Cybertech's can make Droid gear.

I could see how 1 pure healing + 2 hybrid healing Ops could be really strong in the same team ... take 1 hybrid Lethality and 1 hybrid Conc and you have loads of instant heals, loads of control, an AoE slow, a 2s root, multiple 25% less damage after sleeps, HoT's on everyone ... would love to try it.

The yellow commando look is kinda growing on me ... I run with Tionese head and gloves which match the WH Field Tech set quite nicely. That said, I have a number of trenchcoats + visors in my bank and will probably go that route when I could be asked to augment them all. Probably will go with the white coat look for healing, and black coat for DPS (maybe then I'll stop being focussed in DPS spec)

Stacking any class is pretty bad. If you're already running 2 Ops (as any spec .. you happen to have healers) I am surprised you've opted for a Sniper over another Pyro or Jugg DPS. In our group we have 1 Op healer and 1 Sorc healer (sometimes a Merc), so there is more than enough room for another Agent class and Operative happens to be more desired than Sniper due to stealth and off-heals.

You only sacrifice 3 Cunning and 3 Endurance to keep the PVE 2pc bonus. BM armorings have the same Expertise as WH Armorings, and the bonus is tied to the shell for BM (Armoring only for WH). The best bonus setup for a Conc Operative are 2pc PVE (+15% backstab crit) and 2pc Field Tech (extra tick on Orb Strike). Healers also should go for the 2pc PVE (reduced energy cost to AoE heal) and 2pc PVP (AoE heal boost) bonuses.

Refreshing a DoT is not a DPS loss if it is tied to a different DPS ability ... it is only a DPS loss if you refresh it early by re-applying, and then only because you're spending needless energy - not because you actually lose DoT damage (although because of the way refreshing works in TOR you have to time it pretty perfectly to refresh without losing a tick). The reasoning behind the idea is basically that it cuts down on DoT micro-management (since you should be using WB or Cull more frequently than you refresh either DoT anyway), and to free up energy for more Cull's (instead of having to refresh Stim Boost early for the +10 energy, you could spend more TA's on Cull). Finally, I don't think it wouldn't substantially change the damage potential since Cull's are still limited to available TA's, and surplus energy basically goes to Overload Shot which is pretty weak, so the dev's wouldn't have to worry about the spec suddenly being OP. They introduced similar mechanics to Warlocks in WoW and while I didn't like those changes at the time (it felt to me like they were dumbing down the class), I think they would actually work well for Lethality. In WoW DoT management was vastly easier with add-ons, and mana was never really an issue compared to Agent energy. I have seen other implementations where instead of "refreshing" (i.e. to full duration), the dot duration is simply extended by say 4/8 seconds.

Nice video. That's pretty much how I played Lethality (although I was less religious at multi-dotting which may have contributed to some of my energy issues in PVP). You're lucky that people basically ignore you in the match - that is not my experience at all (in any spec ). Was hoping to see some more escape tricks!

I'm not sure you read my suggestion ... it was to have Cull or Weakening Blast refresh a DoT - I said nothing about TA generation or the energy cost of Cull.

I've been away for a bit, and thinking a lot about Lethality and how I'd really like to enjoy the spec but just can't (particularly in PVE) because of the DoT and energy management issues, and I think there is a fairly simple solution: Make either Cull or Weakening Blast refresh one of the DoT's. This won't have a huge effect on PVP since you could only refresh the DoT on 1 target, but would make PVE energy management vastly less painful (fewer cooldown convergences), and at the same time would improve DoT management since you'd only have to pay attention to one of the tiny little icons BW have forced us to spend all our time staring at ... Thoughts?

It may as well be me ... The things you list as "Concealment" abilities are indeed things that aren't available to the other Operative specs, but your conclusion that because of this Concealment Operatives are not worth bringing to rated matches is a bit out of whack. The reason to bring a Conc Operative over, say a Medic, isn't because of the knockdown, it's because of the damage. Having too many healers on your team is a bad thing. So we do need to look at all Operative (and Agent) abilities when making decisions on whether to bring that class/player. So the reasons why I get my spot are: 1) Stealth 2) Control abilities (Sleep, Flashbang, Sever Tendon (+root), Debilitate, Faceplant) 3) Damage 4) Off-healing Yes, other Operative specs get all / most of these things. Yes, even Snipers get some of these things. Yes, other classes have similar or even better versions of each of these things. No, that doesn't mean that they aren't valid reasons to bring a Concealment Operative to a rated team. TL;DR: Bring an Operative if you need a stealthy control-freak with decent damage and off-healing (DPS spec), or if you need a stealthy control-freak with mobile healing and excellent survivability (Heal spec)

As the guys above have (kinda) said - your cunning and power are a bit low, and your Alacrity and Surge are a bit high. Unfortunately, there's no way to increase Power or Cunning by decreasing those 2 stats (it is pretty odd that they are so high when your "main" stats are fairly low). So basically you're stuck looking for Armoring / Mod upgrades, but your enhancements are probably fine. Alacrity is a bit of a strange one. Having more Alacrity can hurt your energy levels because you have less regen time during casts, but it also has a pretty bit effect on your quality of life (i.e. you are able to land your big heals faster, making hitting the cast button less stressful in high damage situations). Alacrity does also improve our free energy regen tool (Diagnostic Scan), so if you can make it work for you that's great. In my limited experience as Med spec in PVP I found myself conflicted. On the one hand, it lets me get my long-cast abilities off faster (i.e. stay more mobile), but on the other hand those abilities tend to be last-resorts since standing still to cast them is generally asking to get murdered (instant casts are less apparent to opponents). In PVE Alacrity is great once you're at reasonable Surge levels. An easy starting point for getting your cunning up would be to collect all of the datacrons. It's pretty easy to do - I'd recommend searching for "Degren datacron" on youtube.

You'll pick up Hidden Strike at lvl 36, which actually makes TA management quite a lot easier. I always try to get the killing blow on the last trash mob and use that TA for Stim Boost to carry to the next group. This is probably a little easier as Concealment spec though.

I disagree on this point. Operatives are great at stealth-capping and also as support players in the main battle. My role frequently changes in our rated team depending on who is available and which map we're playing. Operative off-heals are very strong in DPS spec (my KInj crits for around 5k untalented), and are extremely effective at CC/delaying tactics, target switching, and providing peels for the healers. Operatives maybe aren't as easy to play as PT's / Mara's who have very strong burst at the moment, but we have a wide range of tools that make us a very effective support class in many roles.

I'm busy levelling a Jugg now. I definitely prefer my Operative for story and for stabby-stealthiness, but the Jugg has comparatively awesome survivability. Tank spec'd you can churn through quests fairly fast with very little down-time.

A lot of the heroic quests only require you to kill 1 or 2 mobs - and you can just stealth up to them without aggro'ing anything else. Usually only the bonus objectives are of the "kill x number of mob y." So the answer is: Yes - I solo'd most heroic quests while I was levelling - even as Concealment before I got my healing companion. In heal spec it's even easier. I would recommend keeping your companion gear updated though - and make sure you use their AoE (or rather don't use it) effectively when you need to CC

I don't find the Concealment rotation clunky other than around Orbital Strike casts. My main issue is that even though my gear has increased substantially since 1.2 hit (my cunning has increased by over 200), my parses are only marginally higher. In most boss fights it's gone up by between 70 - 100 dps, whereas other DPS in my guild who have had similar gear upgrades have increased by up to 250 dps. I don't think that mechanics are the main issue (I don't have a problem staying on target, or behind the boss on most fights), but it does feel like I'm hitting a cap or something (most likely just a skill-cap) I don't think PVP needs any adjustment - other than an adjustment to PT's that are definitely doing too much damage. I'm still able to kill healers and lock down others when required.

If you're hitting your rotation you won't have any downtime in the ArPen buff, but we did lose a lot of AB DoT uptime which is where I think the dev's messed up a bit. They should probably have increased its damage and/or duration to compensate, but they did neither. I don't think this is really a problem in PVP, but in PVE I am noticing that my DPS is starting to drop relative to others in the guild as we all gear up. We still have no problems with enrages, so as long as I'm able to do my bit and we don't wipe from lack of DPS I'm happy. I do hope that they figure out a way to resolve the PVE issues going forward without breaking PVP though.

Laceration should hit a fair bit harder than Shiv, it's cheaper (in energy), and it's really the only thing you can spend TA's on other than Stim Boost and Carbine Burst. You also definitely want all of the boosting talents - Tactical Opportunity is the reason Concealment DPS is viable.

As Arrys said, Slip Away is awesome - I view it as a required talent for every PVP spec (some people disagree for Concealment, but I always have it). I would move the points from Adrenaline Probe to Sedatives - 2 points for 16e every ~2 mins is pretty terrible, and in PVP you get so many free heals from spamming Surgical Probe on sub-30 team mates it's basically un-necessary. In PVE it's pretty-much possible to maintain an energy neutral rotation of KInj > SP and KP refreshes, using the extra TA procs for more SP's - and if you dip a little low, the talented Diagnostic Scan is more than enough.

Hidden Strike is effectively linked to Vanish though, which is on a 2 min cooldown ... The 7.5s cooldown they added to fix the vanish+HS bug (it was hitting 3 times instead of twice if you did HS>Vanish>HS) and to reduce opening burst had very little effect in the greater scheme of things, since it is extremely rare that you kill an opponent in < 7.5s and are able to re-stealth before HS is off CD again. For those that want to use Vanish as an offensive CD: AB+HS>Shiv>Lac>Lac>Deb>Vanish+AB+HS, or for a bit more damage but less control AB+HS>Shiv>Lac>Lac>AB+BS>Vanish+HS can still be pretty effective burst openers. The main thing in 1.2 was that BS damage was boosted to roughly the same as HS, so they are pretty-much interchangeable these days from a "burst" perspective. The only real advantage HS has is the knockdown. This means Concealment is less reliant on Stealth to do damage than it was pre-1.2. Yes, the BS CD was increased (and so was the energy cost), but the main issue with this was the decreased availability of Acid Blade (the DoT). Personally I do think they went a bit overboard with the AB nerf, but the BS nerf wasn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be. It certainly didn't "break" the spec, and if anything made the rotation even easier.

Refreshing Stim Boost early is a tricky business though .. you don't get a tick on refresh, so if you get your timing wrong you could lose just under 1 tick of energy (i.e. reduces the 10 energy gained to 7 energy gained). You also lose the damage from 1 Cull - which is worth a lot more than the 10 energy gained - I suppose it is possible that if the 10e moves you up from the middle to the top regen zone then it may even out with the lost damage ... I'd have to math it. The sims suggest to an extra TA being pretty-much worthless in extended fights though, and this will make up the majority of your WZ experiences unless you're able to regen back to full regularly between fights (even in Conc this is pretty rare). But only every 1.5 mins - and because of how AP works, it can end up simply extending your burst a little rather than actually restoring you to the high regen zone (AP is not enough to cover dual DoT refresh + Shiv + BS + Cull) You're right about Stim CD - sorry I was thinking of the Concealment duration not cooldown since in Conc spec it is a major DPS loss to refresh Stim early. A 20s cooldown does make the 10 energy more attractive, so yes I believe this would make an additional TA generator more valuable than I'd previously calculated. I'd need to run some numbers to see whether it would make up for the additional cost of Cull's though ... I suspect not quite. Basically the idea was to keep Lethality's overall damage roughly the same, but to increase the burst potential by buffing Cull damage to compensate for the decreased frequency of use. This would go a long way towards improving the energy issues that Lethality have. Looking at it from a PVP perspective though, a 150% increase in Cull damage would probably be a little too much ... I'd need to double check, but I think a full crit on this would be in the region of 7k!

The level of class knowledge amongst the other posters in this thread is lol'able ... Thanks for bringing some sanity to the QQ

That's pretty much the PVE spec, but it's not terrible in PVP either. If you plan on PVP'ing quite a lot though I would recommend picking up Sedatives (because it's awesome) ... just be aware of the PVE implications.

It's not so bad ... as a medic you should be able to solo all the Belsavis, Correlia and Ilum dailies which is about 500k credits / day (plus a ton of Companion affection )

This. You need the Surge rating from the WH mods.