Patch 1.2 Bounty Hunter changes

The patch notes are up for the Player Test Server for patch 1.2. I took the liberty of coping the relevant ones here and editing them a bit so you can see the changes made to the different abilities. All the relevant changes have been highlighted in yellow. So far it looks to be an overall nerf to Bounty Hunter damage. But its not so earth shattering as the Sorcerer changes.

General

• Ability Heat costs are now displayed in skill tree and trainer windows.
• Death From Above now has a 5-meter radius (down from 10) to bring its range in line with other Bounty Hunter Area of Effect abilities and it now begins dealing damage sooner after activation.
• Hydraulic Overrides now has improved audio and visual effects.
• Incendiary Missile audio has been improved.

Mercenary

• Cure now generates 8 Heat (down from 16). Jet Boost now triggers snare visual effects on affected targets. Power Shot has been rebalanced. It now generates 16 Heat, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage. Tracer Missile and Fusion Missile's animations have been exchanged by popular demand from the community

Cure is now cheaper to use. Power Shot loses 10% of its power but the heat and cast time remains the same.

The change to Tracer Missile is interesting. Seems like Fusion Missile fits more as the bad ass missile you'd want to shoot from your back.

Arsenal

• Barrage: the chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly.
• Heatseeker Missiles' damage output has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Jet Escape now reduces the cooldown of Jet Boost by 2.5 (down from 5) seconds per point.
• Muzzle Fluting no longer reduces Heat costs. It now reduces the activation time of Power Shot and Tracer Missile by .5 seconds.
• Power Barrier now provides 1% (down from 2%) damage reduction per stack.
• Tracer Missile has been rebalanced in order to encourage more active game play rotations. It now generates 16 Heat (down from 25), has a 2-second (up from 1.5) activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.

The net change in Arsenal is that Tracer Missile now deals less damage but Heat Seeker Missile deals more damage and Barrage is more likely to proc.

Bodyguard

• Critical Efficiency now reduces the cost of Rapid Scan by 8 (down from 16).
• Cure Mind no longer reduces the cost of Cure. It now causes Cure to heal the target for a small amount.
• Hired Muscle now increases critical chance by 1% (down from 2%) per point.
• Kolto Missile now affects up to 4 targets (up from 3), improving reliability in group and Operation situations.
• Kolto Residue now increases all healing received by 3% (down from 5%).
• Kolto Shell now builds 16 Heat when activated.
• Supercharged Gas now vents 8 Heat (down from 16) when used and increases all damage and healing dealt by 5% (down from 10%).
• The shield applied by Kolto Missile now reduces damage taken by 5% (down from 10%).

I don't really know enough about Bodyguard to comment on the changes effectively, but this looks like quite a power decrease. The change to Hired Muscle hurts all the specs though.

Pyrotech (Mercenary)

• Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds. (All abilities that can proc have had their chance increased by 15%)

This could be an interesting change to the rotation of Pyrotech. The cylinder choice is no longer and option and depending on the proc rate this could be a good change or a terrible one.

Hopefully I can get on the PTS to test and provide more information soon. Don't be discouraged by a few changes, we're still the best class in the game.

Super Fusion Missile

Today I'd like to discuss one of my favorite little moves to really put some hurt on someone your trying to kill. You see Bounty Hunters don't really have abilities that directly increase our damage for a short time. Instead we have the ability to burst someone by going beyond our normal heat levels.

Sometimes though you just need to put out a lot of damage really quickly and this little combo of abilities really helps.

First off you want to load up your two prerequisite buff skills, Thermal Sensor Override and Power Surge. Then use those to buffs to freely cast Fusion Missile and do a ton of damage for Zero Heat and only one cast.

While it does seem like a simple maneuver to execute, the Super Fusion Missile (SFM) can deal a significant amount of damage due to Fusion Missile being the highest damage per Cast ability in the Mercenary toolkit. The damage it does is offset by the absurd 33 Heat cost.

Super Fusion Missile (SFM)

So using Thermal Sensor Override to make this particular skill free allows us to use each Thermal Sensor Override as a damage increasing cooldown.

Also SFM benefits from Firebug and Burnout making it an excellent execution type move to finish off enemy targets below 30% health.

If your like me though nothing is more satisfying than setting people on fire, and SFM is the perfect way to do that.

Choosing the Right Weapon Cylinder

Choosing a Cylinder seems easy at first. High Velocity Gas Cylinder for Arsenal and Combustible Gas Cylinder for Pyrotech.

The talents in each tree seem to support that as well.

Arsenal has Terminal Velocity which benefits their barrage of missile attacks. Pyrotech has Superheated Gas which increases the proc rate of Combustible Gas Cylinder. It also gains the effects of Firebug and Burnout which increases the damage when it procs.

While its clear the Arsenal is better off using High Velocity Gas Cylinder its not so clear with Pyrotech.

In order to decide we'll have to calculate how much damage per second Combustible Gas Cylinder actually contributes compared to how much damage High Velocity Gas Cylinder adds to each attack.

Using my current gear set of Full champion gear with some Battle Master gear I came up with these averages for my ranged attacks.

• Rapid Shots   - 914 Damage
• Power Shot    - 1920 Damage
• Unload        - 955 Damage
• Rail Shot     - 1584 Damage 

Modified by 25% armor which would be about 5% less than a Bounty Hunter and 5% more than a Sorcerer.

• Rapid Shots   - 685 Damage
• Power Shot    - 1440 Damage
• Unload        - 716 Damage
• Rail Shot     - 1298 Damage*

*Rail Shot gains 30% Armor Penetration when used on a Burning Target.

High Velocity Gas Cylinder allows us to ignore 35% of the targets Armor. All of our Ranged attacks and Thermal Detonator benefit from this increased Armor Penetration.

So calculating the average damage of these attacks with the added Armor Penetration.

• Rapid Shots   - 767 Damage ^83
• Power Shot    - 1613 Damage ^173
• Unload        - 802 Damage ^86
• Rail Shot     - 1441 Damage* ^143

*Rail Shot gains 65% Armor Penetration when used on a Burning Target combined with High Velocity Gas Cylinder.

The average damage gain for Ranged attacks using High Velocity Gas Cylinder is about 11%

Now lets compare that to Combustible Gas Cylinder.

We know it can proc off all Ranged attacks which includes Rapid Shots, Unload, Power Shot, and Rail Shot.

Each time it procs it deals 1168 Elemental Damage.

With a 16% chance to proc modified by Talents, your looking at about 187 Damage per Second provided by the proc.

So to put that in the equation the average damage of each attack would be.

• Rapid Shots   - 872 Damage +187
• Power Shot    - 1627 Damage +187
• Unload        - 903 Damage +187
• Rail Shot     - 1485 Damage* +187

*Rail Shot gains 30% Armor Penetration when used on a Burning Target.

On the hardest hitting attacks your seeing an average of 11% increased damage and on the lowest damage attacks you get an average of 21% damage increase.

This totals to 16% increased damage from Combustible Gas Cylinder.

For comparison High Velocity Gas Cylinder is around 11% increased damage.


So for sustained damage Combustible Gas Cylinder is the clear winner by a margin of around 5%.

However on high armor targets such as Tanks that have around 40% armor the benefit of High Velocity Gas Cylinder jumps to around 22%.

So all in all Combustible Gas Cylinder does more damage over a longer period and provides a static boost of around 16%, however because it is a proc effect you aren't always guaranteed to get that damage.

High Velocity Gas Cylinder is more reliable with around 22% increased damage on high armor targets (Tanks) and 8% increase on lower armor targets. (Sages)

In Summary.

1.  Use High Velocity Gas Cylinder for:
1. Tanks
2. More Burst Damage
3. People that can Cleanse your Combustible Gas Cylinder
2. Use Combustible Gas Cylinder for:
1. Lower Armor Targets
2. Sustained Damage
3. High Heat situations.

Hope this helps you decide.


All Calculations were done using the average damage of each attack without factoring critical strike into the equations.

High Score

After extensive testing I can say without a doubt that Pyrotech is much better than Arsenal in PvP.

The reason being is you have more burst damage, and you still do decent damage while moving. Obviously it isn't as easy as Arsenal Spec, but the burst is much higher.

In PvP all your kills are usually going to be attributed to bursting someone down before they can flee and heal up. Since most people use their cooldowns when they are below 50% health you can take advantage of this and wait until you have them at 70% or so then blow them up.

Of course it still stands that Arsenal is superior in PvE, killing the same bosses over and over again isn't as exciting as killing people in Warzones.

So right now my Record for Huttball is 500000. Lets see if I can beat that when I'm full Battle Master.

Where is an icepack when you need one?

Heat is the main resource that restricts your abilities. Every ability you use that does damage outside of Rapid Shots causes you to generate heat. It can be anywhere from 16-25 Heat per ability. The more powerful the attack the more heat it will generate.


Heat also drains constantly, and the amount drained is affected by how much heat you have.

Simply put; the less heat you have the more heat you can vent.

You also have 2 very nifty abilities to manage your heat. The first is Vent Heat. This powerful tool will vent 50 Heat in a matter of seconds. It can be improved to vent up to 66 Heat with Improved Vents and its cooldown can be reduced with Rapid Venting. The best time to use this is when you've gone over 70 Heat to reduce your Heat level into the green zone of 0-40 Heat.

Thermal Sensor Override will make your next ability cost no heat. Obviously this is best used when your using a 25 Heat ability. Both Pyrotech and Arsenal have talents to reduce the cool down.

My advice for heat is to always treat Vent Heat as an emergency ability rather than a way to squeeze in extra damage. If you ever find yourself in a position where you aren't venting enough heat and your vent heat is on cool down, it is better to wait and use rapid shots while your heat level drops.

Play smart and manage your heat correctly and you will master the mechanics of the Bounty Hunter. Of course you could always invest in lots of icepacks.

Arsenal Rotation

The Arsenal Tree is much more suited to the long fights where you need to constantly be putting out damage. Flashpoints and Operations are where Arsenal truly shines.

The exact ability acts more like a priority system much like Pyrotechs. Unlike Pyrotech none of your main abilities cost more than 16 Heat making it easier to maintain your Heat levels in the optimum range of 40 Heat or less.

Most of the Arsenal damage comes from debuffs that you stack on the enemy target and buffs you apply to yourself.

Tracer Missile is the staple of the Arsenal tree and most the talents are affected by it. The opening should consist of using Tracer Missile 3 times to stack Heat Signatures. Then you want to use Heatseeker Missile on cool down. As you use Tracer Missile you will get up to 5 stacks of Tracer Lock, which you want to use with Rail Shot. Also whenever you get a Barrage proc, you want to use Unload.
Every time you get a critical hit with Unload and Tracer Missile you can vent 8 Heat, this can occur every 3 seconds thanks to Terminal Velocity. 

If standing still and pumping out and endless supply of missiles is your thing Arsenal has got you covered. Just remember though your damage while trying to move is non-existent. Since all your instant damage moves are powered up from Tracer Missile you need to constantly use it in order to beef up your instant cast abilities.

Have fun blowing stuff up and try not to get a backache bending over to shoot all those missiles.