Its really no longer just a joke that the devs don't listen to the community or know what there doing, the BH community wanted you to fix HSM's not tweek how we vent heat. The increase in armor pen to unload and rail shot is ok, but I just ran dps test on my arsenal spec merc on the pts and for the life of me i couldnt sustain at least 3mins of constant damage. The new talent in 1.3 would vent heat automatically 8 every 6 seconds while high velocity cylinder is active, changed from crits with missiles and unload vent 7 heat and cannot happen more than every 3 secs. Some people might think this is a good change, and i challenge them to sustain at least 1300 dps for 6 mins only self buffed no stim ( i did 1380 live server on my fully campaign geared merc for 10 mins self buffed no stim EASILY on the operation test dummy) The revamp to how we vent heat is terrible there's a good reason why no PowerTech BH goes Adv Prototype in pvp or pve its terrible. I post parser stats if needed....

I'm truly happy that I got the attention of so many people, and that this post generated a real discussion on the matter. I would like just to point out one thing " I didn't read all the posts but one thing did catch my eye" and that is that my numbers are correct against the operation lvl test dummy. My only response to that is I'm seeing the same numbers on mobs in PVE (less in PVP) "1131 expertise" How can I be doing the same damage to weak and strong mobs doing daily's as I'am killing Kephis, not to mention I have 7 piece blackhole/campaign gear (3 more pieces then most guildies) and all the Merc bounty hunters are at the bottom on the dps meters. I've ran the numbers every which way I can all i can say to the devs, is if any Dev wants to play my Bounty Hunter to down Kephis this Sunday and try to post at least top three dps I'm more then willing to. By the way It would be 16 man hardmode.

As of late I've been reading a lot of post on the forums on how the Devs. just wrecked Merc Bounty Hunters and to all those non believers out there its true. I ran some testing on the Arsenal spec'ed dps using the operation lvl testing dummy on the Imperial fleet here are the numbers as proof (Tracer Missile) tool tip indicates its dmg is between 1736-1872 kenetic damage i logged 16 normal hits non stack armor debuff average hit was 1346.062 then logged 17 stacked armor debuff " which is 20%" average hit normal hit 1410.705. As you can see the damage is way off by the way this is with High Velocity Cylinder on which grants a 35% armor penetration automatically which is not calculated in bonus dmg in any way in the tool tip, with it off the dmg is 1263.85 stacked armor debuf 1178.642 non stack. Extra numbers "crits" non stack high velocity on average crit 2341.5, stacked armor debuff 2468.176, high velocity off non stack crit 2046.125, stacked armor debuff 2203.181. From the numbers you can see the damage is way off and for people out there thinking well is a operation boss lvl dummy is still has alot of armor left, i get these say numbers on trash in operaions and flash points on strong elite and champion. I will say this the Armor debuff tracer missile applies does work. On too (Heat Seeker Missile) which is also bugged tool tip indicates 2126-2263 kinetic damage and is supposed to receive a 4% damage bonus for each stack of tracer missile which goes up too 5, so you should receive a 20% armor reduction and a 20% damage increase to Heat Seekers Damage. Get ready to be "surprised" fully stacked with high velocity cylinder on normal hits average 2145.25 laughable uh. non stacked high velocity on average hit 1645.166 just pathetic. Here are some crit numbers non stack high velocity on 3331.75, fully stacked high velocity on 4396.9........ extra numbers high velocity cylinder off with stacked bonus normal 1943.333, crit 3934. This is just sad its also worth noting that they secretly reduced our crit chance by chumping body guard talent from 6 to 3% crit chance that was in no patch note, reduced the area of effect for death from above and a couple of other small things. Pre 1.2 they nerfed tracer missile by 10% the official word from the devs was so it would encourage more unique ability rotations rather than just spamming tracer missile, and now with 1.2 it seem tracer missile has taken another hit whether it be intentional or not. In a 1.2 patch the devs said that they fixed heat seekers and Merc Bounty Hunters would only benefit from their stack and not others which prior that patch Heat seeker would average crit for me 9.5k crit (NO JOKE) in a raid. Well they broke it, as of right now Arsenal Bounty Hunters are the weakest dps and the only real reason to keep them in raid so the armor debuff they apply to help the raid. P.S. These number ive posted are based off fully raid buffed whch means each buff from the different classes no stim, as a extra note not trying to sound arrogant I have most of the end game armor and weapons (campaign and blackhole gear) which is best in slot with augments ill link a pic of my character sheet. And really if i've got the best gear a Merc can get and im still seeing numbers like these I can only imagine what other Mercs are posting. On a final note it doesnt get any better in pvp im seeing reduced numbers in pvp with full battlemaster gear expertise at 1131 some one please explain that http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/233/screenshot2012050108565.jpg/

With the recent 1.2 and the latest patch the bounty hunter has taken a big hit to its dps. Decreasing the damage of tracer missile, decreasing the radius of death from above, removing the benefit of stacking tracer missile debuff to benefit the increase damage of heat seeker missile. The reason I heard that game devs decreased the damage on tracer missile is to get players to use power shot in their rotation but that was a wrong decision, power shot doesnt vent heat while tracer missile crits and unload crits do. The changes they are making to Bounty Hunter are crippling us on dps. Please if you read this post help get the Devs to undo the some of the changes they made to Bounty Hunter