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

[odawgg]

No I agree with you 100% they are practically interchangeable, I just need to decide if I want 32 extra heat per minute to play with or the DR from better armorings...cuz I don't care about how much aim i have or what my character sheet looks like...but that's just me

[Keren]

I decided to switch out the new 2pc fpr the old 4pc, and my rotation sucked again. Must again learn to use the "easy" rotation where rail is just a filler if I get to much heat. lol!

[odawgg]

I know right haha...doing the same, gotta get the flow down again, been many months

[MattiasV]

I tried with the 2pc/2pc now as well. Over 3 minutes doing nothing but tracer missiles and rapid shots, my crit rate was at 48%. My crit rate on character sheet is 22.47%, so I'm either 11% ahead, or 6% behind.

So not completely convinced they fixed it at all. That's 76 tracer missiles, so there is bound to be variance though. Will try a longer parse another day unless someone beats me to it.

Also, since the two are basically interchangeable, I think going with the new 4-piece is better. You get more armoring (which is meh), but more importantly, as higher tiers of gear become available, the loss of aim will become more noticable. So might as well get used to the new rotation now. Also, I think the new rotation is more fun to play with since it requires morethinking and less TM-spam.

[Requiem4aDr3am]

I went with the new 4 pc bonus instead Id rather have the heat to play with it allows me to use vent heat more often to take advantage of that alacrity boost though it is short.

[Forsedar]

I haven't parsed in like 2 weeks (work related- can't raid) so I'm a bit behind in that area, plus gear. Looking forward to enjoying the new 4PC to see how things play out.

[odawgg]

I tried with the 2pc/2pc now as well. Over 3 minutes doing nothing but tracer missiles and rapid shots, my crit rate was at 48%. My crit rate on character sheet is 22.47%, so I'm either 11% ahead, or 6% behind.

So not completely convinced they fixed it at all. That's 76 tracer missiles, so there is bound to be variance though. Will try a longer parse another day unless someone beats me to it.

It's fixed, no need to keep testing, 3 minutes you're just getting RNG affects.

---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 05:47 PM ----------

I went with the new 4 pc bonus instead Id rather have the heat to play with it allows me to use vent heat more often to take advantage of that alacrity boost though it is short.

they're both fine, the only difference in heat will be at beginning of fight as far as hitting vent heat, hell you can hit vent heat whenever u want if that's what ur worried about lol it's not a requirement to wait till ur heat is 75ish +. After that, just need to ramp up when vent heat cd is about 12-15s instead of 10ish

[Requiem4aDr3am]

I don't like to waste my vent heat needlessly. But I found in the new 4 pc set bonus I actually have a reason to use it more often which is nice.

[Keren]

I played a little with my sim, even as firebug was 2pc/2pc stronger than the 8% damage buff, lol! BW is fool when it comes down to balance -_-

[odawgg]

I don't like to waste my vent heat needlessly. But I found in the new 4 pc set bonus I actually have a reason to use it more often which is nice.

hehe, just playing devil's advocate

---------- Post added 2013-06-01 at 09:11 PM ----------

I played a little with my sim, even as firebug was 2pc/2pc stronger than the 8% damage buff, lol! BW is fool when it comes down to balance -_-

yup, I noticed that too just from playing around on the dummy. Rail Shot isn't significant enough to outweigh all that crit to Power Shot. But it's definitely better than -8 heat...it's like every good thing they change, they make something else worse, BW and their damn "metrics" just listen to the players for once

[Keren]

We all reached a point where dps isn't that importend to kill the bosses. Instead it awareness and a corectly /dance. To get rid of the BA i remembered my Matrix Cube M7-B3, parsed him and only lost 15dps. So, whether you want to click on cooldown to reach that 15 dps bonus or you want steady dps is now your decision.
My Cube will get a MK-9 Augment today :P

---------- Post added 2013-06-03 at 05:44 PM ----------

Sorry, I didn't saw your post till now:

With Old 4pc Set Bonus
Avg DPS: 3212.35
__________________

With New 4pc Set Bonus
Avg DPS: 3202.98

Old Set bonus wins by 10 dps here...[COLOR="red"]

You should adjust the priority accordingly for each setboni. with new 4pc Rail isn't at all in the "above HL" section and below Electro Net in my tries. I will look if I can backup your observation =)

[odawgg]

[/COLOR]Sorry, I didn't saw your post till now:


You should adjust the priority accordingly for each setboni. with new 4pc Rail isn't at all in the "above HL" section and below Electro Net in my tries. I will look if I can backup your observation =)

Yeah, I mean you and I have never used the same rotation, you definitely go for easiest rotation that pulls within 1-2% of maximum, mine has always been for absolute maximum dps. The priority system and setup I listed in that post is the highest I've been able to find. And just yesterday I matched my 2pc/2pc high dummy parse with the old 4pc FTW.

EDIT: but as far as rail shot above heat limit with new 4pc...I use it, it simulates simularly, but i also am always using rapid shots (unless I need another tracer lock) when rail shot and hsm are 1.5s away from coming off cd if my heat is getting high so I am rarely at risk of going above 40 heat with either of those abilities

---------- Post added 2013-06-03 at 04:41 PM ----------

Please Support!

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=647027

[Keren]

nicely done odawgg! tried your rotation setup and reached nearly same result: 3310 [old set] // 3308 [new set]

Its nice to see that with your setup, and keeping heatmanagement in mind, Unload may be on of our strongest ability but because it will reset its CD anyway, it is not a gain to cast it straight away. Seems we should generaly adjust the guide regarding that knowlegde. As long as the player make use of the barrage procc, before the next occur, he should try to have all other meanigful things on cooldown to hit maximum possible

[Forsedar]

If Unload is what represents a largest part of our damage, why isn't is optimal to use it right after HSM? The sooner you use it, the sooner Barrage can proc and you can get another Unload off.

[Keren]

no, the barrage proc is undepended on whether you actually used your unload. Its procc CD is related to the time the procc happened. So after 6 seconds of the last procc barrage can be triggered again.
this way you have a 6 second frame where you can use your unload without delaying the next proc. Its better to use your abilites which have cooldown we can not reset, trigger there cooldown. This way you get them ready again faster as well - as long as you use any procc before the next barage happen, your safe.

[Deleted]

Hi there,

First of all:great thread for any roockie or veteran BH!!
I re-subscribed to SWTOR a few time ago and I have a lot to catch up since last patches. I have to say that your thread helps me with itemization and stats priorization, and also with my dps rotation (for the record: I agree with keren about the rotation of unload, it's all about proccing barrage whenever possible nd then use unload with full power).

If I may ask a few question here:
- Does the first post is still up to date or did some changes occur since last patch? (Do we still avoid crit for surge? )
- About end game BiS gear: I can't find a full set for an Arsenal BH in the thread?

Thanks a lot again, so much usefull information here. It's very interesting to follow you guys

K.

[Syzyx]

If I may ask a few question here:
- Does the first post is still up to date or did some changes occur since last patch? (Do we still avoid crit for surge? )
- About end game BiS gear: I can't find a full set for an Arsenal BH in the thread?

Yes you still want to get surge over crit. Only pick up agile mods and then you want to just go for accuracy/surge on your enhancements. Most of the best in slot implants and earpieces have power and surge on them so you want to have around 4-5 initiative enhancements when its all said and done.. and the rest are adept with the BiS implants/earpieces.

Theres a link on the front page of this thread that shows the BiS gear set up.. or around it... Its close enough to it. We're now discovering that we can get just as much dps out of using the 4pc Dread guard set (which is 3 tiers lower than the current gear) as we can with Underworld eliminators 4pc.



*edit* Dont go by my mrRobot profile.. I haven't updated it and the last time i mess with it I just kinda left it where it was.. Ill try to fix it sometime soon though so you can see my current gear set up.

---------- Post added 2013-06-04 at 12:01 PM ----------

Odawgg why dont you use power surge in the rotation? like with TSO_FM wouldn't it be best to power surge it?

[Keren]

Odawgg why dont you use power surge in the rotation? like with TSO_FM wouldn't it be best to power surge it?

Power Surge is disabled in my Sim, thats why :P PS is used best to avoid heat starvation and to maintain damage while moving. When you can you should fully cast FM with TSO to regenerate and in other situations use PS with TM for movement or to build up heat instead of dropping to zero.

[odawgg]

Hi there,

If I may ask a few question here:
- Does the first post is still up to date or did some changes occur since last patch? (Do we still avoid crit for surge? )
- About end game BiS gear: I can't find a full set for an Arsenal BH in the thread?

Thanks a lot again, so much usefull information here. It's very interesting to follow you guys

K.

There's an askmrrobot link in the OP under "How to look cool", and here's another link just from a spreadsheet I made: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post21077063

crit vs power, you want to go as much power as possible but it won't hurt you much as long as you are below 200...once you get below 200 make swapping crit for power a lower priority.

Odawgg why dont you use power surge in the rotation? like with TSO_FM wouldn't it be best to power surge it?

PS is used best to avoid heat starvation and to maintain damage while moving. When you can you should fully cast FM with TSO to regenerate and in other situations use PS with TM for movement or to build up heat instead of dropping to zero.

This, to be more specific, I did an analysis on Power Surge on my guide thread a while back:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showp...9&postcount=24

So in a nutshell, power surge doesn’t really have much of a benefit in a standstill position with ability cast times of 1.5s such as TM and FM. The only time it’s of benefit in a standstill position is when you’re at or near zero heat to get your heat regen’ing during the GCD, increasing your overall heat pool slightly. On a dummy, I will open with it and use it when my heat is definitely going to hit zero by the end of my cast (or to squeeze in a casted ability right before an adrenal wears off). In a boss fight, it’s situational.

If Unload is what represents a largest part of our damage, why isn't is optimal to use it right after HSM? The sooner you use it, the sooner Barrage can proc and you can get another Unload off.

no, the barrage proc is undepended on whether you actually used your unload. Its procc CD is related to the time the procc happened. So after 6 seconds of the last procc barrage can be triggered again.
this way you have a 6 second frame where you can use your unload without delaying the next proc. Its better to use your abilites which have cooldown we can not reset, trigger there cooldown. This way you get them ready again faster as well - as long as you use any procc before the next barage happen, your safe.

This, Rail Shot and HSM should always be at the top of our priority lists since they are our hardest hitting abilities with the shortest cds. EN is hard hitting but long cd so waiting a couple of GCDs isn’t going to hurt as much, same with TSO+FM. Unload proc isn’t going anywhere, get your cd abilities in first. Something I’ve always preached but didn’t want to fight ya on the guide

Edit: The reason why Rail Shot wins out over HSM is simply a damage per heat thing. That's why unload is so nice cuz it's great damage per heat. Rail Shot with both old set bonus and new is better damage per heat (although with the new 4pc they are nearly interchangeable)...HSM won out when we were using the 2pc/2pc

---------- Post added 2013-06-04 at 11:24 AM ----------

BTW Dom, love your back and forth on the NiM thread LMAO! Every few hours I make some popcorn and go and read it

[Forsedar]

I know the Barrage proc doesn't matter about if Unload is on CD or not, but using it once and getting a proc directly after = 2 Unloads, versus ignoring the first unload and just doing the priority and only getting a single unload at the beginning.

Yes, HSM and RS are on a higher priority but if Unload makes up the largest portion of our damage, wouldn't it be more wise to utilize that?