I'm curious how much might have been changed, if anything at all. It's possible some thing were changed like behind the scenes percentages that they aren't going to tell us about. Or it's possible the trees themselves might have had some revisions. Guess we'll find out about the trees soon enough.

I kind of like it when my companion CC's an enemy I'm currently fighting. If I'm careful, his CC let's me get into position for a backblast.

It's a carrot. That's all it is. It has nothing to do with "Growing up". They offer these bonuses to get people to buy into the product without actually seeing it or even knowing much about it. In fact, I'd wager that the more "grown up" decision is to wait, and see what a company is actually offering before one puts money down on something. Anyway, I'm not really complaining about it. I just wanted to know if the level cap was indeed directly tied into Early Access, or if anyone could take advantage of it when 2.0 launches so long as they have purchased RotHC.

It's how it works sadly. And most people are okay with it. It's the same thing with when SWTOR launched as well. People that preordered the first day they could got to get in early. People who preordered later, after they got to check it out in betas, only got a day or two early access.

Even during the first month, there was barely any info given except some basic things. I personally did not pre-order until I saw what they would be doing with class balance. If scoundrels hadn't received Scamper, I likely would not have pre-ordered.

And yet that answers nothing regarding early access and non-early access in regards to the level cap.

Oh...I can imagine that the whole RotHC content will be on the Cartel Market at some point. But they're not going to tell us that until they get $10 out of everyone they think they can. This is EA we're talking about, remember?

Well, I haven't seen any dev posts that address this specifically. Not trying to spread misinformation, just saying what makes sense to me. Makeb is the real meat on the expansion. Leveling to 55 is mostly just the bonus. I see no reason to restrict players that purchased the expansion to begin leveling tomorrow. The better restriction afterall, is that early access players can enjoy Makeb with fewer people around. (Though honestly, this whole "Early Access expansion" is pretty silly across the board. It only makes sense at the launch of a new MMO, not a small expansion.) Most dev posts I've seen simply state that Early Access with have access to the RotHC content on April 9th. But from my perspective, leveling to 55 is more a part of 2.0 than it is RotHC. And nothing I've seen from the devs makes the clarification that leveling to 55 is indeed an early access perk as well.

This is what makes the most sense to me. If you did not buy the expansion, you still get to log on, and enjoy the basic things that come with Update 2.0, like the class balance changes. If you bought RotHC, but not before Jan. 7, you'll be able to log in and start leveling to 55, but won't be able to head to Makeb and pick up the new quests. If you did buy RotHC before Jan. 7, you'll be able to actually start questing on Makeb, and level up. All the content will be open to you.

Really, it was only the Deception tree that was "nerfed". Tanking tree seems fine, and I still think Assassins were making out better than Scoundrel/Operatives overall. Of course, then they fixed it, and gave Assassins a ton of front loaded burst if they want it.

I noticed that some of the time, but not all the time. I suppose it could just be a matter of him always going up against very low geared players, but I know I've fought the Old Republic guys before and they do deal some significant damage. It's not like I haven't got a few 5k hits here and there, but it's very very rare. Basically has to be a medium or light armor wearer in terrible gear. And I don't seem to run into those types often.

I think you over value the slow a bit. It's single target, on a 12 second cooldown. Which means if they break it, it's a long time before we can slow again. It's not like a Pyrotech, where their dots are always being reapplied, and innately slow. But you're right. Getting kited has never been the Scoundrel's main issue. It's been catching up to a fleeing target. I'm not quite sure if the roll will help us as much as I hope it does though. It won't do much good to catch up to a target if we end up having no energy by the time we get there.

Yeah. Those are all nice things. I'm just not positive if it will be enough. I wish we had a Surge buff on Sucker Punch/Flying fists from the Underdog Talent. It'd make a lot more sense than Tendon Blast.

That's a lot of 5k hits. Just how the heck are you doing that?

There's a couple nice changes to the Scrapper/Concealment tree. Collateral Strikes now procs from Lacerate at a 70% chance, and has no rate limit. The rate limit is now on Tactical Opportunity, which grants the TA from Collateral Strikes every 10 seconds. It's a nice little buff to our sustained DPS, and gives a bit more leeway if you happen to proc a Collateral Strikes while a bleed wasn't ticking. Culling increases the damage of Lacerate and Collateral Strikes by 4%, and also restores 10 energy whenever Collateral Strikes procs. Backstab is also free again when you spec Flanking. There's a few buffs to the new rolling ability, Exfiltrate, such as reduced energy cost and chance to activate Dodge while rolling. There's also a +6% alacrity buff after using Hidden Strike and Backstab, which should be a slight DPS increase as well. So. Quite a bit of Quality of Life increases, and should be a nice DPS increase overall. Not sure if it will really be enough, considering not much was done for a concealment's durability, but I guess we'll see how it plays out. I think Exfiltrate might become a very powerful ability, but it's hard to say with it's high energy cost. Lethality seems pretty okay too. I think Operatives that play Lethality will like it, with the chance to tie 3 or even 4 Culls back to back. Myself, I couldn't really get into it. I prefer the stealth gameplay. Medicine is mostly small changes from I've seen. Which is fine, because healing Operatives were in a pretty good place already. Big change I believe is that TAs will now proc from all HOTs, and not just Kolto Probe. Oh. One last thing is that every operative now just gets +1 energy return. No more having to use Stim Boost to keep energy up. I think all those things together should make the class feel a bit better, if perhaps still not competing directly with other DPS.

I mainly use it as a way to unsteath people. It's instant and nontargeted, so very useful if an assassin (or another operative) uses their in-combat stealth. Our other AOEs either require a target, or take too long to use. Though, since it requires TA, it might not always be available. And since it's a frontal cone with limited distance, it's not as effective as just a good smash.

I think they'll be better. Chosen over another class...maybe not. It sounded like they were still tweaking things, so maybe we'll see something different when 2.0 goes live. I think our rolling ability might get a scoundrel into a group though. It can be just as good as an assassin's sprint, if not better, which should give some advantage in warzones. Beyond that...who knows. Scrappers still have terrible defenses compared to a shadow, and DPS seems similar.

We already did that.

Calling ******** on that. Screenshot, or it hasn't happened.

You'll probably want to get some of the level 50 PVP gear if you're interested in that, though you might make do with recruit. Thing is, you'll have plenty of time from level 50 to 55 to stock up on warzone commendations again. As for getting tionese gear, I'm not sure. It really depends if from the conversation you'll be able to pick up much of the classic gear that will be available. Personally, I think the recruit gear works fine for most solo questing at the current level cap, and will probably last you through Makeb, so don't think you really need any of the PVE gear. Maybe should save it for a companion?

I really wish there was a legacy unlock that boosted xp from all quests in general, and not just the class quests. That's part of the reason I really like the exploration xp bonus. It works everywhere.

Did you fix Bolster so that wearing gear in PVP is still better than being naked in PVP? Or so being naked, then equipping gear once in the warzone is also not better than simply wearing the gear from the beginning?

You really want to make the game more challenging? Run quests that are 3 or 4 levels above you. It doesn't matter what kind of gear you're wearing then.

The idea would be for more fair medals given for objectives I think. Though it's honestly a lot better since they added all the attacker and defender medals. Still sucks that you have to get 8 medals to get full credit for the warzone though.

Yep. Kiting with scamper is vastly overrated, mostly from the time when players could get absurd bonuses to stats with broken bolster. The energy regen isn't all that great, and classes have gap closers of their own. Put a slow on a scoundrel, and the roll becomes much less effective. It's okay. There's cooldowns though. I think an escaping Sage can spam some heals out faster than a Scoundrel with Kolto Pack. Shield Probe is still not powerful enough to absorb more than a hit or two. I'd rather have a flat damage reduction. Only in melee range, which more helps you stay on a target rather than keep away.