It was easy actually. (didn't use the 20 min cd) Put up guard on Kira, send her in. (all 4 strong mobs were clustered like a regular pack) Charge and use awe (6 sec aoe cc) continue to focus the main target down. Use pommel and opportune strike (the pve only abilities) on the main target. Awe broke and the main target died at around the same time. Use freezing force and then force stasis a mob, force push the other away, and focus down the second target and pop saber ward. Finish the rest of the mobs off while using cooldowns and medpack. Really wasn't that hard. Now that I think of it I could have just freezing force kited them all around while Kira killed them all. Now I can see this being hard if you are bad or a different class. I know on my gunslinger packs of strong mobs were rough but not unbeatable.

Hmm, that's funny because yesterday I killed 4 lvl 47 strong mobs at once on my 46 guardian on Corellia. Granted I had to use cooldowns and a medpack but I still did it. This is with Kira too. (Melee dps companion) Helps if you keep your gear up to date and your companions. I'm in full orange gear with lvl 44+ mods, Kira is in full orange gear and 40+ mods.

Myself (Jedi Guardian) and a empire player he was a sorc had this happen to us. I just use forcepush to push him up onto one of the angle parts on the back of the sandcrawler. He mounted up and stood in front of me and jumped up and down. If you time the forcepush just right when he was at the highest point when jumping up on his mount it pushed him at a high angle towards the sandcrawler and I just force leaped to him. Took about 5 mins of trying, wasn't to hard.

Honestly most of the stats on BM gear suck. Most of the pve gear has more health, dps stats (or healing / tank) and usually more useful set bonuses. I plan on going half and half. Get just enough pvp gear for ~8-10% expertise and just stack on the pve gear.

Not to mention the utility sorc's have WHILE having similar mobile dps as other classes. If you tab dot as assault or dirty fighting you will run out of resources on the 2nd person. Then you will be in the "bad regen" zone. Correctly me if I am wrong... sorc's don't have a "bad regen" zone do they?

True Guardians have amazing interrupts, but to have all of those you lose damage. Sorc's dont. Guardians/Sents can be kited into oblivion. Sinpers, ops, mercs, pyros, maras, sins, all do the similar damage to hybrid sorc's. Without the survivability, utility, mobility sorc's have.

Side A: Sorc / Sage hybrid is overpowered because it has to many tools on top of good survivability and respectable damage with out any negatives of all that utility and and respectable damage. This is really obvious when you compare sorc/sage hybrid spec to the other ranged dps. Side B: Trying to defend all of the utility, damage, survivability hybrid sorc/sages have because they are scared of the nerf bat. Side C: People calling the OP bad, mara's OP, and overall general trolling.

Any class can get focused. I would argue sorc's have a better chance at surviving because of bubble and sprint. Commando/gunslingers have a mobility spec but its not even close to the damage of a hybrid sorc, on top of all the utility sorcs have over commandos/gunslingers. Why do people think they need to be compensated for a nerf? If they got compensated they we would be back to square one again. Oh you mean like gunslingers?

What are you talking about? Its very easy to perma-slow any melee as a sorc. On top of all of the various cc's, stuns, knockbacks, 150% sprint, heals, and bubble. All of this while keeping them doted and kiting them around. Guess what other ranged dps (commando /gunslinger) get. Knockbacks all on longer cooldowns, 0 reliable slows, poor survivability, and they have to stop and cast to do any meaningful damage.

Welcome to every other ranged dps. Except every other ranged dps does not have the utility, healing, interrupts, survivability, mobility, and cc that sorc/sages get to enjoy currently. Yes I have a 50 commando and 50 gunslinger both are not even close to being as good as a sorc/sage. You can argue commandos but they are very easy to shut down and and you can just sit on them making them completely useless.

So after reading this entire thread for the past hour or so (because I found it quite interesting) I still have yet to see anyone offer a reason not to play a sorc/sage in pvp. Seriously, every class and their respective AC's have a plethora of problems, bugs, and overall issues with pvp. Then you take a look at sages/sorcs and I cannot find anything near the issues other classes are having. There really is no reason not to play one. Honestly I would play one right now if there wasn't a plague of them everywhere. Its getting so bad now that the majority of warzones I play have 5+ sages/sorcs and the others are usually commandos/mercs. Just look at the OP, I really do not see a disadvantage for any of these utilities/cc/burst/mobility that sages/sorcs seem to get over nearly every other class. Sure they use light armor but that doesn't matter because the vast majority of abilities bypass armor anyways and the abilities that do get affected by armor generally have talents that allow them to bypass 60-80% of armor anyways. The only way I see this getting fixed is the removal of hybrid specs or a serious revamp of sage/sorc trees. To the op: You forgot to mention they also have a 30m interrupt.

I have everything keybound. I use a Razer Naga so I have more than enough keybinds for everything. I find that it makes a huge difference. The only downside is it took me a good week to learn how to use the Razer Naga without hesitation. Even now I still hesitate sometimes. Now I'm only 31 but I'll post my keybinds. On my gunslinger everything is filled, but I assume once I hit 50 on this guy I'll have about the same amount of keybinds. Keyboard Binds + Mouse 5, Mouse 4 ------------------------------------------------- Bottom Center 1: Strike 2: Sundering Strike 3: Slash 4: Master Strike 5: Shift + Q: Force Sweep Q: Riposte E: Blade Storm Shift + E: Hilt Strike Mouse 5: Shift + Mouse 5: `: Force kick ------------------------------------------------- Top Center Shift + 1: Force Leap Shift + 2: Shift + 3: Force Stasis Shift + 4: Force Push F1: Saber Ward F2: Warding Call F3: Enure F: Freezing Force Mouse 4: Shift + Mouse 4: X: Resolute Shift + X: Combat Focus Naga binds (which is pretty much the keypad 0 through +) ------------------------------------------------- Right 1: Guard 2: Taunt 3: Challenging Call 4: Pommel Strike 5: 6: 7: 8: Force Might 9: Introspection 0: -: +: Mount Shift Naga modifiers (Shift + keypad) ------------------------------------------------- Left End: Medpac Down Arrow: Hutt Ball Page Down: Shii-Cho Form Left Arrow: Soresu Form Clear: Right Arrow: Sprint Home: Up Arrow: Page Up: Insert: Call on the Force Shift + -: Emergency Fleet Pass Shift + +: Quick Travel ------------------------------------------------- Companion Ctrl + 1 Attack Ctrl + 2 Passive These are the only ones I really use for my companion.

Awesome guide. This needs to be stickied, gogo

Currently lvl 25 and I'm not having any dps issues whatsoever. Just keep Kira geared and you are good to go. I'm currently full defense speced and I kill stuff just as fast as my commando and gunslinger when they were at 25 (both are 50 now) and I can easily solo any elite / champion mob my level with out any issues. I actually have died far less than both my commando and gunslinger.

What is being done to make all of the other crew skills more viable for endgame?

Duno, but i'm getting pretty sick of it. I've opened probably 40+ bags on my gunslinger. I've gotten 6 ear pieces, 3 wrist, pants. I guess on the plus side I'm getting gear for my companions /facepalm

Hutt Ball is amazing! Its one of the better maps I've seen for pvp in an mmo. The only thing I think needs some tweaks in Hutt Ball is the air jump platforms. I think they need to be a little more predictable. I don't see how you guys get Hutt Ball 90% of the time. I get it maybe 1 out of 7 games I play. I'm republic, so maybe that has something to do with it.

The Smuggler vendor is in the combat training area of the Republic Fleet. It will be one of the 4 series of vendors near the pvp daily missions. You will be looking for the Champion and Centurion vendors. For gunslinger you'll want the "Field Tech" set. It has the set bonus for XS Freighter Flyby and better range on quick draw etc. Edit: I just seen you said you were lvl 40. I would hold off on pvp gear until lvl 50. Buy 1000 Mercenary tokens from the vendor next to the dailies or in the warzones themselves. Also save up 1000 Warzone tokens if you plan on pvping until lvl 50. So you will want 1000 of each token type because thats the cap. With these you can buy 5 champion bags from the vendors. In these bags they will have either 3 centurion tokens or 1 champion gear token and 1 centurion token. You use these to buy gear from the appropriate vendors.

I also have a 50 commando and 50 gunslinger. I actually rerolled from commando because I don't see gunnery being as good with gear. Why? They lack a lot of tools gunslingers have. For example gunslingers have: Better ranged defense. More tools to keep people at range. A ranged interrupt. Better DPS and burst. The ability to completely avoid leaps, charge, harpoon etc. (which is huge) I would also argue gunslingers have better group utility. I absolutely wipe the floor with the vast majority of commando / merc's 1v1 in an open area and I'm not even geared yet. (I only have 4 champion pieces) I will say I have not 1v1'ed a fully battlemaster geared commando/merc yet. I would probably lose because the gear difference. However, I suspect I would wipe the floor with them given equal gear. You argue they have heals, and a dispell. If a gunnery/merc is healing or dispelling constantly they have already lost. Why? If a commando is healing and dispelling they will run out of ammo very fast. Only combat medics can heal and dispell without ammo problems. While they sit there healing and going out of ammo you are laying down the pain while staying in the "fast energy regen zone". You also argue they have better aoe. What? I fail to see that. Gunslingers have XS Freighter Flyby which is the hardest hitting most damaging aoe in the game. Gunslingers also have spammable thermal grenade and sweeping gunfire. The way I see it the only advantage commandos / mercs have over gunslingers is raw armor. To be honest, that doesn't matter because the vast majority of damage in this game from players is not affected by armor and the damage that is affected by armor, usually those ability's have talents for 40-60% armor reduction anyhow.

Sab or SS, what ever play style you prefer. I found SS to be slightly easier to level with.

Biochem has medpacs that heal you and your companion. I found it very helpful for leveling.

Use Guss. He heals a lot quite well, make sure you turn off his channeled electric cc. Some elites I had to go tank companion and go all out to kill them. Living with barely any life. I'm also Biochem which helps a lot as well. Another thing which helped a lot was using cover vs ranged elites and kiting melee ones. Some elites you can kite around pillars if there is enough room. Just dot them up and run around for 5 mins. It works really well, just very slow and boring.

I like all of the spec's to be honest. They all have unique play styles, pros, and cons. However, I like the Sharpshooter spec slightly more than the others. The main reason is because of the big numbers but with heavy reliance on cover it's more of a pain in pvp compared to Dirty Fighting.

I have a fresh reformat (win7 64bit) and updated drivers. 8 gigs of ram, and other decent hardware. Not top of the line hardware but its good enough to run swtor on max @ 90 fps/20-30 in fleet. And I get CTD quite a bit in Ilum pvp. I think its due to swtor going over its 2gb limit.

Line of sight is kinda harsh vs Sharpshooter. However, it all comes down to positioning. Try and make it to where its hard(er) to line of sight you. Line of sight isn't to much of an issue with Saboteur, or Dirty Fighting. A few tactics I use to help with line of sight problems. -Line of sight others and pillar kite them with dots. Works very well vs Sorcs. -If you are getting Line of sight kited, make them follow you away, rather than you trying to follow them. -XS Freighter Flyby. Its amazing. Its really good for pushing people out from behind pillars and capture points. -Try timing your Leg Shot or Flash Grenade at the right times so you can get better positioning or to just out right kill them before they get a chance to line of sight you.