First off let me say I am not inferring that the Scoundrel class is underpowered with this thread. Just talking solely about this one talent in the Scrapper tree.

 

With that said, does anyone actually take this talent? Like, ever? I see no point for it. 3 points for a 3% situational damage increase? I realize that 'situational' may not be the right term since if you are that deep in Scrapper there's no doubt you're taking Flechette Round so you'll have a bleed up all the time, but still. 3 points for 3%? What do you guys think of that?

 

Anyone think that the damage on that should be upped some? Maybe 2%/4%/6%? at the LEAST? As a high end talent I'd prefer it to be something more like 5%/10%/15%.

 

Bump if you agree, maybe we'll get some feedback or something. (Doubt it, but better to try and fail than not try at all, right?)

Thought about this myself earlier tonight. I'm probably going to dump it and pick up Brawler's Grit instead. I figure 6% endurance will serve me better than 3% damage.

 

I could live with the 3% damage if an additional effect was added to the talent. Maybe something like 3% damage and bleed crits reset the cooldown on back blast? That'd be fantastic since it's our main ability in combat other than sucker punch and blaster whip. Or maybe bleed crits grant an upper hand, now that's something the scrapper tree is missing, a way to grant upper hands other than blaster whip. Might allow hybrid scrapper/df builds as well.

 

One last thing I'd like to add is.....why the hell is Tendon Blast on the 30% crit damage from Underdog instead of blaster whip. Seems like such an oversight on Bioware's part to not have one of our main damage abilities not be a part of that talent, especially since tendon blast's damage is pitiful and its mainly for its slow/root.

Edited February 29, 2012 by Zoobi

I agree that 3% damage with bleed requirement seems a pretty poor return for 3 talent points.

 

why the hell is Tendon Blast on the 30% crit damage from Underdog instead of blaster whip.

 

Because Tendon Blast uses the Scattergun.

Edited February 29, 2012 by OniGanon

it's good for PvE since you keep your bleed up all the time but well... 3 points talent for it is like... meh.

Abilities that boost about 3 abilities generally do 2%/point (e.g., Scrappy.) A blanket 1% increase in DPS is pretty significant and in terms of DPS output compares very favourably to getting one Flying Fist every 10s (for 500 extra damage and an Upper Hand) from 4 skill points.

I also thought the 3% damage increase that high in the tree was a poor return, and instead invested in the endurance. While we lack any sort of actual combat log for solid evidence, I did this a few weeks ago and haven't felt too bad about it.

This is my reasoning for why I don't spec it, I understand damage is damage but I consider my survivability and damage output to be worth the same. 1pt damage = 1pt HP (Even though HP is not situational)

 

If your opening burst were still close to finishing them off, that 1-3% would make the difference between finishing them, and having to wait for a round of cooldowns. But with the carebear nerfs I've ruled it out as the extra endurance helps me see that next round and is always on. (if you want to talk about the stacking tautology, endurance will work for any heal type) 3 points was feasible when you could viably min-max for finishing during the opener, but that's been removed.

 

One other thing to consider is minimal damage gains would only matter if the target were very squishy to begin with. So I suppose I could spec to fight my counterpart, but I'd rather be able to do something against the large majority of players in the game.

Maybe something like this?

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#701Mc0MZMIGRdzrbfZh.1

Getting into Scar Tissue would give you a 10% endurance increase(math may be off as I suck at it)

And the faster heal will get you back in the battle faster as well as pretty much guarantee 2 stacks of UH with Pug running. When you inevitably have to run away.

Though I don't know how much regen losing Fight or Flight would mean, can't say I ever notice a dodge or resist unless something way under level is attacking me.

The loss of the heal debuff may or may not hurt depending in your play style.

Sadly, for a pure dps build, there's no dps talent to choose over "turn the tables".

 

By the way, just curious, does a flechette round loaded shoot first benefit from this talent on a fresh enemy? That depends on whether or not the FR damage is applied before SF, right? Any ideas?

 

Even if so, it still won't change the fact that this talent should be made better.

I'd make the second punch's damage more significant for example.

I tried the above build last night but went with Anatomy Lessons instead of Exploratory Surgery.

It helps energy consumption a lil bit but I think the on demand UH trumps it by far. I was definitely missing being able to throw Pug up and get my enrgy and health up then get back into the fight.