Gunnery vs Assault PVP

[Gunlaugr]

Assault specialist is completely underwhelming compared to Gunnery. Yes, you have vastly improved mobility, but in return the time it takes you to kill off a target is tripled

 

Incendiary round needs to do substantially more damage or go down in ammo cost to 2, and assault plastique needs not to share cooldown with sticky grenade.

 

Also, assault specialist should improve the damage of explosive round to an extent which makes it useful. Explosive round fits the playstyle of assault specialists, but it plain sucks. Nobody in their right state of mind would use it for anything but cap/bombplant interrupts.

[AluciusXL]

Let me state first off that I have and consider my main to be a Battle Master Commando. I had up until this month exclusively played a Gunnery Spec never once giving Assault a chance, and only upon hitting 60+ valor ranks and boring from a week or two of daily quest only playing did I decide to switch to Assault to spice it up. Even after the Surge nerf my Commando hits fairly regularly with 1 consumable popped for 5k+ Demolition rounds on most targets that have 15k HP or less and is a complete beast that has a shade under 19k HP himself.

 

So, the last 3 weeks aprox. I've been running Assault exclusively in order to get used to rotations and figure out just how to maximize utility. My experience with this spec on the move found me throwing out 3k High Impact Bolts on high geared players, followed up by a lackluster 2-3k Assault Plastique. Virtually all other damage done was hammer shots, and incendiary rounds, which both deal fairly well against under geared or lighter armor opponents, but hardly much to well geared/tank type players. Even ammo dumping a full auto to immediately follow up with another HiB was hardly enough to laugh at. On the run, against well geared (16k+ HP) decent players at 50, you are lackluster and will struggle to win a mobile battle even against those you should feel confident engaging in.

 

In addition to the above single target DPS is weak and situational. Now, if in the event we are left alone you can do mediocre damage by triggering dots, HiB's, and casting charged bolts for roughly 3k damage when ammo regen is high, and hammer shots in the mean time. Charged Bolts almost never seems to proc HiB though, and on top of that without any set back resistance if you have anyone hitting you at all Charged Bolts is pretty terrible. As soon as anyone is on you its essentially run around time and becomes a matter of what gear they wear in terms of both quality, and type, as most of your damage is going to be HiB, Dots, one casting of Assault Plastique, and Hammer Shots while being "mobile".

 

I found that after most warzones ended I felt weak, but then my overall damage would be relatively high if not the same as my Gunnery Spec making me feel better about the experience in general. The only situations I felt good though were when I could stand still and weave charged bolts or completely ammo dump, but then why am I not a much better damaging Gunnery Spec? If the game was a full length voidstar I averaged in the 500-600k range, if a 2-1 Civil War or average Hutball 350k-400k. While these numbers made me feel a little better about my performance the overall sensation of being weak is pretty prevalent when faced with well geared and or tank spec'd players.

 

I can see in a pre-50 era or against low geared 50 opponents how Assault would feel great. With most classes being an average level of 20, or with an almost nonexistant gear gap it's a much better match up. In the end though my experiences have forced my opinion of Assault to be a high damaging spammer with a relatively ineffective ability to truly lay down any sort of dominance when compared to Gunnery at the highest levels.

 

To anyone playing Assault over Gunnery at the Battle Master levels.. you can keep your ability to run away and die, you can keep your ability to do nothing against tanks, you can keep your ability to not kill healers, you can keep your ability to incendiary round players that are trying to cap objectives, because in the end my Gunnery spec will be destroying entire swaths of players in seconds, in every situation, and helping my team win by brute force.

 

-Royalt

Edited February 20, 2012 by AluciusXL

[Figmentus]

Let me state first off that I have and consider my main to be a Battle Master Commando. I had up until this month exclusively played a Gunnery Spec never once giving Assault a chance, and only upon hitting 60+ valor ranks and boring from a week or two of daily quest only playing did I decide to switch to Assault to spice it up. Even after the Surge nerf my Commando hits fairly regularly with 1 consumable popped for 5k+ Demolition rounds on most targets that have 15k HP or less and is a complete beast that has a shade under 19k HP himself.

 

So, the last 3 weeks aprox. I've been running Assault exclusively in order to get used to rotations and figure out just how to maximize utility. My experience with this spec on the move found me throwing out 3k High Impact Bolts on high geared players, followed up by a lackluster 2-3k Assault Plastique. Virtually all other damage done was hammer shots, and incendiary rounds, which both deal fairly well against under geared or lighter armor opponents, but hardly much to well geared/tank type players. Even ammo dumping a full auto to immediately follow up with another HiB was hardly enough to laugh at. On the run, against well geared (16k+ HP) decent players at 50, you are lackluster and will struggle to win a mobile battle even against those you should feel confident engaging in.

 

In addition to the above single target DPS is weak and situational. Now, if in the event we are left alone you can do mediocre damage by triggering dots, HiB's, and casting charged bolts for roughly 3k damage when ammo regen is high, and hammer shots in the mean time. Charged Bolts almost never seems to proc HiB though, and on top of that without any set back resistance if you have anyone hitting you at all Charged Bolts is pretty terrible. As soon as anyone is on you its essentially run around time and becomes a matter of what gear they wear in terms of both quality, and type, as most of your damage is going to be HiB, Dots, one casting of Assault Plastique, and Hammer Shots while being "mobile".

 

I found that after most warzones ended I felt weak, but then my overall damage would be relatively high if not the same as my Gunnery Spec making me feel better about the experience in general. The only situations I felt good though were when I could stand still and weave charged bolts or completely ammo dump, but then why am I not a much better damaging Gunnery Spec? If the game was a full length voidstar I averaged in the 500-600k range, if a 2-1 Civil War or average Hutball 350k-400k. While these numbers made me feel a little better about my performance the overall sensation of being weak is pretty prevalent when faced with well geared and or tank spec'd players.

 

I can see in a pre-50 era or against low geared 50 opponents how Assault would feel great. With most classes being an average level of 20, or with an almost nonexistant gear gap it's a much better match up. In the end though my experiences have forced my opinion of Assault to be a high damaging spammer with a relatively ineffective ability to truly lay down any sort of dominance when compared to Gunnery at the highest levels.

 

To anyone playing Assault over Gunnery at the Battle Master levels.. you can keep your ability to run away and die, you can keep your ability to do nothing against tanks, you can keep your ability to not kill healers, you can keep your ability to incendiary round players that are trying to cap objectives, because in the end my Gunnery spec will be destroying entire swaths of players in seconds, in every situation, and helping my team win by brute force.

 

-Royalt

 

this guy pretty much hits the nail on the head. I have been nothing but Assault Specialist. I have respeced to gunnery once and went back to AS the same day because my stats were not prioritized for Gunnery and I was hitting grav and demo rounds for less than 2k. I play Assault because I like not having to stand still, and I keep hoping that I will get better when I get better gear i.e. guardians. But the truth is that the set bonuses on the pvp and rakata gear is aimed towards gunnery.

 

HIB and Assault Plastique do not mesh well with the DoT style. HIB is white damage and can be avoided, and assault plastique only does 300-500 more damage than sticky grenade. Meanwhile you get a new skill at the top of the gunnery tree that get bonus damage from your tier 3 grav round. A smart guy designed the gunnery tree. Can't say that about the assault tree...

[Gunlaugr]

And this pretty much sums up the issue. Despite all the points Alucius made, I still personally consider assault to be more attractive simply because I find the gunnery spec quite boring to play =/

[Wolve]

As a Gunnery spec you are a stationary turret, with assault you are mobile...

 

of the 2, it really depends on playstyle tbh. On ilum and Civil war and huttball, Assault is prob the best spec...for Voidstar, gunnery is best with a pocket healer. That has been my observation.

 

Assault can do as much damage as gunnery, but the DoT (incindiary round) last 18 seconds........you can hit various players with it, especially healers then follow up with HiB, then do a full Auto and have HiB free and waiting. For me it procs alot.

 

 

Basically you are fighting, using Hammer Shot with plasma cell snaring your targer, hit them with IR, and HiB, throw a Cryo grenade, full auto and HiB again, the back to IR and Hammer (throwing you plastique as it comes up) also do not forget plasma grenade in your rotation.

 

I love it when stealther use their stealth with a sliver of life and I use the plastique and see them go boom and die a few yard away....or die from the 18 sec DoT.

 

Yeah Gunnery is brute force.....assault is finesse.