Well, I'm caving and leveling a PT

[Hei_Atzfel]

AP, for obvious reasons as broken spec is broken. How's it perform in lowbies? I'd rather PvP at least a little whilst leveling so it'd be useful to know whether it's a waste of time or not.

[JohnElias]

AP, for obvious reasons as broken spec is broken. How's it perform in lowbies? I'd rather PvP at least a little whilst leveling so it'd be useful to know whether it's a waste of time or not.

 

Zseusz, your fav PT here Saeri, your biggest burst comes from Energy Burst which is a lvl 57 ability I think, I'm not in game to confirm. Without it, AP will feel very much like pre-3.0 Pyrotech (with a few changes of course). If you do decide to keep playing it to 60 and do some ranked, get ready for some hardcore focus and pressure since it has become the norm to focus fire PTs first in a 4man DPS or 3man dps and healer combo. If you can handle the focus than you should be fine, but tbh it's not what most people think. Yes, it's extremely bursty if you pop Explosive Fuel and have 7 stacks of shoulder cannon up, but it's soooo ez to anticipate the burst and the rotation is the same for every PT. Proper use of DCDs and anyone can fight toe to toe with a PT, especially a sin. You're not bad, even if I poke fun at you about it.

 

As a PT, my hardest fights were against other PTs, Sins, Juggs, and even a good Merc will make me work, but yeah, against bads the class will shine. Against a good player, not so much. gg and have fun with it

[DethlaHadyn]

I've been trying to make pyro work in regs lately, but thee only reason I ever played my powertech at all, is only to hear the chuckles on rail-shot resets. It's the most frustrating thing your opponent can hear lmao.

[Saikochoro]

I would say it gets really fun once you get rail shot reset at level 32. Mag blast hits hard and you can still set up burst with explosive dart. Once you get thermal detonator you will have even better burst. I am finding that thermal detonator is hitting much harder post 3.0. I've been getting 10-12k thermal detonators regularly. Then cell burst and shoulder cannons are just an added bonus of more wt* burst.

[SkyCakeLight]

Woo, another powertech buddy! Haha.

 

Dulfy has the AP/Pyro PT guide up on her site, thanks to Kwerty. Worth checking out!

 

TLDR; Grapple is your best friend! Since we're not super bulky, turn the fight in your favor with Grapple! Use Stealth Scan! Really useful for protecting yourself and your healers from getting jumped. Pyro is a lot of fun, too! Not as bursty, but still lots of fun!

 

Also! Like all classes, the good PT's are the ones that play smart. When the gates open in a WZ, don't run into the fray! You probably already know this. But, even though we have heavy armor and can take a decent beating, I leave the front line fighting to the Juggs. We have what is probably my favorite skill (and also the most "jerkish" skill... ha) which is!! Grapple!! Grapple is so useful. I would suggest for PvP (PvP only!) to lower the CD on Grapple. Instead of charging into the frontlines, grapple an unfortunate soul to you. As a PT, you're going to get focused. Pulling an enemy to you while your safe behind your more tanky teammates is much more effective than running in and getting focused down. I'm not saying never get in the enemy team's face. But, use Grapple when you can. Load into the WZ, load your shoulder cannon. Gates open, wait like 2 seconds to get some people ahead of you, pull their squishy DPS or healers, kill them before they can react. If you find your team is getting pushed back, use Explosive Dart of your Missile Blast for a moment. Let your team catch up. Your DPS will drop while you fight at range, but it's better than dying!

 

But! We're not like butter squishy. If you're guarding a node, and two people come at you, use your Electro dart, Carbonize, and Grapple well. You'll still be able to tank them for a moment. Of course, there's many variables to consider. I just mean, you can still tank faces. Just, as a PT, you get focused and we don't have the best defensve CDs. Charging in just generally doesn't work out for me. Pulling people to me instead is much better! Makes people angry, though. Haha, isn't that what PvP is about?

 

Another thing to remember about PT PvP! Something I noticed some PT's forget about. Use your stealth scan!! Those pesky scoundrels/operatives and shadows/assassins don't deserve to be invisible! Haha. When the gates open, there's going to be invisible, pesky people trying to ruin your grappling fun. Don't let them! Use it when the teams meet, and you'll probably catch one. Or, use Stealth Scan on your healers since someone is probably trying to sneak up on them. Or, when guarding a node, use it on CD so that you can lower your chance of getting got off guard. You can even spend a point to make it stun them if it finds them!

 

More rambling from me! People know I like to type a lot... haha. Anyways! I know you said you were going to go AP for PvP. Don't blame you! AP is in a really great spot right now. But! Pyro!! Is also in a very good spot. Pyro's are kind of like a lesser version of Madness Sorcs. We have a lot of fluff damage (even though apparently the CGC dot on Flame Sweep is broken?). But! We also have great killing moves. Flaming Fist is awesome! I won't talk as much (as if) about Pyro PTs in PvP, since you're going AP. But! In case you might want to try out Pyro one day. Also, without the Explosive Dart boosts, it's not as useful for Pyro. But! Still useful if you're in range. And, firing it at someone before you Grapple them is still useful. Some is better than none, in this case! In a perfect case, you'll get two DOTs on someone, fire explosive dart, then grapple them to hit them with Flaming Fist and your 3x Flame Thrower. Before the gates open, use Flame Sweep 3 times! It'll charge up your flame thrower so that you can use your buffed up FT without worrying about charges. Any time you're not fighting (such as moving between nodes), definitely worth using Flame Sweep 3 times. And, 3 Flame Sweeps cost next to no heat.

 

Pyro's range isn't as good as AP, since AP gets boosts to their direct damage range attacks. But! Use IM at range! It's range has been increased to that of Missile Blast. Fire an IM, change target, fire another. It's not much, but will help keep their healers busy which is beneficial to the team. If your team is doing good, feel free to go a little crazy with Flame Sweeping their team. It's a lot of fun, even if it makes you a bigger target than normal. Something as a Pyro PT at range (not where I normally am, but sometimes you have to play it safe as a PT), it's not worth attacking the same target more than twice. Fire your range DOTs (IM and Rapid Shots), and change targets if you're still stuck at range. Then, Grapple someone off CD, hit them with your FF to root them, and even though RS procc'd, use FlameThrower is you're at 3 charges! It's better to hit them with the full channel of FT than a RS. Then! Use your RS. If you're attacking someone not getting healed and isn't super bulky, they're almost dead at this point. Free FB then Immolate. They're probably dead at this point. If not, free FB again, and your Flaming Fist is off CD. And, Scorch some people when you're free to. Scorch does a lot of damage, but takes a long time to do that so IM is usually a better choice if you find yourself in the position you have to choose between the two. But! Scorch will spread if it's target dies and Scorch still has time left. It's really just more fluff damage to help pressure the enemy healers. Even though a quick HOT will be enough to deal with Scorch, that's GCDs that the enemy healer is using.

 

Pyro sacrifices burst for fluff. But, still decent at burst! I think that after you've gotten AP down and played AP for a while, worth switching to Pyro to test it out. I personally enjoy Pyro's playstyle/rotation more than AP, even though AP is arguably better at PvP due to burst. Pyro's rotation is super smooth and simple. You don't even really need a filler, especially if you're using your offensive CDs (which, you should!). Works so perfectly that after you finish your quick and firery rotation, you're about 2-3 seconds away from being able to start it again with FF. And, that's without using offensive CDs! In PvE, very rarely use Rapid Shots because of this. You're other core skills will apply the CGC DOT. And, never have heat problems with Pyro. Just worth trying it out, is all I'm saying! Haha. With AP PT, I find I do less damage and get more KBs. With Pyro, I find I do more damage, and get less KBs. Just on average, that doesn't always happen, haha.

 

Anyways! Please, enjoy being a PT! I'm always happy to see someone has decided drop their silly lightsaber for some real power. (joking)

Edited December 24, 2014 by SkyCakeLight

[SkyCakeLight]

Gah, I always type WAY too much... I need to learn to hit the highlights, better!

 

Edit: I talk a lot about being at range. But! As you know, you want to be in melee as much as possible. Just, don't rush in and die trying to get into melee if you're in a WZ against a team. We have decent bulk and all with the heavy armor, shield, and kolto overload. But, a decent player with a DPS class can easily get through that if you let yourself become an easy target.

 

Since I like talking about Powertechs so much! A quick PvP story.

 

Fighting at Alderaan. We cap the middle turret, and the enemy team starts trying to zerg the side turrets. So, my team rushes to protect one, and distract at the other. We actually manage to cap all three at one point, haha. Anyways, I get stuck guarding the center node. I'm watching people pour out of their gates, and running to the side. So, I move up some and ask the Sniper guarding to watch the node. After moving up some, I wait for a rush of people to come out. The last person running out, not so lucky! Like 5 times in a row, I would grapple that person, and almost instantly kill them. Run back to the node, waiting for Grapple to come off CD, repeat. It was a lot fun! Even though I'm pretty sure I annoyed the enemy team. Eventually they did zerg the middle, so I had to run back and make sure no one could cap until my team go there. Once my team was there, was wiped them from the middle, and I was able to continue being the most hated PT for the enemy. Reduced the number of people fighting at other nodes, and I got extra fun from it! Sometimes, guarding nodes can be boring. Super important in PvP, but sometimes you're just standing there the entire match, killing no one. But, one of the most fun PvP matches I've played was while guarding a node. Ha! Woo!

Edited December 24, 2014 by SkyCakeLight

[Ottoattack]

AP, for obvious reasons as broken spec is broken. How's it perform in lowbies? I'd rather PvP at least a little whilst leveling so it'd be useful to know whether it's a waste of time or not.

 

I will give you the TL;DR version. Before you get the PPA proc to reset RS every 6 secs (lvl 32) the spec is useless. You should play pyro till that point.

Edited December 25, 2014 by Ottoattack