Tank shadows and/or hybrid shadows are perfectly fine. Sure, they do have a lot of utility and shine in group play (while still being unbeatable in 1 on 1 matches usually), but that does not make them OP. I wonder though, why are people talking about tracer / gravround builds being able to kill shadows / assassins in a 1 on 1? That's just impossible unless the shadow / assassin started playing a warzone after drinking 20 beers, or is completely incompetent. PS: I am a 27 / 2 / 12 shadow currently, and yes, I do run DPS mods in my gear.

It really depends on your gear. The only two skills I crit for 2.5k+ dmg (on good geared people), are either buffed projects (adrenals), and my finisher. The finsher often doesn't count, because you overkill somebody. But keep in mind: Project hits for 2,5k roughly. With upheavel proc that's close to 4k damage. Telekinetic throw, does with 3 stacks roughly 1.5k per tick. Those two skills alone should be more then enough to take somebody down. And then I'm not even talking about double strike yet, which is in all reality, a very solid damage source as a builder-skill. I have to say I am pure battlemaster geared, and switched all surviver mods out of my gear and replaced them with power / surge. Not too much surge though, because of the nerf. (Using 3x BM surv pieces, and 2x BM stalker pieces) But because I did that, I also die faster then the shadows wearing full tank gear. My typical warzone is ending in like 150-200k dmg, 30k protection, with something between 7 - 11 medals. But I am an objective-based player. In voidstar you sometimes end up with more then 300k damage done. But it also depends on your build of course. Either way, we're no DPS class once specced into kinetic. But we can do moderate dps while being an awesome teamasset in warzones. Keep that in mind, and start to play together with others (And of course kinetic shadows are probably the best 1 on 1 class available)

Battlemaster Surviver Saber. The BM Stalker weapon is not worth it for KC shadows. I prefer 2 / 2 set bonusses as well. The extra range on slow is in my eyes very often worth it. But I could imagine people going 4 surviver set for more overall damage.

To answer your question: Is a hybrid in general viable: Certainly. I myself run a kinetic / balance hybrid, but only up to 12 points into balance. Is your build viable: Not at all. Reason: Particle Acceleration: While COMBAT technique is active... Not to talk about the survivability you will lose from taking advantage of Force Strike. Force Strike: affected by your FORCE technique's breaches... Also, you should really take harnessed shadows, once you go that high in the KC tree. Since you say you really miss shadow's respite, here's a suggestion: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601rIMokrskbZ0MZf0cMb.1 Hint: Without going infiltration tree, just remove shadow strike from your hotkeys.

You should be happy Powertechs are easy to spot, so you can see it coming. We shadows/assassins, on the other hand, are impossible to spot, and next to the force pull we also have two stuns. (Talking about the properly specced shadows of course). But, part of the game, get used to it It's one of the many tactical things you should use in your team. Jumping, pulling, passing...

I usually try to not use any form of stuns untill I get them below 60 % HP without high damage skills or so. The not so skilled healers will keep healing their team first, because they do not get high spike damage. I then start going all out to bring them down. Good healers though - not a chance 1 on 1. One very long, never ending fight of poking and chasing.

Good marauders can beat me, sometimes. And Powertechs and Juggs can also be pretty annoying... but it is mostly a very long fight that the shadow / assassin should win due to selfheals. Other than that you should pretty much kill anything in a 1 on 1. Of course I can't kill good healers either, but yeah they will also never kill me.

For a second I was reading: Remove Shadow Strike from your hotkeys. But then I realized the topic and figured you're an infiltration shadow... All in all, I agree with ^, as it would become too easy. I was also playing a build which resorted a lot on shadowstrike in the past (see video's in sig), and I was perfectly capable of getting it off even without low slash. Making it a "you can always use it"-skill would make the spike damage of shadows too high, or at least, too easy to get off.

I'm currently running around like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601rIrokrskbZZf0cMb.1 I'm still thinking to make a few minor changes soon. But in my eyes Adjudication is a must have. Unless you have a bad group of people standing too close to each other, I do not find Slow Time worth it.

Don't pretend Shadows / Assassins don't have many keybindings either. We do have to use a lot (so many in fact, that I cannot even bind all my skills properly...) Either way: I find tank assassins hybrids most fun, because you can do so much with them. Guard people, kill people, be a great objective player in warzones just to name a few. I do have difficulties to bring a good healer down in a 1 on 1, which is something the marauder should be able to handle more easily, but that's about it. Plus... I usually just pull the healer next to the ledge in voidstar and kick him down. Or pull them in the fire in hutball. Like I said before: Damage? Marauder Utility? Assassin Fun? Very subjective. I believe both classes can be a lot of fun Also I still believe the best possible ranked warzone group consists of 3 tank shadows, 3 healer commandos en 2 DPS commandos

Both classes are one of the harder classes to master, therefore I can't give you a straight answer on that. Make a tracer missile spammer if you want to go easymode, but also expect to get owned by decent pvpers. Between assassins and marauders it comes down to assassin: More utility (and versatility between the builds) marauder: More damage

The only obligation I have in my guild is to actually be active on Ventrilo. No other obligations to be on at set times or rules to be at least x times a week online for x hours. Of course we don't have to be on ventrilo 24/7, but during group pvp and especially operations it is pretty helpfull to use voice communication. In operations it's actually an obligation. Like others said... if you don't like voice com, how about playing a single player game?

Kinetic Shadows are fine the way they are. We do not need extra survivability, especially not against tech / force attacks. We're immune for 5 seconds every 45 seconds to those abilities... no other class can say the same. What do you want more? This spec is based around utility, group play, survivability, while still maintaining very decent DPS. Giving us even more defenses would make our class truly overpowered.

Actually, for the fun of it, I suggested my guild should start doing warzones with 2 healer commandos en 2 shadows. Once 8 man pre-mades are possible, 3 healer commandos, 2 DPS commandos and 3 shadows. Oh no wait... I rather just go with whoever is online instead

E-SDF for movement and every skill bound around it. One magic hand! Oh and I did bind resilience, hutball-throw and the stun-free skill on my mouse