[Archive] Arsenal Mercenary | Gunnery Commando DPS Compendium

[Mesrith]

(11-20-2011 01:34 PM)Darth GWARRR Wrote:  I'm not too sure, but from my perspective, we have enough armor penetration that stacking Accuracy past a prime hit rate may be inefficient. It will depend on the returns of extra accuracy vs. ArPen given for the extra accuracy. For classes that don't have enough natural/skill ArPen, I think it's pretty critical since you have no other ways of shoving off armor. But we have quite a bit already, and assuming someone in your operation group has a Sunder effect, it's going to be even more. Also, I think we spend so much time channeling and activating that I think Alacrity is comparatively important: the faster you activate/channel, the better your DPS is. But, that will require a lot of data to check accuracy vs. alacrity and its overall effect on DPS. We won't know, as you said, until a combat log comes out after launch (if one comes out, sigh...). It will be something to monitor closely.

Mercenary already has a sunder effect, so the presence of another shouldn't affect their Armor Penetration.

Armor Penetration in WoW worked opposite of what you're suggesting here. If it works similarly in SWTOR, the more AP you have, the more you'll want, because it scales better and better with each point of armor removed. Since Mercenary has a substantial head start on the stat through talents, my speculative thoughts based on no hard facts would expect Accuracy past the hit cap to be a major secondary stat. Like you said, it depends on the conversion rate. Is Accuracy going to be enough Armor Penetration to be desirable in large amounts, or is it just a token benefit so that if you're a little bit past the hit cap, you gain something for your trouble?

Alacrity should work in the same way. The more you have, the better it gets, because you're squeezing more and more attacks into the same time frame. The caveats with this would be cooldowns and heat management. Combine those with the small amount of Alacrity we'll start with, and I'd expect Alacrity to be underwhelming until later in the game when there's alot of it floating around on gear.

[Xyrm]

(11-20-2011 04:34 PM)Mesrith Wrote:  Alacrity should work in the same way. The more you have, the better it gets, because you're squeezing more and more attacks into the same time frame. The caveats with this would be cooldowns and heat management. Combine those with the small amount of Alacrity we'll start with, and I'd expect Alacrity to be underwhelming until later in the game when there's alot of it floating around on gear.

My concern with alacrity is this: aside from unload, all of our main single-target dps skills are either instant or have a 1.5s cast. I've heard multiple times that alacrity does not alter GCD (though I have no proof, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong), so does alacrity have any value at all for a cast less than or equal to 1.5 seconds (the length of the GCD)? From a PvE perspective, as long as we get the same number of abilities in, we shouldn't really care on a boss fight if the ability goes off at the start or end of the GCD (though a faster cast might allow for more mobility). If alacrity then only works effectively on one of our abilities, can it really be worth much to us?

(10-25-2011 12:26 PM)Darth GWARRR Wrote:  So, a possible single-target rotation could be:
1. Tracer Missile (2x debuff, 1x Tracer Lock)
2. Tracer Missile (4x debuff, 2x Tracer Lock)
3. Tracer Missile (5x debuff, 3x Tracer Lock)
4. Heatseeker Missiles
5. Tracer Missile (5x debuff, 4x Tracer Lock)
6. Tracer Missile (5x debuff, 5x Tracer Lock)
7. Rail Shot
8. Unload
9. Power Shot
10. Repeat the above, basically building up Tracer Locks for Rail Shot. Prioritize Heatseeker when it's off of cooldown and Rail Shot at 5x Tracer Locks. Use Unload and Power Shot when you are not in need of Tracer Locks, and Tracer Missiles when you need to sustain the Tracer debuff and/or build up stacks of Tracer Locks.
*Note: if you find yourself heat-constrained, add in a Rapid Shots at any point to help manage your heat. Ideally, make sure you use it when you're in a safe spot of your rotation so that you don't lose your hard-earned Tracer Locks and Tracer debuffs, because that will result in a massive DPS loss if you didn't manage your heat well enough that you lost your stacks.

Sorry to keep bugging you, but two questions about this rotation...

1) I'm confused why Power Shot is there...could you explain it to me?
2) Is it not worthwhile to open with unload? Assuming the full cost of channelled abilities is applied right at the start, and if our best regeneration rate is venting 5 heat per second, and unload costs 16, then by the time unload is finished, we will have net increase of 1 heat. However, by the time we finish the next tracer missile cast, this 1 heat will have fully dissipated. From a damage per heat scenario, this ability was free so it has "infinite" value (the old divide by zero).

[GWARRR]

@Mesrith Thanks for the heads up. I'm used to D2 where you hit diminishing marginal returns for everything. Not that SWTOR is supposed to be a D2 clone, heh. If it works like WoW, then yeah, I'd just stack Accuracy since too much Alacrity will just make us GCD-capped.

(11-21-2011 12:10 AM)Xyrm Wrote:  Sorry to keep bugging you, but two questions about this rotation...

1) I'm confused why Power Shot is there...could you explain it to me?
2) Is it not worthwhile to open with unload? Assuming the full cost of channelled abilities is applied right at the start, and if our best regeneration rate is venting 5 heat per second, and unload costs 16, then by the time unload is finished, we will have net increase of 1 heat. However, by the time we finish the next tracer missile cast, this 1 heat will have fully dissipated. From a damage per heat scenario, this ability was free so it has "infinite" value (the old divide by zero).

1. Power Shot was/is there mostly because I could put it in. I just looked again at some videos, and it turns out that Tracer Missile has a base Heat Cost of 25 now (Heatseeker has 16). I'm not sure if it changes at all, but it means that Tracer Missile is not as efficient as it once was. But, from what I can tell, even if you cast 5 straight Tracer Missiles, you've only spent...7.5 seconds. Unload takes 3. Rail Shot occupies a total of 1.5s of your rotation (GCD), leaving you with a gaping hole at the back end where you can't use Rail Shot because it's on CD and so you couldn't even use your 5x Tracer Lock if you had it. Which means it's pretty prime spot for one Power Shot, at the very least. Especially since Power Shot turns out to be one of the most efficient skills in the Merc's Arsenal.
2. Heat is applied at the end of a channel/activation, which is why I don't open up with Unload. It makes sense, since it would just be unfortunate if you got interrupted in a cast and only had a bunch of heat to show for it.
3. Please, keep asking, keep bugging me if you see something. I can't see everything myself. And you've already seen some things I've missed already.

[Xyrm]

(11-21-2011 01:22 AM)Darth GWARRR Wrote:  2. Heat is applied at the end of a channel/activation, which is why I don't open up with Unload. It makes sense, since it would just be unfortunate if you got interrupted in a cast and only had a bunch of heat to show for it.

Curious. If you look at this youtube video by Faction60, which I believe represents the latest build, both unload (0:46) and death from above (1:08), two channeled spells, seem to place their cost at the beginning. The casted spell, tracer missile, always places it's cost upon successful cast. It's actually easier to see with the death from above cast, because he's not doing anything else at the time.

Am I wrong/crazy?

[GWARRR]

(11-21-2011 04:20 AM)Xyrm Wrote:  Curious. If you look at this youtube video by Faction60, which I believe represents the latest build, both unload (0:46) and death from above (1:08), two channeled spells, seem to place their cost at the beginning. The casted spell, tracer missile, always places it's cost upon successful cast. It's actually easier to see with the death from above cast, because he's not doing anything else at the time.

Am I wrong/crazy?

Nah, not crazy. So they separated channels and activates (the natural guess was that they'd both just add the costs whenever you ended your channel, and then when your skill activated). Good find. So definitely good to open up with Unload in the rotation.

[Zikkar]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthrea...238&page=6


Some discussion from Faction near page 6 on the fact that Tracer Missiles replaces power shot all together. Also he mentioned in the video only using unload if the proc goes off I think.



nahman is Faction60 btw

[Pantelijus]

(11-21-2011 07:23 AM)Zikkar Wrote:  http://www.swtor.com/community/showthrea...238&page=6


Some discussion from Faction near page 6 on the fact that Tracer Missiles replaces power shot all together. Also he mentioned in the video only using unload if the proc goes off I think.



nahman is Faction60 btw

Its logical for Tracer Missile to replace Power Shot , comparison to other classes would be Vicious Slash and Massacre

Vicious Slash(Power Shot) is regular attack/shot while Tracer Missile/Massacre offers certain benefit (Armor reduction for TM and Ataru Form proc for Massacre) for that spec

[Xyrm]

(11-21-2011 07:23 AM)Zikkar Wrote:  Also he mentioned in the video only using unload if the proc goes off I think.

The proc is definitely the only point in the middle of your rotation that you'd want to use unload, but I believe (in theory) you'd also want to open with it. That being said, there can be a difference between theory and practice, especially if it's bugged like he said and sometimes only ticks twice instead of three times.

[GWARRR]

I ran some #s with the Tracer Missile damage formula, it turns out that the Stat Spam had the base Tracer Missile damage numbers (but that is only half the picture), and that Tracer Missile has a 2.11 Spell/Tech Power bonus, so at level 50, with an approximate 1400+ Aim (I used 1400 for base purposes):

Tracer Missile damage formula:
(LvlRankDmgAmnt * 0.18 + SpellPower * 2.11) - (LvlRankDmgAmnt * 0.24 + SpellPower * 2.11)

STAT_cbt_tech_damage_bonus += STAT_att_agility * 0.2, so 0.20(Aim) gets your damage bonus.

0.20(1400) x 2.11 + 576 (base): 1166.8, which is on average, 200 more damage than Power Shot, which is about what Faction60 says he got. So yeah, Power Shot is officially useless. Kind of a bummer since I like the Power Shot animation...c'est la vie, I'm gonna go update the rotation now.

[Morior]

I am a total noob when it comes to theorycrafting, normally I just read "use x, y, z and stack m stats" but with SWTOR I'm trying to be more proactive. So please forgive my ignorance that will be shown in future posts.

On top of my theorycrafting noobiness I'm a PvPnerd so forgive again if this interfers with the current flow.

But in regards to power shot, would it make sense to spam it as execute or as a hard burst in PvP? Sure it's heat per damage cost is low, but maybe 2 of them at the end of a fight? Pure speculation, but I just can't believe such an amazing ability (I spammed it when I was in the beta) would go straight into the garbage after acquiring tracer missile.