People seem to have the misconception (well, not so much in this thread but in general) that dual specs aren't useful for pure DPS classes. This is of course complete nonsense. If you enjoy both PvE and PvP, you can now have a separate build for each. If you only play PvE, it's still useful. Quite often different boss mechanics will favor different types of builds. Maybe it's hard to be stationary in one fight and in another you just sit there and unload. In WoW I had two specs for my warlock, and which one I'd choose for a raid depended on the raid setup, because raid buff availability determined the placement of a few points. So I was simply optimizing my build like this. Later on when I was swimming in gear I decided to use my two specs for more variation and just swap some gear around according to buffs. In certain fights I'd have my Felguard out, and in others where pets would just get mauled in 2 seconds flat I'd switch to my other spec. If you only PvP, well, I'm sure some of you PvPers will have some arguments there. I don't really care about PvP

I for one am glad I don't have to look like Darth Generic #443515216. Maybe we all look alike, but at least we're not Sith

Please stop spreading misinformation: 1. In PvE, it was a nerf. Not a "nerf", not a fix, not a buff. It was a nerf. Doesn't matter if overall damage was reduced by 0.00001% or 50%, a reduction in damage dealt (with no compensation in PvE) is a PvE nerf. I cannot understand people's need to present it as something else. Nerfs can be both justified and unjusitified, so when you call it a nerf you're not somehow admitting it was unjustified. But when you try to hide what it is, it is much too easy to interpret as dishonest and perhaps as an attempt to find justification where there is none. 2. While it seems to be the case that the nerf was aimed at PvP only, it is a fact that it has an impact on your entire rotation in PvE, because the armor penetration from Acid Blade was reduced significantly, and this will affect every ability (unless you play poorly and forget to use Acid Blade). PS: Point 1 is not directed solely at the poster above, but at the many people around here I've seen trying to claim it was something other than a nerf.

Did somone mention Duke Nuken Forever yet? It's also a really bad game, but that's another story entirely.

This is exactly why it was not justified. Why in a story-based game with a huge PvE component should we be bullied by PvP balancing? PvP has become the bane of PvE in MMOs. Sometimes I wish the PvPers could just go play some other game and stop bothering us with their senseless "balancing", or even that there was another game for us PvEers to play (sadly too many games feel they must have PvP to compete). I appreciate the fact that some people like a bit of both, but enough is enough. If the game designers are intent on having one skill set with no flexibility, they should decide if they are going to balance for PvP or PvE and make a clear statement so those of us focused on one aspect can make an informed decision and leave if this game isn't for us.

I have seen posts claiming you should pull him down before. But when I fought him, he wouldn't do it. It's a waste of time anyway. That said, I killed him just fine. I interrupted him a lot and used Debilitate on cooldown. He wasn't even close to threatening me. Level 32 Concealment, using Kaliyo. On the other hand, the stupid bug still made me annoyed. That was the worst part of the fight. Actually that was pretty much the whole fight, spam clicking abilities while moving around, hoping that at some point I would be able to hit him.

The jedi classes are a bit dull yes. Overall I prefer the Republic though, simply because the Sith annoy me so much.

I'd never bow to those idiots. Just got annoying that you could not retaliate when they zapped you. The game is way too focused on how powerful the Sith are. Frankly, they're boring and they act like spoiled children.

I love it. It gets insanely annoying if you heal, but for some reason I consider it part of the charm. You'd have to be utterly insane to stand there in a life-or-death situation and giggle.

Exactly. Like I also said above, it's the tree that really uses the signature weapon of the class. Dirty Fighting on the other hand is much less interesting as it's shared with Gunslinger. And honestly I'd rather play the ranged version of that tree without having to worry about running out of UH all the time.

Reduced damage, reduced stun, reduced armor penetration. Clearly not a nerf! And all this talk about Concealment/Scrapper being a burst tree for PvP? Just an excuse because you couldn't dig up any good arguments as to why a PvE nerf was needed. I'm sorry, but that's what it is. Look at the two trees. You have survivability (which usually means PvP) in both Scrapper and Dirty Fighting. I'd say it's pretty clear that the intention was to make all trees viable for PvP. Furthermore, once you've got Pugnacity and 2 x UH ready, Scrapper actually has a nice enough flow for sustained damage in PvE, far better than Dirty Fighting, which just seems like Leela's prom dress made of carpet remnants. It has good things in it, but it's just random and not very well thought out. Many of the talents in all three trees are marginal at best in PvE, and no serious raider would every pick those as anything but filler. How anyone can declare a particular tree PvP only at this point is a mystery to me. It's even more of a mystery that you'd say it about the tree that uses the signature weapon of the class the most, rather than the more generic shared tree.

Obviously I know about cool head. In my experience, tanks often require emergency heals a lot more often than a 2 minute cooldown ability can handle. Again, I have not healed endgame stuff with this class, so I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm still pretty much convinced that the force system is much better at dealing with a bit more reactive healing where you dip a little deeper into your reserves when needed and regen more when you can. So far I've just healed non-endgame flashpoints, but my experience has pretty much been that healing output isn't always enough, and when it isn't you can only emergency heal so much before it's game over. It feels extremely limited compared to the other healing I've done in other games. I'm going to try it some more later.

I disagree with this. I think that particular mechanics is fine. If you set it to 100%, you'd just be spamming it with energy as your only limitation. The only reason to use Blaster Whip would be to refresh Pugnacity. Point is, it would be far less dynamic and I think less fun.

Although I think it's pretty clear that they have an easier time healing than other classes (I mean how can you NOT notice it), I would be careful with the nerf cries. We need careful adjustments in small increments to game balance, not the kind of nerf we saw for operatives and scoundrels. For each such adjustment, game balance must be reconsidered. Yeah, my character got nerfed as well. I don't want another class to suffer as some sort of idiotic revenge. I want all classes to work. In my opinion, scoundrels/ops need some positive changes, and in general mirror class issues should be fixed as well before they start nerfing anything.

That's probably the reason. But ultimately that's not really an excuse. I can't help but think the problem is a resource management issue. If you have one guy fixing bugs and 20 people doing balancing, guess what gets the most attention. Devs don't generally decide what to do on their own; normally there are several levels of management calling the shots. Just remember that this doesn't mean the devs working on bugs aren't working hard. PS: Don't yell at Bioware. They most probably are not listening, and if they are this is still not the right way to communicate.

I kind of agree. The problem is a pure PvEer, I like it the way it is. But yeah I see where you are coming from. Scoundrel healing is truly discreet. As someone on this forum put it, it looks like your character is checking facebook on his phone. It is, however, extremely boring to look at in PvE.

Although I have not healed at endgame with my scoundrel or operative, I have to say I don't understand the logic in this thread. I noticed one glaring deficiency with the class the moment I laid eyes on it, and I did this based on years of experience as a raid healer: the energy system does not support emergency heals very well. They all have to fit into the energy management and Upper Hand system. When you DO dig into your energy pool too much, you can't have a quiet period to regen very well because you are penalized for having low energy. You can use DS, but meanwhile your healing output is very low, which is also not good for tank healing (generally they need steady healing all the time AND spike emergency heals sometimes). I have on many occasions tried having to emergency heal spike damage quite regularly. I just don't see how you can do that with the resource system that is in place. I could be wrong and all of this is a non-issue. Heck I hope I AM wrong. But I remain a bit skeptic.

In general for DPS I prefer the healing companions by far and I consider it a shame that some classes get them much later than others, particularly classes like smuggler where you already get main abilities very later in the game. Out of Corso, Bowdaar and Risha, the latter has worked best for me as a scrapper. As Lethality, I'd go with a tank instead though because you don't have the health regen. Risha is as far as I got on my scoundrel. On my operative, I do have my healing companion, and he's far, far better than the others for concealment (scrapper mirror tree). In fact, the very moment I got him, everything became much easier. I even walked up to a champion I didn't massively overlevel and soloed it, something I hadn't really done before.

Fleet. Combat training. Skill mentor.

I tried it for a while both "solo" (with Risha) and in groups. In groups I felt it was OK except for the energy problem and refreshing Pugnacity. I outdamaged the others by far from what I can tell, and I certainly had enough aggro. Then again, I have a good amount of MMO experience and am pretty much always on the ball But there's no doubt that scrapper works better for solo leveling. The health regen talent alone is huge for reducing downtime (think about it, in one Shrap Bomb's duration you will regen 21/3 * 2% = 14% of your total health, and then you will regen while running between groups as well), and chaining Suckerpunches on weak mobs is just brilliant. With dirty fighting I had a good amount of downtime.

Off topic, but I can't help thinking about how outdated the 360 hardware is. To be honest, it aged pretty well and it's admirable what they actually made it run, but it's time to move on.

Basically yes. This is the TOR equivalent of the guy with 800 GS who sits in Orgrimmary spamming for 5000+ GS people to join his raid. They were never worth your time. Most WoW players will know what I mean. When it comes to hardcore raiding, I understand it. Really hardcore raiders do everything they can to win, to the point where they will always pick the class that has even the slightest edge. You'll never balance the game enough to avoid that kind of thing. But for the average flashpoint or op (that is, when you are not exactly the pioneers of PvE progression), it's just weak.

What I find most amusing about this thread is the fact that by far the most played class on my server Republic side is sentinel. Not sage. Sage is pretty well-represented yes, but there are insanely many sentinels. I guess people want to be the hero dual-wielder. I mean a hero that dual-wields, not someone who dual-wields heroes (I would play that class!).

NOTE: This is meant as a PvE-only thread, and it isn't about overall class balance. Hope you can respect that. I have both an operative and a new scoundrel that I'm focusing on now. Only used concealment/scrapper until now. At level 33 I tried dirty fighting before going back to scrapper at 34. I know this doesn't count as endgame experience (but I will say that I have done many years of raiding in That MMO), but all I want to say is that the tree certainly shows promise. It really does. It has some potentially fun mechanics, could do some good damage too. However, I cannot figure out how I'm supposed to keep up with Upper Hand and energy, I just can't. If anyone has some pointers, I'd love the hear it. After starting the fight, you need to get Pugnacity rolling ASAP. That's one Upper Hand gone. Ideally you have one up at all times, so only on your third UH do you actually do Wounding Shots. To get your money's worth out of Wounding Shots, you need Vital Shot and Shrap running. Lots of energy. Then once Pugnacity runs out, you need to refresh it, so that's one Wounding Shots you'll be missing. I don't see that management becoming better once I get the top tier talent either. And yet, here comes the funny part, I felt like I was doing more damage than I was with my scrapper... after a while anyway. Maybe I am fooling myself though. I was certainly doing the most damage in the party, to the point where I kept pulling aggro from the tank even when using Surrender. I also *think* I was downing strong mobs faster. Could be because a lot of Dirty Fighting damage bypasses armor I suppose. Is anyone successfully using this for ops/FPs? Got any idea about the damage output as compared to scrapper? Ultimately my goal is to to endgame PvE, and I simply want to try to get used to a reasonable endgame spec already now.

I agree that a lot of the complaining is a bit unreasonable. However, I do not think it's unreasonable to expect a bit more feedback than what we are getting. I also think there are plenty of legitimate complainst that are being lumped together with the ones that aren't. By the way, it's worth to remember, for you and for Bioware, that a lot of us are voicing concerns because the game does NOT suck. We like it enough to care about it. I don't go to the Duke Nukem Forever forums (if they have any) and complain because frankly I think that game is so bad it's not worth my time. I think SWTOR is a good game, on the other hand. Otherwise I would be long gone.