Mercenary | Commando DPS Compendium (2.0 Updated)

[Glorion]

Kephess fight? They need to be sticky nadeing, pulse cannoning and mortar volleying. I get around 1200 dps on the keph fight in HM.
The commando gunnery rotation requires a bit of understanding, that's half the battle. I've spent many blocks of 10 minutes just trying to get in touch with the feel of the rotation.

[Phaser]

Yep, pretty much Glor. Some players are just bad and can't be fixed. With some, you can hold their hand and spoon-feed them...this might work if you are in a really amazing guild where 80% of your people are exceptional players and there is a lot of positive peer pressure to perform well.

Unfortunately with games like SWTOR and WOW, the majority of players (even "hard core" raiders) are actually casual players that happen to get by raiding because the mechanics are just that incredibly easy.

The truth is that, if a player were really worth anything, he would already be on top of figguring out the ins and outs of his class and how to preform well. For me, I can't stand to be grouped with casual players, but if its more fun for them just to be lazy and casual about playing their class; more power to them!

...just don't be suprised when you can't down a boss because they keep on doing the same thing wrong every attempt, and then won't stick it out after 5 or 6 failed attempts. Or hitting enrage timers because people don't care about maxxing their
gear. I just wonder how some of these people would do in Everquest with 54 man raids, and mechanics like Low HP Aggro, and Summoning mobs.

[lawphill]

Hey all, I've greatly enjoyed this thread. Definitely helped me step up my game, but I'm still not clear on a few things.

First off, when people talk about getting ~108% accuracy do they mean tech or ranged? I've got 108% tech, but only 98% ranged. I don't feel like I've ever missed rail shot or unload, so I've just left it there for now.

Also, when people talk about the level of %crit they want is that before or after IA buff?

In mostly rakata gear with all class buffs (but no stim) my stats end up like this:
1864 Aim, 1652 End
Bonus damage: 423.5, Bonus Tech damage: 742.5
Ranged Accuracy: 99.16%, Tech Accuracy: 109.16%
Crit Chance: 41.57%
Surge: 74.88%
Activation Speed: 7.35%

Seem reasonable? Trying to get rid of my alacrity gear in favor of +power.

[Rystet]

The 108 number is a few pages old.

Since 1.2 has come out we have been able to confirm that Bosses have 10% Defense.

Your Special Ranged and Tech abilities have a base accuracy of 100%. To ensure that your MH Unloads and Rail Shot is never defended you need 110% Special MH Accuracy. Which will also be 110% tech.

Just hover your mouse cursor over your accuracy %, in your character sheet. You will see the full breakdown of Basic and Special, MH & OH Accuracy.

Your only Basic Ranged ability is Rapid Shots, they will still be defended... but anything over 110% Special/100% Basic would be a complete waste. Its not a large enough part of your damage to waste stats on.


The amount of crit chance needed (the 33-35% area) is before IA buff.

[Sa'eed]

Quote: PTS patch notes
Arsenal
Barrage now properly affects Unload while wielding a single blaster pistol.
Terminal Velocity has been redesigned. While High-Velocity Gas Cylinder is active, there is a 50% chance per point to vent 8 Heat every 6 seconds.
Tracer Lock and Light 'Em Up have swapped positions in the Skill Tree. Tracer Lock now requires Tracer Missile and Light 'Em Up now requires Tracer Lock.
Light 'Em Up now additionally grants an extra stack of Tracer Lock and Power Barrier, if applicable, with each Tracer Missile fired.
Custom Enviro Suit now increases healing received by 1% per point (down from 3%).
Pyrotech (Mercenary)
Advanced Targeting has been redesigned and now gives Unload and Rail Shot 10% of armor penetration per point.

I simmed my merc with live and the new pts option. (SimulationCraft 120-3)
10 runs 50000 iterations, average results:

live: 1.2.6a
http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/5b...f5a044e994
1701 dps

Code:

ability        dps        dps%    count
tracer         634        37.3%    80.8
unload         571        33.6%    30.2
heatseeker     216        12.7%    18.4    
rail_shot      163        9.6%     18.7
rapid_shots    79         4.7%     23.2

dmg/exe_time

Code:

heatseeker: 2289
unload:     1891
railshot:   1695
tracer:     1629

statranking:

Code:

wdmg  > aim   > power > crit  > t_power > alacrity > surge
0.5441  0.4387  0.3766  0.2805  0.1896    0.1430     0.1380

pts: 1.3.0
I swapped legs enhancement to compensate some of the 3% accuracy loss (34power/48surge -> 37power/51accuracy)
http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/c7...f7fa21f4ba
1707.5 dps

Code:

ability        dps        dps%    count
tracer         603        35.4%    77.4
unload         585        34.2%    29.8
heatseeker     215        12.6%    18.3    
rail_shot      174        10.2%    18.7
rapid_shots    91         5.3%     27.2

dmg/exe_time

Code:

heatseeker: 2290
unload:     1991
railshot:   1818
tracer:     1619

statranking:

Code:

wdmg  > aim   > power > crit  > surge  > t_power > alacrity
0.5719  0.4377  0.3873  0.2480  0.1894   0.1789    0.1315

Damage per execution_time of unload and railshot is higher, I wonder, why this doesnt really change over all dps.
The lower scale factor of crit reflects the change of terminal velocity as it is no longer crit depending.
The higher scale factor of surge -> As i was high on surge, dm dropped it quite sharply before is switched legs enhancement.

I'm looking forward to find some time on pts to test heat management, with the change on terminal velocity.

What are your thoughts about this changes?

[Cort]

(06-12-2012 06:24 PM)Saeed Wrote:  Damage per execution_time of unload and railshot is higher, I wonder, why this doesnt really change over all dps.

It does. From memory, when I implemented the PTR changes and tested them individually, by about 20-30 dps. But you're forgetting this change:

Quote:Terminal Velocity has been redesigned. While High-Velocity Gas Cylinder is active, there is a 50% chance per point to vent 8 Heat every 6 seconds.

which is a dps loss (it sacrifices a small amount of dps in return for reliable and less spikey heat venting), and basically cancels out the gains. (with 3 stacks of arpen debuff the gains ever so slightly outweigh the loss, but with 5 stacks of arpen then it's an ever so slight loss, which you can test in the sim too by using the debuffs tab.

[Sa'eed]

(06-12-2012 08:04 PM)Cort Wrote:  

(06-12-2012 06:24 PM)Saeed Wrote:  Damage per execution_time of unload and railshot is higher, I wonder, why this doesnt really change over all dps.

It does. From memory, when I implemented the PTR changes and tested them individually, by about 20-30 dps. But you're forgetting this change:

Quote:Terminal Velocity has been redesigned. While High-Velocity Gas Cylinder is active, there is a 50% chance per point to vent 8 Heat every 6 seconds.

which is a dps loss (it sacrifices a small amount of dps in return for reliable and less spikey heat venting), and basically cancels out the gains. (with 3 stacks of arpen debuff the gains ever so slightly outweigh the loss, but with 5 stacks of arpen then it's an ever so slight loss, which you can test in the sim too by using the debuffs tab.

Thats why i see smaller numbers on the ability count of all but rapid shots. I was curious about that before. Thanks for clarification!

[lawphill]

In getting ready for 1.3 I'm grabbing augments for all my slots. I remember seeing numbers on the relative weights for +power and +aim with power being slightly more advantageous. Is this still conventional wisdom?

Edit: I've done some calculations which seem to say in terms of bonus damage alone the +power aug is better, but only slightly so maybe the +crit from +Aim makes up for it...

Basically the model I have looks like this:
Bonus damage = (Aim*1.2+Cun*1.2+TechPow*1.23+Pow*.123) * 1.05 (for warrior buff)

For my current setup (confirmed by ingame stats and by the model):
Bonus damage = 836.64
For + 1 point of Aim we get 836.8835
For +1 point of Pow we get 836.8858

So this comes out to a slight advantage for +power, roughly +.0509 bonus damage/hit from taking a +pow aug versus a +aim one.

[Fungus]

Aim is better than Power by approximately 10%.

[ryback]

Aim is always better than power lawphill. Dont know how you came up with your numbers but they are wrong. i used to like this thread but it has changed. Hopefully this whole thread can be nixed and a new thread can be made that sets the bar for all mercs to look into. Nuff said.