Wow that is really striking, we're exactly opposite in our viewpoint! I found Watcher 2 to be posh, and I absolutely hated her accent and her character (in the start) as well. Add to that, I find the female SI posh too. Haven't tried female commando yet but I now am sure I will try. If you don't like female agent now I doubt you'll love the voice acting later on. Maybe you'll be able to still have fun with the class and storyline (like I have with my fem/sin) but you'll probably not going to love the voice acting, and that alone could be a good reason not to make it your main or not enjoy playing it. By the way, I don't find the female SI voice acting bad; I don't like it. There is a subtle but very important difference between the two. One is taste (very subjective), other is quality (a more unbiased measurement).

You said that twice, that she is trying way too hard, but it makes no sense. What is she trying? Either she is succeeding or she is failing. In a line of work like this you don't "try". You don't "try" to fit in at school, you fail to fit in. Your arguments are about as strong as mine regarding the fem inquisitor: 1) you hate it 2) you despise it 3) you are irritated by it. Yeah OK, we get that, but why? And if you think people either love or hate fem inquisitor: echo chamber effect. The people who are indifferent, content won't post. The people who are outspoken will so you get the biggest opponents and proponents in a topic like this. Nobody remembers the people who do OK in a WZ. You only remember the really good and the really bad.

What?

Yet they were taken. Why? Utility. They're still taken today. On Spine HC one of the preferred classes was a rogue (sub) due to their burst DPS. Some fights are melee unfriendly. Almost no fights are ranged unfriendly; if they are, it just means the melee have easy time, don't have to move much. You never hear raid or ranged complain about movement because they're used to it. and they can still cast instants while moving. Nowadays though, all melee have gap closers (except conceal ops) or long range damage. It does not surprise me Deception is bad. It seems to have a lot in common with conceal ops which is more a PvP tree. It appears to me that also the sniper tree has one PvP preferred tree and a PvE preferred tree. So maybe you'd want to try a different build as assassin DPS; ie. madness. If madness is good DPS but deception not I am content with that; it means that an advanced class has a tree which is viable in PvE. It is not required all trees and builds are viable in PvE (or PvP for that matter).

Yes, in general people who work for themselves work harder than people who work for a boss. But it is questionable if this would apply in a matter of life and death. You don't think about your employer on such a moment. The bounty hunter is more or less self-educated. I believe people who are self-educated, but are skilled in the field, are more creative and disciplined than those who did everything by the book of an authority.

Yes, it actually is an issue because you can be stealthed and guard the ball carrier. You need to time your guard with your unstealth (where, when, why). This means you cannot just guard the ball carrier like a pwtech tank can because it is a choice which comes with an effect whereas as a pwtech tank you can just guard the ball carrier and you won't unstealth. Sometimes, it is better to not guard the ball carrier, not unstealth, because he's going to make it anyway. and you can actually go back to grab ball or stand for a catch. My comment is about PvP since I don't care much about PvE, but I can imagine some situations where you only need 1 tank. I'm still levelling my sin, and I can surely find situations where I'd like to switch charges. For example, if I become ball carrier I switch charges. In Voidstar it depends on role. For example if you just lost 1st doors switching charge makes you survive longer. If that means you can interrupt more, that's alright. If I can guard the healer who then heals and we can save ourselves time and let people respawn.

Right, so you have several options: 1) Put your companion in tank stance. 2) Gear your companion up. 3) Let your companion use more DPS gear to increase TPS. 4) Let your companion pull. 5) Let your companion pull, and wait a few seconds. 6) Don't AoE. 7) Let your companion do a lot of AoE first, or enable it (careful with CCs). Cloud Mind would only work if you just barely overagroed. And yes, it is useful, but not always in every situation, and there may be better solution.

It is for PvE only. If you only PvP you can remove it from bars. It works in ops, FP, and solo. Solo: it works with companion. If you outgear your companion you may overagro him, even if he is tank. I had this esp as conceal ops. This is a useful utility here. You can also use it to kite something. You aggro, you run away or kite it, then you drop aggro. Hunter-style. In FPs and ops especailly a healer can get aggro if something isn't picked up. You can kite or CC maybe, but this also lowers your threat. Finally, Rescue (sage) and its sorcerer counterpart works on both you and your allies and is for both PvP and PvE. Cloud Mind works only for you.

Learning curve? You haven't tried EvE yet

Yes, as healer it is absolutely fun to play a sage. You'll be waving your hands in ways you never thought of! No, ofc not, it looks pathetic. And the lightning comment is up for debate. I don't have my assassin to 50 yet, but all the lightning spells thus far have each had a different meaning and look different. I do agree lightning is more obvious than telekinesis, but that is not necessarily a disadvantage.

I don't know for sure since I'm still leveling my assassin (enjoying it), but for powertech tank you can look into kolto overload. It is a 3m CD which puts a HoT on you (15% of your max health over 10 sec). The bounty hunter FAQ stated the powertech tank has weakest survival CDs. The other thing with powertech is that you can always put guard on others (with your ion gas cylinder) whereas as shadow you kinda cannot while stealthed because dmg puts you out of stealth. Changing your gas cylinder is a 1,5 sec cast, and changing your lightsaber charge is instant and works in stealth but uses 100 force. As for tanking, I understand the compares and support people trying to compare as a matter of discussion but you cannot compare 1:1 with WoW. Powertech also have a "death grip" called grapple. It is the same as assassin, same CD. Only the powertech tanks have, in tier 5, a charge (15 sec CD). The assassin have 30 sec CD force speed. Both have their + and -, in both PvP and PvE. Assassin have stealth; DK don't. Powertech don't either, I haven't played sith warrior yet, cannot comment. It also really depends on context. Do you want to PvP or PvE?

I don't like, previously detested, the female inquisitor because it sounds cocky and posh; not creepy. But I can see why others do like it. To make it more creepy I'd prefer an other accent which would be more dark, deeper sounding tho I am not sure which accent. If you look at D3 the voice actors of the 5 classes each give a distinctive accent and sound which can really make or break the player's love for playing that character. In my case it made me roll republic instead of empire. Tho I later made an assassin again. The female consular was alright (I went light side here). I don't remember her dark side voice though. I prefer the female imperial agent. Everything is right about this voice, and also the class story is BiS (I went light side here). PS: For me, Jo Wyatt as voice actor is from now on a selling point for a game. If she is voice actor in a game I'd more likely buy that game (and if appropriate, play that character). The female bounty hunter also fits well (I went dark side here).

The chance the BH would win is higher because the Empire has better PvP players than the Republic.

In PvE on my assassin, I have been able to stand on top of stationary targets (such as turrets; confirmed in hammer station), use maul (requires behind), while the target was facing me (I was tanking it). Perhaps it sometimes swirled. Bosses and such move backwards. I'm still experimenting with tanking them against a wall, but I think this only works against stationary targets. I'm also not sure if the hitbox matters in this regard. This could explain your observation.

Yeah, you furthermore once again proven my point about statistics in WZ not matter. But you know what happens if the healer and tank are not dying while the enemy is trying to kill? The enemy won't capture anything IF your healer + tank combo is only slightly competent in interupting (Novare Coast is a bit different here because the channeling stacks and can be chained to eveneutally capture). Which is precisely what happened in the screenshot you posted. The result is that whichever team has the upper hand in the start (for example a quick ninja bomb, or a force speed turret cap) wins because the DDs can't dent the healer + tank combo. If the DDs are able to win first, then the healer + tank combo cannot do much. This means you get a stale pretty soon after the initial play making the initial play very important. The only reason in your screenshot the team won was because they outDPSed the healers, and not much. If their healers performed better this wouldn't have happened. In "that other game" if your team has 1 healer and theirs 3 you can stop from start you are most likely going to lose; it is the same here. Yeah, keep ignoring it, but it is very important and applies. The reason you keep reading it is because there is no valid argument against it. These points are coherent and get rehashed, unrefuted. You will keep hearing them, not only from me. Why? Because I am not the only person who finds them valid. There is no utility the operative has other classes cannot do better barring silly things like a healer who can stealth but since the healer stays in combat this doesn't work well. Infiltration has big limits. But you think you are such an awesome player knowing these awesome utility tricks here is your chance to make me look like an idiot by sharing them: Go ahead. Bonus points if they're about Huttball! Earlier you said kills don't matter, dang I hoped we finally had something to agree on LOL you can save the day with throwing out a heal in PvP? In what world are you living? You heal for **** all with your conceal gear/spec. I certainly call it utility though, but since the DPS from a sage or commando is higher than an operative and are ranged (ranged are preferred, and op does not have gap closers either; a serious issue in PvE and PvP; one you don't want to hear though sorry for rubbing it in again), why bother? It isn't a selling point because you lack elsewhere. Just because your car has tires doesn't mean it can drive because you still need to have a steering wheel. Just because a Mini is a car doesn't mean it drives comfortable. Fanboys will say: "it requires skill to drive a Mini which you lack." Doesn't matter, it still makes it less comfortable than a recent car. You know what is funny? You come across as an operative fanboy. Every time I come up with reasons why operative is lacking you dismiss it, ignore it, and say it is the same ol' stuff you been reading. Yeah guess why you been reading it because these people are tired of being inefficient on their main. If they didn't care they would SHUT UP AND REROLL. But they CARE. Why would someone care after they rerolled? Because they want to go back. If they wouldn't they'd give **** all about the class. For example, I don't really care much if sage/sorc is the most OP class in the game it won't make me go play mine more or less because I don't enjoy playing it much. I want my class to be competitive, not overpowered. I welcomed it with open arms, tho it also felt like classes lost their uniqueness. I welcomed they gave TW to mages. Although I think giving it to warlocks with different name would've been better: mage was already a popular class whereas warlock was not and further declined, and also many lets say not very smart players were playing mage and could not pop TW at the right moment whereas shamans had a rich experience with that. But guess what, we don't see that in this MMO. There is only one advanced class which can pop infiltration. There is only one advanced class which can pop inspiration. The list goes on. You cannot compare the balance in this game with Cataclysm. It isn't the same quality. I'd agree with you that Blizzard fixed class imbalance from TBC to Cata with great effort, but right I don't want to waste too much time/money as I did back then. I'm not going to give BioWare 5 years to fix this issue, I give them 2 months. By the way you still need almost every class in the game for buff/debuff and then utility, 25m has this way easier. Enlighten yourself: http://raidcomp.mmo-champion.com Yep, and rogues were not a popular class either. They still had utility: Sprint, Evasion, Vanish, Cloak, and set bonuses. They had a spec with shadowstep. Sub rogue AoE reduce build is also a unique utility which made V&T HC trivial but this is a niche. Also, rogue was not popular in PvE indeed, but rogue was strong in PvP TBC, and rogues were often used to interrupt because it had one of the lowest CDs for interrupt. Brilliant you quote that. Who actually believed it to be true? Perhaps more so in Cata. Yeah, I read that phrase, and it totally doesn't apply here. Like I said 1.2 class buff allows for class stacking, so players can pick the best performing class (I know you don't want to read that, I am sorry, it matters). Players who optimize will do that whereas a feral druid in vanilla was dead weight in your team. Do you remember TBC? Muru? You remember how we stacked shamans for chaining heroism? We see similar now with marauder. Deja vu, deva vu. You really cannot compare class balance SWTOR 1.0 or 1.1.5 or 1.2 with WoW 4.0 or 4.3. Well you can, but it isn't flyin'. Yeah, your operative is your main which was my point. I loved leveling up my operative, tho it was the easiest I leveled thus far. I also love the stories, and playing other classes in PvP/PvE teaches a lot.