9017 Merc HPS solo ranked #1 - Prescan https://gyazo.com/30879998e4bfccec61ba0ab1eec3818b

Preset Sniper DPS Reg arena 5290dps https://gyazo.com/67102ce3f5d52ea047b44694edc38747

There is literally no one left here for 4's. For 20 cartel coins, just transfer to Harb. Even B-ry is back playing a few ranked games and there are a couple teams in queue. Koozie has gone overseas for a while, but doubt he'll be back playing. Fatnerd and Purerage surface from time to time, but that's about it from your 'era'. You'll most likely be playing against trip PT carb 90% of the time. I know you hate transferring, but Harb has been the place to be for it since S3 probably.

First off, thanks for taking the time to write this guide. Forums junkies will cry at any opportunity but I thought I'd provide some input to further help people interested in learning. HPS is obviously and important factor and easily the first thing we look at the end of a game. I'd just also acknowledge here that awareness, positioning and healing priorities are also things that people should be actively considering as they seek to get better. An old guildy made an excellent tutorial video on these things: I've played with/against you and seen you do these things, but just forgot to note that here. Are these stats buffed/unbuffed? It's worth adding in here your raw stats to help avoid confusion. My stats were: Cunning: 3645, Power: 1310, Critical Rating: 189 (Critical Chance: 23.01), Surge Rating: 753 (Crit Mult: 76.66%), Alacrity Rating: 79. As far as I'm aware, the curve on Critical Rating hasn't changed since 3.0 was introduced. Where the game is at currently with increased damage output, and classes that have had buffs to burst damage (AP PT, MM sniper), I'd suggest that crit is still very important. DoT damage is strong enough to warrant having an increased crit rate. Although mentioned power as being a priority, I'd still state the obvious here that Advanced Artful (63 power) OR Keen (63 Crit) Mod's 33X are the way to go towards min/maxing. Datacrons are either +4 or +2? Only small. Worth mentioning all the companion affection bonuses. Advanced Skill Augment 36: +52 CUN +34END (other way around). Errors happen. There seems to be some debate flying around regarding main stat vs. power augs for most if not all classes. A lot of people are running main stat under the premise of the 'bonus' crit and Mark of Power buff. I'm not mathematician or a numbers nerd, but I thought I'd quickly provide these numbers based on my operative for your consideration: Each unit of power is contributing 0.17 to my bonus healing whereas each unit of cunning is only continuing 0.13. ]If you ran 14 cunning augs (728 cunning) you would receive 94.64 bonus healing and 0.15% towards crticial chance. Mark of Power 5% main stat buff: provides an extra 36.40 cunning (relative to 728 x14 augs) an additional 4.73 bonus healing. So, in total that’s 94.64 + 4.73 = 99.37 bonus healing inclusive of Mark of Power buff. If you ran 14 power augs (728 power) you would receive 123.73 bonus healing and obviously 0% crit from this. That’s a difference 29.09 bonus healing in favour of power augs at the expense of 0.15% critical chance. Seems nor here nor there but this is the important part: Each unit of cunning is contributing 0.002% to my overall critical chance whereas each unit of critical rating (contained in mods/enhancements) contributes FAR more at 0.017 per unit. Conclusion: It seems to be a little better to run power augs, supplementing in Critical Rating into gear in place of what you would gain from cunning, to gain greater bang for your buck! Honestly though, the difference seems to be minimal. I thought I'd provide this out of interest. I know you can still get this set bonus at 174 item rating. I'm not sure it can still be obtained for a lower item rating that bolsters decently? Chemical Resistant Inlays is 5% damage reduct. Revitalisers is really good utility, worth mentioning here as an alternative to Escape Plan/Smuggled Defenses. I'd prefer to run Revitalisers for solo ranked but would take Escape Plan/Smuggled Defenses for group ranked. Revitalisers: 20% damage reduction over 15 seconds and restores 15% of your health over the duration is nice if you get opened on hard in solo ranked. In some situations, if I have three decent players open on me and don't white bar me straight away, riding out damage with extra mitigation is needed in the climate of AP PT's and Hatred Sins running around. Hmmm, Shield Probe had a shorter CD pre 3.0. I felt like I could basically pop it whenever I was taking damage without thinking twice. I not that you take 5 second reduced CD on this via the Escape Plan/Smuggled Defenses utility, but I'd still use this selectively somewhat. For example, I wouldn't use this if I was white barred and felt I could keep myself alive with heals. However, if I had people on me, was at half health and my resolve was about to run out, I'd pop this in anticipation of being stun locked. It's situational, but I sometimes die when I felt that Shield Probe may have saved me. I think people were confused because this was listed as the second defensive CD when I think you mentioned you'd be discussing them in order. Just worth stating the obvious here as your biggest CD and therefore priortised last. I haven't played much since 3.0 but I think I cleansed the diversion debuff? I could be wrong.... Success rates in 'bating' an interrupt is far too variable to make it worthwhile. Every time you bait unsuccessfully, you lose out on time doing healing (1.5 second GCD and however long you spend casting something before cutting it short). As you said, there are many times when it didn't pan out for you. With three casted abilities (excluding Diagnostic Scan), it's pretty easy to simply use another ability if one is interrupted. Not to mention instant two instant heals. Single target healing: In solo ranked, I like to use Kolto Infusion on two targets before engaging in combat. I normally apply it to who I think will be tunneled to apply the 45 second resistance. I also do the same with Recuperative Nano tech for the healing buff. With short CD's, it's not really an issue doing this if you allow enough time before engaging. From a rotation perspective, it's worth mentioning the 3% increased healing dealt buff that you get from Surgical Probe. This lasts 6 seconds and can be refreshed. Worth keeping up at all times and basically means you should be using Surgical Probe every 3-4 GCDs. I'm sure I've probably missed something that forum junkies will continue to cry about. I've provided this input to further help those interested in learning.

^ This. Kwerty provides a good comparison between the two sets here.

I don't PvE so I can only comment on PvP. Yes, I would suggest that this is probably due to Defense stats (e.g. Armor Rating) and your gear. I recently wrote an AP PT guide for PvP (3.0). I write in depth on staying alive and using CD's appropriately. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=787312 I hope you find it useful. My stats are currently (buffed and with Advanced Anodyne stim): Aim: 3465, Cunning: 135 (), Power: 1119, Tech Power: 2166: Tech Accuracy: 101.00%; Crit Chance: 24.03%, Crit Mult 74.61%, Alacrity: 0% Some people prefer to swap out Surge for Accuracy. My railshots very occasionally get deflected by Sorcs so I may opt for a bit more accuracy. I'm just messing around with it at the moment. Your Crit Chance is way too high - I'd opt for 21-24%.

I never said to stack crit for solo ranked - please read posts correctly and in their entirety before commenting and maybe I won't need to. I simply said I wouldn't bother running lower crit for solo ranked compared to any other scenario - through proper use of CD's, I often stay alive longer than my Explosive Fuel duration in solo ranked so I don't see any point changing my gear for this purpose. Aside from this, I wouldn't bother dropping my crit any lower because I think I played with 21% Critical Chance in AP for the most part while I was gearing anyway. I feel 23-24% is the upper limit I would play with - but even then this might be pushing it for AP. Thanks for your comment.

This is frankly stupid and fits in perfectly with the rest of your unfounded argumentative QQ'ing. First off, this is really splitting hairs and would make basically no difference in most solo ranked games. But I'll entertain this point for the lol's: what does a 'reasonable amount' of crit even mean? Yes, Critical Chance at the lower end is probably ~20%, but there are plenty of half decent AP PT's running around with 29%. I guess they took a 'reasonable' amount of crit (lel)... if your bad enough that your going to drop within a few GCD's, having a high Crit Chance is probably going to be of benefit DPS wise with possibly an extra couple abilities rolling a critical hit which otherwise may not have. I'm sure Kwerty probably has a mathematical answer to this which may even undermine what I've said. But ultimately the whole point is moot anyway which is why it's stupid; play correctly and your highly unlikely to die within a few GCD's so this doesn't need to be entertained.

Thanks for your comment. The difference in item rating (178 > 162) means the new Dark Reaver set is the way to go regardless of set bonuses. Your overall damage/reduction will be far better off.

Thanks. There is nothing else to add re. RB if that's what you meant. As I mentioned in the guide, I use it for the debuff if I want to burst a target down fast but find it pointless to use if someone is going to drop within a few GCD's. I always apply RB in group ranked situations obviously. It's helpful for managing heat but not essential if targets are dropping too fast too warrant it's use. Why would you run lower crit in yolos? PT's are normally targeted first so squeezing in any crits before dropping is always good.

As tank, your role first and foremost is to mitigate damage. Shield/absorb gear is obviously most appropriate to this end. I also have a second tanking set with high endurance/power/surge for group ranked (providing I'm not playing against tank tunnel). PT tank has no real dropping power obviously, but can still chip in solid amount of damage even with full tanking gear > http://imgur.com/EcEFFNb. I run Fortitude augs in both my tanking sets.

if you read the guide properly you'd see proccing a resource free RS was an 'opening rotation' consideration prior to engaging in active combat. Your initial post said not use FS to proc resource free RS prior to engaging in active combat and now your saying you *can* do it? I'm not sure you've even made up your mind on this. Regardless, there is no excuse/reason to proc a resource free RS out of combat with FS where available. Considering the ICD in using FS to proc your RS out of combat goes without saying? lol...But again, this was an opening burst consideration prior to engaging in combat so how can ICD be an issue in this context? I acknowledged the EB auto crit in my maximum burst rotation and considered it as something to watch for prior to using a maximum burst rotation. I wouldn't want to come across as rude when I'm trying to drop a target, I'd want to do it in the nicest way possible ofc Not using TD to kill someone for AP is like neglecting Raging Burst for Fury Marauders or whatever it's called now. lol....

I provided explicit rationales for Gyroscopic Alignment Jets and Shield Cannon in particular, in response to your previous post critising Utility selections, which you have not provided any rebuttal too here. Instead you've listed a bunch of Utility alternatives without reasons to specifically support your claim that they are 'superior' to those I've outlined in my guide. I've already acknowledged the use for Enhanced Paralytics or maybe Sonic Rebounder over Pyro Shield for group ranked situations. Score bored chasing? The primary purpose of this spec is to do damage first and foremost. Yes, there is a difference between 'scoreboard chasing' / farming damage over putting out high volumes of DPS pressure to support your team to win. For example, if I wanted to farm damage I'd avoid killing blows (i.e. over damaging). In contrast, if I want to support my team I'll play the spec for it's primary purpose. That is, putting out high pressure in order to drop opposition targets to win/defend objectives or ultimately succeeded in ranked. This is ultimately a question of players intent and has nothing to do with anything mentioned in my guide.

I just noticed from your signature that you main a PT tank. I feel your missing the point of AP by perhaps being influenced by your tanking mindset. Again, staying alive/damage output isn't polar to playing objectively - one does not have to occur at the expense of the other. I can still help my team/play objectively regardless of utility selection. Peeling for teammates with stuns/taunts in appropriate situations can still occur. I understand that you're trying to make the point that No Escape, Accelerated Reel & Sonic Rebounder may collectively be better for assisting your team/playing objectively over Pyro Shield & Overdrive. I've directly responding to this argument below, your missing the point of what AP was primarily designed for - it's first and foremost a burst class. If you want help your teammates out via utilities with a DPS class, play MM sniper. AP is designed to drop targets quickly first and foremost, which ironically is probably going to be of best help to your team/objectives anyway. You're eliminating threats. Btw, you suggested three Utilities as being 'better' than those in the guide, but have only attempted to argue against two outlined within it. Torque Boosters provides greater up-time for HO than what Accelerated Reel and Covered Escape does for Grapple. Not to mention that Override & HO provide far greater utility for objectives / assisting team mates than Grapple - See below.... Torque Boosters is not a matter of convenience. This is a stupid comment, frankly. It provides a 40% duration increase to HO, your primary defensive ability based on run time/cooldown length. You raise helping teammates and playing objectively as important considerations for utility selection. Running HO for 40% longer with increased speed from Overrde means you basically get personal Predation in moving very quickly move between nodes for longer, chase down someone running ahead in Voidstar, running the Hutt Ball or reaching a teammate to peel. That's massive towards playing objectively/assisting your team. And I haven't even reiterated the personal benefit it offers! I've made the case that Overdrive is easily better than 'Covered Escape or 'Accelerated Reel' from an objectives perspective. Although AP is largely played from mid range, Overdrive may also assist your damage potential in closing space. It's not every team member, it's whoever your lucky enough to catch clumped for the AoE use. The reality is that people tunnel AP PT's hard, a lot of the time with disregard for any defensive CD's running. Again, I've acknowledged that Sonic Rebounder might a little useful for team ranked. Thanks for your constructive criticism.

I'm a bit confused why you wouldn't proc RS prior to engaging in combat for an opening rotation? It's resource free and doesn't come at the expense of anything else. Even in group ranked, what harm comes from proc'ing as you leave the gates? I'm not exactly sure what you mean't by using RS back to back? The rotation you outlined (below) doesn't use them back to back? I interpret back to back as RS > RS. Even then, I'm not sure why you would ever do this? Why wouldn't you use EB at the 3rd spot in your suggested rotation? If your talking about putting damage on, EB hits harder than RS as I discussed and as such, you want to use it in the same GCD that TD explodes within. No other combination of abilities will give you larger burst within a single GCD. I've discussed 'preloading' a target with debuffs, including from RB prior to engaging in a burst rotation. You've outlined 6 GCD's here, if you want to get the most out of your burst rotation it makes sense to apply all debuffs prior. Also, why use RB over RP? - RP does more damage and has a static CD as I've discussed...... Edart use is situational as I've outlined and as such, it's frequency of use really depends - decent contributing damage for clumped players however so should be ignored entirely. I don't see people raving about Edart 'burst' though...MB and Edart cost the same amount of heat..... Thanks for your post.