The Fanatical Swordsman

LAST UPDATED: 6/18/12 for Patch 1.2.7

Up front – I will be honest – I am not a huge fan of set-in-stone rotations, as I primarily PvP, and that does not usually allow for rotations with no room for change. That being said, in PvE, I have discovered long fights can use a good rotation, so I usually do the following for each of the three specs.

Sharpshooter

Sample Rotation

Sabotage Charge
Flourish Shot
Charged Burst (instant)
Trickshot
Vital Shot
Speed Shot
Aimed Shot

after that it is dependent on whether you have Rapid Shots (31-pt talent) specced. If you do, you pop that and do two more Speed Shots.

Otherwise, Charged Burst, Trickshot. Then you prioritize

Quickdraw (under 30% health)
Aimed Shot (if Quick Aim buff is up)
Trickshot
Speed Shot
Charged Burst

As needed, Flourish Shot armor debuff on main-DPS target and Vital Shot on current target to maintain bleed.

NOTE: Make sure to occasionally move and replace Cover to reset Ballistic Dampers and instant-cast Charged Burst. It is easy to get tunnel vision in this spec, so movement is often required anyway and it helps to get in the habit of looking around and moving occasionally.

AoE Considerations

If you are going for AoE with Sharpshooter, keep XS Freighter Flyby on cooldown. It does a lot of damage on a single-target too, but they often move out of the way, and it is highly costly at 50 energy. Thermal Grenade is helpful, but it is energy costly too, and it doesn’t have the benefit of talents in Saboteur and Dirty Fighting.

Energy Considerations

I almost never run out of energy in Sharpshooter with the Burst Volley and Foxhole. We’ll see what happens when the changes to Burst Volley go live in 1.3.

Saboteur

Sab has the most AoE damage talents and quite a few survival talents as well.

Sample Prioritizations

Shock Charge
Vital Shot
Sabotage Charge
Flourish Shot
Speed Shot
Quickdraw
Aimed Shot
On-the-move Quick Shots (they are free with a talent after moving from Cover)
Charged Burst

AoE Considerations

For AoE, spam Thermal Grenades with Flurry of Bolts and free Quick Shots in between. Still keep XS Freighter Flyby on cooldown.

Energy Considerations

Managing energy with frequent uses of Flurry of Bolts and free Quick Shots is very important in Sab. Cool Head is available once per minute in this build too.

Dirty Fighting

Sample Single-target Rotation

Shrap Bomb
Vital Shot
Hemorrhaging Blast
Flourish Shot
Wounding Shots
Quickdraw
Speed Shot

probably can repeat here, might be able to throw in an Aimed Shot. It depends on the availability of Quickdraw.

Watch the duration of bleeds carefully, because it is possible that the bleeds are replaced by lesser versions thanks to the talent Nice Try. Make sure that the most powerful ones are on your target.

AoE Considerations

For AoE, use Thermal Grenade a lot, and I would recommend taking Saboteur’s Utility Belt from the Saboteur tree, since it is a great all-around talent anyway, and Thermal Grenade is highly buffed in DF.

Energy Considerations

If you have a lot of crit, then energy might not be an issue for you, but adding in Flurry of Bolts in between uses of other skills is good for undergeared usage of DF.

A Note on AoE Build: Sab/DF Hybrid

Arguably the best spec for AoE damage is a Saboteur/Dirty Fighting hybrid, maybe something like this.

This spec has all the best talents for AoE from both DF and Sab. It is pretty standard that you go up through Wounding Shots and Contingency Charges. I am going to test this spec more myself. Seeing as AoE damage is useful but situational, I haven’t had the chance yet. I am still always learning as well for my class.

Most of this is just idealized fun, but it could be useful! Let me know if you have other rotations that you like! This is by no means definitive. Have fun, y’all!