I think I'm going to quit... I don't like what they did to concealment since release...especially relative to the state marauders and assassins. I don't like what they did to the other two healing class skill trees... they both got hosed. I don't like the encounter designs that strongly favor one party/raid composition over the other (i.e. it is generally always better to have ranged DPS).

I noticed positional bugs pre and post 1.2. I go to use a melee skill when, according to my UI/client, I am right on the bosses tush and it tells me I'm out of melee range or not behind the target, etc. This will continue for 3-5 seconds and then clear up. Shrug... and no, it is not due to 'low energy'i assure you.

Same boat for me and some guildies on the robot: Jugg tank 2 operative DPS (me conceal, other lethality) sorc healer I'm normal heal spec but i do have basically full columni (one Rakata piece) for DPS as well. Ouch... we got the boss down to 25% once but the fight was just too crazy. On most of the runs I was able interrupt every single incinerate within a second. Tank and other op where tossing interrupts on plasma arcs as much as possible. I think the key is that the heals and melee have to group up tight behind the boss to manage precisely where the electrical storms drop and then the tank has to really dance the boss around the room. I watched videos of range DPS teams just making hardmode look easy (tank on middle area, DPS/heals on outside solid areas (DPS/heals move around the clock as electrical storms drop). Compared to 2 melee DPS tactics required for this encounter, the two ranged DPS tactics look to be much easier. Bioware really needs help designing balanced fight mechanics. At any rate I'm gonna keep chipping away at Lost Island... the instance looks great.

It is too bad that bioware didn't just use more of a WoW rogue combo point system for operative. I know it would be obvious copying but who cares, really? Bioware... you can still do it.. change TA to a tactical points system (stacking to five). At any rate this is my idea for a in-combat gap closer: 30 sec cooldown, 10 energy -- consumes a point of TA to boost speed by 70% for 6 seconds (or 100% for 4 seconds, 150% for 2 seconds, whatever!). Also increases damage of next melee skill by 10% for 6 seconds. I would the waylay skill in the Concealment tree reduce the cooldown of this skill by 7.5/15 sec I would combine this skill with a buff to Corrosive Dart, Corrosive Grenade, and Acid Blade in that any mob that dies while under the effect of an operative DoT grants a TA point.

Yeah... Hyllis is downright scary as a romance option. EPIC FAIL. But still a better love story than Twilight!! Lol... had to say it! Shoulda made Dr. Lokin younger and more attractive (an older James Bond) and a little less beasty in rakghoul form (think more 80's TV show incredible hulk). In general, the class devs are not good writers... the plot lines are not bad... pretty good even. But the writing and character development stinks.

I'd moreorless agree with that list from my limited experience. Sniper anything is pretty awesome... maybe better than marauder in PvE DPS? I might insert op/scoundrel lethality spec at #9 and bump the list down... i dunno. I might also include Powertech AP somewhere in the middle to upper end of the list... right along with Pyro PT at #4 maybe. People say Adv. Prototype is gimped but I don't think so... I have only played with one advanced prototype, but he's a guildie and he hit's like a freight train... usually finishes EV council fight first, for what it is worth.

more casual guilds often/usually care more about the player than class... but that doesn't mean taking a certain class in a role doesn't gimp the raid. Many serious raiding guilds, just looking at what each class brings to the table, would not probably not want to take an operative DPS right now. Oh.. and my 0.02 on the EV council fight at least through hardmode. horrible metric for DPS efficacy... it is basic hitting a dummy and not at all representative of what an Op has to most fights: chase boss, hit boss, run away from boss, run back in range, run over to mind trap, run back to boss, run to lightning ball. Mnayl boss fights include a whole lot of Operatives running from point to point not hitting jack squat except with DoT's and our 2-3 range skills. Straight up... concealment Operative is no where near the WoW rogue in overall design quality of the talents/skills available to make the spec 'tick'. Based on concealment's lack of significant mobility enhancing skills of any kind, concealment should hit like Mike Tyson on crack in melee...I would argue, given the lack of mobility, that concealment should hit 5-10% HARDER than any other melee spec in the game. Even with that I doubt real world DPS in many boss fights will be up to the output of other DPS classes/specs. Melee DPS increase and/or a short CD speed boost skill... some linear combination thereof to improve our melee DPS throughput and/or our DPS 'up-time': Speed boost skill idea: I.e. burns a tactical advantage pt to boost speed by 50% for 8 seconds... attacking with a melee range skill within that 8 seconds cancels the speed boost and re-grants the point of TA. This can be used a defensive skill to get away from melee's or a gap closer with it's main intended use as a gap closer. 15 sec CD

I honestly wonder if there are math errors in the code that BW is using for internal DPS parsing and class comparison. That "Op is within 5% of Marauder" statement just does not seem to be at all supported by actual in game experience of the player base. Based upon all of the math bugs and skill exploits BW has had to work out over the last several months... it would not surprise me in the least if we are effectively falling victim to bugs in the DPS comparison metrics/routines. combat logs will help us out big time hopefully.

Your teammates gotta kill the marauders... once their CD's are all blown they die fast if focused on by 2 peeps. Sages can be tough in PvP with the right team and support but, unsupported, they are relatively easy kills for marauders and snipers especially... at least so it seems to me when I'm on my sage healer in PvP.

I am with you on the healing side of things... I was one of those complaining Op healers (who was doing end game content in Concealment but wanted to heal). I was saying a lot of stuff with Op healing sucked worse than it actually does, right now. I switched back to healing a couple weeks back and I really don't have much to complain about (I think i'm pulling my weight and then some in raids) but all of the upcoming healer changes are very welcome. Diagnostic Scan is pretty lame right now and will still be pretty lame. But I do actually use it... I try not to ever sit idle while healing and DS has become a idle skill for me... when everyone is pretty well topped off and I'm not at full energy i hit DS until my next real healing cast. I will also try to use it after 2-3 cycles of heavy healing (injection/infusion) to get my energy up. But still, DS should AT LEAST be based upon our bonus healing value per tick... that would be better (520 a tick for me). It is silly that the skill is not really effected by our full bonus healing value. concealment is another story... there is NO way concealment is within 5% of sentinel/marauder anything DPS. This is just too evident from so many flashpoint and operation scenarios. I don't think we are within 5% on a target dummy and then that delta opens up pretty good in actual fighting. But that doesn't matter so much to me as that, in PvE, concealment/lethality can legitimately put out enough DPS to pull its own weight. I'm not sure that is the case for concealment right now it looks like it is gonna get worse.

Here i was last night thinking that maybe, just maybe (because I didn't see actual numbers yet) that backstab was getting nerfed in favor of significant strengthening of lacerate to give us better rotations, better frontal assault DPS, and better sustained DPS... LOL, I was so wrong. I'm a healer Op (crazy i know) but played around with Concealment and it sucks... this is going to make it suck worse UNLESS 'under the hood changes' are doing some things that specifically that ways Op's do damage (i.e. poison effects hitting harder, low/no mitigation for poison). But even so, lethality will still be better than Concealment for DPS by a fair amount. It looks like those of us who wanted to actually be viable rogue'ish DPS shoulda rolled shadow/assassin... Oh well... summer is coming up so I'll be mountain biking non-stop anyhow.

Well they nerf'ed Concealment a little more in 1.2 so I am happy im healing on my Op... looking forward to 1.2.

Relax folks! To me, it looks like Concealment is getting reorganized to buff sustained DPS at the cost of (maybe) some upfront burst. Our sustained frontal attack and PvE DPS too low for our inherent lack of mobility. Backstab looks like it will hit harder but have a longer CD lacerate/CS will hit harder and cost less energy... win. More energy will make it easier to interleave other DPS skills. Stim boost bonus were just separated into 2 skill tree components but we'll still get the energy bonus... just at a higher tier in the tree. Lets just see what happens with the actual numbers: i'm optimistic that our sustained and frontal attack DPS will be better and we'll have less energy management concerns.

Okay that is some news to me... I had though the skill delay bug was causing the delay after surgical probe. So then that entails that injection/surgprobe is for energy efficiency and injection/infusion is for HPS throughput... thanks for the info. doe surgical probe still trigger a GCD if the target is below 30% health? If yes, that (to me) completely throws water on the devs stating that surg probe is 'good' as a rescue skill... it is not. After using surgical you can't another heal to them for another 1.5 (another surg probe) at best and 3-3.7 seconds if you follow up surg probe with injection or infusion. Still a problem with the working cohesion of the three skills but less than I stated above. As for the HPS throughput you stated... 11k in 3 seconds with two crits and a KP tick to boot is pretty great but that's crits ( you stated above the default is 4.5k'ish plus a KP tick in 3 seconds). In practice I think sorc's easily match op's for single target healing / damage absorption / mitigation buffs (armor buffs). I have been bubbled ( a huge absorb) then healed for 6-8k by sorc in 3 seconds while the sorc AoE HoT and single target running Hot's also healed the other two for another 1.5-3k respectively over that same 3 seconds... that like 10-13k equivalent on a single target plus the other heals going on. Heck... I'm gonna switch back to healing spec and give it a whirl again.

Back on topic a bit... I would like to see a 50 well gear op healer post the HP, energy, and total estimated time to complete for the two combos: 1. kolto injection / surgical probe 2. kolto injection / kolto infusion My estimate/feel a while back when I was healing was that combo 1 was higher HPS and more power efficient. Wonder what others can chip in on this data? Also, effectively I think operative/scoundrel healer is the most squishy healer in the game as well. Merc/commando --> HVY armor and knockback, big instant heal... sage/sorc --> huge bubble on shorter effective CD and better escape CC (mez, stun, AoE knockback, speed). Regarding the whole "we are a HoT based class" I see where you are coming from but I disagree. WoW druid is a HoT based healing class, LOTRO RK is a HoT based healing class. I think if we were able to parse out our healing output, only about 25% of our total max single target output comes from a two stack of KP. That is not really that much for the pain in the rear that is to keep up KP stacks on party/raid members. With regards to diagnostic scan... I hear what one or two people chimed in with that it does something and it should be used. True.... there are niche uses for it... it is filler by default when you have nothing to do. But with an investment of 4 skill tree points it is still a 'marginal at best' filler skill and still not nearly as good as merc rapid shots (which merc just gets to have as awesome by default, no skill points required). DS requires almost 2 GCD's to do 800ish healing while standing still. Merc's can move and fire two rapid shots, do 2000+ healing and discharge a lot of heat over that time. I think when looking at DS you gotta think about how it fits into a rotation, even if is not used that way. If you follow up a DS with a injection then that is say 2600-3000 healing over about 4.5 seconds (sort pulling numbers together) for about 20-22 energy. In the same 4.5s a merc can fire three rapid shots to do the same or more(?) healing for no heat while moving (op had to stay still the whole time, yes?) with no possibility of being interrupted. So when compared to merc rapid shots, DS really sucks even with 4 skill points spent (which is a lot imo). Now rapid shots, as I understand really is an important part of the merc healing rotation so this is not a apples to apples comparison but I still think this illustrates the short falling in the design of diagnostic scan. Regarding the "well I raid heal with a sorc/merc and we do just fine"... that is great but not at all an indicator of Op healing viability. I would tend to agree with the comments that the sorc/merc carried some of your weight but without data it is impossible to say. I could as easily say that in any PvP match that I can remember, the sage/sorc and commando/mercs out-heal the ops by a fair amount most all of the time and that's the only place where we can actually get numbers at the moment. But there are way too many variables in PvP fights to use PvP healing numbers as 'conclusive data'. Also, just the results of guild conversation and conversation with other PUG members (talking with folks who have more than one 50 healer class: merc/op, sorc/op, merc/sorc/op). Everyone says their sorc or merc is better at healing than their op and their op healing build has been effectively moth-balled for the interim. I'm feeling certain that positive things are on the way for op healing and I am looking forward to returning to healing in the near future. But i think it helpful for threads like this, if the devs read them, to help 'define the issues to be solved' of the class. Things like: (1) burning TA by using a skill just to keep power regen at a viable level -- an operative wide issue imo.. it is mechanically repetitive, boring/frustrating, and carpal tunnel inducing... really needs to be fixed (2) little or no synergy between skills relative to other healing specs, (3) the injection/SP combo being better in HPS and energy use than injection/infusion combo making infusion a "Why use?" skill (not verified but i think this is the case), (4) 'meh' utility of nanotech which is our CAPSTONE skill relative to other healing spec CAPSTONE skills (change coming which will be appreciated!) and (5) 'lol' diagnostic scan default capability, 4 skill points later... still 'lol' awful (i pine for rapid shots). Devs, hope you are reading (unlikely). Great game... please help op/scoundrel healing.