Hey folks,

 

Let's get some discussion going on the changes to our class that have recently hit the test center. Here are the patch notes immediately relevant to us:

 

Bounty Hunter

 

New Ability Highlights

Mercenary: A new ability, Electro Net, has been added. Electro Net ensnares a single target, reducing its movement speed and dealing periodic Energy damage which increases over time if the target is moving. While Electro Net is active, the target is also hindered and unable to activate high mobility actions and escapes, such as speed boosts, vanishes, and charges. The ability is trainable at level 51.

 

Mercenary: New Passive ability, Missile Salvo, has been added. Missile Salvo allows up to 3 weaker Missile Blasts to be fired in a row before generating heat and going on cooldown for 6 seconds. This ability is trainable at level 10.

 

Powertech: A new ability, Shoulder Cannon, has been added. Shoulder Cannon loads missiles over time. These missiles can be fired at an enemy target within 10 meters, depleting 1 charge with each missile launched. When all missiles have been depleted, the ability goes on cooldown for 1.5 minutes. This ability is not affected by the Global Cooldown and can be used while under the effects of crowd control.

 

Powertech: A new Passive ability, Close and Personal, has been added. Close and Personal increases the duration of Energy Shield by 3 seconds. In addition, suffering direct damage from area of effect attacks vents 2 Heat and heals the player for 0.25% of total health. This effect cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds.

 

General

Hydraulic Overrides is now trainable at level 26 for all Bounty Hunters. This ability has an initial duration of 6 seconds, which can be extended to 10 seconds using the skills in the Arsenal and Advanced Prototype Skill Trees.

 

Chaff Flare is now trainable at level 30 for all Bounty Hunters.

 

Shoulder Slam has been removed from the game

 

Kolto Overload has been redesigned. Kolto Overload now puts a Health Monitor on the player which will trigger when they drop below 30% health. Once triggered, Kolto Overload will heal the player rapidly up to but no higher than 30% of their maximum health. This effect lasts 8 seconds.

 

 

Mercenary

A new ability, Electro Net, has been added. Electro Net ensnares a single target, reducing its movement speed and dealing periodic Energy damage which increases over time if the target is moving. While Electro Net is active, the target is also hindered and unable to activate high mobility actions and escapes, such as speed boosts, vanishes, and charges. The ability is trainable at level 51.

 

New Passive ability, Missile Salvo, has been added. Missile Salvo allows up to 3 weaker Missile Blasts to be fired in a row before generating heat and going on cooldown for 6 seconds. This ability is trainable at level 10.

 

Jet Boost now generates 8 Heat (down from 16).

 

Kolto Missile is now trainable at level 20 for all Mercenaries.

 

High Velocity Gas Cylinder now additionally increases Alacrity by 3% while active.

 

Powertech

A new ability, Shoulder Cannon, has been added. Shoulder Cannon loads missiles over time. These missiles can be fired at an enemy target within 10 meters, depleting 1 charge with each missile launched. When all missiles have been depleted, the ability goes on cooldown for 1.5 minutes. This ability is not affected by the Global Cooldown and can be used while under the effects of crowd control.

 

A new Passive ability, Close and Personal, has been added. Close and Personal increases the duration of Energy Shield by 3 seconds. In addition, suffering direct damage from area of effect attacks vents 2 Heat and heals the player for 0.25% of total health. This effect cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds.

 

Guard: Crowd control effects that break on damage will no longer break from damage redirected through Guard. For example, a blinded guarder will no longer be broken out of the blind from damage dealt to a guarded target within guard range.

 

Guard: Effects that are triggered through dealing damage which affect a target who is guarded will no longer also affect the guarder.

 

High Energy Gas Cylinder will now increase the damage dealt by elemental and internal effects by 8% (up from 5%).

 

Ion Gas Cylinder now reduces all damage dealt by 5% while active.

 

Shield Tech

 

Heat Blast has been redesigned and is now only usable with 3 stacks of Heat Screen. Using Heat Blast consumes Heat Screen to deal Elemental Damage, vent 8 Heat, and increase Shield Absorption by 25% for 6 seconds.

 

Oil Slick has been redesigned. This ability now targets the ground and persists for 15 seconds. Enemies within the area of effect are slowed by 70% and suffer 30% reduced melee and ranged accuracy.

Edited February 21, 2013 by FeralPug

looks really interesting, im downloading ptr right now so I can go in and try this **** out.

Edit: Should be all of them.

 

Skill Tree Changes:

 

Shield Tech:

 

• Steely Resolve has been moved to the first tier. (Previously tier 2).
  
• Combust - Flame Burst and Flame sweep combust the target, lowering its damage dealt by 5% (2/2 points) for 10 seconds. (Duration down from 15 seconds).
  
• Hyper Fuel is now a tier 2 skill. (Previoulsy tier 1).
  
• Ablative Upgrades no longer reduces the cooldown of Kolto Overload.
  
• Flame Shield has been renamed to Hydraulic Shield. Increases the critical strike chance of Flame Sweep and Rocket Punch by 8%. (Down from 16%). In addition, shielding an attack has 100% chance (2/2 points) to finish the cooldown on Rocket Punch. This effect cannot occur more than once every 7.5 seconds. (Up from 4.5 seconds).
  
• Jet Speed's 30% run speed increase for 4 seconds after Jet Charge now can be refreshed when attacked.
  
• Deflect Plating (New Skill) - Increases melee and ranged defense by 4%.
  
• Firestorm (New Skill) - Flame Sweep has a 100% (2/2 points) chance to snare the affected targets reducing their movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds.
  
• Flame Engine (New Skill) - Direct damage attacks have a 15% (2/2 points) chance to trigger Flame Engine, which finishes the cooldown on Flame Thrower and causes your next Flame Thrower to be free and channel and tick twice as fast. This effect cannot occur more than once every 24 seconds, but each rank beyond the first reduces this rate limit by 6 seconds.
  
• Coolant (New Skill) - Kolto Overload now heals you for 2% of your maximum health every second while above 30% of your maximum health. Additionally, Explosive Fuel now increases alacrity by 5% while active.
  
• Shield Cannon (New Skill) - Increases the damage dealt and threat generated by Flame Sweep and Shoulder Cannon by 5%. In addition, damaging a target with your Shoulder Cannon missiles heals you for 5% of your total health.
  
• Heat Screen has been redesigned, now a one point skill. Defending against, resisting, or shielding and attack generates a Heat Screen, increasing shield absorption by 1% for 20 seconds (Up from 15 seconds). Stacks up to 3 times (Down from 4 times). This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds. In addition, each time you build a heat screen or refresh your Heat Screen stacks, the active cooldown of Heat Blast is reduced by 1 second.
  

 

Advanced Prototype:

 

• Power Armor is now a Tier 1 Skill. (Previously Tier 2).
  
• Prototype Electro Surge is now a Tier 2 Skill. (Previously Tier 1).
  
• Puncture - Increases ranged and tech accuracy by 3% (3/3 points). Additionally, Rail Shot ignores 45% of your target's armor. (Down from 60%, 3/3 points).
  
• Serrated Blades is now a one point skill that increases the damage of your Retractable Blade's bleed effect by 15%.
  
• Blood Tracker (New Skill) - Increases the damage you deal to bleeding targets by 3%.
  
• Torque Boosters (New Skill) - Increases the duration of your Hydraulic Overrides by 4 seconds.
  
• Hamstring slow is now 50%. (Up from 30%).
  
• Power Loaders (New Skill) - Increases ranged critical hit chance by 3% (3/3 points). Additionally increases the damage dealt by Shoulder Cannon by 15% (3/3 points), and immediately loads 3 additional missiles (3/3 points).
  
• Energy Rebounder has been moved from the Pyrotech Tree to the Advanced Prototype Tree with an added effect. In addition, when taking damage you have a 20% chance to emit an Energy Redoubt, which absorbs a low amount of damage and lasts 6 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds.
  

 

Pyrotech:

• Superheated Gas now increases your chance to trigger Combustible Gas Cylinder by another 3%. (9% total, up from 6%).
  
• Incendiary Missile now costs 22 heat. (Down from 25).
  
• Pyro Shield (New Skill) - When activated, your Energy Shield has a 50% chance to ignite in a blaze, lashing attackers for 603 elemental damage while it remains active. This effect cannot occur more than once each second.
  
• Volatile Igniter (New Skill) - Reduces the cost of Flame Sweep by 4 (2/2 points) and gives Flame Sweep a 100% chance (2/2 points) to trigger your Combustible Gas Cylinder on all affected targets.
  
• Flame Suit (New Skill) - Reduces the damage taken by all periodic effects by 15% (2/2 points).
  
• Degauss now causes Chaff Flare to have a 100% chance to remove all movement-pairing effects. (Previously Energy Shield), Degauss is now a Tier 6 ability. (Previously Tier 2).
  
• Power Bracer (New Skill) - Increases the damage dealt by Rocket Punch, Incendiary Missile, and Thermal Detonator by 6%.
  
• Rapid Venting now increases alacrity by 2% (2/2 points) and reduces the cooldown of Vent Heat and Thermal
• Sensor Override by 30 seconds. (Previously just Vent Heat.) Rapid Venting is now a Tier 7 Skill. (Previously Tier 4).
  
• Automated Defenses only affects Kolto Overload and is now a Tier 7 Skill. (Previously Tier 4).
  

 

Other notes:

Sweltering Heat now only applies consecutively a maximum of 2 times no matter the combination of abilities. You must let the Combustible Gas Cylinder Dot fall off/be cleansed before it can apply its slow effect again. (Previously a Rail Shot on the target affected by the CGC dot would refresh the Sweltering Heat slow and allow you to apply the Sweltering Heat slow up to two more times before needing another Rail Shot to reset the CGC dot/Sweltering Heat slow.)

Edited February 21, 2013 by Evuo

We'll see as the picture comes together as a whole, but looks sweet

 

Hydraulic Overrides baseline, and heals. And AoE snare. Makes up for losing Shoulder Slam, which I liked

So...what about Pyro and Advanced Prototype? No changes to these trees??? What happened to AP's new toy that increased damage dealt to bleeding targets?

Edit: I am adding these in parts, just positing the tree chances in chunks.

 

[...]

 

Awesome post! If you could hit the AP and Pyro trees for those of us who don't have characters on test yet, we'd appreciate it!

Puncture is now at 45% armor penetration as opposed to 60%?

 

DAMNIT

 

EDIT: Well now that I read the whole thing with puncture, the extra 3% ranged/tech accuracy will mean I can drop some of that stat and pick up some power. It will probably offset.

Edited February 21, 2013 by ScytheEleven

Holy cow. I'd still have to see it in action to really know how I like it, but it sounds like AP is going to be much stronger. But Pyro is just....man, pyro just sounds sexy.

Whoa. I might go back and try an AP spec in PvP again.

 

But what I wanna know now is whether the PvP set bonuses have changed with the level 55 gear and how valuable Alacrity to us (considering that it lowers the GCD and increases energy regen rate).

 

Also, where the hell am I gonna bind Shoulder Cannon?

Edited February 21, 2013 by Zakmonster

Put it in the spot where you used to keep Shoulder Slam!

Put it in the spot where you used to keep Shoulder Slam!

 

Sorry, I PvP almost exclusively. Shoulder Slam isn't even on my bars.

Edited February 21, 2013 by Zakmonster

Puncture is now at 45% armor penetration as opposed to 60%?

 

DAMNIT

 

EDIT: Well now that I read the whole thing with puncture, the extra 3% ranged/tech accuracy will mean I can drop some of that stat and pick up some power. It will probably offset.

 

No it won't. It will mean you can drop some accuracy and pick up some surge.

No it won't. It will mean you can drop some accuracy and pick up some surge.

 

More likely alacrity, since it now affects instants and regen.

So how exactly does Shoulder Cannon work? I know it holds missles and then you fire them obviously, but whats the timer/capacity?

 

side note, i feel more and more like Iron Man each time they give us new toys.

 

 

 

 

Sardonix - Powertech - Pyro:sy_blaster:

Some very interesting changes. I think our class gets the biggest overhaul and gameplay changing changes.

 

I especially like the added snares and utility to the Shieldtech tree, though the damage output reduction (A flat 5% in ion cylinder, 8% less crit on Rocket Punch and Flame Sweep, and what seems like a potentially significant loss from the reworked heat blast.) seems a bit much. On the other hand we get a little dps buff in the form of a reduced flamethrower cast every 18 seconds. I thought the Ion Cylinder's damage reduction was already integrated through its poor ion proc though, that 5% extra reduction seems like overkill.

 

The reworked Oil Slick sounds fantastic btw! And all bountyhunters having Hydraulic Overrides standard is an amazing buff.

 

Overall I can't wait!

Edited February 21, 2013 by LordExozone

dont forget about this:

 

General

•Personal shield generators are now effective against all attacks that deal Energy and Kinetic Damage, rather than just direct weapon attacks.

 

this could be huge for shield tech.

Pyro/Aussault:

 

-flame sweep gives every target a flame DoT **** -> should be nice in the overall dmg stats

-Shoulder Cannon usable in CC xD and if you use it at the same time with Railshot (for example: 6k+ railshot + 2k+ Shoulder missile = 8k+ dmg in one GC - incredible burst

-adrenaline rush = very nice in combination with shield now you can survive a bit longer xD

shield: reflects dmg if skilled (i tried it yesterday with a sentinel - full elite war hero: i did nothing and the sentinel dealt dmg to me -> shield took 1/5 HP of the sentinel and i did not press a single skill xD

.

.

.

thats pretty awesome xD

Edited February 21, 2013 by Tharianus

No it won't. It will mean you can drop some accuracy and pick up some surge.

 

This is actually very true, forgot about the enhancement types.

lol did they just slightly boost Pryotech's power? I may have to respecc back to Pyro from Advanced Prototype then just to faceroll people some more!

Unfortunately, there's a crop of exploiters on test who are abusing a bug to gain 800k HP in WZ's. It's impossible to test anything.

 

Me and a guildie went to OD and did some 1v1's in various builds. He's an assassin. Too early to tell yet, but shoulder cannon in AP is totally sweet. With full AP it pays to get stunned, and stay stunned.

Puncture is now at 45% armor penetration as opposed to 60%?

 

DAMNIT

 

EDIT: Well now that I read the whole thing with puncture, the extra 3% ranged/tech accuracy will mean I can drop some of that stat and pick up some power. It will probably offset.

 

Except you can't. Don't know if it's intended or not, but my Merc's 250 rating now only gives around 4% accuracy, whereas at is should be around 8%. So, those points are just countering the accuracy stat nerf (like accuracy was the stat people stacked, what the **** is wrong with BW, honestly). I'm assuming this is not intended, it has to be...

Edited February 21, 2013 by SneiK

So how exactly does Shoulder Cannon work? I know it holds missles and then you fire them obviously, but whats the timer/capacity?

 

Yea, I can't actually find any numbers or mechanics on this thing yet?

 

Same with Adrenaline Rush/Kolto Overload, is that passive now? Still a cooldown? Duration?

 

Or the new passive:

 

A new Passive ability, Close and Personal, has been added. Close and Personal increases the duration of Energy Shield by 3 seconds. In addition, suffering direct damage from area of effect attacks vents 2 Heat and heals the player for 0.25% of total health. This effect cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds.

 

Is that bold part only when the shield is up, or all the time? So many questions

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/powertech/231/

 

New skill tree.

 

Some bugs (i.e. Superheated rail numbers are flipped at 2/2. Should be ignores 30% of armor and 100% chance to vent 8 heat).

 

It remains to be tested properly, but AP is looking pretty sexy right now. Pyro still looks strong too, but that drop in armor penetration for rail shot makes me sad :/

 

EDIT:

 

Messed around with the CURRENT skill tree and took a point out of Puncture to make it only give 40% armor pen to rail shot (though 2.0 will be 45%). Noticed a pretty big dip in the damage rail shot does. My crits w/ 60% from Puncture were always above 5k, often around 5.5k. With just 40% from Puncture, they were typically around 4.8k and one was at 5k flat basically. Without crit'ing, the overall damage was about 100 less than with 60% in Puncture.

 

With the new 2.0 skill tree, I was only able to get 2 points into Hyper Fuel for 4% damage to all fire based attacks, instead of 6. This means that my current flame burst which deals a minimum of 1365 will now do 1338. I'm not sure if Incendiary Missile and CGC fall under "Fire Based Attacks" as well.

 

Only damage boost we get is 6% to Rocket Punch and IM. I don't take TD in PVE so I could care less.

 

Nerf to rail shot, skill tree nerf to flame burst.

 

I'll probably just roll AP when 2.0 hits.

 

Great.

Edited February 21, 2013 by ScytheEleven

skill tree nerf to flame burst.

 

Wait, how did Flame Burst get nerfed exactly? I don't see that anywhere.

It depends on what points you take in the new skill tree. With the way I went, I put two points into "Rapid Venting" to keep Vent Heat on a 1:30 cool down. With this model, you can only put two (2) points into Hyper Fuel, which only gives you a 4% damage bonus to fire based effects (3/3 points into Hyper Fuel gives you 6%).

 

Currently, with what I assume to be the majority of all PVE PT builds, Hyper Fuel (or Intimidation as it's known currently) gets all 3 points (so 6% buff currently).

 

If you want to keep your flame burst at the power/damage level it is now, you need to add 15 seconds to your vent heat. If you want to keep your vent heat at 1:30, you lose 2% of your flame burst damage.

 

I don't mind switching points between Rapid Venting and Hyper Fuel. It's not a big deal. But what is really bothering/annoying me is that armor penetration reduction to rail shot.

Edited February 21, 2013 by ScytheEleven