Thank you for the replies. Sounds like the Marauder might not be the best choice for a new player. I've put him on the back burner and started an assassin, to go along with my agent. I'll come back to him once I have a bit more experience with the game.

Hello, I just got the game, and have been playing two classes to see which one I like the best, Imperial Agent or Sith Marauder. They are within one level of each other, in their mid-20s, doing essentially the same content on Nar Shadda, but I'm having a way harder time with the Marauder than with the agent, so much so that I'm considering shelving the Marauder. Mobs that I can blow through in seconds with the agent give the Marauder a really hard time, to the point that he sometimes dies on content that the agent barely breaks a sweat on. I've got them both outfitted in orange gear with mods, and I've been using commendations to update the mods fairly frequently, they each got a new set at level 21. I've looked up guides and builds and am following a guide for each that i read on Dulfy. Its entirely possible that I just haven't figured the marauder out, but I don't recall having this hard a time with any melee class in any other game I've ever played. Its seriously like night and day between the 2 classes, and even if I don't have the perfect dps rotation down yet, I should be able to do solo content for each of them at level right? Does melee always feel this far behind ranged for doing content? Is the marauder a late bloomer? I've noticed in the build guides I've read that he get some pretty key abilities later on, at a level higher than I am now. Any obvious things about melee a newb should be aware of in this game that I don't know? Thanks for reading, any suggestions appreciated.