What are you supposed to wear before valor rank 40?

I use Bowdarr so I can reliably get back blast off

It says it on the talent tree, 10 second internal cooldown. It's lamesauce

I have both at a high level (50 operative, 43 scoundrel) and feel that the operative animations are just a little bit quicker. Doesn't change the global cooldown though. Also to the guy above who said that getting a better knife ups your damage: Yes it does, but only because it increases your tech power. The damage rating on your knife/scatter gun is just there for show.

Not necessarily. For example, pretty much every attack that a Scrapper Scoundrel uses is tech (except for quick shot, which is mostly filler waiting for cooldowns) which has 100% accuracy already.

I know critical hits cannot be shielded but I'm pretty sure the Hit/defense/miss roll is done before crit vs shield

You have 629 expertise but less than 15k health

I worded it poorly You're talking from the point of a merc pyro, I feel that powertech pyro is better.

The DoT's of assault/pyro aren't what does the big burst damage, it's railshot+thermal detonator.

5 extra energy isn't bad, but it precludes you from the 15% crit chance on back stab/back blast from 2 pve pieces. For healer obviously this doesn't matter but for DPS you want that extra crit.

Good... Good... Use your anger.

Not sure if serious.... An extra charge on Force Potency/Recklessness is trash? For operative/scoundrel you want 2 PvE enforcer pieces for +15% back stab/back blast crit chance, then probably field tech for the rest as the orbital strike/freighter duration is the least suckish.

low level operative/scoundrels do suck hard. Once you hit 40 (for conceal/scrapper) is when things get cooking.

Flechette does not respect the global cooldown...

31 points in lightning is terrible for PvP, try one of the hybrid specs or 31 points in Madness

Every class has a shared tree

You better not be using disappearing act if you're healing the tank in a raid, 10 seconds of generating 0 healing tends to be a problem.

The worst part for me is I'm leveling a scoundrel and I've already played Operative at 50, so I'm used to having 2 Upper hand available after blaster whip in my rotation. I keep hitting sucker punch wondering why it isn't going off

Something like this is what I assume you had in mind? http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#701MffMzhZZhrbkrMhd.1

Your valor level is capped at your combat level until you hit level 50.

Being a Battle Master has nothing to do with how good you are at PvP, simply how much time you've put into it (or farmed Ilum on patch day).

It's loot to those who put in the time instead of those who just happen to get lucky, I don't see the problem.

I agree with your post. My guild decided to switch servers and factions so I left a ~400 expertise operative and rolled a shadow. I've been 50 on my shadow for about a week now and really I just feel like a punching bag most of the time. If I run into another ungeared player or a bad I'll smoke them but a semi-competent geared player will kill me easily. Doesn't help I've opened about 30 champ bags and gotten 1 implant and 2 relics.

The republic team had 3 healers over 400k healing

I hate you 30 bags deep on my shadow and I have 1 champ implant and 2 relics. You can have only 1 of the purchased gear bags (the 200/200 ones) but as many daily/weekly bags as your inventory can hold.