That is exactly what you should do. I have my Vanguards parsing over 5k thanks to Kwerty's guides (and too much time on my hands). And to reiterate/rebut some previous responses, you should practice on the dummy--a lot. The most beneficial aspect of dummy parsing is to get to the point where you can concentrate as much as possible on everything but your rotation/priority list during an operation.

I raid with my Shadow for one group and my Vanguard for another. (Both are only 7/10.) Recently got the 204 MH on my Shadow and I'm just about parsing, on average, on par with my Vanguard, who doesn't have the MH. I ask myself every week why I don't main two Vanguards. It's more about tradition than enjoyment, especially since the range nerfs, if I'm being honest.

We just have to get the 204 MH, deny all other classes the 204 MH, and we're a decent melee option again. I'm pretty sure we were given stealth for loot-destroying purposes.

Definitely a productive night. Congrats! I think my soul would have been drained at the end of a night filled with first kills on both of those guys.

I don't disagree with anything said about Zoomz's post, as I groaned when I read it. Since I think he's been confronted enough about it, I'd like to address what appeared to me to be an implication that he's been carried. I know Zoomz's reputation, and I have no doubt he's brought a lot of the ire on himself, but the guy is a pretty talented and versatile player. He has tanked, DPSed, and healed any boss we needed him to, from SM to HM in the current tier, and NiM in the last. In short, he's been a valuable member of our raid team. Though he does need to up his Vanguard DPS game. Just sayin'. [This post hopefully brought to you by Zoomz's millions.]

I felt, and still feel, that the ranged options for Serenity were close to being perfectly balanced for a melee class in PVE. I don't care about PVP, but, for the record, the majority opinion of that PTS thread was that the changes were the wrong ones for PVP, and Shadows did not need nerfs in PVE. The challenge of a melee class is to do high damage while avoiding damage (more often than not weighted against melee more than ranged), and recovering from periods of downtime. You can mitigate downtime via a combination of skill and abilities: Good positioning, proper use of defensive cooldowns, proper use of Force Speed and Phase Walk, and "bandaging" offensive abilities. The latter are damaging abilities you can use at range that are not necessarily part of your rotation (Pebbles), or not necessarily able to be used optimally (reapplication of a DOT that hasn't run out, but which you won't be able to reapply quick enough, due to fight mechanics, to make clipping it not worth it--especially when you'd be twiddling your thumbs otherwise). So, we had three rotational abilities we could use at 30m: Force in Balance, Sever Force, and Vanquish. Only one of those abilities is a "use this on cooldown": Force In Balance. With its long cooldown, we would be lucky to be able to use it during a forced downtime. Sever Force and Vanquish are "use this at the proper time" DOTs, meaning they would most likely be used non-optimally from ranged, though Vanquish had a decent chance of being useful. In other words, as is only proper for a melee, our damage decreased with forced downtime, but we could stem the bleeding if we were lucky with timing. Melee should not be able to maintain their rotations from ranged without a serious DPS penalty, if they are to be allowed to maintain their rotations at all. Shadows, if the stars aligned, could maintain their rotation for a GCD or two, before desperately needing to return to melee range. I have yet to hear a convincing argument for why that isn't an ideal state for a melee class.

[PVE]I get on my Vanguard after parsing on my Shadow in order to feel better about life. Pyrotech must only have come out behind because it was archived. I am once again averaging higher in Plasma than Tactics, by a decent margin. And both are higher than either of my Shadow's specs, in equal gear.[/PVE] When someone asks about the viability of a class in operations, there is nothing "irrelevant" about comparing that class to other classes, even if you disagree with the assessment. If you want an easy answer to an easy question: Can you kill all bosses while playing as a Shadow? Yes.

I'm not doubting it I wouldn't have been using it all this time if I felt I was gimping myself. Just responding to an earlier comment from someone about not noticing much of a difference: That was also my experience once I went high Alacrity with my Shadow. It just doesn't seem to be as pronounced an increase as some other specs have seen. In other words, people shouldn't expect miracles.

Keep in mind that APM isn't always the best indicator of ability, as it can fluctuate for very normal reasons (outside of lag). A higher DPS parse might have a lower APM than a lower DPS parse because some offensive cooldowns were still on cooldown in the higher DPS parse that could be used late in the lower DPS parse. I've been using high Alacrity on my Shadow for some time now. Compared to my Vanguard, who I went high Alacrity with long ago due to Kwerty's advice, I would say the results haven't been too noticeable. Much like on the PTS, I haven't seen a DPS loss, but I haven't seen much of a gain, either--except perhaps a more consistent, higher average. By the way, Aelanis and Kwerty: Have you two compared notes? I know Kwerty did a brief recommendation some time back for Hatred that had a higher Alacrity recommendation than the one you came up with, Aelanis.

Another vote for Assassin story over Consular. Even playing the Consular story dark side bored me to tears. The Assassin story, while far from my favorite, had a twist in it that was so weird it was jarring, but at least it was interesting. P.S. Agent > all. Still the only story that really made me think about my choices. Said another way, it was the only story I thought reached KOTOR levels.

Times like this I wish SimulationCraft-SWTOR was still going strong. I used the heck out of that back in the day.

It definitely works on Profundity (my ICD went from 9 to 8.5 seconds). I'm not sure if it reduces the 6 second ICD on building Breaching Shadows through melee strikes. However, since you're speeding up Psychokinetic Blast, you'd see an increase in Force Breach use from that alone.

I won't say yea or nay for an Alacrity Infiltration build, as the only reason I parse with high Alacrity for Infil is I'm too poor to change my gear between Serenity and Infiltration. If you want some numbers for a high Alacrity parse, here's one: http://swtor-parser.elasticbeanstalk.com/parser/view/19634/6 That was done with 591 Alacrity, 148 Crit and 274 Surge. As you can see, I didn't have to go overboard on Saber Strike. On a different parse, when I popped in the old 2-piece set bonus and used Saber Strike liberally (I didn't push my force at all, basically), I had comparable usage to Tenebras'. My parse was very lucky, considering my crit rating, and I'm not using it as evidence for a pro-Alacrity standpoint.

Yeah, I haven't had the double proc relic for a long time.

In watching streams, it always seems as if the hardest part about Cora is Master and Blaster Good luck, guys!