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Scrapper pve DPS guide


Holyreed

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There isn't much information out there for DPS Scoundrels so I'm putting together something I hope will allow for some initial comfort in the role. This is intended mostly for endgame flash points and ops.

 

My Spec (pve): 3/31/7

-Sawbones: 3/3 Bedside Manner

-Scrapper: Everything except Survivor's Scars, Stopping Power, and Shifty-eyed.

-Dirty Fighting: 3/3 No Holds Barred, 2/2 Holdout Defense, 2/2 Mortal Wound

 

Rotations: This is roughly a 12 second rotation (every time Back Blast is up)

First rotation:

(Flechette) Shoot First, Back Blast, Vital Shot, Pugnacity, Blaster Whip, Sucker Punch, Sucker Punch/Flurry of bolts until you can (Flechette) Back Blast and start over.

 

Following rotation:

(Flechette) Back Blast, Vital Shot, Blaster Whip, Pugnacity whenever it runs out, Sucker Punch/Flurry of bolts.

 

Burn phase rotations:

You will want to use Disappearing Act for a (Flechette) Shoot First, and use Quick Shot instead of Flurry of bolts.

 

Area damage fights:

Blaster Volley, Thermal Grenade, and XS Freighter Flyby are all very effective together, but careful you don’t run out of energy.

 

Notes:

-Bosses and some mobs (in FP especially) have an ability to aggro a stealthed character at about twice its normal aggro range. Not sure if this is a bug, but chances are your tank doesn’t know you are about to pull if he doesn’t. I have lots of complaints about this mechanic but as far as a guide goes:

a) make sure your tank is aware of this mechanic, and

b) hide behind something to prevent the stealth detection pre-pull.

*If anyone has advice on how best to deal with this mechanic please share.

 

-Vital shot lasts longer than 12 seconds but it’s good to keep up much as you can. Having it permanently in the rotation after back blast helps if you often forget about it or if you have another smuggler’s vital shot on the boss and you’re not sure which dot is yours.

 

-Use Sneak if you are going to try to use tranquilizer on anything from the front

 

-Smuggle rarely works in pugs… I’d save that for something with higher levels of organization.

 

-Defensive cooldowns are all pretty short so use freely. You can have Defense Screen up for 1/3 of the fight. Dodge is great for when you pull aggro (but still use Surrender as well).

 

-Despite recent aggro upgrades to tanking, you will still need to use Surrender a lot so have it handy.

 

-On Silver enemies, the Dirty Kick/Cheap Shot/Back Blast combo works well.

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I don't think K.O. is very useful for flashpoint/operation content. Shifty-Eyed gives you a 2% chance to avoid ALL damage (melee/ranged/force/tech) and I would take that over K.O. for any kind of challenging content.

 

It is easy to show that (1/2) Mortal Wound + (1/1) Open Wound is superior to (2/2) Mortal Wound.

 

Your suggested opening of Shoot First -> Back Blast seems inefficient. Better to wait for the DoT from Flechette Round to tick off, then reapply again with Back Blast.

 

I find it easier to think of our "rotation" in reference to Blaster Whip. After every Blaster Whip, you have 3 GCDs to do other stuff before Blaster Whip is available again.

 

You will always want to Sucker Punch during one of these 3 GCDs if you have 2 stacks of Upper Hand, and also if you have 1 stack and Pugnacity is already up. It shouldn't be the first unless you have 2 stacks of TUH, because if you don't proc Round 2, you will be without the Upper Hand buff for anything you do afterward. And you shouldn't wait until the last, because if you *do* proc Round 2, you normally would want to Sucker Punch again, before you Blaster Whip.

 

Back Blast (+Flechette) is your big attack, and you will want to use it after every second Blaster Whip (12s c/d).

 

Vital Shot is a decent damage per energy, and with the suggested traiting, you need to reapply it every third Blaster Whip (18s c/d).

 

Finally, there is Pugnacity, which should be maintained at all times.

 

Thinking of the three GCDs after Blaster Whip as "slots" to fill, this seems like a reasonable slot-by-slot priority system:

 

Slot 0:

Blaster Whip (every 6 seconds)

 

Slot 1 Priorities:

Disappearing Act + Flechette + Shoot First (if possible)

Flechette + Back Blast (unless DoT from Shoot First is still active)

Sucker Punch (if 2 stacks of TUH)

Flurry of Bolts (or perhaps Quick Shot if you are nearly full on Energy)

 

Slot 2 Priorities:

Pugnacity (if not active)

Sucker Punch (if 2 stacks of TUH)

Fly-by (fills Slots 2 and 3)

Sucker Punch

 

Slot 3 Priorities:

Vital Shot (if not active)

Sucker Punch

Flurry of Bolts

 

The opener is then just Flechette + Shoot First, before starting into this steady-state 6-second priority list (i.e. with Blaster Whip)

Edited by LagunaD
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Thanks for the feedback. the lack of info in these forums left me guessing a bit, (hence the "initial comfort" line).

 

I pulled 1.3k dps on final fight of nightmare KP, but if there is room for improvement I'll give it a shot. Thanks again.

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Shouldn't you try to work in Sabo Charge into the rotation? I hear this is a good DPS boot.

 

While taking cover doesn't use a GCD, there is still some delay before you can use a cover ability like Sabotage Charge.

 

I suppose if a particular fight allows you to stay in melee range, and in position, and in cover, it might be worthwhile. The Stormcaller/Firebrand fight in Denova is about the only one I can think of that might fight that description.

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so bis looks like 120 accuracy, 180 crit and the rest surge and power.

 

Accuracy is all but useless as a Scrapper.

 

It increases the expected damage of exactly one ability (Flurry of Bolts, the lowest damage ability). I am at 78% Critical Multiplier and 91% Accuracy (legacy bonus only), and even with severe DR, Surge is still almost twice as effective as Accuracy in terms of increasing my expected damage.

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Playstyle

I will expand on this section soon, but just some quick notes. Back Blast (with a Flechette Round attached) and Blaster Whip should be used on cooldown. Always keep 1 stack of Upper Hand at all times for the 2% bonus damage, which means only using Sucker Punch with 2 stacks. Wtih Round Two, you will frequently be able to use Sucker Punch back to back. Let Vital Shot fall off before reapplying, clipping DoT's is harmful to our DPS and to our energy management. Satchel Charge is a good source of damage, using it on cooldown or close to it can provide a good boost to your DPS. Never fall below optimal energy management regen (which means always stay above 60 energy). Falling below means lost energy. Lost energy means less attacks, meaning less damage. ALWAYS KEEP PUGNACITY ON. If BB and BW are on cooldown, you have just 1 stack of UH, and VS is on the target, use Quick Shot to dump excess energy - unless it would push you below optimal energy management levels, in which case use Flurry of Bolts. Optimal use of adrenal+on use relic would be just after using a threat dump, and having BB and BW about to come off cooldown. Optimal use of your 20 second window would be to get two BB's and 4 BW's. Our gap closer is a non-traditional one, in Disappearing Act. Fully talented, using DA gives you a speed boost which you can use to your advantage to get back into the fight quicker - as well as enabling a second (or third, depending on the length of the fight) Shoot First during the fight.

 

As a DPS, we have several goals. The most important is of course, do as much damage as possible. Our second is to be aware of everything going on. Survival > DPS. If we die, what good are we? We need to aim to make the healer's job as easy as possible. This means avoiding as much unnecessary damage as possible. Taking too much unnecessary damage takes attention away from tanks and strains healer resources. We also have the ability to throw an off-heal in a pinch. If the mechanics of a fight call for downtime, don't sit there with your thumb up your ***. Throw a heal, it might just save the raid.

 

Priority:

Back Blast (with Flechette Round)

Sucker Punch (with 2 stacks of UH)

Blaster Whip

Pugnacity

Satchel Charge (must be in cover)

Vital Shot

Quick Shot (at >76 energy)

Flurry of Bolts (at <77 energy)

 

 

 

 

Attributes

Cunning is clearly king. But what about the others?

 

Thanks to the way BW created mods/enhacements, you have to choose constantly between Accuracy and Surge, and between Crit and Power. What do I mean? Here is a breakdown of Mod and Enhancements:

 

Mod -

Endurance

Primary Stat - Cunning

Secondary Stat - Power or Crit

 

Enhancement -

Endurance

Secondary Stat - Power or Crit

Secondary (or Tertiary) Stat - Surge or Accuracy

 

Surge's horrifying diminishing returns after 265 make stacking any more than that a waste of points. So stack 265 Surge or near enough, then pure Accuracy.

Crit allows us to put that yummy Surge to use more often, as well as utilize our Underdog talent. Our PvE 2-set bonus even increases BB's crit chance by 15%. So how much do we need? Many suggest between 25-30%, excluding the Smuggler Buff. I'd say 30% is a good goal, as that enables an effective 50% crit chance on your big nuke with the Smuggler Buff. Power is a great stat, almost equal to cunning.

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That was made by myself a while back, and while some things I've amended (like the accuracy break point), most of it, including the rotation, holds up true. You should NEVER clip your dots, it's a waste of energy. If you're not using every gcd, you're doing it wrong! There is no "rotation", it is a pure priority system. Edited by emidas
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I agree with most of your advice, but there is nothing magical about 265 Surge - diminishing returns are gradual and continuous - and Accuracy Rating affects only one attack (Flurry of Bolts) or two (if you use Quick Shot, which is debatable) which make up a very small fraction of your damage.

 

For my Scrapper, with 390 Surge and 0 Accuracy Rating, adding another point of Surge still increases my total damage output by almost twice as much adding a point of Accuracy Rating would. Of course, Surge Rating isn't a very good stat due to the DR, but Accuracy Rating is even worse; improving only 1 or 2 low-damage attacks that together make up 10% or less of your total damage is itself a very severe form of diminishing return.

Edited by LagunaD
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I agree with most of your advice, but there is nothing magical about 265 Surge - diminishing returns are gradual and continuous - and Accuracy Rating affects only one attack (Flurry of Bolts) or two (if you use Quick Shot, which is debatable) which make up a very small fraction of your damage.

 

For my Scrapper, with 390 Surge and 0 Accuracy Rating, adding another point of Surge still increases my total damage output by almost twice as much adding a point of Accuracy Rating would. Of course, Surge Rating isn't a very good stat due to the DR, but Accuracy Rating is even worse; improving only 1 or 2 low-damage attacks that together make up 10% or less of your total damage is itself a very severe form of diminishing return.

 

As I said, some of my advice I have amended since - 265 was where Surge hits a particularly harsh DR, but it IS still better than accuracy. The original accuracy advice was based on outdated information, I do use Quick Shot quite a bit, but I agree it's such a low percentage of our output that it doesn't raise accuracy's value.

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This isn't held up on a strong maths background but:

As a rule for myself when dealing with crit on any class, instead of thinking of how much percentage you should have total, you should look at the breakdown of how much you get from crit and cunning. Unbuffed

 

As a rule I keep the percentages received from both sources equal:

2000 cunning -> 350 crit = 33.5% unbuffed

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Sabotage charge is good damage but the cost is 30 energy. That's a bit high damage/energy for a consistent place in my rotation in my opinion.

 

Sabo is only 20 energy, and is one of our highest dmg/energy attacks available.

 

While taking cover doesn't use a GCD, there is still some delay before you can use a cover ability like Sabotage Charge.

 

I suppose if a particular fight allows you to stay in melee range, and in position, and in cover, it might be worthwhile. The Stormcaller/Firebrand fight in Denova is about the only one I can think of that might fight that description.

 

I'm not sure how other guilds approach these fights, but on Z+T I use Sabo Charge whenever Toth jumps to Zorn, and/or when Toth is berserk and I'm out of melee range; on the Minefield encounter, I use it on the Probes when they spawn out of melee range of our group; on Kephess, I use them (this requires precise timing) right before the Walker falls, and also on the phase with the 2 droids, when the first gets burned and we're standing outside of the purple reticule. That is all in addition to your thoughts on the Tanks encounter. There are other examples in EV and KP, but EC is the most relevant so I just stuck with that.

 

I think 2/2 Mortal Wound vs 1/2 Mortal Wound 1/1 Open Wound is an interesting debate. On the one hand, you have a 100% chance to add an extra tick of Vital Shot. On the other hand, you have a 1/8 chance six times throughout the duration of the same DoT to get that extra tick - the big benefit/downside to this being you sometimes will not get that extra tick, but sometimes (if the RNG gods are good) you will get multiple ticks in that same window. Proving that those lucky RNG hits are because of that second point and not the first, however, is what makes it interesting.

 

Personally, I like the more sustained damage route with 1/2 MW 1/1 OW. However, I don't think we can definitively rule out either path, because it really is all up to RNG.

 

This isn't held up on a strong maths background but:

As a rule for myself when dealing with crit on any class, instead of thinking of how much percentage you should have total, you should look at the breakdown of how much you get from crit and cunning. Unbuffed

 

As a rule I keep the percentages received from both sources equal:

2000 cunning -> 350 crit = 33.5% unbuffed

 

There is no correlation between crit percentage gained from crit rating and cunning. The diminishing returns are quite independent of each other. Are you suggesting there is a correlation?

Edited by emidas
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the math is pretty simple. Splitting the points gives more damage per vital shot.

 

edit: I was erroneously comparing 2/2 MW vs 1/2 MW 1/1 OW using incorrect data. It's not a guaranteed tick vs 1/8 chance six times for a tick; rather, it is a guaranteed tick plus a 1/8 chance 7 times, versus 1/4 chance 6 times.

 

As I stated previously, I do agree with you that 1/2 1/1 is the better option, as it gives better sustained dps (and we need sustained dps). However, my observation was merely that, given good RNG, 2/2 MW can actually be a dps increase and thus makes it interesting.

Edited by emidas
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Well, another way of looking at it is that 2/2 + 0/2 results in potentially higher damage per *second*, but at the cost of having to reapply Vital Shot 20% more times (and spending 20% more energy on it):

 

2/2 + 0/1:

Average ticks/GCD: 5*(1.25) ticks/10 GCDs = 0.625 ticks/GCD (*)

Energy/GCD: 20 Energy/10 GCDs = 2 Energy/GCD

Average ticks/Energy = 5*(1.25)/20 = 0.3125 tick/Energy

 

1/2 + 1/1:

Average ticks/GCD: 6*(1.125) ticks/12 GCDs = 0.5625 ticks/GCD

Energy/GCD: 20 Energy/12 GCDs = 1.67 Energy/GCD (*)

Average ticks/Energy = 6*(1.125)/20 = 0.3375 tick/Energy (*)

 

So the 2/2 + 0/1 option gets you 11.1% more DPS from Vital Shot in return for 20% more energy spent on that ability.

 

On the other hand, the 1/2 + 1/1 option gets you 8% more damage per energy from Vital Shot.

 

Since the cooldown of Blaster Whip is 6 seconds, I find having Vital Shot tick for a multiple of 6 seconds makes it easier to refresh at the right time.

Edited by LagunaD
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I would agree with you on all aspects - mathematically, 1/2 1/1 is the safer, better option.

 

Having seen several of your posts, it seems we see eye to eye about our class - what are your thoughts on Dirty Fighting? I realize this thread is about Scrapper DPS, and that's what I like, but I hear some swear by DF after switching and I've yet to try it in a raid setting.

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I would agree with you on all aspects - mathematically, 1/2 1/1 is the safer, better option.

 

Having seen several of your posts, it seems we see eye to eye about our class - what are your thoughts on Dirty Fighting? I realize this thread is about Scrapper DPS, and that's what I like, but I hear some swear by DF after switching and I've yet to try it in a raid setting.

 

I've never tried Dirty Fighting, because it doesn't look like as much fun.

 

My Operative (Level 11) will probably try it out if I level her further, and if I get all my Level 50 toons geared to the point where I can afford frequent respecs, maybe I'll give it a look on my Scoundrel. The stat priorities are a bit different (Accuracy looks more necessary), so that would imply a (partial) third set of gear (and I'm still working on my Scrapper and Sawbones set ups)

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There is no correlation between crit percentage gained from crit rating and cunning. The diminishing returns are quite independent of each other. Are you suggesting there is a correlation?

 

A little bit:

Both Cunning crit, and crit rating crit, have diminishing returns separately.

But they have the same limit.

One more thing, having more cunning means you also have a larger pool of secondary stats.

So if your cunning is at about 13% in its diminishing returns that seems a good goal for your crit rating too.

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