Tell you what, show me a vid of you with a "viable" group (good luck with players these days) when these changes are made getting through Styrak's chained manifestation phase in NiM and then we can talk. Even with the weak argument of "upgraded augments", with the hit to the overall combined DPS of the entire party -- a good chunk of which is Tanking DPS -- I wouldn't get your hopes up. Keep in mind, tanks are consistently on the boss for the majority of fights, and a tank that can pull 4-5k DPS makes a significant impact on how the fight turns out. And yes I actually read the dev post, obviously unlike you, and counted how much tanks are losing. It's around 50% damage reduction for both Juggs and Sins (as I don't play PT tank, unsure how much they lose, but I can assume it's similar). For example, Sin tanks base ability, Dark Charge, is taking a 50% hit to the internal damage it deals. Furthermore, Shock, Depredating Volts, Wither, & Discharge are all taking between 5-10% hits to the amount of damage they do as well. As for Jugg tanks, Crushing Blow, Ravage, and Backhand are all taking 50% hits to the amount damage they do as well. FYI, Crushing Blow and Ravage are the two primary damage dealing abilities for Jugg tanks, and Backhand is a primary threat generating ability that deals a decent amount of damage. You really think increasing the amount of overall threat tanks generate will make up for the sheer amount of DPS they'll lose -- and STILL be able to effectively down NiM content? I want some of what you're smoking please. Tell you what, come to Harb and duel me as a so-called "skank tank" and watch me destroy you without breaking a sweat, both on my DPS and on my Jugg tank (as an actual tank, FYI). They're glass cannons at best, and cannon fodder at worst -- especially when they decide to guard someone in group PvP. Personally, I find it hilarious every time (which is quite often) I watch a "skank tank" jump into a crowd during PvP and just melt. And really? Counting AoE Spam as effective DPS? That doesn't mean a thing when you guard a node and get absolutely destroyed in 1v1 or 1v2 -- something, I might add, an actual tank can handle long enough for help to arrive. I actually feel bad for ranked groups that have "skank tanks" in their makeup, as it often makes for an easy win.

You've obviously never played any real end-game content then... The damage needed to meet many of the NiM boss fights enrage timer is extremely tight as-is, and a tank that can pull between 4-5K DPS is absolutely needed or these fights wouldn't be possible. If you don't believe me, lookup the enrage timer for NiM Styrak, Brontes, etc... The DPS absolutely do not have the ability to meet these enrage timers on their own without the added tank damage. There's simply too much going on in these mechanics-heavy fights for DPS to consistently put out the high numbers required. As for removing guard from the DPS specs in tanking classes, it really wouldn't be that hard. The ability to guard isn't determined by the gear one wears, but rather the spec they play within the class. It would literally be as simple as removing the guard ability from any DPS spec within tanking classes. As for "skank tanks" guarding, that really isn't a problem. In fact, anyone who does that is actually hurting themselves, as "skank tanks" are already easy to kill due to the lack of actual tanking stats. Them guarding someone and taking even more damage just makes it that much easier to kill them.

You do realize that "skank tanks" aren't the actual problem, right? Most people think that any tank running with DPS relics is a "skank tank" because they're not using tanking relics...that's simply not true. DPS relics are required in most end-game PvP/PvE content in order to meet DPS checks for NiM fights (PvE) and to compete with survivability of most other classes (PvP). Reducing the damage output by 50% for tanks across the board, not to mention increasing survivability for all classes (great idea devs!...) will end up breaking PvE end game content, and actually end up causing people to start "skank tanking" in PvP. Furthermore, if the devs would actually PLAY THE GAME, they would realize that threat has absolutely nothing to do with PvP, so increasing threat generation while decreasing damage does nothing but nerf an already low-damage output spec to play in PvP. Not only that, but ANYONE who has ever tried to truly "skank tank" by equipping DPS armor/gear in a tank spec knows that it's fruitless. You melt easily, even with the extra def CDs, and the damage increase is negligible! If these changes actually go through, than say good by to a large chunk of the already dwindling community that still plays this game... Why not do something useful, such as removing the ability for DPS spec tanking classes to guard, or maybe make defense an actual useful stat for tanking so we don't have to mod our equipment with DPS mods and run with DPS relics just to add better mitigation in the form of HP, or maybe giving phase walk back to Sins and focusing on the insane survivability of sorcs in PvP. Hell, maybe try playing the game you actually work on to get a good feel for actual class imbalances instead of perceived ones!

Speccing into the Consuming Rage utility for this fight is pointless, and a waste of a utility slot imo. Juggs can Saber Reflect it and deal massive damage, with CD allowing for nearly every other beam to be reflected. If you pop this about 3 ticks into the beam cast, then you take negligible damage. Another way to reset stacks and take little damage is to Mad Dash at around 4 or 5 stacks, then hit a kolto station (in Veteran mode) or pop a medpac (in Master mode). Furthermore, any DCDs in the Immortal discipline will make damage taken from the beam relatively negligible as well (in particular Saber Ward). Even in the Master version of this FP, very rarely do I - as a Jugg tank - need heals to cleanse the beam stacks off of me. If DPS is pushing the boss fast, the healer can even join in with the DPS to help kill it faster!

Adding on to this, in HM (Master Mode as it's known now), they added a new "mechanic" back in...4.x...or something... where another type of add spawns at the stairs leading down to the boss. This add will root whatever poor soul has the unfortunate luck to aggro it in place until it's killed. This means that, if you're melee, sucks to be you if you're out of range of it, and your group mates will need to kill it for you. If they don't, then you're stuck there FOREVER!!!! :rak_03: But really though, they die super quick, and if no one helps you with it then most likely the boss will target you with lightning. In order for you to move behind that add that needs interrupting, the add rooting you will need to be killed, so if you have crappy groupies then they're really screwing themselves at that point.

You don't tank Ortuno in one spot...If you stand in a puddle that he puts down, and have aggro on him, he will stun you and put a damage-taken-increased debuff on you, hence why you probably melted. Best way to tank him (even on a DPS), is to backpedal out of the puddle he throws down, so as not to get stunned/melted. Essentially, you kite him. As for adds, the other DPS should be taking care of those, but if you somehow get aggro on them they tend to put a slow on you, which prevents you from getting out of the puddles in time. This is a perfect time to pop HO on a PT, or w/e other speed-increasing moves you might have on another class. I've "tanked" this fight many times on my DPS toons and survived easily, just by playing the mechanics of the fight. Another note, by kiting him this allows you to effectively make your way to a kolto station. This means you don't have to rely on other's in the group that are tunneling.

Explain to me how grinding is any different than pre-5.0? If I remember correctly, it took upwards of at least 3-4 weeks to get enough WZ comms to get full 208 set for a casual PvP'er On top of that, many of the set pieces required that you sub out mods/enhs in order gear properly, which required more WZ comms. All of this required...you guessed it...GRINDING.

So you need 260 of the components+unassembled tier 2 piece (and probably tokens) to trade in for a tier 3 242 piece. That means you would need at least 52 reg PvP wins for the components. Don't know about you, but queue times for regs on Harb are insanely fast. I know for a fact that I can complete the PvP dailes (both the 2 and 4 win ones), which requires at least 3 matches, on 4 separate toons in barely over an hour. That alone is at least 12 matches, maybe a bit more if some are lost, in barely an hour. Generally I do more than that if time permits. So, if I were to do only the PvP dailies on my four toons a day (which, may I remind you, takes just a little over an hour), I could have enough unassembled components by day 5 to trade in with an unassembled tier 2 piece to get a tier 3 piece. Frankly, 1 BiS 242 piece a week works perfectly for me, seeing as I have yet to get one on the current sh@t RNG system they have in place. On to your second point: the final boss in HM ops is guaranteed to drop a specific piece. Have you run HM ops recently? They're pretty cake. Can't do one cuz pugs suck? Find a guild that runs them regularly, problem solved. Not hard at all. Run the OP you need to get the piece out of, down the final boss, get the piece, gg. You don't get the piece you need cuz someone else rolls and wins on it? Run again on another toon. It's literally no different than the previous system at that point. I'll give you the third point, although w/ BW retroactively granting tokens it really shouldn't be hard to find enough of them. As for your fourth point, lets take the chest piece for example. Why would they make the unassembled tier 2 chest piece that drops from an ops boss any different from the exact same piece you can get from turning in components? Yeah, they haven't "announced it" yet, most likely because there's no need to. There are no differences between PvP and PvE gear now, in case you forgot, which means everything is the same. Basically, what it boils down to, is that these changes are a vast improvement on the previous method they had in place for gearing. So you can't get your entire 242 BiS set in one week? Get over it. That would degrade the game, and make it no different than WoW.

Lol, you realize there are people who run literally thousands of non-ranked PvP matches per week right? You severely underestimate the amount of time it will take to get 242 pieces. Run through an HM op, get a tier 2 unassembled piece, farm PvP a bit, turn in components+tier 2 unassembled piece already retrieved from HM OP, gg. You only need to get 54 technical "wins" in regs for this. ****, even if you only get 1 242 piece a week, that's still substantially better than relying on RNG to get tier drops! Also, you fail to take into account that for each CL you get, you get tokens, which also allow you to get gear. Not to mention, the chance (no matter how small) of getting a tier piece in a command crate. So you have to run some PVE stuff? Boo-fricken-hoo. Get over it, you don't like it, unsub and ****.

Will the Unassembled Components be legacy bound like the Tokens? Also, for all of you whining, you realize this isn't the only way to get gear, right? There is still a chance for pieces to drop out of command crates, and you can get Unassembled Pieces out of ops as well... This is a vast improvement from the previous method of gearing, which only allowed set pieces to drop from command crates. Hell, I know multiple people who already have 6-set BiS 240-242 gear. Relax, this is - in all actuality - an improvement.

You make it seem like raiders are the only population that matters in the game...this hasn't been true in years. Due to the fact that EAware hasn't come out with any new ops (and most likely won't for quite some time), the raiding population has plummeted over recent years. This paved the way for casual players, such as OP there, to make up the majority of the population that plays SWTOR now, and hence the reason why EAware is focusing more on content for them rather than for elitist s**t bags such as yourself. So you can't get BiS a week after a new expac? Go cry to your mother. Fact of the matter is, nearly all end-game content (minus NiM stuff) is still doable with the old 224 gear. There are a few fights out there (such as Styrak HM) that will be difficult due to the insane dps check, but I hear tell that this is actually doable in 230's with some blue's thrown in. This makes NiM content--which, by the way, very few groups actually do--the only content currently not technically doable until you get better gear. But that's how it's supposed to work. If you get gear capable of downing all NiM content within the first week of a brand new expac, then what's the point of even playing the game? You don't like it, don't bash on other people a**hole. Go back to WoW where they give you everything on a silver platter.

Never said you didn't deserve it. Just saying that paying attention to what happened yesterday should have given enough warning to not do anything. Personally, I just worked on getting various alts to lvl 70 so I can legacy over gear when needed on them. Only two of them were reverted back to lvl 65, so no big loss there (seeing as it takes like 20 minutes doing our goddess Bestia to get from 65 to 70). Other than that, I didn't do anything that would impede my progress because Harb is notorious for having these issues after every major expac. I stand by my statement though, I guarantee half these people saying they lost "millions" or "four pieces of set gear" or similar ridiculous statements didn't actually lose anything and just want to see if EAware will give them free s**t.

Heh, I bet half the people who have posted "oh noes, I lost this and that and blah blah blah..." didn't actually lose as much as they claim. And we wonder why EAware doesn't give a s**t about this game. Previous poster has a point though, this happened yesterday as well. Probably should have seen this coming and, iunno, not posted anything on the GTN or did anything relevant? Just saying.

Please, keep ************ so they nerf this as well.

It doesn't change the fact that the node-to-player ratio for current mat farming is absolute garbage. If they were going to not add any new farming areas for green mats, then they needed to implement an exchange vendor. As I stated before, if they don't want people stocking up on mats beforehand, then make a cap. Honestly, anything than what we currently have is better. Hell, they should have never even kept the grade 9 nodes in areas like Zakuul--they should have just converted all of them to grade 10 and, viola, problem solved!