I don't disagree with any of what you say about why Operatives are so strong, and I thank you for the time and effort you put into the explanation. However, I do disagree with what you're saying about skank / healers and duelling. Your argument comes down to "please don't duel with it, you only do it because its easy." Is that not the same for Operatives? The fact is skanks can beat almost everyone in 1v1, except the skilled Snipers and Operatives. What leverage have you got to say I am not allowed to duel with it? I can duel with any class if I want to. My Skank might be an easy win in most duels, but your Operative can still beat it. So can I not use the same argument against you? Please don't duel with your Operative because its too easy for you to beat me? That's just silly. People can duel with any class they want, there is no justification for telling people not to duel with a certain class. You're basically trying to say skanks are OP and therefore shouldn't be used in duels because its too easy, but then go on to show that an Operative can beat a skank, so that null and voids your argument about why I shouldn't duel with a skank.

Your moment in that video is exactly like I saw. You seemed to be at 75/80% HP when you were chain stunned and then you were close to death after the stuns wore off. So I guess if you aren't using a healing bot then that's just how strong the class is. But don't you think its somewhat overpowered? As you say yourself no other class could entertain the idea of going 1v6 on a turret. Again as you say you can outlive any class in a 1v1 scenario which mean ultimately you can beat any class in a 1v1 scenario too.

Wait, so yellow damage does not equal a crit hit? I always thought it did? Where as white was just a primary damage ability. Do you have somewhere I can verify this? Since only a few abilities on Defence Guardian hit with with yellow damage, I always took that to mean those are the crit abilities. Oh for sure I don't deny that two very good DPS with a healer behind them can take a down a Skank and healer duo. It happened to me enough times in ranked when I had a team and was bothered to play it. My point is that this rarely happens in regs. The fact that there is another objective at play like trying to cap or defend against a cap is enough to give the skank and healer the edge. Plus although all the really good players still do regs, there is plenty of bad ones too, and they don't coordinate their stuns, interrupts and focus like ranked do. In a typical week of doing regs daily, I will lose my healer (or die myself) only a handful of times at most, and most often its when we are heavily outnumbered. Even in PVP instance open world, I am unbeaten against all classes in 1v1 with companions, such is the advantage of a skank to be able to protect its healer vs a DPS that cannot. 1v1 duels without companions is a different matter, Operatives and Snipers can be very tricky.

Interesting, I never knew that about Guardian slash, In my time playing I have never seen yellow damage from it. Not once. So if that's true I would still err on the side of being better to put points into alacrity than points into crit on the very small chance it crits. When I tank for one of my healers in regs I prefer to run a couple of tank enhancements, which put me at around 28% shield and absorb. I find that is a nice balance between being able to take a lot of heat and still defeat attackers. I rarely die or lose my healer when tanking in regs. It needs to be 3/4 very well coordinated players to take us down, and usually regs lacks the coordination for 3/4 DPS to do it. They are more concerned with capping or stopping the cap. One time me and a healer I work well with held off 6 players from capping a turret. 1v1 Ofc as you say pure DPS build. Ranked... I tried all sorts of builds and could never decide what I preferred. Some people swear by skanks in Ranked, others swear by full tanks. But it's a moot point for me since I don't bother with ranked anymore.

Look up how global cooldown works. Any toon without a passive alacrity buff should always be just above one of the break points.

You are correct, I was only adding that unlike Shadow / Assassin tanks, Guardian / Jugg has very few crit abilities, and only two of them are on low cooldown. Of those 2, only one does decent damage. With this in mind 704 alacrity is pointless because it results in your stacking too much crit for the class.

Have you done any verifiable test on a dummy to show how DPS changes with different builds? WZ is too circumstantial to draw any firm conclusions. I can tell you for a fact that break point 2 alacrity with crit as low as it allows (no defence stats) does more DPS on a dummy than 1000 alacrity with Crit stacked high. it also wins in a standing test - which removes all skill - against another Skank, equally geared, but running your stats. Plus you big hits that you are stacking crit for are not yellow damage abilities.

Crushing blow is jugg version of Guardian slash right? Its not a crit ability. Your crit stat won't come into play for that ability, only your primary damage. As I outlined above.

I know 1v1 PVP isn't a game mode in SWTOR outside of offering people duels (as a side point I really wish 1v1 PVP was a thing, like 1v1 ranked or something) but it is the mode of PVP I enjoy most. I can often be found in PVP instances running my CQ quests, because I enjoy 1v1. And often spar with my friends or offer duels to randoms (provided I don't massively out gear them). I've been playing since Feb 2018 and have played all classes except Trooper and DPS Vanguard. I main a 258 Guardian skank because its the class I enjoy the most. I understand at one time it was THE op class. But now I don't think that's the case? So, what classes do you think are the best for 1v1 scenarios? For me I think Operatives / Scoundrels and Snipers / Slingers are at the top right now. I can beat some of them, but when you get a really skilled one there seems to be little you can do. Even with my utilities set to give me maximum mobility a really good Sniper just has too many ways to push me back and root me in an open enviroment. And Operatives cannot be held close enough, even with Freezing force set to slow them down ( and speed me up) and Blade barrage and saber throw set to immobilise. In a typical duel with an Operative I will get a big lead on them at the opener, but if they are good at escaping and healing then its very very hard to maintain that lead. My best hope is usually to hide when they scamper, and then heal up myself. But this ends up becoming an infinity duel All this said I do know one Guardian skank who seems to be able to beat any class any time, but he just seems to be on another level skill wise and is one of those people who can pretty much beat any class with any class .. lol So what class do you main? And what class do you hate when to comes to 1v1? And be honest please, no pointless bragging. If you are a Sentinel who believes they can take any class, tell us the ones that have beaten you on occasion, IF you are an Operative who agrees its an OP class, tell us who did beat you that one time.

I agree putting alacrity into no man's land is wasted points. With 258 gear you can build 704 or 1859. Crit is also rather wasted on Guardian / Jugg Skanks since they have so few crit abilities they can't make much use of it. However in tests I have done you are still better using crit in full DPS mode than you are adding any defence, shield and absorb stats - For 1v1 scenario this is. I've tried taking crit out and replacing with shield and absorb, but you become a lot weaker in 1v1 tests. So much weaker that a Vigilence Guardian walks over you. Run no defence stats and you destroy a DPS Guardian. The reason I assume lowering crit didn't work is because it also lowers primary damage since you can't avoid swapping power out when you take crit out. So while crit is not super useful for this class you are still better off with it. The only way then to keep crit down while maximising primary damage, is to run break point 2 alacrity, and take crit only from enhancements, relics, ear and implants. No augments. I've done a lot of experimenting with this class, and I believe this is the strongest Guardian Skank you can make. Running low alacrity (704) would only mean you end up with 2000+ crit that you can only use on a few abilities.

So, as expected I had considered the possibility that he had conveniently popped all his utility self heals plus 2 stacks of probe right before he knew he was likely to get chain stunned... but this still leaves me with a doubt.... as I said I main a Guardian skank with 15k armour rating. In anticipation of the same scenario happening to me, I have often popped Saber Ward + Warding call in order to survive such situations, but even with all that tankiness I suffer massive HP loss against even the worst DPS players in the game. Say what you like about Scoundrels / Operatives, they do not have the same damage reduction as a Defence Guardian, I'm at 52% damage reduction before even popping any defences. They have better survivability yes, but not better damage reduction. In fact in my time playing, the only scenario I know for a certain can always walk away from that situation is when I am tanking for a good healer. A good skank and a good healer can easily hold off 4 decent DPS players in WZ. I actually find it hilarious watching them try to focus my healer and not managing it. (4 extremely good DPS players will eventually win - but that's a different topic).. so... as I said I hate to make accusations of cheating, and I really want there to be an explanation for this.... but that sort of damage reduction looked a lot like my damage reduction when I am teamed with a healer. Which leads me to ask the question... can we absolutely rule out a healing bot? In defence of the class I will admit that it is always Operatives trying to cap turrets vs 4 players, no other class can do it and you never see other classes trying. So yes, they have amazing survivability. But usually once caught in a chain stun they need to stealth out or die. Actually seeing one walk away was like.. huh??? I mean I've been 1v1 with Operatives and taken more than 50% of their HP by double stunning on my own.

Must admit I wasn't looking for them, so I can't say. As I understand the class, any Damage reduction is minimal to non- existent while stunned? For example Guardian skanks can be specced to 30% damage reduction while stunned, and can activate Focused Defence while stunned. I'm no Scoundrel / Operative expert, but when I inspect my Scoundrel I see no equivalent damage reduction while stunned .

Both as skanks? or both as Tanks?

Immortal / Defence, with Tank armourings and DPS mods, enhancements, relics, ear, implants and weapons. So you get Tank set bonus (because DPS set bonus does not work on a tank and vice versa) with DPS stats.

Ok, my first post here, but I've been playing for 1.5 years. By no means am I the best player around, but I'm no slouch either. I main a 258 Guardian skank with full DPS stats in PVP. However on the following occasion I was playing my Vigilance Guardian (252 with 236 augs). I'm really not one to jump to accusations of cheating and use of hacks, I've had accusations of cheating levelled at me, for example when I defeated two Assassins in a 2v1. A LOT of accusations of cheating can be answered by skill. But every now and then something happens that I cannot explain. The scenario in question is Civil War, with a 248 Operative trying to cap vs 4 players. One of those players was me. A common situation, and I grant that done well, a skilled Operative can cap vs 4 players who don't know where to position themselves. But, I digress.... The operative in question was caught in a chain stun, at which point of course the 4 of us proceed to DPS him. He lost only 50% of his HP, before he scampered around the turret platform. My question is how can he lose only 50%? No matter the skill of the 4 other players, when the situation is reversed, my vigilance guardian is dead in seconds. In fact in the very same match a few minutes later I was 1v2 against 2 Operatives, once they chain stunned me my health bar vanished. Ofc I survived momentarily by using FD, but I was still dead. So, I'm not accusing of cheating. I'm willing to be educated. How do Operatives do this? Since it is a common occurrence. In 1v1 I grant they are formidable, but I have a Ruffian Scoundrel too, and I can see no way to give them this kind of survivability when chain stunned. Perhaps someone who knows more about the class could explain it to me? Please though, if you reply by saying its all about skill and understanding of abilities, then can you actually give me a break down of how? Rather than just saying its skill. I'm quite happy to accept that this is not cheating if someone can explain to me how it's done.