An uncomfortably close look at Assault PvE DPS Rotation (and Specs)

[Suryi]

First and foremost:

 

This is (or at the very least is meant to be) a civil discussion on the depths of how Assault works. Please respect other peoples opinions and back yours up with as much data as you conveniently can. Let's try to keep this nice and constructive for the greater good of End-Game Vanguard(and our Powertech bretheren)-kind.

 

Background:

 

I've been playing a Vanguard since pre-release, alternating between Tank and DPS through all 8 man Operations and have been succesfully DPSing 16 man HM EC for little over 3 weeks now. I've always kept up to date on specs and rotation to the best of my abilities, but now that I've landed a cozy DPS spot in a guild that is labeled as hardcore progression PvE guild, I've shifted my undivided attention towards learning the inside and outs of the Assault spec(s) and exactly how they work. This post is solely designed to be the basis for healthy discussions and to share what I've learned so far. It can be taken as a guide but it should be taken as a glorified opinion/wall of text with pretty colors. Lol.

 

The Rotation

 

The wheel isn't being reinvented here. The normal priority system that a good majority of Assault players are used to stands strong and firm. However, maximizing your DPS takes it above and beyond a simple priority list. This is largely due to the importance of Ionic Accelerator procs, since getting one of those means using your hardest hitting ability while regaining 1 ammo.

 

For the sake of simplicity let's assume a 8/5/28 build (Non-AP from now on). The priority list that a good majority of Assault players use should look something like this:

 

1)HiB

2)Hammer Shot at or close to 9 ammo

3)Incendiary Round dot

4)Stock strike

5)Ion Pulse

 

Obviously this isn't anywhere near optimal but it gets the job done. The significance of IA procs means that we want to maximize our chance of proccing IA which means that we have to keep track of the 6 second internal cooldown it has. This can easly be achieved by counting globals, which leads me to the first addition to our priority list:

 

The 4 GCDs Rule

 

To best explain it here is an example:

 

Ion Pulse (Procs IA) --- HiB (free) --- ability --- ability --- Stockstrike (Procs IA) ---

Global 1 ---------------- Global 2 ---- Global 3 -- Global 4 ---- Global 5 --------------

 

Ok maybe I lied, there's 5 Globals in total but only 4 that you care about and when it comes down to it, only 3 of them matter as one is occupied by HiB (free)

 

So how does this affect anything? Well, first of all, Global 5 (from now on G4; remember we don't care about the first one in our example, i.e Ion Pulse (Procs IA)) is reserved for something that can proc HiB. The issue this brings is that we need to have enough ammo ready for G4. So the first things the 4GCDs rule changes is how we manage our ammo. What this entails is that within the 3GCDs we need to make sure we Hammer Shot enough times to have enough ammo to use an attack which may proc IA in G4. Usually 1 HS is enough but in certain circumstances both spare GCDs have to be used for HS. So an example would be

 

IA proc --- HiB(free) --- Ion Pulse --- Hammer Shot --- Stockstrike (IA proc) ---

don't care -- 1 -------------- 2------------------- 3 ---------------------- 4 --------------

 

To sum up, the 4 GCDs rule is that 3 globals after IA was procced you need to use an ability that can proc it again on the 4th global and thus Hammer Shot will not always be used at or below 9 ammo. It also goes without saying that using Stockstrike is reserved for G4 and never anywhere else.

So the 4 GCDs rule takes its first victim which is the priority list. However it doesn't stop there;

 

what happens within the 4GCDs rule stays in the 4GCDs

 

What I mean by that is that Ion Pulse and Stockstrike are NOT the most efficient ammo spenders.

 

The only reason why they are used is to proc IA and thus the only time when they are effectively "spammed" (which is a relative term due to ammo issues) is when you're trying to proc IA. Which leads me back to the sentence in the center above; using Pulse Cannon and Mortar Volley within the 4GCDs rule is more efficient dps ammo wise. The only time we can use 2xIon Pulse (which is more dps then Pulse Cannon but less then MV) is when we enter the 4 GCD with full ammo

 

This is where I'm going into personal experience and eyeballing the tooltips. Mortar Volley does more damage over the same period of time that would be used for 2 Ion Pulses (this includes Plasma Cell damage). Furthermore, it deals more damage over the same period of time for 1 less ammo. Pulse Cannon deals close to the same damage as 2 x IP however due to Plasma Cell crit multiplier, 2xIP comes out ahead however only IF ammo allows you. And thus the abilities used within the 4GCDs rule would look like:

 

IA proc --- HiB(free) --- Mortar Volley/Plasma Cannon --- Ion Pulse/Stockstrike ---

don't care --1 ----- 2 and 3 ---------------------------------------- 4------------------

 

Again I double back to the yellow text above; The fact that Pulse Cannon and Mortar Volley are ammo better spent then 2 x Ion Pulse (I don't mention Stockstrike because it's reserved for proccing IA) does not mean that they are used off cooldown. They are only used within the 4GCDs, or rather within the cooldown period of IA. Outside the 4GCDs rule, Ion Pulse and Stockstrike should always be prioritized over anything (except Incendiary Round DoT) in order to proc IA. HOWEVER as I've stated before, they are only to be used when ammo allows it, which leads to

 

Assault is RNG based and as such a rigid priority list is suboptimal

 

Ok so not having enough ammo to use Mortar Volley/Plasma Cannon during the 4GCDs doesn't directly imply that but it contributes towards it in a significant way. What I mean to say is that so far I've given two examples of a perfectly fine 4GCD rotation:

 

1) IA proc --- HiB(free) --- Ion Pulse --- Hammer Shot --- Stockstrike (IA proc) ---

and

2) IA proc --- HiB(free) --- Mortar Volley/Plasma Cannon --- Ion Pulse/Stockstrike ---

 

The obvious difference between them is that ex.1) uses 2 ammo cells while ex.2) uses 3 ammo cells by the time you reach G4 (not counting the first global i.e. the one that gets you the proc). So what I'm saying is that even if ex.2) gives more damage then ex.1), depending on your ammo, ex.1) is better in the long run.

 

The comparison above is there to show how much we really depend on that damned proc. If your luck is down and you haven't managed to proc IA for a while, not only have you been forced to use Hammer Shot for an ungodly amount of times but since you need to hover at 8-9 ammo anyway, the moment you get a IA proc you'll enter the 4GCD period on low ammo (low meaning 8 or 9), which is to say, not enough ammo to use a more powerful rotation (ex.2)), which in turn means more time pressing your favorite ability, Hammer Shot. At any rate, this means that our "rotation" (can't call it that way since the word itself implies some sort of repeatability) comes down to our ammo level and how high/low it is when entering the 4GCD period

 

What happens when you enter that period with a low ammo level was pretty much covered above in the comparison between the two examples. However there actually is such a thing as having too much ammo and it impacts the 4GCD rotation in a number of ways.

 

First, HiB procs refund ammo. I know right . This implies that there can be a scenario where if you use a HiB and you're at 11 ammo, you're going to end up at 12 ammo and most likely you will regen 1 extra ammo duing the Global Cooldown period which will end up nowhere. So there is something to be said about delaying the use of HiB(free)s so that you won't "clip" ammo. However it should still be, obviously, used within the 4GCDs because nobody likes wasting procs. Nobody.

 

So assuming you enter the 4GCD period on high ammo, the rotation would look like

 

IA proc --- Mortar Volley/Plasma Cannon --- HiB (free) --- Stockstrike/Ion Pulse

OR

IA proc --- Ion Pulse --- Ion Pulse --- HiB(free) --- Stockstrike/Ion Pulse

 

Delaying HiB like that has no impact on your overall DPS (unless you haven't prayed to the gods of RNG and you don't get a reset by the time the ability comes off cooldown, which rarely happens). So you haven't "clipped" any ammo while still doing the same overall DPS by just switching things around a little bit.

 

So now there's 4 examples of things you can do within the 4GCD period. I think it's time for my conclusion and hopefully the end of this post.

 

Our "rotation" is shaped by our luck with IA procs. High luck means being able to use your hardest hitting ability more often while maintaining an ammo level which allows you to use more powerful attacks while waiting for IA proc to cool down, while low luck means smashing the same key (hammer shot) for an unhealthy amount of times.

 

As such an optimal rotation would look like this:

 

While within the 4GCD period (after an IA proc)

--- If high ammo when entering it (>=11 ammo)

------1)IF INCENDIARY ROUND IS ABOUT TO COME OFF; IR + Hammer Shot + go to 5)

------2)Mortar Volley

------2')ONLY IF FULL ASSAULT; if 2 is on cooldown, Assault Plastique + Ion Pulse + go to 5)

------3)if 2 is on cooldown, Ion Pulse x 2

------4)HiB(free)

------5)Stockstrike to proc another IA

------6)If 6 5 on cooldown, Ion Pulse to proc another IA

---If low ammo when entering it (9-10 ammo)

------1)HiB(free)

------2)IF INCENDIARY ROUND IS ABOUT TO COME OFF; Hammer Shot + IR + Hammer Shot + go to 6)

------3)Mortar Volley

------3')ONLY IF FULL ASSAULT; if 2 is on cooldown, Assault Plastique + Hammer Shot + go to 6)

------4)If 3 is on CD, Pulse Cannon

------5)If 3 and 4 are on CD, Ion Pulse + Hammer Shot

------6)Stockstrike to proc another IA

------7)If 6 is on cooldown, Ion Pulse to proc another IA

---if really low ammo when entering it (8 ammo)

------1)HiB(free)

------2)Hammer Shot

------3)Guess what

------4)IF INCENDIARY ROUND IS ABOUT TO COME OFF; Incendiary Round + Hammer Shot + Hammer Shot

------5)Stockstrike to proc another IA

------6)If 5 is on cooldown, Ion Pulse to proc another IA

 

Outside the 4GCDs

------1)Hammer Shot as often as needed to maintain above 8 ammo but below 10

------2)IF INCENDIARY ROUND IS ABOUT TO COME OFF; Hammer Shot as many times as you need to get to 10-11 ammo + IR + go to 1

------3)Stockstrike

------4)If 3 is on cooldown, Ion Pulse

 

Worth mentioning are burn phases, i.e.: Adrenal and/or Battle Focus/Explosive Fuel where you can replace any Hammer Shots with Ion Pulses on account of having Recharge Cells ready for use once your offensive CDS wear off.

 

Mind you this is single target. If there's 2 or more targets up then liberally throw in Mortar Volley > Plasma Cannon > Sticky Grenade > other stuff while keeping ammo above 8

 

So yeah it's definately a bit more to it then the example at the start and it is still a priority list and can be "memorized" as such but it really is a rotation based on adapting to IA procs and common sense. The more you'll practice the less complicated it will seem.

 

Edit: 27/08/12 Edited to correct Pulse Cannon > 2 x Ion Pulse (it's the other way around) and cleaned up a bit.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Suryi

[Suryi]

The Specs

 

Well, more like, "the debate between Assault Plastique vs Non-AP".

 

I've dilligently parsed my posterior off for a good 20 mins each in both specs, using the rotation above and got roughly 1.8k DPS in AP build and 1.85k DPS in Non-AP.

 

I personally didn't give Non-AP much consideration before I saw for myself that it does indeed provide a DPS increase. Not much, true, but it is there and it is to be taken into consideration.

 

However, the true strength of AP builds lies in, well, AP itself. It is a 30 meter nuke that can be used while running around trying to get in <10 m range of whatever you're supposed to destroy. Not only is it 30 meter, but it deals a very solid amount of damage, and even more noticeable damage when it crits (due to the natural +30% surge). Add to that the fact that all the fights in 16 man hardmode EC require you to, at some points during the fight, run out of the 10m comfort zone, AP build gains more ground.

 

Personally I've grown very fond of the full AP builds, not only because of AP but because of Adrenaline Fueled. It allows me to use every 2nd IR for free which eases my rotation a lot. I will be trying Non-AP builds in future raids tho, to get comfortable with it since, after all, in high end pve you only care if it does more damage.

 

I believe I've covered all the things I wanted to type about. I sincerely hope other people will chip in and share wisdom in variable amounts and thanks for reading this far. Lol.

 

Edit: 27/08/12 Added a (relatively) fresh parse: http://www.torparse.com/a/7585 (3rd fight, first 2 are in 4/6/31, 3rd is 7/3/31 which is what I currently use). Kept 2k DPS (no adrenal) for 2 and a half mins, best luck I've had with procs/HiB crits so far.

Edited August 27, 2012 by Suryi

[Chazcon]

Interesting but breaks the KISS principle which is key while in combat

 

Assault rotation is simple, remember that as a Vanguard you are not a 'plant-and-shoot' class, you are a VERY mobile class and are always moving. Typically you begin a fight by running towards the target, the goal being to get within Stockstrike range (4m). As you run in you are firing off skills in a certain order and the rotation is built in this order based not only on the range of your skills vs. your range to target, but on their unique abilities, procs and how they interact with other skills. In a typical PvP melee the same concept can be applied because at the tactical level you really are:

 

a) Selecting a target

b) Running to that target to get within 4m range

c) Killing the target

d) Repeat

 

Now the rotation, and forget all the brain damage about GCD issues and IA procs, those cannot be controlled by the player and that is too much information to remember while fighting. Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) and the ultimate goal with your keyboard setup is to get your rotation 'in your fingers' like playing a guitar, or in other words muscle memory. You should not have to look down at your keyboard to play, or even at your skill bars that much. Once you get your rotation down, try playing with the UI turned off, your interface with your character should be smooth, automatic and fluid as if your toon is an extension of yourself.

 

Also by the way always use an Assault Plastique build. Period, there is no debate about AP/Non-AP if you truly want to maximize your DPS as an Assault speced Vanguard.

 

Now the Assault rotation:

 

As you run up to the target,

 

1) Assault Plastique

2) Incendiary Round

3) High Impact Bolt

4) Ion Pulse

5) Stockstrike

 

Now you are on the target within 4m range. While HIB is on cooldown spam:

 

6) Ion Pulse

7) Stockstrike

 

Spamming IP/SS will maximize your chances of resetting HIB by the IP/SS proc. EVERYTIME HIB IS UP hit:

 

8) High Impact Bolt

 

While you are spamming IP/SS and firing off HIB as it comes up watch for AP to come off cooldown and EVERYTIME AP IS UP hit:

 

9) Assault Plastique

 

While you are fighting away also watch for the burn on the target and when it expires, burn'em again with:

 

10) Incendiary Round

 

 

That's the rotation for maximum DPS but remember there are other things you bring to the table as a Vanguard for your group. You have 2 CC's in Cyro Grenade and Neural Surge that are helpful, and three taunts that will reduce damage output by enemies while they are attacking your mates by 30% - one of them being Harpoon which is a useful skill in it's own right. You'll want to mix these in as the tactical situation requires. Particularly you want to be firing off Neural Jolt and Sonic Round in a battle constantly, to help your mates. These should always be on cooldown.

 

Now you may be wondering about skills I have not listed. What about Pulse Cannon? Full Auto? Those two skills cost too much in terms of ammo and they are self-roots. Remember we are a mobile class, run and gun and they limit your mobility. But more importantly they are easily interrupted by a knockback or a CC, and then you have just wasted ammo and time. Useless in PvP. Mortar Volley has some utility to lay on a node to prevent cap but truly it's more useful for a tank-speced Vanguard to do this than an Assault-spec because our power lies in high 1v1 damage and we should be pumping out the hurt constantly. Again MV is a self-root and that runs counter to what we're about. Explosive Surge is really only useful for a Vanguard with Storm (tank tree) in order to take advantage of the two 'free' shots, it's too expensive in terms of ammo cost for the small damage you get otherwise. And it's difficult to maximize an AoE skill of any kind in a fluid PvP battle.

 

EDIT: I thought about this today after I posted, another very important factor to think about when playing Assault spec is the squishiness of the spec (lower survivability than a tankier spec). Solo you will have a harder time taking down bosses, and in PvP everyone will know your weakness and will burn you down. Assault is somewhat of a glass cannon spec. The best way to play Assault spec in PvP is to hard-team with a healer, the combination is deadly as they keep you alive while providing some DPS and you can go to town. In PvE groups you'll typically have a healer or two with you, and probably won't be tanking anyway so it's not as much of an issue, but I'd have to ask why in the hell are you playing DPS as a tank class on a raid etc. To each their own. Anyway wanted to add that.

 

Anyway there you go, sorry OP if I jacked your thread but it's really very simple, no need to complicate it further. And as a caveat I must say that I don't even prefer to play an Assault build, it's just too damn squishy for my tastes, I typically play an Iron Fist build and enjoy it very much.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Chazcon

[Mancer]

To Chazcon, very nice!

[CitizenFry]

As a person who mostly uses their Vanguard for tanking, I like the Assault tree for DPS because the "default attack priority" is very similar to my tanking attack priority, and it seems to be reasonably close to the maximum DPS output. Put another way, the assault tree seems to have a high skill floor/low skill ceiling, which is great for me since I'm not putting any effort into improving my skill at it. Contrast with, say, Sentinel DPS, which has a very low skill floor/high skill ceiling, so folks (like me) who are bad at it are REALLY BAD and folks who are great at it are really great. Nice to discover that there ARE ways that skilled Assault DPSers have ways to improve on slackers like me, even if it's not that big an improvement. Edited July 12, 2012 by CitizenFry

[Suryi]

For the sake of maintaining discussion I will provide arguements to your points, HOWEVER:

This is about PvE as stated above in the title and I am fairly sure that I didn't mention PvP once in my post . Your points make 100% sense and are correct from a PvP stand point but are (very) argueable from a PvE point of view.

 

Assault rotation is simple, remember that as a Vanguard you are not a 'plant-and-shoot' class, you are a VERY mobile class and are always moving. Typically you begin a fight by running towards the target, the goal being to get within Stockstrike range (4m).

 

While true that we are not a stationary class, and there are a number of boss abilities that knock you away/stun/disable/throw/interrupt your ability, this is remedied by being aware of boss mechanics to the letter, i.e.: knowing when these inconveniences will happen and thus not using Mortar Volley/Plasma Cannon so as to save it for a better time when you can squeeze in a full cast.

 

For the running in at start part, yes indeed that's what you do. On a speeder, untill you reach 10m range at which point you dismount, Reverse Power Cell + IR and by then you're within 4m range to stockstrike and (hopefully) get a HiB proc.

 

Now the rotation, and forget all the brain damage about GCD issues and IA procs, those cannot be controlled by the player and that is too much information to remember while fighting. Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) and the ultimate goal with your keyboard setup is to get your rotation 'in your fingers' like playing a guitar, or in other words muscle memory. You should not have to look down at your keyboard to play, or even at your skill bars that much. Once you get your rotation down, try playing with the UI turned off, your interface with your character should be smooth, automatic and fluid as if your toon is an extension of yourself.

 

Keeping track of IA procs is very hard at first but it eventually is built into your muscle memory over time and eventually you come to know what global you're at and how many you have left untill you need to proc another IA.

 

And I do not believe in KISS in any way shape or form. PvE content as it is poses little to no challenge so there is no excuse to not maximize your dps in any way you can, which can be done by keeping track of one extra thing. I've noted improvements in my dps ever since I've started monitoring the cd on IA; that's good enough for me.

 

KISS would apply in PvP, I agree on that much.

 

Also by the way always use an Assault Plastique build. Period, there is no debate about AP/Non-AP if you truly want to maximize your DPS as an Assault speced Vanguard.

 

I convinced myself when I ran long parses in both specs, I urge you to do the same. I believed that the fact that AP was a 30m range "nuke" would balance it out, but it doesn't, because when I'm switching targets I'm using IR and then Hammer Shotting untill I get to 10m range in order to preserve ammo so when I actually get in range I can use my ammo to proc IA.

 

Again, the debate is only for PvE; there indeed is no such debate when it comes to PvP, AP is the onyl way to go.

 

Now the Assault rotation:

 

As you run up to the target,

 

1) Assault Plastique

2) Incendiary Round

3) High Impact Bolt

4) Ion Pulse

5) Stockstrike

 

Now you are on the target within 4m range. While HIB is on cooldown spam:

 

6) Ion Pulse

7) Stockstrike

 

Spamming IP/SS will maximize your chances of resetting HIB by the IP/SS proc. EVERYTIME HIB IS UP hit:

 

8) High Impact Bolt

 

While you are spamming IP/SS and firing off HIB as it comes up watch for AP to come off cooldown and EVERYTIME AP IS UP hit:

 

9) Assault Plastique

 

While you are fighting away also watch for the burn on the target and when it expires, burn'em again with:

 

10) Incendiary Round

 

 

That's the rotation for maximum DPS but remember there are other things you bring to the table as a Vanguard for your group. You have 2 CC's in Cyro Grenade and Neural Surge that are helpful, and three taunts that will reduce damage output by enemies while they are attacking your mates by 30% - one of them being Harpoon which is a useful skill in it's own right. You'll want to mix these in as the tactical situation requires. Particularly you want to be firing off Neural Jolt and Sonic Round in a battle constantly, to help your mates. These should always be on cooldown.

 

Now you may be wondering about skills I have not listed. What about Pulse Cannon? Full Auto? Those two skills cost too much in terms of ammo and they are self-roots. Remember we are a mobile class, run and gun and they limit your mobility. But more importantly they are easily interrupted by a knockback or a CC, and then you have just wasted ammo and time. Useless in PvP. Mortar Volley has some utility to lay on a node to prevent cap but truly it's more useful for a tank-speced Vanguard to do this than an Assault-spec because our power lies in high 1v1 damage and we should be pumping out the hurt constantly. Again MV is a self-root and that runs counter to what we're about. Explosive Surge is really only useful for a Vanguard with Storm (tank tree) in order to take advantage of the two 'free' shots, it's too expensive in terms of ammo cost for the small damage you get otherwise. And it's difficult to maximize an AoE skill of any kind in a fluid PvP battle.

 

PvE. That is all.

 

I completely agree with your points from a PvP view point but for PvE most are...debateable.

 

As a person who mostly uses their Vanguard for tanking, I like the Assault tree for DPS because the "default attack priority" is very similar to my tanking attack priority, and it seems to be reasonably close to the maximum DPS output. Put another way, the assault tree seems to have a high skill floor/low skill ceiling, which is great for me since I'm not putting any effort into improving my skill at it. Contrast with, say, Sentinel DPS, which has a very low skill floor/high skill ceiling, so folks (like me) who are bad at it are REALLY BAD and folks who are great at it are really great. Nice to discover that there ARE ways that skilled Assault DPSers have ways to improve on slackers like me, even if it's not that big an improvement.

 

There's always something that can be improved somewhere somehow, isn't there?

Edited July 12, 2012 by Suryi

[Chazcon]

...For the running in at start part, yes indeed that's what you do. On a speeder, untill you reach 10m range at which point you dismount, Reverse Power Cell + IR and by then you're within 4m range to stockstrike and (hopefully) get a HiB proc...

 

You lost me there bro. Run in on a speeder? Closer is riskier, the closer you get to a target the more skills (attacks) the target has available to use on you. Run and gun in, not ride and dismount close, you get off an AP/IR/HIB all before you hit 10m and you'll take less damage, meaning the delta between your damage taken and the target's will be higher.

 

Everything I said is just as valid for PvE as PvP. Everything.

 

Complicated is bad in combat - always. Keep It Simple Stupid. 'nuff said.

 

If you truly want to maintain an open debate you need to step down off your high horse bro. Talking down to us lesser beings ain't the way to go.

[Suryi]

If you truly want to maintain an open debate you need to step down off your high horse bro. Talking down to us lesser beings ain't the way to go.

 

I'm sorry if it came out that way, I'm not sure what gave you the idea that I was talking down but I assure you that wasn't the case

 

Run in on a speeder? Closer is riskier, the closer you get to a target the more skills (attacks) the target has available to use on you. Run and gun in, not ride and dismount close, you get off an AP/IR/HIB all before you hit 10m and you'll take less damage, meaning the delta between your damage taken and the target's will be higher.

 

Running in on a speeder gets you in range faster and so if you're non-AP build you don't lose dps hammer shotting while at 30-10 m (due to lack of AP). And even if you're non-AP and decide to run in, you can use a normal IR and Hammer Shot to regain some ammo back and thus saving RPC for a nuke phase (i.e.: paired up with Battle Focus and Recharge Cells so uptime with Battle Focus is maximized)

 

Everything I said is just as valid for PvE as PvP. Everything.

 

The rotation isn't. AP shouldn't be used off cooldown because you have to maximize your IA proccing and so, once IA cooldown is off the only thing you want to spam is SS/IP.

 

There are also situations when hitting HiB (free) should be delayed by 1 max 2 globals so you don't regen too much ammo (i.e. over 12 and so wasting ammo).

 

And the bit about Full Auto (I never use it either)/Plasma Cannon and Mortar Volley and how they are self roots is true; they do prevent you from moving for 3 seconds but the fights allow you to stay and use them, if used at the right time of course (not in the middle of Toth and Zorn red circle phase, obviously). And they eat up 3 ammo instead of 4 used by 2 x IP while dealing more damage.

 

Complicated is bad in combat - always. Keep It Simple Stupid. 'nuff said.

 

It really isn't that complicated once you get the hang of it and there's no reason not to at least try. Like I've stated above, current PvE content means keeping track of a handful of things (Swap and Dot and Berserk on Toth and Zorn; Double Destruction, Shields on Tanks; Red Circle on Vorgath; and just staying away from Kephess' front) and so there's nothing really preventing you from dedicating some more attention to your rotation. It's tricky up to the point where it hinders you at the start but eventually you get used to it and the improvement is there to be noticed.

[Chazcon]

Fair enough mate, we disagree on a couple of points and that's OK and healthy, but I have to say, never allow HIB to sit there when available cooldown or not. The same goes for Assault Plastique, hit them immediately when they are off CD. Those are your money makers, shake 'em. In my opinion of course

 

Thanks for taking the time to create this thread, good discussion.

 

I'd love to find an Assault spec/gear combo that doesn't make me feel squishy and overcomes my sadness at not having Storm, since 1.3 I have flipped between various Assault builds and keep going back to Iron Fist despite the nerfs that affect that build. For me Assault is fun as hell until I get whacked a few times where I know from experience I would have survived in a tankier build. Ah well, choices eh?

[Suryi]

Agreed to disagree sir

[Justcae]

Just out of curiousity, how long were your parses? How many times did you repeat for your average? The only reason I ask is that the shorter the parse, the greater expected variance in parses. We usually use 5 minutes as our standard. Trying to limit the RNG. Which I'm sure you're already doing.

 

Did you check the difference between AP Build and Non-AP build in 20s bursts?

[Suryi]

20 minute parse for each build. I basically parsed untill it could barely register a change in dps while doing the rotation. For safety I probably should've done more then 1 but I haven't had the time so far.

 

I also didn't check the difference of burst within 20 seconds because I actually didn't think about it, hah. Good point sir. If I were to make an educated guess I'd say AP would pull ahead in that situation, assuming you can squeeze in 2 APs which might not be possible due to rng, albeit bad rng and a lot of it as well.

Edited July 14, 2012 by Suryi

[Justcae]

Yeah absolutely understand with your parsing strategy. As I said you probably were well aware. Usually people that get into min/maxing try to give themselves the best data to work with.

 

I primarily tank so unfortunately I don't have a good collection of data as far as DPS goes to help you out there. I can only give general notions as far as the feel of things. As you just said, I feel like AP would preform better in 15-20s burst scenarios. Especially those like Kephess where you can pre-dot walker before it becomes vulnerable. I realize its very specific, but also very applicable to current and possibly future end game content. Which as you are in a more hardcore guild will be experiencing first hand.

 

Kudos, and if you check, please keep me updated!

[mavsynchroid]

You lost me there bro. Run in on a speeder? Closer is riskier, the closer you get to a target the more skills (attacks) the target has available to use on you. Run and gun in, not ride and dismount close, you get off an AP/IR/HIB all before you hit 10m and you'll take less damage, meaning the delta between your damage taken and the target's will be higher.

 

Everything I said is just as valid for PvE as PvP. Everything.

 

Complicated is bad in combat - always. Keep It Simple Stupid. 'nuff said.

 

If you truly want to maintain an open debate you need to step down off your high horse bro. Talking down to us lesser beings ain't the way to go.

 

Just read the thread, and you're way too sensitive. He hasn't talked down to you in any way, at least not up until you posted this. He was extremely polite. The only thing he did was disagree with you, and even while doing that he was extremely polite and catering towards you. Disagreeing != being rude

[Davionix]

That's the rotation for maximum DPS but remember there are other things you bring to the table as a Vanguard for your group. You have 2 CC's in Cyro Grenade and Neural Surge that are helpful, and three taunts that will reduce damage output by enemies while they are attacking your mates by 30% - one of them being Harpoon which is a useful skill in it's own right. You'll want to mix these in as the tactical situation requires. Particularly you want to be firing off Neural Jolt and Sonic Round in a battle constantly, to help your mates. These should always be on cooldown.

 

To clear it up :

 

Harpoon does not act as a taunt, its a move that generates extra threat (like Hilt Strike) and pulling the target to you if the target is not immune.

 

Damage reduction from taunts will not work for pve situations just as the 50% damage redirection from being guarded wont work as well.

 

I know that you were talking about pvp situations but after all opinions seem to be focused on pve rotation mainly

 

Back to pve rotation :

 

In my opinion taking assault plastique is a must for max dps builds for ops. While builds that leave it out may show dps increase at target dummies many actual fights include times where you cant attack a target and/or you have to burn them down really fast and this burst dependent nature makes assault plastique shien. For example :

 

Toth/Zorn : 8 men HM Toth's jump damage is manageable depending on your healers but I am guessing it will be more of a pain on healers at 16 men so you will have to run away from Toth's jump range and unlike sentinels/shadows you dont have a gap closer so having assault plastique to use while you are closing the distance helps.

 

Stormcaller/Firebrand : Assault Plastique helps in killing adds faster & you can use it while you are running to adds under shield dome / back onto tank after a shield phase ends.

 

Colonel Vorgath : Assault plastique again helps to kill probe droids faster. In addition, at the beginning of minefield where spawn point of probe droids is further than any green circles you can stand on you can use assault plastique in addition to other 30m abilities while waiting for the probe droid to get in 10 meter range.

 

Kephess : You have to nuke down baradium bombers and assault plastique again helps here. You can cast it while you are getting closer to them and when someone gets the buff and runs under the walker you can time your assault plastique in such a way that it blows off the second the walker gets down & becomes vulnerable. Since walker is only vulnerable for limited times ( just like SoA) again assault plastique is beneficial.

 

Personally I dont prefer to use Full Auto, Pulse Cannon or Mortar Volley unless I have to stay at range or do aoe damage. Reason for this is that they dont have 100% chance to reset the dot from plasma cell unlike ion pulse. Each time you use ion pulse it also deals the 1st tick damage of this dot in addition to ion pulse damage so there is no dps loss from clipping your dot early.

[RickAdams]

Assault Plastique is absolutely an inferior skill and not needed at all for PVE. It doesn't proc Ionic Accelerator, which means it doesn't lead to a free HIB or a refund of 1 energy cell. Everything you do should be geared toward pushing out more HIBs. Anything AP does you can do with Sticky Grenade for only a little less damage and without spending a talent to do it. Putting AP in your rotation does not increase your dps, so why use it?

[Davionix]

http://www.torhead.com/ability/7s8oJJl/assault-trooper

 

This makes Assault Plastique deal significantly more damage than sticky grenade. Besides there are times when you can not use sticky grenade due to its aoe damage effect. ( either there is a CC'ed enemy nearby or nearby enemies can reflect damage as in the packs of trandoshans that spawn at the fight with Kephess)

 

Addition : What I was able to find at Torhead also proves that Assault plastique has a higher coefficient as well. In other words, it scales better than sticky grenade with any extra power & tech power you gain from your gear .

 

Assault Plastique :

SpellDamage: SpellType=>Tech, StandardHealthPercentMin=>0.222, Slot=>None, Coefficient=>2.42, StandardHealthPercentMax=>0.262, DamageType=>Kinetic

 

Sticky Grenade

SpellDamage: SpellType=>Tech, StandardHealthPercentMin=>0.141, Slot=>None, Coefficient=>1.61, StandardHealthPercentMax=>0.181, DamageType=>Kinetic

 

Edited July 18, 2012 by Davionix
grammar & addition

[RickAdams]

That only increases the damage if AP crits. Also, PVE is all about downing bosses. Nobody really cares what happens on trash as long as your going through it fast. And I can't think of any boss fights where you need to CC that would be affected by AOE damage on the boss.

 

I realize AP does more damage but does it justify losing a point in your talent tree? You're either losing 3% aim or 3% crit. And again, AP doesn't proc Ionic Accelerator and doesn't help our ammo management. I don't think it does enough damage to justify what you're losing. The combat parse that Suryi did above proves this. Though I would love to see more parses from others to really put this to bed.

[Davionix]

As I mentioned before there are situations where you can not use sticky grenade even if you wanted to use it due to its aoe damage affect.

 

One example is the trandoshan packs at kephess as I mentioned in my previous post. If you deal aoe damage before warriors in that pack are dead the damage will get reflected on to you.

 

At stormcaller & firebrand shield phases you can not use sticky grenade or you will prematurely kill shield generator.

 

That ability increases damage of AP only when it crits thats true but the way Assault Spec synergizes with good gear you will be critting most of the time anyway ( specially when you have used Battle Focus for burst dps periods ).

 

Assault plastique costs only 2 ammo so by not including it in your rotation you are saving only 2 ammo points every 15 seconds. You can use that ammo for ion pulse but assault plastique deals more damage than ion pulse and specially after 6 seconds internal cooldown was added to ionic accelerator that extra ion pulse will not help you to push out more procs & HIBs.

 

Combat parses were done on target dummies ( assuming their 20min durations ) and as I said in my previous post even though leaving out Assault Plastique may provide a dps increase on parses on target dummies ( the difference seemed really small though ) during actual encounters taking assault plastique and including it in your rotation will most probably result in a net dps increase.

 

I would like to emphasize again that in a regular tank & dps fight not taking assault plastique will result in more dps but most of the encounters so far (SoA,Fabricator Droid, Kephess ) include only limited vulnerability windows for you to dps the target while others ( Toth & Zorn, Karagga, Stormcaller & Firebrand, Colonel Vorgath ) have several mechanics that force you out of 10 meter attack range so you have to resort to other ranged abilities. Sure you can still use sticky grenade at those situations but then again it does not hit as hard as AP and at some situations like I mentioned above its not usable.

 

PS : At some fights its really important to kill the trash than it is to kill the boss itself ( Damn you Baradium bombers of Kephess ! )

[Suryi]

@Davionix, the points you bring are very healthy in the sense that 1) AP is a very strong "lack of gap closer" ability, 2) very strong ability anyway if used within the 6 sec internal cooldown on IA (thus not interfering with HiB resets) and 3) that in burst phases (a few, but they're there) it pulls ahead.

 

I agree with 2 and 3, however 1 still gnaws at me. This is because during the situations you mention (running around on/off tanks, away from/to zorn) I found myself that I rarely used AP simply because I had to reapply Incendiary Round which would leave me at 9 ammo which would further drop if I used AP. I much prefer using IR and then Hammer Shotting as I close in to regen ammo so when I'm in range I can dump ammo into my rotation. The only time I see AP pull ahead is during situations that force you to stay away from 10m range for a long time, i.e.: you're zoned out for a while and are forced to use ranged attacks, not a case of "run away and then run back in". To sum up, the mobility advantage AP provides seems null to me because most of the "out of 10m range" situations occur when you're swapping targets and as such you have to redot anyway leaving little room for AP.

 

As for Pulse Cannon and Mortar Volley (I don't mention Full Auto) the statement that they do more damage then 2x Ion Pulses takes into account the Plasma Cell dot as well.

Example (from what I remember of my tooltips):

Pulse Cannon - 3.6k dmg

Ion Pulse - 1.3k

Plasma Cell - roughly 1.5k over 6 seconds, so 500 per tick.

It is roughly the same damage with the difference being that Pulse Cannon costs 3 ammo. There is something to be said about crits, however, namely that while both attacks (1 Pulse Cannon or 2 x Ion Pulse) have 4 chances to crit and as such would be considered equal in damage, the fact that we get +30% surge bonus when critting with our DoTs does indeed favor 2 x Ion Pulse over Pulse Cannon. HOWEVER, ammo must be taken into account. Like I mention in the original post, the only time Pulse Cannon can be used is within the 4GCD period (which is slang for "I just got a HiB proc and I won't get another untill after 3 GCDs have past") and during that time ammo must be conserved if possible to use a proc attack on the 4th GCD. As such, the priority would be, assuming ammo allows it or you're burning through ammo during battle focus:

2 x Ion Pulse > Pulse Cannon > 1 x Ion Pulse + 1 x Hammer Shot

 

Now adding Mortar Volley to this. Mortar Volley, on my tooltips, says it can deal up to 5.5k dmg over 3 seconds. If the target is a boss you shave 30% off the damage (less with armor debuffs ofc) which ends up being 4k dmg. With 5 chances to crit, a Mortar Volley is greater damage then 2 x Ion Pulses while costing less ammo.

 

These arguements are based on a "you don't have to move, it's okay to stay still for 3 seconds" scenario, so keep that in mind.

[thrakkemarn]

Very interesting. I have to say certain things you are 100% correct about. The 4GCD I've trained myself to use since 1.2, reserving both AP/TD (adding in BH terms as I'm on the other side) and HiB/RS instead of using them exclusively on cooldown, speeder-ing into range on bosses (surprised more ppl don't do this).

 

I've always used the AP/TD 31 pt pyro builds because I assumed it was the best thing to use during the 4GCD period ... I have to admit I've never even tried using MV/DFA or PC/FT in the 4GCD so I'll have to try that.

 

Great thread I'll keep my eye on it.

 

p.s. Don't you love it when people come into PVE threads to talk about PVP?

[Suryi]

Thank you sir. Deffinately keep an eye on it as it's a work in progress and I'll update as I learn new ways to improve. There's alway something more, it seems, and there's no other way I'd rather have it

[-NovalGaraint-]

Great thread Suryi.....

 

I decided to make my PT my main for raiding after reading one of your posts in the BH forums a couple weeks back.

 

Not at 100% like I should be with this guy yet , but 1500dps is a good start without being a marauder. Hopefully I can get my damn GCD lag kinks out and refine the way i do the priorities.

[Suryi]

Edited out the statement that Pulse Cannon > 2 x Ion Pulse, it's the other way around due to Plasma Cell crit multiplier. Also added a "fresh" (2 3 weeks old probably more) parse. Edited August 27, 2012 by Suryi