I went to the forums to ask exactly the same. Making an alt, yay. So asking here too if that's ok. Even after reading the answers, I'm still unsure. I LOVE leveling as tank with a (ranged) DPS companion (imo fastest, while having good chances to survive and Vette + Quinn use the same gear if I have trouble with a boss) but I also do a lot of PvP before level 50. For which I'd prefer Rage most likely. I just enjoy PvP a lot even pre-50 and the experience given by a lot of matches allows me to skip heroics and not bother with flashpoints (so groupfinder doesn't affect me, same with teams for heroics preferring tanks usually) So... Will going rage require me to use Quinn or not? Is there a viable hybrid-tank build maybe? (Like Assassins) And what options are there for tank in low-level PvP? Will it clip me and my team, or not matter much? Or maybe even add more, having guard. Thank you in advance and hope you found your spec to stick with OP. If PvE (with flashpoints/heroics) is your goal I'd also agree tank + ranged dps, nice for the gf-queue.

I'd say pick what role you like more, tank or dps. Before hitting 50 you can pull off respeccing and doing both decent. But at 50 you will need armor-sets that fit your role, period. Before you grinded both, you likely quit the game or rolled and alt. My very limited PvE experience: Guardians are generally less loved as DPS, no numbers can back people disliking them up, but with the amount of DPS available they can just pick someone else if they want (guilds generally don't do this though) So if you love DPS I'd really say go Sentinel. Now the PvP experience: As guardian my only experience is focus, so dps. I do great, but I depend more on having a healer on the team, preferably one that knows what he's doing. I do add more to teamfights spamming taunts at the right times and being a pain in the *** with control skills, yay a push-back. But if you count on pugging a lot, it's easier to deal out huge damage while staying alive as Sentinel, you're less team-dependant in combat, this won't win you matches how-ever, since teamplay is required for the goals. Leveling: Tanks (or hybrid tanks) with a DPS companion is my favourite combination, Hybrids with a healer if I want to tackle a h2 or something, but for heroics I got friends/guildies. You get Kira super-early, which makes levelling a lot easier as tank. On top of that T7 is imo way more annoying to gear since he's a droid, while he would be my preferred companion as Sentinel. But Doc solves all the problems. Sentinels using their cooldowns + CC and a bit of a brain (some fights require using LoS) Doc can keep you up easily. You get him at ~36, ye not super early, but I don't see the problem. People saying you 'need' a healer companion confuse me, most content is easy (and faster) with a DPS (as tank) or tank (as DPS) You guys really run full tank with a healer companion at all times? So slow. Luckily most ranged DPS use the same gear as healer companions.

I changed servers for my own reasons, went through the grind again and honestly... It isn't that bad at all Just like any smart person I PvP'd a lot in pre-50 got quite some stacks of adrenals and medpacs (only adrenals are really needed if you take biochem) and at level 40 I started saving up to fill my caps. Then right before I hit level 50, booom 1.4, I got so lucky! I could buy my war hero mainhand AND an earpiece!!! (Not sure why I went for the earpiece, but you could even get your mainhand + off-hand now) Recruit wasn't half as bad as I remembered with some battle master relics (War Hero ones aren't even that much better) and 2 war hero pieces off the bat. Got Battle Master before I noticed. Augmented every piece worth augmenting (so anything not recruit) straight away (4 augments when hitting 50 already added a lot. Recruit gets replaced in no-time anyway, minus the implants maybe) Now slowly grinding for the rest of war hero, with 18k+ hp, 1902 cunning, ~400 crit/power and 150 surge. Sure war hero is better... But I can help my team properly now, doubt war hero will save me from those 2 maurauders and that damn sniper camping me after the spotted heals. Especially as recruit you depend more on your team (you can't solo-defend etc) but luckily when you report in time your team will 99% of the time react, where-as pre-50 they might not. On top of that, everyone went through it. It's a 1-time thing, thanks to legacy. If you make an alt, you can give it full war hero clothes, filling your caps can get you war hero main and off-hand and you get battle master relics. Leaving 3 à 5 pieces to obtain. I wouldn't mind a system where gear didn't matter or it was accesable for everyone straight off the bat. I come from gw1, which has no gear-grind at all (besides looks) and loved it, (I'm an alt-a-holic, love having every class, which in swtor is impossible.) But the system makes sense, people who play a lot get rewarded for it a lot in swtor. For some this is very important. Quite sure a lot of MMO's work this way. And for those unfortunate enough to not get better, at least their gear does. A smart, talktive, battlemaster can add a lot more to the team than a blood-thirsty war hero who doesn't report and hunts kills, sadly these aren't as rare as I thought. Just make sure you give yourself as much of an adventage if you can. Use medpacs/adrenals, stims/grenades, augments. Report asap and position, line of sight saves me more often than I think war hero has.

Votes don't always go to the right person, look at democracy! More seriously, when I notice we're losing a warzone I tend to end up farming medals rather than hopelessly trying to do something useful while the majority of my team is running around like headless chickens. This sometimes gives me a sick amount of medals compared to actually being useful and it makes me sad when I get more than 2 votes in those matches and 0 in matches I actually do what I should do. But hey, nothing can change that. Only once in a while I'm actually like, yes! That guy/girl is getting my vote. Other times I just look at who's vocal and where I want him/her to be, I never watch the scoreboard really, expect to search for names.

People aren't talking about someone like you who's not got full WH, you do buff your expertise (unless I understand this wrong you have 2 pieces of war hero and 2-3 battle master) and assuming you do play pve a lot those pve pieces might add more than recruit, but... The people that go in with their lvl 41 greens (or even level 49 modded gear) cripple the team and yourself. Just like you don't want your HM flashpoint tank to be in that gear if you use groupfinder. It cannot be prevented, but people that did buy recruit-gear, thank you and goodluck on your way to battle master/war hero. It's cute though how people find looks so important. (Though I'm personally glad armouring transfers bonuses, this is my whoohoo-done-with-the-grind-reward)

Started on a new server not long ago to join more friends / leave chars untouched to have the same level/gear/valor as my boyfriend who is forced to take a break. So the first char is similar to an alt, I know what I'm doing and some do's and don'ts. My first character is level 48, has 1.3mil... From just selling stuff I don't need (uwt purple materials and drops only for as far as I know) PvE and PvP (quite a bit of PvP) How can people be too broke to spend 350k on armor But ye it should be free, just no token option anymore, for people that feel the 350k or w/e it was is more important than dragging your teammates down even further. Shame you can't mix recruit anymore, but then again, BM is close anyway.

If you put aside the whole alien-ness I honestly think Gault would win it in beauty from Torian, let's face it, scarred in the face and looks a bit nerdy in a bad way to me. Besides fun guy with an eye for business that looks like a demon, which bounty hunter wouldn't want that? I personally think it's...

I don't know why, but I too got a bit bored of my operative as well as scoundrel. Twice as fast when dps'ing and I generally hate heal in non-group situations. Aka most of your dailies/leveling Why stick with it? Operatives (and Scoundrel when I get to 50) are the healers I love the most in PvP. Though I should try Sage/Sorc again sometime. Doubt I'll like Commando's or Mercs.

Thank you all so much, so many replies and opinions/experience. I likely should have noted this is my first character on the server I currently play on and together with some friends who kinda expect me to know how this goes due to level 50s on a different server, but I don't since the recruit to WH is a 1-time thing thanks to legacy. Atleast... I'd never do the whole grind again with an alt. I also didn't note I couldn't care less for PvE. So the relics seem less important with the arguments given against them. I will only consider PvE if it helps me with PvP (like dailies for money or even gear but not anytime soon.) The warhero and ripping bm mods out of it for the offhand will help my sentinel friend so much, thank you! I honestly never even thought of that *facepalm* I'll have a look again with all your advice in a few hours when the update is done, might not have been the smartest idea to post this right before patch 1.4 but I honestly didn't know when I created the thread it would hit already. (note: it's quite huge to quote, just read up) Possibly very bold to just ask. But how would you do it if you had to do it again for: Shadow (kinetic/balance) Scoundrel (sawbones) and Sentinel (currently combat but he's considering going watchman?)

I've ended up in a few discussions on what to do with your (pre-50 acquired) 3500rwz and 2000 wz comms. I personally went for: 2x War Hero implant + Battle Master mainhand (and fill it with +41 expertise crystal the moment I got my first 500 wz comms) and then battle master from cheapest to most expensive and later-on same for war hero (and then BiS in no order really) Now the other options I hear a lot is getting your war hero mainhand first and I assume followed by most expensive (also biggest buff) gear first. And lastly someone mentioned you can convert rwz commendations for normal ones (I didn't know...) and went for full Battle Master. Now if you'd do it all over again, how would you start? Let's face it, full recruit can be a painful experience, to lesser that as much as possible is nice for you and your teammates. Thank you in advance.

The people who have no patience with newer people in low-level flashpoints also moan if people don't use their cc (especially dps) dps jumps in before the tank, tank not using a tanking stance, commando only using his attack-heal on you for a whole boss-fight *grumble* etc... From small to big mistakes they will rage... Others will sit in their basement cursing to themselves but being sweet and cooperative ingame. So I'd recommend not doing Flashpoints until you're used to your class, which with research and in her case help, hopefully won't take too long. Though I must say, people I came around tend to be really friendly. I almost pissed my pants when my boyfriend dragged me into a flashpoint for the first time... as tank, to only get people point out things in a nice way.

Dear forum, I was wondering if anyone knows a guide or has an armoury (like the ones from http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/) for Sawbones PvP. A guide is preferred but an armoury will already help me a lot. I know there must be one somewhere! I want to help my boyfriend out gearing himself up for PvP efficient. My scoundrel experience isn't end-game at all. The bonuses also make me wonder what's worth it and I even saw people advice some Colummi/Rakatta armoring over Warhero, so I'm very confused, to say the least. I personally only geared a shadow, there I went stats > set-bonus since the 'tanking' stats are beyond useless, though alacrity doesn't look great either on scoundrel, more helpful than tanking stats but still... Before going BiS And a small more any-class question. Where should you spend your 3500rwz and 2000wz comms on? When you hit 50. I personally went for WH-implants and BM-mainhand (the first 500 earned wz comms went into a expertise crystal) but I see a lot of people advise the WH-mainhand. I hope I wasn't too confusing, basicly I want to know everything a guide would cover. Thank you in advance. PS: I don't have the scoundrel experience and he doesn't like armor theory-crafting. He comes from gw1 where there was little to no armor-grind or theory around armor involved.

I also agree Scoundrel is by far not an easy to get hold off class. How-ever someone should play something he or she likes, so I recommend full healer (it will go slow yes, how-ever you only need to watch a few skills at first, more later-on. Upperhand will still be a problem, but she has no choice getting used to it tbh, same for energy, but you have cool head and your exit combat stealth when things go wrong) or go full damage however, since you get your healer companion last I'm not sure she'll survive like that. I would recommend Bowdaar if she's struggling keeping herself + companion up as healer and keep it's gear up to date and Avaaki when it goes a bit better. She is a DPS, but she does have heavy armor. I assume keeping companions up to gear isn't a problem, especially with you're able to help her. If she wants dps, use a tank companion and Guss once you get him and again keep them geared up. It could make a world of difference for her when struggling. I would have recommend full scrapper with a healer companion, but since Guss is your last companion (you still get him pretty early, but ye...) it will be difficult, it's by far the easier combo + skilltree imo. As Hybrid you will use almost all of your skills. You will use your healing skills (definitely slow release medpac, but you'll likely have to use more than that occasionally.) on top of 8 attacks (or so) and the normal stuff (stuns/interrupt/defensive cooldowns and most important Pugnancy) And let her use her keyboard if she doesn't yet and help her keybind it. If you help her arrange her skills stuff suddenly seems a lot easier. An example as dps: 1. Backblast 2. blaster whip 3. vital shot 4. suckerpunch. Backblast since it's easy when getting out of stealth (assuming she's leveling and doesn't have shoot first yet) to get of, then blaster whip for the upperhand, vital shot for the bleeding in case flying fist triggers. Summary: 1 2 3 4. This is when you're around level 23. Then later at level 31 you'll have to add flechette round. As for healer, you start out with underworld medicine and kolto pack. (Scan is (almost) useless until specced into some sawbone skills and not using triage won't kill you while leveling.) Later emergency medpac and kolto cloud get added. So you start out with about 2 skills giving a chance to get used to upperhand + energy, when each level it gets more complicated. Rotations as healer is close to impossible though. Surely you won't get full potentional but it's a start. Rotations I assume you can easily make/figure out or look on the internet for a skilltree plus guide (for example noxxic.com) I hope this helped. I wouldn't recommend her rerolling, she had a bad time with scoundrel it seems, but if she wants to play scoundrel you help her improve, not simply reroll. Rerolling should be her choice, not a must. You know she can do it!

I personally find 'tanks' the most solo-friendly class. For easy stuff I use a ranged dps companion and if I feel like a heroic I take out a healer companion. Most ranged dps share their main attribute with your healer if gearing becomes expensive. The option to spec dps or tank is also something I love, same for healer on some servers. This is in case I want to group up anyway and groupfinder tends to tick instantly with either of them depending on server. Shadow shines (imo, maybe I suck at guardian) as 'solo' since they have the amazing CC in stealth and they deal quite a fair amount of dps even when tanking. (Though I too would recommend hybrid for solo) Downside they only become strong as a tank later-on (imo) when the combat technique armor increase really starts to hit in as well as the endurance buff in the kinetic skill-tree. (Note: they are definitely NOT a weaker tank class.) I personally also have a blast in PvP with kinetic/balance hybrid. How-ever I don't really run other builds because I'm afraid to be a melee with light armor (without the armor buff) Sentinels I also really like in PvP since they have a lot of defensive cooldowns. Thus making them less reliant on a healer in the team, then again as any 'can go tank' class you love to stick to bigger teamfights anyway to spam your taunts (30% less damage for 6 seconds!!) As said in the post above Sages are also great at solo'ing. Even when you're dps specced you can stop quite some damage with an ability thought at level 15. (Static Barrier/Force shield?) Pop it on you and your companion before the fight and you get a nice edge. As well as an 60 sec CC on anything. They how-ever indeed do not use their lightsabers. They hold it, but don't use it. As for companions, don't worry too much about them. Ofcourse some companions are ideal (like a healer with a melee dps) you can quite easily level with the companions given to you. Considering 2 are dps and 2 are tanks and your shipdroid can heal (I have no experience with how good he is and gearing him can be annoying, but needed) giving you sort of 2 healers. So you're almost always have at least an almost ideal companion when you start feeling you need them.

I've had a lot of trouble picking between guardian and sentinel too. I like the fact Guardian can tank if I ever want to PvE, so I decided to look on youtube to get a better idea of the class. I came around Achilliesx channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Achilliesx Who later explained some more about the roles which helped me to decide. I'll quote his message here since I bet it could help you too (I wanted to know what everyone's role was) Or just watch a maurauder and a guardian video. He shows (if played well) they both rock. "A sentinal/marauder does have more defensive cooldowns and depending on the spec it'll also have self heals. They are (with the exception of combat/carnage) more of an individualist in a warzones compared to guardians/juggs. They were made with the single goal in mind of dpsing and thats what they do very good with great survivability but its not as easy to pick it up as a guardian/juggernaught. A guardian/juggernaught can do just as much dps but trading personal survivability for more mobility and group utility. In some circumstances(on paper atleast), a sentinal/marauder can outdps guardian/juggernaught because of being able to dual wield and customzie their offhands and optimize it(this will change in 1.4 and guardians will be able to customize their offhand too iirc), slashes hitting harder because of 2 weapons hitting at the same time and being able to survive longer incase the healer is occupied otherwise of you don't have any. So it comes down to your own personal prefference wether you want more group utlity and mobility(better ball carrier e.g) or a 1 man wrecking crew with more personal survivability. Both do very good dmg and realistically(no theory or math involved) do the same ammount of it too. As to which one is easier to pickup, in general a sentinal/marauder will need more time to learn and play competitively with the best, while a guardian's/juggernaught's gameplay (focus) slightly lesser time and easier to pickup, it will revolve around how you will utilize your surroundings for your leaps and damage, who you chose to fight and hit(single or aoe), this is where focus gets it depth." I personally went with sentinel since I felt guardian and the group utility and such were more similar to my kinetic/madness shadow, from theory that is. Might roll one later PS: I hope linking to youtube is allowed since videos tend to help me the most. The theorycraft is quite clear in this game (imo) but seeing something played (better than I could even if I grinded to 50 for making a choice) just helps me so much.

I've build up stacks of medpacs/adrenals pre level 40. Up to a point I wondered if I ever need them, oh hell I did. Thank you BW to motivate me to get those. When I hit level 40 I filled up my rwz and wz cap for the implants (2x) and battlemaster mainhand which I filled with an expertise crystal in a few matches. (Btw is it better to get the wh mainhand straight away rather than implants? Heard a lot of people did) From 50 on, the normal stuff... Personally, I'm fine with the way it is. But I'd also be fine being able to buy BM pre-level 50, I see no downside and likely more active pre-50 queue's, not sure. Ofcourse it also makes the leveling nicer when it's slow-paced. When I have WH mods ready for my alts I personally can't wait to hit 50, bet this goes for everyone. Though low-level pvp (quest especially) rewards experience making it worthwhile. /Signed, Not that I care much whether it gets accepted or not

I wish there was a penalty for 1 simple reason... I'm sick of losing my queue to a 100% vs 10% match (for example) win or lose... It gives me no time to play at all or even 100% vs 40%... Yes I could leave the halfway match I enter, but then I'd do the same to the next person in the queue. A penalty like the OP mentioned seems a bit... complicated and leaves a downwards spiral (even if quitters want to stop quitting or they finally get a decent connection, you're stuck in 'lower priority queue's' to name it like that. Maybe a 5 min deserter penalty? It won't stop the afk-node farmers, but it might motivate people to just sit out the few minutes left to lose. Actually I'm clueless on a solution. I might be selfish thinking it's the people loading in an already (close to) finished match rather than the people leaving, I've not experienced a lot of people leaving. And yes ofcourse you get some money/rewards, but I rather play.

Personal opinion ofcourse: Sorcerer/sage is ranged dps (you said you'd play dps so ye) so I'd go with a melee tank as companion, how-ever ranged tanks are decent too and for sorc/sage thanks to the bubble (I forgot the name, it heals but reqs like no spec to be decent) the damage only starts coming after you've done quite a chunk of damage so melee dps would work just as well. I like Ashara over Khem on my own sorcerer just to speed things up a little and when in trouble the absorb-bubble (I should have looked up the name, my apologies) a recklessness + dark infusion can heal enough to keep her going until you can cast another absorb-bubble. Sorceror: Ashara, Xalek, Khem. Sage: Nadia, Felix?, Qyzen. As tank I'd stick with ranged dps or melee dps. Makes stuff nice and fast, med-pacs tend to be enough anyway. Assassin: Ashara, Andronikos. Shadow: Nadia, Zenith. I love the stones from Kinetic ward (shadow) so look-wise I'm more sorcerer/shadow. I'm not you how-ever! Healers always work people say, but I never had trouble finish the stuff off even if (which is rarely) my tank-companion dies, for my dps characters and as tank I feel I kill slow without a dps. And ofcourse... Every companion can work, my boyfriend always goes for his favourite companion, so his sentinel (dps ofcourse) runs with Kira and his Assassin with Khem and he does fine.

Everyone here feels so much better because they play heal/tank. I'm amazed we're not lacking DPS

Thank you Bioware indeed. I'm so happy with this change!!! But honestly, get us the option to get/buy 16 soon. It makes so much sense; 16 advanced classes (ye ye mirrors) and it would fill the second char tab. I'm looking forward to it! And more order options, please. I'm an order-freak. It took me a while to get my names in such a way my imps are at the bottom/second page and reps at top and the same beginning class next to the same. *insane*

It's a character perk (when you get legacy, just check out all perks, it says what they do and what they cost.) They require either money, legacy level, valor/allegiance depending on the perk (most are money and level.) The legacy crafting requires level 2, for 1% and 50k, level 5 and 100k for another 1%, level 8 and 200k for the last 1% to make the 3%. I didn't know it also improved critical chance. That's quite nice. About legacy: There's also unlocks (this goes for your whole account) which includes a level 50 full dark / light (both get their own skill) and race unlocks etc. Everything gives a small buff (for example maxing a ranged tank improves your health by 1% or something.) Nice goal to get everything when you complete your story and such. Most of it is luxery, like speeder piloting at level 10 (which is a character perk, so ye as I said just check them out.) You start your legacy around level 30-35, legacy experience is about 1/5th of your gained experience and shared with all your characters. PS: I'd recommend keep on doing side-quests together with class quests. Legacy unlocks after you've finished Alderaan, which is the end of Chapter 1 I believe, so it's not bound to level but class-progression. But it's the best to stay around the level requires for the planet (Alderaan is 28-32) so you won't be underleveled. If you're underleveled content will be considerably more difficult and if you're 6 levels lower than your enemy you are virtually unable to hit them.

I went a bit too nerd on a server I had a lot of characters around level 40 with a friend. I had the missions on those who had companions with critical (example: treasure hunting on Juggernaut, Vette has +5 critical, while I had artifice (doesn't come with a critical but Khem has +15 efficiency on my sorcerer.) And my characters helped eachother out. I also always took gathering missions up til a point I had 3 companions I could deploy (sometimes 2) and kept them if there wasn't any interesting critical. Maxed affection of my non-gathering critters and slicing (critical augment materials = money) This does require a lot of time on all of your characters if crafting a lot. I did find the higher chance on criticals very nice (considering +5 critical adds 5% and so does max affection.) Left-over spots I filled with Archaeology and Scavenging since I needed those the most. I started over on a different server when the friend quit (he might come back and we continue) and chose 1 character with artifice and 1 character with cybertech to feed my alts mods/enhancements/armoring/hilt/crystals. Commendations go into barrels since armstech added less than the other 2 for leveling. Rest, I don't know yet. Cybertech (huge recharge grenades) or Biochem I'm guessing. (I'm not sure how Biochem adds due to pvp-adrenals + medpacs.) or arms/armor/synth for augments, but think I might aswell buy them/find crafters in my guild.

I was unaware of that. Maybe I didn't know to begin with, that's quite sloppy of me sorry. Thank you for correcting me and teaching me something new.

I currently can't find the Q&A page to link it too, but this has been explained before. Maximum affection adds a 5% chance to crit (and thus get a purple item of the UWT mission you ran, for armormech this can add an augment slot.) +1, 2, 5 critical (this differs per companion, Kaliyo (imperial agent) for example has a +2 critical underworld trading and will be my reference if that's ok.) this stands for 1%, 2%, 5% respectively. Last the colour of the mission (orange, yellow, green or gray) affects the critical chance. Orange gives a 10% chance and the other colours a 15% chance. Say former mentioned Kaliyo, with max affection, runs a green underworld mission she has a 22% chance to crit. For as far as I remember a bounty hunter doesn't have any companion with a + critical for UWT. This can be checked in your crewskill window 'n' by default. This is slightly off-topic but information I found helpful when I learned it, no need to read this if you don't want to. Efficiency (companions have 2 crewskills they have either efficiency or critical in.) lessens the time needed to complete the mission/craft. Affection (I think) also lessens the time, but I personally care a lot more about critical. The kind of yield (like moderate and bountiful) affect the amount of (critted) materials they bring back for both the normal and the critted materials. Rich is the best yield and bountiful the second best (this doesn't include mission discoveries) Moderate the poorest and most common. Mission discoveries (coming from slicing lock-box missions and commonly found on the gmt) give prosperous yields, usually this includes a bit of everything the crewskill can yield, say for UWT it gives fabrics, materials and companion-gifts. These can once again be critted. Considering your level I wouldn't buy mission discoveries since it's a gamble imo (the mission can also be failed) and you can better invest it in stuff like a speeder. Edit: They can't fail, as said below (thank you!) but I'd still recommend saving for at least a speeder + license. The most obvious, but a problem if missed. Grade 3 missions also crit grade 3 materials (it can be read on your schematics which is needed)