PVE Gunnery DPS Leveling Guide

[DadadadaBATMAN]

Troopers,

 

There seems to be a plethora of information on Combat Medic spec'd Commandos, but we're lacking a Gunnery DPS guide. I'm here to fix that. Any help from veteran Gunnery Commandos on information would be greatly appreciated.

BASICS

 

STATS

Aim is your primary stat. Endurance is secondary. Since endurance is on everything pretty much, you won't really be in a situation where you have the choice of sacrificing it for DPS stats. As a result, I'm not going to include it on the priority list. For leveling, focus on the following:

 

Aim > Power > Crit > Surge > Accuracy

 

I know that in *other* MMOs Accuracy helps a ton when you're leveling--in SWTOR I haven't found that to be the case. Between all of the side quests, PvP, space missions, heroic quests and bonus series, I never found myself under-leveled enough to notice strings of misses vs mobs. If you find yourself missing a lot, get some more Acc.

 

Alacrity should be avoided. It makes you run through ammo faster. Our DPS is limited by our resources, not how quickly we can shoot.

 

 

CELL

 

You are a Gunnery Commando. Armor-Piercing Cell (http://www.torhead.com/ability/9gI825P) is going to be your Main Cell. Properly talented, it gives you the following:

 

--35% Armor-Penetration (innate, Passive)

--Generates 1 energy cell on crit. Cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds. (2/2 Cell Charger)

--Reduces the cost of High Impact Bolt by 1 (1/1 Special Munitions)

 

Due to the level of synergy with the Gunnery tree, it is not recommended that you use any cell other than Armor-Piercing while DPSing as Gunnery. Supercharge Cells (http://www.torhead.com/ability/2XoBKb8/supercharge-cells) might make Combat Support Cell tempting, but the use is so situational that I wouldn't recommend taking it or using it until the numbers prove otherwise.

 

 

WEAPON

 

Use your Assault Cannon. Period. There is a net-loss in DPS from using a Blaster Rifle. I don't care that you want to be a snowflake. I don't care that you hate the way the AC looks. It is our class defining weapon. Not using your BFG is gimping your Commando, period.

 

 

COMPANION

 

As a pretty OP soloing class, you have a lot of leeway here. For the purposes of this thread I would recommend that you stick with either Aric Jordan or Elara Dorne. Personally, I prefer Elara. It's never taken me long to kill mobs, and a healing companion just means that I have less downtime. Any companion can be effective. Find one you like and keep them geared.

 

GEAR

 

I've found the easiest thing to do is the following:

 

1) Get Orange Weapon, Boots, Legs, Gloves, Chest, Helm for you and your main companion.

2) Upgrade with commendations.

3) Find an Armstech. Buy the epic barrel appropriate for your level. Keep this until the blue barrel level is equal in power rating, then upgrade your barrel to your current level purple.

4) "Hand-me-down" mods to your companion unless you have enough commendations to outfit both.

 

 

LEVELING

 

TALENTS

 

Your basic build is going to look like this:

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

 

Broken down into leveling, it's going to look like this:

 

10-11: 2/2 Havoc Rounds

12-14: 3/3 Iron Sights

15-17: 3/3 Steadied Aim

18: 1/1 Muzzle Fluting

19: 1/1 Special Munitions

20: 1/1 Grav Round

21-22: 2/2 Deadly Cannon

23-24: 2/2 Concussive Force (on most mobs gives you an extra interrupt with Stockstrike)

25: 1/1 Gravity Surge

26-27: 2/2 Cell Charger 2/2

28-29: 2/2 Heavy Trooper (if you're using Dorne) or 2/2 Charged Barrier (if not)

30: 1/1 Charged Barrel

31: 1/1 Rotary Cannon

32-33: 2/2 Cover Fire

34: 1/1 Kolto Recharge

35-37: 3/3 Curtain of Fire

38-39: 2/2 Charged Barrier (if you're using Dorne) or 2/2 Tenacious Defense (if not)

40: 1/1 Demo Round

41-43: 3/3 Field Training

44-45: 2/2 Cell Capacitor

46-47: 2/2 Tenacious Defense or (if you get more heals than you give) 2/2 Heavy Trooper or (if you give more heals than you get) 2/2 Advanced Tech

48-50: 3/3 Target Lock (Preparing for lv 50 Normal Ops/FPs)

 

 

 

I should also add that talents which lower cooldowns, especially talents which lower the cooldown of abilities you don't use multiple times in a fight, are never going to be as useful as talents which add passive bonuses. The only one I recommend taking is Tenacious Defense (and only because Concussion Charge is on such a short cooldown, with the talent you can use it twice on some fights).

 

 

CREW SKILLS

 

I'm not going to argue the merits of one trade skill vs another. Check out this thread over at the Crew Skills Forums about companion benefit: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=132015

 

If it's your first toon, I would recommend leveling with Slicing + your two main gathering professions.

 

Example: I plan on going Cybertech, but I like having plenty of money while I level, so I leveled to 50 with Scavenging, Underworld Trading, and Slicing. I gathered with UT and Scav as you normally would while leveling, but I also sliced every terminal I came across and ran high level slicing missions, collecting money and schematics. At 50 I dropped slicing and power leveled Cybertech, and I've never hurt for money. This is just a suggestion, play however you like.

 

 

TACTICS

 

Learn to love your Mortar Volley/Hail of Bolts combo. You can take out any pack of normal mobs with the correct positioning. It's pretty OP to use 2 abilities and kill up to 5 mobs.

 

Grav Round replaces Charged Bolts, but keep CB on your bar in case your Grav Round is interrupted--it's a nice fallback ability.

 

Don't forget about your Grenades. They use a lot of ammo, but if you're going after a pack and MV is on cooldown, grenades are great for mopping up.

 

Charged Bolts and Grav Round can reset the cooldown on Full Auto, give it a DPS boost.

 

Grav Round gives a hefty boost to High Impact Round

 

Charged Bolts and Grav Round also grant 2% DR / 15s with a max of 5 stacks: 10% DR / 15s stack duration, which means juggling Charged Bolts and Grav Round CDs can yield 100% uptime as ammo allows.

 

--Prioritize Demo Round when it's off of cooldown and High Impact Bolt at 5x Charged Barrel the first time, then whenever it's off cooldown.

 

--Opening with Full Auto is basically free. You'll recharge the ammo used during the channel.

 

--Use Full Auto when you have a Curtain of Fire (http://www.torhead.com/search/curtain%20of%20fire) proc.

 

--Use Grav Round when you need to sustain the Vortex debuff and/or build up stacks of Charged Barrel...or when you need filler in your rotation. Grav Round is our spammable ability.

 

 

So, a possible single-target rotation could be:

 

1. Full Auto

2. Grav Round (2x debuff, 1x Charged Barrel)

3. Grav Round (4x debuff, 2x Charged Barrel)

4. Grav Round (5x debuff, 3x Charged Barrel)

5. Full Auto (if the Curtain of Fire bonus proc'd)

6. Demo Round

7. Grav Round (5x debuff, 4x Charged Barrel)

8. Grav Round (5x debuff, 5x Charged Barrel)

9. High Impact Bolt

10. Full Auto (if the Curtain of Fire bonus proc'd)

11. Repeat the above, basically building up Charged Barrels for High Impact Bolt.

 

 

 

That's about it for now. I'll add some later as it comes up. Please feel free to comment/add your own thoughts and input. I'll update as necessary.

Edited February 9, 2012 by DadadadaBATMAN

[Sonnya]

It's a nice post. I would probably word the rotation a bit different to make sure that the reader knows to use Full Auto whenever Curtain of Fire procs.

 

Also, I'm not a fan of Cover Fire. Those two points are pretty much wasted. I would much rather put them in Reserve Round for the decrease in Concussion. Don't forget that concussion charge has a 4 second slow built in. It's far better than Cover Fire (imo).

 

Also, you start by saying how much accuracy sucks, yet you put 3 points in Target Lock. I know that the build is pretty standard for Gunnery, but that's mainly due to lack of better choices.

 

It's the last points to put in, so it doesn't really do anything harmful. It's not a skill tax. But I thinking that a 10/31/0 build would give some flexibility and let you heal easy mode Flashpoints as well, or take on champions solo by popping out a tank companion and act as a healer.

 

But definitely good info compilation there. GJ.

[mfrazie]

Awesome post!

 

My question is about alacrity. Do you think that "Weapon Calibrations" in the AS tree is worth taking for a DPS Commando?

[DadadadaBATMAN]

It's a nice post. I would probably word the rotation a bit different to make sure that the reader knows to use Full Auto whenever Curtain of Fire procs.

 

Also, I'm not a fan of Cover Fire. Those two points are pretty much wasted. I would much rather put them in Reserve Round for the decrease in Concussion. Don't forget that concussion charge has a 4 second slow built in. It's far better than Cover Fire (imo).

 

Also, you start by saying how much accuracy sucks, yet you put 3 points in Target Lock. I know that the build is pretty standard for Gunnery, but that's mainly due to lack of better choices.

 

It's the last points to put in, so it doesn't really do anything harmful. It's not a skill tax. But I thinking that a 10/31/0 build would give some flexibility and let you heal easy mode Flashpoints as well, or take on champions solo by popping out a tank companion and act as a healer.

 

But definitely good info compilation there. GJ.

 

 

Thanks for the bump! If you'll notice, after the rotation I do recommend using FA every time you get the CoF proc.

 

Reserve Round lowers the cooldown of Concussive Round, not Concussion Charge. I do recommend picking up Tenacious Defense, which lowers the cooldown of Concussion Charge. I don't recommend picking up Reserve Round for leveling purposes because Reserve Powercell's cooldown, even talented, is longer than most fights. Concussive Round is so situational (there are only a few double Elite/Strong pulls where it's needed) that I've never tried to use it and found that it was on cooldown.

 

I don't recommend gearing for accuracy, no. I did find that in my 40s I started missing more, and the 3% from talents was enough to push me back up to where I needed to be.

 

With that said, the beauty of this build is that by the time you hit 50 you're ready to jump into PvP and PvE and start gearing up. By the time you make it to HM Ops, you're going to want to move 2 points from Cover Fire into Reserve Round, but only for the reduced cooldown on Reserve Powercell.

 

I don't like hybrid builds at all. You're just going to end up gimping yourself in one way or another. You're either:

 

a) going to have all your healing talents while leveling, but won't have Demolition Round until 50,

or

b) will have Demolition Round at 40 but won't have all your healing talents until 50 (when you're done leveling anyway) and then have to respec to a more traditional DPS spec.

 

 

Awesome post!

 

My question is about alacrity. Do you think that "Weapon Calibrations" in the AS tree is worth taking for a DPS Commando?

 

Alacrity, as mentioned above, is not that useful for Commando Gunnery DPS. Alacrity reduces the cast time or channel time of your abilities. At this point, it does not lower your Global Cool Down (GCD), which is 1.5 seconds. That means that every ability you use which has a cast or channel time longer than 1.5 seconds will fire faster. The abilities affected are few and far between. Off the top of my head, you'll see more dps from Full Auto, Mortar Volley, Hail of Bolts, and a faster cast time on your Plasma Grenade.

 

Additionally, one of the main benefits to working FA into your rotation is that it usually regenerates the ammo it uses during your channel time. This makes it, in effect, free. Speeding up the channel time means that FA will actually cost ammunition. As mentioned earlier, Commando Gunnery DPS is limited not by how fast we can shoot, but by how much ammo we have. Alacrity is great for Combat Medics, bad for Gunnery.

[Sonnya]

Thanks for the bump! If you'll notice, after the rotation I do recommend using FA every time you get the CoF proc.

 

Yup, I saw that. What I meant was to make it very clear that it should take priority every time it procs. If it procs, then the next attack should always be a FA.

 

Reserve Round lowers the cooldown of Concussive Round, not Concussion Charge.

 

You're absolutely right. I did not notice that until now. Yeah, that kindda makes it less useful for levelling. I still use Reserve Powercell a lot. Most often in combination with Plasma Grenade. It's ok to have that on faster cooldown, but definitely not necessary.

 

And taking points from Cover Fire and Target Lock, to improve healing capabilities doesn't really make a hybrid build, as those points are pretty much feels wasted anyway :/

 

(and check your level 40 pick

[Kokkos]

Deadly Cannonn is bugged and dont give any effect to Full auto crits. So the talent is basicly useless before you get Demo Round.

Also, if somebody is hitting you you will only get two ticks of Full Auto. This means that even with Curtain of fire up 2xgrav round will give you higher dmg over the 3 sec full auto takes to cast (this is at least true for me at my gear lvl at lvl 50, i am not sure if its true at lower lvls.) Its worth testing at least. Its very easy to see, if Grav hits for more then one tick of Full auto then 2xgrav is better then Full auto. Both takes three sec and Grav builds loads of different buffs/debuffs.

It does however cost more ammo then Full auto.

[DadadadaBATMAN]

Deadly Cannonn is bugged and dont give any effect to Full auto crits. So the talent is basicly useless before you get Demo Round.

Also, if somebody is hitting you you will only get two ticks of Full Auto. This means that even with Curtain of fire up 2xgrav round will give you higher dmg over the 3 sec full auto takes to cast (this is at least true for me at my gear lvl at lvl 50, i am not sure if its true at lower lvls.) Its worth testing at least. Its very easy to see, if Grav hits for more then one tick of Full auto then 2xgrav is better then Full auto. Both takes three sec and Grav builds loads of different buffs/debuffs.

It does however cost more ammo then Full auto.

 

 

 

I didn't realize Deadly Cannon was bugged. I'd still take it. I realize that FA only gives 2 tics instead of 3, but, again, our damage for a fight shouldn't be looked at by simply Damage Per Second, but, rather, Damage Per Ammo. Given max regen rate, FA followed by Grav Round means that your FA was free, as the 2 ammo will regen by the time your Grav Round goes off.

[DadadadaBATMAN]

Yup, I saw that. What I meant was to make it very clear that it should take priority every time it procs. If it procs, then the next attack should always be a FA.

 

 

 

You're absolutely right. I did not notice that until now. Yeah, that kindda makes it less useful for levelling. I still use Reserve Powercell a lot. Most often in combination with Plasma Grenade. It's ok to have that on faster cooldown, but definitely not necessary.

 

And taking points from Cover Fire and Target Lock, to improve healing capabilities doesn't really make a hybrid build, as those points are pretty much feels wasted anyway :/

 

(and check your level 40 pick

 

 

Hahaha, thanks for the heads up on Demo Round.

 

I moved the hints to the top of the rotation, and again I'll stress that it's suggested, as any class with procs knows that you have to be flexible depending on what proc'd.

 

 

I'm not saying that it's not viable to put points into the healing tree. The main reason I'm against it is that you'll either delay when you get Demo Round (not worth it IMO, as Demo ramps your DPS significantly) or you'll be level 45+, and almost 50. The extra healing for 5 levels or whatever just doesn't seem worth forcing a respec as soon as you hit 50.

[Triksterism]

Just started playing SW:ToR the other day, is this guide still accurate? I'm currently level 19 or so, what should me "rotation" be in PvE?

[Sonnya]

Just started playing SW:ToR the other day, is this guide still accurate? I'm currently level 19 or so, what should me "rotation" be in PvE?

 

Did you even check the date of the post?

[JLapp]

Alacrity, as mentioned above, is not that useful for Commando Gunnery DPS. Alacrity reduces the cast time or channel time of your abilities. At this point, it does not lower your Global Cool Down (GCD), which is 1.5 seconds. That means that every ability you use which has a cast or channel time longer than 1.5 seconds will fire faster. The abilities affected are few and far between. Off the top of my head, you'll see more dps from Full Auto, Mortar Volley, Hail of Bolts, and a faster cast time on your Plasma Grenade.

 

Additionally, one of the main benefits to working FA into your rotation is that it usually regenerates the ammo it uses during your channel time. This makes it, in effect, free. Speeding up the channel time means that FA will actually cost ammunition. As mentioned earlier, Commando Gunnery DPS is limited not by how fast we can shoot, but by how much ammo we have. Alacrity is great for Combat Medics, bad for Gunnery.

 

Cast time and channel abilities do not have a global cooldown. Alacrity will lower grav round to under a 1.5s cast with no CD between your next ability (No idea why so many people on these forums continue to state otherwise).

 

Once you get a fairly high crit ammo doesn't become a huge issue. The only time I really notice I get anywhere close to low on ammo is when I have to use a number of AOE abilities (plasma grenade and hail of bolts eat through ammo pretty fast).

 

As far as end game PVE goes, I hardly ever use concussion charge or tenacity. I have made the decision to put two of those points into the alacrity (I put them into first responder since my crit is high enough that it is near 100% up-time).

 

I wouldn't put alacrity on any gear since you are always going to want surge/crit/power/accuracy over it, but given the choice of alacrity over a buff to a skill I hardly ever use, I'll take alacrity.

 

Saying alacrity makes Full go from free to costing ammo is silly. It costs exactly the same. Worst case scenario is you have to mix in hammer shot more often to maintain the same ammo level but that still means you are gaining extra hammer shot damage.

[DadadadaBATMAN]

Cast time and channel abilities do not have a global cooldown. Alacrity will lower grav round to under a 1.5s cast with no CD between your next ability (No idea why so many people on these forums continue to state otherwise).

 

I wouldn't put alacrity on any gear since you are always going to want surge/crit/power/accuracy over it, but given the choice of alacrity over a buff to a skill I hardly ever use, I'll take alacrity.

 

Saying alacrity makes Full go from free to costing ammo is silly. It costs exactly the same. Worst case scenario is you have to mix in hammer shot more often to maintain the same ammo level but that still means you are gaining extra hammer shot damage.

 

You're wrong.

 

Cast and channel abilities DO trigger the GCD, hence the term "Global." All you have to do is hit the ability to see the lines move down through your abilities. That is the GCD.

 

Alacrity does make FA go from free to cost ammo. Here's why:

 

When you have 8-12 Ammo you regenerate .6 Ammo/Sec. Full Auto is 2 ammo upon activation. Full Auto is a 3 second channel. 3 x .6 = 1.8 ammo regenerated during the channel. Now, let's say you knock the channel down to 2 seconds with alacrity. 2 x .6 = 1.2 ammo regenerated. Congrats! You now have less ammo after using Full Auto! Let's add that Hammer Shot to "make up for damage." 2 second Full Auto + 1.5 GCD on hammer shot = 3.5 seconds doing slightly more for the same ammo than you would have done in 3. Let's add in a couple more FA rotations and the damage starts to fall behind. The Hammer Shots aren't going to outdamage the extra Grav Round you get in there.

 

 

 

Once you get a fairly high crit ammo doesn't become a huge issue. The only time I really notice I get anywhere close to low on ammo is when I have to use a number of AOE abilities (plasma grenade and hail of bolts eat through ammo pretty fast).

 

As far as end game PVE goes, I hardly ever use concussion charge or tenacity. I have made the decision to put two of those points into the alacrity (I put them into first responder since my crit is high enough that it is near 100% up-time).

 

 

This is not an end-game PvE guide. This is a leveling guide, as stated in the title.

Edited February 10, 2012 by DadadadaBATMAN

[ZucriyLyhdnamm]

Hehe, short answer, yes this is still accurate.

 

Guides alright, I posted one not too long ago that's pretty much the same, not saying anything other than I agree with you in that...

 

If we want to talk high end pve.... You'll want to note that your adrenal you should be using is Power, and I'll tell you why: if you have any semi respectable amount of gear, your crit should be about 35+ raw, surge at around 70-75, accuracy easily over 100, flirting with the massive dropoff of diminishing returns with all these skills... Therefore it becomes obvious that you need the adrenal that is NOT affected by diminishing returns but rather scales with your other stats... Power is the answer. Your relics ( basic ) should be one power and one crit/surge

Edited February 10, 2012 by ZucriyLyhdnamm

[JLapp]

You're wrong.

 

Cast and channel abilities DO trigger the GCD, hence the term "Global." All you have to do is hit the ability to see the lines move down through your abilities. That is the GCD.

 

There are a number of videos out there showing (as people like to put) alacrity lowers the GCD of cast time abilites. i.e. there is no cool down on cast time abilities. That is how it as always worked, reguardless of what the UI shows. I know on my combat medic when my advanced medical probe went off in 1.2s I didn't have to stand around for 0.3s to cast something else.

 

Alacrity does make FA go from free to cost ammo. Here's why:

 

When you have 8-12 Ammo you regenerate .6 Ammo/Sec. Full Auto is 2 ammo upon activation. Full Auto is a 3 second channel. 3 x .6 = 1.8 ammo regenerated during the channel. Now, let's say you knock the channel down to 2 seconds with alacrity. 2 x .6 = 1.2 ammo regenerated. Congrats! You now have less ammo after using Full Auto! Let's add that Hammer Shot to "make up for damage." 2 second Full Auto + 1.5 GCD on hammer shot = 3.5 seconds doing slightly more for the same ammo than you would have done in 3. Let's add in a couple more FA rotations and the damage starts to fall behind. The Hammer Shots aren't going to outdamage the extra Grav Round you get in there.

 

Hammer shots will never have to make up for, or out damage a Grav Round. With alacrity You will be able cast every ammo costing attack just as you could without it...but the time saved on those abilities will be able to add an EXTRA hammer shot and increase overall damage done.

 

 

This is not an end-game PvE guide. This is a leveling guide, as stated in the title.

 

I responded to a post that was talking HM ops and stuff like that.

[Warkyd]

You're wrong.

 

Cast and channel abilities DO trigger the GCD, hence the term "Global." All you have to do is hit the ability to see the lines move down through your abilities. That is the GCD.

Cast and channelled do not activate the GCD. The lines are simply a UI effect.

[DadadadaBATMAN]

Cast and channelled do not activate the GCD. The lines are simply a UI effect.

 

I've done some research into this and it's still unconfirmed. There's also information that alacrity might lower your GCD. This is also unconfirmed.

 

I don't think it's possible to have a clear picture of min/maxing without some sort of combat log/dps parser.

 

 

 

With that being said, I still maintain that no, you don't want alacrity while you're leveling.

 

I would still place Concussive Force > Cover Fire > Tenacious Defense > Weapon Calibrations for leveling purposes.