My guild has been running and clearing Hardmode Explosive Conflict for awhile now and have been testing multiple group compositions. It seems that consistently in this particular Operation Commando/Gunnery specc'd players under-preform substantially compared to the other DPS. I'm not sure exactly why, but all five of our hardmode EC capable Gunnery Commandos put out the lowest DPS in HM EC. When we move them back into another Op then they shoot up to the top of the parser like usual. The change is so drastic that having one Gunnery DPS in our party opposed to any other DPS puts us behind the Enrage timers on some of the encounters.

 

I don't play Gunnery Commando, but it seems that they are very reliant on staying stationary and getting enough time to stack up Grav Rounds. I feel that many of the encounters in HM EC nearly cripple their effectiveness because of this and actually forces some under-geared groups away from taking Gunnery players.

 

I'm wondering if anyone else has been noticing this trend and can confirm or backup any of my thoughts.

Edited June 23, 2012 by AngelFluttershy

I'm going to say it comes down to player skill for this one and having them get the most out of their builds as possible.

 

The group I raid HM EC with can clear it using 2 gunnery commando's with no problem (along with 2 commando healers, and sometimes a vanguard tank. We are going to try to put together an all trooper run one of these days)

 

Now as one of those 2 commando's I can say the structure of some of those fights (like the minefield or kephess) can be brutal on ammo management. The fights in HM EC forced me to work on maximizing my rotation, ammo management, relic and adrenal use.

 

And the 2nd commando has spent a ton of credits swapping around mods to re-stat their gear to get it where it needs to be (and yes a stock full rakata commando with no gear optimization will have a very hard time).

Is it the movement on those fights which disrupts ammo management or some other factor? I'm trying to figure out if the shift to passive regen in 1.3 will help here.

On our HM run last night our gunnery commando was only 0.02% dmg behind our watchman spec sentinal when kephees dropped. She has however replace the mods in all her rakata with 61 blackhole mods and got a few pieces of campaign.

 

Make sure your troopers have around 98% accuracy, use the tactics tree accuracy to make it up if needed and pick up the 2% alacrity bonus on the tactics tree also, most commandos refuse to use that box but if your stacking / firing grav rounds / full auto faster it can only lead to more dmg.

 

Also make sure they dont spec for knockbacks and reduced knockback and cooldowns for EC. Once our trooper got rid of the knockbacks, picked up the accuracy and alacrity her dps rose by 200 on the operations dummy.

Edited June 23, 2012 by Loki_

All great stuff. I'm hoping the 1.3 update on the ammo regen helps make up for the difference in DPS, but it seems like from what I'm reading you really need to be a finely tuned Gunnery to power through HM EC. That or I'm overestimating some of my guild members' prowess.

 

I typically only notice the DPS difference on some of the fights like Zorn + Toth, the Minefield, and parts of Kephess. They catch up on damage quickly on Kephess' final phase, but fall behind on some of the other parts like when the Bardium Bombers appear and they don't get enough time to properly get their damage rolling or are lacking ammo.

 

I'll look into their specs and rotations to see if I can't help them maximize it for now. I know at least two of them are very successful in matching DPS to other group members so I'll look to them for more detailed advice.

Is it the movement on those fights which disrupts ammo management or some other factor? I'm trying to figure out if the shift to passive regen in 1.3 will help here.

 

It is more about the heavy amounts of DPS needed quickly for the fights that make it hard for ammo management.

 

For the minefield, if you are not watching ammo management, you can blow all your ammo and the recharge on the 1st probe. That leaves you trying to play catch up on the next ones and it can be hard to get it back where you need it.

 

For Kephess, it's the back to back to back, burn phases. Going from the 1st bomber, to the walker, to the AOE needed on the 3 groups of adds, to the 2nd bomber, then to the 2nd walker phase.

Edited June 23, 2012 by Flying-Brian

Be aware that the Alacrity build with faster casts willl also mean your Heat goes up faster, it takes some practice to get the hang of again.

Playing with arsenal BH and still missing about 100 aim (mostly augments) and 100 power to reach top geared people.

 

However I can say that EC is all about knowin the fight in every detail. I top the dps in our 8mans every fight (we don't have a marauder there though). Getting 1300 dps on toth and vorgath fights and 1500 on firebrand and kephess. We once puged arsenal merc doing 50 more dps than me on kephess but he was aoeing while I was sniping warriors.

 

I can only say that knowing your position, when to move and which abilities to use on the move will make a huge difference:

- Toth and Zorn; finding position where you stand still all the fight apart when moving from fearful or red circle phase,

- Firebrand and Stormcaller; perfect stationary fight and moving between shield and tank takey you 2-3 globals max which can be filled with dps,

- Colonel Vorgath; after minefield you stay near cave and don't need to move unless you get red circle,

- Kephess; same... Know where to stand you you'll be dpsing whole fight.

 

Overwhole, use global CDs on rail shot (high impact bolt) and heatseeking missle (demolition round) for movement. 3s of running makes huge distance, otherwise if they are on CD get to 50 heat and dump it for 3 globals when running.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Grywon

All I got to say is your Commando is horrible if he comes in last. I always come in first, and yes thats ALWAYS. He needs to conserve more ammo. You do need to move some but not be running around the whole time period. Some people just never learn their class. I have no alts

Gunnery/Arsenal suffers severely from any form of movement, not that much more than other ranged ACs but there's a difference.

The gap in dps however probably comes from the need to switch targets frequently (or Zorn dispelling himself, which effectively is the same here) combined with the need to build multiple stacks in order to do damage ... Arsenal is simply the one spec that has the longest ramp up time and got severely nerfed in 1.2.

 

1.3 is around the corner and maybe things will be looking up with better Rail Shots and more reliable heat venting, but the basic problem is still the unresolved Tracer Spam ... I'm still all for lower cooldowns on HSM & Rail Shot, would solve almost all problems of this spec in one move.

 

One good way to raid EC as a Merc is get assigned to Toth and play Pyrotech - especially with the improved Railshot - not so much because of the overall dps but the burst you deal in 12-15 seconds is actually quite nice, which is very helpful for most encounters. Sadly as long as you're assigned to dps Zorn this isn't an option as losing Incindiary Missile debuffs at each leap just rips a hole in your heat management.

I have been rotating through our Commandos (especially this week) and found some were vastly out-performing the others. I think it is more of a skill thing than anything else but 1.3 should help soften up that gap. I've noticed that our highest hitting Commando was moving the least during Kehpess but took more healer attention while some of our lower hitting didn't need any healer assistance at all. There is balance that some of them still need to find which will come with time and practice. Our two highest hitting have run the Op the most out of the others so it just comes down to making sure the others get more chances to learn the fights too.

 

My concern about Commando/Arsenal specs in the instance was dispelled last Saturday where in one Baradium Bomber drop we DPS'd the walker from 100% to 51% in one go on Hard Mode. We actually had to slow our DPS. XD

 

For your curiosity, our DPS was (by AC/Spec) Gunslinger/Sharpshooter, Shadow/Balance, Vanguard/Assault, and Commando/Gunnery. Yes, our Gunnery was hitting the top of the charts frequently.

The gap in dps however probably comes from the need to switch targets frequently (or Zorn dispelling himself, which effectively is the same here)

 

Sadly as long as you're assigned to dps Zorn this isn't an option as losing Incindiary Missile debuffs at each leap just rips a hole in your heat management.

 

Uh, what? I haven't heard anything about Zorn dispelling himself. And you aren't really switching targets on Zorn+Toth or Vorgath. Not sure how long the Grav/Tracer debuff lasts, but I bet it's long enough that if you're careful you can keep it up during the Defensive Systems phase of Stormcaller/Firebrand by tossing an occasional shot at the hovertank in between hits on the adds. You can start stacking debuffs on Kephess' walker while you're waiting for the bomb to go off, and you should only have to restack on Kephess once at most (after purple circle)

 

Granted, it's not as braindead simple as keeping a Gunslinger's armor debuff on the target, but should still be quite manageable.

I haven't been parsing lately (planning to do a long one tonight on an ops dummy to compare to 1.3), but we run 2 gunnery commandos in HM EC and seem to be ok. For what it's worth, everything said about needing to stay as stationary as possible is right on the money. Here's my subjective impressions (since I haven't been parsing since I am secretly afraid that I am horrible).

 

Toth and Zorn: Me and the gunslinger are always on zorn at more or less max range and toth is beyond us so we never get fearful. As long as he doesn't move much on the tank swap we never really need to stop. Half the time we never even get a red circle underneath us which is nice.

 

Tanks: DPS goes on the tanks. Always. If I'm on the ground I lose so much DPS it's not even funny.

 

Minefield: As mentioned it's easy to get a little antsy if you're group is having to really push to down the droids in time, and the temptation to push a little too hard is very real. I'm biochem and use an on use power relic so I like to stagger Relic > adrenal > relic (one per droid for the first three droids) for that little extra damage. Reserve power cell before a Full Auto when you're on either side of the edge of top tier regen also works wonders for extending the life of your ammo pool as long as it's up. I try to save Recharge Cells for when I've burned completely through the pool.

 

Kephes: Location Location Location. If there's one thing Denova has really taught me, especially HM denova, it's to abuse my 30m range as much as possible. If you're positioned so that you can hit the bombers no matter where they spawn that's really helpful for getting the damage started. Also, if you are lucky enough not to be the person who has to run under the walker, you can get your armor debuff on the walker while you wait so when its time to actually hit him you don't have to worry about ramp up, which in my experience is what hurts ammo so much. Hitting the walker with a grav round, waiting half a second for the ammo and doing it again can get the needed armor debuffs/Charged Barrel/CoF procs with much better ammo issues.

 

This need to spend ammo for setups, and do so in a very limited window, is what causes the ammo issues. If you can open with Demo Round > FA > HiB because you already have the ammo debuffs and Charged Barrel stacks, and CoF proc ready to go from much slower Grav/Tracer spam you're in a much better situation. This doesn't apply to the bomber unfortunately, and that's why the back to back burn phases are so harmful if you don't get lucky on Crit procs for cell charger. In this sense the upcoming ammo change will probably help quite a lot.

 

On the droids in the minefield and the bombers in the Kephes encounter, it really comes down to trusting the rest of your DPS to put out the needed DPS to kill them in the required time without you having to burn through every spec of ammo you have. If you have that trust then you'll be more level headed in ammo usage and your sustained DPS will be much higher and there won't be issues. Especially with up coming changes to ammo management and Charged Barrel (requiring less grav round spam to get 5 stacks of charged barrel). If you get a little panicky, or don't trust your fellow DPS to pull their own weight, then you burn through all your ammo too soon and next thing you know you're sitting at 2 ammo. Sure you can use recharge cells but if it happens again on the next Droid/Bomber then you're kinda screwed and you're out of ammo.

 

Also, seriously, moving too much will kill your DPS.

I never run out of ammo. In fact I only have to use recharge cells after the first walker phase and after the third bomber.

Walker because I want to see wether our dps can handle it or if i need to blow my ammo on second and third phase as well.

Bomber for obvious reasons.

Heck I hit 3 bard of regen at least 10 times in every fight but my crits and the free HIB bring it back up in no time.

 

As for the tanks: we always put a sage or commando to run around and take the missiles/plasma arcs. I was still not that far behind the watchman sent and assault vanguard like on every other fight.