What makes you not want to go past Havoc Training? Tactics is actually a pretty solid tree with a very stable rotation, and Fire Pulse is what brings it all together. Vanguards used to have a couple of decent hybrid options, but Bioware specifically nerfed those a while ago.

Depends on the class and spec. If you do a lot of elemental/internal damage, it won't affect you much because those damage types aren't mitigated by armor anyway. Classes with more kinetic/energy and ranged/melee damage will get more relative benefit from the armor debuff.

It's called Full Auto, and yeah, it looks kinda silly on a Vanguard, lowering the rifle and shooting from the hip like that. I still like it better than the PT's Unload, but the Merc Unload looks a little better. I was just offering a suggestion that would allow Prototype's damage to be more competitive in single-target situations without altering any of the current mechanics or rotation.

Yeah, that's basically what I was getting at. Unload would need to be definitively better than Flamethrower for use on a single target, which is why I suggested 25% per stack. That would increase Unload by 75% compared to Flamethrower's 60% with three PFT stacks. As for the other PFT buffs, I think Unload should maybe keep the interrupt immunity, but the slowdown doesn't matter since you're not trying to keep a group of adds together the way you do with FT, and Unload is 30m, so a target is much less likely to outrange it if you start at the normal melee/10m range. As for the heat reduction, I only leave that out because Unload is 16 heat as it is, where FT is 24, down to 18 with 3 stacks. As for the tooltip, yeah it would be more wordy, but I'll accept that lol. Just as an example (including TAC's suggestion of renaming it to "Prototype Systems", which I really like): "While High Energy Gas Cylinder is active, Flame Burst, Flame Sweep and Immolate have a 100% chance to grant Prototype Systems, increasing the damage dealt by your next Flamethrower by 20% or your next Unload by 25% and making it immune to interrupts, reducing Flamethrower's energy cell cost by 2, and causing it to slow affected targets by 30%. This effect can stack up to 3 times." As for the lackluster Unload animation...well, speaking as a Vanguard, you guys can't complain about anything as long as you have Immolate and we're stuck with Fire Pulse.

My suggestion: let Prototype Flamethrower buff Unload as well, for greater damage than Flamethrower, so you can choose to use your 3 stacks on Flamethrower for AoE, or Unload for single target, i.e. boss fights. Think about it: they're both 15s cooldowns and 3s channels. Allowing Unload to take FT's place in rotation could allow a serious boost to single target damage (that we desperately need), without affecting AoE capability at all. Let PFT boost UL by 25% per stack, for example, compared to 20% for FT. Hell, don't even bother giving UL the slowdown or heat reduction that FT gets.

I certainly wouldn't object to giving Triumph more than 3%. But I had another idea for improving Tactics' single-target sustained damage without affecting its AoE capability: make Pulse Generator affect Full Auto as well, so you have to choose between using your 3 stacks on Pulse Cannon or Full Auto. Consider that Pulse Cannon and Full Auto are both 3-second channeled abilities with 15 second cooldowns, so FA can easily take the place of Pulse Cannon in the rotation. I propose that Full Auto with 3 stacks of Pulse Generator should do more damage than Pulse Cannon, which would mean much more competitive single-target damage without either overpowering the AoE capability or nerfing it into the ground. We can probably do away with the ammo cost reduction for FA since it already only costs 16 (PC is 24 base, 18 with 3 stacks of PG). Hell, do away with the slowdown for all I care. And I think Full Auto should be added to the abilities affected by Havoc Training (30% crit bonus damage on Stockstrike, Gut, Pulse Cannon and Fire Pulse). I haven't done any actual number crunching, but just as a ballpark figure, let's say Pulse Generator increases Full Auto's damage by 25% per stack, that would be 75% extra damage on FA compared to 60% for Pulse Cannon. Not overpowered, I think, but significant enough to make it worth using Full Auto instead of Pulse Cannon for a single-target scenario. So, for example, the tooltip for Pulse Generator would read: "While High Energy Cell is active, Ion Pulse, Explosive Surge and Fire Pulse have a 100% chance to grant Pulse Generator, increasing the damage dealt by your next Pulse Cannon by 20% or your next Full Auto by 25%, reducing Pulse Cannon's energy cell cost by 2, causing it to slow affected targets by 30%, and making it immune to interrupts. This effect can stack up to 3 times." Any thoughts on that? Like I say, I haven't gone so far as to calculate how that might affect the DPS of an actual parse with those exact numbers, just kinda throwing something out there. I just thought this might be a decent solution to Tactics' single-target DPS issues without adversely affecting its AoE potential, or changing the basic rotation or mechanics of the tree.

My questions: why are Commandos the only ranged DPS class with zero capability for 35m range? Slingers get it by default and Sages can spec into it for certain abilities. Also, can we get rid of the 8s ICD on Curtain of Fire? I know it was bumped up from 6s to keep Gunnery from being too good with the guaranteed proc, but in practice, it's still way behind Assault, and I think reverting the ICD increase would bring it closer without making it overpowered.

Assault parses higher for sustained single target damage, there's no question there. I pretty much stay Assault all the time, though I occasionally run Gunnery for casual raids where I don't have to try to push 3k all the time, just for fun.

Do you run that in Armor Piercing or Plasma Cell? It looks like you have abilities that rely on both (Cell Charger and Superheated Plasma). The proc has an internal cooldown of 8 seconds, so 6 global cooldowns, maybe 5 with a lot of Alacrity.

For Gunnery, my burst opener is Grav Round > Demo Round > Electro Net [then Tech Override + Reserve Powercell in the same GCD] > Plasma Grenade > Grav Round (should be instant from your second Tech Override), and then from there you go into your regular rotation. Full Auto whenever it procs, Demo Round on cooldown and HIB on cooldown when you have 5 stacks of Charged Barrel. As far as gearing goes, it doesn't matter so much during leveling, but when you get to 55, you'll want just enough Accuracy to get to 100% ranged/110% tech (including the 3% buff from your skill tree), then stack mostly Power and Surge after that. When you get into 72/78 level gear, it will become beneficial to have a couple hundred points of Crit Rating.

Don't try to go half and half, you'll just end up being mediocre at both healing and damage. If anything, pick one or the other, and invest in the Field Respec perk so you can switch back and forth as the situation calls for it.

Exactly. That's open world PvP for you. The Ebon Hawk is a PvE server, so you can only get attacked if you're flagged for PvP. Unfortunately, when you are flagged, there's no level restrictions in terms of who can attack who, and Tatooine tends to be one of the more popular planets for high levels to gank lowbies, since it's the first planet where both factions really share a lot of territory.

If you're trying to be a damage dealer, be one. Splitting up your skill points to get a little healing and a little damage will just leave you with mediocre capability for either. As a DPS, your base class healing abilities should be the only ones you ever use.

Try this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GRhMdMboZMsMZfhMrko.3 Obviously, to even get Storm you have to put the majority of your points in the tank tree, and a couple of them will be wasted on things like shield buffs (though you do get to take Riot Gas too). But you're left with enough points in Assault to get Incendiary Round and Ionic Accelerator, so you get your burn DoT and the HIB reset from Ion Pulse and Stockstrike, all of which are buffed. Run this build with a regular generator and Plasma Cell. You will naturally lose a decent amount of potential DPS with a build like this, but overall, I've found it to be versatile and fun. Storm is a huge boost to your mobility and ability to close gaps, which is normally quite limited as a Vanguard DPS, and there's nothing like watching a Sorc or Assassin Force Speed away from you, only to have you leap right back at them just as they think they've given you the slip. This build is not as good for 1v1 dueling since you're missing Assault Plastique and a bunch of higher level Assault skills. But you'll still do a fair amount of damage, since you've got the core of the Assault damage rotation (burn, SS, IP, HIB). While I'm not usually at the top of the damage scoreboard in this build, I'm generally nowhere near the bottom either (not counting healers/tanks). I've won a decent amount of Arenas with this as well. tl;dr - I wouldn't queue for Ranked with it, but it's a lot of fun and probably the most effective way to build a DPS Vanguard while still being able to take Storm.

When I'm queuing for ranked (or generally trying to be serious), I go full Assault. But just for fun, I queue up with this spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GRhMdMboZMsMZfhdbdo.3 Just enough points in the tank tree to get Storm, and then Assault up to Ionic Accelerator, running with Plasma Cell. It does waste a couple skills on stuff like shield chance, because there's no other way to get Storm, but it's a fun build. Basically plays like Assault plus you get the leap. You won't usually top the damage list with this, but it's fun as hell, and the leap is actually quite useful in a lot of situations, especially in Huttball.

I think when a thread hasn't been touched in almost two years, it's safe to just make a new one lol. Anyway, Charged Bolts does what it's supposed to do. As a Gunnery Commando, you don't really use it at all, and that's fine, because Grav Round exists to replace it in that tree. You basically spam Grav Round to get 5 stacks of Charged Barrel, use HIB, and use Full Auto when Grav Round procs Curtain of Fire, and throw in Demo Round on cooldown. For Assault Specialist, Charged Bolts is the main filler ability, and you spam that to proc your free HIB. tl;dr - you don't need Charged Bolts as Gunnery.

You never want to use a rifle for any Commando DPS spec. It can technically work with Gunnery since none of your main rotation abilities (Grav Round, Full Auto, HIB, Demo Round) require a cannon, but your non-tech damage will be nerfed significantly due to the lower weapon damage of rifles. Only healing Commandos can get away with using a rifle, since healing is all tech-based and is only affected by the level of your mainhand barrel, not the weapon type, and no healing abilities require a cannon.

For PvP, definitely Vanguard. You're limited to 4-10m range, but literally every skill that Assault Vanguards use is instant, so you're essentially immune to interrupts. Commandos do good damage from a distance, but one melee enemy can essentially shut them down since almost everything they use has a channel or activation timer.

I think it's fine currently. There are a lot of abilities, sure, but only a relative handful that you need within easy reach for instant access. My Vanguard, for example, uses only a few things in regular rotation; Gut, Fire Pulse, Stockstrike, HIB, Ion Pulse, and Pulse Cannon, with a few utilities like Battle Focus and Harpoon, and less frequent abilities like Mortar Volley and Shoulder Cannon. They all fit into a single skill bar

Yeah, you definitely want to use Stockstrike. Great damage on a short cooldown and low ammo cost, plus it can reset HIB. You should pretty much keep it on cooldown.

My Commando is in pretty much the exact same gear you are, and I'm getting around the same numbers parsing with Assault. If you're using Assault, try using the armor debuff and limited health modules on your training dummy, since Assault doesn't get its own armor debuff, and you get a lot of bonus damage once your target drops below 30%. Also, if you're not already, try throwing Plasma Grenade and Electro Net into your rotation. I like to open up with all my DoTs at the same time, Assault Plastique > Tech Override + Reserve Power Cell (both within the first GCD) > Plasma Grenade > Electro Net > Incendiary Round > HIB > Full Auto > HIB (it almost always procs there) > Charged Bolts (1 or 2 depending on proc) > HIB, and so on. With that opener, I can burst above 4k with all those DoTs running and two HIBs almost back to back. And if you can squeeze Tech Override and Reserve Power Cell into that single global cooldown immediately after Assault Plastique, then you can throw that free and instant Plasma Grenade without any delay. As for Electro Net, it's a high cooldown obviously, but it has a low ammo cost, so keep it on cooldown.

That's a referral link, just FYI.

Not even trying to hide the fact that it's your referral link, eh? Reported. Everyone else, don't click that unless you want to give that guy 600 Cartel Coins.

So, with the coming changes to Vanguards making the current popular hybrid builds obsolete, I decided last night to just mess around with my skill trees and see if I could come up with anything useful that didn't require Pulse Generator outside of High Energy Cell. Here's what I came up with: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMhrdMboZMsMZfhrbzo.3 I put 22 points in the tank tree just to get to Storm. I tried to bypass most skills that involved shielding attacks, but there were a couple that I had to take just to advance to the next level of the tree. Then 16 points in Assault to get Ionic Accelerator and Incendiary Round, and the rest in Tactics for the cell bonuses, accuracy/HIB penetration, Ion Pulse bonus, and elemental crit chance. I ran this build with Plasma Cell obviously, since that's needed for the Assault components of this build. I used my regular generator offhand, so the couple points of shield bonuses are useless (not to mention shields are useless without Ion Cell anyway), but I'm intending this to primarily be a damage-dealing build. I gotta say, it's a really fun build to play. Storm is an incredibly useful gap closer and it gives some nice variety to the usual DPS Vanguard style, where your only gap closer is Harpoon. Now, when that Sorc or Assassin you're beating on Force Speeds away, instead of helplessly spamming Hammer Shot at them, you can Storm them just when they think they're home free. Riot Gas is another nice utility; slowing and reducing accuracy on multiple enemies will help you and your team, and makes for a nice damage nerf to whoever you're fighting combined with Static Field, and throwing out your taunts just takes it even further. I only had time to try this build out in one game last night, which was a Huttball. Maybe it's different with different game modes, but I found it to be very versatile. I didn't even do too badly with damage, third place overall by a couple thousand points, and most kills. Anyway, feel free to give it a try. I wouldn't queue for ranked arenas with it, but it's a ton of fun for regular WZs.

Do both! Invest in Field Respec and build two gear sets. Hell, on my Vanguard I have three gear sets; one for tanking, one for DPS, and one for PvP.