Taking the plunge

[Deleted]

Might I suggest you to try out the Bounty Hunter? Ranged dps with heavy armor, they have a lot of cool toys to play around with as well. I find them to be fairly good at kiting too if that's what you are after, at level 10 you receive Death from above which basically is a 1 minute cooldown channel aoe nuke which can take out an entire group alone. Bounty Hunter's advanced classes are Mercenary and Powertech, main differences between them is Mercenary prefers to keep a greater distance and can heal, Powertech whilst still have long range abilities, prefer a mid to close range fight and can specialize into tanking.

Mirror version of the Bounty Hunter is Trooper, with advanced classes of Vanguard (Powertech) and Commando (Mercenary).

[Davisdoesdallas]

Actually if you liked prot warrior tanking you might like Powertech/Vanguard. It is still ranged but it has a tanking tree. If you enjoy pvp you get many more points for using your guardian (50% reduced damage on target within 15 yards) and your taunt spells are useful in pvp as they lower the damage of the target. While not having to focus on healing you can still kill and throw out tanks and guardian and be extremely effective

[Deleted]

50% reduced damage on target within 15 yards

Just to clarify, it doesn't simply reduce the damage taken for the guarded player, it transfers 50 % of the damage taken to you.

The taunts however reduce the damage taunted players deals to anyone but you by 30 %.

[Spaceshaman]

I find Sniper/Gunslinger, especially marksmanship spec pretty much same as WoW hunters were in tbc. Which is why i love playing sniper.

Just for clarification, BC and marksmanship does not mix. BC was about beast mastery.

Anyway to stay ontopic I would roll an Operative. Melee classes are always hard to balance. Even Blizz has failed this for years.

[Deleted]

The cover mechanic is a detriment to kitting. But, you can also throw yourself at cover to kite something as well.

I don't honestly know if there is a good kitting class (apart from the sorc / sage but those are locks/mages).

Engineering specced Sniper is good at kiting, with that 30% movement speed reduction from interrogation probe. Don't need much cover to kill really, maybe if want to kill bit faster. But you'd rather play it safer against things like Jedi Sentinel.

[Deleted]

Merc sounds like your kind of thing. As said they do have heals and a healing tree but you don't need to use them. You basically get to spend all day firing a range of missiles at people, who couldn't love that?

Yeah firing a range of missiles at people... from your back. Looks really lame. I'd go with Trooper carrying Big Fu... Gun. And Grav Round looks cool - like little black hole sucking in your guts.

[Achyra]

I have a gunslinger, Sharpshooter spec, at 50 and it's depressingly similar to a hunter. I will argue that energy > focus, as at least the energy returns on it's own but you're still forced to stand (crouch) still for aimed shot, most charged bursts, speed shot, and throw your grenade. In the long run I would say that having to stop to get into cover to fire is no different that having to stand to regen focus outside of AotF or hardcasting aimed shot. However the other specs (Dirty Fighting and whatever that middle tree is.) Can both kite fairly well. DF's shrap bomb slows everything it hits (up to 5 targets) and the other one is something of a bomb specalisit (while DF is bleeds) and everyone likes bombs. Gunslinger (or sniper if you like Imp) do lack in self heals and if you get caught without knockbacks/slows on CD/kick is down you might as well kiss your happy ass goodbye. Kinda like a hunter. But this doesn't happen often; I've lead half the Imp team in circles in Civil War as DF. Radial knockback, shrap bomb, kick, dodge, absorption cooldown.

Having said all that I also have a BH, Merc spec, and I don't find it to be very huntery at all. Yes you have your different 'rounds' but they're not like aspects. You don't have one that helps you kite (Fox) they're all about damage. You have one that can cause a dot, one that increases your healing/damage with supercharge, and one that ignores armor. As a Merc I'm always using the armor pen cell. If I was healy I'd use the support one, and if I was the other free (Pyrotech?) I'd use the dot one. Not very aspecty at all. I suppose Merc's are good kiters. I mean, I don't kite, I just plant myself in one spot and burn everyone down with 3 buttons and lol myself to victory. But I'm sure once I got my heat signature stacks up I could be mobile if it struck my fancy. BH does have heals, as they have a healing tree, and a neat personal shield.

Note: I'm actually leveling a Sent, a Shadow, and an Scoundrel so i no longer have to deal with trying to kite people while being forced to stand still to be effective (Ala steady/cobra shot. It's like dropping my hunter at the start of Cata all over again.) So if I seemed bitter I was. DF is something of an energy hog, but as sharpshooter I can fire shots forever, but I feel SS isn't effective in PvP. Your mileage may vary. Also the Smug storyline is trash.

Also: Trooper is cooler than BH. Grav Round looks amazing.

[Supakaiser]

Well, so far I've hit level 29 on my Commando. It's really starting to come together with the end talents and I can't wait to be able to weave Full Auto more. Loving grav round. Been running with 2 friends, also both Troopers (one is a healer, the other a tank) so gear competition has been annoying but not too bad (We look pretty bad-ass in our armor gear, like a real Trooper squad in SW).

However, in PvP, Commando feels very lacking, I get tore up easily where it seems WIZARDS just eat everyone up. I dunno, I heard going down the Assault tree for Commando is the way to go for PvP, but there is no dual spec yet, so that's a thing and I don't PvP much outside the daily to justify re-speccing for PvP.

I really want to roll a lightsaber wielding class because I <3 lightsabers, but I'm also tempted to try out an Imperial Agent/Smuggler again and go down the AC that doesn't involve me humping cover.

[Necrolepsy]

nononono go Gunnery. Commando's are nukers in pvp, they steamroll everyone. It's all about how you position yourself. Talent concussion charge to 20 seconds and add a knockback to your stock strike and you eat any melee that charges you for breakfast. When you get 2 min cd instant cast spell thingo, you can 10 sec cc people close to you instantly. Useful for making room. If they pop tenacity on it, you can grenade them and run off and proceed to full auto then grav round spam then demo round.

Make use of 15% hp cd and Reactive Shield also, they will save you. The best way to deal with sorcerors is line of sight them and once u stun them go to down on them, your damage is greater remember that.