Just grab the PVP mission and hit your queue button. You'll probably die a fair amount early, and the maps may be confusing (I had no idea what was going on with Huttball my first couple of games, but picked it up pretty quick). I just located another player who was defending objectives and followed them around, doing my best to help them out, and after a few games I was getting the feel for it. Never been much of a PVPer, but I'm having a blast with TOR PVP right now. Good times.

This is simple. Aim is Qyzen's primary stat. It is the best stat for everything he does. If you don't want his AOE's, turn them off. Whether they do high damage or pathetic damage, they will still break crowd control. If you can't find aim, strength is better than anything else, but aim is always better.

Would there be a benefit to dropping to just one point in Infiltration Tactics? I haven't used Infiltration much, but it seems like 10% proc rate would be good enough to give you a SS about as often as you would be in a situation to use it.

To be fair, the quest the OP is talking about is hard. Quesh is a significant ramp up in difficulty from previous areas, especially because it seems to be an awkward time in gearing your companions. I'm suspecting companion gear is the issue. I know I got to that quest at 38, and simply wasn't able to do it (literally nothing had been undoable to me at that point). Here's my problem, you get Zenith, and I had been using him a bit, and wanted to try to get through the next planet with him. I was happy to give Theran a rest (love his abilities, but damn he's annoying). So Theran was WAY undergeared. Then I get to this quest, and really need a healer for it. Except Theran's heals were not cutting it. I just figured, he's only healing, surely his gear is good enough. It definitely does make a difference. I was also building towards a Kinetic/Balance hybrid, and 38-40 were tough, I was missing some key survivability skills. Respeccing to full kinetic has helped quite a bit. Anyway, that's what I would doublecheck, companion gear, and be aware that certain specs, especially hybrids, will go through periods of weakness before getting key abilities.

I would think about Cybertech. You get to make armor mods, which once you get moddable armor, will allow you to fairly easily keep yourself in blues. You also get to make gear for mod slots, for your weapon and armor. So for armor, that is gear for two mod slots, and 1 slot for weapons. Enhancements are easy/cheap through commendations, and I've found I can then focus on spending some credits for a saber hilt through Galactic Trade. In addition, you get to make earpieces, which seem to be fairly rare on my server's GT, and you can make ship and droid components, and grenades. All told, I don't think any other crew skill compares to the utility of Cybertech for a solo type of player (at least while leveling).

This may be a silly question, but how many people experiencing activation lag are using wireless keyboards? I actually do use a wireless keyboard, but the batteries are fresh. I'm not seeing any issue with abilities activating when I want, though. However, in other games, with the batteries less fresh, I have experiencing all kinds of weirdness with key presses. The keyboard worked flawlessly outside of games, but it seems like there were issues in games, especially with pressing multiple keys at the same time (moving and pressing 1, for instance). Because it worked fine for typing outside of games, I never thought it could be battery related. Fallout New Vegas was especially bad before I replaced the batteries, and it improved dramatically after. The other thing is the ability queue time in your Preferences. I bumped mine up to 1 sec. I think many people bump theirs down to .25, and you may be better off experimenting with the setting to determine what you prefer.

Why not go with no points in Mental Fortitude, and using one point in Applied Force to move to tier 3?

Why does using your healer companion mean you can't backstab? He gets Holiday, and if you're in a bind, you can pause (you get 8 seconds), let him heal you, then SS right as the stun is about to wear off. 10 seconds later you can repeat. You also get Force Stun, which gives you a SS.

The commendation vendor on Alderan has moddable pants for Consulars. Combine with the Esseles robes and it looks pretty good. But that doesn't change the fact that the Alderan pants are the only ones I've seen, and the Esseles robes are still one of the best looking pieces of armor for Consulars.

Is your armor with Combat Technique active or inactive? If inactive, then I think your rating with it on is probably higher than mine and fine. Otherwise, you must just have some out of date mods or something like that.

Here are mine Level 34: Shadow, Kinetic 11/Balance 14 (this is Combat Technique only) Strength - 74 Presence - 169 Aim - 37 Cunning - 37 Endurance - 691 Willpower - 584 Exp - 0 Damage - 269-339 Bonus Damage - 128.5 Accuracy - 91.02% Chance crit - 19.21% Crit mult - 55.87% Health - 8215 Armour rating - 3658 Damage deduct - 34.49% Defense - 17.48% Shield - 20.28% Shield abs - 20% The only thing that seems low to me is your armor. I've been consistently maintaining at least 30% damage reduction since my low 20's at least. I have Cybertech and have emphasized keeping blue armor mods up to date, which helps my armor a lot (I used to try for purples, but have had horrible luck, so I don't even bother anymore). My belt and bracers are the only slots I have that are not moddable at this point. Your health is a bit low in my opinion, but I don't think it matters that much. I haven't been gearing for endurance, but seem to have ended up with more than I need.

Everyone probably knows this already but me, heh, but maybe there are some who didn't know... I'm primarily Kinetic/Balance, so I haven't been using stealth much, but I've started to make better use of Stealth/Mind Maze, and recently discovered the pure awesomeness of being able to use Force Speed while stealthed

Thanks for the numbers Kitru. I had a gut feeling that the always-on nature of OwtF would best Masked Assault, but I had no idea by how much. I'm actually surprised that it provides so little regen...

I call it the Synergy build! I'm very drawn to it as well. The thing is, I just keep wondering if you what you give up compensates. The next 10 points in Kinetic are pretty sweet...the same could probably be said for any of the trees. Dropping the points in Infiltration, for instance, can give you an instant cast Lift (with 2s stun when it breaks), Spin Kick outside of stealth (with knockdown!), 20% more armor, 15% more damage with Project, 30% faster force regen (probably a wash compared with Shadow's Respite/Masked Assault), force speed breaks movement impairing effects, Force Pull, etc. I dunno...the extra utility just seems too nice to give up...but I do like the idea of maximizing the synergy of Project > melee crit > Mind Crush.

Actually, I recently discovered that if you have a Technique active when you equip the single saber, it stays active. If you deactivate, you can't reactivate it, of course. And you do lose the breach ability (in addition to numerous others), but the passive Technique bonus remains. I wouldn't deal with it personally, but I'm willing to bet you could play through the storyline using Combat Technique's passive with a single saber without too much difficulty.

The only thing I would add is that hilts and armor mods have power/armor ratings as a stat on them. That rating is what translates into damage on your armor or weapon. Other mods do not have a rating, because they add only stats. You can use the rating on hilts or armor mods for comparison. A purple mod of a lower level is going to have a higher rating on it than a green/blue mod at the same or slightly higher level, just as you would expect of a purple piece of armor in any other game. You will also see these ratings on any armor/weapon, so you can directly compare a mod to other equipment.

I'm of the opinion that with companions, any duo is highly effective. Even tank/tank with a healer and DPS companion out could pretty sweet. I know I have thoroughly enjoyed tag teaming enemies with Qyzen and myself as tanks. Enemies end up spending half their time bouncing back and forth between us. It's also good tank practice to focus on keeping threat away from Qyzen. Tanks do less damage than DPS, but it isn't as much of a difference as you might think, so it won't really slow you down, especially with companions out.

I would consider putting your first 8 points in Balance, but using Combat Technique exclusively. Force Synergy is too good to pass up, and in my opinion, would always be my first 3 points in any build. Jedi Resistance is nice, and then Upheaval makes your Projects hit that much harder. Then you can take Double-bladed Defense and Technique Mastery from Kinetic by around 22, before building up Kinetic to Particle Acceleration. I would definitely take PA before Kinetic Ward, I think you can safely put off taking Kinetic Ward until you either have to take it to progress up the tree, or you start feeling too squishy. Also its annoying to have to refresh, so enjoy as much time as possible before that

Kitru is correct that Throw is not the most effective power until you get some talents. There are some advantages, however, to some situational usage while leveling. 1. Functionally force-neutral. 2. Gives you a 3-4 second "pause" in the action. I'll use it while contemplating my strategy, as a kindof pause button. 3. It adds a slow effect while channeled. 4. Combined with Force Potency you get extra range, and a pile of crits off of it. Even without Force Potency, there is a high likelihood of critting once and triggering Force Synergy. From levels 18-25 I used it more against silvers/elites after killing the weaker enemies in a group. After 25 I got much less use out of it, Force Synergy is up almost 100% of the time from just my standard rotations. But Stun > Speed out to 30m > Potency > Throw is a potent way to reset a battle after burning down the weaker enemies in a group (and you can hopefully hang onto your final charge of potency to use to trigger more force synergy as the proc is wearing off). You lose out some pure efficiency, but sometimes you need a little time to consider things, and it lets you do damage while thinking.

How sure are we that Project is still hitting "late"? I played in two beta weekends, and Project most definitely did hit late then. After the game went live, I noticed the damage frequently hits enemies before the rocks are even fully out of the ground. It seems somewhat variable, and may just be down to latency, but my ping times are generally excellent...

Honestly, I don't think it matters much. Two players plus companions should be a wrecking ball through most anything, regardless of their spec. You could always have one of you bust out a healer companion and the other a tank, and you'll be solid. But it still doesn't matter too much, in my opinion. Nothing short of a 4 man heroic should offer even any resistance whatsoever.

Something is definitely wrong with your/Qyzen's gear, or you didn't have Qyzen in tank mode, or your strategy was off. Even without Kinetic Ward you should be able to take on two even level silvers without issue. I would think Kinetic Ward would dramatically improve your chances. Were you and Qyzen focusing on the same enemy? Don't use Shadow Strike! I realize you only used it at the beginning, so its not that big of a deal, but its definitely not a worthwhile attack unless you have some Inf talents. Force wave/force stun can give you a few seconds of breathing room while burning down the first enemy. Lift too, though I rarely actually use it. For example, the most trouble I have had is with a full group of 4 silvers. Two elites are about equivalent in terms of where I am when the battle is over (low health, Qyzen down). Granted, I have made some lucky galactic trade purchases, so I'm exceptionally well geared for my level, but still, 2 silvers alone should be cake.

Definitely dual-tanking with Qyzen is brutally effective!

I can confirm that I have gotten multiple blue versions of an earpiece by continuing to RE the green parent piece. I got three blue versions, I'm not quite sure how many versions it is possible to get.

I have to say, Kitru, I think your rule is more right than I was giving credit for. I hadn't played in a couple of days, and I wasn't remembering just how much I use Double Strike. Shadows get a ton of abilities, and many are irrelevant depending on your spec. Shadow Strike is the premier example. If you don't have talents for it, it shouldn't even be on your bar. You should never use it. There is always something better to use. And the same is true for many abilities. The rule helps you establish which abilities are important to your spec, and which should be disregarded. However, I do think it is important to experiment with your abilities and learn them. Follow the rule, but experiment with adding abilities incrementally into your rotation and strategies and see what happens (hell, that's a lot of the fun in MMO's for me, figuring out the most effective strategies over time). I do respectfully disagree with you on Force Wave, it is simply awesome, but again, based on your spec, you may not get as much utility out of it.