Hey..

After having some experience with the class in regs, I decided to give it a go in ranked and so far I ended up frustrated with it .

I seem to be not very effective with it ... Not really sure what I am doing wrong but I often find myself having to chase the target cause they always run out of my range . I have no troubles like this as a marauder, but with oper it's annoying .

If my team has a jugg or theirs a pt or vice versa , I end up not being able to make the kill fast enough , which ends up in us losing the game. I am not that garbage to end up getting globalled all the time , but I am not very efficient at killing something either(alone) . I see other opers that melt my face so fast and I am not able to do the same on my own oper with others .

So any help in how I shoudl approach ranked on this class ? Some rotation and opener tips ?

What you're describing is Operative in a nutshell. Almost every class has movement speed buffs that force you to roll after them and then you're still not guaranteed to be in 4m range to actually get some GCDs off. At the same time you're a melee and will always stand in AoE CC and get knocked from every bridge.

Some tips:

- (play with Debilitator setbonus, this one should be obvious though)

- open with hardstun from stealth into volatile, bludgeon so they don't mad dash / force speed away immediately once they see your volatile on them.

- take the tier 1 utility "Precision Instruments" that makes your Sever Tendon a 2s root. it gives you the opportunity to root people from 10m range so you can get in range for the hardstun. also, use Crippling Slice frequently. rooting them first might give you 2-3 more GCDs to hit them instead of just one and then they run out of range again.

What you're describing is Operative in a nutshell. Almost every class has movement speed buffs that force you to roll after them and then you're still not guaranteed to be in 4m range to actually get some GCDs off. At the same time you're a melee and will always stand in AoE CC and get knocked from every bridge.

 

Some tips:

- (play with Debilitator setbonus, this one should be obvious though)

- open with hardstun from stealth into volatile, bludgeon so they don't mad dash / force speed away immediately once they see your volatile on them.

- take the tier 1 utility "Precision Instruments" that makes your Sever Tendon a 2s root. it gives you the opportunity to root people from 10m range so you can get in range for the hardstun. also, use Crippling Slice frequently. rooting them first might give you 2-3 more GCDs to hit them instead of just one and then they run out of range again.

Thanks . I will try out this opener .. I didn't play like that. I always started with volatile and they were instant gone out of my range after, with me having to chase them lol. Felt like I am wasting time, while my other guy on the team is busy dying ...

Without seeing you play and based solely on what your describing, it sounds like you are having trouble with uptime. This is perfectly normal, in fact I have trouble with uptime frequently.

Uptime is considerably more difficult to maintain as an operative than other classes. Whereas other classes like marauders have movement enhancing abilities (pred) which are often off the GCD, operatives do not. Essentially your 1 gap closer as an operative is roll, but roll is on the GCD. Therefore, if you are rolling, you are not doing damage. This is fine in regs or when they go on you in solo ranked, since your objective is to stall. But when you want to do damage, if you are constantly rolling to close the gap you will be doing much less damage. Inevitably you will have to roll to close some gaps, but the more you can minimize your usage of roll, the more damage you can do.

How do you do this?

1) Use your roots. Spec into 2 additional roots, cunning competencies and precise instruments give you 2 additional roots on sever tendon and backstab.

2) Countermeasures speed boost is nice but use it wisely. It's on a relatively long CD, 45s, and is also your main off the gcd root break.

3) Holotraverse has really good speed buff for a short while after you use it. But this again, has a long CD.

4) Use ranged damage attacks when the gap is small. If you can close the gap in 1 GCD, consider using your dot or your frag nade in the time that you would close the gap. Roll would close the gap in the same time, but at least with this you can do damage while you are closing the gap. Let me know if this strategy doesn't work and I can better explain it.

5) If you are really struggling, you can use the hit and run utility. But I don't recommend it for general use because it's a waist of a utility point and not always great.

6) Hot your teammates in the time it would take to close the distance. I don't always recommend this, for several complex reasons. Mostly, hots are pretty weak in 6.0 since healing was nerfed and damage was buffed. Essentially, the hots aren't worth it. But it can be good in some situations.

7) Practice. All of the above strategies take practice and experience. Uptime is very difficult even for the most experienced ops. Eventually you will get better with it.