Not really fair since you had a marauder buffing you =P

Marauders have spammable, no cooldown, low rage cost AOEs with the standard spec. Lets them dramatically out DPS us in aoe situations, even considering orbital strike/flyby. Also, the armor pen from acid blade is self only, it doesn't benefit anyone but the operative/scoundrel.

Unfortunately both of these are objectively wrong. Marauders can put out much more DPS than an operative, have much higher mobility, a much simpler and easier to sustain damage rotation, many more abilities for avoiding damage and surviving, and brings dramatically more group utility than a DPS operative(group healing, self healing from DPS, predation, bloodthirst). Another example is Powertech DPS who not only out dps us on the level of marauders, but also are very tanky even in DPS gear and can emergency tank or pop tanking cooldowns to survive while still able to DPS from range when needed just like an operative can.

I've always primarily played heals even before the original concealment nerf a few patches back. Back then I DID fear concealment ops and honestly didn't feel they were TOO strong, but they had a role to fill and were dangerous. After that first big nerf I didn't really feel threatened by concealment ops anymore, though they were still more threatening than they are now.

As just 1 anecdotal bit of evidence that I hope will somehow help... I find that as a BM geared medicine operative there is nothing easier to heal through and survive than a concealment operative jumping me. After the initial knockdown and stun there's nothing they do that I feel particularly threatened by unless they open on me when I'm already low or they vanish and double opener, but both situations are survivable. I believe I can say in honesty that I have not been killed by another operative(or scoundrel) since 1.2 unless they had help. Typically all that happens is I sever tendon them, dispell their dots and their own sever tendon, and run away with hots on myself. They can't even lock me up to prevent me healing my team, I simply hot others while they slowly follow. Even when I MUST tank them I find I can do so with a combination of stun, shield, and faking a heal. A concealment operative that jumps me has effectively CCed themselves by wasting their DPS and time bothering me. I say this as a fellow operative who used to love concealment and only wants the best for us.

Sorry I should have mentioned this. I have a 50 juggernaut alt so I buff with the warrior buff as well as my own in addition to rakata cunning stim and used the rakata power adrenal 1 time during that parse. I think something to be noted here is that in almost every single post from an operative talking about DPS rotations or anything similar you often hear them say "it could be higher but I messed up my rotation" or "I screwed up and got energy starved" or something similar. I think it just goes to show that operatives, even if capable of X DPS, have such a complex and difficult to sustain rotation that it can all go wrong with just a single out of place ability. With only 1 way to come back from such a mistake (adrenaline probe) DPSing as operative becomes a challenge of fighting your class mechanic rather than fighting the boss. It's hard to compare us to a class like marauder who effectively cannot starve themselves of their resource like can be done with energy AND can more quickly get into combat to boot. By comparison, as long as a marauder is not as max or 0 resource and is using their most efficient moves on priority, their rotation can't be "messed up" the way ours can.

Adding my own results here. I'm mostly Rakata with a few columi level pieces like earpieces/implants. I mostly play as a healer so this is my 'off spec' set of gear 1284 DPS http://www.fryingtime.com/?filename=combat_2012-04-16_01_03_57_329540.txt#01_05_04_463000

There's SO much misinformation on here about how much DPS operatives can do, even in a vacuum situation(on dummies). First of all, so many people are posting their supposed numbers but either aren't providing screenshot proof or aren't attacking the proper OPERATION test dummy. If you are attacking any other test dummy, you ARE NOT getting an accurate reading of how much DPS you are truly capable of. Secondly, we have NOT seen proof that operatives are within 5% of Marauders like we are SUPPOSED to be. To claim that we have is 100% misinformation. Until an operative is posting proof that they are hitting the OPERATION dummy for 1500 DPS, then they ARE NOT doing within 5% of Marauders, because that's what marauders do. I feel like this post is going to fall on deaf ears or instantly get trolled but if we, as a community of the operative class, want to improve and spread awareness of our state, we need to stop posting misinformation such as word of mouth reports of doing so and so amount of DPS with no proof to back it up and start getting accurate information out there so that IF we are too weak at DPS, we can start to pressure bioware to fix us and if we are FINE at DPS and really within 5% of marauders, that we can show that too. Here's a example from the marauder forums: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=410056 This has screenshot proof of DPS vs the proper target dummies. Compare it to this from our own forum: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=409392 Despite being 5 pages long with a dozen 'reports' of certain DPS, there's not a single screenshot to back any of it up and the numbers are ALL over the place.

Pick 2 pieces of your PVE set (ie Rakata) pull out every single mod and then do the same with 2 corresponding pieces of your PVP set (ie Battlemaster) and put the mods into the opposite piece. Now, because of the way that the set bonuses are currently tied to the item shell rather than the armoring, you now have the 2 piece bonus from each set that affects Recuperative Nanotech (-4 energy cost and +15% healing) in each set while sacrificing no stats. So for PVP or PVE, you get both bonuses always. Just make sure you use the same 2 pieces (like hat and gloves). You only 'lose' out on the worthless +5 energy(only useful 1 time per fight unless you routinely sit at max energy) or +15% critical on kolto infusion (which was of questionable use anyways). You can also do this as a DPS operative in order to get the +15% critical chance on backstab in your PVP set. You're welcome.