Returning level 50 player here. Is there a way to skip Oricon and go directly to Forged Alliance 1? What is the prerequisite of the solo FP quest for Forged Alliance? I don't see it from the ship terminal (however I got the quest that asks you to complete Forged Alliance 1). I'm stuck at the Heroic 2 towards the end of Oricon questline. It's so frustrating unable to find anyone to group with and unable to progress to 3.0 content. Is this a dev oversight? I mean they made everything soloable but not Oricon? EDIT: Never mind, went to Rishi found the droid that starts the FA questline. I think it's stupid that you can take the Shadow of Revan: Prelude quest from the ship terminal (which sends you to fleet droid to start the FA questline) but you won't be able to start it until you're 55. So it's very confusing to returning players. I mean, why the hell would the dev think it's a good idea to let you take the Prelude quest pre-55 and give you a quick pass to fleet but you're UNABLE to take the FA quest until 55?

I've seen a few enforcer's pieces with Alacrity on them. What's the concensus on this vs power/surge/crit so far? Have been running Lethality back in vanilla days but switched to Concealment lately because Lethality doesnt feel good anymore. I heard Alacrity can be viable for Lethality due to faster dots/tactical advantage generation, but how about Concealment? Wouldn't it be bad to have alacrity because then we might run out of TA to lacerate? Has anyone tried alacrity build? How does it feel?

U mean the bolster buff with pve gear? i don't understand how it works. It was so different from 2 years ago, and there is no documentation either in-game or on the website that defines clearly how it scales. There are some scattered info in some threads on the pvp forum but most are outdated.

Quit for 1.5 year or so, now I just got to 60 as an operative and have a few questions: Why is there such a huge gap in item rating between pvp and pve gear? Are there gonna be new tier of pvp gear soon? Should i save my comms? I'm getting 178 pve gear from Rishi quests and 186 gear with basic comms. I know pvp gear is still the best because of expertise but it lowers the incentive so much to buy gear with lower stats. I'm thinking if I should at least slot my weapon and knife with pve (186+) barrels? Is full pvp the way to go nowadays? or is there some sort of mixed gearing? Thanks:)

I might be wrong but I don't think the damage output difference is the same as the difference in power, given all other factors being equal. That is simply untrue. It's just a simple math problem. Without taking the 10% set bonus into account, let's say A marauder does 100 dps, and B marauder does 113 dps (13% more due to higher str/power from gear). Now, with all the damage buffs you mentioned (such as force scream crit, massacre etc.), A marauder is doing 140 dps (a 40% increase), same goes for B marauder - 113*140% = 158.2 dps. What you were saying is, the dps difference between A and B WIDENS (158.2 - 140 = 18.2 more dps, as opposed to the original 13 more dps). However, the % difference remains the same (158.2 - 140) / 140 = 13%. Now, compare 2 marauders both with vindicator set - one with WH min/max gear and another with BM min/max gear. Their % difference in dps would be about 13% indeed, assuming arkitip was right in his str/power calculations between optimized WH and optimized BM gear. You may notice significantly you kill people easily in wz, but that's just a ripple effect of being able to stay alive and kill the next target while a lesser geared marauder would be dead and do 0 dps while waiting for respawn. That has nothing to do with % difference in dps. You still just do 13% more damage.

How much worse to get weapon master set instead of vindication? The one huge concern I have is if they itemize perfectly for weapon master next tier, then it would be disastrous to get everything again from the start.

All tank companions can tank fine. It's just all about gear. Among the classes, the only differentiation between tank companions is melee and ranged. Melee tanks are like Khem, Broonmark. Ranged tanks include Kaliyo, Pierce etc. For either melee or ranged tanks, they have different skill names but if you look at the numbers and functionality, they are basically replicates. So it doesn't make much sense to say, for example, Pierce tanks well and Kaliyo sucks. There are tiny differences sometimes, like Khem does self-heal for a small amount if he does the killing blow. But that is certainly not a deciding factor whether a tank companion sucks or not. As far as I remember, the only exception is perhaps Xalek, a very unique character and which is why I love him so much. He is both melee and ranged, wears light armor, but has a higher base defense than other tank companions. Kaliyo, on the other hand, is just like other ranged tank companions. She has no special abilities like Khem and Xalek do.

another "<insert your high valor rank>" pvp video not much to see except backpedalling and clicking Also, saying things like: "I don't know what I'm doing here" or "I'm panicking.. I just want to kill this guy here" won't help at all

Are you serious? 2 players of ANY class can beat anyone unless you're ultra bad. And stop spreading false information using words like "viscious" and "insane" for a class you have no idea about. lol. No sure if you're trolling or not. I've seen your <insert_your_class_here> hit for 3-4k as lvl 10. It's exactly people like you who have no balls to face a stealth class and whine the most about them. Back on OP, if you want to play op I'd suggest going for lethality or at least give it a try. Despite what others say it's a decent pvp spec if played right, esp come 1.2, although the skill cap is pretty high.

It's natural that tank companions seem to be squishier as you get to higher levels because mob damage scale curve grows faster while companion stats grow linearly pretty much. However, tank companions are still the best for a dps spec imo. "Squishiness" is usually a non-issue because you always mount up to fully heal your companion automatically. Using DPS companions as many said here, on the other hand, is NOT effective at all. You kill mobs faster with DPS companions for sure, but since they can't aggro with increased threat / taunt, you almost take a fair amount of damage for every mob group, which means you need to heal up every other battle. When using tank companions, you only take the first or two hits from the mobs initially when you open, but your tank companion's aoe/taunt will aggro them right after. When you mount up and go to the next group, your companion is fully healed again, while you take almost no damage.

So far from what I've gathered people are complaining about the 1.2 nerfs to concealment. But as someone has already tested out in the PTS, concealment dps is about 1130, whereas marauder annihilation's is about 1207. Now my question is: With all the nerfs to every single abilities in our rotation, and the fact that annihilation isn't buffed (only carnage and rage), why are we still doing comparable dps in 1.2? Theoretically, our dps should be higher than annihilation on live, but that's not what I heard - our rotation is clunky and has low sustained damage, and even more so in 1.2. So can someone explain what's going on? Do we use new moves in our rotation in 1.2 to compensate for the nerfs, eg. overload shot? PS. This is not a troll question. My op is only level 30 and I'm curious to know. Thanks.