Hi, Sorry to say I've had enough, which is a real shame because the game has great potential and if too many people leave it will die. The issue, for me, is that I want to play a tank class, but there appears to be a massive gap between tanking BP/BT HM (which any 50 can do) and tanking the other HMs, (which acutally require gear). I have asked and asked and asked, and no one can tell me the migitation targets needed for an Assassin to hit the various HM options. Assassin tanking appears to also be more mitigation-depedent (read: gear other than HP) than other classes. Meanwhile, the group finder sees no difference between BT HM, and Ilum HM, so if you want the daily commendations you have to risk ending up in a FP you can't possibly tank while you're gearing up. It's totally different for DPS - rubbish DPS gear just makes it go longer. Rubbish tank gear means tank dies and then so does everyone else. By virtue of this, DPS can take an easy ride through FPs and gear up, but a tank has to do it through dailes and everything else (MUCH longer, MUCH more hard work - no problem if you have nothing else to do; more challenging if you have a job and a life outside the game). This game - and this community (I mean in-game more than the forums) - simply expect the tank to roll up with 22k health and ****loads of mitigation and maintain aggro even when the DPS are pulling and popping cool downs in the first second of a fight. Meanwhile, there's no clear information on where/how to go to actually gear a tank. Morale of this story: Please be a bit more respectful to the tanks that join group finder, or suddenly you'll all be whining as to where all the tanks have gone. A.

Hi All, Thought I'd post again to say how I've got on. Went sniper in the end. Levelled to 24, hating it from about 11 onwards. Too boring. Samey, samey, and too static for me. With a static firing position and a tank doing all the work, I never felt I was in the action. Re-rolled and went Op. Loved it from 11 onwards. Currently level 20 and climbing. Melee dps is awesome, and this is one helluva DPS class. Very underrated in that role imo. Once you get Lacerate (20) you never seem to run out of energy, and can seriously stick the knife in. Excellent single-target DPS, but also two decent AoE attacks + movement + flexibility, cc on both humans and droids, healing of course, DoTs and stealth. Just an awesome class. Plays fine in PvP too, though if you've read this thread you'll know I'm no expert there. My view: Op, all the way. A.

You're way out of touch. Charles will never be King.

Dear All, Thank you SO much for all the awesome information in this thread. I'm sure there are lots of people who wanted an answer to this question, and now they sure have loads of information to think about. Every response has added some genuine value to the thread. Personally, I'm still not decided - I switch from Op to Sniper and back again every other post! I think I will just have to take the advice of many and start one, see how I get on, and then play the other. I might even go so far as to try a light-orientated agent (which will be challenging as I'm so naturally evil). I think it's great, actually, that the decision is so hard - if it was easy it would mean that one of these two options was crap. This really is a great thread for the "sniper vs operative?" question. A way better response than the "Assassin vs Sorcerer?" question I asked when I started my main. Imperial Agent community rocks. Gonna have a lot of fun here, I can tell! All the best, A.

Thank you for the replies so far. Problem is, half of you are putting good arguments forward for Sniper, the other half for Op! Not helpful! Maybe I should've started a poll

Thank you very much for your comprehensive answer. Do you find that, as an operative, you are permanently expected to heal? Do you have any healing skills while DPS specc'd? Can you heal Flashpoints while DPS specc'd (i.e., concentrating on healing but not re-speccing or re-gearing)? What about while levelling - can you heal sufficiently well to heal heroics in the 20s, 30s and 40s? Laceration sounds cool. Could you elaborate slightly? When do you get that skill, how long is the CD? What are the reqs to be able to "murder train" groups of mobs? Lastly, what crafting skills would you recommend for an IA? Different for Op/Sniper? Many thanks, A

Hey all, So, I know that the Operative can heal or do some melee DPS, stealth and has a few cc / utility abilities. And I know the Sniper is a glass cannon - pure ranged dps, and...er...well, pure ranged dps. I've done a fair bit of reading but I *still* can't decide which I want to do. There's so many pros and cons for each (the main con of each being that they're not the other!). Please bear in mind that I am ONLY interested in PvE, so I don't realy care how good/bad they are at PvP. With that said: How is the Ops dps while levelling? How does it compare to, say, an Assassin (with which I have some experience)? Can you effectively play DPS as Ops in end game at the moment? When people say the Sniper has "low mobility", what do they mean? If you're supposed to be in cover, how do you deal with effects like the Jedi boss pull-you-in-tornado effect like at the end of BT Flashpoint? If Sniper is pure DPS with NO utility, does it get boring? As Sniper can't stealth (and Ops can), does the Sniper's awesome DPS let you get through those mobs fast enough that you can still do things at a decent rate? Any other comments/views on which you prefer and why (not about PvP!!) would be really great! Thank you very much, A

It does, as is obvious if you look at the server list. You err, Sir, in your attempt to be facetious.

This has probably been said a hundred times, but... It's an MMO, people. That first word isn't "minority". If you log on to a server and *gasp* there's this one other guy on there too (although he is 37 levels ahead of you and in another part of the galaxy) do you think he might want to form a group? No? Oh. The MORE people on a server, the BETTER experience it is for all of them. Why are there so many servers? It just makes the experience LESS good for EVERYONE....and people leave. Vicious circle. This is so obvious. Why does it need raising?

How many categories are there on the AH? How many sub-sections to each category? Assuming you only posted, say, level 33 gear, you could post one into each slot and hit about 50 items. Woe betide you might want to post some level 34 gear too. Nu uh. Or some resources that you gather and can't use. Or some schematics you find along your way. Heh, I hit 50 items easily. Can't see how others don't, to be honest. I'll tell you one thing - if you AREN'T hitting 50 items on the GTN, then I know I've got more cash than you had when you were my level.

Which is understandable, given that it is FREE to post items on the GTN, and it only costs you money if they're sold. It would make WAY more sense to have a non returnable deposit for unsold items, which would make people consider whether the item in question *really* needed to be on the GTN, and was *likely* to be sold at that price. Auction functionality would be nice too. As would a decent search capability. As would the ability to save your previous settings (1 day 2 day every time?!). It really is the worst player market I've seen in an MMO.

Hi, Why is there a 50 item limit on the GTN? This is WAY low. Any enterprising crafter is seriously undermined by this. It's like having a trial account limitation. Please can this be reviewed? Thanks, A.

Awesome reply, thank you very much.

I want to play an Imperial Agent, but I can't decide between Sniper or Operative. So (probably too many) questions which I would really appreciate input on: If you've played both, which have you preferred? What did you like about the Sniper? What did you dislike? What did you like about the Operative? What did you dislike? Is there much down-time as a Sniper (healing your companion, etc)? Is a dps-spec'd Operative still able to heal (I recognise not as well as a healer-spec'd Operative!)? Healers are often really slow to level - is that true of the Operative? All opinions gratefully received Thanks, A.

Anybody else think he was channelling Total Recall for a moment there?