Just curious...why not AP?

[planet_J]

I see most powertechs go Pyro or tank...why not AP spec...what about it is less useful or beneficial for pve/pvp?

[Ghostlink]

Pretty sure when it comes down to it Pyro just does more DPS plain and simple. Although I've heard AP can come close to Pyro in PvE in terms of DPS, it suffers in PvP for two main reasons. First, Pyro has a much bigger burst which is extremely important in PvP. Second, one of the key abilities of AP, the buffed flamethrower isn't very useful since it can be avoided/cancelled easily (not to mention you have to stand still). A lot of the talents are really good imo (such as the AoE/Stunned damage reduction or the movement speed skill) for PvP. Just needs a few buffs here and there. Edited January 9, 2013 by Ghostlink

[KettleBelll]

AP is pretty awesome, but some of your spec points go into Defense (Stabilized Armor) or Utility (15% movement buff, Hydraulic Overrides, 10sec reduction on grapple)

 

 

Most players would rather just spec damage, damage, and damage.

[FeralPug]

AP is pretty awesome, but some of your spec points go into Defense (Stabilized Armor) or Utility (15% movement buff, Hydraulic Overrides, 10sec reduction on grapple)

 

 

Most players would rather just spec damage, damage, and damage.

 

No. This is not why AP is seldom played.

 

AP is seldom played due to the following:

 

1. A finicky channeled AOE cone that is subject to server lag, and to stuns will never make for a good anchor of a PVP spec. Competent opponents can easily anticipate this ability, and avoid it. It's 100% pure junk.

 

2. High Energy Gas Cylinder is crappy. It's prototype cylinder buff should increase crit chance due to the fact that nothing else does in the AP tree. You are absolutely dependent on critting if you want anything resembling decent DPS, but there is no crit buff built into the tree. This makes min/maxing for AP not as effective as min/maxing other specs because you can't stack power (unlike specs like pyro, rage, carnage etc.).

 

3. Retractable Blade, and all its accouterments, is extremely expensive for what you actually get in terms of skill points.

 

4. Pyrotech does more DPS, is more mobile, and is several orders of magnitude more bursty than AP. It's also more survivable due to extreme burst, and to energy rebounder. You can activate shield way less as AP, kill slower and therefore you are actually more squishy than pyro.

 

Advanced Prototype is a collection of great ideas jumbled together. It's a spec without any real teeth. It has no place in competitive PVP.

 

We've said it over and over again in the forums: Powertechs have one single viable skill tree: pyrotech. If you are not playing this tree in PVP, you are doing it wrong.

 

I have no idea how the specs compare in PVE as I don't play that game. I do know that AP parses very close to pyro for me, yet they are absolutely worlds apart in terms of PVP effectiveness.

Edited January 9, 2013 by FeralPug

[RjuDju]

I think one of the biggest drawbacks atm is ur biggest hit is channeled. Now if your others lowered the cooldown on it even more, then maybe it wouldnt be so bad. I was having fun with AP the other night until i ran into a bubble healer, i couldnt get one PFT off w/o being stunned. Maybe if hydraulic overrides included cc immunity then it could be viable and wouldnt effect pve.

[Zunayson]

No. This is not why AP is seldom played.

 

AP is seldom played due to the following:

 

1. A finicky channeled AOE cone that is subject to server lag, and to stuns will never make for a good anchor of a PVP spec. Competent opponents can easily anticipate this ability, and avoid it. It's 100% pure junk.

 

2. High Energy Gas Cylinder is crappy. It's prototype cylinder buff should increase crit chance due to the fact that nothing else does in the AP tree. You are absolutely dependent on critting if you want anything resembling decent DPS, but there is no crit buff built into the tree. This makes min/maxing for AP not as effective as min/maxing other specs because you can't stack power (unlike specs like pyro, rage, carnage etc.).

 

3. Retractable Blade, and all its accouterments, is extremely expensive for what you actually get in terms of skill points.

 

4. Pyrotech does more DPS, is more mobile, and is several orders of magnitude more bursty than AP. It's also more survivable due to extreme burst, and to energy rebounder. You can activate shield way less as AP, kill slower and therefore you are actually more squishy than pyro.

 

Advanced Prototype is a collection of great ideas jumbled together. It's a spec without any real teeth. It has no place in competitive PVP.

 

We've said it over and over again in the forums: Powertechs have one single viable skill tree: pyrotech. If you are not playing this tree in PVP, you are doing it wrong.

 

I have no idea how the specs compare in PVE as I don't play that game. I do know that AP parses very close to pyro for me, yet they are absolutely worlds apart in terms of PVP effectiveness.

 

You get +6 to elemental damage critting in the first tier, and +15% to rocket punch.

 

But yeah AP isn't good for pvping

[midnightRamen]

That's so sad to hear. I just started a BH, thinking of using AP for PvP, cuz you know, slicing jedis up with a blade sounds ******

[NurseDonut]

Vanguard here. I'll try to get your names right but forgive me if I make a mistake.

 

I played pyro for a long time. It's good. It's very, very bursty. I can fault no-one for playing this spec. But for a change I have been trying AP. It's been about 6 weeks now. I originally started in high energy, but I found it pretty inferior to pyro, like a damage build without the damage part.

 

So, I switched to ion. It's a bit of a paradigm shift. I've been focusing on survivability, on guarding, taunting and peeling for the healers, and on holding the main nodes. It's been pretty fun. I'm not doing as much damage, but I am dying a lot less. And when working with a good healer, we can hold that main node for a very long time. The spec is not for everyone, and it's probably not as effective as pure pyro, but it is fun.

 

Prototype flame thrower sounds great, but it is flaky. It's rare to get the whole thing off without getting stunned, or knocked back, or having it bug and do no damage. Lately, my favourite bug is when it fires backwards (as a vanguard this looks a lot like you bend over and shoot lightning out of your butt). I've gotten away from using it on cooldown. Now I only use it when several players are ignoring me and attacking my guarded target. Assuming that half of the ticks crit, I can hit each enemy for about 6K over the full duration. That sure doesn't seem like much compared to a modern lolsmash.

Edited January 9, 2013 by NurseDonut

[planet_J]

So totally workable in pve...pvp not so much...

[FeralPug]

You get +6 to elemental damage critting in the first tier, and +15% to rocket punch.

 

But yeah AP isn't good for pvping

 

Yeah, I wasn't very clear.

 

To be more precise, AP lacks the built-in crit/surge synergy that a lot of other specs have. With AP you are forced to forego power for crit, which is lacking because not enough is built into the spec/cylinder. If PFT doesn't crit, you're really losing a lot of dps.

 

Adding more crit/surge synergy into AP would go a long way to easing the itemization trade-offs that you have to make just to keep the spec even remotely on par with other DPS specs.

 

The fundamental issue though, is flame thrower. Until they improve that ability, AP will always be DOA.

[Zunayson]

Yeah, I wasn't very clear.

 

To be more precise, AP lacks the built-in crit/surge synergy that a lot of other specs have. With AP you are forced to forego power for crit, which is lacking because not enough is built into the spec/cylinder. If PFT doesn't crit, you're really losing a lot of dps.

 

Adding more crit/surge synergy into AP would go a long way to easing the itemization trade-offs that you have to make just to keep the spec even remotely on par with other DPS specs.

 

The fundamental issue though, is flame thrower. Until they improve that ability, AP will always be DOA.

 

aren't other specs like that? concealment gets a whopping +16% to their behind attacks, MM gets like +8% to their snipe and channeled move. We get +6% to basically everything...

[Nanarchist]

The ap cylinder is crap, play AP with the tank one. You are a lot more tanky and you have the guard. Plus stop saying **** about pyro being more mobile than AP, you're totally wrong.

[ceelaniri]

The ap cylinder is crap, play AP with the tank one. You are a lot more tanky and you have the guard. Plus stop saying **** about pyro being more mobile than AP, you're totally wrong.

 

It is debatable.

 

While Hydraulic Override makes you more mobile in combat (plus the possibility to have innate +15% in combat speed if using the right cell) as AP but then again assuming that as an AP spec you would want to set up proto FT, it makes you less mobile than pyro.

 

Pyro never has to stop to dps while it is not the case for AP.

[NoTomorrow]

It is debatable.

 

While Hydraulic Override makes you more mobile in combat (plus the possibility to have innate +15% in combat speed if using the right cell) as AP but then again assuming that as an AP spec you would want to set up proto FT, it makes you less mobile than pyro.

 

Pyro never has to stop to dps while it is not the case for AP.

 

Pyro is a free kill for any competent non lethality sniper, unless for some reason he ends up behind a pilar within 10m range. The real prblem with AP and the most important one is that it cannot kill good op healers.

[johnpickard]

Ive never tried AP for PvP, because just looking at the tree you can see that it isnt going to work well due to your biggest hit requiring you to stand still and channel. However, it is usable for PvE. it puts out a godd amount of damage, and has some nice utilities, like the speed buff.

 

I used it for a while, but switched over to pyro hybrid (which is just pyro without TD) even for PvE because of the fights that occur in the higher end raids. ZnT in EC and Stage 3 of the dread guard in TFB are decent examples. These fights are usually quite mobile, and its common for the boss to move out of range of the flamethrower while you are channeling (at least in my experience) making for a wasted channel. On the other hand, in Pyro, yo ucan always move an attack, and the Proc of a free railshot ~6 seconds, that also reduces heat by 8, makes for some huge damage numbers.

 

Simply put, Pyro will out-DPS AP every single time, but you can still have a lot of fun in AP for PvE

[FeralPug]

aren't other specs like that? concealment gets a whopping +16% to their behind attacks, MM gets like +8% to their snipe and channeled move. We get +6% to basically everything...

 

Yup, and concealment is a dead spec.

 

Marksman is solid, but for other reasons than lack of crit built into the tree.

 

Thanks fer makin my point for me!

[yoomazir]

It kinda saddens me that Rocket Punch benefits a lot with the AP tree, yet the best skill for it is right in the middle of the Shield Tech tree (Flame Shield for the reset cooldown). Edited January 11, 2013 by yoomazir

[Pysces]

I'll say this, OP: Yes, you lose some burst, but honestly, AP is a very fun spec in my opinion, and I can consider myself formidable all the same. I've killed me some geared pyrotechs, which is pretty satisfying too. Just use ion gas cylinder. It's really fun how tanky you can be while still doing quite nice dps. I go 10/31/0 personally.

[FeralPug]

I'll say this, OP: Yes, you lose some burst, but honestly, AP is a very fun spec in my opinion, and I can consider myself formidable all the same. I've killed me some geared pyrotechs, which is pretty satisfying too. Just use ion gas cylinder. It's really fun how tanky you can be while still doing quite nice dps. I go 10/31/0 personally.

 

AP with ion can be a great fallback for 1v1's.

[thecoffeeguy]

This is what I run currently:

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301hRrZrsMrobfkdM.2

 

I run it with Ion Cell. I find, at this time, I can guard healers and put out a good amount of damage. There are some abilities that I like a lot, like the slow from retractable blade, increasing rail shot crit, reducing the cool down on Grapple and Electro dart and hydraulic overrides.

 

I started testing this so I could be less squishy running Ion cell as well as guarding healers. If you can get setup with a good healer and you guard him, you can be a real PITA to kill.

 

Its not for everyone for sure. Not sure what lvl 50 PVP is going to be like, but I can always go back to pyro. As a change though, I find this fun at the moment.

[Pysces]

I would recommend this spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301hMhMZMsrrobfkds.2

It offers the extra armor, extra aim (more damage), and immolate is a low cost, pretty high damaging skill.

[FeralPug]

I use Combust instead of the armoring boost.