I routinely hit for over 3k on blade storm in pvp with only 133 expertise. A good deal harder in pve.

Its probably better in pve. In pvp I'm beginning to think it's not. I can burst people down much faster than I ever could with watchmen and I'm routinely the top damage in warzones as watchmen so I'm not "doing it wrong".

Yes to both

And wow what have I been missing?? I have to say I find Combat significantly better in PVP. IMO what I lose in 1v1 combat I more than make up for in absolutely insane burst. Does anyone else feel this way?

I'm talking hard modes, and there are a few bosses you have to interrupt or they will wipe the group.

I spec watchmen and absolutely **** people. The mid 30's can be rough, but once you get merciless slash it's pretty much game over.

Are you?

I run 25/14/2 currently and it's really nice. I'm thinking about trying a shield/assault spec when my next free respec comes around

You can only have 1000 commendations at a time, so if it takes you that long to save them...

I tried just about everything and I've settled on tanking in pvp. My buddy who is a healer just glued himself to me and we dominated warzones all night last night. In one round a had 97k protection and he had 440k healing from all the people trying to burn me down but couldn't. The level 40 pvp gear made a huge difference for me.

Interesting build and I see what you're going for, however not taking ionic accelerator is a bad choice imo. Also it seems you would have a serious ammo regen issue with this build. Just my two cents

Your loss

IMO the shield spec is way too squishy for the amount of damage you lose sub level 50. I'm assuming this all changes eventually, and it's quite easy to top the dps chart in a warzone because VG's sustained dps is fantastic. Go hover over your damage though and see that your 2.5k high crit pales in comparison to the 4k+ that real dps classes dish out. If bioware would just make a level 50 bracket we wouldn't be having so many issues anyway because once you hit 50 it's a whole new ballgame.

Maybe he's spec'ed into Tactics as well

So I'm assuming you run with ion cell for this build? I like it but I'm curious just how effective the 31 point talents are.