He has some interesting builds and info on that site. I'm thinking of going back to SS for pvp, using a modified version of his Focused Sharpshooter build. I'm going to run it this way for a while, and see how it does.

Chased? If I get mobbed by 2, it's usually a chain-CC fest, and I can't go anywhere before I'm dead.

That may work now, but trust me, at level 50 you'll pretty much never use blaster whip as a GS (Scoundrels, however, use it as part of their main rotation). If someone charges you, you want to get way as fast as possible, not try and stand there slugging it out with them. If you try to slug it out, more often then not you'll be chain CCed or ganked and be dead before you ever get a chance to do anything else.

Agree -- better to take those 2 points from holdout and put them into Independent Anarchy to get the boost in damage from Sab Charge, and especially from Flyby.

No, that's all fleet commendations can be used for.

Ship droids do not currently gain affection. However, this will change in 1.2, where you can buy Legacy items that increase the affection/efficiency of the ship droids.

I have a level 50 GS, and started a scoundrel to see how that AC plays. I've been mostly specing him as a healer so far, and this thread is very helpful. /subscribe

Sadly, I have to mostly agree with you, and it will be interesting to see how we make out in RWZ. I know from experience that when the team on the other side is inexperienced or all pug, I can usually rip them apart before they figure out who's doing it to them. But against a pre-made, especially ones I've faced before, I'm a target as soon as I step onto the field, and I'm usually constantly ripped apart by 2 or 3 of their team members before I can do any significant damage -- in those cases, my damage/kill numbers are half or less than in the first case. Of course, it doesn't help that there's a significant lack of Republic healers in pvp on my server. When we have one or two healers on the team, my suvivability and damage go way up. No healers, no chance...

Yes, at least level 10, and be sure to hit the mission box in the upper level of the class trainer area on the fleet to pick up the daily (and when you hit 50, weekly) pvp quests.

Yea, the cowboy hats start showing up in the early 40s -- I've seen them as drops (green), and armortech folks can make them. The ones you usually see around, though, are probably all level 50 pvp and pve gear, since the cowboy hats are currently the only type you can get at level 50. That'll change in 1.2 with the introduction of new armor sets. Various types of the overcoats appear in flashpoints and as quest/heroic rewards somewhere in the late 20s/early 30s. There's a great thread here that gives info on pretty much all the smuggler outfits in the game: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=234058&highlight=fashion

FYI, there's also an end-game tech staff for her from the level 50 Open Comms daily on Belsavis, though it's not modable. That quest also has level 50 weapons for all our companions as possible rewards.

I have the opposite experience regarding fps, heroics and ops -- I am on a relatively high population server (second in pop, according to the latest stats), but there aren't that many smugglers around. I'm constantly getting random whispers to help with fps and ops while I'm standing around the fleet waiting for a pvp match to pop. I'm the only level 50 gunslinger in my guild, which has quite a few 50s otherwise. The only other level 50 smuggler is a healing-speced scoundrel. Needless to say, I do quite a lot of ops and pvp with my guildmates. Do you have a link to that spec? I'm leveling a scoundrel now, and want him to be an off-healer but still do decent damage.

At least your companion will have the customized appearance, sans head gear, in any cinematic cuts during your conversations with the companion.

Operations and hard mode flashpoints also make up endgame. But level 40 gear won't cut it in any of those -- by this point, you should have orange gear in at least 5 spots (head, chest, gloves, legs, boot) and one or both weapons. The comms you get for planet quests can be used to buy mods to bring all that gear up to at least level 49. PvP on Illum never really worked right, so it's kind-of a non-starter now. The daily quests on Illum and Belsavis give you daily comms, which are used to get level 51 mods for your gear, which will make a big difference in end-game stuff (at least, for your survivability while you get pvp gear and gear from ops/fps). This thread will give you good info on gearing up at level 50: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=176836

I've noticed this bug too, mostly in civil war, where you have to wait for the capping bar to fill before you can rez if you get killed while capping. Seems to have started in the last 2 weeks, so maybe it was introduced in the 1.1.5d patch. It is funny to watch the cap bar fill, and then see your screen say "Can't do that while dead" though.

Or if you haven't remapped it, the "P" key will also bring up your abilities window.

Based on this discussion, I decided to respec into pure DF and try it in pvp for a while, and I have to say, I'm kinda impressed with how well it works. My survivability went up, my kills went up, but damage seems to be about the same. But there's something satisfying about watching an opponents health bar tick down to 0 when they think they're safe from me.

This really jumped out at me -- if you're mouse clicking to get into cover and start your attacks, you'll have a LOT of problems in pvp. You have to have Crouch bound to a key (I remapped F from Take Cover to Crouch, and made Take Cover Shift-F) so you drop into place instantly, and you have to start your attacks with a key, not a mouse click. Key remapping to make it easier to get to your big attacks is one of the keys to GS pvp, regardless of which tree you spec in. There are all kinds of suggestions around here for GS key mapping; take a look, and play with it until you find a combo that works best for you.

Actually, given the circumstances they might transfer it. My guildmate accidentally needed on two copies of the same item in a HM op, and won both. He put in a ticket, and BW transferred one of them to my character. So it can't be said they won't transfer something ever -- it's worth a shot.

What he said -- I also rarely see damage above 400k on our server from anyone, pubs or imps, regardless of class. Most of the time the high damage folks are in the 300-350k range. I also agree that the more BM gear the better, especially if it's modified to get more crit/surge . Seems BW put more of an emphasis on power over the other two for Smuggler gear, and I'm not sure why.

Yea, I've never seen 700k damage either. My best ever was about 400k, and typical is around 250-300k (the Republic on my server is usually severely overmatched in pvp).

On The Harbinger, it's probably running 70/30 in favor of the imps. Some days I can get the two dailies done in 3-4 hours in the evening, but more often than not I'll get the # of wzs daily (ex-Illum) done long before the 3 wins daily. And a run of 2 or 3 days to finish the 3 win daily is sadly not uncommon.

Yea, this is my experience more often than not (Sab speced GS). By the time the resolve bar is full and I can pop my release, I've been beat on so much my health is down to 10% or less, and if I'm not dead on the next hit, the odds are pretty good I won't get very far either.

^This. The problem is that until you GET to War Hero, and get a set of BM gear, especially the weapons, a GS will have a tough time and will truly live up to the "glass cannon" name. I know I didn't see a big difference in my pvp performance until I got at least a full set of Champ gear and the Champ main hand weapon. And it goes up with every BM piece I manage to add. Unless you've been pvping from the very beginning, it's a long haul to WH level. And until 1.2, the capriciousness of the "25% chance" to get a BM comm (and goodness knows what chance to actually get a weapon token) in the bag makes getting geared up to top level a nightmare. I'd say that perhaps many of the GS complaining about how tough level 50 pvp is are ones who waited until 50 to start doing it, like I did. It takes the patience of Job to start pvp at 50 and keep sloughing along until you get decent gear -- and many players just don't have that patience. But given the choice between doing wzs and doing the mind-numbing, boring, day-in-day-out dailies, I'll take the wzs any day.

Well, I'm not a newbie slinger, and I've tried many different specs in pvp, and df/sab just didn't work for me. It's really a case of what one feels more comfortable with, I guess, which is the point of specs -- what works well for one person may not be good in the hands of another. I get much better results with a pure sab build, which is why I said that it was what worked for me. As always, YMMV -- anyone wanting to pvp as a slinger should try various specs and see what works best for them.