No. The only reason cleanses are used in PvP is to counter DoT specs. If they took away healer's cleanse utility then the new FOTM would be DoT specs. Cleanses only remove 2 negative effects at a time and have a 4.5s CD. It's not spammable. Besides, tech healers cannot cleanse force effects, and force healers cannot cleanse tech effects. As a DoT player, you need to know when and who to DoT up.

The game doesn't care if your opponent is your friend. It has a system to follow and making exceptions for unimportant things is a drain on resources for BW.

Yeah. Screw the dedicated PvP players who have taken the time to run enough matches to get a full min-maxed Conqueror set, many of whom don't run endgame operations regularly, so that you can stroke your epeen in Kell Dragon gear in the occasional PvP encounter.

^ What he said. Also, by removing Aimed Shot from the rotation, one would essentially miss out on an Aimed Shot-Trickshot combo, which would be a loss of around (6k+4k) damage over 2 GCDs, assuming they DON'T crit. The last 30% of the boss is essentially when DPS needs to be as high as possible due to the approaching enrage and burn-phase mechanics. Ignoring that ~10k damage over 3 seconds is a waste of one of the bread and butter abilities of the spec. Neither Saboteur nor Dirty Fighting uses Aimed Shot as part of the core rotation. The buffs to it in the SS tree are specifically there to enable its regular use. Bear in mind, I don't mean to come off as calling you ignorant. Just saying that since Aimed Shot is such a vital part of the SS build, it should have a central role in DPS at all times.

PvP is hands down THE best way to learn the ins and outs of your class. I never PvP'd on my Sentinel when I leveled him and I cannot for the life of me play him as well as I should in PvP. I plan to level a Mara through PvP to learn. All my other classes: Class Quests + PvP. Its easier to adjust to a PvE setting from PvP than vice versa, IMO.

ElectroNet cannot be purged. I've tried on my Scoundrel. You think BW would create a skill like that with the CD that it has, only to be cleansed within a second by a tech healer? A) Sweltering Heat - Assault Tree B) Cover Fire - Gunnery Tree

This is a very informative writeup. Well written for newcomers to the spec. However, I disagree with your idea that Quickdraw should replace Aimed Shot once it becomes available. With the Charged Aim proc, Aimed Shot channels for the same time as Charged Burst, which you will be using often anyway. I'd say that when the boss is below 30% health, the core rotation should just include Quickdraw over using it to replace Aimed Shot: CB>CB>TS>QD>TS>AS>TS>SS>TS Aimed Shot hits like a truck, especially with Illegal Mods running and the passive 20% armor pen specifically for it from "Sharp Aim" in the skill tree. It should be used as often as possible.

Generally when healing on my Sage I use Consumption once after every Innervate. Most people tend to wait to Consume until they are ~55% force, whereupon they Consume multiple charges. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but I find that using a single Consume regularly when my force is still pretty high helps me manage resource and healing demand better than using multiple Consumptions at a lower force level. I try to have Static Barrier on myself at all times and the HoTs from it top off the health I consume. Try doing this, maybe it'll help.

To supply a different opinion, I personally feel it is the most boring story out of all the classes I've played if you go light side. I leveled my Sage as LS and it was incredibly dry and unsatisfying. However, I leveled my Shadow as DS and it was really really fun. As DS you are the biggest a-hole in the galaxy and its hilarious at times.

Yes, lets nerf to 120s the only gap creating mechanism that Snipers have, which already has a 20s cooldown because you were too foolish to realize that: A) It was an operative B) Operative rolls eat 25% of their energy which leads into: C) 4-5 rolls in a row would empty an Operative's energy bar, meaning you have a few precious seconds to incapacitate and/or kill them before they hit Adrenaline Probe. L2P.

At 55, most of the players know their classes pretty well. I've heard people say that no good healer can be solo-killed by a DPS (may be wrong on this one). I've had a match where I spent upwards of 5 minutes chasing a Sorc around, just unloading everything I had while he ran about and healed himself. Granted he did have help from an Op healer (who was being chased by a Sent). Now this may seem like a waste of my time, but in that time that he focused on staying alive, he wasn't healing his mates, which was an advantage for my team. Now maybe I should be able to solo kill him, maybe not. But in PvP, your objective as far as healers go is to shut them down, which is not always the same as killing them. Infiltration is one of the most fun PvP specs right now, IMO. You have excellent utility with Taunts, Stealth, a sap, a stun and passive armor pen. When you're fully min-maxed and at 2018 Expertise you'll shred other DPS classes 1v1. Don't worry about killing healers, just enjoy the spec. It can be extremely fun once you get the hang of it. A tip I can give you in general about PvP, is to stock up on grenades. Infil Shadows lack a decent AoE aside from Whirling Blow, which is melee range. Augment that deficiency with grenades.

Ah yes, fair point. In PvE I never hit Breach without 3 stacks. I would say adding a fourth stack of Shadows before initiating the damage from Breach is a bad idea. Since the proc from Breach itself is unreliable, that would mean the max possible damage from it depends on RNG over tactically using it. As far as your suggestion however, seeing as how often Shadows procs when Battle Readiness or Clairvoyance is active, I don't think granting that proc as a stack of Shadows AFTER Breach executes would break anything in PvP or PvE. Either that, or remove the possibility of Breach proccing a stack of Shadows.

Not as far as I know, but if you're looking at whether it helps for PvE tanking, it is indeed useful for the accuracy debuff it places on targets caught in it.

I actually rely on this proc sometimes on my Shadow. I hit Breach when I'm trying to burst down someone and I have 2 stacks of Breaching Shadows and it procs the third stack many times. While I know that its better to use Breach with 3 stacks, that possibility of the 3rd stack proccing at 2 stacks is good enough for intense scenarios. That said, I do agree with your point that the stack of Shadows Breach builds at 3 stacks could be granted after using it.

The "Slick Shooter" skill in Tier 4 of the SS tree gives another 10% armor pen to all attacks.

DoT specs in competitive PvP don't do much other than pad damage numbers. When I'm on my Sage against Marauders running Annhi, I just lol and cleanse their burn DoTs and gimp their damage. Same for Lethality snipers on my Commando. You want to be useful to your team? Kill faster. Burst is king in PvP.

Marksmanship: Ridiculously high burst damage, easy rotation and easy energy management. Very solid in PvP against healers and DPS. May have some issues with tanks. Very viable in PvE endgame content as well. Not mobile and is basically the turret spec. Good survivability if you spec right. Engineering: Excellent AoE abilities and great survivability. Only spec in game with a 30m hard stun (Interrogation Probe + Plasma probe = 2s stun) EMP discharge resets cooldown on some defensive abilities. More mobile than MM, but still requires cover for the most part. Very good for both PvP and PvE. Lethality: Single target DoTs. Bit of setup involved, but once that's done, it does great damage. Many people swear by it in PvP but MM or Eng brings better utility to the team IMO. Decent in PvE, but the other 2 specs outdo it. Highly mobile. Pick your poison.

No it doesn't. The very fact that it can only be used from stealth, on a target not in combat, and 2 uses of which fills the resolve bar makes it a tactical tool for delaying cappers rather than an endless chain of mezzes. There is literally no reason to be whining about sleep dart. Part of the utility of stealth classes is precisely that they can stealth sap.

Absolutely not. Defense is a total waste to spec into because you'll be giving up one of Crit, Surge or Power for it, and ANY of those are a preferable stat to defense. In PvE a good tank will keep aggro off you in endgame content. In PvP your goal is the kill the other guy as fast as possible, ie: maximum DPS.

A good sniper can pick an area in a WZ and completely lock it down. Snipers/Slingers have IMO been the best PvP class all along. I only PvP on my Slinger and it is fun as hell. Too bad 2 months from now we're gonna see a whole zergrush of "ZOMG nerf snipers already" threads by all the idiots who don't know how to handle yet ANOTHER class.

Yes, I run Combat spec and if Blade Storm autocrit procs while PS is active, I make sure I hit it. The damage this puts out is extremely high to not do this.

I regularly hit 4-5k crits on Quickdraw on my GS in PvP. The base damage is what you're looking at.

This man wins.

I'm guessing the tooltip only reflects the damage numbers for the mainhand weapon for the GS. Since Snipers use a single mainhand, the full damage number is accurately listed.

Annihilation has good survivability with self-heals and reduced cooldown on interrupts, but Annih damage is heavily dependent on DOTs. It's a good spec for levelling and PvE. Carnage has excellent burst but slightly lower survivability, and it's pub equivalent is what I run on my Sent for PvE. It's also very good for PvP, with 2 more roots than the Annhi spec and a 4.5 sec 100% armor penetration. Most of the skilled Maras I've seen in PvP run Carnage. I'd say level to 50 with Annih, then switch to Carnage and try it out in a HM FP or two and see which one you like better.