Bonecrusher shouldn't require any particular mix of ranged vs melee DPS. Just keep him in the middle of the room (as best you can). Whomever has aggro stands still, while the rest of the group moves behind Bonecrusher (running thru him his quickest) to avoid swipes. Granted, the fight can get pretty frenetic because he swaps targets so often, but even when I am in KP on my ranged class, I still stack up with the group. It lets me benefit from AOE heals. And if I am on the edge, and Bonecrusher targets me, he is going to move away from the middle of the room (undesirable). You want him in the middle so he doesn't knock someone off the platform into the acid. That said, the dev post was specifically mentioning only a portion of class balance issues. And it DID address some melee (Scrappers / Concealment Ops). But since we're still several weeks from 1.4 being released, there's plenty of time for BW to respond to feedback and make other changes. While I think it's good BW is communicating with us, and we are communicating back, all these Chicken Little (not yours, but others') posts ("OMG teh sky is falling!") are premature given we haven't seen the changes in action on the PTS yet. Hoping it will all be positive.

Pro tip: it helps to read the dev comments before opining about them. Just before the dev quote you reference, they said "New Sorcerer/Sage ability, Unnatural Preservation/Force Mend: Heal yourself for a moderate amount. Only usable on yourself. Instant, costs no Force, 30-second cooldown. This ability is trainable at level 18." Dark Resilience/Valiance are existing talents that modify Consumption/Noble Sacrifice--they are not new. The new ability is Unnatural Preservation/Force Mend. It's insta-cast and only works on you, so think of it like a medpack. And per your later comment, since it's instant it shouldn't mess with your healing rotation. Sorry, but I have to disagree there. Force Speed is by far one of the most essential abilities in both PVP and PVE. The fact that it will now have a reduced cooldown AND drop movement-impairing effects for 100% of its durations (if talented for Fadeout/Egress) makes it even more useful in both. @all -- I think this is why most Sorcs aren't complaining too much about the Overload conal change. Because in PVP who cares if you can knock back an enemy a few yards if they can just close the gap and stun you again? With the change to Force Speed, you'll be able to immediately escape snares/roots (no trinket required!) and insta-heal yourself with Unnatural Preservation. Can't wait to see this in action on the PTS!

Thanks, everyone, for your strategies, tips, and videos. I think it was just a matter of our guild needing to make some small adjustments, because those little mistakes were adding up to big cumulative problems. We are discussing these tips as a guild and will adjust as needed. Thanks again for your insights -- this fight was becoming a real sticky issue in our guild.

I've read many guides that say the droids rail shot the furthest away. Good to know this is not the case. But if I'm understanding you correctly, it WILL rail shot a random target not in melee range. If that's the case, shouldn't a tank always stand outside of melee range, so he soaks it, and then just have all dps (even ranged) + healers, stack on the droid? Good to know. Maybe our DPS was just slow on the walker this week (last week we did not encounter this issue, which is why I thought it was bugged). In our case, we'd kill the 3rd bomber, player would run under the walker and do his little Luke Skywalker impersonation, and then while we were DPS'ing the walker, another bomber would spawn. If this happens, should we just have a sorc CC the bomber (he should explode on his own) while we finish burning down the walker? Yep, 1 Jugg and 1 Assassin. We learned a few weeks back about not kiting Kephess during his sub-60% phase (we've been wiping on this fight for 3 weeks). If I understand correctly, Tank 1 has aggro until Kephess casts Breath of the Masters, at which point Tank 2 taunts Kephess and Tank 1 steps away to go drop 5 purple circles. Should Tank 1 taunt Kephess back immediately after the 5th circle drops? Or wait until Kephess is casting BotM on Tank 2? Yes, this was data from the combat log. In one instance, it was a Marauder who popped his survival CD, and was shielded by a Sorc, and he was still taking MASSIVE damage while zip-lining up to the walker. We were having our sorc healer Extricate him to reduce damage. In the 2nd instance, it was a sniper who was sorc bubbled AND had Shield Probe active, and he died. Matter of fact, the only Ops members who didn't die there during our attempts tonight were a concealment Operative who was bubbled + Shield Probed, and our assassin tank. Altho now I am wondering if perhaps they were running under the droid before healers had time to react/cast. We'll have to work on this timing. I've read that on HM, the walker will do saturation fire on zones 1-5 per usual, but then it becomes random. I've watched videos and seen the walker charge his lasers and ALWAYS fires on wherever his head is pointing at that moment. It was only during our attempts tonight that he would suddenly move his head at the end of the laser charge, spraying saturation fire on a totally different zone. Additional question: How does your guild handle the trandoshans? I've seen some videos where a dps will attack the warrior while a tank AOE-taunts the rest outside of the shield. Our group burns the warrior and then mows down the rest, but I think we're losing time here. Thanks!

2 things: #1 - The first song on the Kephess fight video is hilarious. What is that? #2 - My guild can't seem to kill Kephess on 8m HM. We got him down to 23% once, when the tank dropping the purple circles died mysteriously to "Arcing Slash". We've also had attempts where a baradium bomber will spawn while we're burning down the walker. Our DPS seems on point, but any tips for tanks and healers, particularly once Kephess drops to the ground, would be appreciated.

Our guild has cleared EC on 8/16-man Storymode many times. Hardmode 8m is our next milestone, and we are stuck on Kephess. We believe we have the mechanics down (have watched countless HM videos/strat guides), our DPS is very solid, but we seem to encounter an unusually high amount of what we believe are bugs, over and over. We're frustrated, since we can now 1-shot all the bosses leading up to Kephess--but week after week we just can't kill him. Looking for guidance, reassurance, or both. 1.) We've seen the 2 polarity droids rail shot Ops members that are NOT the furthest away. Example: tank is 7-8 meters away, sniper is 3-5 meters away, and the sniper is getting rail shot instead of the tank. 2.) We've seen baradium bombers spawn during a walker burn phase. This seems to happen most often during the 3rd (last) walker burn phase, after Kephess is already on the ground. We'll be DPS'ing the walker and suddenly another bomber spawns. 3.) We've seen Kephess' "Arcing Slash" ability 1-shot a tank who was 20-30 yards away, dropping the purple circles, while another tank had aggro. I understand this is a known issue... since May. 4.) We've seen the player with the bomb icon run under the walker and get hit for 11k per tick, despite being sorc shielded and having the IA Shield Probe active. Other times, the same player will have bubble + probe and take almost NO damage under the walker. 5.) Last but not least, we've seen the walker charge up his cannons for the saturation fire, our group moves out of the zone he's aiming at, and then he'll immediately turn his head and fire in another direction (usually on us). It was my understanding that he is supposed to do the saturation fire on whatever zone he is facing when charging his lasers. I really am looking for some help here, as we can't seem to down this guy. Every attempt is foiled by some sort of weird anomaly. The best we've ever done is had Kephess down to around 23% when one of our tanks (who did NOT have aggro and who was easily 20 meters away) died mysteriously to "Arcing Slash". Most of our other attempts end before that, due to the items stated above. Are we screwing something up? Or just having the worst RNG ever?

Thanks for the input on that. As a Cybertech myself, I'm trying to find out how to learn the schematics for armorings and mods beyond 22. Which ones can be RE'd? Which ones cannot? How do I get them? Once I saw a GTN listing for a Potent Mod 24 schematic, which I didn't even know existed. Can anyone point me towards a good guide for RE'ing end-game mods/armors/enhancements? Thanks!