My sniper was 55 last expansion too - but at that time I was playing another game and really only interested in PvP here. Now that my sniper is 60 I wanted to ask what the goals are to prepare for endgame PvE content?

The reply to this has already been expressed earlier in the thread. For PvE you're correct - the idea of maximizing your resource regeneration should yield maximum dps. But PvP is different. People panic in PvP. Spiking a healer out of stealth might cause him to blow his escape, leaving him vulnerable to a mezz a little later. The problem deception faces in arena is game design: Sin has tremendous control but the game is built around damage. Adding damage, figuring out maximum damage isn't the issue - finding a team that can execute a strategy to allow deceptions superior control to win the match is the issue. When more than just op/scoundrel heals are "good" in arena, I think the meta will shift from omgwtfbbqdamage to a game where control is more important. How BW achieves that , I cannot even begin to guess.

Yeah, sometimes there isn't much that can be done. Entrench, shield probe, orbital on your head. When SP ends, evasion, WZ adrenal. Make them suffer as much as possible for training you.

Because everyone that would be leveling on Korriban would be an experienced MMO player that would simply shrug it off as "oh well, pvp server"? What you are asking for is like wanting to play Counter Strike where everyone has a knife and no armor but you have a gun Honestly, if this is how you are spending your time, might I suggest broadening your horizons and reading a book?

Just transfer to Harbinger where it would take a year before any imp got 25 "victor comms".

I recognize the OP's characters - my merc is on Harbinger. Probably, judging from my experience, pubs killed pvp on the server. When I was grinding comms to gear my merc, every wz featured me jumping down from whichever safe area I was in, into a sea of jedi that would send me back to the safe zone quickly. I won an ancient hypergate the other day. I need to check the achievement. I was surprised - it was the first one I had won on my merc ever. I think I made it to valor 50 before this. I don't know what pub side is like but from what I see, there is an elite (or a pair of elite) pvp guilds pub-side that dominate. I've seen in Imp Fleet chat ,"don't bother queueing, pub premades are queueing". Just my experience on Harbinger :/

You have to do what the game tells you. You collect the items around the room to create a makeshift jetpack and then you use the item (I think I had to open my inventory to the mission items tab).

What is the rationale behind roots not building resolve?

Maybe there is a chance for it to fail? I'm accustomed to lag affecting how abilities work, regarding whether or not something is "in the air" already. In the arena the other team was 2 shadows, vanguard tank, scoundrel healer. None of them have a cover breaking mechanic afaik. As one of the above posters said, tech abilities hit sins through shroud (but I always believed this to be a lag issue - or they hit shroud when the ability was "in the air"). I felt pretty sure that the Shadow in the arena did it with the knowledge that he was knocking me out of cover. I'll have to find one and duel him, asking him to try.

No, if it was a lag issue I wouldn't have made a thread. I was playing MM in a 4v4. Decided to try Entrench + SP as I was being focused (they had 2 shadows, 1 vanguard tank. The shadows were on me - in retrospect, I should have dropped orbital on my head too). Entrench's CD activates as soon as you hit the button. I was knocked out of entrench, glanced at the spell, and saw the CD tick down to 37s. This happened once before last night. As lethality in a voidstar wz, to defend a bomb I hit entrench and started casting orbital. I never finished the cast: a sin knocked me out of entrench after my cast reached the 2s mark. I'm just posting to find out if any one else has experienced other classes deliberately/reliably doing it. I want to know in what situations it isn't safe to just pop entrench and wait it out/cast orbital.

I noticed that Sins/Shadows do this reliably - is their overload ability? Or their taunt/pull they get? Can anyone contribute other classes and their abilities that can knock me out of entrench?

Not the right way to think about it. You have to consider what your critical strike chance is before the extra 15% on that ability. Assuming it's 24% as stated earlier in the thread, this 15% now gives you 39% chance to crit with one ability. Rounding down to 30%, this means on average you will crit once with RS every 3 activations. Your math is fine - your conclusion is what appears to be giving cashogy cancer. By your math, you have just gained an extra crit, on average, with RS ever 1.5 minutes. Another way to explain it: the other team has a merc too, with the 2pc HO bonus. He activates HO, your team calls to switch targets, your RS crits, new target dies. By taking the 4pc, 15% bonus to RS, you have just doubled the statistical probability that this happens. Doubled. Thus, this is why cashogy makes the point he makes. Burst makes coordinated target switches much more deadly. Doubling your chance of landing big burst is a big deal.

I have never tried leveling as a healer, so I can't offer that perspective. Leveling the dps operative is comparatively worse than leveling a sin/sorc (the only other thing I can compare to outside of sniper). The reason is that you don't get many dps tools to play with. With the rework of Stim Boost, you don't even get a TA dump until you reach Lacerate in the Concealment tree. DPS Advice: go concealment until you can reach Cull, then switch to lethality. Lethality has a feel to it plus Cull is a satisfying button to press

It's not about being antisocial. To reiterate bits and pieces that have appeared in this thread, let me explain my take on it. When questing, I have a habit. I pick shortest distances, plan the way I approach each pull (I don't mean I stop and think for minutes and plot what I'll do; just a couple seconds to assess how I want to approach the pull), typically kill only what I need to, and other little quirks that are me. In this game, I don't pick up all of the quests. If I see people asking for a group, for a group quest, I'll pick up and try to join them. Otherwise I pick only the solo quests that keep me travelling in the same area as my class quest: do both, advance the planet's story and my own, and move on. Now the OP wants me to group with him, just for friendly questing. If he's exactly like I am, we're good. Otherwise no. I don't think it's funny to pull more than I need to (unless I'm drunk, then it becomes "LOL WE JUST SURVIVED 4 PULLS AT ONCE"). I like that when I fight a gold portrait, I can go through a full rotation. It helps me get a feel for my class. Group quests, flashpoints, Ops... then I'm social. Sometimes this comes at the price of suffering at the hands of others. I accept that. But why should I suffer when questing just to be social?

Offhand? Since this is a subforum of IA, I'm assuming Vibroblade? Saving Face on Dromund Kaas rewards an orange vibroblade.