I will bite just wait til you are 50, everything changes

missile blast? wow, worst heat/damage ratio ever, i would never use this thing better to cycle darts and fusions in imo...

So with the 4 piece set bonus + spec railshot is free heat Unload takes long enough to cast that 1 crit (so have crit over 33 buffed) you vent 8 heat and the damn thing vents more than 8 heat during casting making it heat neutral ... i apologize for not mentioning the set bonus before ... i have "i am 50 and in rakata" tunnel vision.. leveling up is another story all together but then again you dont ffight for 5 min straight when leveling like you do in raid.

are you the proverbial TM spammer i hear so much about... you are in the minority if you think we got nerfed, even math disagree's with you. as for PT vs merc PT PYRO is probably the best of all BH pvp builds they are beasts i just heard above someone saying Pyro merc does better long term damage than arsenal... i find that very very odd, i will have to find a pyro merc to heads up against on the training dummies. do what is fun man if you want to be ranged definitely stay merc, PT is melee and short ranged vs merc is mid to long ranged.

I refuse to link something that can be found on the first page of the forum... open your eyes

really? your damage has gone way down? You need to change something man, my dps is up, i think way up... unload EVERY TIME barrage procs, HSM and RS on cooldown no matter what... we lost 10% in TM sure, we gained 10% more Unloads and oh btw it does more damage, and man, HSM hits like a dam brick house now. not to comment on your play, but if your dps went down you need to do something different because i am pealing agro off the MT more than ever now. Heck I have even started cycling chafe flare into my rotation (never really needed to do that pre 1.2)

sithwarrior.com has the curves, you can pick your own "soft cap" but like said above 30 to 35% unbuffed crit is about right, surge, well they made it pretty useless imo but 70% is my "feel good" spot

i agree, the knockback is a damage reducer, meaning healers love me when tank is getting low and I remove damge for a couple of seconds. removing the knockback would increase dps but reduce utility... coming from an arsenal, i have enough dps, i need more utility. please BIOWARE do not make this type of change.

gotcha, gimme a week and i will reply in that thread. been busy at work and have not gotten dps meter up and running yet. I plan on beatin the dummies silly this weekend with a meter running and coming up with some conclusions on burst vs heat vs long term damage. tbh my pre 1.2 rotation is keeping heat under control, but now with meters I can refine rotations to optimize damage.

haha well i always used HSM/unload/rail burst after a couple of TM and noticed in my first match after 1.2 that dps is higher... i can stand my ground and pummel better than ever. They cast interrupt like aways to faceplant my TM and i hit the above rotation and now a lot of times they are D E A D dead. makes me laugh, made interrupts so much less painful loading our dps into 2 other abilities so that when TM is unavailable our dps actually goes UP haha... thanks bioware

Tempest and I while we respect each others opinion are going to have to dissagree here to some level Crit and power are about equal to a point numerically when you have neither of each. At some point Power begins to dominate because its diminishing return curve compaired to crit can be considered non existant. I dont know the changes to the diminishing return curves since 1.2 i have been slacking and not doing my research before 1.2 i would say @ 30% crit you will find that power DOMINATES but at 10% crit i think the throughput gained is about the same if not slight advantage to crit (depending on what your surge is). But he heals and I do not (in this game anyway, on this class, have a sorc healer). One thing to take into account is overhealing, you know your heal for 2k on a guy that only needed 1k heals, 1k heals wasted... overhealing is bad and crit contributes more to overhealing than power. power will make your heals consistantly higher so you know you will heal for X vs crit you could heal for X or if you crit heal for 1.7*X (with 70% surge)... some people love crits, others love bigger heals every time (but not as big as a crit)... So there you have it, i personally still shoot for 30% crit and then stack power (as arsenal where crits vent my heat)... But in the end probably better to listen to the healer post rather than the arsenal post. I just wanted to break into the discussion a little of what does what and what the pro's and con's are so that you understood better. peace out

arsenal merc is probably the most consistant throughput for dps on long fights and we have good bursting in pvp. We are immobile (KITING IS A JOKE IN THIS GAME ANYWAY) when dpsing so in pvp we are good in a premade but mediocre at best 1v1. for pve raid though, we are a beast in the DPS catagory and due to a rather simple rotation you can spend more time assessing your next move, being aware of mechanics etc. it is not some crazy complex rotation, basic rotation only uses tracer missile, heat seeking missile, rail shot and unload. There are other dps abilities that are used for bursting but they make the rotation overheat so only used when needed. We do have a decent CC in pve, as well as a couple knockbacks so for raiding merc arsenal is great for pvp you really have to work hard at position and tactics to be in line with other classess. Pre-50 though arsenal merc is awsomesauce... once you hit 50 though you will feel gimpy. some people go pyro because they can run around putting up dots and get huge damage numbers but overall i find their single target DPS wanting (one cure and i remove all their dots)... Merc healing is not great, just got nerfed but still doable in pve and still not bad at all in pvp though people are so used to being god mode in pvp (pre 1.2) that they think they are gimmped now. that is my take, been playing merc since day -7 (got in early) if you dont like the style then dont play it, best advice i can give is to do what is fun.

amen we are ranged, we need "escapes" not closers

arsenal merc can put out more dps now, they nerfed tracer missle and double buffed unload and heat seaker... net was positive... but we are more squishy now pyro got a nerf though

to answer your first question they put it in so if you run out of heals you can generate more... spam it three times and stand in your own aoe, life is good to answer your also question you should really research before saying they dont have it, Bodyguards have vent heat, which is the same effect only backwards, but heat is backwards to force power so net effect is the same. i personally have not noticed a issues with the change, and quite frankly the concept that if my health is low i cannot get more power makes you actually work at your class a bit more... but that is just me and my sorc healer is just an alt (but one that is healing in raids from time to time)

i would rather die and respawn

cast time 1.5 (specced) Global cooldown time 1.5 same difference except cast on the fly... i think that is what he refers, and oh btw we would be totally OP

meh, i agree it sucks but if you are careful you can get 3 out of 4 mobs to take all three hits, the ones on the outer edge just get one, but the knockback also reduces damage taken as they shake it off. not fond of the change, but not game breaking for us... it was a bit OP before the change

lol talk about /ragequit

the change was planned with you in mind apparently because they were never our two best attacks...

i give it a -1

my merc BG friend is upset with heat, but from dps point of view, i agree thumbs up.

server is Hedarr Soongh two armstech in guild are Zarn ant Tibeius fee free to roll a new toon and send them a tell tonight if you do not believe me low pop pvp server fyi, I know Zarn was over 10 million for a long time til legacy came out.

orange with augment slots will be best in slot with the new end game gear and to the guy who said forget endgame and does not do it... you are the minority... the people who do not do endgame will be unsubbed within a year

at work (lunch) right now. I will post when i get home my hands, only have one of those, not sure where i got it