I have major difference here in playstyle. I recommend going for the 4 old and 2 new set bonus, aka 8% rail shot dmg, 15 secs off of explosive fuel and the periodic 2% dmg buff from mag blast. Why? Couple reasons. Statistically speaking the 6 piece with the auto crit does not add much real dmg, as in u could have crit naturally too, and its only once per minute. Rail shot dmg buff however is very significant, since it has some 92% armour penetration therefore a very large component of the 8% dmg buff will get carried over to actual dmg that is always applied. RS is also ur most used and hence biggest dmg contributer in any parse (maybe not super heavy aoe but u get the idea).

I did some napkin maths while back and compared how much dmg 4/2 and 6 piece each contribute. 4/2 came out ahead due to the fact that we have explosive fuel and thus there is a naturallly high crit chance on Energy Burst. The important thing about auto crits is to notice the fact that you cold have crit naturally anyway, especially if ur crit is already high. Which it is in AP.

Im not a particular fan of reduced heat cost on rocket punch with 6 piece either. It is absolutely not needed, u can do a great rotation with very few rapid shots without it. Since in current pve content u need to stay out of melee range here and there sometimes for extended periods of time rocket punch on cd is not always possible without being suicidal, hence the benefit is somewhat lost. Being overly reliant on the reduced cost will also lull u into a false sense of safety when u can no longer use it and miss out on the benefit and hence mess with ur heat. But that is just my opinion.

Shorter cd on explosive fuel it absolutely amazing and lines up ur burst phases beautifully. It matches much better with vent heat and shoulder canon (although due to ICD on shoulder canon being a gcd now forces me to very slightly delay explosive fuel to get them all in the buff window). All the same, its a big plus for me. U also delay ur second adrenal for a bit less, another dps gain right there with full uptime.

Statting:

I have recently swapped over to a very particular stat distribution and positive results were immediately noticeable. There is an amazing thread on optimal statting for all disciplines by Goblin_Lackey here. Unfortunately he does not mention how to achieve all of the stats exactly (there is a way to do it, but need to number crunch a bit XD).

For Optimised HM gear setup:

442 crit = 4 mods and 2 crystals /(441 crit = 1 implant 3 mods --> alternatve I had to find to not get 2 new implants XD)

292 surge = 2 enhancements (1 204 rating from HM mono MH) and 1 aug

568 alac = 3 enhancements and 4 augs

756 acc = 5 enhancements and 3 augs

Everything else main stat augs and power.

Very important fact with alac builds: this is crazy but I just discovered this recently. Do 2 mag blasts on a dummy then keep doing rapid shots and mag blast back to back. This should be heat neutral right? Thing is, and I don't really know why, u vent 1 heat with rapid shots + mag blast. So first u end up at 30 heat, then ull be at 29 after mag blast then 28 and so on till u get down to 15. Makes no sense to me but that's just how it is XD.

4 old piece wise 186 rating is best obviously from nim df/dp, but honestly just get any way u can. U can laugh but for the longest time I was running around in HM content with a lulzy arkanian armouring in my head slot XD. Raid wide dmg is generally internal and u only lose a little bit of aim even with subpar armourings, so go ahead and get that set bonus!

This is my preferred way of opening and is slightly different from Kwerty's. Obviouly get 4 charges of energy lode pre combat.

(When tank count down starts, pre proc free RS and start soon as u hit 0 heat, using a BA relic and swapping over to an SA relic out of combat is very good dps boost too)

Thermal Detonator (TD) > Retractable Blade (RB) > explosive fuel + adrenal + shoulder cannon spam + Energy Burst (EB) > Rail Shot (RS) (free) > Rocket Punch (RP) > Magnetic Blast (MB) x2 (to get 2%dmg buff going) > RS > MB > RS > RP > TD (delayed by 1 gcd but kept on cd from now on) > MB > RS > MB (yes 4 energy lodes but should be under 40 heat here still) > EB > RP + vent heat > RS .... use reserve power cell on the next EB

I open with an earlier energy burst so 1 energy lode is not getting wasted which means all EBs are 6 secs earlier. Personal preference, sadly this method misses out on the 2% dmg buff on it. I delay my second RS by 2 gcds instead of 1 for a very important reason: the bleed ticks every 3 secs and RS refreshes it, so ur RS hits exactly when it ticks producing two bleed ticks at the same time (more on this later). TD is delayed by 1 gcd, but is afterwards kept on CD. Ultimately the reason I open this way is because magically things fall in place beautifully over an extended time. By the time EB+TD+RP combo comes around I happen to be low on heat and not mess up resource management.

Opener with 6 piece if ur sticking with it: same. Why? Statistically superior. There is a slight chance that ur first EB will not crit, but at least ur not wasting or eplosive fuel and 10% crit raid buff from ur operative teammate. By the time those buffs have worn out ur guaranteed an auto crit EB the next time around as the auto crit buff sticks around for quite a while.

Earlier I touched on delaying RS by 2 and not 1 gcds. Ur bleed is a suprisingly big dmg component and any extra tick u can squeeze out is very worth it and is a must. Simplest way to do this is just follow this rule of thumb and u get significant dps boost for free!

Keeping this in mind throughout the fight is essential, cause several times I come around having to delay a RS to put in rapid shots + EB beforehand (order depends on how heat is at the time) so that no energy lode procs get wasted while also getting the extra bleed tick. Sometimes it happens that I need to delay RS and the next RS after that too. Something like this

MB (proc) > rapid shots > EB > RS > MB (proc) > TD > RP > RS > MB > RS

Otherwise some bleed ticks would be missed which is a dps loss AND TD and RP would get delayed which is also very bad. Since TD cooldown is 15 secs it will always appear either in the 2nd gcd of ur filler section or where RS would be placed. This necessitates RS to be delayed by 2 gcds every time this happens and u just put in a rapid shots or another heat move depending on heat.

Sometimes u mess up with heat a little bit and when TD comes around and u need to use it where RS would be otherwise u are going to overheat and there is no resource CD available. Best solution is to delay TD with 1 rapid shots so that u do not overheat. Overall it’s better since otherwise u would need to do at least 2 rapid shots in the next window. Next time around delay TD such that u use it where it would have been otherwise used

E.g.:

MB (proc, about to overheat) > rapid shots > TD > RS ...... RS > TD > GCD > Proc move > RS

instead do

MB (proc, about to overheat) > rapid shots > TD > RS ...... RS > GCD > TD > Proc move > RS

This will feel more natural. Odds are u would need to put TD in GCD 2 anyway cause u have RP or EB coming up. However, putting it in GCD 1 is optimal if u don’t know where u will be at in the next 15 secs or if boss is about to die soon etc.

This two gcd delay tactic allows for more convenient death from above (DFA) or flamethrower (FT) placement too, since they have a 2 gcd channel time.

So u can do this:

Proc move > DFA > RS > Proc move > FT > RS > continue.

This also refreshes ur bleed! Due to its delayed explosion u get to do something really nasty like this:

MB > ED > RP > RS

When ur rail shot hits u get not 1 not 2 but 3 bleed ticks at the same time!!! Nice eh? So long as there is a gcd between ED and RS u will get 3 ticks. When is this useful? For some reason ur out of 10-15m range and r running to a target. Use a 30m attack in gcd 1, then ED if 15m+, then RP/MB depending on how close u r. Save ED as a proc move, however, should u not end up getting in 10-15m range. U can always just use flame sweep to proc if ur still out or range and dot needs to be refreshed asap.

This is incredibly handy on two or more targets as well in close proximity. However, if we r talking only 2 targets Flame spweep is the better option (if u have the 25% dmg buff from utilities). A nice example is the lil droid under unit 1 at the walkers boss fight in ToS. Put bleed on lil droid, then ED on it after (if u put it on Unit 1 the lil droid will not get hit due to the massive size of unit 1 for some reason) like this u can have reflective armour instead since it is a heavy raid aoe dmg fight. This also eliminates a slight nuissance of having to tab in between 2 targets to keep both dots up (more on this later as well).

Explosive dart is the go to move in GCD 2 when ur up against 3 or more targets with large health pools like the massassi adds in ToS b4 and after 1st boss. This is because it is impossible to keep refreshing more than 2 separate bleed just with RS. By the time u get around to ur third RS the bleed will have fallen off.

This is quite tricky to do sometimes but is an amazing dps gain and surprisingly handy in a lot of fights.

U have 30m range on RS. This allows u to keep 2 targets, which r apart by more than aoes can reach, bleeding constantly. I like to do this by keeping my other bleeding target on my focus target and every other RS will go to that focus target. I have my focus target hotkey bound to something very convenient cause u need to do this within gcds. So u do this:

Proc move > RS > GCD > GCD > Proc move + swap to focus target > RS + swap to focus target > continue

The focus target hotkey simply swaps ur current target with ur focus target. Amazing utility if u don’t have vision on both targets (coratanni and pearl is excellent example). If u do have vision tab targeting work fine so long as there r no adds running about which can mess targeting up totally.

What bosses does this work on?

ToS:

Walkers

UL (during add phases briefly)

Commanders (I did not try this yet personally, only viable in last phase which is hectic as hell and need to burn 1 target fast, so hard to do, but feel free to try)

Ravagers:

Master blaster

Coratanni and Pearl

This needs a lot of practice, so how do u do it? For BH if u have dummies on ur ship, both r right next to each other. It is an excellent training ground. The fleet ones should work too but u might have some “evasion” issues, I did not try those yet.

In practice: The window is very tight on refreshing the bleed. Ull notice that once ur refreshing on ur other target, the bleed is close to falling off. So if u mess up and forget to swap targets, there is no way u can refresh quickly enough unless maybe u use ED (but it has slight delay so bleed might fall off anyway). If u get stunned briefly odds r also against you, but so long as u can get RS procs rolling every 6 secs u should be good. Don’t be too stressed about keeping a second bleed up the whole fight. It is not easy to do with raid mechanics at the same time. But remember that any extra duration on ur second bleed is just a free bonus, the longer u can keep it up the better. U will also notice keeping it up longer and longer every time with more and more experience.

Some flashpoints on 60HM also have two bosses running about. Legacy of rakata has two, blood hunt has 1 as well. U can load into these alone too I think as a tactical and practice with some mechanics going about while doing ur rotation.

Single target. Parse stats.

Double dotting. Parse stats.

The way I opened for double dotting may not be possible to do in practice in every such fight. E.g. on walkers I would just dot 2 then run over to 1 quickly while throwing my TD. Ull have to use vent heat much earlier, since free RS is not going to be available (buff will fall off), but overall dps gain is well worth it.

Anywho, in the double dotting vid I got close to equal number of ticks on my bleed as in the 1 mill one in bit over half the time! That was roughly a 200 dps increase give or take (short 500k parse imbalances).

I learned to do this way back early into 3.0 by just keeping TD and RP on cd and only using MB when I had to get a RS proc. Everything else was EB with 4 energy lodes and plain rapid shots, so u basically never overheat. Its a good idea to record urself while doing this. Once ur comfortable keeping things on cd, never missing procs etc, u can start replacing rapid shots with MBs. Slowly start pushing ur heat more and more till u can get down to low teens in rapid shots usage on a 1 mill parse (I had 10 in my sample one I posted here). With 6 piece getting below 10 should be ur goal.

Good luck!