Ok guys need some help. My spec:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700bzZrcZGbbkrMGdhR.2

My gear varies greatly. I have a few Columi and a few Blackhole. I get the gear as it comes.

My rotation is:

Flourish Shot > Vital Shot > Shrap Bomb > Hemorrhaging Blast > Wounding Shots > Speed Shot > Filler (XS, Charged Burst, Sabotage Charge or Aimed Shot depending on time) > Wounding Shots. Then start over with Vital Shot again. On raid boss dummy I am hitting 1300 but when ever I get in raid I slump a few hundred easy. Sometimes its hard to get over 1k dps. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong = (. I would find any advice helpful.

I see that over a week has passed and you got no response. I don't consider myself an expert in these things, so I suggest searching the forums for answers. I did that, as well as posted a number of threads asking for similar advice. I got a variety of helpful if not conflicting responses to my threads.

The short answer is that there is no right answer as to the best build. Many people love DF, others swear by SS, the DF/Sab hybrid has loyal followers, as well. Some posts observe that if you know your tree spec well, and understand the best rotation for that tree, you will parse close to the same regardless of which tree you use. Others, of course, will disagree (!).

I leveled as a SS and went to DF for endgame PvE (I do not PvP). I have cleared EC HM many times on the DF spec. I chose a full DF spec based on research I did on these forums. As for rotation, I also researched that. It seems like one of the best sources for posts on the DF rotation is a player named "Requiem" whose helpful posts have guided lots of people.

As for gear....work those EV and KP HM's for rakata, as well as EC SM, which has been made easier to pug. Get BH gear when you can. But full Rakata is a good starting point, as always.

Good luck.

Could use some help too. I left the game mb 6 month ago, and now im back. Back in time, we started to trying out EC HM with my guild, before most part leaved. So we hadn't make it through 1st EC HM boss.

Now, i'm here - http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/ee2f499d-3ea3-4f89-9da4-0c381887a78b

My gear is full rakata + ear, 1 impl, legs - back hole, 2 BM relics. Not all augmented.

i'm using DF spec - http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/Gunslinger#c-fc-8idk2e7cck (2/7/31)

And for operation dummy i pull 1450 DPS with this rotation:

0. Flourish Shot (use at start or every 3rd rotation)

1. Vital Shot

2. Shrap Bomb

3. Hemorrhaging Blast

4. Illegal Mods (if off CD)

5. Wounding Shots

6. Speed Shot

7. Aimed Shot (XS Freighter Flyby if off CD)

8. Wounding Shots

9a. Flurry of Bolts (if energy below 90% otherswide do 9b)

9b. Sabotage Charge (if off CD) (Quickdraw when below 30% HP)

10. Flurry of Bolts (as required until energy is +95%)

(posted somewehre here)

And i can't do more that may be 1300 DPS with SS spec.

And, i've been told, that a good gunslinger has to be able pool around 1500-1650 (!) DPS with full rakata gear. What am i doing wrong?

My experience may be out of date, but I've always thought of DF as more of a PvP oriented tree. It's more focused on DoTs and mobility than the others.

If you want PvE, I'd go straight SS or a SS/Sab Hybrid.

@CharagonIGN

Pre-parser you would be correct. DF was originally used more often in PvP, with the majority of people going SS for PvE. Around 1.2ish it started to sway the opposite way. I now see about equal amounts of SS and DF slingers in PvP, with a slightly smaller but very strong following for Sab specs. In PvE, however, DF has become pretty dominate. SS is still a very strong PvE spec, but it's not as common.

@FrOzZy

I'm going to guess you only missed a point in your spec while copying it down onto AskMrRobot, but you're missing one if not. Should be 2/8/31.

As far as a rotation, try this:

Shrap Bomb -> Vital Shot -> Hemo ->

Wounding Shots -> Filler(s) -> Wounding Shots ->

Repeat

Your filler priority should be:

XS Flyby -> Flurry

Speed Shot -> Quickdraw -> Flurry

Speed Shot -> Sab Charge -> Flurry

Speed Shot -> Aimed Shot

It's a very loose rotation, meaning you will have a free global if needed to add in an extra flurry if your energy is low, either before or after your second wounding shots. Try to avoid having to use Flurry in between applying your dots + hemo and using Wounding Shots the first time. You can also use that time to apply Flourish Shot (and this should be applied at the start of a fight as well). I do not include Flourish in the rotation because if you have a Gunnery Commando or a Guardian in the group you won't need to keep it up 100% of the time. Learn when to use it, and when to save the GCD for anything else.

The reason I apply Shrap Bomb before Vital Shot is that it lasts longer, meaning if for any reason your second wounding shots is delayed due to movement or boss mechanics you are less likely to lose DPS from Vital Shot falling off too quickly. There are times that you'll want to still Wounding Shots with only weak versions of your dots still up, but this would be an exception. You almost always want to reapply right after the last tick of the main DoT falls off, but clipping one tick won't make a huge difference to your DPS.

During heavy burn phases you can adjust your filler part of the rotation to get more DPS, but you have to be careful not to drop your energy too much. Generally you can play a little more dangerous with this when you know your Cool Head is going to be up soon. You can do things like Speed Shot -> XS Flyby, Speed Shot -> Sab -> Quickdraw, even Speed Shot -> Aimed Shot -> Quickdraw will not delay your Wounding Shots too much, but generally if you stick to the groupings I posted above you'll never have energy issues and you will be able to maintain the rotation with 100% uptime.

Also, depending on fight mechanics, you may want to adjust the last two fillers I listed. Sab Charge and Aimed Shot are roughly equal damage, and generally you can interchange them. Sab Charge is better to use if you have to move, but has a long cooldown. Aimed Shot leaves you sitting still for several channels in a row, but the cooldown is relatively short and you'll always have it back up the next rotation around. On a fight like Toth and Zorn, use the Sab Charge rotation for phases like Red Reticules. Use Aimed Shot if you're in no rush to move, or if you have to back off to 30-35m if positioning gets messed up and you're playing it safe for Fearful. On a fight like HM Kephess (TfB) I save Sab Charge for killing Distortions, and otherwise leave it out of my normal rotation, since the cooldown is timed just right to go from one distortion to the next (this also applies to any fight where you have to kill adds, but this one is the most important). Sab Charge can also be good for any burn phase where you want to get in one last GCD before a shield/immunity/whatever goes out, such as Soa, Kephess EC walker, etc.

I can't really speak to what you *could* be doing in terms of DPS at that level of gear. However, being able to pull 1650 dummy DPS is far and above anything any fight required in KP or EV. Annihilation Droid in EV requires just under 1k DPS average from 4 DPS on HM, and on NMM just over, and it's a fairly straight-forward fight and a great judge of DPS for ranged. Toth and Zorn is pretty similar on HM, and while there is significantly more movement, any group that could average 1300ish DPS on either target was pushing mechanics too quickly and had to stop DPS anyway (prior to last patch).

EDIT: I meant to add in something about Illegal Mods. Best used as often as possible, but also during burns if you can line those two up together. In general I try to save it for when I'm going to do an Aimed Shot or Quickdraw filler rotation, to use the increased accuracy and armor penetration to a greater affect.

I should also mention that while XS Flyby is always the highest priority filler rotation, there are situations where you need to postpone it or not use it at all. Use your best judgement. Even just one tick on a group of adds is greater DPS than a full duration on the boss, but ideally you can time it to hit adds and the boss at the same time. Also if you know the boss is going to be move soon, don't drop it and waste it. A 3 second channel cast, plus the time delay before the first tick, only to have everything moved out of the area is a huge DPS loss. If you're in doubt, use a different filler until you're sure.

thanks for very detailed comment.

1. As i mentioned, i'm full rakata, so i don't need to match any EV\KP dps. My interests is EC HM and TFB HM, so i'm trying to match their DPS reqs with present gear :S

2.As for rotation. Long time ago (before i left game for long) - i find out few things:

a) if u do rotation like - flourist shot - vital shot - hemmo - sharp bomb, u will be fine with energy (10 - 20 - 0 - 20), this 0 hemmo cost help u to reg some energy during GCD. Also, sharp bomb have initial tick, with will use hemmo charge, which is good too.

b) as far as i remember, wounding shot ticks hits not as hard as DoTs. So may be it's better to utilise hemmo, that's it will be hitted by Dots as much as possible, instead of wounding shot ticks?

@CharagonIGN

 

Pre-parser you would be correct. DF was originally used more often in PvP, with the majority of people going SS for PvE. Around 1.2ish it started to sway the opposite way. I now see about equal amounts of SS and DF slingers in PvP, with a slightly smaller but very strong following for Sab specs. In PvE, however, DF has become pretty dominate. SS is still a very strong PvE spec, but it's not as common.

What's the reason for this?

Is it that the boss encounters are so movement heavy that the extra emphasis on movement in the DF tree makes up the difference, or is the tree just imbalanced?

My assumption, naturally, was that a tree focused so heavily on mobility would suffer a damage penalty. I mean, if the "Plant yourself and fire" tree can't out-DPS the "Run and Gun" tree, what's the point of it? So what's going on here?

thanks for very detailed comment.

 

1. As i mentioned, i'm full rakata, so i don't need to match any EV\KP dps. My interests is EC HM and TFB HM, so i'm trying to match their DPS reqs with present gear :S

 

2.As for rotation. Long time ago (before i left game for long) - i find out few things:

a) if u do rotation like - flourist shot - vital shot - hemmo - sharp bomb, u will be fine with energy (10 - 20 - 0 - 20), this 0 hemmo cost help u to reg some energy during GCD. Also, sharp bomb have initial tick, with will use hemmo charge, which is good too.

b) as far as i remember, wounding shot ticks hits not as hard as DoTs. So may be it's better to utilise hemmo, that's it will be hitted by Dots as much as possible, instead of wounding shot ticks?

1. I figured. I only mentioned EV/KP fights since I figured they're the most familiar, so they're a good way to benchmark progress with different rotations/specs.

2. If I have time I'll mess around with changing up what I do and see if it makes any noticeable difference. Accurate and reliable information about DF seems to be hard to find, so I have no doubts that there is always going to be a "better" way to do things. All I can really say for sure is that I have never had an issue with how I've been doing it, and my DPS has always been significantly higher than any other way I've tried.

What's the reason for this?

 

Is it that the boss encounters are so movement heavy that the extra emphasis on movement in the DF tree makes up the difference, or is the tree just imbalanced?

 

My assumption, naturally, was that a tree focused so heavily on mobility would suffer a damage penalty. I mean, if the "Plant yourself and fire" tree can't out-DPS the "Run and Gun" tree, what's the point of it? So what's going on here?

Yes and no. If played correctly, SS won't suffer as greatly on "movement heavy" fights as some people will try to convince you of. It's just much harder to play. The real downside to the lack of mobility that SS suffers is the dip in energy regen you'll get if you have to pop up and down often.

While I have seen parses of SS slingers and MM snipers doing equally high DPS, they're fewer and far between. DF is often considered the highest DPS tree because it's very easy to pull those high numbers, and there is a lot more room for error (which, to be honest, there will be errors in 95% of boss fights).

SS DPS comes down to the ratio of how often you use your high damage abilities compared to your lower priority fillers, so it all comes down to execution, timing, and predictability. DF DPS comes down largely to simply having your DoTs applied and replacing them as soon as they fall off, and making sure to get your Wounding Shots in as accurately as possible. Fillers (while still very important) make up a significantly smaller portion of your DPS. While a very well played SS will still be able to match a DF (depending on the fight, of course), and average DF slinger will likely beat an average SS slinger almost every time.