Your argument holds no ground. If 3 gunslingers/snipers are on me I die in 5 seconds too; albeit from less obvious casting animations. If 3 Sith Marauders are on me I die too If 3 Sith Sorcerers are casting chain lightning I blow up in less than 5 seconds too. The idiotic thing is that TM isn't the thing that is killing you. It's the boosted Rail Shot and Hunter Seeker Missile that do the brunt of the damage. The only reason Tracer Missile is hated is because it has the most extravagant animation in the game, together with force lightning and pebble storm.

They are; Pyro shouldn't be casing Power Shot / Unload as often as Arsenal is casting Unload or Tracer. The keyword is heat; Pyro is generating more heat with its core abilities. Which leads to doing more rapid shots. Arsenal can almost spam its skills forever without pausing. As pyro you're weaving in your skills as cooldowns and heat allows; the DoTs do the work while you run around using rapid shots.

1. AoE healing is indeed a bit lacking. It would be good to know what way Bioware wants merc healers to go. Do they want us to use a combination of Kolto Missile with single target heals; or do they want us to focus on kolto missile. Because I can heal 2-3 people in an AoE situation just fine by doing a rotation like: Kolto Missile > Healing Scan > Rapid Scan > Rapid Shots > Rapid Shots This is almost a heat neutral rotation (41 heat generated / 40 heat dissipated); and as long as I make smart use of Kolto Shell and juggle the single heals to whoever needs em it works. 2. Care to give some examples. Because as far as I can see we got some interesting talents. For example one giving Healing Scan a HoT, or making the next Rapid Scan cheaper after casting Healing Scan. 3. I quite like how the cooldown works out; especially because the 9 second cooldown isn't TOO long, but its also long enough to make the effect of Supercharge very noticeable and effective. 4. Not efficient?! The only one in that list I agree with is Kolto Missile, that one can use a boost. But the other 2 abilities are free, so saying they are inefficient leads me to believe you don't know what efficiency means. They might not be good enough, but they are pretty efficient; both for the time invested (1 GCD) as well as the heat invested (0 heat). 1. Again this is either a miss wording, or you don't understand what offensive CC entails. We got 2 very potent CC; a ranged instant stun and a ranged incapacitate. Those can be used very offensively. 2. This I somewhat agree with. Kinda wish we had a heroic leap (warrior in wow). Problem with WoW vs TOR is that the latter has a lot of battlegrounds which work in multiple dimensions. Most of WoW's BG are kinda flat; being able to jump freely in TOR has some severe implications. 1. Yes to the first; no to the latter. I agree it could use a tiny healing boost. But don't forget it's 100% free healing and only costs a GCD to cast. It doesn't need an AoE component imo. 2. It could again use a bit of a boost so that it becomes easier to rely on Kolto Missile and use your individual heals more as supplementation rather than the beef of your AoE healing. I don't think it needs to affect all allies. I rather like the somewhat tactical aspect of KM in that you have to aim well. Remove all skill from the class and it just becomes a faceroll healer. There has to be a skill level. 3. Nah explained above. 6 Seconds is too short. It would also mess with heat too much. 4. I do think we could use a few more interactive talents; then again the tree shouldn't get too bloated. But I guess the 6th tier could do with a 2 + 3 point talent split. 5. It's dangerous to mess with this. Its a free instant heal, and that is always tricky to balance. 6. I agree that Supercharged Gas could use some more involvement; it's a really fun mechanic. Was kinda disappointed it didn't include Rapid Scan and/or at least Emergency Scan and Cleanse for some special effect. As for heat management; It's not that hard at the moment and Rapid Shots ain't that bad. (It's my favorite healing effect). I'd much rather they buff Rapid shots somewhat so you want to use it more than you do now. (Although its effect is annoying for pvp). 7. Could be an option, but then IMO they need to increase the heat cost. So you get something like: Heat Damping "Reduces the heat cost of Jet Boost and Electro Dart by 8. Increases the heat cost of Concussion Missile by 8, but decreases the cast time by 2 seconds." An instant free Conc. Missile is simply too strong; but making it cost 16 heat means that it becomes a LOT more tactical. It's also harder for a BH to just Conc. someone and heal to full super easily. 8. I like that idea myself. I think all healers could use 1 or 2 more healing skills. For bounty hunter I always found the "shoot to heal" effect SUPER attractive. I think Unload heal and Power Shot heal (maybe replace Rapid Scan with one) are far more attractive than the scans we use now.

What spec are you playing?

I see where you are going, but this doesn't really work unless you overhaul a large portion of the arsenal mechanics. #1 Putting a cooldown on Tracer Missile is not useful, unless you change all of the supportive talents to also work with Power Shot, but why have tracer missile then in the first place. A 19.5 second ramp up as you suggest to allow us to benefit from all our debuffs is not working. #2 Again see 1. Also this is a damage buff mercenaries don't need; power shot does more damage than Tracer Missile if i'm not mistaken. #3/#4 You mean 25% per rank? Even with a 10 sec cooldown; that's a pretty heavy dps increase we probably dont need. ------ A better suggestion, if you want to get rid of TM spam, would be for tracer to just be different from power shot; making sure you want to use both. Tracer could be the lower damage buff applier and Power Shot the higher damage filler. TM would have to apply debuffs faster and drop them faster too. For example: Tracer Missile applies 5% armor debuff per stack; so you would only need 4 applications that is 2 shots for full stacks. Tracer Lock could be changed to either 10% or 15% per stack requiring 3/2 TM shots respectively. But then to counter that the buffs drop in say 10 seconds instead of 15 seconds; or maybe even quicker. Then you can downgrade TM damage, and up Power Shot and/or include Power Shot in some more talents. Hell you could leave Power Shot largely the same and make Tracer Missile castable on the move so that arsenal mercs stop being pure turrets and gain some mobility. There are plenty of options; but forcing mercs to use something else by putting a CD on TM is just a bandaid that ruins the tree (which quite frankly is built around spamming TM)

We don't really. Point is that, unless you mess up your rotation or do something weird, you can't spam heals non stop without swapping to rapid shots. And that is where the disadvantage of alacrity lies. Speeding up those casts only frees time for more rapid shots, as you are restricted by heat generation. That means that alacrity doesn't really increase your healing output. The only thing it grants is slightly more mobility (as you can use rapid shots on the move). This isn't WoW where your resource is "unlimited" and haste directly increases your healing output. Alacrity would be a nice thing to have a relic off, so that you can pop a ton of alacrity if you need that fast boost. Other than that I don't see a use for it, until they allow alacrity to increase your resource generation or scale down ability costs with it. If 100% alacrity would not only reduce my Rapid Scan by 1 second but also reduce the cost by 12.5 heat. THEN it would become interesting, as THEN it directly increases your potential healing throughput.

Thing is that that doesn't matter. Even with 0 alacrity there is no rotation, that I am aware off, that has 100% activity (meaning you're always casting something without delay); and can do that rotation without using any rapid shots. And that is where my point comes in. At this point the only thing one would add with alacrity from a pure healing output point of view is a rapid shot. Not saying that alacrity is the worst stat or anything. I'm just saying that people seem to only think in 1 dimension: "Alacrity increases heal speed, thus it is a great stat". When in fact there are a ton of layers one has to consider.

As a Sniper and a Merc I can say that the classes are totally incomparable on this front. I'm actually baffled why we are having this discussion. Merc's Tracer Missile hits for more than snipe, but they are not the same. A sniper has a lot more tools to use. Snipe is merely a filler the kind mercenaries don't have, ergo comparing snipe and TM, or trying to find a counter part for one another is impossible. As a merc you use Tracer Missile to build your debuff on your target. After that it's pretty much using Rail Shot, Unload and HSM on cooldown and use TM as filler. Obviously TM has to do some decent damage, as it is a vital part of your rotation. Not to mention that often you don't even get the time to build as many stacks in PvP. A sniper does something totally different. You have many more abilities and other stuff. You use Series of Shots on cooldown, as that is a major way to proc reactive shots (shortening your ambush cast to 1.5 second). Then ambush whenever RS procced. Followthrough whenever it is up. Because frankly Followthrough is THE marksman ability. It hits for a TON (Probably somewhere around Rail Shot) only costs 6 heat and has a 6 second cooldown. So you basically build your rotation around Followthrough. The playstyles are totally different too. A sniper can MUCH more easily build absurd burst. A combination of Explosive Probe > Ambush > Followthrough; maybe even followed by Takedown is a scary thing to face. A merc on the other hand can due to easier heat management (energy is slightly harder to manage, although a regen of 6/sec helps a lot), put out better sustained damage. On my sniper my damage comes in waves. When I use Ambush/Explosive Probe/Takedown or Followthrough my damage spikes to way above what Mercs put out on average. But when I use Snipe or Series of Shots my damage is relatively much lower than a mercs.] That is why comparing Snipe to Tracer Missile is just a dumb discussion. It would for example be much more fair to compare multiple abilities or even short rotations. Snipe > Followthrough comes much closer in damage to 2x TM than comparing snipe and TM directly. Partially; but the animation is simply too noticeable. I never EVER heard someone complain about the mad burst of Followthrough. I think half the people don't even know what the skill is that takes 3k off their HP when they face a sniper. Even more ironic. Tracer Missile isn't the skill that hurts you that much when facing a Arsenal Merc. Rail Shot / Hunter Seeker Missile and Unload hurt way more; but again, they don't have the flashy blue neon animation that TM has. We do have armor penetration. We got 20% on ambush (one of our big hitters) and we have Scatter Shot which instantly applies 20% armor penetration (You know the stuff that Mercs have to put 3 Tracer Missiles out for to accomplish). Just because you don't use it, doesn't mean it ain't there. Also we get crit multiplier as well. It's in the 6th tier.

For AoE fights, in which I use both Fusion and DFA, I'll use it on fusion as that costs quite a lot. For single targets as Arsenal it depends. If the situation allows for AoE to be used (so pretty much any situation without CC or aggro sensitive adds) the best way to use TSO is to dump it when your heat gets too high. And then DfA is pretty much the best option you have. It does more damage than unload (remember that I said when heat gets too high, so its unlikely barrage is up), it costs more and the channel time and thus the heat regen is the same. So... Yes it can be. If you can't use AoE for whatever reason; unload and HSM are equally good (both cost 16 heat) although I prefer Unload as then it again functions like a mini vent heat. And that is quite frankly the only reason I use TSO on single targets.

Snagulus is pretty spot on. You'll really want to put all points in Arsenal first. Not only are the talents in better; it also means you get the great skills first. Getting Tracer Missile 3 levels faster is a huge help. As for the progression of the talents. It's mostly a judgement call. But mostly its logic. First tier is pretty difficult; since you don't have much Aim yet Ironsights isn't as huge as it is later. And the 6% on your main attacks is pretty beefy too. Second Tier I would pick up Muzzle Fluting first; simply because of the huge heat reduction, that makes grinding a TON easier. Stabilizers second is probably best, as without TM you won't be able to rail shot all that often. Third tier obviously Tracer Missiles first; I would probably pick up Afterburners second, it's not just for PvP the knockback also functions as a melee interrupt; Power Barrier third. Skip Target Tracking for now, because: a) You won't benefit from the HSM part yet b) Unload isn't as great until you get the talents for it c) You don't crit all that often yet Forth tier is again a preference call. Light em up helps with getting stacks up fast and thus doing more damage sooner. Terminal Velocity is a huge help for heat management, I would get this first if heat is holding you back. Jet Escape if you PvP a lot otherwise I would get Target Tracking now. Fifth tier is really a preference call. Boost Unload by 33% or Rail Shot by 30% (stacked); at this point you know what you use most. This is also the tier where you get to pick some optional talents. Since Pinning Fire isn't mandatory you got some points to play with. Sixth tier I'd get barrage first nice way to make your rotation much more dynamic with just 1 point. Rest speaks for itself.

Well I agree that Unload might not be the best opener either. It's not just the resist factor you mentioned, but also because the DPS isn't all that high without heat signature stacks up. On the other hand that might be a benefit to keep initial threat down in PvE scenarios. Frankly in a boss fight scenario it might be better to open with TM; my point was more that using a front load heat ability would be ideal. In fact starting with Power Surge + TM might be the best combination available; assuming the fight allows you to use such a cooldown from the get go.

Oversimplified

Pretty much what I would go with too. Maybe I'd take 2 points out of Warden for 2 extra points in Ironsight. The loss of 6% crit healing for 6% extra aim, is generally more than worth it. And maybe swap Kolto Residue with Critical Reaction or Improved Vents.

It's wise to start with an ability that front-loads your heat cost; which means any instant and Unload. That way you spend your heat right away. Benefit of unload is that by the time it finishes you regenerated most of it. Also your priority list makes no sense, putting TM as top priority means you spam it all the time. I guess you meant to put TM above rapid shots.

You should probably give the class a go before you make bold and frankly rather ignorant statements. First of all; Tracer doesn't hit too hard at all. This is a huge misconception, but really tracer is next to rapid shots one of our weaker attacks. And it does less damage than most of the other class' core abilities. The misconception comes forth out of 2 causes: 1) Tracer Missile has a very clear and unique animation. It's just like how most sith complain that consular rocks are OP, but that's also largely due to it being so recognizable 2) Our other attacks hit way harder, but are instant and/or have weak animations. Second of all; Tracer DOES require LoS at the start and as the cast finishes. When I play as merc healer facing an arsenal BH in huttball. I just jump in and out of LoS as he tries to cast. In fact tracer has so many disadvantages that it more than offsets the low heat cost. You need constant LoS; you can't move while casting it; It's quite easy to interrupt. And the Arsenal BH is extremely reliant on it hitting as it powers our 3 other main abilities that hit hard. Seriously though. Get some inside information. Play a Arsenal BH for a few weeks and see what you think about Tracer then. Spamming Tracer is really dumb, but Bioware set it up that way. You have to spam tracer and weave in your more powerful attacks. Quite frankly I'm 99.99% sure that all the whining would stop, or had never even started if Tracer didn't have such a huge noticable animation. Fact: You never hear as much whining about Grav Round.