Pretty sure that kind of story is quite common, though the decline happened faster than that on my server (afaik). Oh well, Guild Wars 2 is better anyway =P

Unlike ArenaNet, who 3-day banned anyone exploiting and will permaban anyone who does it again in the future, even if they're not repeat offenders or if it's a different exploit. Then again, they can afford the subscriber loss that 3000 bans means to make their message clear ;]

Updates have been lacking because of forum bans and then Guild Wars 2, but I have updated the build slightly and added to the Marauder section. With that said, Thief is way better than Scrapper for fun-factor and Guild Wars 2 itself is way more intense, balanced and fun. You even have a PvP environment where gear matters and is basically Open World with World v World v World, whereas Structured PvP (sPvP) takes gear out of the equation, though you can still itemize with a modular 6-piece set bonus that gives stats and extra bonuses. I still encourage you all to ask more Scrapper questions here about specific issues you may have, as I will check and post on the forums until I am no longer able to (I think subscription running out takes away forum privileges?).

Sorry, I jumped ship to GW2. I encourage you to play a Thief for a day and tell me it's not way more fun, what with Shadowstep and on-demand combat rolls with on-demand stealth options. But since you want to know, I semi-answered this already here. As for the most EFFICIENT way to get there, I couldn't tell you since I fully optimized my BM gear before going War Hero because farming the BM Eliminator's Cannon was a better use of my comms for increased combat effectiveness, since I figured I was going to be in BM gear for a while. My best suggestion is just rushing for vanilla BM set and then for the WH stuff piece-by-piece would be the best bet. You'll need 6 War Hero Field Tech Leggings and 6 War Hero Field Tech Boots, plus 4 WH armorings, 1 of each piece that's not a PvE shell (for the +15% Backblast crit) since WH armorings care where they came from (you can't put glove armorings into a helmet). I suggest getting the PvE chest and PvE leggings for the set bonus, because they are the most expensive ranked comms-wise and all WH armorings have the same stats regardless. I can update if you have further questions, but there's already a BiS thread =P

DoT specs will have higher total damage from stat padding. Doesn't mean higher DPS, in fact it means the contrary since you take longer to deliver your damage.

When people say the mouse is slower, they mean physically activating the abilities. When you're not a baddie keyboard turning, your mouse is occupied with moving your camera anyway, so you'd have to stop turning to click on every skill you want to use rather than just pressing a key to do it. Has nothing to do with the input/interface speed of the device, has everything to do with the speed of the interface between human and computer.

Healing is easier than DPSing on a Scoundrel. If not being focused, Underworld Medicine -> Emergency Medpack, repeat. Throw in a Cleanse when you notice people burning and such, putting SRMs on people whenever there's a lull in damage. You can do this after taking cover behind a handy dandy box (Voidstar) or upper ledge (Alderaan). If being focused, run and pillar hump while using Emergency Medpack, Blaster Whip and SRMs in order of importance. Specifics: Kolto Cloud when you have no Upper Hands and you want the healing of an SRM, but quickly or if multiple are close together and taking damage, which shouldn't really be happening =P It's centered on whoever you're targeting, so its range is essentially 45m if you have an intermediate target at 30m. EMP spam at <30% health is obvious, but for the time when they pop up to like 32%, either put an SRM on them if you need to keep moving, or start channeling a UWM if you can afford to sit still for a bit. It's just that easy. Use Dodge a lot too, if you don't already; it's your best cooldown, but also put up your shield on-cooldown.

Even though a Guild Wars 2 Thief is far and away more fun to play than a Scrapper, you want to farm War Hero Field Tech Boots and Field Tech Leggings for your mods and enhancements. I believe Field Medic weapons are the way to go as well, pretty sure they have the Power on them. Put all +18 Cunning augments (purple Skill Augment 21 if you can find them are the best deal and use Mk-5 slots) for the extra crit. From what I can remember my Cunning was at ~1870 and Power was at ~850 with a crit of pretty much exactly 30% and 78.6%-ish Surge. I was BiS for most of my stuff, cherry-picked the Cunning datacrons to offset the couple Augments that were blue Skill Augment 22s instead of Purple, because 10k for +16 > 150k for +18. But that's beside the point, use WH Crit/Surge ears and Implants, orange bracer and belt with PvE level 61 armoring and WH +Power mod, WH +Power Relic, WH Field Tech Boots Enhancement and WH Field Tech Leggings Mod with purple Skill Augment 21 or 22s. Boom, best DPS gear at the cost of lots of Ranked comms. And no you can't have my stuff =P Come to Guild Wars 2, you don't have to worry about grinding then!

Negative impact = splitting dismal PvP population between two different queues. Easier solution = make Ranked matches have standardized gear, keeping itemization for customization. Both normal and ranked reward Warzone commendations, tone down the rewards in normal queue by half and bump up the ranked rewards by 20%. Skill-based Ranked pvp that helps your gear grind, since you want to keep it.

Jesus Christ, I am agreeing with you. What has the world come to? -Gag- You.. make.. a good point... MRJ... DIE MARAUDER FILTH, COME TAKE MY SHOTGUN UP THE *** LIKE I KNOW YOU WANNA, BOOM BOOM! Ahem. Much better.

Hehehehehe. Bioware, you so silly..

Destroying the people with only tier 1 of one skill tree or green gear from 15 levels ago is certainly skill in their eyes =] I know it made me feel good to tank 4 people on my Scoundrel in preparation for having to heal at level 50. Never was interrupted and was able to throw out some damage intermittently too! Couldn't possibly have been because I had all my skills available and great gear though right? Was alllll personal skill ;]

You mean Sap - call inc - Sap (CC break for them) - Try to sap at full resolve and watch it not work. L2P? Stealth mezz fills their bar to 80% and it won't drain far enough to get in another sap under Resolve. Maybe on Novare if he tries solo-capping after eating the sap, never left someone to freely cap that long to try it out =P

Source's core dropped out though, so even if they can field one team now it isn't going to be very competitive. DoA got back some of their PvP group, Youngster is just guildless, I think Exiles picked up one or two people and you should get Kee'lo in ASB already =P

Holy Necro Batman!

CC breaker and resolve are not linked in the slightest beyond the rule of thumb that you should only CC break at white resolve.

.... Why?

You don't think PvE heroes would complain if we could get top-end raiding gear by just grinding Warzones?

Pretty much. But PvPing for a week is less enjoyable than washing socks, apparently.

Yeah I'm not gonna grind a new character up to 50 and get optimized BM for one tournament where I can't even send the credits back to my main on another server =P

And this is the flipside, restating what I've said but in MORE words this time. Thank you for the support =P

It does feel good to be a threat when in fully optimized War Hero. Any healer is in the for the fight of his life is he's good, or a swift death if he's not.

Nerf skill! Also, I will destroy your hybrid with my Scrapper. Try me in a duel.

Lol. Like I said, game isn't the problem. Like I also said, don't like it, don't play it.

Roll on a PvP server and gank lowbies, stake your claim to a random point on the map and defend it. I personally assault the Imperial home base on Ilum several times a week and take it over, usually by myself but I call reinforcements when there's lots of Imps.