Whoops, yeah I meant that Incendiary Missile has a DoT that will let you fire Rail Shot. I think with the Flame Burst -> Rocket Punch I had a brief lysdexic moment there.

I know I picked the Light Side choice, and I don't recall having to fight him. IIRC, I think you just leave him in the cell and let him blow up with the ship.

I've been leveling as Shieldtech since late 20s and it's really only started to seem slow in the 40s. If you're geared up and using all of your abilities, you should be ending fights at damn near full health and very little heat, which means you get to go on to the next pack of mobs while another spec would have to stand and heal.

You positive that Mako is in her healing stance? Also, take off Wounding Blast and Electrostasis.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#3010MZMsrrobcoZfhMbdh.1 You use CGC, and the ST rotation is something like the following: 1. Indendiary Missile -> procs CGC 2. Rail Shot while you close the distance to melee range -> vents 8 heat, refreshes burn 3. Flame Burst -> make Rocket Punch free, chance for immediate free Rail Shot 4. Rocket Punch -> chance for immediate free Rail Shot, chance for automatic crit Rail Shot 5. Retractable Blade -> chance for automatic crit Rail Shot 6. Rail Shot (hopefully at this point free and automatic crit) -> vents 8 heat, refreshes burn 7. Repeat 3-6 There are some debatable filler talents, but the key ones should be obvious. Thoughts?

But but but I wanna

I use it. My ability priority is something like this: Shoulder Slam (because it's free) Rocket Punch (to get it back on cooldown) Rail Shot (to get it back on cooldown) Flamethrower (very efficient heat/damage) Unload (still more efficient than flame burst) Flame Burst (if at max heat regen) Rapid Shots

Sonic Missile, Grapple, Neural Dart all have snap aggro

Ah yes, the Annoying Bag of Toys spec. That certainly looks fun for screwing with people in PvP. It just sucks to not have dual spec, because not only will you be a bad tank, you'll actually probably piss off the person who is tanking with the increased threat and whipping mobs around.

I'm sorry you feel misled. The whole "ranged tank" thing was parroted on the forums, but if anyone actually took the time to read up on the abilities and examine the talent trees, they'd see how relatively few ranged abilities PT has. That being said, I believe we do have more ways to grab snap aggro and pull from range compared to the other tanks, so if you have your heart set on tanking, you probably won't be satisfied elsewhere.

I think it's hard to say without a parser and crunching the numbers, but I imagine if you're taking any talents that increase the crit bonus of abilities, you'll want the crit over power.

Oregon has some new helmets...

You could be too close or they're in cover

My favorite is when there is a pack of mobs with one ranged straggler...Jet Charge into the middle of the pack, hit the straggler with Explosive Dart and then Grapple them into the middle of the pack. BOMBS AWAY, BOYS!

I like crit. Random big numbers make me happy. I'm sure Power is just as valid as a tertiary stat though.l

Wow, 5k made in 3.5 hours! I only have to do slicing missions for 14 hours to pay for ONE SKILL! GREAT JOB, DESIGN TEAM!

Yeah, I think I'm going to start selling schematics and augments for 50k instead of 500 now. Have fun, whiners.

Exactly. The people ************ about Slicing either a) didn't take up ANY crew skills or b) were too stupid to sell their wares on the GTN to take advantage of the good prices.

I'm 100% Shieldtech and I have no problems dealing enough damage to level.

You can get luxury fabrics from Underworld Trading

When we all drop Slicing, who do you expect to pay 1k each for those blue crafting materials on the GTN, especially after the market gets flooded with them? Increased money in the system = more money for everyone. This means fixed costs, like skill training, speeder training, etc. are relatively cheaper.

I typically use Shoulder Slam in mob packs after putting on Explosive Dart followed by Jet Charge. Especially with those annoying Normal + Strong combos that are everywhere, this allows me to immediately get started on the Strong mob.

Off the top of my head, I think it's something like this (Shieldtech)... 1 - Rapid Shot 2 - Rocket Punch 3 - Flame Burst 4 - Rail Shot 5 - Explosive Dart 6 - Neural Dart Shift 1 - Unload Shift 2 - Shoulder Slam Shift 3 - Flame Sweep Shift 4 - Flamethrower Shift 5 - Death from Above Shift 6 - Sonic Missile Middle Mouse - Determination Q - Energy Shield E - Electro Dart R - Quell T - Jet Charge F - Grapple G - Seismic Grenades Z - Speeder X - Kolto Overload C, V - reserved for future use Stuff like Recharge and Reload, Vent Heat, etc. are on my bars but just not bound to any keys Edit: Corrected ability names

You're missing the key abilities in both builds that make those trees work. For your first build, you depend upon Rocket Punch for guaranteed Ion Cylinder hits, but you don't take the talent that finishes the cooldown on Rocket Punch (Flame Shield). On the second build, you're focused on improving Rail Shot as much as possible, but you don't take the talent that finishes the cooldown and reduces the cost of Rail Shot (Prototype Particle Accelerator). I know hybrid builds are appealing, but i think in SW:TOR they're a lot more difficult to make work than in other MMOs.

I think there's enough filler in Shieldtech to allow you to take both. I certainly wouldn't want to have to choose between the two.