Commando dps get no love it seems. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=438245 In this thread, Merc's came over to our forums to see if our version of their "Barrage" (ours is Curtain of Fire) is bugged, which after extensive tests, it is not. However, based on my own and many others tests, Deadly Cannon (+30% crit damage to Demo/Full Auto) is broken. It appears to properly apply the +30% to demo round, but it does nothing at all to Full Auto's crit damage. Please respond BW, and get us a fix ASAP! We need to not be bugged to stay competitive...

Tested this as Commando, there is not a problem with curtain of fire. Extensive tests on a dummy show that there is in fact no problem with curtain of fire, the damage buff is there as well as the proper chance to reset. However, Deadly Cannon (+30% crit damage to full auto/demo round) is in fact broken. It applies the +30% to Demo round properly, but Full Auto is not receiving any bonus to crit damage, it only deals bonus equal to your surge. Edit: Posted this without first reading the first page posts... Glad to see others have tested this just as I have. I will post in general and link to this thread, hopefully Dev's get us a fix ASAP.

I don't want easy access, I want access that makes sense... One mistake I did make, it looks like they fixed the Bioanalysis mission

Anyone have any oppinions on this? Make them known, make BioWare fix what is obviously a problem...

Sorry, but some of the problems with Biochem and its affiliated skills is bull, and should have been fixed a long long time ago. --**-**--Biochem: Stims / Potions at endgame level (highest trainable, were EXCLUDING the reusables, obviously) all use grade 5 mats. Do you realize how garbage this is? Slicers want to lower their income gains by going down to grade 5 slicing to get your missions so you can get the mats? NOT!!! Forget about it, your screwed. -- Easy fix: Make them use grade 6 mats. Easy as crap. Also easy fix: Make diplomacy missions have a chance to drop a schematics for level 50 stims/potions that are in between Exotech / Hyper-battle that use grade 6. Problem solved. ANOTHER easy fix: MAKE EXOTECHS DROP MORE OFTEN! Guess what? I've been raiding for four months, clearing all content EVERY WEEK. Normals and Hardmodes and Nightmares, and out of our whole guild (we raided 2 8ms, and now 16ms) we have 3 total exotech stim drops, and two of them were the same one!!!! Long story short, we're mad about this BioWare, fix it PLEASE! __*8-8*___ Bioanalysis: Red Goo. Wow BW, you really borked this one. Made Red Goo grade 6, apparently it was always intended to be??? Whatever. It still DOES NOT drop from the Grade 6 Bioanalysis missions, so fail BW. AND! It still is required in the grade 5 mat-using potions, which breaks the game completely by making us have to farm mats from grade 6 and grade 5, doubling our work (and since grade 6's are practically useless, we build up a huge stock of WORTHLESS!!!!) Thanks BW. Thanks a lot. -- How to fix it?? SIMPLE! Make red goo rewarded from Bioanalysis grade 6's. And remove it from the potions that are grade 5. Forget that, add more grade 6 to the potions/stims, remove the grade 5's. Please. ----<*^*>---- Diplomacy: No schematics from our mission skills, useless prototype mats, overused artifact mats This is frustrating more than it is broken, but hear me out. Radioactive Paste, grade 6 artifact material, is used for a lot of things, its very important. That makes it expensive. Problem? Not really by itself, the problem comes when you consider the item that you get roughly ten times of while trying to get it. Smart Cells. Grade 6 prototype grade material, useless. Oh, technically it has uses. Just not for any actual endgame goods. It crafts prototype grade implants that you learn from RE'ing premium implants. You'll make, oh, maybe 6 of these total, as Biochem, if you make a few for alts. Maybe a couple more if you make some from your friends alts too. After that, worthless. Then, Biochem doesn't give schematics like other mission skills. This is annoying. But it gives light/dark points, you say? Who cares. That makes it more annoying... at endgame levels, you want materials, so you do both kinds of missions, making you toggle off and toggle on your endgame alignment title... FRUSTRATING, if you use it, that is... -- Easy fix: Make potions/stims use grade 6 materials, so the Prototype Hyper-Battle Stims / Prototype Ultimate Medpac use Smart Cells. See above. Alternately easy fix: Make a new grade 6-using stim/potion set in between Exotech and Hyper-Battle to use this material. See above, again. You guessed it, third easy fix: Make exotech's use Smart Cells instead of Radioactive paste. All you have to do is make them make one stim at a time instead of 3, then its fine. Besides, they are prototype level stims that use artifact level materials, doesn't that already break your crafting rules a little BioWare? Yes, I think it does.... odd. FIX! TL;DR Don't care. Go back and read it. Its important. Most of it is head scratching, how stupid it is that it isn't already fixed. I spent a good 10 minutes explaining it to my non-biochem guildies, they were confused, and mad too. Other crafters don't have these problems. Please fix it BioWare, we beg you. Bump if you agree, Biochem and affiliated skills need to be adjusted to properly fit the game...

I can see you point, however I don't really agree with it. Into 1.2 I decided to stick with my current talent build, and I am still plenty happy with it. I already help with healing (as needed) and I already help with dispelling a little (which is important in hardmode Toth and Zorn! Commandos, you should all at VERY least dispell your own debuffs in this fight!) and I don't have any problems. As a ranged (and especially commando) you are already one of the toughest dps when it comes to survivability, we have excellent defensive CD's, and if you use them properly, you can even tank a boss for a few hits while your tank is getting a battle rez (been there, done that ) I still like the PvP talents over the meager endurance and healing received talents, the numbers are quite minor, and there is little chance that a difference in a couple hundred health points is going to make a difference at any point. But of course, to each his own, if you very very rarely PvP, you can easily take points out of the talents that are clearly for PvP and pickup a few more talents for healing, and if your healers are wimps (hehe, no offense) and they need to gimp your dps and have you help heal, by all means do what you gotta do But seriously, do what your raidgroup needs. This new tier is seriously hard in hardmode, ( and I do 16mans...) its most definitely a team effort.

I dummy tested all morning... Assault, 950 dps average Gunnery, 1050 dps average No buffs at all for either, and I'm on the ops dummy ofc so higher vs players and non-bosses... but still. Not pretty.

15% chance increase to proc Curtain of Fire... went from 30% to 45% (5% more per point, of 3 points) Does seem to proc a ton now... but the Grav round nerf is painful. Dummy tests had me hitting 1.1k dps at best (completely unbuffed) Full Rakata btw...

Not a correction, thats in 1.2, which is still in PTR. Currently Field Training gives 2% per point for total of 6%, but they have said they intend to make it 1% per point. We'll see if that sticks for live, but as you said it will still be worth taking

Thank you. Yes, I agree that HiB is better with 5 stacks, but I find that it becomes very useful in a fight with motion and / or when your unlucky with ammo regen to just not hesitate to use it... Most of the time when fight is going well, you can get 5 Grav Rounds off in the 15 second cooldown window anyways

Thats essentially the basics, if you know all these you should be doing great as a Gunnery Commando... I could go into depth about how to do each boss fight in each mode in 8/16 difficulties and where you should stand/what you should do as a Gunnery Commando, but I think that would get inordinately long and tedious... if anyone wants tips on that, let me know... I've cleared everything and am just waiting on new content! The guild I run with is top on Republic side, 2nd overall on our server (Imperials have us outnumbered 3:1 ) Anyhow, if you read it all, hope it was a good read! Post questions if you have any and I'll get back to you as promptly as I can! Thanks.

The spec is perfect if you enjoy PvE and PvP, it gives you utility CD reduction in your Concussive Charge / Round, your CC break, and it gives you a knockback on stockstrike (completely awesome in PvP! Provides the interupt that Commando's lack!) -------------------------------------------------- My thoughts on Stat priorities (hugely tested, so take them or leave them) AIM is obviously our primary stat; if your gear has Cunning, Wisdom, or Strength... your doing it wrong. For secondary Stats, my priority is like this: Crit (to cap)> Surge(to cap) > Power (forever) > Accuracy > Alacrity My reasoning: Crit is simply the best stat for Gunnery, we have two talents that go hand-in-hand with Critical Hitting, Deadly Cannon and Cell Charger. Deadly Cannon makes Full Auto and Demo round do 30% more bonus Critical Damage, and Cell Charger makes your Grav Round and Full Auto regenerate ammo on a critical hit. My hypothetical cap: Approximately 50%. The current hard cap? 40%. Your cell charger has a 1.5 sec internal cooldown, and so the usefulness of Crit will take a hit above 50%, but certainly is still good. Right now, getting above 40% crit chance (thats buffed, mind you) is unreasonable, and a waste. The stat takes a hard nosedive from there, if your at 40% crit buffed, no more crit! Surge, in my opinion, goes right alongside Crit, and even surpasses it after Crit reaches 50%, simply because: If you Crit so often... why not have each Critical Hit deal more damage? This is fairly simple, and I do not think it needs much elaboration. Hypothetical Cap: Unfortunately, surge isn't very practical Pre 1.2 because it has such an easily reached cap. 70% is a HARD cap on surge right now, with the dropoff for surge being CRAZY steep past that, if you've got 70%, avoid surge like the plague! NOTE, 70% means 20% bonus to your 50% base, not 70% bonus to net at 120% (I wish!). Power is a raw damage buff, and is basically your best stat because Crit/Surge are easy to cap out on. If you use adrenals (good boy/girl ) then Power is what you want, because ANYTHING else is a serious waste (Pre 1.2, we'll see if that changes...) Accuracy and Alacrity are the stats you will want the least of, but Accuracy is the more useful of the two (For now, Patch 1.2 might see a change to this with Full-Auto becoming more important in our rotations...) You definitely want to hit 100% accuracy, and the current estimate is that 108% is the actual cap for Operation bosses, and since Full-Auto is effected by Accuracy as ranged damage... This will be worth reviewing in 1.2. Accuracy and Alacrity may well be increased on the chart... we'll see.

My spec is a 5/33/3 spec that I've seen grow popular lately for its utility... with some of the changes to 1.2 talents, we can review spec changes then... Long story short-ish: The only talents I do NOT take in the Gunnery tree are the healing done/received (Advanced Tech) and the endurance/healing received talents (Heavy Trooper). I do not find these useful in PvE or PvP. There are better talents out there... Healing is not often a problem, plus you have great defensive CD's and the ability to cast a quick heal on yourself if you need it in a pinch. In Combat Medic tree, I take the 6% crit chance talents (Field Training) and the recharged cells buff (Cell Capacitor) and thats all. Crit is good, get some. Recharge cells? Well, you don't want to HAVE to use it, but if your ammo is running dry, this ability with the talents will nearly take you from empty to completely full. In the Assault tree, I take the three points in accuracy because of the marginal usefulness of accuracy. Its better than the alternatives, thats about the only reason.

Hi! You all may remember my old post on the Commando Gunnery spec from a couple months ago, and first I want to explain why I didn't just update that post. One, I was basically a fresh level 50 with a good head on my shoulders for rotations and such from a long MMO history, but not particularly experienced in endgame content. Two, the thread had a good bit of posts on it and I thought it would be better to have fresh discussions instead. TL;DR? Yes. Lol. If your not into a long read, not the thread for you... sorry. So lets get to it... As you might have guessed from the title, my prefered spec is Gunnery, and therefore other spec's should probably be used as reference only, as this is a topic about the Gunnery spec specifically. I have come accross a pretty decent number of guides for Commando rotations and specs, and while the rotation should be pretty self explanatory, I will go over my take on it (which is pretty much the same as most) and note that I have changed my spec since my last post (barely) but it is worth noting nonetheless. Now for the good stuff... -----Rotation--(PvE)------------------- Now the Gunnery Rotation is not really a rotation, its more of a start-up rotation, then a maintain priorities from there (for the sake of ammo conservation!) First off, Full-Auto is your bread and butter, ESPECIALLY AFTER 1.2! if its up, use it! Its cost is fairly low, it does a great amount of damage as Gunnery, and because of the channel your ammo is likely to be restored during the cast (especially if it crits, which is likely). The change to the Curtain of Fire proc should make Full-Auto a more-often cast ability with the 1.2 patch. The more often it resets, the more often you should use it! This will keep your Ammo topped off nicely. Secondly, Grav Round is hugely important to get going early, but after the initial build-up of the 5 stacks of Gravity Vortex (3 casts of Grav Round, when talented) it becomes less important overall, but still very important to cast regularly to keep the stacks of Gravity Vortex up. ESPECIALLY after 1.2, Grav Round's changes are mostly moot to Gunnery, .5 second cast time increase, 1 ammo decrease? Translation: No change. Talents that we already take are making the cast time and ammo cost equal to what it is now, the difference? 10% damage decrease, making Full-Auto the better DPS/Ammo ability for certain. Your other abilities to work with are fairly simple. Demolition Round is your instant cast, hard hitting nuke, with a 15 second cooldown. You want to make sure you cast it on-cooldown, AFTER you get Gravity Vortex to 5 stacks. Note, Gravity Vortex is not consumed by Demo Round, so you do not need to necessarily cast it 3 more times in between Demo Rounds. Next, High Impact Bolt. This ability is one of the least ammo-consuming abilities you have, and it does pretty decent damage, but does not benefit from much of your class talents except for Charged Barrel. Charged Barrel comes from casting Grav Round, but unlike Gravity Vortex's, Charged Barrel stacks on yourself, and the effect IS consumed on High Impact Bolt cast. An important note, the buff timer on Charged Barrel is the same timer as Gravity Vortex, so if you keep on keeping one buff up, the other will fall in line. In my first guide, my advice was to ONLY cast HiB with 5 stacks of Charged Barrel, but now instead I'd advise using it as an intermediary in an ammo short supply phase, for example if your ammo is right at 6 and you don't want to lower it, with the 4 set PvE bonus, Gunnery's HiB (High Impact Bolt, ofc) is free of cost, and the GCD it encurs will give you 1-2 ammo back in that time. Note that as it is instant cast, another great time to use this ability is any time when you need to move Hammer Shot is the last ability you will use regularly in your rotation. Hammer shot is the Trooper class's basic attack, and costs no ammo. You want to use Hammer shot whenever your ammo has fallen below 7, as your ammo will recharge slower the farther below 7 you are. If you can keep critting and proc'ing Curtain of Fire, you can stay above 7 fairly easily, but for the moments when you do dip down to 6, take a break in the rotation an fire off a couple Hammer Shots to recharge. A small side note: Demo Round and HiB are better on-the-move abilities, but if they are on CD, use Hammer Shot! There is very little reason to be doing no damage while moving when you can do at least a little... The Short Version of the Rotation: Full-Auto! (As much as possible! Especially when Curtain of Fire procs) Grav Round (x3 start, keep stacks up, your most used ability) Demo Round (On CD after Gravity Vortex stacks are up, if ammo is above 7) High Impact Bolt (with 5 stacks Charged Barrel if possible, or when low ammo or moving) Hammer Shot (ammo at or below 7) My spec next...

Pointless drops happen, just not as much because it won't drop gear for a class you don't have... It will however, drop the same Rakata token week after week even if all of your guild Consulars have it, and one for there offset, and companions, and alts... Its not foolproof New Operations + WZ are what I'm interested in... lets get this started... its 2!!!!