How do vanguards play as DPS? I like their look, with a bit lighter armor than the commando and the rifle /carbine. Seems very 'special forces' to me. But, I'm concerned with how close to the enemy I'd need to be, as I wanna play a ranged class.
I'm new. I know nothing. I'm a level 10 Sith Warrior. I like dual wielding in games. I want two lightsabers. Will I be unwanted by parties if I pick that AC? Should I go tank? I do enjoy tanking but man do I love dual wielding in games... I just dont want to pick a worthless unwanted class.
Half of every flashpoint group is DPS, and the ACs with pure DPS specs are *supposed* to do roughly 5% more damage than ACs who can hybridize. Of course, accurate measurements of that DPS are not in the game for players to digest yet, so that that with a grain of salt.
I just resigned myself to making multiple Jedi, since I want to eventually use all three styles.
"Sometimes things aren't complicated," I said. "You just have to be willing to accept the absolute corruption of everybody involved."
You will not be unwanted by anybody who knows what the hell they're doing. Marauder/Sentinel have 3 abilities that use their centering(Jedi version) mechanic, and 2 of them are freaking badass party cooldowns. One is a movement speed/damage reduction buff, and one of them is like +15% damage/healing for the whole party for X seconds. Not to mention, they have disable droid so some CC, and your DPS will be great.
I'm a Guard tank, and I absolutely love when my buddy who plays a Sentinel is with us. Obviously there are no meters by which to measure, but he kills stuff faster than anybody else in our guild. He's always a top tier player regardless of class, but Sentinel is definitely awesome.
If you want to be the "in demand" guy, you should roll a healer. Tanks are pretty easy to come by, but healers (especially that are actually specced for it) are vanishingly rare. This is true while everyone is leveling at least.
I haven't picked up Bowdaar (yet) but I've heard he's a squishy tank.
He's...squishyish. He's really dependent on gear. Armor crafting will probably make your life easier as the quest reward gear companions get usually sucks something fierce and green drops aren't super common. You should be making enough commendations to get a full orange set for your companion and then you can basically just keep upgrading their armor at the end of every planet (at the very least.)
When we ran Taral V it became pretty clear that I was basically a glass cannon though. I keep up decently well with gear, as I have mostly orange stuff that I slot in with full mod upgrades from commendations. Now that I'm 38, I'm able to take on elites with a lot more ease. I have way more skills to utilize that keep melee guys out of range. The bigger challenge is actually with ranged guys. I can lower their accuracy with the smokescreen ability, but I don't know how much that does in terms of actual use. Some of the defensive cooldowns are nice though.
My current rotation for my gunslinger is to start out with the aimed shot, trickshot, the timed stick grenade, charged burst, trickshot, and then, depending on where their health is I'll go to the one that hits under 25% health or I'll basically go through the rotation again. Generally speaking, I don't really use that one dot I get that often. If I was spec'd into the other gunslinger tree, I'm sure it'd be more prevalent. I only really use it on bosses and elites.
If you want to be the "in demand" guy, you should roll a healer. Tanks are pretty easy to come by, but healers (especially that are actually specced for it) are vanishingly rare. This is true while everyone is leveling at least.
Keep in mind this is very anecdotal. My guild has about 30 people in it so far, mostly friends and people who know one another, and a lot of MMO veterans. We have 3 people who play Guardian/Shadow/Vanguard and have any intention of having a tank spec, and about 6 or 7 that are either levelling heal spec or have the AC and intend to do it if needed for raiding.
It also doesn't help that on republic side, the sage and commando seem to be very popular due to the 'jedi mage' and huge gun aesthetic, so there's a ton of them. A ton of people who play knight like to go sentinel for the dual sabers.
I think it just depends on who you roll with. If you take a less than optimal build, I could definitely see some douchebag PUG leader being whiny about it and potentially kicking you out in favor of someone they thing is optimal. Don't think you'll see any of that kind of behavior in PA groups though.
Sadly though for some people, perception is reality. If they think you're not optimal...then you're not optimal. I'm just going to go out on a limb that those aren't the people you want to group with anyway. People like that are pricks even to people who do take optimal builds.
I would like to know this as well. I suspect this build would be a good one, revolving around lots of elemental dots and a Rail shot that ignores 90% of armor... or maybe This for a build that completly revolves around rail shot.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
After having played a shadow for quite a while now; damn the amount of damage that I can put out is totally absurd.
So I did a quick search and couldn't really find an answer on this. For Gunnery Commandos, does Grav Round straight up replace Charged Bolt in any kind of rotation? It seems like they have the same ammo cost and channel time while Grav Round does more damage, I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something.
So, I finally hit 40 and got Flechette Round on my Scrapper. This skill was literally made to A) macro into your rotation or be a painfully obvious skill bloat.
Loads a flechette round, causing your next Shoot First or Back Blast to deal an additional #### internal damage over 6 seconds and increase armor penetration by 50% for 15 seconds. This ability does not respect the global cooldown and does not break stealth.
Any ability with the bolded part in the description just flat needs to be automatically woven into the skills they are buffing and not added in as yet another "press this button before..." skill. I'm sorry if I sound nitpicky but it almost seems silly "rewarding" me with an overly cumbersome activatable buff at level 40 that only effects 2 very situational skills. In fact, after looking at everyone's trees, it appears that IA/Smugglers spec'ing into SS/Mars and Scrap/Conc are the only ones who get shafted with the activatable buff. That kinda needs to be addressed.
So, I finally hit 40 and got Flechette Round on my Scrapper. This skill was literally made to A) macro into your rotation or be a painfully obvious skill bloat.
Loads a flechette round, causing your next Shoot First or Back Blast to deal an additional #### internal damage over 6 seconds and increase armor penetration by 50% for 15 seconds. This ability does not respect the global cooldown and does not break stealth.
Any ability with the bolded part in the description just flat needs to be automatically woven into the skills they are buffing and not added in as yet another "press this button before..." skill. I'm sorry if I sound nitpicky but it almost seems silly "rewarding" me with an overly cumbersome activatable buff at level 40 that only effects 2 very situational skills. In fact, after looking at everyone's trees, it appears that IA/Smugglers spec'ing into SS/Mars and Scrap/Conc are the only ones who get shafted with the activatable buff. That kinda needs to be addressed.
Snipers get laze target, which makes the next snipe be a 100% crit. Now that may seem like skill bloat too but it has a specific function when you use it in combination with the talent that makes your snipe crits reduce the cooldown on ambush so it all comes together nicely to make you more effective if you can manage your cooldowns with skill.
Which is fine. I'm not saying I can't manage it or that both instance aren't having new things added into their rotation. What I'm saying is it seems odd to make everyone else's level 40 reward a tree-capping, spec-defining skill when we get only a buff to a 1-2 pre-existing situational skills.
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GuibsWeekend WarriorSomewhere up North.Registered Userregular
You will not be unwanted by anybody who knows what the hell they're doing. Marauder/Sentinel have 3 abilities that use their centering(Jedi version) mechanic, and 2 of them are freaking badass party cooldowns. One is a movement speed/damage reduction buff, and one of them is like +15% damage/healing for the whole party for X seconds. Not to mention, they have disable droid so some CC, and your DPS will be great.
I'm a Guard tank, and I absolutely love when my buddy who plays a Sentinel is with us. Obviously there are no meters by which to measure, but he kills stuff faster than anybody else in our guild. He's always a top tier player regardless of class, but Sentinel is definitely awesome.
Do you know, by any chance, what kind of Sentinel he is? He is Watchman, combat or focus ?
So I did a quick search and couldn't really find an answer on this. For Gunnery Commandos, does Grav Round straight up replace Charged Bolt in any kind of rotation? It seems like they have the same ammo cost and channel time while Grav Round does more damage, I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something.
Charged bolts does 10-12% more damage than Grav Round. I lead with a couple Grav Rounds, but switch to mostly Charged bolts with Grav round thrown in occasionally to refresh the debuff. But I also have Gravity Surge to get 2 stacks per use. Really cuts down how much you have to use Grav Round to get the full armor debuff. I also don't have any points into the Full Auto skills so that has fallen out of use for the most part.
High Impact Bolt should be used every time it is up after you've built the Grav Round stacks.
Actually at this point I'm wondering if Demolition Round will be worth it. Even if it crits with full Grav Round debuffs plus Deadly Cannon crit bonus, it's still listed as doing less damage than a non-buffed High Impact Bolt. Maybe the kinetic damage vs regular damage will make up for the difference?
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
So I did a quick search and couldn't really find an answer on this. For Gunnery Commandos, does Grav Round straight up replace Charged Bolt in any kind of rotation? It seems like they have the same ammo cost and channel time while Grav Round does more damage, I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something.
Charged bolts does 10-12% more damage than Grav Round. I lead with a couple Grav Rounds, but switch to mostly Charged bolts with Grav round thrown in occasionally to refresh the debuff. But I also have Gravity Surge to get 2 stacks per use. Really cuts down how much you have to use Grav Round to get the full armor debuff. I also don't have any points into the Full Auto skills so that has fallen out of use for the most part.
High Impact Bolt should be used every time it is up after you've built the Grav Round stacks.
Might just be a rank issue for me then, just level 21 but my Grav Round currently hits noticeably harder than Charged Bolt.
So I did a quick search and couldn't really find an answer on this. For Gunnery Commandos, does Grav Round straight up replace Charged Bolt in any kind of rotation? It seems like they have the same ammo cost and channel time while Grav Round does more damage, I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something.
Charged bolts does 10-12% more damage than Grav Round. I lead with a couple Grav Rounds, but switch to mostly Charged bolts with Grav round thrown in occasionally to refresh the debuff. But I also have Gravity Surge to get 2 stacks per use. Really cuts down how much you have to use Grav Round to get the full armor debuff.
High Impact Bolt should be used every time it is up after you've built the Grav Round stacks.
Actually at this point I'm wondering if Demolition Round will be worth it. Even if it crits with full Grav Round debuffs plus Deadly Cannon crit bonus, it's still listed as doing less damage than a non-buffed High Impact Bolt. Maybe the kinetic damage vs regular damage will make up for the difference?
So, I just looked at Torhead, and this is correct. But I think the benefits of constantly having the maximum-buffed High Impact Bolt outweigh the
So I did a quick search and couldn't really find an answer on this. For Gunnery Commandos, does Grav Round straight up replace Charged Bolt in any kind of rotation? It seems like they have the same ammo cost and channel time while Grav Round does more damage, I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something.
Charged bolts does 10-12% more damage than Grav Round. I lead with a couple Grav Rounds, but switch to mostly Charged bolts with Grav round thrown in occasionally to refresh the debuff. But I also have Gravity Surge to get 2 stacks per use. Really cuts down how much you have to use Grav Round to get the full armor debuff. I also don't have any points into the Full Auto skills so that has fallen out of use for the most part.
High Impact Bolt should be used every time it is up after you've built the Grav Round stacks.
Might just be a rank issue for me then, just level 21 but my Grav Round currently hits noticeably harder than Charged Bolt.
It's rank. I just checked against Torhead, and Charged Bolts will do about 200 more max damage against Grav Round. I'm not sure if that makes it SO MUCH better to use, but to maximize DPS I'd lead with the max-buffed HIB, then start off with 3 Grav Rounds (~5 seconds), then use Charged Bolts for the rest of the time until High Impact comes off cooldown. Throw in a Full-Auto in there whenever you want, I guess.
Basically, until we're all at 50 theorycrafting about what skills are best doesn't work great, because we're all at different ranks of skills and we see different situations. His CBs may be better than you or I's.
I just know that ever since I've gotten Grav Round, I haven't stopped using it in one-on-one fights.
Spenzkriegeh's a pretty cool guyRegistered Userregular
edited December 2011
If you're balancing out Grav Round versus HIB you need to bear in mind that HIB is a dependent ability where the GR makes every attack you do better (and opens up HIB). Grav Round (with 1 point in Charged Barrel) allows HIB to deal 6% more damage.
Stacks 5 times.
So hit Grav round 5x and then HIB once for an instant 30% damage bonus.
Also, deadly cannon increases crit damage of Demo round by 33%. Grav Round vortices on a target increase the Demo Round damage by 25%. See where I'm going? Grav Round is the entire centerpoint of the entire Gunnery tree. Plus you're weakening the target's armor for everyone else thus causing said boss to fall faster.
Demo Round's base damage isn't fantastic but when you factor in damage reduction caused by 20% weakened armor, a 25% bonus in damage and additional 30% damage from crit (my resting crit is around 29%, when I drop my relic my crit chance is 31%... 36% if I have the smuggler buff and 39% if I'm running Plasma Cell) Demo Round would eviscerate an enemy. To maximize your chance load up Plasma Cell and then fire off Demo Round (enemy armor is already reduced 20% and you get a 3% bonus to crit chance versus running AP Cell).
Mixing Grav Round and Charged Bolts in with an intermittent Full Auto and HIB is a great rotation. As Grav Round and Charged bolts have the possibility of finishing the cooldown of Full Auto and also increasing it's overall damage (rotary cannon increases by 33%, Curtain of fire 3/3 gives 30% chance to finish cooldown and grant 25% damage bonus). GR and CB should be your bread and butter with HIB and DR following the appropriate level of grav vortices and overall GR's fired off and interspersed with Full Auto to maximize ammo spent. I.E. Grav round until you have 5 on enemy for DR and 5 overall for your damage buff on HIB. Mix in CB for slightly more damage.
Side Note:
I've never had a problem with ammo consumption and I also found I almost never crit'd Full Auto (even with a ridiculous crit %) so I have no points in Cell Charger. Even when a Vanguard and I (both level 31) took on the insect creature Champion (about 80k health) and we both had our Dorne's out on healing duty and I was relied on for damage... I don't think I ever fell below 6 ammo because of the built-in ammo consumption reduction that the Gunnery tree provides with using GR and CB (muzzle fluting) and running AP cell when I fire off HIB (reduces cost by 1). Those are my main 3 attacks with Full Auto and Hammershot mixed in.
You should really reconsider taking Cell Charger. I have the Mercenary version and it is just amazing. The difference it makes is incredibly noticable, especially when I get chain crits and just demolish something. Consider that it basically gives you a free Charged Bolt/Full Auto every two crits.
Also, I think that Grav Rounds/Tracer Missile do more dps than Charged Bolt/Power Shot because of how Ranged Attack and Tech mechanics work.
Ranged has a 90% chance to hit baseline, and Tech has a 100% chance to hit baseline (you can check this on your character screen). Accuracy past 100% reduces enemy defenses and resists, thus, while you need 10% accuracy to reach 100% chance to hit with ranged attacks (like Charged Bolt), that 10% accuracy becomes a 10% reduction on your target's resists.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
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Spenzkriegeh's a pretty cool guyRegistered Userregular
You should really reconsider taking Cell Charger. I have the Mercenary version and it is just amazing. The difference it makes is incredibly noticable, especially when I get chain crits and just demolish something. Consider that it basically gives you a free Charged Bolt/Full Auto every two crits.
Also, I think that Grav Rounds/Tracer Missile do more dps than Charged Bolt/Power Shot because of how Ranged Attack and Tech mechanics work.
Ranged has a 90% chance to hit baseline, and Tech has a 100% chance to hit baseline (you can check this on your character screen). Accuracy past 100% reduces enemy defenses and resists, thus, while you need 10% accuracy to reach 100% chance to hit with ranged attacks (like Charged Bolt), that 10% accuracy becomes a 10% reduction on your target's resists.
I know when I picked up Cell Charger I would watch for crits from Full Auto... and I'd see it maybe once every 3 FAs. I'd rather have the points spent in Concussive Force, for instance, that adds knockback/interrupt to my stockstrike and throws enemies further back with my concussion charge.
But, I rotate HS in quite a bit so my recharge is almost never below 3 ticks.
You do realize Cell Charger applies to Grav Round/Demo Round as well right? The description states that crits from all round types and Full Auto proc it.
The whole point is that, everytime you crit with your ammo skills, you don't need to use HS to keep your ammo up and can keep using your skills.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
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Spenzkriegeh's a pretty cool guyRegistered Userregular
You do realize Cell Charger applies to Grav Round/Demo Round as well right? The description states that crits from all round types and Full Auto proc it.
The whole point is that, everytime you crit with your ammo skills, you don't need to use HS to keep your ammo up and can keep using your skills.
Ahhhhh, I misred. This does change things slightly. That is kind of a weird way to word it as most other Skill Tree descriptions have the abilities verbosely worded out.
Regardless, the points are tight and even not speccing into it I have nary an ammo management problem and do perfectly well rotating HS in every 4th or 5th power. 2 points in Cell Charger have to come from somewhere and I can't really see anywhere else I'd rather lose.
Basically, until we're all at 50 theorycrafting about what skills are best doesn't work great, because we're all at different ranks of skills and we see different situations. His CBs may be better than you or I's.
I just know that ever since I've gotten Grav Round, I haven't stopped using it in one-on-one fights.
Right, I can only go by what those sites say the damage is because I don't have them yet, and they've been wrong too.
The skill bloat hasn't been quite as bad as I expected just because the primary skill groups change and get swapped about every 10 level it seems. At least I hope that was their reasoning for having 30+ active combat abilities.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
You do realize Cell Charger applies to Grav Round/Demo Round as well right? The description states that crits from all round types and Full Auto proc it.
The whole point is that, everytime you crit with your ammo skills, you don't need to use HS to keep your ammo up and can keep using your skills.
Ahhhhh, I misred. This does change things slightly. That is kind of a weird way to word it as most other Skill Tree descriptions have the abilities verbosely worded out.
Not sure why they have those superfluous qualifiers and don't just say "all rounds" instead.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
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Spenzkriegeh's a pretty cool guyRegistered Userregular
You do realize Cell Charger applies to Grav Round/Demo Round as well right? The description states that crits from all round types and Full Auto proc it.
The whole point is that, everytime you crit with your ammo skills, you don't need to use HS to keep your ammo up and can keep using your skills.
Ahhhhh, I misred. This does change things slightly. That is kind of a weird way to word it as most other Skill Tree descriptions have the abilities verbosely worded out.
Not sure why they have those superfluous qualifiers and don't just say "all rounds" instead.
Steadied Aim spells out 4 different powers. Can they not just say "Grav and Demolition Rounds" instead of "all rounds"? I appreciate thorough explanations and verbosity when I'm dictating how to spend my points. My take is if a talent is referring to an ability, it should spell it out. Regardless, I don't think I would slot into it anyway.
However, I am kinda torn on the long-term viability of Gravity Surge. If you're wanting to put all 5 vortices on a Champion you would still need 3 shots instead of 5. If the stack reversed instead of disappearing at the end of it's count down, it might hold more weight but with you having to have 5 shots for HIB anyway... what's the use? Only thing I can see is if you're spreading around the wealth and 2 shotting 2 elites to 20% reduction instead of having to 4 shot them. This... I can see. or 6 shotting them to 25% instead of 10.
However, I am kinda torn on the long-term viability of Gravity Surge. If you're wanting to put all 5 vortices on a Champion you would still need 3 shots instead of 5. If the stack reversed instead of disappearing at the end of it's count down, it might hold more weight but with you having to have 5 shots for HIB anyway... what's the use? Only thing I can see is if you're spreading around the wealth and 2 shotting 2 elites to 20% reduction instead of having to 4 shot them. This... I can see. or 6 shotting them to 25% instead of 10.
With it you only need 3 shots instead of 5 to max out the bonus damage on Demo Round, and in general it reduces your ramp up time when you're switching targets. I think its a great bonus for a one pointer.
Jephery on
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
However, I am kinda torn on the long-term viability of Gravity Surge. If you're wanting to put all 5 vortices on a Champion you would still need 3 shots instead of 5. If the stack reversed instead of disappearing at the end of it's count down, it might hold more weight but with you having to have 5 shots for HIB anyway... what's the use? Only thing I can see is if you're spreading around the wealth and 2 shotting 2 elites to 20% reduction instead of having to 4 shot them. This... I can see. or 6 shotting them to 25% instead of 10.
It let's you build the debuff stack quicker and cheaper so you have more time and ammo to work in other abilities. Plus, it's pretty easy to lose the stack if you have to change your rotation to toss a heal for example, so needing less time to rebuild (or switch targets) is great.
Plus, it's a prerequisite to get Charged Barrel, the HIB stacking buff.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
I had so much fun playing a Jedi, he's now my Alliance main. Went Guardian because of the classic look and heavy armor. Are there any good DPS builds for one? Ideally I'd be pure DPS or a 70/30 off-tank.
I had so much fun playing a Jedi, he's now my Alliance main. Went Guardian because of the classic look and heavy armor. Are there any good DPS builds for one? Ideally I'd be pure DPS or a 70/30 off-tank.
from what I remember in beta, spec into the tree with shien form, that gives nice sustained DPS. Unfortunately the guardian never seemed to get real spike damage still shien form allows you to continuously throw your heavier moves so long as you're in the fray meaning the longer the fight the better you'll be doing.
Yeah, I figured it wouldn't be as good as going with Sentinel, but so long as there's a viable tree/build, I'll be happy. My main in WoW is a Retribution Paladin, so tough, heavy armor, 2-H wielding characters is right in my wheelhouse.
BeezelThere was no agreement little morsel..Registered Userregular
Once I get deep into gunslinger territory do I want to not spend any money learning the melee based skills anymore or are they good to pick up "Just in case"?
I had so much fun playing a Jedi, he's now my Alliance main. Went Guardian because of the classic look and heavy armor. Are there any good DPS builds for one? Ideally I'd be pure DPS or a 70/30 off-tank.
You could move the 2 points in gather strength to unremitting or protector, but gather strength is the best DPS option of those just since enemies frequently snare you and what not. I'm pure tank, but I am actually quite excited to really play around with a Vigilance spec for fun some time.
You just said it. AoEs kill standard mobs almost instantly. Gold stars, not so much. I've noticed a frightening number of commandos who seem to think the AoE shit is the only thing they should be doing, even on single targets.
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Spenzkriegeh's a pretty cool guyRegistered Userregular
You just said it. AoEs kill standard mobs almost instantly. Gold stars, not so much. I've noticed a frightening number of commandos who seem to think the AoE shit is the only thing they should be doing, even on single targets.
And there are a frightening number of tanks who don't understand how to aggro or how to Guard another player. The old "shoot them, break LoS, herd into a tight group, AoE to death and then converge on elite/champion" was a novel concept to just about every PUG Heroic/FP I've played.
Point being there are a lot of people who don't understand their class in this game.
Once I get deep into gunslinger territory do I want to not spend any money learning the melee based skills anymore or are they good to pick up "Just in case"?
If I have enough cash I buy them, but if I'm saving for a new level of speeder or something I let them wait
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Half of every flashpoint group is DPS, and the ACs with pure DPS specs are *supposed* to do roughly 5% more damage than ACs who can hybridize. Of course, accurate measurements of that DPS are not in the game for players to digest yet, so that that with a grain of salt.
I just resigned myself to making multiple Jedi, since I want to eventually use all three styles.
I'm a Guard tank, and I absolutely love when my buddy who plays a Sentinel is with us. Obviously there are no meters by which to measure, but he kills stuff faster than anybody else in our guild. He's always a top tier player regardless of class, but Sentinel is definitely awesome.
He's...squishyish. He's really dependent on gear. Armor crafting will probably make your life easier as the quest reward gear companions get usually sucks something fierce and green drops aren't super common. You should be making enough commendations to get a full orange set for your companion and then you can basically just keep upgrading their armor at the end of every planet (at the very least.)
When we ran Taral V it became pretty clear that I was basically a glass cannon though. I keep up decently well with gear, as I have mostly orange stuff that I slot in with full mod upgrades from commendations. Now that I'm 38, I'm able to take on elites with a lot more ease. I have way more skills to utilize that keep melee guys out of range. The bigger challenge is actually with ranged guys. I can lower their accuracy with the smokescreen ability, but I don't know how much that does in terms of actual use. Some of the defensive cooldowns are nice though.
My current rotation for my gunslinger is to start out with the aimed shot, trickshot, the timed stick grenade, charged burst, trickshot, and then, depending on where their health is I'll go to the one that hits under 25% health or I'll basically go through the rotation again. Generally speaking, I don't really use that one dot I get that often. If I was spec'd into the other gunslinger tree, I'm sure it'd be more prevalent. I only really use it on bosses and elites.
SteamID: devCharles
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Keep in mind this is very anecdotal. My guild has about 30 people in it so far, mostly friends and people who know one another, and a lot of MMO veterans. We have 3 people who play Guardian/Shadow/Vanguard and have any intention of having a tank spec, and about 6 or 7 that are either levelling heal spec or have the AC and intend to do it if needed for raiding.
It also doesn't help that on republic side, the sage and commando seem to be very popular due to the 'jedi mage' and huge gun aesthetic, so there's a ton of them. A ton of people who play knight like to go sentinel for the dual sabers.
Sadly though for some people, perception is reality. If they think you're not optimal...then you're not optimal. I'm just going to go out on a limb that those aren't the people you want to group with anyway. People like that are pricks even to people who do take optimal builds.
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I would like to know this as well. I suspect this build would be a good one, revolving around lots of elemental dots and a Rail shot that ignores 90% of armor... or maybe This for a build that completly revolves around rail shot.
Stabbity-stab-stab-stab-stabbity
Also you can totally stunlock mobs . I like that. And then throw grenades like a madman.
Any ability with the bolded part in the description just flat needs to be automatically woven into the skills they are buffing and not added in as yet another "press this button before..." skill. I'm sorry if I sound nitpicky but it almost seems silly "rewarding" me with an overly cumbersome activatable buff at level 40 that only effects 2 very situational skills. In fact, after looking at everyone's trees, it appears that IA/Smugglers spec'ing into SS/Mars and Scrap/Conc are the only ones who get shafted with the activatable buff. That kinda needs to be addressed.
Snipers get laze target, which makes the next snipe be a 100% crit. Now that may seem like skill bloat too but it has a specific function when you use it in combination with the talent that makes your snipe crits reduce the cooldown on ambush so it all comes together nicely to make you more effective if you can manage your cooldowns with skill.
Do you know, by any chance, what kind of Sentinel he is? He is Watchman, combat or focus ?
PSN: Guibs25 | XboxLive: Guibs | Steam: Guibsx | Twitch: Guibsx
Charged bolts does 10-12% more damage than Grav Round. I lead with a couple Grav Rounds, but switch to mostly Charged bolts with Grav round thrown in occasionally to refresh the debuff. But I also have Gravity Surge to get 2 stacks per use. Really cuts down how much you have to use Grav Round to get the full armor debuff. I also don't have any points into the Full Auto skills so that has fallen out of use for the most part.
High Impact Bolt should be used every time it is up after you've built the Grav Round stacks.
Actually at this point I'm wondering if Demolition Round will be worth it. Even if it crits with full Grav Round debuffs plus Deadly Cannon crit bonus, it's still listed as doing less damage than a non-buffed High Impact Bolt. Maybe the kinetic damage vs regular damage will make up for the difference?
Might just be a rank issue for me then, just level 21 but my Grav Round currently hits noticeably harder than Charged Bolt.
So, I just looked at Torhead, and this is correct. But I think the benefits of constantly having the maximum-buffed High Impact Bolt outweigh the
It's rank. I just checked against Torhead, and Charged Bolts will do about 200 more max damage against Grav Round. I'm not sure if that makes it SO MUCH better to use, but to maximize DPS I'd lead with the max-buffed HIB, then start off with 3 Grav Rounds (~5 seconds), then use Charged Bolts for the rest of the time until High Impact comes off cooldown. Throw in a Full-Auto in there whenever you want, I guess.
Basically, until we're all at 50 theorycrafting about what skills are best doesn't work great, because we're all at different ranks of skills and we see different situations. His CBs may be better than you or I's.
I just know that ever since I've gotten Grav Round, I haven't stopped using it in one-on-one fights.
XBL: Torn Hoodie
@hoodiethirteen
Stacks 5 times.
So hit Grav round 5x and then HIB once for an instant 30% damage bonus.
Also, deadly cannon increases crit damage of Demo round by 33%. Grav Round vortices on a target increase the Demo Round damage by 25%. See where I'm going? Grav Round is the entire centerpoint of the entire Gunnery tree. Plus you're weakening the target's armor for everyone else thus causing said boss to fall faster.
Demo Round's base damage isn't fantastic but when you factor in damage reduction caused by 20% weakened armor, a 25% bonus in damage and additional 30% damage from crit (my resting crit is around 29%, when I drop my relic my crit chance is 31%... 36% if I have the smuggler buff and 39% if I'm running Plasma Cell) Demo Round would eviscerate an enemy. To maximize your chance load up Plasma Cell and then fire off Demo Round (enemy armor is already reduced 20% and you get a 3% bonus to crit chance versus running AP Cell).
Mixing Grav Round and Charged Bolts in with an intermittent Full Auto and HIB is a great rotation. As Grav Round and Charged bolts have the possibility of finishing the cooldown of Full Auto and also increasing it's overall damage (rotary cannon increases by 33%, Curtain of fire 3/3 gives 30% chance to finish cooldown and grant 25% damage bonus). GR and CB should be your bread and butter with HIB and DR following the appropriate level of grav vortices and overall GR's fired off and interspersed with Full Auto to maximize ammo spent. I.E. Grav round until you have 5 on enemy for DR and 5 overall for your damage buff on HIB. Mix in CB for slightly more damage.
Side Note:
I've never had a problem with ammo consumption and I also found I almost never crit'd Full Auto (even with a ridiculous crit %) so I have no points in Cell Charger. Even when a Vanguard and I (both level 31) took on the insect creature Champion (about 80k health) and we both had our Dorne's out on healing duty and I was relied on for damage... I don't think I ever fell below 6 ammo because of the built-in ammo consumption reduction that the Gunnery tree provides with using GR and CB (muzzle fluting) and running AP cell when I fire off HIB (reduces cost by 1). Those are my main 3 attacks with Full Auto and Hammershot mixed in.
RC: Ais
Also, I think that Grav Rounds/Tracer Missile do more dps than Charged Bolt/Power Shot because of how Ranged Attack and Tech mechanics work.
Ranged has a 90% chance to hit baseline, and Tech has a 100% chance to hit baseline (you can check this on your character screen). Accuracy past 100% reduces enemy defenses and resists, thus, while you need 10% accuracy to reach 100% chance to hit with ranged attacks (like Charged Bolt), that 10% accuracy becomes a 10% reduction on your target's resists.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I know when I picked up Cell Charger I would watch for crits from Full Auto... and I'd see it maybe once every 3 FAs. I'd rather have the points spent in Concussive Force, for instance, that adds knockback/interrupt to my stockstrike and throws enemies further back with my concussion charge.
But, I rotate HS in quite a bit so my recharge is almost never below 3 ticks.
RC: Ais
The whole point is that, everytime you crit with your ammo skills, you don't need to use HS to keep your ammo up and can keep using your skills.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Ahhhhh, I misred. This does change things slightly. That is kind of a weird way to word it as most other Skill Tree descriptions have the abilities verbosely worded out.
Regardless, the points are tight and even not speccing into it I have nary an ammo management problem and do perfectly well rotating HS in every 4th or 5th power. 2 points in Cell Charger have to come from somewhere and I can't really see anywhere else I'd rather lose.
RC: Ais
Right, I can only go by what those sites say the damage is because I don't have them yet, and they've been wrong too.
The skill bloat hasn't been quite as bad as I expected just because the primary skill groups change and get swapped about every 10 level it seems. At least I hope that was their reasoning for having 30+ active combat abilities.
Not sure why they have those superfluous qualifiers and don't just say "all rounds" instead.
Steadied Aim spells out 4 different powers. Can they not just say "Grav and Demolition Rounds" instead of "all rounds"? I appreciate thorough explanations and verbosity when I'm dictating how to spend my points. My take is if a talent is referring to an ability, it should spell it out. Regardless, I don't think I would slot into it anyway.
However, I am kinda torn on the long-term viability of Gravity Surge. If you're wanting to put all 5 vortices on a Champion you would still need 3 shots instead of 5. If the stack reversed instead of disappearing at the end of it's count down, it might hold more weight but with you having to have 5 shots for HIB anyway... what's the use? Only thing I can see is if you're spreading around the wealth and 2 shotting 2 elites to 20% reduction instead of having to 4 shot them. This... I can see. or 6 shotting them to 25% instead of 10.
Discuss?
RC: Ais
With it you only need 3 shots instead of 5 to max out the bonus damage on Demo Round, and in general it reduces your ramp up time when you're switching targets. I think its a great bonus for a one pointer.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
It let's you build the debuff stack quicker and cheaper so you have more time and ammo to work in other abilities. Plus, it's pretty easy to lose the stack if you have to change your rotation to toss a heal for example, so needing less time to rebuild (or switch targets) is great.
Plus, it's a prerequisite to get Charged Barrel, the HIB stacking buff.
"...only mights and maybes."
Guardian DPS in Vigilance is awesome. Here's a spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500cMZIGMRbhddhoZG.1
You could move the 2 points in gather strength to unremitting or protector, but gather strength is the best DPS option of those just since enemies frequently snare you and what not. I'm pure tank, but I am actually quite excited to really play around with a Vigilance spec for fun some time.
I'm guessing that it's just the way my mortar kills off normal mobs.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
And there are a frightening number of tanks who don't understand how to aggro or how to Guard another player. The old "shoot them, break LoS, herd into a tight group, AoE to death and then converge on elite/champion" was a novel concept to just about every PUG Heroic/FP I've played.
Point being there are a lot of people who don't understand their class in this game.
RC: Ais
If I have enough cash I buy them, but if I'm saving for a new level of speeder or something I let them wait