Backpedals AND clicks.

Most of it comes from the expertise buffs in my eyes. I go from ~2.5k crits as a tactics vanguard to around ~3k crits using a 450 power biochem and the 220/220 crit/surge relic. When I use an expertise pot and the red buff along with it, it then goes from ~3k to around 4k. This is in full champ/centurion gear against level 50 targets that are in similar geared. *edit* Those numbers are from my hardest hitting abilities. My normal spam attack will usually crit for around 2.6k under full buffs. The expertise pots and red buff need to give ~5% expertise and the biochem adrenals probably should give around ~100 less of their respective effects. I'm pretty much fine with the crit/surge relics due to surge's diminishing returns and that the pvp relics give no +endurance. That being said the buffs give the largest benefit to the classes that are already starting with the highest unbuffed damage, so their affects are most noticeable on classes like scoundrels/ops. Its a lot easier to 2-3 shot something when you go from 4k to 6k attacks rather then going from 2k to 3k. YMMV.

It makes you immune to snares, knockbacks and roots, not stuns or mez. Working as intended from what I can gleam from the tooltip.

If you are shield then go super commando, tactics go combat tech, assault go eliminator.

Its my opinion that tactics is best served by going ion cell, and forgoing the talents that boost high energy cell. You lose a negligible amount of damage and mobility, and in turn get a decent boost in survivability for yourself and your teammates (through guard). This is the tactics build that I run. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801hRMZMsrrobfkdsZb.1 You can play around with the points a bit, such as grabbing the reduced cooldown for cyro grenade vs the 2% damage mitigation, etc etc, but it mostly comes down to personal preference. Your burst rotation is gut - sticky - fire pulse - shock strike - high impact. Otherwise use ion pulse with hammer shot as needed to keep your energy up. If you see a clump of people use pulse cannon / mortar volley. Use your interrupt as needed and try to save your stuns for when people are low rather than opening with them. Your aoe stun is great for stunning a healers without swapping off of your main target. You don't have the damage output that the dps classes do, but your survivability is fairly good even using full dps gear and you have guard which basically wins games. Tank / Tank / Dps / Healer is a beast of a four man to try to take down when both your tanks have decent offensive options while keeping guard up. As a disclaimer I don't claim to be the best pvper ever, and I have a lot of stuff to improve on, however in my experience that while tactics might not provide the best overall damage, it does provide enough damage while still being a benefit to your team. Plus you get used to getting 10-12 medals every round, makes the gearing up go fairly smooth.

It does an animation similar to explosive surge, ie an explosion centered around you, but the actual bolt is delayed a bit. It seems to hit right around the time of your next gcd. Its a very good skill for timing burst.

Your burst rotation is wrong for one. You use gut - sticky - fire - shock strike - high impact. Fire bolt has a delay between the animation and when it hits, so this order you land a sticky grenade, fire bolt and shock strike in basically the same gcd, and it is followed by a high impact bolt. Seeing 2k, 3k 3k 3k for that combo isn't uncommon for me. And while that isn't as much burst that some classes have, you can do that and still maintain ion stance for guard and +60% armor.

But he spent effort on the intro!

Basically if your team doesn;t click enter asap, or doesn't spacebar the cutscenes, etc etc, the speeder bike animation will take long enough that you will get locked out for the first wave. If there is any disparity in population it is fairly trivial for the attacking team to bomb the first doors before the second wave is let out of the spawn.

Well, thanks for the varied responses. Any other input?

How playable is the game cross coast? IE if you live on east coast but want to play with friends that live on the west coast. Curious if I would suffer a large amount due to lag if on a west coast server. On a similar note, does this game have any skill queuing, as I've noticed that alleviates a lot of the minor lag issues.