I have a razer naga, no numpad 1 on my mouse is bound to acid blade, and shift + 1 is my hidden Strike.

Only picture I had hosted already. http://i.imgur.com/gIfUc.jpg Looking like a level 30. But thats ok, because...augment slots.

I guess my point was, and has always been on these types of posts, is that operatives are far from useless. I think that people who feel the need to come on the forums and cry about their class. Generally are the people who need to read and understand more about their class. They need to work on their skill rotation and their stat weights. These things should all be optimized to the best of their ability before they even consider coming on the forums to whine about class balance. I mean, a lot of the posts I see of peoples combat parses are pretty low, but then you look at the screenshot of their gear, and they are normally stacking power before they even reach their soft cap on crit and surge, or going through their logs you will see they let TA's just fall off. They could gain a significant amount of DPS simply by re-modding, and learning their skill priorities, but Instead they decide to make claims on the forums about their class being useless and whine and cry until bioware makes it easy for them. The front page of the operative class forums should not be filled with posts that describe all of the issues that un-skilled players are having with the class, unless they are asking for advice or opinions. It needs to be suggestions, tips, and discussions leading to the betterment of players who enjoy playing the Operative class. If you feel that the class is truly broken, then post in the suggestions forums, or send bioware an email about it with detailed findings to back your claims. Links like: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=414012 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=455000 These types of threads are helpful to the operative community, things like stats, skill rotations and log parses being posted and discussed. Links like: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=299890 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=437281 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=412859 I see these types of threads on a daily basis, and I just don't bother posting in them anymore. The people that start threads like this are generally beyond help. They have it in their heads that they are amazing players and that obviously it is their class that is broken, not their mechanics. They do not help anyone, not the players, not Bioware. These threads have no place on these forums, and should be ignored, not bumped with whiny, annoying complainers until they reach an excessive number of thread views and page counts. We need to stop the spread of missinformation about our class being "broken" or "useless" just because you are not number one on the damage meter does not make the class useless.

It alternates between a Mercenary, a Sorc, Powertech, and another Mercenary. The Marauder is there every raid, normally. The other DPS work nights a lot so they rotate.

My stats currently: http://i.imgur.com/gIfUc.jpg I am able to maintain equal amounts of DPS as the other DPS classes in my guild, often beating them depending on the fight. I trail behind marauders some, but I would hardly call operatives useless. When I am able to maintain a decent rotation, I can maintain consistent DPS in the high 1400's. My stats are not even perfect, I need more power. My guild is currently clearing 8 man denova on hard mode for reference, so it is not like I am making these claims in story mode KP. The other players are also geared.

Front: http://i.imgur.com/QgBms.jpg Back: http://i.imgur.com/IqpSB.jpg Full View: http://i.imgur.com/56z1d.jpg I like the blue, to bad it cost so much to finally get my augmented boots and chest piece. Now for the other ones and a few more Advanced Battle Enhancements and I should be good to go! Finally almost rid of all that crappy accuracy.

Thanks for the input, the only problem is that this is based off of pre-50 warzones where you get the bolster buff, also we have no idea of knowing if when you were pvping on these characters if anyone had pulled expertise mods out of some pvp gear and inserted them into orange gear pre-50, which would have changed the damage output you would have been doing substantially.

Once you get to a certain point on crit and surge (not sure of the exact numbers off the top of my head), which you should be able to achieve via re-modding your gear with the mods from columi helm and gloves, or BM helm and gloves then it all comes down to power, in which case the attack adrenals and the +power relics are going to be your best bet and will ultimately give you higher numbers. The reason you will not need crit and surge after a certain value / percentage is because of the diminishing returns on said stats after a certain amount.

My rotation normally goes acid blade + hidden strike > RS if I am near 60-70% energy, one should be enough. > Shiv > Stim Boost (keep refreshed) > Backstab + acid blade > Corrosive Dart (keep refreshed, shoot for 100% uptime) > Shiv > Laceration Normally when I am doing this rotation, I will weave in as many RS's as I feel are necessary, but its more of a priority rotation, nothing is super set in stone. With multiple shiv's being worked into your rotation, and stim boost and laceration being the only thing we really spend TA on, I normally shoot to use one TA proc on a lacerate and the other to maintain the damage buff from TA. If shiv is about to come off cooldown and my energy can take the hit, I will sometimes do a 2 x Laceration and then another shiv to re-proc my TA. This is all of course based on if my stim boost is running low or not. Its all about priorities.

Then you would have to compare this to an equally matched team that is also using ventrilo / teamspeak. In which case 2x dps on each operative and the operatives are going to die, especially if the DPS is good with their stuns and interrupts.

Agreed, its not going to save you. But it certainly helps! But this whole "if they have a sun available, we die" mentality is all on the assumption that out escape is not also up.

from a PVE standpoint cover and explosive probe just do not work well into your rotation. You will burn your energy to fast and lower your regen. from a PVP standpoint I find it useful sometimes as mentioned earlier, to use it when combined with snipe to take out targets that fall down into the pit, or are trying to flee with very little life left.

This is almost exactly what I was trying to point out, I don't understand if you are trying to contradict me or what. As for out healing a DPS class, if you fake out your kolto injections with just one DPS beating on you, I can out heal a Pyro, Marauder or Operative. I will have to use some cooldowns, but they will refresh before they can kill me. I have already done this on multiple occasions in warzones versus equally geared opponents, it can be done. It is not always easy, but its definitely doable.

Please see: Please read the words that are posted and then wait for it to sink in, (this may take a few minutes) before posting. Then you can stop yourself from making stupid comments like the one that you just made. I was merely saying that the operative has many instant cast heals, combined with other survivability abilities, before you even get into damage mitigation from expertise. Like most people on the operative forums, you also need to work on your reading comprehension. That or you truly believe that a full BM operative cannot outheal one DPS, which if this is true for you, then you really need to work on learning to correctly PvP heal.

Depending on your spec the set bonuses are not game breaking. Try it and see if it works for you, you never know.