Best Agent Quote after the incredibly long quest chain for the revanites you finally finish it and are about to meet their leader but the guy first wants to give you a speech. Agent:"Can we freaking get on with this!" mirrored my feelings exactly. another one from Kaliyo: "Just because shes a jedi, dont think you cant catch something."

come back here once youve reached 50 and lets see if you arent the jaded bitter person the rest of us here are. anyway, it used to be crit and surge but since BW thought it would be cool to nerf Scoundrel/Ops damage even more alot of people are suggesting going crit/power once youve hit the surge DR ceiling.

So ive been thinking, our out of combat mobility is just as bad as our in combat mobility. Why not have the operative/scoundrel be able to do this? Hookshot - 35m Range. 20 Energy. 15 sec cooldown. Only usable in stealth. Shoots a grappling hoot onto target pulling the Operative/Scoundrel to the target, grants 1 stack of Tactical Advantage/Upper Hand. If target is friendly then stealth is not broken. Could be talented to be usable on enemies while out of stealth. Also Stealth - Activates your stealth generator, making you and your companion difficult to detect. Movement speed is incresed to 120% of normal while in stealth. Most hostile actions and taking cover will break Stealth. Your companion will not react to enemy attacks while in stealth. Stacks with Infiltrate. Healers could also have an ability that puts a heal on the grappled target for instant healing in warzones. Also im writing up a longer post about changing the class from 4m effective melee range to 20m effective range.

Last sunday at about 22:00 i wrote "Operative 50" there were 4 people to my server. then i wrote "Assassin 50" - 26 Then i wrote "Sorcerer 50" - 32 Edit: i just realized that operatives wont be getting any buffs to healing. why? because the talents dont even work properly atm, not even BW can make gamechanges to a game where all the parts arent even in place. feel bad for ops healers.

Ok 1.) operatives/scoundrels have 3 forms of CC. -single target 4 second stun on a 45 second cooldown (30 if talented) you need to be in melee range to use it. -small aoe single target cast 8 second disable that breaks on damage on a 1 minute cooldown, also has to be in melee range to use. -single target out of combat 8 second disable that breaks on damage and can only be used on targets out of combat, it also fills the resolve bar to full making you immune to further CC: If the scoundrel/operative is concealment specced they also have a 1,5second knockdown that they can only use as an opener out of stealth from behind their target from a 4m! distance. What you can do to counter a scoundrel/operative if he opens on you as a merc. before the fight - positioning this holds true to all classes, you should always be mindful of terrain hazards that you can use to your advantage as a ranged class. IE: ledges you can knock them off. Operative/scoundrel opens on you, you either push them away right away or you wait for them to debilitate you, trinket that and push them away. They WILL have to either blow their trinket or the slow your knockback has will give you more than enough time to run away. If they dont have a trinket ready you can follow up with concussive shot or dart. Also you can activate energy shield and cast concussive shot since youre a healer and cant be interrupted while energy shield is active. Also you can simply diagnostic scan yourself and enjoy 10% extra armor, a scoundrel/operative cannot beat you down fast enough if you just keep healing and your allies ofc should assist you. If you have no allies around then youve failed at positioning. And even then as a merc you have a more than fair chance of getting away from an operative/scoundrel. Also: Atm operatives and scoundrels are THE weakest class in game and calling for nerf for them is just stupid. There is literally nothing an operative can do that another class doesent do better so if youre calling to nerf operatives/scoundrels then you can be sure there is another class more deserving of a nerf before them. And yes i leveled up an operative but now ive quit playing him because he is simply a bad class.

As i said im not a healer, but i think that the issues Operatives are having atleast from a damage position cannot be fixed with simple bandaid numbers fixes. As another post here described their experience as an operative healer where a sith sorc healer knocked him off his ledge, bursthealed the ballcarrier to full and then pulled him up to him while the operative could just watch in awe. or how Merc healers can push away and slow down all surrounding enemies if things get bad + have shields and self-heal they can chain to survive being focused. What does the operative have? an aoe stealth that im pretty sure you can use on ball carrier, in pve, i guess you can use it with very good teamwork to sneak up on a cap point on alderaan but thats about it. It feels like this class was seriously, seriously rushed and is in dire need of an overhaul similar to what happend to hunters back in vanilla wow. Whats even maddening tho is the complete and utter contempt other classes seem to have for the operative/scoundrel aswell. The "show numbers or your trolling" is very much akin to "you mad bro?" because without an actual damage meter/healing meter which bioware has yet to allow us or provide us with there are no such numbers unless you take several hours to draw up a graph and do the math attached. Frankly i even saw one of these graphs and even then people said "yea well you have to take into account...." Anyway i rerolled because i still had 2 months of playtime. (had to buy a pre-paid card at launch)

About the acid blade: its a clear sign of bad design. why? redundancy! You have a talent in concealment that reduces Backstabs energy cost to 0, and another talent that increases its energy cost by 4... why is this not 1 talent? oh i know because the operatives trees are nothing but filler because Bioware CBA to actually make a class out of the smuggler/agent. <Acid Blade> Reduces the cost of Backstab by 6 energy, additionally Backstab applies a small dot to the target when used and you gain 50% armorpenetration for 15 seconds. I dont think a class/spec should be built around an opener, its not fun, its stupid. Other issues: no dps cooldowns. no enemy repositioning abilities (EVERY other class except marauder has one and marauder make up for it with the highest mobility in the game, charge > most attacks increase movement speed > partysprint > vanishsprint) so good luck in Hutball and stopping that 20k hp Powertech thats just walking up to your goal line. no mobility literally the smallest effective range of any class in the game (4m Shiv range). No survivability literally the least survivable class in the game Redesign/overhaul idea. Scrap the idea of an operative being melee, its stupid. We carry an assault carbine and heavy weapons - grenades, orbital strike etc. were basically commander Shepard if he were a Nazi, our smuggler counterparts carry shotguns. Build us around a 20m effective range with stealth and snares and a 35m pull ability. The pull ability could be a Magnetic Lasso for smugglers and Garrote Wire Pull for operatives and have the force choke animation play as we pull our target. Replace shiv with Overload shot, replace backstab with Barrage or something. Remove positional requirements, maybe have abilities that currently havethese instead deal more damage from behind but not have it a prerequisite that you stand behind the target. Then you dont have to give us mobility, with a 20m buffer to work with. (you can still have melee openers) If you gave us more kiting tools then the class wouldnt even need survivability increases. You would have a class that plays very similar to the current operative with the difference that its effective range is just big enough to kite melee using snares, roots etc and to keep in range of ranged classes, using snares and roots etc. Add to this out of combat increased mobility (tied to stealth) and youd have a class that not only would be fun, it would be unique and im pretty sure people would flock to. Also add more out of stealth utility openers like a stun or a defensive one. EDIT: It would also play the way Bioware advertised the agent to play, approaching every encounter differently and having the right tools for different encounters. EDIT2: As for Healers Biggest issue i think Operative healers have is that 1.) no burst healing. 2.) no utility 3.) probably too low values on heals in general. One way to fix this add a new ability, gained at like lvl 38 or so (similar to static shield for sorceres) have it be short duration 4 seconds or so instant cast with high energy cost, have it tick for more, the more hots a target has on them. OR SOMETHING! Im no healer that was just off the top of my head.

The issue isnt "why would you bring an assassin over a sorc", this is the freaking AGENT forums. the issue is "why would you bring an operative over any other dps." Operatives/scounderls have no burst damage cooldowns, assassins have 2, 3 if you count increased energy regeneration after vanish. While they cant heal themselves they can: 1.) move out of danger faster. 2.) activate force shroud making them immune to tech/force powers which most aoes tend to be and in other cases they have Deflection if its physical damage. 3.) have several abilities for burst damage. why is 3.) important? Buff stacking. Marauder pops Bloodthirst, Assassin vanishes to gain extra energy regeneration, pops Overcharge + potion + relic + recklessness. Now why the heck would you bring an Operative over an assassin when its already known that Assassins have better sustained dps AND they can burst better in a raid environment? AND they have better survivability? The only comparable thing would be Adrenaline probe and thats only a way for us to gain about half our energy back and even then we cant use our hard-hitting abilities without TA which we cant get because that is tied to abilities on short duration cooldowns like shiv that we always use anyway when theyre available. Why bring an Operative over a Sorc? they both have battle rez, they can both heal in a clutch but the difference is again, sorc has dps cooldowns, sorc is ranged and the sorcs heal (barrier) is an instant cast whereas the operatives is either 2.5 seconds or 1.5 sec.(if you have TA), not to mention the Operatives healing without healing spec is horrible while the Sorc gets early talents in their DPS TREE to increase the static barriers effectiveness. Dont kid yourself please, the operative is a horrible class that is in dire need of attention and its one of the main reasons i think they havent introduced damage meters, noone in their right mind would roll one if they did.

Corrosive dart - 200-300dmg per 3 sec dot (wow!) Head shot - doesent work on players Fly-by - 3 second cast aoe that even after being cast takes like 2 seconds to activate and a very noticeable aoe indicator, if you get hit by it youre stupid. Thermal Grenade - very energy-intensive but for a quick 1k crit(if it crits and there is no +crit talent for this ability) i guess its ok. i can tell you dont play an operative/scoundrel TBH i just noticed something, all those abilities are alot better for Snipers/gunslingers, its as if Operatives/Scoundrels were an afterthought without actual design behind the classes.... Flyby becomes a 2 second cast for gunslingers/snipers and there are talents that increase its damage, thermal grenade gets alot of buffs for them aswell...

Done. Points asked about: Utility, Mobility, Survivability. im not a healer so i dont know what to ask about that.

Are there any plans to take a look at the scoundrel/operative. After significantly decreasing the damage these classes can dish out a plethora of problems made themselves apparent for the players. 1.) Low utility. One of 2 classes without a displacement ability. Marauder and Operative are the only classes without some form of push or pull mechanic. However the Marauder makes up for this with vastly superior mobility and they also have access to a short duration stealth. This brings us to point number 2. 2.) Low mobility. The operative is the only melee class without some form of mobility enhancing ability, be is a charge, a speed boost or even a crowd control negating ability. 3.) Very low survivability. The burst an Operative could dish out used to make fights end before this became an issue. However now this just isnt the case anymore and Operatives need some way to survive prolonged fights. Are there any plans to address any of these issues and how?

Use Lorkin, have potions on you, went into hoth relatively undergeared cuz i leveld through pvp and i still managed fine. you can Chain CC pretty well with legshot > knockback > stun > flashbang > legshot, just dont dot them and try to go for burst. also the knockback skill in MM really helps. If that doesent do it, try going into Lethality or Engineering for the 30% slow and kite while spamming overload shot.

I would also add 2 things (operative here so bare with me) Avoidance Training effects Sneak now aswell as Evasion(Dodge).(you dont have to blow 2 defensive cooldowns to pop a vanish) Additionally while shield probe is active you cannot be knocked back or slowed. Operatives/Scoundrels need either a Pull or a knockback, atm they are the ONLY class without either, so basically any operative/scoundrel in hutball is a liability. either Magnetic Lasso - Pulls target towards the Scoundrel, slowing them by 50% for 1 second. 30m range. (the 1 second is just so you can have a followup) or Point-blank Scattershot - The Scoundrel blasts the target from point-blank range with his scatter shot, knocking the target back 15m slowing them by 30% for 4 seconds.

Comes from being the last class developed in a rushed game.

Why cant people come together on a middle ground? Sure nerf aspects of the operative that are too strong in peoples opinions, make our burst into low duration high damage DOT effects instead, but give us some utility, give us more openers, give us better mobility, give us actual defenses - the number of times ive popped evasion just to have a force/tech ability kill me, the only class evasion actually works against are OTHER AGENTS! give us better CC, why does EVERY OTHER CLASS have a displace ability to stop hutball carriers and the operative doesnt? Mercs - pushback (2 if talented) Powertech - pull Assassin - Pushback (pull if talented) Sorc - pushback Marauder - pushback Jugger -pushback Sniper - pushback Operative - nothing Why does EVERY OTHER CLASS have a movement enhancing ability?(except mercs but theyre 30m range, have better survivability and have 2 knockbacks) Powertech - jump(specced) or movement speed boost (specced) Juggernaut - 2jumps(push resets the CD) and movement speed boost(specced) Marauder - Jump, Movement speed boost(predation+ 1 specced) Sorc - speed boost Assassin - speed boost.

i think its because of 2 things: 1.) noone likes the operative/smuggler in general, they arent a ****** walking tank the trooper is or the juggernaut sith warrior, or even the darth maul doublesaber. The GS/Sniper are just a guy with a gun. Not appealing to a person whos starting the game. 2.) If you DO start playing a smuggler/agent then the first few levels you cant really tell that the operative/scoundrel is going to be a melee cuz your main abilities for the first 10 levels are all cover based medium ranged abilities (tbh i feel they should have kept the whole class medium ranged would fix SO many issues operatives/scoundrels are currently having). So youre given a choise - do you go a class with stealth, healing and you presume range+damage. Or do you just go pure damage. (this was asked from be actually the other day by a lvl 10) on a side note: I also think the issue here partly is that the smuggler/agent gets almost no feedback/care by the developer, the forums are flooded with "fix this bug", "this is unviable", "feedback to this" etc etc. and not a single BW employee has responded to them. Heck i even remember a post that tallied up sorc/bh/war forum replies and got like all of them having 50-70 replies while the agent forums had a total of 3 replies. anyway thats just my opinion

since when doesent entrench work against knockback? it definetly does in pvp, maybe its broken in pve. im almost done farming my 1000/1000+bag for 50 and im lvl 40 sniper, ive entrenched numerous times in Hutball and see overload not effect me, neither does the mercs knockback. i DO however see my own knockback not working on no-resolve targets quite a bit, most prominently on troopers/BH.

This is exactly what happened to Shamans in TBC. everyone remembered how strong shamans burst used to be on release so even tho there were literally no shamans in high-rated arena, other classes out-bursted and did better sustained damage than they did, and the class had incredible amounts of issues (melee class with only 1 melee ability) no one would ever admit that they needed to be fixed, it wasnt until halfway through Wrath that they actually became strong again. EDIT: Ok heres something else i dont get, i have both a sniper, an operative and a jugger. If i chain sniper with laze target into followthrough into a 1,5sec ambush + explosive probe combo into legshot into another snipe/followthrough and takedown (all done within 8 seconds) i deal similar burst to an operative but the key difference is that i can do this from highground on a target surrounded by their allies from 35m away. On my jugger i can cripple with my slow and follow through with a massive Smash crit while having defensive cooldowns active or CC everyone around me while moving 40% faster cuz of obliterate without ever fearing that i run out of energy while having ALOT better survivability and CC than my operative... so why exactly would i ever want to play an operative?

Ok Woke up, have a heavy hangover. Remember the last night when you met this awesome class that had stealth, had damage, was fast, could self-heal while low, had strong CC and dispatch kill their enemies before anyone could react. Now the burst is taken away you have a sobering realization that the cool class of last night is actually a clunky, slow-moving, mediocre damage, who cant heal at all unless specced into it, having less CC than other classes, no mobility and no good defensive cooldowns... oh crap, i sure wish i used protection and didnt give this class my number id hate for them to show up when im with my true love, the sith assassin... anyway, operatives suck, they need to be buffed and brought in line with other classes, not in the damage department but IN EVERY OTHER DEPARTMENT!

Ok a bunch of ideas, they are all separate buff suggestions - *edit: Most of the Operatives attack abilities instead of being instant damage should emphasize more on high damage, low duration bleed effects, it gives people the opportunity to react while still allowing for high damage as you dont get the "killed while stunlocked" arguments anymore, also there is alot more things you can do with dot effects on targets going forward with developing the agent further, such as gaining movement speed bonuses while moving towards bleeding targets, having abilities do more damage while attacking bleeding targets, etc. etc. 1.) Replace Kolto Infusion with Kolto Probe making all specs have access the HoT. 2.) Put a mid-tier talent into lethality and/or concealment that makes Kolto Probe usable while stealthed without breaking stealth. 3.) Make Energy shield baseline. 4.) Make Avoidance Training effect Sneak instead of Evasion. 5.) Make Evasion effect force/tech abilities. 6.) Put a high-tier spec into concealment and/or Lethality that makes you move 10% faster while Kolto Probe is active, stacks with Infiltrate. 7.) Replace the knockdown from Hidden Strike with a stun, knockdown is unfair. 8.) Put a high-tier talent that buffs Overload Shot, such as maybe having it make Explosive Probe usable in any spec. 9.) Nerf collateral strike BUT MAKE IT 100% ITS SO BLOODY IRRITATING. 10.) Buff Hidden Strike damage back to what it was, make it a 5 second DoT instead. 11.) more out of stealth openers. Ideas -Defensive opener that puts a strong self-heal on the operative. -Crippling opener that slows the target and makes them take more damage from others(useful for WZs to use on the hutball carrier). Maybe like an ability that slows and make the target take 10% extra damage from all sources and an additional 10% extra damage from the agent. -A defensive opener that makes the Agent Immune to CC for a very short duration and maybe lowers the CD on Evasion. 12.) Evasion should also effect force/tech abilities. 13.) Passively give 1 stack of TA while in stealth every 5 seconds, it makes sense that the guy is in stealth, observing his surroundings and it gives him a "tactical advantage over people around him" the idea here is to have the operative play more like a predator, hunting targets on the field, LOWER THE BURST but with better sustained damage and bursts of defensiveness that make his targets make mistakes like blow their CDs pointlessly.