ya, but the sniper companions are all cunning based, not aim, like jorgan.

good, yes. great, not really. fun, absolutely. if you want to play the op, play it for the sheer experience alone. if you want a real pvp beast, it isn't the best bet, and is getting worse come 1.2

the total armor value of a piece of modded gear is dependent on some (presently unknown to me) ratio of the armoring mods armor rating to the class of armor (light, med., heavy). the heavier the armor the more armoring value one gets from the same armoring mod, which is why vanguards and guardians will have better total armor values than shadows. we get boosts from our tanking stance though, so dont go thinking that heavy armor tanks have an edge gearwise. mods are not class or anything based, and as far as i know other than armor value all the other stats they give, including defensive ones, are flat across the board for all armor and class types.

most solid story in the game, and gameplay is really fun for either spec even if they do have issues for endgame and pvp.

as the first npc i seduced, lachris will always have a special place in my heart. which was why i was so disappointed that the consular appears to kill her on balmorra. however, there was no body to loot, which of course leaves open the possbility that the consular, being the arrogant, holier than thou dork that he is, simply fell for the oldest trick in the book. anyway, just wanted to voice some support for the eventual return of a great character.

i was still hoping to seduce her my first time through so i let her live. second time through i swore i was gonna kill her, but... she's just too cool- walking away with the explosions behind her: epic. next time im totally gonna kill her though.

not much. by the time you can afford to buy tionese you'll have at least half of your columi set from drops.

the time you wouldn't accept my stealth revive, let me know. working as intended

because then there would be a purpose, if only a small one, for the over 9000 aim-based sniper rifles in the game

endgame gear is role based, not spec for the most part. we have the healer set, a scoundrel dps set and a slinger set. its rather limiting i thought, but come 1.2 endgame modding should get more freedom.

the incapacitation exploiter move has a mirror on every class, nobody can use them, and i for one am glad considering all the stuns that pervade pvp.

i have downtime maybe once every 3-5 fights with double dps. for agent, pop defense probe (sic) pretty regularly, focus dps, use knockdowns/ccs/ stuns/ and, for snipers, proper kill order (starting with ranged guys) and the expediency of a dps companion is not only good for speed but health as well. also, its not like you can just mount up anywhere. using a tank companion, no you dont take much, but they do, even when geared. (my wookie tank is in about 3/4 jedi guardian tank gear, still takes more time and needs more downtimes than a dps companion in nothing but modded lingerie) if survivability is actually an issue, whip out a healer, they pretty much replace tanks as the 'safe bet' for tough fights. the last time i used kaliyo outside of her companion quests was for the act 1 boss, indeed for the human, or, er, ratatakki shield element, but tanks are far from the best bet for dps players.

smuggler: bootlegging and moral choices about gunrunning into warzones bounty hunter: more genoharadan and mandalorian stuff jedi knight: military action, solely so they can get the obligatory jedi/hero honorary rank (and title) of general and we can laugh at the troopers still stuck at major

as far as i can tell, only a few planets actually have unique music, and they've all been mentioned save corellia. of them,i likw balmorra b/c the choral part sounds like lotr. need more music in the game,even if its derivative dribble.

i know that my smug's flash grenade accuracy debuff aftereffect doesnt work on them, presumably because they, and all boss immunity types, aren't affected by the initial stun of it. also i there's a talent point in the mm/ss sniper/slinger tree that's an accuracy debuff that explicitly states it does not affect ops bosses, which ive always taken as an implication that pretty much any accuracy debuff wont work.

definately smugs. agents are suave.

well, ive got no work tomorrow since i got nerfed. maybe a few quick shots. get it? quick shot? eh? anybody else use that for lack of something, you know, scrappy?

sniper was more fun in the mechanics because there's just so much stuff to do. fights end too quickly on my sniper, i never, except on bosses, get a chance to use all the moves i want. people badmouth cover, but its a blast to just hunker down and go to town for pve. merc isn't bad in this department, but it can feel a tad facerolly at times with all the tracer missiles, which is why i ended up switching to heals pretty early on. this turned out to be a wonderful decision, as two of my 3 favorite companions were bh tanks, and it was just plain fun to roll around with them and a similarly great and hilarious dps pet. story-wise they're both great, easily my two favorites, only difference is bh is more hardcore while the agent has some more conceptual, weirder elements. i dont think either moves noticeably quicker than the other for the most part. however it may be worth noting that bh's get their healer companion at the beginning, which is nice for the first few planets, but you dont particularly need healers that early on anyway and it's really faster typically to use dps pets no matter your role (although sometimes that 'faster' is b/c youll die, but that notwithstanding...). snipers are great for groups in general and ops especially, they have a number of useful and unique talents at the expense of nothing more than a little mobility, and really its not much less than a tracer missiler will use as he stands there spamming.

also, know when procs can happen and what their buffs look like at a glance. basic thing that falls into place around the late 30s is project will stack this green buff that is good alone but best at 3 for the telekinetic throw booster, and the double strike thing has a 50/50 chance to end cd and improve dmg of the next project. same thing for debuffs: around this time youlll pick up 'slow time' from the top of the tank tree, which has a cooldown considerably shorter than its slowdown effect lasts. get a sense for how often it should actually be refreshed (its aggro pulling being something else to keep in mind).same thing for the accuracy spinning cloud thingy and such.

debates like this are why i dont like the alignment system, which as a concept is frankly medieval. you both have interesting points, and while i played my guy more lightside (since i was mostly autupilot on that toon, not looking to explore the implications of different story options), some of the things,like the nar shaddaa stuff, are indeed hard to justify, i think the reason my guy's story 'worked' was that everything is relative. yes, being somebody who hunts down people and is prepared to kill them makes you a pretty questionable individual, but the specific class story related options are more about honor vs. malevolence, not nice guy vs. jerk. after all, even the most pure jedi in the game will kill thousands of random mobs (saying its not the jedi way is how i justify stealth noobery on my shadow), so it all comes with a grain of salt. put simply, the bounty hunter is a hardcore character that lives on the edge of law and other traditional moral boundaries, but beyond that, he may or may not be a ruthless, sadistic killer who takes pleasure in being as sinister and pain-inflicting as possible. its like the hunters who opt to hunt with traditional weapons in the game, like qyzen fess, who are not 'bad people' even though hunting is inherently a morally questionable activity. they, and the bounty hunter, and indeed everybody who plays the bh character, have simply made a decision that they are willing to live with that inherent question, but where it goes from there remains open.

i'm forced to use the smuggler mirror move during fights when i have energy to burn and my scrapper/conealment bread and butter moves are on cd, im just out of range or something. although it has a satisfying pistol sound, i feel like every timei use it is somehow a failure, b/c it really is just a very generic attack, its like spamming flurry. my only problem with the upcoming 1.2 changes is that the added cd to the back attacker ability will mean ill be using this more and more in lieu of a more variable, explorative rotation, something already lacking in the spec. or more likely less and less as ill just spec back to heals and enjoy that buff while it lasts.

around the mid 30s tanks become obsolete to everybody but healers. they make a nice early/first companion since they will keep you unthreatened and with time to learn to play, but by the end of the first act you'll want to run with a dps pet for trash and your healer (which youll get at the end of taris) for the rough stuff.

stealth vision. welcome to lvl 50. dont use stealth in taral 5 hm at all and hm bosses in general. ilum planet arc is tricky (probably as a gimmick to get you running dailies- which you should), and its definately a gear check for the bosses, on you and your companion. dps'ers, guss tuno is now your best friend, healers, meet bowdarr. one more thing to know about ilum arc is the final boss will put a very annoying debuff on whoever he's aggroed on. it reduced healing received and a couple other things (damage done or soemthing to that effect, etc.). it wasn't so bad on my dps character, but on my healers, when he applied it my pet, i found the only way to get him was to go all out dps just so that he wouldn't finsih them off, b/c you simply cant heal through it due to the debuffs. however, if you can just keep them alive until the second round of this, you should be able to pull through. (be ready to run and hide a bit though)

consular in general is pretty underwhelming. although i went full ls (merely as a joke throwaway toon dork), i felt that the dark choices i saw were fairly intriguing and i could believe it worked as well or better as light. thing is that this isn't kotor, where your choices actually feel like they make a difference. its a railroad, and while i dont mind that, it can make certain alignment options feel 'off'. and yea, by default the consular has a lightside friendly story.

swtor gives each class a lot of abilities. since my shadow tank is an alt i play so infrequently that in the time it took to go from 30-40 i took a sniper from 1-50, i had a hard time getting a feel for it, especially around the late 30s as the talents really start to add up. the only advice i can give is that its time to start keybinding. get taunt on something easily accessible from the wasd movement keys, assuming you still use them, (mine's on g) and so forth, common things surround the movements, most common go on 1-6 (my only change insofar to the default i think was putting the top of the tank tree ability in place of mind crush), and rarely used things, like mind crush, which personally i only use as a quasi-opener on cc'd enemies mid-combat, map to something funky like shift+2.