New Operative seeking advice

[JarenWelen]

Hi guys,

 

So I'm levelling a new alt, an Imperial Agent, with plans to take him Operative; first, though, I have a few questions.

 

In PvP I quite often see Operatives popping out of stealth and sticking a spike in someone's chest, stunning them for several seconds, then another spike. This is some pretty intense burst damage and is a spec I'm interested in; I don't mind losing a bit of survivability there.

 

My question is: what is a good burst damage combo? From observation it seems to be Debilitate and Shiv, but as these are such low level abilities I'm sure I must be missing something.

 

Thanks!

-J

[Spatzimaus]

From observation it seems to be Debilitate and Shiv, but as these are such low level abilities I'm sure I must be missing something.

 

You're not really missing much. Those two, plus Backstab are the core of your attacks. You'll use Shiv constantly (even more often than you use your rifle) and you'll use Debilitate whenever it refreshes (it's got a 45s cooldown, unless you take the right talents in Lethality). If the person swung around behind the shocked enemy before sticking the second spike in, that was Backstab. (It's a 10-energy Shiv-type attack that requires you to be hind your target, which'd be okay, except that it has a LOT of Talents that boost it, like the one that makes it cost 10 less energy... yep, free.) Depending on circumstances you might throw on a Corrosive Dart, Sever Tendon, or even a grenade or flashbang, but those obviously don't fit into a melee attack rotation.

Later on you'll get Hidden Strike and Eviscerate, but they're a lot more situational; HS is used from stealth, and Eviscerate can only be used on incapacitated enemies (and since we only have 1-2 abilities that incapacitate, you can't really plan a rotation around it).

 

Now, if you want to be melee-heavy burst DPS, then I'm assuming you're going Concealment. In that case, the final piece of the puzzle you're missing is Laceration, which you'd get at level 20 assuming you ONLY spent points in Concealment. It's a melee attack (looks like you're swiping the knife sideways), costs a bit of energy and has a high damage, but it has two other big factors to consider:

1> It consumes Tactical Advantage. Since Shiv adds TA, the two generally go together, but it means you can't just spam Laceration.

2> It has no cooldown timer, besides the global cooldown. So you CAN spam it if you've built up a couple points of TA from other sources, or have the talents that refund TAs on a Collateral Strike.

Since it has no positional requirement (other than being in melee range) you'll find that most of your damage comes from Laceration.

[JarenWelen]

Thanks for the advice!

 

I was going to go Lethality but by the sounds of it I should go Concealment then?

[Spatzimaus]

I was going to go Lethality but by the sounds of it I should go Concealment then?

 

No, you don't have to. You'd asked about Burst DPS (Lethality is less burst-y and more steady DPS), and about the knife attacks (which Conceal specializes in). So I was assuming you were asking about Conceal Ops, which are pretty much entirely about sticking knife A into slot B and then sneaking away. Lethality's more about putting a lot of DoTs onto your targets, and using both rifle attacks and your basic knife attacks to do steady damage.