I know - in this area my opinion doesn't really matter as I am not a hardcore pvp'er, but I wanted to add +1 vote to buff sorc heals and to remove guard from dps (which never made sense). For me, the numbers are pretty simple. Granted, I do not have MK-11 augments and not every single amplifier is tuned towards healing. In MK-10 augmented 306 gear hear are my current maxed crit heals: Healing Trance around 45K, Deliverance around 30K, Benevolence around 21K. Compare these to the crit hits of 40 - 80K. And this is before one has to worry about normal pvp stun lock or having to deal with multiple dps or the poorer resource management, etc. If a healer can't even keep up against one average level dps (nevermind top level dps), then why even bother with pvp? Which, I think, is the whole point. IMO Bioware wants to get healers out of pvp and this is just their back-handed method of doing this - so while I hope for a buff (as I think this is a PVE issue as well) I am not expecting one (especially anytime before end of the year). Just my two cents, I will now return to my PVE centered world...

You didn't mention if you had a stealth character for the ultimate way to gear: Stealth Toon Gearing System™ http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=971299 - basically run stealth veteran Red Reaper. The bosses can be easily solo-ed even in 276 gear and if nothing else you can complete the veteran fp weekly for some more equpment crates and tech fragments. Although there may have been a Stealth Nerf™ to this system it does (or did) work at lower iRating to level up. Without that method, overall, expect a slower gear grind - it took over 20 solo flashpoints, some Mek-sha heroics and a few Onderon weeklies and I had only improved from 276 to 286. But I would say that anything that rewards a loot crate is your best chance - Onderon dailies/weeklies, Mek-sha heroics, completing Conquest. Then do solo flashpoints as your time allows. I also personally found gearing upwards impossible without spending tech fragments. For me, gearing seemed to get stuck at times. I would often have to buy gear from the Evil RNG vendor to complete an iRating level - i.e. if you have one piece currently at 270 but everything else is 276, buy the one piece for tech fragments to get all your gear at 276 or higher. Sometimes I would need to buy more than one piece to complete a level or to get it to tick upwards one level. For me this seemed to happen more at odd iRating levels (especially 279, 289, 299). Once all gear is the same iRating level and/or once the iRating level ticks from say 279 to 280 the gear wheel would start back up and loot would get better. So you may just have to spend tech fragments to buy some gear to make sure all items are rated at 276 (or higher) or to tick the level to 277 to get that gear wheel moving. I will say that once all gear is at iRating level 300, things do seem to change a bit - there seems to be an uptick in the chance to acquire tacticals and set bonus pieces from all sources. So if nothing else it helps to push the gear to 300 if you are hoping to get these as loot drops. Sadly, at this time heroics and non-Onderon weeklies do not drop gear that will help your iRating - they just drop junk gear to deconstruct. And I cannot even remember the last time I got a Renown crate that was actually an upgrade - so gearing wise, these activities will not help. Maybe we will all get lucky and Bioware will add some kind of equipment crate to weeklies/heroics but until then unless you just want an achievement or possibly credits you are better off doing other activities if you want to gear. Thanks to RNG experiences may vary wildly though. Good luck and as always just my two cents on the matter.

I know, yet another pointless opinion thread on 6.0. But I am hoping if enough people say something/anything that maybe Bioware will actually comment or make changes. I did testing on PTS and provided some feedback there and this is my feedback having playing a couple weekends on Live. What I did: Gearing: Crafting Story: Overall, as a mostly solo player, I have a like/hate relationship with this expansion. Like the new planets and story. Hate the slow gear grind up to the 306 level and crafting is an unholy abomination. Undecided about Amps but so far. It feels like there needs to be some class balancing relatively soon (i.e. not after the new year, dear "Let's take the last two months of the year off" Bioware). It feels like the solo gearing experience can be improved without it being a detriment to the game or Bioware. It feels like the crafting changes failed and need to be totally re-done. It feels like this could ultimately be the start to a good re-vamp of the game, if issues actually get fixed, if gearing improves for even for the "anti-social" solo player, and if Bioware would indicate that something more is to come in a timely manner (even the infamous "soon" or "Spring of next year" would be something). Of course, this is all just my opinion, just my lowly anti-social two cents. Thanks for listening!

Caveat: I am a casual PVP'er and a mediocre PVP'er but I have played a sorc/sage healer since 1.0, so I would say I am (was?) a good PVE sorc/sage healer. But as a sorc healer in PVP the heals just did not keep up with the damage. I could prevent someone from dying if they were in a one-on-one fight but could not heal them upwards while the battle continued. I could not heal the person or myself if two dps were focused on a single target. The only time I could do well was if I was not focused on or could use the environment sufficitently to survive - but not heal my teammates - or if I was just ignored due to the healing being poor anyway. The only time a dps/tank would heal to full was when they used their own DCD, not due to any heals from me. There are so many mobility options that kiting and using the environment is harder or non-existent. The only real DCD a sorc healer has is the bubble and it is on a 3 min cooldown with no utility or tactical that reduces this timer. Resource management is terrible especially compared to Live - even if I did well and healed for a million my resources would be 50% or less constantly. And if I had to heal to survive they would just basically drain down to nothing, so even if I survived a concentrated attack I would no longer have the resources to be effective. Innervate becomes so critical to the sorc healer that you are basically forced to used the Revitalized Mystic set, and if a smart PVP'er interrupts your Innervate constantly then the sorc healer is practically neutralized. The sorc heal tacticals and set bonuses don't give enough of a boost to compensate for what you lose on Live plus the additional dps that DPS/tanks are doing. So, in short, I died a lot and the heals could not keep up, making for a miserable experience. One other note: so with higher alacrity (like the usual 15.5%) pvp did get better, but this can only be obtained once you are in higher gear (I could not augment my gear on PTS, so I do not know the effects of augments), but I was under the (probably mistaken) impression that gear was not supposed to matter in 6.0 pvp? Anyway, unless something changes I will not be pvping as a sage sorc unless or until I am in top, augmented gear. Even then I have my doubts as to the viability of the sorc healer in pvp if there are no changes. Also note that not all my matches were losses, but we certainly did not win due to healing - it was more to how the dps performed and if there was an elite dps (usually a sin, sniper or op) on your team or if the team just seemed to be more coordinated. This overall probably makes for better pvp, unless you are the poor soul trying to play the healer. As always, just my two cents.

Because there are so many scattered threads with feedback and because some threads have been buried underneath circular debate I think it would be a good idea to have one thread where people post a concise list of changes they hope are made by the time 6.0 releases. No debating the actual suggestions or the merits of the various 6.0 systems, just a list of requested changes. Here is my list: - When modded gear is dropped or bought the mods within should all be the same Item Rating level - The Recalibrate screen should show the min and max potential of the amplifier you are rolling on - Recalibration should have a max cost - There should be no blue/purple mats required for green gear crafted below 285 Item Rating - There should be no Premium Data Spikes (sliced tech item) required for Bioanalysis - No matter the level, 20% should be the lowest chance to RE for a schematic - Sorc/Sage healers should get a min +10% buff to heals and a -10% to resource cost - The clicky items for Onderon daily quests need an amazingly fast respawn rate - The ability to change font size on the new character window - Codex should be added that describes all possible amplifiers and to what gear pieces they are attached to

I would like to confirm this. The corruption sorc healing seems to have been decimated in 6.0 and the variety of tacticals and set bonuses do not do enough to make up for this (the new ability has zero uses for a corruption sorc and is not even on my ability bar). In PVP the heals I cast would be barely enough or not even enough to keep a person from sliding downwards if they were in a 1v1 fight. Anytime a person went from 35% health to 70% health it had zero to do with my healing and was all about them using their DCDs. An average heal for me was around 15K-17K, maybe 25-28K with crits and if relics proc, etc; I've been hit by a 38K attack. If a dps is doing 20K per hit and I'm only healing 16K, how can I be viable in pvp? I can barely "survive" a 1v1 encounter - even if I managed to heal enough to live, my resources would drain to basically nothing - so either I would run out of heals to cast or now that someone has peeled the dps or skank tank off of me I no longer have the resources to effectively heal or help the group anyway. Needless to say, a 2v1 would just melt me with no chance of survival. And this is all without worrying about the normal stun lock side of pvp... Standard heals < standard dps plus poor resource management in a world of skank tanks and dps with OP DCDs (or at least DCDs better than what the sorc healer has) pretty much rules out this class for pvp and makes me question the viability of sorc heals in level 75 content. In fact, I offer this suggestion: at this point, just go ahead and bar any/all healing specs from PVP. At the very least do this on PTS and with only tanks, skanks and dps running around it will help highlight which classes have the best or OP DCDs and self-heals (especially when combined with a 20-30% life steal amps). One other suggestion: tacticals should be like utilities - once you queue for a pvp match, you should not be able to change or remove the tactical until you are back on fleet. Just my two cents.

PVP Feedback of sorts, this concerning bolster, just for information: Bolster stats for Corruption sorc: Bolster stats for Arsenal Merc: From these numbers: The bonus damage and healing seemed consistent, with apparent goals of 6700 for damage and 5000 for healing with only minor differences, although minor differences can add up in PVP. But the crit and alacrity varied and it seemed like one got a better bonus in lower IR gear (maybe save a lower tier set for PVP?) and it seemed like dps is getting a slightly different bolster versus heals (I don't play tanks so can't speak to that). Notice the ability for a dps to still get an alacrity boost at high alacrity whereas the healer spec seemed to top out and got an extremely minor boost. In this particular scenario the healer even had a +2% alacrity set bonus where the merc had a +2% mastery bonus. Only the weapons had augments, carryover 238 augments from Live. No other gear was augmented. Good? Bad? Indifferent? Working as intended? I will let others decide.

Some feedback on the Amplifier UI after the latest PTS patch: The tooltips in the calibrate window still do not work properly. When I click on Update there is still no indication that anything has happened - the type/value showing in the Amplifier window will not change until said window is closed out and re-opened. There is no indication/message in the Recalibrate window that the update has occurred - i.e. if I change a 3.5% Life Steal to 4% the header will still read "3.5% Life Steal" even if the recalibrate window is closed out and re-opened. The header in the Recalibrate window will not change until the Amplifier window is closed out and re-opened. There is still no real way to tell what you can possibly get - please put a min and max value in the recalibrate window. For example, if I click on a 4% life steal amp, when the recalibrate pops up under the "4% Life Steal" header put Min: 1% Max: 6% (or whatever the values are). Still no way to sort Amplifiers on the Amp window. Still no way to see Amp totals anywhere that I can find. Still no Codex for Amplifiers. Thanks for listening!

Some feedback regarding the new Character display: Do you know where everything is located (in relation to the previous character sheet) Yes, no issues here. Do you understand your stats display? Yes, except Amplifiers do not seem to show up. For example, my Merc currently has +55 Presence but there is nothing on the character sheet itself that indicates this - if I hover on the Presence stat and look at the bonus the Amp bonus is not reflected here. I suspect this will be true for multiple types of Amps. Is there anything you feel is missing, or not needed? Technically, no. But here are some wish list items: I would prefer if Amplifiers were on their own tab and actually had some sort features (sort by type, by gear, by amount, etc). I would prefer if there was some way to see a total for the Amplifiers - i.e if I have a total of 8% lifesteal, I would like to be able to see that somewhere on the character sheet and/or Amplifier window. Maybe instead of Ranged/Tech/Defense dropboxes maybe add something like Offensive Amps, Defensive Amps, Crafting Amps, General AMPs, etc to list the totals of the Amps the character currently has. I would like to have the character sheet have some edit features in the UI editor - the ability to size the window to my liking, the ability to change the font size, and the ability to enable/disable tabs (i.e. I never us the Ship tab so I'd rather just disable it and have it disappear and/or replace it with an Amps tab). Of all these, the most important would be the ability to size the text (and in general I would like this ability for a variety of UI elements). Thanks for listening!

Impressions from the latest PTS patch concerning loot acquisition: TL;DR: Either I am not understanding how the loot works or it is one step forward and two steps backwards. The good: What I did: Bugs/Issues: Suggestions: Thanks for listening, as always just my two cents.

My two cents: Using the current PTS framework, what would be ideal loot for me: Just my two cents.

Hello, just to clarify: This is actually not implemented yet. Despite another patch with some improvements my Merc dps still got Tank gear from flashpoint bosses and tank pistol from the evil RNG vendor. The toggle is not yet implemented. Eventually it will be a huge improvement, but it's not there right now. Tech fragments are slow to come by - around 10 solo veteran flashpoints and I might have had enough tech fragments to get one Kai piece, except I needed them instead to buy from the evil RNG vendor so I could boost my Item Rating so I could get better loot from the flashpoint. Eventually one will be able to comfortably use Kai, but right now most people can only use this vendor via the Tech Fragment exploit, which I got to believe will not make it to Live. Also, per Bioware: This sounds like only tacticals and set bonus shells will be sold and for an even higher price than Kai - or in other words, if you need say a 280 chest piece to get the Item Rating boost to keep the gear wheel turning, this vendor is not going to do that. You will still be dependent on the random boss drops, renown drops and the evil RNG vendor to get the gear to keep the Item Rating level churning upwards. But I guess eventually one will be able to use this vendor, when one is already at max gear level and has accumulated a ton of tech fragments... P.S. It's not the RNG that bothers me so much - it's that my level 75 has to go through 19 levels of gear advancement whether using rng or tokens or whatnot so that at the end of that journey my 75 character can have the same stats that the character currently has at level 70 in 252 gear (and actually, it will probably be a slightly less than the level 70 252 geared toon because I don't think I will be able to reach the same crit level). And then I can begin trying to accumulate different set bonus gear and tacticals and start fine tuning the amps, etc. (start "playing my way"). At the end of the day, I think it is this reality that has people upset and wondering why Bioware is so interested in putting in roadblocks (like the evil RNG vendor) to slow this process down. Just my two cents.

Did some testing after today's patch and the short story is that mixing modded gear and non-modded gear while churning through the 19 levels is just a bad idea and does not work. Most mods that are dropped are still for tanks, only one piece of modded gear drops vs four pieces when non-modded gear drops and apparently modded gear is considered an upgrade even if it's item level is the same as your item level. This means that one cannot equip a modded piece of gear and know that it can be upgraded by swapping out the mods within it; it is more likely that to keep the Item Rating wheel turning upwards the modded piece will have to be replaced by a non-modde piece - so there is no real point in trying to keep modded gear equipped. Please choose one way or the other and sitck with it: either all gear is modded, or all gear below 307 is not modded (unless it is a set bonus piece - the mods may not be worth keeping, but the shell will be). As previously stated, due to wanting to use my Cartel Coin bought weapon, I would prefer all gear be modded. Also, the RNG vendor is still broken. Bought a MH pistol on my Merc dps and got one with tank stats. Bought an offhand pistol and got one of the same value but was modded (but modded weird, like 280 barrel but 272 mod and 274 enhancement - why aren't they all the same Item Rating level?). Wanted to upgrade a 274 accuracy piece and - using the tech fragment exploit - bought 20 chest pieces and every single one of them was technically an upgrade - a 280 piece, but every single one was crit. And I needed an accuracy one. Bad RNG or bug - either way, the RNG vendor is more useless than useful. Maybe just add this to it: All personal loot will now look only at your Discipline.. But it needs further work. Finally, please consider adding the new loot tables to more stuff in the next PTS patch. Running Hammer Station over an over and over is getting to be very old and usually there aren't enough players on PTS to do a KP OPs run. Anyway, just my two cents but doesn't seem worth to test loot acquisition until there are more changes put into the system. Thanks for listening!

Impressions from the improved loot acquisition: TL;DR: There is tremendous improvement but some areas still need work. Summary: Ran solo verteran Hammer Station a total of 7 times - 5 times on Merc dps, once on Sorc healer, once on Operative dps. Started with Merc DPS with an Item Rating of 268, ended up with IR of 273. Started Operative DPS with IR 243, ended with IR 267. Started with Sorc heals with IR 252 ended with 270 or 273 (see section on Relics). This is a huge improvement over the gear acquisition from the last PTS. The good: What I did: The problem with Relics: Bugs/Issues: Suggestions:

Thank you for your response, it is at least a step in the right direction. I have concerns but will wait for the next round of PTS to test. However, I currently do not understand the 6.0 philosophy concerning augments. At what point does BW think characters should augment their gear? And what do you see as the typical cost for doing so? Some of the main complaints against having non-modded gear and so many tiers to levelling gear is going to be the cost and frequency of keeping your gear fully augmented. If 6.0 were to introduce a vendor that sold MK-11 kits for cheap, like 10K a piece or if crafting MK-11 kits becomes so easy one can predict extremely cheap prices on the GTN then this might alleviate this concern. But neither of these seems likely at this point. Can you please address how BW sees the augrmenting gear process in 6.0? As always, just my two cents and thanks for listening!