How do I kill weak/strong enemies quickly?

[Chrismilk]

I seem to have a hard time killing these enemies in a flashpoint quickly. (Gunnery)

 

Which rotation is good for a quick burst with little preparation??

 

Do I really need to stack grav round and use all my procs??

 

(Tionese gear, fresh 50)

[oaceen]

unless you're using CC, start with sticky grenade and tech override + reserve powercell + plasma grenade. after that, unload with mortar volley. these will knock down any weak mobs and/or set them on fire and essentially incapacitate them. while they're down (assuming that they die from further AOE), focus on the strongs with grav round / full auto / demo round / high impact bolt

if the little adds get up before being killed off, use hail of bolts and pulse cannon to finish them off

 

 

if you're using CC, you'll have to be a bit more creative. use tech override and concussive round for an instant CC, and use sticky grenade on a strong mob (on a weak mob, it'll hold him in place). on a strong mob, he'll come with the rest of the group to the tank, and when stick grenade explodes, all the weak mobs will fall down with it. once they're out of range, use the same strategies as above: mortal volley, plasma grenade with reserve powercell, and focus down stronger mobs with single target stuff

Edited January 30, 2013 by oaceen

[Furiel]

What Oacean said, just a couple things I do, 1) I don't use tech override when throwing plasma grenade unless you are getting shot because it's a 1.5 sec cast time anyway so using TO gains you nothing except pushback avoidance and movement if needed. Using RPC is a good idea tho because PG is very ammo heavy.

 

2) I use HiB and DR without alot of stacks on the trash because the windup takes too long and they will die before I'm done. Usually I'll rotate through my big hitters, mob 1 eats FA, next 1 GR then DR, next mob gets 1 GR followed with a HIB. Throw explosive round as needed if a mob is about to die and you won't be able to get through a full GR cast before he's dead. Since it's instant the damage gets applied right away so it gives you a little more damage on the mob rather than standing there and watching your GR get to 1.3 seconds and cancel because the mob just died.

 

3) Don't forget about Hail of Bolts. It's not great, but if you have a gaggle of little mobs and both MV and PG are on CD it'll put out a decent amount of DPS assuming there are 4 or more targets to hit with it. Less than that and it's not really worth the ammo cost and you're better for just single targetting them down.

 

Ultimately the lesson is don't play optimally when fighting trash because it dies too fast for you to be able to do that.

[CaptianFordo]

Having the companion HK-51 will allow you to one shot a regular or strong enemy after he stacks 5 of Assassinate. You can't attack first and you must wait for him to do so (it's a channeled ability for him), but he can one shot any enemy with that ability that's regular or strong. Elite and higher can't be killed with this method however...

[Kitru]

Having the companion HK-51 will allow you to one shot a regular or strong enemy after he stacks 5 of Assassinate.

 

The OP was asking about how to kill them quickly in a flashpoint. Unless you're running short a player, HK isn't going to be all that useful.

 

Personally, I don't use HK whatsoever. Unless you're in entry level gear, you're going to be able to kill a strong in less time than it takes to stand around waiting for HK to finish casting Assassinate every time it's up. It was amusing the first few times I did it, but the fact that you're literally not allowed to enter combat until it's finished casting will actually end up slowing you down most likely. It doesn't help that HK doesn't have any AoEs and uses Droid gear so it's a massive pain to actually gear him up, so it's even more annoying.

[MGNMTTRN]

(All DPS will be reported before crits, as the difference in tech/ranged crit will not change damage ratios much)

 

Hail of Bolts is one of the worst AoEs in the game. You should think of it as an AoE Hammershot. I will report the damage spreads on my Commando to illustrate why:

Hail of Bolts: 2465 - 2959 damage = 2712 expected damage over 3 seconds = 904 DPS, before armor penetration from the AP cell or plasma procs from the Plasma cell. After 35% armor it does closer to 587.6 DPS.

Hammershot: 1075 to 1384 = 1229.5 expected damage over 1.5 seconds, or 819 DPS, before armor penetration from the AP cell or plasma procs from the Plasma cell. After 35% armor it does closer to 532.35 DPS on a single target.

 

Compare that to Pulse Cannon, which deals 3564 damage/3 seconds = 1188 DPS. Pulse Cannon does not suffer a 35% damage reduction from enemy armor, and costs 3 ammo compared to Hail of Bolt's 4 ammo.

 

As other posters have said, Plasma Grenade is also nice if you have the spare ammo and/or don't want to waddle into melee range to fire off your Pulse Cannon. My Plasma Grenade's spread is 1661 - 1757 kinetic = 1709 expected damage over 1.5 seconds + 2070 elemental damage over 6 seconds. (1709*0.65 + 2070)/1.5 = 2120.56 DPS.

 

I personally use Sticky + Pulse Cannon to clear most FP trash. If I throw a sticky, that's 2 ammo lost but I will quickly regen at least one ammo, then start the 3 second channel on Pulse Cannon. During this time I will regen enough ammo to get back into the 8-12 ammo bracket, and I will be free to cast another spell rather than hammershotting. If I start a fight by casting Plasma Grenade I'll go from 12 ammo to 8 ammo and then I'll have to hammershot my way back up to high amounts of ammo, which is overall less DPS than sticky + pulse cannon.

[oaceen]

As other posters have said, Plasma Grenade is also nice if you have the spare ammo

 

If I start a fight by casting Plasma Grenade I'll go from 12 ammo to 8 ammo and then I'll have to hammershot my way back up to high amounts of ammo, which is overall less DPS than sticky + pulse cannon.

 

ok just to be clear, no one was suggesting that you hard-cast plasma grenade. everyone suggested using it with reserve powercell so that it would be free.

[nbayer]

The OP was asking about how to kill them quickly in a flashpoint. Unless you're running short a player, HK isn't going to be all that useful.

 

Personally, I don't use HK whatsoever. Unless you're in entry level gear, you're going to be able to kill a strong in less time than it takes to stand around waiting for HK to finish casting Assassinate every time it's up. It was amusing the first few times I did it, but the fact that you're literally not allowed to enter combat until it's finished casting will actually end up slowing you down most likely. It doesn't help that HK doesn't have any AoEs and uses Droid gear so it's a massive pain to actually gear him up, so it's even more annoying.

 

I made a thread about that exact issue where I suggested they make it instant or at least let you enter combat after he starts the cast and people freaked out on me asking "why was I so impatient?" and that somehow it would be OP.

 

If you enjoy nonsense...

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=566162

Edited February 20, 2013 by nbayer