It points in a straight line where the character is pointing (not the camera). It's white damage so the indication it hit will be big white numbers, which usually stands out against the Tech damage you do as an Operative. It's not the easiest ability to use, and the Scoundrel's version of it is more predictable. I use it when I'm in Lethality to do AE burst in situations when my DoTs won't apply enough damage quickly enough, like trash pulls. Orbital Strike, Frag Grenade, and Shiv+Carbine Burst go a long way towards circumventing the setup time associated with Lethality's DoTs. It's also a nice tool for Medicine Operatives when healing isn't needed and you're swimming in TA procs. At any rate, Lacerate and Cull (with two poisons) are better uses of a TA unless you're going to hit 3 targets, and to hit them all they have to be nicely lined up and not running around.

Marauders: 1) Flat out do more damage than Operatives, in any situation 2) Have a small resource pool with easy ways to quickly make it much larger, on short cooldowns 3) Have the game's only on-use, group wide DPS cooldown (and it works in PVP!) 4) Don't have positional requirements for their best or any attacks 5) Can Force Charge at something that's either right in their face or 30m away, and root them (Anni spec), or even charge two different targets in a row (Rage spec) 6) Have better interrupts 7) Have passive DoTs activated by an ability off the global cooldown (similar to Acid Blade, but Lethality has no equivalent) 8) Have a better Vanish than the actual stealth classes which drops combat reliably

Like others have said, Lethality is great for raid bosses and for PvP (since the yellow damage eats heavy armor classes). For solo PvE content and trash packs, though, it will be outdamaged by the other specs due to the lack of ready burst and the difficulty of target-swapping. This remains true even at 50. It does equal or more damage to MM over the course of a long single target fight, but the setup time makes it kind of a pain in other situations.

Yep it's the same idea. The same barrel goes into your sniper rifle, your raid healer's blaster rifle, and Doctor Lokin and Ensign Temple's pistols, but the amount of base damage is different in each case. I don't think the Tech damage changes, but you still don't want to be using a suboptimal weapon type for your class. All your attacks are balanced around having the extra base damage.

You could, in theory, make a hybrid build with the Lethality talent for more powerful Overload Shots. I think at best that would only pull around 1000 DPS though.

Leveling as a healer, I found it easier to do my daily flashpoint and PvP, and tackle the class content when it turned green. That way I didn't have to take damage talents at the expense of improving my healing output. It was also really important to keep Kaliyo kitted out in good DPS Powertech gear (though with a shield for survivability). The faster she killed things, the better.

It's a valid point, since Concealment has the ability to burst extremely well, but parses I've seen from others have shown that Concealment can have equal or better sustained DPS compared to Lethality. It just takes some adjustments to the rotation. Or maybe the better way to put it would be better "average" DPS since I doubt very much that a good Concealment Operative would play without using burst phases when Adrenaline Probe is up.

It's the Battlemaster Field Tech (sniper) PvP 2-piece bonus that gives you another tick on Orbital Strike. If I wind up running my Operative as a DPS, I'll plan on having two PvE Enforcer shells and two PvP Field Tech shells.

My opening rotation goes like this: 1) Laze Target up to 25s before pull 2) Shatter Shot, then Power relic + Rakata power adrenal 3) SS Snipe - FT - SoS - SV into Ambush - OS - FT - SoS - EP Then for sustaining: 1) Snipe, Rifle Shot, FT, staying over 80 energy whenever possible, until Ambush, SoS or OS come off cooldown. 2) Due to the high cost, I prefer to use Explosive Probe together with SV/OS or with an Adrenaline Probe. This gives you 2 out of the 3 possible uses in every 90-second window. The third can be worked in with careful energy management. 2) Do not use Overload Shot or Suppressive Fire. Avoid Frag Grenade unless you will hit 3+ targets. Corrosive Dart is only worthwhile if you are forced to move, and even then, you can use RS, FT, or Shiv. 3) Speaking of which, Shiv can be used instead of Snipe as a situational filler if you are forced into melee range and FT is down. Its DPE and DPS are good and it's instant. If you don't have space for it on your bar, though, you can safely leave it off. 4) Use Takedown on cooldown, especially if you have the 4-piece PvE Field Tech set.

Do you mean that it doesn't work for positional attacks like Backstab and Maul, or that any attack in that 180 degree cone won't benefit from the defense bonus?

The problem with your logic here is that every class has a base 5% defense chance, so if you don't want attacks getting resisted by other DPS classes, then you need 105% Tech accuracy. Obviously you will still have some attacks miss against tank classes with high defense chances, as well as against targets that are in cover.

Question from the class feedback thread, which we're not supposed to respond to: "Is it just me or does the cover bonus not activate for Operatives? I'm not getting a defense bonus unless that's deliberate." Answer: You can get the defense bonus if you roll into cover (a green outline). Operatives don't have portable cover, so if you cover in place, you only get the Crouch buff and not the Cover buff.

Critical chance has an added importance to the Lethality spec due to the energy regeneration from critical DoT ticks. It's a very tight rotation and the extra regeneration can mean the difference between being able to refresh CG/CD or fill with Rifle Shot first. It's still dependent on RNG for specific situations, but in longer parses, you will see the difference. Fortunately, Cunning also gives you a critical chance bonus, so feel free to stack Cunning like crazy on Mods at the expense of secondary stats. Then, get Accuracy up to 105% for Tech attacks (effects everything except Rifle Shot which is base ranged accuracy). Then stack Critical up to soft cap, Surge up to soft cap, then Power (no soft cap and still improves the effect of critical hits).

I've been playing my Operative as Concealment for the past few days after leveling mostly as Medicine, and having an absolute blast. I've actually had people tel me because I was killing them so much.. no one did that on my Sniper. I just look for someone that's alone, trying to take a shortcut to get ahead, etc. My favorite is to get someone just out of the spawn zone after they've blown all their cooldowns in the last fight.. then when they least expect it, knock them on their faces and murder them. So.. what changes at 50? It's not like everything is hitting for crazy damage.. Hidden Strike just under 3K, Lacerate a little less than that - I've seen much bigger numbers out of 50's. But it's enough burst to make the class work properly at my level. It's not an unfair advantage, but just enough that if someone doesn't know how to play against you, they die. It's the same reason why my Sniper can kill Knights and Assault Vanguards with impunity. At the same time, if I'm alone against 2 people, I have no chance unless I'm up against really bad players, which I think is fine. If any one person can solo take an objective by killing 2 good players - of any class - that's broken. That's what got Shadows/Assassins nerfed. If anything, the issue I'm having is that the spec is an energy hog if I'm really trying to burst someone. That's the real limit to how much damage I can do. Lethality is more efficient against a single target, which is the same thing I observed on my Sniper.

I do seem to consistently get a higher crit rate from SoS than anything else.. nearly 50% when everything else is in the high 30's.