Necessary? No, not really since you don't have speed shot yet. Do you want to use it? Yes. Wounding shots will get interrupted a lot if you don't drop into cover before shooting it. Also, since you don't have a few of your abilities yet, like speed shot and hemmorage, you might need to fill those gaps in with a charged burst or sabotage charge.

I tested it with a buddy in a duel. At 50, wearing some Rakata and a lot of columni, it seemed to be blocking around 3kish. I was pretty surprised, as I felt like it was a lot lower.

I'm fairly certain mine is blocking more like 3-4k. I also tested defense screen on my gunslinger. It seems to be blocking roughly 3k as well. Granted, both of these toons are pretty damn well geared (rakata weapons and gear).

When i first hit 50, I found Zenith to be my best champion. I prefer to bring the extra damage over having the higher survivability, but i just live on the edge like that. Nadia is ok, but tends to get a lot of aggro and die. Zenith, you can turn off his AEs and he will just single target burn stuff down. I remember seeing him crit stuff in the face for like 1600 when i was a fresh 50. As you go on though, it won't be long before Nadia is wielding a Columni saber, wearing all your hand me down or duplicate columni gear, and just be infinitely better geared than your other companions just due to her being consular as well. My Nadia has like 17k hp and does tons of damage with her cyan saber. Zenith can't compete with that anymore.

WHAT?! Sents are easily the most powerful class in the game now that scoundrels/ops have been nerfed. They do crazy amounts of damage, have two cooldown that make them invulnerable, and have the knight's low cooldown interrupt. Oh, and with watchman spec (probably the only spec worth going), they are constantly healing back up while fighting. Long story short, sents are amazing. Sages are really really good healers and kind of 'meh' dps'ers.

uh huh..

I would post a counter-argument to your barely legible and non-sensical post that did nothing but try and tell me I don't play the class, but there is nothing I could say that would make you look worse than your own post already does. I guarantee I've seen more of this game's end game content than you, am better geared than you, and i'm fairly certain you have no clue about positioning or anything useful in pvp as well. Enjoy your fail sir.

I routinely outdamage the next closest guy to me in pvp by 200k+ We certainly deal the damage, but it is true about the keybinds. This class is not easy to play. If you want easy to play, go sage. My old-main was a sage, and that class is pretty hard to do wrong.

What 3 abilities are you talking about that requires cover? Your rotation in DF should look something like: Shrap bomb, vital shot, hemmorage, free attack to regen, wounding shot, speed shot, quick draw. There is very little reason to use any other ability in there except maybe a flourish now and then on a tougher target. If you start throwing in sab charges, charged bursts, or aimed shots you tend to run out of energy. Even that standard rotation I put up there will leave you waiting on energy quite a bit. I clear nightmare runs and usually outscore the next closest guy in pvp by at least 200k damage playing this way, so i'm pretty sure it is efficient. Just to be clear, i'm not arguing that you shouldn't use cover for the defense bonus (which doesn't work btw in pvp) or during a wounding shot, just that I don't understand what 3 abilities you are talking about that "require" it. Way i see it, we have one that requires it. Speed shot.

My main is now my level 50 slinger. I changed over from Sage. I am pretty epic'd out at this point, wearing quite a bit of Rakata gear and wielding 2 Rakata guns. My sage is also Rakata'd out with his rakata saber. I throw these credentials out there to let you know I have experience with not one, but two classes clearing everything on nightmare and doing lots of pvp. We'll start with your main point. Argument: While this is logical and I can see why you think this, in reality it is a flawed argument. The problem with this line of thinking is that if you make one class do more damage than the others, even if it is justified in that they can do nothing else, it soon becomes a game of anyone who wants to seriously clear end game content as fast as possible will bring almost exclusively slingers. Ya, you might squeeze in something else if you need their buff or someone who can sap or something, but mostly why would you bring anything but the highest dps class for your dps spots? 1 - No versatility While this is true, we have 3 different ways to do damage. Most classes only have 2. One pvp spec, and one pve spec. So, for example, if you hate the way a sage dps's by standing there spamming disturbances until something procs, well, you don't really have any other good options except to become a healer. 2 - Low to no mobility This is true of only one spec. Also, even SS spec encourages getting up and moving every 6ish seconds to get another insta-charged burst and to refresh your ballistic dampeners. 3 - Low HP Low Armor This one is mostly true. We are squishy. That being said, we have much more armor than sages or non-tank shadows, and we do have some very nice defenses in defense screen and dodge. Also, it is a BIG deal that cover makes us immune to interrupts, unable to be charged to, and hunker down is flat out one of the best abilities in the game making us immune to all forms of CC or knockaround for 20!!! seconds. You can plant, turn on hunker down, and nobody can do anything to you except run away while you blast them to smithereens. Sentinels/marauders are a bit silly in their ability to go invulnerable or to vanish (and be invulerable while invis) though. We can't compete with that. 4 - No CC 5 - Low Utility Flashbang is amazing in pvp as it is the only area effect CC that works on players. Although, slicing droids is an amazing CC when you do need it due to having no cool down. Sage force lift can CC anything, but it has a 1 minute cooldown, so if someone breaks your CC, tough cookies, can't re-cc. Our utility is in scrambling field. That ability is pretty damn good on some of the tougher fights in the nightmare ops. It's worth bringing a slinger just for that ability. We have the best armor reducing ability in flourish shot (20% reduction in a single debuff, no stacking required). XS Freighter Flyby is probably the single greatest AE ability in the whole game in both pvp and pve. In pvp, scrambling field can be ok, but it is our flashbangs and having the best "knock everything 20 miles away and root them ability" in pulse detonator. So, as a fellow slinger, i'm here to tell you that your argument is pretty much wrong. Thank you.

Please give us a way to show off our crystal colors without needing a target. Like, why isn't sweeping gunfire set to our crystal colors? That would be a perfect ability for this sort of thing. All the jedi can just pull their saber out and be like "look at me, i have my awesome pink/blue-black saber". Us slingers and troopers have no way to show off our leet colors!

cover is basically not necessary at all. the only time you NEED it is for speed shot, which DF gets a few bonuses too, but for everything else you can skip it. That being said, you get defensive bonuses while in cover in PvE.. so no reason not to use it unless you really gotta move.

I do great in pvp as a slinger. Shrug

All this would make more sense if sentinels/marauders weren't already so powerful in pvp. Next to the incredibly OP scoundrel/operative, they are easily the second best class in the game. I mean, if you spec watchman, you have two cooldowns that basically make you invulnerable. Add in that sentinels are probably the best dps in the game (barring the burst damage of the previously mentioned OP scoundrels/operatives), and I can't understand what you are complaining about.

You don't know what you are talking about. I am cybertech. At level 50, your ability to make armoring is completely useless due to the fact that like 15 minutes of work on ilum will buy you a purple level 51 armoring that is way better than anything I could ever hope to craft. Crafted armoring/hilts/barrels are completely pointless within an hour of hitting 50 pretty much.

Actually, the armor techs can craft tier 3 belts and bracers for themselves. You can't get either of those from hard mode flashpoints or normal ops. Plus, the armoring and hilts/barrels you get from dailies are actually a good bit better (as in not identical) than anything you can craft.

My guildies and I have been comparing our crafting skills now that we've all been 50 for a bit. We're at varying stages of being geared, but almost everyone is wearing at least a few champion and columni pieces. So, looking at our recipes that require the biometric crystals, we just can't figure out what is going on with armstech. It requires 3 of these crystals just to make a weapon that is probably inferior to what you have by the time you can get the 3 crystals needed to make them. It makes little sense to us. I was just wondering if anyone out there has figured out why anyone would want to keep armstech post 50?

I'm cybertech myself and have a few of my super grenades. I stopped rolling on the biometric crystals though since having multiple grenade types that share a cooldown isn't as useful as letting my guild mates make their tier 3 belts and bracers. As a guild of 50s that is doing raid content, we find biochem and the armor skills to be the best crafting skills.

My 2 cents. I've been 50 for over a week now, and our guild is already downing the raid content. As such, we've had a chance to compare how useful all of our crafting skills are at this point (where a lot of us are wearing raid gear and have had a bit of time at 50 to gear through dailies and pvp). Every crafting class gets something "special" at 400 skill that requires mats from raids or hard modes. I'll list them in the order I think they are useful and the "special" thing they can make. 1) Biochem (Awesome reusable stims and medpacks) 2) Synthweaving/Armormech (make tier 3 bracers and belts long before you could get them) 3) Cybertech (Reusable grenades are alright, can get you a stun or snare if your class lacks them) 4) Artificing (Relics. The relics actually suck pretty hard right now, but it might be a bug) 5) Armstech (no special. Makes mediocre level 50 weapons). First and foremost, don't worry about any of the mods/barrels/hilts/armorings/enhancements your trade skill can make. They can all be easily obtained with commendations, and once you hit 50, they are all useless. 15 minutes of work on Ilum doing dailies can obtain you a better armoring/hilt/barrel than any player can craft. Enhancements and mods will be surpassed by your first blue drops in level 50 normal mode flashpoints. Now we'll talk Armstech. From what we can gather, this skill is completely useless post 50. It requires 3 of the raid/hardmode only crafting materials to make a weapon, and that weapon will have all level 52 blue mods and a 48 crystal. Not only can 3 of the hard mode materials be hard to get, but if you are doing raids/hard mode flashpoints, you will probably obtain a far better weapon than you can make anyway one way or another. It makes zero sense to us. The only redeeming value here is that the weapons are not BOP, so maybe you could sell em for money to spend on a 1.5 mil speeder or something. I'm cybertech myself, and I think it's 'alright'. I've made a few of my super grenades, and they are alright. Personally, i think the 5 minute cooldown is too long. Maybe 2 minutes. They are short range, maybe 10 meters, which makes them a bit less useful on my sage who prefers to do most of his fighting at more like 30m. Everything else in cyber is pointless. I made a speeder. Yay. Space missions are already too easy with parts you can buy, nobody needs the purple ship parts. I didn't even bother buying the recipes. The two armor skills and biochem seem the best. Biochem stims will always be useful, and making tier 3 gear (possibly better than t3 if you crit it) has it's advantages.

Just craft blue stuff of your level. Our main tank did that the whole time leveling up and always had amazing gear for his level. He didn't even bother with orange armor until he hit 50. Worked out great for him.

Well, I guess armormech is bad at 50 if you consider being able to make tier 3 stuff long before you could get it bad. Also, you can crit that stuff, making it actually better than the belts and bracers that will drop from the hardest content currently available. So ya, pretty suck I guess.

Hrmm, beat him on our second try tonight. He wasn't tough at all and most of our raid wasn't even geared. The first try threw us off a bit just because it's impossible to hold aggro on him and we weren't prepared for that. Once we knew what was going on we just fell in and instantly formed a circle around his feet and would just adjust it as needed to avoid his swipes. Was pretty cake. So, for some reason, we had a wildly different experience from you.

The easy bosses drop greens, the real bosses drop blues filled with lvl 52 mods. Still, the purple hilt/barrel and armoring you can buy with your dailies are better than the drops.

This is BS. My doublestrike at 45 easily does 400+ damage, so i'm sure my no cost attack does more than 50. That being said, it's still better to throw any other ability you have in most situations unless the thing is so low it will die from that one hit. It only costs 25 force power, so it's better than chucking a project in the rare case that one double strike will finish something. For the most part, your saber is a stat stick. If you want to melee and use force powers you need to go shadow.

For Sages, I found Theran to be completely useless. I could see him being good for a shadow. You are pretty much stuck with Qyzen until you get Zenith which won't be till mid to late thirties. Even then, most Sages still stick with Qyzen because using Zenith requires changing a playstyle you've been doing for 35 levels. It's easy to die with Zenith out if you make a mistake during the fight since you are both squishy high damage characters. That being said, Zenith kills stuff SOOO much faster than Qyzen, so your xp/hour will go up dramatically if you master him. Hint: Turn off his AE abilities, they suck. After that you'll get another companion that is just a ranged version of Qyzen and then finally, at like 42-45ish, you'll get a fun companion in Nadia. I'm still not sure if she is more effective than Zenith though.