I should point out that it's Empire of the DIVINE and that we're a republic guild, not an imp one

I think I've pvp-ed with a few of you Crescendi before.. Unfortunately I have ties to my current guild and I don't have a good enough reason to leave. But if any of you need to fill an extra slot for ranked or reg, hit me up on Matsuya and I'll be glad to run a few wzs with you all

<The Empire of the Divine> We have around 100 members, but I believe many of them are inactive. It would be safe to say that we have a core 8-man ops group since I haven't seen enough people online for a 16-man in quite some time.

I've been flip flopping between infil & kc on a weekly basis and I must say infil is a blast to play. But I always miss force pull, especially on huttball. Not to mention your healers will be /hugging you all match for your guard. To answer your question though: Opening up from stealth (especially on the unprepared) is your greatest asset. The three cc's at your disposal are invaluable. There have been multiple times that I've capped snow off the bat on civil due to the crazy burst you can get up front (or stall at least to give our team a head start). I find infil to be about 1v1 and if you’re faced with a huge group clash, to find the guys with the least health (or the healers) and picking them off one by one. As long as your enemy doesn't wise up and begin focus firing you, you'll have a blast floating from person to person until everyone is dead. A big drawback is if your target doesn’t die after your initial rotation or they popped defensive cooldowns. Infil doesn’t stand up all too well sustained. Your dps drops quite a bit the longer you stay out of stealth. I think your guild just wants utility more than anything. But a good balance between heals/tanks/dps is key. Even in infil spec, you still got taunts so spam those every time they are off cd, you get more medals and your team takes less damage. Even if you can’t solo defend as long as kc, mind maze is your friend. Sometimes the best thing to do is to mezz, call out an inc and hope someone responds while you do your best to stall while in stealth.

I don't think it's a typo. It's an oversight by the devs I believe. If you put Blue x3 in the Assembler as a force user, the cube you get has aim on it.

There is another thread Xinika posted with her gear I believe. It was in that one that she stated that you shouldn't work to copy her gear exactly, but instead work to hit the same stats she has. Basically it's up to you what augs/mods you use in order to reach the stats you need. If I remember correctly I think the targets were: 1000+ Pow, 1600+ Will, 75% Surge, 30% Crit, 97%-100% Acc.

I'll make it short. Infiltration (IMO) is fine for PvP lvls 10-49. In lvl 50 PvP, almost every shadow you'll see is some sort of full KC or KC hybrid. This topic has 3 PvP builds that aren't the "standard" KC or Balance build (if you want one of those, check the stickied Shadow Handbook at the top of this forum), but they feature certain abilities that the "standard" builds don't have. 31/2/8 (I use this spec) is basically the closet to the "standard" KC build. I find in dps gear, it mixes some survivability with solid killing power. 0/13/28 while I only used this spec briefly, it seems to be the big dps build out of the three. However, it's still squishy. It mixes the use of infiltrations project augmented by Balance's FiB long range aoe. 23/1/17 is essentially the utility spec. In the time I used this spec, I found to it to be severely lacking in killing power. However, this spec gives you 2 instant ccs and a long range aoe. With this spec, you'll only be support, not the main tank or a big dps-er. In the end, I just recommend respeccing a few times and trying out the 3 builds. Since you're lvl 22, you won't be able to fully experience what any spec can offer you.

Hey, it's you again! I still remember the topic you posted about the double-bladed lightsaber hilts (I actually think I still have it sitting somewhere on my desktop). I can't believe you took/found the time to put this all together. While I'm sure plenty in the community appreciate your hard work, let me add one more "thank you!".

That quote Fende made about Kitru is true. I would only like to add this: If you're still a lowbie, go with infiltration for PvE leveling. I ran infil from 10-49 and it was a blast. Even in PvP, I hit top dmg/kills with moderate protection (from taunts) and rushing the enemy node in civil was very rewarding. During some class quest bosses, you may find yourself losing lots of hp, but with decent gear, a healer companion, and good use of cc, you'll always come out on top (Athiss station being the hardest mission you'll ever go through). This all changes the second you hit 50. While it is very difficult for a new 50 to succeed in PvP (even with recruit gear), a new 50 infiltration shadow has it even worse. Your burst dmg is dropped to null and your already low survivability is multiplied tenfold (my first wz I had a teammate leave because I died in exactly 3 seconds). 10-49 PvP is different only because expertise isn't a factor and everyone has roughly the same hp. There is a video recently posted in this forum of 50 infil PvP footage and it verifies everything I'm saying. He has 19k hp (which is basically full dps WH) and in every fight where the enemy hits him a handful of times, he barely survives the encounter. PvE takes the same hit. Group content is vastly different from solo missions. The biggest factor here is that infil is focused on SHORT 1v1 fights. With FP/Ops centered on boss fights, the inability of infiltration to sustain it's dmg output for longer than ~3 rotations is a major flaw. When it comes to PvE dps, Balance always comes out on top over the course of the run. None of this is to say there aren't great PvP/PvE infiltration shadows. I'm seen a few in wzs that I'd rather run into the minefield in Novare than 1v1 them, but in basically every aspect (aside from leveling IMO), Balance or Kinetic comes out on top.

RHCP makes any video good. =) But in all seriousness, I loved infil 10-49, but at 50 I found it waaay squishy. You have ~1k more hp than me but seem to lose hp twice as quick. What's your gear like? Full WH? My plan was to wait until I get full WH then give infil a whirl again. Honestly, a new 50 entering a wz as an infil is painful, but I've seen a few high-geared infils pull off some nice dmg which I'm hoping to experience soon.

While I haven't tested this myself, the majority of the community agrees that using a focus over a shield in PvP is more effective. From what I've heard, the reason many tanks drop the shield is because a large majority of the attacks in PvP bypass the shield entirely, making absorb useless. Personally, I'm running the 31/2/8 build with the Stalker set (not full WH yet either) and a focus. I have decent survivability along with the ability to actually kill other players. But with a lower health pool, going up against a full tank (spec+geared) mara/powertech, I'll have to play smart by using LoS, kiting, CCs, etc. to even having a hope of victory. Also, the effectiveness of guarding a target drops too. Since I'm only sitting in the high 18k hp range, if I don't use taunts & keep track of my hp pool, I go down quite fast if my guard is being focused. All that being said, I've seen plenty of shadows on my server running KC specs in dps gear. Trading the high health pool of full tank gear for killing ability in dps gear seems to be a personal choice. Personally, I like where I'm at; neither the main tank nor the hardest hitter, but able to be flexible in plenty of encounters in wzs. If you're happy where you're at, then don't change it. But it always helps to see what the other spec/playstyle is like. Since you aren't in full WH yet, you could try grinding out an offset to try out a full dps KC or KC/Balance hybrid.

The post above me pretty much covers it all, but I want to add one thing. Hover over the boss' active effects and look to see if he has a buff that makes him/her uninterruptable. If the boss lacks that buff, then that usually means 2 things: 1) You can use Mind Snap on the boss (the class interrupt). 2) He/She has an ability that you should interrupt to prevent a certain event from happening. While you did say you were lvl 22, the only example of this that I can think of is the last quest in the Consular storyline. Without dropping any spoilers, there is an attack that the boss does called "Collapse Cave" that, if not interrupted, leads to insta-death no matter how much hp you have. In a nutshell, if you can interrupt a boss, run the fight a few times to see what ability he does that hurts you the most and use Mind Snap every time he begins to use said ability. Good Luck!

Sorry, I assumed you knew what the acronyms meant. Orange Armor -> An empty (usually) shell that has 3 slots: Armoring, Mod, and Enhancement. Each of these slots can be filled with their corresponding gear modification. Orange armor is usually used because it allows players to customize the look of their character. PvP -> Player vs Player PvE -> Player vs Environment (basically any mobs you fight in the game) BM -> Battlemaster Gear. The 2nd highest PvP gear set, just under War Hero Columi -> 2nd tier of PvE gear. Better than Tionese, worse than Rakata. SM -> Story Mode. The easiest difficulty setting for PvE Flashpoints and Operations HM -> Hard Mode. The hardest (for flashpoints) difficulty setting. In Operations, it goes SM->HM->Nightmare EV -> Eternity Vault. An end-game operation. Usually the first operation lvl 50s run due to it being the easiest. KP -> Karagga's Palace. Another end-game operation that is slightly more difficult than EV. Expertise -> A stat that boosts damage and healing done to other players, while reducing damage you take from other players. It is really only useful in warzones or open-world PvP

Rip the mods out and put it into an orange light armor shell of your choosing. Also, you get a free set of Recruit PvP gear at 50. While not the greatest for either PvP or PvE, the set will help you get gear at the next level (BM & Columi). Since both PvP & PvE gear take time to max out the most basic set, you'll eventually have to choose what you want to spend most of your time on. IMO, BM gear is decent enough to get you through the lower end of HM flashpoints and SM EV (maybe KP depending on the gear of the rest of the group), it also has the added ability of allowing you to PvP. If you decide to take the PvE route, realize that until you hit Rakata+, your effectiveness in PvP will be minimal due to your non-existent Expertise.

I've been using 23/1/17 in PvP for a bit now and I'm enjoying it. But I want to try my hand at some PvE content as well. My question is: Is the build viable for running PvE as a DPS or Tank? Or should I just respec every time I want to run a FP or an Ops?