I am going to be deploying soon and will be quitting completely with no intention of ever returning but I have really enjoyed my merc so I thought I would chime in. Mercs are very good in PvE right now. Heat is, always has been, and will continue to be our biggest set back in PvE as in most encounters, making a mistake with your heat will ruin your ability to DPS. Its easier to keep heat low in Pyro, but easier to recover in Arsenal. There is no other DPS spec that I have played (Sorc Lightning, Sorc Madness, Sorc Hybrid, Juggernaut Vengeance, Juggernaut Rage, Mara Anni, Mara Carn, Mara Rage, Sin Madness, Sin Deception, PT Pyro, PT AP, PT Hybrid, Merc Pyro, Merco Arsenal, and Merc Pyro Hybrid) which is more difficult to come back from a mistake. If you want to go by the DPS charts alone, you'll seen fantastic numbers from fantastic players who did great things but most people will only be able to match those numbers if they get completely and utterly lucky. Most people make mistakes and those mistakes will ruin a Merc's DPS. Should the system be completely scrapped? No, it can be fixed but right now the heat costs are far too high and too many of our abilities are completely useless. In unranked PvP, Mercs can do pretty well. particularly I find Pyro to be a lot of fun in unranked. Run around DoTing the crap out of people using instants and broken-cast Unload's to proc Rail Shot. Arsenal is more tough but more destructive if given the ability to free cast, something you rarely get in PvP, ranked or unranked. Ranked PvP is a bit different. I don't claim to be a PvP god or even a PvP good, but I'm not horrible and I occasionally tag along with some much better PvPers than myself. In Arenas without fail, if there is a merc on the other team chances are great we'll win. Not because we're great but because I know how to DoT and run and Mercs are squishy. Super, super, super, super, super, super squishy. I tend to play pyro pretty exclusively in ranked when I do because of the increased mobility and slight protection from DoTs. For me it works better; DoT up, throw out CDs on the focus target, defensive CDs, hide, blow my heat healing myself up. Any merc who tells you they're not squishy is either lying or hasn't faced enough good teams to know what being squishy feels like. Can you survive on a good team? Sure, your team can learn to use you like a glass cannon. You blow everything on a focus target and die. They clean up the rest. It works fine, but a good team will always kill the merc not because we hit hard. Not because we're played by extraordinarily good PvPers, not because we are special at all. In a good way that is. They kill us first because we are the easiest to shut down. There is no waiting when you burst down a merc. A Sorc might be a hair more squishy but they have that pesky immunity bubble. So you'll have to lower them once, watch them get healed up and then lower them again. Ops can simply stealth and heal up. Maras have some bad-*** defensives that'll keep them up. Juggs are pretty hard to burst down quickly. So are PTs. Sins are pretty easy to burn but they have that pesky cloak. Snipers? They're OP as all get out. Knockbacks, immunities, stuns, slows, every damn trick in the book. Mercs? They have nothing. They can reduce damage a bit but not by much and its on a superlong CD so that's not going to keep them up through a hard, targeted burn. Kolto Overload doesn't heal any where near enough to keep you alive from targeted fire. So because we have no real escape mechanism, we get targeted first. We die and our team is down at best (from the perspective of the other team) a healer and at worst another DPS. To sum up: Mercs are not in dire straits as some would have you believe. We're not the worst in the world at anything, but neither are we the best. We need a lot of love to be as good as everyone seems to think we are. Should every person be able to roll a merc and be top DPS? Absolutely not, but a good player shouldn't find themselves in a situation where they cannot through any means (memory or combat log reading) determine why they suddenly found themselves in a heat-hole they couldn't dig out of and subsequently had to waste a lot of time to get out of. Our CDs shouldn't be exist to fix innate class problems, they should be there to deal with short duration problems or increase our output. None of our CDs work for anything other than to fix issues. Eliminating heat cost and venting heat? Both put a bandaid on our resource system. Instant cast? That just lets us keep moving during ONE or TWO casts. Not much of a bandaid. We're not in a terrible place, but we're not in a good one. The fixes coming, at least those announced don't change any of this. If you want to play a game where the devs, listen I'd suggest checking out wildstar. Its what I'm hoping to do when I get back.

Pyro is definitely the easiest of the specs in terms of heat management and has the highest DPS potential but there is an issue when talking about dummy parses: They don't translate into real life. I raid end game content on a Merc and I primarily play Pyro simply because it is higher DPS. That said, as with most DoT specs, it has a build up time and having to swap targets can get very inefficient very quickly and frankly is the easiest way to push your Heat into the stratosphere in just a few GCDs. The other massive downside to a DoT spec is that it builds on itself and breaking the rotation can and does lead to large DPS losses. These are purely the realities of the way DoT specs function. If you look at the fights currently out there as endgame we have: Nefra Who Bars the Way - Periodically an add appears however it does not need to be DPSed down. This fight has no target swapping mechanic. Other important mechanics are that the fight can get rather healing intensive and there are periodic cleanses that need to be dealt with. As a result, classes that can cleanse are tasked with cleansing themselves and others. In my raid, I have to cleanse myself and 2 others (Mara and Jugg DPS) which ends up hurting my DPS quite a lot. In total its 4.5 second CD and 8 heat cost have a HUGE impact on my ability to DPS. Its not a DPS race though so it tends not to matter. I run Arsenal on this fight because I just waste so many GCDs casting cleanses and waiting on Cure that I cannot maintain consistent uptime of DoTs. Gate Commander Draxus - This fight has absolutely no sustained damage periods. Each of the 9 add phases have between 3 adds per side and about 12 adds per side, many of whom need to be DPSed with precision and not simply burned where others need to be hard burned. I run Arsenal on this fight because I need to be able to control my DPS. Grob'thok - This fight has constant waves of adds and in my raid its my job to deal with them. Again, I lose a significant amount of up time on DoTs dealing with this and on top of that the constant interrupts make any caster's life an absolute nightmare. I run Pyro on this fight simply because the higher number of instants helps a ton with the interrupts. Corrupter Zero - This fight also has constant waves of adds and requires a lot of movement. I've played around heavily with both Arsenal and Pyro and the truth is that if I am Pyro I will spend a large portion of my time simply using Rapid Shots because my Heat is out of control and if I am Arsenal the fact that I can only Death from Above every other adds group and really only if they are in ranged mode combined with the number of adds which die before I can get a heat signature on them means my DPS suffers heavily but my heat management is easy. So I can do more DPS on the adds in Pyro but spend more time filling in on the boss or I can do lower overall DPS but have it be consistent. I usually end up going with Arsenal just because it seems to work better. Dread Master Brontes - More adds. Constant adds. Constant movement. Both make it near impossible to run Arsenal or Pyro effectively. I tend to do better in Pyro simply because I enjoy it more so I run Pyro. Dread Master Bestia - Similar to Brontes there are a lot of adds, and a lot of movement. I choose Pyro though because of the execute phase since it helps burn her down a bit faster which helps the healers deal with the adds and get us through faster. Dread Master Tyranus - Finally a fight with no adds. But there is a lot of movement and subsequently I feel that Pyro fits better. This is the only fight where I can really open up and blast hard. Dread Master Calphayus - Adds and target switching. Thats all it is. However, there are periods of sustained DPS (short as they may be) and I feel that my Pyro DPS is superior to my Arsenal DPS plus in the final phase I can roll DoTs on Cal and when he pops they're already there ready to tick. Dread Master Raptus - If it weren't for the threat gen issues with this fight it would be my dream. I get to stand in one place for most of the fight and burn, except I can't open it all up. Pyro threat can build very quickly so I am constantly having to weave Rapid Shots into my rotation just to lower my DPS. Dread Council - Balancing between 2 and 4 bosses and their HP at one time means Pyro is bad news bears. I've played around with both Pyro and Arsenal on this fight and as much as I want Pyro to work, I cannot get myself into a good heat situation throughout any of the burn phases. I always seem to be sitting there with 20+ seconds on Vent Heat spamming Rapid Shots trying to bring it down. As a result, I cannot justify not being Arsenal. Pyro does amazingly well on the dummy but there are simply no situations where that potential can translate into actual raids where the near constant target swaps makes heat management for Pyro a nightmare.

I think the issue more comes down to it not being even slightly RNG related. While I agree that less heat more often is better since it means more consistent heat loss the issue is that our heat management is massively f***ed in every spec. Everything we have costs too much for too little punch and the penalty for pushing into lower tiers of regen is bad in Arsenal but catastrophic in Pyro. Its not much but Bodyguard can keep pushing decent heals out while using Rapid Shots, KM, and SCG but even so its not even close to ideal or the types of resource management of either Ops or Sorcs. I realize that in PvP Force can get a bit sketchy for Madness Sorcs but its no where near as bad as things get for Mercs in any spec. Now, some people advocate scrapping the system and calling it faulty but the fact is that Operatives and Snipers use the exact same system (in reverse) and do it without much difficulty at all. Things can get dicey, as it should be. Resources should never be something you forget about but it should be a balance between putting out big numbers and burning through resources. There need to be some low damage-per-resource abilities that are available, some medium and some high. All we have are high cost abilities that either hit too hard or not hard enough with too much variability. Compare Followthrough with Heatseeker Missiles: Followthrough - 5 Energy - 30m - 9s CD - Fires a well-controlled follow-up shot at the target that deals 3135 - 3343 weapon damage. Only usable within the 5 seconds immediately following a Snipe, Ambush, Takedown or a complete Series of Shots. Heatseeker Missiles - 16 heat - 30m - 15s CD - Fires several missiles that deal 3404 - 3765 (4255 - 4706) with Heat Signature) kinetic damage. This damage is increased by 25% if the target is affected by your heat signature. So Followthrough deals 1120-1363 less damage so about 75% as much damage for less than 1/3rd of the cost on a shorter CD (yes, I realize that you have to use an ability within 5 seconds before Followthrough but still...). What? How is that even close to balanced? Okay, how about some DoTs? Interrogation Probe - 15 Energy - 30m - No CD - Summons an interrogation probe that clings to the target and deals 4982 energy damage over 18 seconds. Only one interrogation probe can be active at a time. Thermal Detonator - 16 Heat - 30m - 15s - Hurls a thermal detonator that adheres to the target and detonates after several seconds, exploding for 2485 - 2846 kinetic damage and burning the target for 1553 elemental damage over 12 seconds. Standard and weak enemies enter a state of panic when the explosive attaches and are knocked down when it detonates. So Interrogation Probe is (4982/18=) 276.8 DPS whereas Thermal Det is a bit harder since from the time you cast it to the time it finishes dealing damage is actually 16s. So, for an average (2485+2846)/2 = 2665.5 initial damage + 1553 = 4218.5/16s = 263.7 DPS. Well then. Our top tier talent is less DPS for more energy and it has a CD. Well doesn't the fact that you can only have 1 IP up at a time effectively mean it has a CD? Not really, the lack of a CD means it can be re-cast on new targets for faster target switching and also this removes a DoT something that is very helpful. Add to that that it lasts longer and the cost per minute is lower ((60/18)*15=) 50 Energy per minute spent on that one ability which does higher DPS versus ((60/18)*16=) 60 Heat per minute. So it does MORE damage, costs less initially, lasts longer, costs more over time, and is near the bottom of the tree as opposed to the top...Sensing an imbalance here? What if we compare it to a lower down DoT? Incendiary Missile - 16 Heat - 30m - No CD - Fires a missile that explodes on contact, igniting the target for 505 - 866 elemental damage and an additional 2174 elemental damage over 18 seconds. That is no where near as much damage for again more resources... Maybe Sorcs are more balanced, right? Well they have a completely different resource scale and system so its a little harder to form a fair comparison but Affliction which deals 1195 damage over 18 seconds costs 30 of 600 force (untalented). Simply finding the common denominator (100) gives us a cost out of 100 of 5 for that. And working it out to DPS gives us 66.4 DPS for 5 energy. Hey look at that! 212.4 DPS if it were to be scaled up to the same resource cost as IM. But wait, it doesn't need to be talented at all. If its talented that needs to be multiplied by 1.209 which brings it up to 256.8 DPS at scaled up resource but again, those are lower down talents not a top tier and Affliction isn't the hardest hitting DoT... (1386+1737)/2 = 1561.5 + 2246 = 3807.5 / 6s = 634.6 DPS. Its adjusted resource cost would be 6.3/100. With a resource per minute cost of 26.67. Double the DPS for half the cost. Wow. What about talented? A MASSIVE 767.3 DPS. Plainly put, our abilities cost too much and deal too little damage. In order to reach numbers on par with other classes we need to push our resource pool which subsequently leads to severe down time and losses in DPS. The "broken" resource management is a symptom of the bigger problem: a broken class.

Tier 1: 3/3 Advanced Targeting - Pretty obvious why this is nice. Accuracy + More RS/Unload Armor Pen = Good 2/2 System Calibrations - Alacrity got a silent buff and its actually a bit better than you would think. Tier 2: 3/3 Superheated Gas - Again pretty obvious why this is useful. 2/2 Sweltering Heat - The slow may seem pointless but while leveling you'll often use it on weaks/strongs and it can be a very nice little boost. Tier 3: 2/2 Pyro Shield - In all levels of PvE, there is a chance you'll be hit by something and reducing that damage AND doing damage back is actually very nice. 2/2 Superheated Rail - This is obvious. 1/1 Incendiary Missile - Very obvious as well. Tier 4: 2/2 Suit F.O.E. - While adding DoT protection doesn't seem very applicable to your damage but it helps a TON in PvP and in leveling since there are a lot of DoTs in both. It gives you an incentive to use cure on yourself (something that is good to get used to for end-game. 1/1 Prototype Particle Accelerator - Obvious. 1/1 Volatile Warhead - In endgame, this becomes a filler talent but while leveling missile blast is very useful and this gives you bonuses for doing it. Tier 5: 2/2 Firebug - Obvious. 3/3 Rain of Fire - Obvious. Tier 6: 2/2 Deguass - Gives you another defensive CD to use while soloing which is always useful. Plus, adding a defensive CD to your threat drop is very helpful in groups. 3/3 Burnout - Obvious. Tier 7: 2/2 Rapid Venting - Obvious. 1/1 Power Barrels - Obvious. 2/2 Jet Rebounder - This is another that seems worthless at first glance but adding damage to your knockback can help a lot in leveling. Tier 8: 1/1 Thermal Detonator - It actually hits a lot harder than you think. If timed right it will blow when you hit a RS which means that in good gear your hitting for ~14k in one second. Plus it adds a burn which deals more damage.

I play Assault and Gunnery primarily in PvE but I also PvP. The issues are our resources are not in line with other classes and neither are our CDs. We are too reliant on casts and procs. As a result of all of these, we are easily shut down in PvE by either mechanics that force us to move frequently and in PvP by melee and any one with an interrupt. So, basically we get shut down in every boss fight and every PvP match. When I go into arenas I'm typically the first focused (and I focus mercs/mandos first) because of how squishy they are. I focus them above Sorcs because I know they have nothing to stop me save for a stun. I giggle with glee when I see a Merc/Mando healer because again I know how easily I can just massacre him. Someone said that Mando healers have invincibility with reactive shield up...as long as they are full up on resolve? Well, thats why I never stun them until I see them pop their bubble. I can easily DPS through their heals until they pop it then its Electro Dart > Power Surge > Concussion Missile and they're down the whole bubble. Then I throw a AP with a few seconds left, queue up a HIB>FA>HIB and count my medals. The only time a Gunnery Mando can put out good DPS is when they're allowed to free-cast...which is why they get hit so hard so fast. Subsequently, I run Assault because I don't really need any full casts. People tend to be a fan of interrupting my FA which is fine by me because that first tick is all I need to proc IA and get my HIB reset. In regs getting my dots cleansed isn't really a problem and when someone DOES its easy enough to hit them with Hammer Shot and put up CGC again so I can HIB. Then someone 2 smashers decide I look like a fun target and I lose 16k with double smash, Force Choke x2 then another some Vicious throws to finish me off. Oh, but I popped AR, RS, AND Chaff Flare and guess what? I still died. 3 CDs and it doesn't change how easily they kill me at all. That is completely backwards. Our CDs should make people not want to attack us. That's what is wrong.

The main issue with any hybrid build that includes Tracer Missile is exactly that: You have to waste so many points to get to it that you end up gimping yourself. Add to that that there is more often an Armor Debuff than there is another merc (meaning Tracer Missile becomes redundant) it just doesn't seem to work. Basically you're adding to the already proc dependent specs and making them more proc dependent since you're now also relying on resetting the CD on Unload AND Rail Shot. It gets a bit tough to manage. If you get procs to line up I could see it being pretty insane since increasd armor pen on Unload, increased armor pen on Rail Shot and resetting both CDs is a cool idea but there is so much dependeny on procs for my taste.

That's the problem though, not only are our CDs long but they're not all that great when they're up. And reactive shield isn't god mode. You can still be stunned through it and then that wonderful interrupt/pushback immunity is nullified. As an added bonus this gives PT/VGs a needed CD on par with Reflect/Shroud. I was the one who posted that huge long post and the whole point is to re-balance our entire AC. We need lower heat/Ammo costs for a start to help control our resource issues (which can become an issue in all specs) and for a second we need more mobility.

Re-posting from the Merc forums, I tried to fix all of the merc terms for mando ones sorry if I missed some. General 1) Reactive Shield has been redesigned. "Surrounds yourself in a protective shield that absorbs all ranged, tech, and force attacks for 8 seconds. Cooldown 120s." 2) Sticky Grenade has had its ammo cost reduced to 10. 3) Adrenaline Has been redesigned. "Overloads your suits Kolto Injection System causing it to heal you for 2% of your maximum health every second for 8 seconds. Cooldown 240s." 4) Plasma Grenade has had its ammo cost reduced to 10. 5) Advanced Medical Probe has had its ammo cost increased to 20 and its cooldown removed. 6) Hold the Line has had its speed increase boosted from 30% to 80%. 7) Explosive Round has had its ammo cost reduced to 15. 8) Charged Bolts has had its ammo cost reduced to 15. 9) Tech Override has been removed and replaced with "Emergency Field Stabilization - Activates your emergency field stabilization protocols allowing you to continue casting while moving for 15s. Cooldown 120s." 10) High Impact Bolt has had its ammo cost reduced to 8. 11) Shockstrike has been redesigned. "Strikes the target with the butt of the rifle, dealing 2247 - 2463 kinetic damage and rooting the target in place for 3s. Range 4m. Cooldown 9s. Ammo cost 8." 12) Reserve Powercell has been redesigned. "Activates your reserve powercell and causes your abilities to use no ammo. This effect lasts 10 seconds. Cooldown 90s." 13) Full Auto has had its ammo cost reduced to 12. 14) Added the ability "Out of Harm's Way - Fires your Assault Cannon at the ground causing you to fly backwards rapidly 35m and rooting all enemies in a 5m range for 3s. Cooldown 120s. Ammo cost 20." Combat Medic 1) The Talent "Field Triage" is changed to "Reduces the ammo cost of Medical Probe by 5. In addition, Advanced Medical Probe has a 33/66/100% chance to lower the cost of your next Medical Probe by 5." 2) "Bacta Infusion" now heals for 1200-1750 instead of 758-1299. 4) The Talent "Field Medicine" has had its text changed to "Increases the healing done by Medical Probe by 3/6%. In addition, Medical Probe, Advanced Medical Probe, and Bacta Infusion each build 3/6 stacks of Combat Support Cell." 5) The Talent "Supercharged Cell" has had its text changed to "Converts 30 charges of Combat Support Cell to supercharge your blasters, venting 8 heat, increasing all damage and healing dealt by 5% for 10 seconds, and granting immunity to push back and interrupts. While active, the following abilities gain Supercharge affects: Charged Bolts: Ammo cost reduced by 100%. Full Auto: Ammo cost reduced by 100%. Advanced Medical Probe: Ammo Cost reduced by 50%. Bacta Infusion: Amount healed increased by 20%. Kolto Bomb: Places a shield on all targets reducing damage taken by 5% for 10 seconds." 6) The Talent "Frontline Medic" has been redesigned. "Causes your Out of Harm's Way to leave a Kolto Pool on the ground for 15s healing for 100-200 and increasing healing received by 5%." Gunnery 1) Grav Round has had its ammo cost has been reduced to 15. 2) Demolition Round has had its ammo cost has been reduced to 10. 3) The Talent "Concussive Force" has had its text changed to "Shockstrike has a 50/100% chance to knock the target back 10m. In addition Concussion Charge's knockback effect is stronger and knocks enemies back an additional 2/4m." 4) The Talent "Cell Charger" has had its text change to "While Armor Piercing Cell is active you recover an additional 1/2 ammo every 1.5s. 5) Overclock has been replaced with "Overclocked Stabilization". "Reduces the cooldown of Emergency Field Stabilization by 15/30s and increases its duration by 5/10s." Assault 1) Incendiary Round has had its ammo cost reduced to 10. 2) Assault has had its Ammo cost reduced to 10. 3) Combustible Gas Cell has had its rate limit removed. 4) Electro Shield has had its external damage increased to 1800 up from 180.

I decided to expand my changes list: General 1) Energy Shield has been redesigned. "Surrounds yourself in a protective shield that absorbs all ranged, tech, and force attacks for 8 seconds. Cooldown 100s." 2) Explosive Dart has had its heat cost reduced to 10. 3) Kolto Overload Has been redesigned. "Overloads your suits Kolto Injection System causing it to heal you for 2% of your maximum health every second for 8 seconds. Cooldown 240s." 4) Fusion Missile has had its heat cost reduced to 10. 5) Healing Scan has had its cost increased to 20 and its cooldown removed. 6) Hydraulic Overrides has had its speed increase boosted from 30% to 80%. 7) Missile Blast has had its heat cost reduced to 15. 8) Power Shot has had its heat cost reduced to 15. 9) Power Surge has been removed and replaced with "Emergency Suit Stabilization - Activates your suits emergency stabilization protocols allowing you to continue casting while moving for 15s. Cooldown 120s." 10) Rail Shot has had its heat cost reduced to 8. 11) Rocket Punch has been redesigned. "Engages the jetpack, allowing you to strike the target with a heavy punch that deals 2247 - 2463 kinetic damage and rooting the target in place for 3s. Range 4m. Cooldown 9s. Heat cost 8." 12) Thermal Sensor Override has been redesigned. "Activates your suits thermal sensor override and causes your abilities to generate no heat. This effect lasts 10 seconds. Cooldown 90s." 13) Unload has had its heat cost reduced to 12. 14) Added the ability "Out of Harm's Way - Activates your jet pack causing you to fly backwards rapidly 35m and rooting all enemies in a 5m range for 3s. Cooldown 120s. Heat cost 20." Combat Medic 1) The Talent "Critical Efficiency" is changed to "Reduces the heat cost of Rapid Scan by 5. In addition, Healing Scan has a 33/66/100% chance to lower the cost of your next Rapid Scan by 5." 2) "Emergency Scan" now heals for 1200-1750 instead of 758-1299. 4) The Talent "Empowered Scans" has had its text changed to "Increases the healing done by Rapid Scan by 3/6%. In addition, Rapid Scan, Healing Scan, and Emergency Scan each build 3/6 stacks of Combat Support Cylinder." 5) The Talent "Supercharged Gas" has had its text changed to "Converts 30 charges of Combat Support Cylinder to supercharge your blasters, venting 8 heat, increasing all damage and healing dealt by 5% for 10 seconds, and granting immunity to push back and interrupts. While active, the following abilities gain Supercharge affects: Power Shot: Heat cost reduced by 100%. Unload: Heat cost reduced by 100%. Healing Scan: Heat Cost reduced by 50%. Emergency Scan: Amount healed increased by 20%. Kolto Missile: Places a shield on all targets reducing damage taken by 5% for 10 seconds." 6) The Talent "Peacekeeper" has been redesigned. "Causes your Out of Harm's Way to leave a Kolto Pool on the ground for 15s healing for 100-200 and increasing healing received by 5%." Arsenal 1) Tracer Missile has had its heat cost has been reduced to 15. 2) Heatseeker Missiles has had its heat cost has been reduced to 10. 3) The Talent "Afterburners" has had its text changed to "Rocket Punch has a 50/100% chance to knock the target back 10m. In addition Jet Boost's knockback effect is stronger and knocks enemies back an additional 2/4m." 4) The Talent "Terminal Velocity" has had its text change to "While Armor Piercing Cylinder is active you vent an additional 1/2 heat every 1.5s. 5) Power Overrides has been replaced with "Overloaded Stabilizers". "Reduces the cooldown of Emergency Suit Stabilization by 15/30s and increases its duration by 5/10s." Pyrotech 1) Incendiary Missile has had its heat cost reduced to 10. 2) Thermal Detonator has had its heat cost reduced to 10. 3) Combustible Gas Cylinder has had its rate limit removed. 4) Pyro Shield has had its external damage increased to 1800 up from 180.

I think re-adjusting the heat costs and CDs would absolutely fix the issues. The actual issue behind the ones you mentioned is that the only non-filler, spammable heal we have has a huge heat cost, a long cast time, and does not heal for as much as it should given this. Rapid Scan is the Fusion Missile of Combat Medic except you have way fewer options and subsequently are forced into using it. Rapid scan costs a quarter of our resources (25 Heat/Ammo) with a base 2.5 second cast time. Compare that to Sorcs Dark Infusion which costs 1/10th of their base resource pool and has the same base cast time. How is that fair and balanced? Even Dark Heal (a Sorcs highest throughput heal) isn't a full QUARTER of their resource pool. In a lot of cases with Mercs what needs to happen is skills need to be more efficient by either having their costs lowered or their output increased. In the case of Rapid Scan it needs both. This could be done in several ways: Simply lowering its cost would be good for one. Another alternative is to change Critical Efficiency to lower the cost of Rapid Scan all the time or do a bit of both. So it reduces the cost of Rapid Scan by 5 and Healing Scan has a x% chance to reduce the cost of Rapid Scan by 5. Then, lets talk about Emergency and Healing Scan: Again, this needs to either have its cooldown lowered or its output increased. 20 seconds for a base 1300 heal? It should be for EMERGENCIES not for a quick top off. It should be a "OH SH**! My tank just lost half his/her HP in a GCD; Emergency Scan and we're good. Phew!" Healing Scan needs a shorter CD or better yet none. Boost its cost slightly and take its CD away then change SCG to lower its cost back down so that it stays your go-to heal during SCG phases. Also, make it so that all of our heals build SC. That was a lot of text and ranting so let me break it down: 1) The Talent "Critical Efficiency" is changed to "Reduces the heat cost of Rapid Scan by 5. In addition, Healing Scan has a 33/66/100% chance to lower the cost of your next Rapid Scan by 5." 2) "Emergency Scan" now heals for 1200-1750 instead of 758-1299. 3) "Healing Scan" has had its cost increased to 20 and its cooldown removed. 4) The Talent "Empowered Scans" has had its text changed to "Increases the healing done by Rapid Scan by 3/6%. In addition, Rapid Scan, Healing Scan, and Emergency Scan each build 3/6 stacks of Combat Support Cylinder." 5) The Talent "Supercharged Gas" has had its text changed to "Converts 30 charges of Combat Support Cylinder to supercharge your blasters, venting 8 heat, increasing all damage and healing dealt by 5% for 10 seconds, and granting immunity to push back and interrupts. While active, the following abilities gain Supercharge affects: Power Shot: Heat cost reduced by 100%. Unload: Heat cost reduced by 100%. Healing Scan: Heat Cost reduced by 50%. Emergency Scan: Amount healed increased by 20%. Kolto Missile: Places a shield on all targets reducing damage taken by 5% for 10 seconds." I think that would help to balance Merc/Mandos in PvE and PvP.

You are absolutely, 100% playing it wrong. I almost NEVER use Rapid Shots raiding as Pyro on any fight. And yes, that includes this week after the Rail Shot heat venting nerf. This also isn't really true. If your heat gets a little out of control in either spec its pretty simple to get it back but if you push too hard Arsenal gets a HUGELY better Vent Heat so its much easier to get it down. However, Arsenal is much easier to get your heat out of control. So even though Pyro/Assault is technically the highest parsing spec for Merc/Mandos we should completely redesign the biggest part of its rotation to make it useful for the people who don't play that spec? Yeah that makes sense. We should definitely do that.

Yeah I have to say this is a little sad for an outburst. And anyone who has to claim they have a life (and then say that having a life is getting drunk) to prove it online is just being silly and sad. This nerf is a pathetic attempt to balance out what is currently the most OP spec in PvP: Op/Scoun heals.

First and foremost, lets look at what made Mercs temporarily balanced in DPS: Rail Shot venting 16 heat versus 8 heat. That is a pretty clear indication that its not the resource management system that is broken. Its also pretty clear that its not the amount of damage we can output. It is solely and entirely the costs. You want to "fix" mercs/mandos? Fix the costs. The biggest complaint that I have when I heal is heat; you can't chain big heals without getting completely screwed whereas Sorcs and Ops can. They pay a price, true, but neither as high as Merc/Mandos. Add to that that if Healing Scan gets interrupted in PvP we are completely SoL and things get more bleak. This all stems from a bad assumption that Merc/Mandos are on the brink of being OP which is completely backwards. We're on the brink of being completely broken. As I said, its not the system thats broken, its the costs. We need the costs reduced and it needs to be dramatic. Using our no cost filler should not be a designated portion of our rotation and Vent Heat should be a way to handle bad situations not a necessary part of our priority list. It is massively important that this is understood: FIX THE COSTS NOT THE SYSTEM. One other major issue is that all of our specs rely heavily on one ability (Healing Scan+SCG for Combat Medic, Tracer Missile for Arsenal, Power Shot for Pyro) that are too easily shut down. Either diversify this and give us more options to rely on or give us more interrupt immunity. Plain and simple. As for the Cooldowns thought, I tend to agree. We need a way out of bad situations that is either slightly better than Hydraulic Override with a similar CD and that focuses entirely on escape (not just the tiny speed boost HO gives) or a much longer CD and be significantly better. Like the disengage that puts us out of leap range because as it stands getting more than 1 smasher on you is guaranteed death. You can Jet Boost and delay it but even popping every CD right then and there isn't going to keep you alive longer than 10 seconds. Power Surge and TSO are on far too long of CDs. Finally, Fusion Missile. It does far too little damage for such a high cost/long CD. I would favor significantly boosting its damage to make it something to fear (to give us something else that people are aiming to interrupt) or reduce its heat/CD significantly.

Initially I would have disagreed with this but it definitely does help a lot. In Hybrid it does become much easier to hit all of them as well since the Ammo management is a bit easier. I play a merc so as it stands right now the ammo management is significantly easier so keep that in mind but the system I use is basically that you have between 4.5 and 6 seconds after an Ionic Accelerator proc (4.5 if you are going to cast a Charge Bolt and 6 seconds if you're going to use Full Auto or an instant charged bolts) and that is the period when you are going to be refreshing AP and IR as well as when you'll fit in Plasma Grenade or Electro Net. I'll also typically only ever do one of those in one of those windows simply because I want to try and keep the IA procs rolling. So here is what it looks like from the start through the first couple windows assuming perfect IA procs (I apologize, went to a halloween party last night and I'm now too hungover to remember the CD names for Mando): Assault Plastique > (1.5s) Electro Net > (3s) Relic/Adrenal > Incendiary Round > (4.5s) Thermal Sensor Override+Plasma Grenade > (6s) High Impact Bolt > (7.5s) Power Surge + Charged Bolts > (9s, IA Proc) High Impact Bolt > (10.5s) Full Auto > (13.5s) Charged Bolts > (15s, IA proc off ICD) High Impact Bolt > (16.5s, AP off CD) Assault Plastique > (18s) Charged Bolts > (19.5s) Charged Bolts > (21s, IA Proc off ICD) High Impact Bolt > (22.5s) Incendiary Round > (24s) Charged Bolts > (25.5s) Charged Bolts > (27s, IA Proc off ICD) High Impact Bolt > (28.5s) Plasma Grenade + Vent Heat > (30s) Charged Bolts > (31.5s, IA Proc off ICD) High impact Bolt > (33s) Assault Plastique > (35.5s) Charged Bolts > (37s) Charged Bolts > (38.5s, IA Proc off ICD) High Impact Bolt > (40s) Incendiary Round > (41.5s) Charged Bolts > (43s) Charged Bolts > (44.5s, IA proc off ICD) High Impact Bolt > (46s) Full Auto > (47.5s) So thats completely theoretical and has IA proccing perfectly (which does happen very often) and you can see how I am trying to maximize my number of IA procs. The key that I've worked out is making sure you always know what you're going to do in those windows before hand. Know when you're going to have to re-apply dots, which one is going to fit for Plasma Grenade, etc. That's whats going to make it feel fluid. Truthfully, given how consistently IA procs this is probably the most set rotation I've ever used in SWtOR. I mean, you can honestly follow that list up there to the "T" in a lot of cases and when you can't its just adding in one or two extra Charged Bolts. If the Ammo Management gets tough make sure you replace the non-IA Charged bolts with Hammer Shot and use Full Auto to proc since if you do Full Auto > High Impact Bolt > Hammer Shot is a lot of Ammo regen.

The biggest threat issue I've had lately isn't on my tank; its my Pyro merc. If I push my opener, ill pull threat without a guard. Fine, all well and good. So I don't push 100% and don't get to maximize my epeen. Or even in my raid group I am our #1 guarded dps (over a carnage Mara and a hybrid sniper). But them in PuGs (where I typically practice my real world rotation) unless the tank knows me I don't get guarded which means I'm not pushing and subsequently no actually practicing. It doesn't matter if/when I threat drop since my DoTs are still ticking and in a few GCDs unless the tank again knows me and taunted its going to come right back to me. Has anyone else been seeing this issue with pyro Mercs in particular?

Let's take a look at these changes, eh? So these were all directly caused by the outcry from the Vanguard community. I don't remember any Mandos complaining about the damage of HIB but let's look at the AC specific changes. Wow, in terms of Vanguards getting buffed you are 100% right. Thats a huge overhaul! What about Mandos? That's a bit disappointing especially when you consider... So everything that Mandos got was directly related to the shared tree. You're right, getting buffs to shared talents/abilities is enough and completely fixes the fact that Mandos are massively gimped in PvP, have the worst resource management system in the game, and are at the moment putting out the lowest HPS in PvE. Wait...that's not right... But wait! Mercs asked very specific questions, lets see how these changes relate to those questions: So how did they bring down those other DPS since Mando DPS is in a "good place"? Slingers? Still Op. Sents? No changes to Carnage and a...buff...to Watchman? Huh...That's odd. Since that goes directly against the whole bring the over-performers down... Lots of promises made in there...So lets see. Lowering the strength of Sent CDs. Well GBtF got a nerfed but the rest are all in tact. How's our resource system? Still broken. Hows our CDs? Still longer than any other classes. Odd. Okay so they freely admit that our resource system is borked. Further they even promised to give Mandos a 1-100 scale like Mercs have. They even admit that the CDs as we have them are built around a broken system and that they'd rather just fix the system rather than update the bandaids. Well, since we're not getting the fixed system... Why not buff our bandaids so we're still competitive and don't require a bug (OH RS heat venting) to put up good numbers?!

Good points and interesting to boot. The issue is still that the DPS gap between focus (aoe spec) and vigilance (single target spec) is simply too small. If the DPS of vigilance was raised then focus would be irrelevant since the buffed smash is helpful but vigilance has a decently hard hitting sweep as well and its free.

I sort of suspected as much. With mixed 72/75/78 I'm at 99.7 and have been doing a bunch of math trying to figure out how to get it back down without losing anything. Just wanted to be sure As always odawgg, thanks for the reply!

Ita all very subjective and what I always tell people is to put things you use in comfortable places. Its also good to have a modifier (shift, ctrl, alt, etc...) button to double up all of your keys. I'll post my bindings when I get back to a computer. I use 1234 Q E as my base since those are the keys I find easiest to hit and I use Shift and Ctrl as modifiers to basically make it so I have everything bound to something. 1 Explosive Dart 2 Electro Net 3 Chaff Flare 4 Interrupt 8 Emergency Fleet Pass 9 Quick Travel 0 Jet Boots - Vehicle = Recharge and Reload Q Tracer Missile E Rapid Shots Sh+1 Hydraulic Overrides Sh+2 Jet Boost Sh+3 Flame Thrower Sh+4 Adrenal Sh+Q Heatseeker Missiles Sh+E Rail Shot Sh+R Energy Shield Sh+T Death From Above Sh+F Unload Sh+G Kolto Missile Sh+H Kolto Override Sh+C Fusion Missile Sh+V Thermal Sensor Overrides Sh+B Power Surge Ctrl+1 Cure Ctrl+2 Missile Blast Ctrl+3 Power Shot Ctrl+4 Sweeping Blasters Ctrl+Q Rapid Scan Ctrl+E Healing Scan Ctrl+C Combat Support Cylinder Ctrl+V High Velocity Gas Cylinder Ctrl+B Combustible Gas Cylinder Ctrl+R Buff That list covers most of it (I left off some of the stuff that doesn't need to be mentioned like legacy abilities etc...) and while it looks huge there is a lot that doesn't actually need to be bound. Heals, for example, don't need to be bound though I would recommend having Kolto Missile and Cure bound since they are great for helping out your group or saving your own butt. None of the 8-= keys need to be bound either. Or your Cylinders. I just like having it all bound so I don't have to click anything. Its also listed just going down the rows on a keyboard which makes it look more confusing than it actually is. My main attacks are 2/Q/E/Sh+Q/Sh+E/Sh+F which lets me hit them all very easily with my ring/middle/index fingers and leave my pinky on the shift key for modifiers. I've been using this set up for several years now so its all pretty solidly in my head which is why it works so well for me (though its been simplified a bit more recently since I bought a new mouse with some more buttons on it.

What is the reasoning for going over 100% accuracy as opposed to being just below? For most other DPS afaik it is always better to get as close as possible (typically 99.51%) and let that be enough since the bonuses gained outweigh the lost DPS to misses.

Very interesting post. What are your thoughts on the upcoming Vengeance changes? To elaborate, do you think adding in a root on Ravage will fix/not fix/over fix the any of the issues facing Vengeance in PvP?

First off, let me say that the changes coming in 2.5 are a terrible idea. Not only does it remove an interesting mechanic in favor of homogenization but it makes Assassin takes MASSIVELY op in PvE. That said, the issue with self heals is two fold: 1) they do not prevent one shots which is the problem that was facing sin tanks at the moment in PvE. They were simply getting hit too hard. 2) Self heals when not in proportion can cause a huge imbalance in PvP. You take a class that is putting out good damage or protection and add to them the ability to heal themselves and it starts to become difficult to justify other classes. The main issue I have with these changes is that they are all as a result of BW messing up. Sin tanks were too powerful in 1.0 and so to fix this in 2.0 they did 4 specific things: 1) they buffed the other tanks 2) they nerfed sins further 3) they altered how attacks from bosses were hitting tanks to make the hits more spikey and 4) they did not test these changes. There's an old philosophy when trying to fix something that's broken and that is that you only change one variable at a time so that you can see how each change directly affects the outcome and Bioware did not follow that. Worse still is that they eventually did change how some of the bosses were hitting and the changes worked spectacularly but rather than seeing that simply making large single hits less frequent in favor of lots of smaller hits simultaneously they chose a completely different route. Its silly and it only further proves how bad they are at their jobs.

First, let me talk a bit about DoT specs: With any DoT spec the key to maximizing DPS is to keep the highest uptime of DoTs as is possible without clipping the DoTs. If you look at Balance for Shadows and Sages and Watchman for Sentinels, this is very true and in general is easy to do. Then you have the specs that have DoTs but aren't truly a DoT spec, like Telekinesis Sages; they use DoTs but only to modify their damage and they aren't a major contributor to their DPS. We fall in the middle of those two. DoTs are a huge part of our damage but are eclipsed by Charged Bolts, Full Auto, and most importantly High Impact Bolt. As for our DoTs, we still want to avoid clipping as much as possible (the DoT from Plasma Cell will be "clipped" frequently but since its costing us no resources to reapply and is uncontrollable thats fine). You can't clip the DoT from Assault Plastique as it runs out before AP comes off of CD. You also can't clip Electro Net or Plasma Grenade. So the question becomes given how our filler windows work is better to use that 4.5 seconds between HIB procs (4.5 because of the cast of Charged Bolts or the GCD on using Full Auto) to refresh Incendiary Round before it falls off or after? The answer is a bit complex and comes down to knowing the fight: If you are going to be able to continue your rotation and get through another few HIBs then absolutely let it fall off. I will only ever refresh it after a HIB and only after AP. If on the other hand you are going to need to switch targets or something, I'd say its better to refresh it early to maximize the number of ticks on the target before you have to switch. You can have IR on multiple targets so if you're switching from say Heirad to Ciphas, I always refresh my IR early on Heirad and let it get a few "Immune" ticks rather than missing the 1 or 2 ticks before that. As to getting rid of AP, I'd give both a try. Clearly LordKanter has shown that you can put up great numbers in the hybrid but you can do the same in full Assault. If you like one better than the other then switch but don't switch because of what someone told you to do.

Love the idiocy of the Bounty Hunters got buffed. No Powertechs got buffed. We got A BUFF as a result of sharing a tree with them. As for BW following through? That's laughable. The changes to Maras are unnecessary; UDR getting nerfed is just to stop people complaining and Anni doesn't need the buffs its getting. Sins are getting buffed to be completely OP as tanks and are getting a pointless buff to maul damage which doesn't do anything for the sustained damage of deception. Taking away operatives cover does nothing to address how OP they are healing in PvP and buffing the damage of a crap ability doesn't make it not crap. Jggernauts complained about how the RNG issues made them second class dps and they get a root on ravage as answer. And finally, snipers. The highest current parsing spec, hybrid, which BW claimed they would nerf. Orbital strike, another ability that has been said will be nerfed. How is BW dealing with these in the patch? They're doing nothing. So tell me again how the class the didn't get touched in 2.4 (mercs), is only parsing as high as it is because of a bug, and which is still a massive level of fail in PvP is fair and balanced. Tell me again that its logical that they're waiting to see how things even out when the only class getting real significant changes is sins and their tank spec is getting buffed far above every other class. Janith, you're an idiot.

Part of it is gear, you're definitely not hitting very hard in PvE gear and 63/66s. Part of it is that Arsenal is all cast times, and long ones at that. I have a Jugg, Mara, Sin, Sorc, and a Merc and by far the Merc was the toughest. Then, recently after switching to Pyro I was helping a friend through them and had very little trouble at all. Perhaps give Pyro a try and if worse comes to worse, you can always go heals and do it the long way :/