Mercenary | Commando DPS Compendium (2.0 Updated)

[Glorion]

I'm a massive follower of the POWAH stacking. However, you mentioned that you used Aim Augments, over power Augments. Why?

[Rakunvar]

you want Aim>pwr because of 1. Our +9% Aim talent, and the 5% buff in raids. Where as power wont get this bonus. Aim will affect many stats, in a spread out type fashion as well vs straight power. 1 point of Aim stat weight is 1.14, and 1 power is 1.00 due to the talent/buffs.

Also, Aim's crit bonus is on a separate DR scale vs straight crit. For more info on this type of stuff you should check out the stat formula thread for lots of info.

[Legolino]

Aerro gave in his (very interesting) guide a BiS list for bracers, belt and relic. Since I have no time and will to level up armortech and artifice to 400, gather many biometric crystal alloys etc, I’d like to know: what would be the second BiS pieces before I can get campaign ones?
With the new Black Hole gear, are orange belt/bracers with level 58 (or 61?) mods and armorings inside something we still should look for?
Are MK-1 Black Hole belt and bracers (you can get with commendations) worth anything compared to rakata (non-crit crafted)?

And for the relic, people seemed to agree that the best was the kinetic damage one, but in the guide it’s said that ‘+X power on use’ relics are way better. Is it still true if it is not a crit crafted one? Then, should I get the +405 power campaign relic?

[doonamis]

(04-27-2012 10:08 PM)Legolino Wrote:  Aerro gave in his (very interesting) guide a BiS list for bracers, belt and relic. Since I have no time and will to level up armortech and artifice to 400, gather many biometric crystal alloys etc, I’d like to know: what would be the second BiS pieces before I can get campaign ones?
With the new Black Hole gear, are orange belt/bracers with level 58 (or 61?) mods and armorings inside something we still should look for?
Are MK-1 Black Hole belt and bracers (you can get with commendations) worth anything compared to rakata (non-crit crafted)?

Looking at the Trooper Blackhole vendor last night, my orange bracers and belt were both better than the Black Hole and Campaign bracers and belt that he was selling. My current oranges have level 25 armoring and I think level 25 mods. You will also be able to find level 26 non slot specific armoring, and transfer in level 26 mods, further improving the orange gear. I don't see the campaign/BH as an upgrade.

Crit crafted pieces were made worse with the 1.2 change to augments. When they took away 10 points of main stat and gave us endurance instead, the improvement was far smaller than previously. They made up for this by increasing the number of pieces you can get augments in, but it means that leveling Synthweaving/Armormech to 400 just to work on critting on a few pieces isn't worth as much as it used to be. Also, technically, most of the BiS pieces would be from REing Black Hole/Campaign gear and then crafting until you get a crit. This would require significant amounts of BH comms and level 8 crafting mats, which are very rare right now.

[Phaser]

(04-27-2012 04:20 PM)Unmasked Wrote:  

(04-27-2012 01:35 PM)Phaser Wrote:  Ok I believe you...but this isnt helping. Where are you getting the enhancements with massive amounts of power? I need to know what gear I need to buy and rip appart. I'm2098 aim, 35% crit 75% surge, 300 power. My best enhancements are lvl 61 which have 41 power 57 surge. Where are the better ones from?

This Zero, Aerro's guildmate, to answer your question, toward the end of NiM raiding pre-1.2, most gear was on rot and we both started grabbing Sith Warrior gloves, helm or mainhand because they gave 24 endurance/51 accuracy/34 power as opposed to the 40/51/20 enhancements of the same stat. We also replaced all of the aim/end/crit mods with aim/end/power. By 1.2, all of our gear was based around aim, accuracy and power. The only crit stats we were getting were from the earpiece and aim bonuses. That's essentially how we manage to get 700+ power and 900+ bonus damage.

Thank you Zero, that was very helpful. Have you found any specific black hole gear with mods/enhancements that stack a lot of power?

[Unmasked]

(04-28-2012 12:34 AM)Phaser Wrote:  Thank you Zero, that was very helpful. Have you found any specific black hole gear with mods/enhancements that stack a lot of power?

The Black Hole Boltblaster's Gauntlets have the best end/acc/power enhancement in the game right now with 27/51/41 of the stats, respectively. The mod is also a good power boost at the expense of aim 61 aim in Rakata vs 53 aim in BH, but 11 power in R vs 41 power in BH. It's all a matter of what stats you're looking to boost.

My current plan is to remain in the 2100-2160 aim stat (fully buffed, I have 2163 at the moment), ~30% crit and ~60-70% surge and stack power after that.

I need to sit down and actually itemize which BH/Campaign pieces I want and how I want to manage that around crit-crafting certain pieces as I haven't had a lot of time to do that lately. If me or Aerro figure that out within the next week or so, we'll keep you guys posted.

--Zero

[Aerro]

Zero and I will figure out and itemize the BH/Campaign pieces sometime this weekend most likely.

[Unmasked]

(04-27-2012 11:39 PM)doonamis Wrote:  Also, technically, most of the BiS pieces would be from REing Black Hole/Campaign gear and then crafting until you get a crit. This would require significant amounts of BH comms and level 8 crafting mats, which are very rare right now.

Technically, any crit-craft piece with BH/Campaign mods would be BiS as long as the mods are what you're looking for and there is an augment slot. You don't have to RE Black Hole or Campaign unless you're doing it for looks.

---

(04-27-2012 10:08 PM)Legolino Wrote:  And for the relic, people seemed to agree that the best was the kinetic damage one, but in the guide it’s said that ‘+X power on use’ relics are way better. Is it still true if it is not a crit crafted one? Then, should I get the +405 power campaign relic?

The +405 power relic will be BiS if you have no plans to crit-craft Rakata relics. The problem with the kinetic damage relic (i.e. Relentless Winds) is that it's mitigated by bosses. The relic combined with a power adrenal will give a massive DPS increase every 3 minutes, but specifically for fights where maximizing DPS is key (sub-10% Toth/Zorn, Demolition Droids during Col. Vorgath, Walker phases/Warrior packs during Kephess).

Your other relic should always be your Matrix Cube. There should be no debate about that one.

--Zero

[esp85]

(04-28-2012 02:53 AM)Unmasked Wrote:  The problem with the kinetic damage relic (i.e. Relentless Winds) is that it's mitigated by bosses.

--Zero

@ Zero/Aerro:

I've seen you guys say that the proc relics are bad. I'm not saying you're wrong, and obviously your results speak for themselves, but I'd feel irresponsible if I didn't ask for an explanation or some kind of math on why you guys feel this way.

As for the explanation of armor mitigation, I was under the impression that BHs have 95% armor penetration on bosses (20% from sunder, 20% from shatter shot, 20% from heat signature, 35% from cylinder). Do these not stack up this way?

Thanks.

[Aerro]

They do not stack up this way anymore. It was one of the issues fixed in 1.2c. That is why your Tracer Missile damage has dropped quite a bit.

As for the proc relic- I will throw some numbers in this thread in a bit. Doing dailies right now.