Yeah, I'm in a similar boat as you. Up to now, Deception/Infiltration has clearly been the PvP spec, and Madness/Balance has been the PvE spec. I was hoping for this to change with 3.0 so that both specs were equally viable in either PvP or PvE, but I think the gap just got wider. I will say, however, that with the taunt causing a deaggro now if not in tanking stance, that does allow for some Deception / Infil PvE goodness in the sense that you can take better advantage of Maul / Shadow Strike due to not having to rely on cloaking to be able to pull it off (which, if solo PvE, also resulted in a combat reset which somewhat defeated the purpose of it). As for Madness / Balance changes - yeah, it'll be nice. I don't see a lot of shadows / assassins playing anything otherwise, at this point.

And if the devs show Republic first, then the Imps will whine. There's no win/win situation here, really. Whatever side is introduced first will take longer as they're going to explain all the changed mechanics, passives, and so on, and whatever side is introduced last will be shorter simply because they can say "same passive changes, just on the different side". Yes, they've started with Imperials so far in both livestreams, but I wouldn't read too much into it, personally. You're going to get your fill of animations and gameplay in 2 weeks when you can play it firsthand.

I can't hear the phrase Jedi Wizard without picturing a bunch of LARPers running around in robes shouting "lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!". Sigh...

My advice? Try another commander. Some are easier than others, and you could be trying to tackle one of the harder ones. Another option is to try Annihilation. On a mob that stuns you a lot, at least your DoTs will be ticking away doing *some* damage to it, unlike Carnage where a stunned Mara does 0 damage. I find my survivability as Watchman Sentinel (Anni equivalent) is noticeably higher than when I'm Combat (Carnage) spec.

Indeed. Serenity now! (Bwaahaahaa, had to say it)

Well, based on the livestream notes over on Dulfy, Priming Shot not only causes our next TM to fire instantly, but causes the target to take +5% ranged damage (so it's a dps boost for us + snipers/GSs). Also keep in mind that the notes also state TM will sunder an enemy's armour (-20%), so all in all, those are 2 pretty decent raid debuffs (although I'd wager other classes will be able to provide similar bonuses - we'll see). So I'd wager it's intended purpose is less about making us permanent movers now, as opposed to granting some faster burst (insta-TM + HSM + RS, and then UL/BB (Blazing Bolts) while moving). Not bad

Just an update to my previous post, as I've just finished levelling a Merc to 55 and have (mostly) geared him up to be useful. Here's how I did it, and hopefully this works for you: 1-47 main story, then 47-55 Makeb with the GSI bolster. Finish Makeb and you should have a good amount of basic comms already. Good stuff. I then headed to fleet and outfitted a belt and bracers with Makeb commendations (24 planetary comms, which you or an alt should have). I then purchased 2 barrels to bring my weapons up to scratch - the cheapest I could find were 156s which were 20k each (your mileage may vary based on your server), and had an alt craft some +41 power crystals for them as I hadn't had any yet. If you need to buy some, they're pretty cheap, depending on the colour you want. You can alternatively get the Rakghoul ones with a bit of grinding for free essentially. After that, I headed to Oricon and advertised in General that I was a newly-levelled 55 looking for a partner to tackle the story missions. I instantly had 2 others join, and together we tackled everything. Once finished, we were able to instantly start the Weekly missions (which is essentially the same thing over again), which we did. We all finished about 50 basic comms richer, and with a full set of 156 armour. As I had some THORN reputation, I was able to purchase a relic (Antiviral Mk-3) for 20k credits, and I plan to do a bit of PvP to quickly obtain a second relic. The THORN relic also comes with presence which, as the OP is a soloer, is quite valuable. That leaves my Ear and Implants. Fortunately, I had a few already saved from other chars to instantly wear, but you can either buy some reasonable ones from the market or have an alt make you some if that's an option as well. And there you have it. You're now at a level where you should be able to solo all current content except perhaps the Oricon Heroic 2 mission and potentially also that Oricon mission with the subteroth. Although if you have the time and patience, you can just burn your 20minute cooldown Heroic button and take those out slowly. From here, I'd farm the heck out of comms so that come 3.0 you can instantly jump to 186 gear. Oh, and I'd work on outfitting your companion of choice (whether it's a tank, healer, or dps). GL, and happy hunting!

This is pretty good advice. Grinding credits is actually your most efficient way to get top gear if you don't want to go the route of crafting (which still costs credits to get going). Grind credits and buy your barrels or hilts, relics, and whatever else. For armour progression: Level 1-47 via 12 x XP main story; 47-55 Makeb and use bolster. At 55, if your gear is pretty underlevelled you can grind Black Hole (BH) as mentioned by Domi, or buy greens off your highest planet (Corellia, perhaps?), or use planetary comms to buy a few armorings / hilts / barrels / mods. From there, I'd tackle Oricon. It'll be tough, but take each fight slowly and/or find a group to blitz through the dailies. Oricon will net you a set of 156s which will put you in relatively good gear for a solo player. After that, your best (and only) bet is to grind dailies and weeklies for comms (basic / elite / ultimate). Note that you'll need a group for the elite / ulti comms, although not at the expense of a lot of free time on your behalf - you can knock out 55 FPs in under an hour easily three times a week to get that weekly knocked out (plus the daily bonus on top), and do the same for the tactical flashpoints (need 5) and you're suddenly looking at a total of 20 basic, 102 elite, and 82 ultimate comms per week for not a lot of time or social investment - just an hour here and there several times a week. And, of course, once 3.0 hits, all of this is moot.

Forget a tank or healer, I'd pair it with either A Love of the Outdoors, or Not Playing An MMO at 7. But that's just me.

Merc slash may be less meaningful, but that doesn't mean it has no meaning whatsoever. On the contrary, actually. According to that dps chart above of damage per "cast", Dispatch and Merc Slash are at the bottom of the list. Does this mean you'd never use them? Of course not. They're your "burst dps" abilities for when you want to deal 7k damage NOW, and not wait 5+ seconds. In a long-term dps fight, however, I would agree that I'd probably prioritize OS or Cauterize over Merc Slash if I was short on force. If I had plenty to spare, then there's obviously no reason why I couldn't keep them all going, right? That said, I'd still like to see Merc Slash do just a bit *more* damage, still. I'd happily double the recast timer on it to do an additional 30% damage for a nice BIG single-target burst ability, but that's just me.

I think, ultimately, those who played and enjoyed FFXI will be perhaps be tempted by FFXIV, especially with this reboot and a better visual + combat experience. Those who never played FFXI (or any of the Final Fantasy series), or who played FFXI and didn't like it, will most likely pass on this. I'm guessing most of the posters here will fall under that second category.

Infiltration is fine where it is, yes, but still has some issues. The spec is, and always has been, limited by a few factors which are still noteworthy: 1) force management after a minute or two. The spec is very front-loaded, with it's high force regen out of stealth and force potency allowing for high-burst openers. Once those are used up, we slowly become force starved. One of the new burst abilities - an infiltration tactics proc on a separate window - is not maintainable after 2 or so rotations. Low slash is very costly (30 force), and spinning kick is a stealth-only attack and is effectively useless after your opening salvo. And profundity is limited by a 10 second window, which is pathetic (10 force every 10 seconds - assuming your shadow tactics procs every 10 seconds, which isn't likely given it's mere 25% chance per attack). 2) reliance on crits. As we know, Infil gets fantastic bonus damage on crits. Without crits, our dps suffers dramatically, as evidenced by our spikiness in parses. I've done 3min PvE parses with a variance of upwards of 600 dps between them, depending on whether I hit a string of non-crits vs. when the stars align and I get almost all crits. It's a huge difference, as we've all experienced when we open with potency and don't get a crit. 3) shadow strike being positional. Granted, 90% of the time in either PvP or PvE this isn't an issue. But when it is, on those few occasions, our dps plummets to near-tank levels. It's sad. Unfortunately, the OP doesn't address any of these issues, and seeks to fix what isn't broken in the first place :/ As for Balance - there are numerous threads on that already, and we all hope it will be redesigned some time soon.

In a *raid*, yes, agreed. Well, for the most part. As you pointed, for some stuff it doesn't matter. The healers may AoE heal bomb anyways, or the AoEs may simply be avoidable, but in some situations yes, that 30% reduction is very, very valuable. For me at least, it comes down to what I'm planning on doing. For soloing, or flashpoints, or even SM ops, it's not *necessary*, and other abilities may be tempting. But for NiM ops, or even HM ops, I'd be inclined to take Defensive Roll, yeah. Not sure what the Ryat planned to do in PvE, which is why I mentioned it might be an option, or other choices such as Insight.

They would. Essentially it would auto-grant +10% xp per 10 legacy levels to a max of +50% at legacy 50. But could also be purchased via credits/CC. Think of it as similar to how the social emotes are in the legacy / perk section - you automatically get them if you have the pre-req social level, but can also purchase them if so inclined. Except people might want to actually purchase these, unlike the emotes

Given the number of posts about xp boosts in here and on PTS, it's clear that the xp boost has been a huge hit. So wanting it to stay around is pretty natural. That said, a permanent *double* XP boost might be a bit much. Anyone who's tried levelling an alt right now will admit it's ridiculously easy to breeze through the levels with +100% xp. So I would instead propose the following: 1) a tiered +10% xp per 10 legacy levels, but is also an option to be added under legacy as purchaseable with credits (a *lot* of credits for all 5 tiers) or via CC. This allows for a decent xp boost for alts (+50% currently with legacy 50 cap) but also allows for future expansion with additional legacy levels. It also allows those not at legacy 50 to still feel as though they've made some progress and have been rewarded for it. 2) allow subs to start new characters at level 10. You'd essentially bypass the starting homeworld and start on the fleet, allowing you to instantly choose which subclass you want and go from there. The backpack of gear given when choosing subclasses could be expanded to provide enough level 10ish gear to fully outfit you, while at the same time providing possible upgrades for those who started at level 1. Again, this bonus could be offered as purchaseable in the legacy section for credits or CC should Bioware choose. That's my 2 credits, anyways

Tried out all 3 specs on PTS, and really enjoy Watchman (I always have), but was pleasantly surprised with Focus as well. So I'll be waffling between the 2 I'm sure. Specs are going to be similar for almost everyone. The only differences will be those last 2 to 5 points. As before, there will be debates between Defensive Roll, Insight, etc. and which is best. To each their own, really. I will say, though, that Insight is worth a lot more now with the stat rating nerfs, making talented crit / acc / surge much more valuable.

I like the look of the new cartel pack sniper rife. HUGE scope on it, but if you don't mind that, it's decent looking. If you're more into futuristic high-tech looking rifles with pretty lights, then yeah, my vote goes for the Gree sniper rifle too.

I like it, and this is coming from someone who's preferred Watchman and Combat almost exclusively for the past several patches. Focus on live feels like a one-trick pony. Build singularity stacks, leap, smash. But also, it feels incredibly boring when smash is on cooldown. Aside from Zealous Leap and Master Strike, it doesn't have much else going for it. Slash is ok damage, but it generally doesn't have the focus for that. In 2.0, however, focus isn't much of an issue. Twin saber throw is a new focus builder (2 focus) and can be used in melee range. And is AoE (sort of - hits anything in it's path), which synergizes well with the skill tree. It also gets free Blade Storm which is nice free damage (much like Master Strike). Lastly, while you can no longer build Singularity stack from Force Stasis, nor is your smash damage +30% (down to +15%, but *all* abilities get that bonus), I found I could still build stacks easily enough, and when smash was on CD I was too busy using Zealous, Master Strike, Blade Storm, Slash, and Dispatch anyways. PS - highest crits on PTS with any spec has been in Focus due to the +15% crit bonus, as well as the +9% dmg bonus after a smash, leading to 9.5+k Dispatches with Inspiration running.

Good post, and definitely worth looking into. Would be nice to see a dev response here... Focus is all-too often thought of only as a PvP spec, when in truth it has some good applications for PvE. And with the changes in 2.0, it's looking even nicer (+15% surge; +9% dmg after a Sweep; +15% crit chance for Dispatch and Slash; Slash now doing additional energy damage; Guarded being even better; and Twin Saber Throw becoming a focus-builder in Focus). Zealous is, and has always been, a bit buggy. Would love to see the animation and landing revamped.

IMO, swap Nerve Wracking with Shadow Wrap. Nerve was always a Kinetic skill, and goes well with their constant use of Spinning Kick; while Shadow Strike has always been associated with Infil, and being able to use this skill from the front would be a nice bonus since positioning isn't always optimal in either PvE or PvP. Granted, the 50% less force on Wrap proc would be unneeded, since Infil is already golden there for force use on Shadow Strike, so perhaps a further boost could be put in there. That said, as others have mentioned, the 2.0 spec is still quite a ways behind other specs. It either needs a further boost, or if the crit rating DR is lessened, the spec may actually bounce back and become quite deadly (especially with the more prevalent Shadow Strikes).

Out of curiosity, where do the Vendetta parts drop from? Particularly looking for the chest + legs pieces.

Worst? No. It was, possibly, a few patches ago, before it got a bit of a boost. Could it use a further boost? Yep. Absolutely. So could a few other class skill trees (as noted above). The fact that Balance so easily out-dps's Infil by 100 or more dps on average, as well as the fact Balance has AoE, range, and self-heals, seems very skewed. The irony is that this thread exists as a PvP whine where Infil doesn't do too badly. It's PvE where it's shortcomings tend to be more obvious.

Reduce the force cost of Voltaic / Clairvoyant by 1/3rd (allowing for better force management for PvE purposes; irrelevant for PvP); Throw in an Accuracy ability somewhere in the tree - 3 points, 1% per point (solves stat management - mostly); or simply add it to another ability (i.e. Recirculation / Security Breach). Change Surging Charge/Shadow Technique bonus from 3% AP per point to 10% - maxing out at 30% AP (ups dps a bit, which it should - currently Madness/Balance outparses Deception/Infil by 100dps or more on any prolonged fight- *and* they can self-heal. Very skewed). Class fixed imo.

Yep, exactly. I've played all 3 specs in both PvP and PvE, and can assure you that the survivability would rank something like Watchman >> Combat and Focus. In PvP, as mentioned, Combat is a bit better off since you tend to pick 1 vs 1 fights instead of 1 vs 6 But then, if you have a couple of Focus Sents doing AoE bombs, and you work together as a team, your healers should generally know to throw AoE heals at you to keep you both up. /shrug. Watchman functions better as the "lone wolf" style of play in both PvE and PvP due to its ability to self-heal. In PvE especially, I find I can solo things as Watchman with Doc with ease that would require every CD I had as Focus or Combat. And in PvP, there is a certain satisfaction in taking on 2 Imps at once, killing one, and then dying to the other only to respawn and see your 2nd target die from your DoTs That said, I personally prefer Combat (having not touched it until 50, and having levelled as alternating between Watchman and Focus). The burst dps is fantastic for both PvP and for flashpoints and OPs. But to each their own, really. You can achieve silly dps as any spec if you play properly.

Use the group finder, as well as doing the weekly black hole, rakghoul, etc. stuff for black hole comms. That'll outfit you in lvl 61 gear, which is the pve equivalent of war hero stuff. For further info, google Dulfy's SWTOR site - plenty there for gearing post 1.3.