It's easy to get out of the red circles. Cancel whatever you're casting, strafe directly left or right (Ideally away from the other boss you can't see) about one second until you're out of the circle, plop back down and shoot again. The circle's AOE is fantastic because it's EXACTLY the width of the circle. It's not like Orbital Strike or Death From Above where you can be outside it--but not outside enough--and still take damage. So if you shuffle just a little to the left or right (and there's no animation about leaving cover... You just start moving ), re-enter portable cover and shoot for about 10 seconds until the second circle shows up under you, move again, start plunking away because you've survived the phase. We haven't downed the bosses yet (I think we might be undergeared...) but in this fight I literally take 0 damage until the red circle phase. Then I take about 10k from the unvaoidable AoE pulse damage, then take 0 again until the next circle phase. I stand 33ish meters away from Zorn, because Fearful's debuff is 25m away from where Toth lands, so if I'm 30 away I may still get it. Occasionally I'll have to readjust my positioning after the tank swap, but that only takes a second or so, and allows me to refresh Dampeners (not that I need it ) and Snap Shot. My healers love me because all I need is one HoT after the red circle phase and they can ignore me in favor of the people taking significantly more damage. EDIT: I should say, we haven't beaten them yet in HARD MODE. Story Mode we two-shotted them the first time, and haven't had any problems since. But for some reason we can't get over the hump of Hard Mode, which makes me think it's a gear issue. *shrugs*

They're based on Zam Wessel. If you're not sure who that is (and who can blame you?) she's the assassin that fails to kill Obi Wan and Anakin on Coruscant at the start of Episode 2, then gets killed by Jango before she can say anything. Just look at the artwork on Takedown, that's practically her right there.

Honestly, you're going about it the wrong way. You're trying to fight a losing battle and that's your issue right there. Think about it, what makes Ops/Assassins (and Republic equivalents) so strong isn't their utility and all that junk, it's that THEY pick when to fight. If the odds aren't in their favor (unless they're dumb) they don't attack, period. So they're going at you with the deck stacked in their favor, usually while you have cooldowns ticking away and force/energy/rage in sub-optimal conditions. The reason you get roflowned is because you try to fight them. Run. No, seriously, run. Now their cooldowns are ticking away as well, they've blown their wad, and they aren't getting the kill. Meanwhile you can go do something useful for your team. At least once per warzone I have some stealth class open up on me expecting a free kill--I hit Cover Pulse, knock them back and root them, and then run and they're left without a target. Obviously not every class has a combined root/knockback, but you have other abilities to take advantage of. Do it. Also? Don't run around solo. It's a team game, so if you're in a warzone stick with your teammates. Not many people can win a 2-on-1, so they're going to go find an easier target. (This last part is harder as a Sniper, we tend to get separated from the rest of the group given how we have to stand still to attack--but that's probably why we got Cover Pulse to compensate)

I'm straight Marksman with some extra points thrown into the other trees. I survive by, well, running! I like to do the Curly "Woo-woo-woo-woo" sound as I run, it's pretty great. Against ranged attackers you can usually beat them yourself, but if you're caught unawares or already at lowish health, then just do unto them as they unto you: Break LoS, create time and space, and then find friends. Against melee attackers that you can't realistically beat, look at their resolve bar. If they're white, Cover Pulse (they won't be knocked back, but the root still takes hold) or Leg Shot and get moving. If they're not white, Cover Pulse and run more easily--If they use their CC-breaker and leap to you, lol and Debilitate (Flashbang if you're MM and don't have to worry about DoTs breaking the CC) or Leg Shot and get away. I honestly love when stealth classes open up on me. They expect me to frantically try and put up a fight--a fight they'll win because they're scissors and I'm paper--but I just punt them away, stun them, root them, whatever and ****. Then I go do something useful for my team while they pretend to be a one-man Wolfpack or something and cause their team to lose because they're effectively short one player.

I don't think you're a troll at all, but I do think you're over-valuing Defense. It's a little better now that the "I JUST WANT TO BE OP" crowd have moved on from Tracer Missle/Grav Round and rolled Marauders which at least use Melee attacks, but for the most part you're still taking far too much Force/Tech damage to make Defense worth the effort. More importantly, even against Melee and Ranged attacks you're still not going to get a heckuva lot of use out of defense. Let's say you've got +8% from the Augments and other stuff you mentioned, couple that with your base 5% and your total defense is 13%. I know people lower their accuracy, but I really think you're over-estimating how much they drop it by. If they've got even just 5%--which is low considering what's on all the ($@&%(*@& gear out there...--then you only have an 8% chance of avoiding half the attacks in the game. So you see what I mean? I honestly think, in your own wwords, that killing someone one attack faster is going to happen a lot more often than the extra defense saving your life.

At your level you're going to run out of energy, it's inevitable. But think of it this way: Running out of energy at lower levels prepares you for how the class works. You learn how to ration your resources. The good news is that you slowly start to pick up better and better tools to help you deal with energy. This creates a gradual learning curve. Snipe is a good attack, but your bread and butter are the far more efficient Ambush and, when you eventually get them, Followthrough and Series of Shots.

I play a female agent, your options there are to seduce or poison the fatty. I accidentally seduced him the whole way, largely because I needed Kaliyo points and she liked the seduction act because it was in her nature. So I just kept picking Flirt and getting 15 or 30 points a pop. Then once he gave me the information I needed, there was one more Flirt option--It didn't say Kiss, so I figured it'd be just another line of dialogue. ...I was wrong. Interestingly enough, though, Kaliyo's reaction was equally priceless. I can't recall the exact line, but it was something like, "Wow, you really commit, don't you? I'm going to be right outside if you need me..."

They said elsewhere that it'd be introduced in a way that doesn't step on crafters' toes. But, y'know, reading the whole sentence is waaaay less convenient than just siezing on the first thing to piss you off...

I think this is affecting more than crafting--I've had my companions out running Slicing missions for lockboxes and wound up with them returning with Augment materials. It's happened to me twice on my alt, each time was after a warzone.

I'm pretty sure you can buy the schematics for Expertise mods/crystals/enhancements from the PvP Items Vendor. I haven't checked his stock in forever, but I know you can at least get crystals that way. Should stand to reason you'd be able to buy the rest, too.

Here's the caveat to your caveat: Have you noticed the one thing all those abilities have in common? They're all on different classes. So we have watered down versions of Marauder, Sorc, Powertech, and generic Inquisitor (and forgot that our AoE knockback also has a 5s root to it, which is unique and extremely powerful in its own right)--whereas those classes have a drought in other regards. We do high damage and have a variety of utility abilities, compared to other classes that do a little more damage but have much a much narrower scope to their utility.

Vitality Serum serves me a little better than Sniper Volley since this is a spec to use for both PvP and PvE. In other words, I'm not min-maxing as much as I should You're right on IP. I'm reluctant to give up even a smidge of crit bonus, but it's a good DoT. I'm just a dinosaur, is all.

I tend not to use SS any longer because: In PVE: Someone else brings the armor debuffs. I'm 99% sure armor debuffs don't stack any longer, and Warriors bring a debuff with them, so I don't really need mine. In PvP: It's so fast and furious that I can't fit it into a "real" rotation. I'll use it in PvP while on the move, but if I'm in a position where I can afford the time to cast a real attack, like Ambush or Snipe, then SS' damage is far too low to warrant using. It puts you into damage debt. Think of it this way, if all your attacks do 1k damage and SS does 500, but increases future damage by 100 per shot (I'm making up numbers off the top of my head, obviously, but the concept is sound) then you need to attack 5 times after the SS before you've paid off the debt of having used SS.

From experience with other MMOs, I'll add this much: If you want the devs to answer and take you seriously, avoid being a jerk. Ask the question, make your case, provide supporting evidence. At no point get hostile, don't use hyperbole like "The devs don't care, they don't play the game, the game's in maintenance mode, etc." Don't threaten to cancel your subscription. In short: Don't be such a friggin' baby. If you're whining and having a tantrum, of course they're going to ignore you--Because if they answer you, then all of a sudden the secret sauce to getting a reply becomes Have A Bigger Tantrum.

Totally. But as I said, as you play more you figure out what causes the problem most often and learn to avoid it. The thing is, you generally don't need to be that far along the ledge in the first place. Just drop into cover a tiny fraction of a bit sooner and you're good to go. At this point, and again I don't mean to make it sound like I'm saying l2p so I'm sorry if it comes across that way, but at this point it takes me more effort to get the Unknown Effect bug than it does to avoid it.

Warzones, it's generally SoS, Ambush, FT, Instant Snipe, WHATEVER ISN'T ON COOLDOWN. The main benefit of SoS is that it makes Ambush quicker and is energy efficient. Warzones are burst-centric, so energy efficiency isn't quite as important as it is in a long boss fight.

I have a theory about that--Look at every class board since 1.2 and it's all "THIS IS SUCH BULLSITH!" It doesn't matter what the reality of the situation is, everyone perceives their class as being worthless because now they actually have to PAY ATTENTION to force/heat. Heaven forbid, right? Meanwhile you've got this board which largely consists of, "Why's Kaliyo such a raging b---?" and "Why can't I f@&* Scorpio?" Why WOULDN'T they want to play this? No one's complaining here! (At least, not yet, not until the new crop of Snipers reach 50, get trashed in warzones, get frustrated and start yelling. Many won't have the patience to save up for even Recruit so that they'll be competative. *shrugs*) Also? Best story of any class. By far.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400bcrrdRoRGZbI0MZh.1 That's what I've been using. Best? Probably not. But it works for me and my playstyle. I really enjoy it and that's all that matters. It's also my PvE spec, so it's convenient to not have to go to the trainer every few days before an Op.

I didn't like her much at first. But then I started seeing similarities between how my Sniper was acting and Mal from Firefly. Then I made the logical conclusion: If my Sniper is Mal, then Kaliyo is my Jayne. And then s--- got REAL, son.

Honestly, it depends on the choices you make. Mine was a goody-goody patriot. My friend's was a sociopathic murderer. The decisions you make along the way and the dialogue choices you pick have far deeper implications than, say, Mass Effect 3. (Too soon?)

For me, it's normally only a problem in Huttball along the upper catwalks. Sometimes I get it when I'm trying to get as close as possible to the edge of the platform on Alderaan Civil War, but not all the time. Eventually you just sort of learn where the annoying parts are and avoid them. I completely agree, by the way, so don't think I'm trying to tell you to l2p or anything. But, as I said, once you've burned your hand enough, you eventually learn to not put it on the stove =P

Both are good enough to get the job done. Play what's fun. If your guild is having trouble to the point where they're not taking you on HMs because they can't down bosses fast enough, that's their problem for being bad and/or not geared enough. 100-200 extra DPS isn't going to break the bank.

Look, everyone's going to have different opinions, so all I'm going to say is that I'm also 60 valor, I'm also a sniper, I only ever solo queue, and I'm MM instead of Lethality. I do fine. I never get MVP votes because people sort by healing and vote whoever is at the top, or pity-vote whoever is at the bottom without sorting. But I do fine. I don't win very often, but that's because I'm pugging. Warzones are a team game, so I don't concern myself with 1v1 fights.

I'm light-side, SCORPIO and I are besties!

I crafted three green gloves this morning, RE'd all of them for the materials, got all three blue schematics. *shrugs* Random numbers are random2958y389562390573.