The above response tells me I need to clarify my point of view. Firstly though, 15 vice 18 seconds would likely be sufficient and may have been the better compromise, though in breaks in the fights you lose it all much like sentinels used to lose juyo and merciless stacks. Usually, it's just a second or two off in things like dailies or HM FPS, where you are either repetitively interrupted/locked down, or have to cover ground between targets. Other contributing problems, which I forgot to even address, are the return of the GCD-misfire bug with a vengeance and stacks not refreshing. Even when RNG is smiling on us, a failed GCD in this tight window can mean shadow protection goes bye-bye. Another issue that I've noticed ALOT is that the stacks don't always refresh as they should. I'm looking to make sure there are 3 HS stacks, which I haven't had to monitor for a long time because you get used to the rotation and know where you are at. It just doesn't refresh. I'm wondering: did this get the same 5% failure chance (that feels more like 50% sometimes) that resilience has? If not, it could be a similar failure to the GCD-misfire, and should definitely be looked at. I stated early in almost every paragraph of the first post, toward the beginning of each, that I was addressing basic to moderate content (operations do not fall into this category, which I should have plainly stated), and acknowledged in paragraph three the reduction of spikiness in operations. The vast majority of people that have weighed in on this topic only seem to reference operations, and much like yourself, are quite quick to jump to "well, in NiM TfB" and other such OPs as if that's all that matters. As to my gear, it's -ok.- I'm in a mix of 72sand 78s with a full set bonus. I'm guessing if there was an issue with it, someone would have filled me in long before now; I'm in a guild with a huge amount of theory crafters and really good shadow tank players, to include KBN himself. I have ran with most of them at some point, and been inspected prior with no gear concerns. I have followed KBN's guide to tanking stat distributions, relic and implant recommendations since he started writing it (with all of my tanks) and seem to do fine. I haven't had survivability issues specific to me in OPs with the 2.5 changes, but I wasn't having them pre2.5 either. My opinion is not based on gear. In fact, its really not meant as a concern for me at all (I have other toons, and other things to do if I'm not having fun), but for the majority of other players that have had their survivability reduced for more basic content (which may be all that they play) to increase our operation survivability. The operations only constitute a small part of the game as a whole, which receive plenty of attention. My intent was to address the other content, which is actually the majority of content in the game; many people don't even partake of the extreme endgame content. Like many other posts here, everything in your post seems to reference operations, which I state again that I was not addressing. The spikiness is less noticeable in operations, which I acknowledged, and which was likely the intent of the combat team (though, as I pointed out, we are still jus as susceptible to bad RNG). I suspect that as the difficulty of the operation increases, the value of this reduction in spikiness also increases. But rather than adjusting the class to be more even through all content, as it seems to be with the other two tank-types, they've simply shifted the survivability around; picture a distribution around a mean. Before 2.5, shadows had a positively skewed survivability distribution: meaning more numbers fell on the lower side, yet a few higher scores on the high side produced "pushed" the mean up and created an average comparable to the other tanks. This basically means that they were more survivable in lower to moderate content, and became less survivable in the harder content when compared to the other two tank types. From what I've read on the forums leading up to 2.5, many players didn't mind this, because it is a much smaller percentage of players that are even trying the NiM 55 OPs (even in our end-game centric guild, only the top progression team is attempting these). In 2.5, rather than moving to a more normal distribution (which seem s to roughly be the case with the other two tanks), they've simply shifted everything to the other side of the distribution in a negative skew. Survivability is now less than the other two tank types at lesser and moderate content, but increases as difficulty increases. Unfortunately, this avoids the sweet spot that the class had at one point (pre-1.3, I believe?), before it was PvE survivability was traded off to fix PvP issues. All in all, I have no doubts that you and many other end-gamers are happy with the change. I myself, when standing there spamming abilities on an OP boss in predictable, cyclic fights, certainly acknowledge it feels less like the bottom is going to drop out at any second. For this content, if we disregard all other aspects of PvE play, it is definitely an improvement in stability. However, it doesn't really improve survivability, a point I will continue to support. In fact, it reduces it throughout most other levels of play. In my experience (my first toon was my assassin tank, created during the early access period), survivability over-all was never the issue, just a bad pocket of RNG causing fatal health spikes in the extreme content. This was not terribly common (though more common than we would like, much like the 5% failure chance to resilience), but did happen to only one of the three tank-types regularly: a clear imbalance. This appears to be (at least somewhat) fixed. But it comes at a cost to most other levels of play. It concerns me that we have now balanced the class from the top down, and most seem to pay little regard to how that affects the levels of play below theirs. My hope is that the combat team finds a solution that suits all levels of play, maintaining this fix for the extreme content while keeping the class as comfortable as the other tank-types at the lower levels as well.

I feel that the DR buff should have stayed at 18 seconds. With the double-nerf coming on halving the armor rating increase AND shortening the duration of the DR buff, it has made running basic to moderate content much more difficult. With the armor rating from the skill tree increase getting cut in half, it was a very small increase in DR. Its alright when you can keep the buff up, but that's as RNG dependent as ever due to hoping project procs in the 12 second window around the "tons of stuns" and knock backs. You generally cannot keep this buff up more than half the time. The healing, once you got it off at least addressed the damage taken after the fact to the fullest extent it could (and often proc'd the healing relic even if you were interrupted). My experience is that for average to moderate content it is more difficult, and not just more difficult that it was before. I run with a DPS companion with my other tanks at all times doing dailies and soloing heroics (as I used to with my shadow). My shadow is by far the best geared of them. I now run with my healer companion in Oricon and a few select other areas to survive; I don't have to with my other tanks. In my opinion, there are just too many long periods where you get stunned-choked-slept-choked-knockback-root and the buffs are not there. All the damage during this time goes unaddressed, where as before this was addressed as soon as there was a window to TK-heal. In operations, I haven't really noticed a survivability difference so far. Neither have my healers for that matter. There are still bad pockets of RNG where I can't get the proc, the buffs fall off, and my shield chance goes on a string of misses. The spikes might be slightly less drastic at the HM 55 OPs level, and this may likely be all that was intended. However, the current state of the changes when -all- content is considered does not seem like a fair trade for the class as a whole; more players do easier content, and will not see the benefit from the increase at the highest levels of content ( myself do not do nightmare OPs). I believe had they either; A: left the armor rating increase from the skill tree alone, instead of cutting it in half (less preferable, though all the armor debuffing abilities that haven't bothered us before would then, so this wouldn't be as over-powering as it was claimed it would be) -or- B: left the buff at an 18 second duration (the best solution in my opinion). Either would have had a less drastic impact at the lower-level content. I know that a few of the highly skilled players like KBN (thank you for all the wonderful work you do for us, btw!) have hinted that the class will be too easy with either of those originally proposed changes, and indeed it may be easier for extremely skilled players. However, those players are like the Menza of the shadow class; what about the other 98% of the player base that is not that good? *These are just a few big-picture things the combat team should consider as far as I'm concerned. *Admittedly, all of these opinions are based on a PvE-only experience. I no longer PvP, have no desire to do so again, and know nothing about how the system works these days.

To whom it may concern, This is to give an opinion on the current state of affairs with the dyes. In the ORIGINAL patch notes for 2.3.2 there was absolutely nothing said about a specific date for the availability of the white on white or black on black dyes (view many of the quotes in the rant/rave threads about the this event). I want to give you some feedback as a whole, and specifically on this event. While the vocal majority of your players seems to be a very dedicated "hardcore" bunch that has hours to sink into crafting and can log on regularly enough to see last minute updates, changes, or adjustments, there are many of us out there that have too many real-life obligations to monitor this constantly. As of patch notes 2.3.2a, there was STILL no date listed for this event, yet in looking at it now there has been an addition of the date September 7th only. Obviously, I missed this. I want to point out a few things that other casual gamers (a truly casual gamer, not someone who plays every day for only a few hours or logs in on their lunch break to keep track or craft even when they can't play) might agree with. I have children in high school, myself am a full time student in addition to a position in the military, so my time is limited and my priorities are certainly not video game first/responsibilities second. Even so, I have maintained my subscription since pre-release and I play when I can to varying degrees. The current design versus my ability to commit play time has two severe down sides that have limited my ability to partake of/enjoy new content within the game, and is decreasing my enjoyment from the game by virtue of an air of elitism (look at me, I have billions of credits or real world moneyto waste on items that should be available to everyone. Simply, there's enough of that to endure in real life without having to tolerate it in recreational activities that we pay good money for already). First, is the inability to keep pace with the gross inflation of the in-game economy. Many new things that you add to the game require me to A: spend real world money for items, most of which are a gamble and thus a waste of hard-earned currency in my opinion. To date, including the $100 for the game (delux edition and RotHC) and -some- small coin purchases, I have easily spent over $500 on a single game. While many gamers jump to defend that this is worth it for the entertainment value, I would argue that I have gotten as much and more entertainment value from a few years of entertainment Mass Effect and over 10 years out of the original Neverwinter Nights, and spent less than $100 on all three mass effects and NWN1. This covers a span of more than 10 years, whereas I have spent 5 times as much on SW:TOR in 1.5 years. Cost value aside, so far I have had a far more satisfying experience with NWN1, especially in the character customization category, where I didn't have all the issues that an MMO apparently has. We get nickeled and dimes to death via cartel coins for anything that looks remotely like gear seen in the movies and gouged viciously on the GTN for in game currency for the same items if we go that route. B: Spend hours of real-world time farming credits and or materials to craft, sell items on the auction house, and try to achieve increasingly large sums of credits for simple one-use items such as the dyes (though, by no means is this imbalance unique to only dyes. I am simply trying to stay on topic). While again I speculate many devout gamers would argue that that isn't that long or that it isn't a big deal, I would like to point out that many high-functioning adults have very demanding lives where those hours cut into other responsibilities, Additionally, these hours may cut into hours that may be put to better real world use, or even used to make real world money to support the families that some gamers have; time is money in American society. Even if an individual only takes 3-5 hours to accumulate 1 million credits, at even the current minimum wage of $7.75 an hour this time could translate to $23.25-$38.75 in potential real world equivalency. This relates to my main point about the listing of the items on the cartel market for potentially roughly $20,as to me that seems like far less than the man hours required to grind credits and buy them from those milking players dry on the GTN for the same item; 4-6 million credits is 4-6($23.25.$38.75). I'm not going to bother calculating a mean for you (that's what I get paid to do in research in real life...it would be yet another loss, in addition to the time it is taking to even type out this opinion). Second, is the restriction of many things to what could be called nothing less than gambling. Sticking to the dyes issue that has finally set me in motion to air out some serious issues I have come to have with this product, I will point to the total randomness that are the dye packs. At least with the expensiveness of the two main dyes that are extremely difficult to get ahold of (for me, it has been impossible) hosted on the cartel market on the 7th, you were getting specifically what you wanted when you paid for it. There are many things in life that are a "crap shoot," so much so that to have to further endure that over something so silly as not being allowed to decide what color clothes I can wear is a MAJOR turn-off. I get subjected to this phenomenon more than enough every time I am sent over-seas in to combat zones, and I dislike it then. But at least -I am being paid- to endure it then. Here, I -pay you- to restrict me in such an unappealing fashion. Most importantly, however, is the gambling aspect. Yes, I don't have to play the market or purchase these things; I can and have lived without them so far because I refuse to gamble, spending tons of real world money in the process (or sacrifice hours to grinding/crafting-for-sale to get credits for that mater). However, making these items only obtained -from Bioware- by gambling in extremely poor taste in my opinion, and I certainly wouldn't let my children partake in it (in fact, one of them plays occasionally and I have refused to allow him to use the cartel market specifically because of this). I do not intend this as an "I'm going to cancel my sub if things don't change thread; there are enough reasons why I've been considering that lately and the dye thing is a small detail in comparison to an increasingly rude community present in general chats, broken classs, and bugs that work for us being fixed immediately while bugs that work against us linger for weeks, months, or over a year) I hold no illusions that any of this will change anything, and from all that I've read on the forums to date I predict a host of supporters throwing their weight in for this system based on minimization ("It's how the real world functions"), their lack of a subjective issue with the system as it currently is, personal investment in the current system ("I can't sell my junk for ridonculous tons of credits? No way, don't do THAT!") or to simply pick apart formatting or isolated weak-spots in my opinion. I have no interest in following up with this just short of Bioware/game developers contacting me directly via a PM. I do urge that a change be made for most players to be able to enjoy simple things without all the currency hoops to jump through, or at least offer the specific items rather than leaving people to gamble to try and achieve basic things. For all those who would fall back on the "how it works in the real world" argument to justify how these cosmetics are handled, I urge you to think about Tommy charging you full price for a shirt in your closet and then setting up a random system where you pay to -try- and get it in the color you want when you go to dress for the day next time. Thanks to anyone who finished this for their time, whether they agree or disagree.

That might no be true. There is a difference between leveling and enjoying the story, which is what some people do, and power-leveling to milk every nano-XP possible out of the game. Some people skip Tatooine to go to Alderaan. This may well cause them to be a little lower level when they get to Quesh.

First of all, ths is a no-snark reply and I'm not an expert (it's so hard to convey tone in textual format); I only know what I've read and even then, the finite mechanics are only truly understood by the dev's. End disclaimer. Defense will be superrior percent for percent, not point for point. Defense, after somewhere between 25-27% has a stiff diminishing return. Absorb has a much lower return, which kicks in at a much higher percentage. Also, absorb gives more percentage gain per point of rating than defense. So you will never have a "point for point" exchange between the two. Past an undefined amount (at least, I can find no hard number), the amount of defense rating you have to stack to gain even 1% when compared to the amount of absorb (and thereby mitigated damage) you would gain by replacing this with aborsorption is unbalanced. At that time, it is then more beneficial to stack absorb than defense; the defense you would have to stack to get from ~27% to 30% could easily get you around %50 absorb. the additional 3/100 damage not taken, when you could mitigate 25/100 of all damage [(.50 shield)*(.50 absorb)] would be inferior.** Of course, this is predicated on taking shield/defense and shield/absorb mods, because as you know absorb does nothing without a high shield rating. The magic numbers that I see in most technical reviews of how the three mechanics synergize is D% ~27-30%, Shld% ~50%, abrb% ~50% (for guardian tanks anyway; different for Shadows and Sins b/c they have a much higher shield% potential). I write enough term papers every semester that I don't need anymore practice citing sources, but the info is outthere for anyone who wants to know bad enough to thoroughly research Given the fact that all of us have different ideas or methods and we're all still out there tanking with varying degrees of success, I say "forgedda 'bout it" and go have fun! **However, up to around ~27% defence chance, defense is superior because it gives comparable gains, and = a "no damage chance" vs a "reduced damage" chance.

Quote: Originally Posted by Cerion Colors aren't meaningless. Color was an artistic choice, and remand so throughout the movies. The fact that they ARE restricted is why Jackson had to gain special permission (essentially a bribe for his talent) to have a purple saber. Yes you read about the occasional exception in the Extended Universe (blech), but those were rare. But guess what...in an MMO, nothing is rare. You let one person have access, eventually it will no longer be rare. I wish BW would stick to their guns on this issue. This information is untrue on a few counts. For the films, the colors weren't selected on any sort of dogmatic restrictive basis. Read any interview with Lucas on the subject; he chose blue and red (initially) because they -best visually contrasted with the environments on film.- He then assigned red to Vader, and blue to Obi-Wan and Luke. For film purposes, those were the only two colors he intended to use -in the films-, but stated that Jedi had lightsabers in virtually every color. Green was only introduced after he couldn't achieve a good visual contrast in RotJ because of all the blue-sky backgrounds on Tatooine. Again, Lucas' color selection was based solely on a functional basis, not a dogmatic regimen written into the universe. The info as to why Samuel L was allowed to use purpleis true, but yet again from Lucas' perspective the ability to achieve good visual contrast was the decision maker, not SLJ's desires for a purple saber. Lucas had enough special effects issues, whithout having to play with hundreds of light spectrums and digital over-lay issues to introduce any/all of the other colors. He quite frankly followed the "kiss-method" (keep it simple, stupid); All of the hyperbole over this issue, preached as cannon, is simply fan-based attribution of a film-maker's utilitarin choices. As to the "occasional" 'saber in the extended universe, THIS IS the extended universe :-P And, there were almost as many Jedi who used non-blue/green lightsabers as did in the books; I've read many of them, and have (in other posts) named many charactrs. Regardless, the one area where you are not wrong is -you opinion.- You are intitled to it, and oddly there are many who share this opinion and I can't fault them for it. Mostly, its just the reasoning that "they only used certain colors in the films" that's a bit short-sighted, as not many of the vehicles or other weapons in the game are in any other game nor in the films. The, "well it's 3k years in the past!" explanation works both ways; if it justifies the other, then it also justifies the 'sabers by that logic. However, puritans and traditionalists are free to continue using only the colors displayed in the movie (I myself am using green because it looks vivid no matter what environment I'm in). There's no need to limit the choices of others based on differing beliefs. In my opinion, stick to -your- guns, and let others have their freedom of choice and expression. But above all, don't let someone running around with their pink saber (which noone seems to complain about, even though I've never seen nor read of one anywhere else; the argument is alwas over the purple) ruin your fun!

[Deleted by poster]

Just kinda chiming in here, but I've been reading SW books, playing games, and of course watching movies for around 34 years now (starting watching when I was 2). There are a few things in this debate to be considered. First, I will admit that I am pro-purple, and have always bounced between this and blue in any game I've played where they're both available. The annoyance I think many feel stems from the fact that the purple sabers have floated around in the books for years (and in both of the KotOR games this one is based off of)), and were neither rare nor powerful, and weren't any different from any other color crystal in terms of function or benefits. Someone above asked what you would do with the stats if they weren't on the color crystals. Well, in KotOR 1 and 2, there were NO stats on the color crystals. Oddly enough, the name equated to their function-they determined the color only. Second is that Lucas himself has said in any interview that he's been asked, that there were many colors of lightsabers, and also that the color was simple preference of the wielder. Now, all the arguments from a tradition-standpoint as to what was shown in the movies boils down to functionality. In interviews, Lucas has stated he originally chose the blue and red color sabers because they contrasted better visually with the environments he was filming in. In the first star wars, if you notice, the sabers are all (in the original films) the cyan color except when Luke was training on the Fulcan enroute to Alderaan; then it was white/silver (a low-power training mode for the weapon was the explanation). That's it. He planned to stick with those colors only because there were only really 3 lightsabers you would ever see, but stated there had been many other colors. When they began working with the FXs for RotJ, Luke's new saber was also supposed to be blue originally (reflected in the original Revenge of the Jedi posters; yes, that WAS the movie's original title, later changed because the word "Revenge" did not keep with the peacemaker image of the Jedi. I have a 28 year old children's belt buckle and a movie poster both with that title). As they were working with the effects, because of the wide-open outdoor desert sequences, the blue saber blended with too much of the background (mostly the sky). They found however that a bright shade of green cotrasted well, and could be seen in any of the environments, so he introduced green color to the film. On making the new movies, he stuck with the FX models he already had for the sabers in a "keep it simple" appraoch, because he knew both saber colors would contrast well. Yes, Samuel Jackson DID request purple, but the approval wasn't based on any "rarity" factor but on the fact that with Mace's blue saber (the color he originally had) you couldn't pick him out in a fight. Again, functionality won out and he introduced purple because it both contrasted with all of the filming environments AND allowed you to spot Mace. SO, in short: Lucas agrees that the colors are simply up to the Jedi in terms of what's allowed, and explains his color selection for the films as a matter of functionality (all of this can be verified; google is your friend). And as to the extended universe, I've named off a long list of purple saber-wielders (there seems to be one in almost every book, and a variety of other "rare" colors too) in another post, so I won't repeat it again. This is really a pointless agrument, however, because A: too many game-chair Gurus who have nothing better to do that dedicate 90+ hours a week to a game "want to keep some things rare" while others believe that "its not that hard to get" (for them its not; a 10 hour or more gaming day is considered normal), and B: Bioware has made a marketing-strategy decision on this topic (kinda like Tool back when they "refused" to do interviews so that everyone wanted one), and could care less what I or anyone else thinks. I hope the actual information I have given provides some fun in the research (there's ALOT of other really cool fun-facts in the interviews), and silences some of the ignorance in support of the "rare color, because there's only on in the movies..." arguments, as there are MANY things in the movies that there are few of, yet many of in this game); I haven't fought a sith boss-NPC yet that didn't have a purple saber, so they aren't too rare. By all rights, I should have been able to salvage theirs. It truly is a matter of "seeking the forbidden fruit", which amounts to continued subscriptions and revenue for all companies involved. Any intelligent discussion amongst ourselves is simply us trying to rationalize something that doesn't make sense, but we would like explained. Like many things in life, the explanation is usually less dramatic and more pragmatic.

Why is it that Mace Windu seems to be the only Jedi anyone can associate the purple crystals with? Anikan Solo had one in SW books (about twelve years before Lucas ever thought about episode 1 or Mace Windu), as did Mara Jade, Corrin Horn, and several other Jedi from Luke's academy. It was less common than the green or blue, but ertainly not unheard of. Most of the non-standard colors Bioware chose in the KotOR games come from saber colors characters had in the books. So the next time someone gives you the ole "Mace Windu" reference, ask them if they like to read, because there's a ton of books out there with all kinds of saber colors other than red, yellow, orange, blue, and green. In fact, yellow never appeared in any of the movies at all. It was just depicted in the original artwork for A New Hope (its onscreen appearance wa more of a cyan). On a side note, looking at the color list, NOT having purple is bizzare. You have two of the second teir colors after blue, yellow, and red: Orange (red and yellow) and green (bue and yellow), but not purple. The logical explanation is they made them rare because they knew everyone would want them, so its incentive to keep people playing (and paying) much like the unlocking of a Jedi gimmick that was part of the original set-up for SW Galaxies.