What's in a name? Just yourself, I've always had specific names I've chosen to be known as in games, but as online gaming has exploded I've found that each new game I go to, I have to come up with a new call sign for myself. At first I was very disheartened by this, but after years and years of this occurring (my first gaming system was an Atari, yeah, Ive been around THAT long), I now use such opportunities to my advantage. One can get really attached to a name, after all its a NAME! However, the english language is filled with awesome, brilliant, and vibrant words... Use this as an opportunity to find a name that you can grow into... there's plenty of them out there.

Looks like the pvp-west servers are being directed towards The Bastion... sooo Bastion people, if your able to share with us some info, that would be greatly appreciated, I'm interested in how the transfers are improving things (player pops? fleet lag?) and all that. Thanks in advance

Back to the main topic... it is not only a TAKE COVER issue, its also a CROUCH (portable cover) issue. As I've said before, just repeatedly CROUCHing on the fleet, i've had it where you start the animation, but then it stops and ya just stand there. This isn't moving while CROUCHing. I have also noted that the animation for CROUCH on the fleet seems excessively slow, but within a FLASHPOINT there are times where my animation displayed at the normal proper fast speed, and times it was in the slower speed... the issues seem to occur more often during the slower animation. WIthin this same flashpoint the other DPS was another gunslinger who wasn't having the same issue as I was, and his animations always looked to be running at the proper speed. I really hope that this isn't considered just a TAKE COVER issue since I've not used natural cover for like 4 months now at all. Tusk P.S. - For those of you wanting to QQ, Backseat Developer Driver, or just make petty and snide remarks about BW "incompetence"... Please make your own thread and get out of mine... KKbai

It also occurs even when standing still. Oddly the animation is alot slower too, but only sometimes, and its not universal. Was in a flashpoint where sometimes i would go into cover nice and quick and proper, and other times i'd get the slow animation. Oh well... i'll be in DF till it gets fixed.

I use crouch all the time, but apparently its also happening for Natural Cover too. Sometimes you just don't go into cover... it seems to happen quite often in warzones, but i've also been able to recreate it in the fleet as well. Anyone else noticing the same issue?

Its happenning to Gunslingers as well. I don't use take cover... i use crouch, so i always crouch in position... after the patch though i'll hit crouch and it'll start the animation and then stop. Happens alot in warzones, but ive also been able to recreate it in the fleet as well. Sometimes you just don't go into cover.

Huttball... stay and shoot people in the mid area. Trying to run with the ball or being a support runner with the ball carrier just ends up in failure for you. Alderaan (The one with the turrets) - being the solo defender on a turret is silly... you'll lose the turret... you need to be part of the attacking group. Voidstar - Don't be sitting in cover in front of the door... ever. Everyone is looking at the door, you sit there and you're a dead man. Stay mid... and move back and forth between the doors... that's yer work area. and use XS freighter Flyby to defend doors. Now this is the second piece of advice i've given ya... and from what i gathered from yer wall of text, you didn't even bother trying my first piece of advice... you just dismissed it completely out of hand. It seems like you've already made up your mind. My personal belief is that you've levelled a class to 50 whose gameplay style you simply do not enjoy, and now you're feeling a little cheated for your time invested. Well, that sucks dude... you're best bet is just to ignore that and go play yer scoundrel if ya enjoy it sooo much better. Sharpshooter PVP is viable, anyone saying otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about. Sharpshooter PVP is not only viable, but you can excel at it, anyone saying otherwise doesn't really know what they're talking about. It's not my job to "prove" that cover, is viable in pvp, to you. Its to you now as to whether or not its worth my time to even give ya advice (I will, as long as yer not wasting my time).

Bind you're Quick Draw ability to your "E" key. You'll thank me later. Don't mistake Quick DRAW with Quick Shot... quick shot is le stinker ability.

Hate to say it... but the truth is that you need to L2P. Now i'm not saying that to be an elitest... but there's at least one thing you mentioned in your post that makes me certain that you're not really playing quite right. So lets get straight to it shall we... now you on your skill bar somewhere or if your using the games default bind key (hell i even forget what it is) is a skill called TAKE COVER... this is the ability you use and is making you roll all over the place like it's grade 5 gymnastics. Take that ability and get rid of it... that's right, its actually holding you back. Now go into your Smuggler abilites and find the CROUCH ability, and drag that to a quickslot... now we're not done yet... now go into preferences, bottom tab key binding, quickslots option... scroll down... find the quickslot you put yer CROUCH ability in and bind it to your "C" key (if you need the character screen you can use yer mouse to bring it up)... Now no matter what you do, you're always going into cover right where your standing... no more rolling around the place. Next find where your HUNKER DOWN is and bind it to your "V" key. Before i give more advice though, i'd like to know what other keybinds you got going, and where your abilities are on yer screen. Also knowing what build your running, and i can give ya some pointers there as well. It is a complete myth that cover is anti-pvp, a Sharpshooting Gunslinger is a hell of a force to be reckoned with... if played right. If I had to graph myself in my DPS positioning on the scoreboard, i'd prolly rate it like this: 10% of warzones as the TOP DPS on both sides. 70% of warzones in the 2-3 DPS spot on both sides. 10% of warzones in the 4th DPS spot on both sides. 10% of warzones at or below the 5th DPS spot on both sides. and that last one is almost always because everyone runs off before me in alderaan after catching a point... so im stuck guarding it. heh.

It depends really... the only time i ever seemed to actually use Diversion was against another slinger/sniper which ended up being fairly rare... I went with the 1.5 in leg shot because in practice i always seemed to be 1.5 seconds short from rooting people on fires in huttball. Now, this is likely a personal issue in that leg shot cd reduction is much more useful to me than diversion.

Ya... Cross-Server PvP.

Nice video dude! The one thing I woulda liked to have seen was your energy bar though.

Check the spec again, I don't have any alacrity points. Those points in the DF tree are for the critical chance. You're rotation looks good on paper... and is very similar to what I use doing Operations and other PVE stuff, but for PvP you need to take into account that your fighting people. Having your aimed shot so late in your rotation means that the chances are they're already pretty aware that your pew-pewing them and doing some decent damage, Good players at that point will try and LOS or get out of yer range. Speedshot makes your opponents very aware of you... its more sneaky to go Charged Burst (not worried) followed by a Aimed Shot and Trick Shot (now they're in OMG how the hell did I just lose over 50% of my health) then Speed Shot to get them below 30% and ideally below 20%... followed by a Quick Draw to finish them off. Oh for those that didn't know... Quick Draw will instantly cancel out your speed shot and fire your quick draw... which is incredibly handy.

I do find myself throwing alot of grenades... usually throwing at targets within my XS Freighter Flyby... but also throwing alot while on the move. That's basically a bonus though. I got it for the 15 second reduction on the Flash Grenade Cooldown, over the coarse of a pvp match that sometimes last upwards of 15 minutes, a 15 second reduction in a 1 minute CD is substantial. In PVP, CC is king, and very often makes the difference between winning and losing. I've no experience using Sabatoeur so I can't rightly make any judgements on that spec or hybrid specs. I have tried the dirty fighting spec multiple times, and I've always come away not very satisfied with it. You will generally have higher damage numbers with DF, but less kills, and I always find myself out of energy with it. DF gunslingers need to throw dots on as many people as possible... easy enough with shrap bomb... but trying to cycle through targets using just TAB can be a real pain sometimes, and trying to click on those zig-zagging melee guys with your mouse button is an exercise in futility it seems. The one change I'm considering is losing DIVERSION and throwing that point to get the further Leg Shot CD reduction. Considering how often i use leg shot in Huttball, it would be well worth it in replacement of the DIVERSION skill which I only ever seem to remember to use against opposing Gunslingers or Snipers. One amusing note here... When you Remember to use DIVERSION against another Gunslinger or Sniper, they remember to use it against you 90% of the time.

This was a video I took two nights ago. My first attempt at video editting and youtubing so I'm not sure where the quality loss came from... was fine before i uploaded it. Valor 65 Build Sharpshooter (31/7/3) link - http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700bsrddRoRgzZrcZh.1 Anyways here's the video... any feedback is appreciated. Please note that the opposing teams seems fairly squishy and that there were 10 of them vs 8 of us.

I've not really played around with the mods and enhancements in the five main gears... I could start switching out the gears in my champions and champion doubles... but im well into collecting my BM set. So it seems a little premature to start min-maxing.

Don't start off yer rotation with Aimed Shot... 2.5 second wind up is painful to watch. Use your Flash Grenade more... only really watched the first half and don't think I saw you hit it at all.

That 1 second reduction is incredibly nice in pvp... even with it 2 seconds I still get stunned quite a bit trying to get it off. Far from useless. Rapid fire lets ya shoot 3 speed shots in a row.... yes, other abilities do better damage... But the glory of speed shot is that its very energy efficient. You might want to hit more charged bursts... but you`ll run into energy management problems. The key to sharpshooter is that its sustainable high dps.

Field Tech... The 2 set bonus is nice in the 3 second duration bump for XS Freighter Flyby... takes it to 12 seconds. Makes a brilliant guard for planted bombs when you're offense on the Voidstar, pretty much guarantees that it wont be defused, but its amusing to watch the sith try. the 4 set bonus of 5 meters extra range on Distraction and Quick Draw might seem kinda meh on first glance... but its great for nailing those force sprinters when they're trying to get away with a Quick Draw. The one thing I`ve not done yet is tweaked out my gears to min-max my effectiveness... couple more battlemaster pieces and I prolly will do that.

We're a rare breed. I'm cool with that.

Well, in a nut shell... lets assume I've flourished them already. Charged Burst > Trick Shot > Charged Burst > Aimed Shot > Charged Burst > Speed Shot > Rapid Fire > Speed Shot > Speed Shot > AT this point my rotation breaks down a little and its just charged burst and whatever is off cool down. I throw in my Quick Draw when the opponent is under 30% of health... usually I like it when they're down to 15% as that its pretty much a guaranteed killshot. A couple of notes: - Alot of times enemies will run outta range or LOS when i get to the speed shot part, I just retarget and Speed Shot someone else. - Quick Draw will cancel the Speed Shot ability and immediately fire... If they're really low, just Quick Draw em and drop em. - Aimed Shot before Speed Shot, as Speed Shot will produce a "OMG! I'm being pelted by a thousand bullets in the face!" panic on yer enemies, and they'll start running for cover. - If ya got an inkling your about to get ganged upon by a few people, call in Bowdaar and firebomb yer own position, then pop yer dodge... then yer absorb... you'll bloody some noses before ya go down.

Reserved for more tips... if i'm ever bored enough.

Seeing way too many SS sucks and is horrible threads and posts for my liking... and since my server is down, i thought I'd share my build and some tips on how to rock as a Sharpshooter in PvP Warzones. Anyways... here's my build... http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700bsrddRoRgzZrcZh.1 Some thoughts on the above build. -reducing our CC cooldowns is important, the hunker down reduction is critical imo. -Extra Energy, I see alot of builds forgoing this, which is a mistake IMO, in that its not just extra energy you get, but extra TOP end energy, which means you stay at the high energy regen rate for longer. -Diversion important in that its the only thing in game that takes a sniper outta their hunker down (well if they stand still, they're still technically in it with CC immunity, but they don't have cover abilities) -Rapid Fire is important in that it gives ya some sustainable damage with speedshot, but also scares the hell outta opponents causing them to run away. I've chased off multiple targets using Rapid Fire. For those interested here are my key binds... Q - Defensive Screen E - Quick Draw R - Distraction F - Dirty Kick G - Flourish Shot H - XS Freighter Flyby Z - Escape X - Dodge C - Cover V - Hunker Down B - Throw Huttball okay... on to the tips. Tip #1 - Hunker Down EARLY and OFTEN. Don't wait for others to target and hit you, because likely their first hit will be a stun. Hit it early and as often as you can. Tip #2 - Flourish shot... work it into your rotation as early as you can. It WILL make a difference. Tip #3 - Trick Shot as often as its off cooldown... hugely important dps for us. Tip #4 - USE your RANGE. 30m is a long distance, why are you so close to the opposition? Tip #5 - XS Freighter Flyby... Drop this on or near points. Or alternatively drop it as a barrier to where the opposing healers usually stand. Tip #6 - Don't wait till your completely out of energy to hit Cool Head... hit it when your somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 energy... keeping your ENERGY REGEN high is more important than getting that 50 Energy from it. and most importantly Tip #7 - Dont listen to the faux smugglers that say Sharpshooting sucks and has horrible DPS... There is no crying in smuggling. This is a very hard class to play, and takes ALOT of gaming before all you need to know is turned into second nature habits for you... once that happens though... look out! And if any Sith are reading this... Imma shoot you in the face... see if i don't. Signed, Some sharpshootin, cussin, spitting, kicking, Gunslinger Battlemaster.

It's critical. I always try and work it in at the beginning of combat with a new target.

Rework the bases so they're tougher to capture. Allow the usable guns to be on all the time... none of this you need yer base up and running silliness. Add a couple more AI turrets in each base. Lower the valor rewards.