I'll share my thoughts on this matter. Scrappers are not and never will be the mother *********** train of pain that smashers are. We also will never be able to out dps a shadow (in pvp). That being said, we do fill in a very important roll; the annoyance class. On Alderan pvp matches, I will always rush to snow/grass not to cap but just to annoy and cc the other team. I keep them occupied as long as possible until my team gets the other point(s) so we get an early lead. On Huttball and Hypergate matches thanks to scamper and cool head we can quickly carry orbs and the huttball great distances very quickly. Also as a scrapper I do not find myself jumping right into the fray unless I have a healer healing me up from the get go. I will hide around and find a dps buddy like a smasher sent or TK sage. I will wait for them to engage and get the target down to around 70%. I will then jump in and finish the job thanks to our shoot first stun and dirty kick. We are a supporting role dps now and if you go in thinking otherwise then you should just go lvl a sent and be another dime-a-dozen smasher. We work great teaming up with a smasher to help down things quickly. Whether or not we fit in the "perfect" ranked pvp match up is up to you but I can tell you that I always try to have at least one scrapper in mine whether it is me or someone else. In regards to scrappers in pve, don't you dare say that we cannot hold our own. I just ran a S&V HM with my 66/63 modded scrapper (one 72 piece) that only has +18 augments and I was able to stay within everyone else who are in all 69/72's with +32 augments. It is very useful atm as long as when you do start bursting you really watch your energy regen. While they made it much easier to stay in the green, if you do dip too low and don't have cool head coming up then you will see a drop in dps. You just have to learn your class I out dps my gs all the time on my scrapper. While DF does provide better sustainability, scrappers can easily spread out their dps especially now that flying fists activates much more often. Also keep in mind that every instance has burn phase bosses and Scrappers excel in burn phases. I don't know if you realize how effective of a bleed Flechette round is. It ticks very quickly and on burn phase you can get two back to back after one comes off using shoot first then backblast. Along with vital shot up early on, those dots will just be icing on the cake. Furthermore if it is a boss that can stay still during the burn phase, flyby will just be even more icing on the cake. I argue that a class that gets lower overall dps but can burn better are more useful in this game. This applies to Scrappers vs. DF and TK vs. Balance. It's a fact that balance sages pull more dps over a long fight than a TK but when it comes to burning, TK is where it's at. You just have to learn your class and practice, practice, practice. The only reason you should pick a sent over a extremely skilled scrapper is if you do not already have a sent in your ops group. I hate to say it but at least one inspiration is a must for 8 man ops especially with all the horrible players in this game that you will have to most likely carry. If you think that they are underpowered in pve atm then I am sorry but you just are not using them to their full potential. You have to really dig in deep into the class and learn how to burst constantly w/o burning yourself into a hole. While I will always stand by Scrappers, DF works as well. I just do not like their lack of on-demand burst and also how lifeless the spec feels. Bioware won't buff them because there is nothing wrong with them. If they were to buff us then really good scrappers like myself (not trying to be cocky) would be OP and they would just nerf us into the ground again like at launch. Only thing that I want is the set bonus to go back to giving 15% more crit to sucker punch since that is our most used ability.

I'm sorry have you even tried playing a scrapper lately? I just ran a S&V HM with my 66/63 modded scrapper (one 72 piece) that only has +18 augments and I was able to stay within everyone else who are in all 69/72's with +32 augments. It is very useful atm as long as when you do start bursting you really watch your energy regen. While they made it much easier to stay in the green, if you do dip too low and don't have cool head coming up then you will see a drop in dps. You just have to learn your class I out dps my gs all the time on my scrapper. While DF does provide better sustainability, scrappers can easily spread out their dps especially now that flying fists activates much more often. You just have to learn your class and practice, practice, practice. The only reason you should pick a sent over a extremely skilled scrapper is if you do not already have a sent in your ops group. I hate to say it but at least one inspiration is a must for 8 man ops especially with all the horrible players in this game that you will have to most likely carry. Just for reference with my current gear I can parse around 2350 on the dummy and around +3500 for a 20 second burn. Imagine how much that will increase with min/maxed mods/enh. and +32 augments?

I am getting sick of hearing this: scrappers cannot compete with smashers and we are squishy as ****. So when they give us a mechanic that makes us important in pvp again, people ***** about it. The only thing that needs to be fixed is how scoundrels can roll over the force fields in Voidstar. If a scoundrel does not have cool head off cooldown then once our rolling is over we are ****ed. End of story.

Which is why you should not get the top two tiers of the tree and instead go get the spammable tele throw and force inbalance. While force inbalance won't auto crit like turb, it still does impressive damage and if your disturbance is interrupted then just switch to tele throw for the duration.

I'll save you some trouble; do not stack crit AT ALL. It has already been proven that stacking crit for any dps spec for sages makes you lose dps in the long run. Focus on stacking willpower, power, acc to 108%, and for surge and alac. you just have to find the right balance.

So after taking some time to get some new lvl 69 gear (with some 63's and 61's mixed in) on my scrapper, I am seeing that it is quite easy to burst +3k dps for a 25 second burn phase and for a longer 5 min fight I can average around 2.3k dps. My question to you other scoundrel dps guys/gals is how are things for Dirty Fighting? I gave it a go but I just cannot seem to parse above 2k for a 5 minute fight. Also tried out hybrids just for kicks and although I got a weirdly good result with this build, I wouldn't recommend it since I just got insanely lucky with procs and crits. One more thing can a theory crafter go ahead and work on the scoundrel class? I am glad to see that sages were already done since the stat optimizing calls for no crit in their case but I am still very unsure what to stack for my scrapper. We get a lot of alacrity buffs from backblast/shoot first and pugnacity so I am pretty sure stacking it would be a waste. For crit we get talents that increase our crit chance on backblast and ones that increase our overall crit so I would think that my 22% with no crit stat (buffs from class and smug buff applied) would be enough. Should we just stack power mods and surge/alacrity enhancements with some acc thrown in?

I'll tell you this now, due to the changes to crit I really wouldn't bother stacking it at all. It has already been confirmed that stacking crit on sage dps makes you lose dps in the long run. If you are running Dirty Fighting then this would also apply to you since Balance Sage and Dirty Fighting Gunslinger is pretty much the same rotation (move that makes dots hit harder--->dot 1--->dot 2).

Sorry meant to say acc. earpieces and IMPLANTS. Hope I am not bugging you but I have one more question; should we be getting the more mainstat heavy mods or the ones that have a little less mainstat but more secondary stat (in our case power). I ask because I know that we receive a little bit of crit from our mainstat but I am under the impression that more damage is derived from the power stat rather than the mainstat.

Don't know if this has been asked yet but should we pick up the earpieces and/or enhancements that have acc. on them?

I have done everything possible to get a response from bioware. I have 3 tickets, waited on hold for 2 hours and the person said that someone would call me back within 24-48 hours -___-, made my own thread in the customer service thread, and replied on multiple threads in customer service regarding the same issue. I have done more than anyone should just to get my account flagged so I can play the content I paid for before the deadline.

What about the people who are eligible for early access but didn't get it? Am I justified for setting up a thread or commenting on others? Are you my dad? Is this real life...

Want a good laugh? Head over to this forum post and read the op and the 3rd post. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6122011#post6122011

I did pre-order within the time frame. The website states that you must of pre-ordered by jan 8 at 5:59 GMT (mind you that is around midnight on the 7th if you are in America). I have a conf. email stating that I pre-ordered on jan 8 at 5:07 GMT. I have sent 3 tickets in and have been on hold for about 3 hours on the support line. I do not know what else to do this is the worst service I have ever encountered.

It's what I have come to expect from one of EA's pet projects. I honestly will try to refrain from purchasing any EA developed or published games from now on. They helped ruin Mass Effect, the newer Need for Speed Most Wanted, and now this.

According to their response on my ticket, you had to have pre-ordered by jan 8 at 5:59 GMT (That would be 11:59 CST). I pre-ordered and have a conf. email stating that I pre-ordered on jan 8 at 5:07 GMT or jan 7 at 11:07 PM CST. I know of people who ordered literally with one minute remaining and they received their early access without any problems.

I have posted my own thread in customer service, replied to many other threads on the issue in customer service, called customer service, and put in 3 tickets regarding the issue and have received almost no response what so ever. I'm just trying to get the issue out there since a lot of people are having the same issue with not receiving early access.

Some of us are in guilds that want to progress as quickly as possible. I understand that you don't HAVE to play it this weekend but when someone DOES pre-order it within the time frame and doesn't get early access, it's a problem.

The problem with that is some people (like me) did buy it within the deadline and we do not have early access.

They will never do this since they did offer testing time on the PTS but to offer a counter term I think that all long time subscribers should get early access. I even pre-ordered it by the deadline and I didn't get early access. If we are whiling to stay subscribed since the game launched I think we should be entitled to something that the FTP players don't.

I agree with all your points (except the last one since my scrapper is getting a much needed boost); the cartel market provides so much crap the only thing I have bought from it recently are the major xp boosts for power lvling my gunslinger alt during the double xp weekend. You should not be focusing all your time to that trash heep give us more wz, events, pve content, and ffs some god damn mini games like pazaak or swoopbike racing on the fleet.

I would agree with you but here is the thing; you get the play the core game...FOR FREE. You can get a character from lvl 1-50 FOR FREE. You still get to do a couple fps and wzs a week and you get to lvl without paying for any money what so ever.

A couple things: 1. We need some minigame like activities to do while sitting around the fleet (because we all do it since there is nothing to do). This game is put into the KOTOR universe so why is there no swoopbike racing or pazaak? Some swoopbike races on the fleet against other players would be a AWESOME time killer. 2. Make more unmoddable gear so that it is not so easy for the community to get min maxed so fast. I swear it has gotten to the point where you can just buy everything you need instead of earning it. 3. Thank you for fixing scrappers now I can actually get into groups without them dissing my style.

I only run into issues on fights that require a lot of aoe damage like the first boss of TfB or Kep on EC NiM. Force quake just ruins my force supply. Also I do not use project unless I am on the move and do not have the proc for a instant disturbance. The only time i ever use project in my standing rotation is on a burn phase AND only have a fast rock throw proc. I usually sneak it in right after the fast rock throw happens.

Thanks for the feedback guys; I was using hybrid for the longest time but after trying out full balance, I think it is a little more useful for ops since you get another dot. My last question is how do you manage force effectively? I find myself on the longer boss fights on the very low end of the force spectrum and I do not want to end up losing dps because I don't have the force to get something off.

This also the spec I run. Those salvation bubbles are just not worth it in most situations. Every time I lay one down, the other team just lines up their aoes right on top.