From what I've seen, the new Character Creator looks great, even though it does have a few design and button placement issues. But those have already been mentioned by other posters so I'm going to address something else when it comes to character customization. Bioware, I think it's about time you opened up class tattoos and face paints, specifically the ones that are only available to humans, to other races. It would open up more ways for players to make character more unique. For example, I've always wanted to rock Sith Warrior tattoos on my Chiss Juggernaut. The contrast between blue and red would look amazing imo. It should be noted that there would be a lot of weird combinations as well, so only the ones that look good and make sense should be added. However, these shouldn't be opened up to every race, just the ones that don't have access to tattoos. Races like the Rattataki, Mirialan, and Zabrak, already have unique tattoos available to them. Instead, these races should get new tattoos that make sense for them to have. Also, I am asking you to please consider making eyebrows a separate customization choice. There are so many complexion's that I'd love to use for my characters but the eyebrows that come with them have a tendency of making my characters look weird or funny. As of right now I only have five or six complexions that I use for my characters out of the dozens that are available. By separating eyebrows from complexions you'll open up more customization options for players.

The Devs just released a statement saying that the expansion has been delayed to February 15 2022. They probably realized that it's nowhere near completion in it's current state and decided to push it back so they could give it some much needed polish. Here's the link to the post: https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20211207

I just wanted to echo previous concerns about the loss of Evasion and the choice that's meant to replace it. Slapping Evasion's effect onto our threat management skill is counterproductive for three reasons: 1: Countermeasures lowers our active threat, meaning the dodge component will be completely useless if enemies stop attacking the Sniper. Especially in PvE group based content such as Veteran Flashpoints, which are role neutral. Meaning you're more likely to draw aggro due to the absence of a tank in most groups. Also the dodge is useful for mitigating damage from bosses and mobs. 2: Re-establish Range also makes use of Countermeasures and is an extremely useful speed boost, putting it in direct conflict with your dodge. 3: Overloading an ability like that wouldn't be wise in my opinion because if you want to utilize a certain effect in certain situations then you'll have to sacrifice the others to get it. Need to drop aggro? Alright, but you'll also be using up your dodge. Need to get from point A to point B quickly? You got it, but again, you're losing out on that Dodge which you might need later on.

Yeah, I kind of figured that would be the case. But it still kind of irks me to see something so out of place like that. A guy can dream though, can't he? Also, using "Bombing Run" as a term came from Bioware renaming "XS Freighter Flyby" to "Bombing Run", probably because it would sound weird when playing Gunslinger as another origin story.

It honestly feels so weird choosing "Bombing Run" as any other origin story. They should at least make it so that your own ship flies overhead to do the bombing run. It's extremely awkward to see the Smuggler's ship come flying in when you're an Agent, Bounty Hunter, or Trooper. What Bioware should do, in my opinion, is to is let you choose between Orbital Strike and Bombing Run if you're a Sniper or a Gunslinger. For example, It would make sense for a Trooper or an Agent having access to call down their respective fleet's firepower with Orbital Strike. Whereas a Bounty Hunter or a Smuggler might want to have their own ships come in and do a Bombing Run. I understand that Combat styles allow you to use another class' abilities (including the opposing faction's) but they should also take your character's origin story into account as well. This is an issue that can break a lot of other players' immersion if left unchecked. Also, AoE targeting reticules should represent your faction's symbol instead of the opposing faction's.

So I've been conducting further testing on Pyrotech to get a handle on how it feels to play. And while it plays mostly the same, there has been one issue that I've been contending with for some time now: Heat management. Allow me to explain. Thermal Sensor Override has been baked into Vent Heat and Pyrotech's big heat management passive, Heat Flow Recycler has been outright removed from the spec. This makes it rather difficult to get a handle on heat management should it get out of control in hectic scenarios because A: We can no longer use TSO on key abilities without having to put Vent Heat on cooldown, and B: Not having Heat Flow Recycler means having to weave more Rapid Shot casts into your rotation, this puts added strain onto the rotation's priority list. This creates a slippery slope that punishes the player pretty hard should their heat levels climb too high. There's very little room for recovery because the safety net has been greatly diminished by rolling all of it into one ability, Vent Heat, which has a 2 minute cooldown. TSO and Heat Flow Recycler were an important part of Pyro's safety net to prevent issues with heat management. But now that they're gone, you can really feel the impact of their absence. If Vent Heat is on cooldown it creates an ugly dead-zone where our only means of reducing heat are Rapid Shot casts and Flame Barrage procs. Something definitely needs to be done about this issue. I recommend reintroducing Heat Flow Recycler to the spec and shaving 30-40 seconds off of Vent Heat's cooldown. This should help to get heat management under control. I understand that pruning is one of goals for this expansion pack, but this is an example of pruning gone too far imo.

Before I get into my current review/opinion of Pyrotech, I just wanted to echo the previous posters and ask you guys to please bring back Flamethrower for all specs, it's an iconic ability for PTs and shouldn't have been removed IMO. And if you ask me, I would gladly sacrifice Searing Wave and the mobility it gives the class to get my favorite ability back. Now as for my experience playing around with Pyrotech. It pretty much has the same playstyle from the live version of the game and the only real thing that's new are the utilities, most of which are passive and don't really have an impact on the rotation. The two exceptions here are Open Flame, which turns Flaming Fist into a cleave capped at 5 targets, and Mandalorian Warhead, which turns Incendiary Missile into a single target nuke with a 15 second CD. Normally, I would talk about some of the other utility options but quite a few of them don't have descriptions. Open Flame is nice because it gives us more options for our AoE rotation but Mandalorian Warhead honestly feels quite awkward to use, the added burst damage is nice but it slaps a hefty cooldown onto one of the spec's main dots. This makes having to deal with priority adds in certain encounters a pain to deal with. My suggestion is to consider reducing the cooldown to make it less punishing in that regard. Also, regarding the level 20 utility row, Jet Charge is the clear winner and is way more useful than a second grapple charge. Especially for a melee dps spec like Pyrotech because we need to be able to get from Point A to point B if a priority add spawns during an encounter and especially in PvP where gap closers are worth their weight in gold. I would honestly considering keeping Jet Charge as a baseline ability because it easily beats out the other options on that row imo. And in its place I would add Pneumatic Boots from the current utility tree on live.

The title says it all. Ever since I fought this guy in the Esseles FP (He's the last boss) I wanted his robe for my sith characters so freaking badly. "Why do you want it?" you ask? Because, It's the only version of Thana Vesh's Chestguard with the hood up.

As it currently stands, melee tank companions are clunkier than the ranged tank companions, particularly with Mass Force Pull and Multi Grapple. In most cases when you order them to pull a group of enemies sometimes they will end up charging instead or they will only end up pulling one enemy instead of the entire group. Additionally, If you're a stealth class and you order your tank to pull an enemy it takes you out of stealth and greatly diminishes the power of your opener. This issue applies to ranged tank comps as well. My first suggestion is to change Mass Force Pull so that it pulls the target and any other enemies within 12m of it to the companion. The current cone effect setup is HUGELY inefficient and it messes up frequently. If this change is implemented it will give us greater control over mobs in the open world when using a tank companion. Alright, so my second suggestion is to make tank companions not take us out of stealth when we order them to attack. Thanks for your time =)

I nearly fell over in shock when I read the tool tip a couple of days ago! Bioware has finally heard us! I'm so freaking happy right now =)

Does this mean it's viable as a utility now that the old Kolto Infusion has been rolled into it? I can see the pvp off-healing/self healing benefits especially if it's a lethality operative doing it but how will this apply to PVE? It could be a great way to alleviate pressure on your healers by topping yourself up during certain mechanics/transitions. Or it can be used as a pseudo defensive cooldown due to it's synergy with Fortified Kolto and Chem Resistant Inlays. And, if you throw Nanotech Suit on top of that then it could in theory give you a serious "Oh Sh*t" button if you get caught out by a boss' AoE attack.

Haven't been playing in a while due to some RL stuff but anyway, let's address some comments. Edit: I just found out that our dot spread has been changed to Toxic Haze while I was away. Please disregard this first paragraph but I will still leave it up if you want to see what I wrote anyway. The thing that Bioware needs to realize about lethality's Dot spread is that is still riddled with bugs. in order to get a proper spread you have to apply your dart to the enemy that's behind your main target and even then it's not guaranteed. Noxious Knives has always been a clunky means of spreading dots since it was introduced. They tried fixing it before and only made the problem worse. It's an absolute nightmare to use it in any form of multi-target situation in PvE. This is why I'm suggesting they give us the sniper's dot spread. Even if they had to lower the range of our dot's from 30m to 20m to compensate I'd be okay with it. That's also why I suggested the frag grenade change. Even if they had to lower it's range as well I could deal with that. It has no interaction with the rest of the AoE rotation aside from just existing. It's almost as if AoE was an after thought for this spec. In an Operation scenario Lethality suffers immensely in any form of multi-target encounter and wasting Stim Boost on a trash pack isn't exactly wise because I may need it for a boss fight later down the road. I'm not asking to be on the top of the damage charts, I just want have some consistent AoE.

One thing that irks me is when I think I've found an awesome set that I made out of random gear and it turns out that the dye that I used doesn't work on certain parts of one or two pieces of gear. It makes it look tacky in the end. I suggest that Tertiary dye slots be implemented. For example, these dyes will consist of one color (because most of the time it's one part of the piece that refuses to change color) and take up a dye slot. Bioware can compensate by adding a special slot just for these kinds of dyes so that it doesn't interfere with the main dye you used. This way it will add an extra layer of customization when it comes to making your own outfits.

I can confirm that it has not been fixed. If they did try to fix it then they've done a pretty bad job. Instead of insisting we use Noxious Knives to spread our dots they should just give us the same dot-spread as the virulence sniper as I stated in my most recent post: (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=932180) I tested this by doing Heroic 2+ quests every time I dotted the enemy in front of the pack and hit NK (Noxious Knives) I checked all the other mobs in the pack, none of them had Corrosive Dart ticking on them. I figured my aim was off so I kept adjusting my aim but to no avail. I finally decided to try dotting the enemies behind all of the others and lo and behold it actually spread the dots.

As it stands right now, Lethality's AoE is still plagued by the dot-spread bug but I came to realize that even if this were to be fixed our AoE rotation would still feel clunky to use. Noxious Knives has no interaction with the dots other than for spreading dots and Frag Grenade is in an awkward position as it has no interaction with the flow of the rotation. The proposed changes below will solve both of these problems. Okay, so the suggestions that I have for Bioware regarding the state Leth Op's AoE are as follows. Can we get the same dot-spread as Virulence snipers? I know they want to promote us using Noxious Knives but keeping it as our dot-spread means we are still tied down when it comes to AoE situations. We need to be more versatile. I propose that they change Lethal Proliferation so that it increases Noxious Knives' damage against dotted enemies by 7.5% for each dot active as well as baking the Virulence Sniper's dot-spread into the passive as well. This way we get a much more reliable means of spreading our dots AND Noxious Knives will be on par with Sweeping Slash and other spammable melee AoE abilities. When combined with the Imperial Weaponry utility of course. As well as interacting with the dots themselves. Because as it stands right now Noxious Knives is one of the worst AoE abilities in the game damage wise. Toxic Haze was a welcome addition IMO, it finally gives us a chance to spend our TAs for something other than single target. But we do not have a ranged AoE TA generator.This is where Fragmentation Grenade comes in. It deals decent damage and has no interactions with the AoE but it makes for a great filler over Noxious Knives' current state. If something could be done to promote us using Frag Grenade as a filler with the proposed changes above it would be greatly appreciated. Possibly as a universal AoE shiv for both dps specs. This way we will have a form of TA generation for AoE when it damages 2+ targets (in order to avoid single target exploitation). We already have holo traverse and stim boost for extra ST generation. I always found single target abilities being in an AoE rotation to be extremely silly and lazy. It's "Area of Effect Damage" not "AoE damage with a bit of single target sprinkled in". The AoE rotation with the proposed changes will look like this: While moving towards the trash pack apply Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade and then follow up with a Frag Grenade for a Tactical Advantage. Once you are in range throw down your Toxic Haze and begin to spam Noxious Knives. Hit Frag Grenade whenever it's off cooldown and throw down TH whenever it's up. All that's left is to reapply your dots when necessary. And there you have it, a solid AoE rotation with a smooth flow. Lethality's been my main for PvE for almost a couple of years now. It is also my favorite discipline in the game . The current AoE rotation feels extremely clunky and frustrating to use at times. The proposed changes here would increase performance by allowing us to be more mobile when moving from trash pack to trash pack. In turn it also eliminates the dot-spread bug in one fell swoop. So take it from a veteran of the spec and fix this jumbled mess. Edit: Changed Noxious Knives' damage bonus from Lethal Proliferation from 12.5% per dot to 7.5% per dot bringing the total damage bonus when combined with Imperial Weaponry up to 40% instead of 50%