I think there may have been a thread on this already, but I can't find it. Anyway, I'm playing a powertech tank and am wondering if I should get retractable blade or heat blast.

Here's my skill tree.

Since I will be tanking, retractable blade combined with rocket punch, etc. will really help, but is it worth it? They do about the same damage amount ( though one elemental and one kinetic) but RB gives off 16 Heat while HB discharges 8.

As a Tank, am I going to be dishing out enough damage and building up heat to need Heat Blast?

Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gereon

Retractable blade - Plunges a retractable blade into the target that deals 595 - 706 kinetic damage and causes the target to bleed for 784 internal damage over 15 seconds.

 

Heat blast - Discharges 8 heat into a fiery blast, dealing 702 - 813 elemental damage.

 

 

 

RB -> 1379 - 1490 dmg total (hit+dot)

HB -> 702 - 813 dmg

 

Yes, you are right. RB does generate heat instead of reducing it but you only use it if you miss with rocket punch for applying a dot so you can fire up your rail shot.

 

And applying a dot on your target prevents them from capping towers etc in warzones.

 

Since as a Powertech most of the time you will be in melee range, the shorter range is not that big an issue.

 

 

i personally think that both are viable abilities, but i like the RB more

 

 

my 2 cents

 

Cheers

1) Don't trust TORhead damage numbers... they have said themselves they are not accurate

2) The DoT effect when it comes to disrupting caps is a moot point. All powertech specs are able to do this.

3) The burst damage factor is in HB favour with the difference being elemental vs kinetic.. I've also yet to get that high and test whether its counted as a fire attack for those talents to effect it.

4) The sustained damage is also in HB favour simply due to the heat cost. For simplicity take a 15s duration in which Heat Blast and RB are both used twice. The difference in damage from the blades DoT is more than made up for and surpassed by the fact that for the same Heat Blast is 48 heat ahead which is 3 extra attacks (rocket punch, flame burst and rail shot all being 16 heat). 2x heat blast + 3x these >> RB + RB DoT + RB

5) In order to get retractable blade assuming you have the required 30 points in shieldtech for heat blast you are giving up iron fist. 8% more damage on shieldtechs hardest hitting attack is a hell of a lot to lose (it procs ion gas cylinder, it has huge increase to crit chance and crit damage and is constantly reset when you shield)

My reply from another thread... imma just gonna keep copy/pasting this into the 5-10 threads a week on this subject that have been cropping up all through beta and early access now.

Retractable blade is not heat efficient; it doesn't do enough damage in a short enough amount of time when looking at how much it costs to use. You really as a PT only get it for the bleed effect so you can get off your rail shots; however, with the ST spec your ion gas cylinders will be up the majority of the time allowing you to use rail shot to generate threat.

I recommend this:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301G0GrdorogzZMsbZb.1

Heat blast is useful because it allows you to manage your heat. Wasting your time using rapid shots leads to losing aggro.