I agree with the above, but I play a Mercenary. The delay causes the GCD to reset but nothing happens. Also, when casting power shot, sometimes the animation triggers without the cast bar and my merc never shoots. I have to reactivate it after the GCD to actually fire a shot. On the whole, very frustrating. Combine this with instant casts and so forth, and there's a recipe for PvP and PvE disaster!

What you also have to take into account, regarding the PvP top tier talent argument especially, is that pyrotech is not PURELY a PvP tree. Just because most people do this and most people do that doesn't make it so. They have to provide the feasibility to play a pyro merc in ops for example.

1 vs 2,3 or 4 you'd lose anyway. Whether it's burst damage or stuns makes little difference. If you had some friendlies with you it wouldn't happen. Heals, for example, would keep you alive long enough that the resolve would kick in and bingo! Immune to stuns. To me things seem well balanced, it's all relative after all, but 1 vs 2,3, or 4 is not really a good example.

I've read every post in this thread so far - some stuff I agree with other stuff just makes me facepalm. From my raiding (operating just doesn't sound right) experience so far with a fellow arsenal specced merc and myself as pyrotech, the damage seems fairly equal. Okay, as has been pointed out, arsenal has BIG CRAZY NUMBERS, but us pyrotechs have many many smaller numbers to make up for that. The armor debuff is not an argument, as a raid will have a jugg tank/dps or a sniper instead. Other classes have these similar abilities for a reason. My gear is currently slightly better than my arsenal guild mate, with me almost Rakata'd out and him being one or two pieces behind, and my damage versus his does seem to reflect this. On the whole, however, as we hit 50 the same day and have rolled every flashpoint and now operation fight (normal/hard/nightmare) dpsing together, our damage has remained consistently similar. To write pyro off without any numbers is foolish, and in answer to the OP it is indeed a viable option. Myself and others prove this to be the case, with our anecdotal evidence. Heat management is not a problem, as there is no situation where spamming PS is a good idea, unless the boss has enraged and a full nuke is in order. Even then, this is where vent heat was designed to be used. The rail shots should keep heat down, and rapid shots MUST be worked into the rotation as often as is required to keep the dot present on the target. Rail shot does refresh this, but the dot only lasts for 6 seconds, so it will drop off from time to time. Indeed the damage from combustible gas is ridiculous for being free. Combine this with the 30% increase to dot damage below 30% target hp and you see why. In reality however there is no set rotation, as the RNG factor must be accounted for and the impact this has on heat requires dealing with, but with a cool (no pun intended) head one can easily go through long dps intense fights without overheating. TL;DR Pyro is at least as powerful a dps spec for PVE as arsenal, writing it off without numbers is simply idiotic. Indeed writing it off without evidence at all is even worse. It works. It's really fun. Try it and see for yourself! Just my thoughts and observations.

Nice guide and solid job, wholeheartedly agree with everything from my own beta experience! Hope everyone takes the time to read this, could help them a lot. : )

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