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.

The rank card ultimately doesn't mean too much. Several classes in this game -should- be beholden to strict hierarchies (troopers, Jedi, Sith, agents), but the fact of the matter is that the game's story line elevates every character to the pinnacle by level 50. There's no universal Jedi Order for RPers; everyone can be a master just by toggling the title, even without it really. I don't disagree that the event described in the OP was just bad RPing, possibly even advanced trolling by the sound of it... but speaking as someone who plays a trooper, rank is a HUGE conundrum in terms of RP. Someone can walk up to me and say they're a major, display the title... do I then have to do whatever they order? Within closed RP circles like guilds or friends, yes, rank should be held to as agreed upon. Outside of that? It's the Wild West, and if you expect otherwise you have no business being near the internet.

It's probably a wash anyway, since PTs have better CGC uptime (which buffs Rapid Shots in addition to its damage).

If there weren't already a reward system established, not really. I pretty much use it as a way to compartmentalize my play anyway. Winning 3 WZs a day and getting 30 kills is a pretty decent chunk of PVP to do; sometimes, I'll queue some more and I'll almost always stick around to re-win center in Ilum even if I'm done for the day. I like seeing "The Empire Controls Ilum!"

I'd rather lose with 8 and know we deserved it than see the time out message come up four times per match. Seriously, have people never seen a game turn around before? It happens all the time. WZs last ~10 minutes. A 15 minute time out would negate the incentive of leaving. People would stay, suck it up, and not result in the weary sighs of their teammates unless they suck.

I didn't have a strong opinion on this issue until tonight. I saw a player leave a huttball team TWICE and then return a third time, finally on the winning team. Surprisingly, he stuck around. Meanwhile, because of low numbers, our team basically had a revolving door. The four of us that stuck with it managed to come back from 3-0 to 5-4 before the match was done; if we'd had a full team out the gate, we probably would have won. Hopefully the changes coming will address this problem in some meaningful fashion; otherwise, people will adopt the behavior of leaving in mass (moreso than they already have) because otherwise you're forced to play with half a team for most of the games.

Homewrecker ftw.

Arsenal Mercenary in huttball is a pretty weird thing to get used to. This is what I usually try to do, and I feel like I make a pretty decent impact on every single game. 1.) Controlling Midfield- It is important. Laying into people as soon as they grab the ball can be the difference between a pass to a sorc and a recovery. Keeping opposing ranged at bay so your team can move is critical (and there isn't any ranged class that can slug it out with us outside of interrupt range). Being successful at this is ALL about positioning. It's very easy to find yourself LOS'd and running around stupid if you don't set up and react well. 2.) Retrieving the Ball, then Passing- Take the time of one tracer missile to find someone not squishy upfield to pass to, or be ready to spike it. I make a lot of recoveries, and you need to be ready or you're just going to melt near your endzone. Think of yourself as the goalie- not only do you need to stop the goal, but you need to get it back into play. 3.) Jet Boost- Talented, this is up pretty much all the time. Watch the ball carrier's Resolve, because if it's full and you waste it you won't get another chance. This is about all the utility we have, but its easily the strongest single button to push that doesn't move you across 20% of the map. It's also incredibly useful on offense. Jump into a clump of enemies and send them all flying away from your carrier. Often this will result in a score if used to catch the spawners who are rushing the final fire trap (hoping to use their own KBs). You can also use it on the run in (the side platforms is generally a great place) to slow down melee knowing full well it will be up again when you need it. --- Mechanically, Mercs are simplistic... but that simplicity requires a lot of strategy to do anything more than hit top damage. Trying to carry the ball as a mercenary is just silly. With Energy Shield and a self-heal up, I can make it through about one trap consistently. I go so far as to tell people not to guard me at the start of the match, because the odds are it will be wasted on me while I run around the ramps. Maybe it isn't the class for you, OP, but the contention that it's a useless class in huttball is completely inaccurate.

Yes. That's what nerds do. They turn to steroids. /boggle I'm pretty sure they actually hop on computers and make ridiculous forum posts, then hope that rolling pugs in a battlemaster premade will make them feel better :|

I really dont understand the rage, having recently hit 50 and valor 30 myself. Decent melee just cut our damage to shreds, and los will either force me to lose the safe spot I painstakingly picked out or switch targets. Yeah, if youre tunnel visioned elsewhere and I open up on you, youre gonna do down fast... But thats not specific to arsenal mercs.

Arsenal shouldn't get an interrupt. It does zip againt most melee, we already wreck other ranged, and you should be teaming up to take down any healer worth interrupting anyway. Pyro on the other hand could use one deep in the tree. They play more as harriers, and really can't slug it out vs. ranged without los abuse. I actually think a 12 second cd interrupt is exactly what that tree needs to be a little more useful, especially with the nerf to dots coming.