First it would be nice to have an official announcement of the primary goal of all these changes. I've heard people saying Bioware wants to lessen CC, prune ability bloat and make the game generally more accessible to a newer player. So I will just assume that is the main reason for now. I do not believe any of these changes accomplishes any of that. I've been playing Operative since launch and played mostly Concealment in Reg 8v8s, Solo Ranked and Ranked 4s. Here are some of my thoughts mostly based around Concealment Operative. Do the abilities available make this experience feel like you are playing an Operative? Yes, sort of. It FEELS like I'm playing Operative with less abilities to me since I already KNOW how to play Operative. The problem I have with the new window and ability tree is its general readability. Currently in the live game, the "Combat Proficiencies" window shows a very CLEAR and concise path of abilities, passives and utility points you earn as you level. Generally you earn one of these every 2ish levels. For a newer player with no idea how the class is played this window provides an easy way to read how your class plays out as you progress down the tree. The new "Combat Styles" window is worse. Here you only gain a new ability or passive every 5 levels for most tiers which is fine but excludes some of the passives shown in the old window. Do we still have Scouting, Meticulously Kept Blades, Enhanced Chemicals, Revealing Strikes? Granted these are all just stat boosts but if they ARE still active they need to be shown somewhere. One passive that is missing that is far more important to the rotation of the class is Collateral Strike. We still do have it and there's abilities mentioning how it works with other passives but there's no description anywhere on how Collateral Strike even works or when its earned. All abilities being shown now on the "Abilities List" is an actual improvement since you don't have to go through both Operative and Concealment tabs to find all your abilities and possibly miss one. **Missing Abilities** Overload Shot: I'm not too sad about missing this one since I always viewed it as a filler used by inexperienced players that didn't understand it wasn't core to the playstyle. Although it did fill a purpose for being one of your only Ranged White damage attacks that can hit through a defensive like Assassin Force Cloak. I also hear it was one of the only fillers a Medicine Operative could use when not having to heal but since I don't have much experience on Medicine I cant really comment on that. Counter Measures: Bad change. Pretty much our only replacement for our old pre 3.0 ability Sneak that can grant us a movement speed boost and a root purge. I understand those functions are being added to Evasion but having one ability be the "omni ability" that does everything is not a good gameplay. This also goes for PvE since it was our main threat drop. Return this ability Baseline. Sever Tendon: Our only ranged slow. Not too worried about missing this one as long as we can get another ranged slow option. Tactical Superiority: Another I'm not worried about missing since it would eat one of our TAs but I did like the group oriented mindset this ability brought. Evasion Purge: I haven't been able to test this but the tooltip for Evasion no longer states it purges debuffs like DoTs. If true bad change again. Being able to purge DoTs is a CORE gameplay feature of an Operative especially in PvP and must be returned. Cloaking Screen Purge Util: Again similar to the Evasion purge change there's no option to receive this again. Should be baked passively into Cloaking Screen. Again another CORE aspect of Operative gameplay. Holotraverse, Debilitate, Flashbang and Tactical Overdrive: Debilitate and Flashbang should be BASELINE. Absolute CORE to Operative since the very first day. Arguments can be made for Holotraverse and Tactical Overdrive. I will elaborate below. **Concealment Ability Tree** Level 1 - Waylay - Somehow one of the only passives from the old window that made it into the new one. If this one exists the other passives mentioned at the start should also be listed somewhere. Level 10 - Laceration - Simple enough. Our main filler. - Crit Simulants - New interesting addition to Stim Boost Level 15 - D Stance, Roll Knife, Relentless Blades - Seems like a fun new choice although Roll Knife will most likely be an auto lock on this tier Level 20 - Debilitate - Must be baseline otherwise this is a dead talent row. Inexperienced players that already don't use Debilitate will now have another reason to never use it since they technically don't even have to pick it. - Nox Knives - Terrible ability with an equally terrible choice here. - Quick Counter - Old Countermeasures with old Utilities but tied with Evasion. Bad gameplay design again. Separate these mechanics back to Countermeasures. - Tactical Op (Passive) - First time mention of Collateral Strike ever. No previous mention of how Collateral Strike even works. Level 25 - Crip Slice - Business as usual Level 30 - Crip Throw - Replacement for Sever Tendon. Interesting new ability but will probably never be chosen. - Best Defense and Crip Wounds - Another choice that seems interesting on the surface but Crip Wounds will be the auto lock in on this tier Culling (Passive) - Business as usual Level 35 - Tactical Crit - Probably one of the more interesting gameplay choices here - Tactical Overdrive - In its ORIGINAL unnerfed version with the Backstab reset makes this a very interesting choice to consider over Tactical Crit. - Advanced Stealth - Interesting wording here. Don't fully understand how it works but I admire the originality - Talent Row Note - Tactical Crit and Tactical Overdrive make this the first interesting tier that has you make a meaningful choice between an obvious tier theme of resetting offensive cooldowns. Advanced Stealth seems interesting as a defensive choice but doesn't fit the same theme as the other two choices. Perhaps move Advance Stealth to another tier with other defensive options and replace it with a new passive similar in concept to Tactical Crit and Tactical Overdrive. Level 40 - Vol Sub & Acid Blade (Passive) - Business as usual Level 50 - Infil, Advanced Cloaking, Chem Inlay - Pretty mundane choices here where Chem Inlay will probably be chosen in most higher endgame content. Not being able to pick both Infil and Adv Cloaking to be a total stealth style build will take away from some people that enjoy that style of gameplay though. - Prey on the Weak (Passive) - Business as usual Level 60 - Evasive Imperative, Escape Plan and Endorphin Rush - Another absolute mundane tier row with Evasive Imperative being the only proper choice for PvP. Endorphin Rush promotes bad energy management and less defensive options. If it MUST stay just bake it into Adrenaline probe baseline. Escape Plan is alright I guess but again just a very boring talent. - Shadow Operative Elite (Passive) - Core to Concealment playstyle. Would only like to see this sooner in the progression. Besides that business as usual. Level 70 Very odd tier row. Flashbang must be baseline again. Referring back to my Debilitate section, having Flashbang as a CHOICE promotes bad gameplay choices. An inexperienced Operative does not realize the importance of Flashbang and even has a choice to NEVER use it now. Bad gameplay design here. - Holotraverse - I'd be alright with this being a talent choice IF it was up against 2 other gap closing/movement based choices. Having it compete with one of the most powerful CCs in the game makes no sense. Needs to be baseline or given a new tier to compete in. - Infiltrate - A very unique and fun ability to Operative. Will never be chosen against Flashbang ever besides maybe some trash skips in PvE. And if you can freely choose between any of these talents at anytime then having it as a talent makes no sense since it can be picked JUST for the trash skips then swapped back. I don't know about this one. Probably just make it baseline again. Revealing Weakness (Passive) - Business as usual Level 80 This has to be by FAR the most boring and uninspired talent row. Blow for Blow is the only interesting and useful talent on this tier. Nobody is excited to get to level 80 so they can get a 5% heal on their probe or be able to knock down weak NPCs its almost laughable. Remove Jarring Strike (Or make at least the NPC knock down baseline) and remove Med Shield and add NEW inspired passives that would make you want to level an Operative. - Calculated Frenzy (Passive) - Business as usual Final thoughts: I just don't really understand the purpose all these UI changes just to remove abilities we already had or give us some new passives that could be fun. Gameplay wise you can probably make all these changes with the existing "Combat Proficiencies" window with just some slight changes to the Utilities side. This is all excluding the fact the new window looks very amateurish compared to the old window. And yes I know I see the giant PINK WIP at the top. After reading the changes to other classes I feel Operative is probably the best off. With a few changes and abilities re-added to baseline I think we'll be fine. As it stands right now, a lot of these talent rows seem to be filled out with random abilities just for the sake of filling out a talent tree These changes are very reminiscent to the post Cataclysm talent changes in World of Warcraft where every 15 or so levels you choose 1 of 3 talents for your class. The only difference is that the WoW talent system usually keeps a theme per talent row. For example having a talent row for, AOE, Defense and Movement. Usually the final talent row is full of exciting abilities that makes you want to try them. Like Rogue having an ability that makes you dash around enemies attacking them from the shadows but an Operative gets a 5% heal.

Bumping

I made a post about this over in the pvp forums and got not a single response. Currently, the Swashbucklers Saberstaff has a visual bug where only the front blade will become charged with lightning. Apparently this would also happen to the Satele Shan Dualsaber but has been fixed for the upcoming patch next week. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=794164 (Satele Shan Dualsaber Bug) The bug happens on all charges for assassins, overcharge and during idle combat. http://imgur.com/i02FZz7 (Surging Charge) http://imgur.com/tMbGCyx (Lightning Charge) http://imgur.com/bfuKwyN (Dark Charge) http://imgur.com/CL5LoYN (Overcharge Saber) I've already submitted a bug report in game but I am hoping this will get a quicker response. The Swashbucklers weapon set is the first ranked weapon set I ever got and I feel pretty bummed that these feel rushed

I made a bug ticket about this already but I am going to post this here to perhaps raise more awareness about it. At the moment the new Swashbucklers Saberstaff from S4 has a visual bug where only one blade becomes charged with your assassin stance. It happens on all stances and also with Overcharge Saber. For shadows I do not know since i do not have one. Hopefully we can get a fix for this soon? Screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/cNtnG

I've had the same issue of dying to the pylon even tho im clearly standing inside the room. At first i didnt think much of it but i've realized its happening a lot to me. Im starting to take screen shots of where i die every time it happens from now on to see if i can maybe figure out if its a certain place im standing that is somehow bugged. http://imgur.com/45GbmHg Heres one i hav so far

30k HP is about right when youre in full conq gear with full augments. Generally you're going to want to get all the conq gear which will get you around 26k hp if im not mistaken, then once you buy augments for the armor ( 32 Primary Stat, 20 Endurance) x 14 You should be sitting at around 30k. As for the orange armor, its pretty much just a shell in which people put the mods/armoring from the pvp gear into, just so they can have a unique look. Essentially they are wearing pvp gear but with a different look. You can do the same but remember to keep the empty conq peices so you can trade them in later for the Obroan armor.

Not exaggerating when im paying real money for something i was promised then it wasnt delivered.

Hardly lightspeed when they announced ranked warzones at their guild summit which i may remind you was a month ago. Not like they started developing it last week.

Its amazing how many Bioware emplyees arent expert programmers, project managers and staticians. Other wise Ranked Warzones would be here with 1.2.

Dayum! http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sy_Snootles

No thanks.. not until deception is a more viable option to dps with.

You keep whatever armor you hav. Doesnt update unless the change the stats on cent,champ or BM gear. Then the stats will change.

Another post like this? SWG Spy 5p Ghost set + Decoy Be glad you didnt play that game or you probably be in tears about that class.

Wait wut?

If the stealther can keep you from capping a node or from planting the bomb on the door by attacking 4 of you then stealthing again i would count that has helping your team out. The tone you wrote this makes its seem like your a little butt hurt about losing a WZ. Please continue.