A techblade/vibroblade techstaff/vibrostaff weapons master class would be cool. Trooper/BH armor, with attacks being a combination of melee weapon strikes and various short range gadgets/explosives. A droid class would be awesome. Advanced classes could split between protocol/astromechs and combat droids. The story might be a bit of a pain.

One of these. And playable protocol droids that sound like C3P0. I'm not sure if you're yet familiar with SWTOR, but we already play this game while running into hordes of sword wielding mobs. Imperial troopers with vibroblades, scrambled droids with vibroblades, pirate captains with vibroblades. Then ofcourse we have 11 in game, max level, near PC level companions that also choose non-lightsaber melee weapons as their primary means of attack. I think this game has already jumped the shark on YOUR version of Star Wars.

You can always check the trade exchange. There are so many consulars on my server that I just level my armstech with those and sell them. I picked up one on Taris, though it looked more like a vibroblade.

Yeah, even the most experienced developer finds balancing PVP and PVE to be a pain in the butt. That's why many, including CoH and Rifts, dramatically divide pve and pvp gameplay. Bioware has chosen to go the WoW route of keeping the two together, and so I expect Operative survivability will be addressed when they blatantly steal the resilience stat.

I get to fill in the "Because they do it in other MMO's," now I've just got to find someone with nothing of substance to say except "stop whining." And BINGO! What do I win?

Ofcourse, sometimes the grass actually is greener, sometimes players do discover other advanced classes fit their needs better, sometime people grow and change as players. Sometimes the game changes in fundamental ways that alter the class you were playing. Sometime people discover the strengths of a class when they are leveling matter less when they reach level 50. For all of these reasons, and dozens I haven't mentioned, your assertion that "most people regretting that they respecced" is a baseless waste of time. At best you're doing cynical speculation and trying to pass it off as if you know something. Learn that you know nothing about the situations of others and try actually contributing something next time you post.

I am just an MMO amateur but even I can just pick up at level 50 and go. I am correct and your assertions that I am wrong are baseless. Your "fundamental" point is now refuted. Hmm, but I'm sensing you'll need more than just being told that your bald assertion without evidence and only a window dressing attempt at "reason" is wrong. So I will provide an anecdote. When I reached level 85 in WoW I discovered no raid positions available for a DPS shaman. So I respecced into Restoration, completely relearned my character, and was fine. When switching to Restoration, I learned the proper use and function for spells I had never even casted when leveling as an Elemental shaman. In the future, when you see everybody, even people far more intelligent than you, are missing an 'obvious' or 'fundamental' point, realize the problem is most likely with you.

Good proposal, the reasoning behind it is solid and it makes a nice compromise.

The exact same thing happens in trooper cutscenes. The pistol comes out and you're covering some Imps, then things go bad and the BFG is suddenly in hand and being used to gun people down. Allowing agents, of one type or another, access to cunning pistols would be another mechanically neutral change, given that cunning pistols already exist, and are rolled on by nobody on the Imperial side. Plus, it always seemed weird to me when a spy shows up with a carbine strapped to his back. Way to stay inconspicuous buddy.

This proposal could easily be converted into a new advanced class for the trooper/bh class.

I'm playing as a balance shadow, it's my understanding that I'll have a significant amount of self healing and a better than average degree of survivability, even without a tank. I'll give Nadia a go and see if the extra dps still hits the sweet spot. No, I think she should either stay as melee dps or they should introduce a wider range of customization for all companions. But no special solution to throw off the symmetry of the five companion system.

Three facts that are not in dispute. One, nobody disputes that Powertech and Assassin tanks have a numerical advantage over Juggernauts. Two, nobody disputes that Juggernauts are, despite numerical inferiority, end game viable. Three, they are working on buffing Juggernaut survivability and it will happen "soon." These are the facts as they stand, apply your own values and decide if you want to reroll, or find a different guild willing to run with a Juggernaut tank. Personally I'd keep playing the class I leveled and practiced with, I'd get good at it and when the buffs came that turn Jug-Tanks into the new FOTM, I'd have a head start.

I'm jealous of Sergeant Dorne. You see, she's a commando who heals, but uses a PISTOL! That is awesome! She knows she's not the heavy artillery and so she doesn't act like it. She brings a capable single-handed weapon, and like a good medic, leaves a hand free to utilize any number of medical tools. If that weapon set-up was an option to players, I would consider playing a commando medic, as things are, the idea of healing while running around with a BFG just offends me on an aesthetic level so I'm not going to touch it. Making it possible for commandos, or even troopers, to equip pistols has almost no mechanical drawback. The aim pistols are in game, Bounty Hunters use them, but a commando is never going to roll against a Bounty Hunter for that piece of gear. If redoing the loot tables for Republic specific missions is too much work, troopers can use orange quality pistols and extract the needed barrels/mods/enhancements/crystals from the auto-cannons they'd be rolling for anyway. Now, will this lead to a horde of screaming scoundrels demanding vibro-blades and vibro-blade animations? It might even lead to an operative or two wondering what it would be like to ambush with a scatter gun. Please feel free to speculate about how awesome it would be to go down this slippery slope.

Oh, I agree completely. That's why these additions, a shield that'll take a dedicated DPS a couple of seconds to burn through, and a short snare, are worthwhile additions. Now, personally I'd want to see the pyrotech shield scaling with gear, I know trickier to balance but it would keep it from becoming irrelevant at higher gear levels.

Seem like worthwhile additions.

I just got this great idea for an Imperial Trooper plot arc. Your character, as a lowly private, gets transferred to the command of a disgraced captain who was caught in bed with a prominent Moff's wife. Your unit gets sent on suicide mission after suicide mission, causing prominent characters in your story arc to die terrible deaths. By the time you reach level 50 you'll have been battle field promoted up to Lieutenant and you'll have seen a "Tex" get his body chopped in two by a drunk and disorderly Sith, "Chopper" will have been eaten by a Rancor, Bobbie will have melted from exposure to uncontrolled nanites, and "Sarge" will have died holding the pass at Endor against a swarm of Ewoks. When your unit is down to just you, your five companions, and the captain, the Moff will approach you and offers you your commanding officers rank and a less suicidal post if you do the job 50 levels worth of suicidal madness did not. You get to decide whether to play ball and kill your CO or kill the Moff.

Translation "In my last post, I showed I was unfamiliar with the workings of trooper abilities. In this post I will now show I am unfamiliar with the concept of a 'mirror class.'" Thank you for your time, actual gameplay proves your initial point wrong, statements made by the developers proves your second point wrong. I think you're done here.

Talented Stockstrike is not available to Assault Specialists and, since it doesn't work on bosses, is useless for PVE.

I'm still at the stage where mortar volley wipes out the scrub mobs in most groups and my commando easily downs what's left. Maybe I'll agree with you if I stop melting through mobs like warm butter and find that, even without my healing companion, I can't live through their attacks. Or by that time maybe I'll have a tanking pet.

And blasters are pretty lame in this game too. I carry around a freaking mini-gun, and I have to go full auto into the gut of a guy for five seconds straight before he'll drop. Game balance makes for some weird game effects.

Between making grouping easier, and making PVP more accessible adding dual spec just opens up too much of the game and adds too much longevity to the experience for it to be ignored for too long. Dual spec will happen, it will make things easier for everyone in a dozen different ways every day, the game will be stronger for it, and after it's added there will be a vocal minority pissing and moaning about how much better the game was before the number of available healers and tanks doubled.

I disagree. Throwing rocks and pebbles is awesome, shooting 'chi energy' would make me feel like Ryu.

So what she calls power you call flexibility. You both reach the same conclusion here, a special forces trooper is fun to play because they have the flexibility to make command decisions on the spot. Yes, I honestly believe the Empire doesn't have a special force equivalent to the Republic trooper. I do not believe the paranoid Siths running the Empire would allow for a squad of troopers that rivaled them for power being loyal to the already powerful Imperial military. Actually there are half a dozen good reasons why the Empire couldn't have a trooper. Lorewise there are reasons to think a near autonomous Imperial Special Forces squad doesn't make sense. Technical concerns with turning the trooper, agent, smuggler, and bounty hunter into faction agnostic classes, including but not limited to assigning Republic/Empire race choices. There is the significant amount of extra work involved with adding story quest lines for these new 'apostate' versions of those four classes. Adding new dialogue options for companions, or in some cases, dramatically reworking/replacing existing companions to replace them with someone faction appropriate. It hurts the feel of the game, right now the two sides look and feel distinctly different while being balanced. You start adding direct mirrors, instead of just mechanical mirrors, and they will look and feel the same. It hurts replay value. Now, I personally would rather see something more along the lines of the "faction switch" that was available in City of Heroes, but unlocked at end game. It solves a lot of these problems, encourages players to see both the Imperial and Republic leveling content, and then at end game they go where their guild is alleviating a lot of population problems. But people aren't looking to be Havoc Squad defection Pt. 2, they want to be an Imperial Trooper through and through.

Well that's an interesting point. Exactly how is prohibitive cost for repeated respecing fun for you? Really, sell me on this idea that your game experience is in some way hurt by respecs becoming more available.

I agree completely and so look forward to both respecs becoming less expensive and a dedicated dual-spec feature.