First and foremost: This is (or at the very least is meant to be) a civil discussion on the depths of how Assault works. Please respect other peoples opinions and back yours up with as much data as you conveniently can. Let's try to keep this nice and constructive for the greater good of End-Game Vanguard(and our Powertech bretheren)-kind. Background: I've been playing a Vanguard since pre-release, alternating between Tank and DPS through all 8 man Operations and have been succesfully DPSing 16 man HM EC for little over 3 weeks now. I've always kept up to date on specs and rotation to the best of my abilities, but now that I've landed a cozy DPS spot in a guild that is labeled as hardcore progression PvE guild, I've shifted my undivided attention towards learning the inside and outs of the Assault spec(s) and exactly how they work. This post is solely designed to be the basis for healthy discussions and to share what I've learned so far. It can be taken as a guide but it should be taken as a glorified opinion/wall of text with pretty colors. Lol. The Rotation The wheel isn't being reinvented here. The normal priority system that a good majority of Assault players are used to stands strong and firm. However, maximizing your DPS takes it above and beyond a simple priority list. This is largely due to the importance of Ionic Accelerator procs, since getting one of those means using your hardest hitting ability while regaining 1 ammo. For the sake of simplicity let's assume a 8/5/28 build (Non-AP from now on). The priority list that a good majority of Assault players use should look something like this: 1)HiB 2)Hammer Shot at or close to 9 ammo 3)Incendiary Round dot 4)Stock strike 5)Ion Pulse Obviously this isn't anywhere near optimal but it gets the job done. The significance of IA procs means that we want to maximize our chance of proccing IA which means that we have to keep track of the 6 second internal cooldown it has. This can easly be achieved by counting globals, which leads me to the first addition to our priority list: The 4 GCDs Rule To best explain it here is an example: Ion Pulse (Procs IA) --- HiB (free) --- ability --- ability --- Stockstrike (Procs IA) --- Global 1 ---------------- Global 2 ---- Global 3 -- Global 4 ---- Global 5 -------------- Ok maybe I lied, there's 5 Globals in total but only 4 that you care about and when it comes down to it, only 3 of them matter as one is occupied by HiB (free) So how does this affect anything? Well, first of all, Global 5 (from now on G4; remember we don't care about the first one in our example, i.e Ion Pulse (Procs IA)) is reserved for something that can proc HiB. The issue this brings is that we need to have enough ammo ready for G4. So the first things the 4GCDs rule changes is how we manage our ammo. What this entails is that within the 3GCDs we need to make sure we Hammer Shot enough times to have enough ammo to use an attack which may proc IA in G4. Usually 1 HS is enough but in certain circumstances both spare GCDs have to be used for HS. So an example would be IA proc --- HiB(free) --- Ion Pulse --- Hammer Shot --- Stockstrike (IA proc) --- don't care -- 1 -------------- 2------------------- 3 ---------------------- 4 -------------- To sum up, the 4 GCDs rule is that 3 globals after IA was procced you need to use an ability that can proc it again on the 4th global and thus Hammer Shot will not always be used at or below 9 ammo. It also goes without saying that using Stockstrike is reserved for G4 and never anywhere else. So the 4 GCDs rule takes its first victim which is the priority list. However it doesn't stop there; what happens within the 4GCDs rule stays in the 4GCDs What I mean by that is that Ion Pulse and Stockstrike are NOT the most efficient ammo spenders. The only reason why they are used is to proc IA and thus the only time when they are effectively "spammed" (which is a relative term due to ammo issues) is when you're trying to proc IA. Which leads me back to the sentence in the center above; using Pulse Cannon and Mortar Volley within the 4GCDs rule is more efficient dps ammo wise. The only time we can use 2xIon Pulse (which is more dps then Pulse Cannon but less then MV) is when we enter the 4 GCD with full ammo This is where I'm going into personal experience and eyeballing the tooltips. Mortar Volley does more damage over the same period of time that would be used for 2 Ion Pulses (this includes Plasma Cell damage). Furthermore, it deals more damage over the same period of time for 1 less ammo. Pulse Cannon deals close to the same damage as 2 x IP however due to Plasma Cell crit multiplier, 2xIP comes out ahead however only IF ammo allows you. And thus the abilities used within the 4GCDs rule would look like: IA proc --- HiB(free) --- Mortar Volley/Plasma Cannon --- Ion Pulse/Stockstrike --- don't care --1 ----- 2 and 3 ---------------------------------------- 4------------------ Again I double back to the yellow text above; The fact that Pulse Cannon and Mortar Volley are ammo better spent then 2 x Ion Pulse (I don't mention Stockstrike because it's reserved for proccing IA) does not mean that they are used off cooldown. They are only used within the 4GCDs, or rather within the cooldown period of IA. Outside the 4GCDs rule, Ion Pulse and Stockstrike should always be prioritized over anything (except Incendiary Round DoT) in order to proc IA. HOWEVER as I've stated before, they are only to be used when ammo allows it, which leads to Assault is RNG based and as such a rigid priority list is suboptimal Ok so not having enough ammo to use Mortar Volley/Plasma Cannon during the 4GCDs doesn't directly imply that but it contributes towards it in a significant way. What I mean to say is that so far I've given two examples of a perfectly fine 4GCD rotation: 1) IA proc --- HiB(free) --- Ion Pulse --- Hammer Shot --- Stockstrike (IA proc) --- and 2) IA proc --- HiB(free) --- Mortar Volley/Plasma Cannon --- Ion Pulse/Stockstrike --- The obvious difference between them is that ex.1) uses 2 ammo cells while ex.2) uses 3 ammo cells by the time you reach G4 (not counting the first global i.e. the one that gets you the proc). So what I'm saying is that even if ex.2) gives more damage then ex.1), depending on your ammo, ex.1) is better in the long run. The comparison above is there to show how much we really depend on that damned proc. If your luck is down and you haven't managed to proc IA for a while, not only have you been forced to use Hammer Shot for an ungodly amount of times but since you need to hover at 8-9 ammo anyway, the moment you get a IA proc you'll enter the 4GCD period on low ammo (low meaning 8 or 9), which is to say, not enough ammo to use a more powerful rotation (ex.2)), which in turn means more time pressing your favorite ability, Hammer Shot. At any rate, this means that our "rotation" (can't call it that way since the word itself implies some sort of repeatability) comes down to our ammo level and how high/low it is when entering the 4GCD period What happens when you enter that period with a low ammo level was pretty much covered above in the comparison between the two examples. However there actually is such a thing as having too much ammo and it impacts the 4GCD rotation in a number of ways. First, HiB procs refund ammo. I know right . This implies that there can be a scenario where if you use a HiB and you're at 11 ammo, you're going to end up at 12 ammo and most likely you will regen 1 extra ammo duing the Global Cooldown period which will end up nowhere. So there is something to be said about delaying the use of HiB(free)s so that you won't "clip" ammo. However it should still be, obviously, used within the 4GCDs because nobody likes wasting procs. Nobody. So assuming you enter the 4GCD period on high ammo, the rotation would look like IA proc --- Mortar Volley/Plasma Cannon --- HiB (free) --- Stockstrike/Ion Pulse OR IA proc --- Ion Pulse --- Ion Pulse --- HiB(free) --- Stockstrike/Ion Pulse Delaying HiB like that has no impact on your overall DPS (unless you haven't prayed to the gods of RNG and you don't get a reset by the time the ability comes off cooldown, which rarely happens). So you haven't "clipped" any ammo while still doing the same overall DPS by just switching things around a little bit. So now there's 4 examples of things you can do within the 4GCD period. I think it's time for my conclusion and hopefully the end of this post. Our "rotation" is shaped by our luck with IA procs. High luck means being able to use your hardest hitting ability more often while maintaining an ammo level which allows you to use more powerful attacks while waiting for IA proc to cool down, while low luck means smashing the same key (hammer shot) for an unhealthy amount of times. As such an optimal rotation would look like this: While within the 4GCD period (after an IA proc) --- If high ammo when entering it (>=11 ammo) ------1)IF INCENDIARY ROUND IS ABOUT TO COME OFF; IR + Hammer Shot + go to 5) ------2)Mortar Volley ------2')ONLY IF FULL ASSAULT; if 2 is on cooldown, Assault Plastique + Ion Pulse + go to 5) ------3)if 2 is on cooldown, Ion Pulse x 2 ------4)HiB(free) ------5)Stockstrike to proc another IA ------6)If 6 5 on cooldown, Ion Pulse to proc another IA ---If low ammo when entering it (9-10 ammo) ------1)HiB(free) ------2)IF INCENDIARY ROUND IS ABOUT TO COME OFF; Hammer Shot + IR + Hammer Shot + go to 6) ------3)Mortar Volley ------3')ONLY IF FULL ASSAULT; if 2 is on cooldown, Assault Plastique + Hammer Shot + go to 6) ------4)If 3 is on CD, Pulse Cannon ------5)If 3 and 4 are on CD, Ion Pulse + Hammer Shot ------6)Stockstrike to proc another IA ------7)If 6 is on cooldown, Ion Pulse to proc another IA ---if really low ammo when entering it (8 ammo) ------1)HiB(free) ------2)Hammer Shot ------3)Guess what ------4)IF INCENDIARY ROUND IS ABOUT TO COME OFF; Incendiary Round + Hammer Shot + Hammer Shot ------5)Stockstrike to proc another IA ------6)If 5 is on cooldown, Ion Pulse to proc another IA Outside the 4GCDs ------1)Hammer Shot as often as needed to maintain above 8 ammo but below 10 ------2)IF INCENDIARY ROUND IS ABOUT TO COME OFF; Hammer Shot as many times as you need to get to 10-11 ammo + IR + go to 1 ------3)Stockstrike ------4)If 3 is on cooldown, Ion Pulse Worth mentioning are burn phases, i.e.: Adrenal and/or Battle Focus/Explosive Fuel where you can replace any Hammer Shots with Ion Pulses on account of having Recharge Cells ready for use once your offensive CDS wear off. Mind you this is single target. If there's 2 or more targets up then liberally throw in Mortar Volley > Plasma Cannon > Sticky Grenade > other stuff while keeping ammo above 8 So yeah it's definately a bit more to it then the example at the start and it is still a priority list and can be "memorized" as such but it really is a rotation based on adapting to IA procs and common sense. The more you'll practice the less complicated it will seem. Edit: 27/08/12 Edited to correct Pulse Cannon > 2 x Ion Pulse (it's the other way around) and cleaned up a bit.

Shameless bump

Can you link some of that math please?

http://www.jedilace.com/2012/02/03/calculating-critical-hit-chance/ Not sure if anything has changed in the meantime but as far as I know, crit DR has been the same since launch till now.

Thoughts? Opinions? Any hard data out there that says "yes get crit this high up then stack power"? Been looking at the DR curve of Crit and it's not bad at all unless you hit fairly high values like 500+ so I can't exactly eyeball a point at which I can say "ok, enough crit is enough".

Why 98% accuracy for RS? Isn't 100% required for no miss or after 98% you get more dps by stacking something else?

By the end of the post he says that he's come to terms with the fact that damage done at the end of a ranked warzone means jack ****. Just saying, read the whole thing

An inspiring story of how a player learned that damage at the end of a game means close to nothing, this is rare and downright unheard of I do agree that AP/Tactics (I'm a Vanguard) has a more "tactical" side to it as opposed to Pyro/AS, however in RWZ i picture PT/VG as the class you bring to anihilate targets. There are other ACs that have much greater mobility and are better suited even then AP at the whole "get there fast and be a pain in the ***" thing, while Pyro is way up there when it comes to burst and killing stuff fast. Because yes, situationally, sometimes it is better to not kill your oponents, but most of the times nuking that healer down fast is more important. What I'm trying to say is that yes AP has more utlity then Pyro and all in all is more of a pain in the ***, however there are ACs that do it better then AP and have other advantages so might as well stick to what Pyro does best which is make people disappear. Just my opinion tho. I've only played Pyro and only occasionally messed around with AP so yeah, this is all just thinking out loud

It's a debate that can't be solved atm due to lack of theorycrafting. There's pros and cons to both builds and due to the heavy RNG factor of Assault it's very damned difficult to eye ball which is better. I ran as many parses as I had time and with full assault, 5 parses, got pretty steady 1.5k dps while with just 1 parse in 8/5/28 i got 1.62k. HOWEVER: the one parse I did in non-AP build had a grotesque luck in HiB procs which more then made up for the dps difference (non-AP lasted 4 mins and HiB did a total of 105k dmg while the last AP test lasted 5 mins and HiB did a total of 92k). I didn't have time to run more parses but... RNG man, like I said, it is very difficult to eye ball what spec is better. Imo it comes down to: AP BUILD - AP, which is the strongest ability we have bar HiB. If used within the cooldown period of Ionic Accelerator it will not interfere with HiB procs and it WILL do more damage then Ion Pulse/Stockstrike. My AP tooltip says it deals 2.4-2.6k damage, -30% (boss armor, roughly) that means about 1.8k-2k, with a 2x Crit multiplier, that's the most damage per global we can do apart from HiB. Most of my AP parses had AP do roughly 30k damage or roughly 7-8% of my total damage done. -Also of note is the fact that AP is 30m range, a godsend in certain fights in EC where some movement is required -Adrenaline Fueled (reduces cd of Reverse Power Cell by 6 / crit every 1.5 sec); it looks like a meh talent to say the least but what I found it to do is allow me to use every second Incendiary Round for free which saves up a lot of globals spent on hammershotting in the non-AP build VS NON-AP BUILD -3% Aim boost, always good to have -6% Elemental crit boost, the bulk of our damage Been trying to find some more theorycrafting sites but I've had no luck so far wish i was smarter lol

sigh 7/3/31 if you're geared, 4/6/31 if you're a fresh level 50, either way, full assault is best assault for PvE, simply because AP is the strongest filler WHILE IONIC ACCELERATOR IS ON COOLDOWN, i.e.: you only use AP within a 2 global cooldown period after your free HiB has been procced (tehnically it's 3 globals, but the 3rd is used on an attack that can proc HiB again).

Servers up, time to resub people

Well for the sake of healthy discussion let's compare two mods: Advanced Weighted Mod 26 vs Advanced Weighted Mod 26B +53 Aim _ +41 Aim +32 End _ +53 End +41 Abs _ +32 Abs With 8 Mod slots (Armor, Belt, Bracers and Main Hand) we're talking about: +72 Abs vs +168 End That 72 Abs Rating means, depending on DR, what, 2-3%? So the question is would you prefer to mitigate another 100 dmg when you shield (which is quite often) which stacks up to god knows how much at the end of the fight or would you rather have the extra 1.7k hp at the start of the fight which does nothing for how hard the boss hits you. Wish I knew good math as I'm sure somehow there's a way to prove which is better D:

Imo it should never be the case of choosing more Endurance over a Defensive Stat no matter how harsh DR gets, I mean, HP doesn't mitigate anything (for us anyway), it's just... HP. Even if you go for Def Stats> End you'll still end up at 23k HP (with +5% End buff and +3% from Cardio Package), 24.something k Hp with stim, more then enough really. And yeah since threat is a non-issue (even now, let alone 1.3) I guess 31/7/3 makes more sense then the old 31/8/2

Thanks for the time you put into this.

The Pyro PT you dueled was kinda clueless lol and undergeared? (could be mistaken but I think I saw a 3.3k rail shot crit which is really really really low considering he had popped his relic/adrenal). Not sure how much of this video is skill and how much is the +561 bonus melee dmg you have (aka gear). But the music was really nice, rare to see a pvp vid with good music so at least there's that so all in all an entertaining random-stomper vid, enough to earn a like and a comment.

How you aproach each class: Stun, pop all cds before even firing an Incendiary Missile because why not, faceroll from left to right w/o caring for any rotation or managing ammo, click some buttons, win. sigh

Use this: http://imgur.com/a/TU0Sn Also with your current low Defense you'ld get more out of using a +Defense Relic instead of the +Shield/Absorbtion

Some very good information can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=288619 More specifically here: http://imgur.com/a/TU0Sn With Campaign/Black Hole gear your shield rating will go into the 550s (53% with spec bonuses) due to the fact that every enhancement and implants/earpieces/offhand has +Shield/Abs or +Shield/Defense. So all you're really left with is juggling between defense and absorbtion. According to that image, going for 350 defense rating (about 17.5% I think, not sure) and 450 absortbion rating (55.8%) is the way to go for BH/VG tanks once you're pretty much decked out in BH/Campaign For OP: That image will help you in seeing what stats you should go for considering your current total defensive stats (Defense+Shield+Abs rating). Your guildies make the common mistake of assuming HP is a tanking stat which it isn't as it provides no mitigation. In other words, you're fine, keep getting gear and you'll be even better.

Ah sweet, thank you!

How do Biochem/Cybertech learn to craft Black Hole Implants/Earpieces? From what I understand you can't RE the Black Hole Implants/Earpieces that are sold by vendors, so you can only learn the schematic by REing the drops from HM EC? Also can the same thing be done with Bracers/Belts for Armormechs/Synths? Sorry if this question has been answered before, I've tried searching for an answer on the forum and in other places but I've had no luck so far D:

Ok guide, good enough for vanguards who are just starting to toy with assault. You make a number of mistakes of which I'll point out: -you should always pair up IR with Reverse Power Cell. -speaking of IR, there's no point in using it on an almost dead target, that's 3 ammo used for a fairly small amount of damage. If you really need a DoT then use Ion Pulse even if it has a chance of proccing IA, if the target is low hp it shouldn't be a problem. -speaking of ammo, recharge and reload is your friend. You're gimping yourself severely by starting a fight with less then 8 ammo which you do a bunch of times. Also Recharge Cells + RPC should be kept pretty much on cooldown if you think that the fight you're currently in isn't about to end any time soon and thus should be included in your opener. I start out with RPC + IR -> AP -> Relic and Battle Focus which is a cd you'll get at lvl 50 -> HiB -> SS -> HiB (if free) -> Pulse spam -> HiB -> etc and when I drop below 5 - 6 ammo I use Recharge Cell which allows me to not waste a global on hammer shot while my cds are up On the plus side I liked the presentation and you were easy to listen to so with a little more experience with this class and some better gameplay footage you could make a very nice guide once you hit level 50

yes YES OH GOD A THOUSAND TIMES YES. It's my little farewell present and it makes every death bearable.

Like I said there's a lot of RNG involved in Assault so 10 DPS between my parses will not mean 10 DPS between your parses, although, in general, I wouldn't expect a very significant DPS gap between 10m and melee range using that spec.

Trying 4/6/31 http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801hzZMsZfIobzGhrs.1 10m 1520 melee 1530 10m parse: Burning(Tech) 101525 -- 35.31% Ion Pulse 76771 ---------- 26.7% HiB 51423 ------------------ 17.88% AP 23830 ------------------- 8.29% Hammer Shot 18250 --- 6.35% IR 8315 --------------------- 2.89% Plasma Burst 7435 ----- 2.59% melee parse: Burning(Tech) 90860 --- 31.92% HiB 57141 ----------------- 20.07% Ion Pulse 54249 --------- 19.06% SS 29745 ------------------ 10.45% AP 20516 ------------------ 7.21% Hammer Shot 17201 -- 6.04% Plasma Burst 7640 ---- 2.68% IR 7300 -------------------- 2.56% It's very hard to properly judge what spec is better due to the RNG nature of the Assault tree. I've done multiple melee parses and some pushed 1.6k others barely made 1.5k. The only reason I ran with 7/3/31 is because of the good folks over at http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/Forum-Bounty-Hunter-and-Trooper deigned it supreme (or at least to my understanding)

Running 7/3/31. From what I've gathered so far, full assault is the best way to go for PVE dps right now but I'm not sure where to put the rest of the points. Gear is 4/5 BM eliminator set with rakata mods in it save for pants which are columni, rest is full raka. Swapped enhancements for surge/crit or surge/power (screw accuracy). Also all class buffs but no stim. Rotation is the standard one with a few tweaks: AP only after an IA proc, preferably before firing the HiB to get AP on cd faster (only if ammo allows it tho) SS only when my spider senses tell me the internal cd on IA is done All of them done for ¬180 secs. I didn't pop cooldowns on the 30m one because you'll never be stuck at 30m range for 3 mins lol no point in popping cds when you're that far away 1020 - 30m 1450 - 10m 1570 - melee Can definately feel the pain of not being able to use stockstrike to proc IA/PPA. 10m parse looks like this: Burning(Tech) 85906 --- 35.44% Ion Pulse 62536 --------- 25.8% HiB 46553 ----------------- 19.2% Hammer Shot 18446 --- 7.61% AP 15032 ------------------- 6.2% Incendiary Round 7362 - 3.04% Plasma Burst 6575 ------ 2.71% While the melee parse looks like this: Burning(Tech) 88547 --- 31.83% HiB 62178 ----------------- 22.35% Ion Pulse 49726 --------- 17.88% SS 28916 ------------------ 10.39% AP 19733 ------------------ 7.09% Hammer Shot 15111 -- 5.43% Incendiary Round 7522 - 2.7% Plasma Burst 6444 ------ 2.32% Notice the increase in HiB dmg of about 16k which is about 5-6 extra procs more or less. Interestingly Stockstrike seems to be Assaults worse filler, doing about 1.1k dmg per non crit whereas Ion Pulse deals 900+ 400 from Plasma cell = 1.3k and AP just barely inching ahead with 1.35k. Ofc AP pulls ahead even more when it crits but it still takes the back seat when IA internal cd is down (these numbers are from my ships' operation training dummy, I'm guessing that on other mobs like trash Stockstrike might pull ahead of Ion Pulse and AP would be even stronger tho still not worth it when you can proc IA)