mykaelmjr Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 The title says it all. I'm considering rolling a commando and was wondering if an Assault Specialist's dps is competitive with gunnery. I'm not a fan of how stationary gunnery is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlznSmri Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 The title says it all. I'm considering rolling a commando and was wondering if an Assault Specialist's dps is competitive with gunnery. I'm not a fan of how stationary gunnery is. I'm not sure if it's competitive with Gunnery, but it's completely Viable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyronamics Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 (edited) Yes. As with all classes the real barrier to being successful is knowing the class and the fight. Sometimes you might have been better as a Gunnery, sometimes not. I get a lot of the mobile roles as Assault in ops. Guy on the ground in SC/FB, guy chasing anomalies in TTFB, Toth or Zorn? ofc im on Zorn, Fabricator? button man. Edited November 14, 2012 by Gyronamics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladwar Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Yes. As with all classes the real barrier to being successful is knowing the class and the fight. Sometimes you might have been better as a Gunnery, sometimes not. I get a lot of the mobile roles as Assault in ops. Guy on the ground in SC/FB, guy chasing anomalies in TTFB, Toth or Zorn? ofc im on Zorn, Fabricator? button man. see that just shows u don't put out the same dps as gunnery in pve. lol i played assault pre 1.5 and i did good dps but i mostly did well when i crited alot so my dps was either near top or the bottom dps in ops. but theres nothing wrong with gunnery or assault for pve purposes but i wouldn't want to use gunnery for pvp and i like the more stable dps of gunnery during pve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyronamics Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Well you keep that frame of mind if you like it but we're progressing through EC NiM with me as Assault in an 8m. Zorn: 936khp, I did 414k or 44% Best run on Firebrand was 8% (948/1030kph) and again, 44% of the damage with 419k, add damage is separate and was another 170k. Basically, as long as you can pull your weight, you're a useful ops member. When an operation consists of whacking a ships dummy with no movement and no interruptions and requiring no fight knowledge or awareness then I'll call it a day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykaelmjr Posted November 19, 2012 Author Share Posted November 19, 2012 I'm trying to decide if I should leave my vanguard for an assault commando due to range. I just wanted to know if anyone knew of the best spec now for an assault commando and how many of the abilities are channeled? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheronFett Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 Gunnery is always going to be more desirable because of the armor debuff. Yes, you're a stationary turret, but for most Ops encounters, you shouldn't need to be that mobile anyway. There are a few exceptions where Assault would be better (Kephess the Undying in TFB for example) because you have to move around a lot more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hiniba Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 I think a lot is dependent on the rest of the group. My guild has a lot of Jedi Guardians and Gunnery Commandos so I welcome assault spec commandos with open arms. Why? Because When your 8 man group has a Guardian tank, Guardian DPS and 2 Gunnery DPS on a single boss encounter their armor is so riddled who gives a crud if it's riddled a bit more. Reducing the enemies armor is nice but it suffers diminishing returns fast. (In fact I switch out of combat spec into watchman spec when I run with such a group because who cares if I can ignore 100% of the enemies 20% armor) I mean who cares if you take off 35% of his remaining 30% armor (these aren't actual numbers just an example). Now with fights with multiple bosses this diminished returns go away quickly so it doesn't matter as much. I welcome having someone who can reduce armor in the group, there's a noticeable difference in group dps when they are present and when they are replaced with say a random other dps that doesn't offer than role. But I'm rambling. The point is it works. Gunnery I think is more likely to be a better choice but as the number of guardians/gunnery commandos in the group increases the utility they offer goes down while your utility remains constant. But like others said if you make it work you'll be fine for most content. You might stuggle to pull the numbers needed for NiM EC and HM TfB for example but it's a fine tree IF you are careful with your build and are very effective with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyronamics Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 Hiniba You don't get diminishing returns with armour debuffs. 3 types can put an armour debuff on, slinger, gunnery and guardian of any kind. Each of them can put a 20% debuff on the 30% or whatever armour the boss has. If someone else puts a 20% debuff on it is ignored. You can only benefit from one armour debuff at a time and the highest stacked one up to 20% is the one you benefit from. They removed stacking some time ago now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oaceen Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 (edited) I'm trying to decide if I should leave my vanguard for an assault commando due to range. I just wanted to know if anyone knew of the best spec now for an assault commando and how many of the abilities are channeled? you replace ion pulse and stockstrike with charged bolts (1.5s cast) and full auto (3s channel), respectively nothing gives 100% chance to proc plasma cell like ion pulse, but charged bolts and full auto are both weapon attacks, so at least it's something but vanguards definitely have the edge here with ion pulse doing so much for the rotation and charged bolts, by comparison, doing very little you get an extra 30% armor pen with full auto, and lose 30% with high impact bolt. vanguard has the edge here as well. my only real complaints about commando assault are charged bolts having such a low chance to proc plasma cell, and the overall design of the skill tree. first, there seems to be only 9 useful/necessary points for PVE out of the first 15. after that you can choose between more alacrity (useful, but not necessary), more ranged/melee defense (not even force/tech), more endurance (not even all that useful), ammo return on being incapacitated (PVP skill), a very useless snare (PVP skill), removal of movement impairing effects on reactive shield (PVP skill) then assault also relies too much on putting 10 points in gunnery to be effective: -.5s cast-time on charged bolts, +3% tech crit, -70% pushback for charged bolts/full auto i'd love if it something inside the assault tree negated the need to spend those points (especially if it could replace some of the first two rows) so i could get more ammo back on recharged cells (which would synergize well with the reduced CD) or +3% ranged/tech crit from combat medic vanguard, by comparison, benefits so much from other trees: +6% elemental damage, elemental damage crit, HIB damage, ion pulse damage. along with +30% HIB armor pen. and most of that is in the first tier. and in the assault tree, instead of commando's 4% alacrity boost, vanguard gets +8% to stockstrike damage. instead of 30% armor penetration on HIB (which it already surpasses), they get a 100% chance for ion pulse to proc plasma cell. what commando has instead though: plasma grenade. 4 ammo, about 4k damage (non-crit) over 6s on a 30s cd. basically i just spam it whenever reserve powercell is up, especially when i'm bursting something down. full auto has a higher chance to proc HIB resets than stockstrike (75% vs 60%), and has a 30% (or so) chance to proc plasma cell all on its own, whereas stockstrike has a 0% chance to proc plasma cell. ion pulse is a bread-and-butter attack that does NOT benefit from Rain of Fire, whereas the equivalent, charged bolts, does. rapid recharge could be an edge for commandos with the extra 2 ammo from cell capacitor, but, as i said, the trees favor picking up 10 points in gunnery comparing commando assault to commando gunnery, i've felt for a long time that gunnery is just better than assault, and that, if you're an assault, just go vanguard. assault is just a lot more fun than gunnery though, and i've been playing it a lot lately to try to see how much i can get out of the spec. i feel that i have gunnery's rotation well in hand, and i do really with the spec, but it's very boring. grav round times infinity occasionally interrupted by 3 other attacks when they come off CD. i'm getting used to the rotation and seem to do comparable damage to my gunnery. overall i like the rotation better, and i also like the on-demand burst for assault more as well. with gunnery, i have to build up several grav rounds, then i can unload with my big attacks, overall the damage is very spiky, but there's no front-loaded burst and no finisher. but with assault, i can throw a plasma grenade and assault plastique for upfront damage burst. the second a target is burning, almost all of my attacks do 9% more damage. and assault has a finisher with burnout. assault is definitely viable though. here is a log i did of HM TFB from a few weeks ago as assault specialist. we had some aggro issues on writhing horror, kept getting adds, so we had to try that one a few times, so only pay attention to the last attempt. we also had a lot of pulls on operator ix with the invisibility bug, so ignore all of those until the last one. the first pull of kephess was a one-attempt fail (it was getting late and decided for only one attempt), so ignore that one. but here are the numbers: writhing horror kill: 1518 dread guard: 1381 operator ix kill: 1023 Edited November 19, 2012 by oaceen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyronamics Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 (edited) then assault also relies too much on putting 10 points in gunnery to be effective: -.5s cast-time on charged bolts, +3% tech crit, -70% pushback for charged bolts/full auto I don't spec for pushback resistance. Took 3% more crit everything from medic. Does more damage when free to cast and when doing everything else too. Technically I PVE in a PVP style and will stop casting when I take damage and use instants til the attacking goes away. Edited November 19, 2012 by Gyronamics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oaceen Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 (edited) I don't spec for pushback resistance. Took 3% more crit everything from medic. Does more damage when free to cast and when doing everything else too. Technically I PVE in a PVP style and will stop casting when I take damage and use instants til the attacking goes away. with so many fights that have constant raid-wide AOE damage: writhing horror, kephess (both fights), zorn & toth, and especially operator ix and colonel vorgath, i really can't see how 3% crit is worth 100% pushback on your highest-damaging attack it's not about when you accidentally pull aggro. it's for all of those AOEs. it may work for you, but i really don't think anyone can argue that it's recommended. Edited November 19, 2012 by oaceen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DariusCalera Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 (edited) I don't spec for pushback resistance. Took 3% more crit everything from medic. Does more damage when free to cast and when doing everything else too. Technically I PVE in a PVP style and will stop casting when I take damage and use instants til the attacking goes away. Just curious as to why you didn't take both. Edited November 19, 2012 by DariusCalera Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyronamics Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 Just curious as to why you didn't take both. Because I like Assault Plastique too much. Healers don't expect you to do much damage on the move especially if some distance away. Two timed grenades, a couple of DoTs and a HiB followed by a procced HiB tends to cause them healing issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyronamics Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 (edited) For any further questions about Assault Commando in Operations I direct you to these clips: Toth & Zorn NiM 8man Firebrand & Stormcaller NiM 8man Colonel Vorgath NiM 8man Edited November 20, 2012 by Gyronamics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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