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The Bounty Hunter’s Guide to PFT: An Advanced Prototype Special


TheOpf

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Having tried NORSE and Pyro/Assault in Ranked WZs, I'm a bit in the air about which is the more preferred.

 

Pyro is still a great go-to spec for Powertechs/Vanguards looking for a good burst. Nevertheless, it is heavily dependent on a Tech DoT running on its target, which is cleansible by Operatives/Scoundrels and Mercenaries/Commandos. Pyro/Assault proved to be difficult to manage against coordinationed, voice com'd teams with above-average healers.

 

NORSE's utility, mobility and survivability proved useful in Ranked Warzones, however, its burst lacked behind its fire-obsessed sibling. In addition, when using Flamethrower/Pulse Generator, the Powertech/Vanguard was a standing turret with a limited range and remained susceptible to mez and stun effects. The overall heat/ammo management was excellent for long encounters, but the lack of powerful burst damage left this build a bit lacking for me in Ranked WZs.

 

What are your thoughts since 1.3, Opf?

Edited by DacRycar
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Having tried NORSE and Pyro/Assault in Ranked WZs, I'm a bit in the air about which is the more preferred.

 

Pyro is still a great go-to spec for Powertechs/Vanguards looking for a good burst. Nevertheless, it is heavily dependent on a Tech DoT running on its target, which is cleansible by Operatives/Scoundrels and Mercenaries/Commandos. Pyro/Assault proved to be difficult to manage against coordinationed, voice com'd teams with above-average healers.

 

NORSE's utility, mobility and survivability proved useful in Ranked Warzones, however, its burst lacked behind its fire-obsessed sibling. In addition, when using Flamethrower/Pulse Generator, the Powertech/Vanguard was a standing turret with a limited range and remained susceptible to mez and stun effects. The overall heat/ammo management was excellent for long encounters, but the lack of powerful burst damage left this build a bit lacking for me in Ranked WZs.

 

What are your thoughts since 1.3, Opf?

 

I was asked that question by the vanguard forum guy earlier today via PM. My opinion remains the same. The only thing that has changed is that you now get the slow, which most of you will soon find is amazing. Any stuns spent on you during PG is a stun not spent on a ball carrier or healer. That makes it a win.

 

Norse is a team spec, it's not a 1v1. What you don't see and isn't reflected is the reduction in damage from your flame attacks. What will happen is you stay mobile until you get a group lined up around a healer or node and then pop HtL and PG. If they don't stun you, they will get fried. Without relics, Pyro will see a minor nerf and especially as people figure out how to kill them. A good Op or commando healer will completely neutralize a pyro dps.

 

I like both specs, but find Norse much more fluid.

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Thanks for the great guide TheOpf. After reading it I respecced from full ST to NORS build. While ST I was using 2 pc BM supercommando and 2 pc champ combat medic in order to get the 15 sec shield. Right now I am full BM combat tech. I read that you were also using the 15sec shield set. Which 2 pc war hero combat medic did you get? I would assume one would be gloves because it has crit and surge. But all other CM pieces have alarcity with either power or crit. Should I replace the combat tech piece that has accuracy (chest or boots) with the intention of swapping out the alarcity pieces much much later? The reason is right now I am starting to buy WH gear and do not want to get the full combat tech set and then get 2 pc WH combat medic pieces.

 

Thanks

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Aswell, thank you for a great read, there was a few things i learned here and a few things i am happy to know i have grasped the right way of this class.

 

However, i still cant get to understand why anyone in a AP full spec would want a norse build with the other talents you can get instead :confused:

 

I mean, 10 seconds less cd on a stun is not that attractive or will decide the outcome of an encounter. The less cd on interupt i can understand locking down a healerwise, but still not a gamebreaker unless you sole job is only to kill healers.

 

And heres the most difficult reason i have aswell leaving out RS. The whole idea of dropping RS is as i understand it, too get a bigger window under your 12 second PFT timer cd but as you already put in comments following your guide, flame sweep adds also a stack and i have yet to go into a fight without having at least 3 stacks ready for the fight and still have 0 heat because out cylinder drops it fast.

Sure i cant do that trick while i first engaged combat but the argument of dropping RS just for a few seconds more to build up PFT in dynamic pvp i find weird :confused: Id rather just do the armor ignore talent and do my tree the normal way, as an AP we are a bit lower compared to Pyros in burst and why not get the most dmg out of your abilities if you can?

 

All of this 12 second window aswell completely ignores the possiblity of being stunned/push or otherwise stopped to do dps and i for one am not letting go of RS. Remember also if your teammate has already stunned or dotted up your enemy. Opening with ED+RS before 10m range is also very nice.

 

Anyways thanks again for the read, well put together guide.

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Aswell, thank you for a great read, there was a few things i learned here and a few things i am happy to know i have grasped the right way of this class.

 

However, i still cant get to understand why anyone in a AP full spec would want a norse build with the other talents you can get instead :confused:

 

I mean, 10 seconds less cd on a stun is not that attractive or will decide the outcome of an encounter. The less cd on interupt i can understand locking down a healerwise, but still not a gamebreaker unless you sole job is only to kill healers.

 

And heres the most difficult reason i have aswell leaving out RS. The whole idea of dropping RS is as i understand it, too get a bigger window under your 12 second PFT timer cd but as you already put in comments following your guide, flame sweep adds also a stack and i have yet to go into a fight without having at least 3 stacks ready for the fight and still have 0 heat because out cylinder drops it fast.

Sure i cant do that trick while i first engaged combat but the argument of dropping RS just for a few seconds more to build up PFT in dynamic pvp i find weird :confused: Id rather just do the armor ignore talent and do my tree the normal way, as an AP we are a bit lower compared to Pyros in burst and why not get the most dmg out of your abilities if you can?

 

All of this 12 second window aswell completely ignores the possiblity of being stunned/push or otherwise stopped to do dps and i for one am not letting go of RS. Remember also if your teammate has already stunned or dotted up your enemy. Opening with ED+RS before 10m range is also very nice.

 

Anyways thanks again for the read, well put together guide.

 

Good points, I like the railshot build as well because of the instant 30% slow on rb, which is huge to me, especially for kiting marauders, and the ed/rs combo after a slow gives you something to use that hurts at range. That slow and hydraulic overrides make a lot of classes much easier for me in 1v1 situations. Heck, you can even ignore the railshot proc/armor penetration skill if you want and just use rb for the slow only while playing the same as you do in the norse spec.

 

More of an opinion thing I guess, But i just have more fun playing with a railshot build.

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Aswell, thank you for a great read, there was a few things i learned here and a few things i am happy to know i have grasped the right way of this class.

 

However, i still cant get to understand why anyone in a AP full spec would want a norse build with the other talents you can get instead :confused:

 

I mean, 10 seconds less cd on a stun is not that attractive or will decide the outcome of an encounter. The less cd on interupt i can understand locking down a healerwise, but still not a gamebreaker unless you sole job is only to kill healers.

 

And heres the most difficult reason i have aswell leaving out RS. The whole idea of dropping RS is as i understand it, too get a bigger window under your 12 second PFT timer cd but as you already put in comments following your guide, flame sweep adds also a stack and i have yet to go into a fight without having at least 3 stacks ready for the fight and still have 0 heat because out cylinder drops it fast.

Sure i cant do that trick while i first engaged combat but the argument of dropping RS just for a few seconds more to build up PFT in dynamic pvp i find weird :confused: Id rather just do the armor ignore talent and do my tree the normal way, as an AP we are a bit lower compared to Pyros in burst and why not get the most dmg out of your abilities if you can?

 

All of this 12 second window aswell completely ignores the possiblity of being stunned/push or otherwise stopped to do dps and i for one am not letting go of RS. Remember also if your teammate has already stunned or dotted up your enemy. Opening with ED+RS before 10m range is also very nice.

 

Anyways thanks again for the read, well put together guide.

 

Let me see if I can help out a bit, with these questions. The reason you choose Norse is for more team play and an easier and more fluid playstyle. How often do you actually use RS in a long fight? Maybe twice at best. It may hit for 2800 or 3100. With the Norse, I get a 4 percent damage reduction to everyone who I hit with Flame Sweep or Flame Burst, plus faster stuns (invaluable at times) in exchange for 1 extra bonus shot every 15 seconds.

 

I am not saying I am against the Rail Shot builds. In a straight up pve battle Rail Shots are about 4 percent better, but in pvp where damage reduction, cc, and mobility are key I prefer Norse. The Norse is a more defensive build. It's built around keeping others and yourself alive while maximizing the amount of times I can use PFT.

 

It's completely preferential. You prefer to have a really hard hitting RS and a 30 percent slow that's overridden by most everyone, and I prefer more stuns and more damage reduction along with more PFT uptime. So it's essentially where do you want to spend your points? Both work really well in the right hands.

 

The only negative to the RS build is it's more energy used up.

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Good points, I like the railshot build as well because of the instant 30% slow on rb, which is huge to me, especially for kiting marauders, and the ed/rs combo after a slow gives you something to use that hurts at range. That slow and hydraulic overrides make a lot of classes much easier for me in 1v1 situations. Heck, you can even ignore the railshot proc/armor penetration skill if you want and just use rb for the slow only while playing the same as you do in the norse spec.

 

More of an opinion thing I guess, But i just have more fun playing with a railshot build.

 

 

I am all for that, I actually spend time in both Norse, RS, and Pyro depending on grouping. The RS is great if you have to kite alot.. I rarely play my pt anymore since my team has rerolled, but I am seeing alot of RS. The biggest downside to RS is it can miss when anyone shoots there abilities that get rid of physical damage.

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Hey Opf,

 

Ever since I read this post I was intrigued with Tibetan Candle. You wrote, it has the potential to do the most DPS of all specs and I believe you! However, it's true that it is incredibly difficult to play because your rotations in a stressful PvP environment must be perfect.

 

Now, I played pyro 8/8/25 since around patch 1.1 and loved that playstyle. However, now after months it was getting dull of course and I tried something new, TC, and I LOVED it! It's the class which utilizes the most fire abilities (even flame sweep) and I just like them visually. So thanky you very much for this useful guide!

 

But I seem to do incredibly bad though. I played a few ranked games and got frustrated and ragespecced to pyro again, noticing a dramatic increase in damage done... I think I just don't have the playstyle down at the moment. Are you playing TC in ranked warzones at the moment? Is it any good? If yes, please give nap, who is used to the easy pyro-playstyle some hints how he might get better with this spec! I'm not asking 1v1 advice of course, but how I'm best deployed in a team setting (namely ranked WZ's).

 

As I see it, TC is so much more melee than pyro, that's why I seem to attract more focus fire, die a lot faster and not even have a chance to activate a second flame thrower burst. Mabye I'm also getting focused because I made a name of myself already for hard railshots. My gear isn't BiS yet, but I'm working on it. I have the PvE and PvP combat tech bonus (made the most sense to me).

Edited by Sullax
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Hey Opf,

 

Ever since I read this post I was intrigued with Tibetan Candle. You wrote, it has the potential to do the most DPS of all specs and I believe you! However, it's true that it is incredibly difficult to play because your rotations in a stressful PvP environment must be perfect.

 

Now, I played pyro 8/8/25 since around patch 1.1 and loved that playstyle. However, now after months it was getting dull of course and I tried something new, TC, and I LOVED it! It's the class which utilizes the most fire abilities (even flame sweep) and I just like them visually. So thanky you very much for this useful guide!

 

But I seem to do incredibly bad though. I played a few ranked games and got frustrated and ragespecced to pyro again, noticing a dramatic increase in damage done... I think I just don't have the playstyle down at the moment. Are you playing TC in ranked warzones at the moment? Is it any good? If yes, please give nap, who is used to the easy pyro-playstyle some hints how he might get better with this spec! I'm not asking 1v1 advice of course, but how I'm best deployed in a team setting (namely ranked WZ's).

 

As I see it, TC is so much more melee than pyro, that's why I seem to attract more focus fire, die a lot faster and not even have a chance to activate a second flame thrower burst. Mabye I'm also getting focused because I made a name of myself already for hard railshots. My gear isn't BiS yet, but I'm working on it. I have the PvE and PvP combat tech bonus (made the most sense to me).

 

I tried TC for two weeks, and grew so tired of it. It was like my brain was on fire from all the constant weaving of attacks. When I went to Pyro or AP it was like a relief not to have to monitor everything. It's an incredibly mind numbingly exhausting. I put it in there because numbers wise it's better than anything except 31pt pyro.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am currently looking through old posts as I type this. So If I find my answer I will delete it. But... Could you be just as effective in a Operation setting w/o using Rail Shot on a regular basis? Lets say you are using RS build but are leaving out the RS due to how fast some fights are, and other things going on. I sometimes have felt that sticking with the regular 12 sec Norse rotation allowed me more dps. No?

 

And maybe its just me but since 1.3 I have been having heat issues while using the max dps for raids and trying to work around the 12 second rotation.

Edited by midnitemonster
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I am currently looking through old posts as I type this. So If I find my answer I will delete it. But... Could you be just as effective in a Operation setting w/o using Rail Shot on a regular basis? Lets say you are using RS build but are leaving out the RS due to how fast some fights are, and other things going on. I sometimes have felt that sticking with the regular 12 sec Norse rotation allowed me more dps. No?

 

And maybe its just me but since 1.3 I have been having heat issues while using the max dps for raids and trying to work around the 12 second rotation.

 

No one is watching damage on trash. I have ran the Norse Spec and standard AP on Trash. Norse is higher depending on the amount of adds and how long they stay up.

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No one is watching damage on trash. I have ran the Norse Spec and standard AP on Trash. Norse is higher depending on the amount of adds and how long they stay up.

 

Yeah I weeded through the older posts and saw that essentially Max Dps spec is a 5% increase on single targets. Aka bosses.

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  • 1 month later...
hey i was wondering if you can answer a question of mine. So in PVE im having trouble getting to five stacks of PFT in the twelve seconds. I was wondering if in these pve situations where heat just becomes too much for me, like it gets around 30-40 because of constant flame bursts, when the flame thrower gets off cd, should i use it with the number of stacks i already have (around 3 or 4) or should i wait to get it to 5 stacks for more damage on flame thrower itselft but less damage output and more heat before it. I really try to get 5 stacks before the 12 seconds is up but sometimes the heat just gets too much.
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  • 3 weeks later...

1) I hate the font. It's difficult to read.

 

2) All of the Vanguard references/abbreviations need to be removed. This is the BH board, and the guide would be much more fluid without all that extra stuff that doesn't even apply to Powertech. Create another thread on the Vanguard boards if you must.

Edited by TheronFett
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1) i hate the font. It's difficult to read.

 

2) all of the vanguard references/abbreviations need to be removed. This is the bh board, and the guide would be much more fluid without all that extra stuff that doesn't even apply to powertech. Create another thread on the vanguard boards if you must.

> +1 <

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  • 3 weeks later...
1) I hate the font. It's difficult to read.

 

2) All of the Vanguard references/abbreviations need to be removed. This is the BH board, and the guide would be much more fluid without all that extra stuff that doesn't even apply to Powertech. Create another thread on the Vanguard boards if you must.

 

As a vanguard, please don't remove all the references. After hours of googling I finally found this, which is an incredibly good source of info. If anything, add more vanguard info/more vanguard names pls :cool:

 

- New Fan

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  • 3 weeks later...

I believe the Tibetan Candle build deserves a second chance after 1.4

 

The heat problems are less problematic now that the prototype flamethrower stacks are reduced to 3. I'm using a 7/31/3 variation on the spec and I like it a lot. You loose out on the 8 heat dissipation every 6 seconds and the 15% movement boost. But you get a significant damage boost in exchange with the combustible gas cylinder.

 

My experiences so far in pvp with full augmentated gear and mainly warhero with only my relics, chest, bracers and belt being battlemaster (around 19.000 self-buffed health, 77% surge, 33% crit) : The damage boost makes it significantly easier to kill other players. As full AP I still had trouble with some marauders and juggernauts with 22k+ hp 1 on 1 because my damage output wasn't high enough especially if my prototype flamethrower got interrupted by CC. Tibetan Candle makes them burn like crisps. CGC is easily 5-6k of additional damage during a fight with one.

 

Well geared healers are impossible to take down on your own as full AP. As Tibetan Candle you still can't kill them because you overheat when you really try. However you do put out more of a hurting, making the spec more effective then AP when you are being assisted by others to take down a healer.

 

Other observations: in massed pvp clashes with healers, full AP does more damage overall than Tibetan Candle. Reason is as full AP you usually don't overheat, so you can use your flamethrower/dfa whenever its off the cooldown and attack pretty much non stop. As Tibetan Candle you will overheat in such fights or will need to significantly hold back. Problem is you usually don't know how long a fight will last, and often overheating seems like a good idea but backfires due to changing circumstances.

However, even with the lower total damage (in a voidstar match I did 500k total damage as full AP, a very similar match with TBC I did 400k) the amount of killingblows TBC scores is significantly higher, as in a 30% increase.

 

In the shorter clashes that you will find most of the time in warzones, I've found that TBC does significantly more damage and killingblows than full AP.

 

The 15% movement increase you loose out on as TBC is something I personally do notice, somewhat miss occasionally, but not enough to warrant loosing the increase in damage CGC brings. And when I really need speed I have Hydraulic Override. I've not noticed a loss in survivability, in fact being able to kill stuff faster more than compensates.

 

Conclusion: Tibetan Candle is better for duels and short clashes. Better for initial pressure on healers or to try burst them down, but worse in the long run for continually putting pressure on them. In long drawn out combat AP tends to be slightly better due to TBC overheating issues. Survivability is about equal. DPS difference in fights is very noticeable.

 

As for my 7/31/3 spec, I'm not certain if it has more or less dps than the 2/31/8 spec from the OP. (+6% aim & +6% fire damage, vs + 8% rocketpunch & +30% CGC damage) Any insights on that are appreciated :)

 

 

ps. I just love the 30% aoe reduction talent vs all those smash spamming maniacs in warzones now ;)

Edited by LordExozone
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