Cover is broken in PvP. You have to wait an extra 0.5 to 1 second after casting cover before using an ability. Otherwise, your ability will show the casting animation but is not actually triggered, resulting in even more dead time. People who don't use keybinds or don't use abilities very fast won't really notice this problem. If you've never experienced this problem, I ask you to try this experiment yourself - hit cover and immediately attempt to cast Snipe. You will notice that your Snipe animation and cast bar is progressing as normal, but Snipe will not go off. This may not seem like a huge deal to most people, but an extra 0.5-1 second of waiting before using any ability that requires cover (such as cover pulse) in a PvP situation is extremely detrimental to a class whose success depends on the successful use of CC's to position themselves and opponents.

http://img860.imageshack.us/img860/8827/screenshot2012012312192.jpg 4/5 Rakata with Champ Rifle. My Lokin's next to me in his 3/5 Columi 2/5 Rakata.

Mods/enhancements are easy to get. Just rip them out of the the purples no one's going to need anyways. You can start running HM the day you hit 50. Do your Ilum/Belsavis Dailies and buy the armoring/barrel. If you've been running D7 from 46-50, you can buy all the pieces you want from the Corellia token vendor or a couple of purple level 50 locked boxes. You just need to consider all avenues of obtaining pieces you want instead of tunnel visioning on a singular craft. The option to obtain it via crafting is certainly there, it just may not be the fastest.

Armstech and Artificing needs some love for sure. Synthweaving and Armormech is fine. Tier 1/2 recipes drop like it's going out of style in ops. Some of those dropped recipes allows the creation of BoE gear. Let's not forget that Synthweaving and Armormech get to make 2 BiS pieces.

Rakata stim/adrenals are pretty good if you ask me.

This x1000. A tank who has the ability to pop a 5k heal and increase his HP pool by 15% will be much more valuable than a tank who has an extra 500hp due to Armormech.

This makes the Rakata Medpac inferior to the blue 380 Biochem one.

This guy has no idea what he's talking about. The real world doesn't work like this. You're talking about the trickle down effect, which has yet to be proven. By your line of thought, Apple products should be practically free considering how much money they have. Less money means LESS inflation, not more. Hyper-inflation is created when a government prints a large amount of currency, reducing the value of that currency. In SWTOR, a large amount of excess credits will cause the people with those excess credits to be able to pay exorbitant amounts of money for items, driving up prices, creating inflation. Again, you have no idea what you're talking about.

5% Accuracy is not enough. Saber wielding classes naturally have a 10% deflection chance. I love my Sniper. His damage is fine. Arsenal mercs with top gear may do more damage, but it's because of their 15% tracer missile crit bonus from their 2 piece PvE gear.

Legshot kite until their resolve is empty.

That just means you don't have a good Merc in your guild. I'm 3/5 Rakata and the rest Columi. My guild has 6/6 HM Cleared. Our guild's Merc does more damage than me. Not a ton more damage, but definitely more damage.

That much damage reduction is completely over top for Patient Studies. Perhaps 5/10% might be acceptable, but even that may be too high.

He's obviously a troll. Look at his sig. Lethality does plenty of damage and is very viable. Especially in fights where a lot of movement is required while keeping up dps time. With the current cover>snipe delay, MM is not as mobile as lethality even with snapshot and reactive shot. The 30% aoe snare is also valuable as well. Lethality's ability to output tons of internal damage is useful for fights against enemies with high mitigation. The draw back of lethality is harder energy management, and the need to front load the dots before you can do any real damage. This means for fights like Soa phase 3, MM would be superior.

You'd be surprised how good snipers can be in the thick of things. Drop cover>Entrench>Ballistic Shield>Orbital Strike> Cybertech DPS Grenade if you have it. I've done this quite a few times in fights against teams with a large amount of melees. Strategies change when you have healers with you, that much is given. Just because he plays the close/mid range game when he has a pocket healer doesn't mean he plays like that without one

Shatter shot's up. You can see the debuff on him.