Hmm, one thing is my main is the powertech (tank/dps). While there are some obvious differences between that and a shadow, there are some similarities in that both have tanking/dps roles, and both are a mix of melee and mid range abilities. Both have grapple/force pull too. I think sentinel would give me a much different playstyle experience. I really liked the jumping around they can do lol. Like leap frogger. Besides the stealth, I worry the shadow experience would be all too similar to my powertechs in many ways. Besides, I'm going pure evil, and sentinels get a sith tank as a companion later on right? /drool

I have two level 50's (powertech and commando), and now I'd like to dabble in lightsaber type melee dps. I think I've narrowed it down to sentinel and shadow DPS, but I'm not sure which I'd prefer. I've created both, but it's hard to tell from low level abilities. Can anyone give their two cents on which you think would be more fun and/or how their playstyle/skills differ?

I have two level 50's (powertech and commando), and now I'd like to dabble in lightsaber type melee dps. I think I've narrowed it down to sentinel and shadow DPS, but I'm not sure which I'd prefer. I've created both, but it's hard to tell from low level abilities. Can anyone give their two cents on which you think would be more fun and/or how their playstyle/skills differ?

Yeah I would just find an armstech. I got a purp lvl 50 one with an augment slot from one for pretty cheap.

Hmm, here's what happened to me. Hit 50 doing belsavis dailies. Then went to corellia to finish my class storyline. (I was like halfway done there). I remember killing that annoying JEDI dude in the green area that had been trying to get me killed since that ambush on Quesh. Then I remember helping the Darth guy fight off a JEDI attack. He laughed at how weak they were. I told him I kill that Jedi. Then he sent me to steal a ship to fly to the Chancellors ship. I think I ended up shooting the chancellor, and then freezing him for transport. Then I remember some scene on my ship showing all my companions. I think I was done with the class story at that point. Then I had to report to the fleet I think. Once there it gave me a mission to go to ILUM. I've been doing the +2 daily on ilum every day for a few days, but not much else. Some quest to "protect two supply crates" won't work. It says the crate is already in use or something. So I assumed I'm done with everything, however two things got me thinking. 1) why does my load screen still say I'm in chapter 3-take care of the chancellor. I was looking forward to what it would say upon login after that. instead its stuck 2) was I not supposed to get a title for finishing my class story line? I mean the story was cool and all, but I sort of expected a title at the least, if not some other reward. I also thought for sure mandalore would make another appearance in my story. haven't seen him since I won the great hunt.

I'm currently on VOSS, and pretty much between those commendations and armormech should have some half decent stuff for when I ding 50 soon. My question is, what do I do upon hitting 50 to gear out to prepare for hardmodes/operations? There are a couple 47-50 flashpoints (non hardmode) that I could run for some stuff right? Also, is the best place to start by doing dailies on Ilum & Belsavus for daily comms to get armoring/mods/enhancements/barrel of level 50 blue/purp quality? Just trying to figure out the best place to start. Thanks!

Which ones do you see over and over again? For me, it's... "we should settle up"

My main's a powertech tank, and I've only gotten my sniper to 12, but from everything I've READ and guildmates I've spoken to... snipers sound great in pve (assuming you like the playstyle) do excellent dps I think most of the complaining I've seen is due to low mobility AND low survivability, when compared to other dps classes that do just as much dps, but have more mobility and more survivability. So if you could do the same dps, and have more survivability AND mobility, why wouldn't you reroll? LOL I personally agree with a few posts I've seen about how 5 more range (40 instead of 35) would make a world of difference. Honestly I think 45 makes more sense though. I don't really think that's game breaking or anything, as 10 yards more range isn't that huge a distance. It's just, if you're supposed to be the long range sniping AC, you should be able to. Not have pretty much the same range (5 yards is like nothing), and do the same amount of dps, with less survivability. Right now the cons way outweigh the pros. There's a bunch of cons, and the pros they think they gave the class to make up for them don't even come close at the moment. I think 45 yard range would solve a lot, but it wouldn't fix everything.

Actually you CAN use a blaster RIFLE in one hand, and a shield/genorator in the other. My agents first pet does that. Plus on republic troopers, I think at 10 commandos get assault cannon, but the tank ac (vanguard?) use rifle/shield. I agree whole heartedly with BH's having access to blaster rifles. Obviously mercs shouldn't be able to dual wield them, but it makes a lot more sense on powertechs (either tank or dps). You don't graphically see the shield or power generator, so why not use a blaster rifle? Just make it an option to use either, and have the difference be more aesthetic. HOWEVER I think one raeson they may have done this is to set bounty hunters / troopers apart more. We're more unique from eachother this way.

Good god no, please don't add more abilities. I use 1-9,0,-,= main bar, Shift 1-9,0,-,=, CTRL 1-9, and ALT 1-9. That's four full bars of stuff I need quick access to while tanking. A lot of it's situational, and as the tank I need to respond quickly or people die. It's already a lot. Don't need to add more. I already hear about some dps classes just spamming 2 or 3 abilities, along with 2 or 3 cooldown abilities, and I'm like wow that's so easy. Tanking is hard enough as is, with situational awareness, assisting correctly, knowing the fight mechanics... plus 4 bars worth of stuff I use frequently. Don't need to complicate it further for us. If anything, I think tanks should have it the easiest, and make dps rotations harder. For some reason that's never the case though lol.

I still have almost everything on my bars, and all 4 bars are pretty full. I like to keep the range attacks on my bar for rare occassions that I can't jet charge or grapple my target into melee range. I find shoulder slam to be the least useful though. I guess it's a free no heat attack on occassion, but I gotta watch the long cooldown and a target that's susceptable. It's kind of a wierd attack. It's not that strong, and annoying to use.

Currently my powertech is level 40, and shield spec tank. I go for tanky stats when I can (endurance/shield/absorb/defense). I'm at work, but I think my... mitigation is around 50% shield chance around 32% absorb rate on shield around 35% Defense chance around 11% A lot of times on mods, I have to choose between shield/absorb or defense, and I'm kind of curious which is better. 32% of the time absorbing 35%, or 11% of the time avoiding 100%. 32% x 35% = 12% effective 11% x 100% = 11% effective WIth shield spec powertech, you get heat venting from shielding, but I think only once every 6 seconds. I guess the more often you shield, the sooner after that ability comes off CD will you shield again to proc it. Also shielding has a chance to refresh rocket punch CD, so more threat generation. Saying all that, I think another factor may be ease of healing. To me a 11% chance of avoiding 100% damage means the other 89% the time you take full damage. With 32% chance of 35% reduction, while effectively over time its 12%, its more spread out damage. I think you'll get more spikey damage on defense, which is harder to predict for a healer. All told a balance of the two is probably best, but I think when I have small choices to make, it seems at least for powertech, shield/absorb is the way to go. Any other thoughts?

The helms get a lot better around 35+... More mandalorian/fett looking. I really like the HOTH one a lot, but I'm using an orange one that looks like a mandalorian helm I found as a drop on quesh. Also flashpoints starting around 35 drop a lot better looking helms. FYI though, for you younger level bounty hunters... get the sith juggernaut helm from commendations on nar shada. It's orange, so you can swap out the STR mods for AIM ones, and it looks 300% better than any BH helm until 35ish.

our guild has 15-20 people on at any given time, so it's a fairly large guild I believe I'm one of only two powertechs... and I'm 40, he's 16 or something. I think we're both shield spec. Decent number of mercs. Lots of sorcs, assassins, juggernauts, marauders. Pretty low numbers on the sniper/operatives too. Like maybe 1 or 2 of each. So I'd say the rarest are powertech operative sniper At least in our guild. I personally love that powertech is so rare. It makes me so unique. And everyone loves a tank, and they are often surprised at how good a tank I am (and I don't feel like I'm the bomb or anything). Also, sometimes groups will do 1 healer, two tanks, 1 dps and we do great. Maybe in hardmodes that's not enough dps, but for pre-50 flashpoints it makes it super easy on the healer. If its me and a juggernaut, we got a good combo of abilities too. I love being so resilient though, having strong short range moves, but still being able to do range damage if needed (missles/railshot/unload). Also taunts/guard are great in pve and pvp.

most planets I've been to so far have been green but I'm doing every mission/heroic/bonus series on every planet plus space missions frequently, and flashpoints when I have time haven't really gotten into pvp much yet though However to my surprise, when I hit 39 and went to Hoth (and I havent completely finished quesh yet), everything on Hoth was yellow to me starting out. The starting stuff may turn green at 40 I'm not sure, but the later stuff on the planet will still be yellow probably. I find the mobs aren't as much pushovers as I'd experienced to this point pre 40. Two ore more strong mobs, or one elite and one strong put up much more of a challenge to me now. ON a side note, It's funny I've heard people in general chat on planets complaining that they are UNDER leveled for the planets they're on. I think it's just some people have raced through their class missions, and others have done everything they could get their hands on. I think a good amount of us are somewhere in between. I think it's a good balance.