It works outside of stealth, but it doesn't stack with sprint, so you'll only notice it in combat.

Order in terms of Favorite: 1. Scoundrel 2. Vanguard 3. Gunslinger . . . 4. Commando 4. Sage 4. Guardian 4. Sentinel 4. Shadow Don't care for the light saber classes, but I leveled them all to experience the different story lines. If the commando had a different weapon type I would bump him up, but the BFG just doesn't do it for me. Order in terms of how often I play them: 1. Scoundrel . . . 2. Vanguard 2. Gunslinger. 2. Commando 2. Sage 2. Guardian 2. Sentinel 2. Shadow Scoundrel is my only 60. The rest have been 50-55 for a long time and were leveled through pvp and class story, but now they are just slicing bots for me. I used to love my VG, but after the range nerf of 1.4 I lost interest in it.

OP is wrong about us being weak, we are as strong as ever and only over shadowed by our redonkulousness at release. But I'll agree on the removal of HS, Sab Charge and Flyby (and the loss of cover providing leap immunity!)...sure we are pretty balanced now, but we are also pretty bland. Sometimes I feel like all I do is sucker punch spam. An exaggeration, but still. Doesn't it still bother you longtimers of all the things we have lost in the search for that balance: Using HS to stop a goal at the last possible second, face planting BCs in the fire and knocking sorcs off the top ledges and stealthed sins off the goal platform in HB...ah sweet memories! Watching that spiraling trail of Sab Charge as it flew towards a fleeing enemy with a dot up as they disappear around a corner only to explode in a fiery death. Using Flyby to hold grass forever and to protect my bomb plants in VS...now I am a smuggler who can't even get support from his own ship! I can't even. I would use this still, even if it only ticked for one point of damage. The leap immunity on cover. Oh man, that was painful to lose. Some of you may not have been utilizing that sweet little gem but if you were you know what I mean. So yeah, like many folks here have said, we are quite balanced right now, but at what cost? I have watched the AC I love the most lose most of the things I loved about the AC. Hell, I really miss being able to reload my FR over and over and over.... TL;DR Just whining through rose tinted goggles

Uh, even with Death Field reduced to 10m range it will still be much better than Ruffian's dot spreader. Blaster Volley is a 10m cone of crap that fails terribly.

Right on, I'll keep an eye out for your Scoundrel then. Yeah I think Skedaddle is so mandatory for Scrapper that it should be baked into the spec. We have needed that since launch. I lean heavily on Flee the Scene as well, but I'll try opening up my mind to at least do some testing. Interesting to see such a different point layout.

This is my usual opening rotation, as well. Solid reliable burst. Well darn, maybe I should drop some surge to pick up some alacrity anyway since my surge is so high. Hey Exterminatos, I've been away for a while but it was always nice to end up in a reg with your VG. Great player You suggest that you open sometimes with Backblast>Bludgeon>Shank Shot? When do you use Blood Boiler? I use Flee the Scene and Sedatives.I love Pin Down for the 2 second root, but I love to guard nodes and Sedatives is ridiculously strong for that. I'm using Skedaddle and Surprise Comeback, but maybe I'll drop SC and grab Pin Down for a bit to test that out. I do miss it. Or Sedatives may get nerfed (just speculation) and then I'll certainly use Pin Down.

I don't have any alacrity on my gear either. That might be it, too. In fact, I bet that's it. That would give some good value to a bit of alacrity.

Now that is cool, I didn't realize that. Good info! *edit* Well after attempting that rotation I am unable to get the BlB to pop from the FR dot. I have 66ms latency so maybe that is part of it. Thanks a bunch for the detailed reply! I am going to practice these and see how I fare. *edit* the out of stealth rotation works great for me and I like the back ended burst.

Hey guys, *Note* I currently only play regs, but I will be jumping into solo ranked at some point. Obviously PvP is fluid and no rotation is going to work every time, but what is everyone using as their standard opener? Engaging from stealth and from out of stealth, and assuming the 6 piece bonus with Bludgeon buffing Blood Boiler. Does anyone ever open with Shank Shot to try to get off a few skills? The perks of opening with Backblast are pretty strong, but more and more I find I like to use Blood Boiler before Backblast. Am I doing it wrong? On a side note, I am terrible with rooting players with Shank Shot. I know it won't work on HtL, Egress and Unremitting, but there must be other skills that counter it because I fail so often when using it, heh. Can anyone add to what I am missing concerning this?

That is the longest time I've seen! I know I've experienced times where it's been at least a full minute though. You closing comments were hilarious, as well. I completely agree.

Excellent, thank you for the quick reply.

Are we still just stacking as much Power as possible, while capping Surge in the process and ignoring Crit? Or has that changed? Alacrity worth anything now? Also, are the gear set bonuses powerful enough to recommend going for set pieces first after hitting 60? In the past I would just go down the left side from ear piece to relics in the past and then grab set pieces and weapons last. Thanks

Same issue on my 55 Scoundrel. Killed everything in this area and stuck at 3/4 commanders. Sucks!

TL;DR Whine post incoming just to give fair warning. I'm checking back after a few weeks away to check the patch. Sub is up tomorrow and I don't know why, but I hoped against hope that they would change their minds. Futile, I know. The knockdown is gone and so am I. Good luck to those scrapper/concealment that can continue forging through the muck. I made my scrapper my main after BW killed (my opinion) my Assault Vanguard in 1.4. That's a different argument, but damn that class was amazing (OP as all hell) before the range nerf. They needed toning down for sure, but I wish it hadn't been at the expense of range. My scrapper was still in the 40s when 1.2 crushed us so I never fully experienced our original might (well, the abuse of stacking buffs that all players were using anyway). Still though, I fell in love with the class. The mix of KO, shotgun, stealth, control, front loaded attacks, mostly melee, but with enough ranged for my style. Such a fun class! Unfortunately, it was never quite enough to make us one of the pvp powerhouses, but even still I grew to enjoy that, too. Rarely seeing another scrapper made me feel like the proverbial special snowflake. More like the kid with a booger in his nose and noone tells him, they just laugh behind his back. Anyway, I could piss and moan for hours, but noone else cares and hardly anyone has visited this poor sub forum in months. I'll cross my fingers that they see the light one day, but I will lose those fingers to lack of blood circulation first I am sure.

FTFY You can already do this without having to do any damage at all. It's tactical use as an interrupt gives it high utility right off the bat. Not to mention the obvious utility of a 1.5 stun (longer if it's one of those players who prefers to be fully standing before they react). Nor to mention the knockdown moved the target 2m which was a nice utility in many situations, particularly in HB. And let's not forget the reason it's getting nerfed; the psychological destruction of weak players who freak out when their toon gets knocked face down in the dirt.

I leveled my Operative to 55 using Lethality with the healing companion and didn't have any problems. I find the tank companion works better for Concealment.

This patch is shaping up to be terrifying. Grats to the Merc/Mandos on some much needed love.

Well, you stated that you prefer Arena style matches in your games, so that makes sense that you wouldn't like HB. From my perspective as a DPS Scoundrel main, who prefers WZ/Battleground style matches, Huttball is a blast! Literally, this is my favorite WZ in any game I have played. I dislike arenas to the point that I occasionally bail on them, if they start popping too often, while I never quit WZs. I have never enjoyed arenas in any other game I have played so that's where my bias comes into play. Huttball is fun because when played correctly it is so much different than the other WZs. Strategy, thinking ahead, helping teammates all seems to become so much more important. And when that all comes together, it is those matches that have kept me enjoying this game enough to keep playing. Huttball is also fun because (1) when you get into a bad game it is usually over quickly and (2) the HB map is the best TDM map in the game, in my opinion. The layers and separation allow for so many different encounters.

Roll will not have an energy cost in 2.7.

It doesn't sound like an immune roll to me. It sounds like Slippery Devil (which is Scrappers only) will give an additional % defense bonus similar to Degauss for Assault Spec Vanguards. The Flashbang nerf is to the gunslinger version only as Street Tough is available to all Scoundrels at level 10. None of that matters so far because with the removal of the knockdown on KO Scrappers will be all but extinct.

With the death of operatives, Flashbang is neutralized on all fronts. /hyperbole

I've mained a stealth class in every MMO I've played for the simple fact that I get about half my daily play time done from my office and stealth lets me conveniently afk at a moment's notice when I need to take care of some work.

Agree with OP. No more gear please.

I don't think you will be getting that Debilitate off at all without the KD. Any one decent will be CCing you first.

Hey just pointing out a couple corrections. You can spin in circles while rooted. Every single class will be able to hard stun us right off the bat. This change will still let us destroy weak players, but will make us even worse against competent players, who we already had a tough fight with. It' s 2.5 seconds base and can be 3 with a set bonus that middle tree and tanks use. Plenty of time to stun, slow and 10m kite us to death. They are already a strong counter and it' s going to be worse. This next thought is not aimed at you, please don't think I am being hostile. Yes, they did over buff our damage and now we are paying for their mistake. We are losing a knockdown (which moved the target 2m, small but still had its uses) that interrupted and gave us a practically guaranteed 2nd hit, allowing us to build a head start on our target (which we do need do to crap DCDs). In it's place we get a 1.5 second root, no knockdown, no interrupt and no guaranteed 2nd hit. It's a flat out nerf and I would love someone to elaborate on how it can be viewed as a buff.