Are DoT specs bad?

[frillzx]

Hello guys new player here, looking to choose what to level first for PvP purposes (I'm not all that interested in raids or dungeons)

 

I come from WoW, where I play DoT based classes like warlock and rogue. I've done some research into SWTOR PvP and it seems like all the best classes are bursty, like Deception and Lightning, but I heard they were nerfed on Tuesday.

 

Are Madness and Hatred viable specs at all for PvP? Are Deception/Lightning still the way to go?

[PhatMcMuffins]

Unfortunately, Hatred is probably the worst spec in the game right now. It has very poor defenses and the lowest dps output of any of the DoT specs.

 

Madness is very fun in regs, especially with Tempest of Roe tactical. It suffers from poor defenses and ability to deal damage under pressure so it isn't good for ranked.

 

Lethality operative is one of the strongest specs in terms of damage output and really shines in gmes with tanks and healers.

 

Virulance sniper is plenty good but marksmanship is usually the spec of choice for competitive play

 

Vengeance jugg and annihilation mara can both be very strong

 

innovative ordinance merc is the stronger of the two dps specs for merc but more difficult to play. learning to use the BiS continuous fire tac is crucial

 

pyrotech PT is good but advanced prototype is one of the best specs right now in game and overshadows it

[frillzx]

Unfortunately, Hatred is probably the worst spec in the game right now. It has very poor defenses and the lowest dps output of any of the DoT specs.

 

Madness is very fun in regs, especially with Tempest of Roe tactical. It suffers from poor defenses and ability to deal damage under pressure so it isn't good for ranked.

 

dang

 

what about lightning and deception? I heard they just received some nerfs. Are they no longer viable?

 

I'm really loving the sith inquisitor storyline, but I definitely want to play something that's good for PvP!

[PhatMcMuffins]

Lightning and deception are still strong for sure.

 

Again, anything is playable in reg warzones. But in ranked, hatred and madness struggle. Well, hatred struggles everywhere right now haha

[TitusOfTides]

I'm a HUGE fan of dot specs in PvP. Madness is strong with Tempest of Rho as mentioned earlier, but they have MASSIVE potential for AoE damage as well with Slow Mercy (my favorite in the game). Some will say this is just for stat padding, but it just applies too much pressure to too many people to adequately heal everyone and can turn the tides of battle suddenly.

 

Hatred I don't have as much experience with, but generally the Tacticals (idk why they didnt call them class mods) that allow an extra tick (Two-Time Trouble etc) can turn any DoT spec into something capable of fast damage. Most Sins swear by Two Cloaks, and it just doesnt help Hatred as much. My gf plays regs with Two-Time Trouble and places near top most of the time between all the healing, protection, and solid DoT/burst damage. It might PARSE lower, but it's got the highest utility of any class and will still kill people.

 

Also on a side note, I am finding that higher Alacrity is worth it with DoT specs too. Hitting the 1.3 GCD threshold doesn't affect Crit values much at all for most DoT disciplines, and the faster ticking seems to be worth it. A lot of the classes have utilities or skills too that you can opt into that will grant you windows of like 1.2 or higher.

Edited April 23, 2020 by TitusOfTides

[DavidAtkinson]

I'm a HUGE fan of dot specs in PvP. Madness is strong with Tempest of Rho as mentioned earlier, but they have MASSIVE potential for AoE damage as well with Slow Mercy (my favorite in the game). Some will say this is just for stat padding, but it just applies too much pressure to too many people to adequately heal everyone and can turn the tides of battle suddenly.

 

Hatred I don't have as much experience with, but generally the Tacticals (idk why they didnt call them class mods) that allow an extra tick (Two-Time Trouble etc) can turn any DoT spec into something capable of fast damage. Most Sins swear by Two Cloaks, and it just doesnt help Hatred as much. My gf plays regs with Two-Time Trouble and places near top most of the time between all the healing, protection, and solid DoT damage. It might PARSE lower, but it's got the highest utility of any class and will still kill people.

 

Also on a side note, I am finding that higher Alacrity is worth it with DoT specs too. Hitting the 1.3 GCD threshold doesn't affect Crit values much at all for most DoT disciplines, and the faster ticking seems to be worth it. A lot of the classes have utilities or skills too that you can opt into that will grant you windows of like 1.2 or higher.

 

I have tested this on Annihilation and I am inclined to think that the low alacrity standard build with around 3k crit, 1.4 gcd alacrity and 110% accuracy works best. At least for me

 

1.3 gcd is tempting honestly because you are fast but I hit like a chicken most of the time. I played a lot of 3250 alacrity on Annihilation I cannot truly say if it's any good or not vs the higher crit one that most people recommend.

 

There are so many hatred sins now in warzones now. If I didn't know better, I would think they are some kind of new fotm.

[TitusOfTides]

I have tested this on Annihilation and I am inclined to think that the low alacrity standard build with around 3k crit, 1.4 gcd alacrity and 110% accuracy works best. At least for me

 

1.3 gcd is tempting honestly because you are fast but I hit like a chicken most of the time. I played a lot of 3250 alacrity on Annihilation I cannot truly say if it's any good or not vs the higher crit one that most people recommend.

 

There are so many hatred sins now in warzones now. If I didn't know better, I would think they are some kind of new fotm.

 

That is a good point about Annihilation. I haven't tried the high Alacrity build with them yet, but I can see how they could benefit more from the standard build. I've only personally tested the 1.3 on IO Merc and Madness Sorc, and like it a lot. Those two have some skills that can boost Alacrity too, so maybe that's why it is working there.

 

I had a sneaking suspicion that the new patch would be a nice buff to Hatred. The autocrit on Leeching Strike should be a nice boost to their damage and self healing.

[Rogozhi]

I'm leveling a hatred sin right now to test it out in PvP. The new tactical bonus where you spam leeching strike seems intresting. I'd like to try a high alacrity build to see how it balances against a lower crit too. It seems to have a really fun playstyle and I like the idea of applying pressure instead of burst.

[TitusOfTides]

I'm leveling a hatred sin right now to test it out in PvP. The new tactical bonus where you spam leeching strike seems intresting. I'd like to try a high alacrity build to see how it balances against a lower crit too. It seems to have a really fun playstyle and I like the idea of applying pressure instead of burst.

 

If one of your relics endgame has a Critical proc boost, you will have a 6 second window every so often where your crit levels are equal or greater than that of someone who went essentially all crit. The reason for this is because of the diminishing returns; I've had characters with a base 55% multiplier bump up to 70%+ with the relic and then still benefiting from higher Alacrity (getting to the 1.3 GCD will leave your base in the mid 60% range depending on your character - the 55% is on something janky I tested).

 

Sorry for the ramble - I guess the point I was trying to make is that you'll sort of have a 6 second "burst window" pretty frequently even if you go for a traditionally less bursty build.

Edited April 23, 2020 by TitusOfTides

[septru]

Hello guys new player here, looking to choose what to level first for PvP purposes (I'm not all that interested in raids or dungeons)

 

I come from WoW, where I play DoT based classes like warlock and rogue. I've done some research into SWTOR PvP and it seems like all the best classes are bursty, like Deception and Lightning, but I heard they were nerfed on Tuesday.

 

Are Madness and Hatred viable specs at all for PvP? Are Deception/Lightning still the way to go?

 

Lightning is more cleave than burst. It is labeled as a burst spec but chain lightning's AOE ability lets lightning have significant cleae pressure in matches where everyone stacks. In this way, lightning is really a hybrid burst-aoe spec. It does not have as many dots as maddness or other true dot specs, but it has the same AOE potential if not more than some AOE classes. In ways lightning's AOE potential surpasses maddness's AOE potential, especially when taking the elemental convection tactical.

[frillzx]

Vengeance jugg and annihilation mara can both be very strong

 

really? vengeance juggernaut seems really fun. I've been worrying about leveling my sin because I feel so squishy! it would be dope to play a spec that's powerful AND tanky!

 

(darkness and immortal both seem fun as well but I don't know if tanks are any good in pvp, haha)

Edited April 23, 2020 by frillzx

[-Ashton-]

 

innovative ordinance merc is the stronger of the two dps specs for merc but more difficult to play. learning to use the BiS continuous fire tac is crucial

 

 

i agree with you that IO is by far superior to arsenal for dps and for mobility. I do however completely disagree that continuous fire the is strongest tactical. I use energized cells and in games with heavy stacking, filling every rotation with rapid shots to gain a supercharged burn and spamming DFO and sweeping blasters Until fusion missile is on insta cast, is the highest dps you'll each.

 

Any 8v8 heavy stacking game under 13k dps is dissapointing. Ive not seen a single arsenal spec come close to it. So as far as mercs go, id confidently say io has the best damage (in 8v8) so no, dot specs arent weak

[sebakonkol]

Lightning is more cleave than burst. It is labeled as a burst spec but chain lightning's AOE ability lets lightning have significant cleae pressure in matches where everyone stacks. In this way, lightning is really a hybrid burst-aoe spec. It does not have as many dots as maddness or other true dot specs, but it has the same AOE potential if not more than some AOE classes. In ways lightning's AOE potential surpasses maddness's AOE potential, especially when taking the elemental convection tactical.

 

You cannot be serious

 

Death Field > Chain Lightning

DoT spread > AoE Volt Rush

Slow Mercy > Elementar Convection

 

I can agree that Lightning AoE is good, but is not better than Madness

 

Death Field deals more damage than Chain Lightning

DoT spread deals way more damage than even last stack of Volt Rush

Slow Mercy allows us to use our Demolish as AoE, on all targets hit by Death Field

If one target wasn`t hit by it, you can apply Demolish to target that isn`t effected by Deathmark (debuff from Death Field) and all targets that were hit by it will be effected as well

also, Slow Mercy buffs damage of Force Storm by 15% on targets effected by Deathmark

 

Lastly, let`s compare Force Storms of both specs

Both can take Tempest Mastery utility

On Lightning, your damage of Force Storm is increased by 25% with utility, its crit chance by 15% and its crit damage bonus by 30%

On Madness, you get Overwhelming debuff on targets, so its +10% to Force Storm damage. Which means 35% more damage overall

With Slow Mercy Force Storm on Madness is buffed by 50% (because of additional 15% buff I mentioned)

 

Now, back to other specs.

Lightning does not do more AoE damage than any other DoT AoE spec, not all DoT specs are AoE (best example is Virulence, which is purely single target DoT spec)

 

Best cleave spec is right now Pyrotech

 

And there is only one spec in game fully focused on AoE damage - its Engineering

[Aetideus]

If you like AoE DoT Madness is the way to go for Force specs; Lethality is for Tech ofc.

Slow Mercy Tactical and 1.3 gcd melts the other group, over 12k dps. But you got to forget single target and focus on that. And mastering of the Dcds is needed.

 

IO on the other hand, with Magnetized Scrapnels can do great single dps an stil great AoE DoT dps up to 10k. But it is the most difficult rotation to follow in the game.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Aetideus

[StrikePrice]

I play all the DoT specs, the only one that I'm really disappointed in is hatred. All the other perform pretty. Do they perform better than their burst counterpart? That's a different question. From best to worst, here is my list ...

 

Veng: With Cut to Pieces tactical. Oh lawd. Fun.

Lethality: In a very good place right now. Just as good as Veng. Took a bit of a nerf in 6.1.1 with the tactical change, but great DoT spec. Fun.

Madness: In a good place right now. Super solid spec.

Pyro: Solid DoT spec and fun.

Virulence: Good place.

IO: A little complicated, but good spec.

 

Hatred: Needs some serious love. Nobody fears a Hatred Sin. lol. 25-30% Assassinate damage increase, less force use would be a good start.

[Banderal]

(darkness and immortal both seem fun as well but I don't know if tanks are any good in pvp, haha)

 

Tanks are very valuable in PvP. So much so that you will see threads periodically popping up here where someone (or two or three) get on a kick about "tanks/guard is ruining pvp because no one can die!" kind of thing. Jugger/Guardian tanks are, I believe, considered top of the heap for the 3 tanks right now. Sins I think are at the bottom, and PT tanks in the middle.

 

One of the big things that this game does different than any other MMO I've played, is that tanks can actually actively protect other players in the match, through the guard and taunt mechanics. In a PvP setting they work differently (than they do in PvE). If you guard another player (and stay within 15 meters - which seem hard for 90% of the people that use guard for some reason, but I digress) then 50% of the damage they would take is applied to you instead. And when you taunt an enemy player, then they do 30% less damage if they attack anyone EXCEPT you (so don't taunt healers ).

 

[warning more detail than you probably want coming... ]

 

The thing you have to watch about playing a tank in PvP though is that bioware REALLY wants to give you stats that do you no good in PvP. Mainly "defense", which I guess does no good in PvP for "reasons" (do a search for why - I don't remember the details). So you want to get rid of that and replace it with something useful.

 

The other two "tank" stats are shield and absorb, which work together in that when you are hit you have "shield percent" chance to shield it, and if you do shield it then you subtract "absorb percent" of the damage. The *OLD* issue here was that when the hit against you was a crit, it used to be that you could not shield those. And with so many crits flying around in PvP, people ditched shield/absorb and just stacked as much health as they could.

 

But recently, bioware actually changed it so that you could shield a crit. I think most people still stack health instead, but I'm still not convinced 100%. I played around with trying shield/absorb recently, and then just the last couple weeks I flipped my loot toggle to "DPS' and started switching over to DPS gear. So now my shield/absorb is way down from what it was, and I still feel pretty tanky (jugger tank). So I'm starting to think probably just the tank passives and cooldowns really are what make them tanky. I know the tank guide that I'm kinda following actually goes so far as to completely ditch the shield and put in a focus... don't know if I want to go that far.

[frillzx]

Veng: With Cut to Pieces tactical. Oh lawd. Fun.

 

This is starting to sound fun to me I never thought I'd be interested in playing warrior, but here we are!!

 

Jugger/Guardian tanks are, I believe, considered top of the heap for the 3 tanks right now.

 

In that case, I think I'm definitely sold on warrior

Edited April 24, 2020 by frillzx

[Banderal]

In that case, I think I'm definitely sold on warrior

 

Oh, one thing I forgot... even a DPS jugger/guardian (and PT and sins) can both taunt and guard. (Which is something a number of people call "BS" on - myself included - but whatever, I still use them on my sin ) You have to be a lot more careful with guard, since you have less tankiness with a dps spec, so you can end up basically killing yourself by leaving it on too long. Also, if you put guard on someone as a DPS then the tank CAN'T GUARD YOU WHEN YOU GET FOCUSED! Just sayin'... don't do that.

[frillzx]

You have to be a lot more careful with guard, since you have less tankiness with a dps spec

 

I'll have to give it some real thought! DPS warrior seems really fun, but being an unkillable tank who just annoys everybody also seems fun are both juggernaut specs viable for ranked as well?

Edited April 24, 2020 by frillzx

[septru]

snip

 

a lot of numbers

 

I am sure if I went up to a training dummy, and I parsed those numbers, all of them would be accurate. In PvE, in an isolated setting, where no one attacks you, your pure numbers are correct: maddness's AOE is better than lightning's AOE. But this is PvP, where people attack you, you have to kite, you have to be able to cast while kiting, deal with burst.... etc. In PvP a lot of factors go into how much damage you can put out while under pressure, like survivability and utility. So those factors have to be considered:

 

With elemental convection it is a spamable root, chain lightning can be spammed. Chain lightning is an AOE root. With elemental convection, chain lightning It is a spamable AOE root. Think about how annoying it is to get spammable rooted trying to chase your target. Ontop of that lightning has an incredibly short cooldown on force speed compared to maddness. This shorter CD on force speed also lets lightning get their polarity shift back much faster than maddness. It is extremely difficult to keep up with a kiting lightning sorc rather than a maddness sorc. Maddness has 2 abilities to cast whereas lightning (with elemental convection) only has 1. Lightning also has better inherent 15% DR that can be kept up at all times. Lightning's survivibility and mobility provides for better overall damage than maddness.

 

If all you are looking at is numbers and parses then yes, maddness can be argued to be stronger AOE than lightning. But in PvP, pure numbers are not everything. Lightning's survibility and utility far surpass maddness's. And the sad fact is, pure numbers dont matter if you can't survive long enough. Honestly, there is a reason everyone is playing lightning right now, and not maddness.

Edited April 24, 2020 by septru

[KendraP]

I'll have to give it some real thought! DPS warrior seems really fun, but being an unkillable tank who just annoys everybody also seems fun are both juggernaut specs viable for ranked as well?

 

Not even slightly. Juggle dps specs in ranked is just asking to be tormented, and I was informed I deserved it for deigning to play dps guardian in ranked.

[JediMasterAlex]

Not even slightly. Juggle dps specs in ranked is just asking to be tormented, and I was informed I deserved it for deigning to play dps guardian in ranked.

 

If you're referring to me, this is what I said:

This is fair enough, but you're slightly underselling the fact that you're only queueing on a dps guardian (correct me if I'm wrong on that). That doesn't justify any abuse for it, but when you play a class at the very bottom of the meta, in any online game, you have to expect that people will complain about it.

 

I didn't say or imply that you deserved any abuse for playing dps guardian in ranked. I said you should expect that people will complain if you play a class at the bottom of the meta. If you can't appreciate that difference, I don't know what to tell you.

 

I've played off meta classes and used off meta weapons in other games and gotten tons of abuse for it. It just makes me laugh because the people that complain about such things are dumb and one really shouldn't take their opinions seriously.

 

On a side note, I actually respect people that play dps jugg in ranked. It's a very difficult class to succeed with consistently, and exceedingly few do.

Edited April 24, 2020 by JediMasterAlex

[PhatMcMuffins]

i agree with you that IO is by far superior to arsenal for dps and for mobility. I do however completely disagree that continuous fire the is strongest tactical. I use energized cells and in games with heavy stacking, filling every rotation with rapid shots to gain a supercharged burn and spamming DFO and sweeping blasters Until fusion missile is on insta cast, is the highest dps you'll each.

 

Any 8v8 heavy stacking game under 13k dps is dissapointing. Ive not seen a single arsenal spec come close to it. So as far as mercs go, id confidently say io has the best damage (in 8v8) so no, dot specs arent weak

 

the damage bonus of energized cells is abysmal

[Kaedusz]

I came back to the game not long ago, but from what i've seen. Hatred is not good. Lethality is insane though.

Haven't seen many snipers, let alone Virulence to have an impression.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Kaedusz

[Spintrec]

I came back to the game not long ago, but from what i've seen. Hatred is not good. Lethality is insane though.

Haven't seen many snipers, let alone Virulence to have an impression.

 

My guildie mains a Virulence sniper but he’s rarely online, and apart from him I barely see any Virulence snipers in regs.

 

Virulence is good for topping DPS charts but it’s all fluff damage; it can’t stand up in 1v1’s (nothing makes me happier than fighting a virulence sniper because I know I’m always gonna win) so the majority of snipers either play burst (marksman) or semi-burst DoT (Engineering).

 

Engineering is pretty good as a semi-burst DoT spec and can regularly get high DPS/top charts, but not to the level of virulence.

 

I can’t comment on the other DoT specs, all I can say with certainty is that if you’re looking to top DPS charts with fluff damage then Virulence is good, but in pressure situations/1v1s it slumps hard.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Spintrec