A good rotation for DPS commando?

[Chrismilk]

I am only lvl 20 but I barely get out of fights alive.

 

What is a good attack sequence to follow solo? How about grouping?

[asbalana]

LOL, I thought that it was me. I thought a killer caster with heavy armor would be the swtor OP class, but not so. While I can go in and kick butt on my JC Shadow, I find that I have to be careful in fights with the Gunnery Trooper. The ability issues (detailed in another thread in general) are killing.

 

In any case, I just hit level 20 and am having a hard time settling into a rotation as well. A lot of the abilities seem to overlap (very much the same damage and cast times). I am also finding that in any drawn out fight that I can quickly run out of ammo (big problem). I feel more like a mana starved mage than a swtor commando.

 

It will be interesting to see if your question gets any answers from people who have gotten to 50.

 

Edit - I have had some sucess in grouping as long as there is a tank holding aggro. You can just sit back and pew pew. I am not sure that I have a rotation there and do use the mortor attack as often as possible on groups of adds. I find the ammo problem much worse in heroics and flashpoints because the fights are longer and more drawn out and you quickly run out of ammo and then can;t do much.

Edited January 2, 2012 by asbalana

[Ethreal]

You are right, life is a little tougher. What I usually do for a group is lead off with mortor strike, hit a aoe ability on my companion and then use pulse cannon or the aoe fire ability. This will take down anything that's not a champion. For them the trick is to send your companion in first. Let him establish agro and burn off any non champion mobs. Throw a heal in him if need be then open up. You will get your butt kicked if you charge in like a vanguard. Remember you are a healer, with a pocket tank. Edited January 2, 2012 by Ethreal

[Tmaff]

I'm level 16 gunnery and I have not had any problems with dying at all...I use jorgan to quest and he can dps almost as fast as me, make sure you unlock his abilities otherwise he won't use them. I never even control him, I let him do his thing. But for my spell ro

 

AOE: I start by having jorgan attack the strongest mob so he holds som aggro while I kill off trash mobs or just other mobs if they're all same level by mortar volley>(choose a single mob) explosive round>hib>full auto if still alive and repeat that until you get back to the strong mob jorgan has been working on.

 

Single mob: full auto>exp round>hib(whenever available)

 

At my level I'm limited to what skills I use but I usually mix in a cryo grenade, pulse cannon for close AOE, stock strike for low ammo and close mobs, sticky nade if ranged mobs are staying close together and not going to die from mortar volley, and then obviously hammer shot for ammo management. pop your shield when it's available and you're goin into a tough fight.

 

Unless you're fighting a boss, armor piercing cell should be on. For bosses, I use plasma cell.

 

I don't ever die unless I'm in a fp really, and even that's rare. You're a Mage with plate armor! Heal yourself if you need to with adv med probe tho.

[CedricDur]

Hmm, maybe things get harder ahead. So far I'm 15 and things melt in front of me. If Mortar is up the group is dead. If it's not then Sticky Grenade and Pulse Cannon do the exact same.

 

Elites, I just send my companion first. If it gets mean we have our heal but so far no biggie.

 

Let me see.. I'll be assuming you have trouble against the silver mobs since anything lower than that dies with a couple of hits.

 

Have you tried Cryo Grenade, High Impact Bolt, Full-auto and then just Charged Bolts + Hammer Shot until the thing is dead? Personally I like using Pulse Cannon even on single target since it hits hard enough but mathematically two Charged Bolts (3 seconds) will do more damage than one Pulse (3 second channel).

[Hiro-Protagonist]

At early levels, CC is your friend. Of course, Mortar Volley should always be used when off CD, but if it is not available look at your other skills and look for crowd control. They include Sticky Grenade, Full Auto, Fusion Grenade, Plasma Grenade, and Explosive Round. For a group of standard enemies, apply sticky grenade to one target, explosive round to second target, and full auto on third target. That will lock three targets down followed by the knockdown from sticky grenade. Use a high impact bolt on one downed enemy, and then use various other skills to take down the remaining enemies.

 

This should drastically reduce the damage you take from a pack of normal mobs. If there is a strong mob in the group use two skills to lock down any standard/weak mobs and take them down as quickly as possible. Once the weaker enemies are down focus on the strong mob with your single target skills like Charged Bolt and Full Auto.

 

Another strategy uses a lot of ammo but is very effective for tight packs. A Plasma Grenade followed immediately by a Hail of Bolts will finish off most packs of standard/weak mobs. However, they need to be within the splash area of Plasma Grenade which is much smaller than Mortar Volley.

[krameriffic]

Mortar Volley should be 1-shotting all weak and standard enemies at your level. You literally don't even have to fight regular enemies as a commando you get such ridiculously good AoE. A plasma grenade+any other AoE should 1 shot regular enemies too. Against tough, use full auto and grav round whenever you can.

 

As far as running out of ammo, you should try to keep yourself in the 4-arrow regen regime. This means sprinkling in hammer shots instead of spamming ammo abilities on single targets. It lowers your immediate DPS, but it will greatly prolong your overall damage and give you much more in the long run. This should only be necessary against elites and champions though. Toughs should pose no issue whatsoever unless you aren't gearing yourself properly or are terrible.

Edited January 2, 2012 by krameriffic

[KalebClark]

Life saver:

Cryo grenade or knockback grenade to medical driod

[LordBanjax]

At 23 I'm having no issues staying alive. Keep you and your companions gear up to date. Use the planet's commendations to upgrade gear. Alternately, do some pvp and get the lvl 20 pvp set.

[ForceMaster]

Well I haven't been playing SWTOR for too long (I'm only level 16) but use mortar volley on groups, it will kill all the weaker and standard enemies and it will do some decent damage to any of the strong ones that survive.

 

Then use a cryo grenade, this will disable them briefly and this can make a big difference when fighting elites and etc.

 

If possible use that one ability that you can only use on incapacitated/bleeding enemies, its really quick and does reliable damage, I can't remember if it takes up any ammo, if it does I don't think it takes up much.

 

Anyway that is just some basic advice, there are other things you can add into the mix and other things I haven't covered, I'd recommend you use that standard commando charged shot ability (I forgot what it was called) and when melee enemies come at you use the melee ability or use that explosive shot ability to potentially knock them to the ground (if they are a weak enough enemy.)

 

EDIT: Remember to have ammo and other buffs on you too, armor piercing is good.

Edited January 3, 2012 by ForceMaster

[jedip_enguin]

It depends on the mob types but here's a general rule of thumb.

 

Big packs of regulars - Mortar followed immediatly by hail of bolts + a few hammers to finish straglers.

 

Strong + Regular 2 man pulls - Sticky+Full auto+HIB on the regular then concentrate on the strong with a Full Auto->Grav Round->Grav Round->Grav Round->Demo->Grav Round->Grav Round->HIB (they wont last that long)

 

Elite/Champ - Full Auto->Cryo->Grav Round->Grav Round->Grav Round->Demo->Grav Round->Grav Round->HIB rinse and repeat using Full Auto whenever you get CoF procs and HIB when you get to 5 stacks of CB, throw in your sheild+heal cd's if needs must and Conc Grenade if its a melee mob to buy you a few seconds of pain free/pushback free dps

[Jazzism]

Like the MM Hunter. Manage your CD's.

 

Do your heavy high cost shots then hammer to recharge then burst again.

 

I remember WoW 2.3 days and hunters had a very hard burst but had 3-4 seconds for CD's to come up and hit them again usually that was it.

 

Pattern your shots with your CD's and manage your bursts.

[Jameak]

Open up with a mortar volley then straight away concussion shot the silver/gold enemies. Clean up whats left, heal, let some cells recharge then tackle whats left. A good method is to send your companion onto the CC'ed mob and let it get some threat, then open up. This can buy you some time to DPS while you use some of your companion health up instead of your own. Another good strategy is to mortar strike then straight away hail of bolts or sticky grenade. Sticky grenade can scatter the weaker enemies if they are not killed by mortar strike and knock them down (possibly killing them) again buying you time to finish them off.

 

Also, learn to kite the harder enemies as its invaluable later on, as some of those sith are terribly painful up close in melee, so even if you can shave off 1/3 of their health with hammer shot while kiting around, you can then stand and fight and not be at such a disadvantage. As others have said also, breaking line of sight with an enemy that is simply too tough can again buy you time to throw a quick heal on yourself and avoid some of their more nasty abillities.

 

Theres really no "rotation" its more of a priority system, with the goal being to not blow your ammo too fast and cripple your recharge. Use the most damaging abillities first and weave in hammer shots to maintain that fast regeneration. If you can master this you can come out of fights with almost full ammo.

[Tanaboon]

I got this game on a whim, and I didn't read into theorycrafting, so I didn't know about Ammo regen at all (lol i know). I hit 50 this morning, and all I can say is that once I hit the early 40s, leveling as healing spec became VERY hard. It could've been because I didn't use the tank companions, but basically, many quest make you fight elites and many strongs. It gets very tough.

 

I then respec'd to gunnery, and leveling became a lot easier. Note the word easier. Basically, value CC. Gunnery made it very easy to kite elites, which is very important. I have many unorganized thoughts in my mind. In short abuse CC!! The Gunnery tree reduces the cool down on Concussive Charge, and it makes shockstrike have a kick back. Full Auto also reduces movement speed. Whenever you fight an elite, make sure he doesn't get close to you! I even use cryo grenade when its up, because any damage he doesn't do to you, is awesome. When there are big groups (2 or more stongs) I'd use the 1 min CC on one of them. I've also found that the command stim helped me alot. Be sure to gear up your companion with your old gear.

 

Have fun questing!

 

TLDR: Abuse CC when you can.

[Zencurse]

Heya, I'm a lvl 50 Commando AND I got a lvl 50 Shadow n I gotta disagree that Commandos are harder to solo than Shadows. Shadows have little to no survivability (unless you spec tank), have no armor (again, unless you spec tank) and Commandos just wreck. I had zero, count it, zero trouble getting my commando to 50 while my shadow was a pain in the ***.

 

As for your rotation question, at lvl 20 you should have just picked up Grav Round which will become infinitely important to your rotation.

 

Around lvl 20 your rotation looks like such:

 

If its an AOE group:

 

Is Mortar Strike off CD?

Yes: Use it

No: Open up on the lowest HP mob and refer to single target group

 

Single Target group:

 

Grav Round, Grav Round, Grav Round

 

This should get you to be around either your first threshold or JUST under it such that you gain that ammo back right away anyway. From here...

 

Auto Attack, Grav Round, Auto Attack, Grav Round

 

At this point your ammo should have regen'd to the point where your ammo is beginning to come back. From here...

 

1. Grav Round (only keep the stack up)

2. Full Auto

3. High Impact Bolt (If your grav round is up this should be available)

4. Auto Attack

 

As a final note: Always keep your ammo above 8, dropping to 7 is 'ok' once in a while but don't do it often or you might screw yourself over. By the time you reach lvl 40 your going to be juggling a lot more than your grav round stacks. Including, Charged Barrel stacks, Full Auto procs, and using Demo Round on a fully grav round stacked target. Getting a hang of controlling your ammo consumption now is the key to doing that OP as hell DPS at endgame.

[SupremeBlitz]

I usually did Sticlky grenade then Full auto untill i got Motar volley.

[ziphii]

I am only lvl 20 but I barely get out of fights alive.

 

What is a good attack sequence to follow solo? How about grouping?

 

I wonder if I am working on the wrong tree. I've been going up assault specialist, but you guys are all recommending grav round, which I don't get. I just hit 28. and here's what I do:

 

Mortar Volley>hammer shot> plasma grenade, then they are usually up in my grill, so I hit stockstrike and pulse cannon. I usually throw in sticky grenade when it's on cooldown. Should I switch to gunnery? Or is my rotation wrong? I don't usually die (although I have trouble with the gold star level enemies), but sometimes my companion does (usually M1-4X cause he annoys me the least). And I usually finish a fight with more than 3 mobs at pretty low health.

[oaceen]

I usually did Sticlky grenade then Full auto untill i got Motar volley.

 

this thread is over a year old. why respond now?