To start with, I recommend a +41 power crystals as soon as you hit level 10. (obviously you need an "adaptable" weapon of orange quality, easily acquired on gtn) Ride those +41 Power crystals until you ding 60 friend. I am also gonna assume you know what to slot for your Main-Stat. As you level, whenever possible, slot for power and surge. I recommend you continue that trend for the remainder of your career. That will allow for your burst ability to shine. You can "keep up your strength" as you level by stopping by the fleet and using your basic commendations to buy new armor/mod/enhance replacements every 4-10 levels. Depending on your own success and skill on the spec, you can have pretty outdated gear and slip through missions handily though. It's up to you how often you "really" update your gear. Once you hit 60....(congratulations!)....we would need to know if you intend to strictly PvP, strictly PvE, or play both, or..? While there isn't a ton of difference in "build philosophy" there is a specific gear required, forcing you to build "differently", if you want to go to that competitive place they call PvP and actually be competitive. ymmv of course Regardless of the path you choose, here are the basics. PvE: tbh with you, I don't really do any competitive pve. But I do know that power/surge is still the bulk of your focus. I highly recommend speaking with some of the veteran operative dungeon crawlers and get the finite stats required and in some cases, for some dungeons, you may have to even change your utilities if you want "a seat at the table". Crit can and should be in the 25%+ neighborhood. Surge can and should be in the 70%+ neighborhood. Not sure about accuracy, personally I do not slot for it. Alacrity to taste PvP: Toss the +41 power crystal (at level 60) to a companion and slot a shiny new +41 Expertise crystal Play WZ's the entire time you are leveling up, from level 10 on up. When you pop 10 start Q'ing. (seriously) Get an idea of where you stand, yes at level 10, and appreciate how much you can do with so little. Save the commendations until just b4 you hit cap. Buy some WZ adrenals or some gear if you like? But until level 40, you cannot convert them to ranked so you gotta spend em or lose em. I say spend em. Especially since 3.3 brings good reason to not convert comms at all anymore. At level 40 you also have the choice of starting the weapon/comm swapping dance if you like. This method will enable you to accumulate an obscene amount of commendations by the time you hit 60. By doing this you can have all comms needed for full set of tier 1 pvp gear. Specifically: Exhumed Enforcer Set for the set bonus You can tweak with mods/enhances once all pieces are achieved. Tips to stay competitive: Get implants AS SOON AS YOU ARE ABLE TO and slot them.(level 25 I think?) This will help you get closer to the coveted 2018 Expertise cap that is necessary for a better PvP experience. Get your Relics AS SOON AS YOU ARE ABLE TO and slot them. This can be achieved by level 19 I think? But I never get it done until about mid 20's or even 30's though. I use the Crew Skill "Diplomacy" to achieve enough light/dark side points to get to level 2 of either respective side of the force. It works well for me since I also use Bio-Chem as my crafting skill. (ymmv) Send companions on the corresponding light/dark side missions as you level and after a bit you will be able to slot those relics. Once you have all slots filled, you should have 2018 Expertise rating for WZ's-non of your PvE gear should be higher rated than....I think its 162 or 168 in PvP? (Need a little help here gang, had day surgery earlier today and cloudy on this "pvp rating cap" right now for some reason? ) Anyways, rating cap applies to all PvE specific gear. So don't wear it in PvP once you hit 60. 10-59? Fine wear it like it's your own skin. But once you hit 60 it's time so spend those WZ commendations (which I just know you've been saving;) ) on PvP gear which is laced with the Expertise stat needed for competitive PvP. Final stats for PvP? Same basic numbers as PvE. 25%'ish Critical rating 70%'ish Surge rating Zero accuracy needed Rest should be Power Alacrity to taste. (I find it nice to have some Alacrity wherever Accuracy may have been slotted previously) ymmv. So...slot the hell out of Power/surge until surge is 70%'ish. Then sprinkle in some Critical until you hit 25%'ish. Now throw in some Alacrity to your preferred taste. Now go get some level 58 purple grade augments and slot them. You can slot Main-Stat or Power augments, depending on what your budget allows. There is a negligible difference between, them as far as your final build results. I have a level 60 Scrapper Scoundrel and a Level 60 Concealment Operative. One has Main-Stat and the other has Power Augments. I notice zero difference in performance. I believe the power augments yielded the "best" result, eeking out main-stat by either 0.4% or .04%? Again, cloudy and cannot recall right now. Playing Both Pve/Pvp? You'll need two sets of gear to compete at a high level in both realms of gameplay. GLHF whichever path you choose friend.

Yes if dps/dps can handle the content, then why not?

Yep and they also created a thread where they asked for player help with pvp/wz ideas. 100+ pages and 1+ years later they've never posted in the thread beyond....like...day one? Nothing from that thread has been implemented. Anyways, the devs have posted and said a lot of things and then didn't follow through on them, regarding pvp. A case of "too little too late" im afraid. Sorry not interested.

Man! Ya'll got Saiko fired up! Posting rapid fire mode. I understand the premise of what some of the quacks here are trying to sell. I disagree with most of it. I understand the reasoning for wanting to dot everyone up before entering fights. It's not doing nearly as much good as you think it is though. How many folks have you released from CC using this practice? How many more have you prevented from being CC'd due to your dots? Your goal of trying to expand the boundaries of the class is noble, however short sighted and arguably, selfish. You are forgetting those around you who are also playing. Those who are being attacked whilst you kick back dotting up large groups. Groups of people he/she can no long cc to keep them off of them. So your dots just got me, or saiko, or somebody else killed because you took away the ability to use our soft cc. 18 seconds of "f@#ked". So...while you're numbers look bloated and all kinds of "see I told you my way is top dps"....the rest of the team feels like you're actively working against them. They think you're just another terrible, useless, fluff damage operative. You on the other hand stand their all proud of your giant p@nis looking at all the "incompetents" you've been so unfairly paired with.... Anyways, your way, while self serving and bloated, is not the superior "team" style of play. ymmv.

Friend, you can almost guarantee they will not convert them back at 3:1 for you. Book it. It will be 1:1 and I do believe they have already stated as much. I know I just start buying weapons once I hit 2750 reg comms now. The conversion is garbage. I can literally forget about a weapon or two, "eating them" and still come out ahead lol.

Heals. Team with a healer usually wins, going away. ymmv

Yea, you're gonna be horrible later, you have the lowest dr....

I don't bother with PTS. There is already a well established lineage of ignoring the feedback given anyways. Seems a waste of my time at this point. I'd rather just play what's in place and not waste my play time with "testing" something for someone who doesn't "really" care about my opinion anyways. So yeah. Feel free to spend your time how you like. I'll be doing the same.

Correct. Because in their example 100% of them were bad, as opposed to the 99% that was cited. Haha, so petty.

Well...Ive done it with 3. (Mirth, Saikochoro, and myself.) They definitely go "boom" most of the time. But a quick reflex can throw up barrier, or a few other dcd's that can and do help live through it. Either way, it's super fun to pop folks like that on my operative/smuggler.

Well, you have the right to reserve your own judgments....and I respectfully disagree. The notion that a team of dps operatives is super lethal just doesn't hold up unless they are facing poor opponents or you are only talking about the first target they hit to come out of stealth? If the operative team is made up of "good" players and the non-operatives are also "good" players, coordinated or not, the operatives are prolly going down once they reveal themselves. Yes, I can and will concede that the fight could and should instantly be a 3v4 in favor of the operatives. Once focused, an operative can be burned down fast, leveling the playing field quickly. Many of the Fotm's have a heal to full rotation that really drags out fights....allowing for balance swings. Either way, the fact that a grouping of this sort is vacant/futile in ranked speaks volumes about the uberness of an all operative grouping. OOOOOH, fun idea!!!! I propose this: A team of Agents (any make up) A team of Warriors ("any") A team of Inquisitors ("any") A team of Bounty Hunters ("any") They all must fight each other in a "round robin" style tourney. In what order do these teams finish? I would pick the ops to fall dead last, personally, but what do ya'll think? EDIT: This ever been proposed/tested b4?

Even skilled, once they are all exposed, just pick one, and focus them down. Yes, the first person that they attack as a coordinated group is gonna be dead, dead, and dead. But after that we focused down most of them rather easily. You also aren't accounting for the players they are attacking being skilled too. We had several sage/shad/guardians. They (ops) never stood a chance. If this was such a deadly group there would already be "face-rolling teams of operatives" in ranked and we'd all be shelving our ops/smugs cuz the nerf would have already happened a week ago. If a team of good operatives runs into a team of good fotm's, skill being equal, the ops lose. Just as they did. We won easily, we really did. We would have a casualty or two when they opened on same target but after that it was really quite easy to cull the herd of them.

Nail on the head. How many times have changes come down the pipe that no one sees as a problem to begin with? Such a frustrating thing to see. I've seen 1000 threads about problem X and not a mention of it being addressed by devs for literally years, if ever. Then along comes something nobody has said a word about, ever. "We've been working in this change for months, our data suggests it's currently not performing as expected. This should bring it in line with our vision and make the game better than if it had cross server q'ing". You could get better results by having monkey's pull random problems out of hat and addressing them in the random monkey order they were pulled, than the way the dev team addresses things sometimes.....

I was just in a couple of those matches last night on my sage. Other team had minimum of 4 each time. We won every match once people got over the initial shock of so many on a team. Some classes it helps to stack them. I don't think stacking operatives favors operatives. We won all of them way too easily imho. ymmv.

Recently left PoT5 with 2 characters, moving them to Bastion. Won't be going back to PoT5. They don't even compare imho. Bastion has many more Q pops when I play. I don't even play my characters that are left on PoT5, like my 60 Sin. Re-rolling mirror characters on Bastion instead of transferring. I haven't waited more than 15 minutes for a Q pop, day or night, since arriving a few weeks ago. PoT5 pvp would effectively "shutdown" after prime time. The best PvP is no longer on PoT5 imho. .02

Need more, in general. More styles, more options. Fedora's, caps, do-rags, dusters, I don't care really, just make more. Pretty please. Thanks! (and a zorro style costume please )

Sever tendon was already a slow. I don't notice if it makes them slowerer...er..... The utility has been devalued imo. I tried it on my smuggler. I wont be keeping it. It's definitely been devalued. Still works fine outside of white bars of course. ymmv.

Fox, I just wanted to stop in and say thanks for making that correction mate. I was going crazy here reading about how everyone was getting "wreaked" lol. Ahhhhh, I feel better. Thanks again. (I got to your post and skipped immediately to this haha.)

Scrapper has zero reliance on any cover mechanic. That's Gunslinger, friend. I recommend using Corso Riggs for leveling and keep him kinda, sorta...in "up to date" gear. (ymmv) I think all you are missing is a few good habits/abilities/utilities. The spec doesn't 'really" come into its own until a bit later in your career. In the mean time, as you level and gain abilities/utilities, I suggest you practice: -keeping 2 stacks of heals on both you and your pet before and during engagements. -get used to using interrupts -using map structures to "line of sight" foe while you have your hots running, to help mitigate incoming damage -attacking from back and sides only, never from the front -staying behind your foe -build for power/surge -timing your use of your dodge and your shield to mitigate the bigger damage spikes -using roots to safely attack from behind/distance -using root/mez to safely heal behind or around a corner -keeping dots on foe when not using mez -tranq strongs before engaging It's the little things that count

I feel like you are showing everyone my undergarments lol.....

See, this is exactly the garbage I was talking about. If you think scoundrel/operative dps is all about 1 ability, you have no clue how to play the spec, please stop giving out your horrible advice and spreading your terribly wrong perception. Guesses are nice but not so useful in this context. 1st- All "rotations" are repetitive. There is a reason for that. It is the stringing together of abilities to maximize output. ALL classes do this. Heals, tanks, dps. ALL. If you aren't being "somewhat" repetitive with your top rotations, well....you aren't very good. The "variety" comes when players use their imagination and put together things in unique and unexpected ways to gain the advantage on opponents. This is what PvP is all about. Using repetitive base rotations while looking for the opening to gain an advantage. 2nd- Just because you can't generate good burst from the spec means nothing to those of us who can. The spec is capable of fantastic burst. You can generate enough dps to have most specs to less than half health before they can even fight back. You "guessing" about these things isn't helping the o.p. Even if you "feel" like you know better lol... 3rd- Off healing is situational? Thanks captain obvious. Thanks a million. No kidding it's situational. So is regular healing. Off healing is not a "deviation". It is certainly not required. But one thing I can guarantee you: It's better to have "situational healing" and not need it than need it but not have it. 4th- Scrappers aren't always simply "fleeing". LOL. That's what good players want you to think. It's called kiting, string out the fight, setting up, wearing down the opponent....I mean seriously. If all you see is "chicken little" running away, then...well, enjoy the box you live in I guess cuz that's pretty short sighted. 5th- If you think "timing rolls to negate 1 shot game breaking moments" is not useful then you sir are in fact a complete and utter fool who has no business giving a single shread more of advice to anyone (including a donkey) about this class/spec. 6th- Mayweather is undefeated. A guaranteed hall of famer. The best boxer of his generation. So....thanks? Anyways, back to the original poster: Don't listen to this guy. Like Mayweather says: "He don't know **** about boxing" and clearly proven he is not a boxer at all.... If you want to PvP and use your shotgun more I recommend you switch to scrapper spec. The burst is better than ruffian and that's important for pvp. Once you get Blood Boiler you will have some really nice burst you can set up quite often. Until then you will still have great burst but Blood boiler can change the way you let yourself play.

I haven't noticed dodge not working. I've gotten hit through roll immunity a few times but I think that's a known, random, rarely occurring bug? I have noticed that being behind someone and using shank shot has not been preventing folks from attacking me when I'm standing in "the pocket". Seems they have complete freedom to attack me as though I'm standing in front of them Could be lag, could be me out of position, could be a combination? or.....OR....it could be broken. No clue at this point but something I've definitely noticed. (but never did any actual testing purely pulling "data" from my bum) Whether it's all in my head or not, it feels like the pocket is no longer a safe spot.

unless of course....it does....

K, we get it, you're unhappy. We're all over it now, thanks for the updates. Make a healer and it wont happen to you again....

I recommend trying multiple builds. Your play-style will ultimately decide which utilities you choose. Choose ones that play to your strengths and you will be fine.