Supercharge Cells and Gunnery?

[Miallen]

So, I'm here to propose a question.

 

Once you have filled the Gunnery tree with all your goodies, has anyone ventured into grabbing Supercharge Cells?

 

Combined with Special Munitions and Combat Support Cells, Supercharge Cell looks as though it has a massive amount of potential. Would it be worth abandoning Cell Charger and Armor Piercing Cell to use this setup?

 

See Attached Template

[hadoken]

Simply put, no. Supercharge cells' offensive value is for more pure Combat Medics (or heavily CM invested hybrids), not for heavy gunnery spec. The ammo you're saving isn't worth the damage you're losing by spamming charged bolts over grav round and all your other goodies. Especially with the amount of ammo you gain from crits by using armor pen (my hammer shot crits just about every single time).

 

And that's not even considering the fact that 35% armor piercing >>>>> 3% overall damage

Edited December 28, 2011 by hadoken

[Miallen]

Simply put, no. Supercharge cells' offensive value is for more pure Combat Medics (or heavily CM invested hybrids), not for heavy gunnery spec. The ammo you're saving isn't worth the damage you're losing by spamming charged bolts over grav round and all your other goodies. Especially with the amount of ammo you gain from crits by using ammo pen (my hammer shot crits just about every single time).

 

Excellent. That's the answer I had hoped to hear.

[hadoken]

This isn't to imply that the offense of supercharged cells isn't amazing. It is for medics. I used it all the time when I was running hybrid as it puts out surprising burst for them. Just...not as good as what gunnery gets (by design).

[Miallen]

This isn't to imply that the offense of supercharged cells isn't amazing. It is for medics. I used it all the time when I was running hybrid as it puts out surprising burst for them. Just...not as good as what gunnery gets (by design).

 

I was more curious than anything after reading up on Supercharge Cells as to how much it potential it really would have, but again, 35% Armor Pen would go a lot further than the minimal DPS you might gain from one or two extra ammo from the abilities it is tied to.

[altiris]

The real problem with Supercharge Cells is that you only charge Combat Support Cell with Hammer Shot. So once you have done 30(?) Hammer Shots, you get Supercharge Cells for 10 seconds. It's a nice buff, but not at all worth the cost to set it up.

 

It's possible, since it's only one talent, that you might want to spam Combat Support Cell charges up to 30 before combat starts (on a boss fight, for example) and then use Supercharge Cells immediately for 10 seconds of free Charged Bolts, but presumably on the scale of a typical raid boss fight, it's probably not worth it, especially since you'd have to swap to Armor Piercing Cell during combat, which wastes a GCD.

 

Edit: As below, it takes 10 Hammer Shots, not 30 to get 30 stacks of Combat Support Cell. I had a feeling 30 was wrong, but wasn't able to verify, hence the (?).

Edited December 28, 2011 by altiris

[Miallen]

The real problem with Supercharge Cells is that you only charge Combat Support Cell with Hammer Shot. So once you have done 30(?) Hammer Shots, you get Supercharge Cells for 10 seconds. It's a nice buff, but not at all worth the cost to set it up.

 

It's possible, since it's only one talent, that you might want to spam Combat Support Cell charges up to 30 before combat starts (on a boss fight, for example) and then use Supercharge Cells immediately for 10 seconds of free Charged Bolts, but presumably on the scale of a typical raid boss fight, it's probably not worth it, especially since you'd have to swap to Armor Piercing Cell during combat, which wastes a GCD.

 

And the difference maker for CM is that Combat Support Cells charge rapidly with every MP they call (6 charges per call with 2 points in Field Medicine). However, for Gunnery, it would require 10 HS (corrected). APC is by far the best option here. Thanks for helping me get a better grasp of this.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Miallen

[hadoken]

The real problem with Supercharge Cells is that you only charge Combat Support Cell with Hammer Shot. So once you have done 30(?) Hammer Shots, you get Supercharge Cells for 10 seconds. It's a nice buff, but not at all worth the cost to set it up.

 

It's possible, since it's only one talent, that you might want to spam Combat Support Cell charges up to 30 before combat starts (on a boss fight, for example) and then use Supercharge Cells immediately for 10 seconds of free Charged Bolts, but presumably on the scale of a typical raid boss fight, it's probably not worth it, especially since you'd have to swap to Armor Piercing Cell during combat, which wastes a GCD.

 

One hammer shot keypress gives 3 stacks of charge, one heal will give 6 stacks.

 

So really it's only 10 hammer shots to fully charge up a super charge, or 5 heals.

 

That being said, you are correct, from a pure dps angle supercharge cells is not very good. It is very good if you're deep into medic, though. Both for offense and defense.