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Bounty Hunter (Merc) & PvP


swgretrospect

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Greetings SWTOR fans,

 

Returning to the game from BETA / Launch Date. I've only ever given SWTOR about one week of my time, but I've returned and intend to give the game a little more attention. Anyways, to the point...!

I have a level 18 Bounty Hunter ATM, which was set to MERC...a friend and guild mate mentioned that MERC is absolutely awful for PvP. Basically, I'm a PvPer from other MMO's and do not wish to PvE much---what's the deal with MERC, is it worth finishing this toon, or should I just start leveling another character? Any advice/input would be apperciated, as I'm quite uncertain of which direction to go at this point. Thanks.

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If you intend to heal, Mercenaries are fine, quite good with the upcoming 1.4 changes actually. As DPS they are nothing short of absolutely awful, dysfunctional and if you would like to avoid a brain aneurysm then re-roll ASAP; this is of course pertaining to PvP, they are decent at best as DPS in PvE.
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Well the flavor of the month is Murderers in carnage spec.

 

Merc's are near the bottom of the food chain due to lack of Movement and self preservation skills.

If you don't mind being a turret and spamming Tracer all day then stick with your merc.

 

FoTM #2 goes to the Power tech (pyro spec) for the high burst damage output, Movement allowance, and being able to pull people to you. This is a easy to play spec that still puts up numbers, especially when paired with a healer or tank to help you survive longer. This spec seems to suffer from O.O.A if you go more then 1 v 1 or the 1 v 1 take's to long (multiple healers, or a really good tank)

 

Personally My power tech is tank spec because i love that jet-pack lol, and my commando is heal spec, she goes A.O.O in longer fights but she heals a single target better then any other so far as i'v seen.

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Greetings SWTOR fans,

 

Returning to the game from BETA / Launch Date. I've only ever given SWTOR about one week of my time, but I've returned and intend to give the game a little more attention. Anyways, to the point...!

I have a level 18 Bounty Hunter ATM, which was set to MERC...a friend and guild mate mentioned that MERC is absolutely awful for PvP. Basically, I'm a PvPer from other MMO's and do not wish to PvE much---what's the deal with MERC, is it worth finishing this toon, or should I just start leveling another character? Any advice/input would be apperciated, as I'm quite uncertain of which direction to go at this point. Thanks.

 

you should play for yourself instead of listening to others. there are some really really good people that play merc and commando. i leveled up through pvp and class missions only and i was always near the top in dmg pre 50 and now that im fully augmented bm geared i almost always get 250-350k pugging it. play and decide for yourself. people try to tell me what skill tree to use all the time too and its rather annoying. people look down on them just because they are not the fotm. hope it helped and good luck.

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Well the flavor of the month is Murderers in carnage spec.

 

Merc's are near the bottom of the food chain due to lack of Movement and self preservation skills.

If you don't mind being a turret and spamming Tracer all day then stick with your merc.

 

FoTM #2 goes to the Power tech (pyro spec) for the high burst damage output, Movement allowance, and being able to pull people to you. This is a easy to play spec that still puts up numbers, especially when paired with a healer or tank to help you survive longer. This spec seems to suffer from O.O.A if you go more then 1 v 1 or the 1 v 1 take's to long (multiple healers, or a really good tank)

 

Personally My power tech is tank spec because i love that jet-pack lol, and my commando is heal spec, she goes A.O.O in longer fights but she heals a single target better then any other so far as i'v seen.

 

that is not what we do. we don't spam tracer missile or grav round nonstop and if someone does they don't know how to play the class.

Edited by Slicktime
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Like people said, if they know what to do they can do well as a DPS spec. I've seem some huge numbers from well played Mercs, it's just not as easy as the popular classes. They aren't as good at single target damage but you can rack up some high numbers if the opponent clusters in a group and you and AoE many at once (Huttball Clusterf**ks come to mind).

 

I think of the DPS like this: Marauder is the bayonet, Sniper is the rifle, Merc is the artillery. A good team where everybody can work together in their zone can do really well. In the support role you may not see it on the field on 1 target but when you look at the numbers after you'll be amazed at the damage you inflicted on the enemy.

 

And the Marauders will appreciate that the second target they switch to only has 75% health, and the 3rd only has 50%. They'll assume it because they're so good but you'll know it's because the battlefield has been a constant rain of explosives and DoTs that you laid down.

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Yes you don't use it none stop, however you still use it 3x more then any other attk lol and that in my book is spamming.

 

tracer missile/grav round do a couple of things. 1. decreases armor increases damage on demolition round and makes high impact bolt usable without the target being stunned. 2. grav round and charged bolts has a 45% chance to finish the cooldown on full auto and increase the next full auto damage by 25%. soooo after i use it 3 times i only use it occasionally. we have plenty of other attacks. the people who do nothing but spam tracer missile and grav round are not very good players.

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...a friend and guild mate mentioned that MERC is absolutely awful for PvP.

 

Merc isn't my main, though I've played it in 50 PvP a fair amount, and PvP'd a lot.

 

Heals is fine, possibly not as hard to kill as an operative.

 

If you go pyro dps, why aren't you a powertech?

 

Arsenal "classic" merc dps is hard to play (no it's not just tracer missile spam), though it's getting buffed a little in 1.4 today (an interrupt, yay). You can be effective and put up numbers, but you're vulnerable if you're targeted. Getting bundled by jumpers is at least mercifully brief and standing there gormlessly spamming missiles will get you dead. I've topped scoreboards in random as an arsenal merc (no, I haven't taken it to ranked, I'm not that good/reckless/stupid), but whether you enjoy it depends on if you can play it while also coping with other classes having a much easier time.

 

Brief summary. Main function: find an appropriate target, stack debuffs, then blow them apart. This is fun. Also: AoE on groups (have a few abilities that let you do this, all helps as mentioned above); tactical interference (powerful knockbacks can be very useful, though will lose fusion punch's in 1.4; abilities that can stop caps even when you can't target the opponent); stealth detection (scan and AoEs).

 

So it depends on what you want to do. If you're confident in your ability and want to play merc dps in PvP, go ahead and have fun: it is, and it'll be a little easier after the patch. If you want to easily crush people with a strong class, or get accepted onto a serious ranked team, then I'm sorry to say you're going to need to be a good healer merc or reroll, as things stand.

Edited by Wainamoinen
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you should play for yourself instead of listening to others. there are some really really good people that play merc and commando. i leveled up through pvp and class missions only and i was always near the top in dmg pre 50 and now that im fully augmented bm geared i almost always get 250-350k pugging it. play and decide for yourself. people try to tell me what skill tree to use all the time too and its rather annoying. people look down on them just because they are not the fotm. hope it helped and good luck.

 

So it all sounds fine you know when people post this amazing information :eek:

All classes can come out with good dmg done and i can get 300-600k dmg done in wz on my arsenal bh and even more on my sorc hybrid BUT...... the thing is u arent useful for ranked regardless of how much dmg u output because during youre dmg done time u will xperiense 20 times dying to the cluster f... of sentinel's marauders juggernauts that will completly fight over youre easy kill.

You will experiense raining lightsabers so if u wanna heal do that on youre mercenery if you wanna dps reroll powertech pyro spec or a melee class for the game is atm set up like : PVE is for Ranged and PVP is for Melee :)

So listen to those that say this rubbish isnt gonna help you, and if you truly belive in youre bh do play it cause it is up to that is gonna enjoy the game anyway ;)

BUT BE AWARE that you will have some nice wz with new dinged players and a completly mind crushing frustration on wz against good geard melee with pocket healers wich is atm all u see in WZ now

:cool:

 

So happy hunting and il hope u will have fun regardless of youre choice

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So it all sounds fine you know when people post this amazing information :eek:

All classes can come out with good dmg done and i can get 300-600k dmg done in wz on my arsenal bh and even more on my sorc hybrid BUT...... the thing is u arent useful for ranked regardless of how much dmg u output because during youre dmg done time u will xperiense 20 times dying to the cluster f... of sentinel's marauders juggernauts that will completly fight over youre easy kill.

You will experiense raining lightsabers so if u wanna heal do that on youre mercenery if you wanna dps reroll powertech pyro spec or a melee class for the game is atm set up like : PVE is for Ranged and PVP is for Melee :)

So listen to those that say this rubbish isnt gonna help you, and if you truly belive in youre bh do play it cause it is up to that is gonna enjoy the game anyway ;)

BUT BE AWARE that you will have some nice wz with new dinged players and a completly mind crushing frustration on wz against good geard melee with pocket healers wich is atm all u see in WZ now

:cool:

 

So happy hunting and il hope u will have fun regardless of youre choice

 

thanks for your opinion. i know im not the best pvper but i sure as h3ll ain't no scrub. i always play the objectives and know where place myself so i don't get completely r*ped. why should i listen to everyone else? just because they were no good playing the spec i am doesn't mean im the same way. just because you take the easy way out and mostly play fotm classes shows you are weak minded and easily swayed.

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I have a Merc Arsenal and i want to say 2 things.

 

on PVE is somewhat unbeatable in damage output, if you have a tank that know how to do it's work and you spam regularly your chaff flare to loose aggro, you don't need survivability skills, because you're far away from the danger area most of the time (and besides, in rakata/Bh equip i've also 22k hp and 2000+ aim, so whatever, Marauder are much more squishy). Also you have a permanent 30% armor penetration due to high velocity gas cilinder, and you're in heavy armor too (compared to other dps usually in medium or light, except the Jugg).

 

on PVP, there are classes much better, and Pyro it's also more useful than Arsenal because it will give you much more mobility on the battlefield: at side of that, Pyro has pathetic damage output on PVE bosses, so if you roll a Pyro - Merc you would probably use it only for pvp for the sake of the others; Arsenal it's too static in PVP, unless you have a strong first line and a good healer, you're almost doomed in every WZ.

 

I haven't tried the bodyguard spech because i'm not interested in that healing class, but from second hand experience my friends says that it's not that good in sustaining big dmg output on PVE (works fine in PVP tough).

 

 

Oh, and just to be clear about that: when i say "PVE" i mean HM FPS, OPS and so on, not heroics bosses or class/planetary quest pve.. i don't even consider them

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Roll a Pyro Merc for Deeps. That's what I run and I put up huge numbers. The class is a blast to play. Arsenal is below average in PVP unless you have a dedicated guard and/or a pocket healer, even then it's only average. I haven't met an exceptional Arsenal Merc yet. Too much is required to make an Arsenal Merc shine. Pyro on the other hand, you're a beast all by yourself.
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