2.2 UPDATED~ Arsenal Bounty Hunter: Are YOU Doing It Right?

[Forsedar]

My single target opening is:
TM>TM>TM>trinket,TSO,PS,potion>fusion,HSM>Unload(if procced)>TM....continue priority system as normal
Here you get your fusion missile ticking away, effectively for free. Using TSO on the HSM is a little bit pointless as it is really quite heat efficient anyway.

As a side note, I notice that you don't mention avoiding to bottom out your heat in the guide - something that will really sort out the good Mercs.

I will add in the heat management addition. I totally forgot! I was tired when writing the guide. I will go run some more tests to see if it is yet viable but my testing yesterday showed that TSO PS FM caused a DPS loss.

[Raeli]

Can any of you guys more familiar with Commando/Mercenaries, explain a little why Gunnery is the choice, and not Assault? Does Gunnery do much more DPS, or is it more the utility of the armour reduction?

[Stormcall]

Can any of you guys more familiar with Commando/Mercenaries, explain a little why Gunnery is the choice, and not Arsenal? Does Gunnery do much more DPS, or is it more the utility of the armour reduction?

Huh? Gunnery and Arsenal are the same thing. Gunnery is the trooper version, Arsenal is the bounty hunter one. The moves have different names(ie Tracer Missle=Grav Round, Heatseeker Missle=Demolition Round, etc) but the do the same thing with the same damage.

[Shotdabow]

Huh? Gunnery and Arsenal are the same thing. Gunnery is the trooper version, Arsenal is the bounty hunter one. The moves have different names(ie Tracer Missle=Grav Round, Heatseeker Missle=Demolition Round, etc) but the do the same thing with the same damage.

I believe he meant why people choose trooper over BH for that particular role. My guess would be because commando's don't dual wield, so there's no worrying about the off-hand hit penalty, which mercs have to take into consideration (I believe someone said earlier that unload can miss from the off-hand, which is quite a loss).

[Raeli]

Huh? Gunnery and Arsenal are the same thing. Gunnery is the trooper version, Arsenal is the bounty hunter one. The moves have different names(ie Tracer Missle=Grav Round, Heatseeker Missle=Demolition Round, etc) but the do the same thing with the same damage.

Sorry I was reading while writing and wrote Arsenal instead of Assault >.>

I only ask because we have this guy that wants to go Assault, and I was under the impression that it's pretty much just go Gunnery/Arsenal.

[Forsedar]

Sorry I was reading while writing and wrote Arsenal instead of Assault >.>

I only ask because we have this guy that wants to go Assault, and I was under the impression that it's pretty much just go Gunnery/Arsenal.

You pretty much just go Gunnery.

[Stormcall]

You pretty much just go Gunnery.

He was asking why.

[Forsedar]

He was asking why.

The comment I quoted wasn't a question, therefore I didn't think I had to give any other sort of answer.

Gunnery is just superior DPS. You'd be gimping yourself and other Gunnery Troopers if you were to go Assault.[COLOR="red"]

---------- Post added 2012-04-18 at 06:25 AM ----------



No use of Fusion Missile for this. Ignore some of the low DPS numbers (Melee on Zorn and Toth Hardmode get screwed) also some people get targeted and have to stop DPS to run. I was fortunate to not have to move all that much.

[Fannyd]

Is that a kill? 300k isn't very much total damage...
Our DPS is obviously going to be massive for the first minute or so, with all pots/trinkets popped and vent heat meaning that you can go balls to the wall with your rotation.

[Deleted]

Hey Forsedar and ty for a very informative post.

I have a request tho when it comes to the gearing, Seeing as I now have full Columi gear on my BH It seems I will have to switch out mostly ALL of the mods/Armors and stuff to get the softcaps you have stated in your post.

Is this something I should do until Im starting to get rakata gear or should I accually buy other Columi peices(With Crit & Surge Mods) And just swap em over? I whould appriciate if I could get a answer on that.

Do you think that you could also write up a BiS list? Or something that atleast gets you started to have a way to work on for HM OPS when it comes to gear?

Thanks.

[Forsedar]

Is that a kill? 300k isn't very much total damage...
Our DPS is obviously going to be massive for the first minute or so, with all pots/trinkets popped and vent heat meaning that you can go balls to the wall with your rotation.

These meters are a bit skewed since its trying to detect when you're DPSing and not in order to figure out if you're out of combat or not. So for this, this is actually about 80% of the fight (the last 80%). Early on I got targeted to remove Toths enrage so when I ran to him and basically stopped what I was doing the meter restarted.

For this fight, I believe my total damage was around 450k which is more than a 3rd and closer to half of Zorns health pool.

The log that is shown is 174 seconds, which is almost 3 minutes. The enrage timer for this fight is 4.5 minutes I believe.

---------- Post added 2012-04-18 at 03:57 PM ----------

Hey Forsedar and ty for a very informative post.

I have a request tho when it comes to the gearing, Seeing as I now have full Columi gear on my BH It seems I will have to switch out mostly ALL of the mods/Armors and stuff to get the softcaps you have stated in your post.

Is this something I should do until Im starting to get rakata gear or should I accually buy other Columi peices(With Crit & Surge Mods) And just swap em over? I whould appriciate if I could get a answer on that.

Do you think that you could also write up a BiS list? Or something that atleast gets you started to have a way to work on for HM OPS when it comes to gear?

Thanks.

I will add in the BiS list now! To answer your question: You should definitely just wait until you get Rakata before trying to hit those soft caps. It will be a lot easier, and my list will give you which enhancements you will want to replace, etc.

---------- Post added 2012-04-18 at 04:57 PM ----------

The BiS list (for HM Operation Progression) has been added in!

[Koalachan]

From today's patch notes:

Classes and Combat
Bounty Hunter
Mercenary
Heatseeker Missile: This ability will now only gain extra damage from your additional stacks of Heat Signatures and will not incorrectly detect debuffs from other players.
Trooper
Commando
Demolition Round: This ability will now only gain extra damage from your additional stacks of Gravity Vortex and will not incorrectly detect debuffs from other players.

So maybe this time they actually mean it.

[Deleted]

Ty for putting up the information I requested.

Something that you should maybe put up aswell are general tips and tricks for improving your dmg and dps, such as when you move you can always fire off a burst of rapid shots or fire of a explosive dart.

All just to push that little extra dmg whenever you can.

I bet that you with your experience will have a flood of these little general tips to ppl looking to improve their dps.

[Forsedar]

From today's patch notes:



So maybe this time they actually mean it.

Updating OP with this information. I got a text from our Marauder in my guild that basically was like, "LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL SUX4YOU"

---------- Post added 2012-04-19 at 03:15 PM ----------

Ty for putting up the information I requested.

Something that you should maybe put up aswell are general tips and tricks for improving your dmg and dps, such as when you move you can always fire off a burst of rapid shots or fire of a explosive dart.

All just to push that little extra dmg whenever you can.

I bet that you with your experience will have a flood of these little general tips to ppl looking to improve their dps.

I will try to think about anything I do specifically that may help others. Seeing as I just woke up, my mind is still scrambled.

[Deleted]

Very nice read indeed Forsedar.

Right now I'm at 2036 aim when buffed. I need to get an augmented armor piece and Rakata belt with a slot as well to take me to 2072. Unbuffed I am at 104.68% Accuracy, Crit 33.20% and Multiplier 69.74%.

Any thoughts on the new relics? I heard that the Campaign relic of the Cerulean Nova from the new 1.2 dailies is the way to go. At the moment I have the datacron obviously and the Columi Forbidden secrets relic, which is rubbish. Do you still recommend using a power relic?

Also, do you use an adrenal? I am using the rakata power one and noticed a massive improvement since dropping the crit one. Just wondering if it is truly best to use both a power adrenal and relic. Need to test it.

[Forsedar]

Very nice read indeed Forsedar.

Right now I'm at 2036 aim when buffed. I need to get an augmented armor piece and Rakata belt with a slot as well to take me to 2072. Unbuffed I am at 104.68% Accuracy, Crit 33.20% and Multiplier 69.74%.

Any thoughts on the new relics? I heard that the Campaign relic of the Cerulean Nova from the new 1.2 dailies is the way to go. At the moment I have the datacron obviously and the Columi Forbidden secrets relic, which is rubbish. Do you still recommend using a power relic?

Also, do you use an adrenal? I am using the rakata power one and noticed a massive improvement since dropping the crit one. Just wondering if it is truly best to use both a power adrenal and relic. Need to test it.

My thoughts on the new relic: They're just bad. I mean, from my standpoint. I expected the new campaign relics to give 480 power on usage but they changed it at the end of beta to be only 405, which is hardly an increase from Rakata.

If you're looking to min/max and have time on your hands- get Artifice and crit-craft the Rakata Boundless Ages (power) relic. You will get 380 power on use as well as a consistent base 18 aim from the augment slot, making it better than Campaign relics.

As for your Matrix Cube- keep using that. Right now, no relic can compare to it since it gives a base 58 aim and 24 crit rating. After clearing HM Denova tonight, I can say there are no other relics that can compare to that and the augmented Rakata relic. The only relic that will drop from Denova is a 'chance on damage' proc which is onpar with the ones from KP... which all are flat out useless.

Now to answer your adrenal question: Yes the Rakata power adrenal is the way to go. When coupled with the Rakata relic you will notice an extreme improvement in DPS. The power adrenal is truly the best and it will stay that way as long as nothing drastically changes with our Bounty Hunters.

[Deleted]

I notice that you are linking the BiS Items with Augment slots, but I cant see where you get those from, only the normal rakata gear(Without the augment slot)

Since Im abit new to this game i have zero clue as where to get those kind of armor pieces, You cant buy em from a vendor now can you ?

Also, the enchancement you are linking, are those from a proffession too?

[Forsedar]

I notice that you are linking the BiS Items with Augment slots, but I cant see where you get those from, only the normal rakata gear(Without the augment slot)

Since Im abit new to this game i have zero clue as where to get those kind of armor pieces, You cant buy em from a vendor now can you ?

Also, the enchancement you are linking, are those from a proffession too?

Sorry, Torhead is very misleading when it comes to certain links. The implants do not and cannot have augment slots if they are Rakata. Just ignore the augment slots for those.

However, for the bracers and belt- they can be crafted AND crit to give an augment slot. I use both of them with augment slots since they are better than blackhole at this point.

For your enhancement question: It can come from most Sith Warrior rakata level gear. I know specifically I got mine from gloves, head, weapon and boots that were Sith Warrior. The +surge enhancements are a drop from either Pylons or Jarg and Sorno. If you grab the Rakata implants and Black Hole ear piece- you won't have to worry about those enhancements since you will be around ~69% surge and will get the rest from blackhole/campaign level gear.

[Deleted]

Sorry, Torhead is very misleading when it comes to certain links. The implants do not and cannot have augment slots if they are Rakata. Just ignore the augment slots for those.

However, for the bracers and belt- they can be crafted AND crit to give an augment slot. I use both of them with augment slots since they are better than blackhole at this point.

For your enhancement question: It can come from most Sith Warrior rakata level gear. I know specifically I got mine from gloves, head, weapon and boots that were Sith Warrior. The +surge enhancements are a drop from either Pylons or Jarg and Sorno. If you grab the Rakata implants and Black Hole ear piece- you won't have to worry about those enhancements since you will be around ~69% surge and will get the rest from blackhole/campaign level gear.

Thank you for a fast reply.

I was getting abit worried since I now have all the daliy ear/implant peices, 3 / 5 rakata eliminator and my crit is all the way down to 24%

I guess I just have to keep gearing to get the better base stats I need for the "optimal" base stats.

[Raeli]

Sorry, Torhead is very misleading when it comes to certain links. The implants do not and cannot have augment slots if they are Rakata. Just ignore the augment slots for those.

However, for the bracers and belt- they can be crafted AND crit to give an augment slot. I use both of them with augment slots since they are better than blackhole at this point.

For your enhancement question: It can come from most Sith Warrior rakata level gear. I know specifically I got mine from gloves, head, weapon and boots that were Sith Warrior. The +surge enhancements are a drop from either Pylons or Jarg and Sorno. If you grab the Rakata implants and Black Hole ear piece- you won't have to worry about those enhancements since you will be around ~69% surge and will get the rest from blackhole/campaign level gear.

If you use an Orange Belt & Bracers (now easily available from the legacy vendors on Dromund Kass and Coruscant), you can use an Armoing 25 and Mod 25, which will give you slightly more primary stat than Augmented Rakata. Moving forward, this will be the same with the campaign gear, you can use a 26 Armoring and Mod there, and it too will be better than Black Hole Augmented (Which would require you to be REing the BH stuff too, a little too risky at the moment imo!). Obviously bare in mind that the Armorings need to be the ones that drop, and not the ones from gear of course since those are all bound to a specific slot type.

We weren't sure that Armoring 26s actually dropped since Askmrrobot doesn't have them, and while we haven't had any drop, we've seen them on the Auction house.