Really? You think most of those Marauders and that Merc were REAL competition? Just another PVP video like all the rest, best part was the 4v4 at the end. Even then it was a cluster**** that should have been spread out waay sooner than it was. The stream is better than these vids really. Probably one of the most interesting streams to watch.

Because you aren't interrupting melee? Do you find healers and sorcs standing in the middle of Assassins and Mauraders? No, you find them around the outside. Casting classes are RANGED classes by definition. They aren't going to stand on top of melee to cast (because like you, they aren't stupid), so no you will not be forced into MELEE to interrupt casting. Moot point see above Moot point see above. Again moot point.

Reasons it won't work. Doesn't stop massive zerg versus massive zerg, nobody will care if its a party of 8 or a party of 16, the chances of surviving and getting something in a zerg are better than chances of roaming in 8's and getting zerged. If your party just rolls up and steamrolls a party that has been working on killing a different party, then you get the valor for only partial work - not fair. Stealthers can just sit and burst out when a enemy is sub 30% and steal your kills. Overall I like that you are thinking but this will not save Ilum.

Depends on what you want to interrupt. Healing? Get in melee range and interrupt. Damage? LoS or knockback, your choice. This comes down to positioning. Frankly squishy caster classes are doing the same thing you are. Looking for positions that minimize visibility and maximize DPS/healing. So if you knock them out of these places you destroy their positioning. So no, getting in melee range of caster classes is not stupid, because they aren't melee classes anyways and their interrupts are going to work on you no matter how far away you are. This I agree 100% with. All interrupts should be subject to resolve, or we should get a knockback that works through resolve.

Not much math needed really, just a healthy comparison. PYRO IM is 25 heat, can't be spammed and if you don't get muzzle fluting in the Arsenal tree your Power Shot also costs 25 heat. Railshot costs 8 heat or if you get a PPA proc'ed RS it reduces your heat by 8. TD cost 16 heat, no refunds possible. However you will spend a lot of time casting Rapid Shots so heat management is easier and escaping by kiting with Rapid Shots is much easier. (ie. less heat from Rocket Punch/Jet Boost). CD of Vent Heat comes up 30 seconds faster. Its possible to get 12% crit and 3% accuracy from talents. ARSENAL Any missile crit (Tracer, HSM, Explosive, Missile Blast) and any Unload crit refund 8 heat. TM, HSM, PS, RS, ExDart all cost 16 heat. More liberal use of Jet Boost and Rocket Punch means higher heat for more utility. Less time spent casting Rapid Shots because its has no utility. Its possible to get 6% crit and 3% accuracy from talents. For high crit rate Arsenal specs you will get 8 heat refunded every 3-6 seconds (3 casts). But you can still reach high heat in PVP just through liberal use of rocket punch and jet boost (and healing). For Pyro specs you have a 0 heat alternative in Combustible Gas Cylinder which hits for decent damage and snares your target making kiting easier. If things get hectic however Pyro has no knockback and if they have to burn a target it will be harder and cost more heat overall. The Arsenal spec will have a better time when casting but will lose more heat if they have to run about. Pyro can spend more time focusing on Surge and Power as they have high base crit and accuracy. Arsenal still has to bring up their crit rate to ensure heat management before focusing on Surge and Power. Bad Pyro's will require massive heat management if they cannot kite properly, Bad Arsenal will require massive heat management if they cannot position themselves properly, both specs when played well, will have very few heat problems.

This fight is terrible for any dps comparison period. You get no Shadow Strikes because you can't be behind the target. You killed a tank target so killing a low health target before anyone else is functionally meaningless. The fight is too short to really say anything over a longer period. I can pop my adrenal and two power trinkets during that fight as a tank and still come relatively close to hitting that time. TLDR: this proves nothing.

Wastes 5 talent points to get 30% armor debuff for RS. HSM isn't part of the mobility problem though, its instant. Railshot ignoring an extra 30% armor doesn't make up for the difference. Maybe if you went up to Prototype Particle Accelerator, but you are really trading Unloads for free Rail Shots at that point. However if you are trying to run a Railshot build you would be better served with a build that focuses more on Railshot and less on Unload. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#3000MZMIkbord0zZfGbbzh.1 Again, this would still be a matter of taste, because all you are really garnering here is 50% arpen and 30% railshot dmg (and that 30% means you have to stack 5 TM's before your next railshot) versus 9% dmg and 30% bonus damage and 20% arpen (and you only have to maintain the arpen stack, not constantly restack) and 60% chance for free railshots in a full pyro spec. Overall its still moot, because none of it matches the synergy in full Arsenal which buffs, TM, HSM, Unload and Railshot damage throughout the tree. In fact if you are really hard up for that extra 20% arpen provided by TM then just do this http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#3000MZMIk0oZfGMbzGhMc.1 That way you can at least do decent consistent damage at the expense of having to maintain a 5 stack of TM. Centering a PVE build around Railshot that doesn't include PPA just seems wrong though, you will never get enough Railshots to be competitive. Maybe, but nothing makes up for the fact that you lose 6% crit in your build or 9% crit from a full pyro build. That's just too much crit to not take seriously.

This is already an ability called 'Power Shield' in the Bodyguard tree. You should take a good look at the Bodyguard tree, it basically makes us gods for 12s when specced properly.

You are correct 5 talent points isn't obscene, its 1/8th of your total number of talent points. Worst of all that 5 talent points get you 5% health. Or about 750HP at 15k health. It also keeps you from getting good talents like Muzzle Fluting and Upgraded Arsenal in a 31 point BG build. All in all like I said before, its simply putting you one more auto-attack away from dying. Nothing worth speccing for.

Lots of baddies who just interrupt *anything* they can. OMG he's casting! INTERRUPT! Its like that button is the candy they can't resist eating. Seriously though, you are still eating 1.5-2k dmg on an bad powershot and I'm still conserving heat.

Barrage procs all the time. It's a 30% chance so you should be getting a proc at least once every 4 TM casts, usually I get it in the first 2 casts. Barrage procs are pretty essential to heat management and dps as they refund heat and make UL hit harder. If you haven't maxed out the talent in lieu of something else, you may want to reconsider. 15 seconds into a fight I've TO -> FM -> DFA -> TM -> TM -> UL -> TM -> HSM -> TM -> TM -> RS and I'm still just over 40 heat most times. It's when you start introducing Jet Boost, Curing, Determination, Energy Shield and other abilities that your heat will really start to rise. That 40 heat barrier is a bother, but its what makes this class fun, because really TM spam is boring without it.

Devils advocate: until there's nothing to LoS with, then you die. Juke with Power Shot just like every other respectable Merc playing Arsenal? I'm not casting TM with a melee in my face, I'm casting Power Shot or a heal. Let them interrupt that then I will push them back and make them eat three tracers to the face before they can interrupt again Arsenal can play the LoS game just as well as Pyro, we still have explosive dart and several instants that we can pop in and out of LoS with. I've beaten several Pyros this way, I don't NEED to cast TM, its easier and it has a lot of synergy with the build, but its far from necessary to beat anyone.

The problem you will have is that you are spending an OBSCENE amount of talent points to get a MEASLY 10% endurance. Seriously you are looking at 6-8 talent points for 1.5k health in Champ gear? Auto attacks hit for almost that much. You are looking at an extra few seconds of being alive. I understand wanting to experiment, but really these are filler talents that should be replaced because they are garbage and there are far too many of them in the Merc trees.

Sweltering Heat is a required talent in any Pyro build. Not taking it pretty much nullifies your mobility.

In 1-49 I usually chew sorcs up. I usually juke them with power shot or heals and save my TM spam til they use their interrupt on me.

No you weren't. Pure idiocy. Even more idiotic. Bug was fixed a long time ago. Stop posting this useless drivel.

Disagree wholeheartedly. Mitigation is slightly below par, self healing is higher than every other tank class, cooldowns are better than every other tank class. There isn't much for Bioware to address for Shadow tanking. We are in top form and one of the easiest tanks to heal if played right.

You are my favourite! BTW I usually just spam spacebar to get passed the speederbikes in VS, doesn't always work but 8/10 times it does. Unfortunately it almost never works when there's less than 24 seconds to start the game. Its weird like that.

I'd love it if they just put a timer on the respawn door, so I don't have to auto run into it constantly to make sure I can get back as quickly as possible. Sometimes I'm in there for 20+ seconds, just tell me how long I have! I'd rather be sending my crew out on missions!

Unfortunately you can't, to get Afterburners requires a 12 point investment into the Arsenal tree, which only leaves you 29 points for the Pyro tree. But if you're cool with using Explosive Dart instead of TD, then you can certainly make it work, but you sacrifice 6% crit from the Bodyguard tree to do so. I've been looking at these builds for a while, I just don't know if you can overcome the damage synergy *just* for Afterburners.

Probably one of the harder matchups I've had as Arsenal, unless I'm opening on him. Usually I just try to run him into a bunch of friendlies or keep him at a distance with RocketPunch. PT's are just painful as they have a short interrupt and that elemental damage just chews through us. If they can stay on top of you its probably the toughest battle you will have. I usually just try and juke a tracer and throw concussion on him and run.

Great video! Looks like somebody actually understands how to chop video up into decent segments. Kept me interested beyond just the normal "woo big numbers" videos. Look forward to more!

I gave up on Psychokinesis this week, and dropped a point from Upheaval to get 3/3 Infiltration Tactics. Its certainly helped on high armored targets who aren't focusing me and the damage is great with Nerve Wracking on top of it. We aren't as GCD bound as we were before 1.1.2, that and I've given up caring if I constantly have PA procs before Project'ing. Fights last a little longer, but I end them with higher health. Good commentary, I think you could spend a little more time explaining why you didn't take the other talents in the tree (some will understand, others who aren't as versed in combat mechanics won't).

Interesting. Still doesn't account for such a large discrepancy in stats for people in top tier gear and people without. 30% defense is relatively hard to hit regardless of gear leve.

How does it go down though? Look at your mods, for example level 22 (the ones you can buy/get from dailies) and level 25 steadfast enhancements (rakata level): 22 http://www.torhead.com/item/aF5ngCn/advanced-steadfast-enhancement-22 25 http://www.torhead.com/item/2lBkJDo/advanced-steadfast-enhancement-25 The difference between those is 10 END, 11 Shield, 5 Defence. Then there are 6 slots for enhancements, even just looking at secondary stat point allotments its a difference of 96 stat points. Again that's between 22 and 25 level, which is only slightly better than 24 level which has 9 Shield and 4 defence totalling 80 stat point difference across 6 slots. This doesn't account for different stat point weightings but it's easily seen that you cannot have more secondary stat points with enhancements and mods alone. Which makes me wonder about crafted gear and augments. Unfortunately your absorption goes down the tubes doing this. Love that accuracy on Rakata gear!