Hello everyone, At first, I want to point out that normally I tend to avoid the forums because I'm not that of a forum user at all. When browsing the forums there is not a lot that gives me insight and I'd notice I find just a handful of posts actually resourceful. But after 5 years playing and reading up what this new "event" is going to be, I'd consider myself the slight chance my post is actually going to be read by devs and will be given thought. (Although a small chance, I always keep wondering why incredibly unlikely things keep happening, so why not give it a shot). About the event, The first time I got notice of a so-called dark vs. light event was in the interview between Eric Musco and popular pvpstreamer Snave. Although nothing explicitely spoiled, the intention of this event is going to be about the 5 year anniversary of the game. With that in mind it gave me (and probably the general community) the impression that a 5 year anniversary event is going to reward every (and maybe even especially) the players who have been loyally playing for the last 5 years. Yesterday I've read the post on which more info was released about the event and throughout the information it is thus told that "Once the event starts on June 28th be sure to make a new character and start your dark vs. light adventure!". And here is the prerequisite which is a big prerequisite. This event is ideally for new players to catch up and motivate them to play a lot. To make the cartel items accessible to everyone as a reward for the event instead of the (or I would call them) GTN marketeers who just simply have too many credits and buy off every awesome set there is and put it back on for 10x - 100x it's previous worth. But the harsh thing is that creating a new character is an absolute requirement. Cause in the past five years playing the game, I've seen players creating and leveling even 50 characters to the highest level. And there are two things I would like to point out. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Most people tend to be attached to their main character because they've worked and build on it. And now these characters are excluded from any reward since it must've been created after the 28 of June. To give an example of what one of my characters has seen and done: It found the Czerka crate It has numerous unobtainable mounts (like the Korrealis Commander) It has the unobtainable oldschool PvP level 40 sets It has unobtainable Tionese, Columi, Rakata weapons It still has the very first ingame mail which is now 1567 days ago send (a.k.a. the age of my character) It prolly opened enough hypercrates to pay (when calculating back) 4-6 months salary on of your employees It has a /played amount of time in which I nowadays can consider this character even be a small part of myself It can craft nearly everything regarding new and archived schematics. It build 5 strongholds so neatly organized that other players suspect me of me being a dev And so on Although some points can be disregarded since they are more accountwise and legacywise then characterwise, it is the idea of having a "main" and him/her being excluded from the event (even besides the unobtainable stuff). He/she will not obtain everything that will become available. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. "So simply create a new character and go leveling, what's stopping you?" Remember when I mentioned people have been leveling a lot? Well with all the 12x xp and leveling this event feels like butter scraped over too much bread. Besides from having my current characters excluded from the event, the absolute majority of veteran players are not fond of another character they need to level (for the eventrewards). Besides the one character I was already planning on leveling (the last one so that I will become a legendary player and I've seen all the class stories), these feels now actually like being forced to level to get these rewards. And it especially hurts those players who have been fanatic and already made so many characters ingame. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So I understand the intention of this event. I mean, what is a veteran player in $ worth compared to a player who signed up in the upcoming month? They both pay the same subscription upcoming month if they like the game correct? It is a question which doesn't need answering because I highly doubt you guys (the Devs) will and/or can change the policy of this game ever so quickly. Actually, the policy and/or goal isn't even up for debate and I'm fine with that since that's your prerogative. But the exclusion of current characters which goes hand in hand with the implication for creating new characters and all that comes with it, it's too big of a requirement to call this event something refreshingly new. Even without knowing the details about the event (besides reading this and a 3rd party website with information of it), it feels like a "let's restart everything you have if you want to get everything from this current event". We don't want to restart, we want to continue with what we have. If I speak for myself, I want to have my 11 characters and be done with starting anew. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My suggestion So there's one final thing that pops into mind and it is not something easily implemended. I even consider it unsatisfying to most of the gamerscommunity but I am convinced it would be the best token of goodwill which devs can give towards players. Make the class storyline repeatable for this event. Although this shall be a complex matter regarding how to implement it, this doesn't exclude and actually include especially the veteran players again. It would be my personal bandaid and motivation to cheer up and join in this upcoming event. It doesn't exclude rewards to players for whom this game is new and are way more motivated to "complete their legacy". You devs have been showing already that there is a resourcefulness when it comes to redoing the H4's and globally scaling planets again. And look up the numbers of players doing them, it worked. Ofcourse I wouldn't mind restrictions if it comes to the first choices you've made in the game and that they should be permanent. And complexity trying to arise this involes: How to deal with companions? Will they get there affection again? And are they temporarily unavailable when doing certain quests? I leave these details to you guys (although I can always be bribed when it comes to actual work). But in general I would think that exactly this gesture would be pareto efficient towards gamers and developers. You include current/veteran players more and you don't exclude the newer players. And even although this would be still a form of recycling content, I think it would be the most appropriate one. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So what's the reason I've decided to make this post? Besides my attachment to the game and avoiding the need to express my opinion, there was this certain reply on one of my tickets I received yesterday, the same day the information was released about the new event. It was about a request of returning some stuff I will quote by what customer service helper Lance said "I first want to clarify that I did this because of what a great player you are. I have granted ********** out of courtesy for you. You have always been civil and polite in any and every manner-even when you are upset about a response. I feel as though you epitomize the culture and community we are aiming to have within out game. While I did take the liberty to extend this gesture of kindness I want to set the expectation to not expect such actions again and this does not happen with other players. We here enjoy having you be part of the greatness of Star Wars: The Old Republic and hope that you continue to be." Imagine receiving something special like this and hours later hear that you're excluded from an event unless you start leveling again. I just hope by the smallest unlikely happening, this post will get read by the right person and moves a bit in some sort of compensation towards players who stick to their current characters. If there would be direct questions regarding this post then I would ask the devs the following: - Will these rewards for this event stay unique? - Will the event be repeated or will something similar arise? - Shall my suggestion be (re)considered to let current characters participate in the current event as well? - And if not, will there be any other modification regarding events in which current characters can partially participate in the (near) future? An answer from one of the devs or any other suggestions in how to turnaround this prerequisite are absolutely welcome. Cellius Titaan Sentinel - The Red Eclipse - 1567 days from this day forth and still not one with the force

Bump I'm looking as well for the music, especially the first 20 seconds. It does look a little bit like the bastila shan theme in kotor but its in a different key though. Little more melodramatic.

So Focus Fire is the only thing you can use right now? Perhaps in Pre-mades it works but not with a random made group. As far as I see it now teamplay has become way more important. I loved it in 1.7 that even with bad teammates, a few good players could make the difference a lot and even topple a 4man pre-made. The choice to go for objectives in a warzone is obvious though before 2.0 there was the alternative choice to go to fight immediatly and kill the opponent BEFORE getting to the objectives. Annihilating another team based on skills and good teamplay Combatwise has now reduced to a teamspeaking 4 man focus fire group who so now and than only can focus on the healer to do something special. 4 dps fighting as one almost not exist and @ Bleezar, with good tactics even 3 or 4 smashers still could get owned in 1.7 and before. For those who disagree I just have one thing to ask: Why wouldn't you construct a team of only healers and tanks? In a 2-6 till 6-2 ratio? You see anything fit against such a team with atleast half dps? I don't think so. p.s. Oh and for those who cry about smashers, you ever tried to have 2 ranged dps on team and all spread out, you ever had a tank or 2 taking on them and taunting half of them off? Guess not! Without tanks in warzones every dps could excel in crushing and annihilating another team, that is why tanks are here for. I almost come to think that the shortcome and failure of tanks have resulted in to this disaster of PvP.

So let me get this straight. You join a PvP match in which the other team has 3 healers and suddenly there is no way to kill anyone? Hitting 500k damage and 0 kills? This is how PvP is gonna be in 2.0? The survivability was already increased by the raising endurance endurance ratios but including many other stuff it has totally crushed the balance in PvP. As far as I see for now it is clear that DPS has absolutely no roll in PvP for now. Only a stealthy who takes out a singular unaware undergeared healer or ranged can die quickly because of the many crits from behind but many other classes are totally worthless (especially dps classes). In 1.7, PvP offered many fights and a lot of different settings of groups to play with. For now it is the team with the least dps that wins a warzone, utterly annihilating the amusement of PvP like what is should be. I hope Bioware is going to balance this very quickly or I'm afraid the PvP part will be down in a month.

Hmm you just need to RE the crystals at 450. I can craft the cyan hawkeye and purple hawkeye now because of that (So it's quite getting good)

I've RE"ed the last few crystals I had on artifice 450. On that level RE"ing DOES work. I can now craft Cyan Hawkeye and Purple Hawkeye

Yep done the same. Have lost 4x Cyan Hawkeye Crystals towards it and 4x Purple Hawkeye Crystals and one Black-Blue Hawkeye. BIOWARE! Please refund our crystals or give schematics for those with the "inssuficient level" note!

Together with all the set bonuses from PvE I get the feeling that the steady rotation/rhythm of Combat will be changed especially by the skill tree ability: Hands of Justice. Also reducing the 30% towards 15% is a bit of a bummer but Opportune makes it up for 10% only on blade storm. It indicates that dps will increase slightly though I'm both curious and scared if the playstyle becomes more complex instead of upgraded.

As one previous post seen about the Combat Sentinel I really like to see the same changes which are made in the Watchman tree since also my sentinel is not available to transfer to the test server. So what are all the differences and additions to the Watchman Sentinel on PTS 2.0?

Get back to school, focus on stochastics and ask first student you see about the "Law of large numbers". It's about average dps, not about maxima k?

Correct Note, I"ve being parsing again and hit the 2k for around 2 minutes. After that I'm still screwing up the rotation/priorities on one way decreasing it to a 1.9k. ARGH I WANT 2K on THIS SPEC! Any other + 5 min logs without adrenals showing that stuff? I'm very very curious about them (just as other probably)

I agree but in that way I'm sure I'll be able to do the same thing if I consider to get full dread guard, get a buddy with an Arp debuff, and edit the end at the log. I just don't want to spend that kind of energy/credits etc into that little extra since I won't experience all the pleasure of it like Marsh does. Except the 2193 thing, I agree on the fact I'm a bit picky but like I said, it's just my opinion. I also dont wanna spend adrenals cause I dont use them in raids 2. Adrenals when your doing already constant 2.1k damage? It will frustrate tanks on their aggro even more (which could be fun sometimes). The only thing why I call up these details because those are the thing I'll take up when I'm parsing myself. Fulfilling those I'm hitting a +/-2.1k parse and because of that I also know this log is legal. The only thing blocking me especially is lack of dread guard gear^^ But besides that and what is most important: I congratulate you with it and that it's good to see some people get full dread guard and tune it out till the end. I'm not trying to hate but just compliment you, it shows us how far to take the sentinel/marauder and for that, I'm proud on those who do that:)

Despite the fact the dps on average is quite nice, I consider a 2200 parse as one without adrenal, no other class dude bringing on a Arp buff, 5 minutes long, 1 inspiration and without editing out the non combat / out of combat stuff. Also the number which is turning up for following the link is 2193.6 and 2193.6 < 2200. Despite all those silly details, its good and nice to see that there are those driven to go for their max tuned parse ^^, you got your stats in order ^^ Gratz

Hiya folks, Currently I'm trying to perfectionize the gear of a watchman/annihilation tree on the sentinel/marauder. Since short I've reached a couple of times the 2.1k dps on the Ops dummy for combat/carnage but it seems that I'm still slacking around with the watchman/annihilation spec. Using MOX parser the max numbers are around 1900 dps but it does get lower in variations of gear setups. - To begin the details about gear: Exotech Might stim, all class buffs, no adrenals and no or 1 inspiration. Strenght of currently 2189 30% is around dread guard stuff, 70% is black hole stuff Currently I can exchange the following stuff: I'm currently on a 242 crit rating which I can drop to a lower crit rating of 176 (changing implants). I can exchange the 2x WH Power relic for 1 Proc relic (The energy one or the internal one) I'm currently on a 231 accuracy rating which I can increase to 288 accuracy rating or make a decrease to 174 accuracy rating. (Exchange accuracy for surge in both ways) - Skill tree I'm currently using a 31/3/7 tree. The middle and right points are obvious, the left I choose a fully buffed force leap/force charge with reduced cooldown, increased focus and decreased range. Explanation will be followed in the next part. I have no extra cooldown on the interrupts. - Prioritylist / Rotations As far as it seems, the first thing to keep in mind are keeping the dots up at all time. This is priority and basic number one of full watchman. I'll continue with a short idea of my rotation. I also will use only the republic terms to keep this post as less confusing as possible. Force leap is bounded with overload saber. Since force leap has the same cooldown as overload saber and since overload saber is an instant ability, I usually do: Overload saber, Force leap. However, there is one situation in which I dont combine them and that's when cauterize OR merciless slash is up. If just one of the two is available, i'll use the available one combined with overload saber. If both are up, i'll use cauterize combined with overload saber followed up by merciless slash. After this detail note I'll follow up with a priority list concerning the main damage dealers. (Focus Builders will be followed up) Overload Saber > Cauterize > Merciless Slash > Slash/Master strike. Note on Slash/Master Strike. I only use Slash when cauterize is on cooldown (Which happens a lot) and when I have 7 or more focus.. Master strike is only used when the target is burning from cauterize & overload saber ánd when the cooldowns of Overload Saber, Cauterize & Merciless Slash are above 4 seconds. Focus building. Since Force Leap is combined or close with overload saber, we don't have to concern a lot about this one. Zealous strike is mostly used when Focus is around 4 or 5 and when I'm close before using Merciless Slash. Almost everytime after a 13/14 seconds I'm low on focus and will need this zealous strike to build up before using a merciless slash. Strike is used when i've outputted too much focus. This happens mostly after 6 a 7 seconds after zealous strike since heavy dps outage costs a lot of focus. Mostly after a "burst" of merciless slash I'm tring to increase focus again back to 6 a 7, because above that range you can use slash without concerning about too low focus. For now I guess I've told the main idea of how I play the watchman and which is mostly the basic rule of the watchman sentinel. Though it could be that there are missing details or whole other approaches of how to play. I'm not uploading any parsers yet since I've multiple logs average on 1750, 1800 and 1850 with exceptions of 1900 maxima's but since I don't know/remember on which gear setup it was.. I hope that you guys can upload average parses where there is nothing exceptional on mind using exotech/rakata stim, all class buffs and no or once inspiration and no adrenals (adrenals can disguise and tune up logs incredibly, which makes comparing quite hard). IMPORTANT NOTE: To keep this forum easily readable I request those willing to reply to keep stuff organized. I'm searching for more than just a 2 sentence explanation and I would also see noted about which part you're talking about (for example, note that you're talking about the skill tree and you'll continue the story). Most important of all, KEEP ON TOPIC AND SUBJECT I hope that together we can gain more statistics and information about this tree so that more players can enjoy it without spending too many millions of credits and hours of time to tune the class role ^^ (I've done it for Combat, I don't wanna do that again for Watchman/Annihilation).

If that's all you've got? I suggest you need to quit. There are a lot of ways to annihilate a marauder/sent and it has a lot of weaknesses 2. Please **** with those stupid posts about nerves, try to learn your own class instead p.s. the +6k damage is even worse on guardians/juggs. Its the tree that needs to be nerved.