Just because you can squeeze out another percent or two doesn't mean that you should. If a tank can take two 15k hits without being healed, he's got more survivability than a tank who can only take one. If a tank can take three 10k hits without being healed, he's got more survivability than a tank who can only take two. The RNG is not always in your favor, and you very well could eat a whole series of hits. At the top end of the spectrum, the extra health is beneficial, especially if the mitigation numbers are already high (I have nothing good to say for tanks who stack things like accuracy). Yes, you need mitigation, but more health takes stress off of your healers. Because there are always situations where your snipers are lounging in goo and your marauders are on fire ("Why are the marauders on fire again?") and time-to-kill is the most important metric for a tank. And you maximize time-to-kill by making intelligent choices about mitigation and high endurance. And that means stacking endurance once mitigation has gone asymptotic.

I went and we had a great time (and I managed a trivia question). They did not really answer questions about upcoming features so much, but we did get a pretty good perspective on what they are interested in, and in turn, they got a pretty good perspective on what we're interested in.

Once you take the mob, assuming it's not a weak that will be dead in a GCD or two, run TOWARDS the tank. This does two things: (1) it puts the mob easily in range of the tank's taunts, and (2) it makes it much less likely that you will run out of your healer's range (as healers tend to position to remain in range with the tank). Healers should do this as well. Sometimes mobs are very spread out, and thus it is likely that a taunt might miss one or two. Your tanks will thank you.

Plummin is <Empire>.

It's easy to be tolerant of a DPS who actually follows directions when it comes to fights and makes an active effort to do his job. Seriously, you did very well for a guy who'd never seen the content before (though it helped that the tanks knew the drill) and you should have no trouble continuing if you keep up at that rate. That was kind of an amazing run, since we had several people who were new to Eternity Vault, but no wipes.

I am currently standing in the midst of a mob respawn point, waiting for them to spawn. Another guy is waiting at the other mob respawn point. And there's plenty of time to read the forums while I wait for these guys to respawn another 4-5 times, since I've killed them about that many times and I'm still at 0 of 3. This is really not fun.

This is really the best advice possible. Use resolve augments. They increase both your willpower and your critical rating. Put one in all fourteen available slots. Minimize the amount of alacrity that is on modifiable pieces (mods and enhancements). There is plenty of alacrity on your earpiece and implants. One alacrity/power or alacrity/crit enhancement can be used if you want a smidge more, but I wouldn't go more than one. Get your power and surge as high as possible. Surge should be around 75-78%. There is no cap on power, so use it as the secondary stat everywhere. Make sure that you are using Resolve armorings, never Force Wielder. FWs are for assassin tanks, Resolve are for DPS/healers. Acquire a couple of Resolve armorings that are not slot specific and put them into modifiable (orange) belt and bracers. This will allow you to squeeze out even more stats in these slots. They may be expensive, but they are very much worth it. It is my opinion that the PVP War Hero Relic of Boundless Ages remains the best in slot for healing sorcerers, although the new Dread Guard version seems optimal for DPS sorcerers. In optimized 61s, I had well over 2000 Willpower before buffs and stims. Buffed and stimmed, I was sitting close to 2300. Those numbers only went up in optimized 63s. Optimization is key.

Vanguards/Powertechs have no threat dump ability.

You're right. It's the operative jacket. I'd referenced a screenshot, and the two looked identical. I had to go check the name.

#1 sign that you are bad: you are more useful to the group dead than alive. The case that established this level of bad was a tank on SM Kephess the Undying, who managed to run through the raid, the middle of the raid, with the lightning debuff every single time. Not just once, but every time. And if he was chosen for Kephess's cone attack, he'd manage to share the damage across as wide a swath as possible. It was easier to heal the group when he was dead because he was no longer getting the DPS hurt. Other examples include the assassin DPS who kept knocking the mobs out of the range of the orbital strike that a sniper had put down. Punting mobs out of a hard-hitting AoE with a weak knockback gets people killed.

I have the Black Talon sniper jacket. On my sniper and on my operative. I'm pretty sure I've seen the bounty hunter armor drop (I'd have to check my BH's cargo hold) and I know I've seen it around the fleet.

What he probably means that threat from damage is not as good, but that's not how tanking is generally done in SWTOR. You generate threat by doing your high threat moves, then taunting. Most threat generation is done via taunts. Taunting when you already have threat only increases your threat. High threat moves have a threat multiplier and do not rely solely on damage. If your taunts are constantly on cooldown, you are unlikely to lose threat. Many main tanks are full defensive, and it certainly makes sense when doing difficult content. It's probably easier, in fact, because it was designed for tanking and includes some high threat generation moves. In general, hybrid specs can be made to work, but they frequently require more care.

I'm a sorc healer, so I'm going to try not to get too confused by the different names for the same heals. I'll go with "bubble," "circle," "hot," "channel," "big," and "personal." Plus "crit-bonus" and "resource-management." So you can certainly use circles in most of these fights, but they have to be predictive circles. Essentially, you have to know the fights well enough that you can guess where people are going to stand when they take damage. This sounds a little crazy, but it's really not. In fact, if you drop your circles in the right spots, your DPS will gravitate towards them, thereby making them even more effective. Kephess is one of the easiest ones to do predictive circles. Even before he picks a target during phase 1, you can tell which lightning tower he's attached to. Go there. Drop a circle. The tanks and DPS will come to you, bringing the boss. Everyone will be in close proximity so that when someone is chosen by Kephess, they don't have far to run. If the circle's already down, you're not waiting 1.8 seconds before you bubble them and then channel heal them. For the Dread Guard, you'll want your circles either near the boss or away from the green doom-circles. This is largely true for the Writhing Horror as well, and there are some obvious places for circles with Operator IX. For TFB phase 1, drop a circle at the tentacle, then focus heals on whomever is dealing with spit, alternating with the tank. The maintenance from the circle will help keep the tank more level while you direct heals at the ranged. If you're the one dealing with spit, you can easily use your personal heal. For phase 2, circles are mostly useless and nearly impossible to place well, so just use your hot, your channel, and your big heals. You'll also need to use your resource-management ability after it procs off your channel, and you can use your personal heal to counter it. Note that there is no shame in being healed by the other healer, especially after using resource-management. You'll recover faster if they heal you. They'll recover faster if you heal them. Cross-healing is love. Don't forget about your crit-bonus ability. If things are going poorly, you can do a ton of healing relatively quickly by burning it, then dropping some big heals. Force speed is also your friend. If you can get to where you're dropping your predictive circle very quickly, everyone will benefit. And, for the most part, if you actually are where you belong, the raid will follow you. You need a lot of raid awareness, just like a tank, although you'll be paying attention to different things.

I just did Taral V for the first time this weekend. My infrequently played Sage hit the mid-30s, and I realized that I could do flashpoints I'd never seen before, so I got excited and added myself to groupfinder. My group was slightly overlevel for the instance, and though they admitted surprise that I'd never done it before, they were cheerful and helpful about showing me the ropes. We skipped nothing. We watched dialogue scenes. We did every single bonus. It was an excellent experience and I leveled enough to be able to queue for Maelstrom Prison. Despite never having done that one either, I had an identically positive first experience with the flashpoint with an entirely different party obtained through the groupfinder. (Thank you, Ebon Hawk mid-level Republic-side players.) However, on my 50, I generally go into groupfinder HM flashpoints with a different goal. I am not there to immerse myself in the story (usually, I enjoyed the story at some point earlier, leveling up). I am not there to get XP. I am interested in maximizing the fun I get out of the flashpoint and in getting my BH coms. I am delighted to omit pulls that are boring. However, I like playing the game, and I expect some actual playing to happen as we run through the flashpoint. (And I am willing to be polite and patient with those who are learning it all for the first time.) If I have already gotten my BH coms for the day, then I simply want to maximize the fun I get from the flashpoint. On Shien, we had a channel called LFG50, where people would put together groups before the groupfinder and before BH coms. And it got used plenty. You could be more picky about who you grouped with, though, and what sort of style of play you were going for. Groupfinder makes it easier and increases the rewards, but it also limits your ability to dictate how the group will run the instance. If you want to be able to demand this (less skipping, more story, whatever), you need to arrange the group outside of groupfinder. Otherwise, you take your chances. There are plenty of people out there who are perfectly happy to run things the way you like. Sometimes you get lucky and find them in groupfinder. Sometimes you just have to manually arrange a group. In this case, effort is rewarded.

If you've never played KOTOR, Revan is a somewhat unremarkable nutter who keeps making claims about being light side even though he's clearly not, what with the genocide already noted. The first time I met him, I was like, "Oh, neat. It's the guy that the cult on Dromund Kaas was named after," because I love it when they tie storylines together. And then Revan went on and on about having once been Sith and now being Jedi, and I was like, "Oh, and he's delusional to boot." I happened to remark to my friend, who was a huge fan of KOTOR, that Revan was a crazy fallen Jedi who talks too much, and he sputtered and choked and nearly fell out of his chair. "Seriously," I said. "The guy just goes on and on about how awesome he is." This prompted my friend to then go on and on about how awesome Revan was. Revan is a formidable opponent as a flashpoint boss, but when you don't have the rose-colored glasses, he's not that much more special than say, Mentor of Directive Seven, who also wants to commit genocide, likes to hear himself talk, and is pretty impressed by himself. Revan's memory has clearly made a cult both in character and out of game. And the characters in the game think that the Revanite cult on Dromund Kaas is a little crazy for their worship of the fellow. He was great, I get that, but his time has passed, and his story has an interesting ending.