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

[Shotdabow]

I noticed that on hard mode, I didn't have to cleanse the circle, it only did ~400 damage, ~700 if it crit. Also sometimes the circles wouldn't appear at the beginning, and depending on my luck I would get hit from anywhere from none to maybe 3 of em.

[Forsedar]

I noticed that on hard mode, I didn't have to cleanse the circle, it only did ~400 damage, ~700 if it crit. Also sometimes the circles wouldn't appear at the beginning, and depending on my luck I would get hit from anywhere from none to maybe 3 of em.

Its a visual bug. The ground spawns are there even if you can't see them for the first wave of them. Its very unlucky, just have someone be your eyes for that part. After the initial red circle phase at the beginning, you will see all of them.

As for cleansing yourself- you do not have to cleanse it. It is not working as intended and barely even does any damage if you ignore it.


Edit: Also working on getting a list of gear that will change your spec and in fact add... *cringe*... alacrity from your talents.

With its current setup, I was able to do ~1600 DPS sustained on a training dummy for a 4min duration. Unfortunately, getting your Campaign mainhand or offhand is needed.

[Deleted]

If you stand on the side of the gates where you go for the 3rd boss you wont get hit by red circles. For yellow one I didn't know how much it hit, I simply always cleansed it and went on.

And 1 more question for Aerro. I have seen that campaign main hand and offhand are exactly same considering damage and stats. I realized also that in rakata gear I could take offhand barrel out and put it in my old columni main hand (had no luck with drops). This week I got campaign offhand and atm I'm still waiting for augmented weapon crafts due to lowest server population. When that 1 armstech on the server crits 2 of my pistols I'll check if it actually works. In this case we could take 2 offhands and keep MH drop for other classes.

We still have a problem on 8man HM last boss though. Everything goes extremely smooth but than half of the raid always dies on the purple aoe boss does after he pulls all together. Yes, we lack marauder so we are massively crafting blue quality potions for exactly that

Got any other suggestion?

[Forsedar]

If you stand on the side of the gates where you go for the 3rd boss you wont get hit by red circles. For yellow one I didn't know how much it hit, I simply always cleansed it and went on.

And 1 more question for Aerro. I have seen that campaign main hand and offhand are exactly same considering damage and stats. I realized also that in rakata gear I could take offhand barrel out and put it in my old columni main hand (had no luck with drops). This week I got campaign offhand and atm I'm still waiting for augmented weapon crafts due to lowest server population. When that 1 armstech on the server crits 2 of my pistols I'll check if it actually works. In this case we could take 2 offhands and keep MH drop for other classes.

We still have a problem on 8man HM last boss though. Everything goes extremely smooth but than half of the raid always dies on the purple aoe boss does after he pulls all together. Yes, we lack marauder so we are massively crafting blue quality potions for exactly that

Got any other suggestion?

It is confirmed that you can put your offhand barrel into a crafted weapon and use that as your mainhand. That is all that I've tested because I did the same thing just to see. Therefore, your logic is correct that you can get 2 offhands and use those for your MH/OH.

As for HM Kephess, what we do is everyone stacks behind the boss right before we push him over into the that phase, we pop all damage reduction cooldowns and as soon as he does the pull we all run to the same spot (our spot is where you first zone in). With all my CDs popped, I am only taking about 2 ticks worth of damage and then I'm back to DPSing. Although, I am talking about 16man.

[Deleted]

You're right, just made my BiS main hand weapon

For us on 8man, when I run out I get 4 ticks of 4k due to armor, but our healers die, some of them counted 5 ticks of 6k. Otherwise we do just the same as you, usually 3+ people die, if not, tanks die just a bit later due to low hp and hiss massive damage. Will manage somehow on sunday.

[Forsedar]

You're right, just made my BiS main hand weapon

For us on 8man, when I run out I get 4 ticks of 4k due to armor, but our healers die, some of them counted 5 ticks of 6k. Otherwise we do just the same as you, usually 3+ people die, if not, tanks die just a bit later due to low hp and hiss massive damage. Will manage somehow on sunday.

This is when its great to be a bounty hunter! Energy Shield + Kolto Overload + Med Pac means we will not die during that transition. On the plus side, that is the only time he does that, so if everyone stays alive you guys are golden.

As a side note: I also updated this thread with Spec changes for those getting access to multiple black hole and campaign pieces.

[Shotdabow]

Question, for the weapons, do they HAVE to be the Elegant Modified ones, or can they be the Custom-Built ones? (Assuming augment slots on either)

[Forsedar]

Question, for the weapons, do they HAVE to be the Elegant Modified ones, or can they be the Custom-Built ones? (Assuming augment slots on either)

They can be anything that has an augment slot, I just like the look of the Elegant ones! To me, the custom-built ones look like pea-shooters.

[Shotdabow]

Ok, I was just wondering. I have the Custom-Built ones, and I was freaking out cause I thought I might have to get the Elegant ones, cause I didn't wanna have to rip the mods out again >.<

[Deleted]

With this spec, it requires precise heat management skills. The reason to have 35% crit buffed and nothing less is to make sure our heat management is maximized. With this spec, it allows us to throw out more abilities over a given fight, thus resulting in a higher DPS. The old spec listed above in the thread intended for those who have only access to Rakata will give on average 26 APM (Attacks Per Minute). With this spec, we will be around 32 APM.

Again, this spec is only intended for those who are clearing or nearly clearing ALL of HM EC. If you try out this spec in lesser gear, your Heat ramp up will be extreme and will ruin your DPS.

Sorry but in this case I don't understand why someone with 30% crit unbuffed in rakata gear would overheat sooner than campain geared person with same crit chance. the 4.5s heat dump from crits is same, rail shot free is same, everything else I see is same apart from maybe stacking of power.

As for pea shooters. I stopped thinking about my character's look in this game looong time ago :P

[Forsedar]

Sorry but in this case I don't understand why someone with 30% crit unbuffed in rakata gear would overheat sooner than campain geared person with same crit chance. the 4.5s heat dump from crits is same, rail shot free is same, everything else I see is same apart from maybe stacking of power.

As for pea shooters. I stopped thinking about my character's look in this game looong time ago :P

It isn't a matter of heat management for the gear differences- its a matter of the DPS difference. Someone who is Rakata geared will fare better with the 30% crit and straight power stacking, than if they decided to use that spec. It is just merely based on scaling. If you are Rakata geared, feel free to test it but you will enjoy the high power coupled with crits and normal casting over fast casts and less damage per ability.

To clarify, when I say 'lesser gear' I mean individuals who just do not raid and do the occasional flash point but run around in quest oranges.

In my current gear, I am 700ish power with 37% crit and 73% crit multiplier. Rakata geared individuals simply cannot get near any of that.

[Deleted]

I'll try the spec tomorrow. My gear is far from optimized but so is the most raiders'. Optimizing it with each changing piece would be simply to expensive.

At the moment I sit at 1950 aim unbuffed with stim, 34% crit, 74% surge and 450 power (using campaign main hand and rakata offhand). None of my rakata gear is augmented due to late start at playing this game. Due to lack of players on this server, there is rarely any pvp which means I sit at 37 valor and am unable to use augmented boots and hands. Also I still miss about 15 aim from datacrons.

Will do a few 5min tries with my spec on dummy and than take some time to see how the alacrity one does.

[Forsedar]

I'll try the spec tomorrow. My gear is far from optimized but so is the most raiders'. Optimizing it with each changing piece would be simply to expensive.

At the moment I sit at 1950 aim unbuffed with stim, 34% crit, 74% surge and 450 power (using campaign main hand and rakata offhand). None of my rakata gear is augmented due to late start at playing this game. Due to lack of players on this server, there is rarely any pvp which means I sit at 37 valor and am unable to use augmented boots and hands. Also I still miss about 15 aim from datacrons.

Will do a few 5min tries with my spec on dummy and than take some time to see how the alacrity one does.

Let me know how it turns out! Your stats look like they'd be fine for this spec.

[Deleted]

I did 5 tests per each spec.

Started without alacrity doing 1480-1560 dps during 4min fight.
Than went to respec and 1st try I did I hit 1730 dps and went HELL YEAH! Just a bit later I realized I accidentedly buffed myself with 5% crit I didn't have before.
Without it I started at 1450 on 1st try since more casts let you overheat faster and I wasn't used to that. After a few tries I did break 1600 dps every time and got as high as 1690.

Observations:
- I use rail shot on every cd because of 4set bonus and with more frequent casts I never had less than 4 tracer locks on target,
- unload goes down from 3s to 2.7s. Considering we have 35-40% of damage in unload that's about 3,5% damage increase right there,
- tracers are at 1.4s and you can still spam them. Is that due to latency or does global cooldown benefit from alacrity?
- rapid shots are needed from time to time, not to overheat.

My stats when testing:
- 1950 aim
- 33,27% crit
- 73,22% surge
- 428 power
- 1261 tech power
- 101,88 accuracy

No raid buffs, no adrenals and no relics used during testing.

Checked again and saw the dps I did was on the weakest dummy :P Switching on ops one, left me with 1360 dps.

[Koalachan]

I did 5 tests per each spec.

Started without alacrity doing 1480-1560 dps during 4min fight.
Than went to respec and 1st try I did I hit 1730 dps and went HELL YEAH! Just a bit later I realized I accidentedly buffed myself with 5% crit I didn't have before.
Without it I started at 1450 on 1st try since more casts let you overheat faster and I wasn't used to that. After a few tries I did break 1600 dps every time and got as high as 1690.

Observations:
- I use rail shot on every cd because of 4set bonus and with more frequent casts I never had less than 4 tracer locks on target,
- unload goes down from 3s to 2.7s. Considering we have 35-40% of damage in unload that's about 3,5% damage increase right there,
- tracers are at 1.4s and you can still spam them. Is that due to latency or does global cooldown benefit from alacrity?
- rapid shots are needed from time to time, not to overheat.

My stats when testing:
- 1950 aim
- 33,27% crit
- 73,22% surge
- 428 power
- 1261 tech power
- 101,88 accuracy

No raid buffs, no adrenals and no relics used during testing.

Checked again and saw the dps I did was on the weakest dummy :P Switching on ops one, left me with 1360 dps.

It benefits from alacrity when casting anything with less than a 1.5s cast time.

[Forsedar]

I did 5 tests per each spec.

Started without alacrity doing 1480-1560 dps during 4min fight.
Than went to respec and 1st try I did I hit 1730 dps and went HELL YEAH! Just a bit later I realized I accidentedly buffed myself with 5% crit I didn't have before.
Without it I started at 1450 on 1st try since more casts let you overheat faster and I wasn't used to that. After a few tries I did break 1600 dps every time and got as high as 1690.

Observations:
- I use rail shot on every cd because of 4set bonus and with more frequent casts I never had less than 4 tracer locks on target,
- unload goes down from 3s to 2.7s. Considering we have 35-40% of damage in unload that's about 3,5% damage increase right there,
- tracers are at 1.4s and you can still spam them. Is that due to latency or does global cooldown benefit from alacrity?
- rapid shots are needed from time to time, not to overheat.

My stats when testing:
- 1950 aim
- 33,27% crit
- 73,22% surge
- 428 power
- 1261 tech power
- 101,88 accuracy

No raid buffs, no adrenals and no relics used during testing.

Checked again and saw the dps I did was on the weakest dummy :P Switching on ops one, left me with 1360 dps.

Once you get used to it, it is indeed a great spec.

Although, I noticed one thing wrong (though I might have misread it):

I use rail shot on every cd because of 4set bonus and with more frequent casts I never had less than 4 tracer locks on target

You must still use railshot with only 5 stacks. Though it doesn't hurt during movement parts of a fight to cast it on 4 stacks, you still want to wait for the extra one stack which is a 6% damage increase.

The reason being, you're already casting Tracer Missiles a lot faster, so whats another 1.37 sec? You probably will crit giving a heat loss regardless.

tracers are at 1.4s and you can still spam them. Is that due to latency or does global cooldown benefit from alacrity?

This is because the GCD of your Tracer Missile will change due to Alacrity. It does not affect the GCD of other abilities though, only the one you choose to cast. For the record, it does not change the GCD of instant casts.

Still stick with practicing the rotation because your DPS will go up if managing your CDs and Adrenal+Relic appropriately. I am able to finish a 6min duration with nearly 1600 DPS on the target dummy. You could possibly get fairly close to that.

[amsage]

I am driving myself mad trying to optimize my itemization, and I was wondering if you could lend some advice.

Currently, my guild only has enough people for a steady 8 man group. HM EC, we've been consistently able to bring down Toth and Zorn, but have yet to progress any father. We can consistently clear story mode. I am Biochem at the moment.

What I'm struggling with is, I don't know where to turn to actually increase my DPS, and stay at your recommended soft caps . Unbuffed, I'm currently actually sitting right around them; I have 103.5% accuracy, 32.3% Crit, and 69.5% Surge, with roughly 1831 Aim. My biggest problem is a lack of power...I'm only sitting at 208.

Current Gear Setup (Sorry, I don't have the patience to make an AskMrRobot profile):

Black Hole Boltblaster's MK-1 Device
Columi Eliminator's System x2 Both Augmented w/ +18 Aim
Columi Eliminator's Vambraces
Matrix Cube M7-B3
Plasma Injection Needles (LI Bonus Boss Proc DPS Relic)
Elegant Blaster Pistol x2 Both Augmented w/ +18 Aim. I just pulled the Rakata Crystal/Barrel/Mod/Enhancements out and put them in here.
Rakata Eliminator's Helmet
Mercenary's Chestguard Augmented w/ + 18 Aim. I pulled the Rakata Eliminator Armoring/Mod/Enhancements out and put them in here.
Columi Eliminator's Gauntlets
Rakata Eliminator's Belt
Rakata Eliminator's Greaves
Rakata Elimanator's Boots

What's easy is seeing the holes in my gear: I need to get my Hands and Wrists slots updated from Columi, and could stand to replace my implants and non-Matrix Cube Relic...

I plan on purchasing an Annihilator's MK-1 Enhancer this week, and will hopefully be able to craft 2 Augmented ones asap (Will have to R/E the one I purchase, though). That looks like it should really help me out on gaining some Power, and the Augment slots should offset the Aim loss. When it comes to my Wrists slot, I'm not really sure what direction to go. It seems like the options are wide open: I could level up Armormech and craft Augmented Rakata (which would also let me craft an Augmented Rakata belt...but is that worth it over the Black Hole belt, which isn't too expensive?), I could save up Black Hole commendations for a week and buy the Black hole one, or I could hope I get lucky on rolls when we defeat HM Zorn & Toth. It starts to drive me mad trying to figure out which piece/route would be better for me. I am operating under the assumption that we will not be clearing more of HM EC for the short term, until a majority of us are better geared, so I count the rest of the Campaign gear as "off-limits" to me. As for the Hands slot...well, I'll just say that I've hit an unbelievable string of bad luck with drops and rolls, as the Rakata Gauntlets have been eluding me since early February. If there's a "just-as-good" alternative, I've not found it yet, but I will welcome all suggestions. The really frustrating part is I am on a small server, so there's not alot of Armoring/Mod/Enhancement flexibility...If I don't get lucky in KP and EV (which I barely run anymore), I'm sure as hell not going to find em on the GTN, so my Crit/Surge/Power/Accuracy/Alacrity are not as easily interchangeable as I'd like. And finally, I will take your advice about the DPS Proc Relics...if it truly would be more beneficial to go with a Rakata Relic, I can switch that out...but that's kind of at the bottom of my list of priorities.

Sorry this turned out to be a monster post...but I stumbled across your guide this morning and my eyes just went wide as I started trying to figure out what my top itemization options are. I just had to ask because I'm running myself in circles trying to figure it out solo.

[Forsedar]

Helping is not an issue! I see a few simple changes that will give you a DPS increase so I will tell you exactly what they are and give an explanation why. There may be an option or two in the responses so just see what you feel like doing.

Columi Eliminator's System x2 Both Augmented w/ +18 Aim

Replace those with the Rakata implants instead. You will gain an 88 power increase and 102 surge rating from both of those implants.

Plasma Injection Needles (LI Bonus Boss Proc DPS Relic)

Upgrade to the campaign power relic which costs 200 daily commendations, especially if you do not feel like crit-crafting a Rakata relic :P

Rakata Eliminator's Greaves

Instead of buying the Black Hole implant, grab the Black Hole greaves instead. They are a HUGE upgrade and definitely best in slot with its armoring, mods and enhancement.



Don't try to RE the black hole implants and craft them. The mats are stupid expensive to get and completely not worth it. I mean, do it eventually but right now while you're gearing up I would risk the time investment for something minimal like that.

Columi Eliminator's Gauntlets

The Black Hole gloves are also a viable option for an upgrade. At this point, this may be your largest upgrade.

Right now the steps to take are:

-Upgrade Legs or Gloves with Black Hole equivs
-Grab Rakata Implants
-Rakata Augmented Bracers and Belt if you have time


Grabbing the Black Hole implants will sacrifice other valuable stats for more accuracy, which right now you are safe in that area.

[amsage]

Wow...thank you, I appreciate the advice! Guess it's time to start grinding those dailies again...haven't been doing much other than the Black Hole since I got my Rakata implant. Looks like I should be able to acquire all of this stuff in roughly 2-4 weeks, depending on how much time I can find during the day, which will hopefully coincide with the rest of my group gaining some better gear as well! Again, thank you very much.

[Forsedar]

Wow...thank you, I appreciate the advice! Guess it's time to start grinding those dailies again...haven't been doing much other than the Black Hole since I got my Rakata implant. Looks like I should be able to acquire all of this stuff in roughly 2-4 weeks, depending on how much time I can find during the day, which will hopefully coincide with the rest of my group gaining some better gear as well! Again, thank you very much.

No problem! If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.