You're losing out on Emergency Scan, which is a big deal. In addition, full points in Superheated Rail and Prototype Particle Accelerator are mandatory for any kind of heat management in a Pyro DPS plan. Finally, you're missing the top half of the Pyro tree, which is where most of the damage actually is. I'd pass.

Armor mitigates kinetic and energy damage. Tracer Missile is kinetic, which means it IS mitigated by armor, although Heat Signatures obviously make your fifth Tracer Missile much more powerful than your first. In addition, Power Shot is a weapon attack, which means it derives its bonus from your weapons rather than (or at least much more than) your Tech Power (parenthetical remark because it's not completely clear how weapon attacks derive their bonuses yet). Tracer Missile is solely enhanced by Tech Power. Lastly, Tracer Missile cannot apply Combustible Gas Cylinder while Power Shot can. Damage output in a practical sense is going to depend heavily on rotation and spec. If you went mostly Pyro but went high enough in Arsenal to grab Tracer Missile, I'd call you a fool, since it has very little synergy with the rest of Pyro's abilities, most of which don't really care too much about armor (as they're elemental). However, five stacks of -armor on an enemy means that Heatseeker lands for a staggering +25% damage, with -20% armor on the target. Heavily specced Arsenal Mercs are absolutely right to use Tracer Missile; grabbing Tracer Missile as a minor spec is probably quite ill-advised compared to using Power Shot.

Until they allow modding of the UI, you'll be more useful if you don't have to rely on mouse-overs in PvP. For both Pyro and Bodyguard, I really need a heads-up display for debuffs on my target, large and visible.

For PvP Expertise is essential. Stack it. Beyond that, Pyro needs Accuracy. The spec relies on applying our DoT and landing Rail Shots. I believe that getting to 100% Accuracy or above will greatly improve the reliability and damage of the spec. With our base accuracy, the chance of applying our DoT drops significantly since there's a 7% chance each shot will miss. I'm 90% sure that the eventual min-max theorycrafting will bear out the notion that some amount of Accuracy is the first priority for PvP Pyros. After that's hit diminishing returns I'd have to do the math on Power/Crit/Surge. I'm currently leaning towards Power with no talent bonus to crits, but there's a lot of math to be done.

Unload has a 15% higher proc rate, so that's nice. Our DPS rotation also has a higher damage output on paper. Power Shot and Unload do quite a bit more damage than Flame Burst and Falcon Punch. Accuracy and Crit are no joke, either, especially since ticks of our DoTs can crit. The Flame Burst DoT application I will admit is very nice-- our Rapid Shots only have a 35% chance to apply the DoT. The bigger point, and the reason that I'm not disappointed with Pyro at all, is that Powertechs have to be in melee to be effective and we don't. That's immensely relevant in PvP, and the snare combined with our range makes us unbelievably difficult to escape. There's obviously no way to do a controlled comparison of the two classes right now, but I'd bet they're fairly competitive.

Respecced Pyro from Bodyguard last night, topped the damage meters (even though I'm not 50), and wanted to give some impressions. The rotation is more complex than Arsenal, but less complex than good Bodyguard healing. The UI, in this case, is a textbook example of why we need mods: the entire build is reliant on proccing free Rail Shots, which is a tiny buff on your bar. In addition, optimal Rail Shots hit a target affected by Combustible Gas Cylinder, so there's a lot of time spent looking at buff bars and ensuring YOU have the free Rail Shot while your opponent has the DoT from CGS. A HUD mod would make Pyro a lot more fun to play. In my experience what Pyro does well is pressure. Flinging Incendiary Missiles all over the place racks up damage and fragments the healers' ability to deal with your target. In 1v1s against healers, Pyros are at an enormous disadvantage (Mercs and Ops can cleanse your debuff; Sorcs can shield, which makes the high elemental damage of the build irrelevant); however, in larger-scale fights Pyros are a huge asset capable of making a fair fight utterly unfair. The biggest problem with the spec is the overreliance on the Power Shot and Unload procs. If you get three free Rail Shots in a row, you're going to kill whatever you're shooting at AND your heat is going to remain completely under control. If you Unload and then Power Shot three times and get no procs, your DPS is low and your heat spikes. It makes fights unpredictable and swingy, which is problematic. Standard Rotation is: Incendiary Missile -> Rail Shot -> Unload -> Power Shot (repeat till heat is high or Incendiary Missile completes). If Unload or Power Shot procs a free Rail Shot, ensure that your CSG DoT is on the target by using Rapid Shots until it is, then use the free Rail Shot. Rail Shot is a significant portion of DPS, and combined with CSG, a powerful heat-management tool.

Did Paladins have an equivalent of Kolto Missile? I never played, so I can't really talk too much about it, but there's basically two situations of importance: Standard Rotation: Healing Scan -> Rapid Scan -> Rapid Shots until larger heal is needed -> go to beginning AoE Rotation (must have charged CSC): Supercharged Gas -> Kolto Missile -> Healing Scan on each target -> Vent Heat (as needed) -> Rapid Shots and Rapid Scan to recharge CSC -> go to beginning as needed Fully talented, the AoE rotation results in a 10% damage shield on all targets, a HoT on all targets, +10% armor on all targets, and +5% healing received on all targets. Our heals in an AoE situation are very dependent on that extra mitigation. A few other notes: the cost-reducing buff from Healing Scan for Rapid Scan applies to you, not the target, so you can Healing Scan one player and Rapid Scan another and still get the bonus. Also, Kolto Shell is free and instant cast. It's WORTH MOVING IT if a non-tank draws aggro. Kolto Shell DOES crit and CAN benefit from heal bonuses on the target.

Supercharged Gas -> Kolto Missile -> Healing Scan, while the tank has Kolto Shell on... tank takes no damage.

Yes, it does, as well as the cast time of abilities. It does not reduce the global cooldown, though, unless it reduces the cast time of an ability below 1.5 seconds.

If you've got a talent point in it, you can very cheaply cleanse some really great stuff off of your tank in PvE. A lot of the DoTs and armor reduction stacking debuffs come right off, even if stacked up to 5. Keeping those armor debuffs off your tank makes it much easier and more efficient to keep them up. In PvP, there's a few classes that apply some nasty debuffs. You'll learn over time what can be cleansed, but keep in mind that the general rule is that if it's applied by a Trooper/BH or Smuggler/IA, it can *probably* be cleansed. Don't bother using it if your heal target is fighting a Jedi/Sith, but you can almost spam it if they're fighting a tech player.

My gut is that, given the +15% crit damage from Warden, we're intended to want crit and surge over power, but with wholly undocumented diminishing returns (and unsettlingly inconsistent crit multipliers across our heals, from the few datapoints I've seen), it's a pretty open question. What's bizarre is that Alacrity is really much more necessary in PvP than PvE, and yet it's on gear with Power, which is a more reliable PvE stat. I'm very confused by our itemization, to be honest.

I guess it's largely a moot point; I consider both bottom-tier talents in comparison to some of the real requirements (Healing Scan improvements, Cleanse improvement, etc), it's just that both are better than the trashy Shield buffs.

Brackets haven't been a dealbreaker in any successful MMO ever; imbalance in instanced PvP has been. It's a really stupid argument-- the simple counterargument is that if you want to play with friends, level with them. Everyone else shouldn't suffer broken PvP because Joey and Timmy can't match levels. I've offered a number of solutions to help shore up a single-bracket system (which I am opposed to, by the way). The simple, brutal fact is that if PvP remains as it is in this game, it's going nowhere. PvE may be great, but Warzones are fundamentally broken. If they can't resolve that-- via brackets or fixes similar to the ones I suggested (not mine perhaps, but SOMETHING) then no one's going to play PvP.

Personally, I don't see how "I can play with my friends" outweighs the ability to create a fair warzone, but whatever. If the community really doesn't want even minimal bracketing, I'd suggest that some steps do need to be taken instead: 1. Make the warzone queue require level 20. At present, the game directs new players to the warzone well before they get the tools they absolutely need; at the very least, delay the quest. Having a level 11 in PvP isn't fun for anyone-- even with Bolster, they don't have the skills they need, and Bolster isn't making them truly competitive with the increasingly large number of geared 50s. 2. Put expertise on a level 25 gear set. If someone truly wants to be competitive while leveling in PvP, give them the tools. Without Expertise on lower-level gear, matchups are going to get increasingly skewed and even further dependent on the average level and class composition of the teams, rather than the skill of the players. 3. Incentivize healing and objective play. Healers get screwed in Warzones, despite healing being an excellent role for lower-level players. Fixing "Protection" so that it counts damage shields, adding a "Cleanse" medal for curing debuffs, and granting kills when a heal target gets a kill (within reason) would all help solve the healing problem. The objective problem would be fixed just by increasing the value of objective play. Both of these things would make lower-level PvP more viable. What isn't an option is not making changes like this or splitting the brackets. Warzones shouldn't be a no-go zone for lower-level players, and we're heading down the rails for that right now. The proportion of well-geared max level players is going to inexorably increase, and as it does it will be less and less viable in the current system for anyone sub-50 to PvP. That's bad, even if you're 50 already.

To the OP: I find Improved Heat Vents to be totally unnecessary; combined with Supercharged Gas, it's effectively a complete heat wipe without talenting into it. Most of the healers I've seen complaining about heat are remarkably inefficient and fail to make use of some of our basic tools-- Supercharged Gas -> Kolto Missile is an astonishingly efficient heal for 4-mans, both to prevent damage to the tank and to top off other players who have accidentally drawn aggro. I'd swap to the damage reduction in CSC. It's much more valuable in typical PvE, helps a ton in instances when you have to spike heal and draw aggro, and it's invaluable in PvP. Ideally we shouldn't need it in PvE, but the reality is that threat is screwy and it's simply more valuable to bring survivability than a slightly-improved panic button that we shouldn't be using in anything but boss fights.

DPS Merc is great in PvP (although it's reliant on Tracer Missile spam). Heal Merc is a joke.

Agreed. LOS is less of a concern in the other two options and Sprint and Charge are less game-changing.

The crux of the argument seems to be people's concern with the magnitude of healing, and I don't think that's it at all. First, the raid frame update issue still happens and it makes it literally impossible to heal effectively. This is a massive concern for healers! Without getting into balance arguments (I'll do that later), I think we can agree that a broken UI is a problem. It makes it more difficult (in a bad way) and less fun. Then there's other issues. Healers are not well rewarded in PvP in terms of medals. I can do massive healing in the game, on an objective player, and still get less medals and points than the gentleman who's done nothing but farm kills away from the objective. That's bad incentive design, and again, that's not something that's really worth arguing. The incentive scheme for Warzone rewards is a bigger issue across all classes and roles, but I suspect it will be tweaked. Then there's stuns. I don't want or expect to beat melee DPS by self-healing. I want to make that clear. I do find the number of stuns and interrupts to be quite high; high enough that the amount my heals are worth is less relevant than the number of times I'm stunned or interrupted. Combined with snares that make kiting a melee attacker difficult, I'm beginning to be baffled as to the role of ranged healers! If a melee player gets on you, there's very few ways to disengage or survive without significant help-- and most meleers have charge, grapple, or stealth! This is of least concern to me; I think it's an issue, but it's BY FAR the most likely to be sub-optimal play on my part. The last concern I have is balance between healers. Even non-heal-specced Sorc/Sages have EXTREMELY powerful abilities (Static Barrier is the best skill in PvP, imo, especially combined with Sprint) and can sprint. Ops and Mercs get comparatively little, especially in Huttball. This one is of significant concern, as Huttball victory seems largely governed by whoever has the greater of (Number of Chargers + Number of Sorc/Sages)/Number of Players Below 50. As I say, I couldn't care less about heal magnitude. I'd like to be more relevant in objective fights and have a chance to at least disengage from melee. I'd also like to see incentives adjusted to make brain-dead non-objective DPS less appealing than objective-focused play.

Sorc is quite possibly the best class in Huttball, which is the most common PvP for Empire. Sprint and shield is absolutely insane.

Stacking all depends on your crit rate and level. Given that we have one "extra bonus" from critting (and it procs from rapid shots all the time), the only real advantage of crits are that they increase your average healing done. Total average heal = (Base Heal + Power) + (Crit Rate * (Crit Bonus Modifier * (Base Heal + Power))) Since we don't have any nagging reason to crit, our goal is to maximize healing done. That means that when choosing between stats you have to consider all three in the context of the rest of your stats.

Kolto Missile combined with Gas Discharge is awesome, and in everything but Huttball it's great. In Huttball healing seems a lot less relevant because classes with Sprint and Charge just dominate all day.

The simple answer why I hate Huttball? Charge and Sprint. It's really super awesome playing a class that is incapable of being competitive in that form of PvP. I can do 1.5 times the healing of the second place player, but because I can't shield myself and sprint or hop up to a higher platform by abusing charge, I can't make a really solid difference in the objective. I haven't played every class yet, so I can't really speak to balance, but I know what would make it more fun for me: 1. Disable charge if actively taking damage, or remove the ability to charge from the bottom floor to the top. I don't know if charge is unfair, but it's certainly annoying. 2. Do something about the Sprint-Shield combo sorcs get. I DO know that this combo is unfair. Perhaps making Sprint remove any mitigation shields? That would make it a real cost.

I honestly think, as a healer who's done this and never wiped but it's been close every time, that the issue isn't that they cannot be CC'd, it's that the Consular ignores threat and LOS is ridiculous in that fight. "Difficult" is excellent; I like a hard fight and this certainly meets that description. But when the whole fight is contingent on how unlucky you are with knockbacks and how many times your healer eats a consular's grip, it's not strategy or tactics anymore-- it's bad design. The threat issue is symptomatic of a larger issue in the dungeon (and perhaps the game), the problem of threat-ignoring mobs. All three bosses in Mandalorian Raiders have adds that do not respond predictably to threat, so all too often the healer is stuck heal-tanking an add while his tank and DPS wail upon it in an attempt to drag it off, to no avail. I'd love to see a clearer explanation of how the dogs on the first boss, the Consular on the second, and the turrets on the third acquire their targets. If the Consular could be appropriately tanked, the second fight would remain challenging but fair. The second problem is LOS in the second fight. The knockbacks are fine, but that area could be cleared up slightly so that players are less likely to be knocked into a black hole for LOS. I like a mobile fight but if I can't land three heals in succession because my tank is in a corner that I can't possibly see, it's frustrating. Combined with a stunner that hops around like an ADHD second-grader, it's a fight that can easily go from "wow, this is a fun, hard fight" to "the game just absolutely screwed us out of beating this fight." The only solution I've seen to improve consistency is to have a dramatically overleveled tank that can tolerate losing heals for 15+ seconds. (The final boss also has some LOS issues; if you're unlucky enough to get the aggro of multiple turrets without being the MT, the turrets will shoot through stuff to get you, even when that stuff breaks LOS for heals). To be honest, I've healed the instance underleveled every time I've done it, and it's never been an issue of magnitude of heals on that fight-- it's always a question of how badly we get hosed by those two factors. I'd love it if Bioware would consider tuning the fight not by adding the ability to CC one or two guys (which would trivialize it, IMO), but rather by making it less random. It's a fantastic fight-- one of the best and hardest I've done in a dungeon, especially this low-level-- but that can all go away if your healer can't really participate.

It's more complicated than that. Stacking your primary stat is the most important, by far. It gives you nearly everything you need. However, primary stats for other classes can have inefficient-but-meaningful yields for what you're trying to do. For example, a min-maxed DPS merc with a +100 Aim, +25 Cunning item will have higher DPS than a min-maxed DPS merc with +100 Aim, +25 Endurance item. You'll never want to take any other primary over your class' main stat, but over Endurance, Presence, or a derived stat? Possibly. However, I think itemization renders this assessment largely irrelevant. Most gear is laser-targeted at a class and thus does not mix primary stats. Instead, I think you'll see role specialization from derived stats-- Tech Power will be more important than Accuracy for Bodyguard mercs, but the opposite will be true for DPS mercs.

I would point out to you that going for a healer spec is most efficient when grouped. If you're looking to level in flashpoints and heroics, healing is the fastest way to get those groups and ensure that your team survives. If you're looking to solo, note that you have a healing companion from the get-go and consider DPS. Mako can keep you up when you solo, so if you're looking to level solo DPS is usually faster. Bodyguards are absolutely capable of leveling solo, but the chief allure is that they're excellent in group content, not that they're faster soloing (they're not).