I want that Blaster Rifle!!

[Nahsti]

Hello and thanks for dropping in!

 

So I was pondering on something about the commando aspect of the trooper, I was just walking around looking awesome like usual with a massive canon on my back and I was walking and cruising etc etc when I realized, why am I a soldier with no skills? I get an assault canon... a big canon but.. just an assault canon? we can use blaster rifles yes but troopers are suppose to be weapons themselves not just canons. so I went and asked a question that apparently was so stupid no one abused me I just got trolled and told to use a giant pink mature female toy as a weapon and yes that was hard to find appropriate wording for that but I did it because I'm awesome!

 

so without answer to my question I just went and did it.... I changed my whole look at my massive slow, stationary useless against any other ranged classed commando with one simple thing. I put on a blaster rifle in a PvP match.

 

HOLY MOTHER F#($@& YOU DID WHAT YOU STUPID !$%&!( !@&!($ %#% !#$@#% !!$@!%! !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

yepp I wacked that sucker on and I shot away and I shot and I shot alot more until the point that I was fearless,

I was on a different realm while trying this on a level 16 commando and I tell you now. it was P.E.R.F.E.C.T

remember how you were running the huttball and that assassin broke stealth CC fed you while just making you look like a spaz while you stood stunned? yeah well one tried that, I broke it with my ability and did I feed him a stockstrike and a few explosive rounds and he was nothing but another character standing behind the starting barrier. the damage swap over I had was immense as if Bioware has all been imp players and they've set us up to lose.

 

this is my equipment this is also what I was using at the time

 

Head: Imperial Battle Ace Pilot Helmet - 15 aim - 20 endurance

Chest: Imperial Battle Ace Pilot Jacket - 15 aim - 20 endurance

Gloves - Republic Squadron Commander Pilot Gloves - 14 aim - 16 endurance

Belt - Republic Trooper's Belt - 6 aim - 3 endurance (green)

Legs - RD-12B War greaves - 13 aim - 17 endurance (blue)

Boots - Prototype Duros Desh Boots - 13 aim - 12 endurance (blue)

Wrists - Republic Squadron Commander Pilot Bracers - 14 aim - 6 endurance

Off-Hand - Duros R\Terenthium Generator - 16 aim -14 endurance - 110 tech power (green)

Weapon - Prototype Duros Light Enforcer - 20 aim - 18 endurance - 126 tech power (blue)

 

nothing special right? that's the point I was destroying everyone and any class!

so why am I here telling you and not keeping it to myself? because of some problems

some abilities we have require a assault canon 'Charged Bolts' being one of them which we all

know is a key move for us.

 

so I'm here to ask for the restrictions to be removed! I'm charging with a Blaster Rifle now its awesome

but of course DPS is going to drop in higher levels since I'll be without key abilities

 

What are your thoughts? we only really get one weapon to each class a little versatility would be nice wouldn't it?

[Bejarid]

Actually, the only abilities tied to the cannon are Charged Bolts and Hail of Bolts; everything else in the Commando's arsenal is kosher with a rifle. That's not why we drop the rifle in favor of the BFG. The main reason Commandos use the cannon is because it offers a greater range of weapon damage - 27-50 base damage with a cannon vs. 26-38 base with a rifle, and that scales with the barrel. Despite what you think, you're gimping yourself using a blaster rifle over an assault cannon.

 

You can still do everything you described with an assault cannon, including smacking people around with Stockstrike...It looks kinda stupid, sure, but you can still do it. Commando feels very much like an immobile turret until you get Tech Override, and even that only does so much. What you really need to do is stop looking at the cannon as a piece of heavy artillery that's slowing you down.

 

In the end, though, if that's what works for you, have fun with it - just keep in mind what the trade is costing you.

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

Actually, the only abilities tied to the cannon are Charged Bolts and Hail of Bolts; everything else in the Commando's arsenal is kosher with a rifle. That's not why we drop the rifle in favor of the BFG. The main reason Commandos use the cannon is because it offers a greater range of weapon damage - 27-50 base damage with a cannon vs. 26-38 base with a rifle, and that scales with the barrel. Despite what you think, you're gimping yourself using a blaster rifle over an assault cannon.

 

You can still do everything you described with an assault cannon, including smacking people around with Stockstrike...It looks kinda stupid, sure, but you can still do it. Commando feels very much like an immobile turret until you get Tech Override, and even that only does so much. What you really need to do is stop looking at the cannon as a piece of heavy artillery that's slowing you down.

 

In the end, though, if that's what works for you, have fun with it - just keep in mind what the trade is costing you.

 

Yep, Mercs (Commando counterpart) may look mobile, but we are FAR from it! Tech Override is a good way to add do our mobility, and it's getting a cooldown buff soon from 120 seconds to 60 seconds, and in the Gunnery tree it will have a 45 second CD (Right?) and 2 charges, so dont fret about being immobile. you also have Hold The Line (Which is similar to Hold The Phone but not quite) which makes you immune to Intterupts and Physics.

[cashogy_reborn]

Using a Rifle as a DPS Commando is a DPS loss compared to an assault cannon. You also cannot use certain abilities with a Rifle.

[Nahsti]

Actually, the only abilities tied to the cannon are Charged Bolts and Hail of Bolts; everything else in the Commando's arsenal is kosher with a rifle. That's not why we drop the rifle in favor of the BFG. The main reason Commandos use the cannon is because it offers a greater range of weapon damage - 27-50 base damage with a cannon vs. 26-38 base with a rifle, and that scales with the barrel. Despite what you think, you're gimping yourself using a blaster rifle over an assault cannon.

 

You can still do everything you described with an assault cannon, including smacking people around with Stockstrike...It looks kinda stupid, sure, but you can still do it. Commando feels very much like an immobile turret until you get Tech Override, and even that only does so much. What you really need to do is stop looking at the cannon as a piece of heavy artillery that's slowing you down.

 

In the end, though, if that's what works for you, have fun with it - just keep in mind what the trade is costing you.

 

yes, but the thing is and I don't know why the weapon damage loss I have is small but I'm killing people alot faster than my assault canon and my explosive round hits alot harder, and to really try it out I put a +41 expertise in my canon on my level 39 and kept a 14 power in the level 38 pvp blaster rifle, I still destroyed more with a rifle alot more and now that I have put in the +41 expertise I destroy even more and I'm always top ten, I know it sounds stupid I know its like putting strength on a sith assassin but it's working out fine for me

[Lowfrequenzy]

Did you change any gear (not looks but stats - apart from the change from big gun to small gun), maybe added relics or earpiece or such or made a level while doing what you describe here? Because the change of the weapon can not result in such a difference. It looks cooler, though. So maybe a perception issue?

 

Oh and remove that expertise until you hit 55. As far as I understand it, you are hurting yourself.

[Uber_the_Goober]

OP Have you ever heard of "Confirmation Bias"?

 

If you're having more fun playing with the blaster rifle, and you already expect it to be better because you had a few good matches, then your brain will interpret all the information you're seeing on the screen as "It's obviously better"

 

Check the math. It's not better. Bolster's messing with your head. It'll be rough if you go into end-game ranked PvP with a rifle. It's fine for lowbies. Have fun!

[Gyronamics]

yes, but the thing is and I don't know why the weapon damage loss I have is small but I'm killing people alot faster than my assault canon and my explosive round hits alot harder, and to really try it out I put a +41 expertise in my canon on my level 39 and kept a 14 power in the level 38 pvp blaster rifle, I still destroyed more with a rifle alot more and now that I have put in the +41 expertise I destroy even more and I'm always top ten, I know it sounds stupid I know its like putting strength on a sith assassin but it's working out fine for me

 

Couple of things.

 

Perception.

 

And Explosive Round will hit exactly the same if you use a cannon or a rifle because it is a tech attack and tech attacks dont care about weapon damage. Neither does healing.

 

What you lose damage on is:

 

Hammer Shots

Full Auto

High Impact Bolt

 

And the following are disabled:

 

Charged Bolts

Hail of Bolts

Edited March 17, 2014 by Gyronamics

[Capt_Beers]

Couple of things.

 

Perception.

 

And Explosive Round will hit exactly the same if you use a cannon or a rifle because it is a tech attack and tech attacks dont care about weapon damage. Neither does healing.

 

What you lose damage on is:

 

Hammer Shots

Full Auto

High Impact Bolt

 

And the following are disabled:

 

Charged Bolts

Hail of Bolts

 

I'm pretty sure that assault cannons also have a higher base tech power which would increase the damage of tech abilities.

[Bejarid]

I'm pretty sure that assault cannons also have a higher base tech power which would increase the damage of tech abilities.

 

Nope. Both have base Tech 51.

[cashogy_reborn]

I used a blaster while healing a couple times cuz it looked cool. But Id rather be able to add to team burst with Charged Bolts, so went back to Assault Cannons. Not a fan of gimping myself (tho the irony of that statement is Ive main'd a merc/mando since launch lol) Edited March 20, 2014 by cashogy_reborn

[Gyronamics]

I used a blaster while healing a couple times cuz it looked cool. But Id rather be able to add to team burst with Charged Bolts, so went back to Assault Cannons. Not a fan of gimping myself (tho the irony of that statement is Ive main'd a merc/mando since launch lol)

 

Pff, commando has never been bad in PVE at any point and for a while when people didn't know how to play melee and grav/demo was bugged to hell it was very dominant in pvp.

[wishihadaname]

Hey all, just to chime in as probably the only hipster to have been using a rifle basically since launch. Rifles are perfectly viable for gunnery and healing and for all but the highest level content. The dps loss for a standard gunnery rotation over 5 minutes is about 5% between a rifle and a cannon. The maximum damage lost to HiB Fa and Hammer shot is about 10%.

 

I wouldn't run NiM with a rifle, but with normal gear and an understanding of the rotation you will still put out more than enough dps to clear any HM ops. Currently I parse at about 2.1k in my non-optimized obroan gear (yes I raid in pvp gear bite me).

 

As far as pvp is concerned, field awareness and crits will have a much bigger effect on your success. Obviously I can't prove or test this, but I feel like I get targeted less while using a rifle at least initially because I don't have the obvious que of a commando. I've also played ranked on my server a bit and honestly it was just as bad with a rifle as with a cannon (I always ended up being the tank in terms of how much aggro and damage I took). Still for a rifle wielding hipster a ranking of 1290 is not bad.

 

Also, although the best possible parse with a cannon is 5% better than the best possible parse with a rifle, on average the two are comparable and the influence of RNG and crits does more to change your DPS than whether you use a rifle or cannon.

 

Moral of the story, use whatever weapon you like they are both viable unless you are in a situation where absolute min/maxing is required (read group ranked or NiM). Though to be perfectly honest nobody is gonna bring a commando to group ranked anyways so thats not really an issue. One major caviot, assault will not and cannot function with a rifle. You NEED charged bolts.

 

ps. if anyone would like to see parses I can upload some samples.

[Fazaani]

So we need new weapon called Assault rifle?

 

Cannon specs and rifle looks

Edited April 2, 2014 by Fazaani

[cashogy_reborn]

So we need new weapon called Assault rifle?

 

Cannon specs and rifle looks

 

Interesting idea.

[TheSupaCoopa]

Interesting idea.

 

Siege Rifle would be a cooler name.

 

I still wish we could dual-wield blaster pistols.

[Zoom_VI]

Using a Rifle as a DPS Commando is a DPS loss compared to an assault cannon. You also cannot use certain abilities with a Rifle.

 

You can do the entire gunnery rotation with a rifle, and you only lose damage on HiB and FA. While important in PvE, you could totally get away with using a rifle in pvp.

[wishihadaname]

So we need new weapon called Assault rifle?

 

Cannon specs and rifle looks

 

Pitch it as a cartel market idea, we already have all the animations for using a rifle so just take a big beefy looking rifle and change the weapon type to assault cannon. I get the funny feeling though that their animations are likely tied to the key word describing the weapon so that could get ugly trying to work around. Alternatively they could just remove the requirement for using a rifle front charged bolts and hail of bolts and give us a baseline x% base damage increase trait for being commandos to make rifles and cannons the same.

 

Love the class, hate lugging around the ridiculous looking weaponry.

[AdamLKvist]

You can do the entire gunnery rotation with a rifle, and you only lose damage on HiB and FA. While important in PvE, you could totally get away with using a rifle in pvp.

 

Untill someone interrupts grav round and you need to use charged bolts to proc CoF

[cashogy_reborn]

FA is also still a pretty big damage dealer in PvP.

[Khevar]

Untill someone interrupts grav round and you need to use charged bolts to proc CoF

Exactly!

[Loc_n_lol]

So we need new weapon called Assault rifle?

 

Cannon specs and rifle looks

 

Well the problem are the missing animations... (though I'm sure if they wanted to, they *could* re-use some sniper animations for charged bolts and hail of bolts. Like snipe and suppressing fire / carbine burst...)

Unless you mean a rifle with a chainsaw grip ?

Edited April 3, 2014 by Loc_n_lol