I'm drowning in abilities and I'm only level 16...

Two full quickbars of various abilities to use... some ranged (30m) some melee (10m or less).

What exactly am I supposed to be using?

Are there some abilities that are just plain pointless?

Right now it feels like I am supposed to just faceroll on the keyboard until something dies...

Would really appreciate if someone could help me out... I'm really overwhelmed with all the abilities stacking up on the quickbar and it's actually quite discouraging when all I seem to do is just mass-click 20 buttons.

I'm sure there are someone else who felt the same way and could me figure out what are useful abilities and what are just throw-aways.

Thanks for reading my bit of ranting >.<

Pretty much every operative ability has some form of use, in PVP at least.

I'd recommend having every ability keybound, but, some get overwhelmed with the amount of abilities understandably so I'll let you know what you need to do your rotations.

If you're a solo player or someone who does PVE, this is all you really need for the DPS specs:

Lethality: Corrosive Assault, Shiv, Carbine Burst, Overload Shot (occasionally for downtime in your rotation I believe), Toxic Blast, Corrosive Grenade, Corrosive Dart, Lethal Strike (Backstab).

Concealment: Backstab, Veiled Strike (Shiv), Laceration, Crippling Slice, Rifle Shots/Overload Shot (filler), Corrosive Dart, Volatile Substance.

On top of these, be sure to bind your defensive abilities like Evasion, Shield Probe, Exfiltrate, and your stunbreaker. Also, Stim Boost is commonly used in your rotation for a DPS increase (gives you a TA) or for defensive purposes (if you take Revitalizers in the heroic tier).

which of those 3 did u choose: Medicine / Concealment / Lethality?

I chose Medicine since I am playing with a friend who plays Sith with that giant ogre looking companion.

I've tried to group my abilities based on range, but not sure that makes sense. So I have a few 30m range ones and some 10m... then I have some probe things which I guess are buffs. As for heals I only have two and one of those I can only use if I have tactical advantage.

So I should primarily be fighting in melee and not worry about those 30m range skills ?

well medic and conc. are quite easy to play and dont require sooo big abillity pool especially at your level. But picking medic to solo lvl up ain't best idea because then u have to use both healing and dps abillities - so yeah that might be overwhelming. respec to concealment use 2-4 skills and hf. or go make some flashpoints as healer and use just heals.

or since You play with a friend -> make your companion DPS instead a healer and just heal everyone including companions?:x or make one a tank, your friend's companion dps and u're good to go.

to change companion's role(dps, healer, tank) right click on the companion's portrait and pick the role u want

well medic and conc. are quite easy to play and dont require sooo big abillity pool especially at your level. But picking medic to solo lvl up ain't best idea because then u have to use both healing and dps abillities - so yeah that might be overwhelming. respec to concealment use 2-4 skills and hf. or go make some flashpoints as healer and use just heals.

 

or since You play with a friend -> make your companion DPS instead a healer and just heal everyone including companions?:x or make one a tank, your friend's companion dps and u're good to go.

 

to change companion's role(dps, healer, tank) right click on the companion's portrait and pick the role u want

Thanks for the help. Maybe I will see about respec to concealment, or just focus on the melee and heal part. Seemed weird to me that I am supposed to be a melee... I thought the agents were mostly about shooting, and melee stuff was for the Siths with their lightsabers and stuff.

I try not to use my companion though because she's a moron. I absolutely hate her and her "oh I am so cool and free spirited and have to vent my childhood anger through passive-aggressive remarks about anything and everything that relates to authority".

I tried every dialogue option there was in the start to kill her and I was mega-disappointed when she became my companion. Worst Imperial Agent companion ever and I hope I can stuff her into a cargo container, light it on fire and vent her into a black hole when I get my spaceship

Honestly most abilities are useful for operatives. I used to only bind two quick bars because I didn't have a mouse with thumb buttons and I have small hands so can't reach across the keyboard. But since getting a mouse with the thumb buttons I use 4 quick bars with binds for my abilities. With practice you will see which ones you prioritize. Bind the most used ones to the easiest to hit key or button. Then go from there.

For example: on concealment

My main binds include:

main damage attacks (back stab, laceration, etc)

Defenses/mobility (roll, evasion, etc)

CC (debilitate, crippling slice, etc)

Then powers that I use a bit less:

Other cc (sleep dart)

Situational damage (corrosive dart, rifle shot, frag grenade, etc)

Utility/buffs/debuffs (interrupt, stealth, stim boost, adrenaline rush, etc)

Then everything else. Just find what you use most and get comfortable. Then slowly add more powers to your muscle memory.

I don't have a multibutton mouse... and can't really use one (missing tip of my pointing finger so I have to use middle finger to left click mouse, so it gets awkward to use thumb buttons).

Might just make use of my Voice Attack that I use with Elite Dangerous and FSX and bind some keys to voice command macros.

Thanks for all the input and suggestions towards abilities to use though. Really appreciate it

In terms of lethality, basically every single ability is useful besides rifle shot. I find this to be the case more so then other classes, also. Make sure your 2 dots are bound somewhere important you'll be using those a lot.

Concealment is fine, just boring to play IMO. More people play it though, especially because you can stun, stun, stun win people in pvp. I play both, and all around I perfer lethality in both pve and pvp but many will disagree (especially in terms of pvp)

In terms of lethality, basically every single ability is useful besides rifle shot. I find this to be the case more so then other classes, also. Make sure your 2 dots are bound somewhere important you'll be using those a lot.

 

Concealment is fine, just boring to play IMO. More people play it though, especially because you can stun, stun, stun win people in pvp. I play both, and all around I perfer lethality in both pve and pvp but many will disagree (especially in terms of pvp)

Concealment cannot "stun, stun, stun, win". It has one stun....same as lethality op. Both are a lot of fun to play.

Concealment cannot "stun, stun, stun, win". It has one stun....same as lethality op. Both are a lot of fun to play.

not entirely true. u have flash bang that u could use to make a short break to regain cooldowns. your stun has 30s cd with the right perk as well which is really something.

anyway as OPerative u should try more sneaky apporach in pve solo, rather than chargin in like sith juggernaut this is very fun class to play and i hope You will have enough patience to discover it for yourself:o

not entirely true. u have flash bang that u could use to make a short break to regain cooldowns. your stun has 30s cd with the right perk as well which is really something.

 

anyway as OPerative u should try more sneaky apporach in pve solo, rather than chargin in like sith juggernaut this is very fun class to play and i hope You will have enough patience to discover it for yourself:o

Flash bang is a mez and will break on damage. In pvp you can almost never count on flash bang not being broken by something almost immediately. Also, debilitate and flash bang will fill resolve allowing opponents use of their stun breaker without fear of being mezzed or stunned again.

In pve flash bang is much more useful because it doesn't get broken, but only do a bare minimum of pve. I just wants to point out in case the OP is new that operatives only have 1 stun and their other cc will affect players differently. I remember when I first started not knowing the difference between a stun and a mez or about resolve and it made pvp frustrating.

I have the grand total of 0 interest in PvP in MMO's though so any PvP build or direction isn't very valid in my case.

When it comes to PvP I prefer straight up FPS games or combined arms games (Planetside 2, Heroes & Generals and so on).

So for this game (or any MMO for that matter) it will be pure PvE for me.

I tried a bit yesterday, seems it works better now that I focus more on using the melee skills.

Me and my Sith friend got separated while trying to do a mission, and I was able to kill multiple mobs at same time (using flashbang, debilitate, heals and having companion set to healing too)... my Sith friend got his face rekt doing the same when he was alone.

I'm not even a good player, or used to the Operative, but I managed to keep myself alive and kill off the mobs (these were mobs with that yellow star next to their name... heroics? I dunno the term...)

So seems Operative is capable of staying alive quite well.

Looking forward to more gameplay with it Also love the storyline. It's very intriguing!

Concealment cannot "stun, stun, stun, win". It has one stun....same as lethality op. Both are a lot of fun to play.

I mean if you want to get technical debilitate is our only hard stun and both get it, but we can definitely keep somebody in place with concealment long enough to burst them down, something lethality doesn't have the burst dmg to do. It becomes more of a dragged out bout with lethality.

Concealment cannot "stun, stun, stun, win". It has one stun....same as lethality op. Both are a lot of fun to play.

I mean if you want to get technical debilitate is our only hard stun and both get it, but we can definitely keep somebody in place with concealment long enough to burst them down, something lethality doesn't have the burst dmg to do. It becomes more of a dragged out bout with lethality.