I don't endorse the PT/Vanguard propensity for naming specs weird things. I secretly believe that's the sole reason that PPA/IA got nerfed: Out of spite.

I think your 8% to stockstrike is probably the right call with combat tech 4 piece; im switching over from eliminator, so it will be a while at war hero prices for me to see that as more valuable than the extra aim. Incidentally, do you still play on jung ma? My vanguard there (Dakin) hit 50 not too long ago, so ive only heard of you heh.

Why max Rail Shot? The difference between it maxed and unmaxed without Assault Trooper is pretty negligible, and you can't hit the 90% armor pen anyway. You really don't need to worry about heat, I've found, so Shield Cycler is pretty unnecessary. Blaster Augs is virtually useless for Ion Cell. Virtually a must-have for the other cells, but, not so much for us tanks. Missing out on 10 seconds off Cryo grenade and the 4% debuff on Ion Pulse is arguably not all that important, but Shock Absorbers is a godsend. 20% is a lot when you're already sitting at 50% mitigation/12% elemental mitigation (buffed). I play the spec very opportunistically. You're always in the thick of things, and save for Pulse Cannon with 5 stacks, your ability to burn someone down from full health is pretty eh even with HEC. Keep targets guarded (I'm still getting the hang of guard swap), use your interrupts/cc to annoy healers and good people on the opposing team, use your scary AOE to keep pressure up, and go in for the Gut/Fire Pulse/Stockstrike/HiB kill on low targets when you see them. I'm also reasonably certain this is the absolute best spec for Huttball, for a Vanguard/PT. Storm is outclassed by lightsaber classes, but Hold the Line is literally amazing. As long as my team is on the ball, I can consistently guard the ball carrier past the first fire trap, get the ball, then make it to the endzone unmolested while people try to pull and knockback like madmen.

Haven't really seen anyone talking about a similar set-up, but I've been trying it the past couple days and loving it. I was a deep Assault player up until the patch, but decided to try out something new. Your damage is obviously less than Assault or someone running HEC, but the survivability boost is very noticeable, and the utility of Guard is just really hard to ignore. For reference, here's the spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GorZrMrrobfkds.1 The damage is respectable, particularly when the stars align for PG on a node or clump of healers/ranged. Having Hold the Line in huttball is almost worth it in and of itself; guarding a fellow to the last stretch then running it in yourself immune to grapples and knockback wins games, since people jump into the pit expecting you to come with them. Curious if anyone else has been having any success with this.

If you use DFA/Mortar Volley for anything besides padding damage meters, it's still fine. Still keeps people from capping objectives, still messes up a tank and the healer he's guarding if they're sticking close, still puts pressures on healers when the opposing team is clumped. Being inclined to use it less often will probably make for better play all around.

Pretty anecdotal, after only a day of WZs, buuuuut... On my Vanguard, I'm sitting at about 700 expertise after picking up 3 BM pieces today. The rest is Cent/Recruit gear (and my Cent gear now has defense :/). I was wrecking face in WZs, save for the three games where I was Tactics (AP) to try it out courtesy of my free respec. Being able to get 2 rail shots within 3 global cooldowns most of the time is fine. Opening with IM rather than FB is fine. Free interrupts are a thing of beauty, since you can actually be useful while rebuilding heat by sitting on a caster. I probably played about 15 WZs, and really didn't see too much difference between pre and post 1.2. Also anecdotal, but many of the faces I was wrecking were War Heroes who I used to flee from in my full Cent. As a disclaimer, I did a lot more Rapid Shotting than other Vanguards/PTs I saw pre-patch, so it might be a learning curve thing. TD>IM>RS>RP>RS or FB>FB or RS is still a pretty terrifying string of attacks. Rapid Shots and reposition in the downtime, or in GCDs where you're closing in (which is often).

I think it's because they have two lightsabers. That's pretty cool. In all seriousness... I hope they are FOTM. There is nothing so laughable as a bad marauder.

I had an awesome harpoon moment earlier tonight. I was at the bottom of the enemy middle ramp. They'd just recovered the ball and were moving as a mob around to the side. I started running after them, tabbing frantically to get the ball carrier targeted. Just as I did, someone used an AOE knockback... ... and I landed right in the middle off the acid. Harpoon, Cryo Grenade. We died together gloriously.

My trooper is strange. His service to the Republic began unwillingly, at the hands of an overbearing father after a misspent youth. Over time he grew to actually find meaning in his duties, but lately his past has been calling to him. He's somewhat awkward socially, and quite a bit more intelligent than he tends to come off. Unlike many Corellians, he has a deep fascination with "the odds", and the mathematical aptitude to turn them to his advantage in games of chance. While he does believe he's on the right side of the war, he's getting more and more unsure that he really wants or even needs to be participating. Losing friends is taking its toll, leading to more and more nights spent drinking heavily.

The cooldown is on the chance for PPA to proc, so it's from proc to proc. You can not have used Rail Shot at all and still start the internal cd by using Flame Burst or Rocket Punch (and thus miss out on a proc entirely and have to wait 6 seconds to start trying for another).

I'd really like to see Incendiary Missile reworked to fix our spec. Lower the heat cost to 16, then add a talent that grants a 20/40/60% chance per tick that we will vent 8 heat with a 6 second ICD. They could replace PPA with that and use talents to lower Rail Shot's base CD to 6-9 seconds and I'd be pretty happy.

If the PT knows where his interrupt is, you're pretty boned. My advice would be to not cast on him until you're ready to burst/he's low. Most of the time, I prioritize healers over Gunnery/Arsenal for killing, but if someone starts spamming tracers on me, I'll run over and mess them up.

In all honesty, I'm going to wait and see before I make any kind of severe judgement. If our overall performance dips ~10%, we'll still be in pretty good shape as deep pyro. In about 60% of fights, no cost on our interrupt will equate to 8 heat every 8 seconds, so there might be less resource management problems than I expect. That being said... the design of the tree is now just incredibly stupid. Proc + ICD is literally one of the clunkiest interactions in the world of gaming. It's the lazy way out in terms of "fixing" us, and I'd much rather see some kind of major change than deal with poor mechanics.

Prototype Particle Accelerator will now require Plasma Cell/Cylinder... so that won't work.

Your ammo management could really use some work. There were loooong spans of time when you were basically just Hammer Shotting, which is pretty negligible. A lot of the time it's better to just slip out of combat and R&R rather than stay in autoattacking (save for situations where you're preventing a cap). Weaving in Hammer Shots when you're below 7 ammo is critical to keeping pressure on. Just throw it in and get back to blasting. Also, in Voidstar in particular, AOE is very helpful. Elsewhere it's usually just meter padding, but people clump up enough that a Mortar Volley > Ion Cannon combo will really do some damage. Healers just can't keep up with that, and it has the benefit of interrupting all caps for the duration (since that tends to be where clumping happens). Edit: AOE comment- it's good on offense and defense. Voidstar is essentially about getting more kills than the other team overall due to the respawn mechanics. Other elements play a part, but moreso than the other WZs, you want to be enabling as many kills as possible. Getting 5 people down to 70% in six seconds goes along way.