The question about taking those 3 points for added Endurance or not really comes down to your raid group makeup. If you have good DPS, they should all be right on your tail and on the verge of pulling threat at all times, pushing that limit. If this is the case, the extra DPS (and hence threat) you gain from the DPS talents instead are very useful. Even if that is only a 40 DPS boost to yourself...it's a 80 TPS boost, which allows each of your DPS to push an extra 70-80 DPS themselves. 75 x 4 DPS = another 300 DPS total put out, which could make a big difference on enrage timers (or just finishing ops sooner so people can get on with their lives). If you are already miles ahead of your DPS and they are not even challenging you for threat, then I guess you could use those skill points in an Endurance talent as a buffer. But all this really does is give you a very small amount of buffer to allow a healer to "space out" and be slow in healing and/or react to a bad DPSer standing in something they shouldn't and still get a heal on you before you die. If everything is going as it should be and healing isn't being done in a reactionary fashion, those extra 1.5k HPs ultimately mean nothing. There is no difference between bouncing between 10k and 42k health vs 12k and 44k health. The only time I really see tanks taking those extra HPS is for world first encounters. Since those guilds are doing the fights without the benefit of any on-line guides to know what to expect, much more of the healing is reactionary and in those situations those extra 1.5 - 2k HPs can make a big difference. Once healers can begin to know how damage is being dealt and how to deal with it, along with players learning which damage is avoidable, you quickly begin to loose the benefit of those extra HPs.

Using AMR to compare full DreadGuard (78s) Gear comparrisons for PT Tank: Max Mitigation HP: 42 K DEF: 20.02 % SH: 42.22 % ABS: 40.9 % Swapping to Lettered Mods HP: 44.5 K DEF: 19.6 % SH: 42.22 % ABS: 39.29 % Endurance Mods + Endurance Enahncements HP: 45.8 K DEF: 19.09 % SH: 42.22 % ABS: 37.93% All of these numbers were without Cardio Package (+3% Endurance Skill), so if you choose to spec into that obviously you are looking at a bigger HP increase. For example the 3rd option goes to 47K HP. So with lettered Mods only, you are sacrificing roughly 0.5% DEF and 1.7% ABS for 2.5K HP. Full Endurance stacking you are sacrificing roughly 1.0% DEF and 3% ABS for 3.8K HP That 2-4% of Mitigation is HUGE compared to 3.8K HP. It's even bigger than the full 5K if you spec into Endurance skill. HP Stacking in all games for tanks has always been about stacking enough HP to survive an unlucky 2-3 string of hits without heals before your healer(s) are able to land their heals. After that, extra HP are mostly a buffer to facilitate slow/lazy healers. The one exception to this rule is if you are the first ones doing new content. Sacrificing a small amount of mitigation for a bigger HP pool can be useful in those situations because you don't know what to expect. Having that extra HP makes a bigger difference when healing is 70+% reactive (due to not knowing the fight mechanics). That is why cutting edge guilds will have some tanks that stack HP (Endurance) a little more. Once the fights have been recorded and studied, things become less reactionary and that extra HP buffer isn't needed. Which is the case for 98% of the player-base (cause even if it's your first time on a boss, someone else has usually posted the fight details and you know what to expect going into it). Overall, outside of cutting edge guilds using HP stacking to a small extent, you only need enough HP to survive an unlucky string of RNG for 2-3 hits max without heals. Beyond that, adding 1% of mitigation makes everyone's life much easier than adding even double that in more HP. And with current content in SWTOR, 40K HP pretty much covers that. So with full 78s and Mitigation stacking (as the examples above), you're already 2K beyond required.

It's ultimately not an issue of should someone read up on things outside of game or experience them inside of game. It's ultimately an issue of courtesy. IMO, anyone queuing for a random group, whether it be a FP or an OP; should already know their role in whatever they are queuing for. Whether that was learned by reading an external site or from experiencing the content with friends/guild mates I don't care. While I have no problem explaining fights to someone in a PuG; I can completely understand why others feel that they shouldn't have to. If you don't know the mechanics of a zone, you need to learn it with friends or from an online site before you subject yourself upon random strangers and expect them to carry you and explain it all to you. However, it as just as dis-courteous for anyone to join a random group of strangers and not expect that you may need to explain a few things to people. It's not like that 30 seconds of your life is so important that you can be a jerk to someone for "wasting" it. However, if it is happening every single group....frustration starts to set in and ppl loose their heads. In that situation, I tend to just quit running PuGs for a week or two and only run with friends/guildees until I'm willing to live with a little more hand-holding again. Ulimtately I agree that NOBODY should HAVE to read 3rd party sites or even the forums for a game specifically to learn anything about it. Experience it through playing if that is what you choose, but be aware that joining random PuGs without knowing anything about the zone you are going into is being dis-respectful of those strangers time as yelling and being rude at someone for NOT knowing the fights is to you. It's the same mentallity why so many people now days buy a game and the Game Guide the same day at the store and then go home and start the game after already reading how to beat it.

Sometimes I wonder if server population does increase in summer or not in games. While I know that a lot of people do get more time to play (those in school), really outside of that, most of the MMO gaming audience (which stats before have claimed are avg age of 28-30) work, which doesn't change with summer. Also I know myself and guildmates generally spend less time online during summer and progression raiding tends to go on hiatus until September because most of us are outside enjoying the warm weather. Certainly not telling anyone what to do with their time...so double xp weekends through summer is fine with me. Just don't assume that the majority of people actually have any more time to spend online during summer vs any other time of year.

Ultimately my "main" is which character my guild needs most for running OPs. As I'm sure with most guilds that generally results in tanks and healers. And since I refuse to play a healer in this game, puts me on my tank. My other characters are always a secondary thought to me and usually, while they get played frequently to keep as up to date on dailies/weeklies, get geared slower (unless like I'm finding now in 55 HMs tank gear never drops while 80% seems to always be DPS gear). I know that's just my bad luck....but sometimes I wonder!!! In the end....my main is the name that everyone calls me by on Mumble and guildchat really.

I'll just be glad to see removal of the classic comm limits and increase of the total comm limits across the board. Beyond that...I doubt we'll see any new content for another 4 weeks when the next (6 week cycle) begins. Will probably be mostly balancing changes, new cartel market items and other tweaks to existing stuff.

It IS the tanks job to TRY and get agro on them if they are within AOE agro range of the gold/silver mobs. However, 80% of the time the normal/weak mobs are ranged DPS that stand 10-15 meters away from the core tanking mobs and simply are not in melee range of the tank on those mobs. In that scenario, it IS the DPS job to 2 shot them and remove them from the equation. The DPS should only be taking 1 or 2 hits from them at the most, which MAY drop them to 85-90% health. This isn't WoW or other MMO games where 80% of the mobs are all melee and will run to the tank for grouping them nicely. The NPCs in SWTOR are 80% of the time ranged and spread out which makes it almost impossible for a tank to pick up one of them (assuming it's PT or Assassin that can pull them in). As to the OPs comment.....my experience is that most PuGs will have someone to blame for issues. Sometimes it's my fault as the tank (and I accept those), sometimes it's the healer just not healing pro-actively, sometimes its the DPS not doing their job or not doing enough DPS to beat enrage. Hate to say it, but chances are if you are always getting blamed by multiple different random PuG groups.....you probably are doing something wrong, or you are just VERY unlucky with PuG groups. Even with PuGs you'll run into competent ppl 33% of the time at least.

Tanking in SWTOR is a little different than in other MMOs. While yes, if the tank can easily gather up 100% of the mobs for AoEing, that is what they should do. However, most pulls consist of a group of varying strength mobs (normal, strong AKA silver, elite AKA gold, and/or champion) spread out to the point of not easily being grouped up...especially since 80% of the mobs in this game are ranged. It is the tanks primary responsibility to collect and hold the attention of the mobs in order of strength from the strongest to the weakest. Primarily concentrating on Golds and Silvers, and grabbing any normal that they easily can as well. It is the DPS's responsibility to kill the mobs in order of strength from the weakest to the strongest; killing normals first (usually one or two shotted), then progressing to silver and then gold mobs. DPS that immediately start focus firing the gold mob to kill them first are making the pulls much harder than they need to be. First off they are making the tank work 2x as hard to hold agro while they are also trying to grab "stragglers". Second off, they are causing everyone to take more damage overall by not killing the quick mobs first. NPC damage output does not scale the same way their Hit Points do in this game. While a normal mob will generally only have about 30-40% of the hit points of a silver mob...they still do 70-80% of the amount of damage a silver mob does. The same holds true for elites vs strongs. So getting rid of the lowest hit point mobs fastest greatly reduces the amount of damage done. I always give kudos to good DPS in any PuG groups I tank for. Unfortunately I tend to see more dps that do not understand the kill order in this game and focus fire the strongest mobs first, because that is the way many other MMOs are designed (normal/weak mobs in those games do next to no damage and are usually saved until the very end). In short: It is the healers job to keep everyone alive. It is the tanks job to keep gold and silver mobs off of the rest of the group. It is the DPS job to kill normal mobs before moving onto stronger mobs, and thus keeping them off the healer.

I can live with the crappy itemization on gear if there was at least ONE piece in the set with decent itemization. I'm really only a tanks, so I'll stick with what I know... In Black Hole gear, while there was accuracy, or high endurance/low mitigation, or high aim/low endurance pieces in a lot of the gear, there were always 1 piece with proper tank stats. For Bounty Hunters, there were two (Helm and Legs). So while the "baked in" mods for most of the gear was horrendous, I knew that after I had it all I could just farm multiple helms or leg pieces and mod-swap depending on if I needed to boost defense or absorb. With the 2.0 Gear, there is not a single piece of gear that has both the proper MOD & Enhancement in them. If you get the low endurance/high mitigation MOD.....it comes with an Enhancement that has Alacrity or Accuracy. If you get the Enhancement that has defensive stats, you get a MOD that is high endurance and ultra low mitigation stat. Even after I buy/earn the complete set "as-is" to get all of my slot specific armorings....I then get to re-farm at a mimimum of 28 more pieces so that I can pull the 1 useful modification out of it and sell the rest. On top of that, as one poster stated....there are NO pieces with Shield & Defense on them....and even the craftable one is high endurance/low defense (which isn't what tanks want). They changed the DR coefficients on tanking stats with 2.0 to make Defense & Shield the overwhelming best stat (most tanks current 55 gear levels are all but ignoring absorb if they want to maximize mitigation), but there are no modifications to support this and forcing us to stay in a lot of our 61/63 gear. TLDR; Overall I can handle horrible itemization as long as there is 1 or 2 pieces of gear that contains all of the mods we want for min/maxing. The problem is right now that doesn't exist and many of the pieces for actual maximum min/maxing are not even available except from someone who got a lucky RE proc and is selling on GTN for an arm and a leg.

There is absolutely no reason that people should be doing the level 55 HardModes in less than Black Hole gear. From the time you hit level 50 you can do level 50 StoryMode and HardMode Flashpoints and faceroll them and earn Black Hole gear. Heck, at level 55 the level 50 StoryMode flashpoints are soloable as well as HardMode Black Talon. If you have trouble soloing them...they are easily done with two players and two companions without any issue at all. If you expect to finish questing on Makeb and jump straight into level 55 HardModes wearing blues and greens, the problem is YOU and not the difficulty of the zones. It costs approximately 5k credits per wipe to repair (and I'm a tank in all 61+ epic gear). Even when running with a PuG in appropriate gear, we rarely wipe because I've learned the mechanics and explain them to anyone not familiar with them. Are there some tense moments in the runs, yes; because these HardModes are tuned like they should be and not like the faceroll HardModes of level 50 past. However, if everyone follows the mechanics, works together, and doesn't break CCs then things generally go really well. The only part of this argument that I actually agree with is that I don't like that the bosses drop actual Black Market pieces instead of tokens. I can't tell how many times I've seen DPS Aim/Endurance gear drop when I'm the only Bounty Hunter and I'm a tank. That gear is mostly wasted in my bags for the one time every 2-3 months I get to switch to DPS for a week or two for guild runs. I think they need to go back to dropping the class based tokens that can be turned in instead of the current system. Its annoying yes, but it's not game-breaking. It just means I have to farm more to get my gear. And calling anyone that doesn't agree with you a troll completely invalidates any debatable arguments you made.

You may want to slow your roll here before you dig the hole deeper. While I don't agree with the OP and that the current Level 55 Hard Modes are too difficult, they are correct in the fact that only the bonus boss and the end boss guarantee drop Black Market Purples. The other bosses drop orange moddable gear with blue mods (level 66) in them the majority of the time. It's a rare chance at a purple from them if I'm not mistaken. If you are only seeing purple drops from all bosses and doing Hard Mode Flashpoints, then you are doing level 50 Hard Modes, which do in fact drop Black Hole purples from every boss.

Is this REALLY an issue for anyone??? These limits are MORE than enough. I understand that the OP is only listing these to try and prove a point....but please make your point with details that actually matter and not just fluff for the sake of fluff. While I would like to be able to queue up 100s of craftings, missions, etc on my companions and go to bed....I understand that this would simply be very bad for the game. I shouldn't be able to log out one night and back in the next day and be completely done with crewskills for the rest of my characters career. With 7 companion options and a 5 work limit...it's already pretty much set it and forget it (or at least forget it for 45 - 90 min) and then reset it again. All without interfering with doing everything else in the game with the companion you use 99% of the time anyway. If you are doing the missions at the time you are getting them, then the limit of 25 (30 including bonus missions) is perfectly fine. I have VERY rarely ever fan into this limit myself and the few times I have it was easy enough to drop one until I finished one and the re-grab it later. If they raised this by 5 or 10 it would be fine....but ppl asking for it to be 50+ are probably just people who want to be able to save up 50 completed quests for the next xpac in 12-18 months. They have to limit the number of times you can run an operation/raid in MMOs or people would farm them non-stop the first two weeks and then gripe about nothing more to do. Even with BW committing to trying to release new content every 6 weeks, people already complain that they aren't releasing content fast enough. IMO, if you already know the schedule of when new content will be coming out and choose to not pace yourself accordingly, then you have no gripe. Unfortunately many people don't think that way, so these sorts of throttles on how quickly you can gear up/progress have to be put in place.

The only problem I have with HM FPs is the fact that the Black Market gear drops have become actual loot drops and not token drops like before. They really should change this back to dropping 1 of 4 class tokens and then let the player determine which piece of gear to turn them in for. Otherwise you get way too many runs where loot drops that nobody can use (tank gear that tanks don't need, dps gear for dps that already have that piece, etc). As far as the difficulty goes, I enjoy the way they are currently tuned. They provide a challenge for people in full level 61 mods, and that is the minimum you should be before queuing for one. If you are not yet in 90%+ Black Hole hear, you should only be queuing for the Level 50 HMs until you've completely farmed that gear. Pugging them is also always going to be a risk because there is no gate enabled on GF that prohibits people from queuing for a specific FP or OP other than character level. So it's very likely that you could get grouped with players who have just hit 55 and are hoping to get carried through 55 HMs without first getting Black Hole gear. Best thing that other game, which shall remain unnamed, ever did was implement gear rating requirements for group finder queues. While that does nothing to fix bad players from joining groups....it at least ensures that players are properly geared at the minimum level they need to be to complete the content without wasting the rest of the groups time. Its a much nicer way of doing things rather than resorting to making players use the /votekick option only to cause resentment and possibly get a replacement equally ill-equipped. In SWTOR the only way to avoid this is to avoid GF and run with friends and guilds, which is why GF queues take so long to begin with for DPS (as us tanks tend to shy away from GF for just these reasons).

If you want to split hairs and be technical....there is a Chapter 4 storyline, it's Makeb and culminates all of the class storylines into one. They did at least take the time to program slight differences in the storyline into it and pull some bits and pieces of information from the class stories to make it not 100% identical for all classes (at least the dialog). Also, there are "new" flashpoints. There are new heroic versions of previous flashpoints that didn't have heroic versions before. While not entirely new....they are new to us in the sense that there are some added mechanics that require a little bit of re-learning them. As others have stated, the problem with continuing class stories is in the cost. Both cost for development time plus cost to all of the extra paid voice actors as well. Keep in mind that this is the first real expansion for SWTOR and future expansions may get bigger. SWTOR was suffereing before the f2p influx of players, so honestly I can understand their limited budget for their first xpac. In the end, I feel that we got what paid for ($10 worth of content) for this go around and hold out hope that cash income from f2p and cartel market will give BW/EA more $$ to work with and more incentive to make the next xpac much larger.

I never stated that they were using ONLY cookie based security...but yes, using cookies even as an identifier of a "recognized" trusted authenicator is including cookies as part of your overall security profile. There are many other ways to do this without using cookies, which are one of the biggest ways to steal information from computers out there. This is one of the reason most security standards of highly secured information mandates that storing cookies be disabled. My point still stands however that there are many institutions that maintain much more important information than access to a group of virtual make believe characters that have much less cumbersome security processes. Use of security questions or any other data to "verify" I am who I claim to be based upon information I know vs a code I have to have access to and lookup each time would be more preferrable. Am I a "hacker"...no. But I am a Computer Science major and work in computers for a living, so I do understand what I'm talking about. Is this process MORE secure than others? Potentially yes (afterall, all the hacker has to have access to is your e-mail and they can retrieve the "one-time" code themselves just as easily. But it's quite over the top for a online game in which it can clearly be expected that ppl will be accessing it from mulple IP addresses and/or locations. As I stated (and maybe this is my own fault for not being able to find the information on this site). If BioWare woud provide the information on what site needs to be set as an exception to allow cookies in the browser, I'd be happy to configure that. I guess I could assume it's swtor.com......but I dont' like to assume things.