, healers with attitude issues, DPSers that can't listen and just go charging in like idiots; but then I've seen tanks that are very respectful, healers that are extremely patient, and DPSers that try to keep up or even take charge DPSers that are very good at coming up with ways to get a group through a FP. People just need to keep calm and think things through, instead of jumping on each other which doesn't accomplish anything other than people being less inclined to group with others.
  4. Okay what's the downside? I know this is a huge boost but I'm wondering if there is a price.
  5. You want defense ratings and shield ratings, those are your top priorities. Absorb is totally useless if your shield doesn't activate.
  6. With the lag spikes I've been getting lately, I'm not going to bother trying to attempt it. Fair enough, the problematic tanking missions would be Kaon and Lost Island, Kaon due to just the shear number of critters that can aggie you all at the same time and Lost Island due to the juggling mechanics. If it makes you feel any better, I do actually intend to eventually get a focus as well, but I want to be able to gather the necessary components to match my shield generator's stats in the other areas, before doing so, believe it or not I actually have been listening and taking what you and others have said into account.
  7. I assume you mean the lvl 50 HMs, which I was able to tank those with the vigilence tree before the cap was raised. As for them all being able to be duoed and soloed, I find that difficult to believe, not saying you wouldn't have the gear for it, but companion chars lack the adaptability that a human player has. For example a companion char would just sit there and take a hit, when they are supposed to get out of range before the huge AoE hits... Actually they can crit, and there are times you can end up pulling too many aggies at the same time. It isn't exactly a tactic I would use normally, but losing the tank in a fight could be a serious issue for a group even resulting in a complete wipeout. I took a risk and it worked out, I'm not suggesting it's a tactic that people should resort to on a regular basis, the two dps had damage mitigations that they hadn't used so they could handle things for a few seconds. The reason I can tank with my gear setup is because I understand my limitations, I know there are things that I can tank and things that I can't. If I was in the same group as you, I wouldn't be bothering with tanking at all, unfortunately there is a huge tank shortage on the server that I play on.
  8. The lvl 50 flashpoints are largely a joke for me to tank, only exception would be Lost Island. What part of tank shortage do you not get? The wait times for a dps are often at least an hour on the server that my charecters are located on, while for a tank the wait time is under 5 minutes tops... I've had to adjust somewhat to the changes in 2.1, and I have to know my limitations. There are certain stats I steer clear of, primarily absorb and alacrity. I've got my accuracy to around 99.8 percent and I'm still using those pvp holocrons to boost my dps. I do have to switch skill trees now and then now in order to tank, and I've found the tank tree seems to have improved a lot. Got dealt a few massive critical hit, so I popped it to buy some time for the healer to actually get my hp back up, then I immediately hit taunt to get the boss off of the dps that it had focused on. It was a gamble on my part, but it worked cause nobody died when I did it.
  9. Jedi and Sith would be in serious trouble because lightsabers of this era probably didn't function underwater.
  10. While this is true, there are some professions that do not have exclusive items... I think this would actually be a decent idea just you can't have both cybertech and biochem on the same char...
  11. Uh Kyle Katarn wasn't there for taking down Exar Kun's ghost... Plus Jacen and Jaina solo were only 2 to 3 years old... Top that off it was only like a dozen trainees when they took down Exar Kun...
  12. Yeah those doggies are a pain in the neck too... I'm kinda still an oddball selection of modifications... I have a huge preference for DPSing, I honestly hate tanking I like dishing out the damage not worrying about what everyone else in the group is getting hit with and watching threat management, etc. However, the server I'm on has a serious tank shortage, the only way to get into a group in a reasonable period of time these days is being able to tank. Heh, I try to avoid alacrity and absorb when I can as well... The stats I'm focused on are accuracy, defense, power, crit, and surge. My crit stat is over 23% with buff, so I'm not planning on boosting that any higher. My accuracy is about 98.5% (so I'm trying to get an earpiece with some accuracy on it that will add in the extra 2%. My defense rating has dropped to 13% (which I originally had it at 16%+ in shien form), I'm seeing if I can get that pushed back up with better redoubt mods. I consider the 2.0 changes to be a mixed bag for me, on the one hand I don't like the defense stat going through the floor so to speak, on the other hand I've noticed a huge uptick in my dps, a well timed saber reflect while tanking is also very useful. I freely admit your char is a stronger tank than my char, if we both ended up in the same group I'd be relying on Vigilence and dpsing while you tanked. However I built my char along different mission parameters, so it works for me. I will agree with you that the new gear settups that Bioware came up with for both tanking and DPSing as far as guardians are concerned are complete disasters.
  13. Silver blades sabers =/= dual phase saber, silver colored blades were common with a particular Jedi Family that seemed to have a liking towards a specific focusing crystal. Also a lot of the oddball colors started showing up more when Luke formed his Jedi Academy, primarily due to the fact they had to come up with anything they could to use as focusing crystals.
  14. There are plenty of objects that can be tossed around in the library... But Kit Fisto's application of power will be more unexpected, Kolar might be more predictable. Though if Kit disarms Kolar, then Kit Fisto is the one with the lightsaber. It should also be remembered that most people that practice this form are younglings, so it would likely be considered rather clumsy. Most Jedi were not familiar with Makashi though, that probably includes Kolar.
  15. Exar Kun was also stealing the life force of his slaves in order to attempt to gain immortality at the time too... Luke couldn't beat him alone, but Exar Kun couldn't kill Luke on his own either... He needed to use Kyp Durron to drive Luke from his body, then he manipulated Streen and sent a few flying creatures (that got slaughtered by an R2 unit and a toddler)... Then Exar Kun got bumped off by toddlers and a bunch of rank amateurs whom were using the force... If you argue Maul's saber abilities were on par with Exar Kun, remember Maul still lost to Vader... Additionally Jaina is still in this, if she has a choice as to who to plan to take down first, she'd be gunning for Exar Kun... Even if Exar Kun can take on Vader and win, the odds of him being able to take on Vader and Jaina at the same time is rather doubtful... If nothing else Anakin Skywalker is Jaina's grandfather, and it is highly unlikely she'd stand by while Exar Kun kills him.
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