Hah, that's what I get for doing a late night post. You're right, that's not correct. The hybrid's problem with Focus is just that there's no good passive way to receive it, since Soresu's Focus enhancements are at the top of the Defense tree, along with the BS/FS discounts. The counterargument is that the Defense tree generates an enormous amount of Focus but has no good place to use it. As for leaping, the one thing that is often noted is that for the hybrid you need to choose between your heavier damage and your damage buff sometimes. For the full Defense build, the BB shield is built into their standard attack rotation, and the other buffs are passive, so with no extra buffs leaping is done for their original purposes (distance closing or teammate protection). The hybrid's greater survivability relies on you to use your leaping for their secondary purpose, which is to give you that DR buff, so for the full effect you need to leap not just to adjust your distance or protect a teammate, but because you need the hit that leaping provides. The constant setup to jump around the battlefield makes the hybrid a harder build to properly play IMO, since you're constantly looking to replenish a buff that only lasts 4 or 6 seconds, from two abilities that are on 15 and 20 second cooldowns and that radically change your distance on use. I freely admit that as much as Overhead Slash appeals to me, I don't think I have the amount of attention to detail to properly play the hybrid as such on my tank.

There's no way you can blanket-statement say that 4% damage reduction outperforms Blade Barrier when they don't use the same mechanic. Blade Barrier is a flat damage absorption, before damage reduction, so its effectiveness in relation to a percentage damage reduction is very much dependent on how much damage you're taking per 12s cooldown, and how much damage reduction you already have. For instance, let's say that Blade Barrier stops roughly 700 damage per use, which seems like a reasonable number from the stats I've seen for a level 50. For the amount of damage you take between 12s cooldown uses, the damage taken for the Guardian is something like: (DAMAGE - 700) * (1 - DR) For the extra 4% reduction, the equation is simply: DAMAGE * (1 - DR - 0.04) So, with two variables, the amount of damage done in 12 seconds where the two methods are equal depends on how much damage reduction you already have, with Blade Barrier becoming relatively weaker as you gear up with more DR. Putting those two formulas together gets us: EQUAL DAMAGE = (1 - DR) * 17,500 Thus, given the following natural damage reduction percentages pre-bonuses, here is how much damage you'd need to take over 12 seconds with the 4% DR bonus to equal one use of a Blade Barrier: 20% DR: 14,000 damage 33% DR: 11, 725 damage 50% DR: 8,750 damage From the example from before, if you have 16,000 HP and 50% damage reduction pre-Commanding Awe, you'd need to take over half of your HP in white damage (since full Defense has the same DR bonus for yellow damage) over a 12-second period before the 4% DR bonus becomes better than Blade Barrier, assuming BB's 700 absorption value. Otherwise, under less burst DPS fire, the Blade Barrier is better. The scenario is very simplistic, of course, but the general idea is: you need to be taking a whole lot of damage in a compressed time and/or have a whole lot of damage reduction already stacked before a catch-all 4% DR bonus becomes superior to a flat 700 absorption. That's why the main advantage in survivability for the hybrid builds lies within the use of Force Leap and Guardian Leap and the 20% DR buff they give, which gives the hybrid a massive burst of tankish-ness while they're up. If you're not constantly jumping around to keep that great buff up, a full Defense Guardian with constant Blade Barrier usage can soak more sustained damage, I believe. (Obviously a Defense build who's not getting their BB procs off is not doing as hot.) The hybrid in general should be better at absorbing massive burst damage, particularly if you can get your leap buff to proc when the big hit comes. Then again, the Defense build also gets a shield chance boost, while constant leaping drains the Focus you need for attacks, but Overhead Slash is a big hit so the hybrid's more damage efficient, but Cyclonic Sweeps output means the Defense build has more flexibility in ability usage... it all gets pretty complicated. Or, TL;DR: you aren't a good tank in any spec unless you keep your buffs up.

Or you you could just come right out and detail how you think it should be properly used and actually help.

Greens, too, just not the grays which don't give you any more skill points. Each mission has a minimum skill level to unlock, so you should go back to lower level missions as stated above and grind those until your top level mission pool gets larger. You'll get better returns, too, because you'll be high enough skill where the lower level missions give the "Rich" and "Bountiful" yields, though obviously they'll be for a lower grade of material. If you don't know how to access lower level missions, it's the dropdown on the top right of the mission window.

I have to point out that 640 HP on a 16,000 HP character is not a whole bunch, while Blade Barrier is a damage soaker that comes up every time a Guardian uses Blade Storm. So while it goes down quickly, in longer fights it comes up more often, meaning it'll soak more damage in total when you add up all the uses. There are a lot of benefits to the hybrid (Unremitting/Guardian Leap buff, Overhead Slash damage, etc.), but I don't think that particular tradeoff is an outright win. Though I admit to not knowing all the math; it depends on a bunch of factors, including whether the damage is white, how much damage is being done per 12 seconds, how well BB really scales, how much other defense you have, etc.

There's an interesting discussion of alacrity on Sith Warrior: http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Alacrity-Little-effect-on-sustained-HPS The discussion from the past week focuses on how useful Alacrity is for burst healing, when speed is more important than energy efficiency, plus the effect of diminishing returns on Surge. One poster, Smokescreen has a spreadsheet that results in a stat priority of: Cunning >= Power > Crit > Surge (to ~250) > Alacrity > Surge Which is to say, the diminishing returns of Surge make Alacrity a more attractive stat for burst healing after 250 Surge.

As for cover, it's true that Scoundrels in general don't spend a lot of time hunkering down, since your attack range is generally 10m and in. I've found it situationally useful as a healer, though; unlike Scoundrel attacks, the heal abilities have 30m range, which means you can find a good barrel to hide behind and still protect yourself from long range mobs while keeping your teammates topped off. Hiding behind a barrel has saved me a number of times in Heroics when I've attracted aggro while healing and the enemy isn't coming down to beat me face-to-face.

As a level 27 Scoundrel, you are in fact three levels away from the second major add in the Sawbones rotation: Emergency Medpac, which finally gives your healer a good outlet for those Upper Hands your pumped-up Underworld Medicine and Slow-Release Medpac abilities are giving you (Kolto Pack doesn't count). I wouldn't know personally, given that I'm leveling a hybrid Scoundrel that at 40 is still one point away from EM, but just eyeballing the power tells me it's going to be a lot more useful than KP, particularly with Emergent Emergencies after that. Also, people love to diss Diagnostic Scan, but I've found in PvE that a fully tricked out DS comes in handy. Putting those four points into Prognosis: Critical and Patient Studies gives you a DS that crits half to 2/3 of the time, depending on how buffed your crit rate is. That may not seem like much, an expected 3+ extra energy over three seconds, but when you're going to use it to regain energy (it's still a terrible heal), you won't be at full regen rate anyway. An expected 3+ energy over three seconds is the same or better rate of return for energy than Pugnacity gives you (though obviously you should use Pugnacity as well), so when you're down at the lower regen rates because your energy is low, that's a big boost, though your actual per-use return of course is subject to the random number gods. Finally, don't refresh SRMPs too fast, but not too slow. The game doesn't keep track of individual countdowns for each SRMP buff; instead, if you have one SRMP on a player and you apply it again, you'll refresh with a full two on the stack, both with a new countdown. So, as long as you can keep one or two stacks on a player, you can refresh for a full two as long as you do so before the buff expires. Yes, the UI is terrible for tracking this, but ideally you want to keep two stacks up on a player and then time your refresh for when the stack is about to expire. Some good guides from more experienced healers than I: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=56339 http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Scoundrel-Operative-Healing-Compendium That second one is for Operatives, so you have to do a bit of terminology translation to figure it out. http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Smuggler-Imperial-Agent-Terminology-Mirror-Dictionary

If the formulas at sithwarrior.com are correct (and I've found their Strength and Power formulas to be accurate), 20% of your Strength is added to your damage, while 23% of your Power is added. Thus, Power is the better stat, but obviously harder to find. Unlike most stats, their benefits aren't subject to diminishing returns, just a straight percentage.

Thing is, only buffing makes no sense as a balance mechanic. If you spend time to buff up seven classes to match the eighth, you have in effect nerfed the eighth class in relation to the other classes in PvP, for seven times the work, plus you've made your PvE content (which is most of the game, lest anyone forget) too easy because you used an overpowered class as your baseline rather than biting the bullet and nerfing it towards the baseline effectiveness you wanted. All because you weren't willing to take something away. Make much more sense from a dev perspective to apply the buff or nerf bat as needed.

This is likely entirely from your Bowdaar gear having less Endurance than Corso's. Their Presence bonuses are obviously exactly the same, and last I checked they had the same base HP. Easy enough investigation, though: Hover your mouse over Corso's hit points on the character sheet; note the bonus breakdown; do the same for Corso; compare.

If you're enjoying the story and playing your Scoundrel, I say you'll ultimately end up unsatisfied if you abandon your character because of class envy. BioWare will constantly be adjusting classes up or down. IMO you should at least finish your storyline and get some finality, and if you want to then, put your Scoundrel on ice and try another class for a new experience and an expanded perspective. Realize that everybody in every class complains about their class, regardless of balance; listening to forum posts harping on everything under the sun is a great way to leech the fun out of playing any character.

Adding more defensive perks into the Vigilance tree just devalues the Defense tree more, doesn't it? Already a lot of forum posters seem convinced a hybrid is a better tank than a full Defense spec, and it doesn't fit with a tree that is supposed to be centered around an offensive form. If I were BioWare I'd replace it with a Shien-related ability (though making it a defensive perk while in Shien form would be pretty evil). Shien has the least number of tied abilities of the three forms, plus Burning Blade is right next to the talent that gives you Shien, so that's a prime spot to throw in a linked ability.

Though if you had 200 theoretical points to distribute, your optimal distribution would be something like 125 defense, 75 absorption, given the diminishing rates of return from Malissant's chart. From eyeballing the numbers, given a theoretical point total, your optimal distribution would be something in the ballpark of: Points Defense Absorption Shield 50 30 20 0 100 60 40 0 150 90 60 0 200 125 75 0 300 195 105 0 400 275 120 5 500 340 120 40 600 410 130 60 800 550 160 90 1000 680 190 130 Or roughly 2-to-1 Defense/shield stats, with Absorption getting early love and Shield Chance catching up later. There's a more detailed bullet plan on Malissant's blog.

All of those skills are handy for the ability they buff, so IMO you should take the powers that complement the abilities you use the most. If you never heal, Exploratory Surgery will not do much for you, unless you want to spend the time to self-heal before each battle. OTOH, the half second time off and guaranteed UH is pretty nice if you use it. Mortal Wound similarly is useful if you frequently use Vital Shot. It's a 25% chance to do double damage on a tick, which translates to a 25% increase in expected damage over the lifetime of Vital Shot usage, which is significant -- if you use Vital Shot a lot. This works particularly well if you buffed up your VS with Browbeater already. Because MW increases the number of ticks and not the damage per tick, Browbeater plus Mortal Wound is multiplicative, not additive, so with both your expected damage is 118% * 125% = 147.5% normal Vital Shot damage. And Dirty Escape gives you a 15s reduction in time for Dirty Kick, which is 33% more ball kicks to use if you tend to use it as soon as it comes off cooldown.

My favorite sequence in PvE is Dirty Kick -> Cheap Shot -> (run through enemy and turn) -> Back Blast. It just feels so vicious.

This definitely happens on other companions. Elara for the Trooper is listed as adoring courting gifts, but if you give her any as soon as you get her, she rejects them. (I know this firsthand.)

Isn't the answer "yes"? Defense is more effective than shields, but they're all subject to diminishing returns, so at some point it's more effective to add shield absorption/rating points than piling on more defense. Malissant had an interesting breakdown of shield vs defense here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=267983

Me: (flirting with Akaavi) I never argue with a woman with a plan. Risha: Since when?

I'd do it the same way SaintNick is. Victory Rush is important enough to take first, but otherwise, Overhead Slash is the biggest boon on the skill tree for the build, so getting it ASAP seems logical.

Sounds like scoundrel for you, then. Unless you have your heart set on a long range character, which scoundrels are not (they operate mostly at close range).

Akaavi: You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? Me: That sounds even more embarrassing when you say it.

"Is that Mandalorian armor, or am I just really behind current fashion trends?"

Imperial Officer: This is Imperial property! Freeze! Me: If I listen, does that mean you won't shoot me? Because that seems out of character. Imperial Soldier: Good point. Don't we usually shoot them anyway...? Imperial Officer: Shut up!

Really simple: add some sort of indicator when you keybind quick slots with numpad numbers vs. keyboard numbers. They aren't the same mapping, so it makes sense for them to be marked differently, such as the numpad numbers looking like "Num 1".