Powertech/Vanguard DPS Compendium

[Cosmic Osmo]

(02-04-2012 09:19 AM)godliness Wrote:  You know, I thought I read that Accuracy only affect the Ranged skills somewhere as well, but when I double checked in game, by clicking the Tech stats pull-down on my character screen, Accuracy was factored in. So I dunno. My current understanding is that Accuracy does effect the Tech skills (up to 110%). But maybe someone knows otherwise.

Accuracy does affect tech skills, but because they start at 100% and only go up from there, there's no chance to miss with them in pve even at 0 accuracy rating.

(02-04-2012 09:19 AM)godliness Wrote:  

(02-03-2012 01:29 AM)Cosmic Osmo Wrote:  - The best possible enhancement (that I know of) is 23 endurance, 34 power, 48 surge, which is availably only from champion and columi enforcer's helm or gloves.

Hey! I know that enhancement. I've installed it in several pieces.

But this just gave me an idea. Since enhancements don't seem to have cunning or strength or willpower or aim on them, it's possible that the best available trooper dps enhancement lies in some other class's pvp gear.

Yes, that is indeed the case. Our best enhancement is the champion/columi-level smuggler enhancement in my quote (from "Enforcer" head/gloves). There's no level 58 enhancement with the same mix of stats in it, so this level 56 enhancement, which comes only in smuggler gear, is better than all level 58 enhancements that I know of for trooper pve dps.

[Duketogo13]

TD vs Flameburst

I know this has been brought up in the thread before but I think it needs to be looked at beyond the basic numbers. This is strictly talking about its usefulness against raid level bosses now that my guild has been clearing HM Operations. I realize TD is great for its utility/range in some fights and in PvP etc etc.. But I am trying to just view pure damage.

Based solely on upfront damage obviously TD hits harder but considering that Flameburst will always proc Combustible Cylinder I feel like that has to be accounted for. On top of that it also gives you the 30% chance for rail proc. Not having TD also frees up points that you can throw towards getting the extra 6% aim which is quite a lot when you've got around 1800 give or take.

It just seems like the flameburst dmg + Combustible cylinder + 30% rail proc + the extra 3% from rail loader and +6% aim from steely resolve would potentially be worth it against many bosses.

Once again I am not arguing utility, range etc etc.. just what is worth it for more dmg.

[Mykal]

I've been following this thread for a while and find myself torn between assault and tactics. Would anyone have any suggestions regarding which may edge out the other in top dps? Assault seems very reliant on HIB and Ion Pulse and is very unforgiving with ammo.

[Cosmic Osmo]

The current belief seems to be that assault spec does (or can do) more total dps than tactics. However, the tactics rotation is much simpler than assault, which I found to require a lot of staring at my ammo bar and cooldowns to maintain optimal damage output due to its high reliance on procs for cooldown resets and ammo regen. Tactics is much more predictable and allows for paying more attention to the game world. If you consider yourself to be an excellent player not limited by attention as a resource, by all means go assault spec.

Also, if you frequently respec between tank and DPS, tactics plays very similarly to a 31-point shield spec, so the change is easier to adapt to. Assault plays like carolina parakeet.

[Mykal]

(02-07-2012 11:46 AM)Cosmic Osmo Wrote:  The current belief seems to be that assault spec does (or can do) more total dps than tactics. However, the tactics rotation is much simpler than assault, which I found to require a lot of staring at my ammo bar and cooldowns to maintain optimal damage output due to its high reliance on procs for cooldown resets and ammo regen. Tactics is much more predictable and allows for paying more attention to the game world. If you consider yourself to be an excellent player not limited by attention as a resource, by all means go assault spec.

Also, if you frequently respec between tank and DPS, tactics plays very similarly to a 31-point shield spec, so the change is easier to adapt to.

Thanks for the quick response. I have been trying both and I agree with what you say in regards to assault. When I'm really paying attention to the bar, I hit like a truck; make one wrong move and I'm in trouble. I think tactics has the advantage in a sense that it's more forgiving. I just need to look over the priority system now (I'm currently assault and going to tactics!) and see if I can get this down a bit. I'm going to hit 50 soon and am excited to work on my gear! As for range, should I be worried about it? Will assault's range really beat out tactics?

*Also, would you be able to link your spreadsheet again? Thanks!

[Rooks]

A forgotten benefit to Tactics, because of it forgiving resource system, is that you can really frontload damage if need be. This means in a burn phase, you can do Gut, use all your 8-15 second cooldown abilities, Ion Pulse to five stacks and Pulse Cannon, and then pop Recharge Cells and get back right into your rotation.

It is an advantage I love on Soa because it means no matter what I am doing to drop Mind Traps, ammo is not an issue when it comes time to hit him when the shield goes down.

Certainly Assault probably does more damage, and when combat logs come out, they will prove this I think. But if tactics is behind, they will have to buff it (I hope!) to put it on par with Assault (because people will be screaming for it). So, win-win.

[Cosmic Osmo]

Something I've been thinking about with respect to Tactics:

Pulse generator damage is best thought of as increasing the damage done by ion pulse, rather than increasing the damage done by pulse cannon. The extra damage that it makes ion pulse do is equal to 10% of the damage of an unstacked pulse cannon, and must be "cashed in" by eventually doing the pulse cannon.

So, let's look at some numbers. Specifically, the average damage done by each ability, with my stats (1889 aim, 106 accuracy, 338 power, 305 crit, 459 surge, columi weapon, assuming 30% kinetic reduction by target's armor):

Gut: 2630 damage (total)
High impact bolt: 2457 damage (given ~71% net crit due to Combat Tactics procs)
Fire pulse: 2422 damage
Stockstrike: 1747 damage
Ion pulse: 1712 damage
Pulse cannon: 4039 damage (total, with 0 pulse generator stacks)

Therefore, each stack of pulse generator effectively does 404 damage, if it is fully used. If we count that 404 damage as part of Ion pulse's damage, the total damage of ion pulse jumps up to 2116—considerably higher than stockstrike*, and also 5% higher than half of an unbuffed pulse cannon.

The implication of this line of reasoning is the following: because pulse generator damage actually belongs to ion pulse, and because ion pulse therefore does more damage than half of an unbuffed pulse cannon, the correct rotation is to prioritize ion pulse over pulse cannon, as long as ion pulse will build a pulse generator stack that will be used. Pulse cannon should generally not be used on cooldown, rather only once 5 stacks are reached, to cash in those stacks for actual damage. Pulse cannon should be used early in a few other cases, such as when necessary to keep stacks from going to waste (due to an upcoming boss shield phase, etc), or when ammo is low but reserve powercell is available.

* Stockstrike should still be used on cooldown, however, because it has a very low average ammo cost (around 0.8) and gives auto-crit procs to high impact bolt. In fact, the extra damage done by the increase of HIB crit rate can be attributed to stockstrike much the same way that pulse generator damage can be attributed to ion pulse.

[gunboat]

I haven't seen a mention in the thread of using Vent Heat/Cell Recharge strategically. Since it's a 2 minute CD, we should be able to use it several times over the course of an encounter. This suggests that when it's available, we can burst up to 90 heat, pop vent and drop back into the regular priority scheme, then repeat two minutes later.

But when we're in burn mode, would we change our priority scheme? Or just drop the Rapid Shot weaving but otherwise continue with the rest of the abilities as normal?

[frmorrison]

I saw a spreadsheet from Asmiroth that did some calculations, but in the one I found it asked for the user to enter weights. Are there other Pyro spreadsheets out there? Also, are they saved in Excel format?

[Saylin]

So I have been thinking about switching to pyro from AP and have begun researching. The biggest thing it seems I have found is that the pyro cap talent (thermal detonator) is basically just a waste of an ability doing less damage per heat expended then flame burst. I played around with pyro awhile back and remember thinking that if I didn't get my Rail shot procs I was basically screwed heat wise, so i wanted a spec that would address that. Playing around with specs I thought of this.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301ZMsrbRbckZfhrbzh.1

the spec is 0/22/18 with a floater point that can be placed anywhere.

The big things you pick up are

Retractable blade
Charged gauntlets for insta crit rail shots
hydraulic overrides
prototype particle accelerator (free rail shots)

I figure obviously the spec would revolve around maintaining your dots, using free rocket punches and rail shots on proc, and flame burst as a filler.

You also loose a few big things that are included in almost all other specs (like 9% aim).

Thoughts?