I only play tanks. Rough experience has taught me to only do tacticals if I'm on any of my 65 tanks who outgear it to the point of not needing healers in the group, or if I'm on a leveling character, to only do tacticals if it's a three man premade so I can use a companion healer, or if GF spits out a balanced group. Otherwise, tacticals are a nightmare. You just can't count on people being sensible and not jumping into things or breaking CC.

Had a weird one today on BC. Hadn't played in about a year, so I was getting my bearings back. I was on a VG tank, had a nice sage healer, and a pair of leap monkeys for dps. No big, guardians are easy to tank for. After I loaded in, leap monkey#1 randomly said that he hoped the sage was good at her role, because he never had a n***** healer before. Just like, out of the blue. I'm thinking whaaaaat? Not gonna go into the details of what followed, other than to say that the sage and I put him on ignore, reported him, and made a whisper pact to let him die on EVERY pull until he rage quit. Which he eventually did. Leap monkey 2 told us he was apoplectic with anger, which was the intended affect, but I'm still trying to process what sort of arrogance made that idiot think he could say that to someone and expect full service. There seriously are some things you just keep to yourself.

You're not opening your rotations with sundering strike are you? Whenever you come back from the portal, it's best to enrage and hit him with crushing blow right off the bat. Save saber reflect for when he's under the effect of a taunt just to make sure it's effective. Snap aggro shouldn't be a problem for a Jugg.

Initiated three vote kicks last week on my new Vanguard tank alt. One for a guy who kept pulling ahead of me and wouldn't respond in chat when I asked him to stop. Another for a guy who disconnected for six or seven minutes. And the last was for a person I'd actually run with before. He was a shadow who was really go-go-go. One of those new shadows that seems really impressed with his class and can't stop cloaking every five seconds so he can show everyone that oh my god you guys, check it out, I can cloak! Really annoying. The thing about this guy, aside from him being a pull monkey, was that he would constantly cloak past enemies that the rest of us couldn't sneak past, because (duh!) we couldn't turn invisible. Then he would run ahead and sincerely complain that we were taking too long. I vowed never to run with him again, but I forgot to put him on my ignore list. So, I que, get Hammer station, and lo and behold, the shadow is in my group again. This time though, he takes his antics too far and tried to sneak past the second room with the two elite droids and all the ranged mobs. Doesn't work, he dies, but the ohhhhh sh*t! moment really comes when the droids run into the first room and start killing us. I can't aoe taunt yet, I don't have explosive surge, I can't get control. We all end up dying about three times each before we can get everything killed. So, after that, VOTE kick. It goes through, and the shadow actually seems really bewildered and hurt that we (justly) blamed him. Then he calls us a bunch of names before he gets removed. The thing about that vote kick is that that particular pull can be rough, but the rest of the flashpoint is really easy. But I didn't feel like he deserved an easy run after that: I just felt that that guy had to be penalized. If you run a red light, you get a ticket, don't you? This is a social game. If you behave in a manner that negatively impacts the group, why should we be bigger men and forgive you?

I'm in agreement about locking down need rolls for main stat items. It's really frustrating losing gear on an alt to FTP players who don't know the difference between need rolls and greed. I'm annoyed with how often I have to explain the differences. Players should be allowed to greed roll on anything they want, but need rolls should be reserved for classes that can use the main stat. It won't be perfect of course, but I''d rather lose sorcerer gear to an Assassin, than operative gear to a marauder. And once you hit max level and start playing for commendations instead of loot, it won't even matter anymore.

Did a GF Dread fortress yesterday. Tanked it on my guardian, everything went pretty smoothly. A token for an underworld helmet dropped from Brontes, so I rolled need on it, only for a gunslinger in the group who desired it as well to lose his mind when I won the roll. He kept badgering me about it because I had a 180 vendor helmet, and didn't want to hear how a 168 helm is just plain better because of the set bonus. Long story short, the guy was clearly distressed. He went on this rambling tangent in mumble about how people are always trying to screw him over, and started crying. I ended up giving him the hat because of how uncomfortable I felt. Good lord, it's just a video game.

FFA zone. He made the choice to be there without any backup. A disgruntled ex-member of our guild let it be known to our leader that he was going to be gunning for him. He actually made three attempts! Seriously, three. How long does it take to figure out that if someone has two assassins and an Operative in ranked gear as bodyguards, then maybe you should just piss off? It wasn't like he ordered them to do it, either. Our G/L is a sweetheart, and they assigned themselves to him as a protection detail. Loyalty is a beautiful thing.

I think it's great that casuals have a means of experiencing story content that isn't overly difficult, and in fact I support tactical versions of all current flashpoints to help encourage leveling players to expand their horizons past the KDY ghetto. There is nothing wrong with wanting to take things easy. The issue is that better experienced, geared, and teamwork-oriented players deserve more challenging content. Hard mode versions of these flashpoints shouldn't be on a wishlist, they should be mandatory. Most players prefer playing alone? Fine. Bully for them. But the rest of us want to have fun too. It's not raid night every night, y'know. It would be nice to have something new to do involving smaller group content that still challenges us. I write this as someone who isn't anti-casual, but rather as someone who is anti-boredom. I spend a lot of time running flashpoints just for the fun of it, but doing the same six over and over again has sucked the enjoyment out of it. I tank, I raid, I pvp, and I socialize with strangers; I even do the occasional bit of role-playing. Doesn't a well-rounded denizen of the Old Republic such as myself deserve more to do? It really isn't a lot to ask.

Nah, I just never got over Quinn selling me out. My juggernaut's a tank, so I don't need a healer for dailies or anything. I like to imagine that at this point, Quinn's gone insane from the isolation.

I can kill the adds now. It was a bit of a chore before getting decently geared.

The only reason to do it is if the dps sucks.

Quinn has been stuck on my ship for going on two years, not allowed to wear any pants. Pants are for crew members who don't annoy me.

I wrote current, not new, Sarcas-moe. Yeesh.

Line of sight pulling in general isn't bad. It's very useful if a pull has a lot of ranged enemies, and you're not a Juggernaut with saber reflect. But like anything, it's bad if you're overly dependent upon it. Off the top of my head, for the six HM's, Meltdown: Doesn't need any LOS pulls. Corporate Labs: A couple rooms where ranged damage is spread far apart from melee, so LOS can be handy. Hammer Station: The second room with the elite droids and all those ranged mobs can be simplified with LOS. Cad: Two rooms with spread out ranged dps, so LOS helps. Athiss: No need for LOS Mandalorian Raiders: No need for LOS. (With the exception of the boarding party fight.)

These replies concerning the competency of tanks for using the shuttle in Cam or having used the Cave in Athiss are hilari-bad. "If the tank knooows what he's dooooooing, then he'll just--" Moooo. Who cares? It's a flashpoint. You can face tank them, or you can cheese it. Who cares? There are no brilliant insights* into endgame tanking to be gained from not cheesing the encounters. It generally comes down to if you think your team has good dps or poor. If it's poor, sure, make it easy on them (if you can.) If the dps is good, then just plow through it. I notice in the hubbub to name tanks hot or not, no one says boo about wussy healers who hide behind trash cans and rails so that bosses with pulls won't interrupt their casting. *Actually, now that I think about it, cheesing adds in FP's prepares you perfectly for operations. Most ops cheese the first trash pull in DP, the trash pull before the writhing horror in TFB, the adds before the first money boss in TFB, the adds before the puzzle boss in EV, and heck, anyone who does a stealth rez is technically using an exploit. it would appear that cheesing encounters is something that players are conditioned to do. But anyone who uses the shuttle in the Cam is a lazy punk who should be shot in the face. Principals, yo. Standards.