I have been thinking of parsing my Sharpshooter build and a Saboteur for PvE to test out the possibilities of running a Saboteur spec. It wouldn't hurt to have variety among our Gunslingers! This is the current build I have been thinking of doing.

Sabslinger - 2/31/8

There were only two points I wasn't completely sure about and decided to toss them into Saboteur's Utility Belt as a 3 sec CD reduction on Thermal Grenade sounds pretty handy. I had Pandemonium in my build at first because of the instant Charged Burst, but with the 4% Alacrity bonus there is no reason seeing how a Charged burst cast will be less than 1.5 seconds with the smallest amount of Alacrity, the GD is ~1.3 seconds anyway, and I could only do that every 30 seconds because of Pulse Detonator's cooldown. I also decided to use the extra points for an increase to Vital Shot as that still will be in my rotation so any extra damage/energy saver for it (the 3 second extension) is a huge benefit.

I am hoping for a little feedback on this and I'll keep you all updated with my findings. In theory, Saboteur's single-target DPS should be equal to that of a Sharpshooter's but the Saboteur will benefit due to better AOE damage. From taking a closer look at the spec this looks completely possible for sustained damage. In terms of burst I believe the Sharpshooter will still be better just because of the buffs and procs they receive in their tree.

Also, yes, I'm aware there is a "Smuggler Spec" thread but I plan to go pretty in-depth about the Saboteur tree so I thought it merited its own thread. If this works out I am definitely planning to look into this a lot more. Everyone is skeptical about this tree for PvE, but ever since beta I wanted to play a Saboteur/Engineer spec when I first saw the tree when picking my Imperial Agent's advanced class. I have just stuck with Sharpshooter because that's the PvE tree. I'm hoping to surprise myself and a few others with success in the Saboteur tree.

I ran a few FP with this spec on my sniper and as far as damage went it goes pretty well.

Energy is the main problem of this spec though and it shows in the buffs Sabotage gives you: immediatly finishing cooldown on Cool Head. Believe me; you'll need it.

Seeing as how energy was my problem I rarely used Charged Burst, preferring Aimed Shot because with it's longer cast time and lower energy cost I found it to be effective in regaining some energy.

It's a nice spec but I like my easy ass Dirty Fighting rotation <.<

crazyBE wrote:

I ran a few FP with this spec on my sniper and as far as damage went it goes pretty well.

Energy is the main problem of this spec though and it shows in the buffs Sabotage gives you: immediatly finishing cooldown on Cool Head. Believe me; you'll need it.

Seeing as how energy was my problem I rarely used Charged Burst, preferring Aimed Shot because with it's longer cast time and lower energy cost I found it to be effective in regaining some energy.

It's a nice spec but I like my easy ass Dirty Fighting rotation <.<

Yeah, that's what I was thinking about this morning when I was going over my spec and rotation in my head. Saboteur's main abilities drain a ton of Energy, Thermal Grenade, Sabotage Charge, Incendiary Grenade, and Shock Charge. The only reason I see this as a PvP spec rather than a PvE spec is because it can tear through your energy pool in a matter of moments. Even with Dealer's Discount, 16 Energy is a lot to be dishing out. I'm used to keeping Sabotage Charge in rotation with my Sharpshooter spec so hopefully I can handle this energy problem well despite not having Burst Volley and Foxhole.

Parsed myself tonight, and it just reaffirmed what I already knew.

Dirty Fighting > Saboteur in long Single-target fight
Dirty Fighting < Saboteur in burst damage.

In the first 30 seconds of the fight my Sabslinger did 2032.73DPS, but throughout the whole 5min my Dirty did 1532.06DPS compared to my Sab's 1389.18DPS. Once free respecs come out I'll probably just rotate specs for fights. Just run Sabslinger in TFB until Kephess where I'll go Dirty. We don't need the extra DPS but it wouldn't hurt.

Sabslinger Parse: http://www.torparse.com/a/38050
Dirtyslinger Parse: http://www.torparse.com/a/38055

Or you could go Hybrid /poke /poke

Don't suppose Goopy is fully augmented with optimised gear?
Cause I'm fairly certain slinger shouldn't be that far behind commando.

crazyBE wrote:

Don't suppose Goopy is fully augmented with optimised gear?
Cause I'm fairly certain slinger shouldn't be that far behind commando.

He's fully augmented ,don't know if optimized yet though.

Shinjiro wrote:

Or you could go Hybrid /poke /poke

Shin, do you know what you get against ops dummies? With your sentinel.

~1700 in a 5m fight

Yes, I am fully augmented with Cunning augments but no where close to optimized. I need more surge, drop some accuracy, spec into the increased accuracy in my tree, and I need to drop ~250 critical rating. My current Critical rating is 693, a little more than where I need it to be. Goopy is geared weird because I spent a lot of time on Shy pre-1.4 and didn't know I'd be maining my RDPS anytime soon, so he still has some Rakata gear with a lot of Crit. Also, I need to still replace my Lightning pillar relic with a War Hero power relic.

Also reusable exotech stim exploit.

Use the exotech stim while chanelling your rest.

Of course this isn't off topic. Don't be silly.

Fluttershy wrote:

Yes, I am fully augmented with Cunning augments but no where close to optimized. I need more surge, drop some accuracy, spec into the increased accuracy in my tree, and I need to drop ~250 critical rating. My current Critical rating is 693, a little more than where I need it to be. Goopy is geared weird because I spent a lot of time on Shy pre-1.4 and didn't know I'd be maining my RDPS anytime soon, so he still has some Rakata gear with a lot of Crit. Also, I need to still replace my Lightning pillar relic with a War Hero power relic.

That crit-> power and war hero relic will make a little but not the 200 DPS difference.

Also I should parse myself another time since I found a better rotation

Hmm that's lower than I had expected guess the crit is kinda messing it up because you are so much in diminished returns you do not have enough power or something.

My balance now (3 DG pieces) now parses at 1550-1570. (The 1650 was on the wrong dummy).



Strangely enough it takes a while to get there even though a rotation only takes 15-20s with the exception of the first which is 20-25s and the burst every 1.5m which is 25s.

crazyBE wrote:

Fluttershy wrote:

Yes, I am fully augmented with Cunning augments but no where close to optimized. I need more surge, drop some accuracy, spec into the increased accuracy in my tree, and I need to drop ~250 critical rating. My current Critical rating is 693, a little more than where I need it to be. Goopy is geared weird because I spent a lot of time on Shy pre-1.4 and didn't know I'd be maining my RDPS anytime soon, so he still has some Rakata gear with a lot of Crit. Also, I need to still replace my Lightning pillar relic with a War Hero power relic.

That crit-> power and war hero relic will make a little but not the 200 DPS difference.

Also I should parse myself another time since I found a better rotation

*Puts on glasses*

Well actually, the crit -> power won't be the largest benefactor but the increase in surge. My current surge is 274 and I plan to add ~150. ~66% of Dirtyslinger's damage comes from critical hits (about ~54% on average for me). The power will also be a huge boost to my surge benefit as my DR on crits is REALLY high (fully buffed my tech crit chance is still 47%). As long as I don't drop too much crit, I can make up a massive amount of DPS. Will it be 200? Probably not, but it will be pretty close, especially considering 1/4 of my mods are still Rakata grade. Also, even though I'm familiar with DF I haven't had a lot of experience with it, most of it rests with Operative > Lethality. Once I play it a bit more it should be up to par a bit more.

Here is a parse from when we killed the Primal destroyer last night. DPS average holding up in practice, we'll see about TFB tonight.

http://www.torparse.com/a/38454