Yes, it's an issue. I believe the devs know about it as there was a thread a week or two ago about the same problem. Let's hope 1.3 or maybe even 1.2.2 has a solution for it.

I don't see the point of a moddable belt/bracer at end-game. You can't take the mods out of end-game belts/bracers to put into a moddable one, and in the next patch or two they will add the feature to add an Augment slot to existing, augmented-less gear anyway. I also don't know of any schematics that craft moddable belt/bracers so the Augment slot issue is moot.

They do solid damage, yes, but the main issue is that their survivability is not sufficiently linked to their tank gear, which is a major problem. Shadows/Assassins get a damage boost to their techniques/charges with a 2 minute cooldown which ALSO grants them 10% max HP via tank tree. At 3 stacks, a top tier talent lets them heal for 9% of their max HP over 3 seconds via channeling an uninterruptible and pushback-immune TK Throw/Force Lightning (that means you have to blow a CC to stop it); tank gear means a bigger heal due to more Endurance, but that's moot since a DPS geared tank will be hurting you more than you are hurting him anyway. The worst offender is Resilience/Assassin equivalent as it provides 3 seconds (5 talented via tank tree) of immunity to all Force/Tech abilities; this means when the ability is active, you aren't kiting or CCing that Shadow/Assassin whatsoever so they have free reign to beat on you as they please. You have to hope you can outrun them or tank their damage while throwing out some melee/ranged damage of your own.

I agree. Saber Ward needs to be reduced in cooldown by 60 seconds via the Blade Turning (http://www.torhead.com/ability/40GdKtl/blade-turning) passive Juggernauts and Guardians get the second they choose their AC. Heavy armor outside of tank stance isn't sufficient to mitigate damage and DPS-specced Guardians/Juggernauts are just too squishy.

Their the same class except the Marauder/Sentinel has to run around in melee and juggle two resources (Fury/Centering on top of Rage/Focus) and Sniper/Gunslinger has to maintain range and use cover effectively. I would say Sniper/Gunslinger is harder because the cover system is clunky (Hunker Down and maybe Entrench are broken and do not provide CC immunity for all 20 seconds in many cases...) and you have to be kiting enemies constantly while trying your best to deal damage. However, Sharpshooter/Marksman builds are easier than the hardest Marauder/Sentinel specs.

No way man. IG stun is great for ranged enemies, too! Chain casting Sorcerers/Mercenaries get owned by that stun since it acts as both an interrupt and an area denial: the enemy now has to move away, further interrupting their damage/healing ability, or keep eating IG DoT ticks. I like to Shock Charge -> Sabotage Charge -> Incendiary Grenade -> Speed Shot for a massive damage combination where the enemy keeps eating damage and can't do anything about it. It's great for both melee and ranged and is a staple to my playstyle.

It is that simple and it is the approach they are going to take. Because it doesn't make sense to add end-game recipes for every single item from PvE/PvP vendors just so you can craft the same item, hoping to get an Augment slot, they will introduce in the near future the ability for crafting professions to add an Augment slot to an existing item. So long as the Augment slot can be obtained for all off-hand items, the stats between off-hand weapons and off-hand items can match, removing this discrepancy.

I wanted to bring this issue up as well. The lack of augment slot is a major discrepancy between the classes and a mere dual wield penalty isn't sufficient to mitigate it. Specs that focus heavily on Tech/Force damage, such as Focus/Rage or Saboteur/Engineering, also render that counterpoint moot. It's really a simple fix, however: we just need to be able to crit-craft generators/focii/shields with Augment slots. The point of the mod system is to be able to maintain a certain look through many levels while keeping the stats on your gear relevant. Since off-hand items do not affect your character's appearance, however, we don't need to make these off-hand items moddable as the stats would be up to par just as with equal item level moddable gear anyway. To reiterate, the only reason we need this change is because 4 ACs benefit from 1 extra Augment that the 12 other ACs do not. The alternative is to make all sabers/blasters either main hand or off-hand only and prevent the off-hand ones from being Augmented, but that would be quite a mess to organize.

This is my favorite set in the game as well, though I have not seen a way to obtain the blue/silver Merc set as a Powertech. The Ultratech pieces that have dropped in normal mode Directive 7 were only the green/red/yellow set meant to emulate the Boba Fett look (but you get both DPS and tank pieces). The item mentioned in the thread title fortunately does exist in the game; Armormechs can RE the blue TH-17A Elite War Medic Helmet (obtained via a schematic drop from crew skills) after crafting it. The bad news? The item is a purple, yes, but has no mod slots. I tried creating the Elite Vanguard Helmet/Greaves in this fashion for a moddable purple version but I found I had just wasted my mats and time. I hope they add schematics to create moddable, augmented versions of the gear sets obtained from every flashpoint and planet. I really want to use the Corellia set over any of the end-game armor sets.

I wouldn't buy into ideas like that so soon. The two specs play fairly distinctly and have a lot of pros and cons. Even if one tree does more DPS, it isn't worth speccing into if its too frustrating to play. Recall that SS is all about activation-time abilities. While an attack is being cast you are gaining Energy like normal, often halving or even nullifying the Energy cost of the attack. Unfortunately for DF, you rely way too heavily on setup attacks with 20+ Energy costs that are instant cast so it is crazy easy to run out of Energy. You aren't doing much for damage until you have 2 DoTs on the enemy and activate Wounding Shots, but the entire setup procedure is 4.5 seconds of almost no damage (Hemo Blast, 1.5 sec GCD, Vital Shot, 1.5 sec GCD, Shrap Bomb, 1.5 sec). Until you get those 3 abilities out your damage is going to be minimal since you aren't gaining boosts to your Aimed Shot (remove it from your bar IMO) or Charged Burst (it's a decent moderate damage spam attack between Wounding and Speed Shots, but it offers no synergies with the rest of your abilities). The strength of DF is that you can kite people a little bit better than as a Sharpshooter and can deal more AOE damage via DoTs, allowing you to stack up high WZ damage easily. When you are able to pull off Wounding Shots, enemies do melt, but getting to that point can be difficult and frustrating. Definitely try it out for 3 to 5 days and see if the playstyle is for you, but don't choose it solely for the damage (I'd never recommend that to anyone regardless of any discrepancy between specs).

How to do it: Auto-run or hold mouse1+mouse2 to move forward and turn your mouse in the opposite direction of your strafe (so turn it left if you are pressing D, right if you are pressing A). This allows your to move in a circle around a focal point (i.e. your enemy's location). The term is called circle-strafing. It's a strategy derived from first person shooters. The purpose is to make it harder for your opponent to land their attacks on you. In MMOs with free-movement like WoW and TOR, it achieves a similar purpose to a degree. If you are a melee fighter and are fighting another melee fighter and you just sit still trying to land attacks, that enemy will destroy you. This is because you won't be able to move your mouse nearly fast enough to keep up with their movement (as your ability do not auto-face your enemy). Superior mobility unlocks a great deal of strategies, such as being able to weave in and out of melee so you are only vulnerable to an enemy's melee attacks when your melee cooldowns are up. This way you don't unnecessarily take damage when you aren't capable of matching or outdoing it.

I believe the original class design involved what you state in your post and I agree wholeheartedly with it. However, for whatever reasons, the class design I feel has been diluted and converted to more traditional MMO dynamics. At E3 2009 we saw a Sentinel off-tanking adds and even a powerful elite Sith while the main tank was on the boss droid. Today that encounter has been drastically changed so you don't need to fight 2 boss enemies simultaneously. We have to accept the direction the game turned in those years and live with the classic trinity as far as SWTOR is concerned.

I'm seeing it end prematurely regardless, but yes it seems to be more frequently with natural cover than with portable cover. Also, it seems Hunker Down isn't properly applying to my character in some cases, such as during the HD animation (when the force field falls down onto your cover). I have gotten Force Pushed, Elecrtocuted, and IA stunned today while waiting for the HD to kick in after activating it. This bug is devastating and I have been forced to switch to Saboteur so I can take a tiny bit more damage since I can't rely on Hunker Down anymore.

This.

The problem with this new website are the colorscheme (the text contrasts too much with the background in most cases and too little in other situations; the text is too bright overall) and the fonts (long thin letters are never a good thing unless they spell out STOP on a road). Fix those two things (just CSS tweaks) and the forums won't be such an eyesore. The website itself is good, however.