[Patch 1.0-1.1 ARCHIVE] Mercenary | Commando DPS Compendium

[Aldare]

(02-16-2012 08:27 AM)GWARRR Wrote:  RE: Pyrotech section

I have been meaning to edit the Pyrotech section quite a bit. Its overall DPS is about equivalent to Arsenal's, a touch higher in ideal circumstances sans gear bonuses (I think Hugs mapped it out awhile back). Part of this is due to the presence of DoTs, whose elemental damage ignores armor. However, I'm still of the opinion that in a raid situation, you take an Arsenal DPS every time since Tracer stacks are global, which help everyone one, especially with the weird HSM bit going on that makes them hit like trains. Now I will certainly say that if you're pugging PvP, take Pyro since it's more mobile (Pyro will do much much better in Huttball, that's for certain). And it's also a playstyle thing, I would say. I don't have a ton of experience with Pyro (I can never get used to the heat management and rotation), so if anyone does and wants to chip in, please do so. It will certainly help me write the section on Pyro.

We raid with 3 DPS bounty hunters. One is a Pyro Powertech (Oh how I envy his Rail shot improving talents), a Pyro Merc (myself) and an Arsenal merc, so the raid still benefits from the Tracer Stacks though our Arsenal merc has to live without the 10k HSM.
It's also worth noting that with 2 Pyros in the raid, targets are pretty much guaranteed to be burning all the time which is awesome for killing adds or fights where you have to switch targets. Incendiary Missile is an expensive cast and not having to apply it everytime you switch targets is great. This is of course not as big of a benefit as the stacking Tracer buffs, but it does save you from overheating sometimes.

Pyro heat management is a bit trickier than Arsenal, relying heavily on Particle Accelerator procs. Sometimes you'll be sitting below 15 heat for ages while spamming away, and other times you'll have to weave in rapid shots due to bad RNG. I will say that Automated Defenses is absolutely mandatory, with the amount of Crit I have raid buffed it's pretty much a free cast every 30 seconds (due to TSO resetting) and since Incendiary Missile costs 25 heat I save it for that. Lately I've been experimenting with TSO > Fusion Missile > Incendiary (that's 33+25 heat cost abilities down to 0). On a tank and spank fight, TSO and Fusion Missile usually come off cooldown around the same time. Having the added bonus of being able to HoT yourself every 30 seconds is a great utility bonus as well for fights where you take unavoidable AoE damage.

Having tried raiding both as Arsenal and Pyro, Pyro definitely suits my playstyle better both in PvE and PvP. Of course if it was mathematically proven that Arsenal was significantly better then I'd have to consider switching, but I love the mobility and gameplay of Pyro so much I'd find it very hard to go back to the Turret-spec.

Quote:The only other thing I would say is that once you get the 2pc PvE bonus, Arsenal DPS goes through the roof, and may outstrip Pyrotech at that point with all the crits flying around. But that would require a sim or sheet of some sort, and I'm ill-equipped for that...

How would you say the 4piece Combat Tech bonus (extra Rail shot damage) compares to the Eliminator 2piece bonus? As a pyro merc the Eliminator 4piece bonus doesn't come into play very often, so I was wondering if Combat Tech might be worth going for instead.

Bural Wrote:Quick sneakpeak at the trinket calculations from next version of the arsenal sheet:

Numbers are normalized to Power, Augment slots filled with Reflex 25.

With regards to trinkets I went for the Plasma Burst Device (http://www.torhead.com/item/19SUpzH/plas...st-device) which has the 168 elemental damage proc. I did this because A) I do not have the passive armor penetration that Arsenal mercs have and B) I was wondering if the proc might synergize with the Burnout talent in Pyro. I'm wondering now though with the armor debuffs on the boss if one of the other DPS trinkets would still be a better choice. Have you done any math on the Plasma trinket by any chance Bural?