What these other guys have said. Before the 20s, when you've got a little bit of everything, it's a bit erratic. But once you hit the 20s and get a tree-defining ability (Kolto Probe, Lacerate, Corrosive Grenade) you'll settle into a good rotation for whatever specialty you've chosen. I'm 34 Conceal and almost never use Overload Shot or Carbine Burst because I've now got more than enough melee abilities within my specialty that it's just not necessary. In the near future I'll probably retire my frag grenade as well. (Note the "almost"; I've had certain fights where stealth and melee just weren't practical, and so I dropped into cover and used my rifle abilities.) The great thing about us is, it's very easy to have a minor specialization by adding a few points in the other trees. I put two ranks into the Medicine talent that speeds up the Kolto Injection activation and makes it generate TAs, so I can now act as backup healer for the group and can use the TAs to trigger Stim Boost, or more Lacerates if needed. (Or even Kolto Infusion.) This sort of flexibility is one of our best features; when the healer had to suddenly log out from my pickup flashpoint group, I was able to keep the group healed during the nasty boss fight just with lots of Kolto Injections. No one else in the group could have switched from DPS to support nearly as easily. Granted, I wasn't nearly as good of a healer as the guy who logged (also an Operative), but it was better than standing around for an hour shouting for a healer.

All four talents in Conceal 3 are absolute must-haves. There's no question. Waylay: makes all of your Backstabs absolutely free. The reduction on Acid Blade won't pay off for a long time, and 2 points won't do much, but the Backstab by itself would be enough to make this one good. Laceration: Duh. Collateral Strike: each rank basically adds ~15% to the damage on each Lacerate AND adds a stun effect against non-Elite enemies. Definitely worth taking, given how often you'll be using Lacerate. Revitalizers: You WILL use Stim Boost quite a bit. Maybe not right in the low 20s, when you're still just getting used to the damage of Lacerate, but by the time you get to the 30s and get Tactical Opportunity (to where Lacerate doesn't always cost you your TA) and start finding more ways to spend your energy, you'll use it a lot more than Adrenaline Probe. Remember, Shiv is NOT the only way to gain Tactical Advantage; you also get one TA when you defeat an enemy. So there'll be times where you have TA to spare, and Stim Boost is a great way to spend it in those long fights.

It depends on how quickly you're going to level up. You get a free respec once a week (or more specifically, the cost structure for respecs resets after a week, and the first one is free), so you might start off spreading your points around, then when you hit 20 respect to go all in one branch to get a good ability, then for the next 9 levels spread the points around, then respec again when you hit 30, and so on. Since it doesn't take too long to hit 20, a lot of people don't bother with that, but for the later ones it'll take you much longer than a week to go from 30 to 40, so feel free to respec as needed.

It's also directional. An even-level enemy will spot you if you're within a cone going ~15 feet in front of them, OR if you're within 5' in any direction. It's also time-based, so running past them while stealthed gives them fewer chances to detect you; you might hear their alert message (the "huh?" or "what was that?") and they might even draw their weapons, but going into actual combat mode will only happen if you stay near them after they've become suspicious. So adding +3 to your level, while also boosting your speed by 15%, makes a big difference in how easily you can sneak past a guard.

Those are both good, but the absolute best voice in this game is Jo Wyatt (Female Hawke from DA2), who does the female Imperial Agent. But I do like the male SW as well.

Disagree strongly with this. Conceals should be using Dart quite a bit, at least in the mid levels, because of the talent that lets your Lacerates refund TAs when used against poisoned targets. Having 15s (18 if you put six points in Lethality) of time in which a Shiv averages two Lacerates instead of one can be HUGE. Sure, you won't bother to Dart the minions, but you WILL use it on Elites and Champions, at least until you get Acid Blade. With all of the Lacerate-related talents, it gives you a 50% chance of not spending your TA. That half of the time when you get a refund, you can then use it to immediately do another Lacerate (and if you're really lucky, a third or even fourth one), or do Lacerate followed by a Stim Boost (and with our other boosts to Stim Boost, that's really useful). Sure, once you get Acid Blade it's not worth bothering with very much, but I still find uses for it, since it's pretty much the only 30m-range skill we have beyond the basic rifle attack. I've beaten a couple missions that had you facing large numbers of turrets by stepping just inside 30m, throwing a Dart at each turret in range, then backing away while they die.

Just did this fight tonight. I was 33 (Conceal Op), and had Vector along because I hadn't bothered to swap him out after Alderaan and was still giving him a test drive to see if I'd use him later on. (I probably won't, because I'm a Biochem and he has bonuses to two of the three mission skills I use. He'll be on missions a LOT.) Anyway, he was still in his original equipment, with the exception of a new 200-armor helmet, an earring, a couple implants, and I'd switched his armor out to something cooler-looking (but with the same armor rating). In other words, I didn't know this fight was coming and got caught off-guard with very substandard gear on him, although my own gear was just fine. The funniest part is that the helm and armor I picked for Vector were the exact same design Jadus used, which made the fight a bit confusing. (V's eyes were freaking me out, so I wanted that full mask to cover his face up.) I died three times. Basically, in each of the first three phases I died once before figuring out the "trick", like exactly which of his abilities to interrupt; I think I could have avoided two of the deaths if not for that stupid targeting bug others have mentioned. But other than that, it really wasn't tough, and I just burned him down with raw damage. (Seriously, I think he died faster than some of the Elites I'd fought back on Alderaan.) Being Biochem really helped; having a reusable stimpack that'd heal both Vector and I for ~2500 each, every 90 seconds, goes a LONG way. But it was mostly just DPS, interrupts, and Sever Tendon to kite him while Vector pounded on him. The extra couple levels might have made a difference, but I think if I'd known what was coming I could have beaten him two or three levels earlier. But I do have to compliment Bioware on the story for this one; the IA's story arc has been good all along, but this was the first decision where I really had to think hard about what path to take.

And there's even a trick for that: when you're offered mission rewards, sometimes it's droid armor for your ship droid (and layer SCORPIO). Kaliyo can't wear it of course, but droid gear is all fully modded (albeit with greens) and it's all Aim gear. So pick that, and voila, three or four instant green mods to slot into her armor. Of course, she still won't be THAT good of a tank. Without relic slots, stimpacks, etc. and a small number of tanking skills, she won't be able to soak up damage like a heavy-armor player would. But it might be enough.

Pretty sure this is gear-related. Kaliyo was getting squishy for me at 28-29, and I eventually realized why that was. It was a combination of a few things: > A couple slots were hand-me-downs from me, and so were particularly weak, OR were things made for Cunning users instead of Aim users. > She has no relic slots/matrix cubes, and this is generally the point where you start using those for yourself. When the level 32 matrix cube adds 39 Cunning and 23 Endurance, it's not a small difference to go without any relics at all. > She has no stimpacks or adrenals. When you can buy skill stims that boost your key stat by 30ish for an hour, or an adrenal that can add something like 850 armor for a short period (15s on a 3m cooldown), it starts to really reduce her tanking ability to not have those. (Especially for us Biochem types who have those nice reusable stims, to where I can ALWAYS have one active.) And then there are the healing stims; we can get good ones for ourself, but the ones that can heal her as well are a lot less efficient. If we could hand her healing packs to use, it'd be very different. > The mission-reward gear for her is all green. That's fine at low level, but at higher levels it really starts to suck relative to the enemies you're fighting (and you'll often be in full orange-purple mode by this point), meaning you now have to go out of your way to find her good equipment. And you have to find Aim-boosting Heavy Armors in at least blue? Not easy, and not cheap. You could buy an orange/purple for her (or gain it with commendations from a low-level planet's Heroics) and just keep upgrading it with mods, but that can get REALLY expensive. > She just doesn't get skills as fast as a player does, and so even if her Armor rating IS well above yours, she's not going to tank particularly well. She can draw aggro, because a lot of her skills are made for that, but she lacks a lot of the damage-reduction abilities since she's more of a hybrid DPSer. > On Alderaan especially, a LOT of the enemies have either an armor debuff ability that lets them rip through heavy armor over time, or poison/internal damage (just like us) that ignores armor. I think her shield helps with this somewhat, but she's still more vulnerable to those foes than someone with a dodge-based defense (like Vector). So since I expect to basically be tanking for myself when soloing, my choice is Lokin.

Speaking as a non-healer Operative who likes having a little healing utility, my suggestions are: > Allow one heal (probably Kolto Infusion, since it's the worst) to be usable more often than the others. Much faster cast time? Ignore the global cooldown? Usable while moving? Whatever it is, you could leave the base skill as-is and stick the effect in a talent (like Surgical Steadiness) to encourage Medicine use. Right now, it's not even faster than Kolto Injection once you take two points of a first-tier talent. So maybe that's the solution: when Incisive action reduces Kolto Injection by 0.25s per rank (from 2.5 down to 2.0 with two points), you could just have it do the same to Kolto Infusion as well (1.5 down to 1.0s). > Don't beef up its numbers; give Diagnostic Scan something unique. My suggestion would be to increase the effective of all heals on a target that's been the target of an uninterrupted DS for a good amount of time afterwards. Maybe the base version is +30% for 6 seconds, with each rank of Patient Studies adding another 2 seconds to the buff duration and each rank of Prognosis:Critical adding 10% to the buff's boost. So, it'd do just what it sounds like, scanning the target to make your following heals more effective, and it'd be really useful in a group with multiple healers (or when folks are using their own stimpacks). Just ideas, of course.

I wasn't saying anything of the sort, but go ahead and disagree with me if you want to. I was using huttball as an example of a situation where raw damage isn't the only thing that matters; no more, no less. I could just as easily talk about PvE Flashpoints, or random grinding, or whatever. The original topic was about how much it sucked to not have any knockbacks (or resistance to knockbacks) when playing that one specific type of PvP, but the suggested changes I made had nothing to do with Huttball, which I hardly ever play. My point was simple: we're a very one-dimensional class. For Concealment types, that one dimension is burst melee damage; the other branches are a bit different, but we're still the only class without all of the knockbacks, speed boosts, etc. that seem to come up so much in PvP; for a melee class, this is a pretty significant weakness. Now, in general I think our abilities need to be a bit more diversified to keep the class fun for the PvEers in the long term, and we've also seen an awfully large number of "nerf Operatives!" threads by folks who don't like the idea of facing someone with so much front-loaded damage. And so, I tried to make suggestions that'd kill two birds with one stone. Lower our burst DPS a bit by switching a few of our pure-damage knife attacks to being DoTs and/or debuffs, and give us a better defense against knockbacks/roots/snares/stuns/etc. than other classes get. This would create a somewhat wider "niche" in playstyles, something I think we need regardless of your particular feelings about any one form of PvP.

No, you don't have to. You'd asked about Burst DPS (Lethality is less burst-y and more steady DPS), and about the knife attacks (which Conceal specializes in). So I was assuming you were asking about Conceal Ops, which are pretty much entirely about sticking knife A into slot B and then sneaking away. Lethality's more about putting a lot of DoTs onto your targets, and using both rifle attacks and your basic knife attacks to do steady damage.

You're not really missing much. Those two, plus Backstab are the core of your attacks. You'll use Shiv constantly (even more often than you use your rifle) and you'll use Debilitate whenever it refreshes (it's got a 45s cooldown, unless you take the right talents in Lethality). If the person swung around behind the shocked enemy before sticking the second spike in, that was Backstab. (It's a 10-energy Shiv-type attack that requires you to be hind your target, which'd be okay, except that it has a LOT of Talents that boost it, like the one that makes it cost 10 less energy... yep, free.) Depending on circumstances you might throw on a Corrosive Dart, Sever Tendon, or even a grenade or flashbang, but those obviously don't fit into a melee attack rotation. Later on you'll get Hidden Strike and Eviscerate, but they're a lot more situational; HS is used from stealth, and Eviscerate can only be used on incapacitated enemies (and since we only have 1-2 abilities that incapacitate, you can't really plan a rotation around it). Now, if you want to be melee-heavy burst DPS, then I'm assuming you're going Concealment. In that case, the final piece of the puzzle you're missing is Laceration, which you'd get at level 20 assuming you ONLY spent points in Concealment. It's a melee attack (looks like you're swiping the knife sideways), costs a bit of energy and has a high damage, but it has two other big factors to consider: 1> It consumes Tactical Advantage. Since Shiv adds TA, the two generally go together, but it means you can't just spam Laceration. 2> It has no cooldown timer, besides the global cooldown. So you CAN spam it if you've built up a couple points of TA from other sources, or have the talents that refund TAs on a Collateral Strike. Since it has no positional requirement (other than being in melee range) you'll find that most of your damage comes from Laceration.

And now you've learned why it's NOT pointless to use Corrosive Dart. Until level 40, it's our only DoT, so if you want to take advantage of those sorts of talents, you have to use it early and often. So basically, we have two options: use Corrosive Dart (especially if you mix in the Lethality talent that boosts CD's duration or the Medicine ones that make it take less Energy) and gain the benefits of Tactical Opportunity and Culling, or DON'T use CD, skip those talents, and use the points for other things (like making Kolto Injection give TAs, boosting your Cunning, and so on). Personally I'm going the second route.

Well, we do have a healing branch, combined with medium armor; a high-DPS source that isn't flimsy has a certain appeal. But you're generally right, we're a pretty one-dimensional class in practice. I'll say what I said in the other thread: if they were to give us a good CC-resistance ability and turn a couple of our upfront attacks (like Lacerate and Hidden Strike) from high-damage DDs to either DoTs or lower damage but with a debuff, I think a lot of complaints on BOTH sides would go away. We'd still deal major damage, but wouldn't be quite so burst-y, and we also would add real value to teams in PvP.

I think you've hit on something. Concealment gameplay, especially PvE, is basically divided into two periods: 1-19 (Before Laceration) and 20+. It's not just that Lacerate is pretty awesome (which it is), it's that for a class that's expected to melee a lot, you go from having a couple weak melee attacks and some gun abilities, to suddenly having an almost-full attack rotation that's all about damage. It's night and day. Another thing to remember is that most advanced classes gain three activated abilities: one in tier 3 (level 20), one in tier 5 (level 30), and the final one in tier 7 (level 40). Concealment is missing that middle step; you have Laceration, and then nothing but passives or boosts of existing abilities until Acid Blade. So if they were to reduce Laceration and Acid Blade slightly, but give us a new custom ability in tier 5 to compensate, I'd be happy. It wouldn't even need to be another attack; how about what we've been suggesting, and give us a buff with a 1-minute cooldown that gives 10 seconds of immunity (or 20 seconds of 50% resistance) to knockbacks, slows, etc.? Alternatively, they could just bump Lacerate back to tier 4. For Conceal ops, it wouldn't really change anything other than the level at which they become "good" (25 vs. 20), but it'd drastically reduce the ability of Medicine/Lethality Ops to be hybrids. But given how hard it was to play concealment before level 20, I wouldn't suggest this route. Depends on how you do it. Instead of 1000 raw damage, you can use a frontloaded DoT (500 damage up front and then 100 per 3 seconds for 30 seconds, for 1500 total) or even degrading (i.e. deal 300, then 3 seconds later deal 275, then 250, and so on until you deal 25 on the 33rd second, for 1950 total). We'd still be about "burst" DPS as a whole, since our abilities aren't really set up for sustained use, but wouldn't be quite so frontloaded on raw damage. I think the problem is that our melee attack set (Shiv + Lacerate + Backstab + Hidden Strike + Eviscerate) consists of all straight-damage effects, with no extra effects other than the TAs (at least until you get the knockdown for HS); even the two "status" attacks (Debilitate and Sever Tendon) are DDs followed by a durational debuff. Our only DoTs are Corrosive Dart and Acid Blade. Heck, even the triggered damage off the Lacerate's expansion talents is a DD. So if you were to change ONE of those abilities (most likely Lacerate) to be just a bit less up-front and left the rest alone, we'd still be a burst damage class, just not quite SO burst-y. Or have HS deal much less damage, but it stuns the target for a few seconds, setting the victim up for your other attacks (like Backstab, which it effectively duplicates at present). Point is, instead of 5 DD attacks, I'd rather have three or four DD attacks and a couple good utility attacks; it'd be more fun, AND you'd have fewer complaints from other classes. Win-win!

This is why I brought up EQ's Enchanter class. What was its defining ability? Mesmerize. You'd bring a chanter along for crowd control, while the rest of your team focused on one foe at a time, and they became in integral part of the "holy trinity" of classes as a result. Did you know that in EQ's original design, only the very first Mez spell (the short-duration one at level 4) existed? It was only intended to be a stopgap until the chanters reached level 12 and unlocked their true class-defining ability... Charm. The devs only added the rest of the mez spells (and the Tashan series of magic resistance debuffs) due to player feedback during beta, after it was pointed out that the higer-level beta players were STILL using the level 4 spell in preference to charm spells. Classes CAN change their designs. It's what betas are for, and let's be honest; most MMOs these days could really use a bit more testing before release, to where the first month after release acts a lot like an extended beta. Honestly, I'd be okay with them reducing the Conceal Op's burst damage, as long as they provide us with some other role to play in groups/PvP. That's why I mentioned status/knockback resist; if our role in groups was as the "light tanks" that would die faster to raw damage but who couldn't be disrupted with those non-damage effects, we'd have a niche. More Monk than Rogue, but still useful. So let's suggest some things they could do to reduce the front-loaded damage but not hurt the class as a whole: > Change Lacerate from a one-shot pure damage effect to something a bit less front-loaded. A DoT with a "slow" effect (-attack speed/alacrity, not snare) would be great, and wouldn't cause those issues. If that's too much like Acid Blade, then keep it a DD effect but tone the amount down to make up for the debuff. > Knock Hidden Strike's damage down, but allow it to be used without breaking stealth. You'd still decloak when doing your full attack cycle, but it'd allow Ops to kill a heavily wounded enemy without immediately becoming a sitting duck for his friends. I'm sure others could make good suggestions, but the point being, if you think the front-loaded burst DPS is a problem in general, then suggest changes that allow those of us who use it to smoothly transition into a different playstyle. Not just "nerf 'em all and let God sort 'em out".

There are always going to be people like that. Having taught college courses, it's more than a little disturbing to see a college student who wants to be a doctor or something and yet who doesn't want to study. I suppose we should also clarify this particular point further: there are people who just don't ever want to learn, to be sure, but then there are the folks who just have yet to learn the intricacies of this game's balance and are basing their preconceptions on what worked in certain other MMOs. Over time that second group will disappear, and I just hope that Bioware doesn't cave on their design too quickly, since it's a pretty good design. (Needs some tweaks, obviously, but what doesn't?) Thing is, SWTOR isn't exactly a groundbreaking game. Its design is pretty derivative of quite a few other MMOs, which isn't a bad thing in this case. So Bioware's first-guess balance is probably pretty decent; it's not like the early MMOs, where a class' role might COMPLETELY change from its original design (EQ Enchanters) or where the entire game's core design might get remade (SWG). That's why this whole discussion is a bit scary; the people complaining about stealth MUST have encountered it before (unless this is their first MMO), which means that some of the complainers might not be from people who actually think we're overpowered, but are instead doing so simply in the hope that the enemies they're most vulnerable to (us) get nerfed and make them better by comparison.

No need to demonize your opponents; it's not just the "entitled brats" who complain about it. It's simple human nature: each of us will have our own idea of how a game SHOULD be played, and this skews our ideas of what is and isn't acceptable behavior. And that concept of the proper way to play the game will often drive our choice in classes. The people who have massive amounts of firepower but armor made from wet Kleenex are generally the folks who believe that the best defense is a good offense; who needs armor when your foes can never reach you alive? Or, it might be the folks who believe that battles should be decided by intelligent management of positioning, focusing fire, crowd control, and attack cycles in a true team effort. As a result, the classes that bypass the carefully laid plans by popping out of nowhere to butcher the ranged support folks in a 1-on-1 fight? They're not playing it right, and should be stopped. I'd bet that's why so many of the complainers are from the classes that are our intended victims, the glass cannons: it's not only that they're unhappy to die, it's that some of them probably think that they SHOULDN'T die that way while performing their role, because it doesn't fit with their conceptions about how the warzones should work. On the other hand, the people who play tanks often don't care. While their DPS might not equal ours, they can basically weather our alpha strike (even with so much of it being penetrating damage) and kill us. The unexpectedness isn't an issue; they're expecting to take damage, after all, since it's their job. They're the Rock to our Scissors. I haven't seen too many complaints out of those folks, really, except for the usual DPS envy. (I remember back in EQ, when some Warriors were arguing that their class should deal the most damage because it had "War" in the name.) And on the gripping hand, there are those in-between folks. Operative medics, Snipers, etc., or people who have stealth on their other character; these folks are very familiar with what we can do and what stealth's limitations are, but didn't choose that path themselves. I'm sure there'll always be a bit of buyer's regret (did I gimp myself by going Sniper?), but I haven't seen too many complaints there either. Over time, I think most people will end up in this group; if a Sorcerer thinks that Ops are way too strong, he'll try making one himself and it won't take long to become disillusioned.

Not much of a question on this one. If the complainers get their way, the whole "alpha strike" concept will get thrown out the window. They're not complaining about the final kill totals, after all, since it's easy to show that Operatives aren't dominating in that category. They're complaining about that helpless feeling you get when a stealthed Conceal Op surprises the squishy member of your team and kills him within a few seconds. Given that this sort of playstyle is stealth's entire reason for existing, any changes caused by "player feedback" would invariably be in a negative direction for those of us who rely on this sort of attack (especially Conceal Ops). Honestly, the best analogy I can come up with is that you're playing Rock-Paper-Scissors, and someone's trying to get Scissors banned because they want to keep picking Paper and don't like losing. This threat of instant, unexpected death is a key part of the game's balance; it's supposed to be the reason your support folks hold back a little, not throwing every resource they have in support of the ball carrier/mission objective, and making sure someone with stealth detection is around to spot stealthed players before they can strike. So yes, you keep your CC-breaker ready instead of using it on a less important ability from someone you can see, and you try to learn how to play against stealth instead of asking for it to be nerfed..

Please, no. We're not Sith, who can only fight in melee range with their fancy glowsticks that give off radiation that probably makes them sterile or something. We use knives when we want to, and guns when we want to. Whatever serves the Empire best in the current situation. Besides, not every Operative spec is knife-heavy. I'd hate for medical types to have to give up their guns just so that the rest of us can look more like ninjas. And honestly, if we had "throwing knives" with the same 30m range as everyone else's blasters (and barely less than the range of the sniper rifles) the last little shred of realism left would disappear.

You know, I'd like it if they were just to give Agents and Smugglers (especially Operatives and Scoundrels) an inherent resistance to knockbacks and such to make up for this. Not an activated ability, I mean a passive resistance to them. If we can't be the one causing the guys to fly off the ledges, we should at least be the runner of choice. Actually, what I'd really like is if they rolled that into our activated long-term buff. I mean, the Sith/Jedi classes get these buffs that boost strength, power, willpower, presence, and a partridge in a pear tree by 5%. We get a 5% critical boost, which hardly seems to be on the same scale. And if they're going to boost that buff, then why not split it into two different versions, one for Operatives (to support their more mobile style) and one for Snipers (to support their ranged attacks)? So how about this: Operatives (and Scoundrels) get +5% to crits and +25% resistance to knockbacks, stuns, and immobilizes. Snipers (and Gunslingers) get +5% to crits and +5% Accuracy. And yes, these'd go to the entire team, but you KNOW it'd make Operatives desirable for a Huttball team even if you just end up roving around the center of a map.

As a Conceal Op, I almost never use it. Backstabs are free, if you've taken Waylay (which you should), and in a group you can always find an enemy facing the other way. (When soloing, I use Debilitate and my companion to set it up.) You should be using Shiv on the enemy whenever possible to get TAs, which you'll use then for Lacerate, and those aren't instantaneous thanks to the GCD. Between the melee skills and more situational stuff (Corrosive Dart, Flashbang, the grenade), I just never have a free moment in my attacks to waste on a weak rifle attack; even when there IS a small gap, it's not worth triggering the GCD, when I might need to activate an Evasion or something instead on short notice. So really, the only times where I've actually wanted to use that free rifle attack in combat instead of the knives are: > When fighting mobs far below my level, to where it's just not worth the headache of positioning. > When an enemy has almost no health left. > When I'm so low on health from playing emergency heal support that stabbing would take me below 60%, AND I don't have Adrenaline Probe or Stim Boost ready to go. Not exactly the most ringing endorsements for rifle utility. Obviously it's a very different story for Medicine or Lethality Ops, but the Conceal types are VERY knife-centric.

Pretty much This. I went into a Flashpoint the other day with my Conceal Op, and there's no question of who was most valuable to the team. Unlike the Inquisitors I actually had a decent armor rating, I far out-DPSed the Warrior, and I was able to fall back to a healing role when our dedicated healer (also an Operative) had to log out. Operatives don't really hit their stride until the 20s, and they take a LOT of skill (since burst DPS is all about careful timing and positioning), which isn't helped by the fact that our energy regen mechanism (with its varying rates) is much more complex than what the other classes deal with. But they're a ton of fun. And I think the strategy behind our class can pretty much be summed up with this comic strip. The only real complaint I have is that I wish they'd swapped the slots, making the knife (or a vibrosword) be our primary, visible weapon while the blaster rifle would be our secondary slot. Statwise there'd be no real difference (unless they also used this as an excuse to create moddable knives), but it'd allow the knife graphics to vary. After all, they had to create those graphics to let the various Companions use those weapons, so it's not like it'd be any more work for them.

Similar reasons, different outcome. My Agent's philosophy is that the Empire's really all run by Intelligence, and we just let those egomaniacal Sith Lords pretend to run things because they make a useful scapegoat/diversion; the Empire's stability comes from the Agents solving all of its problems, often in spite of the Sith. So, my Agent nearly always picked Light options on the way up. The "nearly" is because in quite a few cases, Light = Stupid. (Remember, "Evil will always triumph, because Good is Dumb.") Letting a terrorist who's just tried to kill you walk away.. taking the word of a guy who claims to be an Imperial Agent and NOT blowing up his house... letting several people basically blackmail you into helping them... there's just a lot of times where it'd make no sense for a rational person to pick the good option. Conversely, most of the Dark options I've seen are just being cruel for its own sake. Good villains don't just kick every puppy they see; that's not "evil", it's just unimaginative. So taking the Dark options, which usually just involve acting like the Sith, would be counter-productive. Now, I've heard a few times that they're planning on adding Grey gear for those middle alignments. So you'd see gear that requires you to be between Light 2 and Dark 2, and so on. As long as there's no overlapping area, to where you'll always have access to one and only one set of alignment-limited toys, I'd have no complaints. Besides, it's not too hard to modify your alignment; besides the repeatable Flashpoints, there's Diplomacy. I'm level 26, and I'm already almost to Light 4, because I just pick the Light diplomacy missions. Not sure if the other mission skills have similar alignment shifts, though.