Check out your buffs, which should be (itty bitty tiny) icons above your HP bar in the standard UI. Things like Speeders are buffs once you mount them, so you can keep dismounting/mounting until you see the location I'm trying to describe. If a buff stacks, it should have an even smaller number in the bottom right corner; just like cooldowns on your hotbar, they have a visual queue for when they expire.

Simple solution is to go back to your starter planet, get your companion (usually by level... 8 for most classes?) and then drop what you want and grab the desired crew skills. If you sub, you can use an Emergency Fleet Pass (ability, not the item) once every 9 hours so just do it before you log off for work/sleep and it'll be ready to roll when you log on again for your next session.

I think the reason all of those skills are Double-Bladed Lightsaber only is so that you don't have Assassins/Shadows running around with single lightsabers.... It's a pretty hamfisted fix, when you consider we can use Electrostaves though. I'm surprised they don't just make the requirement "Double-Bladed Lightsaber or Electrostaff"

I actually stealth past mobs/skip lame "kill more rats" bonus missions on purpose with my Assassin, because it let's me do some PvP/flashpoints/space missions without blazing past the level range for the planets I'm on. It makes the game a bit more interesting for me than waltzing through content 5-10 levels ahead of the curve.

They ARE sidequests; instead of doing them you could do warzones, flashpoints, or space missions (or a mix of all 3). You could even grind mobs. You are in no way required to grind out side quests in order to progress in levels and your class quests.

If you're friend is going Juggernaught (or even Marauder), I'd suggest going Sorc from a pure gameplay standpoint. Heals + Tank or Heals + DPS is much smoother to level with than Tank + DPS (without heals) or Tank + Tank. If you two plan on solo'ing and just hooking up for Heroics or some Flashpoints, play whatever you want.

It's Hammer Station, I'm still wearing it at 32. Both the chest and legs are orange quality. There is another BoE orange chest (not sure about legs) that looks the same but the black and purple are reversed, but I can't remember the name for the life of me. I know I've seen it on the GTN a few times though, pretty sure it's high teens/low twenties.

I'm pretty sure I did this as a level 18 Darkness Assassin. I used my ship droid for heals (fairly geared for it) and had to use a medpack, but I ended up dropping the Broodmother or whatever the name was. It's not easy, but maybe get some droid parts and give it a shot?

I dunno, I'm a melee/battlemage and I think my gear makes me look like a battlemage; purple and black robes (top and bottom from Hammer Station I believe, and yes I'll be wearing them forever) with the hood up. If I had to wear the fugly *** medium armor in this game I'd be pissed. It'd kill the whole aesthetic of the class for me.

Just because a Sith Assassin wears light armor doesn't mean they can't be a good tank. Have you looked at what Dark Charge does? +150% armor. Tank talents end up giving another +20% They aren't a tank that can't take a hit, not at all. I'm not sure why you're dwelling on that, other than you don't want to be a tank?

My spec is Darkness, because Force Pull makes me giggle. Gameplay wise, I feel like an infiltrator when I stealth by by enemies, mind trapping and avoiding detection in order to kill my priority target. I don't need pre-1.1 Op/Scoundrel burst in order to do that.

I dunno, I feel like I do that all the time on my Assassin. Just because it's not a shanking, 2 shot PvP class doesn't mean it's not an assassin.

Killing the rebelling slaves on Dromund Kaas is one. Dark Side is use the correct dose of poison so that they suffer a prolonged, painful, and tortured death. Light Side is overdose them so that they die quickly and, relatively, painlessly. Not only that, but the guy who asks you to poison the slaves quickly isn't doing it for any humanitarian goals; he just wants his mission to end so that he can move on to bigger things and get a promotion. The only other option is to just not do the quest.

The first stat on a hilt/barrel is the one that indicates the damage boost: Weapon Damage/Power Rating. It's not a damage range, but a higher rating is better. That's the simplest way to check if a hilt/barrel will improve your weapons damage. It's the same deal for armoring, except it's called Armor Rating.

Go back to the fleet and act like you never left?

I've heard of that happening with certain Smuggler outfits, I think the ones with goggles around the neck. I'd definitely report it as a bug.

I can tell you that the Punish ability is just for looks. It's a social skill, not a "real" skill. It's just like the Twi'lek dance, or the Human Rally. Purely cosmetic. The shock collar I can't help you with though.

Isn't the +25% shock damage to the BASE damage? I haven't done this, and my SA is only 27, but if you took off all your gear you should get the base stats for the spell. You'd have to do a comparison then... and yes I realize that the +25% is probably pretty useless in that case.

I would kill for a server only LFG tool. Jumping in circles for an hour or two in the Fleet waiting for a group (as a tank, not DPS) is awful. I feel like I'm playing FFXI and sitting in J-whatever it was for 4 hours only to get a group for 30 minutes. Hell, a server only LFG tool will actually STRENGTHEN the server community because it will introduce players to each other when they might not have otherwise met. How is this a bad thing? You don't even need the "insta-port to instance" bit, but just the ability to get grouped would be spectacular.

As an aside, I've just been using my ship droid since level 16. That's all the healing I've needed /shrug

I think people are thinking of "omg backstabbing kill kill kill fast" MMO assassins when they think of the word, instead of an assassin as a profession. Sith Assassins are assassins in the sense that they get in, kill things, and get out. They just don't stunlock/backstab things dead like the standard MMO definition. I prefer Sith Assassin because I prefer the second, professional assassin definition.

Do you right click to "auto attack"? If so, did you move Strike off of your 1st hotbar slot? Whatever is in that slot is what is tied to right click attack. If you moved Strike away, that's a Focus generator that you're not using anymore.

Actually, Madness Assassins have 3 dots; Lighting Discharge, Crushing Darkness, and Creeping Terror (31 points in Madness). Madness Sorcs also have 3 dots; CD, CT, and Affliction. I do agree that Madness seems much better for Sorcs in general though.

Well, Andronikos is a DPS companion. Chances are he's just ripping things up so fast that his squishyness isn't showing through, he does have better AoE than Khem iirc.

I was so happy as a DPS sorc to get Andronikos and drop Khem; enemies drop so much faster and I tank just about as well as Khem ever did. Maybe for a healer it would be more of a pain but I'd just put Andy on AoE stance and heal him instead.