There's a champ in there, that's about it. It's a super small area. Drops either a green or blue.

yeah it depends completely on your own preference, however here's the comparisons: Edit: Side by side spacing didn't work out well! Bracers: War Leaders 523 Armor 72 Str 83 End 27 Def (182 total stat points) Veracity Carbon Fiber 485 AR 45 Str 52 End 28 Shield 41 Def +28 any stat from purple aug 194 total stat points Belts: War Leaders 523 Ar 72 Str 83 End 27 Def (182 total) Veracity 485 Ar 45 Str 74 End 25 Def 28 Shield 16 Absorb +28 Any 216 Total Boots: War Leaders 523 AR 93 Str 116 End 48 Shield 53 Def (310 total) Veracity 485 Ar 45 Str 72 End 40 Shield 27 Accuracy 20 Absorb 62 Def 28 Any 294 Total Of course these are the only pieces I could compare since they're the 3 that I actually have veracity popped for. However they aren't too far off of tier 2 gear, especially considering they can be sold (or made). This frees you up to use your commendations on other bigger upgrades. For example I'd use my HM commendations to buy a shield, saber, or gloves (because I have the 3 crafted slots, have the PVP chest and my helm has the mod and enhancement from a 2nd PvP chest I got).

No, you can definitely pop purples, however it can be VERY time consuming to do so. I have Veracity Carbon Fiber boots, bracer, and belt. AFAIK I'm the only one on my server that's selling them, and I'm making a good bit putting them up. Those pieces are definitely on par with the T1-2 stuff, especially if it's a crit. However I've been trying to pop both light and medium for DPS and running into extremely long stints of nothing out of RE. I haven't gotten a single light armor pop out of the past 30+ REs, and for medium I got the wrong pop (out of about 40 REs). Even at max affection they still take 20+ minutes each to craft (for the blues). Indecently I'm bottle necked on UWT mats for both. The 340 missions cut into profits BUT seem to have a 100% chance of giving around 4 of each of the UWT purples.

I somehow seemed to be out of synch with the server when that happened. My guildies told me in vent that I was fighting stuff that was still dead, but my ping was 31ms. After I closed out the client and restarted the issue was gone. So simply restarting seemed to fix it if it happens to anyone in the future.

I'm doing my dailies on Illum tonight and my retaliate isn't working at all. The button goes active, but doesn't follow through. It says in red on my screen "the required effect is not present", and my guy reels back, but doesn't actually do the strike. This happening to anyone else?

I'm an Imm Jugg with Synthweaving. I honestly think it's a fantastic compliment and much better then artificing. The trick is popping the right things. If you actually look in the SW list you'll notice once you get to about the middle levels (maybe around 150-200ish?) you'll start getting multiple armor sets. Typically you'll see a DPS type set (higher str, lower endurance and +dmg/crit type secondary stats) and a more tanky set (lower str, higher end, and +DR type secondaries). Green to blue you have 3 different lines you can take Critical Overkill Redoubt ( this is the one you want) Blue to purple there's 5 different lines. Veracity is what you're going for here. Pop the tank set to redoubt, and then start trying to pop to veracity. This can be pretty time consuming and frustrating, but you'll get it eventually. If you're still leveling then you'll probably be ok for a while. You'll probably out level the gear in the time it'll take you to get crits on all of your veracity pieces. If you're 50 you want to craft your veracity stuff ONLY with a high affection Jaesa(+5 SW crit). When I was looking for a crit craft I sold the non crit stuff on the GTN until I got a crit craft which I kept for myself. Augments are DIRT cheap on the GTN due to the absurdly high number of slicers. I picked up multiple +22 augments for under 1k each. The augments allow you to custom tailor the piece to whatever you want. You can add end, def, shield,etc. I'm the only one on my server that's selling the lvl 49 veracity gear so it's sells very well, and pretty fast (I'm putting it up for 50k a piece and haven't had to wait more then an hour to sell it). I've basically made back all of my investment in synthweaving and then turned a profit as well. While some of your gear you won't be crafting ( BP/legs), AFAIK there's no slotted bracers/belts, and the boots are somewhat hard to come by as well. When I finished most planets I'd have around 40 commendations. I also staggered upgrading me and Vette. Primarily I'd upgrade her weapons when it was a nice upgrade ( hence the every other planet thing). You pretty much can't fully upgrade yourself AND your companion on every planet. I even found it hard to fully upgrade myself. Also planet to planet seems to be marginal upgrades. You're only getting +2-5 for any given stat. What I'm working on now is popping a full DPS suit for Jaesa. Since I can't make armor for Vette, Jaesa is quickly turning in to better DPS then her. Additionally you'll be able to sell the exact same pieces on the GTN for those DPS clothies once you have the right stuff popped. Compared to artificing which you'll be making yourself hilts, crystals, and mods. You'd then have to upgrade ALL of your armor, as well as your companion's.

Our taunts don't generate threat they're attack redirection for a VERY short time. IF they actually generated threat I doubt we'd even be having this discussion but unfortunately they don't. While you can hold agro on mobs it's very dependent on their position AND you being totally out of rage all the time. Smash is definitely #1 for multiple mobs, however sweeping slash works too, but it absolutely chews through your rage bar. I definitely agree that we should be using a target priority directly opposite of our team. PUGs don't seem to grasp that concept which is why I've given up on trying to run HMs with PUGs. It's lovely getting called everything in the book by some guy who's getting attacked by a regular mob AFTER you've already told them to DPS normals, then strongs, and elites last. All in all I don't think it's too terrible either way as long as you have a decent team. I think unfortunately most people don't realize how these mechanics are different then other MMOs and are expecting the same old thing. I think my absolute biggest gripe at this point is UI features. I find most fights I'm watching the cooldowns instead of the actual fight. I've also resorted to using the minimap for mob positions because it's next to the bars AND the camera seems to want to snap back behind during fights. That's also part of the reason I prefer to do the flashpoints with guildies. I often times can't read chat WHILE tanking so I have to rely on one of the guys in vent saying "hey interrupt this guy", or "pick up X mob on the healer".

I'm pretty sure I got it at dark V not dark IV.

I figured I'd ask here because by my own previous results I "should" have gotten a crit on an orange. I got 1 out of 4 on lvl 49 veracity boots. 1 out of 3 on lvl 49 veracity bracer I'm 0 for 2 on belts. Out of 10 pairs of reinforced electrum greaves I've gotten 0 crits. I'm exclusively using a 9k affection Jaesa (+5 SW crit). The amount of resources with the pretty awful return rate on missions to craft these doesn't seem worth it if it's not possible to crit.

I believe you get slightly more/less at +/- 1. I have the same issue with my comps. I have all of them, and I have 2 nearly maxed, 1 in the rank 3s ( around 5k), and the other 2 are still rank 1. I think the BEST way is probably buy their favorite gifts from the fleet vendor until rank 3, then you can use rank 4s for everyone. Since they'll give slightly more to the lower level guys, and only slightly less to the ones that aren't maxed.

Is it possible to crit for an orange item to get an augment slot for it? By orange I mean the empty modable gear. I've basically been trying all day and haven't had any luck. I've managed to crit on all of the purple items I'm wearing to get them slotted.

I'm making quite a bit from synthweaving. Edit: Making the higher end purple items should sell pretty well. I've made over 200k selling purple gear. However AFAIK artificing is much more linear then SW, which makes your upgrades much easier. I'm able to sell my stuff very well because I managed to pop the right stats on gear pieces that are in demand.

I would definitely love some UI consolidation more then anything else. Like some other people mentioned on a lot of the fights I spend more time looking at my bars and cooldowns rather then at the fight itself, which leads to problems. I'm still playing around with my "optimal" setup, but one of my newest things that I should have done a long time ago is simply taking assault off my hotbar. Rage is hardly ever a problem, and i still have it on right click if i really need it.

Although I generally agree here, to me mitigation seems way off without our CDs. Whenever I'm not on invul/SW I don't feel tanky at all. Getting hit for 3kx2 is pretty massive damage considering we wear heavy armor. At first I thought it was due to low expertise, but that doesn't seem to actually help a ton. Got the champ BP with 48 on it, and it's like a 1.5% increase to dmg/mitigation, so even with a full set I'm guessing it's less then 10%.

I tried my first hard mode last night as the main tank. Basically I got berated the whole time and told how awful I was because I didn't run around like a maniac picking up every trash mob. When I group with guildies we also do reverse strength priority targeting where I hold agro on strongs/elites/champs. However the pugs seem to want to burn down in the opposite order (either strongest to weakest, or no real order at all). I've also yet to run a flashpoint where mobs aren't packed in a 1/3/1 type order (usually every pull has about 2 completely away from the group that you can't aoe) on top of most mobs being ranged and won't follow if you move away from them. Basically I'm going to say until people actually realize this ISN'T wow you're going to get screamed at and have to have somewhat thicker skin. DPS seems to want to go balls out right out of the gate as well making it tougher. It's very similar to vanilla wow (and early BC heroics) where CC and dps control were actually important.