I think there are not many Scrappers that are doing this, but I use cover in melee range often, for short periods. The only out of stealth move you can't use in cover is Back Blast. I am certainly not advocating just sitting in cover for huge periods of time and trying to melee. But it does have its advantages. I have all my melee moves on the same buttons for my main action bar and my cover bar, with Charged Burst in the cover bar slot in place of Back Blast. So, dropping into cover for a couple attacks is an easy thing. Say for example, you find yourself dpsing a target down and you see that a leaper/puller is coming back from spawn, or has just killed his current target, or is likely to want to assist the guy you are trying to kill. Whatever the case may be, you happen to be the nearest enemy (tab target ftw), but you really need to finish off or put as much hurt as possible on your target. Dropping into cover to get in 2-3 more hits before he can get to you is an obviously good thing. If my target is going to stand still and yes that happens all the time, then I am going to take advantage of that. I'm just a regular WZ guy with the occasional solo ranked match, but I am going to go out on a limb and assume the majority of Scrapper players are just like me. It's not like we are viable at high end PvP anyway, so we face the regs on a daily basis.

From my experience in the Harbinger server, it depends on the time of day and what day of the week it is. I have noticed that I win more games as Republic in the mornings for most of the week, except on Tuesdays. I think that has to do with the weekly reset. YMMV. People not dying either have healers or are good at losing/running at the right time. For example in AH, I have noticed that lowbies on the Republic side always seem to send 3-6 players to the pylon at the start of the game. Obviously, if you and one other player charge into mid to face 6-7 of them you are screwed. As far as abilities that hit for 20% health, my level 19 shadow has Shadow Strike crits over 6K numerous times per WZ. Since most lowbies are running ~25-28K, you should be more than capable of hitting for 20-25% health in one hit. A basic tip for a lowbie Shadow is that you have to really choose not just your target, but your timing. In an even matchup of say 6v6 at mid, watch from stealth for a second and see who your team is attacking. Then go attack that same person and then after that go attack the next enemy with the lowest health. Don't try to get yourself into 1V1unitl you get into the late 30s/early 40s where those fights will be much easier. It's a numbers game and focus fire will give your team the advantage. Also, the higher level you get the better it gets, so if you are frustrated right now consider taking a short pvp break and clearing the quests on a planet to gain a few levels and then give it another try.

Yes, WB increasing the next 10 poison attacks by 30%. Cull is a white attack that can add up to two additional internal attacks per poison you have on your enemy. Those internal attacks count as poison.

Hey Elyx, nice post by you, as well. We need all the well spoken Scrappers we can get. It isn't an inclusive list of all movement abiliities. It's a list of specific moves that alters your position to your target, alters your target's position to your position, or blocks such moves from happening. Which is why, for example, Force Leap, Harpoon and Hold the Line are there. That's why it doesn't contain skills like Force Speed, Predation, or Scamper. His post is centered on the PvP aspect, not PvE. I agree with you that the tone of his post is painted quite direly, but as someone who has been playing a Scrapper since launch and maining it for the majority of that time I would have to agree that our situation is quite dire indeed. A rant that is not aimed at you follows. Don't want to double post. We are recognizably (as per the swtor forums and in game communities) the worst PvP dps spec (perhaps tied for worst with Balance Shadows, depending on who you ask) in the game and have been like that for a while. In what feels like a last ditch effort to me anyway, we basically begged and pleaded for buffs in our Top 3 Questions and what will we receive in the hyped up "balance patch"? A tiny buff to QS which is an energy dump. Personally, I have never have extra energy to dump in PvP. It will actually help healing scoundrels more as they do have the extra energy to actually benefit from this buff (when they are already capable of dishing out some decent hurt when called for) and the removal of our strongest defensive tool from the entire AC in BW's attempt to reduce healing Scoundrel's "slipperiness". Call it collateral damage or however else folks want to explain it, it hurts the DPS specs who were already hurting. We are on the bottom of a lake and getting pushed deeper in the mud and that feels undeservedly unfair.

It is a nerf to the entire AC, not just Sawbones. Many of us, Scrappers and Dirty Fighters alike, use cover to combat the swarm of leapers and pullers. Two posters who are much better than myself at describing this tactic can be found here: From a Lethality Operative (DF Scoundrel) POV. From a Scrapper/Concealment POV.

^ Excellent post! Thank you for taking the time for that.

Really? You need a combat log to see 7K Sabo and 3K Thermal crits? Beginnning to think you really don't have a scoundrel... As I explained in the other thread, after opening with FR/SF + (BW, SP or VS) + Tendon Blast, you then roll out for range and drop cover.

Have you yet to realize you are the only person on these forums that belives this? Sabotage charge and Thermal Grenade would like a word with you, I can pull ~10K from range using them that I created with roll and cover after my opener, while Fletchette Round and Vital shot tick on the guy who now has to walk to me (while slowed) with the fight in *my* control. You should get on the DF scoundrel you claim to have and give it a whirl. Then come back here after and complain like the rest of us that you are losing a useful defensive tool.

As a Scrapper I feel like I began as a healthy powerful young man capable of dealing alarmingly accurate blows to the vital organs and tendons of my enemies. A cacophonous whirlwind of death slipping in and out of stealth, powerful shotgun blasts delivering pain and fear in copious amounts to all of the red around me. But in just two short years I have been withered into old age prematurely by a merciless disease of the body (nerfs), which has decreased my vision and removed the use of all my limbs except my off hand, which can now barely grasp the handle of my beloved scattergun. Gone is the fear in the eyes of my enemies as my once deadly shots now graze harmlessly off the sides of even the thinnest of cloth armor. It is replaced by laughter and mockery as I am forced to roll away in my wheelchair, my proverbial tail between my legs after tickling them fruitlessly, silently cursing the ammo salesman for giving me shuttlecocks instead of buck shot, while repeatedly jamming my finger on the button of my stealth belt, cursing the device for its intermittent outages. Death will take me soon and I will likely not even be coherent enough to realize it...

Hence why I said we were already useless. Yeah, it blows man I'm very disgruntled to say the least. They are kicking a dead dog.

From your many previous posts I think you are "choosing" not to see it, but I'll feed you some more. It's not completely screwing over scrappers and dirty fighters, they have already been screwed into uselessness in PvP with the addition of arenas. What it is doing is removing yet another tiny layer from the wafer thin defenses of the already bar none, weakest defensive specs in the game. Just because you don't see any of us using cover doesn't mean it is not being used. There are so few dps scoundrels out there now anyway I can see how you would fail to notice if one was even around to use cover. Besides the obvious node capping, when we do use cover we don't just sit in it and spam abilities like you seem to be implying. For the most part, it is a brief tactical move to avoid a leap/pull while also tossing out Sabotage Charge/Off Heals and yes even the rare Charged Burst. Dirty Fighting uses cover a little more often to set up their initial dots on a leap/pull player that is forced to walk to them to engage before the inevitable 4-10m range for Blaster Whip/Wounding Shots. From my experience (me, not you), using cover proactively and defensively has been an integral part of my Scrapper gameplay and is a major factor in most fights against leap/pull ACs. You can call me a noob and troll me now, it's your prerogative.

Ticks, not crits.

Scrapper. Please enlighten me.

Oh good, glad it's working. RNG is a sneaky bastard. I'm still running it and getting more used to it. I haven't been too fond of Rolling Punches so it's nice to have something new to try. Usually having a ~46-52ms ping helps with not missing the alacrity too, I'm sure.

Did a little more testing to make sure I was straight on my end. With no talent points allocated I can proc the power and crit buffs with Underworld Medicine and Kolto Pack while healing myself. With 22 points specced just to get Surprise Comeback I can also proc both buffs off the heal ticks. Even removed all gear, except for Obroan relics and MH (Pugnacity requires a weapon lol) and still procced the buffs.

Very odd. I can proc the relics standing right here at the pvp vendor. I have 2/3 points in Healing Hand which might effect that? I prefer Exploratory Surgery vs. Dirty Escape so I grab the extra healing vs. Black Market Mods.

The heal ticks most defintely proc the power and crit buffs. I have been running it in pvp all last night and this morning. You can test it just standing around in fleet. Whether that is intended or not, I don't know. Maybe it considers us to be allies with ourselves? heh. Thanks for doing the math. I see you run way less crit than I do. The proc only gives me about 5% crit. What is the jump with your stats? Also, I dropped Rolling Punches to grab Surprise Comeback, but you mention dropping Dirty Escape. Is RP that good? I haven't noticed a decrease in energy regen without it.

Thanks Ilmarinen, I threw up the statistics "bat signal" to call you in here and it worked! I was going to run double serendips until I found out we have to trade in our conqs for every new obroan item so that shot my plan down. Didn't feel like buying another conq one when I am trying to gear up. Running obroan serendip and the conq crit reliq and it's going ok. Probably grab the obroan crit relic next. I dropped points from Rolling Punches to mess around with your idea for Surprise Comback to fish out early procs for SF. It's nice but I don't know if I'll stick with it as the 2 min Pugnacity cd is so long.

I'm also wondering about this. Trying out serendip and crit relics atm and seems ok, but wondering if the primary stat relic might be better in the long run since they can proc together. Currently my crit jumps from 26.76% to 31.78% during a proc on fleet with conq crit relic. Apparently the conq and obroan serendips are currently proccing together. That was fixed back when it was happening with partisan and conq so I would assume a fix will come at some point for it again. I guess I will buy my serendip upgrade next and use double serendips until they're fixed. Hopefully someone who is good at math and statistics will shed some light here.

What relic combo are Scrapper/Concealment going with?

Same for me. I received no higher than 81 comms in around 10 or so WZ wins and I got 140 comms in each of my two arena wins.

Poor Assassin. I giggled for a moment and then remembered I play a Scrapper. Then I cried. But seriously any solo dps in that situation is screwed. I enjoyed the vid. Brief and humorous. Like sex, am I right?

Yup, Shadows are in the same boat as us. I'll have to agree to disagree with you on who controls better, as my own play experience shows differntly, but you are right about the lone wolf. Good post!

5.5 seconds hardly qualifies as stunlocked. There is usually a moment to get a skill off in between the 1.5 knockdown and the 4 second stun anyway. Not to mention that node guarding is irrelevant to the discussion. We are talking about viability in 4v4s. That 6.4K hit isn't going to do diddly with guard and heals and we'll get squashed as soon as we try it.

Check your skill lists again because BW gave Deception more CC and control, as well. We edge them out in sustained but that doesn't matter because they bursted their target to death and our minimal sustained dps edge isn't enough to finish our target. The only pros a Scrapper has over Deception are the gimmicks of node stealing in CW/AH and lolrolling for objectives. Neither of which have any bearing on Arenas, which is what we are worried about.