Stock rycer/starguard gets me in top five spots a good amount of the time. The problem is the exceptionally good players out there in pairs or 3 or 4 makes life difficult. Plus there is just so much to know and understand that takes experience only hard won by aloooot of games. The sheer amount of strategy and awareness many players havent even guessed at is always very apparent.
Playing on and off since it launched im still figuring out new things, and how to emulate strategies that once frustrated me to the point of "omg hackers,unfair,broken,etc" . It doesnt take that long though to catch up(maybe not equal, but to a point where losing feels like winning) to the very best, but like all indepth pvp people expect to jump in on top. Playing against much better players and asking experienced people questions helps alot. Plus lvling with GSF is great, multi tasking crew skills/gsf/class missions/heroics/GTN marketting good way to get alot done at once .