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3.0 Virulence - A new way to play

TACeMossie

By TACeMossie
in Gunslinger / Sniper

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TACeMossie

TACeMossie

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Based entirely off information given in the stream, we can make a new rotation that works with lethality. This rotation will be competitive with the current preference, but will be easier on resource management as well as allowing you to use the new ability Lethal Shot far more often, and as a drawback will be more difficult in terms of DoT tracking in raids, and getting the old rotation out of your head.

 

This new rotation is the "3-cull rotation", named as such because we have 3-cull cycles instead of 2-cull cycles. Well its really a 6-cull cycle, but whatever.

 

"How does it work?"

 

3.0 is Increasing uptime on your DoTs from 21 seconds to 24 seconds. In addition, Cull is now making your DoTs tick again, instead of doing extra damage for having DoTs on the target. Finally, the weak dots passive is being changed so the weak DoTs will only do damage during cull, but will do full damage, and its duration is dropped to 5 seconds from 9.

 

With all that info, we can formulate the following priority system (once the opener has been dealt with)

 

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Corrosive Dart ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Weakening Blast -> Corrosive Grenade ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot ->

 

Cull -> Takedown -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Weakening Blast -> Corrosive Dart ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Corrosive Grenade ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot ->

 

The 3-cull rotation is easier on resource management and has a higher maximum potential, at the cost of a lot of the good snipers will take forever to get the old one out of their head, and DoT tracking in raids will most likely be harder (as the DoTs are spread out)

 

Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot can be swapped out for Covered Escape at any time if you have it up, and with the talent Calculated Pursuit, any use of Rifle Shot can be swapped out for Overload Shot.

 

With that in mind, enjoy!

 

NOTE: This can be sort-of done on live, only it requires using the Weak DoTs talent, and due to how that works it is inferior on live.

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Elracor

Elracor

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Why do you put Weakening Blast after Lethal Shots? I'd put Weakening Blast first as it triggers damage on poison effects and Lethal Shot comes with a poison effect.

 

Example:

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Corrosive Dart ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Corrosive Grenade ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot ->

 

Cull -> Takedown -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Corrosive Dart ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Corrosive Grenade ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot ->

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TACeMossie

TACeMossie

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Why do you put Weakening Blast after Lethal Shots? I'd put Weakening Blast first as it triggers damage on poison effects and Lethal Shot comes with a poison effect.

 

Example:

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Corrosive Dart ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Corrosive Grenade ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot ->

 

Cull -> Takedown -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Corrosive Dart ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Corrosive Grenade ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot ->

 

It was a first case scenario. I put it there because of the new 18 second cooldown, and also since it ticks on a DoT bleed, putting it there will mean that when you need to reapply the DoTs, you won't be losing damage due to only having a weak dot up.

 

Either way, the key note is that there is an alternative way to run it by splitting the DoTs up instead of bunching them up and clipping it.

Edited by TACeMossie
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Sindariel

Sindariel

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This rotation will be competitive with the current preference, but will be easier on resource management as well as allowing you to use the new ability Lethal Shot far more often, ....

 

Why do you think resource management will become easier?

I'd rather say it will become harder with the loss of the current 4-piece set bonus.

Edited by Sindariel
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xZarquon

xZarquon

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Why do you put Weakening Blast after Lethal Shots? I'd put Weakening Blast first as it triggers damage on poison effects and Lethal Shot comes with a poison effect.

 

Example:

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Corrosive Dart ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Corrosive Grenade ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot ->

 

Cull -> Takedown -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Corrosive Dart ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Series of Shots -> Corrosive Grenade ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot -> Lethal Shot/Rifle Shot ->

 

This is how I read the changes as well. If this is accurate, should make virulence a much more interesting spec as all the Lethal shots can be replaced with rifle shot, overload shot, or corrosive mine depending on the situation. Still don't really see a good place for Orbital (or suppressive fire which we're apparently supposed to use now) for AoE...maybe instead of a SOS or a double Lethal shot...or simply in situations where it's better to just AoE than deal single target we should:

Orbital precast (assuming things are not stacked up) --> corrosive dart --> corrosive grenade --> suppressive fire/single target rotation

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MeatbagTitan

MeatbagTitan

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I may be counting GCDs out on my fingers wrong (using bioware's secret weapon of math) but wouldn't it be sensible to reapply dots immediately AFTER a cull, so when they fall off it will be during a cull, which benefits from the weakened version of the dots? Full cycles through of 3 cull rotations would be 27 sec a piece (3x3sec of cull, 6 sec misc fillers).

 

Regardless, seems like an interesting possibility. Need to watch back through the stream to when they're talking through dots/cull/weakening blast and pay closer attenion

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KelebrinPL

KelebrinPL

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Lingering version of Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade will only deal damage if target is damaged by Cull.

 

I think there's misunderstanding here. What above statement means is when Cull is hits a target with lingering version both Corrosive Grenade and Corrosive Dart will tick per each Cull hit. That means Cull will deal weapon damage 3 times, and Corrosive Grenade and Corrosive Dart will tick 3 times each. It won't cause any more damage from CG and CD just those 3 ticks.

 

When you use Cull on a target with Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade ticking dot, you also do 3 times weapon Cull damage, 3 times CG and CD ticks + during duration of channel Corrosive Grenade and Corrosive Dart will tick once (damage ticks on both abilities happen every 3 seconds).

 

Compared to live 3.0 lingering toxins are actually weaker.

 

So your rotation is just allowing CD and CG fall of for 3 seconds meaning that compared to usual/old rotation (in which CD and CG are constantly ticking) you loose 1 tick of CD and CG each 27 seconds. Additionally in 54 second period you would activate CG 2 times, instead 3 times in old rotation. Because Corrosive Grenade deals damage on impact, it means 1 tick less.

 

So in span of 54 seconds you would loose 3 CG ticks and 2 CD ticks. You would gain 2 GCD to use Lethal Shots (if energy allows). It's hard to calculate without 3.0 released which is better but my gut tells me it's pretty close.

 

Anyway what I said above means that if 3 cull rotation will be a thing, you don't have to use CD and CG just before Cull, because on 3rd Cull lingering toxins won't do additional damage.

 

My 3 Cull rotation would look like that (ignoring opener as well):

 

Cull -> Takedown -> Corrosive Dart -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot

Cull -> Takedown -> Corrosive Grenade -> SoS ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Lethal Shot -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot

Cull -> Takedown -> ...

 

Or simplified:

 

Cull -> Takedown -> Corrosive Dart/Corrosive Grenade/Lethal Shot -> (WB -> Lethal Shot) / Series of Shots -> ...

 

Putting Corrosive Dart before Weakening Blast to get more ticks during WB buff.

 

Other problem with this rotation is loosing at least 1 tick that could benefit from WB buff. There will be always one dot that will run out during the buff.

 

2 Cull (usual) rotation would look like that (ignoring opener):

 

CD -> Takedown -> Weakening Blast -> CG -> Cull -> Takedown -> Lethal Shot -> Series of Shots -> Cull

 

(you could argue about my placement of CD and CG but I think that way most ticks will happen during Weakening Blast)

 

I suspect that 2-Cull will better 3-Cull rotation, due to more ticks happening during Weakening Blast buff, but we'll see when 3.0 hits live.

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KelebrinPL

KelebrinPL

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Oh about energy - Cull will use energy gradually which is huge buff to energy management. In addition more energy will be refunded on poison hits and poison hits will be more frequent.

 

2nd thing - 3 Cull rotation energy wise uses more energy than 2 Cull in form I proposed them. About 10 energy more every 54 seconds. 2 Lethal Shots (total 30 energy) vs. Corrosive Grenade and Corrosive dart (total 20 energy).

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TACeMossie

TACeMossie

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Oh about energy - Cull will use energy gradually which is huge buff to energy management. In addition more energy will be refunded on poison hits and poison hits will be more frequent.

 

2nd thing - 3 Cull rotation energy wise uses more energy than 2 Cull in form I proposed them. About 10 energy more every 54 seconds. 2 Lethal Shots (total 30 energy) vs. Corrosive Grenade and Corrosive dart (total 20 energy).

 

One more comment before I disappear for a few hours.

 

You don't have to use the extra GCDs on Lethal Shot. You can use them on Overload Shot or Rifle Shot as well (only overload shot if you have it free), which instead of being 10 energy more, you can end up using 5 or even 20 energy less per 54 seconds!

Edited by TACeMossie
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spatnatz

spatnatz

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Just tried Virulence today without the 4-set. It's crippling. Ran out of energy in less than two minutes using my standard rotation. While it's probably still doable with a different rotation, I don't think I feel like completely overhauling a rotation that I've been doing for 2+ years now... RIP Sniper Leth, guess I'm just going to do madness sorc now.
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TACeMossie

TACeMossie

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Just tried Virulence today without the 4-set. It's crippling. Ran out of energy in less than two minutes using my standard rotation. While it's probably still doable with a different rotation, I don't think I feel like completely overhauling a rotation that I've been doing for 2+ years now... RIP Sniper Leth, guess I'm just going to do madness sorc now.

 

But did you incorporate the new set bonus instead? Cause if you dropped the old set bonus entirely, of course its going to suck for resources.

 

Swap it out for the new one though... and suddenly you get your 15 energy back on target acquired again, but also get a further 8 guaranteed energy every minute through Cull (Laze Target).

 

Finally, get your crit rating to over 300. I know its a lot, but would you prefer a lot of crit, or run out of energy?

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Ryuku-sama

Ryuku-sama

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But did you incorporate the new set bonus instead? Cause if you dropped the old set bonus entirely, of course its going to suck for resources.

 

Swap it out for the new one though... and suddenly you get your 15 energy back on target acquired again, but also get a further 8 guaranteed energy every minute through Cull (Laze Target).

 

Finally, get your crit rating to over 300. I know its a lot, but would you prefer a lot of crit, or run out of energy?

 

Eh?? Me confused... How can you have the 2p 55 and the 6p 60????? The 2p 60 as far as I know is a 5% damage increase after AS/Amb/Sabo/Explo/WS/Cull every 30s.

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Whojoo

Whojoo

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but also get a further 8 guaranteed energy every minute through Cull (Laze Target).

 

Nope, you dont. Laze Target does not even buff your full Cull. Did 2 tests and with both 3/4 hits got a crit.

But besides that (hopefully unintended) bug, Laze Target mention damage by Cull, not the DoT ticks that result from Cull damage.

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TACeMossie

TACeMossie

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Nope, you dont. Laze Target does not even buff your full Cull. Did 2 tests and with both 3/4 hits got a crit.

But besides that (hopefully unintended) bug, Laze Target mention damage by Cull, not the DoT ticks that result from Cull damage.

 

Its definately a bug, cause it used to work on the DoTs as well. And by that I mean Im not supposed to talk about it, but whatever.

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Wanchope

Wanchope

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I posted in the linked forum, but worth posting here as well....

 

I was wondering about this as well. My fear is that by increase crit chance 100%, they are just doubling your crit chance.

 

In other words, if you have, say a 30% crit chance and then pop your Laze Target / smugglers luck whateveritscalled you now have a 60% crit chance on Cull / Wounding shots. That is an increase of 100%. The tooltip doesn't say makes it an autocrit, which it usually what is said for abilities that make crits happen 100% of the time.

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Elracor

Elracor

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I posted in the linked forum, but worth posting here as well....

 

I was wondering about this as well. My fear is that by increase crit chance 100%, they are just doubling your crit chance.

 

In other words, if you have, say a 30% crit chance and then pop your Laze Target / smugglers luck whateveritscalled you now have a 60% crit chance on Cull / Wounding shots. That is an increase of 100%. The tooltip doesn't say makes it an autocrit, which it usually what is said for abilities that make crits happen 100% of the time.

 

Well, it affects Ambush and Explosive Probe in the other specs, and while I haven't dummytested it, I've yet to notice Ambush and Explosive Probe not critting when using Laze in combat.

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InflatableFriend

InflatableFriend

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I don't know all of the Sniper terms, but I messed around with using my 4 free quickshots as fillers (with no set bonuses at all on my slinger), and my energy management problems went away entirely. I'm not sure about how much of a DPS loss that I'm taking, but it is possible to swap one of the free quick shots here and there with a. Charged burst or thermal grenade from time to time to make up a little bit.
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TACeMossie

TACeMossie

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I don't know all of the Sniper terms, but I messed around with using my 4 free quickshots as fillers (with no set bonuses at all on my slinger), and my energy management problems went away entirely. I'm not sure about how much of a DPS loss that I'm taking, but it is possible to swap one of the free quick shots here and there with a. Charged burst or thermal grenade from time to time to make up a little bit.

 

I'll do my best to translate it into slinger terms, but i'll probably be a little off:

 

Cull = Wounding Shots

Takedown = Quickdraw (I think its quickdraw, thats the proc attack isn't it?)

Series of Shots = Speed Shot

Lethal Shot = Dirty Blast (it is like charged burst, but cheaper and more damage, so dont bother with charged burst)

Corrosive Dart = Vital Shot

Corrosive Grenade = Shrap Bomb

Weakening Blast = Hemorrhaging Blast

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Heridl

Heridl

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Could someone help me out with my opener? Currently, I'm using this rotation, and I know this is not optimized but due to the lack of guides and since I'm new to the discipline, I just tried to improvise:

 

Target Acquired -> Corrosive Dart -> Weakening Blast -> Corrosive Grenade -> Laze Target

 

Followed up by the previous rotation I saw in this guide:

 

Cull -> Takedown -> Corrosive Dart -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot

Cull -> Takedown -> Corrosive Grenade -> SoS ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Lethal Shot -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot

Cull -> Takedown -> ...

(using Laze Target before using Cull if available, and Target Acquired upon CD)

 

And then I put in an extra Takedown once target's HP is below 30%:

 

Takedown -> Cull -> Takedown (proc)...

 

Any input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Edited by Heridl
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Whojoo

Whojoo

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Could someone help me out with my opener? Currently, I'm using this rotation, and I know this is not optimized but due to the lack of guides and since I'm new to the discipline, I just tried to improvise:

 

Target Acquired -> Corrosive Dart -> Weakening Blast -> Corrosive Grenade -> Laze Target

 

Followed up by the previous rotation I saw in this guide:

 

Cull -> Takedown -> Corrosive Dart -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot

Cull -> Takedown -> Corrosive Grenade -> SoS ->

Cull -> Takedown -> Lethal Shot -> Weakening Blast -> Lethal Shot

Cull -> Takedown -> ...

(using Laze Target before using Cull if available, and Target Acquired upon CD)

 

And then I put in an extra Takedown once target's HP is below 30%:

 

Takedown -> Cull -> Takedown (proc)...

 

Any input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

Extra Takendown? how? The cooldown is 12 seconds and you use Cull every 9 seconds (and with that , Takedown every 9 seconds).

 

So far my attempts have only been with the old setbonus in full 180's but for an opener I use the following.

 

--- 2 cull rotation ---

Laze Target >Orbital Strike > Rotation

Rotation = Dots + Weakening Blast > (Target Aquired +) Cull > Takedown > SoS > filler > Cull > Takedown > repeat

 

--- 3 cull rotation ---

Laze Target > Orbital Strike > CD > WB > CG > TA + Cull >

TD > SoS > LS (Lethal Shot) > Cull >

TD > LS > WB > CD > Cull

TD > SoS > CG > Cull > Rotation

 

Then rotation being:

TD > LS > WB > DoT/Filler > Cull >

TD > SoS > DoT/Filler > Cull > repeat.

And you reapply a DoT once it reached it's lingering version which is after 3 Culls.

 

You can apply this to the 2 Cull rotation as wel and only use 1 DoT each Cull.

 

TA and AP are for energy management and Laze Target should be kept on cooldown. TA should probably be used with the Cull before SoS to get the WB ticks, Cull, TD and SoS.

 

Laze Target = Auto crit Cull (even though it is not working properly atm). Buff lasts long enough to use the ability on cooldown.

Target Aquired = 10 second buff that increase armor penetration and accuracy. With setbonus it also gives some energy.

Edited by Whojoo
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