I have to agree with Vanguard being pathetic damage in pvp. The other day, I was trying to kill a scoundrel healer. It was pretty funny. He literally stood in place, doing nothing but diagnostic scan, the heal over time, and the emergency medpac, and I couldn't get him below 40-50%. I'm not the best around, but running the AP isn't all that hard to manage, and I was pretty well geared (before the first bolster fix, in half DG/half campaign). I wasn't getting crits, so that had something to do with it, but it comes down to the plasma cell nerf really screwed us. Plus, every class can now get 8k+ hits with ease, but Vanguards are lucky to get a 6k hib. Numbers wise, I seem to have put up decent numbers if I use explosive surge in groups, but if i want to tab dot, I would play on my scoundrel or shadow.

I have leveled many toons, and done a LOT of pvp leveling. I like to have capped ranked/regular, and at least 10 weapons. So, I do a lot of pre-50 pvp. I just finished another toon up this past weekend, and it took me like 1.5 hours to go from 48 to 50 by going to ilum (NOT THE CHEAP WAY), but took like 2.5 hours to get from 47 to 48 with just pvp'ing. You realize all the perks you say help pvp levelling (or make it "faster") also work doing regular pve stuff?

I don't know what world you live in, but straight pvp leveling is certainly not faster.

How much expertise were you running? I have a lowbie smasher, don't get anywhere near that (usually do around 5k), but I dont run much expertise, too lazy I guess.

Imp has been bad for a while. Actually this week so far has been a LOT better then the past few months, Im not sure why. I actually might get both my imp weeklies in one week ! Vasyel is right though, imps don't seem to play objectives as much. Then you also have the idiots, like the guy who told me the other day that killing healers is pointless....

I have a related question. I think I'm having dps issues as well. I seem to only pull like 1500 on most boss fights, except for Kephess, which is just sick for dps (20k rail shots 4tw ). I run the non-AP build, have maybe 37% crit, 78% surge. Gear is 1 DG piece, rest is campaigh/bh, my belt/bracer/barrel are all DG, and Hazmat implants. I'm thinking I should be pulling a lot more dps. I know the fights are situational, so I go to the training dummy, and I can get like 1900 at the start, but it slowly drops over time, settles around 1700 maybe. What should my dps numbers look like? Or, if someone can toss out a number for say, full campaign should be XXX, that would work. I believe around 1200 dps is the general level for Rakata, but I wasn't sure what to expect from campaign and higher stuff. Thanks.

I can see this, to a point. Things like Armor rating go up with higher level stuff I think, plus the mods you can make yourself (or buy from vendors) always seem to be a notch or 2 below the quality of the mods you get on drops. Granted armor rating for a sorc isn't the most important - but you are going to get hit sometimes But, to each his own, as I said - I am still rocking an ugly face mask that makes my character speech very annoying because of the stats

I'm just curious as to why someone would put this much effort into an item that would be obsolete in a few levels ? I'm a new player, so perhaps I am not understanding this (my sorc is 33 I think), and I really don't think too much about gear, it gets outdated quickly enough anyway. To me, running some flashpoint 10 times trying to score seems fruitless - you could use that energy to just level up in higher xp zones, and get better gear. Of course, feel free to play the game that gives you the most excitement/fun - but I don't think Bioware really put a lot of effort into drop rates for mid level gear. And - if you want the gear for aesthetic reason, and not stats, then my post is moot But I've never really been one to care about a toon's "looks" - stats > all in my book, no matter how ugly.

I really hope it isn't this easy. I remember EverQuest, and taking a hell of a long time to level. I enjoyed that kind of grind. With every expansion, getting those new 5 levels was always done in a few days - but it wasn't like that in the beginning. I got in yesterday, haven't played too much yet (by the way I only pre-ordered like 2 weeks ago, I waited until after I played the beta weekend, I was surprised I made it so fast) - but I was expecting it to take a week or 2 before someone hit the cap. I guess the days of xp grinding are over (unless I want to go back to play EQ ) - seems everything is quest driven.