TrollBerzerker Posted January 22, 2012 Share Posted January 22, 2012 Fairly simple question. As a pyrotech, should you take Thermal Detonator, or sub-spec into Arsenal for Tracer Missile? Just looking at the two abilities, it seems like Tracer Missile beats out the pyrotech's own top tier ability for DPS in PVE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juicenewtonz Posted January 22, 2012 Share Posted January 22, 2012 thermal detonator, without the higher up talents in arsenal tracer just becomes a weaker power shot that applies a -armor debuff (which doesnt stack with other classes afaik so it wouldnt even matter in a raid) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Relair Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 Yeah if you go pyrotech you already get power shot, which does slightly more dmg than tracer missile. Thermal detonator hits way harder than either of them. Unless you go full arsenal and buff up tracer and get heatseeker theres not much point in using it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iandayen Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 Pyrotech is the pvp tree. Huge burst potential high movement and survivability but crap for heat management. Arsenal is low movement with cast times, high damage once you get the target debuffed, and great heat management. You won't ever do as much dps as an arsenal merc in pve if you are pyro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faytte Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Pyrotech is the pvp tree. Huge burst potential high movement and survivability but crap for heat management. Arsenal is low movement with cast times, high damage once you get the target debuffed, and great heat management. You won't ever do as much dps as an arsenal merc in pve if you are pyro. Because our dps meters tell us so. O wait.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krameriffic Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Pyrotech is the pvp tree. Huge burst potential high movement and survivability but crap for heat management. Arsenal is low movement with cast times, high damage once you get the target debuffed, and great heat management. You won't ever do as much dps as an arsenal merc in pve if you are pyro. I don't know about high burst potential for Pyro, but it does offer a lot of utility and PvP oriented talents. It also offers a lot of long-lasting ranged DoTing, which can be extremely valuable for stopping people from using objectives in ACW and VS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeoThaTiGRR Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 (edited) Because our dps meters tell us so. O wait.. From personal experience, having heat go to almost full in one rotation is absolutely worse for DPS than having slightly weaker burst. Edited January 25, 2012 by LeoThaTiGRR Grammar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battilea Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Thermal Detonator is pretty much weaksauce in PvE. It does less damage than Power Shot, due to the 9% extra damage PS gets on burning targets and does not proc the free rail shot. Its only advantage is that it can be used on the move which is overall pretty minor in PvE. So, yeah, you could easily skip it. Now, if you PvP, you'll want it. Being instant means you get to be more mobile and the delay in the explosion means you can apply more damage within a small time period. But getting tracer missile? Eh, without getting some of its supporting talents, doesn't really seem worth it. Leave it to the Arsenal guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angryorc Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 How can you compare Thermal Detonator with it's 15sec cooldown to Power Shot that is spammable while Thermal Detonator also hits much harder than Power Shot... Yet to see 5k+ Power Shot crits... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battilea Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 (edited) How can you compare Thermal Detonator with it's 15sec cooldown to Power Shot that is spammable while Thermal Detonator also hits much harder than Power Shot... Yet to see 5k+ Power Shot crits... They both take 1.5s to use, pretty much, with TD having the GCD and PS having a 1.5s activation time. Their damage is close, with TD having a higher low end, but PS a higher high end. Their heat cost is the same, at 16, assuming you've got the talent to lower PS's by 9. They have the same range at 30. One does kinetic, the other energy, both of which armor resists. There's a slight difference from talents. TD gets a 30% crit damage boost that PS doesn't. PS gets a 9% boost to burning targets that TD doesn't, and it can proc a free rail shot, key for heat management. Overall, they are pretty similar. So, if I'm standing still and I use TD, I'm using it in place of a PS. Hence the comparison. That's the power use it competes with, once every 15s. Which is why I'm disappointed by TD so far. Though, on the plus side, it does look like TD scales better than PS does. Given more gear improvements, it might actually become worth using. But so far, meh. Edited January 26, 2012 by Battilea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kortobowden Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Don't forget that Thermal Detonator is AoE, whereas power shot/tracer are single target. I personally like Thermal Detonator. It also seems to hit harder(especially if there's other targets within range) for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abarchnu Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Don't forget that Thermal Detonator is AoE, whereas power shot/tracer are single target. hmm ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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