PvE pyro is real?

[TempestasSilva]

Infighter, I feel for you. Lots of opinions, lots of fail, but not much facts or numbers. You are probably going to have to test it yourself and see. Such is the problem with new games. You can't just look on Elitist Jerks.

 

I do want to clear up a couple more failings though:

1) Alacrity is just a healer stat. Whether it is right for Pyro or not, I dunno, but to say its no good for all DPS is fail. The reason that I think it wont be good for pyro is that pyro has several dots and alacrity does not speed up their ticks.

2) You can't cast back to back powershots because you have to check in between to see if a proc reset rail shot. OPEN YOUR EARS. There is an audible "tell" for both powershot and unload. If I remember right, unload is like a guy laughing and power shot is like a weird series of three rising tones like from a flute. I may have them backwards but they are there. If you didnt have to move, you could literally play with your eyes shut and keep your rotation going.

 

PS One more thing to test is that unload being a channeled spell is affected by alacrity however since it speeds up the channel and the damage is per second, that you only get off 2 shots. I have HEARD this, I do not know if its true. Might just be a graphic glich, but I can see the potential for a problem. This would be a nasty bug if true, so test it.

Edited January 25, 2012 by TempestasSilva

[Stranded_Law]

It doesn't matter.

 

Dropping crit and surge for alacrity is going to hurt your damage - not improve it.

 

There are no if's ands or buts about it. In pvp as pyro you need crit and surge all the time to get people down, on my server almost nobody in the level 50 bracket has less than 16k health.

 

I run around in my DPS gear with 19.8k hp in PvP - 33% crit and 75% surge.

 

If I dropped say 10% crit and 10% surge to get 20% alacrity, that would kill my burst. I would be tickling people hitting them for 1500 non crit, and my crits would do 10% less damage.

 

In PvE - Pyro blows balls no heat management and you won't be doing much DPS.

 

Improved Venting, Rapid Venting, and Superheated Rail disagree.

 

I bet you'll be proven wrong once we get parsers and Pyro rears its ugly head as a viable endgame pve spec as well.

 

Managing your heat is tougher, but it certainly can be done - and those who are good at it, will be just fine in pve.

[Battilea]

And all is good in words until we have some actual math and numbers behind our opinions, I guess.

 

You're right with the fact that the heat generated will be higher with a lot of alacrity but, with smarter heat management, the number of rail shots we cast AND the increase of uptime of our combustile gas on the target might give us an increase in dps in a long fight.

 

There are too many variables to simply shrug off a theory without going a bit deeper into it.

 

The number of rail shots is a factor of Unload and PS. Those two abilities are limited in their use by heat generation. You agree that faster power use increases heat generation at a rate not matched by heat dissipation. And, currently, one cannot sustain the use of those two powers by just using Rail Shot. Given that, there won't be more Rail Shots, because the number of PSs and Unloads over the long run cannot increase. Heat, not time, is the limiting factor.

 

So, really, you're looking at the time saved being used on a rapid shots. That's your trade off, the lower damage on everything versus that one extra rapid shots + a dot it might proc.

 

Also worth noting that Arsenal Mercs who have stacked haste say it doesn't impact the global cooldown, at least for Tracer Missile. If they are correct and that also holds true for PS, the gain would be even less, as you'd only benefit with Unload.

[salamanderx]

Alacrity is great for pyro. Dots can only be applied to a person once then you have to do something else. We cant spam tracer so we rely on powershot a lot more (unload when its up) to proc our free railshots. More powershots, more procs. Also means we can shoot and move that much sooner. I have no problem in pve either, can kite and cc anything.

 

edit: oh.. and when heat gets too high the autoattack with combustible chamber does really good damage too...

Edited January 25, 2012 by salamanderx

[Stranded_Law]

Rapid Shots shouldn't be an afterthought with Pyro.

 

Compared to other classes' free attack, ours kicks ***. And no, Alacrity has no place on our gear. It's for healers, it's counter-productive for heat management, just like it is for Sniper's energy consumption.

 

Rapid Shot more, Power Shot less = you surviving even more.

You alive = You dealing more overall damage and killing more people.

 

If someone has a bead on me, I'm never stationary. The only time I stop to use Power Shot is if they're stunned or if no one is locked in on me and I can choose my target before resuming my mobile spam.

 

You could literally go an entire WZ never stopping in place. Opponents get tired of chasing the guy who never stops running. I've never died more than 5 times in any single WZ. Survivability = DPS. Rather than Unloading or hitting a Power Shot to end the CD of Rail Shot, sometimes taking off in the other direction behind a wall is a better choice to increase your overall damage and kill ratio.

[Mamm]

Wow, wow guys, calm down. I just ask - can pyro be good in pve or not..

[TempestasSilva]

Wow, wow guys, calm down. I just ask - can pyro be good in pve or not..

 

The answer is: Who knows. The guess is that it will be viable, but its DPS will be lower (how much???) and that you are not giving your group the stacking armor pen debuff which will make the group do lees damage. Withour a valid log/parser system, it would be very hard to take class/buff/debuff info into account along with personal damage and come up with a definitive answer.

[lKurganl]

The main reason arsenal has an edge is the reduction in armor that should benefit the entire group. You may be able to keep your own damage at the same level, but the lack of the debuff hurts your group.

 

I don't think thats really an issue, just bring a Jugg or a Sniper. I'm not sure if they are more classes beyond that, that have sundering effects. I could see missing the buff in a Flashpoints (simply because groups are smaller), but honestly that doesn't matter too much, maybe if your entire group is new to Flashpoints they will be hard, but after a day or two they won't be and you won't need that debuff anymore. But it Ops, larger groups, odds are you will have one of those other classes with.

 

But with that being said, I hate Pyro rotation, and how much ammo it can eat at spots during the rotation.

[Subasio]

Ok so, WoW alert here, go ignore this post if you don't like reading about that game anymore.

 

However, to me Pyro just feels like playing a fire mage in the last years of WoW, you are heavily gear dependable, proc dependable and crit depandable. It looks something like this

 

RNG + RNG + RNG = between horrible dps and #1 on the charts.

 

Take the WoW AoE packs for example, Fire Bomb on 1 target and then if your Impact procced, you would 'disease' 2 more targets and yellow numbers would be flying everywhere, same for Combustion and the Pyroblast proc.

 

So gear is more important IMO then say.. Arsenal spec. It's because you are very crit dependable, how to get a high crit chance? Better gear. Whilst with arsenal, you go;

 

TM > TM > TM > HS > UL > TM > TM > RS > UL > PS > PS = Golden even with green gear.

 

To me it seems you just have to accept that Arsenal is just a lot more forgiving and steadier DPS output than Pyro is atm, whilst lacking gear. Another thing to remember is that we are all about Dots, and trash mobs, well.. They don't last very long to say it friendly. And with the non-raid bosses not being really challenging, we lack efficiency to the group. As mentioned above, Arsenal also brings a really nice debuff for the whole group.

 

Anyhow, we are all just speculating anyway untill we can get some real numbers from a Recount or something likewise.

 

 

TL,DR;

- Roll Arsenal

- Get Endgear

- Reroll Pyro

- Pray for DMG meters in 1.2

 

These are just my thoughts though, if you agree to disagree I'll leave you with the swtor meme; 'This wasn't the post your looking for'.

 

Later.

 

 

Subasio - 50 Sin Tank

Angelo - 50 Merc DPS

[EthicsGradient]

Has anyone considered running a pyro PVE build using Supercharged Gas/Cells?

 

It would look something like this:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#300McoZMczZbIMrzGhRc.1

Commando version:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800McoZMczZbIMrzGhRc.1

(depending on how much gear accuracy you already have - tier sets have lots)

 

Basically you'd rely on incendiary missile/round for 18 seconds of burn at a time as you wouldn't be using combustible gas/plasma cell.

 

Clearly supercharged power shot/charged bolts with rail shot/HIB thrown in will be excellent burst dmg and ammo regen against a burning target. You can set it up before each fight too.

The main question is how much dmg you lose from the burn proc and weaving incendiary instead vs the burst/ammo regen and 3% dmg buff prior to using the supercharge. I think it may be worth it but haven't tested it yet.

 

As has been said before alacrity is slightly less crap for pyro than arsenal - still not worth stacking much on gear or skills but you don't need to avoid it to the same degree.

 

I have a feeling it'll still do lower dmg than Arsenal/Gunnery in straight stand-and-spank fights but pyro does give better mobility for fights that require it as you're proccing an instant from your 1.5s cast spam rather than proccing a 3s cast.

[Fet-ta]

Has anyone considered running a pyro PVE build using Supercharged Gas/Cells?

 

It would look something like this:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#300McoZMczZbIMrzGhRc.1

Commando version:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800McoZMczZbIMrzGhRc.1

(depending on how much gear accuracy you already have - tier sets have lots)

 

Basically you'd rely on incendiary missile/round for 18 seconds of burn at a time as you wouldn't be using combustible gas/plasma cell.

 

Clearly supercharged power shot/charged bolts with rail shot/HIB thrown in will be excellent burst dmg and ammo regen against a burning target. You can set it up before each fight too.

The main question is how much dmg you lose from the burn proc and weaving incendiary instead vs the burst/ammo regen and 3% dmg buff prior to using the supercharge. I think it may be worth it but haven't tested it yet.

 

As has been said before alacrity is slightly less crap for pyro than arsenal - still not worth stacking much on gear or skills but you don't need to avoid it to the same degree.

 

I have a feeling it'll still do lower dmg than Arsenal/Gunnery in straight stand-and-spank fights but pyro does give better mobility for fights that require it as you're proccing an instant from your 1.5s cast spam rather than proccing a 3s cast.

 

 

 

Visits skill Vendor.... GIMMIE THIS!!!!! Now that's constructive thinking, will try it for sure! although My major complain is of course the lack of snare

[EthicsGradient]

Well if there's a fight where your snare really is essential just use burn gas.

It usually isn't that important in PVE though.

Edited February 16, 2012 by EthicsGradient

[Iandayen]

You still won't put out the damage arsenal does in pve.

 

As arsenal in full rakata my Tracer Missile has a 55%+ crit rating in raid - and they crit for 4k+.

 

That's every 1.5 seconds. Add in Heatseekers critting for 6k+, no heat cost rail shots for 3.5kish, unloads doing roughly 8k damage total also.

 

And then each time any missile or unload crits it refunds 8 heat. with the crit rating I have thats a guaranteed 8 heat refunded every 3 seconds (every other tracer missile).

 

You just can't beat the high damage output and sustainability of arsenal.

[BountyHuntertwo]

Arsenal does Kinetic/Physical damage, and Pyro does Elemental. This means Arsenal will have higher base damage due to the higher mitigation in solo content. The problem for Pyrotech at least in my raid group is we have 5 stacking 20% armor sunders which means we are reducing the target's armor by around 70% plus the Armor Pen on HV Gas Cylinder. So that means our Kinetic/Energy Damage is being mitigated a lot less than is normal, and that means Pyro's advantage of special damage is out the window. The other big reason in group/raid content that Arsenal blows Pyro out of the water is that HSM's damage is increased for each stack of Heat Sig, not just yours, on the target. This allows me to crit with HSM for 8k in my raid group. This is in addition to the fact that in Rakata gear you will constantly proc the heat dump on TM/HSM and Unload off of crits which means you will only over-heat if you intentionally do so to burn Vent Heat. Pyrotech gets blown away, like every other dps spec, by Arsenal over long fights and because of Heat Sig's contribution to raid members' dps.

[Eschleepy]

I run operations as pyro and another bounty hunter runs arsenal. 9/10 nm mode. I always thought he was smoking me on dps and he WOULD always have agro issues at the start of fights until this surge nerf went through. But it now seems I am out dpsing him in worse gear without my 4 piece set bonus. There is a fight in KP with 2 separate guys and he basically drops agro from the tank and goes after number 2. All night tonight he was on me instead of the other bounty hunter, which kinda threw us off a bit. There are no meters out and this is just going by an agro table with both of us not on any kinda of CC or add duty besides probes. So take it for what its worth.

 

Then again, he has pushback protection too and there is another fight where you each solo an add and he kills his first because I lose my unload and it sucks trying to get powershot off while getting beat on. So there you go. Left alone and not taking dmg, it seems if you can watch your timers, Imma say pyro will beat out arsenal. BUT if you dont have another BH, raid will benefit more from the 20% armor pen.

 

....if any of that helps any

[Nordster]

I raid and pvp as pyro merc 'downed all nightmare modes accept soa.' While it is hard to be certain which merc spec is best single target without the aid of dps meters, I can tell you from experience that i pull bosses off our tank a lot more often as pyro, and have to use my dump aggro skill every cd 'or stop dps completely sometimes'. Also heat managment is never a problem if you understand the rotation. As for stacking crit/surge as pyro, it is a bad idea. I only have about 27% ranged crit/67% crit multiplier in pvp gear. Investing in power and high acurracy is far more benificial to pyro 'I can often do 500k+ damage in huttball matches.

[omarunaoe]

I haven't made it to 50 on my merc yet (just hit 40, gonna PVP until I get maxed on commendations then go from there)...

 

But pyro damage seems fine. Better than Powertech Pyro, in fact, and that's generally accepted as the most viable DPS tree for the other AC.

 

Heat management is much better due to the cast and channel times (I imagine I'll never use Vent Heat once I get Muzzle Fluting). I can easily see a workable "rotation" of TD, IM, RS, RPS, and PS happening, whereas on my 50 Powertech I was hard pressed to get TD in very often due to heat constraints.

 

We'll never really know until we have meters, but the sustained boost from dots is what will likely make the hidden difference. CGC and IM uptime are critical for the PVE Pyro Merc, is my guess, along with keeping up Fusion Missile at <30% target health.

 

I realize this thread is about PVE, but in terms of PVP, I'm doing a lot more damage as Merc Pyro and I get focused down ALL THE TIME. People don't like being consistently bursted down or 1v2'd... which is something I couldn't really say on my Champ geared Powertech.

[Wallus]

I've read every post in this thread so far - some stuff I agree with other stuff just makes me facepalm.

 

From my raiding (operating just doesn't sound right) experience so far with a fellow arsenal specced merc and myself as pyrotech, the damage seems fairly equal. Okay, as has been pointed out, arsenal has BIG CRAZY NUMBERS, but us pyrotechs have many many smaller numbers to make up for that. The armor debuff is not an argument, as a raid will have a jugg tank/dps or a sniper instead. Other classes have these similar abilities for a reason. My gear is currently slightly better than my arsenal guild mate, with me almost Rakata'd out and him being one or two pieces behind, and my damage versus his does seem to reflect this. On the whole, however, as we hit 50 the same day and have rolled every flashpoint and now operation fight (normal/hard/nightmare) dpsing together, our damage has remained consistently similar.

 

To write pyro off without any numbers is foolish, and in answer to the OP it is indeed a viable option. Myself and others prove this to be the case, with our anecdotal evidence. Heat management is not a problem, as there is no situation where spamming PS is a good idea, unless the boss has enraged and a full nuke is in order. Even then, this is where vent heat was designed to be used. The rail shots should keep heat down, and rapid shots MUST be worked into the rotation as often as is required to keep the dot present on the target. Rail shot does refresh this, but the dot only lasts for 6 seconds, so it will drop off from time to time. Indeed the damage from combustible gas is ridiculous for being free. Combine this with the 30% increase to dot damage below 30% target hp and you see why.

 

In reality however there is no set rotation, as the RNG factor must be accounted for and the impact this has on heat requires dealing with, but with a cool (no pun intended) head one can easily go through long dps intense fights without overheating.

 

TL;DR

 

Pyro is at least as powerful a dps spec for PVE as arsenal, writing it off without numbers is simply idiotic. Indeed writing it off without evidence at all is even worse. It works. It's really fun. Try it and see for yourself!

 

Just my thoughts and observations.

[jaywow]

Hi there.

 

I'm giving a try to Pyro spec in Ops (HM+NM) atm.

 

Actually running this build : http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#3000cZMckZfhrbzGhrs.1

 

But I was wondering if losing the thermal detonator in order to get the 75% pushback resistance on powershot and unload could be interesting. This way : http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#3000cZMIkZfhrbzGhMc.1

 

In every encounter I'm getting hit by some unavoidable spells. And sometimes I'm tanking the boss (bonecrusher, Infernal council).

 

Any thoughts ?

 

PS : Sorry for my bad english, not my usual language.

[Duxk]

Hi there.

 

I'm giving a try to Pyro spec in Ops (HM+NM) atm.

 

Actually running this build : http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#3000cZMckZfhrbzGhrs.1

 

But I was wondering if losing the thermal detonator in order to get the 75% pushback resistance on powershot and unload could be interesting. This way : http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#3000cZMIkZfhrbzGhMc.1

 

In every encounter I'm getting hit by some unavoidable spells. And sometimes I'm tanking the boss (bonecrusher, Infernal council).

 

Any thoughts ?

 

PS : Sorry for my bad english, not my usual language.

 

Just to clarify before hand I normally heal and we run with a Jugg tank so we have a armor debuff.

 

That is the same exact spec I run when I do Ops as a DPS although most of my gear is Rataka healing I still see pretty nice numbers. That and doing 30% more DOT damage at targets at or below 30% is pretty pro. btw I dont like the arsenal rotation one bit.

[jaywow]

No other thoughts ?

[T-Assassin]

Rapid Shots shouldn't be an afterthought with Pyro.

 

Compared to other classes' free attack, ours kicks ***. And no, Alacrity has no place on our gear. It's for healers, it's counter-productive for heat management, just like it is for Sniper's energy consumption.

 

Rapid Shot more, Power Shot less = you surviving even more.

You alive = You dealing more overall damage and killing more people.

 

If someone has a bead on me, I'm never stationary. The only time I stop to use Power Shot is if they're stunned or if no one is locked in on me and I can choose my target before resuming my mobile spam.

 

You could literally go an entire WZ never stopping in place. Opponents get tired of chasing the guy who never stops running. I've never died more than 5 times in any single WZ. Survivability = DPS. Rather than Unloading or hitting a Power Shot to end the CD of Rail Shot, sometimes taking off in the other direction behind a wall is a better choice to increase your overall damage and kill ratio.

 

he summed up my thoughts in this post, and his previous one in this thread.

[Battilea]

No other thoughts ?

 

Me, I gave up a bit of crit percentage to get 2 ranks of the pushback resistance. With 50%, I'm overall pretty happy with it.

 

Thermal Detonator is nice for when you need to move and still want to chuck some damage. Which happens quite a bit on raids. It also scales better than other attacks. Early on, when you aren't geared, it isn't very impressive. But as you gain more power and aim, it gets better.

 

Hoping the Legacy level stuff includes the ability to get another skill point or two though, so I can get that crit as well

Edited February 26, 2012 by Battilea

[jaywow]

Me, I gave up a bit of crit percentage to get 2 ranks of the pushback resistance. With 50%, I'm overall pretty happy with it.

 

Thermal Detonator is nice for when you need to move and still want to chuck some damage. Which happens quite a bit on raids. It also scales better than other attacks. Early on, when you aren't geared, it isn't very impressive. But as you gain more power and aim, it gets better.

 

Hoping the Legacy level stuff includes the ability to get another skill point or two though, so I can get that crit as well

 

K. Thanks for the information. I'm currently at 33.74% ranged crit and 40.86% tech crit, self buffed, with Rakata stim. Maybe I'll give it a try, but that's quite hard to drope 4% ranged/tech crit for something we can't really evaluate. I have to change my mind for that

[Kunovega]

Improved Venting, Rapid Venting, and Superheated Rail disagree.

 

I bet you'll be proven wrong once we get parsers and Pyro rears its ugly head as a viable endgame pve spec as well.

 

Managing your heat is tougher, but it certainly can be done - and those who are good at it, will be just fine in pve.

 

you dont need a damage parser to test dps

 

there are several 100k to 150k hp champions in various places that can be fought alone without a bunch of adds

 

one of the easiest to test on is the lvl 40 something with 150k ish hp on corellia, he's near the datacron with the slow moving elevator and than you get knocked accross a gap, i dont feel like looking it up right now but hes easy to find, or just pick another theres enough champs in the game to do this

 

time yourself and fight him

 

its that simple, now time yourself in two ways:

 

1. actual time, the number of seconds it takes to kill

 

and

 

2. theoretical time. by this i mean count the number of things you shoot (since each basic skill is 1.5 seconds you count something like unload or death from above as 2 since they are 3 seconds long). do not count casting heals or casting shields, etc. simply count the number of 1.5 second periods where damage was cast

 

on top of that:

 

3. count the numbers, the damage that pops up just do it in your head with averages

 

i farm champions all the time, i do this simply out of habit or boredom, but i am always timing my fights, everywhere i go. and i count my "rounds of attack" which is every set of 1.5 seconds where i am doing damage (a tracer is a 1 count, unload a 2 count, etc)

 

i respec often, simply for testing or out of boredom or just to have something else to do. im a good healer, im a good pvp player. the tree i always come back to is arsenal.

 

ive yet to find one instance of any of my testing that did not come out around the same: in arsenal im averaging around 1 minute to kill a champion with between 90k to 110k hp, its typically about 40 global cooldowns worth of attacks

 

in pyro i average about 1 minute and 20 seconds, its typicaly around 53 global cooldowns worth of attacks

 

in bodyguard its about 2 minutes for the same champ and closer to 80 global cooldowns

 

arsenal about 100k damage per minute

 

pyro about 70k damage per minute. its 30% less and hits the heat wall sooner (arsenal sometimes doesnt even hit the heat wall and may continue indefinately with enough crit/luck)

 

bodyguard is about 50k damage per minute, so half of arsenal and major problems with heat venting (far worse even than pyro, very difficult to sustain) <<<< and yes i realize they are supposed to be healing, its included here simply for comparison and they have few heat problems at all if all they do is heal a raid without trying to toss tons of damage

 

hybrids typically fall somewhere in the 60 to 70k damage range, ive yet to find a hybrid spec capable of beating a pure pyro and none come close to pure arsenal (not saying hybrid isnt useful for pvp where utility matters more than damage, but its a trash builld for pve)

 

for normal pve or even most flashpoints, pyro keeps up. where you run into issues are operations bosses. i can tell you now that from experience when we wipe i start asking mercs for their builds. if we lost to an enrage where the boss was at 100 to 200k hp and i find a merc using pyro or a hybrid.... i make them go respec to arsenal and voila, boss down. its that simple.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Kunovega