Last Update to Guide: 2/19/14

 

Hello my Commando Brethren!

 

I can't seem to find much info on the spec I use to blast my way to the top of the PvE charts, so here is a guide to compile all of my knowledge and to add others as time goes on.

 

I intend to bring all of you Gunnery Mandos into the light of not having to manage ammo, increased raid mobility, and procs that actually proc.

 

Anyone in gunnery has felt the pain of firing grav round after grav round never seeing that Full Auto cooldown reset.

 

Disclaimer: This is all in Commandonese, so you Mercs are gonna have to learn something.

 

 

Special Thanks

 

 

 

Personal Bests

 

 

 

 

Current Gear

 

 

 

 

 

*Commando Assault Spec 2.6 Guide*

 

- Kantner

 

This spec has been called strange, confusing, and sometimes even impossible. I assure you that if you take the time to master every aspect, you will do phenomenal DPS in ANY raid situation.

 

I. Skill Tree

II. Gear & Stat Goals

III. Abilities & Priority System

IV. Tips & Tricks

 

 

I. Skill Tree

 

Full Assault Spec 2.5 PVE Spec 0/10/36

 

Assault Hybrid Spec 2.6 PVE Spec 1/12/33

 

New Talents for 2.6:

 

Hyper Assault Rounds - 100% chance to get Plasma Cell from Explosive Round every 6 seconds. Very useful when resuming DPS after a phase or during certain burn phases.

 

Suit FOE - Reduces periodic damage dealt by 30% by casting Field Aid on yourself. Incredibly useful for survivability on high ticking force dots you receive from bosses (Such as Withering Terror from Kel'sara).

 

Electro Shield - Even more survivability, whilst doing elemental damage to your current attacker.

 

Degauss - Turns Diversion (Your Threat Debuff) into a defensive cooldown. It increases your defense chance to 30% for 6 seconds, which is much more than your average tank is going to have.

 

Note:

 

*I distribute my 3 bonus points in Deadly Cannon for more Full Auto damage and then 1 point in field training for the Crit buff. If you have no desire to use Full Auto, put all 3 points into Field Training and you will do roughly the same damage (10-50 dps lower).

 

*If you are not fortunate enough to have an armor pen from a Guardian Tank, Gunslinger, etc; go 0/13/33. You only lose 1% Crit and the armor debuff from an occasional Grav Round will last quite a while.

 

 

 

II. Gear & Stat Goals

 

Gear:

 

Stats: Aim = Accuracy > Power > Surge (72.96%)

 

This spec hits the target 3 times as much as Gunnery would (# of attacks). This is one of the many reasons I do not use Crit at all. Another reason I don't use Crit rating is because the spec gives you a whopping 7% ranged and 4% tech Crit. Alacrity is provided in the spec and should not be in your gear stats. (2% from Weapons Calibrations and 2% from Rapid Recharge

 

 

Detailed BiS Gear Sheet:

Full 78 AMR Profile: http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/b010249c-1250-4339-84e3-a55a8620a770

 

 

III. Abilities & Priority System

 

It's all about the Bolt. Even without the cushion of armor penetration from a Guardian Tank, Gunnery Commando, or Gunslinger; High Impact Bolt receives a grand total of 23% extra damage, as well as 60% armor penetration and a 30% bonus to the critical multiplier. The key is to get the bolt proc'ed as fast as possible whilst maintaining your dots. It is very important that either Plasma Cell or Incendiary Round are always on the target so certain bonuses to HiB are granted.

 

In 2.4 HiB was buffed, just to add the icing on the cake that it is without a doubt your most important ability.

 

Your Dot priority should be Plasma Cell > Assault Plastique > Incendiary Round > Plasma Grenade/Electro Net

 

You can't really control when plasma decides to apply, so the best you can do is keep up with the rotation as fast as possible. Get as many hits in so the 34% chance of the cell to apply is maximized. If all else fails and the cell refuses to apply, you can always throw in an explosive round for a 100% chance to get the cell.

 

HiB also refreshes the cooldown of your plasma cell's effect. Yet another reason to keep things flowing.

 

 

Note:

 

*It is important to note that in this spec you are not a slave to a certain amount of energy cells to sustain consistent raid DPS. First of all, Charged Bolts is now cheaper, and Full Auto is on a lower cooldown, so you can spam them much faster than you could a Grav Round. In addition, High Impact Bolt gives 8 cells back on burning targets, which means if it procs you actually gain cells back. This means you can actually have lower cell regen, about 3/4 ticks should suffice. You could even blow nearly all of your ammo, keeping enough to proc the bolts, and hammer shot in between. Hammer shot gains 9% damage to burning targets in this spec, so you lose only about 200 dps if you don't know anything about ammo management. Luckily all you Gunnery Mandos have that Painted on your helmet at this point.

 

 

 

 

Single Target Priority:

 

Notes:

 

Opening Burst

You reach your peak threat generation at around 5.3 seconds so I would pop the threat debuff right after the 2nd High Impact Bolt.

 

1. Relic/Adrenal

2. Dot Spam (Incendiary Round, Plasma Grenade , Electro Net)

3. High Impact Bolt (It is important you do this after Incendiary, but before any casted abilities)

4a. Full Auto (Should Proc High Impact bolt) 4b. If HiB bolt didn't proc do Charged Bolts until proc.

5a. 2 Charged Bolts 5b. Begin Rotation

6a. Begin Rotation:

 

This is taking into account every GCD. You need to do certain abilities (Especially Charged Bolts) One right after another.

 

 

2.6 Priority System

 

*You are able to proc a High Impact bolt every 6 seconds. In between Bolts, there are several "rotation fillers" you can use:

 

1. HiB, Charged Bolts, Hammer Shot, Charged Bolts, HiB

2. HiB, Full Auto, Charged Bolts, HiB

3. HiB, Incendiary Round, Charged Bolts x 2, HiB (When you need to reapply the Dot)

4. HiB, Hammer Shot x3, Full Auto, HiB (If you have low ammo)

 

*With the lower cell cost of IR in 2.4, Filler 4 is more viable at the current time.

 

If done correctly you should proc HiB within 6 - 6.3 Seconds of eachother. This means for every time the Serendipitous Assault relic activates you are GUARENTEED 1 HiB and several Dot ticks in addition to any casted abilities you may do in that time limit. This more efficiently uses the power than Gunnery could.

 

 

*Always use Reserve Powercell for a Plasma Grenade. The cooldown of both Reserve Powercell and Recharge Cells has been reduced due to the talent Rapid Recharge in the 2nd to last tier. This means that for 2 out of the 3 Plasma Grenades, (cooldown of 30 seconds) you can use either of these abilities to regain your ammo to its optimal regen limit. This leaves only 1 time where you would have to even remotely worry about your cells.

 

Grenade 1. Reserve Powercell

Grenade 2. Recharge Cells

Grenade 3.

Grenade 4. Reserve Powercell

Grenade 5. Recharge Cells

Grenade 6.

 

 

*On movement heavy fights, such as Dash'roode, Dots are super important. Between Shield points I will use explosive round every 6 secs with Incendiary Round to maximize DPS with my Hammer Shot. I am also able to get away with a premature high impact bolt by casting Full Auto for a split second. This doesn't always work but is useful when you have to keep moving.

 

 

 

Multiple Target Priority:

 

This is somewhat different from Gunnery:

 

1. Mortar Volley

2. V-6 Pyro Grenade + Hail of Bolts (Gives HoB the 9% Damage buff from the grenade burn)

3. Pulse Cannon

4. Plasma Grenade

 

*All commandos should be using the V-6 Pyro Grenade until we have an instant cast 5 target AoE or an unlimited target AoE

 

*I don't normally use sticky grenade but it can be useful if all the adds are about to die from an allied aoe (like a flyby) and the premature death of one of those mobs will give some damage much earlier than another casted or channeled AoE could.

 

*If the adds have significant health, it is worthwhile to incendiary each one following with a hail of bolts. Doesn't happen too often though, maybe Trandoshans for Warlord Kephess.

 

 

 

IV. Tips & Tricks

 

 

Procs!

If for some reason the cooldown of HiB gets lower than 6s (If you missed a proc or heavy movement) Spam abilities that don't proc HiB and wait for the natural cooldown. Then insta proc another HiB within seconds and resume your rotation. It ends up doing a bit more damage.

 

Plasma cell can be that one girl that never gives it up. Make sure its on your target at all times. Between the 6s natural cooldown of Plasma Cell and the 6s effect of Explosive round, you should be able to reapply it easier in case of a mess up.

 

 

Anticipate Mechanics

The Suit FOE is invaluable when it comes to your ability to survive. Even if it can't cleanse the enemy DoT, the 30% reduction in damage can mean life or death, especially in nightmare fights such as the corrosive grenade DoT from Captain Horic.

 

Keep in mind that most of your damage is from single target DPS, if there is a phase coming up for a burn phase, save cooldowns and relics for that, because you will excel.

 

 

More coming soon! Thank you for reading and feel free to add things you have found useful. Emphasis on Add.

Edited February 19, 2014 by LordKantner
New title plz

oooh familiar pretty colors Pyro/Assault is something I've really wanted to use so I can get some variety in my life...I see a couple fights in here where the numbers are impressive, in particular the Kephess and DG fights. I'm looking forward to updates to the fights you haven't cleared yet to see if there's any more.

Last Update to Guide: 07/28/13Anyone in gunnery has felt the pain of firing grav round after grav round never seeing that Full Auto cooldown reset.

 

Quite possibly the most annoying part of gunnery.

Random note… In assault spec, full auto does almost exactly as much damage as two charged bolts, for only slightly less ammo (more up front, so it's pretty neutral) and nearly identical proc chance on high impact bolt. I'm not sure why you would advocate full auto under those circumstances, especially since you can get the proc on HiB on the first CB and won't need to wait out the cast.

Random note… In assault spec, full auto does almost exactly as much damage as two charged bolts, for only slightly less ammo (more up front, so it's pretty neutral) and nearly identical proc chance on high impact bolt. I'm not sure why you would advocate full auto under those circumstances, especially since you can get the proc on HiB on the first CB and won't need to wait out the cast.

 

Full Auto, in fact, has a 75% chance to proc HiB. That is 30% more than Charged Bolts. However lets say they were the same for a minute. I would still pick Full Auto because each of the 3 ticks of Full Auto has a chance to apply Plasma Cell. Those same ticks also get 30% increased damage if they crit, whereas Charged Bolts would not.

 

Also keep in mind that Full Auto will proc HiB at the beginning of the cast while Charged Bolts procs at the end of the channel. During the channel of Full Auto gives me time to adjust if HiB in fact did not proc.

 

I hope this clarifies things.

Full Auto, in fact, has a 75% chance to proc HiB. That is 30% more than Charged Bolts. However lets say they were the same for a minute. I would still pick Full Auto because each of the 3 ticks of Full Auto has a chance to apply Plasma Cell. Those same ticks also get 30% increased damage if they crit, whereas Charged Bolts would not.

 

Also keep in mind that Full Auto will proc HiB at the beginning of the cast while Charged Bolts procs at the end of the channel. During the channel of Full Auto gives me time to adjust if HiB in fact did not proc.

 

I hope this clarifies things.

 

He was saying that casting 2 charged bolts instead of Full Auto (same time frame) gives roughly the same chance to proc IA ias casting that FA.

 

Everything else though makes sense.

i've always loved assault more than gunnery, and i was very happy with it in the initial testing for 2.0, but i sort of gave up after all of the changes to it.

 

but recently, i actually switched to assault halfway through fighting the dread guards this week and was doing a lot more damage because of all the movement with those damn puddles, and i actually go full assault and don't use full auto.

 

 

when i got doom, i was actually using explosive round > hammershot > ER > HS instead of ER > HSx3

and hammershot has such a massive chance to proc plasma cell, i pretty much still only use ER during movement phases or if i'm at close to full ammo and IR is still ticking.

you use it in your normal rotation?

 

 

 

just a few notes:

 

are you really using the dread guard eliminator set bonus or was that just copy pasta from odawgg's?

 

i think something can be said for optionally putting the last point into Cell Capacitor instead of Field Training as it's a 6s 10% alacrity buff every 1.5m

 

i'm not sure what you mean by charged bolts and full auto being cheaper. it's exactly the same as it's always been (just -3 to the cost of charged bolts to compensate for the increase cost for non-assault commandos)

 

also i think you should put in a note about using pyro grenades (and about buying them from oaceen on shadowlands server ). anyway. they don't benefit from burnout or assault trooper, but they do put a guaranteed burn on up to 5 targets, and it's a free GCD of ammo regen.

i like them for add phases especially, and i think it's a lot more upfront damage than using IR on each target individually

 

also, just a clarification question: are you saying to use plasma grenade every time it's available?

i, like you, only use reserve powercell with PG, but that's also the only time i use plasma grenade unless the target is under 30% and occasionally with recharge cells if i've having trouble dumping ammo

 

where are you getting 24% damage increase for HIB? i see +6% Hyper Barrels, +9% Rain of Fire

what am i forgetting?

EDIT: are you counting the set bonus for +8%? is that just a typo then (23% instead of 24%)?

 

also just an edit: plasma cell has a 34% chance to trigger now (25% native, 9% from superheated plasma)

 

 

 

i also have a suggestion about copying odawgg's tip about hitting FA during the GR cast (with his permission of course)

but it actually benefits assault a lot more than gunnery because it's high reward and low risk. even if you fail the timing, you just cast CB twice, but you won't accidentally clip HIB like you would with full auto.

 

Random note… In assault spec, full auto does almost exactly as much damage as two charged bolts, for only slightly less ammo (more up front, so it's pretty neutral) and nearly identical proc chance on high impact bolt. I'm not sure why you would advocate full auto under those circumstances, especially since you can get the proc on HiB on the first CB and won't need to wait out the cast.

 

half as much ammo is only slightly less?

 

but i do agree with you on the uselessness of full auto in terms of resetting HIB. if it procs, you have to wait out the 3s cast to use HIB.

and then, again if it procs, you have to proc it exactly 6s later with CB to use FA again after it comes off cd, otherwise, i don't see the point of having a 12s cd for the skill.

 

that said, it does have a higher chance to proc plasma cell than 2 CBs, and it's good for ammo management every now and then i suppose, but i don't find ammo management much of an issue, even with keeping IR up all the time

Edited July 29, 2013 by oaceen

are you really using the dread guard eliminator set bonus or was that just copy pasta from odawgg's?[/Quote]

 

I said 2.0, I guess the tier is underworld/ KD now.

 

To my knowledge he uses the pre 1.7 set bonus. The Eliminator gives me 15% crit on Charged Bolts and 8% damage to HiB. I sincerely hope you aren't using the stock-strike set bonus.

 

 

i'm not sure what you mean by charged bolts and full auto being cheaper. it's exactly the same as it's always been (just -3 to the cost of charged bolts to compensate for the increase cost for non-assault commandos)

 

Hyper Barrels makes Bolts cheaper and Full Auto's Cooldown less.

 

also, just a clarification question: are you saying to use plasma grenade every time it's available?

i, like you, only use reserve powercell with PG, but that's also the only time i use plasma grenade unless the target is under 30% and occasionally with recharge cells if i've having trouble dumping ammo[/Quote]

 

Yes, Plasma Grenade has a high initial hit as well as the best Dot we have available. It is not an elemental periodic effect so only using it below 30% presents no damage gain.

 

where are you getting 24% damage increase for HIB? i see +6% Hyper Barrels, +9% Rain of Fire

what am i forgetting?

EDIT: are you counting the set bonus for +8%? is that just a typo then (23% instead of 24%)?

 

also just an edit: plasma cell has a 34% chance to trigger now (25% native, 9% from superheated plasma)

 

Fixed.

 

half as much ammo is only slightly less?

 

but i do agree with you on the uselessness of full auto in terms of resetting HIB. if it procs, you have to wait out the 3s cast to use HIB.

and then, again if it procs, you have to proc it exactly 6s later with CB to use FA again after it comes off cd, otherwise, i don't see the point of having a 12s cd for the skill.

 

that said, it does have a higher chance to proc plasma cell than 2 CBs, and it's good for ammo management every now and then i suppose, but i don't find ammo management much of an issue, even with keeping IR up all the time

 

The only time I use Full auto to proc HiB is at the beginning of the rotation. This is to establish the dots and compensate for energy cells taken from Dots.

 

I use Full Auto right after HiB the rest of the time, because nothing is going to be proc'ed in that time anyway and it'd do more damage than 2 Charged Bolts.

Edited July 29, 2013 by LordKantner

To my knowledge he uses the pre 1.7 set bonus. The Eliminator gives me 15% crit on Charged Bolts and 8% damage to HiB. I sincerely hope you aren't using the stock-strike set bonus.

yes, but in this guide, you say that you're using the 1.7 set bonus, so i'm asking if you just copied over from odawgg's thread without editing or if you are actually using that one.

EDIT: i see that it's been changed now

 

i'm not sure where you got that i could be using the stocktrike bonus, but to clarify, using the current +8% HIB dmg set bonus.

 

Hyper Barrels makes Bolts cheaper and Full Auto's Cooldown less.

yes, the -3 i mentioned is the reduction from hyper barrles that just makes it the same as it's always been, and nothing has been changed for full auto as far as i can tell.

 

but you said in your guide that charged bolts and full auto are cheaper now when they're the same cost as they've always been though.

 

 

Yes, Plasma Grenade has a high initial hit as well as the best Dot we have available. It is not an elemental periodic effect so only using it below 30% presents no damage gain.

i don't only use it below 30%, but i guess that's good to know it doesn't benefit from burnout.

i just tested and your are correct. i guess it was silly of me to think that a 6s elemental dot would be considered a periodic elemental effect.

i feel like it's a good attack, but this gives me less reason to justify using it without reserve powercell or recharge cells.

 

you don't have ammo issues, and it doesn't mess up your rotation?

 

I use Full Auto right after HiB the rest of the time, because nothing is going to be proc'ed in that time anyway and it'd do more damage than 2 Charged Bolts.

thanks, i'll try this out

Edited July 29, 2013 by oaceen

This spec has been called strange, confusing, and sometimes even impossible. I assure you that if you take the time to master every aspect, you will do phenomenal DPS in ANY raid situation.

 

8m with any 3 dps of sage/sentinel/vanguard/scoundrel type and any combo of VG/Shadow tanks.

 

Not only will you do 8% less damage than best possible, everyone else with high energy/kinetic output will also do 5%+ less damage.

 

Such is the burden of having two dps specs but only one with the universal raid booster of an armour debuff even though the other desperately needs it.

 

Also you're claiming 3200dps on a dummy for 5m?

 

I'm intrigued because my own best is 2866dps and even if someone was giving me an amour debuff it would only reach approx 3064dps without a sub30% boost from DoT. With a sub30 boost it still wouldn't make 3200.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Gyronamics

Full Auto, in fact, has a 75% chance to proc HiB. That is 30% more than Charged Bolts. However lets say they were the same for a minute. I would still pick Full Auto because each of the 3 ticks of Full Auto has a chance to apply Plasma Cell. Those same ticks also get 30% increased damage if they crit, whereas Charged Bolts would not.

 

Also keep in mind that Full Auto will proc HiB at the beginning of the cast while Charged Bolts procs at the end of the channel. During the channel of Full Auto gives me time to adjust if HiB in fact did not proc.

 

I hope this clarifies things.

 

Double charged bolts: 1 - (1 - 0.45)^2 = 69.75% That's just barely shy of Full Auto's 75%. Procing at the end of Charged Bolts is actually a lot better than procing at the beginning, since you *cannot* do anything during Full Auto other than just break the channel.

 

I was wrong about the ammo costs though. My mistake.

Edited July 29, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

i missed it earlier, but charged bolts does have a 30% crit multiplier as well now.

i know that's just arguing semantics at this point though.

 

i would say using FA immediately after HIB is the way to go. it's like the missing puzzle piece to why i was having so much trouble with assault.

it fits perfectly between HIB resets so that once it's done channeling, start again with resetting HIB.

plus CB has a really high chance of resetting HIB (i have a theory that it's actually 75%, but i certainly don't want to ruin it) that the 12s cd for FA is actually perfect for the rotation.

Oaceen during my limited testing, my theory is that there's certain combos (possibly the ones in the guide here) where it practically auto-procs it...I swear I could set my watch to it when I was practicing on the dummy which made me want to keep working at it, but I just couldn't hit the numbers I wanted to consider it on even grounds with gunnery. But I'm going to revisit this in the next few days since I recently got my 4th KD set bonus piece and thanks to Gyro and the OP here, there's a lot more info to build on...TIME TO TEST!

 

Edit: I still think it's annoying that the best spec for Pyro/Assault doesn't utilize the full tree, but it is what it is for now I guess.

Edited July 29, 2013 by odawgg

8m with any 3 dps of sage/sentinel/vanguard/scoundrel type and any combo of VG/Shadow tanks.

 

Not only will you do 8% less damage than best possible, everyone else with high energy/kinetic output will also do 5%+ less damage.

 

Such is the burden of having two dps specs but only one with the universal raid booster of an armour debuff even though the other desperately needs it.

 

Also you're claiming 3200dps on a dummy for 5m?

 

I'm intrigued because my own best is 2866dps and even if someone was giving me an amour debuff it would only reach approx 3064dps without a sub30% boost from DoT. With a sub30 boost it still wouldn't make 3200.

 

Updated with new dummy parses. All I can say is that as suckish at it would be to have no armour debuff in the group, I think you'd still do decent dps compared to everyone else because they don't get it either. If I was stuck in that situation I can see where you'd have to go gunnery at times.

 

16 man ftw...

Oaceen during my limited testing, my theory is that there's certain combos (possibly the ones in the guide here) where it practically auto-procs it...

 

i've noticed that as well. like if i start a fight with HIB then immediately try to reset with CB, it seems to be more in line with the 45% chance, but lots of other instances (like immediately after full auto), it almost always procs.

Edited July 29, 2013 by oaceen

If you guys wanna come up with new rotation fillers, I'm all ears. I actually used to do 3 charged bolts until I realized I could get HiB .5 sec faster putting a Hammer Shot in there.

 

There's bound to be a few more.

Guess the time between the spikes on my charts: http://www.torparse.com/a/308048/time/1372123954/1372124258/0/Overview

 

I only use 2 regular and 1 irregular rotation.

 

Key point is alacrity screws you over, sentinels popping transcendence screws you over. You become desynched because the 6s CD didn't get lowered but cast time did.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Gyronamics

Updated with new dummy parses. All I can say is that as suckish at it would be to have no armour debuff in the group, I think you'd still do decent dps compared to everyone else because they don't get it either. If I was stuck in that situation I can see where you'd have to go gunnery at times.

 

16 man ftw...

 

You want that armor debuff though, especially in any DPS check situation, which are also much more common in 8 man over 16 man. Raising everyone's damage by 5%+ is better than winning an e-peen contest.

Is it my imagination or are you not declaring an armour debuff in your dummy parses.

 

I've regeared so my plasma cell ticks for 411 non crit

 

In your logs your plasma cell ticks for 410 which is close enough.

 

My minimum electronet tick is 348

 

Yours in all parses from that session are 373

 

The reason it's plasma cell vs electronet is that they have no damage range, they will hit the same number every time unless temporary power buffed.

 

But electronet is energy and gains with an armour debuff while plasma cell doesn't.

 

And it looks like that's the 7% gain that's expected from a debuff.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Gyronamics

No armor debuff on those parses, it's probably just my gear or the fact I'm going pure power. I will post one soon with an armor debuff however. I was using an adrenal too, with the relic of course. Edited July 29, 2013 by LordKantner

I know, I was looking for the bits with no damage boosters hence the minimum hits which are the first ticks of Enet:

 

I also regeared myself so I am at 3366 aim and 1450 power vs your 3376 aim and 1429 power.

 

From your log this is 410 plasma cell and 373 enet

 

 

 

 

And here's mine with 411 plasma cell and 347 enet

 

 

 

 

No damage boosters have procced between the plasma cell and enet.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Gyronamics

What is your rotation on that Irregular parse? Those spikes are ridiculous.

Ok I'll stop beating around the bush and say it straight, the ops dummy parses do have an armour debuff on them.

 

Again a 411 plasma cell but now a 373 enet, main difference is I put a grav round on it earlier.

 

 

Considerable relief to me, I was thinking someone had beaten me at assault parsing

 

As for my HiB proccing like a metronome you already seem to have the rotation in your OP, I've changed nothing since I had a go at naming my own spec :http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=644345

Edited July 30, 2013 by Gyronamics

Just curious Gyro, are these Assault parses w/ or w/out Assault Plastique?

I posted a new parse for the 5 minute with armor penetration. It didn't go up by much maybe just bad RNG.