f13.net

You've chosen to play a Trooper (or Bounty Hunter), congratulations! You've made the correct choice.



Rule Number One: Manage your fucking Heat/Ammo.

I'm going to reference AMMO numbers here for the Trooper, but everything here also applies to the Bounty Hunters HEAT bar, just in reverse. The actual numbers/costs of abilities are the same percentage of the resource bar on either end, merely the direction changes.

I can not count how many people do not GET the resource mechanic for Troopers/BH. It is not a mana bar NOR is it a energy bar... do not play this class the way you would play a WoW Rogue or whatever. Your resource bar has VARIABLE regeneration. The MORE resource you have available, the FASTER it regenerates. Outside of very specific burn/burst situations, mostly in PVP, you pretty much never ever want a empty resource bar. Here is an example AMMO bar (I will get you the EXACT numbers on the regen rate once the servers are back up but they aren't really important) :

This is a very happy AMMO Bar, it is full of resources to spend with maximum regeneration. The = represent each pip of ammo. The > represent the current regen rate.


This is a very SAD AMMO Bar, it is nearly empty and will take a looong ass time to regenerate without the use of a valuable ammo regen cooldown! Your bar should almost NEVER LOOK LIKE THIS!


Roughly every 3rd of your resource bar, you lose an > of regen. Four is ideal, Three isn't the end of the world, Two better be for a good cause in a PvP match and One is a tragic tragic thing. You'll spend more AMMO and do more Damage if you keep your AMMO bar near full and throttle your special attacks. You primarily do this by interchanging your special attacks with your basic attack, which costs no resources. All Trooper/BH specs work with this resource system and they all follow this same basic general rule. You use special attacks until you take off that first 3rd of your bar, then you use your basics as that first 3rd regens. Rinse and Repeat for all time.

It can get a little more involved for each specific spec mind you, like a Tanking Trooper/BH get's bonus ammo every time they successfully proc a shield chance with a 6 second cooldown on the return. They also get a close range special attack that instead of costing ammo, grants ammo instead, on a 15 second cooldown. All specs seem to get some kind of 'and here is some bonus ammo' mechanic that suits their specific job/role.

It's a constant mini game of spending enough resources so you never actually have a full bar and "waste" regen, but not so many resources that you lose regen speed either. It takes a little bit to get used too, but nothing really taxing. You'll figure it out, it's not that hard. If you are REALLY having issues, I recommend just keeping a 2 basic to 1 special 'rotation' until you get the feel for it.

Special Attack, Basic Attack, Basic Attack - Repeat. Just keep weaving that basic attack into your button mashing and eventually you'll get the feel for the system and will be able to ride it tighter.

I'll admit I got my BH to 25 and I didn't know about the regen differences.    They seriously need to point that out in a tip window or something.   It doesn't seem like something you'd learn while leveling since heat management isn't a problem on normal mobs.

They mention it on the load screen tips that no one reads. They also show the regen rate on the bar itself, which no one pays attention too.  :why_so_serious:


The Smuggler/IA energy bar works in a very similar fashion btw, but I can't say if it is exactly the same or not off hand.

Or just spam away and hope you kill them before you overload on heat! Or run out of ammo as the case may be.

General question, more out of curiosity as I planned on speccing Vanguard, but what's healing with a Trooper like and any idea how it compares with other healing specs (Scoundrel, Sage)?

I don't have any first hand experience with the healing half of the Trooper, but the general consensus is 'sort of weird'. You still play the same resource mini-game as a healer, but the requirements for healing can be wildly different then DPS or Tanking. If someone needs a heal right now, then you gotta toss it out right now.

I WANT to say the healing tree gives much better 'on demand' instant regen of resources, but again, I have no first hand experience in that regard.

There are a few youtube vids where all 3 commando / mercenary specs are explained pretty well. I posted them around page 3xx of the SWTOR thread, will try to find them again  :awesome_for_real:

edit:
"healing bullets" spec http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-RPPNujdxg
"spam that missile" spec http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b7LesO6DLo
"burn stuff" spec (really hard to understand what he's saying sometimes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLpXrmecvzc

On paper it looks like sage does burst healing, scoundrel has sustained healing, and commando has a bias toward aoe, HoT and ward/shield healing.

Seriously looking at mercenary for my empire heal guy.

I feel like Death From Above is going to get the most nerf bitching.    The AOE size is over the top and the damage is pretty sick.   Either way Merc was definitely the easiest class I played.

What is the in game explanation for ammo regen?

Heat you can just say 'lol nobody understands thermodynamics' and all is good.


But why does star wars have bullets that breed?

All the AoEs for BH seemed to do considerably more damage per target than a single target attack. Death from above in particular would automatically kill an entire group of normal mobs whilst locking them down with knockdowns - even one round of sweeping blasters would kill all normal mobs, and that is spammable. I wouldn't be surprised if those get tweaked a little.

I am all for overpowered abilities that make it possible to crush mobs.  No nerfs!

Death from Above (Mortal Volley on Troopers) does not scale at the same rate as mob HP. It stops wiping out trash mobs pretty quickly. At level 50, I'm lucky if it brings a pack of trash mobs down to half health.

You have to keep in mind dungeons send packs of Silver/Gold elites at you, where DFA is just a really solid opening move for a Tank to gain threat, little more.


Most of the AE's do in fact do more single target damage then the other attacks, which is why they mostly all have longer cooldowns.




Troopers aren't shooting bullets, but bolts of supercharged ionized gas or something. You're reloading the energy cells and the regen rate can be explained away as a recharge of the capacitor.  :oh_i_see:

There isn't an in-game explanation for it.   Hell, they don't even introduce and explain the resource system itself, you're just left to figure it out.  Fordel's got a handle on how I imagine they would explain it if they cared to.

DFA seems more useful than Mortal Volley, to me.   BHs seem like they'll be using rocket punch a lot (based on talents) and DFA is a charge isn't it?  I had problems with MV because mobs would close on me and/or wander out of the target area.

Normal mobs always got knocked down for me before they could react. For higher-ranked mobs I guess you'd wait until they are occupied with the tank or something.

Um...

I AM the tank.

The smuggler/ia seems more like an energy bar it has some similarities but seems overall more consistent in how fast the resources regen. Then again at low levels its damn near impossible to spend your way through the smuggler resource bar with the powers you have. The cool downs and cast times prevent really going out of your resource. The trooper can ripple fire enough stuff even at low levels where they can run their resource bar way down.

My plan was a commando medic, since I'm planning on a powertech tank.

DFA and Morta Volley are the exact same spell mechanically. Minute long reuse, large AE damage and knockdown on trash mobs.

Rocket Punch and StockStrike are the exact same spell, and yes, tanking BH/Troopers use it extensively.

Tanking Troopers and BH get Storm/Rocket Charge, which is a simple gap closer.

MORTAR volley is pretty insanely powerful when you first get it, yes. I was wiping out entire trash packs with it on the Esseles flashpoint. The cooldown is quite long in practice, at least - I couldn't use it every pull.

Ah.  I'd seen vids with a BH jumping in and thought that was DFA. I take it that's Rocket Charge then?

Yes, Rocket Charge is the big leap into the fray.


Death from Above is the Rocket Straight up and rain down missile blasts.

I was reading a bit about the reliance of powertechs on rocket punch. Doesn't seem very 'ranged tank' to have a melee ability be your bread+butter.

They're not really ranged tanks. Popular misconception. Their tanky stuff is all close range for the most part.

In the Esseles flashpoint, I also loved the "Pulse Cannon" (was that it?) ability: trash droids went down spectacularly while my Jedi Knight partner was just staring at me in awe  :grin: :drill:

Pulse Cannon is a 10 meter, Cone shaped Area attack on a 15-18 second reuse depending on talents. It's one of your primary threat generating tools as a Tank, both single and multi target.

The BH Equivalent is Flame Thrower.




Ranged Tanking isn't really, but there is a lot more wiggle room while tanking when compared to the force using tanks. There is very little mitigation that is actually dependent on us being in range, its mostly a threat issue if you try to stay out of the 10 meter zone. A good example was this boss mob that would regularly channel this knockback field on melee. Super fucking annoying, until I realized the field only extended out like 5 yards and I could happily sit at 10 and still put out almost all of my threat and mitigation.  :oh_i_see:


Even just collecting adds and shit, tap tap tap with your long range attacks and back to business, no running around required. The best part is you actually have the tools to keep things in your range ANYWAYS, so even if you don't "need" to chase something, you are fully capable of running it down, or dragging it back to you.


Hell you should see the nonsense I can do to melee only mobs keeping them outside of melee range but inside 10 meters  :why_so_serious:



But yea, if you CAN keep aggro at 30 meters, you can totally just sit at that range and stay there. You probably can't if your DPS'ers are on the ball mind you.

Is there any threat mechanic or specific attacks or is it just that attacks in general generate threat? Ie, we had two tanks in BT and the sith decided he was tank -- is there a way to avoid pulling aggro off him?

I haven't seen any specific attacks that cause high threat, beyond doing a lot of damage.  There are stances and toggles that make you put out X% more or less for all attacks.

The guard power I got last night causes the target to produce 25% less threat, so I can actually manage someone else's threat a little.

In short, no. Not in BT. And for the most part, threat becomes a bit more manageable in HS, but not by much. The third dungeon, AL-something-or-other-eissa, is when tanks start coming into their own.

Trooper/BH Tanks just have their tanking stance for threat. Just pick a different stance when you don't want to pull aggro.

Why is the BH ship so ugly!

Would you prefer the Trooper ship?  :oh_i_see:

It looks better than the BH one...

Boba Fett's ship was ugly so there is your precedent.

If by ugly you mean awesome then I agree.

Playing around with the calculator, my initial thought for a Powertech (http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/bounty_hunter/powertech/#::e2fe10fe3fe2f2ef12ef4ef16:) tank.

I really have no interest in any single talent tree on any class. Seriously, some of those talents just leave me feeling "what the fuck is the point?"

Hm.. is that much aim really worth the talent points? I haven't looked up the number-crunching to see how mandatory a stat it is.

I'm also curious about Iron Fist vs Cardio Package.  More HPs always seems like a good idea as a tank vs more damage, particularly when it's a % and not a straightup stat bonus.

This (http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/bounty_hunter/powertech/#::e2fe4fe5fe6f2ef12ef9ef11:) is what I was thinking.

Has anyone done some real EJ-style number crunching on SWTOR period? It's probably going to end up being needed since these talent trees are "Meh" incarnate.

9% more of class stat vs 3% more hp? Mm. Rocket Punch is the bread and butter, and is going to be setting up your rail shot with Ion Overload. I guess you could make a case for 3% health, but I would counter that anywhere it would matter you won't need it (because you should have good healing backing you up).

I'd take 6% aim over No Escape unless I was on a pvp server (then I'd want both).

My guess is that you'll want the health. Every bit counts usually in these games.

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I would still keep 2 in Steely Resolve (+aim), shifting the third point over to +end. What's a level 50 BH HP total, would 3% even matter? I mean, that's a measly 30 hps per 1000, I still lean toward thinking that if that's going to make or break the group, you've got bigger issues.

Then again, depending on how much aim adds to dps, you might be better off with the rocket punch buff (though you need the 2pt to climb the tree).

Well I don't know how it specifically plays out in SWTOR, but it could pretty easily be that 3% of tank-sized HP pool makes for a much bigger/more useful number than 6% of tank-level dps.

That said when you're not doing bleeding-edge content it usually works out in your favor to cut survivability corners to kill stuff faster, so I can definitely see a non-raid oriented spec going for more aim.

The 3% Endurance is pretty horse shit.

Everyone is over looking Advanced Tools, bringing FlameThrower/Pulse Cannon down to 15 second cooldown from 18 and Harpoon/Grapple down to 35 are both far far more useful then whatever 3% endurance will net you.



My only question is do I max the +Aim talent for 9%, or put two points in for 6% then put 1 point into ProtoType Cylinders for +8% to ion cylinder damage. A lot of our dps and threat ends up coming from Ion there... but I don't have logs either way to math it out. I currently lean towards maxing the +aim for the 9% if only because I hate having half finished talents.

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/bounty_hunter/powertech/#::e2fe10fe3fe2fe2f12ef21

http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#801GoGrdorogzZMcbM.1

No, I was thinking about Advanced Tools. I'm just not sure how much grapple would come into play.

I forgot Prototype Cylinders! Given Ion Overload and Supercharged Ion Gas, the DoT is going to be proc'ing a lot, which also sets up rail shot pretty well. I'd still lean toward the +8% from Iron Fist over the +6% from Rail Loaders, because I imagine Rocket Punch's damage will be much more reliable even with the DoT triggers. You're losing 3s assuming you could fire both skills off back to back (RP is 9s, so 2xRS in 18s vs RS @ 15s CD), say conservative RP @ 479-517 and RS @ 624-817, so the (almost) 2 RPs plus the 8% talent would stack that damage high, pushing RS into more of a 'waiting for RP CD' slot despite its higher base dmg.

Dunno, just started poking around the numbers :)

Good point, but I'm wondering about that 3%, since it's to endurance. I wonder how that scales with hp and other buffs.

S'why I was looking at it, it's very likely to be broken with buffs etc are taken into account.  Previous experience tells me noob devs overlook that sort of stat-stacking so you're likely to get a big HP pool for a good long while.   I recall WoW being that way through BC.

Keep the discussion on other stuff going. I wasn't sure which high-end and off-tier talents to truly take, as I usually just plan for them but make final decisions based off of how the class is actually playing for me.   I know there were one or two times I skipped some "mandatory" talents in WOW because "fuck, I'm never in that situation and this one over here is much more useful to how I actually play."

You use Harpoon/Grapple all the time while tanking, this is a game where more then half the mobs are ranged and the other half have knockback. Being able to move mobs around for better positioning is key. You don't always have a wall to LoS with for easy grouping. If nothing else it's another taunt ability you have available.

Plus you can troll the Jedi that just charged into the mob by pulling it to you and making him run back  :why_so_serious:



Rail Loaders is not for tanking, it's a off spec talent for Pyrotech's. I spec Puncture only because I need to put 3 points into that tree anyways to reach Power Armor and Advanced tools. Rail Shot itself is just downtime filler between RocketPunches and FlameThrowers when you have spare ammo. RP+RS is a nice little combo, but you'll RP 3 times as often due to Flame Shield. Rail Shot does have the side benefit of being 30 meters, so for the times when you actually really range tank something, you have a little extra kick.

Ion Overload is pretty much all the DoT you'll ever need for setting up Rail Shot.

I have no idea how up to date this is: http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-SWTOR-formula-list

So since I'm planning out characters, has anyone futzed with assault spec troopers? I was leaning towards an assault vanguard for an amusement alt.

I'm planning on a dps commando as my first alt, but I haven't really looked them over. I might roll a guardian instead, dunno.

I am not in this game yet, but in EVERY diku model, hit points for tanks are incredibly important.  DKP bidding wars for gear with an incremental 50hps on a character with 6,000hps are not uncommon in diku history.  Maybe it is better served with gear over talents in SWTOR, but in the end, 10hps on your tanks can mean the difference between winning a raid or not.

Tanks that go for DPS always have to respec later of they want to be primary tanks.  Raid mobs are almost always balanced by the devs around players HPs and threat generation strategies.  I find it hard to believe this game will be different.

10 dps can also make the difference; I've played tanks for years and there are almost always some spots where you can make a concession to a DPS stat and be better off over all. There's always a balance point where it is worth it to take a small survivability hit if you're getting a large throughput boost in return - especially if threat is a concern. An example would be there were certain patch cycles where using a DPS-statted weapon as a warrior tank in WoW was such a large DPS boost that it was worth it to use over a traditional tanking weapon, for example.

I'm planning to play a prototype specced powertech. I don't expect to have a lot of company in that.

That's one of my current choices atm.   :oh_i_see:

Shield Tech ftw.

I expect Pyro and Proto to be more popular. I could be wrong.

Pyro is the shared tree, all of the shared trees are the loser ones in terms of popularity in my experience. Though Pyrotech might escape that fate simply because its called PYROtech.  :why_so_serious:

The shared tree appears to be more PvP-focused. It has a lot of "when you get CC'd or stunned..." talents.

No more then the other trees though.

Yeah, I was kind of expecting the common tree to be more PvP focused, but there are PvP talents sprinkled throughout the trees. I don't see any conceivable situation in which you'd want to go Assault Specialist over Tactics, though. (for a Vanguard, at least)

I suppose the argument could be DD vs. DoT damage, but it seems like the common tree seems better for Commandos overall, with how much more focused towards damage they are with their assault cannons.

Today's thoughts. (http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/bounty_hunter/powertech/#::e2fe4fe5fe10f11cf21)

Hate having to put the errant point into Puncture to open tier 2 of AP.

No Escape is purely a PvP talent, which maybe you're going for, just a heads up. There isn't a 'stealth' mob in the game that actually gets revealed by our stealth scan, because 'stealth' mobs don't exist till you aggro their companion mob, then they spawn in.

Are you sure about that? I ran into a number of "stealthed" mobs with my smuggler, it's just that the detection range was STUPIDLY small, even with all the +detection talents. Like, I'd be in melee range and suddenly a shimmering baddie would appear but he wouldn't actually notice me. It seemed like any stealthing mob was already running all the +stealth level talents.

Unless the trooper detect ability is "shows all stealthed targets within 30m" I can't see it ever triggering in pve without having already entered the engagement range though.

Yeah, not sure about those 2 points, might shift them back into Aim. Mostly the shift was in the off-spec, based on discussion here. I just figured if I was going to be using grapple a lot, it might be nice to have an extra effect on it. Would the positional help of the occasional quick root be better than aim?

It's basically the same as WoW-Hunter flare, you drop it on an area and it reveals whatever is hidden.



I can confirm the spawn in behavior because the 'stealth' mobs also only ever took two ticks of Mortar Volley, instead of the full three. Like the first Round would go off and the visible mobs take damage and get knocked down, THEN the 'stealth' mobs appear and THEN they eat the second tick of damage and get knocked down too. I spent like two planets trying to reveal 'stealth' mobs with my scanner thing and it never worked in PvE. I had more then one fellow Trooper confirm it works in PvP though.



Sky- It's not really all that fantastic in PvE, the root after pull thing. Once a mob is in melee range of a player, is usually stays there, the trick being GETTING the mob into said melee range. PvP is obviously a different ball game.


I totally feel your pain on having only the 1 point in puncture and the way you specced is arguably the 'best' way, with the 10 seconds off your stun cooldown. I still put the full three into Puncture, I can't stand half empty talents. The only thing to keep in mind is around level 40+ you'll get a second stun, a PBAE on a 45 second cooldown, so you could live without those 10 seconds off the first stun cooldown.

Mako is bipolar.  Snarky response here +40.. snarky response to a different question.. -40.   :awesome_for_real:

It's probably not the snark she is approving of, but something else.

Check her entry in the Codex and it should tell you what she likes/dislikes.

Mako cannot be worse than Lizardman.

"What? You gave food to the starving orphans? -40! What, someone mentioned it later? ANOTHER -15!"

Qyzen does NOT want to be friends with a jedi.

Once you figure out their internal morality, it's pretty easy. Mako likes snarky, but not bullying. It can be a fine line at times, I don't sweat it too much. She approves way more than she disapproves of ol' Komoto. She just opened up her lvl 30 companion quest for me last night (I'm 18). Easy points by wanting to kill your story rival BH or asking for more money.

Hm.. I didn't know about the codex thing, thanks.

I caught the 'moar money' thing easily enough.  But she was giving me lots of +15 when i was waving my ego around right up until I was talking to the Advanced Class guys and bragged.  At which point it was -40.  Wtf?

I'm hot shit, bitch. Deal!

I hit level 16 before I went to bed last night and equiped two blasters from Kaas City comms.  Did a flying missing for 10k xp and hit the sack.

Can't wait to get back and blow more shit up.

Best part of a BH

I also ran one flying mission before bed last night. Actually read the tutorial tips and learned space for barrel roll and that you can rt-drag to select multiple missile targets. Made things go much easier.

Also helps if you just buy all the first tier space gear immediately. It's a good way to polish off a level or two between planets, and kind of relaxing imo.

Oooh I actually forgot my ship gear and the reward I got.  I need me some.

Space is a barrel roll?  Didn't know that.  Did know the drag thing.

I ended up just leveling as a shield tech, the tanking tree of powertech. Seems fine so far, although I'm still on Dromund Kaas so it's difficult to tell if my lack of DPS will hurt me later on.

Fuck it.. outlive, outlast!

Tank spec all the way!

This isn't EQ where soloing to max level is an accomplishment in of itself, killing speed matters.

When questing, I find myself deliberately looking for clumps of 4+ mobs so I can one-shot them with Mortar Kombat... once a minute.  :awesome_for_real:

Bringing a DPS companion should make that pretty acceptable, you only need your healer for the hard stuff.

If you're overly-concerned about it, just start putting points into one of the DPS trees instead.  You get a tank companion in the Jawa.  I doubt the killing speed is ever going to diminish to WOW-BC Era tank vs. rogue levels either way.

Obviously if it gets slow I'll switch to a DPS tree. My question was if anyone here had leveled as a tank-specced trooper/BH and if so, if it was crap.

Fordel went all the way to 50 as a tank trooper in beta and had no trouble I believe.

Yeaup.


If you go Tank Spec on your BH, just keep little Mako at your side the entire time. The only time the tank spec trooper/BH is sad is when they don't have their healer companion.

It will go slower, but not because your tank specced, EVERYONE goes slower as mob HP keeps scaling up and up. Like things you are out right obliterating with MortarVolley/DeathFromAbove now, will survive with 50-75% health left in the upper brackets. Like yea, your mob kill speed in a vacuum is slower then a DPS guy, but you won't have downtime and you'll be able to solo shit they really can't manage on their own. It's nothing like Vanilla/TBC WoW, where being tank specced means plink plink plink damage. It's much more like Wrath tank specced, where you just mow down packs with massive AE damage and without the downtime.



The only downside to Tank Spec leveling is you really need to use your healer companion, so everyone else is window dressing for your ship basically. It suuuuuucks without your healing companion past like, level 20-25. The few class quests that forced me to use the other companions were so fucking annoying to do, having to 'drink up' every pull, use half my cooldowns every pull. Some of that was wacky Beta mob balance, but not all of it. If you want to cruise around with the little Jawa, you'll want to spec something else probably, Tank Spec + Tank Companion is kinda shitty.


But the only thing more self sufficient then TankSpec + Healer Companion is the Healing Spec + Dps/Tank companion.

Awesome, great news.

Yeah, I'm not gonna play a healer healing a NPC for 50 levels.

You don't heal them as much as you'd think, but yea it's more fun being healed then doing the healing while leveling.

I hardly healed my tank guy as my sage, to be honest, unless it was a nasty fight, I mostly pew pew'd with a little CC thrown in. :P Then for giggles I duoed with my heal companion for a while, that was just silly. <3

I'm up to level 31 on my Mercenary.  I hated the fact that I get to my last fight for Chapter 1 and then notice the "Server will be shutting down in 10 minutes" pop up in the chat window.   :heartbreak:

I feel compelled to just DFA groups of weak/normal mobs if it's up....just cuz.

I've also taken to using my flamethrower a lot more, it will be nice to nab a couple more heat venting options.

I'd already heard the bit about powertanks being tied to Mako for the whole run, kinda sucks for versatility but I like Mako and I love the tank spec thus far. Hopefully when dual spec goes in I'll get to use Blizz some. Mako has now healed us through BT a few times as the only healer, and we ran a 4-man heroic quest on Kaas (kill the sith chick) with 2 tanks and a dps, mako healing and it went great. She's not too bad. Then just before the boss instance at the end our sniper disconnected, so the jugg and I duo'd the boss with our companions. Reallly close but we squeaked it out. Companions are a phenomenal addition to the game. A cockblock 'lf healer' turned into a fun creative romp.

I  :heart: Flamethrower.

But I always had far too much fun with it in the Jango Fett game that came out for the PS2 as well.

Blizz is a ranged tank in heavy armor.  I'm sure you can use him instead of Mako if you are DPS.

I'm hoping the trooper story picks up more on Taris when I get back there. Corusant really is a bore as a trooper; my boss is a dick and Jorgan is as shitty and unlikable as Corso with the one benefit that he talks a lot less in combat.

Bore as a Trooper??  What exactly are you expecting?  The gun toting classes in this game are far more engaging than the force users on both sides.  As a trooper you are about to pick up an interesting if somewhat predictable companion + storyline.  This is bioware, do not expect a masterpiece.

Hush your mouth!  Troopers are awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViavxtT7Lpo&feature=related

Why do people take good songs and make shitty covers.   :heartbreak:

question about the Trooper story

Anyway, hit the 30s and my vanguard's really coming into his own now -- both in pve and pvp. The only downside (as said earlier in this thread) is that I -have- to use Dorne or suffer downtime and even danger of dying in larger pulls. Doing cat-dude's quest was pretty annoying for that reason.

Sooo I like the BH so much I'm probably making a Powertech once my Merc hits 50.   :drill:

I'm probably going to end up with two Troopers as well.


You are all shocked, I know.  :oh_i_see:

Only two?

I'm enjoying Merc much more than Marauder. Setting people on fire beats yelling at them. And Mako is easier to keep happy than Vette.

Managed to get my third companion tonight at level 24.

The thought had crossed my mind to make a Merc and go dark side with him. (My PT is light side)

I'm totally doing this. I already have him sitting and waiting to go.

I'm leveling a BH powertech (shield) and jedi guardian (vigilance) simultaneously and I've got to say that the BH is much, much, much better solo. It's not just the healing companion, although that's a huge improvement-- BHs have tons of AE, and every fight is 4-5 dudes. Also, the resource mechanic of burning energy is much better for soloing than the JK's build/spend rage mechanic. Just a massive improvement.

The JK is fine too, jumping into melee is fun and the astromech droid companion is cute as a button, but it's nowhere near as effective as the BH even if you don't include death from above. With DFA, they're in totally different ball fields. I'm only level 20ish on both, so hopefully the JK just started slow and picks up at later levels.

Focus is far better than Heat for longer boss fights. As the JK is building more and more focus, the BH has to start shutting down and working at a lowered efficiency level because once heat creeps over 50% regen starts to suffer and you slide into a hot pit of not being able to use anything but the plink shot.

Heat mitigation skills and talents take a while to collect, there's a long CD on the straight up vent heat skill.

I would assume that heat and focus are roughly equivalent for sustained damage, if you manage your heat properly and stay under 40. You have a real opportunity to screw up with heat that you don't with focus, so it rewards a modicrum of player skill.

When dealing with difficult solo packs, on the other hand, you can blow all your heat to nuke them down extremely quickly, then use your regenerate skill for 2 seconds to bleed off the extra heat and move on to the next pack. Alternatively, on easier packs with no strong/elite, you can manage your heat, keeping it below 50 or so, and immediately move on to the next group. This is why the heat mechanic is inherently superior.

Even longer solo fights you start to run into heat issues - something I'm noticing in the mid 20's as things are taking a little longer to kill.   If I get into a fight in an area that I thought was clear and respawns another 4-5 guys or an added strong I know I've got to start managing that stat like a mofo or wind-up taking even longer to kill things because I'll be plinking in short order.

Tanking in groups also takes some effort to remember to manage that and plink things rather than play mashy-mashy on your fun abilities.  Yeah, you've got a lot of AOEs but a few wrist rockets, a rocket punch and a flame sweep and suddenly you're doing very little for a long while.  

I can see why it's superior for soloing, but in groups I think the Jedi might win out.

It's definitely superior for soloing. In fact, it's the best resource mechanic I've ever played in a MMO. With normal energy, you've got 100 of your resource, it regenerates at a constant rate, and you use it up as quickly as possible. With heat, your sustained damage is tuned assuming you stay under 50 or so-- but when you need to burst, you can dump it all very quickly. Then since the fight is over, you rest for 2 seconds and are good to go. If you get ambushed or whatever, you can always use a cooldown like vent heat. It is really an innovative, fun resource mechanism.

The main advantage of focus (or energy, mana, etc) for sustained damage is that you can't mess up. You just hit your buttons whenever they light up in a loose priority and you're good to go. With heat, you don't always want to use your abilities when their cooldowns are up. I like this gameplay; others may disagree.

Tanking is another thing entirely. You want consistency to reliably tank. I can definitely see it being a detriment there-- mobs run in, and you have no choice but to use an expensive AE or two to grab threat and suddenly your heat is crazy high and you're screwed for the next 15 seconds.

I get down to a bare minimum when I tank for groups, making sure to use the highest threat stuff I can without burning up. Sucks, because the flamethrower is a really good tool for tanking, but has to be used so sparingly. I love using grapple to line mobs up for flamethrower.

One cool thing is I've finally started to see some good results the last couple nights on my talented rocket punch. I got the talent that resets RP on a successful shield, and it's awesome. Oh look, RP is up again BLAM. I'm swinging back over to putting spare points into the +8% RP dmg talent...

The big animal fight in Athiss is a great example of heat holding you back (you get 4-5 adds 3 different times) but of how fucking terrible the targeting interface is.  I couldn't tab-target to hit any of the adds, and the hitbox of the big mob I was tanking wouldn't let me target through it, either.    I just wound-up standing on top of the healer so I could peel shit off of him.  Terrible.

You couldn't tab to switch target? Why not?

Would the 'target of' setting help in that situation?

Tab targetting can be flaky on what it decides to target next.

What Murdoc said.  Its range also seems to be flaky and depending on how you've positioned the boss you can be a long-ass ways from the doorway the adds spawn in.

Trying to move closer to the entrance also puts you at risk of being punted over a wall and into a shitload of mobs you wouldn't otherwise kill.  Fucking knockbacks.

Yeah, it can be flaky. I had some trouble during some FP boss with waves, luckily they were pretty easy mobs so I just told dps to burn the waves as they came, they could "offtank" them easy enough (I don't even think they were silvers).

Even solo, if you aggro a second linked group it can get flaky about targeting between groups. That's what DFA and flamethrowers are for!  (http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/images/smilies/new/Flamethrower_emoticon.gif)

You should be able to use Flamethrower on cooldown without any issue.  It's one of the big reasons I spec into Advanced Tools, I kept finding I wanted to use FlameThrower more and it was still on cooldown.

Flamethrower will actually "generate" resources when tied with Thermal Sensor Override ( http://www.torhead.com/ability/9dt1Cla ), since you regen continuously even during channels. You don't use the TSO to open, you use it when you would be 'low', the same way you use vent heat.

It's also why Shoulder Slam exists, it's a no heat ability that lets you regen while still laying down some law. Your AE taunt can be used in a similar fashion, giving you a regen window. Heck don't be afraid to regular taunt, that's also Heat-Free.

Your Basic attack augmented by IonCell is a lot meaner then you'd think, don't be afraid to lean on it more too.

Stay away Missile Blast, it's a piece of shit that stops being useful past level 10.

As he talks about a slew of abilities I don't have :p

Agreed on missile blast. That needs some love.

Hmm, think this will be my secondary class to play after my consular.  I made a small Japanese school girl looking Bounty Hunter named Teleka for my Dark Side character.  Somebody invite me into BC!   :why_so_serious:

You get them when you need them, I didn't actually use them for 'realz' till like 45.

Presumably missile blast is better for non-tank specs that have points that affect it?

They need to switch/change the animation for Tracer Missle.  It looks like I'm farting a missle out.   :uhrr:

If they do I can't find it.

 :heart: Mako's lvl 29 upgrades. CC and a big heal. Hell yeah.

Now if they'll just fix the companion toolbar bug so she stops nuking...

Trying a new keyboard layout. I've always used # keys and alt-# keys, with ctrl-# being pet stuff. I put taunt on Q, stun on E, flamethrower on F and flame sweep on shift-F. Forgot I did it when running heroics :P but after that it works beautiful. Wish I had come up with that years ago.

Oooh, I just hit 28 and now I can't wait.

On another note, I was planning on going Bodyguard (healing) when I get Blizz, but I've been thinking of going healing and just pick up a DPS companion.  I just don't know if Gault is good enough for deeps.

Just a warning (assuming that the electro-stasis ability is the same as Elara's carbonite ray): be sure to turn autocast off for that CC if you're fighting srs bsns elites or bosses. She'll basically try to cast it on cooldown and channel it for 8 seconds... during which she won't cast any heals and you might die. OTOH it's pretty handy on autocast otherwise, as it serves as a ghetto interrupt on non-cc-immune enemies.

Yeah, I'm on to her tricks.

So to speak.

Man I rolled new alt  - merc BH, played to 18. Its so disgustingly faceroll its not even funny. Crazy damage and crazy heals, topped with healing companion. I can solo minibosses 2 levels higher than me.  And I thought sith assassin is faceroll... I kinda think a lot of this is because healing is just too good and BH gets healing companion right of the bat. But you also do crazy aoe damage even when healers specced.

I'm heal specced at 32, and find Mako to be a better all arounder than Gault, though he rocks when it's single pull/boss stuff. His aoe is kinda meh, turn that off and set him to sniper and he makes a decent dps/tank for me to heal.

Also, solo'd the DK World Boss, 3 BOE purples and 3k in cred. Took 22minutes, Mako spent the whole time cowering like we were facing a Nazgul in LotRO. I think 2 people ~30 could farm him pretty easily for twinkage and AH fodder purpz.

I could've sworn The First had an enrage mechanic (as in, take 15+ minutes to kill me and I start eating you), is that not true or is it not much of an enrage?

Interesting.  I am heal-specced Merc as well and struggled with Mako.  Now that I have Gault, yeah he's more fragile, but I have an easier time of it.

Keeping Mako (or likely any of the companions) in good gear seems to be key. Stacking lots of cunning helps, set her as focus target, and pop enough heals to keep her up, flame to pull stuff off her as needed. Gault chews through lower toughness stuff so he's good for when you start overleveling a planet. Torian so far jumps around and knocks things out of range, or into other groups, then Jumps them. Which is teh sux.

And I'm too small for Blizz still. But once I have him, look out galaxy.

BLIZZ CAN'T COME SOON ENOUGH.

/sign level 34 Arsenal Merc that wants to go healing

The funny thing is, despite Mako being the obvious choice for a tank spec from a gaming perspective....she actually really compliments the way I play my BH and feels very natural to have as a sidekick. The little 'who's this new guy' when Gault joins is spot-on. But a part of me is sad that Blizz is basically not going to work for my spec.

I should probably try to work out rotations for Gault, I only used him just after I got him until they let me have Mako back. He's an awesome UT slave, though :)

I messed with and geared up Gault and Torian. Torian I can't find a use for at all, he's not tough enough to tank, and doesn't contribute enough damage to make killing faster. Gault shines for clearing trash.

I've been running Gault for a while now.  Yeah, he's a good overall companion, especially for my heal spec.  Also enjoy his quips, great voice acting. 

Played my little healing trooper dude up to level 13 (gasp!) and he's pretty fun so far. I like their resource mechanic. Maybe I'll make Ingmar duo his IA with my foxy BH lady once we're ready to Empire it for a change of pace.  :why_so_serious:

What spec?  I'm finding Torian helps me kill mobs below elite a lot quicker than keeping Mako out as Tank Spec. Plus when you run in to 2 strongs he can tank one while you take the other.  Gault is good once I start outleveling a planet, but Torian was better for at-level stuff without having to micro-manage Sniper & Assault modes.

On the other hand.. he keeps his mouth shut a lot more than Mako or Gault, making the cutscenes a little drier.

I'm about to get Torian.  How is killing speed with him and you healing vs. Arsenal spec and Mako healing?

Can you get orange mandalorian armor somewhere?

I'm still looking but I'm still 36.

Full Bodyguard Merc. Tank spec I'm sure is entirely different. I found it too easy to peel a mob off Torian just tossing a heal on him, and chaff doesn't seem to work with companions, just other players. Skadge just got burned down fast, with more armor, shield, and hp than Blizz he'd die faster while doing less damage.

Mako really likes putting her stun beam on immune mobs, and keeping it going for it's whole duration. Something to keep in mind.

If you're using Mako as a medic, turn off all her attacks. She still has a decent base attack (if you give her a decent gun, obviously). Sometimes when clearing normal groups, I'll turn it back on for her because it can be handy. But 99% of the time I turn the channeled ability off, along with her other offensives.

My main gripe with Mako is that she won't close to proper range for healing, so learn the ranges for her heals. She'll only close to the furthest range she can auto-attack the target mob. So if she's behind you and you DFA then Jet Charge, you can end up out of range of her healing and she won't heal you. Worse if she gets stuck on a piece of terrain, had that happen once on a champ mob I couldn't grapple closer to Mako. Wish you could grapple your companion into range  :grin:

I don't know if you need to turn off all Mako's attacks, but I would definitely turn off her 8-second incapacitate, since it's channeled.

Turning them all off would just be slowing yourself down, yeah, just the channel is plenty.

I keep turning the incapacitate attack off for Elara (trooper Mako-equivalent, see last page), but for some reason it keeps turning back on when I zone or (dis)mount. It's a hassle, but keeping it on is actually ok against most enemies -- it either acts as a ghetto interrupt, or it's broken immediately and she stops channeling it anyway.

The chest piece you get to choose at an early one of the class quests is the most Mandalorian armor I've seen.  (Even has the sigil on the left arm)  There's no Fett-esque pieces if that's what you're after, because in KOTOR the Manalorians look similar but not exactly like him.   For the helms I've seen one on the PVP vendor that looks fairly close to what the NPCs wear.

Yeah, this is a bug. Randomly Mako leaves healing stance on me. She doesn't go into DPS stance either, she ends up in no stance at all. Pretty annoying.

BH Storyline; Quesh:

Just leave the Channel CC on Mako/Elara, at worst it's a random stun, but it usually catches and interrupts a mobs initial cast on the start of any pull. They'll also cycle it across multiple mobs pretty well and it really adds quite a bit of mitigation overall. Just turn it off for stun immune shit or they'll go full retard and spam it doing nothing else. I almost never actually use it for it's max duration CC potential.

There's also no point in turning off their special attacks either, they simply don't have enough heal abilities to fill all the time anyways.

I have found a bug where if I put a Kolto Shell on my companion it removes it from me.  Lost a couple of tough fights because I didn't realize it.

Otherwise KS is a great great skill (Merc/Bodyguard).

The real surprise for me is how useful the flamethrower is.  Love it.

Kolto Shell can only be on 1 person at a time. Says so in the description.

As for Quesh:

Just started to play with torain as a tank and me as a bodyguard.  Works real well using focus target a mb5 to auto targt focus targt with heals.  I heal myself and him while doing more Dps than mano so things move fast.  I just need to gear him up better.

That's my current combo as well.  Send him in to clump them up and *Boom* drop the aoe hammer. He's pretty fragile though so yeah, needs gear.

As a level 50 Merc in pvp, I love the Pyrotech tree.   :awesome_for_real:

Yeah considering the PVP gear is called "Pyrotech" I figured it was the ++PVP Tree.  Haven't tested it yet, though.


"Most Wanted" Spoiler:

There are sets for all specs... on republic side there's Combat Medic's xxx (healing spec commando), Combat Tech's xxx (damage spec commando), Eliminator's xxx (damage spec vanguard), and Supercommando's xxx (tank spec vanguard).

IMO arsenal / gunnery is better for pvp, since it has insane burst -- it is very reliant on being able to chaincast tracer missile / grav round, but it can kill a target in seconds if not interrupted. Pyrotech is more mobile though and may be better if you aren't getting support / healing / guard from your teammates.

Yea, I was regularly guarding this Commando in the door assault/defense map and he was killing shit so ridiculously fast as long as I kept things off him. It was literally like 3-5 casts per target.

Ok I did some experimenting with Blizz vs. Mako yesterday, and I have to say Bliizz is awful.

I sent him out against two Silvers and me healing and I could barely keep him up, and he did pretty low damage.  It became a pain in the ass to play.  And slow.  I died more during those few hours than I ever did up to level 40.

Got Mako back up, went full Arsenal and things just died around me with much better survivability. 

Maybe I'm doing something wrong playing a Bodyguard (heals) but they seem pretty weakish.  1.5s heal for 700-800, 2s heal for 1000-200.  A reactionary shield that heals for 400  that triggers once every 6 seconds.  And an AOE missile that heals for 400 that instant.  I didn't get the instant heal at the top of the tree though.

Perhaps Blizz's gear is terrible when you first get him, but I stuck some implants, earpieces and a hat on him to flesh him out (all good heavy armor) and nothing really made a difference.

Oh well, heatseeker missiles are amazing, and sounds awesome.

Kolto Shell (the 10 reactionary heals) is good, the 2 heals are better with points/heat reduction in them, but the 31pt heal is the best Mercs get. All the companions seem to have pretty meh gear when you get them, I find Blizz better at tanking than Skadge or certainly Torian, and better for 2silver or 1gold 1 silver fights than Mako. I still pull out Mako for tougher champions, like the Avatar of Sul-mak-whatever on Voss, but Blizz is my normal companion.

I think for soloing, dps and Mako is the best way to go, but without dual-specs I wanted to get used to the healing, makes it easier to fill that role in groups. Skadge has the same "I'm going to block your screen, have fun with the shitty non-manual targetting" problem Khem has.

I keep Mako in RE'd blues from armormech. I'm just about at the point where it makes sense trying to RE to purple for each slot now (hitting cap level recipes). I can generally do a -2 champ without breaking much of a sweat as long as I remember to use my interrupts. There was one tough champ that had a crazy missile blast or something, but most are pretty easy. My gear isn't the greatest, mostly purples but not always the purple I'd want for the slot, and still a few greens for things like relics and implants, blue belt and gloves. Anyway, with a tank spec, it's pretty much Mako and that's that.

Tab targeting works great for me 95% of the time, and when it doesn't it usually because of adds the game considers in a different grouping. As with most complaints, that one surprised me.

At level 40 I thought kolto shell was pretty meh.  I guess I have to outfit blizz in better gear. 

As Bodyguard spec Gault was best vs. Champs.  I'd tank and heal myself and he dps'ed away.  I normally solo'ed with Torian.
Today I switched to Arsenal and Blizz is the best tank and his taunts lock down the enemy while I dps away.  I may bring Mako back out, but she needs some gear updating. She might be good healing me as I use Arsenal to shot down elites.

The default gear probably isn't good enough for the companion tanks out of the box. I want to say you'll want to stack the shit out of shield rating and absorb on your companion tanks to really get them tanky.

Random question to the high-level / level 50 vanguards/PTs out there: is it just me, or is energy blast / heat blast (the 31-point shield ability) really, really, really bad? It barely does more damage than my hammer shot autoattack, regenerates a very small amount of ammo/heat, and has a short range to boot. I ended up speccing 30/11/0 instead to pick up Gut from the assault tree -- it gives me a very energy-efficient DOT that's useful in tanking, soloing and especially in pvp. A 15-second bleed is absolutely awesome for preventing caps or for keeping people unable to regen... it's also good damage against armored targets.

So yeah, am I overlooking something or is Energy/Heat Blast kind of not-very-useful?

PvP throws a whole wrench into things, where I'd actually use up a dual spec (if they implement it that limited instead of 3 or 4) on a pvp spec, because i'd need at least 6 points or so.

But yeah, Heat Blast is somewhat lame. But, it is more than Rapid Shot and does vent a bit of heat, it's slightly better than Flame Burst (which is hot to use). I'd like to see some reduction on the CD, an increase in dmg OR heat dissipation. Also, it REALLY needs to proc Combust like Flame Burst/Sweep to fit in properly as the Flame Burst alternative for pure PTs in a higher heat scenario. Right now, it fits in the rotation when heat is getting up over 30% and I'd miss it if it were gone. For the 31pt skill, it's lacking.

I can see putting Retractable Blade in there, but 16 is a bit hot vs both the heat dissipated through the GCD cycle (you're not spending heat to activate) and the bit gained back. Dunno. If I'm getting hammered on pretty well (good reason for shieldtechs to favor shield/absorb over defense imo), I'm venting heat pretty good already from my shields.

If I were concerned about armored targets, I'd load up rail shot...which I'd lean on like crazy in pvp too (instant activation).

I'm not even planning to go that high, 21/2/18 is what i plan on using for pvp.  Shielding refreshes rocket punch, rocket punch and flame burst refresh rail shot, rail shot hits like a fucking truck and you vent 8 heat on shielding and rail shots.

It's lame but required, as it's heat/ammo return keeps you in the 4 pip regen zone for far longer then you would first guess. It's easier to see how it works on the Trooper, with only 12 units of ammo total.

It amounts to an extra attack, not counting itself.

Ideally I'd want a build that works in pve too  :awesome_for_real: and I don't think you can skimp on 10% non-DR shield chance for a pve tanking build. I'm very wary about putting points in the third tree, since a lot of it ends up wasted on plasma cell (which I don't use).

The issue with Energy Blast is really a combination of things. I'd be fine with it if it had at least 2 of the following:
- at least a 30y range to put it on par with our autoattack
- proc ion cell
- do additional threat
- do at least as much damage as that spammable ion blast thing
- restore 2x as much ammo/heat

In pve tanking I end up bursting abilities a lot at the start to frontload threat, and Spare Energy Cell / Recharge Cells is much better for that. Energy Blast is a threat loss in exchange for half an attack's worth of energy on a 15sec cooldown (compared to hammer shot which does MORE damage with the ion proc, snares people, has a longer range, procs ion and has no cooldown)... yech.

But it's not on par with the auto-attack. It's more in line with Flame Burst, which is a high heat ability with better dmg than Rapid Shot and also can put Combust on a target. Not sure what Troops get that's like combust (debuff damage output of target by 4%/sec), but that's what it really needs to sit in the rotation properly, because I find it's the replacement when in a high heat scenario. With low heat, it's better to use Flame Burst for the debuff.

Threat...I don't even want to talk about that. Keeping low heat I can't keep shit for threat if Blizz is around, or even with a Sith tank.

So out of curiosity: is the combat log secretly turned off just because things like Ion Cell appear to not have any relation to their tooltip data? :P

"Randomly procs a 120 damage elemental attack!" *hits for 31*

Flame Burst is the BH version of Ion Pulse ('spammable ion thing'), right? Part of the reason Energy / Heat Blast is so bad is that it doesn't get any ranks (unlike ion pulse / flame burst), so it does less than 2/3 of Ion Burst damage at 50... and indeed, less damage than the autoattack when you factor in the ion proc. The ammo gain is very situational and not that significant. I get a lot more consistent / reliable ammo from the "if your shield absorbs damage, you gain 1 cell - this can only occur once every 6 seconds" talent. If I wanted to drop the 5 points on the top of the shield tree (I don't, though - 10% shield chance seems to be huge for tanking), I could go deep into the third tree and get access to some procs that make my hardest-hitting abilities free to use.

Re threat - there are no 'high threat' abilities that I can see (except for the taunts and pulls), we just get a 50% threat bonus on all damage we do. So to get a good threat lead on an enemy I need to stockstrike, ion pulse, high impact bolt, stockstrike again (should've reset by now).. against multi-targets add in pulse cannon, sticky grenade, and maybe some of that PBAOE explosion. After I have the initial threat lead, I can take it easy(er) and mix in a lot more hammer shots to let my ammo regen. Heat/Energy Blast doesn't fit in there, since the damage/threat it produces is sad and I'm rarely ammo-starved in the first place.

Energy/Heat Blast is just really really bad for a 31-pointer and needs a lot of lovin'. I'd be fine with any two things on my list, really!  :awesome_for_real:


edit to kildorn: Yeah, tooltip for ion cell is bugged. I assume it actually did do that much damage in beta, but they nerfed it. Honestly it'd be kind of ridiculous if it did the damage on the tooltip... and I'd love it!  :why_so_serious: This also means that talents improving the damage of ion cell aren't as hot as they look at first.

Ion Pulse is the Trooper equivalent. Also the only way I can really keep single-target threat on an enemy with a shitload of HP (like a boss) is to really lay into them heavy and burn up my Recharge Cells/whatever skill right off so I have a comfortable head start I can maintain. The talent that sometimes resets the CD on stockstrike (rocket punch for BH) can make maintaining threat trivial if it procs multiple times however.

If bosses have a lot of knockbacks/stuns however, ugh. If my Ion Cannon (Flamethrower) gets interrupted right off it just fucks up my world.

Dropping 5 points in shieldtech would be crazy, look at what you just said about venting heat/gaining ammo on shielding! I've decided to pretty much drop defense in priority up to the soft cap for shielding (whatever that is, for now I just stack as much shield/absorb as I can iirc I'm around 34/38) because it's blocking the chance for shielding which means more heat buildup and less Rocket Punching. Against a fast dps mob, I will be shielding so much I'm constantly dropping heat and Rocket Punch is almost always up.

Threat/rotation: I open with DFA if it's up. Jet Charge into a spot to line up flamethrower for groups. Otherwise Jet Charge in, Rocket Punch, Rail Shot, Explosive Dart (even against single targets, good damage), then get situational. If I use my Flamethrower or do a Flame Sweep here, I'm going to need Flame Blast to mitigate some of the heat. It works especially good after Flame Sweep because Flame Burst doesn't combust. The core rotation though is Rocket Punch/Rail Shot/Explosive Dart, though that really only becomes a 'rotation' when grinding through a lot of silver mobs, everything is pretty situational which is cool). If I don't need to do much interrupting or use my flame abilities, I don't need Flame Burst. If I use any of the flame-based stuff, I need all the venting I can get.

I agree it needs lovin'. And it only needs ONE thing from my list, so neener! Although I'll steal threat from your list and say it should be high threat plus one from the list. Help a tanker out.

You know, now that I'm looking things over with 44 levels of experience behind me...I'm starting to think about tweaking my build a bit toward rail shot, since it's my #2 ability in terms of damage and priority. Obviously, Rocket Punch is the buttered bread, but seeing that my core 'rotation' or maybe better phrased as my three highest priority abilities are not flame based, losing 6% on those to gain 6% on the #2 ability (that's always up after RP which procs Ion every time) might be worth it. The biggest impact would seem to be against groups of normals where I'm using Flame Sweep and Flamethrower more consistently, and even then DFA is kinetic.

Hmm.

(removing 2/3 pts from Intimidation and putting them into Rail Loaders)

The talented skills not having "ranks" is a feature. They gain damage as you level, unlike ranked skills. I'd actually far prefer if all skills behaved that way because fuck those hell levels right before all your damage skills upgrade.

I'm failing to find the math right now, but I saw some pretty convincing stuff during the beta on the 31 point tank talent giving you some serious staying power in longer fights. It doesn't seem that great, but it's essentially a regen talent in disguise. Sort of like how Scoundrel's diagnostic scan seems absolutely terrible until you do the rotation math and it improves your healing output by some crazy amount by being a regen boost.

It's really nice when you're skating the edge of good regen and have to suddenly do something that jumps the heat level, which slows dissipation. Pop the Flame Blast and it's usually enough, combined with dissipation during GCD, to get you back into the green zone of fast dissipation. I'd rather have it than not and use it enough that I'd miss it right away. Kind of like the 'next ability costs 0 heat' ability...I almost never use it until it's really useful and then I'd hate not having it.

I've found that heat dissipation can get really punitive really fast. If I get up in over 50% range with my heat vents on CD....I'm screwed for a significant portion of the fight trying to get heat levels back under control.

Stacking Shield Rating, then Absorb, is the way to go yes. There's a reason our tanking trees are called Shield Tech/Spec  :why_so_serious:


Between talents and a little gear, you'll easily get both Shield Chance and Absorb amount into 40% and higher. I guessing 45-55% in real end game gear. That's a pretty ridiculous amount of damage reduction. Roughly half of all attacks will only hit you for half damage or whatever. Our defense chance will never compete with that and a simple dodge doesn't proc bonus ammo or stockstrikes. Vigilant enhancements will be your best friends ( http://www.torhead.com/search/Vigilant )


My Ion cell is working as advertised, are you confusing the DoT ticks with the direct damage proc? It does both if talented.


Like I said before, Heat/Energy Blast is required, if a bit lame. It doesn't look like much at first glance, but it's keeping you in the 4 pip range when you would otherwise drop down. It's an extra special attack every 15 seconds, that's actually kinda a big deal.

Nah, without the DoT talent, the tooltip says 100ish damage, the yellow number from doing nothing but autoattacking hits for 31 reliably. With the DoT talent, the DoT tics seem to work as advertised (about 17/tic at level 20ish)

I saw a few BH threads about the same thing. Basically it's either a bugged tooltip, a bugged rank or three, or mobs have some secret 75% Ion resistance that doesn't lower fire based damage.

Ion Cell is Energy damage, which is affected by armor, so yea, some mobs probably do have a huge resistance to it.  :why_so_serious:

What's our hardest hitting ability? i ask because on my assassin i got the "2.5k damage on a single hit" medal every single warzone since level 10 and on my bh i have never once gotten it.  I just dinged 34 so i don't have any end of tree abilities yet.

Powertech or Mercenary?


Powertech it's probably going to be Rocket Punch. No idea for Merc.

Sorry, yeah powertech.  I have five pieces of orange gear with epic armoring and blue mod/enhancement and an orange weapon with epic barrel, all level 33, and i just can't get that medal. 

Once talented it's probably rocket punch, but shoulder slam does more base, as does rail shot, according to TORhead.

I just got a blue vigilant (I think, it was +shield/absorb) as a quest reward last night. This is the leading reason I'm considering dropping armormech, the best I can make is +defense + absorb. Since you can only RE into defense/crit/power, armormech ironically sucks for powertanks. Given that I have scav at around 394 and UT at 360 or so...should be a quick transition. Really hate to lose a ton of dropped/gifted/bought recipes, but it doesn't make sense to keep a skill that won't make armor for myself. Alternative is to level up my IA alt's cybertech using mats from Komoto, I should finish out his prologue and get him going...

/ramble

As an addendum to my thoughts on Rail Shot, given the talk of damage types. It's weapon damage so if pvp or heavily armored foes are considerations, the flame-based elemental damage is probably preferable. Do squishy siths get elemental boosts significant enough to discourage stacking elemental damage for a pvp build? And then there's the IA/Smug's internal damage, which is probably why they lead the pvp charts  :grin:

Edit: does anyone have good ways to set up Shoulder Slam? Is it only used after Electro Dart (60s CD!)? I was using Mako's channeled jolt to set it up then I got tired of dicking around with it and it moved to the periphery and hasn't been used since. Waste of an ability imo.

Switching crafts will not really help you much, since currently the top crafted mods are level 49 and you can get better ones via dailies etc. right now. Making any long-term decisions on what craft you stick with based on what is *currently* available is probably not wise since they will change extensively I'm sure.

Other then universal damage reductions, the only other way that I know of to get internal/elemental resistance is the consular/inquisitor buff.


There are 3 different shield/absorb enhancements according to Torhead, Vigilant favors shield rating over absorb in the stat allotment. I haven't seen any armor mods or armor platings that have shield rating, but I have seen them with absorb, so that's why I suggest Vigilant.


As to rail shot, there is that talent that lets is bypass like 60% armor. Does that makes it better then a strict elemental/internal attack? No idea, come back to me when we have a proper combat log.  :why_so_serious:



-fake edit-

Yea, Ing is right, don't go switching all willy nily right now.


-real edit-

Had to look up shoulder slam (trooper version is called Blitz). At 45+ you'll get a pbae stun on a 45 second reuse as a powertech, that lines up perfectly with should slam. You can also use it on trash mobs you drop a stick grenade on. The deal with Shoulder Slam, is it's free. It's basically another 'regen' ability disguised as an attack. Useful for burning down silvers faster, or for instantly detonating a stick grenade by exploding the trash mob.

The fact it doesn't work on bosses or in pvp is what makes it shitty.

Not 75%, unless they're basically saying "you should probably not do kin/energy damage.. ever"

It really just seems like a bugged tooltip.

Yeah, that's the thing. Same reason I don't talent down the CD on Electro Dart, despite it being an ability I'd otherwise love. It is nice for champs when Quell is on CD, though.

I like it a lot and try to use it fairly often becuase it's very high-damage but requires you to be on your toes.  /any/ incap lets you proc it when it's up. 

* Electro-dart is your easiest way of self-proccing but I found that elites are immune to the incap effect.   
* As you say Mako's shock lets you do it as well.
* The stun from unload also lets you do it, but it's kind of a waste on the mobs it stuns unless you're in deep shit and need that guy dead NOW.
* Any knock-down will also let you proc it.  Missile Blast, Expolsive dart, jedi knock-backs, etc. 


When you look at actual tanking with mobs up, yeah it's a waste.  So many of the instance mobs are strong or higher, meaning I've found most to be immune to the small stuns.    I think the best bet will be to use it as a CC-breaker for an initial high-aggro high-damage hit.

Can you get a full orange set of the black talon armor? or at least close enough that it matches the chest?

I really wish I would've known that I'd be forced to use specific companions at certain points in the story. Also I wish they would equip my companions better. Thankfully I'm in a gigantic guild and was able to score implants/earpieces/weapons for my new companion for free, but now I'm trying to grind out electrum to replace the shittastic armor they come with.

I just basically accepted that I was going to solo that mission with a slight damage add  :why_so_serious:

End of the JK storyline is probably the worst offender (that I've heard of) in that regard, and I believe they made it easier this patch (or will in the next.)

According to my guildmates the end of the JK storyline is actually nearly impossible. Or maybe "was" if they fixed it.

So I've been fooling around with Elara, trying to squeeze as much DPS as I can out of her without sacrificing healing too much, mostly for solo daily quests and the like.


I've kitted her out with crit/surge/power gear, on the theory that she doesn't really use any cast times and accuracy isn't helping her healing any.


I put her in DPS stance and turn off her one cast time heal and her channeled CC. This leaves her with nothing but instants, both healing and DPS wise. The DPS stance also means her DoT will have 100% up time, as it lowers the CD of the DoT attack to line up with the duration of the DoT. Between that and the increase of time she spends attacking in general, since she isn't wasting any time casting her heal the second I take damage, I would wadger her DPS is increased by at least 50%.

Roughly 90% of the time her instant heals in DPS stance are more then enough to keep me at near full health, the other 10% I can just pop a medpack. With the added bonus of being able to turn her casted heal and medic stance back on with a couple of clicks.

Not that anyone wants it, but I'll contribute my opinion in a few days.

It was extremely difficult. I could see how I could eventually get it if I did everything *just right* but I elected to just bring someone to help instead. They've said they are fixing it, it might have already been done in 1.1.

So my love of all things Trooper related continues, and I've been fooling around on a lowbie Commando. Like really lowbie, level 17 now  :why_so_serious: .

So looking to the future, I was thinking of this spec : http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800bczzZMIkrRrdokczZb.1 but I have one point left and I can't decide if it's better to max out First Responder to ensure that extra haste proc, or if I should max out steady hands, to prevent healing pushback.


I can make cases for both in theory, but I don't know what a top end gunnery commandos crit rate is like, or how often I'll be healing while being attacked in practice.

From a PvE perspective you should be fine with just one point in First Responder, but I don't know how much of a drop in Crit you'd run into in PvP gear. 

Yea exactly.


I guess I can just count up the crit on the PvP suit and see.

This one is interesting.  :awesome_for_real: