Arsenal Merc PvP 1v1

[DrSandman]

Alright all, who has some thoughts/discussion points for 1v1 with your arsenal BH? Only way I can kill a sorcerer (tank or either dps or healer) or a warrior (any spec) is if their keyboard breaks on them mid fight. By the time I've got a tank spec or any of these other classes to mid health I'm pushing the envelope for overheating and I've blown every cool down and vent heat that I have at my disposal.

 

I can 1v1 ops and other BHs (or repub equivalents), but I have little to no shot against any competent warrior or sorcerer. I'm a good player, plenty of PvP experience, know how to play my spec pretty well, etc. I'd love to hear some tips on countering these two classes though. Only viable way I see myself being able to go toe to toe is to actually do a very hybrid spec with more bodyguard than arsenal points spent. Sure would be nice to have an interrupt of any type, especially going against a healing sorc.

 

Thanks in advance for the thoughts/remarks.

[TheNinjaboy]

Mercs need a deep tree talent in arsenal that adds pretty beefy resist to interrupt imho.

 

*only works in PvP.

[DarkenDragon]

you really shouldnt be going toe to toe with anyone really, you gotta suprise them and work with others. your key strength is applying the armor reduction to help everyone else focus fire on them to kill them.

 

sorcs can be difficult cuz of their additional shield, but that runs out, so dont bother attacking them and chose a different target. if they have you in their sights, run away, get behind cover and while they try to keep attacking you when your out of sight, an ally can come and rip them apart.

 

if your having troubles with heat issues then either you dont have enough crit or your rotation is all wrong. in pvp and pve theres no real difference in rotation for an arsenal merc.

 

though I would suggest holding back the heat seeker or rail shot when the enemy gets low enough to 1 shot them with either ability.

 

reason why is because the 1.5 second time to cast tracer missiles is enough time for them to heal up or have someone react to their ally's low health to support them. but if you hold that heat seeker or rail shot for when they get to low enough health, this shortens the reaction time for people to support them.

 

so rules of thumb for heat management is always cast heat seeker last and unload whenever you can.

[Kunovega]

 

sorcs can be difficult cuz of their additional shield, but that runs out, so dont bother attacking them and chose a different target. if they have you in their sights, run away, get behind cover and while they try to keep attacking you when your out of sight, an ally can come and rip them apart.

 

.

 

sage = sorc

 

the problem on my server is we are facing litterally a horde of sages. this is not a joke or an exageration when I tell you that many pvp matches each night consist of 100% sages on the republic team

 

in the rare case where a republic team is not 100% sage they have 1 or 2 smugglers with invis

 

im at a point where PVP as an arsenal merc is almost no longer possible

 

when im putting down damage, they arent taking any. if they focus me, they out stun me and there is no way to run

 

i have a sorc that is also lvl 50, i am pretty good at pvp and have none of the problems when i play sorc

 

honestly after playing both a merc and a sorc to lvl 50 and trying pvp; mercs are just terrible. there is litterally nothing a merc has that a sorc cannot do, and they do it better and have 10x more tools on top of that

 

mercs in pvp are broken sorcs, its a pathetic balance in this game

[PhoR]

Mercs need a deep tree talent in arsenal that adds pretty beefy resist to interrupt imho.

 

*only works in PvP.

 

If you skip Heatseeker Missles you can pick up Power Shield in the Bodyguard tree for 12 seconds of complete interrupt immunity.

 

Of course that's really only a good trade-off if you're specifically building for 1v1 or duels.

[Cegenaus]

the only classes i have a hard time with are melee. sorcs usually dont stand a chance and they waste force run on me almost every encounter. maybe its my champ gear?

[ShizzySupra]

Really? I have a 50 Merc with almost full champ gear and I got roflstomped in duels with a Sorc.

 

I think people get confused as a WZ is usually not a true test of how you do 1v1. I rolled a Sorc alt and can already tell that at level 22 I am going to be more dangerous in a 1v1 situation than my BH ever will be.

 

the only classes i have a hard time with are melee. sorcs usually dont stand a chance and they waste force run on me almost every encounter. maybe its my champ gear?

[oddmyth]

Really? I have a 50 Merc with almost full champ gear and I got roflstomped in duels with a Sorc.

 

I think people get confused as a WZ is usually not a true test of how you do 1v1. I rolled a Sorc alt and can already tell that at level 22 I am going to be more dangerous in a 1v1 situation than my BH ever will be.

 

In 1-49 I usually chew sorcs up.

 

I usually juke them with power shot or heals and save my TM spam til they use their interrupt on me.

[Cegenaus]

Really? I have a 50 Merc with almost full champ gear and I got roflstomped in duels with a Sorc.

 

I think people get confused as a WZ is usually not a true test of how you do 1v1. I rolled a Sorc alt and can already tell that at level 22 I am going to be more dangerous in a 1v1 situation than my BH ever will be.

 

i get rofl stomped with my sorc alt and he is a healer. i have no damage output and i have to hope my opponent is lower lvl so i can out heat their damage. sorc is op because of their toolkit, i dont really have a problem with them otherwise

[ShizzySupra]

Any Sorc that jolts a power shot on a Merc is a baddie. Wish you were on my server

 

In 1-49 I usually chew sorcs up.

 

I usually juke them with power shot or heals and save my TM spam til they use their interrupt on me.

[oddmyth]

Any Sorc that jolts a power shot on a Merc is a baddie. Wish you were on my server

 

Lots of baddies who just interrupt *anything* they can.

 

OMG he's casting! INTERRUPT!

Its like that button is the candy they can't resist eating.

 

Seriously though, you are still eating 1.5-2k dmg on an bad powershot and I'm still conserving heat.

[DrSandman]

Thanks for the replies. I sure would love a real constructive one with some experience though, lol. I'm a battlemaster, I've got 5 BM pieces, working on the last few if the RNG would ever be nice to me, and I know how to play my class.

 

What I'm looking for is 1v1 type action against a nonBH or Op, so fighting a warrior/jedi knight or a Sorcerer/Jedi consular. I think if I go to a hybrid heal spec of sorts I can put up a good fight, but I lose so many things for good group PvP play. Oh well, guess that's just the way the balance is right now. Sorcerer's/Consulars > warriors/knights > BH/trooper = Ops/Smugglers (for dps PvP play that is, not talking heals, but meh that list works the same for healing too minus the warriors/knights).

 

If I could only get one interrupt on a short CD I'd be fine. I could care less about interrupt immunity, I have no problem recovering from an interrupted tracer missle. I just want the ability to stop them from getting off their self-heals. But then again, that still doesn't stop the warrior/knights from beating me up and taking my lunch money.

[bahdasz]

Its like that button is the candy they can't resist eating.

 

Kind of sounds like 98% of arsenal BHs.... just sayin'

[Algeroth]

Go Pyro, I laugh at sorcs/sages when they try to 1v1 me.

[iehnbjirsmniyn]

I have a 50 concealment operative, rage marauder and aresenal mercenary and in 1v1 ive noticed that mercenaries are a bit underwhelming. I'm going to belive that this has something to do with the nature of the class how our "best defense is a good offense" via tracer spam. We just dont seem have the defensive potential of other classes.

 

I'm guessing if bioware gives us better defensive abilities they would have to nerf our pvp dps to make up for it because ive noticed compared to my operative and marauder my mercenary can put out more damage in the same time, this is of course not casting autoattacks to make your damage more sustainable (that you would do in pve). Tracer missile dps > backstab (50% apr), shiv (50% apr), laceration (50% apr)(might do more than tracer smissile with a collateral strike proc), overload shot (50% apr), vicious slash (20% apr), force scream (20% apr), obliterate (20% apr).

Edited February 28, 2012 by iehnbjirsmniyn

[Azesino]

Have you tried the 25/16/0 spec for 1v1? You get tracer missile and great sellf heals, with it you should be able to kill any class/spec 1v1

[Offboss]

I am full arsenal spec and I can 1v1 anyone, even 1v2 if I pop my cd's, medpac, and adrenal (biochem is OP). I have no trouble completely destroying them. You are completely reliant on burst damage. When they get to half health, cast unload, heat seekers, rail-shot and 9/10 times they are dead.

[DarthBloodloss]

Yea I dont have an extra hard time vs Sorcs. Especially with all cooldowns available. Be sure to have a PvP medpack handy.

 

What I do is pop my Shield and Kolto overload somewhat early in the fight, and use my stun somewhat late in the fight. I pop my Adrenal and Relic asap once we are locked in.

 

When the time to heal comes, pop the PvP medpack and Power Surge > Rapid Scan one after the other.

 

Cant really give you any good advice tho, seeing as how we are doing all the same moves in the same order lol

 

One thing already mentioned but I'll just repeat it, is always be ready to be interrupted so be ready to use Power Shot.

[Gorlough]

Well, my magic sauce against sorcs (we don't have that many reps on our server) is to crack their shield with tracers until they interupt it (and think they've won now) and stun you, break the stun, pop your defensive CDs, throw your unload (mostly procced) against them and start moving. Run towards them, hit Explosive/HSM/Railshot and finish them with a well suited rocket punch. If they manage to stun you a second time, your def CDs will keep you alive, throw a medpack afterwards and continue to bulldoze them. If they went into healing mode while you started closing in - use your knockbacks and finish them with flamethrower (even unskilled it hits for a good deal).

As long as you don't try to "Out-Rambo" them, you're starting to win.

Against Melees this is a lot harder. Keeping them at distance and surviving long enough until their def CDs are gone is key here.

[tportem]

It's just going to be tough for a ranged caster to take down a sent/Mara 1v1. It's their whole raison d'etre in PvP. Especially if they see you doing TM > TM > TM > TM for ever they're going to find you and shut you down. If they interrupt your TM and see you not do ANYTHING while you wait for it to come off interrupt CD, they're going to seek you out every time.

 

Your being unable to take down a specific class 1v1 doesn't meant you're UP or they're OP, it's just that your strength and their weakness lie elsewhere. With decent coordinated team play you can CC a sent/Mara and turret him to death in seconds. That's where you shine. You have tons of people on the Mara/sent boards whining that they can't sit back and rack up huge dps in a group setting. That's not what their class is for. Taking down a sent/Mara in 1v1 is not what your class is for.

[Cammor]

I'm valor 59 arsenal merc since day one. (but I just respec to pure healer last night for some change its fun fyi).

 

We have pretty good shot against sorcs 1v1. And from the reply, it seems most agree. I just have few more things to add. Sorc's main dps is the channel spell. In that sense, they are a lot more immobile then us when they want to dps. Los works really well against them if you have terrain advantage. 2nd, every time they start to channel you can get at least 1 tracer if not 2. If they stopped the channel to jolt trace, its not bad because in my view its a wash in dps. 3rd, front-load your damage. As soon as they burn jolt on your tracer, you fire off every instant including unload (skip power shot). You also have to decide if you want to run close to them to rocket punch for dps/interrupt. There's 2 reasons for front-loading even if you don't have tracer debuff. Part 1, 1v1 fights last about 15 to 30 seconds in dps race (much longer if you can pillar hump). Your instant dps rotation will be back for round 2. No reason to not use the skill early. Part 2, push the sorc to use cool down on anything but dps (heal, stun, mez, shield, sprint, trincket, etc). In a game w/ 1.5 second GCD, its very important to "occupy" their skill. It is NOT about big dps numbers after you fully debuff them. Its about chipping away their health to setup for a final kill. 4th, commit to the fight. We have no escape outside of terrain help. That means a lot of time, it benefit us to be right next to them. Melee range gives us rocket punch w/ good damage and interrupt, and also another interrupt w/ pbnb. Which brings me to another point, power shot is a bad idea because you are immobile again but doing lower damage. The only time we should be immobile is tracer and unload. You don't even need unload for the full duration. Use the instant cast on heal is a good idea as well.

 

VS warrior tank.

 

Now this is very very hard. You have to get lucky. The charge, force push, and charge is going to mess up tracer casting so hard that their interrupt skill is just a bonus. I would argue to use heals to bait these skills. But this match up is very reactive. I would again front load our damage to get it back on cycle as soon as possible. You would need to heal a little to win the fight. Another thing is you have to time your pbnb w/ a lot of care. Almost all of these tanks have a 4 second cc immunity after charge. Never burn pbnb after they charge. Now, you want to bait force push (or don't give them a reason to use it). Here is a sample. When they charge, you start moving and cast the instant attacks but not tracer. Usually they don't force push until they see tracer. Wait 2.5 gcd (2 instants of your choice, dps/shield/hot whatever, while moving to favorable terrain), pbnb when they are off cc immunity but before they force push. Now you have distance to get off 2 tracer before they are in range or some cases charge refresh. This brings to the 2nd half of the fight, your stun and mez. You can pbnb, wait a few, mez, to stun before a full resolve bar. DO NOT use rocket punch. It will give them too much resolve w/ very minimal gain. Only time you use rocket punch is when they already have full resolve. You do want to get 5 tracer on them when you can because the debuff is important against tank (not so much against sorc). Throwing a tracer here and there is tricky. The CC you use can also be, pbnb, stun, pbnb with some timing and skip mez (you can heal instead). Its very hard to fight tanks....

 

Against marouder. We all know they are probably the best 1v1 class alone w/ operative. But the key difference is that marouder have a god shield -_-. It is a dps race until they pop the shield. Which means, front load your damage to bait the shield ASAP. Even if it means you using lots of heat. Once they burn their shield, you burn all your cc to keep them away from you. Always use CURE as soon as its off CD since it removes annil spec marouder dots (which is the majority of them). Timing of pbnb after they charge is also important since they do not have a lot of gap closer. Try to keep your hp above 30% at all time. Because once you are at 30% and they got couple dots on you, they are just going to force choke you till you die.

 

I hope these help. But I also don't want to give an illusion where we can win most of 1v1 fight. We CAN'T. Our class is just not designed for that. But, we can put up a really good fight and even win some here and there.

 

Oh btw, if you go up in flame cough pyro, cure removes that

Also, assassin tanks are hardest to kill IMO.