I went the Eliminator route instead. 30% crit on Rocket Punch (talents) and 15% crit on Rail Shot (set bonus) lets me focus more on Power and Surge. I was leery about the Supercommando bonuses because the 1.5 second CD reduction on Jet Charge seems pretty unnecessary and the 4 piece sounds like it only works while guard is actually active (e.g. you're within 15 meters of your guard target). This isn't always going to happen as -- on my server at least -- the new trend is to seperate Tanks and their Guard targets. That's of course also assuming my Guard target doesn't currently need peels. If my Guard target is doing well enough on its own then I'm usually Jet Charging off to priority targets while keeping an eye on health bars. So that was a bit of a rant, but I went with the Eliminator set because it seemed more consistent and Combat Tech was right out because of the broken Carbonize and the LAST thing I need is 15% more Rocket Punch crit.

You are wrong, but because you've got the cylinder wrong. In PvP you'll be running Ion so Flame Burst is only after everything else (since you aren't worried about applying its DoT). The spec doesn't really run a rotation, but a Priority system: Incendiary Missile (if the target merits having one and the DoT is not present) Rail Shot Rocket Punch Flame Burst Explosive Dart Unload Rapid Shots So, start at the top of the list and go down. The tripping point there is that Explosive Dart and Unload should only be done at ranges exceeding 10m either when Jet Charge/Grapple are on CD or when you are saving them for an upcoming interrupt (alternatively it can be used in the rare situations where the tiny bit of extra burst matters). Rapid Shots is done to avoid blowing too much Heat or to apply the Ion snare while closing (which it does fairly reliably). Not all targets will merit an Incin Missile. If they'll die before the DoT runs its course then it is a waste of Heat. You wont be refunding 8 Heat on Rail Shots, but they'll still be free. Which targets "deserve" an Incendiary Missile depends a lot on your personal gear level and the quality of targets, anymore I only use it on targets at range, decent healers, and tanks I wont be able to crack in less than 20 seconds since everything else I kill fast enough not to worry about it. Get over using Vent Heat as an "oopsie button." You're level 50 and a big boy now. Vent Heat is the spec's aggressive DPS cooldown. When somebody absolutely has to die unload everything you have following the above priority until you red line your heat, then Vent. Chances are it'll be dead before you hit more than 60 heat if your gear is respectable, but this is the mindset you have to get into with Vent Heat. Works wonders paired with Explosive Fuel. Open with EF, burn with everything you've got, close with VH. Depending on the situation you can usually go right down the priority system without faults in practical pvp situations (utilizing your teammates DoTs and control effects for your first Rail Shot), you will occasionally have to blow your first Rocket Punch to trigger your first Rail Shot however (assuming the target isn't worth the IM).

Incorrect. Tested while I was doing the testing on shielding for other matters. Without a shield you cannot shield at all (regardless of cylinder). Outside of Ion Cylinder but with a shield equipped you can still shield, just at an abysmal rate. Point is, if you're trying for DPS, use a damaging generator.

I feel a nerf for CP is in the pipeline, but it will be more of a consequence of nerfing the Pyro tree overall. I really feel we're more likely to see Pyro brought down to AP's level than the other way around, the most obvious target here is PPA because it is (aside from Wrath in Sorc Madness) one of the most powerful talents in the game. I do agree with you about the Assassin "nerfs." The biggest change has to do with their ability to stance dance so easily. Juggs lose all their rage, PTs require a 1.5s cast. So it seems like this is more about bringing Assassins stances in line with the other tanks; switching stances has more of a consequence during combat.

All I have to say is that if this build gets nerfed before the ******** Sorc Madness/Lightning hybrids get nerfed, then it is time to jump ship because the Dev team clearly has some ****ed up priorities. The Shieldtech tree needs a lot of work in general. I've been saying it since the game launched. Shield, as a mechanic to base a tree around, is very weak in this game and even weaker due to the 2 combat roll system. --Every point of defense you have devalues your shield chance. As a Shieldtech this also devalues any talents which rely on Shielding. --Every point of reduced accuracy on the attacker devalues your shielding. Which makes Oil Slick/Smoke Grenade even worse than they already are (although as a CP offtanking Oil Slick is still a really amazing cooldown as it adds more survivability to the tank in Operations). --Defense allows you to avoid applied DoT effects, while Shielding does not. This is fairly uncommon in PvP (I think it only applies to Annihilation Marauders), but in PvE several attacks which apply very nasty DoT effects can be dodged entirely which avoids a significant amount of damage. If the attack is shielded you just mitigate X% of the up front damage and then the DoT ticks for a full, unshieldable amount afterwards. --If, for whatever reason, you find yourself with an incredibly high defense chance (through reduced attacker accuracy or a load of defense for whatever reason), you are no longer able to take advantage of your Shield Vents or Flame Shield talents which significantly hampers both resource management and threat output. --Fights like Soa hamper PT/Van tanks the most as our resource management and threat output rely on shielding. Since almost all of the damage done is unavoidable, we lose out on a significant portion of our talent tree. (To be fair, we have a higher base armor due to the Rebraced Armor talent and mitigate 2-3% more damage when avoidance is taken out of the equation, but all of a Jugg's "perks" rely on "taking damage" and not mitigating it). In short: If nerfing this build is a priority over the PvP builds of other classes' or fixing some of the ******** in our trees then I will personally start a fundraiser to buy every employee at Bioware a plastic helmet. Wouldn't want the little buggers hurting themselves.

No it doesn't. Accuracy over 100% negates your target's Defense, not Armor.

It works on all Ranged and Melee attacks, so it works on a majority of Trash/Bosses.

You can get all of the "guard medals" without using guard, just some well placed taunts here and there. Using Shien Form without the proper Immortal talents is painful imo, resource generation is terrible. I'd give it a shot with Shii-Cho.

You're pretty effective at 10m. On most fights that is enough. You get used to timing and you can duck in for Rocket Punches then be back out to 10m for Flamebursts before things get dangerous.

That is what came to mind for me as well. I never understood why they gave out free Champ items and made the Cent items purchasable with badges anyway, seems like it should have been the other way around. This way just makes me look back on the 55 levels of Valor I spent before I finally got a 4 piece bonus and think that instead of 3 chap 1 cent I'd have 3 cent 1 champ by the end of it. That doesn't sound very promising at all. Oh well, I'll have another level 50 by the time this goes live to see how it works out. I look forward to having 8 Champion relics and enough commendations to buy 2 pieces of Cent gear by the time I'm ~50 Valor again. You sound like you've never played an MMO before. Or been on Xbox LIVE. Hell, have you been on the internet for longer than a week? The whole damned web specializes in bringing out the D-bag in people.

No, they are Smuggler gear because you cannot wear them at all because you're not a smuggler. Most of this stuff is flat out class restricted. Whatever isn't class restricted seems to convert to faction appropriate attire once it crosses over the neutral GTN, turning something like this from a neat wide-brimmed hat into some stupid goggles or whatever dumb looking IA gear it would convert into. Hate to burst your bubble, but I just saved you a lot of time, effort, and money on the neut GTN. Trust me; if I could be wearing neat looking Trooper armor, I would.

Unless Vent Heat is off cooldown, in that case you should be trying to red line. That's the best part about Pyro, it essentially turns Vent Heat into your most effective DPS cooldown. The PPA procs make much more effective use of aggressive heat usage than the other trees.

Or like an Insectoid Samurai that escaped from a mental institution. I was all excited when I heard they were going to change the way tier gear and oranges worked, then I remembered that none of the stuff I had leveling up looked particularly cool. Everything is either some sort of kevlar robe or some bastard recolor of the damn 40 pvp set. There are seriously like 4 different "looks" of BH armor with a dozen reskins each, then the tier gear which looks pretty lame (PvP and PvE).

My big issue with Oil Slick is that it actually goes against the rest of the Shieldtech tree. As previously mentioned, an attack needs to be successful before it can be shielded. Shieldtech relies heavily on Shielding attacks for both threat/damage output and resource management. Any attack which misses (or is dodged) cannot be shielded. The very nature of Oil Slick devalues the tree's most important tanking talents.

This is a combination of false and inaccurate. Unload: Ranged attack Rail Shot: Ranged attack Power Shot: Ranged attack Rapid Shots: Ranged attack This leaves a Pyro spec with Thermal Detonator and Incendiary Missile as the only commonly used Tech attacks. The poster you are replying to has a valid point. I'm not sure if you still get the Prototype Particle Accelerator buff if the attack is avoided due to Defense (you certainly do on a shielded attack) because I haven't done Merc Pyro yet only PT Pyro; PT's PPA triggering attacks are Tech, and it is the superior of the two BH Pyro specs imo. Point is, you're not going to have enough accuracy to remove a Jugg's 25% defense. Period. No amount of voodoo is going to get your crit high enough to push a significant shield chance off the table. You also mention Tech Elemental Damage attacks, of which a Pyro Merc has two sources: Incin Missile and the Cylinder's DoT. TD is Kinetic Damage. Unless of course you're referring to PT Pyro. Then you're right about your comment (and Rapid Shot/Rail Shot are the only common non-tech attacks), but on the wrong forum.

Since no one else mentioned it, I'll go over the combat table real quick. This game consists of two attack rolls: Accuracy vs Defense Crit vs Shield in both cases the attacker's statistic pushes the defender's off of the table. For example: Attacker with 160% accuracy vs Defender with 80% Defense -- The defender has only a 20% chance to Dodge. Attacker with 100% crit vs Defender with 60% shield -- The defender will not be able to shield at all. In both cases the Attacker and Defender's statistics are not likely to be shoving one way or another because of the diminishing returns system in place (however Auto-Crits, while uncommon, do happen in PvP and can render your shield useless for those attacks). There is no way to "push crits off the hit table," and so that is one less thing to worry about as a tank. In Hard mode FPs and Ops I have yet to encounter anything that will 2 shot a tank that had not hit its enrage timer. If it has hit its enrage timer, then your tanking stats are likely not going to save you anyway. Just ensure you've got a decent amount of HP and defensive statistics and you'll do fine.

Where are your findings Mr President? How can you expect to command anyone else to go off and do testing when you haven't provided anything of value either?

I am also in full Champ, using the Eliminator set (with less endurance than Combat Tech) and I still have 16.5k+. I don't even pvp with the 72 end relics, just the PvP ones (32 end? 35? something like that). So I don't know whats up with your gear, ui, display, etc, but I've got plenty of HP for a tanky dps in dps PvP gear.

You have no idea what this thread is even about do you? Walked right in and shot your mouth off anyway. Grats on being "that guy." If this is the case (I don't have time to go through everything right now), then you should definitely re-order things so that Heat venting occurs first, then tick damage. Heat venting occurring first thing at the top of each relevant second is more important for people to follow along and figure out whats going on.

There is no "Official Parakeet." It's just Flame Shield, Jet Charge, Shield Vents, Superheated Rail, Prototype Particle Accelerator, and Ion Overload. Whatever else you fill in to meet your own needs. Also I'm getting pretty tired of coming into these threads and telling you that these simulations/spreadsheets have the build and the basic rotation of the spec wrong. Ion Overload is a staple of the build (technically so is Neural Overload, but whatever), so the number of Ion procs is way off. Furthermore you do know that Ion Cylinder can proc off of a Rail Shot (ranged attack) right? Have you played the spec? I hate to call someone out who is trying to help the community, but you're pretty consistent in spreading disinformation and it isn't helping anyone. But on to being constructive (cause I am very interested in getting a nice simulator up and running for the community): here's a coding error of some sort. I can't see your code so I can't comb through it to figure out exactly what is wrong, but here is what is happening. at 233 you have 12 heat at 234 (not pictured but implied) you vent 5 for a total of 7 at 235 you have 32 heat from casting flamethrower (7 + 25) at 236 you have 27 heat and a flamethrower tick (32 - 5) at 237 you have 22 heat and a flamethrower tick (27 - 5) at 237 you cast Flame Burst, which is fine, you can do it directly at the end of the channel, however you're double-dipping your heat venting somehow as that Flame Burst is only costing you 11 Heat and you've already vented your 5 for that second. The total heat here should be 38. This occurs in several places where flamethrower is involved (and other inconsistencies, but I don't have time to comb them all). Such as here... and again here... but not here... I could keep going, inconsistent Heat venting is all over the place but I don't have time to be more thorough. At first I thought it was an issue with the Flame Bursts, but the Rocket Punches are doing it too, it is pretty haphazard throughout so I don't know what is happening exactly. Flamethrower is a steady culprit, but there seems to be something else going on as well. Don't know where to tell you to start looking because I don't have the code itself to look at.

There is no link to support it. Whoever started that rumor is full of ****. There is a thread here where I wasted an entire evening on the Public Test Server to disprove this. Shields/Defense are "working as intended" and there is no change in the pipeline.

Try to find a friend to come there with you. The /stuck command sometimes doesn't work, but when it is used while in combat it kills you rather than trying to unstuck. Have a friend come to your location, duel you, then /stuck. You should die and can go to the med droid.

I don't even understand why it has to be healer only. It gives the class both more mobility and more utility which is something the class could use. Juggs don't have to be tank spec for intercede and making movement oriented QOL improvements based on talents is pretty stupid in the first place. As to your argument comparing BG Mercs to Sorcs, you forgot to mention that nearly everything you compared the Merc specs into while the Sorc has it straight out of the box. 30m Interrupt 30m Stun 30m CC 30m Pull of friendly target Knockback Sprint Bubble 2 heals Direct damage and DoTs while moving Direct damage and DoTs while stationary All of that is straight out of the tin. Hands down the most complete PvP toolset any class has been given. Uninformed players complain about Mercs because any idiot can pick it up and spam Tracer. Informed players complain about Sorcs because their toolset allows them, regardless of spec, to be a very versatile and powerful presence on any battlefield. So I don't think the Merc community as a whole is out of line at all asking for a 30 second Charge to friendly which places a bubble or DR shield or even lets you take the full force of the next attack of your target. Or anything else for that matter. The class could use something that would not only improve mobility and utility but give them a higher skill ceiling and better toolkit for organized players to take advantage of. That would probably too much though. It is already easy enough to exploit terrain and I'm sure the devs don't want us charging to unintended places willy-nilly.

Immune to cc for 30 seconds out of every minute? Keep dreaming. I'm not max level with my Mara yet, but already I really wish one of the saber throws generated rage. I think the class would benefit an awful lot from an ability to generate rage at further than 4m.

Probably start making progress on NM too. OP you're fine to start hardmodes. I'd give it a go with Black Talon and Kaon first as they're generally the easiest (might skip the option boss in Kaon depending on your CC situation). Boarding party too if you've got ranged DPS.