Last night, running Colicoid with a couple of folks who were under-leveled (RL friends, both level 38, and myself and another who were 41 and 42, respectively). We were having trouble on the turrets -- we assumed it was due to some lag on the computer of one of the under-leveled persons. Tweaked some graphics on his computer and we decided to try one more time (We were a bit frustrated at that point after 4 wipes). One of our group members mentioned that one of the turrets seemed "a little easier" than the others for whatever reason, so we put the under-leveled-and-laggy group member on that turret. 3/4 of us went down with just a few seconds to go.... the one that survived to get us past the turrets? Mr. Underleveled-and-Lag He was very proud to be the last one left standing. We one-shot the rest of the instance. Also, Mr. Underleveled got gear drops from every phase (He said they were taunting him for not being 41 yet)

As a longtime roleplayer, I agree with a previous poster, in that often new roleplayers tend to play the more dramatic characters. It's easier to find a plot hook in those sorts of characters, even if it's something you may consider cliche. It often takes more effort/experience to roleplay something more subtle/"normal" without many around you getting bored or having trouble finding something to talk about (After all, we live in a "normal" world every day!). It can be done, of course. Sometimes it just takes a little more planning. If you were to walk around an RP server and check out conversations, you'd likely find as many with "emo" Jedi as you would prank-playing Troopers and serious Smugglers. There's also the consideration that if they are doing romantically-minded RP, the drama and flavor can add to the roleplayed romance. I tend not to do romantic RP, but many find it interesting and fun to do so, and more power to them.

As a healer on the Sith boss, we came up with a pretty good strategy... I'm a Sage, if it helps. 1) He does three random attacks, and then the big pull-in attack. 2) After the second random attack, I would bubble the melee DPS (if not on cooldown) and then myself and any ranged DPS would run away to avoid the lightning pull-in (I'd also do a HoT on the ranged DPS or myself, if I could, or if needed, after running away). 3) Then run back, heal the tank, heal anyone who got hit with the secondary attack, rinse and repeat. He's definitely the hardest boss in the instance. Using medpacks judiciously, and counting the interrupts, helped deal with him as well, when I got a couple seconds of "Cannot See Target." We found he liked to hit our Smuggler with that 1.5-2k attack, so it seemed to be a ranged thing, rather than a caster thing.

The Jedi Consular storyline was good at the very beginning (Tython) but lagged through Chapter 1 - it was far too repetitive. I enjoyed the end of Chapter 1 on Alderaan because I started to get into the "diplomacy" side of the Jedi, which was the reason I picked Consular in the first place. Chapter 2 has been fun so far. I enjoyed the class storyline through Balmorra and it made me interested in the planet through dealing with behind-the-scenes politics. This was why I picked the class, and it's delivering, so I'm happy. My only gripe with Consular is that I'm level 38, and I JUST got my third companion. There's a huge lag between getting ones - from Nar Shadda through Balmorra (that's Taris, Tattooine, and Alderaan without a single companion. Crazy.) I've watched the Trooper storyline through playing with one, and while it's not my cup of tea, he seems to be enjoying it, and there are some fairly epic moments through Chapters 1 and 2. MY IA is still very low-level, but also enjoying the subtle storylines there. I think you should take your playstyle into account. If you enjoy a subtle story, or one that involves nuance, or one that involves more talking and less fighting, you might like JC, IA, or even Smuggler. If you're a shoot-first-ask-questions-later type, BH, Trooper, SW, or even JK might suit you. Not sure about IA... it could go either way.

They were able to be CC'd a couple of weeks ago -- at least, all but the melee DPS was. Did they take that out again? Anyway, yes, kill order is particularly important in this fight. Kill the Melee DPS first, no questions asked. After that, we killed the Bounty Hunter simply because his mortaring gets annoying. We had CC'd the sorcerer (healer) and by the time his CC broke (roughly 1 minute - I re cc'd, being the sage/healer, but he only needed the CC for an additional 15 seconds), the Imperial Agent and the Sorcerer were left. We burned them equally so that there wasn't one all-powerful enemy left at the end due to the buff after each one dies. I think we could have easily killed sorc 2nd and BH 3rd, but since the BH had more hitpoints, we felt it would be easier to double on the Agent and Sorc at the same time. CC'ing the sorc helped, certainly (no annoying lightning attacks), but I don't think it was super-necessary. As for the "Is it me or my healer?" problem - honestly, it's probably a bit of both. If it were something obvious, you'd likely know. At that particular instance, for me as a sage, i didn't have a lot of my toolset yet, so I was basically spamming my big heal on the tank and putting force armor the DPS if they took aggro. If I had a moment to throw them a heal, I would, but they were pretty good about using medpacks if necessary (or to stop attacking if they drew aggro). So - was your healer pretty much spamming you the entire time? Did they take noticeable breaks? Did you find you were wrestling with DPS for aggro constantly (doesn't sound like it based on your description). Did the healer run to you if they took aggro? Lots of questions, you may not even remember all the answers

For orange armor with different stats than your primary stat, you're rolling *entirely* for the look. The armor rating of any orange item has to do with the mod that's in the "Armoring" slot. If you pull out that mod to replace it with another, you're negating the "I rolled need because the armoring is better" argument -- because you're pulling out the armoring. Sure, you could replace it with an equivalent mod with the stat that you want (trading an AR 90 strength mod with an AR 90 Aim mod) -- but since you're pulling the mod out in the first place, it doesn't make sense to roll on an AR with a stat you don't use. Personally, I understand rolling on orange items for looks because the look of my character is important to me, but rolling for the look should come behind rolling for the stats if someone else in the group wants the piece due to the mods therein.

They're actually fixing a bug I ran into, whereby every time you lowered a forcefield on the ship, about 12-15 enemies would spawn instantly and swarm you. It meant death. I'm fairly good at juggling groups, but 12-15 enemies? I died. I basically resigned myself to dying every time I lowered a force field, since after the enemies spawned and swarmed, they'd revert to their intended groupings (2-4 enemies per group, spaced far enough apart to take a group at a time). Nothing to do with the Vivicar fight itself, I believe. Anywho, I understand that the casual player isn't going to use interrupts as a first thought (I remember when I was very casual, I just wanted to spam my damage buttons all day because it was easy and I understood what they did). Understanding interrupts, however, is very necessary for the following planets (Balmorra and the Project Storm) and the game is trying to teach you to use them, since it's obviously a mechanic that is important going forward. Kiting is fine if you'd prefer to do it - however, it's really easier to learn how to hit/click one or two more button(s). Mind Snap is your fried So is Force Stun. Place it somewhere on your bar where it'll be easy for you to remember and practice with it!

Thanks for the survey; I wish it had a few more complains for the RP servers (being on one myself - we'd love our chat bubbles and server-specific forums) but overall, I thought it was good. Thanks for taking the time to set it up.

1) I think everyone loves Q&A's - I'd specifically love to see panels regarding the story/writing of the different class lines, knowing where inspiration came from for each, etc. I'd also love to hear about story that didn't make it in, or how the storylines might be re-started in expansions or level cap increases, etc. 2) I'd actually love to know more about the crafting system in a panel or roundtable; roundtables with the devs are usually illuminating as well 3) It would depend, but maybe.

1) My ship. I'd also love a mailbox there. I tend to log on out on my ship at the end of the day, and it'd be great to check the GTN and mail right when I log on, rather than needing to run somewhere. I understand why it's not on the ship (I think) but either ship or spaceport would be great 2) Alderaan 3) Ilum I'd also like to add my voice for more neutral hubs - going to Nar Shadda at the end of the day adds an extra half-hour to my gaming time. I like to look over the crafting schematics that get put up there, but more neutral hubs (maybe in cantinas?) would be really great, AND I think more people would utilize the neutral AH then.

Just to add my voice - my group ran into this last night as well. After seeing the room was bugged (after supposedly being fixed in the patch on the 1/7/2012), we tried exiting the area (hit "exit area" above the minimap) and came back in to see if it re-set. It didn't re-set, though the smuggler in our group found out that if you move veerrryyyy sloooowwlllly into the room (moving forward a bit every 5-10 seconds) the bug seemed to not trigger. So, on attempt #2, we all got set up in the room and started the fight, but as soon as someone moved quickly (i.e., force leap) the fire bug triggered and we wiped. We decided to give it one more go, so after we all rezzed outside the flashpoint, we went back to the room. Fire bug was still there. What we did was had everyone wait, and then one person moved slowly into the room (our tank, a trooper). He moved over to the right side of the ledge and not directly under the rockets. He ran around over there after getting in position, and discovered he was not on fire, and directed us all to move over there one by one. It seemed to work; once we were on the right ledge we could move around freely and start the fight. On the 3rd attempt, once the fight started, the mechanic progressed as it should (i.e., you only caught fire if you were under an activated rocket vent) and we were able to down Ortol. I don't know if we just got lucky or if we figured something out, but I'm glad we were able to work around the fire bug. Hopefully it will ACTUALLY get fixed in a patch soon!!

Had some graphical glitches, and came across one broken side-quest on Nar Shadda. Nothing really game-breaking for me, though, and if a come across a small bug like a broken resource node, I report it and move on.

Solution: Ask the group before need rolling for companions. Simple and effective. I know it requires a moment of communication with fellow human beings, but you can do it! I tend to roll around with Qyzen Fess, who wears Trooper gear (Aim + End). If the group has a trooper or two, I tend to just let them have it. If the group has no trooper, I'm more likely to ask to roll. Common sense and courtesy solve this problem.

I thought he was well-balanced, and agree with others: Don't overheal (People don't need to be topped off, they just need to be not-dying). I tried to save my Shield ability for whoever got hit with that DoT. I don't have any HoTs yet (Jedi Consular) so I was shielding for that part, and otherwise healing whomever might need it. Save your force pool for after the 2nd round of flames and beyond - for the first round, you should need very little healing. I tended to shield the tank before he went in, and during the first round used my 2 dots and otherwise threw a light heal only if needed. Run away from Fire! In round 2 he starts that DoT of his - I would cast shield on whoever got hit, and hopefully someone was able to interrupt it. I spent my time shielding and healing, but it was manageable. Run away from Fire! Round 3, my force pool was a little taxed, but again, if someone is able to interrupt that DoT (his only real nasty ability) - between shielding, interrupts and judicious healing (again - they don't need to be 100% all the time) you should be good to go. My group did it on the 3rd try (we were 2 level 20s, a 21 and a 22) after learning mechanics on the fly. Only had to use Noble sacrifice (Health for Force points) once, I think.

This is an incredible guide. Thanks so much for posting it.