Story fights that start out of cover - Use flashbang, run away, take cover. Didn't die even once to those.
In general - if you hate cover - reroll. It's the base premise of your class and not going to change, and everybody seems to either LOVE it or HATE it, no inbetween.
I personally in the LOVE camp, my main is now a level 46 Sniper (same AC, empire side) and i have a Gunslinger at mid-20s too which i will be playing to 50.
I wouldn't mind cover so much if it didn't take you into a stupid position half the time (yes, I know about cover in place, but I don't like having to dedicate 2 of my usual keybinds for 1 ability, especially with the insane amount of abilities there are in swtor, and the absence of macros).
Also, cover is supposed to be off the gcd. Well I would like for it to actually be off the gcd, and not have the animation time preventing you from doing anything for a good second.
Know what I hate? When a cover class is high on a walkway, just taking pot shots at me, and I cant leap to them because they are in cover.
So yes, I'm sick of cover :P
A lot of the complaints about Cover do seem to stem from people not knowing they can use it wherever they are. I too changed the binding to make F use portable cover and Shift F "go find a rock".
As to the story boss thing, I have had that too, can get annoying, but more often than not, dropping into cover and hitting the aoe knockback works a treat. Add in flashbang and you've got yourself a proper fight. And if that doesnt work, either run away (if you can), or die and come back and start again from range
There is one large misconception being repeated here. Crouch in place is not the same as using proper physical cover. Yes, the shield does provide a little defense, but you'll notice that when you hade behind real cover, the mobs get a green icon over their head, something which never happens with the shield.
When behind true cover, you take absolutely no damage from ranged attacks if you are not up performing an ability. You are NOT out of LOS so mob won't run around to try hit you, you are targetable, attackable, but immune to non-aoe damage.
This can be singularly awesome against a ranged elite/champion as you can do enough damage between his casts to keep agro while your dps companion is free to beat down the mob (Kaliyo with the reduce threat stance is OP for this). Simply pop up for a snipe and followthrough, then duck down again for followthrough to come off CD. The list of champions I have beaten with this method is quite long.
I'm tempted to try the lethality/engineering tree to see how it works, as I'm under the impression they don't need cover as much. But I think you need the full talent tree of abilities to have a rotation that can be executed from cover, so I'll have to wait 2 levels to 40 and then try.
Cover is... Well, it's immersive. It's interesting. Is it good for the game?
I've played a Jedi Guardian to level 50, while my Gunslinger is currently level 24. I've PvPed on both, and PvPed on my Guardian at the lower levels as well as at level 50.
I feel a lot more useful on my Guardian than on my Gunslinger, that's for sure. Though my Gunslinger does a metric asston more damage.
As far as levelling goes, I haven't had a single issue with story bosses. you can jump into Cover anywhere if you properly keybind. I've keybound it to mousewheel down and shift + mousewheel down, if I want to go into regular cover or the portable shield cover. Works very well.
Levelling is a lot easier on my Gunslinger too. How much of that is attributable to the Cover mechanic is debateable.
As for how I feel about it? It makes sense. A ranged class isn't going to stand in the open, taking potshots at the enemy. But at the same time, it feels clunky. We'll have to see what PvP balance is like at level 50, but it'll go one of two ways:
1. Cover is grossly OP, or
2. It's a huge drawback.
Either way... Unless Bioware are stubborn about it, I can see Cover being removed. I wouldn't care if it does, to be honest. It has its fun moments, but I'm not sure if it really works in an MMO environment.
All this said, a lot of the problems in this thread are because people don't know how to properly use it. Check your keybinds, learn how it works. Cover is better than you think. It's clunky, sure. But it's also pretty good in the right situation.
I am so tired of cover bugs I shelved my gunslinger. From getting that damn error related to a failed attempt to take cover (I thought they were fixing it) to not being able to target mobs in front of me for LOS because the cover the game chose doesn't allow for cast time effects! The mechanic is woefully broken to the point it is irritating. I bet that with even 60+ on in prime time in my guild you see one gunslinger at most, a lot of people went scoundrel
iMac
2012-03-05 : The day SWTOR jumped the shark
Mages are basically "warlocks for girls" - Kerrath
I'm lvl 20 and experienced no noticeable issues
Honestly, I am guessing as far as deaths from the elites in your class quests, that is probably true for most classes at least to a degree. I know I went Scoundrel and between 15-36 or so I frequently died the first time on elites when I didn't get a chance to stealth, CC, or even target the elite or adds. I can say the last part of our Act 1 class quest, I ended up dying no matter what I did. Companion went down in 10-15 sec and I died in about the same. Ended up using a box there to duck behind and use LOS to cheat the encounter as I found no other way I could do it. Maybe I was a little low for it at the time, I'm not sure. But it was increadibly difficult. But anyway, I wouldn't let a few deaths get to you, I would guess it would happen on any class you made.
As far as cover and beying annoying, can't say much having went scoundrel but I actually really wanted to go gunslinger as I liked the cover system. I just didn't want to be restricted to dps only.
Eh, but natural cover is always going to be better -- or so I've heard. I only just chose to go Sniper because I really liked the cover mechanic while levelling. I've read a number of guides and such, and it sounds like it's the sort of class you either hate or love (as someone above said), simply because it takes a lot of practice and getting used to in order to get the most out of it. I'm up for the challenge. We'll see how I feel after having sniped a few hundred mobs, taken a few deaths and reached the end of Act I.
I already have Shift+F bound to another slot. However, I have Take Cover set to 2, which is Snipe on my cover bar. Could always set that to Crouch and use F to roll into cover when necessary. But I do agree from what little I've seen -- nice idea, just not the best implementation so far.
For the Alliance!
End of chapter 1 as sniper was a headache, as Darth Jadus was "Cannot see Target" unless you got right up in his face and then pulsed him off his starting position. Made that fight so much harder than it needed to be.
After a few attempts, though, I found that you could get in cover and use Suppression fire in the area around him to agro him. Simple stuff after that.
I ended up just running up and shiving him and then running back down to drag him with me. I should have tried the Suppression Fire trick. It would have saved me a lot of repair bills...
I've got a Level 49 Sniper, and I like the cover mechanic. As others have said, rolling 15 feet to cover sucks, but usually its not like that. I've seen some bugginess with it, but nothing gamebreaking. Only couple of bosses I've had trouble with have been in the Directive 7 flashpoint. The Boss with the green shield is probably the biggest one that's a pain. Everything else has been pretty easy. I haven't had any trouble with any of the other storyline quests.
Im really sick of cover.
looking at the "Defenses" tab, Portable cover appears to be the same 25% dodge as you get from better cover.. even though it hints that it's supposed to be worse
and you can bind portable cover to a key, or you can pull "take portable cover" from your Abilities window and put it on a hotbar