There're a few ways you can go. If you want to stick with your level 50s I'd recommend rushing them to level 55. I usually do a mixture of Makeb, HM Flashpoints, Classic Operations (Eternity Vault/Karragga's Palace HM/NiM especially, they're very easy.) to not only get experience but some Basic Commendations for 69 gear or an Arkanian Relic. PuG-Groups will often take level 50-54 for those since they're very easy. Columi/Rakata and Battlemaster gear is sufficient to get through Makeb and any other basic commendation daily area (czerka/oricon/etc with ease. Be careful with PvP and Battlemaster gear though, it didn't get it's expertise removed and pre-55 expertise is a burden since it prevents you from getting bolster up to full expertise.) If you wish to replace any gear: Trade Planetary commendations for Rakata Grade mods at the Makeb Vendor (Fleet) HM Flashpoints for Classic Commendations (Campaign Gear) and Black Hole gear as drops Classic Operations for more Black Hole and Hazmat Gear. Aswell as Elite and Ultimate commendations with the weekly. At level 53: Oricon questline gives you a full set up 53 purples, which are entry level for SM-operations. Once you're 55 there're tons of ways to go such as: HM 55 Flashpoints (Czerka Meltdown drop Arkanian Earpieces/Implants) for commendations and some crappy drops (69 level) SM Operations for commendations and drops with a setbonus (level 69) 16-man is recommend they drop ultimate commendations. PvP, arena's have been introduced if that's your thing. Due to Bolster PvE gear is the new recruit gear (more or less) though I'd start with the regular queue. Dailies/Reputation grind, if that's your thing, they added tons of new area's. Finding a guild with similar interest will be very helpful and highly recommended. How-ever unlike the post above said, I highly doubt you can enter the level 55 Operations before level 55, thought they fixed that a long while back. Or, ofcourse, level an alt and see even more stories. ^^ As for class. I'd recommend Mercanary if you want to heal or PvE-DPS where-as Assassin if tanking and PvP-DPS is more your thing. You've experienced them both, pick your favourite?

After 16 toons I can honestly say for me they all have their ups and downs. Shadow always had a special place in my heart for being my very first toon ever and having tons of fun with her in PvE and PvP aswell as being quite versatile (cc, stealth, tank or dps) and so will Scoundrel/Operative, my first when I swapped servers for similar reasons and no it's not just because I like stealth. They build up ridiculously slow though if you're used to them at level 50 though. I also enjoy being on the move. Maurauder/Sentinel, Sniper/Gunslinger positively suprised me in how much fun their rotations can be! A lot to watch and it seems more abilities since none get 'lost' in healing-only abilities.

Almost all of them seem to function the same and have almost (if not completely) the same abilities with a different skin. It's up to you to keep their gear up to date, having the right abilities turned on and sending them in first (hell, it's one button.) The only exceptions are: Xalek: He has a completely different set-up than all the other tanks, not to mention how long he was broken. Works fine now though. M1-4X: Who the hell decided to give a Tank a pull instead of a leap? The whole reason I use Tank is to keep the foes away from me and ofcourse to avoid ability push-back (in case of Commando.) On top of this, it causes his PbAoE to hardly ever reach it's full potentional. For this reason I guess I consider him the worst. Treek: Unique in her IA and abilities. Their personalities on the other hand... don't get me started. ^^

For DPS you have 2 options, Rage and Vengeance. Both build up quite slow towards their rotation. Rage is almost completely useless for the first 30 levels due to it giving bonusses to abilities that either aren't used that much due to high costs or sport a high cooldown. Vengeance on the other hand might not grow into it's rotation for a while, it does provide great buffs towards any skill in forms of: 3% more Accuracy, 6% more Strenght, Increased melee damage and a shorter cooldown on Sundering Strike (more resources = more damage.) Hence I'd highly recommend Vengeance for your first few levels or: Immortal. Immortal sports less damage but has greater survivability. In teamplay you'll be a Tank, your role is to hit everything to make sure they keep attacking you. If teamplay is going to be part of your leveling routine I'd highly recommend only picking Immortal if tanking is your thing. Immortal builds up at a quite nice pace but will eventually fall behind in speed on the DPS-specs. Around level 30 I'd visit the skill mentor in the combat area on fleet and take the spec you want to learn how to play since by that time they're all more or less on the same level. This is just my opinion which I've build from leveling a Guardian and a Juggernaut whilst struggling to pick between a spec aswell.

Having to Reverse them from drops is true, how-ever there's some sneaky ways depending on the barrel. The Reflex (Aim high) and Skill (Cunning high) can be obtained by spending elite commendations on the off-hand containing the barrels. (Note: Reflex comes in Mercanary off-hands and thus is likely exclusively for Empire side, Skill comes from Scatterguns, Vibroknifes and off-hand Blasters) The schematic end-result won't be bound to main or off-hand until equiped.

1. Synthweaving is capable of making Augments for: Defence, Strenght, Willpower, Alacrity and Presence. Over-all Main-stat (Strenght and Willpower) and Defence Augments are pretty popular, the other 2 won't be as beloved. The schematics are obtained through critting Slicing Tech Parts missions and thus can also be found on the GTN. Tech Parts are also the components used for making Augments. 2. Gathering and Mission Crewskills unlock new missions at 401, not 400, so you will have to run a grade 6 missions (preferably a yellow one, but green will do) to unlock access to the next level (which will be grade 9 components, no clue why they skipped 2.) This has to be done after you bought Advanced Diplomacy/Bioanalysis. If you already tried this, then I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong. Best of luck, Kitty

Like said above, class-forums are amazing for any additional questions. After 45 you can do your full rotation (except for Battle Readiness which is an off-global cooldown damage buff) so be sure to check out a indepth guild by then (if interested) I love http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=427933 from Xinika, he keeps it updated well. And a little tip (in case you missed it) if you have 1 +41 power crystal from the Cartel Market you can get a second (and more) for free from your collections, great for companions and when you get a moddable off-hand!

Edit: I can't read. Yes you can pick which ones to keep. The left-over one will get disabled until you Subscribe again or buy a crewskill assignment slot.

Level 1-55 Planetary Commendations - Spend at the Planetary Vendors on gear and mods ranging between level 9 and 50. Gained through drops on planets and various quest/PvE-dailies (supply section) Warzone Commendations - Spend at Warzone Vendors, used to purchase PvP-gear and goodies. At level 55 this gear will contain Expertise, a must-have stat at max level PvP, but before max level this should be avoided. Pre-55 items are also available and are the same as any PvE-piece. Can also be traded for Planetary Commendations (40:1) Gained at the end of a warzone. Fleet Commendations - Spend on a Orange set of gear and certain spaceship upgrades. Earned by doing Space-missions. Level 40+ Valour 40 Ranked Warzone Commendations - Spend at Warzone Vendors for the best tier of PvP gear (level 55 only) can be earned in Ranked arena's (level 55 only) or traded for Warzone Commendations (1:3) Level 50-55 Classic Commendations - Can be traded for Classic Gear, which used to be the second highest tier before the level increase, has a set-bonus. Earned by doing dailies (Ilum, Belsavis and Black Hole) level 50 Flashpoints and Operations (Eternity Vault, Karraga's Palace and Explosive Conflict.) Basic Commendations - Can be traded for Black Market Gear (69) which is the lowest tier of 55 gear available. Can be gained by doing Dailies (Section X, Czerka, Macrobinoculars, Seeker Droid, Makeb and Oricon) and SM Czerka Flashpoints Elite Commendations - Can be traded for Verpine Gear (72) and is earned in HM Flashpoints (level 55) and SM Operations (8-man) Ultimate Commendations - Can be traded for the highest tier of gear available Orconian (78) and is earned in SM and Hardmode Operations (16-man and 8/16-man) All the gear comes without a setbonus and generally with sub-optimal enhancements (and even mods) which can only be earned by doing the right Operations on the right difficulty. I'd recommend starting Supply and Combat area missions whenever you want. They're all team-based and I personally love doing them whilst leveling, but it might not be your cup of tea. (Groupfinder makes teaming easier.)

Great read OP, thank you! CC is cheesing, real men take all the mobs at once and mow them down with their high numbers flying left, right, and center. What? No +1 awesome points if it's broken with a single target attack? I'm a bit hurt now.

I think if you increase the need for groupplay for the DD it will almost always increase frustration because currently it's their inability to be a proper teammate that annoys you. Giving them more responsibilities will likely make your experience worse. Killing Grey > Silver > Gold > Champion, using your threatdump, cooldowns, CCs etc it's all groupplay, it's not their lack of ability to be a groupplayer, it's their lack of willingness to (try and) be one (for those who play as a lone-wolf, in no way am I attacking DDs in general.) Unless you go into such extremes a DD will simply die if he pulls a mob, but that sounds impossible to balance due to PvP Survivability of tanks vs Damage Dealers. I think both ideas presented in this threat are great. For level 55 I think it's wonderful to reduce the queue times a little for Damage Dealers at the costs of really being able to shine. Being able to at least have the option to let 25% of the group (or 50%) be a companion is nice aswell, though only IF there's no-one in the queue for that role. Especially for lowbie Flashpoints it would be great, very little people queueing, no matter what role. Might cause a lot of 'need for companion' though, which over-all isn't a biggy with how bad the drops are, but they shouldn't come before players. Maybe have a special companion token drop at the end so there's no excuse to need for a companion over a player. /signed

Hi, welcome to the game and the class of Shadows! There's not a lot you can do wrong with Shadow (Infiltration) at the early levels since eventually you'll pick up most talents in the lower part of the tree. How-ever I'd recommend focussing on Damage and Resource Management first (let Qyzen take care of the survivability part for now.) A early tree will looks something like this: http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/shadow#0-20301112032023-0 (full Tree: http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/shadow#320-10120211220321112232223-203) Order I'd take them in: Tier 1 Shadow's Respite Upheaval Tier 2 Shadow's Mark Misdirection Tier 3 Shadow Technique Circling Shadows Masked Assault Vigor Tier 4 Infiltration Tactics I gave you the build up to level 28 since there your rotation more or less starts to form, before that you'll often be using strike and other less force heavy attacks due to being force-hungry. You can respec at the Fleet (Combat Area) by talking to a man named: Skill Mentor, in case you're unhappy with the build or it doesn't work for you. Over-all for PvE you want to focus on 1. Damage (and thus resource management) 2. Survivability and more or less ignore Slows/Stuns/utility, those are more for PvP, such as Subdueing Techniques and Humble Strike. As for Rotation: You will mainly be using Project, Force Breach (level 20 onward) and Double Strike and weave in Force Potency where you can. Once you hit level 26, you can use Shadow Strike a lot more due to Infiltration tactics. Eventually it will look more like: Spinning Kick > Battle Readiness/Relic/Adrenal > Shadow Strike Shadow Strike with Infiltration Tactics Force Breach at 3 stacks Breaching Shadows Project at 2 stacks of Circling Shadows Clairvoyant Strike to build Circling Shadows But for now you miss a lot of Talent Points and abilities. As for gear: For leveling I generally take the best I can get, but if I get to chose: As much Willpower and Power as possible, but Critical will do. Accuracy / Surge whenever I can. Try to avoid defensive stats such as: Shield Rating, Defence Rating and Absorb Rating, those are Tanking stats, only good for Kinetic Combat.

Sounds like you can have fun with your Vanguard? Try to get him to 55? Can Tank and mDPS, giving you a chance to experience 2 different playstyles. Also the game has a decent learning curve, I wouldn't worry about not having played something before. When I started SWTOR I never played an MMO similar to it before, I had to start from scratch and never really had any issues. ^^

All I can recommend is going to the Server Forums and look at recruitment posts from your specific server, to see if there's one that fits your needs. Most hard-core guilds won't simply recruit anyone or even be willing to teach a stranger, but we all started somewhere and there're enough guilds more than willing to help someone out. Look for things like TS/Vent/Mubmle aswell. Nothing is nicer than having someone on TS whilst learning the robes of PvP, I know it helped me tons! He micro'd me on where to go, whenever we'd be in a similar position he'd recommend where to stand and how to do objectives. In short all I had to do was learn how to listen and press buttons, it helps against the feeling of being completely lost in something as dynamic as PvP. (Unless ofcourse you have tons of MMO experience and nothing feels like new. )

Like said before: Upgrade the hilt of your mainhand. Upgrade the armouring of your offhand. Both give Force-Power and thus are the over-all best increase. This will leave you with 29 Commendations. You can do the following: Upgrade the hilt/barrel and armouring of your companion aswell Upgrade your Green Armorings to Purple Other places to acquire some gear: Classic Operations: Black Hole or Hazmat gear, both used to be quite high tier level 50 gear HM Flashpoints: Black Hole gear Remember you won't be in your level 50 gear too long, so unless you can't continue due to your gear, don't be too fussed about getting a full set. Once you're 55 I highly recommend: Oricon, rewards a set of Basic Gear (level 53) which is entry level for Operations. 55 HM Flashpoints, Black Market Gear and Commendations. If you enjoy solo'ing, do dailies, Makeb, Oricon and ofcourse first finish your storyline (otherwise there will be spoilers!) and get gear with tokens. PS: Remember to keep your companion up to date aswell, from 49-55 the stats increase quite rapidly. Another thing to keep in mind is that mobs will start resisting more and more attacks, some Accuracy should be taken, even as a Sorcerer.

I'd prioritize the playstyle you want (mDPS vs rDPS vs Tank vs Heal) and pick a class based on that. You can always create another toon later for looks, story, or simply because you want a change. PS: The Juggernaut Battlemaster gear will be tough to obtain now-a-days, someone might still have the schematics though, keep that in mind.

Make sure you also got Crouch and Cover assigned, like this you'll never risk rolling into an unwanted position, at the 'cost' of your shield going up ofcourse, if you don't already. Besides that the only thing you can do is learn the spots Snipers and Operatives can roll to, rather than looking around for a green man to pop up, they don't change and form a great additional get-away if you learn to use them well. (Not needed 'that' much now we got a roll in our abilities.) Lastly make sure you have an enemy target selected, for as far as I know cover doesn't come up unless a target is selected and a cover-spot is within range (if these requirements are not met you go into the well-known crouch.) I'd also worry a bit less about the big neon sign 'Sniper/Gunslinger here!' it's not half as obvious as people think in the mid of a fight, not much more than your attacks going out, they have very distinctive sounds and animations. Even if they do notice you due to cover, with good position it will be quite the task to get near you, when they do, just roll away and repeat.

Defense is actually one of the easier specs to watch in my opinion, so good choice. It's so easy because: All your important abilities have a 12 second cooldown: Force Sweep (5% accuracy debuff and some AoE-threat) Might Blow (3% additional damage reduction) Blade Storm (Small amount of damage absorbed) Sundering Strike (Force-builder) Except: Riposte (5% increased defense chance) But this ability is off the global cooldown, meaning you can use it whenever! (Except during Master Strike) I simply tend to press it without watching whenever I can and it more or less gets used the second it procs. I'd recommend using them in that order (opener will need to include combat focus for that) but no matter what order you decide, they all share the same cooldown. So once I see Force Sweep come of cooldown, I know what I'm using for the next 6 seconds, the other 6 I'm not too fussed about what I'm using, so still watching the field, not the bar. In between you will want to be filling with: Hilt Strike, Force Statis, Master Strike, Dispatch, Strike and if all else fails; Slash. But none of these fillers are anywhere near as important as the 12-second cooldown rotation. And ye, use Strike when it doubt. Besides Riposte, nothing in this spec is unpredictable and Riposte uptime vs cooldown is very forgiving. Helpful tricks are: Preferences > User Interface > Cooldown Settings > Show Cooldown Text (it helps me a lot.) Interface; You can put quickbars with any amount (up to 12) slots anywhere on your interface, this is as close as you can get to the WoW-system (I think, didn't play WoW so judging on stories of other people.) I use to have one with Force Sweep and my cooldowns there, until the rotation became natural. When playing alone, a friend that had tunnel-issues made his bars completely invisible so he had to go by on knowing the cooldowns. Whether it works, I'm not sure, it was fun to watch though.

and my 2 cents: 1. It's nice, but I didn't enjoy it as full Darkside because it often doesn't make sense. Neutral and Light-side are great though. 2. Leveling was a bit of an annoyance for me at first. Your energy-management comes in quite late, so you'll press hammer shot a lot, on the bright side, hammer shot gives tons of threat in the early levels, making it a player-friendly tank. Getting a rDPS companion as first companions is amazing for a Tank aswell! 3. I still get lost. But it's cool, the crew really makes it their home with a few posters on your bank and own rooms, more or less. 4. Few options here: Armormech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading/Slicing: Your 4th companion has a +5 critical in armormech, so if you enjoy covering all crewskills, it's smart putting this one on a Trooper. All your companions use Aim, so you can provide armor for yourself and them (minus the droid, sadly.) Also able to provide many Augments profitable for your class: Reflex (+aim) +absorb and +shield. Biochem, Bioanalysis, Diplomacy: If raiding (or anything PvE) is your thing, having reuseable Adrenals, Medpacs and Stims can be a blesing. It saves a lot of money in the longrun and especially as a Vanguard Tank, having another (more or less) cooldown is wonderful. Implants are a bonus. Cybertech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading/Slicing: Cybertech is handsdown one of the nicest crewskills for people planning on more than 1 toon, able to make Armorings, Earpieces and mods! (Any stat) Droid-parts and Grenades are a nice bonus. There's no best, it's all about your priorities. I personally took Biochem, but I already have the other crewskills covered. 5. Enjoy what you're doing, if not take a break or make a change.

There's no best. The setbonus stacks so I highly recommend picking a mix-match depending on the stats you want. I, for example, don't take Critical due to the high diminishing returns, so I mix-matched to get as much Power pieces as possible, whilst avoiding Alacrity.. (PS: I'm not claiming this is optimal, all I'm recommending is picking the pieces on the stats that would work for you.)

Thank you for your reply, and yes most e-mails I've received despite getting the warning message, some I haven't received, but I assume I might have made a typo and due to the warning always displaying simply neglected the warning. Since I already tried adding it to my friendlist and guild, I will submit a bug-report and hope they can fix it. It's one of the best features for someone who mails around so much and now I don't get full benefit of it. So when I chose 'do not display warning again' does it mean per toon or in general? I'm guessing in general.

Sometimes when I try to e-mail myself it gives a warning 'this character isn't in your guild, legacy or friendlist' where-as it is. Many mails with the warning have been received perfectly fine, but it does each time make me jump a little, so my question is; If I chose the do not display this warning again option, does that go for that character only or in general? PS: I've tried being in the same guild and adding it to my friendlist, the warning still displays.

Basic Commendations let's you buy 69 gear, which is the best gear you can get from the options you mentioned. It doesn't have a setbonus though. Classic Commendations let's you buy 61 gear, but with the setbonus, so there're people that get 4 61 armourings with a setbonus and fill open slots with 69(+) gear. Warzone Commendations let's you buy PvP gear, which is 65 and 67 level if I recall correctly. So less good than 69, except it comes with a setbonus and expertise is king in a PvP situation and Warzones (even with Bolster.) But for PvE it's not great. The higher the number of gear, the better it is (on equally named mods ofcourse, don't compare apples to peers. )

Like said before, queue for HM Flashpoints. You'll be more than geared enough if you buy a few Makeb Vendor Mods, a full set already means you're overgeared for the challange the level 50 HM Flashpoints should present and it's more likely people will be doing those (or better, queue for both!) Though that being said. A DPS generally tends to have a long queue. Yesterday my friend and I waited 30 minutes for a 55 HM FP before I went to my tank so we had a healer-tank combination instead of healer-dps. I'm getting so bored of tanking though.

In PvE playing darkness in DPS gear will be very ineffective: Your DPS will be lower than a Deception or Madness Assassin Your survivability will be closer to a DPS than a Tank, leaving you to little use as Tank Double the threat a normal DPS will do, aka you will be a tanks bane (and not in the good way.) But I doubt this was ment for PvE in the first place. If it was, it's no problem for leveling but teamplay, no, no. As for PvP: Powertechs make such good tank/dps hybrids due to: Adv. Prototype not relying on a cell except for energy management Having a lot of damage reduction (and thus relying less on defensive stats, resulting in taking Power/Surge instead not being such a bad thing.) Having most survivability increased low in the tree (ironicly once again heat management is mainly in the top) But due to the first 2 reasons, a similar effect happens to full AP with Ion Cylinder. They ofcourse do give damage up in: Ion Gas Cylinder reducing damage by 5%, wielding a shield costs tech-power (and thus damage) and some Heat Management, less free attacks = more damage (in a long sustained battle.) It's a role that used to belong to the Assassins, but when we lost a lot of our damage reduction, it's less and less a good possibility (and Deception got buffed ) But maybe 2.5 will bring it back. The current changes without any mentioned balancing makes it sound Assassins will be great next patch, but we'll see.