Cool down its just a game. If it frustrates you this much you do need some time away from it.

You can up your expertise pretty easily without changing your look. Champ shotgun & relics, cent ear and implants. That will get you near 300 and the gear disparity isn't that bad after that, save battlemasters rocking all +expertise gear. I turned off the hat and swapped out +accuracy enhancements for surge, also.

I've ran that spec and its viable, just you have to multi-task like crazy. Running into brawl? HoT up your team. In Range? Throw grenades & vital shot. Enemy on the ropes? melee them down after stun/snare to lock up the kill. Team losing fight? Dodge & disappearing act to try another objective area asap.

So long as you realize you are a tech user vs. force users you will do fine. The game is as balanced as they can make it with 8 different character styles. But the jedi/sith are more exciting to the average person than smuggler/bounty hunter and their mirrors. So we will be in the minority and you'd better decide you like the character style long term if you want to invest time without some disappointment. I love the smuggler style and haven't found a force style I like. Our skill set lets us do some amazing things in all areas of battle. I've had ~60kills 0death matches where I felt like I was everywhere changing battle outcomes. Been farmed by pre-made force leapers teams with healing backup that stomp everything in their path, and PUG members don't rally as a team against them. Its probably best to try out another class(es) that might interest you. I did and still come back to scoundrel because I love the sneaking and skirmishing out wins. Bounty Hunter is the only imp side story that interests me at the moment from lame wannabee bad guy stories.

Your top build is near to my spec at: http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/smuggler/scoundrel/#::f2efe2de2f2ef6ef5ef3ef12efedef2e4f4efe You won't get much use of Medpac Mastery without actions that need Upper Hand. Feelin' Woozy is worth it for the snare effect in PvP to slow down packs of melee up to 3. PvP battle norm is HoTs on the run to fights, freighter fly-by or DoTs at range/closing to melee and melee damage to clean-up. Shoot First with relic/adrenal stacking on enemies without support. I've done some nasty objective denial with fly-by & re-stealth, Shrap bomb & vital shots + dodge + disappearing act, and thermal bomb if they cleanse & try to cap objective. Freighter Fly-by isn't a bad opener for any spec in a brawl because you can re-stealth after cast if you time it right and don't get into combat from good line of sight cover/range/angle of attack.

Things are unfair? Be prepared to be very disappointed in ... oh I don't know... Everything. Accept this and move along.

Vital shot at max range when its looks like they got away. I like to watch the last of their health tick down from far away.

People need to stop complaining about our viability in Huttball. Yes, it is obvious to anyone that has played Huttball as our AC that we get pushed around the ledges and don't have abilities of our own along those lines. However, it is madness to continue to put yourself into those situations and expect different results that aren't frustrating. Own the middle areas, stun ball carrier healers, ninja score/ long pass ball resets, snare to lock down kills with teammates, range AoE enemy ball carriers/their defenders and heal friendly ball carriers at range. I only die a few times a match to either focused fire from working objectives or some clowns that want to hunt me for minutes rather than work objectives and then my team benefits from my kiting anyway. I have a good Huttball spec atm with Feelin'Woozy shrap bombs & SRMP w/ all healing boons.

I just specced to Psych Meds and Triage fits in rotation as a heal on the run along with SRMP. In terms of positioning, hang near/behind range DPS that have a good spot. Then if you get jumped its a 2v1 or if more you can flash grenade for max effect. I would dump Kolto cloud for Shrap bomb because its more useful as an opener vs packs and Kolto is very situational atm. Sawbones /w hybrid DF is more viable imo in 50's bracket than scrapper until you get some +expertise gear. Our DoTs seem to take less of a penalty from crit tick averaging and its yellow damage.

I think the issue is that all previous MMORG's had class balancing issues that had effects on being invited to do content. TOR content is NOT that challenging to worry about raid spots, and I hope it doesn't get that competitive. You literally can ding level 10, put 2 points in Exploratory Surgery and main heal a warzone objective area. Optimally, no. Successfully, yes (with some common sense for PvP healing like LoS and stun & run) This whiney stuff in a barely 60 day old, low difficulty game forum is worse than EQ in its worst class vs class balance battles when if you were a red headed stepchild class you weren't invited to raids or even guilds. Provide proof of our class being ostracized as seriously gimp to the point of stopping progression in some area and then we can talk.

You learn when a target is going to flee/ should flee and hit the Tendon Blast button. Gap closer not needed. (Not that I wouldn't use one if we got it though, thats just my workaround) I may tinker around with Scramble ability in Sawbones tree (2pts/ 20% move bonus on dodge) now that I have lots of points to move around the tree as I see fit and +1 sec Dodge from champ set items. Triage before Disappearing Act would do the DoT cleaning. Don't think it will be enough versus jumps/pulls

QUOTED: I have tested mob kill speeds with shadows in my guild who are probably some of the best in the game and geared equivalent to me in mostly Battlemaster gear. Results: they kill mobs much faster and don't face energy starvation issues. Good test mobs (if you actually care) are the elites on Hoth south of the base. My guess is you're just going to scream LYING some more and pretend you're right.) Still too little information makes this comparison - against only ONE AC specced for max PvE damage. I will agree that there is no debate that a Scrapper loses because it has little to add real pve damage in the spec. I think it needs some work in PvE. Hybrid specs can crunch the numbers better versus pve enemies that just eat the damage. The numbers just are what they are. Sorry you thought that you would be the king of all PvE damage at high level with a generalist style of class.

Good advice on the commendations. I had some doubts on my scattergun leveling up but got lucky with items on auction /w a blue lvl 43 & blue lvl 50. Always check around between planet changes and don't get too worried on gear. SWTOR has good mechanics to keep you respectfully geared as you level compared to other games random loot generators.

Ranged options? hmmm I don't know... oh wait... Freighter fly-by, sabo charge, vital shot, thermal grenade, charged shot (as a filler), all our heals and shrap bomb is a bottom of tree ability gain. Even if you don't spec to improve these abilities, they give you something to do when on cooldowns at range (preferably near wall cover) in a big group fight. Even as a full tree scrapper. But if you think you are married to the scrapper build and style(you aren't), continue to complain that we are the worst at everything.

Whine all you want be we are generalists with our skill set. Decent burst/sustained damage at different ranges and decent at healing (esp. single targets). Can spec to make these better but won't pass up a specialist at say sustained melee dps but we retain range & healing options. I shine as the 4th man with nice DoTs for sustained but can switch to backup heals and add crushing with AoEs quickly. A Tank/ 2 DPS/ 1 healer team can get spanked by adds and enemy burst damage.

If you plan on PvPing a good bit, Biochem is almost a must. 90s cooldown heals and adrenals go a long way to swing group encounters. If nothing else get 300 Biochem and the reusable lvl 40 medpac off of a master crafter. Not that hard to do with a full team of companions. I ended up switching on my scoundrel in my 40's when I saw the potential of the crew skill.

I would work what is working well in this game, companions. They are wonderful for casual gamers with broken stretches of time to game. Let us eventually keep out 2 companions and battle each other in mini-squads. Scaling then makes 12 ops groups into 36 vs 36. Now that would be awesome to see and fight.

In pugs I suggest taking the turrets that benefits the team member DPS split. If heavy on long range, middle is a priority for the balconies. Melee heavy teams do better with both sides from stairs making it easier to get line of sight cover vs a ranged assault. So I like 3-5-0/ 3-0-5 or even 1-7-0 works with stealther that milks range, interrupts & stuns if outnumbered. 2-3 peel off of mid assault when its won and cap left.

Just had some bad experiences with other scrappers where we the only ones left after battles and were outnumbered. I have better synergy with scrappers now because I can pile on the burst & stuns. Shrap bomb is nasty vs packs 1.5 with crits mixed in averages it closer to 2k on potentially 3 targets. Vital and thermal pack their own punches. I am only missing feelin' woozy in huttball vs ball carriers but I get good enough miles out of tendon blast. I feel dumb because I thought quick shot had a cooldown. I used it to replace suckerpunch in melee rotation and been cycling it repeatingly for a finisher with its 10m range vs kiters. Had a 42kill 0death huttball win earlier so I'm diggin this spec. Doing scrapper first taught me how to get out of the line of fire when necessary.

My build currently is: http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/smuggler/scoundrel/#::fe2fe5f2ef2e2f2ef5e2f2ef16ef2e3f5efe I agree with others that you better be healing/ backup healing if you go ranged 1st as a scoundrel. The DoTs and HoT focus of my build is nice because extended fights always work to my favor. Just need allies that don't let themselves get burnt down by focused fire from an enemy group.

Others have said that sedatives puts you into combat on this site and I just felt the pain of this side effect of sedatives this week on a re-spec. I did find a workaround quickly. Instead of tranq shot on mobs away from a pack I use sneak and path near them and away from non-standard mobs. It is a bit slower with its 60 sec cooldown but worth it to be able to stealth past content to your hearts content.

It works well with Surprise Comeback and Exploratory Surgery. Heal once or twice, Pugnacity, Re-invis. The no heals when invis or 10 sec cooldown can be navigated around by breaking invis with a heal cast or EMPs then invis, however. I only have issues with healing if I manually turn off stealth or break it with an attack.

Rofl, how? I am actually playing with the others in my ops group rather than stealth stalking for a single kill that doesn't happen often enough as a full scrapper spec from adds, stuns, and snares. Been there, done that, still need the 7 other team members to win warzones. I'd rather work with them than try to pick off singles with the hopes that it leads to objectives capped.

In PvP group role it is alright in a backup healer & AoE role. Spam thermal, shrap bomb, vital shot and place fly-by in melee areas between healing and dirty kick/ tendon blast/flash nade to keep melees off of healers or kite them from objectives. My build is Emerg MP and Feelin' woozy, but I may drop Feelin' Woozy next free respec and tinker with the points. I can still pop power relic & adrenal and burst when needed.

The timer is not that bad of a solution to this problem. I won a huttball match down 4v8 from timer because we had the ball last. The only huge advantage is attacker first with numbers on voidstar. If a door is capped early probably best to just throw in the towel as a team rather than hope for more allies to arrive. Once my commando buddy pushed enough enemies off the bridge to hold off until more queued up on the other hand. Civil war you can stay together and cap the nearest side turret & wait for more to queue. Huttball everyone can focus on defense during the wait.