What's the point of Charged Bolts?

[HumanPirhana]

So forgive me if this is old hat or a dead horse or whatever, but I have a level 42 gunnery trooper and yesterday while looking over the gunnery tree, then looking at how grav round and charged bolts have the exact same ammo cost and activation times, yet charged bolts (at least the rank 5 version of charged bolts anyway) does slight LESS damage than grav round, doesn't debuff target's armor by 4% per shot, doesn't grant charged barrel, and is only half as effective at building charged barrier, it occured to me that I couldn't find a reason to EVER fire charged bolts as opposed to grav round. A friend who has a level 50 trooper said that there is a set bonus that gives charged bolts a 15% better chance to proc for something (he couldn't remember exactly what) but that was the ONLY reason he could come up with to ever fire charged bolts, and it only applied once you had endgame raid armor sets.

 

What am I missing? Are there typos in the gunnery tree and these abilities actually work differently from what I'm reading? Is this a design flaw that troopers have been bugging the devs to fix for months and I'm only just now noticing? (Forgive me I spend most of my time on other alts and only play this toon with a friend who has her own trooper paired with mine) What's the dealy yo?

 

tl:dr version Why does Charged Bolts seem so fail compared to Grav Round as to be not worth using?

[zipsfan]

After hitting 50 and becoming intimately familiar with the way the class works, I came to a similar solution (as have many others).

 

I NEVER use Charged Bolts. Ever. As a Gunnery Commando, aside from fights that require some area of effect abilities, I use 4 buttons.

 

Grav Round -> Full Auto -> Demo Round -> High Impact Bolt.

 

There really isn't a use for Charged Bolts as a Gunnery Commando because as you've said, it costs the same as Grav Round, does less damage, and is weapon damage vs. Grav Round being Kinetic.

 

Charged Bolts is really only used by Assault Commandos to reset HiB when Full Auto is on CD, and by healers DPSing after they pop Super Charged Cell.

 

Because there are only two abilities that require an Assault Cannon - Charged Bolts and Hail of Bolts - I actually use a blaster rifle (one of those spiffy bowcasters) because the only real difference is about 30 Tech Power and after being fully min/maxed that won't affect your damage as much as you think.

 

TL;DR -> Charged Bolts is in fact useless for Gunnery Commandos.

[HumanPirhana]

Thank you sir for that reply, I feel less confused/nutty/wondering if I'm just dumb. Anyone happen to know if the devs have said anything about looking at this? Odds that Charged Bolts may be buffed at some point? Or is this completely WAI? If so it seems a pretty flawed design.

[Evoprime]

The Assault Specialist Commando specs into Ionic Accelerator, which refreshes the cooldown of, and makes the next high impact bolt free. This is procced by Charged Bolts and Full Auto. The Commando is three trees, and they made basic skills trainable so all three got them. That is why you have two heals and a clense to go along with Charged Bolts.

 

CMs, who are not healing like crazy during SOA's vulnerable phase can pop Supercharged cells and get free Charged Bolts for the duration.

[Kitru]

Or is this completely WAI? If so it seems a pretty flawed design.

 

It's WAI. There are a number of abilities that classes get that completely replace static abilities. Infiltration Shadows get Clairvoyant Strike, which completely replaces Double Strike. Guardians get Sunder Strike which (if you're playing correctly) replaces Strike. Combat Sentinels get Blade Rush which replaces Slash. It's not a unique condition that applies exclusively to Grav Round and Charged Bolts for Gunnery Commandos. Honestly, I think it makes more sense than simply having a talent that adds the relevant buffs to the baseline ability since it allows for the new ability to have a different animation and cuts down on unintended hybrid advantages (imagine if Grav Round could work with Ionic Accelerator). Some players just aren't used to the fact that some abilities are designed to completely replace others.

[Luceon]

It's WAI. There are a number of abilities that classes get that completely replace static abilities. Infiltration Shadows get Clairvoyant Strike, which completely replaces Double Strike. Guardians get Sunder Strike which (if you're playing correctly) replaces Strike. Combat Sentinels get Blade Rush which replaces Slash. It's not a unique condition that applies exclusively to Grav Round and Charged Bolts for Gunnery Commandos. Honestly, I think it makes more sense than simply having a talent that adds the relevant buffs to the baseline ability since it allows for the new ability to have a different animation and cuts down on unintended hybrid advantages (imagine if Grav Round could work with Ionic Accelerator). Some players just aren't used to the fact that some abilities are designed to completely replace others.

 

Just to jump in on the first half and say that grav round is charge bolts replacement. Yes, you need to spec into it but grav round is still in every way the advancement of charged bolts.

[Gyronamics]

Everyone has far more abilities than are needed or even worth using a slot for.

 

Gunnery 99% of the time has no use for a skill which has the same resource cost, less function and less damage than Grav Round.

 

There are exceptions but 99% of the time they don't apply.

 

For similar reasons I don't use a slot for Explosive Round or Blitz, far too niche.

 

 

CM isn't a major user, you have to talent to use it with a 1.5s cast instead of 2.0s and that's a point not being used for healing.

 

If you'd played Assault you'd know who really uses CB. It's the major cast just like Grav is for Gunnery. Sets off procs and gains damage because of the Assault talents.

[TrueNovaZero]

Yup. Use Charged Barrels with the assault spec. I can almost match Gunnery's DPS in Assault (and be off by about 80-60 DPS under), which, considering when Assault doesn't have a armor penetration debuff like grav round means that when paired together with a Gunnery DPS you'll actually outperform them (especially during burn phases when their health is below 30%, your crits on your dots which would normally hit for about 600-750 will jump to about 1100).

[Luceon]

Yup. Use Charged Barrels with the assault spec. I can almost match Gunnery's DPS in Assault (and be off by about 80-60 DPS under), which, considering when Assault doesn't have a armor penetration debuff like grav round means that when paired together with a Gunnery DPS you'll actually outperform them (especially during burn phases when their health is below 30%, your crits on your dots which would normally hit for about 600-750 will jump to about 1100).

 

I believe there was a patch after the fix to demo round patch that set all grav vortexes only apply to the commando who applied the debuff and not the whole team or anyone else for that matter. I could be wrong, or right and BW changed it back. I haven't exactly payed too much attention lately, but I do vaguely remember reading that.

[Kitru]

I believe there was a patch after the fix to demo round patch that set all grav vortexes only apply to the commando who applied the debuff and not the whole team or anyone else for that matter. I could be wrong, or right and BW changed it back. I haven't exactly payed too much attention lately, but I do vaguely remember reading that.

 

The change made it so that the debuff only applies for a single debuff of its type. As such, only one armor debuff (the largest) counts. In this same sense, the largest damage debuff and the largest accuracy debuff count, as opposed to the sum of all debuffs. This change was implemented to counteract the massive contributions that could be gained by having multiple debuff bringers into an Ops (5 ACs that bring the armor debuff equated to the boss having not one whit of K/E DR and, as such, making all K/E damage *way* higher than it had any right to be).

[Masarko]

I take it if someone interupts you, youre just standing there for 4 seconds?

[Marqhill]

I take it if someone interupts you, youre just standing there for 4 seconds?

 

Well there's this, and then also there is the fact that while Grav Round is a tech attack Charged Bolts is a ranged attack. This can be useful in the current metagame with the huge number of shadow tanks out there. When they pop their resilience defensive cool down your Grav Round becomes completely useless for the next 5 seconds. On the other hand Charged Bolts ignores this defensive cool down entirely because resilience only works against Force and Tech. I don't know if you PvP but I just hit level 20 on my commando and while generally I don't use Charged Bolts nearly as often as Grav Round I keep it on my tool bar just for such an occasion.

[SafeJungleFever]

A lot of gunnery guys still rolling in PVP (i've seen 3 including me on my server ROFL) do use charged bolt after interrupt. I do not, and fairly regularly top the DPS charts. If I've been interrupted 9/10 it's by a melee character. I have stockstrike, pulse cannon, blitz (yeah it's keybound...sue me), and of course hail of bolts which becomes not so worthless in PVP. Given that pulse cannon and stockstrike both hit as hard if not harder than grav round, not to mention are instant cast, this is not such a big deal.

[genthek]

Apologies for the necro but really didn't wanna create yet ANOTHER thread on this ability just to weigh-in.

 

Bioware really dropped the ball on this one. SOOOO many talents/skills/whatever you wanna call them in the Gunnery tree involve Charged Bolts, yet at low levels it's charge time is too long and party members can anhilalate the mobs in the time i takes for you to fire it once. At later levels I've heard Grav Round is the way to go.

 

Therefore the Gunnery talents have needed a major rework for a couple of years and haven't had it. So many wasted talents. That's how I see it anyway

[Mastershroom]

Apologies for the necro but really didn't wanna create yet ANOTHER thread on this ability just to weigh-in.

 

Bioware really dropped the ball on this one. SOOOO many talents/skills/whatever you wanna call them in the Gunnery tree involve Charged Bolts, yet at low levels it's charge time is too long and party members can anhilalate the mobs in the time i takes for you to fire it once. At later levels I've heard Grav Round is the way to go.

 

Therefore the Gunnery talents have needed a major rework for a couple of years and haven't had it. So many wasted talents. That's how I see it anyway

I think when a thread hasn't been touched in almost two years, it's safe to just make a new one lol.

 

Anyway, Charged Bolts does what it's supposed to do. As a Gunnery Commando, you don't really use it at all, and that's fine, because Grav Round exists to replace it in that tree. You basically spam Grav Round to get 5 stacks of Charged Barrel, use HIB, and use Full Auto when Grav Round procs Curtain of Fire, and throw in Demo Round on cooldown. For Assault Specialist, Charged Bolts is the main filler ability, and you spam that to proc your free HIB.

 

tl;dr - you don't need Charged Bolts as Gunnery.

[Vodrin]

I think when a thread hasn't been touched in almost two years, it's safe to just make a new one lol.

 

Anyway, Charged Bolts does what it's supposed to do. As a Gunnery Commando, you don't really use it at all, and that's fine, because Grav Round exists to replace it in that tree. You basically spam Grav Round to get 5 stacks of Charged Barrel, use HIB, and use Full Auto when Grav Round procs Curtain of Fire, and throw in Demo Round on cooldown. For Assault Specialist, Charged Bolts is the main filler ability, and you spam that to proc your free HIB.

 

tl;dr - you don't need Charged Bolts as Gunnery.

 

Also remember in PvP it's there so you don't just stand around looking stupid when some enterprising soul interrupts Grav Round.

[TylerAcalan]

Charged Bolts also has the same chance to proc CoF which is the real other reason you fire off Grav Round. If someone interrupts Grav Round to try and keep you from using CoF to buff Full Auto, just use Charged Bolts and laugh at him as it procs anyway.

 

And everyone knows how important CoF is to Gunnery. So yes, Charged Bolts may not give you a 20% armor debuff or increase HiB but it makes a great filler AND still primes you for your OTHER most devastating attack if Grav Round isn't available.

 

Seriously. CoF proc. /thread.

[CrazyOldMystic]

Do any of you understand tactics? If my full auto is on cool down, and I see a target I need to slow, unloading a charged bolt has a good chance to end the cool down on my full auto. After that I shoot the target with full auto there by slowing it. Or at the very least get full auto up and running again. Also its a trooper like ability and you cant ignore something like. Better then most of your abilities, as far as looking like something a star wars trooper would use. There is another small advantage but the stat people/know it alls does not believe it. So not going to go their.

[TylerAcalan]

Do any of you understand tactics? If my full auto is on cool down, and I see a target I need to slow, unloading a charged bolt has a good chance to end the cool down on my full auto. After that I shoot the target with full auto there by slowing it. Or at the very least get full auto up and running again. Also its a trooper like ability and you cant ignore something like. Better then most of your abilities, as far as looking like something a star wars trooper would use. There is another small advantage but the stat people/know it alls does not believe it. So not going to go their.

 

That's Curtain of Fire (CoF) buff which is what I just talked about.

[Terrulin]

If you are gunnery, then there is no pve reason to use charged bolts. Charged bolts is the grav round of the assault tree. For pvp, use i when grave round is interrupted and you arent using on of the other abilities.

 

I would not say gunnery is 4 buttons. To do so limits what you can do with the spec. You should at least use the 8 below as part of single target PVE damage.

1) Grav Round

2) Demo Round

3) Full Auto

4) High Impact Bolt

5) Electro Net

6) Mortar Volley when >= 85 energy

7) Reserve Power Cell -> Plasma Grenade

8) Hammer Shot

If energy is good, tech override is down, DR, HIB, EN are all on cooldown, you might even want to use sticky grenade instead of hammer shot if you have to move.