1. I can get to node 12 almost all the time but beating them only happens a few time, but i got no problems with it, but the moment that new players that only have G10 toons encounter teams with more than 1 G12 toon you know the game mode is broken.
2. Arena hast been the same since mods came out, basically mods> toons thats the situation of arena.
3. Everyone that thinks other wise bust be lucky as hell or spends load of money, also the guy that said to change guilds so you can do more raids its not going to work unless you are lucky. In the guild we do the maximum amout of raids possible / week, and i have characters stuck on raid gear because they never drop and mind you you can only get those from raid or for crystals in the shop, if thats not a pay-wall then what is it? what is the point of raids if you cant get raid gear?
4. Meta comes and goes, but light-side is always favorable, look at raid Han b4 rework he was useless gets a Rebel tag and suddenly he is the best rework the game has ever seen. I doubt an empire toon will ever get the same treatment. (Tarkin got a rework but was hit with nerfs on his kit)