Advanced Prototype Pyrotech Powertech DPS guide

[paowee]

Powertechs

 

Updated guide here -> http://swtorboard.org/2014/01/17/powertech-dps-guide-from-tac/

 

Basic Gearing

1. BiS for Pyro is 240 Crit, BiS for AP is 0 Crit

2. Source Vanguard thread

3. DPS BiS gear and AMR profiles

 

Forum version:

 

Pyrotech

 

 

4/6/36 http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801hzZMsZfhbrzRrffdz.3

 

Abilities and Skills

 

Thermal Detonator – is the capstone talent of this tree. It applies a debuff for a few seconds which deals damage after that timer runs out. The initial explosion is kinetic energy which can be mitigated, while the following DoT is elemental which deals its full damage. It will also “stun” standard and weak enemies for the duration of the first debuff, and are knocked down when the bomb detonates

• Firebug -increases its critical strike damage
  
• Riot Augs - increases its damage
  

 

Incendiary Missile – is a very strong DoT. The initial damage is small but the damage over time that follows is your strongest DoT as a Powertech.

• Burnout - increased damage to targets under 30%
  
• Riot Augs - increases Incendiary Missile’s damage
  

 

Rail Shot – is your hardest hitting ability and will deal the bulk of your damage. As of Patch 2.5, this ability is one of the hardest critting abilities in the game, which can crit for up to 10,000 damage on boss targets in full Dread Forged gear. Not to mention that the Pyrotech tree has a myriad of talents that increases your crit chance, so enjoy whenever you see this ability Crit. Talented by multiple skills in the Pyrotech tree:

• Superheated Rail - armor penetration
  
• Prototype Particle Accelerator - makes your next Rail Shot free as well as refunding you 8 extra energy
  
• Rain of Fire - increases it damage
  
• Firebug -increases its critical strike damage
  

 

Flame Burst – Expect to spam this a lot. Flame Burst sis your bread and butter ability and its DPS is second only to Rail Shot. Flame Burst is going to be your main spammable ability and is talented by the following skills:

• Prototype Particle Accelerator - resets the cooldown on Rail Shot
  
• Bursting Flame - triggers your Combustible Gas Cylinder on your target
  

 

Rocket Punch - is one of your filler abilities and should be used to reset your Rail Shot. It deals more damage than Flame Burst, but the cooldown limit means it does less DPS.

• Iron Fist – increases Rocket Punch’s damage
  
• Riot Augs - increases Rocket Punch’s damage
  

 

Rapid Shots – is your auto-attack ability that deals several hits of damage in rapid succession. Be careful when fighting a mob with damage reflect abilities. Think of Rapid Shots as your basic heat regen ability

 

Combustible Gas Cylinder - Loads your rifle with a plasma powercell, giving all of your rifle attacks a 25% chance to deal 666 additional elemental damage over 6 seconds. Only one cell can be active at a time. This is your “stance” and allows you to proc Prototype Particle Accelerator which is the core of your DPS rotation. Talented by:

• Superheated Gas - increases its damage and trigger chance
  
• Prototype Cylinders (Advanced Prototype tree) – increases your critical hit chance
  

 

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Offensive Cooldowns

 

Shoulder Cannon – is a new Powertech ability introduced in Patch 2.0. The ability requires initial activation and generates “stacks” of Rockets every 4 seconds. Hitting the ability again will launch 1 missile and can be used in rapid succession for a big burst of damage. Shoulder cannon does not respect the global cooldown and can be used on top of your other abilities as long as they are not channeled.

 

Death from Above - is a channeled abilty and is one of the best burst AoE DPS abilities in the game. It can be used to help mitigate incoming damage if used on standard and weak enemies which are knocked down for the duration of the channel.

 

Explosive Fuel - is a very strong offensive cooldown and buffs your critical chance by a huge 25% for 15 seconds. The cooldown slightly aligns with Shoulder Cannon and generates a huge burst of DPS when with your other abilities.

 

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Defensive abilities and cooldowns

 

Hydraulic Overrides - a great PvP AND PvE cooldown. There are a lot of mechanics in end-game PvE that involves knock-back, knock-up and stuns and this should be used to negate these mechanics when possible in order to maximize DPS. Examples are Grob’thok’s knock-up and Raptus conal knock-back (which you shouldn’t get hit by in the first place!) The movement speed bonus only applies when you are in combat and works great when you need to reposition quickly around the map

 

Energy Shield - a flat damage reduction cooldown that lasts for 12 seconds. This can be used in conjunction with Kolto Overload in dangerous situations. Unless you are going to get hit by a huge amount of damage, Energy Shield with Kolto Overload is a life saver most of the time.

• Electro Shield - can be talented in the Pyrotech tree to reflect damage to attackers.
  

 

Kolto Overload - the self-heal from Kolto Overload works great against frequent and small hits. The buff lasts a long time and can make you “unkillable” as long as the damage you receive is less than the speed at which the buff heals you. The ability caps out at 35% of your maximum HP and won’t be healed further than that.

 

Chaff Flare - your threat dump ability is a good defensive cooldown as well. You won’t need to use your Kolto Overload or Energy Shield if you are not getting hit (by the boss or mobs) in the first place. The best use of your threat dump is after you see the Taunt debuff on your target. Taunt increases your tank’s threat, and using Chaff Flare will reduce yours thus moving you a long way down the creature’s threat list.

 

Energy cooldowns

 

Thermal Sensor Override - for Pyrotech Powertechs this ability is best used with Incendiary Missile due to its huge energy cost.

 

Vent Heat - grants you 50 energy over 3 seconds, you will still regen energy outside of the 50 that vent Cell grants. Make sure you do not cap out on energy while this buff is present since those will be energy lost

 

Passive Skills

 

Close and Personal - Increases the duration of Energy Shield by 3 seconds. In addition, suffering direct damage from area attacks vents 2 heat and heals you for 2.5% of your total health. This effect cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds.

Flame Suit – takes reduced damage from damge over time effects

 

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Opener

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TD→TSO→IM→EF→Adrenal→SC→FB→RS→FB→FB→Rocket Punch→Rail Shot→ Chaff Flare

 

or

 

Thermal Detonator→Thermal Sensor Overrides→Incendiary Missile→Explosive Fuel→Adrenal/Relic→Shoulder Cannon→Flame Burst→Railshot→Flame Burst→Flame Burst→Rocket Punch→Rail Shot→ Chaff Flare

 

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Rotation

=============================

 

To me Pyrotech playstyle is somehow familiar to Annihilation. Over there they try to use Rupture every 6 seconds by proccing it with Pulverize (Annihilate and Vicious Slash). Over here, we try to use Rail Shot every 6 seconds by proccing Prototype Particle Accelerator (Rocket Punch and Flame Burst)

 

Rotation revolves around proccing Prototype Particle Accelerator every 6 seconds. This is done by using Flame Burst or Rocket Punch every 4 GCDs. 6 seconds is equal to 4 GCDs. One of those GCDs is going to be a Rail Shot (from the Ionic Accelertor that you procd). The other 3 is what you need to figure out.

 

GCD 1 → GCD 2 → GCD 3 → GCD 4

 

"A wild Prototype Particle Accelerator has appeared! What will you do?" Once you get a Prototype Particle Accelerator proc you have 4 GCDs left before it can proc again. One of those is always going to be Rail Shot as we have mentioned.

 

Rail Shot (from Prototype Particle Accelerator) → GCD 2 → GCD 3 → GCD 4

 

GCD 4 should always be an Flame Burst or a Rocket Punch because that is the earliest you can proc Prototype Particle Accelerator again. Flame Burst has a 45% chance while Rocket Punch has a 60% chance to proc Prototype Particle Accelerator. Rocket Punch costs the same as Flame Burst and deals more damage so be sure to use Rocket Punch if it is up, preferrably in GCD 4

 

Rail Shot (from Prototype Particle Accelerator) → GCD 2 → GCD 3 → Flame Burst

 

GCD 2 and GCD 3 is where you want to juggle your abilities

 

Priority list

 

For GCD 2 and GCD 3

 

1. Thermal Detonator
   
2. Incendiary Missile
   
3. Rocket Punch* (preferrably at GCD 4, but if not it's ok)
   
4. Flame Burst
   

 

I noticed that most of the time i'm doing

 

Rail Shot (from Prototype Particle Accelerator) → GCD 2 → Flame Burst → Flame Burst; with GCD 2 to keep Assautl Thermal Detonator or Incendiary Missile up, with the occasional auto-attack for energy regen

 

Entire priority list

1. Prototype Particle Accelerator
   
2. Thermal Detonator
   
3. Incendiary Missile
   
4. Rocket Punch
   
5. Rail Shot
   
6. Flame Burst
   
7. Rapid Shots
   

 

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Rotation explained

=============================

 

Coming from the opener above:

 

1. Thermal Detonator→TSO→Incendiary Missile→EF→Adrenal→SC→Flame Burst→Rail Shot→Flame Burst→Flame Burst→Rocket Punch→..... (Prototype Particle Accelerator proc)

 

2. (Prototype Particle Accelerator proc) Rail Shot (Chaff Flare) → GCD 2 → GCD 3 → Flame Burst …

 

Hopefully that last Flame Burst has proc’d a Prototype Particle Accelerator. If not use Flame Burst again or Rocket Punch. Most of the time you can keep Prototype Particle Accelerator intervals in 6 seconds but sometimes it might be delayed by 1 GCD because of RNG. When you see Prototype Particle Accelerator proc, remember to count 1→2→3→4 where #4 should always be a Flame Burst or Rocket Punch.

 

When Rocket Punch is up for your 4th GCD use it instead of Flame Burst for the increased chance proccing Prototype Particle Accelerator.

 

Prototype Particle Accelerator takes priority all the time. If you find Thermal Detonator is coming back up and you are in GCD 4, try to proc PPA first, and THEN use Thermal Detonator. Same goes for Incendiary Missile.

 

You don't ALWAYS have to use Rail Shot right after Prototype Particle Accelerator. If you will cap your energy bar, you are better off using 1 more GCD to use Flame Burst (or Thermal Detonator or Incendiary Missile) , before using up the Prototype Particle Accelerator proc. -Jmagee

 

Try to keep energy at a point where you dont have to rapid shots on Prototype Particle Accelerator Proc points, and time Thermal Detonator so it doesn't interrupt with Prototype Particle Accelerator Procs. -Tac

 

Keep yourself at 4 pips of energy regen at all times (above 60 amo, below 40 heat). Rapid shots is a fine filler because it can proc/refresh CGC's dot. Always line up your Explosive Fuel with Shoulder Cannon as well. -drummerinthesun

 

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AoE abilities

 

Death from Above - is great damage reduction when used on standard and weak targets due to the knock-down effect

Flame Thrower - deals damage in a frontal cone and like Death from Above is channeled throughout its duration

Explosive Dart - like Death from Above, this ability can “stun” standard and weak targets who have the grenade, and knock-down other standard and weak targets who remain in blast area effect

 

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Cooldown Priority

1. Shoulder Cannon spam
   
2. Explosive Fuel for the critical strike chance
   
3. Death from Above (on 2 or more targets)
   

 

 

Enery cooldown priority

1. Vent Heat - the buff vents heat over 3 seconds in addition to your normal heat dispersion, you may end up at 0 heat for a prolonged period of time.
   
2. Thermal Sensor Override use it on cooldown with Incendiary Missile
   

 

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Damage distribution

 

DPS log from in 16-man HM Dread Palace fight. Torparse link here.

 

http://swtorboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/assaulttorparse1-700x534.jpg

 

(high impact bolt) Rail Shot makes up a huge chunk of your total damage at 26% This reflects the nature of the rotation since you always use it every 6 seconds, ideally. As you can see Rail Shot is a very hard critting ability with max crits of up to 10,136 in (78) BiS gear

 

(ion pulse) Flame Burst comes next come next with 23% of your total damage done. These 2 abilities will make up the majority of your damage

 

Burning (Tech) are from Incendiary Missile, your Combustible Gas Cylinder stance, and Thermal Detonator’s damage over time effect. Heroic Moment: Advanced Recon all these burns account for up to 848 DPS; that is almost the same DPS as Rail Shot!

 

(assault plastique) Thermal Detonator and Incendiary Missile‘s damage seem to be low according to his parse, but the damage you see here is just from the initial explosion of Thermal Detonator and the initial damage done when applying Incendiary Missile. These abilities leave an elemental dot effect which, aside from doing a lot of damage, is not mitigated as well due to being of the elemental damage type.

 

(stockstrike, shoulder cannon and hammer shot) Rocket Punch, Shoulder Cannon and Rapid Shots make up the lower part of your damage done. Rocket Punch is nonetheless very important since it procs your Prototype Particle Accelerator very reliably with a 60% chance instead of a 45% chance from Flame Burst. Shoulder Cannon is great extra DPS especially when coupled with Explosive Fuel and both have a slightly similar cooldown timers. Finally,

 

(hammer shot) Rapid Shots, your “energy regen” ability is very crucial in maintainining 4 pips of energy regen which is at the very top of our priority list.

 

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Damage types

 

http://swtorboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/assaulttorparsr2-700x497.jpg

 

Elemental Damage is one of the four damage types in SW:TOR. Elemental Damage generally refers to fire based abilities like Flame Burst, Incendiary Missile and Plasma Probe. Elemental Damage, along with Internal Damage, is one of two damage types that Bypass armor. Elemental damage types do not benefit from Armor Penetration.

• Electro Shield (which comes from Energy Shield’s damage reflect)
  
• Incendiary Missile
  
• Burning (Tech) from Combustible Gas Cylinder, Thermal Detonator’s dot and Incendiary Missile’s dot.
  
• Flame Burst
  

 

Energy Damage and Kinetic Damage are two damage types that are mitigated by Armor Rating. These abilities will deal their optimum damage when an armor penetration debuff is present on the target. Armor Penetration can be applied by Juggernauts/Juggernauts, Snipers/Snipers and Arsenal/Gunnery Mercs/Mandoes.

• Rapid Shots
  
• Thermal Detonator
  
• Shoulder Cannon
  
• Rail Shot
  
• Rocket Punch
  
• Basic gearing
  

 

Advanced gearing

 

C-tor currently runs with ~150 from his earpiece but is playing around with a 0 Crit build. The difference should be negligible and only worry the min-maxers who parse for the DPS Leaderboards. You should definitely have a little crit especially as full Pyrotech.

 

In general specs with talents that buff critical strike damage and critical strike chance benefit from having some Critical Rating

• Burnout - Increases critical hit chance
  
• Firebug - Increases the critical bonus damage of Combustible Gas Cylinder, Rail Shot, Power Shot, Incendiary Missile and Thermal Detonator by 15%.
  

 

Advanced Prototype

 

 

8/36/2 - http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301hMhZRsMMRrRRoGGzZb.3

 

Abilities

 

Immolate - is your capstone ability and is tied to your Prototype Flame Thrower talent. Immolate and Flame Burst are used to generate stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower which buffs your next Flame Thrower by up to 60%.

• Flame Barrage - using Immolate makes your next Rocket Punch free
  
• Prototype Flame Thrower - one of the key talents that distinguish Advanced Prototype from the other trees. This is a talent added to the Advanced Prototypeician’s arsenal after Patch 2.0. The damage increase from full 3 stacks is considerable with the added bonus of a 90% slow on all enemies hit (the slow does not work on bosses)
  
• Prototype Burn Enhancers - increases the critical hit chance of your elmental attacks
  
• Prototype Weapon Systems – increases critical strike bonus damage of Rocket Punch, Flame Thrower, Retractable Blade, and Immolate by 30%
  

 

Flame Thrower - the key ability for Advanced Prototype is Flame Thrower. Similar to the Focus tree from Juggernauts and Marauders, Advanced Prototype specializes in strong AoE burst damage because of Flame Thrower and Prototype Flame Thrower.

• Advanced Tools – reduces the cool down of your Flame Thrower
  
• Prototype Burn Enhancers - increases the critical hit chance of your elmental attacks (does not work on Rail Shot)
  
• Prototype Weapon Systems - increases critical strike bonus damage of Rocket Punch, Flame Thrower, Retractable Blade, and Immolate by 30%
  

 

Rail Shot – is one of your hard hitting abilities even as a Advanced Prototype Powertech. Like in the Pyrotech tree, Rail Shot is talented by several skills in the Advanced Prototype specialization

• Charged Gauntlets - allows you to have 100% critical hit chance on your Rail Shot after using Rocket Punch
  
• Puncture - also increases your Rail Shot with 15% armor penetration
  

 

Retractable Blade – your only damage over time ability Retractable Blade should always be up on your target in order to maximize DPS. It is talented by several skills that increase its damage and ALL damage you do as long as the target has a bleed effect.

• Blood Tracker & Serrated Blades - increases the damage you do to bleeding targets
  
• Hot Iron - further increases Retractable Blade’s bleed effect
  
• Prototype Weapon Systems - increases critical strike bonus damage of Rocket Punch, Flame Thrower, Retractable Blade, and Immolate by 30%
  

 

Flame Burst – Expect to spam this a lot. Flame Burst sis your bread and butter ability and its DPS is second only to Rail Shot. Flame Burst is going to be your main spammable ability and is talented by the following skills:

• Flame Barrage - using Flame Burst has a 60% chance to make your next Rocket Punch free
  
• Prototype Burn Enhancers - increases the damage of your elemental attacks
  
• Prototype Flame Thrower - Flame Burst is used with Immolate to quicky generate stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower for your Flame Thrower. Prototype Flame Thrower stacks 3 times and increases the damage of Flame Thrower by 20% per stack
  

 

Rocket Punch - with Flame Barrage, Rocket Punch is an excellent energy regen ability and makes your next Rail Shot an automatic critical hit.

• Iron Fist – increases Rocket Punch’s damage (Pyrotech tree).

 

Flame Barrage - an important talent for Advanced Prototype. This helps in energy management and allows you to sustain your DPS rotation. The buff is activated by Immolate or Flame Burst and lasts 15 seconds and should not be wasted or clipped.

• Charged Gauntlets - using Rocket Punch gives your next Rail Shot a 100% chance to crit as long as you have High Energy Gas Cylinder on
  
• Prototype Weapon Systems - increases critical strike bonus damage of Rocket Punch, Flame Thrower, Retractable Blade, and Immolate by 30%

 

Rapid Shots – think of Rapid Shots as your basic heat regen ability. This auto-attack deals several hits in rapid succession so be careful when fighting a mob with damage reflect abilities.

 

High Energy Gas Cylinder - your stance as a Advanced Prototype Powertech and is required for some of your passive abilities to work. This grants you among other things, better energy regen and faster movement speed when spec’d for it.

• Prototype Cylinders - further increases your elemental damage
  
• Prototype Cylinder Ventilation - passive energy regeneration
  

 

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Offensive cooldowns

 

Shoulder Cannon – is a new Powertech ability introduced in Patch 2.0. The ability requires initial activation and generates “stacks” of Rockets every 4 seconds. Hitting the ability again will launch 1 missile and can be used in rapid succession for a big burst of damage. Shoulder cannon does not respect the global cooldown and can be used on top of your other abilities as long as they are not channeled. Talented by:

• Jet Charged Loaders – Increases the damage dealt by Shoulder Cannon by 15%, and immediately loads 3 additional missiles. Increases the critical strike chance of Rocket Punch by 6%.
  

 

Death from Above - is a channeled abilty and is one of the best burst AoE DPS abilities in the game. It can be used to help mitigate incoming damage if used on standard and weak enemies which are knocked down for the duration of the channel.

 

Explosive Fuel - is a very strong offensive cooldown and buffs your critical chance by a huge 25% for 15 seconds. The cooldown slightly aligns with Shoulder Cannon and generates a huge burst of DPS when with your other abilities.

 

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Defensive cooldowns

 

Hydraulic Overrides - a great PvP AND PvE cooldown. There are a lot of mechanics in end-game PvE that involves knock-back, knock-up and stuns and this should be used to negate these mechanics when possible in order to maximize DPS. Examples are Grob’thok’s knock-up and Raptus conal knock-back (which you shouldn’t get hit by in the first place!) The movement speed bonus only applies when you are in combat and works great when you need to reposition quickly around the map

• Torque Boosters - the longer duration of Hydraulic Overrides is more important in PvP but can also be useful for PvE. The movement speed only works when in combat.
  

 

Energy Shield - a flat damage reduction cooldown that lasts for 12 seconds. This can be used in conjunction with Kolto Overload in dangerous situations. Unless you are going to get hit by a huge amount of damage, Energy Shield with Kolto Overload is a life saver most of the time.

 

CAN BE USED FOR DPS: Flame shield, for pyrotech, can be a very powerful source of dps if used properly. In full 78s, mine does about 1000 dps and can crit.

 

The trick, of course, is knowing when and how to use it. Probably the most common use I've seen is to pop it during unavoidable damage phases to lash back at your attacker (Titan 6, for example), but you can use it on trash in add fights, as well. For example, if a dread larva is attacking a healer during Bestia, I'll taunt the little bugger, pop it and all my offensive cooldowns, then do upward of 4,000 single target dps to the larva, obliterating it in seconds.

 

Energy Rebounder - most PvE fights involve a great deal of both single and AoE raid wide damage. Advanced Prototype Powertech have this great talent for damage mitigation which does not only reduce their passive damage reduction but actively reduces the cooldown of Energy Shield as well

 

Kolto Overload - the self-heal from Kolto Overload works great against frequent and small hits. The buff lasts a long time and can make you “unkillable” as long as the damage you receive is less than the speed at which the buff heals you. The ability caps out at 35% of your maximum HP and won’t be healed further than that.

 

Chaff Flare - your threat dump ability is a good defensive cooldown as well. You won’t need to use your Kolto Overload or Energy Shield if you are not getting hit (by the boss or mobs) in the first place. The best use of your threat dump is after you see the Taunt debuff on your target. Taunt increases your tank’s threat, and using Chaff Flare will reduce yours thus moving you a long way down the creature’s threat list.

 

Energy cooldowns

 

Thermal Sensor Override - Advanced Prototype already has good energy regen due to passive abilities and the low heat cost of their abilities. Use it to prevent yourself from going below optimum energy levels or use it with Death from Above which is the most expensive ability you will have when spec’d in Advanced Prototype.

 

Vent Heat - grants you 50 energy over 3 seconds. This allows you to go into more energy intensive rotations (or Flame Burst spam) and can be treated as an offensive cooldown

 

Passive skills

• Close and Personal - Increases the duration of Energy Shield by 3 seconds. In addition, suffering direct damage from area attacks vents 2 heat and heals you for 2.5% of your total health. This effect cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds.
  
• Prototype Cylinder Ventilation - passive energy regeneration when using High Energy Gas Cylinder
  Stabilized Armor - on top of wearing heavy armor, Advanced Prototype Powertechs become tankier because of their 30% AoE damage reduction and 30% damage reduction when stunned.

 

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Abbreviations:

 

Retractable Blade = RB

Rocket Punch = RP

Rail Shot = RS

Flame Burst = FB

Explosive Fuel = EF

Shoulder Cannon = SC

Flamethrower = FT

 

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Opener

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Retractable Blade→Immolate→Rocket Punch→Rail Shot→Flame Burst→Flame Burst→Relic/Adrenal→Explosive Fuel→Shoulder Cannon→Flame Thrower …

 

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Rotation

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Unlike the Pyrotech tree, Advanced Prototype feels more "rotational" than a priority list and procs. Apply Retractable Blade first for the debuff followed by Immolate, which leads to a free Rocket Punch, which leads to 100% crit on your Rail Shot. By now you have 1 stack of Prototype Flame Thrower from Immolate. Use Flame Burst 2 times to get 3 stacks then channel Flame Thrower. After that is around 2 GCDs to wait while waiting for Retractable Blade’s (dot effect to run out ) and repeat.

 

Retractable Blade→Immollate→Rocket Punch→Rail Shot→Flame Burst→Flame Burst→Flame Thrower→Filler → Filler ... repeat

 

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Priorities

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Since Rocket Punch is on a 9 sec cooldown it will not align with your Retractable Blade, Immolate, Rail Shot and Flame Thrower which ALL have a 15 sec cooldown (Retractable Blade bleed effects lasts for 15 seconds). Because of that Rocket Punch’s position will constantly change in your rotation. As always your first priority is to maintain 4 pips of energy regen, so make sure you use Rapid Shots to keep your regen and sustained DPS up.

 

 

1. Rapid Shots if using an ability will bring you below 4 pips of regen
   
2. Retractable Blade for the Blood Tracker
   
3. Flame Thrower with 3 stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower
   
4. Rail Shot with Charged Gauntlets
   
5. Immolate to get a stack of Prototype Flame Thrower
   
6. Flame Burst to finish 3 stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower
   
7. Rocket Punch
   
8. Flame Burst
   

 

Retractable Blade, Immolate, and Rail Shot are generally used on “cooldown” and i use them 1 after the other for general QoL. After these abilities you want to juggle between Rapid Shots, Rocket Punch and 2 Flame Burst while you wait for Flame Thrower to come off cooldown. After channeling Flame Thrower you should have 2 more GCDs before you have to reapply Retractable Blade again.

 

Some thing to note:

 

Rail Shot requires a damage over time effect on your target to be activated and Retractable Blade is your only bleed effect as Advanced Prototype. A minor nuisance is when you are forced to switch to a target and forced to reapply your Retractable Blade again (when no one else has a bleed debuff). More often than not though you will have plenty of people who can apply their bleed effects for you in a raid but it is something to take note of.

 

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Aoe rotation

• Flame Thrower with 3 stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower
  
• Death from Above
  
• Explosive Dart
  

 

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Priority for cooldown (DPS)

• Shoulder Cannon you get a lot of missile stacks from Shoulder Cannon in the Advanced Prototype spec. Spam and spend all your missiles for the extra DPS
  
• Explosive Fuel lasts for 15 seconds. Your rotation is built around a 15 second timer so this should fit perfectly, starting from Retractable Blade all the way down to Flame Thrower
  
• Death from Above (on 3 or more targets)
  

 

Priority for cooldowns (Energy)

• Vent heat - grants you 50 energy over 3 seconds, you will still regen energy outside of the 50 that vent Cell grants. Make sure you do not cap out on energy while this buff is present since those will be energy lost
  
• Thermal Sensor Override – your next ability is free of cost
  
• If you are able to maintain your energy pretty well, vent heat is a good offensive cooldown you can use to spam Flame Burst during your filler stage. AP should be easy enough on energy tho thanks to the talents for High Energy Gas Cylinder.
  

 

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Damage distribution

 

http://swtorboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/tacticsdmg-700x503.jpg

 

(pulse cannon) Flame Thrower makes up a huge chunk of your damage compared to your other abilities when used on cooldown. This deals AoE frontal so expect for Flame Thrower to do even more when hitting multiple targets. Flame Thrower AoE is capped at 5 targets.

 

(ion pulse) Flame Burst is your next hard hitting ability making up up to 15%$. The number of Flame Bursts will depend on how well you manage your energy. More Flame Bursts means more DPS. Managing your energy so that you don’t spend a lot of your GCDs spamming Rapid Shots for regen is key to DPSing as Advanced Prototype. You can also use your vent Cells to maximize your uses of Flame Burst but using it this way means you might not have it available when you mess up your energy and rotation.

 

(fire pulse, gut, high impact bolt) Immolate, Retractable Blade, Rail Shot - as you can see in this parse all 3 abilities we’re used on cool down totaling to 40 times over the period of the fight. Retractable Blade (with dot) and Rail Shot both dealt 13% of the total damage with Immolate trailing closely behind with 12%.

 

(stockstrike) Rocket Punch trails closely behind in terms of damage. At the moment I can’t be sure if using it on cooldown is better DPS. Because of the 15second cooldown rotation it was really hard finding a permanent spot for Rocket Punch so I just used it as a filler when my other priorities are finished: Retractable Blade DoT, Immolate and Rail Shot on cooldown, and making sure i have 3 stacks for Flame Thrower.

 

Shoulder Cannon is extra DPS and is off the GCD so you should use it whenever you can. It does more damage in Advanced Prototype by ~3%*

 

(hammer shot) Rapid Shots, is crucial in maintainining 4 pips of energy regen which is at the very top of our priority list.

 

=============================

Damage types

 

http://swtorboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/tacticsdmgtype1-700x527.jpg

 

Advanced Prototype deals Elemental damage and Internal damage. These damage types bypass enemy armor and does not require armor penetration to deal its max damage.

• Flame Thrower
  
• Flame Burst
  
• Immolate
  

 

Energy Damage and Kinetic Damage are two damage types that are mitigated by armor. These abilities will deal their optimum damage when an armor penetration debuff is present on the target. Armor Penetration can be applied by Juggernauts/Jug

gernauts, Snipers/Snipers and Arsenal Mercs and Gunnery Mercenaries.

• Rail Shot
  
• Rocket Punch
  
• Retractable Blade
  
• Shoulder Cannon
  
• Rapid Shots
  

 

=============================

Advanced gearing

 

Patch 2.5 There is not enough player information about Advanced Prototype gearing at the moment since Pyrotech and Hybrid Pyrotech is just too strong in PvE. In general though, specs with talents that buff critical strike damage (especially) benefit from having some crit

• Prototype Weapon Systems - increases critical strike bonus damage of Rocket Punch, Flame Thrower, Retractable Blade, and Immolate by 30%
  

 

However some would argue that specs with auto-crit talents should use 0 Crit rating and go full Power instead

• Charged Gauntlets - using Rocket Punchs gives your next Rail Shot a 100% chance to crit.
  

 

 

Utility

 

 

Grapple Cooldown: 45s Range: 30 m

Fires a grapple line that pulls the target to the Bounty Hunter and generates a high amount of threat. Cannot be used on targets in cover. All around a very useful ability both in casual and end-game PvE and can be used as an interrupt on adds that are not immune to physics effects like the Dread Guard Interrogator.

 

Neural Dart Instant Cooldown: 15s Range: 30 m

Fires a neural dart that taunts the target to attack for 6 seconds. Player targets deal 30% less damage when attacking anyone other than you. Effect lasts 6 seconds. This effect cannot be resisted. As a last resort you can taunt mobs hitting a more squishy ally.

 

Carbonize Instant Energy: 8 Cooldown: 45s

Encases up to 5 enemies within 8 meters in carbonite, stunning them for 2.5 seconds. AoE stun on a relatively short cooldown! *Better animation than the VG version..*

 

Sonic Missile Instant Cooldown: 45s Range: 30 m

Fires a sonic missile that taunts your target and all nearby enemies, forcing them to attack for 6 seconds. Enemy players have their damage reduced for 6 seconds unless they attack you. This effect cannot be resisted. AoE taunt which you generally don't want to use in a raid...

 

Damage mitigation: You can help "passively" mitigate damage to your allies by using Grapple → Carbonize → Electro Dart is a pretty long lasting combo on mobs that can be stunned and pushed/pulled back. Also AP is one of the few specs that have access to lower cooldowns on Interrupts.

 

I currently play a VG DPS as my second main doing 16-m SM and HM raids (main is a Gunslinger). Initially I found VG DPS to be boring because everything is instant cast, mostly everything can be done while on the move. Assault Specialist so far is my favorite spec because of the great mobility of the spec having 3 dots that deal quite a big chunk of damage by themselves. Full AP feels lacking so mostly been playing with C-tor's hybrid build instead. I hope i got most things right in the write-up, if not let me know! >.< .

 

Definitely liking VG DPS the more I play with it and it's exciting to know that the damage potential is very high when fully geared → 16-mam HM DPS Leaderboards http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=691926

 

References

Edited January 17, 2014 by paowee

[meisterjedi]

using RP on cooldown is a clear mistake if you play AP.

if you compare it to the alternative FB, their dmg is pretty equal for the same amount of heat, but FB gives you a 30% chance of making RP free, in which case you exchange a FB for rapid shots. on top of that you might not make it to 3 stacks PFT every 15 sec if you get a bit unlucky on RP procs.

you do however want to use it over FB if it procs, to maximize the heat savings, and most importantly, if you have a proc for RP and Imolate is about to come off cd, use it before Imolate, even if it means you delay Imolate for 1 global.

You generally do not want to waste the guarantied proc from it. this situation appears maybe about once a minute or less on average, so you will most likely not miss out on an extra Imolate + RS during a normal encounter, and even if that happens you got about 8 free RPs for it that replaced rapid shots. that should easily cover that dmg loss.

 

not sure you want to set the priority over RS as well. Didn't come to play AP much since 2.0 as I mainly tank now and I have only 1 other tank left in my guild. we receently recruited a new one, so I hope I can play some more DPS soon. but before 2.0 it was a wash dmgwise. less than 0.5% according to Kerwerns simulations on mmo-mechanics.

Edited January 11, 2014 by meisterjedi

[paowee]

using RP on cooldown is a clear mistake if you play AP.

if you compare it to the alternative FB, their dmg is pretty equal for the same amount of heat, but FB gives you a 30% chance of making RP free, in which case you exchange a FB for rapid shots. on top of that you might not make it to 3 stacks PFT every 15 sec if you get a bit unlucky on RP procs.

you do however want to use it over FB if it procs, to maximize the heat savings, and most importantly, if you have a proc for RP and Imolate is about to come off cd, use it before Imolate, even if it means you delay Imolate for 1 global.

 

You generally do not want to waste the guarantied proc from it. this situation appears maybe about once a minute, so you will most likely not miss out on a extra Imolat + Railshot during a normal encounter, and even if that happens you got about 8 free RPs for it that replaced rapid shots. that should easily cover that dmg loss.

not sure you want to set the priority over Railshot as well. Didn't come to play AP much since 2.0 as I have only 1 other tank left in my guild, and we only receently recruited a new one. but before 2.0 it was a wash dmgwise. less than 0.5% according to Kerwerns simulations on mmo-mechanics.

 

Are you referring to this part?

 

1. Rapid Shots if using an ability will bring you below 4 pips of regen
   
2. Retractable Blade for the Blood Tracker
   
3. Flame Thrower with 3 stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower
   
4. Rail Shot with Charged Gauntlets
   
5. Immolate to get a stack of Prototype Flame Thrower
   
6. Flame Burst to finish 3 stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower
   
7. Rocket Punch
   
8. Flame Burst
   

 

That does make sense what you said about Flame Barrage. This one should be a better list

 

1. Rapid Shots if using an ability will bring you below 4 pips of regen
   
2. Retractable Blade to benefit from Blood Tracker
   
3. Flame Thrower with 3 stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower
   
4. Rail Shot with Charged Gauntlets
   
5. Immolate to get a stack of Prototype Flame Thrower
   
6. Flame Burst to finish 3 stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower
   
7. Rocket Punch with Flame Barrage; otherwise
   
8. Flame Burst spam
   

 

Regarding this one though

, if you have a proc for RP and Imolate is about to come off cd, use it before Imolate, even if it means you delay Imolate for 1 global.

I'd have to play with it more since i don't particularly notice this one occurring. Edited January 11, 2014 by paowee

[meisterjedi]

That list looks better to me

 

the overlap of the cds from Imolate and RP does happen for me at least, whenever I'm fighting a high health target. it happens for example if you use FB directly before FT (or RB if you use the alternative opener), and it procs the free RP.

Some things to note as well:

changing the opener to start with a 3 stacked PFT after RB is worth it. you can build stacks pre fight via Flame Sweep.

And RS does not require a bleed. Any DOT will work, and so do stuns/mezzes.

Edited January 11, 2014 by meisterjedi

[paowee]

That list looks better to me

 

the overlap of the cds from Imolate and RP does happen for me at least, whenever I'm fighting a high health target. it happens for example if you use FB directly before FT (or RB if you use the alternative opener), and it procs the free RP.

Some things to note as well:

changing the opener to start with a 3 stacked PFT after RB is worth it. you can build stacks pre fight via Flame Sweep.

And RS does not require a bleed. Any DOT will work, and so do stuns/mezzes.

 

Nice catch. This is why i love the Corruptor Zero fight (running Hybrid spec though...) 3 stacks of PFT from mobs → boss.

[meisterjedi]

was just looking over the talent tree. didn't suspect anything as it was a 8/36/2, but I find the value of reducing the interupt cooldown really questionable.

In all the operations the game has had so far, I recall only 2 fights where it made any diffence. Mine Field hm in denova if you were interupting the knockback on your own, as it very rarely was used after something aroud 7.5 seconds instead of 8, and calphayus 1st portal on the left side.

for everything else you usually need a second person anyway, or 8 sec cd is sufficient.

the 7.5% movementspeed (15% in total) however are very useful in many situations, where you can't use HO becasue its on cd, or you need it for knockbackprotection on your FT. The other point is often spent in the first tier for 1% dmg reduction to help healers out a little, but thats not as crutial. could take the slow on RB instead as well if you want to be able to help out controling adds/trash.

Edited January 11, 2014 by meisterjedi

[paowee]

was just looking over the talent tree. didn't suspect anything as it was a 8/36/2, but I find the value of reducing the interupt cooldown really questionalble.

In all the operations the game has had so far, I recall only 2 fights where it made any diffence. Mine Field hm in denova if you were interupting the knockback on your own, as it very rarely was used after something aroud 7.5 seconds instead of 8, and calphayus 1st protal on the left side.

for everything else you usually need a second person anyway, or 8 sec cd is suffiecient.

the 7.5% movementspeed (15% in total) however are very useful in many situations, where you can't use HO becasue its on cd, or you need it for knockbackprotection on your FT. The other point is often spent in the first tier for 1% dmg reduction to help healers out a little.

 

Will edit and add these. There should've been an optional skill points section lol...

Edited January 11, 2014 by paowee

[drummerinthesun]

I disagree with your skill tree and one part of your rotation philosophy.

 

For the skill tree, why are you not suggesting a second point in Brutal Impact? (Also, your pyro tree is in assault VG). RS is THE CORE ABILITY. You sacrifice 3% extra damage for 3% tech crit, and RS isn't even a tech attack. I can see it from buffing FB/RP attacks and the dots, but RS does too much damage to ignore an extra 3% damage, especially when the 4 piece set bonus buffs it by another 8%.

 

As for the rotation, you're thinking about the timing all wrong. Don't base your rotation around using RS, base it around PROCCING Prototype Particle Accelerator. This allows you flexibility with reapplying dots. Once you proc, you have 3 GCDs to use your RS, and the 4th GCD after you proc should be a RP/FB to proc again. Proccing PPA takes priority over reapplying dots, and reapplying dots takes priority over using RS, UNLESS you're on the 3rd GCD and therefore must use your RS.

 

Some extra points: Keep your heat below 40, which means never use a heat-generating ability if you have more than 24 heat. Rapid shots is a fine filler because it can proc/refresh CGC's dot. Always line up your Explosive Fuel with Shoulder Cannon as well.

 

EDIT: I see TAC already explained my second paragraph over on the VG forum. I'll keep this here because I think it's a good alternate explanation of the priority.

Edited January 11, 2014 by drummerinthesun

[TACeMossie]

I disagree with your skill tree and one part of your rotation philosophy.

 

For the skill tree, why are you not suggesting a second point in Brutal Impact? (Also, your pyro tree is in assault VG). RS is THE CORE ABILITY. You sacrifice 3% extra damage for 3% tech crit, and RS isn't even a tech attack. I can see it from buffing FB/RP attacks and the dots, but RS does too much damage to ignore an extra 3% damage, especially when the 4 piece set bonus buffs it by another 8%.

 

As for the rotation, you're thinking about the timing all wrong. Don't base your rotation around using RS, base it around PROCCING Prototype Particle Accelerator. This allows you flexibility with reapplying dots. Once you proc, you have 3 GCDs to use your RS, and the 4th GCD after you proc should be a RP/FB to proc again. Proccing PPA takes priority over reapplying dots, and reapplying dots takes priority over using RS, UNLESS you're on the 3rd GCD and therefore must use your RS.

 

Some extra points: Keep your heat below 40, which means never use a heat-generating ability if you have more than 24 heat. Rapid shots is a fine filler because it can proc/refresh CGC's dot. Always line up your Explosive Fuel with Shoulder Cannon as well.

 

EDIT: I see TAC already explained my second paragraph over on the VG forum. I'll keep this here because I think it's a good alternate explanation of the priority.

 

Also if you looked at my (recently updated) assault guide, you can see why its better to take the tech crit to the +3% Rail Shot damage.

 

Rail Shot will make up about 25% of your damage, so the +3% damage will end up being a boost from 25% to 25.73% (assuming we are talking in terms relative to the original parse). However, tech attacks will make up to about 70% of the damage, so if the original parse had the +3% tech crit, then the damage from tech attacks will go from 70% to 64.75%: So by grabbing the increased Rail Shot damage instead of the increased tech crit, your damage is going to drop by ~4.5% - That 3.3k parse you pulled off? Yeah, its now a 3.15k parse

[ScytheEleven]

I can't convince myself that going the PVP-route opener (TD > IM > Rail) is the best for PVE, especially while parsing. Once your TD goes up, that's basically a dead GCD window of no damage that is being registered. I typically go IM > Rail > TD > Flame Burst (I really, really want to Rocket Punch here, but honest to God, every time I do, it NEVER procs!) > Rail > continue

[paowee]

I disagree with your skill tree and one part of your rotation philosophy.

 

For the skill tree, why are you not suggesting a second point in Brutal Impact? (Also, your pyro tree is in assault VG). RS is THE CORE ABILITY. You sacrifice 3% extra damage for 3% tech crit, and RS isn't even a tech attack. I can see it from buffing FB/RP attacks and the dots, but RS does too much damage to ignore an extra 3% damage, especially when the 4 piece set bonus buffs it by another 8%.

 

As for the rotation, you're thinking about the timing all wrong. Don't base your rotation around using RS, base it around PROCCING Prototype Particle Accelerator. This allows you flexibility with reapplying dots. Once you proc, you have 3 GCDs to use your RS, and the 4th GCD after you proc should be a RP/FB to proc again. Proccing PPA takes priority over reapplying dots, and reapplying dots takes priority over using RS, UNLESS you're on the 3rd GCD and therefore must use your RS.

 

Some extra points: Keep your heat below 40, which means never use a heat-generating ability if you have more than 24 heat. Rapid shots is a fine filler because it can proc/refresh CGC's dot. Always line up your Explosive Fuel with Shoulder Cannon as well.

 

EDIT: I see TAC already explained my second paragraph over on the VG forum. I'll keep this here because I think it's a good alternate explanation of the priority.

 

yeah the wording on the priority has been changed over there and i've updated it here as well. Proccing PPA every 6 seconds is a better way of explaining the rotation. i had made it more clear this time xD. and ill add

 

Proccing PPA takes priority over reapplying dots, and reapplying dots takes priority over using RS,

this one as well

 

Rewriting the OP to "fix" and include some stuff from the vg forums

Edited January 12, 2014 by paowee

[drummerinthesun]

Also if you looked at my (recently updated) assault guide, you can see why its better to take the tech crit to the +3% Rail Shot damage.

 

Rail Shot will make up about 25% of your damage, so the +3% damage will end up being a boost from 25% to 25.73% (assuming we are talking in terms relative to the original parse). However, tech attacks will make up to about 70% of the damage, so if the original parse had the +3% tech crit, then the damage from tech attacks will go from 70% to 64.75%: So by grabbing the increased Rail Shot damage instead of the increased tech crit, your damage is going to drop by ~4.5% - That 3.3k parse you pulled off? Yeah, its now a 3.15k parse

 

I don't think you can directly correlate a 3% increase in tech crit to a 3% increase in damage done by tech attacks. It's 3% chance more to do damage multiplied by your surge percentage, unless that's not what you mean. I couldn't recreate the math you're showing here or the post where you advocate for the increased crit. I will concede, however that it could be better since all attacks except RS are tech. Ideally we're using RS every 6 seconds, it just seems counter-intuitive to gimp our hardest hitting ability for a CHANCE to do a bit more damage with everything else.

[thebvp]

As far as advanced tactics go, I think it should be mentioned that flame shield, for pyrotech, can be a very powerful source of dps if used properly. In full 78s, mine does about 1000 dps and can crit.

 

The trick, of course, is knowing when and how to use it. Probably the most common use I've seen is to pop it during unavoidable damage phases to lash back at your attacker (Titan 6, for example), but you can use it on trash in add fights, as well. For example, if a dread larva is attacking a healer during Bestia, I'll taunt the little bugger, pop it and all my offensive cooldowns, then do upward of 4,000 single target dps to the larva, obliterating it in seconds. Note: do NOT taunt off the tank when using this tactic unless you don't want to be invited back. =)

[TACeMossie]

As far as advanced tactics go, I think it should be mentioned that flame shield, for pyrotech, can be a very powerful source of dps if used properly. In full 78s, mine does about 1000 dps and can crit.

 

The trick, of course, is knowing when and how to use it. Probably the most common use I've seen is to pop it during unavoidable damage phases to lash back at your attacker (Titan 6, for example), but you can use it on trash in add fights, as well. For example, if a dread larva is attacking a healer during Bestia, I'll taunt the little bugger, pop it and all my offensive cooldowns, then do upward of 4,000 single target dps to the larva, obliterating it in seconds. Note: do NOT taunt off the tank when using this tactic unless you don't want to be invited back. =)

 

Haha.

 

Well its also helpful if one of the tanks die against nefra. Pop Kolto Overload, Chaff Flare and Flame Shield, stand next to the surviving tank, and taunt. Watch as you act like a tank for the next 15 seconds while the original one gets ressed, and you do upward of 4k dps

Edited January 16, 2014 by TACeMossie

[paowee]

Updated

[paowee]

Updated the write-up with recent info from this and the Vanguard thread. Finally got it together in the website . Check it out here