Clones are kinda the best beginner class, since they have two lives, pretty high health, and a "low-skill" gun (speaking as someone who plays Clone a lot).
If you're on Imperials, roughly equivalent would be a Commander with a level 3 T-21. With T-21 you wanna use the alt-fire way more than the primary fire, unless you have great aim or a stationary target.
Since I like explaining shit: One big skill element to Clone (and ARC) is sprinting + stamina management. Pressing Class Special 1 activates sprinting, and as long as sprinting is activating, your run speed will be higher but you'll drain Stamina (blue stuff) while running. Sprinting ends as soon as you walk, but, importantly, if you
hold Class Special 1
while walking, you'll walk noticeably faster (you could call it "sprint walking"), which doesn't consume any Stamina, but prevents Stamina regeneration. For this reason (among others) I recommend having Class Special 1 on a mouse thumb button.
Sprinting also ends as soon as you fire, unless you buy Stamina 2. Firing while sprinting with Stamina 2 drains your Stamina twice as quickly (whereas it's normal Stamina cost if you buy Stamina 3). The ability to fire while sprinting is extremely valuable (vs both Gunners and Sith), so personally I recommend taking the default Clone build and trading the 3rd level of armor for 2 levels of Stamina.
Also, about the term "Force Whore", yeah... don't expect much uhh "classiness" from this community.
That being said, with how much the community churns (players coming and going), it just occurred to me to wonder whether most players are actually familiar with the term "Force Whore" at this point. It doesn't come up that often... I think... not sure.