I wouldn't want the cast animation for Dark Ward permanently, but I would like something slightly more obvious than a tiny buff icon telling me that DW is up. No brilliant ideas though, I'm just not quite happy with the current lack of animation

Depends on your spec. I'm assuming Deception or Madness? Endurance & Willpower for main stats of course. For secondaries get Accuracy to ~100%. It's probably useful There's a lot of discussion over which secondaries are best and at what rations, but a good rule of thumb is to keep power, surge and crit roughly equal as there are softcaps (diminishing returns) on them. There are some charts floating around on the forums which show which stat is best until x rating. From the tanking world defense > absorb > shield until ~700 rating, then shield > absorb > defense after that. I can't recall the equivalent for DPS stats, but I _think_ it's crit > power > surge until you're at ~3-400 crit rating, then surge > power > crit after that. But that's vague memories of a post I read once.

Depends on how much endurance you already have I'd say. Willpower increases your threat generation, Endurance increases your hp pool. Which do you need the most? Depending on what you're gonna be tanking I'd prioritise endurance until you have a healthy HP pool (17-18k), then pick willpower if your threat is low. Sadly in Columi gear your stats are mostly locked in. You can move enchancements to get rid of the useless accuracy, but still you'll wind up with ~22k HP and a fixed willpower at the end.

Wouldn't be that hard to sort tbh. I don't need a big button in the middle of the screen, I just want a few simple things Scaling on buffs/debuffs Moving buffs Short duration (<30 sec) buffs scale/move on their own The pain right now is that the buff icons are tiny, and they're in the middle of everything else. If I could just resize and move them a bit I could actually pay more attention to the game rather than those tiny, tiny icons.

Partially true. It's hard to say for sure when it comes to long fights, but you can notice trends in how much damage a 'sin is likely to bring compared to an OP etc. My personal feeling, having played both OP and 'sin at lvl 50, is the obvious "OPs burst like mad". After that it evens out and feels more or less the same over a bossfight. As an OP you can vanish + HS to burst again, as a Sin you do a higher and less finicky dps. Marauders are just OP atm though. I'm not sure their actual DPS is that different from Sin/OP, but they have sweet, sweet buffs.

Agreed. The patch is a fix of broken mechanics and a buff, not a nerf.

The outcome is binary, the chance isn't 50/50 though. The chance of getting energize is P = 1 - ( 0.7 ^ n ), n being the number of hits dealt. Assassinate -> 30% chance Trash, or Lacerate on two targets -> 51% chance Lacerate on three targets -> 65.7% chance etc

I noticed some funnyness while doing WZ's with my assassin alt, but I put that down to something related to guard + stealth. I was getting popped out of stealth from people at very long ranges, consistently.

Wasn't the expertise buff on the map changed to count as an adrenal as well? So that it wouldn't stack with other adrenals, or the PvP Expertise adrenal. Relic still stacks IIRC, at least I can't recall having seen anything related to that.

It's not so much that OP healers are underpowered, they just have a limited toolbox. Run into aoe, or a lot of movement, and you're in trouble. My biggest issue is that healing is boring. You have 3 abilities you'll use in most situations, two of which will be spammed. KI+SP on the tank, or random people taking damage, and 2xhot on the tank(s). The rest is extremely situational. But aye, an OP can get out a lot of healing for a long time. As long as there's no excessive bursts that is.

It takes a lil while to get up from the knockdown, even with the trinket. It's why HS fills the resolve bar completely instead of just 80'ish % like the incap time would imply. Still, if you have equal gear/level you're still way above 50% hp when you get up, and then the OP has no burst. Unless you're slow to react to the move setting up the backstab.

You lose set boni if you do that, as well as the higher armouring you tend to find in epic set pieces. From what I read in the devtracker they're planning on reversing that change though, allowing you to extract armouring from set pieces. Hopefully that also means the set boni.

I tend to agree with the OP, but I'll frankly admit I'm not the best PvP'er around. I'm sitting at valor rank 22, PvE being more my thing. Nonetheless from both PvE and PvP encounters there's two kinds of fights for me. You can pick off wounded players with a oneshot from stealth, then pop back into stealth after the CD on stealth goes out. Rinse and repeat. This also works on full HP lowbies and shoddily geared players. Otherwise it's HS->BS->Wait for resolve->Vanish->HS. Sure I can debilitate, flashbang and shiv without having the HS knockdown, but getting in backstabs is a pain. Debilitate often makes the game confused as to where their back is, flashbang only works if you have no teammates spamming aoe. I'd very much like the choice of opener depending on what I want to do. If I want to burst I can follow up with a stun that doesn't fill resolve afterwards. If I want them to not act for a sec or two I open with a short duration stun. This would also solve the ridiculous cases of PvE where I can burst down elites in a few seconds. Not to mention the hilarity of knocking towering driods flat on their face as well as taking 6-7k off their HP with one hit.

Columni hangs over your face if you hide your headslot. Almost all chestpieces with hoods work this way.

Only versus people with way worse PvP gear than you have. Yes, the burst hurts, but if I duel people I know to have approximately the same expertise as me I don't break 5k HS without stacking biochem buffs. I agree the 3 sec knockdown on HS is a bit over the top, but if that's nerfed to a root AB needs to be applied from Shiv as well or we'll be nerfed to impotence. We're extremely reliant on the burst, or having to count on the opponent having shoddy gear. I say wait and see what happens when you can no longer stack adrenals and buffs, as well as moving the lowbies out of our bracket. Operatives with a lot of Expertise will still deal insane bursts to players without Expertise, but the reverse is also true.

Same goes for PvE. On trash it's better, but on single target bossfights it's lackluster. As was said Backstab + Acid Blade does way more sustained dps. The only time I think Lethality would be better is if you can't backstab, which would tend to mean your tank is dead anyway.

Personally I despise the lvl 50 gear for Operatives. Makes us look like Sith-wannabes. Give me a clean uniform or even scoundrel'ish gear and let the force users keep their robes and hoods. Ah well, Bioware is planning to allow us to move all mods out of set gear soon™. If I understood correctly this also lets us keep the set boni, that'll be a great day. My Master Scoundrel chestpiece from Corellia will once again see action

Lethality gives you the same range as Concealment. You have a bit more you can do if forced out of the 4m range, but you're still dependent on Shiv. I tried Lethality briefly for PvE and it just feels....wrong. I use a Concealment spec for PvE, as a bonus it's also useful for PvP. I'd change a few talents to make it better for PvP but it'll do. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#4010cZGhGRdzbcfzZhMoz.1 Rotation is pretty simple when you open. Acid Blade->Hidden Strike->Shiv->Stim->Corrosive Dart->Acid Blade->Backstab After that it's more or a priority. Try to keep 1 TA up at all times, it's a slight dps boost. 1) If Stims drops off reapply it. 2) If Backstab is off CD use it, always with Acid Blade active. 3) If Shiv is off CD, and you have less than 2 TA use it. 4) If you're sitting at 2 TA, use Lacerate. 5) If Corrosive Darts drops reapply it 6) If everything else is on CD and your energy is good, use Overload shot 7) If you're low on energy or at long range go for Rifle Shot. It's not really a rotation, but a prio list. This is what feels the most optimal to me, but I'm open to suggestions. Adrenals & Relics aren't included, but pop them whenever you feel like it, before Backstab is the biggest dmg boost but I'm uncertain how they work for dots. Does the application time power/crit/surge count, or the current power/crit/surge? I'd guess the former but haven't researched it. Three things you shouldn't forget. - Countermeasures let you deal more damage without pulling agro. Don't be afraid to use it, I often pop mine after the opening rotation to dump some of the initial burst agro. - Shield probe. Far too many operatives forget about it, and with a 45 sec CD it's up fairly frequently. - Cloaking Screen (Vanish). Not for the agro reset, but to get a new opener burst. Long CD and a fair bit of threat, but HS deals something like 70-80% more damage than a Backstab as well as generating a TA.

I never noticed hot's being affected by alacrity. I didn't get far enough into stacking it before I said "sod it" and respecced Concealment, but it should be noticable when Kolto Injection is down to 1.75 seconds. Doesn't really matter anyway, if you swap from KInject + SP to hot spamming you sadly run out of energy in a hurry. I could keep hots up on 3 persons without running out of energy, go to 4-5 and you'd better be able to rest between hotting. So faster hot ticks could actually be bad, until we get a way to reduce cost of hots or regen more energy. We'd heal more on the targets, but have less targets healed by hots.

Concealment isn't that reliant on burst in PvE. You're reliant on having a back turned towards you, and of course your Hidden Strike does grant you the highest numbers. Your sustained dps is still quite viable in operations, as long as the damnable backstab recognises the boss' back that is. From Lethality tree Tier 1 is fine. 5 points of PvE talents here. Tier 2 has three points worth of good PvE talents, improving corrosive dart. Then it's a choice between improving Debilitate or Flash Bang. Neither is very useful in raids, although there are a few situations they come in handy. Tier 3 is fine, although I've got mixed feelings with that stimbooster talent. Tier 4 has three points worth of good PvE talents. The improvement to adrenal probe and energy regen from dot ticks is decent enough, so 5 points could be argued. Improving the Corrosive Grenade is hardly a PvE talent, slowing mobs is very situational. Tier 5 has three talents which are good for PvE. Counterstrikes makes Countermeasures useful in PvP, not really useful for PvE. Tier 6 has three points of good PvE talents. Improving the Shield probe doesn't hurt, but it's not exactly something I've found useful all that often in ops. Get a boss on you and it chews you up no matter what. Tier 7 is fine with the one point. So from my, admittedly limited, experience with the Lethality tree you spend 31 points in it of which 8 aren't exactly useful. In Concealment all the talents are useful, even if some are purely survival ones. Lethality could still be a very fine talent tree, but that would depend on the abilities granted being a wee bit OP on their own. Do you have any kind of PvE rotation for Lethality? Or priority? Do other dots all help with Cull, or is it just operative dots?

Frequently you get revealed by some AoE or stealth reveal skill. I usually don't have to bother with extra stealth, I just have to take a bit more care when approaching whoever I want to stab in the back.

Wrong thread, and most assuredly not. The crafting itself is fine, but Biochem is just a bit overpowered. Make boe biochem packs slightly better, and give other crew skills some advantages as well. That way you avoid the current trend of "everyone" rerolling biochem. But back to topic, got me one of those schematics as well and same message *sigh* Might fetch a very nice price on the GTM once I can make those.

How does lethality fare in PvE? I know we lack hard numbers, but what's the feeling compared to Concealment? I've never tried Lethality, but from the talent tree it looks very PvP centered as I said, but it could be interesting to try it in an operation or hardmode.

The entire problem with crit/surge is that it makes for an unreliable healer. This is discussed in the thread you linked. It's pointed out that mathematically the best stats are Surge>Crit>Power>Alacrity (until you hit ~600, afterwards Crit>Surge), but for a reliable healer you'd want Power>Surge>Crit>Alacrity. I know power doesn't scale too well, IIRC it's something like 4 power/tech power = 1 bonus healing, but it's always there and it boosts your crits as well. My personal preference would be to keep them more or less balanced. Since the discussion is over adrenals I'm more mixed though. Typically this is popped when you _really_ need high heals. I'd be tempted to say this is one instance stacking crits might make more sense, but it depends on the crit cap. Do Adrenals have a separate one? If not the cap of ~30% from crit rating makes a crit adrenal rather useless. Surge has the same concern. Power doesn't have those hardcaps afaik, so once you go past your caps it starts making sense.

Lethality seems like a half arsed effort from BW IMO. It has potential, but it looks confused as to what it wants to be, a dot, ranged or melee spec. Also brings in way too many PvP talents, I mostly spec for PvE, even if you don't want them. I might give it a go, my respec should be down to 0 credits again, but I think it needs some work before it's really viable. I'd love to see it turned into a mid-range tree. Remove the reliance on melee attacks, and allow you to stay at 10-20m range to dps.