Discipline

Disciplines, commonly known as spec, defines a player's abilities, strengths and role in the game depending on their advanced class. With Patch 3.0.0 and the Shadow of Revan expansion, this system replaced the previous skill trees.

At level 10 each character is able to choose a Discipline. Selecting a Discipline will determine:
 * Role - Tank, Healer, Ranged DPS or Melee DPS
 * Additional active and passive abilities
 * Strengths, weaknesses and playstyle

Description
Every advanced class possesses 3 Disciplines. There are 8 base classes and 2 advanced classes per base class, for a total of 48 Disciplines. But because every Imperial Discipline is mirrored on the Republic side and vice versa, there are only 24 different Disciplines. For example, Darkness and Telekinetic Combat have exactly the same playstyle and the only difference are the names of the skills and the Story, which is determined by the base class.

After a Player has chosen their advanced class, s/he will have to choose a discipline. It is possible to change the characters discipline at the  on the Fleet in the Combat Training Section, or if the Player has bought the character perk Field Respecialization directly in the Discipline window.

The choice of a Discipline determines, whether the Player's Role is to heal, tank, or do damage. Some advanced classes allow to offheal or offtank in a wrong discipline for a short time, but are never capable to fulfill this role to a satisfying degree. By determining combat role, choice of specialization can also determine secondary factors such as which set bonuses are favoured. Some classes - sometimes called 'pure' classes - have the same combat role for all their specializations, while others - known as 'hybrid' classes - can perform a number of combat roles depending on their specialization. However, even for pure classes, each specialization has its own character and playstyle, different strengths and weaknesses, and offers a significantly different experience of the class.

Below is a complete list of the Disciplines available to each class.