This ^ its a shame that you have to mix pve/pvp gear to be a min/max pvper rather than just use the pvp gear. If you keep up with Taug's guides to powertech/vanguard pvp power is what you want. You will knock out healers/tanks they won't know what hit them. The only kind of other class that I can think of that can put the initial hurt on in a hurry are good concealment ops and a gunnery commando/tracer bh who abuses alacrity adrenals/relics.

I can't figure out a replacement for Gut. PvP gear has a ton of accuracy on it. On the Dev tracker its been said they were "too" generous with accuracy making smoke grenade less than ideal. Blaster Augs is about the only other alternative I can think of, but I think I will still keep Gut. Its still another dot that will allow you to use HIB. You will not always have 100% uptime on a target Gut allows you to keep "some" sustained dps going. Sometimes even while dying that dot will finish the opponent off for you. I definitely miss PCS it gets a bad rap but with the mass amounts of knockback/knock downs/stuns if you are low on ammo chances are you are pressuring a healer or other enemy and are getting peeled refilling your ammo bar. Like I said as CP you can continue to put out pressure dps you can't do the same as IF if you've burned down a target already. I still believe your IF build will be the one to go with rated WZs since dots no longer affect capping objectives. Staying alive and buying time for respawners will be more important, carrying the huttball and finding an open person/crossing the goal line. CP is great but the 3 talent points in soldiers endurance, superheated plasma, and useless 2 piece bonus from Eliminator set, along with reduced harpoon/riot strike, 4% damage mitigation, and 30% crit bonus damage on SS is pretty substantial. Looking forward to seeing you in Cross realm WZs Taug.

You can tank HM FPs 16 man ops I haven't tried but if your doing those you have the money to respec and hopefully the gear. Most of the raids are more about learning the fights than actually being able to absorb super amounts of damage like in WoW. So I'm almost fully geared in BM and have all 3 sets of champ gear for the Vanguard. I wrote earlier comparing CP and IF but I wanted to share some of my gameplay experiences as IF fully geared and going against organized/geared rep & imp teams in WZs. I went for super commando set up with dps mods due to the storm 1.5 sec cooldown. Since your more of a melee than a ranged spec getting to a target and staying on them is important. You spec'd 21 in shield spec for storm so may as well maximize it, and I try to use it as an additional interrupt whenever I can. It helps locking down casters/rooting/moving from point A to B. Super Commando/IF spec for huttball is pretty amazing in my opinion. The 5% damage you get is pretty helpful. Stockstrike crits range from 2.7-3.2k for me with BF, Relic, Power Adrenal. Haven't had a chance to see how it would do with expertise buff. I do miss the 15% increase to SS from Combat tech set but my crit is already high enough that the 5% damage is more beneficial in creating a higher sustained damage. Burst if you manage to string a couple of crits in a row is very good. HIB hits for me around 2.8-3.0k but 15 sec cooldown, and if you manage to get 2 stock strike crits in a row, followed by an ion pulse crit you'll put the hurt down. Bad news is you blew through quite a bit of your ammo and unless recharge cells is up you'll be hammer shotting for awhile. The longer a fight lasts and if the side has good healers the less effective IF becomes due to ammo issues. You have to be careful when and how you want to burst/burn down. You see that healer? You burn him/her down you'll most likely be out of the fight for awhile in regards to dps b/c you spent too much ammo where as CP can "usually" keep going. As IF any tracer/grav round BH is automatic win for you. As IF if you pop 25% damage shield your not gonna go down while its up. You can still hit 300k damage in voidstar as IF against geared teams provided you use pulse canon and mortar volley. As IF you will feel limited in what you can do in regards to attack abilities. You can't ion pulse spam without burning through ammo. CP you burn a couple of ion pulses to proc for HIB and you'll gain an ammo, get stunned/knocked back/etc. get another ammo. With the new changes in 1.1.5 CP loses its advantage with IR due to dots not breaking objective capping and with the 3 sec activation time for speeders on left/right turrets staying alive is even more important.

I think on taugrims power tech/trooper guide someone did test that you did not need to be in range for damage buff. If you are assault or cp spec or even oozos 1/22/18 build the 2 piece bonus of eliminator set is useless. I was aware that you may lose some spike damage but more utility with 1.5 sec reduced storm & 5% damage increase on all attacks not just hib. You could rely on battle focus and crit surge relic to up your crit when you need to burn. Using that spreadsheet dps is a loss but not by much.

Which is more valuable to you and why? Been wondering if its better to have 5% more damage at the cost of 15% extra crit for stockstrike and or high impact bolt.

This ^ CP is based around HIB you want it to hit as hard as possible 21/2/18 is the sweet spot. Not to say I couldn't see a 23/0/18 working but...meh

I'm at valor 64 with a good mix of bm and champ gear. I wrote earlier using IF when I first hit 50 and have been switching between IF and Caraolina Parakeet spec. I'm talking on my experience in premades (4 man mind you) and against fully BM/Champ geared empire teams. IF Pros - Improved survivability when focus fired or going against 1v 2x+ - Can "slow" down a healer longer than non IF (You will not kill a stim abusing/geared/skilled healer) - Shorter Harpoon Cooldown = more opportunities to peel for your healer/abuse fire/acid pits in huttball - No wasted set bonuses or points - IF really shows its strengths in huttball, but is not as good as CP in voidstar/civil war/ilum IF Cons - Your best damage attack is stockstrike which can at most be used 2x in a row every 4.5 secs with internal cooldown from static shield - Ammo intensive there is no paralytic combat stims/high friction bolts to help you recoup ammo meaning you have to weave in your rotation more hammer shots which is less burst - Burst is not very good with relic, power adrenal, battle focus outside of a LUCKY stockstrike x 2/HIB crit it will be ion pulse spam to try and bring a target down...not good. - Gut is 2 ammo that is negated by armor (the first initial damage anyhow) does less damage than stockstrike and needs to be used at the beginning of the fight to get its full effect with the dot. CP Pros - When you are "on" with HIB resets people die. Burst is good as is overall damage. - Ammo is only intensive when you have to multi IR on targets but liberal use of power cell and other vanguards that are either CP or Assault spec is much better allowing you to use less hammer shots and more ion pulses/stock strikes, also paralytic combat stims although situational is useful. You will notice with all the knockbacks/stuns that your ammo bar seems to never go low - Reduced cooldown on stealth scan - this with defensive measures is invaluable going against marauders/ops/sins not game breaking but definitely a pro - Allows you to do more damage from range which in this game is king - Incendiary Round's dot is 18 sec compared to guts 15 sec, is elemental, has 30 yard range. If you are taking a speeder back to a turret in civil war, jumping out of the respawn pit for voidstar, tagging the capper is much easier with the fire and forget IR. - You can do more with Battle Focus as CP spec than you can IF CP Cons - Squishy you still run ion cell but you notice a difference going from IF to CP especially when focus fired. Losing 4% mitigation is noticeable - Less utility with original cooldown of riot strike/harpoon. Instead of controlling an opponent you pressure them with your superior dps and when you feel the moment is right blow your cc's/cooldowns and burn them down - You definitely notice less harpoon uptime particularly in huttball - Wasted talent points in superheated plasma and set bonuses from eliminator set. You can however use the SuperCommando set and use the 5% extra damage from guard and rely on Battle focus to get your HIB crits. Making just superheated plasma the only wasted talent points. Overall damage for me is higher with CP than IF. With the surge nerf I would tip my hat to CP over IF but just barely. IF is just too ammo intensive at higher gear levels in my experience. You can continue putting out pressure dps as CP where as IF will eventually either have to use recharge cells and or weave in hammer shots making your dps lower/more consistent but more manageable for enemy healers. And I can't stress this point enough as IF you really have to watch your ammo especially with surge nerf. Takes more ammo/time to bring down a geared healer/dps. If you are horrible at managing ammo I'd recommend CP If more offense and 1 vs 1 is your play style I recommend CP. If group play, control, feeling like a tank in regards to taking damage and dishing out "ok" damage than IF is the way to go. With a skilled healer + CP can turn the tide of a battle & rack kills With a skilled healer + IF can wait for help arrives or hold off people

What does cloak of pain look like? I always get confused if I am seeing saber ward =/ I also vote marauders they destroy me as carolina parakeet. I can hurt them but unless I get the jump and am able to kite a bit I get eaten up.

I've used this spec extensively from my valor grind 55-60. These are my thoughts so far comparing it to parakeets for anyone whose debating which spec they would prefer to play. Taugrim you thought about taking 2 in shield cycler I ended up taking it just b/c I "personally" feel this build is a tad more ammo intensive than parakeets and I took a point out of intimidation. I wanted to take smoke grenade out but I do pve still and I want to say it works "sometimes" in pvp. Pros: If you are a fresh 50 I can't recommend this build enough. You can out play your opponent but as a fresh 50 any centurion/champion/battlemaster geared enemy will destroy you and you will find yourself being focused on for medals, perhaps picked on as a rite of passage for hitting 50, whatever. You will notice the extra passive mitigation and survive 50 till you can gear up. If huttball is your game. Taugrim's Iron fist build is "the" build to be as a trooper. You are a game changer that can make a huge impact with stopping enemies from scoring. Defensive measures, shorter harpoon, storm, extra passive mitigation for ball carrying, riot strike for slowing down healers/tracer missle. You can shut down noob healers but your not gonna shut down experienced pvp healers especially with teammates that know how to peel. You can however shut down tracer bhs with this build. There are zero wasted points. I love parakeets build but I really struggled with some of my talent point investment as they were wasted. If you min/max like crazy you won't have any regrets in any talent point allocation. Where as in parakeets I wish those 8 or so talent points could have been used else where. Gut - way underrated, cool animation & sound If you pug a lot I believe Iron fist is for you Regular 2.5k+ stock strike crits for kbs Cons: I do feel that this build is a tad more ammo intensive than parakeets. And requires more ammo to burst people down. I'm almost in all Champion gear save for two centurion pieces (Helmet/waist). I don't know how it is for a lot of you but I regularly go up against battlemaster geared empire players with 18k-22k hps depending on class/spec.

You play in premades primarly wouldn't Taugrims Iron fist spec prove more useful than the variation of Parakeets your using now? Love the streams btw

Taugrim are you still using your Iron Fist build? Or have you switched to the 1/22/18 build as I saw on your comments section in the video feed? I love gut makes the game really fun, but I feel weak without ionic accelerator. Parakeets build is superb but I feel like a lot of wasted talent points to get IR and Ionic accelerator.

I agree I played in Beta both Immortal/Vengeance and that was not my experience either.