Given that the developers commented on the negative effect of alacrity on procs over in the PT answers, we could probably ignore my prior suggestion of asking about it unless you want to tailor it for Commandos. I'm saying this because it sounds like BioWare would rather alter the skill trees rather than change the effect of alacrity itself. Commandos have more alacrity based talents in their skills trees than Vanguards so we could ask a broader question on how alacrity negatively effects our class in correlation to timed DPS procs, but I'm pretty positive we'll just be met with the same "we'll change the tree" response. As for the prior conversation on a DPS increase for Gunnery, I've been averaging around 3500 on the PTS which is roughly 100-150DPS better than live and that's with a ton of mistakes (old rotational habits die hard). Not to mention that 3.5k is consistent and not as RNG heavy like on live. My point being is that's a pretty good DPS increase compared to live. I know it's not as much as a Sharpshooter Gunslinger but if it wasn't for their double procs from self-healing on relics, the DPS between the two specs would be a lot closer than it already is. My hesitation in asking about a DPS increase is that BioWare would respond with that Gunnery is doing fine or that there are issues with the other classes that they'll address later. I don't like the chance of burning a question like that. If we were to ask about Gunnery's DPS I'd focus more on energy cost or energy regeneration (e.g. cheaper HiB/RS or CoF also reducing FA/UL cost). I think there's a possibility for a good conversation there as from my experience on the PTS energy management seems a bit tight. I would also vote for a question on Commando survivability in any respect, PvP more then PvE. Cash's OP's thoughts on Assault utility and the lackluster talents in the tree is also a good idea still.

These answers were okay (certainly not the worst) but a bit disappointing. While the most lacking upfront, I think the answer to the first question was the best. They didn't whip out the old "well according to our metrics" response they usually do. I think this is progress in the form of more serious/sincere communication. That or they are just humouring us. Second answer was okay but lacked explanation in the provided evidence. However, they commented on community suggestions and left it open for more community ideas so that's good. The third answer was the most disappointing to me as it translated to "instead of changing the alacrity stat to work better for all classes/specs we're just going to change the tree and avoid the larger problem." The suggestions and comments on the tanking tree were good. I think the main thing it demonstrates is that they are choosing their wording more carefully to prevent prodding the player base like they have in the past. The lack of details I believe is a side-effect of having to keep some things private to the team. You can hardly judge how good they are at their job by a few paragraphs on one of eight unique classes.

What do you mean by "not tick?" If you mean that there aren't individual damage hits throughout the whole DOT duration there are. You can see this by placing it on a target and looking for yellow numbers (it's a tech ability so its flytext is yellow). You could also open up a combat log where you used Corrosive Dart, see where you activate it, and then count the times it hit the target before its effect fades. The point of Lethal Injectors is that the additional duration improves energy management. Every talent point in Lethal Injectors adds one more tick to Corrosive Dart for a maximum of two additional ticks. The extra ticks are very beneficial due to the Lethal Purpose talent which restores two energy per each critical poison effect. More ticks on a single DOT gives the player more chances to generate energy from critical DOT hits. By reapplying Corrosive Dart as early as you are, it's reducing your DPS because you're reducing the amount of damage your DOT is doing per energy point spent. Think of it this way, if you cast a Corrosive Dart for 16 Energy and you only let it tick 4 times you're paying for 4 Energy per tick. If 50% of those ticks crit (which would be lucky) you'd only restore enough energy for one of those ticks, or 25% of the cost of a Corrosive Dart. If you're using the Lethal Injectors talent for six more seconds on Corrosive Dart and you're clipping the last tick, you're paying 16 energy for 6 ticks which is ~2.67 energy per tick. If 33% of those crit (more likely given average tech critical rating) you'll regenerate almost two whole ticks worth of energy while still getting back 1/4 cost of a Corrosive Dart. Furthermore, Lethal Injectors works very well off Corrosive Microbes in terms of energy regeneration. Using the same example above, if you let 6 out of 7 ticks get off but Corrosive Microbes ticked twice for a total of 8 Corrosive ticks. Say only 3 of those crit (~38%) you'd get back 6 energy. For one Corrosive Dart you clipped one tick but still received 8 ticks, that's two energy per tick and you generated 6 energy out of that Corrosive Dart giving back 38% of the energy Corrosive Dart cost you and paying back for effectively three ticks. There are more ways of how I can highlight the energy save over time, like having to pay 16 energy every 15 seconds opposed to every 21 seconds, but I think you get the idea. Also, Lethal Injectors adds additional ticks to Corrosive Dart and does not divide them among the ticks. The tooltip doesn't reflect Lethal Injectors properly. You can test this by looking at non-critted ticks of Corrosive Dart with and without Lethal Injectors, they do the same amount of damage. I know I could have probably just said this, but there was such a learning opportunity! I'm sure there is something about Lethal Injectors that can tie into the Lethality Operative rotation, but I'm not familiar with it enough to properly commentate. TL;DR Lethal Injectors is great for energy management and its two additional ticks are additive damage that the tooltip doesn't reflect properly. Don't trust tooltips!

Thanks! I knew my APM was on the low side but I'm not sure why as I'm ability queuing like usual (I mostly play Gunnery so I have plenty of practice with it). It may be due to lag (I was having weird stuff going on when parsing last night) or that I'm still not comfortable with the rotation (also likely). I'll give it more practice and see if I can't bring my APM in Assault up.

Okay, I've been practicing Assault spec for a long time now and have gotten a lot better at it thanks to this guide and Mari's Commando parse. However, I feel like I'm doing everything I'm supposed to but can't seem to get over 3.7k DPS. First of all, here is my AMR: http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/0060daae-1309-4513-8764-e88c6e94d55f Second, I will link two parses. First one is my personal best for luck or whatever reason. The second parse is my average parse that had the fewest mistakes (made one mistake during the 3rd PG/EN use). I'd recommend looking at my average as it was more solid rotationally than my personal best I feel. Personal best: 3614.33 DPS @ 4'35'' Average: 3397.48 DPS @ 4'53'' I've tried everything from mimicking other parses, asking friends who perform well in Assault, and trying my own rotations but I still seem to be performing far under what my gear level indicates. Any help at all is much appreciated!

If you clip SoS or Cull like that you'll miss out on the last tick. That trick works with Ravage, but not SoS or Cull as the last tick is tied to the end of the cast. I tested this in low-latency settings. If you're hitting your abilities right at the end of the cast you should still be reaching the ideal APM. Also to OP, 3600 is really good for your gear level, keep practicing!

Whoops was looking at the wrong parse. I should probably label these things. Also to OP, Paowee's guide stays up to date and pretty good. Should help you iron a few things out rotationally.

BioWare's magic metrics at work.

First of all, your APM is really low. Your Lethality parse shows 29.89, which the top parses are hitting 39.5-40.0 which would produce a huge DPS difference. Are you parsing in high latency, and are you also using action queuing to delay downtime between abilities? From the looks of it, you're leaving gaps in the rotation. Second, I don't see a Snipe or Explosive Probe anywhere in your parse. For the Lethality rotation, you should be using ~4 Snipes with Laze Target and ~6 Explosive probes in conjunction with energy CDs (Target Acquired and Adrenaline Probe). What are your fillers as, at a glance, you should have extra GCDs quite often. EDIT: Oh, and I am speaking strictly Lethality. I haven't parsed Hybrid in a while so I'm rusty on that.

1. That would give pre-mades in voice chat even bigger advantages in warzones by taking markers away. I doubt markers in group ranked aren't a big deal since any serious team is in voice chat calling out focus targets, so I don't see a reason for removing markers from PvP. It just sounds like more work for no impact on the ranked environment. Also, how is this exclusively a Sniper problem? 2. That would be really worthless and incredibly unbalanced. Why would I want to stay in stealth for minutes in an arena? The only reason I could see a player desiring this is to prolong arenas into sudden death or pre-made 4 Snipers and troll the enemy team. I'd rather see actual survivability that fits with the class so I can continue to DPS or quickly disengage rather than use a really long CD stealth that a good enemy team would kick me out of immediately anyway. Also, who has ever heard of a 10-20 minute long cooldown that was not a Legacy ability or a balanced ranged DPS having stealth? As to the rest of this thread, my group ranked experience is limited so I wouldn't feel confident commenting on PvP balance for Snipers/Gunslingers without someone else providing discussion points. I'll keep an eye on it in the hope of keeping the discussion alive.

First I want to preface this statement with I don't deserve full, if any, credit for this idea. A friend and I were talking and he brought up some good ideas about Gunslinger/Sniper specs. He doesn't frequent these boards much so I thought I'd relay some of his thoughts, albeit not verbatim. I think a possible way we could use a question that would include most/all specs would be to ask about spec diversity in utility, playstyle, and survivability. Currently, Sniper specs play pretty similar due to the fact that they all continue to use base abilities (like Explosive Probe and Corrosive Dart). I know the devs said last time that this was because these base abilities were too good. I'd argue that it's because the skill trees and their talents are lacking in variety and polish (every rotation seems to have gaps, some more than others). In my opinion, the best tree currently (based on what I think is intended design) is Lethality. Marksmanship is clunky, especially after the OS change, and we've already discussed the problem that's Engineering. However, to my friend's credit, we also can't look over how these specs are based in terms in survivability. Currently, most of it is based on shielding due to Shield Probe and Ballistic Dampers. To loosely quote him, he said that he'd think it would be cooler if each spec's survivability was more unique and diversified. For example, Engineering could emphasize self-healing and raw mitigation more (Vital Regulators, EMP Discharge, Deployed Shields), Marksmanship could be more into shielding and reduction (Entrench passive, Ballistic Dampers), and maybe Lethality could have more into straight dodge or resisting techniques (I'm not sure on Lethality exactly due to the Shield Probe passives). Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that do you all think there is merit in posing a question about spec diversity in not only rotational terms, but playstyle, utility, and survivability?

If Commandos were given 35m range on some abilities, which would you suggest? Maybe Charged Bolts, Grav Round, and Full Auto?

The main reason Cashology isn't looking at solo ranked for balancing is because BioWare stated that they balance classes for PvP based on their performance in group ranked PvP. If Cashology asked any questions with balancing concerns around solo queuing BioWare would dismiss the issue on the ground that it's not about group ranked balance, thus doing the Commando/Mercenary community a disservice. Can we now get back to the topic at hand? This has been derailing for a page now.

Guys, please check the date on the first post. Stop necroing this thread.

Hi! Hopefully I can help answer your questions. 1. Scoundrel DPS is excellent in live at the moment, and can currently do more sustained damage than Gunslingers. However, keep in mind Scoundrel DPS is a melee DPS and not a ranged DPS Gunslingers. Scoundrels in a DPS spec you can grab low talents in the Sawbones tree for decent off-healing. Sawbones' DPS however is pretty bleh (most DPS comes from Backblast which you have to be behind the target) and your AOE capabilities are lackluster (Thermal Grenade is only great for so long) when solo-leveling, but they're HOTs are really powerful allowing you to HOT up before a right and jump right in only having to refresh them. 2. Smuggler story doesn't compare to the epic of the Knight's story. Where the Smuggler story shines, in my opinion, is the witty dialogue and really cool characters you meet throughout the story. The overall plot after the first chapter is pretty disappointing and forgettable. 3. Corso is the female love interest, but he's a pretty dull companion to run with. I found using Risha or Guss to be the best in terms of gameplay and dialogue.

The main problem would be the ICD being reduced by the alacrity like everything else would result in a DPS increase unless adjusted for which would require a lot of balancing techniques (base damage, projected alacrity amount on player, etc). Full Autos could also have a proc added to them (a 100% one tied to the second tick) that increases the damage of next Grav Round or makes it free, something like that. My fear of just boosting base damage is then BW will look to pull back in other areas reducing burst for some sustained, which may turn Gunnery into a lesser Assault. In order: -Do you mean increasing the ammo pool by talent or set bonus, or do you mean regeneration? -In what manner? Baseline or talented? -I don't think we need faster channels that do less damage. -Don't think PvPers would go for this. -Again, balancing issues around this stat when you bring in ICDs and DOT/HOT durations. Reducing CDs could also be dangerous territory.

Okay, I'm going to respond to the general thread before I start quoting anyone and responding to sub-topics. First, please don't use a question in asking for an ammo counter. I'm very positive BioWare is aware of the player base desiring an ammo counter (I really want one), but asking when we'll be getting one is a waste of a question. They'll "eventually" get to it, and that's probably the answer you'd get from them anyway. I think a good question to go off of that would be enlightening for Assault and Gunnery DPS is the negative effect alacrity has on our DPS. With Ionic Accelerator, and now Curtain of Fire since it's guaranteed proc every 8 seconds, the effect alacrity has on our GCD and cast times can cause players to receive delayed procs, reducing DPS and hurting ammo regeneration in the case of Assault. Since the Commando trees are full of passive alacrity boosts and procs (Weapon Calibrators, First Responder, Rapid Recharge, Cell Capacitor) it seems that BioWare intended Commados to make use of alacrity similar to Sages. My question to them would be something like; seeing how Commando trees provide plenty of alacrity bonuses for the player, what can be done to reduce or remove the negative effects alacrity has on damage output and ammo regenerative proccing talents like Curtain of Fire and Ionic Accelerator? That's clearly a rough draft, but you all get the idea. I like the PvE discussion about Gunnery going on as parsing 3.5k in Gunnery is very difficult still even with the PTS changes. I haven't put much thought into it, but I still feel like ammo management for the spec is pretty difficult just from the handful of parses I did on the PTS. A further cost reduction on HiB or some mechanic similar to Gunslinger's Smoking Barrels in the Sharpshooter tree (reducing the cost of the next two abilities by a certain amount after a particular ability) would be a good starting discussion point. I'd probably start by increasing the critical chance and damage of Full Auto and Grav Round. It's difficult to say a good way to increase damage without over-powering burst as Gunnery uses so few abilities in their core rotation. If BioWare doesn't want to keep bumping up stats they could always doing something akin to Jedi Knights' Heightened Power in the Focus tree. It'll boost burst damage while spreading it out a bit. Increasing Demo Round or HiB crit rate or damage is dangerous in terms of PvP balance as they're already very powerful abilities that can be used back-to-back.

After playing through the story as both genders, I prefer male. More interesting romance and you can flirt with every woman in sight and Corso will give you bro points for doing so. Plus the best dialogue in the game occurs on Nar Shaddaa for male Smugglers if you pick the right sequences.

The set bonuses for almost every class are either terrible or aren't really a bonus and more of a mandatory item to play your class. For example, Snipers need the PvE 4pc to play Lethality decently and Merc healers can't operate without their set bonuses in PvE. Marauder's PvE set bonus give a huge DPS increase while the PvE 4pc for Operatives (heal and DPS) isn't close to useful. A lot of the set bonuses feel like cop-outs or placeholders until BioWare can think of something better that isn't too good. On a whole, BioWare needs to take a good long look at set bonuses, not just Powertechs. However, I will state it's good you all are discussing them because this seems to be an understated point in the community. TL;DR All classes have awful set bonuses so everyone's needs to be reconsidered. Hopefully your discussion here will bring more attention to the lackluster set bonuses. As a Vanguard tank I can agree with Rebel_Guy on this. That 2% makes a big difference in Operations like DF where defense plays a big role.

HM Brontes is a great check for every class in terms of raid awareness and class skill. If you're looking for more entry level-fights I'd say in S&V Dash'Roode is a good check to see if your tanks can put 1 and 1 together, TFB Operator IX is a good DPS check (yellow phase) and raid awareness check, and S&V Thrasher is a decent healer check. Thinking about it, a lot of the fights are pretty good at checking at least one role's skill level. There are only a few that I'd say test everyone, and a pretty good amount that are just comprehension checks.

Agreed, I'd personally drop Reflexive Battery for Suit FOE. Side note, my friend likes to run an Assault/Gunnery hybrid for PvP. The idea is to pick up Grav Round so the enemy can't cleanse it off themselves so you can keep HiB firing. I don't PvP a lot on my Commando so I wanted to know others' thoughts on this? I feel like you'd sacrifice too much utility or burst in the process. I can't remember what the spec looks like so just think of this on a conceptual level.

RN is probably Recuperative Nanotech (top ability in the Medicine tree). As for Operative acronyms, there aren't too many since some of the names are short or don't shorten well. I'll list some of the common ones for you. AB = Acid Blad TA = Tactical Advantage CD = Corrosive Dart BS = Backstab SM = Stim Boost KP = Kolto Probe RN = Recuperative Nanotech OS = Orbital Strike HS = Hidden Strike WB = Weakening Blast CG = Corrosive Grenade SP = Surgical Probe CS = Cloaking Screen AP = Adrenaline Probe Keep in mind though that these only apply in threads/posts discussing Operatives. Some of these acronyms are also used to denote things in a general context or other class abilities. For example, CD is also short for Cooldown and KP means Kolto Pack to Scoundrels. A lot of the acronyms are straightforward and you'll pick them all up overtime from reading the class section of the forum when people discuss a class.

Probably MK-9 augment kits. Depends on the server but they're usually pretty profitable.

I feel this issue is really minimal. The only time where I've heard a guild purposely bring Gunslingers/Snipers were some guilds for 16Man HM Dread Council for the last phase, and even then two shields cover that whole phase so that's a small fraction of the DPS composition. Everyone in every other situation only brings Slingers/Snipers just because their DPS has that personal preference. Personally, I think there is an overestimation in Gunslinger/Sniper utility as it is now, and after 2.7 they'll be severely hampered in general utility. The Hunker Down/Entrench trench translates to a quality of life change for PvE and not a buff. I think at the moment, your purposed change isn't necessary. Maybe down the road if Slinger/Sniper utility becomes too much compared to others in PvE.

I think this mostly came about in the attempt to keep dialogue open with the combat team after the first set of questions. I highly doubt a Laze Target/Target Acquired question will come up again considering we already asked about it, and it seems there are more important questions to be asked this time around (Snipers/Gunslingers were sitting pretty in terms of class balancing last round).