Learning a shadow was more challenging than the other classes I've played, but it's a lot of fun. You can't just mindlessly go through a rotation. You have to be vigilant and know the mechanics well. So if you're a cerebral player with quick reflexes and want something a little more complex than mashing buttons, you'll love it. Otherwise, you'll find it very difficult and frustrating (evidenced by all the posters claiming the class is underpowered).

I have talented DS, always have, but I don't consider it essential at all. If you're already diligent about refreshing SRMP, using cool head appropriately (not just after carelessly bottoming out), and generally just being conscious about energy efficiency, I could see how you could easily match or exceed the raw healing of someone who bursts and refills with DS. It's just a playstyle choice, and if it works for you, then it works. But let's be clear about workload: I understand people love to brag about their big numbers, but it's not relevant. Maybe HPS is slightly more relevant, but that still doesn't take into account whether someone has good battlefield awareness, uses triage religiously, uses CCs smartly, and does all the other things that make you a good, adaptable teammate rather than just a spam healbot. So let's not be so quick to criticize someone and claim they aren't pulling their weight just because *gasp* they might be better at energy management than us. I'll take a healer who is more concerned about winning over a healer whose self esteem perches on whether or not he broke 800k any day.

I'm basically rephrasing what I said in a similar thread, but forgive me, I'm interested in getting this fixed. My idea was that resolve would fill up faster when you are taking damage. So stuns still work, but if someone is hitting you you'll get your white bar very quickly. You can still use it strategically by stunning someone and leaving them alone. This is better than having all stuns break on damage because it would be harder to accidentally break an important CC and if there are DoTs ticking it wouldn't necessarily break after the first tick. How fast it fills could be debated, but I think maybe 30% of your health or so should break the CC and give you your white bar. Also, I like the idea of healers being able to remove stuns/snares. I know as a scoundrel there are a couple I can remove, but it's not enough. I should be able to remove all stuns and snares and it should also leave a buff on the player that prevents them from being stunned or snared again for 10 seconds or so. Perhaps I am exaggerating and biased, but it feels to me that about 70% of my time in active combat on my sentinel is spent either snared or stunned.

If you believe his claim that there are few to no healers on imp side, then yes it would be more helpful to roll a healer to improve group composition.

It's a good idea, but I have a couple issues with it. There are already a couple abilities with mechanics like that, and it disfavors classes who use DoTs because the CC always breaks within one tick. Also, in the chaos of warzones, they are constantly broken on accident, and people already become infuriated if someone accidentally breaks an important CC. Finally, it doesn't address snares. Snares are a huge problem for some classes. If you are melee, there's not much of a difference between being stunned and getting pushed back and rooted, since you are equally helpless. So pragmatically, it would end up just being used as a second interrupt. It's redundant and I'd much prefer CC that actually adds depth to combat. I don't have a great solution, but my idea would be more along the lines of tweaking the resolve system to make it much more sensitive. Maybe taking damage while stunned or snared would fill up your bar much faster than if you are left alone? So you get stunned at 100%, but then when someone hits you and you drop to 80%, your get a white bar and it breaks the stun. Alternately, perhaps healers could be given an ability that counters stuns/snares. Something like shield that prevents all snares and stuns on the target for 15 seconds. It would give healers even more utility, and make the game more strategic than the current "whoever stuns first and hits hardest," that we're stuck with now.

A smuggler healer makes sense to me. Generally, smugglers are on the lam and have a crew doing various dangerous things, so if someone gets wounded he wouldn't just be able to take them to the nearest hospital for fear of arrest, and would have no compunction about having loads of various types of drugs on board his ship. I think the tree's name "sawbones" represents this character concept nicely, like a sketchy doctor the mafia has on payroll, or just someone who learned how to butcher people and applies that basic understanding of anatomy on how to fix them as well. Also, I vaguely recall overhearing a conversation on Nar Shadaa about organ smuggling, so it's not a stretch that he or she has picked up a few career skills doing similar jobs.

With my scoundrel, I just don't think damage companions actually put out enough damage to justify using them in PvE. I use Riggs almost exclusively, since I can jump in and help. After using orbital strike, thermal grenades, cybertech grenades, and dotting everyone up they still stick to him, and he only needs a couple rolling heals to keep alive. Akaavi's health drops like a brick when she has more than one elite on her, and probably doesn't do half the damage I put out. I'm sure Bowdaar is just as good as Riggs, I just haven't been able to find him decent gear yet. Anyway, I've been able to do 2 and 4 man heroics and a handful of HM bosses solo, with the exception of Colonel Daksh, who I use Risha for since I actually want to hold aggro in that fight. Maybe a damage companion would work if you really had them geared out, but I think the playstyle would be vastly different, just focusing on conserving energy for healing and rarely throwing out your own attacks.

Okay, you asked for it, so here's the flames. I don't believe you. If everyone is truly that bad, the other team would be too. And then you'd be able to take advantage of all the awful players and end up winning every match you join. And if you won all the time, I doubt you'd come here to whine. It's much more plausible that you're just frustrated from losing, and naturally it's easier to blame it on others than to consider, even for a moment, that maybe you're not the king of pvp like you think you are. I mean, come on, if you're going to accuse others of being stupid, you should at least make sure your post isn't replete with spelling errors.

It's too bad the slider that adjusts mouselook speed doesn't affect the turn rate for keys. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter.

I can't believe I can't find any credible information about this. Either there is a profound dearth of information on the web, or my google fu just isn't as powerful as I thought. Simply: can you change your alignment once you've ranked up in one direction? The only website I found that sort of answered the question made it sound like you are "locked in" after you hit the first rank. So, if you hit Dark I, you can never go light. The LS points you gain simply increase the amount of DS points you need before you can hit the Dark II. This just doesn't seem very plausible... is it true?

Slicing is a great skill. At level 30, I spent a few hours doing nothing but stealthing around and slicing, trying to fight as little as possible. I made ~150k in a few hours. Not sure if it stays as lucrative at level cap, but I don't see why it wouldn't.

If you are having that much trouble (which I think an exaggeration), it's really because you refuse to accept anyone who is off-spec to fill the roll. Stop thinking you have to be min/maxxed for everything to enjoy the game, and you'll stop having trouble finding groups.

Ugh, dual speccing is such a dumb idea. All it does is quash interesting hybrid builds because there is no longer any kind of incentive to split your points. I disagree that it discourages grouping- it's the opposite. It forces you out of your clique to pick up new players. Yes, you may have to play with a suboptimal build on occasion. But if you are casual enough that you don't have time to play two characters, you're also casual enough that you don't have to be 100% min/maxxed for everything you are ever exposed to. If you feel that you absolutely cannot pvp or play through a certain encounter without rebuilding your character to be perfectly tailored for it, well, maybe you are just a lousy player. You'd be surprised how much dps a determined healer can put out. And playing with a group that isn't perfectly balanced is quite fun, it makes the game more cerebral because you actually have to innovate and use unique strategies, instead of every encounter playing out the same way. Soloing is a non-argument. You get a companion, so even the sturdiest tank doesn't need to take an hour to kill something. I suppose it's important to remember that you already can respec for any reason you choose, you all just don't like that there is a consequence associated with it. Yet every other decision you make has consequences too, as it should be. Being able to change everything mid-stride takes away all the fun of character development. And the whole "it's my character, so it doesn't affect you," argument is just ludicrous. We share the same world, and it cheapens the game to be able to just throw out all the rules. If quests had an auto-complete button, would you be happy about it? You don't *have* to use it, so why shouldn't I get one?