I've never seen Kolto Probe ticks pull aggro in an encounter, but it could be because I tend to stand pretty far away when the fights start. Or at least that works with Juggernauts/PTs, who often leap to combat and I run after them and so on. Keeping up the probes also gives me more sustained TAs during the fights, since spending several GCDs to apply them mid-combat is just a waste of time. At least in my experience this is particularly true in boss fights that have AoE damage and where the players can be quite spread out (the droid with the electric current in the Boarding Party comes to mind). Also, in that fight all the folks were relatively competent, the tank included. He just had a weird pet peeve. Good thing we didn't have to wait more than two or three minutes for the replacement.

Just ran The Foundry HM on my level 53 Operative healer. Had a level 50 Marauder DPS, 52 PT tank and 52 Juggernaut DPS. Since FPs only have three other players and I usually am the first one ready to go, I tend to check everyone's gear. The tank actually had DPS implants, but no biggie, I've healed through worst defensive. The DPS players were both adequately geared as well, so off we go. Things went just fine for the first four, five pulls until the tank suddenly stops running and asks me to stop spamming Kolto Probe when we are not fighting. I ask him why I should that and he replies "The green spray hinders my line of sight". I explain to him that I really like to have the Tactical Advantages I get from the ticks, so in case something goes wrong really quickly, I can use Surgical probe and Kolto Infusion. Moreover, it's nice for the healer to keep a little HoT on all the characters, since it costs me next to no energy and the healing was usually enough to mitigate the small amounts of damage the DPS guys took from the mobs. Finally I am given an ultimatum: I either stop using Kolto Probe out of combat or the tank initiates votekick. I asked if he was serious and sure enough I see a votekick pop up. The DPS playes snickered and voted against, causing the tank to quit himself. One of the DPS fellows asked his guildie to join as a tank and with an Assassin tank geared with 72's/78's we got through darn easily! On the plus side, the Assassin did not mind my Kolto Probes at all...

There have been loads of stories here about DPS using their tank stances. I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that some people use tank stances in Warzones? At least back in the day when field respec worked during Warzones, a lot of people swapped to a more defensive spec in Voidstar defense and so on. It could be similar thinking, though the benefits outweigh the cons in PvE... Or people just don't get threat, that is a possibility too.

Just finished running a 16-man Terror From Beyond SM. Got in through the group finder with my Deception Sin. In it just for the comms, since she is already Underworld/Verpine/Oriconian geared. I knew the tactics and so on, but upon inspecting the rest of the lot, I realised many of them actually needed the gear, so I promised to stick around for the full run instead of leaving after Operator IX. So, after the first boss there was a fight in the Ops chat about people calling Need on stuff without a valid reason. Since I could not care less about the Arkanian gear, I did not check the rolls, but simply informed I was ready to select pass on everything. The Ops leader then puts Master looter in effect. Some people complain, others said they don't mind and eventually we went on. The weird thing comes when we started getting loot drops again. Since no-one else wanted Exotic Element Equalisers, I rolled for those (roll system, the Ops leader would then give the items) for crafting purposes. Okay, I was the only one to roll, so I got them. But then the Ops leader kept on handing me all the loot. And I mean all. The Arkanian stuff too! I tell him I don't need or want them, but that just kept happening... After we killed Terror From Beyond I had to arrange a little meeting with the rest of the group to dole out the Arkanian pieces. At least I was fair and actually gave them away.

Had a funny run today. I have a level 52 Operative healer and I accidentally queued not only for the level 50 HMs but also the higher tier regular FPs. Got a quick tick for False Emperor and figured I might just as well give it a go for the Classic comms and I am still not in full Black Hole, so giving the group a boost seemed like the appropriate thing to do instead of quitting and leaving the folks wait for a new healer. The rest of the group consisted of level 48s. Powertech tank, Mercenary DPS and Juggernaut DPS. Our tank told right off the bat that he had never done the FP before and would prefer to do the bonus as well as watch all the cutscenes. The Juggernaut was not too happy about it, but agreed eventually after some persuasion. The first mob (which is one of the hardest pulls in the FP), the Juggernaut promptly broke both of my CCs and proceeded to pummel a bunch of enemies. In the mean time, the Powertech tunnelvisioned on just one enemy and naturally I was taking a lot of heat from the mobs. Soon I realised the Juggernaut was ripping aggro real quick. The reason was obvious, he was in Soresu stance and tank gear, but queued as DPS. I asked him about it and the response was "Never changed out of Soresu lol". When I asked about his spec, he told he was a tank. After the next boss (the cleave fellow on the bridge) he finally agreed to change his stance, which made healing a bit easier although the PT was still tunneling all the pulls... Once we got to the part in the bonus quest, where we had to slice some consoles, I just asked the people to wait as I roflroll to the console and then use Cloaking Screen to leave. The first two times the Juggernaut and PT just attacked the droid, thus resulting in me wasting the Cloaking Screen and so on. At this point the Juggernaut started badmouthing me, telling I did not know my class and that I sucked at stealthing. I tried to explain that they'd just have to wait and let me do my thing, after all I had done the same trick numerous times on my Scrapper and Assassin. The third time the Mercenary spoke for the first time, just telling them to wait and let me show, because he knew I could stealth it. After I did, the Juggernaut just told it was all good luck... Oh well. I started whispering the Merc and we agreed we'd have to take care of interrupting Malgus and so on. No deaths in the end and the Powertech actually approached me and asked for some tanking advice. Well, I have a PT tank, so I helped and he happily thanked with his broken English. I hope to see him again! The Juggernaut is now on my ignore list, because not only did he constantly badmouth me but he also called Need on every single roll, including DPS Juggernaut gear (fair enough, I guess), Aim gear as well as snatching the delicious Black Hole healer implant I wanted...

A lot of people here bring up the solo medal as a reason not to interfere. I nodeguard in most matches (I run an Assassin), but whenever I see an enemy coming, I will inform my team and I've never been mad because someone got in just when I was about to finish the opponent. Sure, a solo kill medal can be nice for nodeguards who occasionally only get a few medals, but I find it more important to get the fight over with as quickly as possible. Each moment someone just stands there looking at me dance with a foolish Sentinel trying his luck is a moment my team mate could spend doing something more constructive.

Mhmm, my PT's only PvP is Conqueror. I have, if I recall correctly, five pieces of Conqueror, but nothing else. Once I my normal PvP group gets together again, it won't be much of an issue to get the other pieces. I sort of decided to wait till then and use PvE to grind money for augments.

I only respecced my PT to be a tank right after 2.4 came out (also reached level 55 right about then) and I haven't had anyone badmouthing my gear. The character is not my main, so the gearing process is a bit slow and I now sit at around 1800 Expertise with Bolster. My mitigation stats seem to do their work quite well and in my first level 55 PvP I guarded a Sorcerer healer in Hypergate and racked up approximately 500k protection and some 300k damage. The first time we died was during the last round, but until then we had effectively shut down all attempts to get orbs from the middle bunker. It might be worthwhile to note that the Sorcerer had approximately the same amount of Expertise as I did. Maybe I have just been lucky with the company I have had. Nevertheless, I think I have contributed quite meaningfully even though I am rather new to the spec and lack the best possible gear.

Thanks for posting this, I am sure people will find it useful. Concise enough and I agree with the advice given here. Good job all around!

The Valor requirement makes no sense at all. Imagine a player who has a Valor rank 100 Balance Sage and then moves to play a Madness Sorc, but is prohibited from doing so just because he stands at Valor rank 45 or something. Valor rank has absolutely nothing to do with player skill.

This is particularly bad in open world PvP. A couple of times a random Republic player with around 25k HP in PvE gear attacked my Sin who back then had full augmented Conqueror. Almost felt sorry for them with my 12k Discharges.

Once you know how to play to its strengths, it is excellent. It is an unfortunate fact that many people are kind of lost with the class, at least on my server. Incidentally, I also have an Operative healer, but I've had both classes for ages, so I am not just rolling with the FOTM train. I think I might rank Medicine Operatives above Deception Sins in most cases, but PvP is a very situational and fluid place...

Fair enough. All in all, Deception does well in PvP, at least in my opinion. The sustained damage is the biggest issue, but unless I am in a match where my team gets hopelessly steamrolled (I queue solo for the vast majority of times), I feel I can contribute meaningfully. Spamming taunts, harassing healers, tossing out that killer opener... Assassins have some great tools, if you ask me.

Thank you very much, it was an interesting read. As for PvP as a Deception Sin, I'd like to give my two cents. I don't think anyone here is willing to claim that Deception/Infiltration lacks burst, but killing an enemy in four global cooldowns seems like an exaggeration to me. I am geared with full Conqueror along with Obroan mainhand with all my equipment augmented with blue/purple 28s, but in my experience catching a good player with the entire opener (Spike+Maul+Recklessness+Discharge+Shock) without a hitch is a far-fetched goal. While doing this, you need to deal with Evasion, Force Shroud, bubbles (both Force armor and the neat immunity bubble), various shield effects and whatnot. Although there are people who have better gear or are just flatout better than I am, most of the time I come out on top in one-on-one fights, but four global cooldowns against a skilled, equally-geared player is a very unlikely outcome. The changes seem interesting, because quite often when I am fighting at an objective I need to survive for extended periods of time and still remain a viable damage dealer and with the current Force managed system as well as subpar sustained damage, it is rather difficult to attain those goals. Force Cloak gives a chance to hit Recklessness again, it gives a boost to Force regeneration and even resets Blackout, but the long cooldown doesn't make it a reliable strategy. Moreover, in a hectic, extended fight, you probably will not have the time to use Seethe at all. However, to me the bigger problems are in PvE. Since this is the PvP subforum, I won't stray too far into that, but I must say I feel quite useless in Operations. A lot of the time I just wait for my Blackout to come off cooldown for some extra Force and when that happens I pop my relic, adrenal and Recklessness and burst again, because there is no way to keep up potent and sustained damage. Quite frustrating!

Pardon my noobish nature, but where can I see the proposed changes to Assassins/Shadows? I run a level 55 Deception Assassin and I would be very interested in reading up on the future evolution of the class.