according to a Dev post one missile blast during missile salvo does less than a rapid shot but three (the max for 25 heat ) is suposed to do much more

Well they changed the ability. Now it is not a three step combat resolution ability. Instead you just press the button once and it fires once (one from each pistol). Costs 21 heat if you talent it properly and there is no CD. Automatically procs CGC. Insta-cast. Does about 40% more damage than Rapid Shots. There is still no reason to include this ability in your rotation due to its very poor heat/damage ratio. If you have the heat to spare, then you should be using Kolto Missile more frequently. But it's there if anyone likes it.

Well they changed the ability. Now it is not a three step combat resolution ability. Instead you just press the button once and it fires once (one from each pistol). Costs 21 heat if you talent it properly and there is no CD. Automatically procs CGC. Insta-cast. Does about 40% more damage than Rapid Shots. There is still no reason to include this ability in your rotation due to its very poor heat/damage ratio. If you have the heat to spare, then you should be using Kolto Missile more frequently. But it's there if anyone likes it.

The use for this would be when you need to force a CGC proc.

The use for this would be when you need to force a CGC proc.

Depending on your Accuracy, Rapid Shots has a 70-75% chance of proc'ing CGC. Simply not a good idea to spend 21 heat for an marginal increase in mean damage of about 900 pts. That's a horrible heat/damage ratio. Compare that to Explosive Dart, already one of the worst heat/damage ratio attacks a Merc has unless you can catch a cluster of enemies together. And as bad as Explosive Dart is, it has a heat/damage ratio vs. a single target that more than 2x better than the marginal difference between Missile Salvo vs. Rapid Shots. That shows you how horrible the heat/damage ratio for Missile Salvo is. Now some people will make a claim that Missile Salvo is useful to help burst a target, but with more than 50% of the damage from Missile Salvo coming from the DoT, it is actually a horrible burst maneuver.

The real issue is that in 2.0, the Merc Pyro gets an ability, Kolto Missile, that he will want to use constantly. It will displace the use of things like Explosive Dart and Rocket Punch (the latter of which will cause significant tactical implications). There simply isn't room, or heat availability, for an even more inefficient ability like Missile Salvo.

Depending on your Accuracy, Rapid Shots has a 70-75% chance of proc'ing CGC. Simply not a good idea to spend 21 heat for an marginal increase in mean damage of about 900 pts. That's a horrible heat/damage ratio. Compare that to Explosive Dart, already one of the worst heat/damage ratio attacks a Merc has unless you can catch a cluster of enemies together. And as bad as Explosive Dart is, it has a heat/damage ratio vs. a single target that more than 2x better than the marginal difference between Missile Salvo vs. Rapid Shots. That shows you how horrible the heat/damage ratio for Missile Salvo is. Now some people will make a claim that Missile Salvo is useful to help burst a target, but with more than 50% of the damage from Missile Salvo coming from the DoT, it is actually a horrible burst maneuver.

 

The real issue is that in 2.0, the Merc Pyro gets an ability, Kolto Missile, that he will want to use constantly. It will displace the use of things like Explosive Dart and Rocket Punch (the latter of which will cause significant tactical implications). There simply isn't room, or heat availability, for an even more inefficient ability like Missile Salvo.

Missile Salvo is great now after the changes. But people need to understand it is an ability designed for PvP, and specifically kiting in PvP, where it is an invaluable tool. When your heat allows for it, use Missile Salvo instead of Rapid Shots to do A: more damage, B: proc a guaranteed snare and C: Allow for Railshot to be fired.

In itself its not an amazing I-win ability, but it is definitely helping.

 

The real issue is that in 2.0, the Merc Pyro gets an ability, Kolto Missile,

Ok I was confused I see where kolto missile is available to all mercs... I don't see where this displaces dps abilities. your comment was confusing. Those dps abilities you mention are situational at best and have nothing to do with a new heal on the run spell (new for pyros).

It's an interesting heal for a dps, you can find others and run through them as you bomb it on yourself, potentially doing 10-14k healing. Same cost if you heal 1 or 4 so might as well.

Have a handful of mercs in a raid and anytime there's a lull they can mass AOE the raid healer specced or not.

Offhealing isn't something you usually plan to do but it's a nice one to have.

Ok I was confused I see where kolto missile is available to all mercs... I don't see where this displaces dps abilities. your comment was confusing. Those dps abilities you mention are situational at best and have nothing to do with a new heal on the run spell (new for pyros).

So I play my Merc Pyro differently than I think 99% of Merc Pyros. I do not always try to stay at range. I never use Power Shot. I use Rocket Punch a lot. I even use Flamethrower occasionally. I rely on movement to disorient and confuse melee attackers. Into this mix comes Kolto Missile, an ability whose effectiveness is greatly increased if I can find a cluster of friendly players. One way to do that is to inject myself into the cluster thereby adding an additional player who benefits from the heal. I am able to do this since I am constantly moving. I need to get to the cluster, cast Kolto Missile and then exit the cluster every 6 seconds. Given the presence of snares and roots, this is a difficult task.

But there really isn't any alternative. Already in 2.0, for top players Rage/Focus toons had about 50% greater dps output than Merc dps. And those guys got BUFFED. PT Pyros had about 25% more dps than Merc dps and those guys got their burst ability almost doubled. Merc dps got what? A single digit increase in damage to a subset of skills and Electro Net, an ability easily countered once bad melee toons L2P their ability/skill set. There is ZERO chance that Merc dps will be competitive in 2.0. The damage output gap between Merc and other dps classes widens in 2.0. The way way you can try to make up that gap is with Kolto Missile on clustered friendlies.

For the PvE crowd however this is extremely problematic. Subtracting damage output from a dps toon in your raid party will stress the enrage timers and must be made up by increased dps from healers who presumably need to heal less given Kolto Missile is doing some of the healing. But this is very inefficient. You are moving dps tasks to healers, who dps less efficiently than the dps toons. Rather than bring a Merc dps who is a hybrid dps/healer, most raid groups will simply bring in another melee dps or a sniper if ranged dps is needed.

There is no NEED to use Kolto Missile, particularly as DPS. It's handy to have, but if you're casting it every 6 seconds as DPS you're not doing your job.

I think that's the point. Your job has changed.

Against average players you can still get away with simply shooting, shooting and shooting. But against top players, Merc dps, which was already 25-50% behind what other dps classes can offer in 1.7, falls even further behind in 2.0. There is no meaningful dps boost in 2.0 for Merc dps. You can not compete with the other dps classes in top end ranked wz. Trying to do so is an automatic fail. But if from what I've seen so far you can boost overall productivity by about 5-10% if you use your Kolto Missile at the right times. Is that enough to make Merc dps competitive with other dps classes? No. But it is a boost.

I think that's the point. Your job has changed.

 

Against average players you can still get away with simply shooting, shooting and shooting. But against top players, Merc dps, which was already 25-50% behind what other dps classes can offer in 1.7, falls even further behind in 2.0. There is no meaningful dps boost in 2.0 for Merc dps. You can not compete with the other dps classes in top end ranked wz. Trying to do so is an automatic fail. But if from what I've seen so far you can boost overall productivity by about 5-10% if you use your Kolto Missile at the right times. Is that enough to make Merc dps competitive with other dps classes? No. But it is a boost.

DPS is DPS. I'm not saying ignore your utilities (of which offhealing is one, yes), but don't sacrifice your primary role to do it.

Unless you're heal-specced you shouldn't be throwing Kolto Missile on cooldown - unless, of course, your team has no healers, in which case you're probably doing that instead of DPSing entirely.

DPS is DPS. I'm not saying ignore your utilities (of which offhealing is one, yes), but don't sacrifice your primary role to do it.

The point is that your hps with Kolto Missile is going to be higher than your dps with the sort of attack abilities it will be replacing, stuff like Explosive Dart and Rocket Punch.

You're only going to use your Kolto missile in a group setting, or helping a buddy out in PVP.

So far on test the damage I take is much to massive to actually make it worth hitting it unless I've stunned my opponent and I'm running scared.

There's too much of a big deal over this. DPS is DPS. On downtime, or emergency node guard or something... give out an AOE heal to help out. If you're hitting this for more 2 or more consecutive global cooldowns in a row (as DPS), you're quite possibly doing your team (PVP) a disservice.

power shot gets a decent burst...but, not at all useful in PvP because it still requires you to cast.

Got to admit, the only time i'll use power shot is when power surge is available (and lets face it there are better usage scenarios for power surge)

Although i do note there is now a 100% chance to have a second power surge to use. May or may not prove useful for Arsenal.

I'm mildly optimistic from a Pyro perspective. Okay we're not going to be transformed into the new smashers overnight doing gazillion damage per hit, but it should be much more enjoyable to play.

People are too quick to discard Powershot. It has its place even in pvp. Yes of course you don't want to cast it when you're being attacked, a melee guy will interrupt it all day long just like Arsenals Tracer, however there ARE opportunities in every warzone to freecast and pump out as much damage as possible, and that is where Powershot comes in. To cycle railshot procs as we don't really have any other way apart from a long unload cooldown. Is it as good as flameburst for powertechs? No, not in a billion years, however it's all we have unless you want to spam rapid shots for 5-10 globals while you wait for your cooldowns, meanwhile that healer nicely tops himself back up to 100%.

In 2.0 Powershot will have

6% more base damage

30% more crit damage (its been added to the firebug talent)

3 less heat

If that was in the live game right now we are looking at crits of 4k. On a spammable ability. It's a bit like the old tracer. I would take that.

I think Pyro has the potential to do okay in 2.0. Due to other classes also getting buffs we're obviously still not going to be near the top but we will be more competitive than we are currently. Let's look at the main changes;

• 
   
  
• Hydraulic overrides
  
• Electro Net
  
• Kolto Missile
  
• Flare breaking all movement effects (right now we can cleanse tech slows/roots but this will let us easily get rid of force slow, wither, deadly throw, warrior leap roots etc at no cost).
  
• 4% alacrity 3% accuracy just from filling out necessary talents going up the tree
  
• Much better Powershot and marginally better Unload and Railshot.
  
• Guaranteed CGC on Missile Salvo
  

If someone has played a considerable amount of Pyro pvp on the 2.0 PTS and wants to come in and pee on my parade then feel free but I personally think we'll be fine and I'm excited to try it. Arsenal however will stick suck balls, lets be clear here.

Well they changed the ability. Now it is not a three step combat resolution ability. Instead you just press the button once and it fires once (one from each pistol). Costs 21 heat if you talent it properly and there is no CD. Automatically procs CGC. Insta-cast. Does about 40% more damage than Rapid Shots. There is still no reason to include this ability in your rotation due to its very poor heat/damage ratio. If you have the heat to spare, then you should be using Kolto Missile more frequently. But it's there if anyone likes it.

Question? Does this mean it has its own icon? Is it a seperate ability from Missle Blast to click?

Question? Does this mean it has its own icon? Is it a seperate ability from Missle Blast to click?

Nope. It's a passive change to Missile Blast to make it unique from PT Missile Blast.

I think that's the point. Your job has changed.

 

Against average players you can still get away with simply shooting, shooting and shooting. But against top players, Merc dps, which was already 25-50% behind what other dps classes can offer in 1.7, falls even further behind in 2.0. There is no meaningful dps boost in 2.0 for Merc dps. You can not compete with the other dps classes in top end ranked wz. Trying to do so is an automatic fail. But if from what I've seen so far you can boost overall productivity by about 5-10% if you use your Kolto Missile at the right times. Is that enough to make Merc dps competitive with other dps classes? No. But it is a boost.

dps is not burst

pvper's, stop interchanging these two terms. pvp is about burst - how much damage you can put out in as short a time as possible or how fast can you do xxx amount of damage

when dps is used in a discussion it's about sustainability, which is a pve discussion.