There is one place where stealth scan is extremely useful and that is EC trash. There are mobs that go stealth that will only be brought out by stealth scan, not aoes. They are a pain in the *** to kill without stealth scan. I think commandos are very good to have in a raid. On the first boss in ec sm the commando I was dpsing with kept me and him cleansed to leave the healers able to cover the rest of the raid. Now I am not saying it would be wise to stack 4 commandos as the only dps, or even 2 commandos as dps, but they have their uses and they can dish out the dps. Plus as mentioned earlier, commandos have stellar aoe which is really great for fights with adds like karraga and Kephiss. Especially when you have mortar volley, which knocks normals down keeping them in your teammates aoes.

You're asking for something unrealistic. Scoundrels and sages are in the same boat as commandos when it comes to self heals and cleanse being factored into their utility and balance. While I am not say that commandos are perfect in pvp you cant take away the heals because it is a healer class too. If you are not using your cleanse you are dying way earlier than you would be if you did use your cleanse. If you see a dot on you, cleanse. Another dot, cleanse again when cooldown is up. If you see your healer or perhaps the ball carrier rooted or mezed, cleanse them. if you are rooted, cleanse yourself. yes it takes ammo, and yes it takes a global cooldown, but well worth it when you are effectively avoiding large amounts of damage. I don't think commandos were intended to be "glass cannons" so if you are looking to play a straight dps class that does massive dps, but is a "glass cannon" you should reroll a vanguard.

Combat medic 1. Mixed bag, either people think the spec is really difficult to kill, especially when guarded. Decent heals. Or people think that they are the worst healers in the game with zero mobility or survivability. 2. I thoroughly enjoy it. We are extremely powerful with support from our teammates and proper positioning. While I don't know that we are the best healers in game, if you enjoy the play style and understand it, you can really thrive.

If you want to feel less squishy go sab spec . Although a constant reset of your ballistic dampers can make ss a lot less squishy. sorry about my mistake on listing gav round/tracer missile. I usually interrupt it as well, but I thought it was weapon damage, my mistake. Best ability to use dodge on is master strike/ravage. It hits like a truck and is damn near impossible to get out of.

I have never seen anyone with that augment, I dont know if its a random pattern from the pvp crafting box or if its not even in game right now. my guess is its extremely rare if it exists at all. If someone had it, I would imagine they would announce it and try to make a killing cause everyone would want them.

It is better to use dodge as a defense against a known incoming attack that you know will hit very hard and you want to avoid it but you can't get LoS. Such abilities include master strike/ravage, ambush/aimed shot, unload/full auto, tracer missile/gav round spam if you cannot interrupt, railshot, and a few others. If you wait to use it until you are almost dead you will generally waste it unless you know the class you are using it against is going to be using their execute and their execute is white damage.

I play sab spec mainly pvp, some pve. 1. Sab spec is perceived as a support class with limited burst, not good for pve. Basically good for area denial in pvp. Damage is bloated in pvp due to aoe. 2. I LOVE my spec. My damage in pvp is not all aoe, and my burst is fine. I have a lot of survivability tools that help me stay alive a long time, especially with the support of a good healer and/or tank. I think sab is underestimated in pve. I can pull out the same numbers as others with comparable gear. Plus, our added survivability and utility of the 30 fewer seconds on scrambling field is undervalued.

Pvp or pve. There is a lot of info about sab spec in pvp here (sab is mirror for engi) http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=459800&highlight=Incendiary+grenade The comments about illegal mods are outdated but everything else should still be current. As far as a pvp rotation, I only have a burst rotation. Shock charge, incendiary grenade, sab charge, illegal mods, speedshot, luck, charged burst, end with QuickDraw if below thirty percent. Throw in flourish shot if you need it for armor reduction and healing reduction. Other than that I everything I do is situational, and mainly defensive. Protect node, protect myself, protect my healers, kill priority target is generally my order of priority. Now pve is a bit different. I am more of a pvper so feel free to correct me. Start off: flourish shot, shock charge, incendiary grenade, vital shot, freighter flyby, sab charge, illegal mods, speedshot, luck, charged burst, aimed shot. Use coolhead as needed, keep sabotage on cooldown so you have a one min cooldown on coolhead. After initial rotation priority should be something like illegal mods, freighter flyby, shock charge, incendiary grenade, sab charge, speedshot, aimed shot, charged burst. Keep vital shot up on the boss, use luck plus charged burst when it is up. Use free shots often to help with energy management. This could be quick shots if talented or basic attack if not. Note that the priority list is not the actual order of the attacks, simply the priority of what you should be using given that the abilities are off cooldown, but make sure to not let your energy dip too low and don't use illegal mods or sab charge if you have full energy as they will both give you energy back, assuming you have the set bonus. I apologize for the republic terminology, I don't know all the empire terms and thought it best to speak in all pub instead of going back and forth.

To be honest as a gunslinger plasma probe doesn't look any different to me now. It was always red. What looks different is I can tell the different between a friendly aoe and an enemy aoe, especially for those same faction matches. Personally I am use to people moving out of my incendiary grenade. After all, a big circle of fire is pretty obvious. But I often use incendiary grenade as a stun, a slow, or to protect me or healers from melee. Or of course to defend a node. Its also nice to put on a group of healers so they have to move which can hurt their ability to heal depending on if they have instant heals off cooldown.

If everyone in battlemaster gear queues for ranked not having warhero is not an issue. There would be enough teams Queuing that you wouldn't always end up against that full augmented warhero geared team. You should augment your battlemaster to be competitive. You will gear up faster by playing ranked matches, since they award ranked coms. Too many people are scared of a low ranking and here is my point of view. If you don't queue at all your rank is zero, so low as possible. If you wait til you get the gear in a Month, you probably still won't beat the fully min maxed war hero teams who have been perfecting their strategies in ranked over the last month. Keep in mind this is preseason. At the end of preseason all ranks will be reset (unless bioware changes this from what they previously announced) and more than likely there will be a new tier of gear to aquire. So start queuing now. Get the experience working as a team. Besides, the ranks will mean nothing if there is not a large enough pool of people queuing.

The extra range on your execute is amazing for when people try to run away. Well worth it in my opinion.

The lag isnt even just warzone based. I have had the same thing happen in fps where everyone freezes for a few seconds and then we all die or come close to. So it is definitely server lag. I agree there should be a way to reconnect to a ranked warzone. If you know there are two or more teams in queue for ranked and the queue is not popping please submit an in game ticket with specifics of who was queued and for how long before you gave up. This is not the first time I am hearing this issue. I know I have sat in queue for over an hour before, but I never checked if anyone else was queued. If this is happening, bioware needs the specifics so they can be better able to understand why this is happening.

I just want to point out that the leap plus cc immunity is one talent from one spec of one class, vig guardian/veng juggernaut and hybrids who take the talent. This immunity only lasts four seconds, so wait four seconds to do your knockback. Hint if they have two sabers they won't be immune. There are a few other classes that have cc immunity from knockbacks, but they are cooldowns and they generally have noticible graphics so you know when you can't knock them back. And those classes don't have leaps. I am a gunslinger and I love huttball. But I also love all the warzones. I love swtor pvp. I disagree with the statement that most players/teams that are good at huttball are not good at the other warzones. Although I will agree with the statement that with a good four man premade you can carry your team to victory as long as they're smart enough to let you. the only ability that is more useful in huttball than other warzones is a sage/sorc pull. Leap plus cc immunity is pretty useful in every warzone, and those who spec into that tree are pretty effective if they know how to play their class to its full potential.

All three trees plus a couple of hybrid specs are viable in pvp. I personally prefer a pure sab spec (engineering). Life is too boring when I can't set things on fire with incendiary grenade/plasma probe.

Please do this, the main problem right now is people not queuing. If everyone queues then it won't be that one under geared group vs that one geared group. You will have a variety of opponents.

While you can play all the specs with some mobility, dirty fighting is probably the most mobile, especially when you pick up the talent that gives you increased run speed after dirty kick. Just don't ignore cover completely.

I agree. You don't learn to be a better player by sitting at an idle node with four other players. You learn to be a better player by actually fighting. I constantly learn new tactics and counters by watching other players. And fighting other players. And just FYI to the under geared, it doesn't matter if you are in fully augmented warhero, a good team can focus fire you in seconds if your whole team isn't on the ball with taunts, guards, heals, stuns, mezes, dps, etc. So you can't just say well I will be better when I get the gear. It does not work that way.

Sometimes rooting someone in the fire is the only thing that will kill the ball carrier when it's a good tank with good heals. Resolve is fine as is. I would not have roots be effected by it. You can still pass the ball if you're rooted anyway.

Fact, premades get matched against other premades when possible. I know this to be true as a frequent premade queuer who nearly always goes against other premades. Fact, you are playing an mmo. If I wanted to kill things in a game without grouping I would play a single player game. I want to pvp with friends. I don't want to have to wait for eight people to do so. I will compare it to pve. You can do a FP with up to four players (technically companions can fill the other slots and sm fps are easy to do with companions), but you have to wait for eight balanced players to do an op. so you can pvp with up to four players but you have to wait for eight balanced players to do ranked. This sounds fair to me.

I like the marker over my healers head. It says hey look at me instead of my buddy who is capping the objective. You know when you are being focused. Use it to your advantage. This is more useful against pugs than a good team for sure. Honestly, in ranked warzones people mark a lot more than healers and I think the markers are fine as is.

Shhhh don't tell bioware my secret. The stated internal cooldown never existed as far as I can tell, and I had the talent since 1.2 launched. For all you people saying it is a worthless talent its actually pretty amazing. Overlad shot/quick shot does more damage than floury of bolts, and the talent essentially allows you to forgo ever having to use your basic attack. All that said, I will admit that I recently swapped the talent for more hps now that I have full warhero. I never thought the points in hps was worth it before because if you don't have a large health pool, then you won't see a significant increase in health.

Your rotation is a bit off for sab. Single target: shock charge, incendiary grenade, sab charge,illegal mods, speed shot, luck, charged burst, and then depending on health or how fast your target needs to die either spam grenades and free shot, spam charged burst, or quick draw. Throw in flourish shot as needed. Use freighter flyby as area denial or as needed on a single target or group you can root or mez. Yes it does massive damage, but you want to make sure it is available when you need it, not just used as a part of a regular rotation in pvp. It is extremely effective you to place it on you or your healers to defend against attacking melee. For a sab spec'd slinger speedshot is one of our highest damage dealing abilities, especially when used in conjunction with sab charge to detonate all the contingency charges very quickly. I use speedshot nearly every time off of cooldown. It's really not that easy to LoS if you make sure to position yourself properly. Not to mention even if they LoS the last tick you still get the dots from the earlier ticks as a sab spec. And you've still done a lot of damage.

Yes, they definitely match premade vs premade when possible. As a person who nearly always runs in a premade I can say I am nearly always against a team who also has a premade. What may be confusing some people is that not all premades mean people are sharing a guild tag. There are many pvpers who queue with friends in separate guilds. Also, not all premades are created equal. But for the most part I see a lot of good competition when running in a premade. It not all facerolling. You really saw this match making in action when you had eight guildies queue up for a warzone pre 1.3 and you nearly always were against each other because you were the only two premades queuing. Of course server transfers has helped. Because there are a lot more premades running.

This is just untrue. While sab may not be the single target killer that SS is, we specialize in the ability to defend a node very well, despite being outnumbered. Yes sab charge may be our best burst tool, but burst is not the only thing that matters in a warzone. Not to mention that massive aoes can help protect your healers or anyone else you want to protect for that matter from your enemies. Or it can bring people down pretty far so they're easier for your team to pick off. Not to mention our defenses allow us to live much longer than our opponents expect us to, giving is time to get reinforcements. This is not me saying the other specs are not good, I think they all have a place in pvp, and in ranked.

Stay sab, while you won't have the killing power or quite the survivability that a fully warhero geared sabslinger has, you will still have your amazing abilities to deny a team the ability to take a node. Learning how to survive while being unde geared will make you a better player when you ultimately get the gear.