Overpowered: Guardians/Jugs because of Focused Defense being buffed too much. Reduce the healing from it. Assassins/Shadows because of balance becoming too good of an overall spec and uncleanseable. Make them tick for less like dirty fighting dots. Underpowered: Scoundrel dps. They need some defensive buffs. Commando healers. Make hold the line break CCs as well high in their skill tree.

Would be nice if there was a way for bioware to make it so that the game would give achievements for doing operations or flashpoints in different roles, possibly by verifying before entering an instance. I just think it would be a special achievement to be good enough in every role to complete the content and would make people want to get better at more aspects of the game. It won't force people to do things that they don't want to do, but they would just not be able to get this specific achievement. Be great to see the cream of the crop players that have mastered Tank/dps/heals in nightmare content. It would add a little bit of replay-ability. Thoughts?

This. Top raiders complained because since they couldn't do it, the raid was impossible. Then after a week it was nerfed slightly and the top raiders still complained, but finally a group was able to do it.

Its SImple really, as a Scoundrel Healer these are the things i know to fear: Electronet.... Electronet... Electronet In all seriousness its very difficult for any dps to kill any healer 1v1. You can say "I beat blah blah this way with blah blah happening" but each healer class has ways to mitigate damage and every dps has ways to mess with healers. To fight an Op healer (from my perspective as a dps on guardian and scoundrel) is to slow them, wait to interrupt their big heal (long cast bar with no continuous animation) and as they get close to 30%, stun them and try to finish them off. We can cleanse the slow with a couple moves but in that GCD you should be doing damage to us and making us use cooldowns. While Op healers get an instant heal to use on themselves at 30%, it is not a big heal and assassinate type moves are perfect for killing us. Ive been hit with Dispatch for 6k on a crit so often while the instant heal only consistently does 3k healing. Operatives... slow them, attack them, interrupt the 1 cast, get them down to 30%. Its simple.

Tanks are rare on all levels of content. The turnover is less at the higher levels but as a new tank you should not be looking to be main tanking at high levels. Tanking imo is very difficult and endgame raiding can be the most stressful on the tank. They have the least room for error and the most mechanics to deal with. The most communication is required from tanks as well for raid errors and issues. THe most difficult bosses will need Tanks to know their rotation to maximize tank dps as well to help but still have to keep track of danger to the raid. Guilds are always up for recruiting new tanks that can work as fill ins when main tanks cant make it, or on off days when people want to raid on their Alts. MY best advice though is to also quickly get a cheap DPS set, so you can first see some of the fights as a DPS and fill in on the easier content too. Then tanking is much easier.

Scoundrel Dps, primarily middle tree Scrapper Dps, is too situational and fragile to be used in pvp. Dirty Fighting is a little bit better because of its middle range attacks and skills that help with defense but still suffers the same drawbacks. Dodge is really only useful in purging movement impairing debuffs and protecting against a tank hitting you... Defensive screen is the only good defensive cooldown... Disappearing Act is not a real defensive cooldown as most allow you to keep fighting while this one can be used for offense, escaping a battle, and objective denial, just not times when you are getting thrashed by multiple targets. Healing suffers too much cast bar knockback to be usable while under fire. Scrappers cant work in large battles at all nor play defense. They are strictly an offensive burst class that's burst has been neutered because of increases in defensive cooldowns and health pools. Dirty Fighters do ok but are behind other more direct damage dealers as cleanses really screw them. The first thing I would do is try out giving scoundrels and scrappers more AOE defense, such as a defensive cooldown that lowers their damage from AOEs by 50% for 5 seconds. This will allow scoundrel dps to put up more of a fight when caught in the middle of large battles. Another thing would be to make quick shot lower a targets defense, so that we can keep an armor debuff on poeple at all times when fighting.

It is an extremely powerful spec with cooldowns that are awesome in 4v4, not as crazy in 8v8s. While I wish hybrids were more prevalent in the game and they add diversity based on playing style which you really only find in PVP, its going to get nerfed. Why? Cause Bioware has made it a habit of nerfing hybrid specs every time since they are much harder to balance for and sometimes can't be balanced. As well hybrid tank/dps class never exist in PVE so a nerf done correctly wont hurt PVE. I used to play a hybrid guardian tank in pvp. My durability was not great, but I could apply pressure to healers and other dps that were harassing my healer. The spec completely got nerfed (shien and soreau form dancing isnt worth the global cooldowns to pull off) and now I have to play a complete guardian tank spec. Healers can easily ignore me and heal as long as I dont have my interrupt up. Its gonna happen.

The Dps portions of the class need help: Make Scrapper opener autocrit: Its the only way a Scrapper actually produces pressure. I have had times where I don't crit on my opener nor my next 2 big attacks and I just give up on trying to kill that player and just become a support class. Comparison to other classes: Shadows will be getting increased burst damage to complement their versatility (taunting) and mid range/close range abilities. Smash monkeys autocrit.... in an AOE. Ranged classes have an easier time focus targetting low HP characters and can have decent burst when they chose to. People know that they just need to survive a couple seconds against a scrapper and the scrapper is really not a threat. If that crit does not go off then you arent even a threat for those seconds. Give Scrappers and Dirty Fighting spec AOE reduction: The class is a focused melee burst dps class, yet healers and fragile dps can hide inside AOE chaos and we cant do anything to them. Dirty FIghting can choose its target, but must get pretty close to really do any sustained dps or burst. We either melt from our medium armor, weak defensive cooldowns, and easily countered escape move, or we have to sit around in stealth outside of the blast radius to actually do anything of value. Comparison to other classes: Smash monkeys get a 30% reduction, Shadows have overall better defensive cooldowns and escapes. Ranged classes stay out of the AOE areas, but have cooldowns to help them get out and will contribute when they are out of the AOEs. Scrappers get shafted the most by this. Dirty Fighting can still contribute from range, its just terrible beyond 10m. Bioware I think is aware of this, as they did try to beef up our defensive cooldowns with set bonuses. Defense screen on 2 set bonus for healers is a little bit of a boost. Healers did not need this, but the other 2 specs do and I use it for every spec. Dodge is good but the extra second is not really worth much. Dodge will cleanse and protect you from all movement impairing debuffs This one I have not tested but I believe dodge just cleanses you, and a debuff can be applied right after dodge as been used. Comparison to other classes: While scoundrels do have a couple long range abilities, this is really not about chasing someone down that is running from us as tendon shot has a low duration/range, its about getting out of a bad situation. Commandoes, gunslingers, shadows all have moves that protect them from movement debuffs. Make underworld trading heal uninterruptable after a scamper except by knockback/stun for Scrappers and DIrty Fighters I think Bioware believes that self heals are a form of defensive cooldowns for dps. Problem is that Underworld Trading has a crazy long cast bar for dps scoundrels and cant be used in a pinch since its unreliable. It get interrupted by anyone that at least has interrupt on their skill bars and has the reaction speed of my grandma...

Got the Huttball as a healer scoundrel in a very close match in the middle of a swarm of enemies. After seeing the people in front of me die I thought it would be best to clear the ball back to mid. I stupidly did not check behind me for teammates and after I cleared it I realized I could have probably passed it to someone in the 5 more seconds I would be alive with it. I also did not see that there was 25 seconds left in the game. A Marauder is the lone person at mid, takes the ball and runs with it to win the tied game... I am usually very good at knowing the time on the clock and making the correct passes (best way to move the ball) but I cracked under the pressure that time. *When in doubt look behind you to pass first before clearing the ball to mid* *Oh yeah and everyone needs a passing hotkey*

I am very interested in this! It is going to get me back into playing. Though I think it wasn't the best idea to make this about just starfighters. If it expands into our real ships for travel and dogfights, but these starfighters be a part of guild capital ships, it would be the correct path. My idea of the best development progression: 1) Starfighter pvp (basically a cool minigame) 2) Story Ship missions (flashpoint type missions, smuggling, defense, protection, exploration) 3) Integrate Story ships into starfighter pvp (Story Ship> starfighter but you have to pay to repair the story ship, so it is a tradeoff of what to use) 4) Capital Ships (Guild Ships, though a couple new ones at Home Stations for the non-guildies) 5) Capital Ship PVP 6) Capital Ship Missions (operations) Include ship customization and gear for starfighters and story ships. Ideas on Operations/flashpoints that integrate space and planet stuff, like a space dock that needs to be taken over would be truly star wars. Though for the people that dont want the space stuff, you can do the basic flashpoint...

Thank you for the guide, Dps Scoundrel rotations pre 2.0 were very clumsy, that's why I became a sawbones healer for Nim runs and other hard content, but I really enjoy Dpsing on my Scoundrel when I can work on my rotation. I enjoy the most playing a scrapper dps, and in some fights I feel that the higher single target burst with a short super bleed is better. Dirty Fighting is just so much more mobile and easier to parse higher with, especially in execute phases and with lots of Adds. Scrapper-> TFB last boss DF-> Dread Guard 3 questions: 1) Is the 2 set Freighter Flyby bonus from pvp really better for scrappers then the 2 set old back blast bonus? I would have thought that all the increases to it from the Scrapper tree would make it better. 2) Shouldn't your opening rotation be a little bit different? technically your first bleed comes from Flechette round, and so I go SF>BW>SP>VS>BB so that I start my cooldowns on BW and SP procing a little earlier. Flyby will take the next BB spot in the opening rotation if I could get close to the boss. 3) Does Pugnacity give enough of a damage boost from increased alacrity to use on cooldown or should we only use it if we don't proc UH, have lots of energy, and have nothing on cooldown?

Lets see my background. Started off as a Scrapper Dps (PVE/PVP), learned heals, learning DF. Made a Guardian Tank, learned Vigilance Dps. Made a Balance Dps Shadow. Pre-2.0 The first characters that I made were considered subpar in their departments. Plenty of times I got rejected from pug groups for ops as a Dps scrapper. It made me into a better player as I had to work/try harder to achieve the same goals, so when harder content came out, I could cope quickly. Of course I got a healing set and loved it, but there was nothing like completing EC HM as a Scrapper Dps. I am going to be frank with the Shadow Community here. This class at the moment has been altered significantly by the devs since pre-2.0. It was considered an awesome tank, best hybrid pvp spec (imo), good burst damage, awesome sustained dps. When I got my shadow up to 50 and played balance, it was sooo easy and soooo good, absolutely the most versatile class I played and dominated with it. The class felt so overpowered compared to my other characters. Then 2.0 came around and every one of my other classes got a nice buff. Shadow though took a bit of a nerf in many aspects (absorb...). The Devs do play the game and get to changes over time, that is what I learned with the changes to scrapper dps now being much better. Stick with it, create another class to learn about how they play just to change it up a bit. Play your shadow a bit. It is not as "broken" as you think, just needs some tweaking to make balance more involving and interesting to play. Right now it seems like they are rolling out all of the big content updates and since Bioware spaces out their patches, when they are done with those I am pretty sure they will move to class balance (*** gunslinger dps numbers). The tree needs another filler skill to place between DS and increase dps. High on the tree there probably needs to be something that procs for an increase in Project damage or incease your FiB charges with each second of Tele Throw.

I just found this out too, makes be very sad on how dumb this mess up is. Please fix this Bioware, cause this is the only situation like this i believe right now.

Make them give more money... cause im losing incentive to do them for 3 basic comms... 5 basic comms and more money would make sense. As well placing a few new things in the Fleet Commendations Vendor would be best. Why not items that we want on our ships? Such as putting Mailboxes and stuff you can get for credits, allow you to get them for Fleet Comms. The best would be to give you items to decorate your ship, and hopefully one day your guild vessel. Just a thought.

Actually, that could well be a tank problem too. This late though, I (always) would suggest joining a guild that will take you through endgame material instead of pugging it. People have done these fights for 8 months and get frustrated when someone new comes in. Find a guild.