» Question » Will the Imperial Agent rely solely on cover?

During my beta weekend I played an IA Operative specializing in the Concealment tree. I found myself using cover very little and mostly played as DPS with off-heals. My companion would tank while I used Backstab, Shiv, and Lacerate (in that rotation). In the low 20's I learned Escape which allows you to enter stealth (even in combat, lasted 10 seconds I think) to give you time to run away. If a target was engaged/distracted it was easy to run up, do a LOT of burst damage, then stealthily run away if they started targetting you. By lvl 26 (end of the weekend) I had a HoT that was ok and a big channeled heal but the cast time was around 3 seconds which is an eternity in PVP.

Only the Sniper advanced class relies on cover and even then doesn't have to use it and certainly not all the time. If you go with the Operative advanced class, cover will be something that you won't hardly ever use and only if you really really want to. And they way that it works, it doesn't really cause problems. Cover-based advanced classes get more damage protection and ways to defend themselves from melee enemies. They also do high damage. They're really good at defending objectives and things like that. Have trust in the devs. They know how to make games =)

If anything, the Agent is an absolute PvP/PvE powerhouse.

You can drop cover ANYWHERE at level 10. Even in lower levels, you have a skill called "Crouch" which allows you to enter a cover position and thus access your cover action bar, even if you're not actually in cover.

Portable cover will be your main staple as you progress in levels, unless you're a stealth-focused Operative, which relies a bit less on cover than the other Agent specs.