Bounty Hunter & Trooper - Simple Questions and Answers

[Poksu]

(12-27-2011 08:31 PM)digitalJE5U5 Wrote:  Question. For PVE (leveling, heroics, flashpoints) what is the best straight up DPS tree for PVE Commando? Ive seen specs go deep into Gunnery and some deep into Assault.

I'm looking for a good template to use while I level up and learn more about the mechanics and pros/cons of the different trees.

Thanks,
/DJ

Gunnery hands down. I'm Arsenal Bounty Hunter, which is the same on Empire side. Here is my own spec, with 2 unused points to put in endurance or Pinning fire

Pinning Fire
Bounty Hunter (Mercenary)

Activation time: Instant

Unload has a [50/100]% chance per hit to slow the target's movement by 50% for 2 seconds.

, Alacrity is not recommended atm for Gunnery. Heres how I took the path:

tier1
Ironsights - Learn to love Aim
Havoc Rounds - An increase to pretty much all your dmg abilities
tier2
Special Munitions - You'll be using High Impact Bolt a lot at lower lvls, much more than Charged Bolts
Muzzle Fluting - Not that it really matters at this point which you get first, you'll ding every 5 min at these lvls
Steadied Aim - You'll be begging for these points very soon
tier3
Grav Round - What Gunnery is all about. Once you get this, you can throw Charged Bolts off your UI and replace it with this. Same activation time and heat cost, but more dmg and applies a debuff
Deadly Cannon
Concussive Force - The way knockbacks help you mitigate dmg is more than you'd first think about. Charged Barrier is flat out percentage, at lower lvls you'll be mitigating a sad amount of dmg. Also you won't have long enough fights to keep the 5 stacks up. With well timed knockbacks, you can avoid incoming dmg as a whole. The distance Concussion Charge knocks back is huge, biggest I've seen on any character. I've learned to rotate Stockstrike -> some instant dmg ability -> Concussion Charge -> Full Auto/Grav Round/whatevs -> Stockstrike. This gives you a lot of time to do dmg without allowing the enemy to touch you at all, considering they are melee ofc
tier4
Cell Charger - You'll be drooling for this talent long before you can access it. This talent changes your rotation massively and gives it more space for error. After this critical rating becomes your next best friend after Aim
Gravity Surge
back to tier3
Charged Barrier - You'll want this eventually, imo it just helps to get Concussive Force first and you learn to play with knockbacks sooner
tier5
Rotary Cannon
Charged Barrel - Notice that it's a buff on you, not a debuff on target. And it's consumed on use, so you have to Grav Round 5 times again for full buff stack on High Impact Bolt
Kolto Recharge - Not amazing, but can make the difference sometimes. Helps healers if nothing else
back to tier4
Tenacious Defense - Once again nothing groundbreaking while lvling, but very nice in pvp and at lvl 50. You can also go for tier2 Heavy Trooper if you don't feel like doing pvp at all. Cover Fire also gives you a few seconds to avoid dmg from melee mobs. You're not breaking your build if you decide to choose any of those at this point
tier6
Curtain of Fire - This talent changes Full Auto from a "regen" ability to a full grown dmg ability. You get a nice "power aura" effect on your char when it procs, so you dont have to stare crosseyed at your own buffs
Reserve Round - Concussive Round has the same duration on NPCs than the cd. This talent makes it easier to control cc'd mobs. And it has it's uses in pvp ofc. Reserve Powercell is just a free cast (Would have much rather had the instacast cd lowered )
tier7
Demolition Round - This talent completes your endgame dps rotation. If your UI is stuffed, you can pretty much remove Explosive Round and replace it with this

After Demo Round max out Target Lock from Assault and then Field Training & Cell Capacitor from Medic tree. What you do with the remaining 2 points, depends do you like to pvp or min/max your pve build with endurance.
Gunnery/Arsenal ftw I'm just waiting for a nerf tbh. My guildies are crying their eyes out how overpowered we are in pvp. Also if we'd have dmg meters we'd rock em too.

[digitalJE5U5]

(12-28-2011 12:39 AM)Poksu Wrote:  

(12-27-2011 08:31 PM)digitalJE5U5 Wrote:  Question. For PVE (leveling, heroics, flashpoints) what is the best straight up DPS tree for PVE Commando? Ive seen specs go deep into Gunnery and some deep into Assault.

I'm looking for a good template to use while I level up and learn more about the mechanics and pros/cons of the different trees.

Thanks,
/DJ

Gunnery hands down. I'm Arsenal Bounty Hunter, which is the same on Empire side. Here is my own spec, with 2 unused points to put in endurance or Pinning fire

Pinning Fire
Bounty Hunter (Mercenary)

Activation time: Instant

Unload has a [50/100]% chance per hit to slow the target's movement by 50% for 2 seconds.

, Alacrity is not recommended atm for Gunnery. Heres how I took the path:

tier1
Ironsights - Learn to love Aim
Havoc Rounds - An increase to pretty much all your dmg abilities
tier2
Special Munitions - You'll be using High Impact Bolt a lot at lower lvls, much more than Charged Bolts
Muzzle Fluting - Not that it really matters at this point which you get first, you'll ding every 5 min at these lvls
Steadied Aim - You'll be begging for these points very soon
tier3
Grav Round - What Gunnery is all about. Once you get this, you can throw Charged Bolts off your UI and replace it with this. Same activation time and heat cost, but more dmg and applies a debuff
Deadly Cannon
Concussive Force - The way knockbacks help you mitigate dmg is more than you'd first think about. Charged Barrier is flat out percentage, at lower lvls you'll be mitigating a sad amount of dmg. Also you won't have long enough fights to keep the 5 stacks up. With well timed knockbacks, you can avoid incoming dmg as a whole. The distance Concussion Charge knocks back is huge, biggest I've seen on any character. I've learned to rotate Stockstrike -> some instant dmg ability -> Concussion Charge -> Full Auto/Grav Round/whatevs -> Stockstrike. This gives you a lot of time to do dmg without allowing the enemy to touch you at all, considering they are melee ofc
tier4
Cell Charger - You'll be drooling for this talent long before you can access it. This talent changes your rotation massively and gives it more space for error. After this critical rating becomes your next best friend after Aim
Gravity Surge
back to tier3
Charged Barrier - You'll want this eventually, imo it just helps to get Concussive Force first and you learn to play with knockbacks sooner
tier5
Rotary Cannon
Charged Barrel - Notice that it's a buff on you, not a debuff on target. And it's consumed on use, so you have to Grav Round 5 times again for full buff stack on High Impact Bolt
Kolto Recharge - Not amazing, but can make the difference sometimes. Helps healers if nothing else
back to tier4
Tenacious Defense - Once again nothing groundbreaking while lvling, but very nice in pvp and at lvl 50. You can also go for tier2 Heavy Trooper if you don't feel like doing pvp at all. Cover Fire also gives you a few seconds to avoid dmg from melee mobs. You're not breaking your build if you decide to choose any of those at this point
tier6
Curtain of Fire - This talent changes Full Auto from a "regen" ability to a full grown dmg ability. You get a nice "power aura" effect on your char when it procs, so you dont have to stare crosseyed at your own buffs
Reserve Round - Concussive Round has the same duration on NPCs than the cd. This talent makes it easier to control cc'd mobs. And it has it's uses in pvp ofc. Reserve Powercell is just a free cast (Would have much rather had the instacast cd lowered )
tier7
Demolition Round - This talent completes your endgame dps rotation. If your UI is stuffed, you can pretty much remove Explosive Round and replace it with this

After Demo Round max out Target Lock from Assault and then Field Training & Cell Capacitor from Medic tree. What you do with the remaining 2 points, depends do you like to pvp or min/max your pve build with endurance.
Gunnery/Arsenal ftw I'm just waiting for a nerf tbh. My guildies are crying their eyes out how overpowered we are in pvp. Also if we'd have dmg meters we'd rock em too.

Thank you for taking the time to help me. This is perfect.

[Spasticon]

Anyone have a good guide on a combat medic build?

The thread I linked below is now locked and all of the main links go to a site that is over it's bandwidth limit

http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Combat-Medic

[Oramac]

(12-31-2011 01:11 AM)Spasticon Wrote:  Anyone have a good guide on a combat medic build?

The thread I linked below is now locked and all of the main links go to a site that is over it's bandwidth limit

http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Combat-Medic

I was literally just looking for this also. I'm planning to roll Merc Bodyguard, and can't find any solid info on it. Sadly, I'm not much for making spreadsheets or complex math else I'd just do all the theorycrafting myself.

[Poksu]

If it's just a sample build you're looking for, the talents are rather self-explanatory once you read them. just pick everything that boosts your healing done to others.
by just looking at the talents I'd say you want to use Healing Scan

Healing Scan
Bounty Hunter (Mercenary)

Heat: -16
Range: 30m
Activation time: 2.0 secs
Cooldown: 12 secs
Damage Type: Healing
Mirror: Advanced Medical Probe

Heals a friendly target for [?].

on every cd (who else finds it disturbing the slow heal is called Rapid Scan

Rapid Scan
Bounty Hunter (Mercenary)

Heat: 25
Range: 30m
Activation time: 3.0 secs
Damage Type: Healing
Mirror: Medical Probe

Heals a friendly target for [?].

and the fast heal Healing Scan

Healing Scan
Bounty Hunter (Mercenary)

Heat: -16
Range: 30m
Activation time: 2.0 secs
Cooldown: 12 secs
Damage Type: Healing
Mirror: Advanced Medical Probe

Heals a friendly target for [?].

? :G)

Sample PvE build.

[Zephyron]

(12-31-2011 10:06 AM)Poksu Wrote:  (who else finds it disturbing the slow heal is called Rapid Scan

Rapid Scan
Bounty Hunter (Mercenary)

Heat: 25
Range: 30m
Activation time: 3.0 secs
Damage Type: Healing
Mirror: Medical Probe

Heals a friendly target for [?].

and the fast heal Healing Scan

Healing Scan
Bounty Hunter (Mercenary)

Heat: -16
Range: 30m
Activation time: 2.0 secs
Cooldown: 12 secs
Damage Type: Healing
Mirror: Advanced Medical Probe

Heals a friendly target for [?].

? :G)

This bugs me so much every time I mouse over these abilities. I can't fathom how this decision was made.

[swift]

Here's the Bodyguard PvE spec I'm currently using at 50:
http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#300rfRMR0cdkqZrcoZb.1

If you're doing anything at all outside of grouped PvE, I'd recommend to drop a point from Systems Calibration for Muzzle Fluting. You probably don't want to use this spec for PvP or levelling.

Stats for Healing should be
Power > Crit > Surge > Alacrity
The reason is simply, that power provides the most consistent throughput. Even at high crit rates, you'll still go for a while without any big crits outside of Rapid Shots occasionally and you'll feel very weak at these times if you don't have a lot of power. That said, crit is a very strong stat for us and all crits do an additional 15%. Alacrity itself doesn't directly provide a direct throughput increase due to our resource limitations and our spec provides us with 14% with near 100% uptime.

Healing a group is mostly about managing your heat levels to stay between 10-40 at all times. Doing so, usually involves using Healing Scan and Supercharged Gas as much as possible. After you use Supercharged Gas, your priority should temporarily change to to take maximum advantage of the Critical Effect talent and the cooldown reduction on Healing Scan. If you were to force it into a rotation, it would look something like this:
2x (HSc > HSc > RShot) > Gas > 4x (RScan > HSc) > Repeat

With above rotation, you'd still add in a Kolto Shell, Emergency Scan or Rapid Shot a couple of times as your Heat levels permit. Kolto Missile is a great group heal, but you want to ensure that there's only targets in it's range that can use the healing, as it will often overheal the wrong target otherwise. You can still move in and out of the missile's area after you cast it, since the effect is slightly delayed. Use this to your advantage and whenever you need to reposition yourself. In 4 mans, it's sometimes best to have 3 of the group stack up and one person stand away from the group, so as to not waste any Kolto Missile healing.

Finally, we've got a number of cooldowns like Vent Heat, Power Surge and Thermal Sensor Override. There's often simply no need at all for them and as such I recommend to save them for when you really need them.

[Mortycia]

After posting this in the Arsenal Mercenary dps compendium i figured this question might be better posted here, since it kind of interupts some theorycrafting at a lvl i do not understand.

So here is my question:

Looking at the pve gear set and the pvp gear set (Eliminator) and seeing the overload of Power on the gear, it's safe to assume that we have to switch out some of the +power mods for +crit and +surge mods?

This will result in putting lower Ilvl mods in the gear at certain Tier's i guess?
(Highest lvl mods that i could find till now are the one from the dailies)

Any info about this is greatly appreciated

[blott]

Not sure exactly on the Merc stuff but I would guess you would want the Eliminator sets as the set bonuses work with your AC where the Combat Tech would just work for PT but has the correct stats you are looking for, please correct me if I am wrong here.

So overall you would have to do like your talking about and buy double sets and switch the mods over from one to the other so you could have your set bonus and the stats you want.

I know you can get some crit/surge 22/23 mods from dailies but until we figure out if 22/23 mods can be crafted or only obtained from dailies this is the only way you can really get the exact set you want I think.

[Mortycia]

Yea i was affraid it was going to be like that.

It just seems silly that we would have to remod our Tier gear just for it to suit the specc...