1.3 patch notes out....

[LyonsPride]

I dont mind the patch ideas, but what they should focus on is our survivalbility, it sux im an easy target for anyone, its intterupt galore, they need to do something about knock backs

[DarkForster]

Arsenal here, after looking over on pts I would agree seems like a nice DPS boost.

Would have been nice if left enviro suit alone, liked the healing bonus during OP run AE heals.

[Areaz]

Honestly, if these changes stay the way they are right now, we should be able to afford to drop some crit and pick up more power, to help counter any surge we lose by remodding to pick up more accuracy. If you are already running the alacrity build, you only have 1 point in the accuracy talent anyways, making it easier to get used to dropping the 1%.

 

The thing that kind of sucks with these changes is the 3 points needed for Advanced Targeting. That will mess with the alacrity build since we'll have to lose some points in alacrity talents to pick up the armor pen.

 

What would be really sucky is that the talent could be rendered completely useless in a raiding situation due to the way the armor debuffs stack. A boss with 5 stacks of the armor debuff is already effectively at 0 armor, so armor pen means nothing. Fortunately, with how split raids are with multi boss encounters, you almost never get 5 different debuffs on one target, so I guess it will come down to whether BW re-does armor debuffs or how the current tier of raiding goes as far as whether or not there is one boss per encounter or multiple bosses per encounter.

 

So the way I see it now post 1.3 if these changes stay, you will have builds that either sacrifice alacrity and put 3 points into the armor pen, or builds who only have 1 point in the armor pen and picked up all the alacrity talents.

[Daecollo]

Can you make Afterburner's add a knockback when using "Rail Shot" instead of rocket punch? (We like to use Rail Shot.)

 

 

Can you make Kolto Vents Restore 1% Health every second forever. (Sort of Passive Regeneration, like Canderous Ordo had in KOTOR 1.) The Talent is pretty worthless as is.

 

Or make it add a 10% snare for every heat signature on the target.

 

 

Can you make Power Barrier reduce damage of Periodic Effects by 5% Every Stack. (25% Max.) this will help us against Marauders.

[Aerro]

If people are freaking out about Arsenal "nerfs", you're reading or doing it wrong.

 

I have a guide posted that touches up on everything. It will be changed to fit 1.3 once it is launched.

 

HOWEVER:

 

We now will be firing Rail Shot more often (2x Tracer Lock per 1 Tracer Missile) which means better heat venting.

 

If you're complaining about the loss of the Accuracy talent, its because IT WASNT NECESSARY TO EVEN SPEC INTO. It was just somewhere to throw that free point since MOST of you should be geared enough to use the Alacrity build. If you were that reliant on the 3% accuracy, you were doing it wrong.

 

Now instead, you get 30% Armor Penetration to Unload (our best ability) and Rail Shot.

 

We do not lose the 35% base Armor Penetration from our HVGC either.

 

We now vent 8 heat every 6sec guaranteed, no matter what we're doing. That means we don't need to rely on crit that much. Our cut-off point WILL be 35% so you can focus on Power, which will help out Unload EVEN MORE due to the fact it will be experiencing 0 mitigation from boss armor.

 

For more information, please visit: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1117292-Arsenal-Bounty-Hunter-Are-YOU-Doing-It-Right

[Swaggz]

If people are freaking out about Arsenal "nerfs", you're reading or doing it wrong.

 

I have a guide posted that touches up on everything. It will be changed to fit 1.3 once it is launched.

 

HOWEVER:

 

We now will be firing Rail Shot more often (2x Tracer Lock per 1 Tracer Missile) which means better heat venting.

 

If you're complaining about the loss of the Accuracy talent, its because IT WASNT NECESSARY TO EVEN SPEC INTO. It was just somewhere to throw that free point since MOST of you should be geared enough to use the Alacrity build. If you were that reliant on the 3% accuracy, you were doing it wrong.

 

Now instead, you get 30% Armor Penetration to Unload (our best ability) and Rail Shot.

 

We do not lose the 35% base Armor Penetration from our HVGC either.

 

We now vent 8 heat every 6sec guaranteed, no matter what we're doing. That means we don't need to rely on crit that much. Our cut-off point WILL be 35% so you can focus on Power, which will help out Unload EVEN MORE due to the fact it will be experiencing 0 mitigation from boss armor.

 

For more information, please visit: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1117292-Arsenal-Bounty-Hunter-Are-YOU-Doing-It-Right

 

I'll go with you on the Acc part, but I'm still not really seeing how that 30% ArPen and the Tracer Lock change is going to affect Arsenal and Rail Shot (Outside of the opening salvo). Aren't we already at 0 mitigation on boss armor with HVGC and 5 stacks of Heat Sigs? If so, how is another 30% going to improve that? We'll be able to always have 5 stacks of Tracer Lock now, but even now on Live I can always get 4-5 up even with Barrage proc's/Raid Shot's GCD. Rail Shot is still on a 15s CD (unless I missed that change). The difference in damage between a 4 stack and a 5 stack Rail Shot is pretty minimal as it is now. Unless they drop the GCD on Rail Shot, I really don't see how Rail Shot is going to be a significant boost in overall damage.

 

Now for Pyro, I can definitely see how that will help, but still pretty skeptical on Arsenal. Now if some numbers/tests between live and the PTS go up and say otherwise, I'll stand corrected, but it just doesn't seem add up.

[Areaz]

I'll go with you on the Acc part, but I'm still not really seeing how that 30% ArPen and the Tracer Lock change is going to affect Arsenal and Rail Shot (Outside of the opening salvo). Aren't we already at 0 mitigation on boss armor with HVGC and 5 stacks of Heat Sigs? If so, how is another 30% going to improve that? We'll be able to always have 5 stacks of Tracer Lock now, but even now on Live I can always get 4-5 up even with Barrage proc's/Raid Shot's GCD. Rail Shot is still on a 15s CD (unless I missed that change). The difference in damage between a 4 stack and a 5 stack Rail Shot is pretty minimal as it is now. Unless they drop the GCD on Rail Shot, I really don't see how Rail Shot is going to be a significant boost in overall damage.

 

Now for Pyro, I can definitely see how that will help, but still pretty skeptical on Arsenal. Now if some numbers/tests between live and the PTS go up and say otherwise, I'll stand corrected, but it just doesn't seem add up.

 

Because you won't always have 5 diff armor debuffs up on one mob.

[Swaggz]

Because you won't always have 5 diff armor debuffs up on one mob.

 

With Unload yes, I can definitely see that, but with Rail Shot we're still assuming that it's Off GCD and I have 5 stacks of Tracer Lock up when I switch. With the GCD on Rail Shot, more often than not it'll still be on CD when you switch targets and you'll still have to spam TM's until it's off.

[Areaz]

With Unload yes, I can definitely see that, but with Rail Shot we're still assuming that it's Off GCD and I have 5 stacks of Tracer Lock up when I switch. With the GCD on Rail Shot, more often than not it'll still be on CD when you switch targets and you'll still have to spam TM's until it's off.

 

I don't understand the scenario you are presenting. Or maybe you're using terms wrong, do you mean CD and not GCD?

 

Rail Shot and Tracer Lock in it's current state don't sync very well. More often than not, you find yourself at 3 or 4 Tracer Lock stacks and Rail Shot off CD. This means that you have to hit TM 1-2 more times instead of being able to Rail Shot, which delays it and causes you to lose DPS. This change fixes that.

[Swaggz]

I don't understand the scenario you are presenting. Or maybe you're using terms wrong, do you mean CD and not GCD?

 

Rail Shot and Tracer Lock in it's current state don't sync very well. More often than not, you find yourself at 3 or 4 Tracer Lock stacks and Rail Shot off CD. This means that you have to hit TM 1-2 more times instead of being able to Rail Shot, which delays it and causes you to lose DPS. This change fixes that.

 

I was looking at it from a CD perspective since Rail Shot has a 15 second CD (my bad, long day). Unless Rail Shot is almost off it's CD, lets say under 6secs, chances are that you're still going to be spamming TM. Now unless you get a Barrage proc in that time frame, you're going to have full Heat Sigs up on the target regardless. So unless you switch targets when the CD is almost up, chances are you'll still get full Heat Sigs up, making that extra 30% ArPen on Rail Shot somewhat mute.

 

As for Tracer Lock in it's current state, yeah, I'll agree that it blows, but even now I can almost always get 4 stacks of TL up inbetween CD's. Now the difference between a 4 stack (24%) and a 5 stack (30%) every 15s isn't overly significant, or at least while your non TL Rail Shots are at or below 3500 hits. Over that, yeah, the difference between 24 and 30% starts to really show.

 

Now any buff is better than nothing, but on the Rail Shot end of things, it just seems a bit lackluster when the ability still has a 15s CD...

[Gyronamics]

You wanna hear what the Pyros said?

 

Now any buff is better than nothing, but on the Unload end of things, it just seems a bit lackluster when the ability still has a 15s CD...

 

See what I did there

 

Accuracy is being tossed to give both DPS trees a damage tweak. Just happens that each tree looks at the (slight) buffs differently.

 

Procs aren't all they're cut out to be either. You know pyro procs free rail shots on a 6s CD?

 

Yeah well the odds are nowhere near 6s. Fishing with a 1.5s skill on a 45% chance while you keep building heat... A proper run is about 1 per 9 seconds and while that's in your mind... that's Pyro's key heat loss skill. 8 heat every 9 seconds when rail shot hits a burning target.

 

Arsenal will get their regen on a plate, 8 per 6 seconds and don't even have to work for it .

 

Of course Pyro has some other tricks regarding ammo control including the one which free casts avoiding 8-32 heat every 30 seconds depending on what you do but you need to be doing sustained fire to get that.

 

Which is all the more reason to ask why Arsenal was taken aside and given a passive heat control while the tree next to it still has to mess about with procs, sustained fire and getting stunned/cced to control heat... (actually just leaving someone in a CC for 8 seconds vents quite a lot of heat, don't even need a special talent for it)

 

The change was to give easier resource management wasn't it? So why fix it for the tree that was easiest to control resources on in the first place?

Edited June 10, 2012 by Gyronamics

[Areaz]

If I had to hazard a guess I would say it's because Pyro has more on demand burst, which they do to a certain extent, but not enough to warrant the passive upgrade for Arsenal vs the still RNG that Pyro has. Who knows what their future plans are, but I'm sure that things will change for Pyros as well.

[rotatorkuf]

kind of disgusted with these notes

 

bioware has no clue what mercenaries actually need...survivability

 

i'd give up dps for an interrupt and better ability to kite / immunity to snares

 

just, clueless...

[Swaggz]

Procs aren't all they're cut out to be either. You know pyro procs free rail shots on a 6s CD?

 

That I do (I run Pyro now since my PvE guild broke up and I only really have time for PvP), and do you know that Barrage procs for Arsenal are on the same 6s CD for procs?

 

I was saying that overall, that the ArPen change will probably benefit Pyro more than Arsenal since Arsenal already has 2 other ArPen abilities. In no way was I saying that everything else for Pyro doesn't need to be looked at. Yes, Heat can be an issue for Pyro's. 25 Heat for Incendiary Missile seems a bit much, should be reduced to around 16 imo. Spamming Power Shot hoping for a RS proc just so you can vent 8 heat isn't really as efficient as the new Arsenal change. Especially considering that PS won't 100% proc the CGC effect on the target. So if CGC falls off the target right when you get your proc, well, we almost seem SOL on that.

 

Of course Pyro has some other tricks regarding ammo control including the one which free casts avoiding 8-32 heat every 30 seconds depending on what you do but you need to be doing sustained fire to get that.

 

Now as for this, you're talking ALOT of crits to get Thermal Sensor Override down to a 30s CD from a 120s CD. A 3s reduction for every crit (can't happen more than every 1.5s) is ok, but again this just goes back to the RNG aspect of Heat Management.

[Areaz]

With how often you fire rapid shots and with your DoTs ticking you should be critting every 1.5s tbh.

[The_Duck]

I parsed 1541 on the training dummy with:

1. NO augments. (the 6 i had got removed on the PTS)

2. NO Operative buff

3. NO Sorc buff

4. Did have Exotech Reflex Stim and the sith warrior buff

 

have full rakata with only pants BH mods and a BH implant

compared to live which I parsed 1542 and had all my augments in and a sorc buff I would say 1.3 is easily a buff.

Heat management seemed slightly better on PTS than live.

 

PTS parse

http://www.torparse.com/a/49700

Edited June 14, 2012 by The_Duck

[Nubking]

How were you able to get your dps that high up ? i max around 1.2-1.3k and im rakata/bh geared with augments

[Areaz]

I parsed 1541 on the training dummy with:

1. NO augments. (the 6 i had got removed on the PTS)

2. NO Operative buff

3. NO Sorc buff

4. Did have Exotech Reflex Stim and the sith warrior buff

 

have full rakata with only pants BH mods and a BH implant

compared to live which I parsed 1542 and had all my augments in and a sorc buff I would say 1.3 is easily a buff.

Heat management seemed slightly better on PTS than live.

 

PTS parse

http://www.torparse.com/a/49700

 

Your dummy DPS will be higher since you have more overall armor pen. However, if you were running in a raid that stacked armor debuffs (snipers+arsenal mercs+juggs) then you will see a loss due to now having armor to actually go through. It shouldn't be a big decrease, since we have a lot of passive armor pen, but it will be a loss nonetheless.

[Daiyukie]

Yeah I don't notice any improvements honestly. I think we could have actually received a stealth nerf on railshot if anything. 1 heat every 6 seconds is laughable. I hope this is a typo.

 

They mean 1 ammo, so 8 heat.

[The_Duck]

How were you able to get your dps that high up ? i max around 1.2-1.3k and im rakata/bh geared with augments

 

The build I used on the PTS was the full arsenal tree with some alacrity and then the rest in the armor penetration and the vent heat and stuff.

 

against Operations bosses on live I've gotten up to about 1200 but that is max for sure at this point.

most bosses obviously require some running around and some leap/interrupt etc.

 

1.3 definitely gives a more consistent heat reduction where pre-1.3 I sometimes run in to a string of bad RNG

where I don't crit on 3-4 Tracers and then my heat is F-ed.

 

Not counting whatever stacking of class buffs occur or don't occur I still feel our individual DPS is higher and our

armor penetration itself is better. Rail Shot now can hit for pretty f-ing big. Almost as big as a good Heatseeker.

[BPWyndon]

Guess we will all know for sure tomorrow.

[RoenHawk]

You guys did not get the memo on Merc 1.3 did you?

 

They are the training dummies now. If you’re still holding out that the Devs give a crap about Mercs then you need to call a Dr. and take your medication. Once again we get squat patch 1.3. The good news is that they made it harder to manage heat in PvE now. If you’re still playing the Merc have your head examined. The class is the two headed retarded step child of the game. It is kind of funny how bad they have made this class. A monkey with a scratch and sniff marker picken his butt could have come up with something better that what we got. It looks like they forgot to fire some of the Merc Devs last patch. I wonder what excuses they will come up with this time.

[darthtrunkmonkey]

You guys did not get the memo on Merc 1.3 did you?

 

They are the training dummies now. If you’re still holding out that the Devs give a crap about Mercs then you need to call a Dr. and take your medication. Once again we get squat patch 1.3. The good news is that they made it harder to manage heat in PvE now. If you’re still playing the Merc have your head examined. The class is the two headed retarded step child of the game. It is kind of funny how bad they have made this class. A monkey with a scratch and sniff marker picken his butt could have come up with something better that what we got. It looks like they forgot to fire some of the Merc Devs last patch. I wonder what excuses they will come up with this time.

 

i think you got railed one to many times from the new armor pen buff...

[Felkroth]

Its clear to me that changing the way we vent heat in the manner that they did was a HIT to our heat management...

 

am I wrong in assuming that they actually stated that their intent with the change was to HELP our heat management??? cause that has not occured...

 

heat venting off tracer missle crits was better than a static 8 heat per 6 seconds...even if it was streaky at times...I hate you bioware

Edited June 27, 2012 by Felkroth