3.1.1 Vanguard/Powertech PvE DPS Guides

[TACeMossie]

How much apm can one expect on the dummy with this set up?

 

Depends on input latency. I've been dealing with it terribly on my ship recently and as such have only been able to hit ~48 APM, but it should be hitting ~43 APM + (1380 / Time to kill in seconds) - which at a 4850 DPS parse would be ~49.7 APM

 

If your parse takes long enough (which it wont as you said you're in full 198s), then you add some APM because more things come off cooldown.

[RagnarokViking]

Hey there Kwerty, If you are still following this thread I would like some feedback on my DPS versus my gear level.

 

I can't get above 4.6k DPS to save my life, I've done nearly 100 parses over the last few days and have gotten a really nice feel for your priority system. Here is my gear currently:

Aim: 3990

Pwr: 1693

Acc: 99.92

Crit: 320

Surge: 222

Alacrity: 573

This is with optimized mods and enhancements, six piece set bonus, 2 198 implants, 198 OH and 192 MH.

 

Two parses since I delayed a railshot proc for Energy Burst in the first one:

http://parsely.io/parser/view/39064/0

 

This isn't just for Kwerty, if anyone else has input/feedback please feel free to crush me if I am screwing something up.

 

Thanks!

[TACeMossie]

Hey there Kwerty, If you are still following this thread I would like some feedback on my DPS versus my gear level.

 

I can't get above 4.6k DPS to save my life, I've done nearly 100 parses over the last few days and have gotten a really nice feel for your priority system. Here is my gear currently:

Aim: 3990

Pwr: 1693

Acc: 99.92

Crit: 320

Surge: 222

Alacrity: 573

This is with optimized mods and enhancements, six piece set bonus, 2 198 implants, 198 OH and 192 MH.

 

Two parses since I delayed a railshot proc for Energy Burst in the first one:

http://parsely.io/parser/view/39064/0

 

This isn't just for Kwerty, if anyone else has input/feedback please feel free to crush me if I am screwing something up.

 

Thanks!

 

I can definately tell that you've got the priority system down.

 

As for what to improve? There's only 2 things left.

 

1. Resource Management. A minor improvement to look at, but your rapid shots usage is slightly higher than what I get. I'm normally around 1 every 15 seconds or so, with the first usage being a little later than yours. This would mean ~12 rapid shots instead of the 14 that you have in both parses.

 

2. APM. Your APM in both cases was about 47. With the gear you've got, you want an APM of ~48.5-49 on a fight of the same length as the parses you linked.

 

With those 2 minor improvements, your better parse of the 2 goes from 4531.91 dps to about ~4711 dps, and that is with a decent amount of APM Leeway (perfect APM, which is difficult to obtain, is about 42.8 before offensive cooldowns). By that, I mean your APM would be ~48.44 with the maths I gave you, but a perfect situation would have ~49.4 APM and ~4800 dps

[Tirozulu]

Hey there Kwerty, If you are still following this thread I would like some feedback on my DPS versus my gear level.

 

I can't get above 4.6k DPS to save my life, I've done nearly 100 parses over the last few days and have gotten a really nice feel for your priority system. Here is my gear currently:

Aim: 3990

Pwr: 1693

Acc: 99.92

Crit: 320

Surge: 222

Alacrity: 573

This is with optimized mods and enhancements, six piece set bonus, 2 198 implants, 198 OH and 192 MH.

 

Two parses since I delayed a railshot proc for Energy Burst in the first one:

http://parsely.io/parser/view/39064/0

 

This isn't just for Kwerty, if anyone else has input/feedback please feel free to crush me if I am screwing something up.

 

Thanks!

 

It seems to me your gear is alittle off. I have optimized 198 gear and I go with

 

760 Alacrity

432 Crit

240 Surge

110.14% Accuracy

Rest in Power/Mainstat

 

My best parse is 4926 more then 2 months ago. I haven't parsed since because no gear upgrades. Once I get the 204 MH hoping to hit 5K. I almost always hit 4600-4700 min each parse with this set up!

 

http://parsely.io/parser/view/18467/3

Edited June 19, 2015 by Tirozulu

[Sotty]

Are you using alacrity augments to reach the 760 alacrity?

[Tirozulu]

Are you using alacrity augments to reach the 760 alacrity?

 

I have 2 crit alacrity enhancements. The rest of the alacrity is Augments! I have 1 accuracy aug and rest MS/Power

[xeqtoRDoom]

Having a little trouble of breaking 5k mark, I know my gear should be able to do lot more then 5k. I am wondering how much impact does RNG have on parses ?

 

Here is one of my parses

 

http://parsely.io/parser/view/40767

 

Tried to do too much on the finish so I kinda ran out of ammo and had o fk moment for a sec or two where I didnt know what to do so my apm dropped a little. If I didnt mess up on the end would have break 5k.

 

Gear is full 198 with, 204 MH, would like to drop 1 crit mod for 1 power one. Is there something I should change on my gear or rotation ?

 

Stats:

Bonus Damage: 2006.4

Acc rating: 99,99 % (756 rating)

Crit Rating: 31.68 % (531 rating)

Surge: 69,70 % (370 rating)

Alacrity: 6,07 % (500 rating)

Edited June 22, 2015 by xeqtoRDoom

[TACeMossie]

Having a little trouble of breaking 5k mark, I know my gear should be able to do lot more then 5k. I am wondering how much impact does RNG have on parses ?

 

Here is one of my parses

 

http://parsely.io/parser/view/40767

 

Tried to do too much on the finish so I kinda ran out of ammo and had o fk moment for a sec or two where I didnt know what to do so my apm dropped a little. If I didnt mess up on the end would have break 5k.

 

Gear is full 198 with, 204 MH, would like to drop 1 crit mod for 1 power one. Is there something I should change on my gear or rotation ?

 

Stats:

Bonus Damage: 2006.4

Acc rating: 99,99 % (756 rating)

Crit Rating: 31.68 % (531 rating)

Surge: 69,70 % (370 rating)

Alacrity: 6,07 % (500 rating)

 

Only issue here is APM, though personally I'd drop a little surge for more alacrity.

I think there is something in the engine increasing input latency, which could be fixed today (fingers crossed), cause I doubt the 12 hour maintenance is only because of the comm cap increase on WZ comms

[Argusen]

Hello. Need some help with ap gearing. I have full 190-192 gear.

No buffs

3585 aim

1042 power

742 (109.85%) acc.

370 (23.12%) crit

219 (63.91) surge

669 (7.83%) alac.

All these give me 3689 dps and 48 average apm. Im sure that i have pretty low power but i cant find a way to solve this this problem. I've got augments: 10 acc, 3 aim, 1 power. Enhancements: 4 power\alac, 2 power\surge, 1 acc\crit.

What shall i change to increase my dmg?

Edited June 26, 2015 by Argusen

[NinjaNard]

Hi there!

Only started to parse the last few weeks and wondering if you could help analyse my recent results?

 

http://parsely.io/parser/view/42158/14

 

Have the following stats with the 6 piece set bonus (192):

 

Aim: 3653

Power: 1829

Accuracy: 756 (99.99%)

Critical: 394

Surge: 222

Alacrity: 444

 

I know my APM should be higher but have been a clicker for years and have only just started to keybind and am still learning to use my new Razer!

Any advice would be highly appreciated...

[TACeMossie]

Hello. Need some help with ap gearing. I have full 190-192 gear.

No buffs

3585 aim

1042 power

742 (109.85%) acc.

370 (23.12%) crit

219 (63.91) surge

669 (7.83%) alac.

All these give me 3689 dps and 48 average apm. Im sure that i have pretty low power but i cant find a way to solve this this problem. I've got augments: 10 acc, 3 aim, 1 power. Enhancements: 4 power\alac, 2 power\surge, 1 acc\crit.

What shall i change to increase my dmg?

 

For you, I'd like to see a parse to see if anything's going wrong there, but other than that you're running alacrity levels that I was running with full 198s + 192 mainhand. Since you're only in 190s/192s, you don't have anywhere near as much bonus damage from your gear, and as such you're missing out on quite a bit of damage. My recommendation would be to drop some alacrity for now (put it in accuracy, and replace augments with it), in favour of more Aim or Power augments.

 

Overall, at your gear level you want 350-450 alacrity, not the 669 you've got.

[TACeMossie]

Hi there!

Only started to parse the last few weeks and wondering if you could help analyse my recent results?

 

http://parsely.io/parser/view/42158/14

 

Have the following stats with the 6 piece set bonus (192):

 

Aim: 3653

Power: 1829

Accuracy: 756 (99.99%)

Critical: 394

Surge: 222

Alacrity: 444

 

I know my APM should be higher but have been a clicker for years and have only just started to keybind and am still learning to use my new Razer!

Any advice would be highly appreciated...

 

As for you, I'll start going through those parses (there are a lot there), and I'll remember to keep APM out of my list of things to note in feedback, so you'll have to wait a little for the full response. I'll put it in here (with edit), rather than on dulfy.net as I've already started here.

 

EDIT 1 - Ok that was just a raid beforehand. I will say you can improve a little on Underlurker by taking Reflexive Armor + Pyro shield - Since Energy Shield is up every ~60 seconds, you can use it on almost every wave on that fight, and Pyro Shield shield will add more damage to you. Similarly, if you're within 10m of one of the adds, reflexive armor will cause them to take a lot of damage - usually its ~10% of my damage on that fight - so that can help that fight go quicker.

 

Anyway, on to the actual parse!

 

EDIT 2 - When looking at the actual parse, what happened was pretty early on, you must have misclicked and used Explosive Dart. This screwed over energy early on, which in turn ended up having the whole parse start to fall apart. For example, you used Rail Shot while you had 4 stacks of energy lodes (and just beforehand, you had used 3x Magnetic Blast so one of them could have been energy burst), and this ended up having Rocket Punch and Thermal Detonator thrown off in terms of their timing as well.

 

The trick I got my guildy to do to learn Tactics better is to follow this basic layout to get the rocket punch + Thermal Detonator timing down properly:

 

MAGNETIC BLAST -> RAPID SHOTS -> ROCKET PUNCH -> RAIL SHOT ->

MAGNETIC BLAST -> RAPID SHOTS -> MAGNETIC BLAST -> RAIL SHOT ->

ROCKET PUNCH -> RAPID SHOTS -> MAGNETIC BLAST -> RAIL SHOT ->

 

Once you've got that down perfectly, the next step is to add in Assault Plastique. This changes it from the above to having 9 possible 4GCD combos, with these being:

 

 

1. RAIL SHOT -> RAPID SHOTS -> ROCKET PUNCH -> RAIL SHOT

2. MAGNETIC BLAST -> THERMAL DETONATOR -> ROCKET PUNCH -> RAIL SHOT

3. MAGNETIC BLAST -> RAPID SHOTS -> ROCKET PUNCH -> THERMAL DETONATOR

 

4. RAIL SHOT -> RAPID SHOTS -> MAGNETIC BLAST -> RAIL SHOT

5. MAGNETIC BLAST -> THERMAL DETONATOR -> MAGNETIC BLAST -> RAIL SHOT

6. MAGNETIC BLAST -> RAPID SHOTS -> MAGNETIC BLAST -> THERMAL DETONATOR

 

7. ROCKET PUNCH -> RAIL SHOT -> MAGNETIC BLAST -> RAIL SHOT

8. ROCKET PUNCH -> THERMAL DETONATOR -> MAGNETIC BLAST -> RAIL SHOT

9. ROCKET PUNCH -> RAPID SHOTS -> MAGNETIC BLAST -> THERMAL DETONATOR

 

Note those 9 are not in order. The basics is to follow the first rotation given, using TD on cooldown and delaying Rail Shot as appropriate.

You'll always end up with

1/2/3 -> 4/5/6 -> 7/8/9 -> repeat

for the rotation, choosing a number depending on what abilities are available.

 

Once you've got that down, the final step is incorporating Energy Burst, which you do immediately when Rocket Punch and Thermal Detonator are on cooldown, and the ability is glowing. Using it earlier loses damage, and using it later risks conflicts with the PPA proc or with energy situations. You'll actually notice I've underlined some GCDs in the above 9 possible situations - That is the GCD you would use a 4-stack energy burst.

 

Note that this does not burn energy as efficiently as possible, though it is pretty close. Its similar to the rotation pre-3.0 when RNG would happen if you didn't use 2 abilities every proc cycle, and since the new rotation is very similar (though allows more freedom for resource consumption due to a 100% proc), it still works to use the old rotation.

 

Hope this helps to keep the rotation down!

Edited June 28, 2015 by TACeMossie

[meisterjedi]

A good rule of thumb for energy management is not to use any filler Magnetic Blasts (so only use it for PPA procs) once you have 2 stacks for Energy Burst.

Obvious exceptions to this rule are of course if your heat dropped below 10 for the GCD in question or if you want to use one of your resorce cooldowns soon.

Another reason this would not work would be a ton of close and personal procs that refund a lot of heat from taking AOE damage (most notable example would be Underlurker), in which case you can almost comletely ignore rapid shots for the entire fight.

Edited June 28, 2015 by meisterjedi

[xeqtoRDoom]

For parsing, whats the best time to use your 2nd Battle Focus ?

 

Is it better to use it with 2-piece set bonus for 15 sec of 2% dmg increase or try to pair it with adrenal for +750 power ?

 

And what about raiding ? I guess you would use it close to CD and delay your adrenal for the 3rd Battle Focus if the Boss fight is 4+ mins long.

[flyboy_jake]

Is it possible to use Plasma for ever HM Boss fight?

[TACeMossie]

Is it possible to use Plasma for ever HM Boss fight?

 

8/10, yes. Ruugar, you want the AoE Damage reduction for phase 2, and Revan you don't want to be channeling a pulse cannon when a knockback happens in that core phase.

 

For parsing, whats the best time to use your 2nd Battle Focus ?

 

Is it better to use it with 2-piece set bonus for 15 sec of 2% dmg increase or try to pair it with adrenal for +750 power ?

 

And what about raiding ? I guess you would use it close to CD and delay your adrenal for the 3rd Battle Focus if the Boss fight is 4+ mins long.

 

Depends on how much DPS you're doing. E.g. if you finish a fight in <4:15 but >3:40, you use SC on cooldown, and only use BF with an attack adrenal (alongside shoulder cannon)

But if its <3:40, you only use SC + Battle Focus with the attack adrenal, and if its >4:15 then you use SC with BF on BF's cooldown and attack adrenal gets delayed.

[minitus]

Thanks for the effort you put in this Edited August 12, 2015 by minitus

[Jonathanx]

Thanks for the great guide, but the amount alacrity and surge you recommend depending on your gear set is very specific and no other class guide has that type of specific recommendation. Is there any other dps class that would benefit from that gearing method?

[TACeMossie]

Thanks for the great guide, but the amount alacrity and surge you recommend depending on your gear set is very specific and no other class guide has that type of specific recommendation. Is there any other dps class that would benefit from that gearing method?

 

Most of them actually do! However, its much more difficult to translate this across from a dummy to a boss fight on a majority of these classes as they don't have the luxury of mid-range instant attacks for almost their entire rotation - either having to deal with being melee most of the time, or having a bunch of casted abilities.

 

You can find a good maximum alacrity point by adding ~150 to the numbers found in this thread for the discipline of your choice, though depending on how melee oriented or cast-skill oriented the discipline is you might want to drop back on it a bit instead.

[Jonathanx]

Most of them actually do! However, its much more difficult to translate this across from a dummy to a boss fight on a majority of these classes as they don't have the luxury of mid-range instant attacks for almost their entire rotation - either having to deal with being melee most of the time, or having a bunch of casted abilities.

 

You can find a good maximum alacrity point by adding ~150 to the numbers found in this thread for the discipline of your choice, though depending on how melee oriented or cast-skill oriented the discipline is you might want to drop back on it a bit instead.

 

Your the man. Last question have you tried assault commando before? Which one do you like better assault commando or tactics vanguard?

[TACeMossie]

Your the man. Last question have you tried assault commando before? Which one do you like better assault commando or tactics vanguard?

 

My raid alt is actually a commando

 

Overall though I'd have to go with Tactics. Its much more mobile (having its fillers being instant instead of casted abilities), and while the damage isn't quite as ludicrous as the commando, its utility is far better in 90% of situations because, lets be honest, a battle rez is no where near as good as being able to cheese half the mechanics in the game, such as getting adds out of sparky, being one of the best barrel runners in bulo on progression, reflective armor on Underlurker, and my personal favourite and also the healers least favourite - Standing under Master in Master Blaster because his damage counts as an AoE (In all seriousness, I've started going plasma on that fight and since then I don't do that anymore - and in the past I'd only do that with the electro-shield up)

Edited August 26, 2015 by TACeMossie

[Jonathanx]

My raid alt is actually a commando

 

Overall though I'd have to go with Tactics. Its much more mobile (having its fillers being instant instead of casted abilities), and while the damage isn't quite as ludicrous as the commando, its utility is far better in 90% of situations because, lets be honest, a battle rez is no where near as good as being able to cheese half the mechanics in the game, such as getting adds out of sparky, being one of the best barrel runners in bulo on progression, reflective armor on Underlurker, and my personal favourite and also the healers least favourite - Standing under Master in Master Blaster because his damage counts as an AoE (In all seriousness, I've started going plasma on that fight and since then I don't do that anymore - and in the past I'd only do that with the electro-shield up)

 

Nice i have 6 token pieces that i didnt turn in yet because I wasnt sure which alt i wanted to mail it to but im convinced now thank you.

[Lalainnia]

My raid alt is actually a commando

 

Overall though I'd have to go with Tactics. Its much more mobile (having its fillers being instant instead of casted abilities), and while the damage isn't quite as ludicrous as the commando, its utility is far better in 90% of situations because, lets be honest, a battle rez is no where near as good as being able to cheese half the mechanics in the game, such as getting adds out of sparky, being one of the best barrel runners in bulo on progression, reflective armor on Underlurker, and my personal favourite and also the healers least favourite - Standing under Master in Master Blaster because his damage counts as an AoE (In all seriousness, I've started going plasma on that fight and since then I don't do that anymore - and in the past I'd only do that with the electro-shield up)

 

..........your one of those ppl that stand under master shame on u.....

[TACeMossie]

..........your one of those ppl that stand under master shame on u.....

 

Read the last line again.

Also I'd only do it for the first 15 seconds back when I did do it, because the healing doesn't get intensive until the second phase, and otherwise our healers would get bored. And I did check with my healers if they were fine with it before doing it

 

Then again, I have been known to occasionally stand in bad to pad my numbers (e.g. 15 stacks on HM Malaphar multiple times in my top VG/PT parse on parsely)

Edited August 26, 2015 by TACeMossie

[Lalainnia]

Read the last line again.

Also I'd only do it for the first 15 seconds back when I did do it, because the healing doesn't get intensive until the second phase, and otherwise our healers would get bored. And I did check with my healers if they were fine with it before doing it

 

Then again, I have been known to occasionally stand in bad to pad my numbers (e.g. 15 stacks on HM Malaphar multiple times in my top VG/PT parse on parsely)

 

O i did was just poking fun, the first time I saw a PT Vanguard do it I thought they were just being lazy or stupid turned out it was moar deepz.