571 here, also a sub...never seen this before

I am looking forward to fighting Valis as well, as I am interested in seeing what the fuss is all about (don't want to go searching videos and ruin it for myself). I lurk on the forums quite a bit, but don't post a whole lot but will definitely leave my thoughts once I have taken on this fight. You are definitely correct, quite a few people have left very constructive tips and tricks and not all criticism is destructive. I also agree that the "this class is broken" threads are tiresome. In my limited (lvl 20) experience with the class there is nothing broken about it. Challenging, absolutely, but not broken in the least. I feel like I have a healthy respect for what our class does well and what it does no do well and this has allowed me to so far go through the game with relative ease. My first character was a sentinel and I used Kira almost exclusively once I got her. It was only after rolling up my guardian that I understood that I was gimping myself by not letting T7 tank for me. So I know that you can use Kira, but it's as you said certainly not optimal.

I have not yet got this far into the game, so I can't comment on the difficulty of this fight. What I can comment on is some of the troubles people are having. Some of this may be stating the obvious, but not all of us are seasoned mmo players. This is my first mmo and while I have picked up the learning curve quickly, other may not have. Instead of berating them, why not try and help them out? One big problem I am reading is that people are using the wrong companion. Sentinels, you need to be using T7. You are too squishy to be using Kira. You will far outdamage her turning the bosses hate on you and then you wipe. This problem seems to mainly only occur with sentinels, meaning I haven't seen too many guardians say that they used T7. Perhaps this is from tanks having a better understanding of the aggro mechanic. What I have seen Guardians doing wrong is that they are not truly tanking. Kira should have guard on her all the time. If she does not have guard on her, she WILL pull aggro off of you and she will die. You do not deal out enough damage to take this fight on your own. Guard her always and use taunt to keep him on you at all times. Let Kira do what she does which is beat the hell out of things w/ that double bladed saber. Lastly, what others have been saying, interrupt is your best friend in any fight. By this level, you should have three interrupts which is more than enough to prevent him from ever getting anything too crazy off on you. Hope this helps!

I second what the above says. I personally have had no issues leveling (lvl 20) and have loved my role in grouping as a a true defense spec'd tank. But it really comes down to how you like to play. I prefer a support role, so being a tank allows me to be the "general", if you will, in group play. I call out the kill order and strategy and try and control the battlefield in my party's favor. I recommend a Sentinel for PVE is your focus is on dealing out massive damage. However, if you want to do damage as a JG then you definitely need to be in vigilance (PVE). a 10/31 build for the focus generating/saving abilities from defense. **Edited to discuss gear** I currently have an orange chest-piece and and orange legs from doing flahspoints/heroics. Try and get five pieces of orange armor ASAP and keep your mods/hilts/enhacements up to level. If you are going tank, then get mods that favor endurance/defense/absorption. If going DPS, favor strength/endurance/crit/surge

There used to be a really great guide up there but I don't know what happened to it.