I'm actually going to jump in here and suggest that the first item on this list might be a mistake. If you're speccing into the high-dps trees and wanting to use your companion as a tank, you may find yourself getting much better results if you instead use surging (that's the deception-spec upgrade to lightning, right?) charge and have a force focus equipped. That'll significantly increase your DPS. Also, make sure that your companion has adequate gear for the role. Khem starts being noticably less effective as a tank once you get into the 30's unless you really focus on keeping him in level-appropriate gear. That said, I second the tip on using jolt successfully. One of the keys to assassin tanking is mitigating damage by interrupting enemy attacks, and that tactic will work just as well for even non-tankasins.

Well, chain shock counting towards harnessed shadows stacks wouldn't matter with respect to the force lightning tick, so let's set that aside. You know that harnessed shadows isn't locked to one enemy, right? And even in PvP I usually get 3 or more shocks off (energize) without much difficulty, especially if I open with it. But I would think that in combat you'd be able to get another shock off on another enemy before the harnessed darkness wears off if the first one dies. Actually, I think a better question is why you would rely on a channeled ability in PvP. Even if they can't use an interrupt to stop you, they can definitely force push, pull, etc to cancel it out. Seems like you'd want to stick with the instants rather than something that requires you to root yourself.

This explanation makes sense. I was wondering the same thing as the OP.

I'm not sure whether or not this is correct, but my understanding was that without a shield equipped, Dark Charge actually provides no benefit at all. +15% to shield doesn't help you if your Shield absorption is 0% (which it would be if you do not have a shield equipped). Am I incorrect on this? Is it viable to use a focus instead of a shield and just stack +absorption mods on your armor?

Here would be my recommendation on a respec at your level: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bcbskrcZZf0c.1 Until you get Talos, you're going to be at half health or lower after most fights, it just works out that way. Once you have a healer in your pocket, just don't sweat the details. So the idea here is to improve the dps you're getting from your shock spam, while also improving the average damage you do with your melee attacks (Energize + Expoitive Strikes Synergy). As you level up you can continue up the darkness tree, but right now I think the problem -- given that your primary complaint is lack of DPS -- is that you've gone deeper into the darkness tree than you need to be for tanking flashpoint and solo content at your level. The other suggestion I'd make would be to change your stat focus. I would continue to prioritize Endurance then Willpower, but for your third stat start stacking +Power rather than +Crit. The shock spam talent build means that most of your shocks will be crits, so +critical is useless there, and the Exploitive Strikes crit bonus of +9% equals or exceeds the crit % bonus you can get via gear, so that evens out. Power, on the other hand, will increase both your melee and force damage, and will generally bump up your DPS. Also, you can look into dropping your next 2 points into Torment, which provides noticable relief in feeling like you're out of Force too often. Hope this is helpful.

I like the option to click on a teammate and "vote them as AFK" or something. If enough vote, you get kicked from the warzone with a, say, 10-minute debuff that prevents you from queueing. I wonder if they could also extend the existing functionality they have in the spawns (where if you don't leave the spawn in 60 seconds you get kicked) to the warzone itself. Meaning if you don't take any action for 60 seconds you're automatically kicked?

First valid argument for avoiding Empire I've seen in this thread. +1

Troll! Back under your bridge!

Or, you know, maybe your choice of empire was as deep and thought out as: Hey <insert name of friend I was looking to play SWTOR with>, what faction is your character? Ok, I'll make sure to roll Imperial when I make mine so we can play together. Reading the forums this morning just makes me feel old. Oh, and to the troll asking why anyone would willingly choose to play an evil or non-good character in a role playing game: It may be because they would like to experience the other, or the taboo. Or they wanted to see what that story was like. Or the first time they got offered an ambiguous choice, they picked the choice that turned out to be "evil" and then decided to try and go that route from then on to see where the rabbit hole leads. Or maybe Bioware's view of morality doesn't jibe with the morality taught by their culture? Most likely, though, you just need to get out more.

I'm lvl 30 atm, and have been tanking pretty successfully since the mid-20's. My tricks: 1. Mind Control is your friend. It's got a shorter cooldown than you think it does, and it's absolutely essential, especially in a mixed group that has ranged mobs. When you get Mass Mind Control, it helps even more (but a much longer cooldown). 2. Discharge works well as an opener and Lacerate will help maintain threat against the group, but the #1 trick is to be using Thrash on a specific target and have the group's DPS be focused on the same target. 3. I've gotten far enough up the darkness tree that the high-frequency shock is becoming a viable option for me, and it's very useful. You spec up eventually to a build that looks like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200dcrokrsoZhGbMZf0M.1 In the meantime, I've just made sure to get Energize and Blood of the Sith, the first of which gets me the more frequent Shock, and the second of which helps to make sure I've got force to cast it. The shock spam works really well, I think, 'cause it's a nice big DMG/Threat burst, and is mid-range castable. Also, don't forget to grab Electrify, which gives your Shock a big boost. 4. I'd like to rephrase what someone else mentioned: Put your guard on the person in the party who is consistently pulling aggro from you. It's going to vary from group to group, so one time you might be guarding the healer, the next group it'll be one of the DPS guys. You just have to pay attention and switch it around as needed. Those are the main things I keep in mind when tanking, and I haven't had too much trouble keeping threat on groups of mobs. I also find it really, really fun. It's very engaging, and I love how active tanking as an SA can be. One final word on your groupmates: They don't know what they are doing. Someone else mentioned it, but I'm going to stress it here: Pay attention to your group, and make sure they have turned off their threat generating abilities and know to back off their DPS if they gain threat. I've grouped with several Bounty Hunters who were in their "threat generating" setup in order to put an unnecessary guard on a player because they didn't know I had the same ability. More importantly, they didn't realize that their ability caused them to generate extra threat -- they only saw it as allowing them to use guard. On a completely different note, I've grouped with more than one SA who didn't know they had the Mind Trap ability. Once that was sorted, Crowd control became infintely easier. Everyone is new to the game, and folks may not realize what they are doing is not helpful, so check in with your teammates and you should be able to sort out the human error factor before it becomes an issue in a run.

But I'm just starting to get GOOD at huttball! ;-)

This is a great point. I think a lot of players don't realize that different classes (and different playstyles in a class) require different strategies to be effective in different warzone types, against different opponents, etc. I've been having a ton of fun playing my Sith Assassin in PvP so far (at low level, I just got to 17) and after reading some of the forum posts today while at work I realize that my strategy for play is very different from most Sith Inquisitor/Assassin players that have posted. But it works for my level of skill (low) and general playstyle (harass , support other better/stronger players, run away a lot.) Also, I tend to agree with the general points other folks have made re: class balance at low levels is always going to be a little off and folks still being on the upslope of the learning curve. I definitely was doing much better the last 2 or 3 matches I had this weekend than I did the first 2,3 or 7. :-) Cheers.