That's not entirely true. Sometimes you can know someone on the forums or care about their presence even if you don't know the characters in the game. For example, I've come to enjoy reading Tsillah, Andyah, Ratajack and others' posts and seeing their perspectives. I certainly don't know their character names or even what server they play on but I would certainly miss them if they were gone (and Tsillah left recently as it happens). If someone like me quit, who doesn't have a real presence on the forums, then I doubt anyone would notice But for some of the people who have been here a long time, have a high post count, or have contributed to the conversation in some way regardless of how long they've been here, it's nice to know that they are leaving and perhaps why they are leaving.

I'd like to see something akin to the WoW token put in the game. It solves the game's inflation problem, allowing players to buy credtis with real money while supporting Bioware, and it allows people with credits to use them to pay for a subscription. In case you don't know what a WoW token is, its a consumable item you put on the GTN that when used, grants a month's subscription. It is purchased with real money, and sold on the GTN for credits. I know there are a lot of free CCs floating around, but this works out too. Using WoW's model of, say, $20 for month token (vs $15 to buy the sub outright), that would be 2400 CCs per token. People with thousands of CCs may just pay for a year up front, but for everyone else, people are effectively paying $5 more for a sub. The difference is someone is paying your sub for you in this case. So imagine this scenario: Johnny wants to buy credits, so he buys a SWTOR token from the CM for 2400 CCs. He immediately gets, say, 10,000,000 credits (as an example). At this point, the game generates 1 SWTOR token on the GTN in a special setting. Please note that the game sell this on the GTN, not Johnny. Malik wants to be a subscriber, but doesn't want to pay cash. He does, however, have a bunch of credits. He goes to the GTN and finds that a SWTOR token is on the market now (because of Johnny), and it sells for 11,500,000. He buys it, and the sub time is immediately added to his account, conferring full benefits. Taj is a subscriber who uses his monthly grant to buy one or two of whatever pack is out. He decides to save his CC grant instead and get a free month every 5 months, but still wants to take his chances with the packs, and so he buys CCs directly; something he wouldn't have done under the current system. Hitomi is a popular streamer with 30,000 CCs stacked up from referral codes and monthly bonus coins. Normally, she'd spend them on hypercrates for "box opening" streams, or giveaways. Hitomi, seeing an opportunity to save money, proceeds to buy a year's worth of sub time for 24,000CC. Although her sub is paid for now, she 1) brought many subs into the game, and 2) no longer has the CCs to buy hypercrates when the new packs launch, requiring her to buy CCs. Pablo isn't sure that SWTOR is worth the sub money, given that he feels his preferred activity type isn't being catered to. He considers unsubbing, but when he considers that because of the CC grant, he gets 1 month free for every 5 months he stays subbed, he decides to stay subbed. And of course, the negative example, because there are downsides. Pat is a subscriber and longtime fan of SWTOR who plays because ze enjoys it. Pat would subscribe anyway, doesn't make enough credits to buy a SWTOR token, and has no interest in buying credits or cartel coins, simply using the free grant on a pack here and there. Pat now gets 1 free month per 5 months because of the cartel grant if ze chooses to use zir CC on it, and so the value of Pat's sub is worth less to Bioware than it was before this change. The issue is, are there enough people in the first few examples to make up for the revenue loss of the last one? I'd like to think so, but only Bioware would know for sure.

I'm Kohaku/Master Blaster, former from POT5 and Jedi Covenant. Used to run with <Death and Taxes> during 3.0, and <Nightmare Power> during 4.0. I main a sorc/sage but can heal with anything. Due to my work and family I prefer a late night EST guild. I enjoy NiM clears and progression and sadly all the people I used to run with have left the game during late 4.0, so I've been casual for the last year and I can't take it anymore. I figured with the server merge, now's a good chance to get back into it. Let me know if your guild has a space.

There, I said it. I like the Eternal Alliance. I like that my character is Emperor/Peacemaker. I didn't like being Darth Marr's flunky, or being Satele's errand boy/girl. Even though functionally now its Lana telling me where to go, from a story perspective I'm the one making the calls. I reached the pinnacle of my career in the Empire/Republic when my characters became Wrath/DC member/Head of Sith Intelligence/Imperial Advisor/Pirate King/Major/Jedi Master/Jedi Master. I was ready to do something else. So we beat Sith God and took control. Going back to fighting Sith and Jedi feels like going backwards. To be honest, I don't feel like "Reps vs. Imps" is what makes Star Wars, er, "Star Wars". Blasters and lightsabers and force powers make it Star Wars to me. Then again I actually liked the EU stuff like the Vong and the Ssi-Ruuk, etc. I actually loved the transition during Chapters 1-3 of KOTFE that basically said "The old faction war is irrelevant. Here's a new start." Now that we can have different world states where Acina/Jace can be dead, I want to see us actually fight the other factions and grind them into the dust. I'd like to fight extra-galactic threats, or Jadus, or whatever created the Phobis devices that turned the Dread Masters into such powerful enemies. My personal interpretation of SWTOR has been one of growth and change for the protagonist, from a low-ranking character with potential, to a talented problem-solver (chapter 1), to a faction hero (chapter 3), to faction advisor (Revan), and, eventually to galactic hero (KOTFE) and then to emperor/peacemakler (KOTET). I know a lot of our characters didn't ask to be put into these situations, but that's part of growth too. I'd hate to see that growth regress.

Well the last statement kind of says it, doesn't it? They can still use them, just not very well at all. That's what a sage/sorc can do now. If they really want to, they can use their saber strike, or turn it into a special attack with a cooldown via utilities, but it isn't their specialty. Personally, I find this to be the ideal. Whatever flavor you would get for being a melee sage/sorc doesn't outweigh the fact that these moves encourage newbies to play incorrectly. Prior to Thrash getting removed from sorc, I saw people using it in Flashpoints because they didn't know better (or perhaps because they were wanting that flavor). Its the same reason stances got removed. Sure it has flavor, but it also encourages suboptimal play--something this game definitely does not need more of. Your best bet is probably to play Assassin/Shadow with a lightsaber pike. You get a single bladed saber, the consular/inquisitor story, and if you go Serenity/Hatred, you aren't as reliant on stealth.

Thought of some new ones: Attack on Tython: Orbital Strike guy: this guy didn't need much more. He grapples everyone instead of just one person. Each of the four Commandos that join the fight are marked with a special color. You will have a collar of orbital strike that matches with one of the Commandos and you must hit him with that color strike. Failure to do so will prevent The Shield from going down. Stealth fight:. This is one of the most tedious fights in the game, so let's speed it up and make it more fun. He comes out of stealth immediately after you kill the Droids. If he comes out on his regular timer and there are still droids up he gains a huge damage boost. If he runs out of waves of droids, he instantly kills the entire party. Jedi Master/Sith Lord:. He now places a debuff on his target that must be cleansed. During the Avalanche phase, anyone who gets hit by Falling debris causes raid wide damage. During them datacron Channel, large and small debris start to fall from the ceiling. The tank has to stand under the large debris and DPS/heal have to stand under the small debris and use a DCD to survive it. Blood Hunt:. Wampa:. Each rock throw now deals raidwide AOE. Killing a Mandalorian now causes the Wampa to get a 10% damage buff. Getting thrown against a wall deals lethal damage if you haven't traveled at least 20 meters. Challenges: only do 3 in Master Mode, with no option to do the others.... Joss and Valk: During Joss' phase, Valk fires the circle AOEs from outside the arena. If you overlap you are knocked back and into the air. During Valks phase, Joss uses airstrike from outside the arena. During the intermission, the two challenge bosses you didn't fight join the battle and must be killed. If Joss and Valk are not killed within 15 seconds of each other, they go berserk and wipe the party. Torch: Taking fire damage puts a permanent (for the fight) 5% damage debuff on you. You must kill the grapple droid before you can exit the Maelstrom, which now completes 50% faster. Killing the droid causes it to drop a circle that cleanses all your stacks of the fire debuff. Battle for Rishi: Wookiee/Trooper: Kill them within 20 seconds of each other or they wipe the group. If a droid times out, it despawns while doing heavy damage to the raid. Marko puts a cleansable debuff on the target when he comes out of stealt Obai/Vodd: If any electric sphere hits the pylon it's a wipe. Both have to die within 15 seconds of each other. The electricity spheres are protected by a shield that is being channeled by a Revanite Fanatic. The DPS can kill the adds to break the shield so that they can run into the electricity. Walker:. This is already a good fight, so we just need to add a couple more things. The Revanite adds now have that annoying electro net move from Blood Hunt to keep you from getting to the shield control. The shield control is locked down until you kill a new add and loot it. However, it only unlocks one of the computers so you need to do it with enough time left to figure out which one. The Cross Missile phase now constantly shifts between a Cross and X pattern, forcing a dance back and forth. I'll think of more later!

I bought my woman a Steel Series Rival 500 to help her up her game. Things like the Razer Naga were intimidating for her, but the Rival's buttons worked with her thumb movement. As a clicker she found the game to be a chore, but now she's fully enjoying it. Like other posters said, take the time to teach her. It doesn't have to be like training a dog if you don't want it to be. Since the story mode is so easy that it doesn't teach you anything, I've started taking her into vet FPs to level, warzones to learn how to use DCDs and react under stress, and how to parse on the dummy in her ship. She picked up the game as a clicker to do something fun with me. Now that she has her mouse, she has a goal to be early NiM-capable by Christmas. This is just my experience, but taking her on the journey to being an excellent player is far more fun than killing skytroopers that are incapable of fighting back.

I'm definitely "that guy" in FPs. I want the fastest possible CXP/min and I absolutely don't want to waste time watching cutscenes or pulling unnecessary trash. Whenever possible I limit my selection to Hammer, Mando, Reaper,etc in order to avoid getting cutscene watchers. I'll set the pace in the FP and if people *purposefully* slow down I'll vote kick. I've never had a vote kick fail, so my group seems to appreciate it. Probably because I'm never rude about it. Polite, but firm. People who are new or just not as skilled are fine, and I'm happy to teach them how to improve their clear times. Don't worry, I've been on the other end before too. I've run into a group of people who wanted the entire FP experience and kicked me when I skipped all the Hammer Station trash. I've been kicked by people who are even more skilled at running FPs than me and I was slowing THEM down! No hard feelings in either case. Time is CXP, and I'd rather kick/be kicked than slow down my runs with a group that's a poor fit. Conversely, I'm sure they'd rather run with someone who meets their needs.

Here's another one: Red Reaper: Sith w/hostages: interrupting him debuffs the interrupter with Backlash, instantly killing the player if they interrupt him again. When he jumps, he slows all players and gains a stacking damage buff that increases in intensity, as well as a ranged reflect shield. Players have to get in melee range and deal 5% of his total health to end the damage buff and reflect shield. Red/blue Droid: only half of the pylons are clickable, which means the target will take a big chunk of damage, and so players will have to change it from lethal to very damaging. If you are hit with the knock back, a slow is put on you, which can make reaching the correct pylon in time a challenge. Finally, when you finish changing a pylon color, a moderate AoE damages everyone in the group. Ikoral:. This guy already has a lot going on and so he doesn't need too much more. His lightning attack does far more damage when it is on you. If it hits the zealot, the zealot refracts the lightning to all group members, doing moderate damage until it is killed. When a chosen is killed by the lightning, it explodes and does heavy damage to the interrupter. Each time Ikoral's chosen complete a cast while lightning is on them, heavy raidwide damage hits the group. The goal here is to make this phase something you want to get through as fast as possible. For the running phase, if you do not collect every one of the forbidden knowledge clouds, it's an instant wipe. Edit:. Another one Korriban Incursion: Beastmaster boss:. He now has different types of adds that he summons, and is invincible while the adds are up. He casts a deadly tankbuster that can't be interrupted. Terentatek adds spawn and mark a player with a circle before leaping to him. When hit, the player takes damage and has their abilities locked out for 4 GCDs. If the boss is in the circle, he gets hit instead and it stops his cast. Laser Droid:. This one is already pretty crazy so I won't change much. The yellow mines turn invisible once they are active. The boss hits the tank with the laser, but this time it does triple the damage, split between the primary target and (if available) a target within 5 meters of the tank. Once that target is hit, he can't split the damage with the tank again until after the next mine phase. Final boss:. New adds, SIS operatives/Imperial Guards, spawn periodically and deal low-to-moderate but annoying damage. If a player is stunned by the Droid, they immediately Focus fire on the stunned player. If the players are immobilized by the boss's move, they get a debuff that causes them to take heavily increased damage from these adds while they are stunned. This means that killing the adds is a priority. In addition, the move that lifts you from the ground places a debuff on everyone that reduces healing received by 50%. This can be cleansed.

The point of this thread is to brainstorm fun NiM mechanics, so I'll contribute. Hammer Station: The mining Droid's laser, when cleansed, puts a DoT stack on the person who cleansed it with stacks equal to the number of stacks the laser was on. In addition, each of the probe Droids that explodes deals raid wide damage and places a debuff on all players that increases damage taken from subsequent explosions. Boss Trio: all three bosses now have equal health and cannot be interrupted. When one is killed, the other two are restored to full health, gain increased damage and gain and interruptible version of flamethrower (if Torch dies), channeled heal (sawbones), or mortar volley style AoE (Vorgan). Battlelord Kreshan: if you hit the console when he punts you, it's an instant kill. His channeled area attack slows you down and makes you more vulnerable to damage during it's duration. The red patches on the ground do not time out. His minions now hit much harder and are covered by an invincible Shield. If the minion steps onto the red patch, he loses the shield and the red patch disappears. Edit: On to the next one! Athiss Professor Ley'arsha: She starts with a buff on her called Red Domination. She gains a new attack where she puts Red poison and Blue poison on random group members (except for the tank). The poisons do damage over time and stacks increase as time passes (up to 10). They can't be cleansed but if a player runs near Ley'arsha, the poison is removed and Ley'arsha gains stacks of Domination equal to the number of poison stacks the person had. If she has Red Domination and someone clears blue poison on her, she loses Red Domination and gains Blue Domination. When she has 1 stack of either Domination she has 100% damage mitigation (invincible) and does normal damage. With 10 stacks, she does double damage, but takes normal damage. In addition, the adds that she summons all share her color and grant her stacks when they die. Players have to balance surviving her increasing damage by how much damage they can do to her. Beast of Vodal Kressh: Similar to the old fight, but with a new mechanic. The beast will target a random player and start casting a move called Reckless Charge. It has one of those long rectangular red zones that tracks the target. At the end of the cast, he charges forward and deals heavy damage to the first player he hits. This attack is almost lethal unless a DCD is used. In addition, the target gets a debuff that makes Reckless Charge into a 0 damage kill that can't be mitigated or blocked. If the same person is targeted twice, someone else has to run in between the beast and the target in order to take the hit. This acts as a soft enrage, since eventually everyone will be hit by Reckless Charge and then they will lose a member from each hit thereafter. The only other change is that the Beast has an aura similar to Sparky from Ravagers, where any of the akk dogs that are summoned during the fight all attack the Beast's target. Prophet of Vodal Kressh: Cleansing crushing darkness now deals raidwide AoE damage, doing more damage the earlier it is cleansed. When the Prophet vanishes, a new add called "Spirit of Vodal Kressh" appears and must be tanked. The player who has to run from the fire is afflicted by a slow. It can be broken by utilities that break CC effects, but it returns shortly after being broken (think Brontes NiM or Underlurker HM). Meanwhile, the Spirit of Vodal Kressh is casting extremely hard hitting tankbuster attacks. The healer must either interrupt these or heal through them while the tank uses DCDs, because the DPS should be attacking a new add called the "Fanatical servant". All he does is cast a spell on the Spirit of Vodal Kressh that makes the next tankbuster uninterruptible and do more damage. DPS will need to interrupt that spell and try to kill him. The fanatical servant can be hard CC'd, but is immune to CC effects that break on damage. The Spirit disappears when the Prophet returns, and if the fanatic is still alive when he does, it dies immediately and the Prophet gains 25% increased damage. Cademimu: Droid and Officer: Nearly identical fight, except now the droid moves at normal player running speed. Players will have to use speed boosting abilities to outrun him and get him through the trap. Xander throws mines on the ground that prime for a few seconds and then disappear. If you run into one of these hidden mines while running the bomb away from the group or kiting the droid, you are bounced into the air and stunned (likely getting arrested). Wookiee: Very similar to current fight. When the adds come down, he's invincible as long as the adds are alive. Adds are shielded until hit by the flamethrower, but the flamethrower doesn't hurt them. The adds have more health, and most critically do 100% more damage if 1) they are within 15 meters of the Wookiee, or 2) they are within 8 yards of another add. These two stack together, meaning that it is not a good idea to group them all together for longer than it takes to break their shield. Missile boss: Similar to hard mode, but with a couple twists. Shackles now require two players to step on them to break. Being knocked back into a wall deals damage to the player, but the more distance you are knocked, the less you take. Fewer than 10 meters is likely lethal without a big DCD. During the launch sequence, all 4 missiles start preparing to fire. A launch operation droid appears in the middle. Killing it disables one of the rockets. Mandalorian Raiders Beastmaster and Friends: Dogs take 50% reduced damage and deal 50% more damage when they are within 20 meters of each other. Beastmaster gains a stacking buff called Loneliness when he's away from the dogs. Loneliness increases his defense and damage by 10% per stack. Being around a dog and using his red circle attack rapidly reduces Loneliness stacks. 4-man NPC party: Each party member heals to full in addition to the damage buff when one is killed. If a boss is unable to see its target, it stands perfectly still and starts pulsing out deadly AoE damage (keeps you from using the corner to corral them together). In addition, each boss now has an additional move that they perform. The knight/warrior uses burns/bleeds that must be cleansed. The Sage/Sorcerer uses a heal that must be interrupted. The Sniper/Slinger uses a large ballistic shield that increases their defense for its duration and so DPS should use cooldowns to get through it, and the Hunter/Trooper uses a Death from Above/Mortar Volley that must be avoided Mavrix Varad: If Mavrix has jumped to a turret area and both turrets are down while he's still there, he activates all the turrets at once (so you want to leave one up per section). When Mavrix jumps to a new section, a Mandalorian add appears and grapples a player (likely the healer) and stuns them until he's defeated. All currently available turrets fire on that player. Mavrix gains an interruptible tankbuster and a quick cast that increases all turret damage by 10%, stacking infinitely. In addition, Mavrix gains 10% damage per turret defeated. That's all I've got for now. I'll post again if something else comes to mind

I killed him with it in Veteran Mode since that's my default mode for story chapters. It might be fun to beat him on Master Mode though. The story is actually the reason I wanted to try it. My agent doesn't use the Force, she defeats all her enemies using her trusty blaster pistol and stabbing knives. No Force, no giving in to the Emperor, no magic Satele/Marr weapon, no conveniently place shield. She's so tough that she can kill Arcann by dodging.

I found out today you can kill Arcann without using the shield. I was using an agent with the Blow-by-blow trait. Once he puts up the barrier I had to wait for Evasion to come off cooldown and reflect his damage. Once Fury of the Heir happened, I had to heal and pop DCDs to stay alive until Evasion came off cooldown again. I imagine a Juggernaut/Guardian could use saber reflect to do the same thing, but has anyone managed to defeat him on other classes without using the shield?

Vowrawn is alive and has shown up twice since KOTFE. Keep in mind he's now called the "Minister of Logistics" instead of "Dark Council Member." Most likely he abdicated his position upon fleeing to the Rishi Maze during Shadow of Revan. This is speculation, but he may have returned in time to see the Empire get wrecked by Arcann and Acina maneuver her way to Empress. He gets back in the empire with a demotion that conveniently keeps him from being seen as a threat, while at the same time giving him all the power he had as a Dark Councilor anyway. And if it seems unlikely that Acina would let a manipulator like Vowrawn get into such an important position, remember that she put Lorman in charge. Not to mention even one our smartest Sith, Lana, routinely makes bad HR decisions.

Yes, I did it on a character with green gear. Bolster boosts you up. The hardest part is the first boss. You have to use defensive cooldowns on him since he hits hard. The second boss isn't tuned correctly and his Red/Blue laser gimmick doesn't work. I did it with a level 44 healing companion, if that helps.

I'm torn on this. I leveled up several characters during the 12xp event a while ago and it helped me make sure I had something available for my raid team no matter what class they needed. While now I could buy start-at-65 tokens, I like being in control of the choices my characters make, just in case it actually matters down the line (such as that bonus dialogue for defector agents on Yavin). On the other hand, the only reason I really play this game is for NiM/MM operations. In 5.0, that means gearing these characters up via quick and efficient flashpoint runs, PvP, and the like. Since 5.2 we can now gain unassembled tokens from VM ops bosses, but since you have to farm up the components via PvP, I'm best off using my non-raid downtime to grind out boxes and hope to kit my characters out that way if the queues are slow. In my rush for efficiency, I don't want my runs slowed down by people who don't know their skills. Usually I can avoid this fate by running with the guild, but if I'm playing on off hours I'd rather the pugs I queue up with capable. I admit, people who play like I do are a minority. A case could well be made that your fun is more important than my fun. The problem is that unskilled newbies are also being funneled into max level WZs if the xp curve is too high. That means if you get unlucky and end up on a team of people flopping around, you're much less likely to succeed. Your quick and easy KP/EV HM runs become nightmare level as people stand in the fire, etc. The point is that encouraging this doesn't just affect you. YOU might not enter FPs or Ops until you're ready, but someone who doesn't share that restraint could buy the 12x boost the same as you, and then everyone else suffers. Lastly, a consumable boost to that degree would hurt Bioware's pockets. People buy those boosts and they cost like 2000cc. Now lets say you and others who think like you unsubscribe because of the leveling curve. Your monthly income to them is replaced by one boost, purchased by someone who wouldn't have purchased it if they could level up with 12x xp. So let's say for the sake of argument these two things even out. The problem is that Bioware has expressed interest in doing the Dark Vs. Light event in the future, and they will require you to regrind characters in order to get the next set of rewards. If (when) they release the event again, a 12x consumable would turn what is designed to be a months-long way to retain subscriptions during the next expansion's development period into something you can do in one month (especially if you have the Pioneer's armor from last year). So even if they cancelled out before, they still end up behind now. Look, I get you. Leveling can seem really slow. I'm running my wife through the game now and it feels like it takes her forever to get through the planets. My suggestion is to use flashpoints to level. Takes a few hours to get to there. Once you get to 55 you can do the first few quests on Rishi, or get into a SM operation. If you're a stealth class there's a stupidly easy trick to level (I spent an hour or so and got from like 40-70 and I took breaks). Go into VM Red Reaper by yourself, get to last boss (easily done). Have him electrocute his allies, combat stealth out. Repeat. Without exaggeration, I'm pretty sure that method is faster than questing with 12xp on.