I know I canceled my sub over a week back (have a few more days of time purchased) and haven't even had an inkling of desire to hop back on and play. The leveling process was decent for an MMO but at max level I felt a drastic drop off of direction, content and dev attention. There were a lot of bugs and exploits and most importantly the gameplay really brought nothing new to the table. I think that was the big thing for me: Completely recycled gameplay. The classes and mechanics were ripped almost skill for skill from other MMO's meaning this felt like a rehash of a rehash as far as mechanics were concerned. All the story and the voice acting in the world aren't going to fix the fact that I felt bored and like I'd "been there, done that" while playing.

oh my friend, how misguided you are. Shadows are great at 50 pvp, Guardians are very meh.

Guardians are great in the protection realm as far as PvP goes. Taunt, AoE taunt, Guard, Guardian Leap and the ability to AoE slow groups are all really beneficial. In PvE they're functional tanks but not (imo) on par with Vanguards. As far as DPS is concerned in my opinion they're nothing to write home about. In PvP 1v1 I often get wrecked on my Guardian by Sentinels simply because they're putting out more damage and have better defensive cooldowns. I'm not super well-versed on the names of their abilities but a Sent can drop Pacify on me and follow with Rebuke and Guarded by the Force all while tearing me a new one and it's pretty much GG. Focus is the big burst spec that everyone gets a ***** over but really it's not the end all be all it's described to be. It's good, don't get me wrong, but I'd still take a DPS specced Vanguard/Powertech or a Sent/Mara any day of the week.

OP is a bad. End of story.

I agree 100% with the OP. I enjoy the class but it's inherently at a disadvantage. Overall survivability needs to be buffed, trees need to be looked over and revisited, and as stated damage needs to be boosted. Not massive boosts mind you, but definitely enough to bring us in line of what others are capable of.

I leveled as Defense and it was pretty easy. Sounds like the squishiness is a result of poor gear. Make sure to keep your lightsaber hilt as the latest and greatest and that your gear is up to date - you're very gear dependent.

I've found 1v1 as a Defense specced Guardian to be frustrating. While you have a plethora of stuns and interrupts (Leap, Stasis, Hilt Strike, Awe, and Kick) your damage is on the weak side and most attacks aren't mitigated by your shield. What this generally results in with me in world PvP is their higher DPS allowing them to focus down my healer companion (even with me Guarding and taunting) or their own self heal abilities allowing them to erase what I've done in damage. It's definitely not the powerful feeling I've gotten in games like WoW where the weak damage on tanks is often offset by the feeling of near invincibility.

I've been tanking as I grab better gear (more expertise) and yes you will be a medal farming machine. That being said, you don't have to be Defense spec to use all of those tanking abilities. I think if you want to tank in PvP do the Defense/Vigi hybrid or just roll a DPS spec and stay in Soresu stance. My biggest gripe with the tanking spec is that your damage is really weak in PvP. The stuns are nice and the lower cost of the AoE stun is useful but in my opinion the damage is lacking. I'd prefer being in a defensive spec and using the taunts/aoe taunts and guarding if necessary but actually being able to put the hurt on people. I've noticed several Vigilance or Focus Guardians getting the same amount of medals or more than me and putting out way higher damage while still keeping up with me in the protection stat just by making sure they still use their taunts as well as pumping out damage.

I too am right on the cusp of making the jump from Defense to a DPS specced build. I leveled Defense and have been grinding through the PvP ranks with it but always intended to go DPS as soon as I had the gear for it. Got my Champion's lightsaber last night and after today's dailies will have enough to get another piece of gear putting my total expertise at 380-400ish. I like how powerful Defense is for soloing (you never die) but my gear is getting good enough to make dailies pretty mindless and I spend 90% of my time in PvP. I was getting very sick of hitting people like a limp noodle so I'm swapping. I'm just at the crossroads of Vigi or Focus? I reall y like the additional defensive talents in the Vigi tree but want to make sure I start actually dropping people I target so I'll have to give both a whirl.

I'm in complete agreement. Melee classes take more damage because they're in the absolute thick of things and yet for the most part they're squishy. They also don't deal nearly enough damage to make up for the fact that they have to spend time wading in to get to their target.

Yeah, no. I don't want cross server pvp at all. I like knowing the people around me even in random bg's and knowing the people I'm fighting. Creates a sense of community. If servers are having problems with WZ queue times than merge servers to boost the population. My server's WZ's pop constantly.

This reminds me of that song "All I do is win win win no matter what..."

I'm pretty sure the entire sets are considered when they distribute the stats. For instance, I notice on the Champion gear most of the pieces have relatively low endurance but the weapon has a bunch (to make up for it when wearing the whole set).

I did the same thing and got worked on Belsavis. I had to turn around and go back and do the bonus series on Alderaan and one other planets and I returned to Belsavis with better gear and level 44 and it was easy again.

Sents/Maras are tough but since damage is literally all they provide they should be doing a metric crap ton of it. I've been tempted before to try them out (I play a Guardian) because they're the higher damage form of my class but giving up all of my class's utility just isn't appealing to me. I'd give up my AoE slow, taunt, AoE taunt, guard, Guardian leap, stuns in the Defense tree, and of course the ability to tank if I'm tired of dps (or vise versa). Sents/Maras get nice group buffs but other than that they swing sticks and that's about it. That lack of group utility isn't so appealing to me.