Archive
6-month SWTOR Photojournal
Here is a photojournal of all of my fun this last 6 months in SWTOR. Read more…
Some Love for PvP and Gunslingers/Snipers in Patch 1.2.1
Hello fellow slingers-of-guns and other, not-as-cool-people! (just kidding…but it’s true)
The patch that went live today, Patch 1.2.1, has some nice bonuses for Gunslingers and Snipers in general, but also for Sharpshooter/Marksmanship specced ones. The love comes in the form of 5% damage boosts to a bunch of our main heavy-hitters: Charged Burst, Aimed Shot, Speed Shot, Quickdraw, and Trickshot.
While I don’t personally love Sharpshooter for PvP purposes, as the primarily energy damage-based spec is mitigated a lot by armor at endgame PvP, the other boosts are universal to the Gunslinger and will be nice to have.
Some other universal boosts in this patch are the PvP commendations required for Warzone consumables have been reduced from 20/item to 10/item, back to where they were pre-1.2. This is a great change, as I had basically given up using them on my alts in most situations. On my main, I had used all my Mercenary commendations before the patch on purchasing Medpacs, and I had stockpiled about 90 of them. This store had dwindled down to 30 or so.
For Commandos, Havok Rounds now correctly boosts your healing on Kolto Bomb. Apparently, based on lack of patch notes on Mercenaries, we can safely assume it was only affecting us (/sarcasm on “wow, a bug only affecting the Republic side, that’s new!” /sarcasm off).
Sentinels now correctly have a lowered global cooldown on Cyclone Slash when they have popped Zen in Ataru Form. Again, no mention of Marauders.
Helmets now unify colors correctly. I looked at that and said, “Ohhhh, that’s why my Commando’s helmet stayed blue with a green chest.”
And finally, the item I am super-excited about. “Corrected an issue that prevented players from adding offline players to their friends list.” Hallelujah! From the very beginning this has annoyed me. The whole point of a friends list is to know when someone comes online. How would I know they are online to add them to my friends list, if they aren’t in my friends list?
Now if we can just get a /readycheck, we’ll be in good shape…
What do you think about these changes? Anything you were hoping that would be added fairly soon that still is missing in the game?
PvP Talent Build: DPS Commando- 8/31/2
LAST UPDATE: Update 1.1.5
This is a PvP build for the Commando. This will mainly utilize the Gunnery specialization, but it adds some bare-bones healing abilities from Combat Medic.
Note: This build was created with the Darth Hater Talent Calculator. The link to view this build is here, and the associated Mercenary build is here.
Class: Commando
Primary Focus: Gunnery
Secondary Focus: Combat Medic
Purpose: PvP
Goal: This build is about maximizing DPS while able to shoot some heals, should a situation demand it.
General Strategies
Attacking: Generally, on a fresh target, you will want to use Grav Round at least twice before doing anything else. This will stack 4 Gravity Vortices on the target, effectively reducing their armor by 16%. The two uses of Grav Round will also give you two charges of Charged Barrel (which will grant 12% extra damage on High Impact Bolt at this time) and two charges of Charged Barrier (for a total of 4% incoming damage reduction). At this point, if you have triggered a Curtain of Fire (Full Auto buff, little red icon), I would use Full Auto. Otherwise, hit another Grav Round, producing a full 5 stacks of Gravity Vortices, for 20% armor reduction on the target. Keep spamming Grav Round until you hit 5 stacks of both Charged Barrier and Charged Barrel. If at any point you get the Curtain of Fire buff, use Full Auto, otherwise keep spamming Grav Round. Once you have a full 5 stacks of Charged Barrel, fire off High Impact Bolt, as it will have a 30% damage bonus now. This will consume the Charged Barrel stacks. Eventually, once High Impact Bolt is on cooldown, you will want to swap in Charged Bolts for Grav Round, as it does more damage. Also, this will all be draining on your ammo, so make sure that you use Hammer Shot occasionally to help the regeneration. Keep above 60% ammo for good maintenance.
Defending: Defense comes down to killing the other guy quickly. Reactive Shield is useful, but not necessarily going to be up all the time. Knockbacks (Stockstrike, and more importantly, Concussion Charge) are very useful for keeping people at range which is where we like them. You also have a stun and a mez, Cryo Grenade and Concussive Round, respectively. These are on a relatively short cooldown.
Grav Round - The Gunnery Commando's number one ability
All points allocated are the maximum allowed for each ability, unless otherwise noted. Read more…
Beginner’s Guide: The Odd Man Out – Support Classes
Which one does not belong in the Trinity of kittens?
Most of you now know about the MMO Trinity, which is Tank, Healer, and DPS classes (if you don’t click here, here, and here, respectively)
There is another type of class that has seen very wide use, and that is the class role of Support. Technically, Healers fall under the umbrella of “Support,” but I am going to talk about the classes that aren’t really Tanks, Healers, or DPS, but fall under a special sub-category all of their own.
Support classes are usually good for buffing, debuffing, utility skills like cures, off-healing, and power-healing. My ideal group in LOTRO for example has two Healers (one of which can be a Support class), one Tank, one other Support specifically for that purpose, and two DPS. For easier content, one healer can be swapped out for DPS. But what does a Support class actually bring to the table? Read more…
Beginner’s Guide: The MMO Trinity – Healer
Most of you probably know about the MMO Trinity, which is Tank, Healer, and DPS (Damage Per Second). However, with this blog swinging towards a new MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, some people may be looking around for information on classes and not know what they are looking at when it comes to their class role. So I have decided to take it upon myself to explain the MMO Trinity as if my audience has never heard of it.
Hate it or love it, most MMOs are built with the idea that there will be someone to take the big hits, someone to heal back up the big hits, and someone to dish out the big hits. That is just a fact of life. There have been other class roles defined by different games, such as Pullers, Support, and Chippers (only know this last one from Rappelz, was kinda like Debuffer). Support is the only class-role besides the Trinity that has seen wide usage.
Healers are the most in-demand class role around, and good healers are worth their weight in gold. Healers are responsible for keeping everyone in the group alive. Being a healer means that boss-fights aren’t that memorable, since most of your time is spent watching green health bars. It has been described as “reverse whack-a-mole with the green bar.” You see things go down, you turn them around. Read more…
The Fanatical Swordsman 