Gunnery vs Assault?

[Faudyen]

Hey everyone,

 

I am a little confused about the dps between Gunnery and Assault. It seems that most people I see are running Gunnery but I read on the forums that Assault is the higher dps spec. Is Assault only really used in OPS? Or is it that people , in general, just like Gunnery better so they take the lower dps spec? I do not parse my dps, or know how, so I can't check between the two specs myself I am just wondering.

 

Thanks in advance

Faud

[fire-breath]

The reason is that people are a bit like sheeps following each other. Gunnery was long time believed to be the only viable spec. At gen chat on fleet people would blindly advertise gunnery.

 

Please note that i dont say whic one performs better, only the commando mindset.

Its only recently people discovered that assault isnt bsd at all. I believe this was somewhere around patch 2.2 or 2.3 or so (approximately).

Looking back at the 'gunnery only' mindset it takes time to convince people.

 

I don't have a dps mando or merc myself but i think it has something to do with relics. Please correct me if wrong.

 

That having said. Its great to have a gunnery in your ops because of the armordebuff. Guardians have it too but i rarely see one in ops. Guardiantanks only give the debuff on the current enemy. Gunslingers can do the same at the cost of wasting a gcd. In the long run a gunnery mando is just more effective at it.

[Jedi_riches]

I never really paid much attention when leveling my commando which does the better DPS, but I must admit I leveled to about level 43 as a gunnery, since then I have switched to assault mainly since I got bored of the spec since the only attacks I ever used in that spec was grav round x 3 then HIB with Full Auto when proc'ed.

 

I have enjoyed going from 43 - 50 as Assult spec, whilst on Belsavis though.

[AMightyKnight]

It has nothing to do with relics.

 

Gunnery is a very easy spec to play if you are satisfied with utilizing 80% of your potential (= 99% of the playerbase).

Assault is less straightforward to play and differs much from Gunnery. Its is the higher dps spec atm (probably nerf incoming) but unless you really get into the varrious Assault rotations combos the difference is really not that relevant.

And on certain bosses, the burst options of Gunnery are still the way to go. Especially in comming Nightmare Conent.

[Gyronamics]

The reason is that people are a bit like sheeps following each other. Gunnery was long time believed to be the only viable spec. At gen chat on fleet people would blindly advertise gunnery.

 

Please note that i dont say whic one performs better, only the commando mindset.

Its only recently people discovered that assault isnt bsd at all. I believe this was somewhere around patch 2.2 or 2.3 or so (approximately).

Looking back at the 'gunnery only' mindset it takes time to convince people.

 

Assault was weak and unreliable and high ammo costs since release. It was flat out worse than Gunnery.

 

Then the 36 point talent was changed to a DoT nade, Incendiary Round was reduced in cost by about 1/3 and last year as early as May it was discovered that the procs were not random if you used your abilities in very specific orders.

 

Now vast numbers have flocked to Assault because they've heard it's so great and Gunnery is the one you are mocked for taking.

 

Those who actually know their **** will know the finer details and that Gunnery and Assault have strengths and weaknesses beyond whacking off a dummy and seeing who comes out better after 5 mins of non stop damage.

 

As an example, if you want damage really fast and/or have lots of target swapping then the worst choice is Assault.

 

This is a reason why the DPS choice for PVP is Gunnery.

 

There are other differences.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Gyronamics

[AdamLKvist]

Hey everyone,

 

I am a little confused about the dps between Gunnery and Assault. It seems that most people I see are running Gunnery but I read on the forums that Assault is the higher dps spec. Is Assault only really used in OPS? Or is it that people , in general, just like Gunnery better so they take the lower dps spec? I do not parse my dps, or know how, so I can't check between the two specs myself I am just wondering.

 

Thanks in advance

Faud

 

/PvP perspective

Gunnery =

 

• A good mix of yellow/white damage which essentially means that there is no counter (other than interrupt but both specs suffers from this)
  
• Not cleanseable damage
  
• More survivability
  

 

Assault =

 

• White damage (more deflection CDs than tec resist CDs in game, also doesnt have many good hard hitting tech damage abilities)
  
• Since DoT damage can be cleansed this spec can be shut down both by interrupts and by cleansing.
  

 

 

Above + as you say not as popular. However in ranked teams and soloqueue I see more players play assault than gunnery (because appearently they believe that the MINOR improvement to mobility is worth the tradeoff)

Edited March 20, 2014 by AdamLKvist

[Fazaani]

Parsers parse and players play

Both are viable

[Gyronamics]

Above + as you say not as popular. However in ranked teams and soloqueue I see more players play assault than gunnery (because appearently they believe that the MINOR improvement to mobility is worth the tradeoff)

 

Really?

 

1 Cleanse and 1 interrupt and the Assault player will be spamming hammer shots or burning a regen cooldown to keep damage up because they rely on constant casting and their DoT for burst and sustained damage.

 

You remove the DoT or interrupt them then their damage becomes trivial, sure they can throw some grenades about and spam low damage DoT which fluffs damage scores on the results but that's the kind of damage a healer laughs at.

 

The unstoppable burst and passive regen from Gunnery is far more lethal in PVP where everyone is being thrown about like a bean bag.

[TACeMossie]

The reason is that people are a bit like sheeps following each other. Gunnery was long time believed to be the only viable spec. At gen chat on fleet people would blindly advertise gunnery.

 

Please note that i dont say whic one performs better, only the commando mindset.

Its only recently people discovered that assault isnt bsd at all. I believe this was somewhere around patch 2.2 or 2.3 or so (approximately).

Looking back at the 'gunnery only' mindset it takes time to convince people.

 

I don't have a dps mando or merc myself but i think it has something to do with relics. Please correct me if wrong.

 

It had to do with Patch 2.4, which did a number of things:

 

1. Minor boost to High Impact Bolt damage.

2. Incendiary round lost a little bit of damage for a large resource cost reduction

3. The Dread Forged Gear Tier came out

4. Assault Plastique got more burst and more sustained without a negative tradeoff for it.

 

Why did these make assault much better?

 

MINOR HiB BOOST

While it was more noticable on Vanguards, the minor HiB boost comes into effect much more often for assault spec. While gunnery gets 40% more of the boost, it only happens once every 15 seconds, as opposed to every 6 seconds assault has, and doesn't get the surge boost assault spec gets

 

IR RESOURCE BUFF/DAMAGE NERF

Because the only high-heat move in Assaults rotation was reduced to standard heat, Assault can go for a 100% heat neutral rotation without the use of hammer shots. This really helps with doing damage.

 

DREAD FORGED TIER GEAR

Until this came out, the best gear for a Gunnery Commando was the 4-piece Dread Guard gear, which is level 50 gear. Swapping it out for the 78s was a tiny DPS increase for gunnery, due to increased demand for its resource management, but Assault Spec got the full force of this tier of gear because it doesn't have resource issues. End Result, Assault is even scarier with this while Gunnery didn't really get anything from it (aside from mods, the mainhand and the relics).

 

ASSAULT PLASTIQUE BUFFS

Well... Self explanatory. Buff the biggest hit from assault and see if it makes the spec even stronger.

 

So yeah, it was patch 2.4 that brought about the rise of the Assault Spec, but before there it was much worse and its only uses were in hybrid builds, for both commandos and vanguards.

 

I am interested in seeing how the Gunnery/Assault hybrid of 2.7 is going to look though (rotation is Filler -> Charged Bolts -> Grav Round -> Curtain of Fire Unload -> Ionic Accelerator HiB)

[Fazaani]

And as for sheeps i agree this much, too many just see the current dps leaderspec and go for that... That's the sheep problem if there is any...

[venomlash]

Assault is better for fights that require a lot of mobility but not much target-switching. Gunnery is better for fights that require switching back and forth and does especially well against bosses that predictably do a lot of little raid-wide hits. Currently Assault has slightly better damage but Gunnery has much better survivability.

[Mastershroom]

Assault parses higher for sustained single target damage, there's no question there. I pretty much stay Assault all the time, though I occasionally run Gunnery for casual raids where I don't have to try to push 3k all the time, just for fun.

[Gyronamics]

And as for sheeps i agree this much, too many just see the current dps leaderspec and go for that... That's the sheep problem if there is any...

 

The leaderboard is a lie.

 

Mercs which fill the leaderboad entirely are bugged to do 100-150 more dps due to an issue with the offhand acting like a mainhand for talents.

 

The tree used for leaderboard parsing ignores pushback resistance for 2% more crit.

 

Take that BS out and parses will be maxing out at 3800ish not 4k+

[Kinslayer]

The leaderboard is a lie.

 

Mercs which fill the leaderboad entirely are bugged to do 100-150 more dps due to an issue with the offhand acting like a mainhand for talents.

 

The tree used for leaderboard parsing ignores pushback resistance for 2% more crit.

 

Take that BS out and parses will be maxing out at 3800ish not 4k+

 

Meh, even if the OH never had a chance to apply/refresh the CGC DoT my best parse still would've been over 4k. I'd also like to know where 100-150 comes from. It's not even 100.

[Gyronamics]

Meh, even if the OH never had a chance to apply/refresh the CGC DoT my best parse still would've been over 4k. I'd also like to know where 100-150 comes from. It's not even 100.

 

That number comes from me.

 

Two things I can get hold of easily are my own commando parses and leaderboard merc parses.

 

Other peoples commando parses are quite rare because as they know they won't get on the leaderboard and not through low APM and bad rotations.

 

The only parse you have ever posted for your commando is 8dps higher than my own best and it still can't get on the leaderboard except as a comparison with your merc parse.

 

These are the two highest parses you can find on the forum, or come to that the only high range parses possible to find for commandos at all.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/625479/time/1395370627/1395370884/0/Damage+Dealt

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/558407/time/1390130246/1390130503/0/Damage+Dealt

 

I'm revising my estimate from 100-150 to ~100dps because I have a massive stack of parses with 270-odd dps on plasma cell.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Gyronamics

[twotilmidnite]

Play whichever spec you find more fun. Case closed. I've run both and have never had an issue in any content......except PvP. PvP is the bane of Assault if a healer is smart enough to cleanse in my experiences.

[Faudyen]

Hello,

 

Wanted to stop by again after reading all of the posts and thank everyone for posting a reply. I feel much more content staying with Gunnery after reading what everyone has written.

 

Thanks again.

[mastervalkar]

I've played both Gunnery and Assault in end-game PVE, and really it comes down to one choice for me most of the time.

 

Do I want the higher burst of Assault opening rotation vs. Do I want Gunnery's consistent damage through the fight? My mindset, and from what I seen in my play style is that with Assault, I can parsec up to 3000 dps within 10 secs of pull, but then normalizes to about 2350-2500 (in my current gear, on actual bosses, not dummy) after that, where the way I've have optimized my Gunnery rotation I can maintain 2750 dps the whole fight while not burning my ammo hard to do so.

 

Plus if you read the 2.7 PTS notes, you know that they are currently looking at having Full Auto have four (4) total ticks of damage now, and have Curtain of Fire (the Full Auto proc in Gunnery) on a 50/75/100% proc chance from Grav Round instead of a 15/30/45% it is now, meaning that since Gunnery uses Full Auto as its focus and Assault only uses Full Auto when you have no other option, Gunnery will start to slip away from Assault post 2.7.

[Kinslayer]

That number comes from me.

 

Two things I can get hold of easily are my own commando parses and leaderboard merc parses.

 

Other peoples commando parses are quite rare because as they know they won't get on the leaderboard and not through low APM and bad rotations.

 

The only parse you have ever posted for your commando is 8dps higher than my own best and it still can't get on the leaderboard except as a comparison with your merc parse.

 

These are the two highest parses you can find on the forum, or come to that the only high range parses possible to find for commandos at all.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/625479/time/1395370627/1395370884/0/Damage+Dealt

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/558407/time/1390130246/1390130503/0/Damage+Dealt

 

I'm revising my estimate from 100-150 to ~100dps because I have a massive stack of parses with 270-odd dps on plasma cell.

 

My best commando parse is this one, although it is actually worse than the other one of mine you linked in terms of plasma cell uptime.

 

100 is definitely closer in my opinion. Either way it's definitely a noticeable and significant difference.

[Fazaani]

The leaderboard is a lie.

 

Is that what i said? sorry about that.

 

Anyway's i meant parse aint all that there is...

 

Baaah!

[DerTaran]

To bring the thread back, what is the effect of 2.7?

 

I was changing from gunnery to assault, because of the better mobility in PVP, but I can imagine, that the changes implemented with the patch will bring gunnery back.

 

What is your experience?

[Gyronamics]

To bring the thread back, what is the effect of 2.7?

 

I was changing from gunnery to assault, because of the better mobility in PVP, but I can imagine, that the changes implemented with the patch will bring gunnery back.

 

What is your experience?

 

Gunnery was never the worse spec for pvp.

 

The main difference is when you open with a grav round you have two fully buffed options, Demo or FA instead of Demo and maybe FA.

 

The 4 ticks on FA is not something you really notice.

 

The interrupt protection on shield is somewhat awkward because wanting to not get interrupted is not the same thing as wanting your shield up and since gap closers put a melee on you what tends to happen is they simply go to stun if they get a red message saying the interrupt was denied. Of course that does the same thing.

 

Nothing changed for Assault, the sacrifices needed to get interrupt shield are massive on top of shield being on full length CD so you just don't.

 

Assault still has the much longer damage ramp up than Gunnery which can in 1 GCD drop Grav/Demo then use the fully buffed FA on someone else for very substantial burst on both targets.

 

Assault is more like a gimped Dirty Fighting Gunslinger in pvp, putting dots up then casting to get best damage. Key difference is the weakness to interrupts, cleanses, leaps, pulls.

[cashogy_reborn]

Gunnery is better in PvP IMO. You can have the same output with Assault, but you bring less to the table in terms of group utility and survivability.

[Zakmonster]

Then the 36 point talent was changed to a DoT nade, Incendiary Round was reduced in cost by about 1/3 and last year as early as May it was discovered that the procs were not random if you used your abilities in very specific orders..

 

This, pretty much. Get this timing right and the Ionic Accelerator RNG stops being RNG.

 

But after levelling my Commando over the past week, I must say I enjoy Gunnery much more than Assault. In both PvE and PvP, I feel like I'm doing more damage and performing better overall. This is also because my Vanguard is Assault-specced and I feel like Assault Commandos just aren't as good (in PvP).

Edited April 14, 2014 by Zakmonster