FYI Battle Focus increases your defense by 35% to all damage types, you can check your defense breakdown to verify. This shoots your defense chance up to around 46% for elemental/internal damage which is nothing to scoff at for damage types that your defense stat doesn't help with. Right Price was no doubt the call for VG/PT tanks until last week when the set got a huge nerf to its CDR (12 seconds max, where you could knock a minute off before in the right situations). Now only the new Emergency Power set does anything noteworthy for your tankiness. The tacticals are all boring, though, agreed.

I'm planning on using Flashy and Sparkles all the way to 50 because they're just that lame. Just wondering if other people share my affection for schmaltzy, unwholesome weapon names.

Because apparently Imperial accent = British accent. I was confused too.

If the team isn't currently dying, I'll plop into cover and EP and spam Snipe for a while. Sometimes the extra bit of damage really helps in PvP.

If you're going sniper, your middle tree is something I'd recommend climbing first. I'm doing that as a Gunslinger atm and it's working pretty well. After you get whatever your ability is and your Thermal Grenade and Explosive Probe skills you'll be firing off bombs constantly. At level 25 I started climbing the Dirty Fighting (You have Lethality) tree to get the ability there and whatnot.

Personally, Empire would probably fall on hard times without the Sith. However, my Agent hates them with a passion and tells it to their face every chance she gets /fistpump