Tactics Tree needs Help.

[Daecollo]

High Energy Cell: Hammer Shot, Gut, Ion Pulse and Pulse Cannon have a 25% chance to proc Pulse Discharge, this attack deals 595 additional internal damage.

 

Front line Offense: Additionally Increases range of Ion Pulse by 5 per point.

 

Power Armor: Additionally Increases the damage of Pulse Discharge by 10% Per Point.

 

Serrated Blades: Additionally while High Energy Cell is active, Lowers the time it takes for gut's Bleed Effect to apply by 3. (Stacks to 9, this means the damage occurs much faster)

 

Kolto Recharge: Additionally, Critical hits with elemental and internal attacks heal the tactics Vanguard for 1% Health. (This Includes DoTs.) [Only While High Energy Cell is Active.]

 

Havoc Training: Additionally Increases tech critical chance per point.

 

This would make High Energy Cell as good as Assault, with its own flavor.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Daecollo

[Kryptorchid]

Cool ideas, here are some of my suggestions:

 

High Energy Cell: Makes all your attacks do 25% of its damage as Internal Damage and increases Internal Damage by 5%.

 

Battering Ram 2/2: When used on a target affected by Gut, your Ion Pulse has a 30% and Fire Pulse has a 100% chance to deal the remaining damage left on your Gut effect and reset its duration (minimum 25% of Gut's damage).

 

Pulse Generator: In addition to its current effects, each stack of Pulse Generator roots a target hit by Pulse Cannon for .5 seconds per stack (2.5 second root for full stacks).

Edited February 14, 2012 by Kryptorchid

[Zekoisop]

I love tactics and I have no problem playing a 31 tactics vanguard running HEC.

 

This tree is underrated. The damage I do is insane. Do a Firepulse ( procs a free stockstrike) > stockstrike > gut ( procs HIB) > HIB and that is some crazy damage in like 4 seconds. My Firepulse hits for around 3k , stockstrike 2k , gut initially for 900 or so plus bleed , then HIB for up to over 3k. This is your bread and butter combo. Then just spam Ion Pulse which hits for 1k a zap until you build up charges for your Pulse Generator , pop all your buffs and hit pulse generator in group of foes ( 2 or more) and watch the damage.

 

If played right the burst potential of tactics is one of the best in the game given that a lot of tactics damage is elemental and internal.

 

The advantages about this tree + HEC are great ammo management , instant cast high damage abilities, good proc mechanics , movement. The disadvantages I mainly see is not having Ion Cell but you can always run Tactics with Ion Cell , lots of people do it , but I find personally more benefit out of HEC ( just my style). I'll post vids soon of my tactics gameplay. IMO , this is one of the best trees in the game IF understood correctly and played right.

[Daecollo]

I love tactics and I have no problem playing a 31 tactics vanguard running HEC.

 

This tree is underrated. The damage I do is insane. Do a Firepulse ( procs a free stockstrike) > stockstrike > gut ( procs HIB) > HIB and that is some crazy damage in like 4 seconds. My Firepulse hits for around 3k , stockstrike 2k , gut initially for 900 or so plus bleed , then HIB for up to over 3k. This is your bread and butter combo. Then just spam Ion Pulse which hits for 1k a zap until you build up charges for your Pulse Generator , pop all your buffs and hit pulse generator in group of foes ( 2 or more) and watch the damage.

 

If played right the burst potential of tactics is one of the best in the game given that a lot of tactics damage is elemental and internal.

 

The advantages about this tree + HEC are great ammo management , instant cast high damage abilities, good proc mechanics , movement. The disadvantages I mainly see is not having Ion Cell but you can always run Tactics with Ion Cell , lots of people do it , but I find personally more benefit out of HEC ( just my style). I'll post vids soon of my tactics gameplay. IMO , this is one of the best trees in the game IF understood correctly and played right.

 

HIB from Assault/Assault tree does way more damage.

[VragonBral]

I love tactics and I have no problem playing a 31 tactics vanguard running HEC.

 

This tree is underrated. The damage I do is insane. Do a Firepulse ( procs a free stockstrike) > stockstrike > gut ( procs HIB) > HIB and that is some crazy damage in like 4 seconds. My Firepulse hits for around 3k , stockstrike 2k , gut initially for 900 or so plus bleed , then HIB for up to over 3k. This is your bread and butter combo. Then just spam Ion Pulse which hits for 1k a zap until you build up charges for your Pulse Generator , pop all your buffs and hit pulse generator in group of foes ( 2 or more) and watch the damage.

 

If played right the burst potential of tactics is one of the best in the game given that a lot of tactics damage is elemental and internal.

 

The advantages about this tree + HEC are great ammo management , instant cast high damage abilities, good proc mechanics , movement. The disadvantages I mainly see is not having Ion Cell but you can always run Tactics with Ion Cell , lots of people do it , but I find personally more benefit out of HEC ( just my style). I'll post vids soon of my tactics gameplay. IMO , this is one of the best trees in the game IF understood correctly and played right.

 

 

The reason why people prefer Assault is the fact you can put out a heavier HIB. Lets say your doing 3000 damage on your High Impact Bolt as a Tactics build. Assault will do 3900 damage instead. Now imagine if you hit for a 4000 crit as a Tactics. On a assault it would be 5200 damage.

 

This is because of the one talent known as Assault Trooper in that line.

 

The conflict between the two classes is that Tactics is more for a Steady stream of damage, meanwhile Assault is meant to have a high-risk high-reward type of playstyle. Yeah, you have guarantee's as a Tactics player. You get Elemental damage as your main type, functional crits on your mainline attack (ion pulse) and can proc some ability's to deal damage.

 

But Assault can put out a huge amount of damage VERY fast, depending on if you get crit's or not. It's more luck-of-the-draw type, that can either bite you in bum at times, or wreck havoc for the enemy team and make them hate you.

 

 

The question everyone has to answer when choosing between Tactics and Assault is, Do you want Chance or Guarantee?

[Blurps]

It's probably a matter of playstyle as much as of the talents themselves.

 

Tbh I have no idea how to really utilize the spec as a primary, even though the mobility and elemental/internal damage look good on paper.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Blurps

[Phixler]

I actually love tactics and have started using a full tactics build as my main build. It could use some minor tweaks, mainly to make High Energy Cell more appealing, but all in all I like the spec much better than assault....It's much more mobile and the damage is alot more reliable.

 

My main concern is that I don't notice a speed increase at all with HEC active nor when I pop hold the line. I actually tested this in voidstar with my cousin. I told him to race me to the red buff in the middle when the gate opened. I had HEC on and popped Hold the line and he beat me without popping anything....

 

I had a few games acouple nights ago where I almost broke 500k damage, though alot of that is owed to an amazing healer I play with that kept me alive the whole match. I also can solo most classes 1v1 in Illum without a problem.

[Svarina]

Tactics is our PvP-Tree. It contains movement speed increases (which are most useful in PvP, much less so in PvE), reduced Cooldowns on Riot Strike, Harpoon and Cryo-Grenade (which are most useful in PvP), immunity to snares (again mostly for PvP) and a damage reduction while stunned (do i need to say it?).

 

With all that utility, it's really no surprise that Tactics deals less DPS than Assault. Otherwise, what would be the point of Assault?

[DesperadoIG]

Tactics should be the spike damage / mobility (PvP) tree. Assault should be the DPS tree.

 

The big HIB crits should be coming from Tactics. Assault has great sustained damage and spike damage, while tactics has nothing.

[Daecollo]

Assault is High Burst, High Sustained Damage, Good Mobility.

 

Tactics is low damage, low sustained damage, Good Mobility.

 

Theres no point in all the PvP stuff in the tree, 20% damage while stunned? Just go Tank and get 40% less Damage, it does more damage then tactics too!

Edited February 15, 2012 by Daecollo

[Daecollo]

This tree is still broken, and is in need of a revamp.

[Bbizzle]

I have a better idea. Make storm a base class skill and call it a day. Then Id use tactics tree all day and skip all the high energy cell BS and just use Ion cell.

[grandmasterub]

Tactics needs 2 things imo to be comparable to assault.

 

Battering ram needs to be the equivalent of ionic accelerator. IE resets the cd of SS, makes it free, and autocrit.

 

SS needs some form of armor pen. Probably attached to serrated blades. If a target is afflicted with guts bleed stockstrike will penetrate 50% of the targets armor.

 

It either needs those 2 changes or it needs a more significant revamp of the tree possibly converting more attacks to int/ele damage. Tactics build has roughly 8 useable attacks. 4 of these do int/ele, 4 do kin/energy. HECs bonuses dont effect enough of our attack types to compete with plasma for dps.

 

I do not agree with extending ion pulses range. I would like to see explosive round incorporated into the tree (reduce cost, increase ae damage, convert to ele damage?, tie to pulse gen)

[va_wanderer]

Explosive Round is an orphan skill- it'd be nice to see it get some love. Maybe let it build up two stacks of Pulse Generator per shot- which would let people run in firing ER and then spray the place down with a quickly charged full power Pulse Cannon.

[Coramac]

Tactics needs 2 things imo to be comparable to assault.

 

Battering ram needs to be the equivalent of ionic accelerator. IE resets the cd of SS, makes it free, and autocrit.

 

Ionic Accelerator doesn't make it crit.

 

SS needs some form of armor pen. Probably attached to serrated blades. If a target is afflicted with guts bleed stockstrike will penetrate 50% of the targets armor.

 

Why?

 

It either needs those 2 changes or it needs a more significant revamp of the tree possibly converting more attacks to int/ele damage. Tactics build has roughly 8 useable attacks. 4 of these do int/ele, 4 do kin/energy. HECs bonuses dont effect enough of our attack types to compete with plasma for dps.

 

It does with ammo regen and the extra crit damage to Ion Pulse. Given the nature of how ammo regen works, I do not understand why people don't like Cell Generator. It's a good talent. HEC affects plenty of the attacks for Tactics.

 

I do not agree with extending ion pulses range. I would like to see explosive round incorporated into the tree (reduce cost, increase ae damage, convert to ele damage?, tie to pulse gen)

 

Yea, 20m Ion Pulse lol. At that point, Tactics / Assault hybrids rule the world with perma snare and HIB resets from 20m out.

[grandmasterub]

1) Ionic Accelerator doesn't make it crit.

 

 

2) Why?

 

 

3)It does with ammo regen and the extra crit damage to Ion Pulse. Given the nature of how ammo regen works, I do not understand why people don't like Cell Generator. It's a good talent. HEC affects plenty of the attacks for Tactics.

 

1) My bad, getting my talents confused. Anyway it needs to reset the cd in addition to making it free. Part of the reason assault is beast is because there are way more HiB/sec. This would give tactics the "melee" equivalent with more Stockstrikes/sec

 

2) HiB and SS deal kinetic damage yet in assault you get more HiB/sec and they ignore 90% of armor. If the above change were added (yielding more SS/sec) then SS would still need some armor pen to compare. Tieing it to gut is synergystic with the tree.

 

3) Cell Generator is awesome, unlimited ammoftw right? In theory more ammo = more dps, however in practice this is not the case. A well managed assault build can put out more dps than a tactics build that perma spams. If assault was more limited by ammo regen then HEC would compare. Ion Pulse does get major damage increases however so does HiB. I did the math awhile back and dont remember the numbers exactly, but taking into account average use/sec plus all the damage increases and armor reduction the HiB+plasma dot yielded almost half again the dps of ion pulse+HEC. Of course that calc involved a lot of guesswork so its not absolute. I just think that for HEC to give equiv dps to plasma it needs to effect more abilities or give a bigger bonus somehow. Theres something missing.

 

Ive always thought some good synergy for the tree would include HEC reducing the cd of all or some abilities. Also having battering ram reset the cd on SS. And a talent that gives SS a chance to immediately apply all remaining bleed damage and reduce the cost of next gut by 1. Probably combat tactics could taje this. "SS has a 25% chance to auto finish guts bleed. The next gut will have its cost reduced by 1 and will autocrit". Something like that anyway.

 

Just my opinion of what tactics needs.

[eyaku]

Copying and pasting this from a thread I recently made:

 

I, like alot of people, believe that Tactics tree needs help. I believe the best way to fix the tree would be to give it a small increase in damage, a small ammount of self healing, and a unique debuff that could be very helpful in pvp. I suggest:

 

Change gut to tick every 1.5 seconds *for half the damage that it currently tics. Increase the base damage done by the bleed by 30%

 

Gut now has a 7.5(not sure exactly about this number) second cooldown

 

Switch position of kolto recharge and combat tactics

 

Kolto recharge now heals you for*

1% max health if you critically hit

 

Serrated blades now increases critical chance of gut by 10/20/30% and has gut apply a debuff to the target increasing the targets casting time by 5/10/15%

 

This would also build alot more synergy in the spec. And wouldn't buff the survivability of tactics to much (for example if someone has 20% crit, using gut and 9 other abilities over a 15 second period, you would crit on average 7-8 times (depending on combat tactics proc) for 7-8% of your health over 15 seconds). The cast time debuff would also help the spec have a real reason to be brought to the upcoming rates warzones without being to Powerful. The cooldown on gut also limits the potential self-healing that would be caused spamming gut on multiple targets. These buffs still may be slightly too much (or even to little but I highly doubt that) but I'm not sure. What does everyone think?

[Coramac]

1) My bad, getting my talents confused. Anyway it needs to reset the cd in addition to making it free. Part of the reason assault is beast is because there are way more HiB/sec. This would give tactics the "melee" equivalent with more Stockstrikes/sec

 

There's really only about 2 more HIBs in a 15 second period with Assault than in Tactics if Assault uses 2 Stock Strikes and spams Ion Pulse- at which point it's going out of ammo fast. The reason for this is due to how the reset mechanic works. It's variable cooldown reduction and resets the CD after a proc. The effective difference is also reduced as Fire Pulse effectively counts as an Ionic Accelerator proc.

 

2) HiB and SS deal kinetic damage yet in assault you get more HiB/sec and they ignore 90% of armor. If the above change were added (yielding more SS/sec) then SS would still need some armor pen to compare. Tieing it to gut is synergystic with the tree.

 

You get Fire Pulse which ignores armor. HIB is also subject to defense where Fire Pulse isn't. The increase to Gut's DoT and the substantially better Ion Pulse aren't either.

 

3) Cell Generator is awesome, unlimited ammoftw right? In theory more ammo = more dps, however in practice this is not the case. A well managed assault build can put out more dps than a tactics build that perma spams. If assault was more limited by ammo regen then HEC would compare. Ion Pulse does get major damage increases however so does HiB. I did the math awhile back and dont remember the numbers exactly, but taking into account average use/sec plus all the damage increases and armor reduction the HiB+plasma dot yielded almost half again the dps of ion pulse+HEC. Of course that calc involved a lot of guesswork so its not absolute. I just think that for HEC to give equiv dps to plasma it needs to effect more abilities or give a bigger bonus somehow. Theres something missing.

 

Cell Generator is not unlimited ammo. It's just much better ammo. A "well managed" Assault build is generating tremendously fewer HIBs. Contrary to popular belief, Assault is very limited by ammo. HIB on an Ionic Accelerator proc returns 1 ammo. This is it's only real ammo generation. This poses a very real problem. If you do not get the procs, you are screwed. To maintain ammo, you have to bring in Hammer Shots which do not proc Ionic Accelerator. This takes up a GCD which means you get also get substantially fewer procs meaning slower ammo generation. This turns Assault into a very streaky spec. The more procs you get, the procs you will get and vice versa.

 

Many players think that Assault is more ammo friendly than it is for two reasons from what I can tell. The first is a skewed memory of how frequently they are getting HIB resets. The second and probably primary reason is that many fights are very short. In short fights, Assault has a very high probability of a definitive advantage. The advantage comes primarily from starting with HIB available for use, the high probability of getting a reset in short order, and the irrelevance of ammo in looking at short combat windows.

 

Ive always thought some good synergy for the tree would include HEC reducing the cd of all or some abilities. Also having battering ram reset the cd on SS. And a talent that gives SS a chance to immediately apply all remaining bleed damage and reduce the cost of next gut by 1. Probably combat tactics could taje this. "SS has a 25% chance to auto finish guts bleed. The next gut will have its cost reduced by 1 and will autocrit". Something like that anyway.

 

The reason you aren't going to see a reset on SS for Battering Ram is to deny Hybrids the synergy that would arise with Ionic Accelerator.

[Rogmar]

Tactics sucks for PvP (the place it was designed for). The #1 reason is the lack of a slow if you fully commit.

[va_wanderer]

Many players think that Assault is more ammo friendly than it is for two reasons from what I can tell. The first is a skewed memory of how frequently they are getting HIB resets. The second and probably primary reason is that many fights are very short. In short fights, Assault has a very high probability of a definitive advantage. The advantage comes primarily from starting with HIB available for use, the high probability of getting a reset in short order, and the irrelevance of ammo in looking at short combat windows.

 

 

Assault rotation can be rather straightforward when you're keeping a high ammo bar (which obviously, we all want and do unless it's a burst situation).

 

HIB gets priority, whether it's a normal one or an Accelerator proc (since it finishes cooldowns on accelerator procs anyway).

 

I usually Hammer Shot going in, HIB if it's a burning target, Ion Pulse it and HIB if it's not while closing to melee.

 

Then it's a matter of rotating your Accelerator triggers. Stockstrike when it's up, Ion Pulse if it isn't, Hammer Shot in between if you don't proc a freebie HIB (unless HIB is up on it's normal cooldown, in which case you HIB and resume trying to trigger Acclerator). That'll keep your ammo regen at maximum without worries. You can even SS -> IP if both are off cooldown at once if SS fails to proc Accelerator, but too much of that and you'll strain your ammo supply and probably want to pop Recharge Cells or Reserve Powercell to recover to full, or Pulse Cannon -> Hammer Shot to cool down a bit (and then likely begin again with Ion Pulse -> HIB to get back on track). If you're lucky on the other hand, you may see yourself SS -> HIB -> IP -> HIB -> IP -> HIB -> SS -> HIB with multiple Accelerator procs. And that's when Assault is brutal.

 

Tactics build up is a steadier flow, less of a maximum DPS (and IMHO in the long run right now less DPS overall). Assault is much more up-and-down but the odds favor the "house" in the end, being the Vanguard. On a bad day, the Tactics guy is going to out-DPS me. Most days, I'm going to slowly pull ahead. On a good day, I'm going to wipe the floor with him. Best two out of three to me feels good. Tactics needs a bit of tweaking.

[Coramac]

Then it's a matter of rotating your Accelerator triggers. Stockstrike when it's up, Ion Pulse if it isn't, Hammer Shot in between if you don't proc a freebie HIB (unless HIB is up on it's normal cooldown, in which case you HIB and resume trying to trigger Acclerator). That'll keep your ammo regen at maximum without worries. You can even SS -> IP if both are off cooldown at once if SS fails to proc Accelerator, but too much of that and you'll strain your ammo supply and probably want to pop Recharge Cells or Reserve Powercell to recover to full, or Pulse Cannon -> Hammer Shot to cool down a bit (and then likely begin again with Ion Pulse -> HIB to get back on track). If you're lucky on the other hand, you may see yourself SS -> HIB -> IP -> HIB -> IP -> HIB -> SS -> HIB with multiple Accelerator procs. And that's when Assault is brutal.

 

This is the initial problem I stated for why people think Assault is better than it is. The probability of your last attack chain is less than 2%.

 

Assault has to Hammer Shot substantially more than does Tactics. When you don't get the resets, without ammo consideration, Tactics opens up a really big gap. Stock Strike does more damage. Ion Pulse does a tremendous more damage. It still has Fire Pulse and Pulse Generator. Factoring in the ammo this gap becomes HUGE when you don't get resets with Assault. Resets are primary mechanism of in combat ammo regen for Assault. If you don't get them, you are at base regen only. Granted, when you do get them, it's really nice. A HIB on reset refunds 1 ammo. That's awesome. The frequency with which is happens is not enough to compensate for the times it doesn't happen on net.

 

Tactics build up is a steadier flow, less of a maximum DPS (and IMHO in the long run right now less DPS overall). Assault is much more up-and-down but the odds favor the "house" in the end, being the Vanguard. On a bad day, the Tactics guy is going to out-DPS me. Most days, I'm going to slowly pull ahead. On a good day, I'm going to wipe the floor with him. Best two out of three to me feels good. Tactics needs a bit of tweaking.

 

Tactics doesn't have a build up. Iterative spreadsheet disagrees with your odds.

[Savish]

Tactics is perfect where its at, maybe some changes to the HEcell talents but other then that its a fantastic tree, people just like the big numbers assault puts up but ignore the utility/survivabilty/superior resource management it offers.