Haha, apparently I'm the only one that really likes Tharan. I think he's kinda funny. Of course, I'm a male Sage so he's not hitting on me and I'm a healer so I only use him when I need extra CC or heals, so he doesn't have time to get under my skin. But still, if I could I'd trade Qyzen in for Tharan any day of the week. And yes, Holiday is seriously the best CC I've seen in any mmo I've played and I've played a LOT.

What belt and bracer are you talking about? Because as a 400 Synthweaver, I can tell you that the Rakata stuff (generally considered the best we can do) does in fact require us to run hardmode ops.

Ditto. I leveled my Sage to 50 and at the time thought TK Throw was a little underwhelming but was basically OK with it. Now I'm leveling a Sith Inquisitor and here's my rotation- Lightning-Lightning-More Lightning-Some Other Kind of Lightning-Back to the First Kind of Lightning. Rinse. Repeat. I now really appreciate the differences between Distrubance, TK Throw and Project.

I like the crafting system in general, but let's be honest, it needs a lot of work. For example, I'm level 50 with 400 in Synthweaving. The only thing really worth crafting is the Rakata gear. However, I can't get the Biometric Crystal Alloy because it only drops in hard mode ops/flashpoints and, not only that, they are BoP. So you have to run a lot of hard mode ops, wait for it to drop, and then win the roll on it. That is just dumb. Anyone running those ops will get better loot drops such that they don't even need to craft the Rakata gear. Make the item not BoP so it can be sold to us noobs for some ridiculous price (which I'll pay). That's just one example of my frustration, but as you can tell from the boards there are a lot of things wrong here. Again, I like the overall system. But it needs some serious TLC.

You should specify whether you are more interested in PvE or PvP. For PvE, any class is viable though some are easier than others. I play a Sage healer and can faceroll almost anything, especially with the right companion. Some classes are more of a challenge in PvE. Smuggler/Imperial Agent, for example, use a cover mechanism that can be challenging to some. I suck at PvP so have no real advice on that except to point out that quite a few people are crying for nerfs to Sages/Sorcerors (the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor force-oriented advanced classes). So at least a few people think they are OP. I disagree of course.

Good point on how all the JC companions don't really fit in very well with the overall concept of the JC, at least as a Light JC. I've only gotten my first companion on my SI but the first one is Khem Val. Another tank, but he fits in quite nicely with the SI story if you play Dark side. He basically just wants to kill/eat stuff and that's A-OK with my character.

Ditto, love it. In fact, I'm now playing through the Sith Inquisitor story because it's the same class but with a different story.

Kinda missed the boat on this. We're not talking about Heroics. The thread is about the solo quests and the elites in them. I can't comment on Shadow, since I've only played one to about level 20, but as a Sage Seer, if you can't solo the class quests you're doing something wrong or you're just way underleveled. The Heroic 2+ means 2 players, generally, not you plus your companion. There are some that can be soloed though if you're well geared and can play the class well.

You'll have to micromanage him. An 8 second channel on normal mobs is just not needed. Turn it off for those fights. OTOH, going up against a boss makes Holiday a great help. Turn it on for those. I micromanage Qyznen and his AoE effects. It is a pain, but kinda necessary to get the most benefit from the companions.

Yeah, as catixie says, the UI is a pain for healers. Swapping between the mob, in order to interrupt or do some DPSing, and your tank in order to heal is a pain. But the resized OP frames help some. I know they have other issues to work on (I'm experiencing constant error 9000 disconnects myself) but if they could put target of target somewhere at the top of the list, I'd be thrilled.

At the end of your class quest on Nar Shadda you will get a new companion.

When I did it, Nadia face-planted almost before I even blinked. I tried to kill Stark solo then, but we seemed to be fairly evenly matched. So I stepped out of the instance, got Qyzen and then had much happy fun time smashing Stark's face in.

Exactly this. Zenith's personality is just completely underwhelming to me. I do take out some of the other companions once in a while just to get away from Qyzen's constant grumbly voice. Tharan is fun, for me, though I don't really need him as a Seer. Iresso and Nadia are both kinda fun as well, though again I don't really need them. Qyzen and I can handle pretty much anything. I think I used Zenith for a grand total of 5 minutes before I stuck him on the ship and left him.

They are there. I've swapped out his techblade at least 3 or 4 times with quest rewards. I am still looking for an orange moddable techblade though.

I have to agree that some notification beyond the itty bitty icon on my status bar would be nice. As a full Seer, I'm mainly concerned about the Noble Sacrifice proc. For the most part, I just assume it happened and hit NS after I use Healing Trance. But occasionally I don't get the crit necessary to proc it and I've hit NS anyway, which is a pain. It's difficult to watch my status bar, Qyzen's health and the mob's casting bar (to interrupt) all at the same time. Some more obvious indicator would be great.