A bumpy leveling experience - 35-50 as a Concealment Operative

[Dawoc]

So, I got my Operative to level 50 a few days ago, but while doing this I had a few issues that I was wondering if anyone else has had while leveling their Concealment Operatives (or Operatives in General).

 

Throughout the first Chapter (10 - 30~35) I had a blast for the most part, never really encountered any quests or enemies I had any trouble with aside from one or two exceptions (that I can remember, anyways). However, around level 35-40 I started to notice certain enemies taking a little more effort to bring down and found myself dying a little more often, but I simply shrugged it off, assuming it was the game's difficulty curve (the game progressively getting harder the further you get into it) and kept going.

 

It wasn't until around level 40 that I really started to notice that something seemed wrong. I started struggling with quests that had me facing an Elite (Gold) mob (Dying up to 10 times on some bosses) - mostly after cutscenes/conversations or when activating an item, when I didn't get a chance to stealth - or even just pit a pair of Strong (Silver) ones against me. Even normal groups with a Strong mob in it started feeling like more of a threat than they should've. Note that I'm not talking about HEROICs here, strictly Solo quests.

 

I went online to see if anyone was as frustrated as I was, and found several threads complaining about how weak the Concealment Operative was in comparison to other classes. Apparently a massive nerf had been put in place several patches ago. However, most of these threads were PVP-oriented, so I couldn't be entirely sure it wasn't just me being a bad player.

 

I stuck with it, and got my Operative all the way to 50, if only to finish the story. But I'll be damned if 40-50 as a Concealment Operative wasn't one of the most painful leveling experiences I've ever had in an MMO. Now that I've got 50-55 ahead of me I'm wondering if any you other Operatives had these issues while leveling as Concealment (If you leveled as that, that is), if I should stick with it or if I should respec as something else, or reroll as different class altogether. Is it really worth it?

[Gronkaarr]

I didn't have much problems with leveling with concealment but i did it before a lot of the nerfs hit. I did make the switch to medicine at around level 48 or 49, and did the 50-55 leveling also as medicine. if you're having difficulty with concealment I would definitely give medicine a try. I think in general some fights will take longer because you're depending on your companion to do more dps, but your survivability will increase and you'll be able to solo a lot of the more difficult stuff like heroic 2 missions and stuff. When fighting elites I do find the tank companions to work better for me because they have their taunt ability, but if you only have good gear for your dps companion then use her

[Solloby]

I levelled Concealment, but had a levelling buddy the whole way up which made a big difference. I did notice my dps was kind of blah, especially now I'm levelling other classes like Sorc & Jugg.

 

I changed to Medic Operative in the 40s and just let my buddy and our companions do the dpsing, it was safer for tough mobs, and his Sorc just blew up trash mobs with aoe so it was not really slower.

 

So I would recommend levelling to 55 as a Medic with dps companion, and maybe asking around Makeb for a questing buddy to speed things up. Otherwise, I'm not sure which companion you are using as Concealment but Dr. Lokin is a pretty good healer, as long as you get him a weapon because he doesn't come with one for some reason. He can also wear your hand-me-downs.

 

Alternatively, you can use the Gree event to level from ~52 to 55, it's easy to find groups for that. That's what I accidentally did, my Operative is my first character, and the last Gree event was my first so I did all of the quests every day. It levelled me right to the cap.

[TheFXedits]

i never really had a problem with leveling as my operative.

[af_raptura]

I did not have that much trouble leveling my operative, but I was doing so as lethality with Dr. Lokin healing. I reached 55 only a few weeks after 2.0 came out.

[platinumruggo]

Yeah concealment ops got hit with a huge damage nerf, so we're not nearly as strong as we used to be. Considering that our opener, hidden strike, is needed to really max out our damage rotation. PVE takes that away pretty much all of the time due to how missions are structured with after exiting the conversations and immediately fighting. You can't stealth out because it just resets the people's health and that's no bueno. It sucks too because I never got a chance to really experience op damage before 2.0 hit. I had an op, but rerolled it into a sniper and made an op MUCH later after 2.0 hit. I've seen videos pre 2.0 with ops pretty much hitting like trucks but hey... Edited August 9, 2013 by platinumruggo

[sofakingzoe]

Okay, having just reached 36 yesterday, continuing my leveling, and running into exactly the same issues OP is talking about, I just had to find this thread and dump my disappointment as well.

 

I've rolled an operative in an attempt to play a more engaging than average class. And that's what it was, at least, it tried to be to the best extent it could have been in this extremely casual game. At level 36 though I've been slapped in the face with pure realization once I got the utterly disappointing Hidden Strike ability, which is a very situational ability that does only slightly more damage than Backstab, which, itself, is also a situational ability doing medium damage.

 

And then it all came crashing down on me...

 

Here's the thing, I see stealth classes as a counterpart to warrior ones. Traditionally, stealth classes should be well designed in such a way to require a bit more intelligence/attention/engagement from the player than your traditional warrior class, offering higher damage (i.e. huge burst damage with sneak attacks) and utility to those who can play them well. A warrior stands there, hits an enemy a few times, moves to the next enemy, and repeats. A rogue uses stealth, incapacitates an enemy, jumps out of stealth and completely demolishes the other with a sneak attack, stuns/blinds their third enemy and beats them down with regular attacks, using an evasion trick or two to survive.

 

Now let's look at how things are in this game. As an operative, your sneak attacks are meh, and your regular abilties are not far off. I have to put in twice the effort slowly whittling down your enemies with the same situational medium-damage abilities over and over, all to do equal damage (at very best) to my Jedi Knight who can just stand there and 2-hit her enemies with two less situational very-high damage abilities, never even having to touch their default attack. Does that seem right to you? Where's the incentive in this class if you need to put in twice the effort just to break even with others? Just visual entertainment? Psh

 

The way I see it, there are two possible factors I can immediately blame:

 

1. Kiddie Combat Engine 3, simple, nice, shiny, designed to allow anyone smooth transition into any class in the game easily. Pick your class, they are all essentially the same, just colored differently. In leveling content, there are no tactics, fighting styles, or anything, just "rotations", anything not following said rotation being suboptimal. Different classes start to feel similar if played long enough. You are all essentially doing equivalent damage, just with different animations.This is likely the main reason many people didn't like this game.

 

2. Anti-stealth prejudice. Don't laugh, this is a very real phenomena. Let me tell you how this works. For some reason, for some people, it's especially painful/humiliating to be killed by a stealth class, so there's this cognitive dissonance at work that makes people believe stealth classes are inherently overpowered as heck, despite how situational those stealth kills may be, and how much skill you need to pull them off. So guess what happens when enough idiots come in droves to complain about it on forums. The devs have no choice but to nerf the class to oblivion or the game risks losing subscribers. Stealth classes are very often seen as overpowered by people getting killed by them in PvP and underpowered by the people using them. Rarely does everyone agree on them being balanced.

 

So yeah, just my two very stretched cents on this disappointing class (and the disappointing parts of the entire game that make it so)

 

By the way, I could be wrong, but it also feels like mobs use stealth detection probes more often in the later planets, inflicting another hit against the tactical and time saving advantages of stealth. Balance!

Edited August 23, 2013 by sofakingzoe

[KevMeup]

I leveled from 1-50 as concealment. The only time I got into trouble was because I would constantly skip as far ahead as possible with stealth

 

Once I got Dr Lokin, I outfitted him as well as I could and he was my constant companion till 50. I mixed in a fair amount of pvp and Flash points, but I never felt gimped for my level. I remember I felt pretty ****** stealthing through things and popping in an out like NightCrawler from xmen to stab people. I'd use sleep a lot and flashbang to reduce how many mobs I'd deal with at a time.

 

If you don't like operative, shelve it for a bit while you try another character type, you might find yourself liking it again in the future. If you like operative, stick with it, find some people that do it well and figure out what they do, maybe look for some videos. Operative is my favorite class, it's heals are amazing and it's endgame lethality dps is on par with rauders.

[DSorin]

I wonder why i have no problems with leveling my conc op.

He is lvl 46 now and died one time and was maybe 3-4 times close to death due to mistakes i made.

After you get Dr Lokin it's close to a walk in the park. Just stun use shield etc if you are going low on life and use Colto Injection which is just awesome for leveling with Incisive Action, add Lokins heal and you are good to go.

 

On the dmg it could be more i agree. But it's certainly not the worst.

 

Btw to the guy who has problems with steath detection. *** do you mean, there are no mobs with stealth detection, maybe you shouldn't go near enough to give them a kiss on cheek.

[sofakingzoe]

I wonder why i have no problems with leveling my conc op.

He is lvl 46 now and died one time and was maybe 3-4 times close to death due to mistakes i made.

After you get Dr Lokin it's close to a walk in the park. Just stun use shield etc if you are going low on life and use Colto Injection which is just awesome for leveling with Incisive Action, add Lokins heal and you are good to go.

 

On the dmg it could be more i agree. But it's certainly not the worst.

 

Btw to the guy who has problems with steath detection. *** do you mean, there are no mobs with stealth detection, maybe you shouldn't go near enough to give them a kiss on cheek.

 

Is that level 46 your first toon? My OP is about to become one of my handful of level 55s, and I can say the leveling experience, ESPECIALLY with a healer companion was an absolute drag compared to, say, my marauder or jedi knight. Backstab with Acid Blade become difficult to use without a tank comp, leaving you with an entire TWO medium-damage abilities to reliably DPS with. Not only is your DPS doodoo in that situation, the playstyle also becomes mind numbingly boring. I don't know what planet you'd have to live on to think that's fine, again, I guess that's your first level 46 toon and you have nothing else to compare it to.

 

I find that with a tank companion and stacking crit chance and surge, the way you plow through mobs feels comparable to a marauder (thanks in no small part to said tank companion's added dps), but then, you kinda missed my point about stealth classes. Proper stealth classes aren't supposed to put twice the effort (stealth, positioning behind the enemy) just to do equal damage to someone who can just stand there and spam two buttons.

 

As for stealth detection. This also shows you're out of the loop here. Increasingly more groups of mobs use stealth detection probes at high levels, especially on Makeb it seems, and I have had quite a few instances of being spontaneously detected even with the stealth level buff. Probably a bug, but nevertheless, it happens.

 

What I say goes to the other person who replied before you as well. Minus the level 46 first toon part, perhaps.

[Cordorian]

I leveled my concealment operative pre 2.0 so i can really say whether the damage output got worse there. Apparently sustained damage was buff, while burst was nerfed due to the general crit nerf, but that really shouldnt be a problem.

I didn't have any problems, and generally like the solo pve playstyle, but you have to get used to it. As already mentioned use the tank companion. I know this is an odd choice for a dps spec, but just to get those backstabs off.

The operative is and equal footing with regard to the assassin in terms of CC, use it!!! Always hard stun the toughest mob and peel down the other two (you can even open on one of them with HS). Elite one can be tough, but i comes down to timing and correct rotation (this class isn't very forgiving), always remember that Explosive Charge is a 3rd highest damaging ability, so use it.

As with regards to the boss fights after convos, especially with mutiple opponents, use your cloaking screen at the very beginning of the fight and stun the toughest with sleep dart.

Also Flashbang, Sever Tandon and Debilitate are extremely useful to get the edge in a fight.

And you can use Orbital Strike on single targets, it's damage output is very good. So Sleep Dart, Orbital and before the first tick hits an Acid Bladed Back Stab.

 

Unlike some other classes, you have to use almost all of your abilities while leveling and you have to be smart, you could definitely not facetank mobs like sentinentals or guardians do, but you have tons of CC to make up for that.... end game pvp is a different story though

[specopsscout]

My Op is only 41 at the moment, but as long as I do my part, I haven't had any serious growing pains so far. My only 55 toon is a Sin though, so I'm familiar with playing the stealth role. I keep reading about how bad concealment sucks, but I haven't run into the critter I can't put down...yet. I primarily use the tank, but even with the healer's different dynamic, no real issues thus far...I'm really liking the different playstyle from the Sin.

[MCaliban]

My Concealment Operative hit level 46 today and the only trouble I've had is that my burst damage is so high my tank companion can't always hold it. Tonight, while the armor reduction from acid strike was working, I've managed to one-hit-kill about a dozen enemies with a backstab. I've soloed almost every Heroic 2 and 2+ that I've encountered plus a handful of Heroic 4s.

 

I have died to bosses because I have to confront them and their minions out of stealth, but have always gotten them on the second try.

Edited October 9, 2013 by MCaliban

[Elyx]

My Concealment Operative hit level 46 today and the only trouble I've had is that my burst damage is so high my tank companion can't always hold it. Tonight, while the armor reduction from acid strike was working, I've managed to one-hit-kill about a dozen enemies with a backstab. I've soloed almost every Heroic 2 and 2+ that I've encountered plus a handful of Heroic 4s.

 

I have died to bosses because I have to confront them and their minions out of stealth, but have always gotten them on the second try.

 

I think this is the issue with concealment. notice tank companion? this means the comp has threat...and therefore the backs of the bad guys are available. Good tactics! For the OP...this is one of the concealment crutches. we need backspace. time at the rear. our biggest DoT, and our big damage dealers, require exposure to the opponents back.

 

and our big "Opener" requires stealth to boot

 

we also have energy management issues. it relies on timing and coordination that honestly isn't always there in PvE, unless you set things up that way. with a tank comp, as an example.

 

Here's another option if you'd like OP: run a hybrid. my favorite build to date for solo PvE and smaller heroics. you run up the medicine tree just high enough to get surgical probe and surgical precision, and then up the Concealment tree to get culling. that way you get the energy regen from your default healing ability, and the energy return and buffed damage from Laceration.

 

One of the reasons this works so well in PvE is that past culling, most the talents are buffing your positional damage (which unless you set things up is situational at best in solo play). most your up front damage is from laceration, corrosive dart, and such. So this build takes the best of the upfront damage, and combines it with a higher tactical advantage limit, better energy regen, and 2 extra instant healing abilites to boot.

 

I run this setup with a DPS comp and burn through content. when the comp is taking heavy fire, i stand back and heal, when they're not, i slide up and burst the mob down with 3 stacks of TA and my laceration. There are times when i've chained 5 lacerates back to back. its a ton of damage. it's also very fun as well. I often will heal low level FP's and heroics quite easily with this build as well.

[ekimmak]

The spec was a lot more fun when headshot and cheap shot/eviscerate were still in the game. Tranq dart one target, open on another, kill the third, then drop an explosive probe and headshot the tranqed target for massive damage. If you wanted some even more massive overkill, you could drop an orbital strike/XS flyby on the poor sap beforehand, or maybe try and stealth attack just before it goes off. There were a lot of options.

 

But, people complained that they had to pay money for skills they'd never use, so bioware removed them, and took out a good solo'ing tool that every class had access to (I don't even get that). Oh, and they've been consistently nerfing the concealment operative almost every update. At launch, they WERE overpowered, but those days are long gone, and right now, it's just beating a dead horse because it kicked you in the shins once.

[CecilPaladin]

I have a couple of level 50's and 55's, basically all the classes. The operative as dps was BY FAR the worst one! Not only does it take forever (36) to get hidden strike, but all your other abilities have the mob's back requirement. None of my companions were able to hold aggro long enough for me to backstab people. And the cooldowns themselves!!

 

Take for example the Sith Assassin's maul ability. There is NO CD, and you can use it from behind them as much as possible. Granted I didn't have Treek when leveling my operative, I had major aggro issues throughout the entire leveling process.

 

Smaller mobs would turn around after one attack. Then you are left with basic attacks that do low damage, and waiting on your good abilities to come off CD. You are then left with sub par regular attacks, which makes the whole leveling process pretty horrible.

 

It might be easier now if you can Treek, as she does hold aggro pretty darn well. Otherwise, none of my companions met the requirement for me to actually do damage from behind the mobs. I ended up just respecing into heals and running with a dps companion instead.

 

It doesn't stop there. When I had to get from 50-55 on Makeb, that was horrible too. I almost just gave up and quit. Luckily, you can heal some operations and level that way.

[Lundorff]

I have decided to put off the class story until I am level 55 and focus solely on PvP. That should make things rather easy

[RyderQuanTy]

I am lvl an operative and have been 2 lvls below recommended and am having no issues I see nothing wrong with operative,

[Hei_Atzfel]

I'm working on getting my operative to 55, currently 43. I can say without a doubt that it feels like it takes two, maybe three times, as long to kill someone as it takes me to do on my assassin. Granted, my sin is 55 in full conq, partial ob gear, and fully augmented. So that combined with my lesser amount of skills and skill points on my operative IS going to make a difference. However, it wouldn't make such a huge difference that my TTK between my op and sin is usually a good two or three times as long for my op as my sin. The damage just isn't there. I find myself having to rely on cloaking screen, evasion, and shield probe on my op a LOT more than my sin needs to rely on force cloak, force shroud, and deflection.

[Relidar]

Figured I'd leave my experience here as well. Hopefully the devs have people reading this and can use it as feedback.

 

I'm currently level 40 and I've been Concealment up until now. 1 to 30 was by far the worst, and I've leveled sorc, shadow and mercenary to 50. It's very slow and uneventful. The story is very dry and combat feels awkward. I spent a lot of time healing for dungeons and heroic quests, which also was very boring up until 31+.

 

Healing really took off at 31+ and became a lot of fun. Concealment took off at 36+ when you could open with HS and actually keep TA up the entire fight. I've used Kaliyo up until now when i was able to afford to buy Treek. Treek is definitely worth the money and i wish i had bought him sooner, by far the best companion to have while leveling.

 

I swapped to Lethality at 40 and I'm really enjoying it right now. I feel like Concealment could kill faster if i got a perfect opener, but Lethality manages better in all situations. I tried Lethality at 25-30, and it didn't really work out so well.

 

Overall, i think Operatives are extremely plain and dull up until 31+, sadly. All classes are boring pre 30, but operatives were definitely the worst. (I've leveled all classes to 20+)

 

My biggest issue right now is finding a good way to setup my keybinds and action bars. I feel like there are waaaaaay too many skills to be using in an MMO. I'm currently at 37 keybinds and pretty much run out of space. I feel like i should be removing some skills completely, i just don't know what.

 

Looking forward to end game though, Operative healing is extremely fun, much more so than Sorcerer and Mercenary, and i REALLY like Sorcerer healing.