Thus, for the total idealist looking to solo the hardest possible challenges... the answer seems to lie with the scoundrel/operative classes.

Looks to me - subjectively - as the final answer to the discussion which class is overpowered or not.

They all have their strenght and weaknesses, even depending on content.

Obviously, a tank player/healer companion seems to give the best results, but some fact:

Hybrid DPS Sorc : Best thrash killing potential. Really. Wipes the floor with the thrash within an aoe attack or two, leaves strongs badly damaged to be picked up after. However, a group of many elites or a long fight with a champ can be very annoying. Class is fragile, tank companions eventually need you in heal spec to be kept up, and while healer comp with you can work (soloed most Bounty target that way) being hit on badly reduce sorc dps, even more if you went lightning, and is generally unpleasant.

Commando/Merc : Getting very good result with my commando and Elara. Elara being in heavy armor, she can take a few mobs on her, and I,ve soloed all H4 so far (commando just finished alderaan) altough I have a neat presence bonus by now. Both are however very well geared.

Watchmen/Annihilation Sent/Mara : The best spec to take on a single target. With a healer at your back, this spec is one of the most able solo-leveling dps in the game, imo my favorite. Self-heals dont require you to stop to heal yourself, and you have a lot of very very good defensive cooldowns you can apply to a target to reduce incoming damage. Perhaps my favorite spec as far as capacity and playstyle goes.

Assassin/Shadow tank : While they are currently non-grata in NiM 16-man ops, sin or shadow tanks take a long time to come into their own, but once they can build stacks of harnessed darkness/shadows, they are very strong in solo PvE. The sole tank with a CC (stealth but still) and a lot of powerful cooldowns to give you time to reduce incoming damage by killing the thrash. Sin get their healer companion rather late tough, something shadow don't have issue with (getting him on Nar Shaddaa). But still, the powerful cooldowns and overall very good damage to allow fast kill on normal and strongs + the self-heals makes you very good at taking down pve content.

Scoundrel/Operative healer : Well yeh. Stealth. 2 CCs (1 human, 1 droid) multiple stuns, very good heals.

In the end, I know I personnaly prefer a class that can stay in dps or tank to solo harder content than healing it. BUt all heal spec are obviously very good at keeping themselves and a companion alive.

best solo class is the sorc. especially when you get chain lightning, force storm and death field. Like said before, you blow through trash mobs.

You have a tank companion, you can heal him and yourself without skilling for it (to full!), you can whirlwind mobs if you fight more than one elite, you have a bubble, an instant self heal, and force speed.

force storm, recklessness, instant chain lightning is great. I believe you get that combo with Lv 36 which is ok. Before, its not THAT great but still OK.

I am speaking about leveling experience. Endgame is another story... because you dont solo endgame

Hybrid DPS Sorc : Best thrash killing potential. Really. Wipes the floor with the thrash within an aoe attack or two, leaves strongs badly damaged to be picked up after.

Regarding mirror classes ... I don't recall the Sage haviong any AOE attacks within the first 20-30 levels at all ...

The knockback is an AoE and they get that before level 10. It does terrible damage though. The first good one comes at level 20 in the form of Force in Balance or Telekinetic Wave.

I think the BH / Commando is the best solo class. Tons of AoE even from low levels as well as one CC that works on anything and heals.

ive started some experimenting with the sorc and sniper, with madness which is obvious, typically on fp's i usually get the highest dps out of the group and typically the most threat that not even the tank can cover well enough.

i use lightening until tick on the secondary free power usage, death field with mark, the two mind crush powers then lightening with ticks of secondary frees put into shock after each charge, if one of the secondaries or the death marks start going away rinse and repeat usually enough to take down a pack of weak/standard in no time and take down strong and elite enemies in very short order, however admittedly a strong khem val is good to have around just to attract attention for as long as he can.

sniper with engineering, all that burst damage, when taking down enemy healers in pvp or solo, this spec is perfect for it, explosive probes with plenty of dropped charges, sabotage probes and grenade spam is typically enough for that and plenty devastating in standard mobs, using the above on strong and elites also takes them down very quickly.

but all of it depends really on what you like to play as.

It's an *easy game*. That means that for "ease of leveling," the translation should simply be "speed of leveling." By far and away, my marksman sniper with Vector Hyllus (Melee DPS with ridiculous DPS when geared purple) can out-perform any other class/companion combo. I mow through a strong or two and a few trash mobs in probably 3-5 seconds. Despite the lack of heals, mobs die so fast (2 level above me at my level 40) that neither I nor Vector take damage. The "uptime/downtime" argument for companion healers has zero relevance since it seriously takes a couple seconds to heal us to full if we do take any damage, and I've timed the difference for taking on 15 mobs: with a healer companion out, I never rest, but 15 mobs takes almost 1.5x as long as keeping both me and the companion on full DPS. There's no reason to worry about AoE, either, when my ambush, snipes, followthrough, etc., generally take out trash mobs in one hit and strongs in 1-3 hits. Elites melt before Vector gets to half health, in less than one full rotation of my abilities.

This game, for solo PvE, gives no reason to heal, aoe, or tank anything. Just burst through and keep moving - everything else is wasting time. And the between-fight heal-up is faster than in-fight healing, even if it seems annoying (and if you have to do it more than once every three or four fights, you're not doing enough DPS).

I played all classes except ops. I had the easiest time on my sin. You avoid all unnecessary trash, while stealthed. Playing with dark charge make you insanely powerful below 50. Has the easiest time soling heroics as you can CC mobs for 60 secs out of combat. If things go south, there an oh s*** button that you can use to escape content. Also, tank shadow in dps gear is the strongest solo class (as evident in PvP).

I played shadow and sin, and shadow gets healer comp at Nar Shada, while sin gets healer comp at Hoth.

While I'm seeing a lot of good suggestions, I'll just add that there's a lot of content that's not meant to be done solo. I know it can be scary, but hop onto General and ask if someone wants to group for Heroics. The loot/XP they give you makes thing much, much easier.

The first one was Terror Brigade on Hoth. There are actually 4 bosses to kill, but none of them were a challenge to me. I was able to stealth past the large elite pulls using Mind Maze, Blackout, and Force Speed.

 

The second one was the Area-4 quest on Hoth that is actually a chain. The first part involves killing groups of elites, but I handled that by taking on the smaller groups in the area by myself.

 

Mind you, I was several levels over these areas, but largely because I ran Flashpoints and do space combat every day.

On Hoth, my Concealment Op was able to solo Brig Stompers [Heroic 4] and Joint Training [HEROIC 2+]. I believe 'Terror Brigade' is a Republic quest.

Anything with stealth really. Every single MMO EVER gives stealth characters a huge boon in PvE. Not too shabby in PvP either, especially for trolling with other stealthers

Nothing is as funny as popping out, killing a healer and making the match turn into a 4 v 3 in just a few seconds

Best class for Soloing?

I'd say a Smuggler going Scoundrel or an Imperial Agent going Operative. Even if focusing on DPS, the class still gains heals and stealth, which means in long fights you can take on a dual role of DPSing and healing your companion while the companion tanks.

Both classes get a Ranged tank, with leap, as first companion. Properly geared they can take you to the end game easily. Stealth on top of it and the ability to CC living enemies, no matter their rank, allows to size down hard fights (like having 2 epic enemies in a group, you can CC one of them while you fight the other, then use your heals to heal up your tank) and to skip trash mobs you don't want to fight (although you lose money). Best thing about it, tho. Once you reach max level you can respecc into Healer and always have a group for anything you want to do

3rd place goes to Jedi Knight going sentinel. You have 3 companions before anyone else, allowing you to run two of them on missions while you play (giving you a real edge in terms of making money in the early levels, keeping you flush, much more than anyone else). No other class gets them as early. The Sentinel tears through trashmobs, and can reliably take on up to Epic quality enemies. And i really place the 3rd place on the quality to get 3 companions before level 20 alone. 4th place is shared by everyone else, but Sorcerer and Sage. I think Sorc/Sage get the 5th place. They ain't bad or hard, but i feel like they are a little slower for the first 2/3rd of the game..

Assassin/Shadow tank : While they are currently non-grata in NiM 16-man ops, sin or shadow tanks take a long time to come into their own, but once they can build stacks of harnessed darkness/shadows, they are very strong in solo PvE. The sole tank with a CC (stealth but still) and a lot of powerful cooldowns to give you time to reduce incoming damage by killing the thrash. Sin get their healer companion rather late tough, something shadow don't have issue with (getting him on Nar Shaddaa). But still, the powerful cooldowns and overall very good damage to allow fast kill on normal and strongs + the self-heals makes you very good at taking down pve content.

Dropped my Tharan as soon as I got Nadia, that girl tears mobs apart while I tank them. Gotta love her.

The only instance where I would summon Tharan was the final boss of H4 in the Black Hole on Corellia but that was in the old days of 61/63 gear. Now that I'm in 72+ and Nadia is almost full 72, that fatso doesn't stand a chance.

scoundrel/operative.

companion tank + player healer (full, hybrid or full dps even) > player tank and companion healer.

companion tanks simply outperform companion healers in their respective roles. '

i have levelled both a scoundrel and an assassin. both were easier than any non-stealth class, but the scoundrel pooped all over the assassin when it came to soloing heroic 4's, even after they took corso's harpoon away. spec a scoundrel/op up to sucker punch in scrapper, the rest in sawbones.just keep a 2 stack of slow release on corso and go to town. vanish if it goes pear shaped. just keep his aoe's turned off if you need to cc something. you should never have to stop and rest. ever.

there is a drawback (for some) to being the best solo class though - if you don't like healing, you may find it difficult to get anything done at end game quickly.

Why do people around here necro threads constantly?

I've never been to a forum where the necro was so strong...

Why do people around here necro threads constantly?

I've never been to a forum where the necro was so strong...

How do you define a necro? How far back do you have to go?

Why do people around here necro threads constantly?

Because every patch the FOTM class changes. I think it's nice to see all the previous FOTM in one thread

Because all of the Trooper's companions uses the aim stat and heavy armor, they can use all your quest rewards and old equipment (save some of the weapons, of course). Treek also use aim, so if you have cybertech as a profession it's easy to keep yourself and companions overequipped for their level as you can make blue and purple armorings and mods. Also, if you grow tired of a companion you can just switch equipment between them as long as it's not companion restricted.

Not to mention Commando is an aoe powerhouse with heals and Vanguard is a sturdy tank if you want him to be, you also get a character who can fill more roles than DPS and thus get faster flashpoint queues.

But seriously? Any character with Treek and cybertech is awesome and self-reliant solo - if you can stand Treek's constant yapping, that is