Starguard/Rycer guns

[Verain]

The type 1 strike (Starguard/Rycer/Enforcer/Gladiator) has the distinction of switching between primary weapons. It's also the first ship a lot of pilots fly, and has pretty fun and reasonable controls and defenses, leaving it as a rather popular ship.

 

The text says it is a solid dogfighter, and indeed, it has merit at that role- but it is generally outclassed by the faster, more efficient, more maneuverable, more bursty blah blah battlescout.

 

 

But, even with that, people are still playing it, and the debate of which two weapons should be selected and talented continues to be revisited. Unlike when the game launched, many of us have all four primary weapon systems mastered- some even have their pet type 1 strike complete, with every variation on every component mastered.

 

 

 

So this post is about the guns, not whole builds. Obviously some will work better with one playstyle or another, or one missile or another. Builds should go under the stasiepedia:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729222

 

 

1- Heavy Lasers: These are powerful front firing weapons with a large tracking penalty. They are long range, and lose little at extra ranges. They can be talented to pierce armor (the other selection being a tracking penalty reduction, rarely taken), and their final talent is either shield piercing or extra damage to shields.

 

Opinion: These are a mainstay of most solid Starguards, and indeed, most ships that can get them. It's the only armor ignoring option on the ship, and at this point I don't know any pilots on Bastion who run this ship without them anymore.

 

 

2- Quad Lasers: Your highest dps solution, quads have the more typical talent tree. These lasers also need you to be on target pretty squarely, and offer medium range and moderate tracking penalties. If a target is going to be squarely in front of you, or even a bit off the side, these lasers will deal very solid damage, bringing high dps and good accuracy.

 

Opinion: These are a good laser choice, but do overlap to a degree with heavies. If you have the opportunity to tunnel an enemy, these should be excellent damage.

 

3- Rapid Fire Lasers: These niche weapons specialize in enemies that are close, but off center. Bringing a heavy time-on-target requirement and a damage falloff very similar to the scout weapons (without the benefits of the superior light laser and burst laser cannon), the rapid fire laser is your only option for dealing with close and mobile targets. Unlike most lasers, their cost is very very low- you can fire rapids forever.

 

Opinion: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=723029 is my rant on these, asking for buffs. Somewhere else I just figure the devs think they are balanced as a low energy use weapon and ask for light lasers on the Starguard instead. All that being said, these are still defensible on this ship because you don't have lights or BLCs to make you effective at close range- instead you have rapid fire lasers so you aren't completely toothless.

 

4- Ion Cannon: This weapon is very very high dps versus shields, and it will strip a shield arc almost instantly. You will have to switch to a real gun to do hull damage. The ion cannon has a very short range, though in that range and against shields, nothing comes close.

 

Opinion: Despite the shining strengths of this weapon, I'm not aware of it being seriously used. The interruption in firing when you switch weapons, and the fact that this swap is absolutely mandatory to kill with an ion cannon strike fighter combine to really hurt the power. Meanwhile, the fact that you have to give up one of your threat ranges by having only one blaster able to score kills also works against it.

 

 

 

 

Combinations: There are obviously six combinations. This is where I want your opinions pretty badly here.

 

 

Heavies/Quads: These two have some overlap. Some will set the quads to extra hull damage and the heavies to extra shield damage, figuring that each one has a role. What I've seen more common is the quads set to shield damage and crit, and the heavies set to armor ignore and shield pierce, and the weapon type is simply chosen based on your target type, angle, and distance- for instance, a stationary gunship will be approached with full quads, while a bomber will see nothing but heavies, losing precious hull instantly, and a while both options are weak versus scouts, quads are generally the less weak one. Meanwhile, enemies with very low hull and full shield get heavies.

 

Heavies/Rapids: Some pilots I respect the most are running this combo. The heavies can be set up as armor ignore / shield pierce, OR they can be set up with the extra shield damage. The rapids always get tracking penalty negate/extra firing angle and extra hull damage, as a close target who is full everything will die if they are stationary regardless, but one who is evasive and low on health can be finished with extra hull damage. I've also run this one one of my type 1 strikes, and I find that it gives you the most threatened ranges. You still don't want to rely on the rapids, but they can be effective against a closer opponent.

 

Heavies/Ions: I ran this exclusively while mastering my Starguard, and it made me adopt a playstyle I won't recommend in general. Basically, you cruise around with heavies and if an opponent is ever both close and has shields, you strip them instantly with ions, then swap to heavies and just deal with the poor tracking penalties as you try to line up shots. Like most Starguard builds, it isn't meant for turn fighting, but it can acquire targets and effect foes at any range. The power of ions is immense, but it is frustrating to lose something so powerful as close range combat.

 

Quads/Ions: I kind of think this was intended to be more effective than it is- it's the high damage laser with middle of the road penalties and ranges, combined with the very very high shield dps ion cannon. This combination would probably be stronger (as would any ion combination) if the ion cannon had a longer range. Having the same max range as burst laser, rapid fire laser, and light laser, the ion cannon won't be your first weapon on most approaches- if you have a solid bead on an opponent, drilling him with quads is a strong strategy- but it can be very valuable in a beadless situation where you strip enemy shields effectively, leaving them taking hull damage for any subsequent mistake. Given how good all this sounds, I would think I'd have found it more effective, but I haven't. This build gives quads the crit chance and the hull damage- the hull damage seems like it should be more valuable than it ends up being.

 

Rapids/Ions: I play this on my "whiskey gladiator", but of course, I don't use that for serious game (the gladiator also has other weapons and normally runs one of the other builds if I'm trying to play more seriously). The trick here is that this ship has a very straightforward strategy at almost all points in the battle: if you are in range, you hit them. If they have shields, you hit them with ions. If they don't, you hit them with rapids. Your rapids are decreased tracking penalty and hull damage. If you aren't in range, you try to get in range. The rest of that ship was set up to sorta work with that, but that's beyond the scope of the thread. If rapids were good, then this would give you close range damage similar to a scout- as it is, your time to kill is still very low simply because of the shocking damage of ion cannons (a scout can become much lower, but that's only because of targeting telemetry or blaster overcharge and, of course, rocket pods). Unlike other builds, this Starguard build has a really hard time maintaining an appropriate range: it basically has scout weapons but without all the scout tricks.

 

Quads/Rapids: I'm not aware of anyone who has seriously tried this. With Quads having solid damage under bead and rapids being able to shoot at closer ranges, this sounds mostly like a confused version of the heavy/quad build or the heavy/rapid build- it seems like quads have some of the power of rapids at moderate tracking values, so you'd have little luck with this. Is anyone running this and having a good time with it?

 

 

 

 

What are the solid Type 1 pilots running on other servers?

Edited May 6, 2014 by Verain

[Zoom_VI]

I use heavies and RFL, heavies are imo the go to weapon for strikes and RFL is there because its the one weapon that hits in situations where HLC does not.

[Verain]

I use heavies and RFL, heavies are imo the go to weapon for strikes and RFL is there because its the one weapon that hits in situations where HLC does not.

 

I'm finding this effective and I'm seeing this among known good pilots, so I concur with your opinions here.

[LilSaihah]

Quad/Heavy/Cluster.

 

Quad is my beading weapon for standard use; it just brings good poundage for what it does. Built for shield-killing, on the offchance I feel like swapping to Heavies to finish the job.

 

Heavy is for beating up people who run high armor builds, especially people who use Charged Plating, or for punching turrets into the ground.

 

Cluster is just really open-ended and you can use it pretty much anywhere you want to hurt someone.

 

Included Cluster because which missile you take is a component of how you make your gun decision, because they all do different things. Proton ignores shields, so you don't want to use it with Ion Cannons. Concussion ignores Armor, so you might want to skip Heavy Lasers when you take it. Cluster doesn't do anything fancy.

Edited May 6, 2014 by LilSaihah

[Nemarus]

I recommend that when you talk about Primary Weapon combos, you should also be including Secondary Weapons in the discussion.

 

Your biggest hit against Ion Cannons, for example, is that using them means you don't have short-range blasters which can land a kill.

 

The thing is, if you combine Ion Cannons with Cluster Missiles, you don't need short-range lasers. Fire Ion Cannons at your target as you are simultaneously locking on with Cluster Missiles. Even at max range, upgraded Ion Cannons will strip over 1800 shields in 1.5 seconds, which means no shields for Scouts or most Strike builds. Then release your Cluster Missiles and hit their hull for 887 hull damage. If the target is still centered, switch to HLC's and finish them off. Otherwise just keep slamming them with Cluster Missiles.

 

The other benefit of this combo is that, because Ion Cannons require so little sustained fire to do their job well, and because Cluster Missiles require no laser energy, you can actually remain at full offensive potency (at close range) while keeping power diverted to shields. Combine this with Directional Shields and a Turbo Reactor and it is very hard for an enemy to damage you.

 

Works pretty good.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Nemarus

[TrinityLyre]

Too lazy to type many paragraphs and long-winded explanations. Also, some of these combo with missiles so it isn't fair to discuss them all alone in a vacuum. Further, I think not having armor pen in a game where someone can have complete immunity to you because of that is a massive drawback:

 

Heavies/Quads: Like you said, overlap. Quads have terrible tracking accuracy and are pretty inferior for node-clearing where fights are extremely short distance and snap shots are taken often.

 

Heavies/Rapids: What I've found as the strongest. Good, heavy, shield-piercing ranged damage (with armor pen) and decent short-range lasers.

 

Heavies/Ions: The only time I use ions is to peel someone's shields before a missile lock at short range, or to chase someone off a node (and hope they panic). I prefer heavy/RFL, but these aren't a terrible combination.

 

Quads/Ions: So you fire with Ions (4k) to strip shields so you can hit with Quads (5k), which would probably have stripped shields in nearly the same amount of time? No armor pen.

 

Rapids/Ions: No armor pen. If you insist on playing a short-range build, play a scout. They have better options and Ion isn't as strong as it needs to be.

 

Quads/Rapids: I don't really see the point here. Also, no armor pen.

 

I also admit bias to Heavies since they're practically mini Slug Railguns. And who doesn't like mini Slug Railguns?

Edited May 6, 2014 by TrinityLyre

[Kuciwalker]

4- Ion Cannon: This weapon is very very high dps versus shields, and it will strip a shield arc almost instantly. You will have to switch to a real gun to do hull damage. The ion cannon has a very short range, though in that range and against shields, nothing comes close.

 

Opinion: Despite the shining strengths of this weapon, I'm not aware of it being seriously used. The interruption in firing when you switch weapons, and the fact that this swap is absolutely mandatory to kill with an ion cannon strike fighter combine to really hurt the power. Meanwhile, the fact that you have to give up one of your threat ranges by having only one blaster able to score kills also works against it.

 

While I'm not a "serious" strike pilot, I do run ions and I'm very, very fond of them on the node - their basically infinite dps versus shields means you can just sort of "spray and pray", and stripping shields is valuable even if you don't get to immediately follow up with hull damage, so long as there is another source of damage nearby (an ally, turrets, whatever).

 

Also they don't do zero hull damage, so virtually every time you connect you are basically guaranteed to do something to their hull. It's like a modest shield piercing on a regular weapon.

 

I write the above particularly with scouts in mind, but ions get substantially better versus heavily-shielded targets like... well, pretty much everyone who isn't a scout.

[Delta_V]

I've had success in the past w/ the Quads/Ions/Clusters combo, although since the introduction of bombers, the lack of armor penetration has proven annoying. It's a strictly short-mid range build, but packs respectable burst potential in that range. Ions strip shields, followed immediately by a double-volley cluster directly to the hull, then just a few shots from the Quads to finish them off. The issue w/ this build, of course, is that it basically a poor man's battle scout - similar range, slightly more durable, but significantly slower and less maneuverable. And again, now that the biggest challenge in Domination is killing bombers around satellites, the lack of armor penetration is really frustrating. The ability to obliterate all 2700 of their shields in about two seconds is pretty nice, but closing to Ion Cannon range means you're probably gonna take a pair of S/I mines to the face. This build would be a hell of a lot more interesting if Ion Cannons got bumped up to 5,000 max range.

 

 

 

It's really hard to *not* take Heavy Lasers on the Type 1 Strikes, since they're one of the few weapons that really differentiates them from Scouts. The biggest issue is the lack of weapons to pair with them. If Rapids were buffed to be not terrible, or if T-1 Strikes were given access to Light or Burst Lasers, the ability for T-1 Strikes to play ball at multiple ranges would give them something unique over Scouts. Scouts would still be faster and more maneuverable, meaning they'd still be more effective at short (<4,000 meters) range, but Strikes would be at least competitive at that range, while still being able to hit things at >6,000 meters.

 

 

 

tl;dr - buff Ion Cannons to 5k meters, and give T-1 Strikes a short range weapon that doesn't suck. That'll give them a choice between absolute lethality at mid-range using Ions/Quads or the ability to engage targets all the way from 500m to 6,900m using Heavies and a short range weapon that doesn't suck.

[dailus]

I am in the ion/quad/concussion camp, but usually end up just using ion to concussions. I usually end up with a boat load of assists running this build. Edited May 6, 2014 by dailus

[SammyGStatus]

First ship I mastered on Renegade-One was a star guard. I run Heavies and Quads. Heavies for the heavily armored peoples like bombers, and quads for pretty much everything else that aren't turrets. Quads need to be T5 to get the most out of them (I found that T4 heavies were doing more for me when both Quads and Heavies were at T4). Used to use ions, but felt a little less deadly imo. CF is a huge plus for quads though when in a dogfight

[Fractalsponge]

Heavies/ions/clusters work very well. The primary weapons can't be considered in isolation for a strike.

[Sidenti]

I am in the ion/quad/concussion camp, but usually end up just using ion to concussions. I usually end up with a boat load of assists running this build.

 

I call it the ICQ build (I'm old, I know), and it's stupid effective. Lots of assists, which means teammates are racking up kills. Scouts despise the T4 and T5 effects on the Ions. Especially jousters. -bp

[mr_sim]

I recommend that when you talk about Primary Weapon combos, you should also be including Secondary Weapons in the discussion.

 

 

Agreed so I will list mine.

 

I use (in order)

RFL

HLC

Concussion missiles

Frequency capacitor

 

Almost the the classic(default) build minus the frequency capacitor. I actually mastered the ship with the default Range Capacitor but liked the experience I had with the frequency on other ships and found the same on the Rycer.

 

The classic build has the benefit of being an extremely effective build withing all possible shooting ranges where each weapon has a niche that the other 2 do not try to compete with. Though by the same token you cannot combine 2 of each easily to increase damage at a specific range.

 

Overall this build tends to be weaker vs scouts but vicious vs anything slower. Yet it does not close the door on killing scouts, but other builds kill scouts better I believe.

[Gerfaut]

Ion Cannon/HLC/Concussion works well too. Stripping the target's shields with ion cannon while locking concussion (or even while the missile is in the air) results in over 1k damage to hull when the missile hits.

[Yndras]

 

Heavies/Quads: These two have some overlap. Some will set the quads to extra hull damage and the heavies to extra shield damage, figuring that each one has a role. What I've seen more common is the quads set to shield damage and crit, and the heavies set to armor ignore and shield pierce, and the weapon type is simply chosen based on your target type, angle, and distance- for instance, a stationary gunship will be approached with full quads, while a bomber will see nothing but heavies, losing precious hull instantly, and a while both options are weak versus scouts, quads are generally the less weak one. Meanwhile, enemies with very low hull and full shield get heavies.

 

The above combination is rather poor. Quads are ineffective at close range and in this build you will constantly be out of weapon power due to the high drain of both weapons. So when you get to your kill shot, you'll be scrambling for power.

 

Heavies/Rapids: Some pilots I respect the most are running this combo. The heavies can be set up as armor ignore / shield pierce, OR they can be set up with the extra shield damage. The rapids always get tracking penalty negate/extra firing angle and extra hull damage, as a close target who is full everything will die if they are stationary regardless, but one who is evasive and low on health can be finished with extra hull damage. I've also run this one one of my type 1 strikes, and I find that it gives you the most threatened ranges. You still don't want to rely on the rapids, but they can be effective against a closer opponent.

 

This build offers pilots flexibility. Using the Long range to soften up an approaching pilot forces pilots to engage you up close. When they get up close pepper them with RFL. Despite the chance to miss the rps of these make up for any loss in accuracy in a turning battle. RFL's are second only to burst lasers in a turning battle.

 

Quads/Rapids: I'm not aware of anyone who has seriously tried this. With Quads having solid damage under bead and rapids being able to shoot at closer ranges, this sounds mostly like a confused version of the heavy/quad build or the heavy/rapid build- it seems like quads have some of the power of rapids at moderate tracking values, so you'd have little luck with this. Is anyone running this and having a good time with it?

 

Great build. Currently run this combination on my Rycer. Needs support from extra engine power to keep the strike in range, configure to do shield damage on both lasers as shield regen will prevent much of your damage from landing on the hull. Rapid fires give you an option when you run your weapon power pool dry, and suggest using the frequency capacitor to pump up the rps. Compliment the crit ability and increased rps with concentrated fire to give exceedingly great burst on head to heads.

 

What are the solid Type 1 pilots running on other servers?

 

I run a combination based on what pilots are playing. I will change up my laser combinations based on what ship types are predominant in the matches. The strike type 1 is in my opinion the most versatile and flexible ship of all the ships available. It has the survivability of a bomber with close to the same if not better manoeuvrability of a scout. You can configure it to play multiple ways, complimenting your different ranges and play styles.

 

Over all the type 1 strike is sorely underrated.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Yndras

[Verain]

The above combination is rather poor. Quads are ineffective at close range and in this build you will constantly be out of weapon power due to the high drain of both weapons.

 

Interestingly, I find it rather rare for energy to be a limiting factor normally for me. I've never heard of anyone swapping to a lower energy use weapon for that reason.

 

I do agree that that build has no good close range options. Whenever I have used it, it's essentially saying "well, rapids aren't a good close range option either".

 

This build offers pilots flexibility. Using the Long range to soften up an approaching pilot forces pilots to engage you up close. When they get up close pepper them with RFL.

 

If you have to kill with rapids, of course you can- and the fact is, this is becoming the dominant build that I'm seeing (heavies/rapids). But I'm trying to figure out if that's some local meta call, or if that really is the generally strongest type 1 strike build.

 

 

Despite the chance to miss the rps of these make up for any loss in accuracy in a turning battle. RFL's are second only to burst lasers in a turning battle.

 

They are actually third, behind both light lasers and burst laser cannon. The superiority to light laser cannon can be verified by actually trying them both out on the same ship a whole bunch (and sorry that you have to master RFL on your scout), or by checking out the stats.

 

Brief story: While the rapid fire laser does have an extra 4 degrees to its firing arc, the light laser firing arc is quite large enough. While rapids have a -0.8 tracking penalty, and lights have a -1 tracking penalty, the lights have 5% more base accuracy at all ranges but close- meaning that at most ranges and angles, lights will be way more dps, given that they start with 13% more at the only range where they have similar accuracy, and falling down to 7% more at the ranges where the lights have the 5% base accuracy advantage.

 

Longer story: If you actually manage to engage at 500m at 34 degrees, the lights will be 1.13x damage with an accuracy of A, and the rapids will be x damage with an accuracy of A+6.8%. 7% accuracy can outdamage 13% damage versus some evasive targets, but how much time do you really spend at 34 degrees? The situations where RFL is in ANY way superior to LLC are all contrived and garbage. At 1000m and 20 degrees off, LLC will outperform RFL via math I'm not wanting to do. At 1750m, the math is easy: LLC has 908 versus RFL 823, 10% more dps, and LLC has 106% versus RFL 103.5%. At 20 degrees from center, LLC has -15% and RFL -11%, so this becomes 91% accuracy for LLC and 92.5% for RFL. There's no way that 1.5% accuracy boost even VAGUELY makes up for a 10% dps loss.

 

 

So no, RFL is worse than LLC at angles, because:

At very close range, the damage is much worse. At moderate ranges, the damage delta shrinks, but an accuracy delta is injected. The tracking penalty never helps RFL over LLC.

 

 

 

 

Please refer to the RFL QQ thread linked in my OP if you want more math, or if you want to debate that RFL has any merit beyond its low energy cost. If LLC was available on the strike fighter, RFL would never be chosen except by someone who really wants that low power weapon.

 

Great build. Currently run this combination on my Rycer. Needs support from extra engine power to keep the strike in range, configure to do shield damage on both lasers as shield regen will prevent much of your damage from landing on the hull. Rapid fires give you an option when you run your weapon power pool dry, and suggest using the frequency capacitor to pump up the rps. Compliment the crit ability and increased rps with concentrated fire to give exceedingly great burst on head to heads.

 

Interesting. You're the first to ever say something for this build, or to run double shield damage lasers. I assume you simply have to ignore armored targets etc. I will try this out at some point.

 

Over all the type 1 strike is sorely underrated.

 

I really and sadly don't think so- I think it needs some buffs. I think the strike fighter class sorta suffers in general from being intended to be generally solid, but it ends up having to fight for any role at all. I think it's hard to say how much the extra hull and shield are worth, and I think in general the devs kind of erred on the conservative side with strike fighters in general.

 

But if your server is full of people who deride it as a noob ship or something, then yea, that's underrated. It definitely can do things and put numbers on the board.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Verain

[SammyGStatus]

For a star guard using quads, would CF be the right copilot ability?

[Grahame]

I'm currently running my star guard with HLC, Quads, and Protons. I use quads instead of RFL since it's base 10% higher accuracy at medium and long range means that even with the large tracking penalty quads are more accurate than RFLs at ranges > 2686m at maximum deflection (12 degrees).

 

I run protons mostly to further differentiate my strike from my flashfire and I've had much more success with them than I would have thought.

 

Math stuff (if you care):

Range capacitor: +10%

Pinpointing: +6% acc

Quad ranges: 575, 3450, 5750

Quad Acc: 116%, 101%, 91% (0 deflection)

Quad Acc: 98%, 83%, 73% (12 degree deflection)

RFL ranges: 550, 3300, 4400

RFL Acc: 116%, 91%, 81%

RFL Acc: 106.4%, 81.4%, 71.4%

 

Quad short-mid acc slope: 15%/(2875m)=0.005217391

RFL short-mid acc slope: 25%/(2750m)=0.009090909

81.4%+25%/2750m*x=83.78%+15%/2875m*x //adjust base quad acc up by 150m*slope since RFLs are at 81.4 at 3300m

0.003873518*x=2.38%

x=614.43m //subtract this from 3300 to find the distance at which max deflection quad accuracy equals RFL accuracy at the same deflection

[Scrabs]

For a star guard using quads, would CF be the right copilot ability?

 

CF is always the right co-pilot ability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kappa

[Devrius]

CF is always the right co-pilot ability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kappa

 

 

I don't know, running interference with Nadia and Retro-Thruster has allowed me to dodge a railgun and finish off a GS that assumed he could just shoot me down.

 

Back to topic, for my primary weapons I use HLCs and Concussion, the reason I don't list my second choice is because I stick with Rapids and just don't use them...

 

Unlike the T2 strike where switching missiles is beneficial (they do not share cooldowns) on a T1 strike it interrupts firing, so when I'm too close for HLCs to land I increase/reduce speed or boost to a firing a range, I used to switch to rapids but the time it takes to re-start firing I could have used to re-position for HLCs to land so I stopped doing that.

 

Of course if we had a *real* choice for close range like light laser and it didn't interrupt firing I would use it, but right now we have neither.

[Scrabs]

I don't know, running interference with Nadia and Retro-Thruster has allowed me to dodge a railgun and finish off a GS that assumed he could just shoot me down.

 

Aw you probably don't know Kappa then

 

Moving on.

[Altheran]

I don't know, running interference with Nadia [...]

 

Nadia has Bypass (if I'm translating right)

[SammyGStatus]

CF is always the right co-pilot ability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kappa

 

WTH is a Kappa (besides a greek letter)??? You silly Danish folk

[Scrabs]

WTH is a Kappa (besides a greek letter)??? You silly Danish folk

 

Omg you people! Go to the nearest twitch.tv chat and type Kappa

[Kuciwalker]

Nadia has Bypass (if I'm translating right)

 

Running Interference from the Tactical slot (which you set as copilot) and then running Nadia in the Defense slot for her passive evasion buff (but not picking her as copilot).