The Operative for dummies

Ok, so you're thinking of being an operative but want a little more background info? Well, this may possibly be the right place for you.

[Please note: I pretty much solely play Concealment spec, so this thread will mostly be aimed at that]

So first off, what is the operative? It's an advanced class of the Imperial Agent. He has a healing tree and predominantly relies on melee attacks for his damage output. In fact, I personally haven't used snipe outside a warzone in a good twenty levels at least. This means you need to remember to upgrade your vibroknife! If you forget about this, you'll quickly find the mobs take a LONG time to burn down. They also rely heavily on stealth, especially if you head down the concealment tree (the most fun way to level if you ask me). Who does this remind you of? A rogue from WoW you say? A little, but at the same time, not really. Allow me to explain:

An operative has two resources they must manage well (ok three if you include health, but let's ignore that for now); Energy and Tactical Advantage.

Energy is your standard power resource. You start with 100 energy and 5 energy per second regen. As you use abilities and burn through the energy, the regen slows down. This means that, unlike a rogue from WoW who can just spam spam spam damage abilities, an operative needs to be more careful so that they don't find themselves without enough energy to use abilities and sitting uncomfortably on only 1 energy per second regen. Having said that, out of all the classes I've tried, an Operative's energy is by far the easiest to keep high enough to not worry about.

Tactical Advantage on the other hand, we do need to worry about. Tactical Advantage is a stackable temporary buff (2 stacks max) that allows you to activate other abilities such as a faster heal and, if you go concealment spec, laceration which is one of the core damage abilities of a concealment operative. The others being Shiv, Backstab and (later on) hidden strike and acid blade. Shiv grants one stack of tactical awareness, as does hidden strike. Laceration requires one stack of TA to use. Here's the general rotations I use before and after I get hidden strike at level 36:

Pre-Hidden Strike:

Back Stab
Shiv
Laceration
Rapid Shots
Shiv
Laceration
Back Stab

Post-Hidden Strike:

Same as above, but open from stealth with hidden strike.

Please note: This all relies on having a tanking companion like kaliyo to grab aggro so that you can easily attack from behind the whole fight.

Note: In the concealment tree, there is a second to top tire skill that gives hidden strike a 2 second stun per point, up to four seconds for 2 skill points which is an amazing skill to get and you'd be crazy to not pick it up if you're going concealment. It allows you to perform hidden strike and immeadiatly follow it up with a backstab. Also, just above that is acid blade, which coats your vibroknife in acid and gives your first hidden strike or backstab a nice 6 second DoT (does about as much damage over the duration as a back stab). I simply apply it before the opening hidden strike and reapply it everytime I want to do a backstab (except the first backstab straight after the initial hidden strike).


Also note: The operative is a very situational class. So take that rotation above with a pinch of salt! It's fine for a standard faceroll fight you don't have to think about, but then you don't need a guide for that. So be aware of your abilities. Your interrupts, your stuns, your stims, relics, heals, healthpacks, damage mitigation abilities. There will be fights where you'll need many if not all of them!

Also also note: Sleep dart is essential in portions of the game. It can turn an incredibly difficult fight into a walk in the park, and you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you ignore it. Here's how I use sleep dart. If it's a group of two enemies, one strong one standard; I sleep the standard anamy, so that i can use hidden strike on the strong enemy. Kill him, back stab the standard. If there's a strong and two or more standard enemies however, I'll sleep the strong so that I can deal with him and the standard enemies separately.

If you have any more questions about concealment or the operative in general just ask. And as a final note, here's something that will save you an immense amount of aggravation:

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS gear up your tanking companion. Kaliyo can do such a fantastic job is she's geared well enough for her level. But if you send her out in sub-par hand-me-downs and expert her to stay alive for longer than a few seconds, you're just asking to be let down. I learned this the hard way.

Healing:

Ok, so last night I had my first try at healing HM flashpoints (specifically Boarding Party). Here's what I learnt...

An operative has two types of heals. Those that build tactical advantage (TA) and those that use it. So here's my quick guide to balancing health, energy and TA.

First and foremost; keep your kolto probes active. Essentially you want as many kolto probes active as you have energy to use (keeping plenty above 60 energy that is). These kolto probes will give you plenty of TA stacks (assuming you're specced correctly - common sense).

As soon as you have a stack of TA cast Stim Boost and try to keep this active at all times. Keeping stim boost active means you lose out on one free heal every 45 seconds, but you gain 135 energy over that time (i.e. 9 extra kolto probes).

Always try your best to maintain one stack of TA. As long as you have one stack your healing will be 6% stronger (again assuming you're specced correctly - it's pretty obvious which skills to take). Also, as long as you have one stack of TA, and someone drops below 30% health, surgical probe uses TA, but immediately replenishes it upon use. This means, if someone is below that 30% health threshold, it becomes a spammable free-cast heal (this is something I didn't realise last night in the flashpoint... oops).

Last but not least, if you're in a boss fight for instance, and you know the whole group is going to be taking damage, if ever you feel you have energy to burn; cast recuperative nanotech. It's not a great heal, but if you have plenty of energy at any point, it'll help alleviate problems later on (or at least within it's 15 second timer).

Hope this helps at all.