Some of the ideas here I think are aimed at making maras op again. Taking over 5000 damage per tick while absorbing 50% of damage is ridiculous. I think two or three things would make maras just fine. Their damage is fine as is. The problem is they are not mobile enough and susceptible to focus. Most classes are susceptible to focus fire, but perhaps they could give Mara a counter to that. I would suggest the following: 1. Predation still costs fury, but removes roots and makes them immune to roots for duration. Could be baseline or a utility. I wouldn't mind if it was baseline. Slowing the Mara during predation would reduce their speed to normal. Possibly make them immune to slows as well. I don't know about that. It would mainly be a counter to roots. 2. Remove health cost of undying rage, but reduce healing received during undying by 80-90%. 3. Allow force camo to be used while stunned. I think number one is the most important. Both 2 and 3 might be a bit much, maybe not. Would make undying worth using. Camo would give them an anti focus button. Again all three might be a bit much, but maybe not.

I agree. It was pretty stupid to put the root on crippling slash and require two hits to root. I don't know what they were thinking. They should have made crippling throw a root ability by default for all Maras. Or at least gave them a low level utility that made it a root.

It's basically there to purge dots before you cleanse so you don't have to waste evasion on your combat stealth. It's a great utility.

You still had to go into cover to use EP regardless of the EP was bound to cover bar or not. Might not take 2 globals, but more of a hassle then VS is. Plus EP could be cleansed, VS doesnt get cleansed. They may have changed cleaning EP on snipers post 3.0 (not sure since I havent played engineering). I did say EP still have done more damage, but point was VS IMO is overall better. I'm totally fine if you have a different opinion; nothing wrong with that. Its okay to disagree . I also know that backstab damage increased only from stealth. Never said that current backstab is better than HS + BS. Just saying there are other factors that have helped keep damage fine IMO. I have no problem bursting people down. Not saying backstab not applying cooldown from stealth wouldnt be nice, but it isnt really necessary. Would cause another round of QQ, and I dont really want to deal with that again.

Something I'd like to see in this game is a siege format PVE where you fight waves of increasingly difficult NPCs. Not much story to it or anything, but this is a type of PVE I could actually get into. Could start with weak mobs with a couple silvers to end the wave. Then weak, plus silvers, and a gold boss. Increase number of enemies and NPC type (weak, strong, boss, champion, etc.) Then end could be a bunch of champions. You could also have themed waves. Racghouls, droids, troopers, sith, etc. Patches could add new wave. They could set them to pvp maps since they are small enough. Rewards would mainly be credits and random drops. Nothing too special. Could have solo, duo, four, and 8 man type. Could be added to group finder and bolstered so level doesn't matter. I think it would be a lot of fun.

/\ what he said. Or you can weapon stack if you want to be geared faster once you hit 60, but that is a pain and some feel it is unethical.

Oh, whoops. Haha yeah I missed he was talking about snipers.

With evasive imperative evasion can be used about that often anyway. Shield probe doesn't absorb a ton, no, but coupled with kolto probes you are just fine. Plus you always have roll if you are concealment. An extra insta cast heal if you are lethality. No ops definitely do not have the best defenses, but they have been improved. I wouldn't mind the shorter cooldown on shield probe though.

Thundering blast does hit hard, but it is casted (though they can cast on the move with utility). The insta casts are chain lightning with proc, lightning bolt with proc, and lightning flash. All three of those can hit hard, but not hard enough to two shot you. I really don't know what to tell you. I agree I think sorcs are over the top, but they aren't two shotting anything unless they somehow hacked their damage, which I doubt happens. But I won't call you a liar or anything as I have experience some fishy stuff in this game. Sorry this is happening to you, if it in fact is. Are you sure they don't have a friend attacking you as well? Maybe their is another lightning sorc attacking you from a different angle that you can't see and timing their attacks with their friend.

Haha, even that wouldn't two shot people with average health pool of 40k or so. Would need to get a 10k TD and then some to finish them off.

I'm sorry, but if you are getting killed in two hits by a lightning sorc, then you have either used the fleet bolsterizer to purposely find the most gimp gear set up you could or it was in open world and you had no expertise. Don't get me wrong, I hates sages and sorcs, but killing people in 2 hits is not happening. Not saying they aren't over the top. I can appreciate a little exaggeration, but you should have said 3-4 hits instead for affect.

I can see this happening with PTs. If he was an AP he may have thrown a TD on you before he pulled you. They are perfectly capable of doing what you described.

Depends on what you are trying to do. For arenas, I'm sure a lot of people have come up with good compositions. I like to form trolling premades. My favorites are tank sins in reg warzones. Troll people with pull, overload, and phase walk. Once I was on voidstar bridge and had place phase walk in the middle of the bridge then dance on the edge. A jug leapt at me (I'm assuming he meant to push me off) and I phase walked behind him and knocked him off. Pulling people into fires and off the edge is also fun. Now on a more serious note, most faceroll arena I have done in 3.0 was with 4 AP pts. Each round lasted about 30 seconds. Not saying thats the best by any means, but it was the fasted one I've done to date.

Op healers did get some nerfs, but I still do perfectly fine on mine. They still have a lot of mobility. IMO energy management is still pretty simple. If you get low use adrenaline probe. If you get low again you really only need to cast diagnostic scan once or twice and you are fine. They are pretty similar to what they were. Plus now they can grab more survivability traits through utilities that they couldn't get before. So that helps. It still takes 2-3 people to kill my healer.

Fighting a sin in 3.0 can be annoying because it is hard to control them. They have always been good 1v1, so if you can't beat them alone grab a teammate. A couple things you can try: find out if they took the emersion (force speed breaks roots). If not: then root them over and over while deflection is up since they most likely took stun immunity with deflection. White roots will not be as effective, but yellow roots will unless they have shroud. If they are using both shroud and deflection on you at the same time you must be giving them a hard time. If they use them separately make sure to use white damage during shroud and yellow during deflection. Dont break low slash or spike. If you happen to be lucky enough to see a glimpse of their stealth pop a DCD. A lot will open up with discharge and ball lightning so use a yellow DCD or overall DCD (shroud, saber reflect, shield probe, energy shield). This will mitigate their initial burst. If you are an operative use evasion to mitigate low slash, maul, and assissinate. If you are a mara use obsfucate to mitigate their white damage. It really comes down to how good the sin is with their cc. If they are skilled you most likely will not win 1v1. As far as hatred goes, pop a yellow damage mitigator or purge if you have one when they use crushing darkness/demolish (evasion, shroud, saber reflect). Same controlling aspects apply. Again 1v1 if they are skilled you might have a hard time. As for AP PT, look for shoulder cannon buff on their buff bar. If it is up stay away from them. They can burst you down quick with that. Wait till you can see that they threw thermal detonator on you then use a DCD before it explodes. Most will time TD with rail shot or some other attack so timing your DCD is important. If you are a jugg just laugh at them when they throw TD and ED on you timed with a rail shot. Pop saber reflect right before they go off and they will eat a huge chunk of their own damage. If you are an concealment op, laugh at them as you roll right when burst is about to go off. If you are sniper use evasion to mitigate both damage types. If you are mara force camo, but they will probably kill you anyway. Once they use kolto overload stun them and run. Then come back and finish them off when it is over. If you have more than one stun, then stun them during part of energy shield as well. Stunning them while they have hydraulic overrides up is more a priority than stunning during energy shield or kolto overload IMO since they have so much range now. You don't want them running with abandon. Beating them really comes down to mitigating their burst and controlling them while they have their DCDs up. With Jugg, rooting me will help you a lot. They have a movement impairing immunity utility they can take (Through Power), but it is not working for me. I've tested it several times dueling my friend and it will not stop roots for me with endure pain up (maybe someone can explain that for me). If I pop enraged defense I hope you aren't a dot spec. If you are a lethality/virulence spec and see that I have either saber reflect or enraged defense up DO NOT use cull or corrosive assault. Just get some distance from me during that time. If you have an insta mez use that during enraged defense and don't attack me (I just wasted ED). If I am vengeance and I leap + ravage you, then I hope you have some root breaker. If so run away during my stun immunity, then come back and try to control the fight. If you don't have root breaker pop (evasion, obsfucation, saber ward, deflection, or some overall DCD), which will make ravage useless. If you mitigate their ravages you should be fine. If they are rage then pop a yellow mitigation DFC when they leap at you to mitigate raging burst or smash, or stun them. It's all about controlling them during their DFC, and mitigating their burst with your DFC. Pretty much a universal concept. Know your spec and know theirs. Pay attention to their stance and buffs.

Again, I don't necessarily like the devs or agree with their take on class philosophy as a whole, but remember when they wanted us to be "slippery shady characters." (They also said "H2F and make them pay" for sages, and they literally do that now, which I'm not a big fan of.) That was total BS then because we couldn't slip away, and don't know what the heck "shady" was supposed to entail. My enterpretation was: "we want you to be a hit and run spec (with the run being your survivability)." Of course running wasn't very helpful unless you had both evasion and combat stealth available. So, IMO their philosophy for DPS ops pre 3.0 was total BS. But with the defensive buff they gave us in 3.0 I can see us actually being a hit and run spec now. Can't really face tank since most of our survivability comes from roll, but we definitely can run (as long as we have some sort of root breaker if necessary). Plus we can get evasion on combat stealth now. So, now we are more "slippery and shady" than we used to be and can fit that roll well. Whether or not that helps in ranked arenas is a different story. And whether or not that is a good design philosophy for the class is up for opinion. I like the changes.

So, I've read the forums for a long time without posting, and have agreed with a lot of what you have said, but I have to disagree a bit here. Sure explosive probe may have hit harder with a surge boost than VS, but there are other things to consider. VS only requires one global to use, whereas EP took two (cover). That in and of itself is very helpful. Energy cost is less, which is nice, but not really a big deal for concealment. As far as how hard it hits, highest I got on EP was 8.5k, and with a surge boost would be closer to 10k (crit bonus through geared surge about 70% + and extra 30%). I have volatile substance regularly critting between 9 and 12k at level 60 with same set up of gear (not min maxed). Min maxing may change this quite a bit, so take it with a grain of salt. So, I'm happy with VS. The only thing I want is for AB to have increased duration so I don't have to use corrosive dart as much.

So, concealment operative has always been my favorite class. Well not always, at launch I hated them because they killed me in 2 globals, but then I rolled one to see what it was all about and never turned back. They have gone through a lot of nerfs; some that really pissed me off (loss of knockdown). I will admit when I read the datamined info on operatives I was ready to unsub (*** hidden strike removed from the game!) But I stayed to give it a try, and as much as I don't like the devs, I have to admit: concealment is much better off now than pre 3.0. Burst healing during flashbang isnt a thing anymore, but the HOTs from kolto probe + shield probe are awesome. Evasion on stealth is the best thing that ever happened to this class (though it should have been a thing from the start). And my personal favoritte: immunity roll. That roll in and off itself allowed me to survive my very skilled friend dueling me on his AP pt for 10 minutes straight. All I did was run, stun, roll, heal playing my concealment. Initial burst is less right know due to hidden strike + backstab being replace by a buffed backstab. That is annoying, but really not all that bad. Pre 3.0 my HS usually hit for about 8k, and BS for about 7.5K on crits. Now backstab hits for 11-12k. Sure health pools are higher, BS has still been buffed. The shiv replacement, veiled strike, hits a lot harder. I often get 7-8k veiled strikes, and that makes up for some burst loss. Volatile substance is awesome and hits very hard. I actually like having the surprise *** burst in the middle of the fight when they don't expect it. So, honestly the only thing I hate about not having HS + BS is the fact that acid blade only lasts 6 seconds, so a lot of the time you need to use corrosive dart for volatile substance. If they increased duration of acid blade by 3 seconds I would be completely happy with this spec. Lethality plays pretty much the same, but again is superior to pre 3.0. I dont worry about energy anymore. I have 2 extra TA generators so I cull all day. The new lethal strike is pretty nice too if you are in melee range. That's what I noticed with lethality. I never wanted dps operatives to be faceroll specs like AP pt, sorc, or jugg. Not saying I necessarily want those nerfed either. Just saying I'm happy with where dps operatives are right now compared to pre 3.0. A few quality of life things (increased acid blade duration), and possibly a utility that allows roll to break roots in the heroic utilities would be nice (though not necessary).

I can only give advice for pvp. Both are completely fine in pvp. AP powertech has super burst and a lot of range. Jugg has a lot of survivability and some good burst as well, though a bit more susceptible to movement impairing affects. I think powertech comes into its own earlier than jugg, but once you get the jugg into the 40's it is pretty awesome. Personally, I like them equally.

Really depends as they are complete different play styles. Sniper is a ranged class whereas operative is either melee or semi melee. On paper it looks like operatives were worse, but even though they lost a couple cool moves, they are better now than pre 3.0. And, especially if you don't have experience with operatives pre 3.0 I wouldn't worry about nerfs as you won't notice them. I don't do raids, so I don't know about high end pve, but I do the occasional flashpoint. If you are concealment, laceration one shots weak mobs for the most part, and will 2 shot silvers. So, you can clear mobs fast. As far as sniper, they also can clear pve mobs fast, but they do it with a rifle instead of a knife. If you dont like casted abilities or not being super mobile then don't go sniper. This is a problem more in pvp. Though the virulence discipline for snipers is pretty mobile and lots of fun. So, it basically comes down to: do you want to stay at range or get up in people's faces?

Yeah I understand. I'm also doing a masters degree and working, but just started the degree this semester and had already leveled up my toons for the most part. I agree that concealment may not be faceroll easy like some other classes or specs, but in the hands of a good player it is fine. Sure I may do better on my hatred sin, but I do just fine on my concealment operative. 1v1 I destroy pretty much anyone of any class on my operative. Not always, but 95% of the time. So if you get good at concealment you will be just fine. Ranked arenas may be a different story, but I like regular warzones better anyway. I chose concealment in the first place because I like knives and just stuck with it.

Healers are fine as always IMO. Concealment has a much better chance in main fight now with roll and evasion on combat stealth. I also think lethality is fine in main fight too with all the TA generators for culls. But I still think operative forte is finding the stragglers and dispatching them, and taking off nodes/guarding nodes.

Depends on your definition of "pug solo hero." If you want to be in the fight all the time I would go with AP powertech. If you want to stand back and pummel the people in the cluster fight I would go sorc (either spec), and you have plenty of ways to run if one comes after you. If you want to do more of a "find lone target and gank" solo hero, then I would do concealment operative or either dps assassin.

I would stick with your obroan gear because of bonus and relic procs, but Ive done fine with rishi mods too.

Dont worry: pubs have guardians, sages, vanguards, and slingers to counter your juggs, sorcs, powertechs, and snipers. Imps just have more players so talent pool is bigger.