3.0 Mercenary/Commando DPS by Hotwired

[DomiSotto]

Thank you, I think I understand how to use the SCC better now.

 

With the Utility selection, I am uncertain. I have only gotten to the point of selecting my first T2 Utility (I am in my 30's atm), and the problem I am seeing is that while it seems like a great idea to buff up the shield (which is indeed somewhat weak) for a DPS, 2 out of those 3 buffs depend on someone else doing something for it to trigger, such as a melee attacking you or a healer healing you. Protecting the charged blasts or a plasma grenade at least can be done consciously by the user. Maybe I will start with buffing up the cure, to lessen the damage from sorcs/sages?

Edited September 10, 2015 by DomiSotto

[Gyronamics]

Well if you mean PVP then utility choices are a bit different.

 

You can be slightly better against very specific scenarios by picking a defensive talent from the middle.

 

The sad part is that the entire middle section is so mediocre that granting all of them as default would change very little for the class.

 

The healing and interrupt one is strong for healers because of course they can supply that healing. None of it really changes things for dps.

Edited September 10, 2015 by Gyronamics

[DomiSotto]

The combat is obviously more taxing and interesting in PvP than in leveling in the pre-60 game, so I prefer to set up the character as a PvP-oriented. I agree that the mid-Tier overall does not present the "OMG, want it, want it!" choices, more of the "okay, I want that T3 mobility, so there...." I think Cure buff might be okay.

 

Regardless, thank you for responding and for the guide!

[oNemesis]

HI,

 

I need outside perspective because i Cannot see my where i need to improve.

 

http://parsely.io/parser/view/64113

 

ACC / 100.28% / RATING 756

 

CRIT /33.64% / RATING 460

 

CRIT MULTI / 68.54% / RATING 342

 

POWER / 1272

 

ALACRITY / 0.00 / RATING 0

[Gyronamics]

There is room for your stats to improve through gear and you're overusing Rapid Shots.

 

This seems to be your rotation when you fill:

 

Incendiary Round

Mag Shot

Power Shot

Mag Shot

Serrated Shot

Thermal Detonator

Rapid Shots <- this should also be replaced with Power Shot during heavy filling.

Unload

Power Shot <- Correctly replacing Rapid Shots for maximum damage

 

As a rule you should not be using Rapid Shots at all before you hit Vent Heat.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Gyronamics

[oNemesis]

Thanks for you're reply,i will sort it out now ty

[Gyronamics]

I predict nothing good when I have to update this in a months time.

 

To sum it up: "meh"

[jaminjazz]

Thanks for the guide! I've just rolled my first BH with the 12x boost and love it! Haven't felt the need to switch to one of my higher lvl toons or my shadow tank main, so this is essential study for me, really appreciate it thanks for all the hard work. I've been using the IO spec mostly, so this has helped me understand the mechanics a lot better.

[Fazaani]

So why aint anyone making any 4.0 posts gear/stats/augs/caps Edited November 9, 2015 by Fazaani

[Arkedius]

So why aint anyone making any 4.0 posts gear/stats/augs/caps

 

I wonder the same thing(PvE) dps.

I want to know how to gear for ops and hm

[Gyronamics]

Because RL has been confiscating a lot of my time over the last month. I wasn't even home most of this week.

 

Seeing if I can get it sorted this sunday.

[Fazaani]

Because RL has been confiscating a lot of my time over the last month. I wasn't even home most of this week.

Seeing if I can get it sorted this sunday.

 

Nice! really appreciate it!

 

was more wondering if all the mando players have gone vg/pt

 

i'm so much focused getting everything done as i mainly only have time to play on weekends. So i Place my trust in guys like you who have the stamina and skills to do the math and such!

 

Cheers Hot if u find the time!

Edited November 18, 2015 by Fazaani

[Martin]

They totally killed IO with 4.0

 

It took me months to master the rotation and manage my heat correctly in Ops (thanks to your guide btw).

 

Here's my best parse with IO http://parsely.io/parser/view/96863

 

And here's my 5th parse with arsenal (after switching over, to test it, I didnt know the rotation at all lol) http://parsely.io/parser/view/96887

 

So Arsenal is now on par with IO on single target damage, but 1000 times easier to learn. (and better at everything else... except maybe aoe).

 

There's no point to give you the trouble with learning IO rotation and managing the heat.

 

I really hope they make IO worthwhile again in the near future, I loved that discipline.... but now...

[Torvai]

So, I've played Jugg dps for a long time and only getting started on merc. A question came to my mind when fooling around in a raid yesterday for Arsenal: How important is it to use railshot on cooldown in comparison to use it with 5 stacks of tracer lock but delay it because of this?

I'm probably just screwing up the rotation for this to happen, but I find myself in that situation that I have only 4 stacks, sometimes even just 2, when Railshot comes of cooldown, thus the question.

 

And am I right in my assumption that Arsenal basically plays the same than Vengeance? Where Blazing Bolts is what Ravage is for Vengeance and you just keep everything else on cooldown? Where "everything else" would be PS, HSM, RS, EN, with tracers as a filler?

Edited November 27, 2015 by Torvai

[Xzelsius]

You can give that answer to your own.

 

Tracer Missile grants Tracer Lock, increasing the damage dealt by the next Rail Shot by 6% or reducing the activation time and increasing the healing dealt by the next Rapid Scan by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times.

 

and

 

Tracer Lock increases the critical chance of the next Rail Shot or Rapid Scan by 3% per stack.

 

If you delay you will get 6% more damage and 3% more crit chance. If you don't delay it you probably get one or two more Rail Shot into the whole fight. In my opinion i think its about equal.

 

DELAYING

Assuming you will use 15 Rail Shots on a 1.5mil dummy.

15x Rail Shot with 5 Locks = 180k Damage (7.5k Avg Hit or 15k Avg Crit with Crit around 60%)

(9 crit, 6 non-crit)

 

NOT DELAYING

Assuming you will use 16 Rail Shots on a 1.5mil dummy.

16x Rail Shot with 4 Stacks = 183.3k Damage (7.05k Avg Hit or 14.1k Avg Crit with Crit around 57-58%)

(10 crit, 6 non-crit) = 183.3k

(9 crit, 7 non-crit) = 176.25k

 

NOT DELAYING

Assuming you will use 17 Rail Shots on a 1.5mil dummy.

17x Rail Shot with 4 Stacks = 190k Damage (7.05k Avg Hit or 14.1k Avg Crit with Crit around 57-58%)

(10 crit, 7 non-crit) = 190.35k

(9 crit, 8 non-crit) = 183.3k

 

I lowered the crit chance a bit because of those 3% less crit chance per railshot

If you can manage to get two more railshots by not delaying it you will probably get a slightly higher result.

 

tl;dr; There isn't much difference i think. But correct my lazy "calc" if i did it wrong

Edited November 27, 2015 by Xzelsius

[Gyronamics]

Honestly you should have time for 3 Tracer in the 15s cooldown between Railshots.

 

If you don't then I'm going to take a stab at it being a heat issue and you need to pace your heat with vent heat (with utility), thermal sensor override (on Blazing Bolts always), supercharged gas and rapid shots so you don't overload and go into resource starvation by accident.

[Torvai]

Honestly you should have time for 3 Tracer in the 15s cooldown between Railshots.

 

If you don't then I'm going to take a stab at it being a heat issue and you need to pace your heat with vent heat (with utility), thermal sensor override (on Blazing Bolts always), supercharged gas and rapid shots so you don't overload and go into resource starvation by accident.

 

That's the thing: I don't even come close to overheating. As I said, probably a learn to play issue on my side since I really just started. But if it occurs, maybe due to downtimes or whatever, then better delay it, or spam tracers in order to get 5 stacks?

 

And thanks Xzelzius

Edited November 27, 2015 by Torvai

[Gyronamics]

That's the thing: I don't even come close to overheating. As I said, probably a learn to play issue on my side since I really just started. But if it occurs, maybe due to downtimes or whatever, then better delay it, or spam tracers in order to get 5 stacks?

 

And thanks Xzelzius

 

Situation is unlikely.

 

There is a priority and Railshot is the bottom of it.

 

You're going to get your Blazing Bolts on cooldown then unlock it again with Tracer. To unlock using Priming Shot to instant a Tracer is just as long as hard casting a Tracer so you'd do Priming Shot -> Tracer.

 

Tracer will have marked the target for HSM and if HSM is up that is priority after Blazing Bolts reset.

 

Now you have a reset Blazing Bolts ready or a Railshot but Blazing Bolts isn't going anywhere and there's a cooldown on how often you can reset it.

 

You COULD fire Railshot right now with 2 stacks from that one Tracer but it's going to go on cooldown for 15s and you're going to have nothing else to do but fire Tracers so you might as well get the most damage out of it by doing two more Tracers, fully buffed Railshot and then use the Blazing Bolts.

 

At this point Blazing Bolts is about ready to be reset and you start from the top again.

 

This priority is in the 3.0 guide you're posting in and it didn't change for 4.0, in fact guaranteeing 5 stacks in Railshot became more important as 15% crit was added to the 20% damage from 5 stacks in 4.0.

 

 

In freak situations where you need instant damage RIGHT NOW or you/the raid/someone important dies then obviously you will hit whatever instant you have available and not wait for the 1.5s cast + travel time delay on Tracer. Good practice should mean that is extremely rare.

 

In short, you should not make a habit of firing off underbuffed Railshots.

Edited November 27, 2015 by Gyronamics

[Torvai]

Situation is unlikely.

snip

In short, you should not make a habit of firing off underbuffed Railshots.

That's what I wanted to be sure of, thanks. Guess I'll have to practice alot then

[Samuraiwillz]

hi im having issues understanding your priority for ars

1) Get the Barrage proc by using Tracer Missile
2) Use the following abilities if they are available:

   Priming Shot
   Heatseeker Missiles ONLY on a target with Heat Signature from Tracer Missile
   Rail Shot ONLY with 5 stacks of Tracer Lock from using Tracer Missile
   Electronet

3) Use the Barrage buffed Blazing Bolts
4) Use Tracer Missile if heat is available otherwise use Rapid Shots

is it saying all those abilities are above buffed blazing bolts? im just not getting it....also is it saying to only use blazing bolts with it buffed ?

 

 

this is my priority list is this wrong?:

1. Blazing Bolts- only if i have Barrage

2. Heatseeker Missiles- only if target has Heat Signature

3. Electro Net

4. Priming Shot

5. Rail Shot- only with Tracer Lock and 5 stacks of it

6. Tracer Missile

7. Rapid Shots

Edited November 28, 2015 by Samuraiwillz

[Gyronamics]

Top priority is resetting your Blazing Bolts with Tracer so you get the Barrage buff.

 

You do not have to USE Blazing Bolts straight away because Barrage buff will last 15 seconds.

 

There is also no rush because you can't reset Blazing Bolts more than once per 8 seconds.

 

So after you have it buffed you can use everything else fully buffed, then use Blazing Bolts with Barrage proc then look at resetting Blazing Bolts with Tracer again.

 

 

The reason behind resetting (but not necessarily using it right away) Blazing Bolts before anything else is that Blazing Bolts has a 15 seconds cooldown and does very high damage for low cost. But if you reset the cooldown with Tracer it has a cooldown of ~8s (more like 9s because 8s isn't a multiple of the 1.5s GCD).

 

So to do the most damage for your resources you have resetting Blazing Bolts top of your list.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Gyronamics

[Samuraiwillz]

well im getting about 5.5 k dps and running on 216 stats but im low on power im at about 2399 power is that why my dps is low? i have on pvp armoring for the bonus

[Gyronamics]

Your Power stat will be automatic.

 

All your mods and all your enhancements have power by default.

 

Do not add more power or mainstat by using augments.

 

If you have any room to fiddle stats with augments after you get 110% accuracy then you put them into critical and alacrity.

 

Your critical stat will be approximately double your alacrity.

 

If you want more dps then you get higher leveled mods, no way around it.

 

That and being sure of your rotations.

[Samuraiwillz]

Your Power stat will be automatic.

 

All your mods and all your enhancements have power by default.

 

Do not add more power or mainstat by using augments.

 

If you have any room to fiddle stats with augments after you get 110% accuracy then you put them into critical and alacrity.

 

Your critical stat will be approximately double your alacrity.

 

If you want more dps then you get higher leveled mods, no way around it.

 

That and being sure of your rotations.

 

yeah deff not doing the aug route for more power i have the crystal bought mods i guess i need the ones from set pieces

[Martin]

So, should I just switch to arsenal since it seems to do better on pretty much every boss fight right now. It's kinda boring to play tho. Edited November 29, 2015 by Martin