Again, that's 6 seconds bought where you aren't using maul, that's huge considering it could have been proc'd again in that time. You don't blind anticipating master strike, you blind after it's been cast. I've been fighting a sage, gotten jumped to, master strike, tab blind, 0 damage. Seriously you are a bad player if you think this ability can not help you win a fight. The tech damage pyros deal out is good, but that's what rebuke and saber ward are for. 100 percent of the time I can guarantee a rail shot will not hit me. How is that not a good cool down?

NO. In reality, it DOESN'T suck, because good marauders / sentinels use it at important times. See a maul proc on that deception assassin? Blind. Aim shot? Blind. Master strike? Blind. Powertech laugh? Blind. You don't blind through tech damage you use it to completely mitigate white damage. Jesus this thread.

Are you stupid? Ops / scoundrels can cleanse your DOT instantly, WITHOUT dodge. Watchmen / anni is the MOST toast against a good scoundrel / operative. The reason marauders are OP is because people don't know how to play their class and try to sit still or face tank them. Good players can make melees rage, trust me, I have both a mara and a jugg / guardian...as well as lots of other stuff.

I'm leveling mine for the challenge, it's quite fun.

While I agree it is good at taking out multiple bubbles, that's what engineering slingers / snipers are best at. Better to work in tandem then to have to do it on a melee. I run full Vigilance because I love the flow and people don't expect you to kill them quickly; surprise surprise. And the stuns in this game are a joke, so that's another reason. That's also why I run tactics on my vanguard, 30 percent mitigation while stunned and unsnarable for 8 seconds every 30 seconds. Edit: It won't matter when they raise the level cap and full smashers can spec into unstoppable.

It was more a knock on how insane that spec is and how it ruins the fun of PVP. I actually run full vigilance on my jugg and guardian and do very well.

Why cleanse when they can spec into bubble stun?

They will need to completely refigure some trees. I can already hear the QQ of full guardian / jugg smashers with unremitting / unstoppable.

Are you level 50? I'll act as if you are. Besides knowing how to maximize DPS on target, the best way to be an effective sent is to understand your cooldowns and when to use them. 1. Rebuke- The second you get targeted, or even right before you jump into a 1v1, hit this ability. It lasts 30 seconds, deals damage and makes you take 20 % less. Good players will kite you if you do this, especially in a 1v1, 95 percent of the time you will keep getting hit. 2. Saber Ward- Pop this ability when being focused and you NEED to stay alive, or in a 1v1 right before big hitters like smash, rail shot, etc. 3. Force camo- Situational, I like to use it to get health pots, close gaps when leap is on CD, and it's also a great way to avoid FF for a bit. *TRY* and never use this when other CDs are still up, because you are essentially WASTING them (minus rebuke really). 4. GbtF- This is the final cooldown. Use this with 30 percent health or less, then immediatley pop your med pack afterwards, and keep going to town. NEVER use this w/ force camo, idk *** some marauders do you see them pop this, saber ward and then cloak out. NEVER DO THAT PUNCH THOSE PEOPLE. 5. BLIND- Use this off cooldown to completely dodge master strikes, after a laugh to dodge rail shot, etc. It's a joke how bad marauders are at using this. Start the fight against shadows with it too because a lot of their procs rely on white damaging attacks (as does maul). This is a good start, other than that there are some good videos to watch on youtube for the various specs.

That is the reason most SIN tanks use DPS gear. Your defensive rating and shield really only help you against marauders / juggs, and sins backstabs / rail shot etc. White damage. Tech attacks like tracer missile, blade storm / force scream, smash, flame burst will still take their toll on you. And you also get a move that negates them for 5 seconds. Really shadows survivability, if you add in the ability to cloak out and heal up, is far better than any other tank.

1. Combat is not the most easily countered, that's Watchmen. Here's why: Every merc, specced sage and operative can cleanse watchmen's dots, making them all but useless as they rely heavily on that for sustained DPS. If you are combat and you get white barred early you can easily kill 2 people before going down. My personal preference for utility and STB is combat / carnage.

Agreed, notice this on my shadow and assassin. Getting pulled mid shroud, electro darted, force stunned. Literally I've been everythinged during force shroud. Went tank spec (5 second resil / shroud) to test it further and yeah, it keeps happening. Regardless of spec. And I know it's not low slash, etc. I know what stuns work and don't work and pulls and 4 second hard stuns simply aren't supposed to work and are at times. I even got force choked a few times during it. Full duration.

Knock back, root, snare, taunt, stun, mezz, etc. Honestly I'm so sick of this. when I play my shadow I pray for a melee to be smash spec. Niches, etc. There is an advantage, but there is also a disadvantage.

This is literally only going to make the melee take 1k extra damage? Maybe 2k? At that point you should be focusing on getting him out of your face and not casting again, so surely that isn't the issue. I really don't care all that much whether the interrupt gets removed, just saying it's not that big a deal in the first place. If anything you could hope that an actual interrupt doesn't lock out your move for as long or something.

There is no greater niche in ranked, including smashers, than the carnage / combat mara / sent. Period.

Exactly. Completely agree.

I agree with the OP pretty much 100 %. I do play ranked, but not nearly as much as I used to and it's for 1 glaring issue: Ranked is boring as ****. Don't get me wrong, I love playing against people of similar skill to me, and it definitely is more fun when mara's are actually using obfuscate and players are peeling for their healers, etc. But holy **** the stun fest that is ranked right now....it's just a bit much. If I wanted to waste my time not PVPing I could be on the fleet. Which is why resolve is the point I 100 % agree with. When stuns are just as smart as actual gameplay, instead of being tossed around like a crutch, ranked will be much more interesting. And yes we use the stuns too, doesn't make it any more / less fun. It's a must right now to be competitive.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, haven't heard anyone say anything and I don't know if it just keeps happening to me. Anytime I try to get up on a structure, any structure, if I jump on the edge of it I am immediately killed and sent back to spawn. I was node guarding on my sin and in 3 different inconspicuous locations on 3 different structures I have been insta killed. This happen to anyone else? An example would be like if you jumped on an edged structure in novare or the ship on voidstar and were just instantly killed. Which doesn't happen.

I actually run tactics full time (in it's intended cell) and do MORE than fine on my Vanguard. It's a direct counter to smash and any warrior build really, you just have to play it right. Your job is not to roll over your keyboard and rofl stomp, what I like to do is take 1 smash melee completely out of the game w/ pull and then snare (gut / retractable blade) / rotation. If it's a mara this leads to lolcloak out which leads to stealth scan and the continuing of the own fest. Then once stacks are applicable I put them on MY teammates focus fire, which will normally have a PT + warrior on him for the burst and snare. Unless I'm playing against a warrior 1v1s are difficult, but that's not tactics specialty. All middle trees have more utility than most of the other respective trees(vengeance, lightning, engineering, deception, etc), and this spec, while not too close to direct DPS because of pyros DOT, does just fine. Easily over 300k a match regardless of time to win (in regs) anywhere from 600k plus in higher end play. Edit: I'll make some videos and post them soon.

Dude I play every day on my 50's and on my lowbys, this just doesn't happen enough to gimp people who are ACTUALLY TRYING to guard objectives. Note: When this happens to you, and you ultimately lose from it, you will get less exp. The logic is circular and the best answer is to give equal EXP to all participants.

Most (not all) lowby games are decided at the start of the match. You either have good players and win, have good low level players and make a tough fight but lose, have bad players / bad low level players and get annihilated. No reason to lower leveling costs on someone who put up w/ a ****** team for 15 minutes.

Read my post...I personally think it's fine.

I don' think madness needs a kiting boost, after a knock back and a snare, then a well timed top tree root (and death field) the opponent is at half health and ticking away (assuming you were smart enough to dot them up, lightning for proc and insta crushing). then when that fails, hard stun, sprint, insta force lift, etc. Only time a sorc has trouble kiting is when multiple targets leap to them, and at that point ANY ONE would be in trouble w/out team support. Totally agree with merc / commando though. No damage buff needed, but either some insta casts or a little mobility boost is definitely required. Also, tactics spec doesn't really need a buff (it just got buffed), but is STILL hardly every used compared to pyro spec. I don't know what could be changed on it, because I do just fine. Just sucks that no one ever plays that spec except me and the rare 2 other people I see sometimes rolling it.

Seal team sith has some members busy with finals but we will be queuing again soon.

It's critical to stay at range because melee classes (IE marauder) are given a damage boost (5 % by biowares metrics) because they have to be in melee range to do damage. If you facetank a marauder on a ranged class, you're gonna have a bad time.