Gunnery Commando 3.0 AOE Rotation?

[Eugee]

Just returned after over a year, and trying to learn my classes again. What should I be using for my AOE rotation on a Gunnery Commando?

 

I get that Mortar Volley is my heaviest hitter.

Plasma Cannon & Hail of Bolts are close in DPS (for a Commando anyway)

Plasma Grenade & Sticky Grenade are each like 1/4 of a Hail of Bolts, but PG takes like over 7 seconds to do that damage (counting the cast time) and SG takes like 5s to detonate. Hail of Bolts does 4 times their damage every second it's ticking, right?

Explosive Round is actually pretty good for being mobile, but still not as much DPS as hammering out Hail of Bolts.

 

So is it just Mortar Volley and Hail of Bolts for my AOE cycle? I guess with a non-combat pre-cast Plasma Grenade + Hail of Bolts would work if Mortar is on cooldown.

[venomlash]

Plasma Grenade precast works fine. It's not just for out-of-combat right at the start of a pull, either! If you've got a situation where adds are coming in fairly spread out (such as in Titan 6, to use a level 55 example), you can time it so that between cast time and travel time, the grenade hits just as the tank has them grouped up. (No point in trying to do direct AoE before then because they're too spread out.) Sticky Grenade can be used in a similar fashion to pre-load a little AoE burst.

 

Mortar Volley is indeed your go-to hard-hitting AoE, followed by Hail of Bolts spam once it's on cooldown. Remember, Gunnery gets an extra 15% crit chance and 30% crit damage to Hail of Bolts, on top of the 25% damage increase from Chain Gunnery, a utility which you should take in most situations.

Pulse Cannon does all right (I think, haven't run any super-detailed numbers), but don't waste time trying to get in melee range for it; only ever use it if there's already a bunch of enemies right in your 10m-conal wheelhouse.

 

Don't use Explosive Round for AoE. Remember, it now only does that AoE damage to weak and standard enemies, which there aren't many of in endgame anything.

[Eugee]

Thanks for the advice, and your point about the pre-cast is a great point I wasn't really thinking about. I might not be able to use MB or HoB for more reasons than cooldown. I can see where those are useful to preload some DPS while waiting for grouping, period.

 

So Explosive Round... is there any reason to have it on my toolbar in PVE? Do you use it during movement when your mobile abilities are on cooldown?

 

Same for Stock Strike... take it off the toolbar? Or keep it for the occasional time something gets in my face?

 

I just started SoR on this guy so I've got 4 AFK-flashpoints to work out my rotations in at least... the guide on Dulfy was really great for getting a feel for the single target abilities, but they didn't write anything for AOE.

[Ryuku-sama]

So Explosive Round... is there any reason to have it on my toolbar in PVE? Do you use it during movement when your mobile abilities are on cooldown?

 

Yes. IO/Assault execute phase with a 75% damage buff and a 50% cost reduction.

 

Same for Stock Strike... take it off the toolbar? Or keep it for the occasional time something gets in my face?

 

Stockstirke does decent damage and is Tech... Can also be useful for kiting adds with the good utilities. It's main use will still be for some close range mobile damage to finish an add.

[Eugee]

Yes. IO/Assault execute phase with a 75% damage buff and a 50% cost reduction.

 

Sorry, Jedi Knight is my main class, the Commando is an alt, so I'm not familiar with what IO/Assault means? I'm Gunnery spec so I'm not sure if that's applicable to me.

[Ryuku-sama]

Sorry, Jedi Knight is my main class, the Commando is an alt, so I'm not familiar with what IO/Assault means? I'm Gunnery spec so I'm not sure if that's applicable to me.

 

Sorry.. I hadn't seen you were Gunnery.. But Innovative Ordnance and Assault Specialist aka the other DPS spec.

 

For Gunnery, in PvE, Explo Round is completely useless... but if you do PvP, I would keep it on your bars for the quick AoE cap interrupt.

[cs_zoltan]

Sorry.. I hadn't seen you were Gunnery.. But Innovative Ordnance and Assault Specialist aka the other DPS spec.

 

For Gunnery, in PvE, Explo Round is completely useless... but if you do PvP, I would keep it on your bars for the quick AoE cap interrupt.

 

It's not AoE in PVP anymore. The AoE splash is only applied to standard or weak targets.

[ForceWelder]

For PVP, a Gunnery Commando already has one strike against them due to their lack of escape and way to avoid focus. So expect quite a few frowns when you are in a 4 v 4 sudden death match from your team mates. You will be the focus and you will likely die very quickly. Hopefully, you have guard applied on you from a tank or you have a healer who is on his A game. Otherwise you won't be doing much but dying in those 4 v 4 matches.

 

Now with that said, what to do with AOE in PVP.

 

There is actually only a few I use. Mortar Volley is a good one to use to start out with. You tend to get a cluster at the ball in original huttball and at nodes in some of the other matches. But it is rare I get to use it more than a couple of times a match.

 

Hail of Bolts I only really use for node control. If you don't have line of sight on the target taking the node, or you have multiple targets doing it, Hail of Bolts is a good way to break the attempt by all of them. And with no cool down, you can lay it down more than once. Even when the damage is increased by the selected utilities you chose, it still is rather light on the damage. You can simply get more bang for the buck doing single target DPS than you can with Hail of Bolts. So its use is strickly situational.

 

I also use the sticky grenade. Sticky Grenade is the instant cast and not Plasma Grenade with a 1.5 second delay. I don't use Plasma simply because it tends to mess up with my cast rotation. Using it is 1.5 seconds I am not casting Grav Round or nailing somebody with Boltstorm. Your job is to kill things. Not stand in a pose for two seconds waiting to toss a grenade.

 

Then that leaves pulse cannon. Your "in your face" defensive AOE. In a nutshell it is near worthless in PVP. it just doesn't do anything to stop or persuade another player from beating the crap out of you. And to be honest if you have melee on you, you want to get some distance between you and them and not sit there and play the game of who can do more DPS. Because even if you win, you still lose because somebody else is going to finish you off. You are a range class and you need to stay that way. So using pulse cannon is a violation of everything the Commando Gunnery class stands for. The only time I use pulse cannon is when all my CCs are on cooldown and I'm dead anyway. It is like giving the opposing player(s) one last act of definance (as lame as it is).