PvP Pyro 1.2 Impressions so Far, Modding Tests.

[ShiroRX]

I feel like too much of a **** to drop all that elemental/tech crit

[Hethroin]

I feel like too much of a **** to drop all that elemental/tech crit

 

The trade off between 7/3 and 4/6 is a gain of about 3% to 4% more base damage to everything, and another 2% base elemental damage. At the cost of 9% crit rate on FB, FT and both fire DoTs (which have +30% crit damage from Pyro spec) and a 3% crit rate on TD (also has +30% crit damage bonus) and RP.

 

Personally I go for the crit rate increase, based on the spec providing more crit damage for the DoTs/TD, and the mostly-tech rotation. My RS is topping out at 5.5k on low end targets with relic and power adrenal, but with the op buff I'm at around 40% total crit rate with my spammable and both DoTs.

 

Currently running at (All class buffs included)

1240 expertise

30.5% crit

76% surge

442 ranged damage bonus

777 Tech damage bonus

[SaulSerpine]

It's pretty nice. I'm sitting at, fully buffed 1780 Aim with that (Which i need to update my gear thing on askmrrobot later).

 

I try a build for a few days to get the feel of it. So always tweaking till I get something I'm 100% comfortable with.

 

what is your damage bonus ?

 

Do you see the difference with the 6% extra aim from 7/3 ? You don't miss the 9% fire crit ?

[killuchen]

I'm running 8/5/28 with 1794 aim fully buffed. I miss TD but ehhh I'm doing ok for now. I will probably switch for rated WZs

[exphryl]

what is your damage bonus ?

 

Do you see the difference with the 6% extra aim from 7/3 ? You don't miss the 9% fire crit ?

 

I personally am not seeing a crit differencet between the two when I play. Granted if I whacked the target dummy for a sustained number i'm sure the loss of 9% Crit on some abilities will show through in a parse.

 

But in actual practice I am enjoying slightly stronger attacks. TD/FB still crit fair enough, as well as the dots for me.\

 

I've always been finnicky on % ability stats though over stats I know will give me a gain. While there isn't a be all end all Pyro build I am finding a bunch I like, it's such a versatile tree and there probably won't be a "cookie-cutter" build.

 

Probably be fiddling with this one next week: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301hMZ0cZfhrbdGhrs.1

 

Just more so curious to see overall in a hectic battle how good heat management will be.

[Hardened]

I feel like I can blow people up much faster with steely resolve and a matrix cube so 7/3/31 is my spec for now. I got the elemental dmg campaign relic and tried 4/6/31 but i still prefer my first choice. Edited May 4, 2012 by Hardened

[Gornie]

After using 4/6/31 for months, i tried 7/3/31. Using CDs for the burst sure, u notice your crits doing little more dmg but its really marginal. But i did notice my FB / CGC dot were criting less... got the feeling i wasnt more efective in the long run.

 

Need more testing, but losing 3% crit on all tech attacks and 9% crit on fire attacks is noticeable.

 

I run with 25% crit unbuffed.

[Hardened]

When playing for objectives sometime you need to burn down the ball carrier in huttball or kill that mara 1v1 before he kills you when you are guarding a node in mnovare or civil war.That is why i go Aim. The rail sots are what decide the wins or loses and aim is a straight railshot buff. However I do see the merit with going with the crit, I am thinking that once I get high enough on aim it won't be worth as much anymore so then i can afford to drop steely resolve. When I first starting gearing my pt I stacked as much expertise as possible. Since then I have replaced a lot of pieces to get more aim and My damage has gone up significantly. I still maintain 1100 expertise but my aim with buffs is sitting at 1749 and once I get 1k more ranked coms I am going to be able to buy war hero helm mods and re-equip my augmented helm for a total of 24 more aim. My crit is at 32.24% and surge is at 73%. bonus dmg for range is 460 and tech is 690. 17.3k hp

overall Id say that their dmg is somewhat similar with the edge going to the crit and the aim having better burst.looking more closely though I totally forgot about thermal detonator having 30% surge from firebug talent. I can do 3 railshot before the cd on TD is up though so I wonder how much difference that makes.

I have a screenshot of a scoreboard in voidstar on my other computer of me doing 490k+ dmg using this spec. that is the most dmg I have seen, or been able to do in the new voidstar.

Edited May 4, 2012 by Hardened

[Hethroin]

I love the high hits on Rails as much as everyone here, but I see a problem with focusing too much on them and not the rest of DPS package.

 

Let's pretend that you are outright killing your target with the opening rotation of:

TD (4k) => IM (2k+) => RS (5k) => RP (4k) => RS(5k)

Everything just crit and someone ate 20k damage, yet only half of it came from Rail.

 

What about the time between Rail-proc-Rail burst every 12 to 18 sedonds? What are you doing during this time? I have no logs from PVP, but I would guess that Rail only accounts for about 20% to 30% of my total damage, with the rest coming from tech-elemental sources, with a little white damage sprinkled in.

[exphryl]

One thing to look at when considering damage of attacks, is:

 

a.) Scenario you are going up against

b.) What Cooldowns you have Available.

 

The reason i say this means there is a lot of different playstyles out there and situations where either Crit or Power can be important. I personally enjoy knowing that when Cooldowns are available, with higher power, I can win a 2v1 to take a point or break down a healer through guard. (There are times in CW/NC that i'll wait a minute strictly for that if it ensures my success).

 

The other thing to consider about Rail Shot is, even though melee-ish is required for the Proc, it's a Ranged ability (considering you add IM in to the opening). I know 100% I am not in range of opponents all the time, having the potential for a stronger attack at range does worlds to wear down an opponent.

 

I would also think, and said earlier, in a PvE setting having more Crit "normally" parses slightly higher for me. But than, you have more wiggle room with heat management and other things to consider.

[Hethroin]

One thing to look at when considering damage of attacks, is:

 

a.) Scenario you are going up against

b.) What Cooldowns you have Available.

 

The reason i say this means there is a lot of different playstyles out there and situations where either Crit or Power can be important. I personally enjoy knowing that when Cooldowns are available, with higher power, I can win a 2v1 to take a point or break down a healer through guard. (There are times in CW/NC that i'll wait a minute strictly for that if it ensures my success).

 

The other thing to consider about Rail Shot is, even though melee-ish is required for the Proc, it's a Ranged ability (considering you add IM in to the opening). I know 100% I am not in range of opponents all the time, having the potential for a stronger attack at range does worlds to wear down an opponent.

 

I would also think, and said earlier, in a PvE setting having more Crit "normally" parses slightly higher for me. But than, you have more wiggle room with heat management and other things to consider.

 

Just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

 

I'm saying that everything else being equal (gear, situational awareness, group setting...) I prefer 4/6/31 to 7/3/31 (a difference of 3 spec points) that amounts to:

 

Gain:

6% more Aim (about 3% or so more ranged damage bonus)

2% more Fire damage.

 

Loss:

6% More Crit % on Fire.

3% More Crit % on All Tech.

 

I use the same approach as you, Ex, do on gear. I maintain around 30% fully buffed ranged crit, and 76% Surge with the rest being focused on Aim and Power. I use power adrenals and relics, because using the crit/surge ones pushes the soft cap for those stats in a very unforgiving manner.

 

I go with the more fire-crit spec because our spammable attack, Flame Burst, is a fire tech attack that gets 9% more crits with this spec. This same spammable attack also triggers our fire DoT that gets the same 9% more crits and has a 30% crit damage bonus, and 60% on targets below 30% health. If the surge talent did not apply to the fire DoTs and TD I probably would go with more aim, but when we're talking about a combined crit multiplier of 105% every 1.0% of crit becomes a gain of 1.05% of total damage for those attacks.

[exphryl]

Just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

.

 

We are actually in a way, but talking about two different playstyles currently.

 

BOTH are great specs (Pyro versatility is amazing and leads itself to have many different possibilities for just a point or two change). I've played a lot of variations for a bit each since patch and for the most part have positive things to say about any of them.

 

I'm currently preferring though having best cool-down usage potential for what I mentioned in that post, where it seems you like a most consistent approach throughout the entire warzone. (I run with two Marauders lately so two blood thirsts per round, or multiple in a Warzone is pretty amazing for what I'm trying to do).

Edited May 4, 2012 by exphryl

[Hethroin]

Myself from the other thread

...

Please consider this data (all stats taken from character sheet 4/6/31 build).

 

If you could please take a look at the "4.6.31 vs 7.3.31" sheet.

 

Consider the fact that you're probably throwing about 3 to 4 times as many FP as you are Rail Shot, and the fact that your CGC DoT is always ticking on your target.

 

Please let me know what you think.

[exphryl]

If you could please take a look at the "4.6.31 vs 7.3.31" sheet.

 

Consider the fact that you're probably throwing about 3 to 4 times as many FP as you are Rail Shot, and the fact that your CGC DoT is always ticking on your target.

 

Please let me know what you think.

 

Can't say I see it on the sheet. Are you not taking in account of the 9% Damage bonus on burning targets?

 

It also isn't anything different then what we discussed between burst (cooldowns like I said) and sustained. Spreadsheet wise that is.

 

The only thing I disagree with when it comes to spreadsheets like this is formula wise, it's assuming you will 100% of the time, crit the % given based on the amount of attacks (e.g out of 1000 attacks I'm guaranteed to crit 40% of them). So in a bubble it's a general indication of performance, not so much in actual practice though.

 

Edit: Gimme a sec, i'll set up a formula for you.

Edited May 4, 2012 by exphryl

[exphryl]

K, threw this rather crude PHP file together at the very least, illustrating Rail-Shot damage between some ranges and crit values. (Based off your static 1000 attacks in the spreadsheet)

 

http://www.exphryl.com/swtor/pyrodps.php

 

You just need to keep refreshing to see different values. I'll need to tweak em a bit when I can get back in game to get a bit more accuracy added to the amounts.

Edited May 5, 2012 by exphryl

[MinguesDew]

RB could root at the end of the snare, that would effectively be an 8 sec cd root that you could only apply in melee. Edited May 6, 2012 by MinguesDew

[Hardened]

is the 25 endurance on war hero implants worth the loss of so much aim ?

[Jewa_taken]

K, threw this rather crude PHP file together at the very least, illustrating Rail-Shot damage between some ranges and crit values. (Based off your static 1000 attacks in the spreadsheet)

 

http://www.exphryl.com/swtor/pyrodps.php

 

You just need to keep refreshing to see different values. I'll need to tweak em a bit when I can get back in game to get a bit more accuracy added to the amounts.

 

This was very interesting. I went with Aim for the potential of a higher burst but thought that maybe the tad more consistent +Crit would win out over time.

 

It would be very interesting to see a test like this for Flame Burst as well, to test Hethroins argument. With both +dmg and +crit for fire added the potential for more damage is even higher, but so is the chance for crits...

 

If both the main spam and the heavy hitter performs best in the majority of testruns, the choice should be easy, otherwise I guess you have to compare the damage output?

 

[Edit]: To say, I've run both builds in PVP and can't really tell any difference. Thats why I asked in the other thread. So I guess playing style is the most important factor. Although the potential for high numbers IS appealing

 

Regards,

Jewa

Edited May 7, 2012 by Jewa_taken

[Hethroin]

K, threw this rather crude PHP file together at the very least, illustrating Rail-Shot damage between some ranges and crit values. (Based off your static 1000 attacks in the spreadsheet)

 

http://www.exphryl.com/swtor/pyrodps.php

 

You just need to keep refreshing to see different values. I'll need to tweak em a bit when I can get back in game to get a bit more accuracy added to the amounts.

 

Thank you for the acknowledgement. Though I wasn't really advocating a "heavy" crit build as I suspect pushing crit too far over 30% will cause a more significant loss of power than 50 damage bonus (or did you use in-game gear options for the stat portion?). Folks looking at this should keep in mind that this is only RS/HIB damage being looked at. Other hits do not get the 105% surge bonus, and some have a higher crit rate than listed.

 

In other news: I've recently finished up my WH eliminator armor + weapon set, and in the very next war zone hit some poor sap for 6k RS + 4.5k TD... he didn't make it. Make sure you have completed you weekly quota of "Nerf Marauder" posts in the PVP section.

[exphryl]

In other news: I've recently finished up my WH eliminator armor + weapon set, and in the very next war zone hit some poor sap for 6k RS + 4.5k TD... he didn't make it. Make sure you have completed you weekly quota of "Nerf Marauder" posts in the PVP section.

 

Ha nice. I need 2? More pairs of boots and i'll be done. I am forgoing the offhand for now, I hate the itemization on it. I'm hoping one day we get a moddable offhand so we can get the stat increases that come with it....

 

Also working on a new burst compilation because those are always fun. I feel bad for Sorc's/Sages, they are so squishy

[SeanofSF]

What would you recommend as the first war hero piece and what should you get after? Does it make sense to get the crit crafted gear and just buy the boots to put the mods in? Can you even do that? Edited May 7, 2012 by SeanofSF

[exphryl]

What would you recommend as the first war hero piece and what should you get after? Does it make sense to get the crit crafted gear and just buy the boots to put the mods in? Can you even do that?

 

Boot Armoring only goes with other Boots so you'll need the rest of the pieces eventually.

 

I got some augmented armor pieces first before getting mainhand (Surge/Power etc on the armor slots outweighed the barrel increase on the gun)

[Hardened]

definitely boots, I used boots to make an augmented gun without spending days getting the War hero weapon( I lost a little bit of aim and tech power but i thought the surge and power I gained would make up for it.). Then I got another pair of boots to use, From there I completed my 4 piece set bonus so i could get my augments along with the 15% crit bonus on RS.

What I don't understand fully is why you opted to get the war hero implants. they seem to be poorly itemized in terms of aim ( I thought you were all about stacking aim) Sure you gain 25 end per implant but you actually lose aim and you gain a negligible amount of power and surge compared to the bm ones. Also the offhand generator does not seem to be bad at all. +16 aim, a little bit of surge/ tech power and 30 expertise. thats a bigger expertise gain from bm > WH then any other item. and besides the augmentable pieces and gutting the boots to replace a few mods in the armor set, that is also the biggest aim upgrade of any war hero item. The war hero earpiece looks like a solid crit/surge upgrade with a bit of aim swell (although not as much as some of the other pieces)

My itemization selection has been based on getting the largest amount of aim > expertise >power>surge. Ive even started gutting boots to replace the mods in war hero armor pieces with less aim and dumping accuracy for power/surge. I elected to do this because I would gain the same amount of aim as the offhand but a lot of power/surge and id get rid of the accuracy .

[exphryl]

What I don't understand fully is why you opted to get the war hero implants

 

It isn't a damage decision for those. Just trying to keep my survivability up a bit at this point. As more people are getting WH Gear and such my health drops a lot faster so every little bit helps.

 

Depending what I'm trying to do I'll even pop an Endurance Stim. puts me a bit over 20K HP while not hurting my damage *too* much (although it is noticeable), usually if I'm stuck defending and I have a large force coming I need to delay just enough so backup comes.

 

I do however miss my matrix shard Bugs ftl.

Edited May 8, 2012 by exphryl

[dardack]

Here's my current gear. Yes I have alacrity, but it was more power and loose the accuracy plus 5 more expertise. So took it.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/0d5d046d-4706-48e3-b2df-8df4a971802d

Edited May 8, 2012 by dardack