Since returning I got my mara to 70, shadow to 70, guardian to 70 and my PT to 70. PT is my favorite as I love the PT as its very Boba Fett, missiles, flame throwers etc. Its just cool.

If I am going to try the merc, I would prefer to try the commando so it feels a little different. My Commando is ancient, and I have not played it in forever. In looking for a guide, spec It seems most people say Gunnery, and most guides (dulfy etc) only have a guide for gunnery current to at least 5.3.

I saw a video where it seemed like the AS animations/ powers were a little flashier, (eye candy matters, lol) so I wanted to ask if its decent for levelling and end game? If so does anyone have a decent rotation they could share that is current.

Thank you

Since the nerf, Gunnery is pretty bad. It's the lowest parsing spec out there (on par with Sniper's Marksmanship). Still, you can do pretty much anything SM and HM. It's still very strong for PvP, thanks to it's good burst capacities, and insane DCD. Assault Specialist is a better choice for endgame content tho, as you can parse higher. It has a way more strict rotation, it's less flexible on target swaping, but it's still a better choice for pretty much any fights out there. I use to switch between I.O. and Arsenal depending on fights, but boy... Arsenal (gunnery) is underwhelming. You're better switching class in that case now.

Anyway for rotation, go check some parses here:

http://parsely.io/parser/leaderboard/commando/all/2500000/all/live/0/

Do you have a video or link to a current build and rotation for AS? I cant really find anything current. There is a lot of 5.3 gunnery stuff but not much for AS.

Thank you

This is a pretty good video a friend made explaining Innovative Ordnance, which is the imperial version of Assault Specialist:

This is the classic rotation that has been used since 3.0 and it's still good (here is the 4.0 dulfy guide, the rotation is the same as in the video http://dulfy.net/2015/12/02/swtor-4-0-mercenary-dps-pve-guide-by-marisi/). You can probably easily figure out the repside ability names, if you have any questions let me know.

There are also different rotations people are using. One Veldix designed and that I like (adapts better to high mobility requirements) is this one:

Dot#1 - Dot#2 - Filler - Unload (full auto) - Filler - Filler - Mag shot (mag bolt) - Power shot (charged bolt) - Mag shot (mag bolt)

The fillers are (in priority order, while being carefull of resource management):

- Electro net with supercharge

- Thermal Det (assault plastique)

- Power shot (charged bolts)

- Basic attack

IO is the only spec worth using now, at least pve-wise.

Arsenal is still good for pvp.