You're definitely on the right track with your current build. That's the basic 31/3/3 +4 skeleton that you need to be using. There's some validity to taking Defensive Forms and Defensive Roll for hard progression where your heals are not overgeared and you don't know the fights all that well, but after the first few pulls, there's no reason you should need to lean on those talents as a crutch freeing you to use Ravager and Brutality. As far as Ravager vs. Malice, it's not really a debate at this point. Bleeds are 40% of your damage, are Force attacks and thus benefit from it. Unless your Surge is woefully low Malice is better point for point.

I switched from Annihilation to Carnage for HM TFB this past week and won;t be going back any time soon. The numbers are comparable on the dummy, but in a real world setting Carnage pulls ahead for me. 1. The Annihilator buff - It takes about 40 secs to fully stack and for you to reach max DPS. If you are off-target at the wrong time for any reason (boss jumps, Data Core dies, kiting radioactive puke, avoiding larvae) you lose the buff and need to wait another 40-ish secs to ramp back up. 2. Charge - This is a part of your regular rotation as Annihilation. There are quite a few fights where the boss repositions quickly and you lose out on DPS by holding this back to use as a gap closer. EDIT: Also, it's easier to balance your stats for Carnage while gearing up to some degree. As Anni, you want 0 Crit, which means a lot of buying extra pieces and mod swapping. As Carnage you're aiming for 200~300-ish Crit which gives you a bit more leeway to use your drops "out of the box". The downside is that you only need ~100 Accuracy assuming 7% from talents, Ataru Form, and companion affection, where Anni wants to reach ~300 Surge and stack accuracy after that.

If you don't mind spending the creds for it, the Marauder's Exalted Legacy set sounds like what you're looking for. It's black. The top has a cape and no hood. The legs are robe-style. Other than that, I can't really think of anything modable though. Most of the gear is red. There's the navy blue top from Black Talon (Imp version of Esseles), and 1 or 2 white sets. Inquisitors have quite a few more options, and most of them are pretty cheap. As far as the story goes, I liked the Warrior's much better than the Inquisitor's overall. Chapter 1 is a lot of fun for both classes, but SW still gets the nod IMO. Chapter 2 for the SW is just epic; it's my 2nd favorite behind only IA Chapter 2. Chapter 3 is OK, but it fills in a lot of holes from the JK story, and that's what mostly kept my interest when playing it. Chapters 2 and 3 for SI were pretty lackluster, though it sets up for what could potentially be very very good Chapter 4 if/when they get around to releasing that. The thing the SI really has going for it though is the voice acting on a dark-sided female. I don't know who they cast for the role, but her delivery is just phenomenal. IMO, the class is worth playing through for that alone. It's that good.

As others have pointed out, this thread is chalk full of misinformation, especially about the way itemization works is this game. A good way to understand it is to break it down into 4 categories: Main Stat, Endurance, and what I'll call "Column A" and "Column B". Column A contains Power, Crit, Defense, and Absorption. Column B is Accuracy, Alacrity, Surge, and Shield. Ears and Implants all have Endurance, Main Stat, 1 of A and 1 of B. (This does not hold true for level 1-49s that are RE'ed from green biochem patterns, but they're irrelevant to this discussion) Armorings have only Endurance and Main Stat. Mods have Endurance, Main Stat, and 1 of A. Enhancements have Endurance, 1 of A and 1 of B. This is why it's possible to have odd combos like Defense/Surge, but nowhere will you find Power/Crit or Alacrity/Surge. As a Sawbones, you aren't interested in Accuracy or Shield, so any discussion about "How much alacrity...?" is really a question of Alacrity vs. Surge. Someone else already posted the DR curve on Surge. If you haven't looked at it, the first 200 points scale extremely well. Somewhere around 250, it drops off hard. Anything past 300 rating and you're getting minimal return for the invested stat points. What I'm trying to say with all this is that once you reach 250-300 Surge rating, It's better to stack Alacrity because adding extra Surge does so very little for you and there's nothing else to do with those stat points.

I'm currently on my 2nd Sorc and have been playing an AoE-centric spec designed for flat-out speed. it's been working extremely well and is, in my experience, the best leveling spec you can get. It's not viable for anything at level 50 outside of dailies though. I'll show you what I'm using and try to get the terminology correct for a Sage. Since you want to drop your first 5 into Inner Strength and Mental Longevity no matter what, you'll be best served by going straight up Telekinetics at least until level 30. 10-12: Inner Strength 13-14: Mental Longevity 15-16: Telekinetic Defense (Greatly reduces down time between pulls; this is a must-have for solo questing) 17-18: Concentration 19: Clamoring Force 20: Telekinetic Wave (This is a big one and the first major power spike you'll see) 21-22: Finish Clamoring Force 23-24: Disturb Mind (Not the greatest, but helps w/ elites and there's really nothing better to take at this point) 25: Tidal Force 26-27: Telekinetic Effusion 28-29: Kinetic Collapse (More filler, but this does help reduce incoming damage should your bubble break) 30: Telekinetic Momentum Here's where it gets fun. At level 31, you can and should talent into both Telekinetic Wave and Force in Balance. These 2 spells coupled with Qyzen's AoE will nearly take out a pack of normal mobs. The speed with which you can now get through your class and normal planet missions is unrivaled by any other spec of any other class. The only downside is that you will not have any Force regen talents for the next couple levels, so you may have issues in drawn-out fights. Go visit the skill mentor and respec as follows: Telekinetics 3/3 Inner Strength 2/2 Mental Longevity 3/3 Clamoring Force 2/2 Telekinetic Defense 1/1 Telekinetic Wave Balance 3/3 Empowered Throw 1/2 Jedi Resistance 2/2 Will of the Jedi 2/2 Focused Insight 2/2 Critical Kinesis 1/1 Force in Balance Continue in the Balance tree as follows: 32: Telekinetic Balance 33-35: Psychic Barrier This is your core build. One combo of TW > FiB > Forcequake will generally kill off a pack of nomals and any stragglers/strongs are easily cleaned up with Telekinetic Throw. From here there's 2 ways you can go with your spec. The first is to grab the bonuses to Crit, Presence, and AoE damage from the Seer tree. I'd really only recommend this if you have high presence from a level 50 Human and maxed companion affection on other toons. The other option is to just continue up the Balance tree; the key talents being Presence of Mind and Force Suppression. Honestly though, it wouldn't really matter if you stopped spending talent points altogether.

Haha, thanks. Also, got the marauder to full BH/Campaign gear level. and fully optimized aside from relics and the orange belt/bracers, which I can do rather quickly if needed.

My current raid group is disbanding shortly due to players leaving for other games and the dreaded real life. I, however, have been playing since the first day of early access and have no intentions of quitting. I work 2nd shift and am looking for a progression-minded guild that raids either before or after work. I have 2 toons that are fully geared for HM TFB and another that that I'm currently working on and can have ready by next week. Availability (Central): Mon-Fri 9:30am - 1:30pm (before work) or 1:45am - 5am (after work) Pernici - Sorc healer and current main toon -Fully Campaign/BH optimized and augmented gear -4/5 HM 5/5 SM TFB, 4/4 HM EC, 10/10 NiM EV/KP cleared Henki - MM Sniper, main throughout EC progression -Fully Campaign/BH optimized and augmented gear -4/4 HM EC cleared Ataxia - Annihilation Marauder -Fully Campaign/BH optimized and fully augmented gear -4/5 HM TFB, 4/4 HM EC cleared

Dread Guard is fairly poorly itemized across all sets from what I've seen. I know on my healing Sorc main I'm going to need something stupid like 5 chests, 2 MHs, and 9 belts to fully min/max. Everyone in my ops group was complaining about a similar situation as well. I guess they want us to be farming HM TFB and NiM EC for months to come

Actually, my point was that while people do react differently at low to intermediate skill levels, those at the highest levels of PvP rarely react differently. They know your TtK, your CC capabilities, and the most dangerous things you can do. They play accordingly, knowing what to interrupt, what you're going to fake cast, when to trinket out of a CC chain, etc.

To a point you're correct, but only in low level setting or an immature metagame. As ranked WZs come out and people can fully arrange a group comp, you will see 1 or more dominant strategies emerge. Then you'll see ways to counter these strategies. Once the more hardcore groups figure this stuff out and it gets publicized, the more casual crowd will adopt them. Eventually, PvP becomes the same "assembly line" procedure that you deride PvE for being. This is true on a more microscopic level as well. Say you're a tank Shadow and you're almost always being killed by that Annihilation Marauder. What do you do? Go the the forums and look up what you have to do to kill him. It may take a few attempts, but eventually you'll get the hang of it and come out ahead more often than not... which sounds an awful lot like progression raiding to me.

Since most people here kinda ignored what you asked to focus on end game aspects, I'll try to answer you as best I can as someone who has a 50 of both ACs. Juggernaut: Very easy to level, but a bit on the slow side. You get high passive damage reduction, a couple CDs, and decent outgoing damage. You also have a pretty simple, well flowing rotation once you into it. The worst part is 10-22ish. Without Shein Form and 3 rage from each sunder, you'll be rage starved and hitting your basic attack quite often. This part sucks, but it gets better. At 37, I opted to change specs to Immortal, which is when rage gen becomes smooth for them. Unless I did something stupid I was never in danger of dieing even using Jaesa. In terms of overall fun though, I'd have to say it was my least favorite out of the 5 I've leveled (Jugg, Marauder, Sorc, Assassin, Sniper). Marauder: Harder to play than a Jugg, but extremely powerful for solo play and fast. I used Annihilation all the way, so I'll go over that instead of Carnage. You get a 6 sec interrupt, 12 sec charge that can be used in melee range, the best defensive CDs in the game, self healing from bleeds, and very high damage output. It doesn't really have an awful point like the Jugg, but you are pretty squishy early on. Instead of a flowing rotation, you have a chaotic priority system, and you have to watch your health much more closely. Overall though, this was one of my top 2 ACs in terms of fun, the other being the Assassin.

It doesn't matter which way you go; neither one is terribly well written.

Annihilation is a beast for leveling if you know what you're doing with the spec. Of everything I've leveled (Sorc, Jugg, Sniper and Marauder), it's by far the most powerful if a bit tricky to get used to. The key reasons are the self healing from bleed crits, 0 min range and lowered CD on charge, 6 sec CD on interrupt, and high damage output. You also get the talent that builds fury faster in your tree, which means you pick it up 40 levels earlier than the other 2 specs. The extra movement speed and better burst from Carnage are nice, but I didn't feel like that outweighed the survivability and reduced downtime on Annihilation. I've also heard Rage is nice for leveling due to superior AoE against the packs upon packs of normal mobs you'll face. The downside to this is that elites and bosses are a bit harder. I can't say personally though, never tried it out as I just couldn't get myself away from Annihilation once I figured it out.

Some classes do, others do not. The Trooper and Agent can both get some pretty different endings based on choices you make during your final class mission. The Knight gets (I think) 1 of 2 endings based on LS/DS alignment. The Warrior gets one of 2 dialogue scenes at the very end based on your choice after defeating the final boss, but i wouldn't call that different endings in the sense that the JK, Trooper, and IA have. The Inquisitor is basically the same no matter what, and I can;t really say for any other class.

You're probably right about Ashara. I only got her affection to 7300-ish before ditching my Sorc for a sniper due to a bad raid comp, but I do remember a good bit of her story arc as being about your personal history.

Either I don;t remember that bit from leveling my Inquisitor (got it to 50 a few days after the start of the year) or it's part of a companion conversation I didn't do. The Agent, in a conversation on Voss, can choose why he/she joined Imperial Intelligence. Power is one reason; adventure is another. I forget the third option, boredom maybe? The Warrior, presumably, is born into a prominent Sith family and sent to Korriban for training earlier than most, but is fairly open ended otherwise The Knight has been in training since early childhood and knows no other life outside the Jedi Order. I can't really say about the other classes as those are the only ones I've gotten anywhere with.

I actually though dark side Jaesa was poorly written. Her character has no depth and is entirely too predictable. If it involves killing or violence, she likes it. If you chose to spare someone, even potential allies, she doesn't. This does make it very easy to max affection though.

Cover isn't really a big deal. You just need both Crouch and Take Cover keybound and know when to use which ability. The thing to be aware of if you have limited use of your hands is the amount of keybinds required to play one to its full potential. At its most simplistic, you can get away with 5 buttons (Rifle Shot, Snipe, Series of Shots, Followthrough, and Takedown), but you won't be getting the most out of it. Just your basic rotation requires 3 more (Orbital Strike, Explosive Probe, and Corrosive Dart). Add to that your offensive/defensive CDs, AoE, relics, cover/crouch, utility abilities, and adrenal, and you're looking at just shy of 30 buttons as a full Marksmanship Sniper. There is a hybrid Marks/Engineering spec that eliminates a few, but you're still somewhere around 23-25 with that I believe.

There is no difference, Sniper and Operative are the ACs of the agent, and share the same story. This is my favorite story of the ones I've completely finished so far (Agent, Inquisitor, Warrior). If, however, you're looking for the classic 'Star Wars story', this is not it. The agent is much more of a spy novel. You spend a lot of time undercover posing as a pirate, a resistance fighter, a defector to the Republic, a prison gang leader, and probably a few others I can't remember right now. It's a very well told story, but by the end you will probably be pretty angry with absolutely everyone.