I was literally just coming here to complain about that. Seriously, why is the gear for PvP so crappy compared to a simple flashpoint that takes the same amount of time and far less skill?

Accuracy is needed for all attacks to hit. Ranged and Melee attacks can miss and Force and Tech attacks can be resisted. DIversion gives essentially ~50% less chance for an attack to hit from the enemy, so slamming it down in a team fight can save lives, for sure. I used it just yesterday against a marauder that was about to kill a teammate (tiny, tiny amount of health left), and he missed just enough times for the healer to get there.

You are completely correct. I had mistaken the electronet effect ending at the same time I used Surrender as a purge. I tested it out again right after I wrote this and forgot to come back to fix it. Thanks!

As a chemist, this bothers me on a deep, visceral level.

Added a new section about the defenses of the 'Slinger/Sniper, so check that out. It is up-to-date for Update 5.1. I will attempt to revamp the parent post at some point, but hey, adding value!

You have seven main defensive abilities, not counting Utilities. The format is Gunslinger (Sniper). Defense Screen (Shield Probe): Incoming damage shield with a hidden health (so it can be popped when it gets enough damage). This is basically a proactive medpack. Dodge (Evasion): Increase chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks by 200%, as well as reducing force and tech damage you take by 75% (this is from the Hold Position passive). Really short, really potent. Scrambling Field (Ballistic Shield): AoE protection of teammates, 20% damage reduction. Hunker Down (Entrench): CC immunity while in cover for 20 seconds baseline. Hightail It (Covered Escape): a mobility roll that can help reposition away from melee and in better line of sight areas. Also, while rolling, +100% chance to avoid attacks. Pulse Detonator (Cover Pulse): PBAoE knockback that can get melee off your back. Bag of Tricks (Imperial Preparation): Resets the cooldown on the above skills, as well as Surrender (Countermeasures). So you have a lot of options. Now when do you use them? Take for example your best skill, Dodge (Evasion). This only lasts for 3 seconds, so you really need to time it correctly. For this to be as useful as you'd like, you need to know what is going to happen from the enemy. You can just pop it when you are getting focused, and that will help, but the ideal time to use it depends on who you are facing. For example, Vanguards (Powertechs) will place their Assault Plastique (Thermal Detonator) on you, which ticks for a couple of seconds, then explodes. Good ones line up their burst, so right as that explodes, they often hit you with High Impact Bolt (Rail Shot). They might be on you for a couple of seconds before their burst hits you. If you panic and hit Dodge (Evasion) too early, it won't help you that much. I don't even know how many seconds after they put the charge on me it takes, I am just aware of the sound, so I hear the escalating ticks and then the release of Rail Shot, and I've gotten used to it, so I automatically know when this will happen. An alternative is to hit Hightail It (Covered Escape), since that will also save you damage. Either one of these works. So long and short of it, you have to be aware of what skills and cues the other classes have, so you know what to avoid and what to wait out. It isn't enough to just know what your skills do, you need to also know what their skills do. There are also a number of CC skills that you have, as well as Diversion, which helps lower the damage you take by limiting the damage output of the enemy team. There are also a lot of Utilities that help, as well as Disciplinary talents. Sharpshooter (Marksmanship): Level 24 talent extends Diversion effect 3 seconds beyond when the targets are in the Diversion field, Level 52 talent increases the duration of Hunker Down (Entrench) 3 seconds, and you get Hunker Down (Entrench) after using Hightail It (Covered Escape) for 3 seconds. Saboteur (Engineering): Extra stun and longest range stun in the game in Incendiary Grenade/Shock Charge/Sabotage combo (Plasma Probe/Interrogation Probe/EMP Discharge). Not that long of a stun, and a pain in the butt to set up, but there it is. It used to be much better. Dirty Fighting (Virulence): Level 56 talent gives you 30% damage reduction against periodic effects. Level 60 talent gives your Scrambling Field (Ballistic Shield) 5 seconds more duration. Utilities: Skillful Ballistic Dampers: Gives three charges of 30% damage reduction. Can be refreshed every 6 seconds (i.e. 4 attacks). Getting out of cover and back in quickly can help keep you alive (this is called cover hopping). Cool Head (Vital Regulators): Don't take this for PvP. You are having problems with burst, and this is a slow heal over time. Too little, too slowly. Masterful Heads Up (Seek Cover): Speed boost from leaving Hunker Down (Entrench) is great synergy with a great skill. Also makes you immune to roots while you run. Pandemonium (Stroke of Genius): Along with a boost to Charged Burst (Snipe), this makes Pulse Detonator (Cover Pulse) even better, as it adds a 20% Force and Tech resist chance to a skill you'll be using anyway. Every bit helps. Note that this is resist chance, not damage decrease like with Dodge (Evasion). That means that there is a 20% chance you won't be hit at all by a Force or Tech ability, which includes CC. Reset Engagement (Reestablish Range): knocks back people with Speed Shot (Series of Shots) or their replacements in the Sharpshooter (Marksmanship) tree, which is great for keeping melee off your back. Also, you get a speed boost and root/snare cleanse with Surrender (Countermeasures), which is reset by Bag of Tricks (Imperial Preparation) as mentioned above. Lumbering Impact: Flash Grenade (Flash Bang) leaves behind a 20% accuracy debuff, which can be helpful on a well-performing DPS. Not the best, but not terrible. Heroic Lay Low (Pillbox Sniper): Reduces cooldown of Hunker Down (Entrench) by 15 seconds, which is amazing. Adds even more synergy. In Sharpshooter (Marksmanship), this lasts for 23 seconds out of 45, and you get more of it on your rolls. Amazing value. Holed Up (Siege Bunker): Hunker Down reduces AoE damage you take by 60%. Good if in that kind of meta (we aren't right now, I don't think). Hold Your Ground: Defense Screen (Shield Probe) cooldowns are reduced by 5 seconds, you get 30 seconds off of your CC-breaker, and a minor ranged defense buff after you leave cover. Overall, fine, but not great. Defense Screen (Shield Probe) is not as amazing as one would think, so while a lower cooldown is nice, I like speed boosts better for movement and learning line of sight and positioning better. Hotwired Defenses (Augmented Shields): increases Defense Screen's (Shield Probe's) damage absorption cap by 30%. Not to 30%, by 30%. If you would take 20k damage before it broke, it would now break after 26k. An increase, but not that much. I don't know the actual numbers, they've changed with every expansion, as I believe they are tied to your Mastery stat as if it were a heal. Legendary Shield Reserve (Defensive Safeguards): this is a relatively new talent, and this is very tempting. For each enemy within the shield, you gain an additional 5% to the 20% damage reduction you already have, up to 40%. You also heal for 3% of your maximum health every second (not every 3 seconds like Cool Under Pressure (Vital Regulators) up in the Skillful tier). You are also immune to being pulled or knocked back, which Hunker Down already does, but still, you don't always have it up. This is an amazing talent. Bait and Switch (Tactical Retreat): Hightail It (Covered Escape) heals you for 10% of your max health and Dodge's (Evasion's) duration is increased by 5 seconds. I don't think I have to tell you how amazing this talent is, it is brilliant. Definitely a powerful combination. Riot Screen (Deployed Shield): Reduces damage taken while in cover by a flat 5%, as well as reducing the cooldown of Scrambling Field (Ballistic Shield) by 30 seconds. Some definite synergy possibility with Shield Reserve (Defensive Safeguards), but a bit weaker than some of the other talents in this section, IMO. Perfect Scheme (Over-Prepared): Reduces cooldowns on Bag of Tricks (Imperial Preparation) by 45 seconds, and adds a 15% damage reduction effect to it for 15 seconds. This is an excellent talent. Honestly, it adds so much value, it seems like a must-take in many situations. Okay, so I think that is a comprehensive list of all of our defensive abilities. Obviously, being aware of line of sight and positioning is important to becoming better at the class. Learning the other classes' abilities is important to learning how to use your skills to counter theirs. Watch youtube videos of other people explaining how to play each class, so you can learn the rotations and the best skills for each class so you know what to look for. You can also watch really good snipers and 'slingers to see how they play in each warzone, where they sit, who they focus, why they move if they do. Good luck to you, and I'll be happy to answer any more questions if you have them.

Make sure you are on the correct planet, if you haven't already figured this out.

I truly hope so, because some of us have been waiting a long time to see our class come up in the balancing rotation (I'm a Gunslinger). We want to help you get this right before we have to wait another 3 months for changes to our class (worst case scenario). Two-way communication can only help us do this. The Gunslinger/Sniper community has some of the most avid theorycrafters (IMHO), and I have been impressed with the discussion going on in the PTS thread. It would be a shame if at the end of this update, we felt all of the wonderful, quite salient points were falling on deaf ears because no one would respond. Communication assuages dissatisfaction. EDIT: Forgot to say, welcome to the team! As an avid PvPer and long-time Red Sox fan (despite living in Texas), I share some of your passions!

The rules are actually pretty simple. It is best two-out-of-three rounds with each round consisting of two teams of 4 fighting until one team is dead. After 5 minutes, sudden death begins with acid moving in from the sides towards the middle, and the acid inflicts a DoT that takes a percentage of health away. If you are the last player hit by the acid DoT, or if you do more damage in addition to the acid and you die last, you win. That sums up the rules. Pretty much the easiest gametype.

Thank you for sticking to your guns and making some things exclusive for us PvPers!

Another thing you might look at with Laze Target is it seems slow to go off, because it waits for your animation to be done with the previous attack. This can cause lag issues and delay of skills when trying to slip it in between say, a Followthrough and an Ambush. There are many times when I will hit it and because I hit it just a bit too soon, it won't go off and my Ambush has already started. Highly irritating. I think an "easy" fix to this would be to make it be able to be used while casting other skills, because though it is off the global cooldown, I still have to wait a tick while it goes off (because I am slamming my finger on the key) before I can use another skill, just to make sure it actually goes off. Very clunky-feeling. Thanks!

I think it is most useful for DF actually. They are the most on-the-move spec of the three, and they don't need to spend a lot of time in cover, so popping in to hit a Dirty Blast then popping out so you can keep running is awesome. I would love it if they changed Snap Shot so you could use Charged Burst/Dirty Blast while moving instead of having it be an instant, but that probably won't happen. While I agree that they were overpowered, I think that the technique was a neat one, and they should have just nerfed the damage a bit. Obviously, they didn't agree with me, but the point really was that I liked the burst the spec had, and now it doesn't have that burst at all. In fact, the only thing it does well with is AoE damage, and one could make the argument that spamming Sweeping Gunfire is better even still, if paired with Efficient Ammo from the Utilities. Sab just doesn't have the "it factor" that made it so awesome. Scatter Bombs was just part of it. Okay, when you put it that way, I completely agree. I would play Sab to get the defensive abilities, because as a class right now, we basically don't have any good ones, except for Hunker Down. Everything else is too weak to mitigate extreme burst that happens in Ranked, and while mitigating a low percentage of damage works in Ops groups to help healers (especially Scrambling Field), it is next-to-useless in Ranked PvP. I would rather it be given to all than to none, which is the situation we have now. I totally get this, and I think you are 100% right about Sab needing some major changes. Not only did they not buff it like it actually kind of NEEDED ALREADY, they nerfed it into the ground so hard that no one I know plays it. Marksman is our best option for solo PvP, but without a solid healer, we will die first in most Ranked PvP matches. I never really liked Marksmanship for other things, I always preferred the playstyle that came with Sab, but they really didn't change our class at all to make it more interesting, they just moved the skills and renamed some stuff. MM basically plays exactly the same, except of course for the lack of Orbital Strike because, you know, it sucks now.

It refreshes the 3 second buff each time, so at the end, it has 3 seconds before the 80% slow wears off. I was leveling my sage the other day, and it was just insane how awesome all of their abilities were. I was having a hard time deciding because I wanted them all lol.

I would love this. Takes an underwhelming talent like Hot Pursuit and makes it worthwhile too. Plus, Charged Burst is just weird in this spec. As to the first paragraph, Saboteur used to be my favorite spec because of the utility. The stun, the defensive skills, the amazing burst with wall-banging, loved it. Now, it is an AoE damage spec and utilities are moved to...well, Utilities. This is the way it is, and unless they reverse the idiotic stun changes, I will probably never spec to it again, which makes me really sad. As to the second paragraph, it makes you able to cast Charged Burst while moving, which is great in PvP. Some people might not move, or might never use Charged Burst (like Sabslingers). In which case, this utility doesn't apply to you. But I would argue that since it is useful to some people (especially Sharpshooters), it still deserves to stick around, unlike a talent like Cover Screen which is useful to no one. That is fine if it is the reason, but it is a double-standard if this is true, because Scoundrels have the purge. And I did mean purge. Agreed, see above. Yes, for Marksmanship and Lethality (or is it Virulence for Snipers, can't remember who got changed). Sabslingers wouldn't use this much, but I don't use Sab anymore This is true. For me personally, my logic is that if it is in the Heroic category, it should be good enough to stand on its own. It shouldn't need other talents to be good.

I really miss this skill. This was the main reason I played Sab. That and the Thermal Grenade goodness of Sabslinger too. Also, I really enjoyed the incredibly useful and easy-to-use stun. You can see why I don't play Sab right now lol. I was actually thinking about Evasion as another possibility for this. The only thing is, I wanted to include built-in tradeoffs, one of which is not being able to use Cool Head to regain energy if you use it as a defensive skill. Evasion will be popped if you are trying to defend anyway.