Again, the key is using the net at the right time in an ORGANIZED match. It's not about which skill you get the most kills with or which skill lets you hide and heal up the most. It's all about pressure, after you cause a healer to use their break and/or defensives you wait for that moment to net them. When that happens they have no way of escaping and that's when your dps focus them down with burst. It's not easy to protect a healer that can do nothing but attempt to stand there healing when multiple dps all focus and interrupt them. It's not about using net at random on someone that's just going to ride it out. HSM is your best damage skill and HO is a great butt saver but neither have the impact of a well placed net on a node battle in an organized match. Surviving focus in this game is about breaking line of sight, trying to face tank against a focus fire just gets you killed. Electro net forces that situation for them. Personal glory and the numbers that come with it mean nothing when you have two teams of equal strength battling over a node. That's when strategy and team play matter most and right now it's hard to think of a single skill that has a bigger impact than electro net right now regard.

That's a very simple way of looking at things. In an organized setting using the net at the right time is doom for the focus target of your choice unless the other team goes all out protecting them. It's a skill worthy of deciding a node battle. If you're only thinking of it as a way to peel a melee or to fluff your damage then you're not making the best use of it.

Hmm, there aren't many moments where I feel like it's NEEDED on the tank, but it certainly gets the most use there. I'll usually only pop it on them during bosses. When I'm tanking I know it get's annoying to constantly see MORE glowing green eye killing brightness when it's not needed. (Also please spam rapid/hammer on someone other than the tank now and then between fights!) So in a normal situation I'll put it on myself for trash pulls (or just not use it), tank for boss fights and dps if they have to take damage and need it most. In raid wide damage situations I still like it on the tank often times, but if I know it's not needed on them I'll put it on myself or another healer. Sometimes a DPS if they are too squishy.

I find merc and sorc healers (post storm) are probably the easiest and relatively quick. They can both AoE so much that it barely matters they are healers when it comes to taking out little leveling trash mobs. Some strongs and elites will take awhile but generally those 2 classes can dps fast enough still that it doesn't really feel too slow. Agent/smuggler I found was very slow. The aoe takes set up (not a lot but gets tedious) and the single target damage is bad. Don't recommend full time healer if speed matters a lot to you for this class.

The issue is that they don't really have the needed defenses to turret. Their only way to deal with this is to run away but that's not ideal for them when wanting to deal damage. Unlike a sniper that can truly play turret. Heals don't make up for stun and leap immunities. I've often thought moveable unload is a good idea but would take the class to overpowered levels without a restriction, like once every 15-20 seconds for moveable unloads. Instant tracer would be a baaaaaad idea. It would become this game's ice lance spam. 2.0 has helped a lot, and electro-net is arguably THE single best pvp skill in the game but merc is still much more reliable on a good team than other classes. They need some sort of anti-leap or an escape that allows them not to be such easy targets. What I think would help is a ground targeted leap of sorts (using the jetpack or boots for animation). It doesn't need to be super far, about 15-20m on a 30-45 second cooldown. The reason for this is it would finally give them a way to quickly achieve LoS breaks as well as add distance between them and melee when a knockback/stun isnt going to work. I think a skill like this is what both dps and healer mercs/mandos need. It would be sort of like force speed for them on a longer timer in terms of escaping.

If you're on your own against a reasonably clever assassin you will not cap that node unless you can beat them 1on1 knowing they will get the jump on you. If they are a smart though and realize that you can take them on, they will just kite and delay you as long as possible, plenty of time for their team to arrive. Essentially, the only ways to beat them are to overpower them quickly when they come out or bring a friend to eat saps with you, then gang up on him when he comes out.

Because you can move while using it.

You notice the differences in specs the higher you get, they start to veer off in other directions. That said, at 45 your damage will get a lot better with crushing blow as immortal. So leveling becomes much smoother.

The thing about fun is that it's subjective. We can't really tell you which one you will enjoy more. Personally I prefer juggernaut, but in pvp I care way more about objective play than my numbers. When it comes to objective play + team play juggernaut is tough to beat. And that said juggs can put up impressive numbers as well. Marauder is certainly enjoyable when it comes to taking opponents down with ease (it's seriously an easy class, don't let people pretending it's tough fool you) but it doesn't really shine in my preferred play style compared to juggernaut.

If you take a concealment and expect them to really help much with healing you're not thinking right. Taunts as mentioned are equally effective in all specs and do not require stopping current actions or spending resources otherwise used to dps to use them. The roll however is a real advantage in huttball. Rolling with the huttball is... pretty cheap. As well as being able to grab the ball early at the start. Outside of huttball they can both do well enough at harassing healers, but assassin is by far the better lone wolf node capper / defender. Really the only WZs I'd prefer an OP in is huttball and maybe voidstar. Any node capturing WZ give me assassin please. That said assassins are good in voidstar as well, but deception doesn't really shine in huttball.

Some people don't care about the class story, especially after doing it more than once. You guys keep acting like it effects any part of your character outside of role playing. The end result is always the same. It's fine if you like doing it, and I agree there should be no instant level 10 option but people need to quit thinking what they find fun is what everyone cares about.

Starting planets are reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally boring. No need to skip to level 10 though, but I wouldn't mind adjusted exp so that subscribers can get all the way to 10 just from story quests. Yes yes, most people won't want this either but I'd surely welcome it. There sure are a lot of opinions being thrown around as facts though in this thread.

It can be used both ways. First, to make the best use of it yes you do need to know the fights. Many big boss attacks are force or tech (though not every single one). If you know a huge damage spike is coming you can often force shroud 1-2 seconds before it happens (depending on your latency you want to hit it early) and negate it. It is also good for preventing moves that otherwise disable movement (toth and zorn, before the red circles for example for the zorn tank). But it can be used in a reactive way as well. Many debuffs, damage over time and channeled abilities can be cancelled out. It's really just a matter of you knowing the fights and the best times to use it. Deflection should be used in emergencies as you noted, or any time you know you are going to be taking large amounts of damage over a period of time. Frenzy on foreman crusher for example. You can start fights with force pull as you close in, this adds some initial threat. That's for bosses though, use it for positioning and protecting teammates against trash. Highest DPS in theory. It will almost always be best served on a melee class though. They build lots of threat and they are much more likely to take damage if they pull even if its only for half a second. Guarding the healer is only useful when you know they are going to take damage. Aggro wise it's nearly useless on them, as the only time healers really pull aggro is when no one has attacked a mob. In which case it's the fault of either you or your dps ignoring a mob, and in this situation guard will do nothing to help with the aggro. I've seen many tanks say no, but that's just because they aren't thinking creatively with it. Any fight that you can actually make use of it's knockback it can be useful, especially since it was changed to a cone. Either for grouping up trash for aoe, or separating them from a CC'd target. It can also buy time when poo hits the fan. If your healer gets mobbed you can rush over and knock them off. Ideally you'd taunt or use your other aoe's but having overload as an alternative is nice at times. It can also be used as a ghetto interrupt when applicable.

Yes you lose defenses not speccing immortal. But you also lose tons of dps. A tank spec doesn't even compare to a dps spec in damage.

In PvE, use it on wither and discharge for groups. For single target you can try to get a FL off with it. Threat is not really an issue so for single target (bosses) just go for damage. In pvp FL > energized shock is king. You can go for 2 shocks if you want, but if you have chain shock it might eat the 2nd charge and the damage might be too spread out.

You will take more damage than other tanks. Less DR, but you have more healing abilities that you can consistently use as well as short CD defensives. Assassin has to be more aware of incoming damage than other tanks and in return you have ways to deal with it. When you learn to make good use of your tools you will begin to shine. Still you will take more damage per hit, but once geared and used to playing it you shouldn't stress your healer any more than other tanks. I main tanked on assassin/shadow since I began playing pre-release and have never had trouble doing anything other tanks could. Learning when to force shroud on fights is absolutely key to becoming a good assassin tank. It's also a great way to save yourself and the group if there is a screw up too, but ideally you want it available for predicted damage. You can negate a lot of big moves which your healers will love. And remember that you can vanish to reset your medpac mid fight, just of course make sure you aren't going to wipe your group when you do this. (obviously have taunt ready and wait for an opening). Move priority was explained nicely above. Getting your stacks as quick as you can always comes first. Melee filler when available and always keep your debuffs up. I use dark ward CONSTANTLY even when on the fleet. It's a habit you want to build, just make sure not to waste stacks mid combat. It's ok to refresh at 2-5 hits left though if you're in a switch phase or non tank target phase.

Stop wearing war hero. Seriously.

It's still doable, just not easy. The problem isn't that you CAN'T do good damage it's that you have little room for mistakes, need optimized gear and hope it's a shadow friendly fight. You can still keep up with other classes if you work hard enough. Whether or not you consider it fair how much tougher it is to dps on a shadow vs some other classes is another question and certainly fair to bring up. BTW I cringe whenever I see someone citing dummy dps. It's pointless really. They are good for practicing rotations and such but what you see on a dummy doesn't always (rarely does) translate to actual fighting.

A sniper can poop on a shadow if he catches him unaware sure... but in 1v1 a decent shadow or assassin can borderline humiliate snipers. So either he's not talking about 1v1 or there are just some really bad shadows where you play. It's tougher now than it used to be but I can't recall ever losing to a sniper 1v1 on a shadow/assassin. (not saying its never happened just can't recall). This isn't really the thread to discuss it but I eat snipers and slingers for lunch on my shadows and assassins. Any spec really (both for assassin or sniper). Sins have so many tools to make a snipers job hell. Utilizing LoS along with those tools means you should finish any 1v1 with a sniper without taking much damage unless they are just kiting and using instants, but if they do that and you chase them like a doofus without a plan you deserve death. In general for warriors beating snipers comes down to making them uncomfortable or praying you can out dps them somehow head on (wont happen with a good sniper often). Just because you are melee doesn't mean you shouldn't keep your distance and wait for the right time to strike. Assuming you have something to hide behind. I've lured countless snipers into dropping cover because they want to chase me and get a kill, at which point as a warrior you can very quickly turn the fight around. The unfortunate part of it is though that snipers are anti-leapers, so warriors can really struggle against a well played sniper in 1v1.

It's not chest thumping to talk about soloing BT/esseles. You did so yourself. BT CAN be solo'd at level 10 by ANY class. It's not always easy and some classes need to skip the bonus boss but it isn't impossible. I've done it on classes that can heal and classes that can't. Tank companion or no, you just have to switch your strategy up depending on what you and your companion can do.

You're*

Never understood this. Do you think people don't see your heals cast? It's obvious when someone is a healer regardless of the lasers, and only takes a quick camera move to find them if you can't see them right away.

Those stats are more than good enough to tank anything. At this point, you can look to improve your hit points for a bigger cushion/more self heals or damage for some added threat/dps. A little endurance stacking is not a bad thing. More hp protects against ALL damage (in a sense, it of course isn't actual mitigation). And since your mitigation is high enough you may as well start stacking endurance where you can. You could afford to lose a bit of defense for some endurance.

One to note about the people that are "against" infiltration is that a lot of them LOVE the spec. It's very fun to play. It's just that in organized team pvp a hybrid spec can perform much, much better. Most people don't want to hurt their team and thus win chances by playing a fun but very flawed spec. In random queue for non rated pvp where you may not care as much about winning infiltration is super fun. It's not that infiltration sucks, isn't fun, or can't contribute. It's just that other specs are much better in organized pvp. Also, while leveling (10-49) infiltration can seem godlike at times, at 50 things change big time until geared. Once geared though, you're still playing more organized teams, better individuals and classes that have their completed specs. Infiltration is great burst right now, but that's about all it offers unique to it. With all of that said, it's amazing at humiliating smash/sweep monkeys.

Some of it is way too general, while other parts assume you are specced hybrid. Good start but needs work.