Sab already gets strong defensive talents... Ballistic dampeners may be good, but look at the overall balance of talent points in a typical sharpshooter build. There aren't many that go into defense-only, which is what gives it burst. So I don't know about using those points for defense when I still need to do DPS. Also, I like putting aimed shot in my cover rotation, and I like it to be not completely unbuffed. Speed shots into a buffed aimed shot is nice. If you really want to go defensive, then flashpowder is a better option that ballistic dampeners. An 8 second 20% miss chance for all attackers once every 45 seconds is much better than three 30% absorb shields which might end up simply absorbing DoTs. Flash grenade has those uses, but its usefulness with flash powder seems so much more. Like throwing it at the same time as you have scrambling field for a 20% damage reduction + 20 accuracy reduction from a group of enemies for a while. If they do that they get a very nasty elemental damage DoT on them which cuts right through all armor. So if they want to stand on it, fine. I'll just dirty kick them to keep them there. It doesn't look much on paper, but its damage is amazingly good in practice. Flourish shot on everyone, go into cover, then sabotage charge, speedshot, then aimed shot/charged burst. Out of cover you have enough energy to just spam thermal grenade, shock charge quickshots, and incendiary grenade as you wish. It's pretty simple, tbh. The main thing about sab is more the use of utility that you want to be focusing on.

Conspiracy theories go nowhere. I'm having a lot of fun on my gunslinger. It's my favourite class in the game. And I can do a lot on it, so meh.

Trick shot is better than sabotage... If SS wants their 21 point ability buffed, then trick shot needs to be nerfed to compensate. Otherwise their won't be much reason to go the other specs as it stands. All specs seem to get one great active skill and one slightly OK skill.

Posting the spec would be helpful. I'm assuming it is this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700bZrI0bRoZGbdorrhz.1 I did an EV raid with a sab/DF hybrid on the weekend and didn't really enjoy it. A lot of conscious energy management. Whereas with sab I get enough energy to do whatever I want (I even take flurry of bolts off my quick bar) and incendiary grenade is fantastic for mobility in PvE.

My smuggler is getting buffed next patch by the ability delay bug fixes, not nerfed...

First up take sab for the utility belt and 15% damage on grenades. That's the most powerful early option.

OK, well how about you go make that point in one of the many hundred 'buff/nerf' operatives threads that are based on the live servers, or even worse, hearsay, instead of trying to sink specific feedback. I started this thread to simply describe specifics in as much detail as possible, something that I rarely see done here.

I'd assume it's still true (that AoE buffs do not affect shrap bomb), because I just used a hybrid and don't remember my shrap bomb increasing by massive amounts over what the skill tree tooltip says now, which is what you'd expect from a +15% damage ability. I wasn't paying close attention, though. The main combo you can get going here is bombastic to add a further 8% damage onto thermal grenade.

Again, why aren't you using flashbang to stop being knocked off the edge? No one can knock you off if they're stunned. You can even follow with dirty kick, and that will give you all the time in the world to do your knockback trick. Potentially 13 seconds if they don't have their CC break up. Or if you don't want to use flashbang, run up to them and dirty kick them before they can knockback. That's your counter in a melee fight. Your claim that you'll lose every time seems to be reliant on ignoring the use of your powerful CC options.

Really? Armor in the character sheet says it applies to both kinetic and energy damage which is what sab charge and shock charge are.

I tried a similar build but didn't really like it. It has a nice burst damage rotation, but otherwise lacks utility. The only real significant change from a full sab build is trick shot. Sab can use sab charge, aimed shot and charged burst just as well - most of the sharpshooter talents are a bit meh until trick shot. Trick shot doesn't really make up for the extreme energy, utility, and 6% higher crit chance on all abilities you get from sab (since you can afford to go into dirty fighting for that). Not to mention a decent speed shot that actually does damage...

I stated that in the first paragraph that these are comments related to the recent dev blog post related to the game as it stands right now, that the next few patches are apparently aimed at fixing. It's more than a general suggestion because it relates to a specific blog post by the devs. Just like info has been asked on these forums about work in progress issues like error code 9000. So this is constructive feedback on a high priority issue.

Pulse detonator is a strong skill. It combines an AoE knockback with a root. If there were two imps, smuggler could have flashbanged them both then knocked them both away.

...Once every minute. I tried that build, didn't like it. Unless you get a lucky crit on your charged burst, your aimed shot is still left at 2.5 seconds unless you use speed shoot or smuggler's luck once a minute. Even with the quick aim proc, your setup is still overly long... in excess of 10 seconds, which isn't really a burst. more like a massive DoT. And you're immobile all that time. The strength of full sab is that its burst is a bit lower, but you're not jerking around in cover for 10 seconds at a time to use it. You just drop into cover, throw a sab charge, speed shots, then exist cover. If they're near death you can also follow through with a quickdraw, and you always have enough energy for quickshots spam. Full sab, now with dirty fighting for the 10 points, is still the spec I come back to after trying everyone's whacky hybrids they post on the forums.

I don't know if it's actually affected by that skill, though. You'd have to look at the tooltip damage before and after taking it.

Yeah I mostly have the same thoughts. This is the build I use now: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700bcbZrI0bRRbRrsZh.1 The biggest problem I have with the shrap bomb hybrid is its extreme energy use. A lot of the talents for sab assume you'll be using incendiary grenade often. So you actually get a ton of energy from having dealer's discount and sieze the moment. Hybrid I feel like I'm constantly out of energy all the damn time. Hybrid, however, does slightly more damage against mobile targets. But I don't know if it's enough to offset the massive energy problems I have, which mean I have to use flurry of bolts more often then I'd like. With sab I can pump out quickshots as my instant basic attack like a mofo and not run out of energy... because all the other attacks I want to use are reduced energy. This increases DPS. If you're not running out of energy with my sab build, you need to use it up faster with more quickshots and thermal grenades. Conversely, this isn't a luxury you have with the shrap bomb hybrid. Incendiary grenade isn't that bad in PvP, really. It really stuffs snipers up... It's like having a diversion smoke grenade on an 18 second cooldown, which is awesome. And if you want to discourage operatives from doing their knockdown/blast you routine, there's no better tool than standing in front of a big bonfire. I consider it the best 31 point ability for gunslinger. As derided as it is, it's still better than the other two. Rapid fire makes you too stationary, and hermo simply adds to Dirty fighting's existing energy problems, without substantially increasing utility... just more single target killing power In operations, incendiary grenade also gives you supreme add control, since you can lure things over again and again. Shrap bomb is pretty bad in pve, since things die too fast and end the DoT damage. My build still has shock charge and vital shots, so that's the main DoT damage. I'm also not a fan of Dirty Escape. Flashpowder has so much more utility, since flash grenade is useless in PvP by itself as DoTs constantly break it. So you can pick a 15 second reduction to your melee stun, or you can make one of your major ranged crowd controls not completely useless. Hard choice.

Does the weapon actually have a crystal that can be removed, or is it just blue? I know the champion smuggler pvp pistol is blue with no mods. Annoying if you are a dark side smuggler and have been using red crystals the entire game for RP reasons...

This is specific feedback on my abilities that fail fairly often. I read the dev update on the general issue about ability delay, but didn't see mention of any specific abilities, so thought would post this. These problems happen in both PvE and PvP. Most of my abilities are *fine*, but one of the biggest for me is defense screen as a smuggler, just after using the Sabotage ability from the Saboteur tree to reset the cooldown. Sometimes it acts as if the cooldown didn't reset for 10 seconds or so after. Cool head, also reset from sabotage, is also affected by the issue. Annoying when I need to regain energy... Taking cover fails almost as often, which gets frustrating because I want to quickly pop into cover and launch into a sabotage charge, but I'm unable to. This causes some of my biggest delays, since so many abilities rely on cover, and appears unrelated to any cooldown. What I do notice though, is graphics lag sometimes. So I'll mash cover, then quickly hit my key for speed shots, and what will happen is my character doesn't do anything for a few seconds, then instantly goes into the final 2 seconds of speed shots. Dodge also fails occasionally, but I can't pinpoint any specific cause. It'll just not activate for a while. Usually when lots of people are hitting me in PvP. Sabotage charge has another issue. Its animation seems slower than the mechanic. I'll throw the charge, and the damage will activate as the charge is slowly spinning through the air, not when it hits the enemy... The skill just feels incredibly slow with the underlying mechanic not matching the animation. You never know when the first burst is going to hit.

Arsonist is a decent skill for thermal grenade spamming while you still maintain a lot of single target burst from sabotage charge and trick shot.

Yes but if you wait till your shock charge has ended to use it, either your target will be already dead, or you've not timed it properly with other burst abilities. So if you're attacking a single target, it's shock charge, vital shots, sabotage charge, speed shots, blow your sabotage, quickdraw. Something like that, anyway.

The pvp field medic pistol looks pretty close.

Can't someone do both at once? My biggest criticism of 'PvPers' is that they speak as if the PvP community does nothing but PvPs all day. I spend most of my end game in PvP, but am also going to an eternity vault operation (raid) this weekend, so I guess that just makes me a freak.

Your argument's no different than saying "I don't want to do any PvE, please make it possible to enter warzones from level 1". But you did do PvE until level 10, at least 5 hours or so, and so you've already shown an ability to do it.

You use sabotage when you want more burst. It's on a 1 minute cooldown, so you need to use it when it will do the most damage, preferrably combined with quickdraw. Alacrity is OK but not necessary. You get more out of illegal mods at 50, since illegal mods gives +20% activation speed, which is equivalent to a huge number of alacrity. I use charged burst a fair bit at 50, yes.

Gunslingers do too much damage in PvE to get hurt much. For ranged elites you just find a bit of cover to hide behind and leisurely shoot them. Melee elites are a little tougher, but if you use all your skills like interrupts and stuns it is usually fine.