It doesn't help matters that pretty much no one does ops at lvl 50 anymore. All you see is lvl 55 and why would they do content that is zero challenge? Frankly, I don't see the comms you get as being worth the snoozefest of blasting through lvl 50 content. I wish they would have raised the classic ops to lvl 55 but then anyone that doesn't have the expansion can't play them. It's already next to impossible to do either EV or KP in SM unless you're in a guild that decides to do it... and I'm not sure how many guilds would have enough folks that wanted to anyways. I'm disappointed that I have most of my alts that will never get to progress through the various ops and difficulties. Must be interesting for new players to get to endgame and skip so much in Ops and HM FP content while wondering why it's there.

Not exactly on topic but... Does anyone know if doing the HM versions of the operations will fulfill the requirement for the initial missions that lead to the ops like Journey to the Belsavis Depths?

So I guess that hybrid isn't that viable anymore? It seems that for both I would have to make picks that I view as being wasted points... Unfortunately, I have played mainly hybrid so it's going to be rough getting used to losing certain things and I was wondering how much worse it is with hybrid now. On the Vigilance side, I see wasted points in Defiance, Burning Blade, and Stagger/Gather Strength. On Defense, I would then be able to only get up to 1 point in Shield Spec but to get that I would get Stasis Mastery that has always seemed lackluster. As before, I can't reach Inner Peace. So on an attempted hybrid now, I guess it comes down to how much am I missing out on by Cyclonic Sweeps, Daunting Presence, Beacon of Might, and Guardian Slash? It looks like quite a bit and I'm guessing what I gain in Vigilance isn't enough to offset it... oddly enough, I think what I'll have the most issue getting used to is loss of lower CD on Blade Storm... and possibly free Force Sweep if focus generation is less. Edit to add: With the loss of Unremitting does it perhaps make more sense to grab Battlefield Command instead of Jedi Warden?

I've always seen skins of high level gear in most MMOs as being a recurring joke for designers. Its always the ugliest and most ridiculous looking gear yet has the best stats. I imagine designers sitting around laughing about players grinding to make their characters look ridiculous.

I share your disappointment with point 2. Alts won't have much of an option to play ops or HM FP with them being a challenge. You'll likely outlevel them and/or outgear them. I imagine finding a group might be extremely hard too. Just comes with the territory with increase lvl caps. I didn't think about this until after I preordered the expansion... otherwise I might have held off on it until all my alts were 50 and through the content before buying.

Haven't played pvp for a long time so apologies for the stupid question... Why are they doing away with BM gear? I don't have a problem with it... except maybe losing the skin... just wondering what the reason behind it was?

If you're healer and want to target the enemy. Maybe you keep tank as focus to switch back to them fast and instead of switching to him and then targeting his target. That's just the example that came to mind... not the best but there might be more.

They won't stop so no point in even bringing that up. Some of the queues will get better in a while. You have to keep in mind that this is what they are trying to accomplish with the server "transfers". Not the queues themselves, but servers filled to the brim. At the end of it, there will likely still be a handful of medium pop servers. By that point they might bring paid transfers so you can choose a lower pop server.

Woot! 8 of 8 taken! I win! I was already starting to feel disillusioned by the game and this seems like the nail in the coffin for me. Good game, had fun, I realize it's a petty reason, but this is more of a tipping point instead of the main reason. Just don't see enough left for me to do in the game to make it worthwhile to go through the hassle of switching my characters over so I can experience server queues again... Still have sub for a while so who knows... I might change my mind, but I just canceled so it doesn't renew.

Was excited when I saw the server I had one character in appear in the origin list! Then disappointed when I realized I could only transfer to a server I didn't want to go to... I figured I might not be able to transfer to the specific server I wanted to but I was at least expecting that there would be a pool of servers to choose from as destination. I'm guessing they are looking closely at the numbers to balance out the populations and if it works out then kudos to BW. As for me, it's looking like a sure thing that I will have to either reroll that character or wait for paid transfers... very disappointed with this.

I try to be melee but I would get demolished trying to stand toe-to-toe right now with mobs. If it's just one it's usually not a problem, but more than that and I have issues. Right now I'm mainly letting my companion grab aggro then a quick heal to her and start attacking. It works well when only one breaks to attack me... not so good when multiple. As I said earlier, I'm only lvl 19 so I'm still trying to figure some things out... but it's been a fun ride so far.

I'm pretty new to Op, only up to lvl 19, and I've found it useful at times when soloing PvE to use cover. Kinda related to the subject so I figured I'd post here... I have an issue in that I'm starting to get so many skills that the cover bar replacing the bottom bar is becoming troublesome. At first, I simply added the second bottom bar. That way I kept skills in the same slots whether in cover or not... but now that ends up with two slots being empty when out of cover. Slots are kinda at a premium and I hate two going to waste for a good portion of the time. How do other Ops handle the cover bar? I'm guessing I'll just end up having certain skills that I have to pop out of cover to access...