yeah, it's really hard to shrug off all the accuracy they've placed on gear in favor of more important stats.

mostly I'm just sad that heat transfer seems to work wrong in the Star Wars universe. The hotter something is, the faster it dissipates heat donsarnit!

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301G0GrdorogZMsr0o.1 might be fun to pickup retractable blades

I like that from a PvP standpoint. I Might try testing out this from a PvE tank standpoint http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301G0GrdorogZMsr0o.1 Loose the 8heat dump from Heat Blast and the 8% bonus on rocket punch, but pickup Retractable Blade and 6% to Flame burst and Blade. Though since this is adding 1 more 16 heat ability to my rotation and removing a -8 heat one, may end up overloaded on longer fights.

Accuracy to 105% > DEF/Shield/Armour > Endurance/Absorbtion > Aim > Secondary Stats This tends to be the best way to go from what I've seen.

as had been said. Dev's wanted all classes to have a neat, very high damage ability to use while soloing packs of normal mobs. It was never intended to be used anywhere else. That's not to say that I wouldn't like to use it other places though.

Agreed with all of this. Animation sucks and even if they don't up the damage, more threat would be nice.

for solo, yeah kinda nice to have Mako as a healer, specially as I'm a Shieldtech. I've found many times though when i'm grouping up for quests with friends capable of healing, that it's much easier to have them heal and have either Gualt or Torrian out for DPS.

less heat then Flamethrower for single targets, and at lvl 39 still have down time where all the other usefull stuff is on cooldown.

I would say go with the flat damage reduction for PvP purposes. Else some specs will kill you far faster. Better to have a good feel for your survive-ability in all situations.

yup, oil slick is just another tanking cooldown for when things get rough.

You also left out the cooldown reset on rocket punch with points in this, chances are you're cooldown on the punch goes down to ~4.5-5 seconds. So the DPS contribution from the ability nearly doubles depending on how you weave it into your priority rotation.

Neural Overload - Ion Gas Cylinder damage now lowers the movement speed of the target by 50% for 2 seconds. -- PvP only, as of right now, there's not really anything you are tanking that will be trying to run away from you No Escape - Grapple has a [50 / 100]% chance to immobilize the target for 3 seconds. In addition, your Stealth Scan has a [50 / 100]% chance to immobilize the targets it reveals for 3 seconds. -- PvP only, Immobilize will only be worth while if they are trying to run away from you. Grapple already has high threat and doesn't work on bosses, only use for it right now is to save some aggro snagger on a bad pull of trash or boss with adds -- Stealth scan is worthless in PvE Jet Speed - Jet Charge has a [50 / 100]% chance to increase your movement speed by 30% for 4 seconds. -- PvP mostly, only reason i could possibly see to need this is if you need to pick up a tanking target that is in a spot that you really don't want to be in, or if you want to close a gap to a second distant target after charging a first on a pull. Very conditional use and not worth the 2 points which could go elsewhere. The bulk of the time you use jet charge it's going to be the opening of a pull and right after you use it, you're gona be busy standing still and gathering aggro on your target. [Prototype Burn Enhancers] Vs [Puncture] -- puncture has a boost to Rail shot damage, but you are only using rail shot once every 15 seconds, and probably less than that. on top of that, 60% sounds like a big #, but that's 60% off of mitigation, and mitigation on a boss is probably only gona be on the order of 30%. overall, this is a minor boost to burst dependent damage -- Burn enhancers on the other hand, improve the dps on all your flame effects, so Heat Blast, Flame Sweep, Flame Burst, and Flame Thrower. At the very least you should be casting both Flame (burst/sweep) and Heat blast every 15 seconds and sweep will probably be slightly more often in situations with more than 2 targets. So overall with this one you get both higher threat/second and at a smoother lest burst dependent pace. Flame Surge - Increases the critical strike bonus damage of Rocket Punch and Flame Sweep by [ 15 / 30]%. -- You've got a bunch of talents now where you've boosted the crit chance of punch and sweep, you might as well boost crit damage as well.

lvl 24 is when you get it... and about damn time. Sucks not having much in the way of AoE threat.

Kinda depends on the content and the group you end up with. If you find yourself dropping dead from damage yet you are holding aggro without any people pulling off ya, swap some points into Cardio. If you are having trouble holding aggro, and not due to rotation issues or overzealous dps, you should probably take a few more points in threat improvement talents. Mostly this will all depend on how your gear relates to the content and the other players.

I still think Flame thrower is worth it. I seem to always get ~2.5 seconds or more out of the channel.

Echo everyone else pointing out that not having much to do at endgame before actual launch is kinda sad. Yes there are people who have way more time to spend on this game then others. Those people are going to suffer a tad for not being able to fully do all the things that require a thriving lvl 50 community untill some portion of the player base catches up. Also wanted to comment on a few points I would feel totally crappy if All of my crafting ability was only disposable mods and stims at endgame. I much prefer if each crafting skill has a few items that are very hard to make, yet top of the line gear. Otherwise crafting becomes a minor stepping stone and not very worth it in the long run. Phasing is there to prevent the need for massive re-spawn rate and fighting over kills and gathering nodes. Bioware has said that phasing is needed in early zones to help with these issues and as competition for content goes down the player cap per phase will climb. Also another indication that you are leveling faster than everyone. Personally my plan is to experience the story for all 8 classes. I fell the pace of leveling is well suited for this type of player who wants to "finish" their class story and then experience the world from the point of view of another class.

I would prefer some form of "oh crap" timer on any item. Mark BoP's so that if you accidentally snag them, anyone else who was eligible to roll on it can be traded to for an hour or so.

you start to miss the defensive talents when doing flashpoints that are at your level or above once you get into the mid 20's and up content. Rebraced armor in the second tier, and shield vents/ablative upgrades in the 3rd may not look like much but help when your healer isn't totally on the ball and spec'd well for healing. Oil slick is also a really nice defensive cooldown for big pulls. I would say at least toss points into Intimidation/cumbust/Ion Overload.

Yup, all the Shieldtech talents that boost damage are keyed towards improved adaptability and a balance between burst initial treat gain and steady threat generation through flat % bonuses. Most of your mitigation will be coming from proper gear choices where threat will fall down the priority list. If there weren't percentage bonuses applied to threat in talents than a tanks aggro generation would not scale properly with gear levels. Makes it so that Bioware can distinguish 2 classes of gear, for instance one with high aim/endurance ratio for DPS, and one with low aim/endurance ratio for tanks.

from what I've seen, her output is about 1/2 what can be put out by a healing capable advanced class that hasn't spec'd into heailng. She can fill out a party for Heroic 4's if you have people who know what they're doing, but don't expect to use her in Hammer station or beyond as the dedicated healer.

Also a powertech tank yet I have had no issues finding people to do heroic quests with unless i tried asking in the wee hours. I agree with many others in saying that they are optional, if I can find the time and the people required to do them, it's very enjoyable, otherwise my class quests are enjoyable too. On top of that, from what I've seen the heroic quests are all at the end of chains or stand alone quests and none of them require completion in order to move on to other things. I could understand the frustration if Bioware hid a bunch of other content behind the wall of an [Heroic 4] quest, but they don't. If you want the story element and can't find a group, come back when you outclass it.