combat help

[tanerb]

after dying multiple times with my bounty hunter, i accepted the fact that i suck at combat. i can not use anything other than rapid shot effectively. for example power shot, when i activate it, it takes ages to reload and then damage is even less than rapid shot. sometimes it is interrupted before the bar is filled. any attack other than rapid shot takes alot of time while my enemies close in and hit relentlessly. then i try to spam attacks ending up (assuming) one cancelling each other (as my guy does not do anything but just stand as i hit buttons relentlessly) results in death. when do you guys decide it is best to hit the button for the next attack? after the animation? i see my qucik bar, buttons are lighted and darked and a horizontal bar goes up and down but really could not figure what the right timing is. is there any documet or guide out there? yes, i am that bad Edited March 29, 2013 by tanerb

[KBerling]

What level are you?

 

I think what you don't understand is the "global cooldown". As a general rule, you can only execute an attack every 1.5 seconds. This mechanic keeps the game from devolving into a spam fest.

 

Go to preferences and make sure your attack queue is set to its highest setting (1 second). Then it's a matter of getting a feel for the timing. You don't have to wait until an attack animation is completed to trigger the next attack. But you will have to wait at least .5 seconds (1.5 second global cooldown - 1.0 second you can queue in advance). If you press an attack before that .5 seconds is up, it will not execute.

 

There are also attack cooldowns. This is what you're looking at on your quickbar. If the icon is just rolling, it is ready to be used. If it has a fill bar, it is under "ability cooldown" and you won't be able to use it until the cooldown expires.

 

Make sure you learn the cooldown, if any, for all your abilities. Every class has at least 1 attack without any ability cooldown and so that attack is only subject to global cooldown. You can always rely on that one although it usually does minimal damage.

 

Other than these sugestsions, without knowing your level, it's not possible to suggest much more. I will say though that you want to avoid large groups if possible and always target and kill from weakest to strongest.

Edited March 29, 2013 by KBerling

[tanerb]

I am level 12. The problem is from the point I activate the attack until the end of animation, whenever I try to do another attack, it cancels the existing one. For example if I am in the middle of unload and firing to enemy and I press power shot, my character stops unloading and then recharging for power shot begins, similarly if I am elevated and in the middle of death from above, character will land (before finishing his animation) and start charging for powershot. So I can never really queue. I know others don't have problem so I must be doing something wrong but don't know what

[Merouk]

First of all, cooldowns:

 

- When you activate an ability, there's a 1.5 second cooldown where all other abilities are disabled. This prevents you from spamming the button more often than 1-potato-and-1/2. You should get used to this rhythm.

 

- Some abilities take a lot longer than 1.5 seconds to recharge. Typically you see 9-12 seconds, 30-45 seconds, 3 minutes, 15 minutes as the typical timers. That means you can't spam these; you hit the 45 second one, then then 9 second one, then a filler attack, then another filler attack, then the 9 second one again, etc. This forces you to have what we call a "rotation", where your fight is an ordered sequence of abilities depending on their cooldown timers.

 

Second, resource management:

 

- Each class has a "resource" that they must manage: heat, ammo, rage, mana, whatever; if they waste it, they will run out and be unable to use any abilities until that resource recharges. A Sith Warrior, for example, won't be able to use his attacks until he builds up some rage; all attacks are disabled unless the Warrior starts the fight with the 1-2 attacks that actually build rage. Your Bounty Hunter has heat; as you use abilities, some of them generate A LOT of heat, and some don't generate any heat at all, and you must alternate between high-heat and no-heat abilities so that your heat stays low. This is another thing that forces you to use your abilities in a certain order, in addition to the cooldown timers.

 

Third, ability effect:

 

- You must read the ability text to see what each one does. Some of them are openers; you start the fight with them because they have a long cooldown, or generate a lot of heat, or hit at range (before the enemies have closed in on you). Some of them are finishers; you can only use them when the target has low health, or is stunned, or is incapacitated, etc. Others are AoE abilities that you don't need to use if you're fighting a single enemy. Others cause a stun etc. So all of these things determine WHEN you should be using these abilities.

 

You should search the internet for guides on how to play swtor Bounty Hunter; this guide is pretty detailed but doesn't talk about the actual abilities too much; perhaps you can find a better one.

[psandak]

First of all, cooldowns:

 

- When you activate an ability, there's a 1.5 second cooldown where all other abilities are disabled. This prevents you from spamming the button more often than 1-potato-and-1/2. You should get used to this rhythm.

 

- Some abilities take a lot longer than 1.5 seconds to recharge. Typically you see 9-12 seconds, 30-45 seconds, 3 minutes, 15 minutes as the typical timers. That means you can't spam these; you hit the 45 second one, then then 9 second one, then a filler attack, then another filler attack, then the 9 second one again, etc. This forces you to have what we call a "rotation", where your fight is an ordered sequence of abilities depending on their cooldown timers.

 

Second, resource management:

 

- Each class has a "resource" that they must manage: heat, ammo, rage, mana, whatever; if they waste it, they will run out and be unable to use any abilities until that resource recharges. A Sith Warrior, for example, won't be able to use his attacks until he builds up some rage; all attacks are disabled unless the Warrior starts the fight with the 1-2 attacks that actually build rage. Your Bounty Hunter has heat; as you use abilities, some of them generate A LOT of heat, and some don't generate any heat at all, and you must alternate between high-heat and no-heat abilities so that your heat stays low. This is another thing that forces you to use your abilities in a certain order, in addition to the cooldown timers.

 

Third, ability effect:

 

- You must read the ability text to see what each one does. Some of them are openers; you start the fight with them because they have a long cooldown, or generate a lot of heat, or hit at range (before the enemies have closed in on you). Some of them are finishers; you can only use them when the target has low health, or is stunned, or is incapacitated, etc. Others are AoE abilities that you don't need to use if you're fighting a single enemy. Others cause a stun etc. So all of these things determine WHEN you should be using these abilities.

 

You should search the internet for guides on how to play swtor Bounty Hunter; this guide is pretty detailed but doesn't talk about the actual abilities too much; perhaps you can find a better one.

 

Fourth ability cast times...

 

- there are three basic "cast times"

instant - the ability is used the moment you activate it. Rapid shots is like this. You press the hot key to activate it, it goes off, it does damage. You can use these abilities on the move because they take no time to use.

 

cast time - the ability takes a second or two to activate. power shot is like this. You press the hot key and the "cast bar" comes up and then two seconds later the ability fires and does damage. You have to stand still for these abilities, but you can queue up another ability while it is finishing (timing is the only issue).

 

channeled - the ability activates right away but it does its thing over time. Unload is like this. You press the hot key, the ability starts, but the "cast bar" appears and goes in "reverse" (counting down rather than up). Over the course of that countdown the ability does damage at intervals. Again you have to stand still for these abilities to work and you have to wait until they are over before activating another ability or else you interrupt the channeling process.

[tanerb]

thank you all. this forum is much better than anything I found on the net. final question is there a way to see my queued activities?

[Merouk]

If you hit ESC and go to preferences, you should be able to see two options somewhere in there:

 

- queue length which you can set up to 1 second, so when you hit a key for an ability it will wait up to 1 second for your current one to finish casting

 

- queued indicator - which changes the border of the icon to green, I believe. It's so hard to see on my computer, especially in the middle of combat, that I don't bother with it. You can only queue 1 ability, so if you hit 1,2,3,4 in quick succession, it will cast 1 and queue 4 to be cast as soon as 1 is done. Or if 1 takes more than 1 second, 4 will expire and nothing will be queued.

 

I just configured my queue to 1 second (maximum), and otherwise just got myself used to waiting 1.5 seconds between pushing buttons, and NOT spamming them. If you have a programmable gamepad where you can group all your buttons on the keyboard numpad and on the gamepad (left)-numpad, it's a bit like playing a slow piano; you have to push certain notes in a certain rhythm to get your character to fight fluidly.

Edited March 29, 2013 by Merouk

[KBerling]

You do have to wait out abilities that are channeled or have an activation. If you move or press another ability, an in-progress channeled abilitly will stop and an ability that requires an activation will terminate before discharge. You will also find later that the bad guys can interrupt you or pushback. These actions will also terminate channeled and activation abilities. Your attempt at using the ability fails but you're stuck with the ability cooldown.

[amaresch]

Make sure you are using Mako correctly. Depending if you are playing a DPS, Heals, or Tank- you will have to make sure she is set into the correct stance that complements your character. You'll have to set her either med watch or shooter.

 

If you are a tank, setting up Mako as dps or heals is for the most part up to what you like best. Sometimes, depending on the situation it will be worth a try to switch her stance.

 

If you are A DPS, again it's up to your play style. At the lower levels I will set her up as DPS also and just burn through bad guys. Some fights will necessitate you changing her to heals

 

If you are a healer, she will almost certainly have to be set up as DPS.

 

As you get into the higher levels, you'll get better and get access to gear with specified attributes (crit, surge, alacrity, defense, etc) that you'll apply to your character and Mako, (or other companion)

 

But, you are lucky- Bounty Hunters are the only class whose first companion is heals. I used her exclusively all the way up to level 50. Good thing I like her, I guess.

[redfurry]

thank you all. this forum is much better than anything I found on the net. final question is there a way to see my queued activities?

 

Maybe "queue" is a bit of a misleading word. You cannot press a series of abilities and have your character perform them in sequence. The basic idea is, you have to perform the sequence yourself; the only exception to this, is you can queue *one* ability a bit before the one that is currently executing has finished. This is more efficient since there is zero time between finishing one attack and starting the next one. But it isn't that necessary at early levels.

 

One important point. You say you are a level 12 Bounty Hunter. You have picked your Advanced Class, either Powertech or Mercenary, right? Because if you haven't, that would be the main source of your frustration - you are missing on a bunch of your abilities and skills, that is why everything feels so hard.