I'm 400 Biochem, so will make the Rakata Medpac when I can get some Biometric Crystal Alloy, my question is - should I reverse engineer the Blue Prototype Ultimate Medpacs I have, is there a purple higher than this other than the Rakata, or am I just wasting these blues?

This. You're so right, tanks needs to survive better to make up for the fact that we can't do ranged damage, and we actually want to tank.

I've seen many opinions on this, ranging from 500 to 700. Anyone done any careful testing? As a guardian I would like the extra HPs from a couple of PvE pieces, but only if it doesn't gimp me. Thoughts?

Bump - this needs to be addressed.

So in summary there are a few points I'd like to reinforce: - Tanks that choose tank PVP armor are getting stats that have no effect in PVP, which is unfortunate and should be addressed (defence, shield, absorption etc...) - Tanks should be able to adopt the tank role if they choose to, with lowered DPS, but high survivability. The issue currently is that tanks that choose this path are not today signficantly more survivable than other classes - this should be addressed - Tanks that choose the DPS path, should be able to do reasonable DPS (not to OPS) level, and have a reduced survivability because of this choice, this third issue is closest to being okay right now, if the other two issues are addressed we just need to make sure DPS tanks do not become overpowered. I've recently switched to DPS role because of the current issues, which I'm enjoying but it's not why I rolled a tank, if the first two issues are addressed I'll switch back to the tank role.

As has been proved by testing and posted on here before, defense, shield, absorption etc.. the tank stats on tanking armor (including the tanking PVP armor strangely) don't really have an effect in PVP apart from on a minor part of typical DPS (typical higher DPS skills do not pay attention to these stats). This makes it difficult to play a pure tank role in PVP as we're not that much less squishy than any other class. Could I ask that this is looked at? Not wanting to be overpowered, how about they work as just a % of what they would at PVE? Tanks should last a bit longer compared with their non-tank buddies.

Looks like a big problem is some servers are underpopulated. On Tomb of Freedon Nadd the 50s WZ queue is very quick, even off peak times. Ilum on peak times is crawling with both Imps and the heroes ;p But we do still get login queues at peak times. Always go for populated servers people!

It's not as difficult as you're making it out to be to get expertise gear at 50. I only dinged 50 last weekend. If you've been doing WZs 1-49 as many of us have, you can easily have 1000 of each of the commendations and a bag ready to open, that's 6 bags to open when you first ding 50. If you do the Ilum dailies (one bag a day) Ilum Weekly (is it 2 bags? - a week) WZ daily - if you're lucky to get in a good grp to win - another bag a day WZ weekly - again lucky to grp with better geared people You will after a few weeks start to have better gear. Also finish the story line and do the Ilum dailies for cash so you can buy the best of the broker for those slots you haven't yet got pvp stuff for. I already have 3 Chamopin pieces, one centurion and other purples from the broker the same week I dinged. Yes it'll take a while to catch up the early crew, but honestly, it should.

I just upgraded my account as I'm having such a blast with SWTOR I've no problem spending a little on fluff, I mean what a great game!

You can get to do all those things you'd prefer not to do during the wait, and then feel even better having done them when you get to play!!!!!

Move to another server, there are lots of them!