I'd much rather see playable E.T. aliens, Yautja, and Martians (from Mars Attacks) than Rakata. Part of the reason the Rakata are so important to Star Wars lore is because of how little is known about them after the fall of the Infinite Empire and how much their actions impacted the galaxy before their race vanished into obscurity. How would you even explain the presence of playable Rakata? Rakata Mercenary: S'up, I'll just have a Jawa Beer. Bothan Bartender: Sure thing, pal. That'll be 5 credits. Rakata Mercenary: Thanks! (takes a sip)You know, I'm a Rakata and we used to be the masters of the universe. All other races of the galaxy payed homage to us or they died. As a species, we developed teleportation, force generated hyper-drives, self-aware automata, and energy shields just to name a few. We even built the Star Forge and turned Tatooine into a desert wasteland (laughs out loud.) I'll tell ya more later, but I got to head back to my ship. Mako needs a good bang and then I'm going to high-five Blizz afterwards. Bothan Bartender: Wait- what's a Rakata? I don't even....

Or maybe just omit the trainer altogether when swapping specs. Out of combat, just hit the "change spec" button to start a channel. Once the channel is complete, you now have your other spec active.

People are already rolling on gear for a spec they aren't currently using. I see it often enough whenever I run HM FPs. Nothing right now is discouraging players from rolling on gear when it can be used for a different spec.

No, not at all like the people advocating dual-spec. For people frequently respeccing (due to PvP, PvE, DPS to tank/healz/another DPS tree and back, etc) the costs and inconvenience was very counter-productive to playing the AC to it's true potential. For example, it's not reasonable at all for someone who loves the Vanguard class to level up two Vanguards to 50 just so he'll have a tank and a DPS spec, or a PvP dps and a PvE tank, or a PvP and a PvE dps build. We all made a choice and, not surprising, pure DPS classes chose to only be able to deal damage.

Which pure DPS class only has one skill tree?

Seems fair to me. Pure DPS classes still benefit from having a dual-spec. You'll be able to have different builds for PvE/PvP etc, and you'll never be bothered by anyone to swap roles. If someone chose a Sentinel or Gunslinger as their AC, it's evident they had no intention of tanking/healing anyway considering that changing specs is already present in the game.

Some of the posters here that are against having a dual-spec honestly seem to not really even know what it is, from what I've been able to garner on the forums. For the most part, the common arguments against dual-spec are appeals to emotion/entirely subjective rather than pertinent discourse: it breaks immersion; it forces me to play a spec I don't want to play; the game is fine the way it is; it's in WoW; specs won't matter if they allow dual-spec; it's lazy; just use the respec trainer; it produces bad healers/tanks; it's in Rift; and if you want to play more than 1 role, make another character. None of these arguments have any credibility as to why dual-spec should not be implemented.

I agree that would be a cool idea, but I think it would be too overpowered. The current system isn't designed to handle something like that and not every class utilizes stances. That also brings up the question of how to handle things if both of your specs are of the same tree or if you want to use a different stance for an unrelated tree. I know a lot of vanguards like using Ion Cell for improved durability and Guard even if they aren't shield specced.

Classes would function exactly as they do now. Having a dual-spec is just being able to have two seperate talent point/hotkey configurations, pretty much which are independent of eachother. For example, you could be specced Focus AND Watchman, but not both at the same time. You could even have two Focus specs if you really wanted to. Ideally, you would be able to switch specs free of charge, without going to the respec trainer, and only out of combat.

Agreed! Those sneaky smugglers have to be using hacks or something, every one of them. If this game wants to survive another 2 months, the devs HAVE to take the lollies away from the cheating smugglers before they ruin everything. I propose a further nerf to scoundrels, but not operatives. -Decrease the damage of Shoot First by another 20%. This should make it more on par with other classes. Nerfing Shoot First's damage will make it easier to identify scoundrels who don't play by the rules. If they are still racking up quadra-kills with this, it's CLEAR proof that they are exploiting something and should be permabanned. -Flechette Round increases the targets armor. Instead of granting armor penetration, this should increase the target's armor. The DoT would then be more balanced. With the way it is working right now, the vile smugglers that cheat are just too powerful. K.O. should knock the scoundrel down for equal duration. In it's current state, this is the most unfair talent in the game. You're telling me a republic stealth class can open up with Shoot First, 1-shot me for 94% of my health AND knock me down? If the devs have any concern about balancing this innovative game, they will restrict the villainous scoundrels ability to prevent us from fighting back! Only fair, right? They should also decrease the effectiveness of scoundrel stealth. On my agent, it feels like I'm always being detected 30-40m away. Something is clearly broken faction-wise when scoundrels can breathe down my neck stealthed but I can't do the same to any one else. Like OP said, it's either blatant cheating and disregard for the rules OR they're just mechanically dominant (which brings up many other issues as well.)

Stock Strike is a tech ability, therefore the only primary stats that affect it is Aim and Cunning.

I disagree about Riposte. The initial cost of 3 focus looks like a lot but keep in mind that when Strike+Riposte are used in the same GCD, you're really only paying 1 focus to deal more damage than a more expensive Slash. When your Mind Sear procs are on cooldown, there's no reason not to use Strike+Riposte when you are able to. As much as I advocate the use of Riposte, I understand it is a very situational ability. It's really only useful while soloing.

3 focus isn't a whole lot for Riposte. If you Strike+Riposte in the same GCD, it's really only a price of 1 focus. It's more cost effective than a spec'd Slash.

The scrapper-spec at very low levels has pretty unimpressive game play. Once you pick up Sucker Punch and the respective talents, it starts to get a lot more fun. As far as cover is concerned, scoundrels don't really benefit from it all. Using cover until you get Sucker Punch is doable I guess, but until that point you're really just playing an underpowered gunslinger.

Troopers benefit from cunning. Not a whole lot, but cunning increases tech damage and tech critical chance.