You can now find the guide on dulfy.net!

BTW, This thread is now being repurposed into a VG + PT DPS guide.

VG Version found here: http://dulfy.net/2014/12/07/swtor-3-0-vanguard-tactics-and-plasmatech-dps-guide-by-kwerty/

PT Version found here: http://dulfy.net/2014/12/08/swtor-3-0-powertech-advanced-prototype-and-pyrotech-dps-guide-by-kwerty/

I am doing rapid shots right after Railshot/High Impact Bolt, is that a dps increase or loss? It seems to help me with my heat by a lot. I'm coming from a heavy PVP atmosphere so I have only just recently started with PVE.

Depending on how much ammo (or heat) you currently have, sometimes its good to rapid shots after a rail shot, other times you can wait a little longer. I tend to find its ok either way, so I put it in the middle for a more easy to remember system (as Stockstrike/Rocket Punch will never come off cooldown in that specific cooldown I have Hammer shots listed).

A good thing to remember is so long as your Ammo/heat is below 90, its fine to use either hammer shots/rapid shots or Ion Pulse/Flame Burst. Try not to Ion Pulse/Flame burst or Stockstrike/Rocket Punch when below 76 heat without resource return cooldowns though

Speaking of which, im also gonna have to add Powertech Terminology after I get a nice parse uploaded aren't I

Also, the PTS is empty D: - I brought over a boatload of mats so I could upgrade my 50/50 split of underworld/dread forged into full dread forged and no one is there! Well 12 people were there, but 8 of them were doing NiM dread palace and the rest were low level smugglers

Depending on how much ammo (or heat) you currently have, sometimes its good to rapid shots after a rail shot, other times you can wait a little longer. I tend to find its ok either way, so I put it in the middle for a more easy to remember system (as Stockstrike/Rocket Punch will never come off cooldown in that specific cooldown I have Hammer shots listed).

 

A good thing to remember is so long as your Ammo/heat is below 90, its fine to use either hammer shots/rapid shots or Ion Pulse/Flame Burst. Try not to Ion Pulse/Flame burst or Stockstrike/Rocket Punch when below 76 heat without resource return cooldowns though

 

Speaking of which, im also gonna have to add Powertech Terminology after I get a nice parse uploaded aren't I

 

Also, the PTS is empty D: - I brought over a boatload of mats so I could upgrade my 50/50 split of underworld/dread forged into full dread forged and no one is there!

Yeah, I was going ask if I could transfer your guide to the PT forums with PT terminology to help others out. You would obviously get all the credit for such a good and updated guide.

Yeah, I was going ask if I could transfer your guide to the PT forums with PT terminology to help others out. You would obviously get all the credit for such a good and updated guide.

Haha no worries. Might want to wait till I get a Parse uploaded first (doing that now)

Nice Job,

A few small comments/thoughts.

1. Just for clarity if there are any first-timers CZ's mine is Concussion Mine, not Corrosive.

2. While I'll do agree with the gear breakdown, I think it would be useful to include the actual stat bonuses (+xxx Crit, +xxx Power) your recommended gear gives. Because while it may not be as optimal, you can still get pretty close to those secondary stat levels with alternate gearing strategies (using a crit/surge enhancement and a power mod vs. a crit mod and power/surge enhancement).

3. I'm curious why for Tyrans you prioritize BF-SC-Adrenal for the adds in the future, when using the adrenal on the first add would allow for it to be available again sooner in the fight, without changing the idea of one DPS bonus to help with each add.

4. You say this under your Nefra strategy. "This DoT will reduce the damage of Adrenaline Rush" I assume damage is supposed to be CD.

5. Personally, I don't like getting Raptus' crystal on the 3rd phase. If you are able to get Brontes down quickly enough, you have more than enough time to DPS Raptus before he becomes active that you won't lose aggro on him. And as you mention, you also have a taunt if need be. Once you get the crystal, he's on you, no matter what. If you get knocked off and/or die, it becomes impossible to re-control raptus because he'll just jump around to whoever. If you leave his crystal on his throne, and you do die (I've died to a skull DM while I was out-of-range of a healer) another DPS (if applicable) can taunt and pick up your kiting duties while you get a res.

6. One of the most unfortunate things about VGs in DF/DP is lack of a self-cleanse. While kiting make sure your healers/cleansers are aware of where you are/where you're going to be while kiting, because it's pretty easy to get a skull when you're in the corner and out-of-range. And it's quickly a GG if you/your cleanser can't make up enough ground quickly to cleanse in time.

For NiM Nefra if you run a group that does not have many self or off-cleanses, it becomes high priority to rotate your DCDs effectively for each DoT and the 15 stack twin attack. Diversion will aid in resist chance of all DoTs (Nefra, Tyrans, etc.) and should be looked at equally as a moderate defensive and a threat drop.

Nice Job,

 

A few small comments/thoughts.

 

1. Just for clarity if there are any first-timers CZ's mine is Concussion Mine, not Corrosive.

 

2. While I'll do agree with the gear breakdown, I think it would be useful to include the actual stat bonuses (+xxx Crit, +xxx Power) your recommended gear gives. Because while it may not be as optimal, you can still get pretty close to those secondary stat levels with alternate gearing strategies (using a crit/surge enhancement and a power mod vs. a crit mod and power/surge enhancement).

 

3. I'm curious why for Tyrans you prioritize BF-SC-Adrenal for the adds in the future, when using the adrenal on the first add would allow for it to be available again sooner in the fight, without changing the idea of one DPS bonus to help with each add.

 

4. You say this under your Nefra strategy. "This DoT will reduce the damage of Adrenaline Rush" I assume damage is supposed to be CD.

 

5. Personally, I don't like getting Raptus' crystal on the 3rd phase. If you are able to get Brontes down quickly enough, you have more than enough time to DPS Raptus before he becomes active that you won't lose aggro on him. And as you mention, you also have a taunt if need be. Once you get the crystal, he's on you, no matter what. If you get knocked off and/or die, it becomes impossible to re-control raptus because he'll just jump around to whoever. If you leave his crystal on his throne, and you do die (I've died to a skull DM while I was out-of-range of a healer) another DPS (if applicable) can taunt and pick up your kiting duties while you get a res.

 

6. One of the most unfortunate things about VGs in DF/DP is lack of a self-cleanse. While kiting make sure your healers/cleansers are aware of where you are/where you're going to be while kiting, because it's pretty easy to get a skull when you're in the corner and out-of-range. And it's quickly a GG if you/your cleanser can't make up enough ground quickly to cleanse in time.

For NiM Nefra if you run a group that does not have many self or off-cleanses, it becomes high priority to rotate your DCDs effectively for each DoT and the 15 stack twin attack. Diversion will aid in resist chance of all DoTs (Nefra, Tyrans, etc.) and should be looked at equally as a moderate defensive and a threat drop.

1. Fixed

2. Fixed

3. I tend to use the Attack Adrenal for the 3rd add because I tend to use an Attack Adrenal in my opener for that fight - meaning its not usually up until the third add.

4. fixed

5. As far as I was aware, not grabbing the crystal gives Raptus a 100% damage buff. Ill try without grabbing it next time, cause aggro is really easy to hold on him, but I prefer to have that buffer at least.

6. Thats a good point to emphasize. I tend to have one of the healers as my focus target, so if im kiting raptus around (for example) then I make sure to not LoS them and stay within 30 meters of them, as then if I get deathmarked all they have to do is Click -> Cleanse

In other news... how do you guys play w/o a 0-100 counter on your ammo bar? I logged into my vg and it was pretty terrible..

To be perfectly honest...

We have to guess. Its a huge pain.

In other news... how do you guys play w/o a 0-100 counter on your ammo bar? I logged into my vg and it was pretty terrible..

Honestly, never having one has made me completely naive as to how useful it certainly would be. I know it's less than 100% efficient, but I'm just kind of used to having to "feel" where my ammo is, mainly by using the regen-region indicators.

*THIS GUIDE IS UPDATED FOR THE CURRENT BUILD OF 2.8 PTS* (and could also use some improved formatting...)

 

Option A: 100% Proc Rate

 

This rotation is simple, and is usually used for filler periods, when Reserve Powercell and Recharge Powercell are both on cooldown. The rotation is simple:

 

Stockstrike/Ion Pulse -> Hammer Shots -> Stockstrike/Ion Pulse -> High Impact Bolt -> Stockstrike/Ion Pulse -> Assault Plastique/Incendiary Round -> Stockstrike/Ion Pulse -> High Impact Bolt

 

Put simply, prioritize the first attack in the slashed areas, and follow the rotation exactly. This rotation has neutral ammunition consumption, so you can repeat it indefinitely.

 

The second 'rotation' is actually a priority list, and makes for a very complex situation. The priority is as follows:

 

Ionic Accelerator Proc

Assault Plastique

Incendiary Round DoT

Stockstrike

High Impact Bolt

Hammer Shots (for resources)

Ion Pulse

Just with Stockstrike I don't agree with use on cd. As it has a higher chance of procing IA than Ion Pulsen it should be saved for proc'ing every 2nd IA, as most of the damage comes from HiB and delaying a IA proc by a GCD will cause a dps loss. Assault VG is RNG so reducing the chances of RNJesus not hearing your prayers is always a good thing, maybe just mention that in the rotations as something extra.

Honestly, never having one has made me completely naive as to how useful it certainly would be. I know it's less than 100% efficient, but I'm just kind of used to having to "feel" where my ammo is, mainly by using the regen-region indicators.

Yeah, I leveled a Commando before a merc, so I'm used to the "feel" method as well. When I started running my Merc in end-game content, I suddenly discovered how much I liked having it.

Someday ...

Just with Stockstrike I don't agree with use on cd. As it has a higher chance of procing IA than Ion Pulsen it should be saved for proc'ing every 2nd IA, as most of the damage comes from HiB and delaying a IA proc by a GCD will cause a dps loss. Assault VG is RNG so reducing the chances of RNJesus not hearing your prayers is always a good thing, maybe just mention that in the rotations as something extra.

As I said in the post, the Ionic Accelerator Proc has an additive chance that for some reason always procs off the second use. Thats why the priority list is like that - the only time where you have to pray to RNJesus in the second rotation is on stockstrikes anyway (AP -> IR -> HiB -> SS -> HiB or HiB -> IR -> AP -> SS -> HiB) as such, its better to use it on cooldown.

However I also noticed that Ionic Accelerator 'stacks' (or whatever you want to call them) dont start until the proc is actually consumed, and as such im going to adjust the "advanced" rotation and split it up.

Anyway, I updated the rotation section due to information I discovered on the PTS where about half my situations of Ionic Accelerator not proccing still happened, where I thought it was due to alacrity. I still had cases where it wouldn't proc at all on live when it should have, but testing on the PTS proved that the other case -

Ion Pulse (Proc) -> Assault Plastique -> Stockstrike -> High Impact Bolt -> Ion Pulse (Should have procced but didn't) -

was because the invisible and imaginary stacks wouldn't build up until Ionic Accelerator was consumed.

Adjusting the above to

Ion Pulse (Proc) -> Assault Plastique -> High Impact Bolt -> Ion Pulse -> Stockstrike

was getting me the proc 100% of the time on the PTS.

I don't know why but my RS/HiB crit is always below 30%. I look at other AMRs and parses and see what others are putting out and I feel as though I should be parsing 3500+ on average. What am I doing wrong? This is my best parse...

http://www.torparse.com/a/669772/time/1399716632/1399716922/0/Damage+Dealt

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/0100d226-2f1a-40a4-9d73-9cce73c318b5

I don't know why but my RS/HiB crit is always below 30%. I look at other AMRs and parses and see what others are putting out and I feel as though I should be parsing 3500+ on average. What am I doing wrong? This is my best parse...

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/669772/time/1399716632/1399716922/0/Damage+Dealt

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/0100d226-2f1a-40a4-9d73-9cce73c318b5

First thing I noticed was the lack of datacrons + the lack of the ranged companion crit boost(+1%). While its not much, the +40 Aim and Cunning from all the datacrons is still really helpful for pulling big numbers. Another thing gear wise is the headpiece rocking a Proficient Enhancement, but thats probably on the "to replace" list anyway.

With gear out of the way, next up was the parse. Bear in mind with this being a 2.7 parse its not going to be as awesome as the ones in the OP, but 3500 does sound like a good goal for now.

Ok heres what I found:

There were cases where you delayed Rocket Punch for Flame Burst outside of GCD #2. This results in a DPS loss. Try and get into the habit of Rocket Punch on cooldown.

There were a couple of PPA Failures due to alacrity. It sucks when this happens, but thankfully its also going away for good. The first failure is easy to recognize in the DPS over Time graph as well, cause the DPS died for a good 60 seconds when that happened

Other than that, you kept your heat under control, kept Incendiary Missile and Thermal Detonator on cooldown, and always threw out a flame burst or rocket punch during PPA cooldowns, so there isnt much more to improve on. I didnt do the maths to see how much health the dummy had left for the 2nd attack adrenal + 3rd shoulder cannon/explosive fuel combo, but if it was done above 30% health it tends to be better to delay it for the execute window for those really nice parses.

So in summary:

Approximations for dps boost listed

Get the datacrons: +0.07% ranged crit chance, +0.2% tech crit chance, +9.6 ranged bonus, +18.4 tech bonus

+35 dps

Get ranged companion to max affection: +1% universal crit rate

+32 dps

Rocket punch on cooldown: +25 dps

Wait for patch 2.8 to remove alacrity: +60 dps (that really screwed you over)

Patch 2.8 dps boosts: +400 dps

Expected potential in 2.8: 4k dps, should you make any RDPS companion like you and get the datacrons, and rocket punch on cooldown. A little more crit rating wouldnt hurt either, but just a crystal should be enough

By making your GCDs slightly below 1.5s. It meant that the first (technically) proccable ability was used just before the 6s internal cooldown on PPA was done. I don't think I ever saw this happen too often in practice.

And now that im off my tablet and on my desktop, I can show you an example of when this happens:

22:10:54.927 Erdface activates Flame Burst.

22:10:54.927 Erdface gains Prototype Particle Accelerator.

22:10:54.928 Erdface loses Thermal Sensor Override.

22:10:55.222 Erdface's Burning (Tech) critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 1168* elemental damage, causing 1168 threat!

22:10:55.244 Erdface's Flame Burst hits Operations Training Dummy for 2105 elemental damage, causing 2105 threat.

22:10:56.435 Erdface activates Rail Shot.

22:10:56.436 Erdface loses Prototype Particle Accelerator.

22:10:56.437 Erdface's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 433 elemental damage, causing 433 threat.

22:10:56.957 Erdface gains Primary Surge.

22:10:56.958 Erdface gains 8 energy.

22:10:56.961 Erdface gains Power Surge.

22:10:56.963 Erdface's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 469 elemental damage, causing 469 threat.

22:10:56.963 Erdface's Rail Shot hits Operations Training Dummy for 3904 energy damage, causing 3904 threat.

22:10:57.119 Erdface's Burning (Tech) critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 1460* elemental damage, causing 1460 threat!

22:10:57.927 Erdface activates Flame Burst.

22:10:57.928 Erdface spends 16 energy.

22:10:57.928 Erdface's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 505 elemental damage, causing 505 threat.

22:10:58.144 Erdface's Flame Burst critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 4851* elemental damage, causing 4851 threat!

22:10:58.232 Erdface's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 672 elemental damage, causing 672 threat.

22:10:59.394 Erdface activates Rapid Shots.

22:10:59.395 Erdface's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 505 elemental damage, causing 505 threat.

22:10:59.479 Erdface's Rapid Shots hits Operations Training Dummy for 320 energy damage, causing 320 threat.

22:10:59.621 Erdface's Rapid Shots critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 546* energy damage, causing 546 threat!

22:10:59.642 Erdface's Rapid Shots hits Operations Training Dummy for 322 energy damage, causing 322 threat.

22:10:59.774 Erdface's Rapid Shots hits Operations Training Dummy for 309 energy damage, causing 309 threat.

22:10:59.792 Erdface's Rapid Shots hits Operations Training Dummy for 348 energy damage, causing 348 threat.

22:11:00.101 Erdface's Burning (Tech) critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 1460* elemental damage, causing 1460 threat!

22:11:00.909 Erdface activates Rocket Punch.

22:11:00.909 Erdface spends 16 energy.

22:11:00.909 Erdface's Burning (Tech) critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 1024* elemental damage, causing 1024 threat!

22:11:01.027 Erdface's Rocket Punch hits Operations Training Dummy for 3568 kinetic damage, causing 3568 threat.

22:11:01.207 Erdface's Burning (Tech) critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 1363* elemental damage, causing 1363 threat!

22:11:02.504 Erdface activates Thermal Detonator.

22:11:02.505 Erdface spends 16 energy.

22:11:02.704 Erdface's Thermal Detonator adds effect Thermal Detonator to Operations Training Dummy.

22:11:02.967 Erdface's Thermal Detonator causes 1 threat gain on Operations Training Dummy.

22:11:03.035 Erdface loses Primary Surge.

22:11:03.036 Erdface loses Power Surge.

22:11:03.097 Erdface's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 617 elemental damage, causing 617 threat.

22:11:03.098 Erdface's Thermal Detonator effect of Burning (Tech) fades from Operations Training Dummy.

22:11:03.912 Erdface's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 433 elemental damage, causing 433 threat.

22:11:04.015 Erdface activates Flame Burst.

22:11:04.015 Erdface spends 16 energy.

22:11:04.015 Erdface gains Prototype Particle Accelerator.

As you can see, the time when you activate the ability is when Prototype Particle Accelerator is activated. The bit I cut out there has your first PPA proc at 2:10:54.927. Because you followed the rotation correctly (well apart from constantly delaying rocket punch), the next attack that can proc PPA after 22:11:00.927 would proc PPA. However, 4GCDs from the proc was this:

22:11:00.909 Erdface activates Rocket Punch.

Note the time: 22:11:00.909. If you didnt have alacrity, that time would have been at a minimum 22:11:00.927. But since 6 seconds hadn't gone past, PPA couldn't proc, and so Rocket Punch didn't proc it for you.

Are your procs attempts always happening so close to the PPA proc? I almost always find my 4th attack hitting about .1 seconds after the 6 second internal cooldown.

I did find one in my own parses but it looks like IA procced anyway. (I screwed up my rotation so its a bad parse but it illustrates the point)

20:51:36.012 Krayn activates Ion Pulse.
20:51:36.013 Krayn spends 16 energy.
20:51:36.013 Krayn gains Ionic Accelerator.
20:51:36.013 Krayn's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 614 elemental damage, causing 614 threat.
20:51:36.258 Krayn's Ion Pulse critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 4690* elemental damage, causing 4690 threat!
20:51:37.392 Krayn's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 857 elemental damage, causing 857 threat.
20:51:37.512 Krayn activates High Impact Bolt.
20:51:37.513 Krayn loses Ionic Accelerator.
20:51:37.611 Krayn gains 8 energy.
20:51:37.611 Krayn's Burning (Tech) critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 1247* elemental damage, causing 1247 threat!
20:51:37.824 Krayn gains Primary Surge.
20:51:37.824 Krayn's Burning (Tech) critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 1865* elemental damage, causing 1865 threat!
20:51:37.850 Krayn's High Impact Bolt hits Operations Training Dummy for 4690 energy damage, causing 4690 threat.
20:51:38.994 Krayn activates Hammer Shot.
20:51:38.994 Krayn's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 664 elemental damage, causing 664 threat.
20:51:39.112 Krayn's Hammer Shot hits Operations Training Dummy for 255 energy damage, causing 255 threat.
20:51:39.112 Krayn's Hammer Shot hits Operations Training Dummy for 246 energy damage, causing 246 threat.
20:51:39.244 Krayn's Hammer Shot critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 432* energy damage, causing 432 threat!
20:51:39.245 Krayn's Hammer Shot critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 389* energy damage, causing 389 threat!
20:51:39.379 Krayn's Hammer Shot hits Operations Training Dummy for 225 energy damage, causing 225 threat.
20:51:39.379 Krayn's Hammer Shot hits Operations Training Dummy for 245 energy damage, causing 245 threat.
20:51:39.512 Krayn's Hammer Shot hits Operations Training Dummy for 246 energy damage, causing 246 threat.
20:51:40.395 Krayn's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 927 elemental damage, causing 927 threat.
20:51:40.496 Krayn activates Ion Pulse.
20:51:40.496 Krayn spends 16 energy.
20:51:40.745 Krayn's Ion Pulse critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 5063* elemental damage, causing 5063 threat!
20:51:40.809 Krayn's Burning (Tech) critically hits Operations Training Dummy for 2017* elemental damage, causing 2017 threat!
20:51:40.809 Krayn's Assault Plastique effect of Burning (Tech) fades from Operations Training Dummy.
20:51:40.809 Krayn loses Power Surge.
20:51:42.001 Krayn's Burning (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 614 elemental damage, causing 614 threat.
20:51:42.001 Krayn activates Ion Pulse.
20:51:42.001 Krayn spends 16 energy.
20:51:42.001 Krayn gains Ionic Accelerator.

That is two procs in 5.998 seconds.

I always figured that server/client lag would wipe the 2% alacrity out anyway. I'll have to go through my parses and see what my average proc rate is but it looks like boss parses tend to be worse than ops dummy parses at least for me and why I don't really find it a big issue. Not saying we should go stack alacrity or give up the 2.8 changes but I rarely see it. Maybe I suck at hitting the buttons on GCD.

I keep getting the maintenance message when trying to go to page 3 to respond to the most recent post, but it wont let me go there to quote. So Ill just say it here:

6 hours of testing with max alacrity where I didn't get a single proc on GCD 4 (I went all out with a campaign alacrity clicky relic and a reusable alacrity adrenal) disproved in a single post. Unless they give a small amount of leeway for the proc (maybe 0.01 seconds or something