2.5 leveling Merc Arsenal build?

[Jake_Storm]

I did a search on the boards and while I have found a few builds for the arsenal merc, I didn't find anyone giving a detailed level by level build for the Arsenal spec. Most everyone focuses on ENDGAME but no one shows you how to do this stage by stage. -especially with rotations. can anyone give me a guideline and some rotation tips?!

[BigDumbViking]

Honestly, Just go straight up the tree to heatseaker. Start with Warheads. Leveling, you will be using fusion missile, death from above, Missile blast, & explosive dart a lot... They all stun or knock-down enemies plus do good damage.

 

Get Tracer missile as fast as possible. Once you have that, you shouldn't be using power shot anymore.

 

Leveling merc is really easy, If enemies are spread out, send in your companion first then aoe the crap out of them. If they are together, aoe the crap out of them.

[Jake_Storm]

ok, but what about bosses?

[Oxidsed]

ok, but what about bosses?

 

Open with conc missile, spam tracer, throw in rail and don't forget to heal. Death from above is viable, especially if boss has some little adds with them. Bosses give you the chance to try all the other abilities and learn what they do. Normal mobs die to soon. I always kept mako in decent gear to heal boss fights, even if I was running with a dps comp at other times.

[BigDumbViking]

What level are you at for your question?

 

I mean up to like level 20 you can pretty much kill bosses with rapid shots. Save your coms and keep current mods/enh/armor in your gear... you'll be destroying everything easily.

 

Arsenal you will use Fusion missile, Tracer Missile, Unload, and rail shot. Explosive dart is nice for stunning mobs as is missile blast.

[Jake_Storm]

What level are you at for your question?

 

I mean up to like level 20 you can pretty much kill bosses with rapid shots. Save your coms and keep current mods/enh/armor in your gear... you'll be destroying everything easily.

 

Arsenal you will use Fusion missile, Tracer Missile, Unload, and rail shot. Explosive dart is nice for stunning mobs as is missile blast.

 

to answer your question, I am at level 30 now. I was having a heck of a time with the Gammorran in the Lady of Pain's pit on tattoine. Most of the tips I have seen suggest using Tracer missile to generate heat, but found out recently that Fusion Missile will do he same. Is there anything though that will decrease the cooldown time of rail shot?

[XXcaesar]

unload is you baby in arsenal .tracer missile or power shot can finish the cd on unload and add a damage proc . rail shot is your finisher move with 5 stacks witch comes from 3 tracer missiles . mix in DFA ,FM, Explosive Dart and rinse and repeat

[midianlord]

to answer your question, I am at level 30 now. I was having a heck of a time with the Gammorran in the Lady of Pain's pit on tattoine. Most of the tips I have seen suggest using Tracer missile to generate heat, but found out recently that Fusion Missile will do he same. Is there anything though that will decrease the cooldown time of rail shot?

 

Your build at level 30 should look something like this:

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#300ZrfcRMd0z.3

 

The idea being to fully talent Tracer Missile, and then get into talenting Unload/Barrage as soon as possible.

 

The fight to which you refer is --I think-- intended to be the first fight in which you have to pay attention to, and be ready to use all your abilities to succeed.

 

That Gammorean hits really bloody hard, build up Tracer-Lock stacks --but do not automatically use them for RailShot however:

 

Knockback after he hits you hard ---> Kolto Missile ---> quick-cast/insta-cast Healing Scan if needed (this is why you should try and save Tracer Locks stacks during this fight), and be ready with a medpack.

 

Save your shield CD for when/if your health is consistently at around 50% (That is a very long cool-down, you don't want to blow it too early --the cool-down time is such that you'll really only be able to benefit from it once in most non-Heroic/non-Flashpoint boss fights, so make sure you really need it).

 

Use the talented knockback plus Hydraulic Overrides to keep away from him as much as possible, throw RailShots, Missile Blasts, ExploDarts, and Rapid Shots at him whilst moving, when he gets close again, ElectroDart him and Unload whilst he's stunned. Or, if you need a heal, then either Rapid Scan, or if available Tracer Lock-buffed Healing Scan + Rapid Scan whilst he's stunned.

 

(I favour the "nuke it NAOW!!" strategy, myself, that's really what Arsen is all about )

 

You'll want to use the knockback as much as it's available, he'll be all over you during that fight regardless.

 

Also, don't forget your Heroic Moment: Self-heal and re-sets the cool-down on Electrodart.

 

E:

 

Don't use Fusion Missile beyond a possible opener in this fight: Too long to cast, with no pushback-protection (which Tracer Missile does have) and much too high a heat-cost. It's DoT just isn't that strong, and is very short besides.

 

Accordingly, be careful of the Missile Blasts too -- alternate two Rapid Shots with every one MB, and use MB at all only if your heat is below 45-ish percent.

Edited February 14, 2014 by midianlord

[lokiwalker]

The above is a great recap of that fight. If that does not work, go through and make sure that all of your mods are up to date for both you and your comanion. By level 30 you should have almost a full set of orange moddable gear for you and your main companion (which was Mako on the BH for me) If you do not have orange gear hit up the GTN, usually there are some random orange gears that go really cheap, such as the huttball jersery (200-500Credits) run some heroics or the daily FP for some comms and/or pick up some cheap ones from a crafter.

 

Gear can be a problem if you have not checked it in a while, I know on my Bounty hunter at around 30 I had to spend a decent amount of time re-gearing my guy since I had been doing a lot of space missions and PvP and realized that my gear was about 8 levels behind!

[lokiwalker]

- Most of the tips I have seen suggest using Tracer missile to generate heat, but found out recently that Fusion Missile will do he same. Is there anything though that will decrease the cooldown time of rail shot?

 

Your goal is not to generate heat, you want to keep your heat below 50% for most fights, for Boss fights you can go ahead and push it closer to 100% then use your vent heat.

 

What you are building with Tracer is building a heat signature, which helps in a varitey of ways:

 

Tracer Missile:

"Launches a missile at the target that deals 1814 - 2716 kinetic damage and applies a heat signature, reducing the target's armor rating by 20% for 45 seconds. Heat signatures leave targets vulnerable to Rail Shot."

 

Rail Shot can only be used if you have a DOT on them (like Fusion missle or a lot of the Pyro abilities) or if they have a Heat sig from tracer (and if they are stunned)

 

Rail Shot: "Fires a very powerful shot at the target that deals 2989 - 3188 weapon damage. Only usable against incapacitated targets and targets suffering from periodic damage. Deals additional damage if dual wielding."

 

As far as reducing the cooldown that is actually a Pyro talent, and a pyro build revolves more around Powershot and Railshot. The buffs for Aresnal are heavy for Unload which you should be using alot (something that I learned the hard way)