Commando - Gunnery; From an Infernal/Unyielding

[ZucriyLyhdnamm]

Hi! You all may remember my old post on the Commando Gunnery spec from a couple months ago, and first I want to explain why I didn't just update that post.

 

One, I was basically a fresh level 50 with a good head on my shoulders for rotations and such from a long MMO history, but not particularly experienced in endgame content.

 

Two, the thread had a good bit of posts on it and I thought it would be better to have fresh discussions instead.

 

TL;DR? Yes. Lol. If your not into a long read, not the thread for you... sorry.

 

 

So lets get to it...

 

As you might have guessed from the title, my prefered spec is Gunnery, and therefore other spec's should probably be used as reference only, as this is a topic about the Gunnery spec specifically.

 

I have come accross a pretty decent number of guides for Commando rotations and specs, and while the rotation should be pretty self explanatory, I will go over my take on it (which is pretty much the same as most) and note that I have changed my spec since my last post (barely) but it is worth noting nonetheless.

 

 

Now for the good stuff...

 

-----Rotation--(PvE)-------------------

 

Now the Gunnery Rotation is not really a rotation, its more of a start-up rotation, then a maintain priorities from there (for the sake of ammo conservation!)

 

First off, Full-Auto is your bread and butter, ESPECIALLY AFTER 1.2! if its up, use it! Its cost is fairly low, it does a great amount of damage as Gunnery, and because of the channel your ammo is likely to be restored during the cast (especially if it crits, which is likely). The change to the Curtain of Fire proc should make Full-Auto a more-often cast ability with the 1.2 patch. The more often it resets, the more often you should use it! This will keep your Ammo topped off nicely.

 

Secondly, Grav Round is hugely important to get going early, but after the initial build-up of the 5 stacks of Gravity Vortex (3 casts of Grav Round, when talented) it becomes less important overall, but still very important to cast regularly to keep the stacks of Gravity Vortex up. ESPECIALLY after 1.2, Grav Round's changes are mostly moot to Gunnery, .5 second cast time increase, 1 ammo decrease? Translation: No change. Talents that we already take are making the cast time and ammo cost equal to what it is now, the difference? 10% damage decrease, making Full-Auto the better DPS/Ammo ability for certain.

 

Your other abilities to work with are fairly simple. Demolition Round is your instant cast, hard hitting nuke, with a 15 second cooldown. You want to make sure you cast it on-cooldown, AFTER you get Gravity Vortex to 5 stacks. Note, Gravity Vortex is not consumed by Demo Round, so you do not need to necessarily cast it 3 more times in between Demo Rounds.

 

Next, High Impact Bolt. This ability is one of the least ammo-consuming abilities you have, and it does pretty decent damage, but does not benefit from much of your class talents except for Charged Barrel. Charged Barrel comes from casting Grav Round, but unlike Gravity Vortex's, Charged Barrel stacks on yourself, and the effect IS consumed on High Impact Bolt cast. An important note, the buff timer on Charged Barrel is the same timer as Gravity Vortex, so if you keep on keeping one buff up, the other will fall in line. In my first guide, my advice was to ONLY cast HiB with 5 stacks of Charged Barrel, but now instead I'd advise using it as an intermediary in an ammo short supply phase, for example if your ammo is right at 6 and you don't want to lower it, with the 4 set PvE bonus, Gunnery's HiB (High Impact Bolt, ofc) is free of cost, and the GCD it encurs will give you 1-2 ammo back in that time. Note that as it is instant cast, another great time to use this ability is any time when you need to move

 

Hammer Shot is the last ability you will use regularly in your rotation. Hammer shot is the Trooper class's basic attack, and costs no ammo. You want to use Hammer shot whenever your ammo has fallen below 7, as your ammo will recharge slower the farther below 7 you are. If you can keep critting and proc'ing Curtain of Fire, you can stay above 7 fairly easily, but for the moments when you do dip down to 6, take a break in the rotation an fire off a couple Hammer Shots to recharge. A small side note: Demo Round and HiB are better on-the-move abilities, but if they are on CD, use Hammer Shot! There is very little reason to be doing no damage while moving when you can do at least a little...

 

The Short Version of the Rotation:

 

Full-Auto! (As much as possible! Especially when Curtain of Fire procs)

Grav Round (x3 start, keep stacks up, your most used ability)

Demo Round (On CD after Gravity Vortex stacks are up, if ammo is above 7)

High Impact Bolt (with 5 stacks Charged Barrel if possible, or when low ammo or moving)

Hammer Shot (ammo at or below 7)

 

My spec next...

Edited March 21, 2012 by ZucriyLyhdnamm

[ZucriyLyhdnamm]

My spec is a 5/33/3 spec that I've seen grow popular lately for its utility... with some of the changes to 1.2 talents, we can review spec changes then...

 

Long story short-ish:

 

The only talents I do NOT take in the Gunnery tree are the healing done/received (Advanced Tech) and the endurance/healing received talents (Heavy Trooper). I do not find these useful in PvE or PvP. There are better talents out there... Healing is not often a problem, plus you have great defensive CD's and the ability to cast a quick heal on yourself if you need it in a pinch.

 

In Combat Medic tree, I take the 6% crit chance talents (Field Training) and the recharged cells buff (Cell Capacitor) and thats all. Crit is good, get some. Recharge cells? Well, you don't want to HAVE to use it, but if your ammo is running dry, this ability with the talents will nearly take you from empty to completely full.

 

In the Assault tree, I take the three points in accuracy because of the marginal usefulness of accuracy. Its better than the alternatives, thats about the only reason.

[ZucriyLyhdnamm]

The spec is perfect if you enjoy PvE and PvP, it gives you utility CD reduction in your Concussive Charge / Round, your CC break, and it gives you a knockback on stockstrike (completely awesome in PvP! Provides the interupt that Commando's lack!)

--------------------------------------------------

My thoughts on Stat priorities (hugely tested, so take them or leave them)

 

AIM is obviously our primary stat; if your gear has Cunning, Wisdom, or Strength... your doing it wrong.

 

For secondary Stats, my priority is like this:

 

Crit (to cap)> Surge(to cap) > Power (forever) > Accuracy > Alacrity

 

My reasoning:

 

Crit is simply the best stat for Gunnery, we have two talents that go hand-in-hand with Critical Hitting, Deadly Cannon and Cell Charger. Deadly Cannon makes Full Auto and Demo round do 30% more bonus Critical Damage, and Cell Charger makes your Grav Round and Full Auto regenerate ammo on a critical hit. My hypothetical cap: Approximately 50%. The current hard cap? 40%. Your cell charger has a 1.5 sec internal cooldown, and so the usefulness of Crit will take a hit above 50%, but certainly is still good. Right now, getting above 40% crit chance (thats buffed, mind you) is unreasonable, and a waste. The stat takes a hard nosedive from there, if your at 40% crit buffed, no more crit!

 

Surge, in my opinion, goes right alongside Crit, and even surpasses it after Crit reaches 50%, simply because: If you Crit so often... why not have each Critical Hit deal more damage? This is fairly simple, and I do not think it needs much elaboration. Hypothetical Cap: Unfortunately, surge isn't very practical Pre 1.2 because it has such an easily reached cap. 70% is a HARD cap on surge right now, with the dropoff for surge being CRAZY steep past that, if you've got 70%, avoid surge like the plague! NOTE, 70% means 20% bonus to your 50% base, not 70% bonus to net at 120% (I wish!).

 

Power is a raw damage buff, and is basically your best stat because Crit/Surge are easy to cap out on. If you use adrenals (good boy/girl ) then Power is what you want, because ANYTHING else is a serious waste (Pre 1.2, we'll see if that changes...)

 

 

Accuracy and Alacrity are the stats you will want the least of, but Accuracy is the more useful of the two (For now, Patch 1.2 might see a change to this with Full-Auto becoming more important in our rotations...) You definitely want to hit 100% accuracy, and the current estimate is that 108% is the actual cap for Operation bosses, and since Full-Auto is effected by Accuracy as ranged damage... This will be worth reviewing in 1.2. Accuracy and Alacrity may well be increased on the chart... we'll see.

[ZucriyLyhdnamm]

Thats essentially the basics, if you know all these you should be doing great as a Gunnery Commando...

 

I could go into depth about how to do each boss fight in each mode in 8/16 difficulties and where you should stand/what you should do as a Gunnery Commando, but I think that would get inordinately long and tedious... if anyone wants tips on that, let me know... I've cleared everything and am just waiting on new content! The guild I run with is top on Republic side, 2nd overall on our server (Imperials have us outnumbered 3:1 )

 

Anyhow, if you read it all, hope it was a good read! Post questions if you have any and I'll get back to you as promptly as I can! Thanks.

[ArchangelLBC]

I've only cleared 8-man Nightmare ops, and I personally still prefer to use HiB only with 5 stacks of charged barrel, but usually you have at least 4 anyway when the cooldown is up, and with the set bonus its definitely preferable as a filler for ammo regen over hammer shot.

 

That being said I agree pretty heavily with everything else. Your stat priority is the same as mine. I stopped at around 36% crit (41% with smuggler buff), have just under 71% Crit multiplier, and have been building to power ever since.

 

 

Well written overall.

[ZucriyLyhdnamm]

Thank you.

 

Yes, I agree that HiB is better with 5 stacks, but I find that it becomes very useful in a fight with motion and / or when your unlucky with ammo regen to just not hesitate to use it...

 

Most of the time when fight is going well, you can get 5 Grav Rounds off in the 15 second cooldown window anyways

[oaceen]

just a slight correction, field training will only give 1% crit per point, for an overall 3% bonus to crit (not that you shouldn't still trait it, mind)

[ZucriyLyhdnamm]

just a slight correction, field training will only give 1% crit per point, for an overall 3% bonus to crit (not that you shouldn't still trait it, mind)

 

Not a correction, thats in 1.2, which is still in PTR. Currently Field Training gives 2% per point for total of 6%, but they have said they intend to make it 1% per point. We'll see if that sticks for live, but as you said it will still be worth taking

[ArchangelLBC]

Given all the crit talents across multiple classes have suffered the same nerf, I'm hoping that it just reflects a what's happening with the supposed stat rebalance (though I hear that whatever new math is supposed to be coming down the pipe isn't on the PTS yet, so maybe they just hate how much we crit. Either way I'm gonna be mad if I lose my 50% grav round crit unbuffed).

[Rhaynin]

First of all: Very nice post on the essentials for a Gunnery spec. I play one myself and I fully agree on most of your writing.

 

I disagree strongly about one point though, and that is your talent build. Especially come 1.2, and bringing with it the nerfs to our healers, I would strongly advise taking Heavy Trooper and Advanced Tech, while omitting Cover Fire and Concussive Force from the Gunnery tree. Then from the combat medic tree taking either Quick Thinking, Field Medicine or Steady Hands (personal preference, I took Quick Thinking). This will make for a 7/31/3 build.

 

Overall, this will give you better survivability, and will bring you on good terms with your healers

 

It will also put you in a position in which you can slip in the occasional off heal, thereby increasing the survivability of the group as a whole.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Rhaynin

[ZucriyLyhdnamm]

First of all: Very nice post on the essentials for a Gunnery spec. I play one myself and I fully agree on most of your writing.

 

I disagree strongly about one point though, and that is your talent build. Especially come 1.2, and bringing with it the nerfs to our healers, I would strongly advise taking Heavy Trooper and Advanced Tech, while omitting Cover Fire and Concussive Force from the Gunnery tree. Then from the combat medic tree taking either Quick Thinking, Field Medicine or Steady Hands (personal preference, I took Quick Thinking). This will make for a 7/31/3 build.

 

Overall, this will give you better survivability, and will bring you on good terms with your healers

 

It will also put you in a position in which you can slip in the occasional off heal, thereby increasing the survivability of the group as a whole.

 

I can see you point, however I don't really agree with it.

 

Into 1.2 I decided to stick with my current talent build, and I am still plenty happy with it.

 

I already help with healing (as needed) and I already help with dispelling a little (which is important in hardmode Toth and Zorn! Commandos, you should all at VERY least dispell your own debuffs in this fight!) and I don't have any problems. As a ranged (and especially commando) you are already one of the toughest dps when it comes to survivability, we have excellent defensive CD's, and if you use them properly, you can even tank a boss for a few hits while your tank is getting a battle rez (been there, done that )

 

I still like the PvP talents over the meager endurance and healing received talents, the numbers are quite minor, and there is little chance that a difference in a couple hundred health points is going to make a difference at any point.

 

But of course, to each his own, if you very very rarely PvP, you can easily take points out of the talents that are clearly for PvP and pickup a few more talents for healing, and if your healers are wimps (hehe, no offense) and they need to gimp your dps and have you help heal, by all means do what you gotta do

 

But seriously, do what your raidgroup needs. This new tier is seriously hard in hardmode, ( and I do 16mans...) its most definitely a team effort.

[Rhaynin]

Ah, I forgot to mention that I only PvE, so those talents really don't make sense for me.