Biggest piece of advice I can give for long boss fights is this: If you are learning how to play it, never use an energy consuming attack if you have less than 70 energy. Practice that tip above long enough and you'll know when you can ignore it and when you can't, but as a general rule, you can't sustain your best damage output if you are not in your best energy regeneration. Some attacks, like corrosive dart, consume 20? You technically shouldn't use it unless you have >80 energy. 70 is a good number to start with though, as a new player to end game content. [edit] I must have missed your follow up. Pretty standard concealment melee talent build. Basics: Energy is your enemy. As noted above, you will be fighting between keeping all of your best abilities on cooldown, keeping your energy above 60% at all times, maintaining melee position/watching for fire, and juggling tactical advantages and corrosive dart uptime. Priority #1: Energy above 60% Priority #2: Backstab, Explosive Prob, Shiv, on cooldown, in that order. (Also Orbital Strike if enemy doesn't move and you don't need it for adds/can hit multiple bosses.) Priority #3: Tactical Advantages x2 (Pretty sure the damage bonus stacks, can anyone please confirm/deny this for me personally as well?) Priority #4: Do all of the above while just barely letting corrosive dart fall off and then reapplying it to maximize it's damage. Priority #5: Don't die, and interrupt things the party requires you to. Every class basically has a priority system. As an operative, you must do all of these at the same time, but while your friend is learning how to juggle all of them at once, it might be best to focus the importance of them one at a time while they are mastered. When I leveled up my first scoundrel, it was easy. Burst down a target/group, move along, burst down. When I got into 3-5 minute fights, I started having real problems with energy because I couldn't reach for adrenaline probe (free energy recovery) every time I ran out of energy, which was usually after every single one of my rotations. Let your friend know that rifle shot (or whatever auto attack is called) will become one of the most spammed abilities in her arsenal. It's a gap filler while you let energy recoup past 70ish energy so you can use another ability, without dipping below 60% into 'bad' energy regen. Operatives in PVE are all about energy energy energy. It's terribly bothersome to juggle on top of the other stuff. I hope this very vague summation helps you out. I hope that others can critique and add to or take away from this. PS: One last item to chew on: One of the difficulties I had in the first two weeks of raiding as a 'healer hybrid', that is to say, a full dps with heals instead of taunts, was staring at the operation health bars and trying to 'pitch in heals. This will absolutely DESTROY your DPS, kill your operation in the long run, crush any chance of your operation meeting difficult enrage timers, and do nothing but encourage bad play out of the rest of your core group of players. A DPS specced class is there for DPS, and particularly an operative that tries to 'off heal' in the vast majority of fights and fight stages will cripple their energy and incur too large a recovery time to be reasonable. In this respect, DPS sages have a little more leeway, as at the very least, their resource regeneration is not influenced by an occasional 'off heal'.

Ack, yeah. First video up on youtube. I probably should have done some more research on what to convert it to before I uploaded it so you could see more details. I'm just using Windows Movie Maker, and a total newbie at it. If anyone has any tips on that too, I could make use of them. Edit: Trying out a new compression. If it looks better, I'll edit the link above. Thanks, mate.

First off, I'd like to take a moment to thank you for your gracious attitude. Too often players of high caliber ability that video their play are pompous and holier than thou. I have a sincere appreciation for the time you spend to explain the mechanics in which you build your operative to the level it is statistically, so that the small community here can benefit from the knowledge you have gleaned through experience and your own research. I'd like to ask and comment something in regards to this statement you make about accuracy. Through my observations, I have concluded that with the 1% accuracy buff from companions, bringing our base accuracy up to 101% special attacks, we only actually need 102% accuracy for special cases. The understanding comes from this: Tank classes that take talents into 'increases your defense by 1%/2%' not only increase their defense score, but also their resistances. It's actually the only way, if you observe, for players to increase their actual *resistance*. If you understand accuracy, accuracy will reduce the targets defense *and* resistance when it passes 100%. Against players (ie: shadows, vanguards, juggernauts) who have two points into a talent that ultimately gives 2% defense (and thereby resistance) you would need to have a base of 102% accuracy to reduce their resistance from 2% chance to resist tech abilities down to 0% chance to resist tech abilities. I hope that I am able to communicate this idea clearly. 105% special attacks accuracy would only be necessary if there were frequent enough cases of targets having 5% resistances. Technically speaking, a player who has the 1% accuracy bonus from companions, only needs to obtain 1% accuracy through items. Since we have an over abundance of surge, I find that trading one surge enhancement slot for one accuracy enhancement slot is ticket to success here. The only time I get misses with tech attacks is when players use special, short duration abilities that directly lower my accuracy far below 102%. I believe, Vyle, and I think this is where my real question comes in, that you perhaps take 105% tech accuracy to compare to the baseline 5% defense score that all players get? Is that where it comes? If that is the case, consider that tech accuracy goes against player resistance, which can be at most 2%, through tanking talents (or our own talent in concealment (shifty eyes is what it's called for scoundrels). TLDR: I think you only need 102% accuracy for special attacks, please verify, sir. The other part I wanted to ask about was Implants. I have not actually been able to itemize properly due to rerolling, but once you start obtaining so many low endurance enhancements and mods, is it necessary to give up the battlemaster implants? Is giving up the 15 cunning worth the 5 crit, 3 expertise, and 25 endurance? Where I'm standing (in partially optimized WH gear) It doesn't seem like it, but I still have 19k HP. Let me slip one last question in, since I'd like your thoughts: I chose 2 points in chem resistant overlays (4% reduced incoming damage) over 2% increased critical rate. How do you feel about that spec? I'm not a fan of the reduced cooldown on the stun, as I don't use it on cooldown, so prefer my points elsewhere, either 5/31/5 or 7/31/3. What are your thoughts on the pros/cons? I'd really appreciate it if you took a good look at this. Your input would be valued, and it seems our community is rather small these days. Thank you for your time. -VR 91 Scoundrel, VR 63 Operative PS: I'm considering dropping the 4th second off of evasion and grabbing up another hit on orbital strike. Thoughts?

Washin Muhtub VR 63 Concealment Operative, Canderous Ordo server. This is a full length concealment huttball match, unedited, and roughly 15 minutes long. Washin Muhtub is 95% war-hero gear-wise. In my bag of excuses, I pulled out a new g600, that I am learning to use, so sometimes you'll see me use disrupt instead of sleep dart, or grenade instead of flashbang, or generally run around like I'm crazy. For the most part I know what I'm trying to do. I'd like to have this here to show new players what concealment plays like, have veterans give me advice, and obviously feed the trolls that are biting at the bit. Please share your thoughts. Also, put on some music, the video is a silent film. [EDIT] Changed the link to what I hope is a better resolution.

Really the problem is in Voidstar, in the countless games where one Juggernaut and his healer friend spam aoe slow an entire team. There isn't any number of 5second cd cleanses you can use to keep up with no cooldown AOE snare. Even a 6 second cooldown would do nothing but remove the 'overpoweredness' of the ability. It's really gamebreaking in Voidstar, and pretty much Voidstar alone, and should be addressed. I'm just tired of one single keybound ability winning an entire warzone.

Anyone know where I can find this rifle? It's used throughout chapter one for the Imperial Agent storyline. I'd really like to get my hands on an orange version of it.

These are some of my random opinions on classes, class talents, and class abilities. Guardian/Juggernaut: TALENT - Freezing Force/Chilling Scream Force cost reduction. This causes the AoE snare (which is quite effective) to be completely cost free and spammable. The only limiting factor that remains here is the global cooldown. I can't count how many times I've seen Guardians and Juggernauts spam Freezing Force/Chilling Scream in Voidstar hallways, completely ignoring 5 second cooldown cleanses, 1-2minute active class CD's used to escape snares/roots. These players are able to shut down entire teams while their team moves on to the next objective without issue. TALENT - Unremitting/Unstoppable 2/2 Force Leap has a 100% chance to grant immunity to all controlling affects and reduce all damage taken by 20%. First of all, the talent is far too over budget in comparison to far too many talents. My opinion is that it should perform one of either tasks. It should either reduce damage taken OR provide immunity to controlling affects, NOT both. As well, it should be moved further up into the Vigilance/Vengeance tree, thus becoming an Iconic specialization ability, instead of a common hybrid pickup, which is the staple of every hybrid Guard/Jugg in PvP. ABILITY - LEAP - PUSH - LEAP - Force Push resetting the cooldown on Force Leap seems completely unjustified. It promotes less thought, not greater thought, in when to use an excellent crowd control skill (Force Push). It stacks up two roots in quick succession, locking down a target that may be interested in mobility for around 5 seconds, only two of which may be actual 'stun effect', but do infact remove control from the player. On the victim side of the event, it drives frustration up, and is particularly *unfun* to be rooted and cc'd for such a long duration, given the following things are also true: Players who possess the Unstoppable/Unremitting talent have a directly controllable method of giving themselves 8 full seconds of immunity to all crowd controls, on top of 8 full seconds of 20% damage reduction, on top of rooting their target for 3 seconds, on top of generating 6 rage/focus, on top of dealing xxxx damage, on top of moving the target where they wish, on top of a 2 second stun. All of this for two talent points and three button presses, on short cooldowns. *Force Push should not reset the cooldown on Force Leap. This would cause players to think before they push, and increase skill cap slightly. *I nearly forgot to mention the "Leap to target, push into endzone while immune to cc, leap to target for score." Huttball is my favorite WZ, and I'm rarely, if ever, in a position to cause this to happen, but once it starts, you can't stop it, all because Push resets the CD on Leap and this is a good reason why? Not so much a criticism, but more an observation: As a Scrapper, I was often accused of being a stunlock king. I find it amusing that Guardians/Juggernauts have more stuns at their disposal, have shorter/no cooldown on roots/snares in their repetiore, and can create longer stunlock chains than even scoundrel/operatives can. Imagine teams of Guardians/Juggernauts stunlocking people to death until they unsub? *chuckle*

I have read a forum post recently in which a player [Forum Tag: Kovux] described a sort of 'log' that they had built. The idea behind it was that they would play many rated warzones, within their guild, across two servers, and over whatever their sample size was, establish how each class performed based on numbers. While the results were very subjective, what I found to be very interesting was class representation. Out of all of the matches that were played, recording only classes that appeared to be focusing on DPS, there were (rough numbers) nearly 400 powertech/vanguards, over 400 marauder/sentinels, ~80 assassin/shadows, ~50 sorc/sages, ~40 juggernaut/guardians, ~20 snipers/gunslingers, ~20 operative/scoundrel, and ~20 mercenary/commando players. Please keep in mind that these are the player representations for this person that appeared to be DPS roles within the warzone. Outside of my opinions on class specifics, I have my own questions to ask: What mechanics drive there to be a 20:1 ratio in representation from one class to another? Why are there 10 times as many powertech DPS as there are juggernaut DPS in rated warzones? Why do the number of marauder/sentinels seen nearly double the combined weight of all snipe/guns, jugg/guard, op/scound, merc/comm, asn/shad, sorc/sage combined? Keep in mind the parameters of the observations Kovux produced. It was just his guild, just across two servers, open to interpretation, and has plenty of room for human error. It isn't concrete evidence, and there is alot of room for players to outright disregard it. But let's be on the level here. Something can't be right if two classes represent such a staggering portion of the DPS role in rated PvP. Edit: Adding this fun little read. If you want to read the rest of the arguement as it comes apart, the link in the upper right hand corner will take you to the thread.

In light of the recent posting of 1.3 patch notes, and very little attention to a thread I originally posted on the general class forums roughly a month ago, I'd like to reintroduce this to a closer community. It's quite long winded, so if you don't have the time, please read the brief version below, and give your feedback. I'd really appreciate some ideas from other scrappers/ops in the community. More nerfs, small as they are, in the next patch, with nothing changing in an already uninteresting tree leads to sad pandas everywhere. Original Thread. Too Long, Didn't Read Version Rename K.O. to Sawed Off, and combine the two talents. Replace Sawed Off with Generator Flux, an ability that acts exactly as sentinel Camo with no damage reduction or speed increase, and has a 45 second cooldown. In tier4 add a 2 point talent that increases damage on bleeding targets by 2% (4% total). Change Stopping Power to Each point increases the range of Tendon Blast by 2 yds and has a 100% chance to root the target by 1.5 seconds (4yds and 3 seconds at 2/2). If you want to keep Fight or Flight with it's dodge mechanic, it's really a clear tie in to using your cooldown to regain energy. That's a pretty high skill playing field move, and very interesting stuff, but to that effect, the cooldown on Dodge needs to be reduced dramatically. Survivability, TTK, and cooldowns is something that can be talked about later. Lastly, fold Brawler's Grit and Suprise Comeback together. Heck, you can call it Suprise Grits, or Gritty Comeback, or Brawler's Surprise. Brawler's Grit is an extremely lackluster talent for a melee dps role. I propose a 2 point talent, Third tier, +2/4% Endurance, Pugnacity restores 3% health every 4/2 seconds. ... Guarded by the Force could be a last ditch effort. Perhaps give it a -99% healing received penalty as well. A player could still use this mechanic to absorb high damage spikes in pvp (such as nightmare Soa lightning balls) and be healed afterwards, while effecting a change in pvp. One tree could perhaps have a talent that removed this healing penalty. OR Completely remove the hard damage mitigation from Rebuke, and instead increase it's damage reflection in exchange. A sentinel that popped rebuke could 'scare away' people from damaging him/her because of the reflected damage, which is a theme in many boss encounters in PvE. This would become a 'smart' damage mitigation, where players could choose to bite the bullet or not. Talents could effectively increase this damage reflection as well, creating more 'pvp talents' that could be options for sentinels. OR Give the 'threat drop' it's intent and purpose, a threat drop/target drop, let it drop combat (I'm tired of a sentinel using camo and not being able to also stealth), but completely remove the damage mitigation. I'm not even sure why it was ever there to begin with. In reality, this player's opinion is Saber ward with one 'sentinel only' damage mitigation (guarded by the force) is appropriate. One of the QQQQQQQQQ reasons for so many posts is the over the top number of survival cooldowns in PvP with low TTK. ... Dear Bioware: If you would like to keep the talent for scrappers that 'gain 1 energy for dodge/resisting attacks', please move dodge to a 30 second cooldown, or allow for scrappers to talent it to 30 seconds so that we can more frequently make use of this talent, possibly merging this new talent into the one mentioned previously. ... First: If I Disappearing act, and use defensive screen, and the defensive screen absorbs incoming damage, let me stay in stealth please, as I did not take damage. Second: It's duration is 15 seconds, but it absorbs 2-4k damage and 'is done'. The animation stays. I would like to see something that changes this in a unique way that also simultaneously differentiates this from 'sage bubble.' Something that persisted after the first 2-4k was absorbed that endured for those 15 seconds. This would have the dual purpose of giving that sawbones talent that increases self heals some purpose. If you know what I'm talking about, you are probably in arms about that as well. Maybe giving it a 2-4k damage absorb, letting it have it's damage absorb crit and surge chance of the player, to absorb more, after it pops, what else can the defensive screen do to help increase the players survivability for 15 seconds? It doesn't have to be magnificent. The dodge cooldown is so absolutely terrible already, but unlike other classes, these two defensive cooldowns can be good enough on short cooldowns. ... I'd really like to see scrapper enforcer 4p pvp set bonus changed from 105 energy to 15% increased chance to crit on backblast and shootfirst, so that I can finally part ways with these columi shells with battlemaster armorings in them.

Akaavi is an absolute monster, and considerably durable to boot. Obtaining a nice weapon will always be a bother, but with the custom tech staffs now, it's noticeably less difficult. She has a great skill set, does terrific damage, has good gap closers, good damage mitigation for such high dps, and has a solid aoe knockdown that works great against groups of weak/normal mobs. She's the perfect package for doing dailies.

Too Long, Didn't Read Version Rename K.O. to Sawed Off, and combine the two talents. Replace Sawed Off with Generator Flux, an ability that acts exactly as sentinel Camo with no damage reduction or speed increase, and has a 45 second cooldown. In tier4 add a 2 point talent that increases damage on bleeding targets by 2% (4% total). Change Stopping Power to Each point increases the range of Tendon Blast by 2 yds and has a 100% chance to root the target by 1.5 seconds (4yds and 3 seconds at 2/2). If you want to keep Fight or Flight with it's dodge mechanic, it's really a clear tie in to using your cooldown to regain energy. That's a pretty high skill playing field move, and very interesting stuff, but to that effect, the cooldown on Dodge needs to be reduced dramatically. Survivability, TTK, and cooldowns is something that can be talked about later. Lastly, fold Brawler's Grit and Suprise Comeback together. Heck, you can call it Suprise Grits, or Gritty Comeback, or Brawler's Surprise. Brawler's Grit is an extremely lackluster talent for a melee dps role. I propose a 2 point talent, Third tier, +2/4% Endurance, Pugnacity restores 3% health every 4/2 seconds. ... Guarded by the Force could be a last ditch effort. Perhaps give it a -99% healing received penalty as well. A player could still use this mechanic to absorb high damage spikes in pvp (such as nightmare Soa lightning balls) and be healed afterwards, while effecting a change in pvp. One tree could perhaps have a talent that removed this healing penalty. OR Completely remove the hard damage mitigation from Rebuke, and instead increase it's damage reflection in exchange. A sentinel that popped rebuke could 'scare away' people from damaging him/her because of the reflected damage, which is a theme in many boss encounters in PvE. This would become a 'smart' damage mitigation, where players could choose to bite the bullet or not. Talents could effectively increase this damage reflection as well, creating more 'pvp talents' that could be options for sentinels. OR Give the 'threat drop' it's intent and purpose, a threat drop/target drop, let it drop combat (I'm tired of a sentinel using camo and not being able to also stealth), but completely remove the damage mitigation. I'm not even sure why it was ever there to begin with. In reality, this player's opinion is Saber ward with one 'sentinel only' damage mitigation (guarded by the force) is appropriate. One of the QQQQQQQQQ reasons for so many posts is the over the top number of survival cooldowns in PvP with low TTK. ... Dear Bioware: If you would like to keep the talent for scrappers that 'gain 1 energy for dodge/resisting attacks', please move dodge to a 30 second cooldown, or allow for scrappers to talent it to 30 seconds so that we can more frequently make use of this talent, possibly merging this new talent into the one mentioned previously. ... First: If I Disappearing act, and use defensive screen, and the defensive screen absorbs incoming damage, let me stay in stealth please, as I did not take damage. Second: It's duration is 15 seconds, but it absorbs 2-4k damage and 'is done'. The animation stays. I would like to see something that changes this in a unique way that also simultaneously differentiates this from 'sage bubble.' Something that persisted after the first 2-4k was absorbed that endured for those 15 seconds. This would have the dual purpose of giving that sawbones talent that increases self heals some purpose. If you know what I'm talking about, you are probably in arms about that as well. Maybe giving it a 2-4k damage absorb, letting it have it's damage absorb crit and surge chance of the player, to absorb more, after it pops, what else can the defensive screen do to help increase the players survivability for 15 seconds? It doesn't have to be magnificent. The dodge cooldown is so absolutely terrible already, but unlike other classes, these two defensive cooldowns can be good enough on short cooldowns. ... I'd really like to see scrapper enforcer 4p pvp set bonus changed from 105 energy to 15% increased chance to crit on backblast and shootfirst, so that I can finally part ways with these columi shells with battlemaster armorings in them.

I forgot to mention: Most scrappers are using 2p pvp set bonus and 2p pve set bonus. This causes alot of problems with gearing and I'm sure is unintended. I'd really like to see scrapper enforcer 4p pvp set bonus changed from 105 energy to 15% increased chance to crit on backblast and shootfirst, so that I can finally part ways with these columi shells with battlemaster armorings in them.

Background: 4 years as a WoW Rogue. First character was a 50 Infiltration Shadow, rerolled as a 50 scrapper scoundrel post 1.1.5. I have a 46 Vanguard Tank that I play with a 46 Sawbones Scoundrel friend for fun, and a 23 Vengeance Juggernaut for the lulz. This thread is mostly rambling and TLDR. I'd like to talk today about what is slowly becoming my most lamented class to play: the scrapper scoundrel. I primarily have played alpha-strike, stealth type, utility driven classes in almost all genre of games from Pen and Paper to Video to LARP, MMO, RPG, Console or PC. The Shadow was an incredibly EPIC feeling character, ripping rocks out of the ground, force waving things, huge range on force stun, two bladed lightsaber... it felt amazing. When I started doing operations it really began to show that it was just a squishy melee class with stealth, and not the really hard hitting alpha strike rogue-type class I was looking for, and my 'second' main character was born. He washes tubs, he doesn't scrub them. As a scoundrel I quickly filled all four hotbars with numerous class abilities and grenades, read all the posts about 5k shootfirsts and 50% armor pen and though, "That's insane." I was a post-1.1.5 nerf scoundrel and I hadn't felt that nerf. I'm going to tell you now that I never would have finished that character if I hadn't had a friend riding my *** to level with me from 18-41, because the scrapper tree is full of uninteresting, boring talents all the way up to the end, bar the rare talent here or there. It was brutal. Upper hand generation is a crock of ... garbage until mid 20's, stealth serves about as much purpose as it did the shadow until you hit 36... really? You have to go that far into the game before stealth gives you a reason to stealth outside of your cc? It really felt like I was on a forced march through the levels, with none of the epic appeal of the other classes. Lightsaber envy quickly set in. Funny that phrase. "Lightsaber envy." I started using it more often, because despite how ridiculous it sounded, I really felt like I was playing the bastard child of the game. This truly was the 'alpha strike' Advanced Class in the game, and so this is where I belonged, but it was being done this great disservice. And that's what I'm here to talk about, mostly. I am not a healer. Healing for me is about as good an idea as pulling toenails out with a bottle of whiskey and a rusty pair of pliers. I am a sneaky snake, hit em from behind type character and I like how that's being handled. There are a good number of things that I *do* like so far. I enjoy being able to recouperate hitpoints while engaged in combat. This is especially important given how combat is handled in this game. (Another sticking point which I disagree with.) I appreciate the lack of homogenization; that there is a distinct feel and playstyle to even similar roles (infiltration shadow versus scrapper scoundrel). I enjoy the animations, and even the shotgun (which I once detested, wanting the knife instead). Some changes, such as the recent 'nerf' to Freighter Flyby seem unneccessary reduction in 'fun' are simply changes to quality of life. I can't call my ship to do a flyby, enter stealth, then shoot someone in the back as the ship drops napalm on their heads anymore. That's unfortunate, as that was a moment of derived joy for me. Not the end of the world though, these are Developer changes that I can adapt to. Jagged little pills that I am forced to swallow are the battering ram of nerfs over the outcry of what feels like 'popular concensus'. Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology here. When was the last time the lot of you mates out there took a good hard comparable view at the scrapper tree? Compare that stuff to my personal enemy number one: Vigilance Guardian tree. You can compare it to a large number of other trees really, but this for me is my personal vendetta. Say I'm doing PvE content for the night. I'm basically locked into talents like K.O. (Gives Shoot First a 100% chance to knock the enemy flat on their face for 1.5 seconds for 2 talent points) Does this really do anything to improve my performance in operations? How about Fight or Flight? (Dodging or Resisting an attack restores one energy and you can be healed after you vanish for 1 talent point) I don't know about you, but my 5% chance to dodge isn't very effective at 'gaining energy', and my 3seconds of dodging every 60 seconds isn't going to generate much energy either, if I'm even being attacked, which I probably shouldn't be anyways, right? As for the healing, that -100% healing debuff goes away when you come out of stealth, so... just come out of stealth. But the problem is, you can't avoid talents like this to get 'good talents', because there really aren't any good talents to take. What are some other options if you are determined to avoid talents like the ones mentioned above for pve? You can get 2% defense, and 2% resist. That'll boost your dodge chance up to 7%, and your resist chance up to 2%. Keep in mind, this isn't damage reduction, this is resist chance. I actually used to enjoy taking that talent for pvp. Rarely resisting a force wave in Huttball was like a small victory inside given that a run from the pit took a good while. Either way, that's two talent points and completely lackluster, you aren't going to need the stealth detection in an operation. Another option if you are desperate to find something to benefit you in PvE is the healing received. That's about the best one in the whole tree, and I take it every time over... Tendon Blast, which for two points gives you a 2 second root on your snare. This is a pvp talent, but it's difficult to avoid in order to get to your 31 point talent. Are you starting to see the picture, Community? My 'archtype' Has about 10 talentpoints that are pretty lackluster of their own right, but are downright strictly PvP related, and are nearly unavoidable in order to get that 31 point talent for PvE players. Let's avoid going into the 'switch to dirty fighting' tangent. Give bleed crits an upperhand with a 6 second internal cooldown a'lah flying fists and I will for PvE. OR OR OR Take a hint from Vigilance. Start folding your talents together. When I'm doing dailies, or leveling as a scoundrel as my 'alpha strike' archetype', and I take two points in K.O., I'd be glad to know it did something else, like increased the crit chance on backblast, or gave a debuff to the mob, or made some ability i had cost less, or gave me a buff to encourage me to use Disappearing Act in ops, or something that just plain stopped talents like that from being PvP only. Basically every tier, or every other tier, leave that juicy extra 2point talent out there that's the 'pvp option' that is frequent in many other talent trees among many other classes, but stop making it mandatory for scrappers to take them just to get to 31 point talent. Why do they have to take 5-10 filler talents that don't boost performance in PvE just to play the spec? Rename K.O. to Sawed Off, and combine the two talents. Replace Sawed Off with Generator Flux, an ability that acts exactly as sentinel Camo with no damage reduction or speed increase, and has a 45 second cooldown. In tier4 add a 2 point talent that increases damage on bleeding targets by 2% (4% total). Change Stopping Power to Each point increases the range of Tendon Blast by 2 yds and has a 100% chance to root the target by 1.5 seconds (4yds and 3 seconds at 2/2). If you want to keep Fight or Flight with it's dodge mechanic, it's really a clear tie in to using your cooldown to regain energy. That's a pretty high skill playing field move, and very interesting stuff, but to that effect, the cooldown on Dodge needs to be reduced dramatically. Survivability, TTK, and cooldowns is something that can be talked about later. Lastly, fold Brawler's Grit and Suprise Comeback together. Heck, you can call it Suprise Grits, or Gritty Comeback, or Brawler's Surprise. Brawler's Grit is an extremely lackluster talent for a melee dps role. I propose a 2 point talent, Third tier, +2/4% Endurance, Pugnacity restores 3% health every 4/2 seconds. Are these buffs? Yep. Are they burst buffs? Maybe. Am I tired of being nerfed to the ground? Yep. Mostly, I just have lightsaber envy. Take some time and look at that Vigilance tree. Think about 'item budgeting'. Coin that phrase and then think of 'talent point budgeting'. I'm tired of '2 points for 4% endurance on a dps class' and 'dodging gives you 1 energy' when my dodge chance is 5% talents. There's a pretty clear disparity when a 2point guardian talent gives a 15second cooldown an 'extra' 4seconds of cc immunity AND 20% damage reduction, at 3rd tier. Makes some of the suggestions above look like childs play. Cooldowns: Everyone's got some. Sentinels have four. On average, most classes have two, by my count. I know, I know, I'm trying to count beyond my education level. So for my plug against 'overpowered sentinels', here it goes: You have a 99% damage reduction cooldown that lasts for 5 seconds, it reduces your hp by half. If you have 18khp, you hit it around 4khp left, bringing you to 2khp, then you use a wz or rakata medpac, and go back up to anywhere from 7k-10khp depending on which you chose. Both are off the global cooldown, and now you have 5 seconds 99% damage reduction. After that, you have Rebuke, for 20% damage reduction AND damage reflection. If you didn't know, this works on dots as well, so pop it when that (me) scoundrel vital shots you, and he can't Disappearing Act/run away, your rebuke will pop him out of stealth. After that, you have Camo, for 50% damage reduction for 4 seconds, on a 45 second cooldown. After that, you have Saber ward, for a 50% 'white hit' deflection chance, and a 25% tech/force damage reduction for 12 seconds? Sentinels are unique, you see, because each one of those has HARD DAMAGE MIDIGATION. My suggestion? Guarded by the Force could be a last ditch effort. Perhaps give it a -99% healing received penalty as well. A player could still use this mechanic to absorb high damage spikes in pvp (such as nightmare Soa lightning balls) and be healed afterwards, while effecting a change in pvp. One tree could perhaps have a talent that removed this healing penalty. OR Completely remove the hard damage mitigation from Rebuke, and instead increase it's damage reflection in exchange. A sentinel that popped rebuke could 'scare away' people from damaging him/her because of the reflected damage, which is a theme in many boss encounters in PvE. This would become a 'smart' damage mitigation, where players could choose to bite the bullet or not. Talents could effectively increase this damage reflection as well, creating more 'pvp talents' that could be options for sentinels. OR Give the 'threat drop' it's intent and purpose, a threat drop/target drop, let it drop combat (I'm tired of a sentinel using camo and not being able to also stealth), but completely remove the damage mitigation. I'm not even sure why it was ever there to begin with. In reality, this player's opinion is Saber ward with one 'sentinel only' damage mitigation (guarded by the force) is appropriate. One of the QQQQQQQQQ reasons for so many posts is the over the top number of survival cooldowns in PvP with low TTK. Back to survivability cooldowns, and scoundrels. We have two, they are lackluster. With the recent change/buff to dirty fighting (mostly in regards to gunslinger) in that dots applied will fall off and apply weaker versions of themselves, there is created a problem. You see, both stealth classes are given a one 'get out of jail free' card when it comes to 'oh shoot, I need to vanish'. Ours is called Disappearing Act, and our cousins get Resilience. Resilience is still doing it's job. It removes all the dots and gives immunity to force and tech (immunity to the new weak dot), allowing the shadow to vanish. The scoundrel must first cleanse, then 'dodge', then disappearing act, as the dodge will remove the weaker dots that are left over. This is some random observation. On to the meat and potatoes. Dear Bioware: If you would like to keep the talent for scrappers that 'gain 1 energy for dodge/resisting attacks', please move dodge to a 30 second cooldown, or allow for scrappers to talent it to 30 seconds so that we can more frequently make use of this talent, possibly merging this new talent into the one mentioned previously. Clearly it would not be used in operations, but in solo daily grinds, leveling up, changes such as the one above would liven up the tree, give it a more thoughtful play, and let those talents have a more stylized impact on what you do. As it stands, every player that asks me how to level a scoundrel gets the 'sawbones until 40' speech. 40 levels of healing until you get fletchette round is not the scrapper way. As far as defensive screen: I like the idea, the animation, and how it fits the class, but it is a terrible, awful bubble. First: If I Disappearing act, and use defensive screen, and the defensive screen absorbs incoming damage, let me stay in stealth please, as I did not take damage. Second: It's duration is 15 seconds, but it absorbs 2-4k damage and 'is done'. The animation stays. I would like to see something that changes this in a unique way that also simultaneously differentiates this from 'sage bubble.' Something that persisted after the first 2-4k was absorbed that endured for those 15 seconds. This would have the dual purpose of giving that sawbones talent that increases self heals some purpose. If you know what I'm talking about, you are probably in arms about that as well. Maybe giving it a 2-4k damage absorb, letting it have it's damage absorb crit and surge chance of the player, to absorb more, after it pops, what else can the defensive screen do to help increase the players survivability for 15 seconds? It doesn't have to be magnificent. The dodge cooldown is so absolutely terrible already, but unlike other classes, these two defensive cooldowns can be good enough on short cooldowns. Dodge on 30 seconds? Let me use that to restore some energy in pvp, that'd be fun. It would make that 1 second extra set bonus not stare me in the eye with hatred too. Defensive screen absorbing 5k sometimes? gives me 10% damage mitigation and dodge and resistances for it's duration of 15 seconds? Those are just wild ideas the last three, but something that's gonna last 15 seconds... I personally prefer things I can use once every fight, but that's me. What do you guys think? I'm sure the flame throwers are already lit and ready to go, but I got tired of staring at the backside of my very attractive cyborg smuggler considering hanging up the hat because the 'lol unstoppable' juggernaut and his incredible talent trees' or the four amazing defensive cooldowns of sentinels, or why is that 60% armorpent talent still tier 1 for vanguards and not tier 3 where it should be... just silly'. I believe our gap closer is our stealth. I think a tiny bit more range talented on tendon blast and the extra second root would be good considering the prolific number of sever force sages out there these days, and the rest, is TLDR above. I'm interested in seeing what the community has to say.