I Kagerro, DPS specialist of the Frog guild, present on the Darth Nihilus server.
If I'm here today, it's to talk to you about the DPS Specialist and more specifically about the Advanced Prototype specialization. My guide is the first in a trilogy that aims to teach those who do not know or improve for those who already know, mastery of the class with a view to PvE at a high level.
Speaking of which, if I allow myself today to mention the high level PvE, it is quite simply because I was able to finish all the current content in 16 HM and Nightmare and this since 1.2. So I have some perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of the DPS Specialist and that is why I am here today to tell you about this class.
- Foreword
- Arbre the talent
- Rotation
- Offensive and defensive spells
- Equipment optimization
- Tips and final word
Foreword
Before taking an in-depth look at the Prototype specialization, it's time to set the scene. You should already know that, contrary to what you can see in your talent tree, there are not two but three DPS specializations that are viable for the Specialist:
- Advanced Prototype
- Pyrotechnics
- Hybrid Proto / Pyro
The specialisation Prototype is the easiest for me to play, it offers good tools, good static damage and easy heat management. So I recommend it when you are new to DPS Specialist.
The specialisation Pyrotechnics offers slightly worse damage in static combat than the Prototype specialization, but in return offers much more interesting damage in mobile combat. Heat is slightly more complex to manage, it is aimed more at people who already know a little better the class, the principle of operation of heat and its dissipation.
The specialisation Hybrid Proto / Pyro is the best dps specialization for the Specialist at the moment and subject to change up to patch 2.6 minimum. It offers very good damage but has in return a more complex heat management than the two previous specializations. She's great at static combat and really good at hectic combat.
For my part, I hardly ever play the Prototype specialization since in static combat, the Hybrid does better and in eventful combat the Pyro does better. However, I know how to play it and even if my goal is that at the end of the three guides you will all be able to play the hybrid specialization, for that you have to learn the basics, namely the Prototype specialization.
Arbre the talent
Now that we have set the scene, it's time to get to the heart of the matter:
It should be noted first of all that the Prototype specialization is played exclusively with the Improved gas cylinder. This cylinder increases internal and elemental damage by 3% and that's a good thing since we're only going to do almost this type of damage.
8 / 36 / 2
We will now see the tree itself, there we do not have much choice, the only viable option for this spec is 8/36/2. As we need to get the 36 point spell, we only have 10 points left to place in the other specializations. That's good, since apart from these 10 points (8 in shield and 2 in pyro), the others will not serve us at all anyway.
I'm not going to go into the whole tree, I think you're old enough to read your talent points for yourself, but I'm still going to go into some of the talents that I think are crucial and define specialization.
- Retractable blade> Irregular blades and Bloodstalker: those 4 talent points alone already do about 12/13% of your damage if you know how to use them properly. To put it simply, with the Retractable blade, when you apply it to the target, it suffers a bleed that lasts 15 seconds, which does internal damage over time and which in addition to that it takes 3% damage in addition to all your attacks. A must-have.
- Prototype cylinder ventilation> Loaded gauntlet: These 3 talent points play a crucial role in your damage as they add a base 1,3 of heat dissipation per second, which brings your heat regeneration to 6,3 seconds when you are in the correct cylinder. In addition, every time you make a Lightning punch, your next Aligned shot will automatically be critical. In short, you have warmth comfort and a big source of damage for just 3 talent points.
- Flame Barrage: this talent will allow you to have an even more simplified heat management because this one, each time you use your ultimate (Immmolation) and often with your Burst of Flames, your Searing fist will be free. You will quickly realize in the end that you will never use your Searing fist without the proc.
- Prototype Flamethrower: this talent alone represents the whole point of the Prototype specialization. If you don't take this talent, there's no point in playing the Prototype specialization. To put it simply, every time you're going to do a Burst of Flames, or Immmolation or a Flame sweep, you will gain a load of Prototype flamethrower who will make your neighbor Flamethrower Deals 20% more damage, becomes uninterrupted, and Slows targets hit by 30%. It can be stacked 3 times for a total of + 60% damage, -90% speed and in addition it will cost you 6 less heat. Like I said, without this talent the prototype specialization makes no sense, if you choose it and you don't use the Flamethrower, it's the same thing, it doesn't make sense.
- Prototype weapon system: these are 3 points that give you 30% influx on the Flamethrower,'Immolation, Searing fist and the Retractable blade. Knowing that these are attacks that we will use at least 50% of the time, it is all profit as talent.
- Immolation : This attack hurts quite a bit and causes you to activate your Prototype flamethrower and your Searing fist free, to take and to use above all.
The rest of the specialty is pretty obvious, there's just one talent point left that you can place either in Hitman to have a second less on the Clamping, or Power armor which will reduce the damage you will take by 1%. It's just a matter of preference. For my part, I took the point in reducing the Clamping because it's my way of playing, but i would say that in the vast majority of cases the damage reduction is more interesting.
Rotation
Now that the tree is done, it's time to talk about the rotation of the Prototype specialization. We will already start with the basic and gradually increase the level so that you are professionals of the Prototype specialization at the end of the guide.
As I said earlier in the guide, the Prototype Flamethrower is the whole point of specialization; without it, you don't have to play it because you won't do much damage. But concretely, what does that mean? Quite simply, the optimal rotation of the Prototype Specialist is based on the cooldown of the Flamethrower, namely 15 seconds.
Moreover, we could even speak of a rotation of 12 seconds because of the 15 seconds, we already have 3 seconds of channeling of the Flamethrower...
This means that we have 12 seconds left to do maximum damage and above all, most importantly, ensure that we have the 3 charges of Prototype Flamethrower so that it hurts, to have our bleeding on the target for the 3% more damage (via the Retractable blade) and have enough heat to start the Flamethrower without penalizing our regeneration.
The best over the 12 seconds is to start with the Retractable blade, quite simply because all our following attacks will benefit from the + 3% damage, but not that. Since the bleeding lasts 15 seconds, starting the bleeding first results in your bleeding Flamethrower finished, the dowry of the Retractable blade is also finished and you can restart it. Smart!
Once the damage over time is established, we will continue with theImmmolation, because she hits hard and she'll give us a load of Prototype Flamethrower, and since we need 3, we will do 2 Rflames to have our 3 charges.
Once you have your 3 stacks, you must (if you used theImmmolation) triggering of Pdazzling oing free, then you have to use it and thus you have your next Tir aligned which is automatically critical, not bad!
Un Tir aligned criticism later and we have already done 9 seconds out of the 12 we had. We then have two spells to place before doing the Flamethrower. For these two spells, I advise you if your heat allows it, 2 Flames of Flames or one Burst of Flames and one Shooting sequence (your white stroke) or if you are really fair on heat, two white strokes.
Which gives us in the end:
- 0.0 => Retractable blade
- 1.5 => Immolation
- 3.0 => Burst of flames
- 4.5 => Burst of flames
- 6.0 => Lightning Fist
- 7.5 => Aligned Shot
- 9.0 => Burst of flames / sequence of fire
- 10.5 => Burst of flames / sequence of fire
- 12.0 => Flamethrower
- 13.5 => Flamethrower
- 15.0 => Lame retractable
We kept our whole rotation on 15 seconds, because at the 15th second our Flamethrower is finished and we can rest the Retractable blade.
Now you have to keep in mind that this is a rotation, not a cycle!
What I mean by that is that apart from the opening, it will almost never be in the same order. There are, however, a couple of things that will NEVER change.
- You need ALWAYS at least one Immolate and 2 Flame Bursts to have the 3 charges, you manage to put them in the order you want but I don't want to see any Flamethrowers leave without having the 3 charges.
- You must have in PERMANENCE Bleeding from the retractable blade on the target, not having it is equivalent to depriving yourself of 3% more damage, as well as damage over time that hurts.
- You should always start your Flamethrower as soon as it is available. Again it's the same, you do as you want but it has a 15 second cooldown, so you have to run it every 15 seconds. The only exception to this rule is that if you know that in the fight you will be bumped during the incantation, there yes obviously you have the choice between slamming the Hydraulic handling (I'll get to that later) and swing the Flamethrower, or wait for you to bump and throw it on the way back. Otherwise, you must launch it as soon as it is available.
- Never run the Searing fist as long as it is not free and the same goes for the Aligned shot, do not launch it until it is automatically critical (thanks to your Searing fist). By the way, speaking of Searing fist, if possible before doing an Immolate if you have a free Searing Fist trigger use it rather than having it re-trigger. Wasting a trigger is never good!
- Still talking about Searing fist free, if you see that you are at zero heat, do not waste your trigger, do a few Flame bursts just to get a little horny and only there, you do the Searing fist to bring down the heat. You upped your damage and it didn't cost you more in heat.
As a bonus I put you a Youtube video of an example of rotation with annotations on it so that you can see in real what it gives. I also attach the lexicon of English history abbreviations so you can understand the video annotations.
Lexicon
- Immmolation = IMO
- Flamethrower = FT
- Searing Fist = RP
- Burst of Flames = FB
- Aligned Shot = RS
- Explosive fuel = EF
- Shoulder cannon = SC
- Retractable blade = RB
Offensive and defensive spells
As a specialist we have a whole panoply of interesting spells that it is from an offensive point of view as defensive.
Offensive spells
Let's take a look at the spells that will allow us to increase our dps on an ad hoc basis.
- Explosive Fuel: this spell is a real killing. For 15 seconds, he gives us 25% free criticism, without consideration. To use and abuse it even.
- Shoulder cannon: the only real addition to 2.0, it charges four missiles on activation and charges three more over time. This spell has the particularity of being usable OUTSIDE-GCD, that is to say that you can cast it between two activations of powers. For example, every time you cast a spell you have a 3 sec timeout during which you cannot do anything. This dead zone is called the GCD (for global cooldown). Well, thanks to this spell you can during each GCD between your attacks, block a missile that will do between 1.5 and 1000 damage. Super good for the burst then!
- Thermal manipulation: this spell allows your next power to activate without generating heat. Concretely, you end up at 50 heat (that's bad!) And you have not yet activated your Flamethrower. Rather than delaying the activation of the Flamethrower (that's bad!) Or getting even higher in heat (that's even worse!), You use your Thermal Manipulation and activate your Flamethrower. As a result, you do not consume heat, on the contrary, thanks to your passive dissipation, you lose it and in addition your dps does not fall because you have your Flamethrower banging.
- Heat dissipation: the OH SHIT button. The name speaks for itself, this spell allows you to dispel 50 heat over 3 seconds, so it's a spell to use in an emergency. Besides, for the little information, if you see that you go too high in heat, that you are already at 60, well go up again to 90 and use the dissipation, you might as well make it profitable until the end. Only, be careful, you only have it every 2 minutes.
Defensive spells
Now let's take a look at the spells that will allow us to continue to do damage even in delicate situations.
- Energy shield: This spell reduces all damage taken from all sources by 25% while active. Additionally, with the Energy Regeneration talent, whenever you take damage, its active cooldown (current cooldown) decreases by 3 seconds. So even though it has a base cooldown of 2 minutes, you will quickly find that with raid damage it is generally on 1 minute 15/1 minute 20.
- Kolto Overload: this spell, if activated at the right time, is a true guardian angel. That is to say that if you know at some point that you are going to fall below the 35% health mark, you activate it, and when you actually go below the 35% health mark, this spell will take charge of lifting you up and keep you at 35% for 8 sec. And believe me that during those 8 seconds, unless you take a slap at 10k, you become very resistant.
- Stabilized Armor: this is not really a spell but a talent, which gives you 30% damage reduction against area effects (ex: death fields or the ugly red damage areas on the ground) but not only because you also have 30% damage reduction when stunned. An excellent talent therefore, two in one.
The other spells
I have a few spells left to talk to you about, and they're neither offensive nor defensive, or at least not the same as the previous ones. Let's see what it is ...
- Hydraulic handling: this spell has long been the exclusive feature of the Prototype specialization. Now it is a basic spell for Bounty Hunters (Mercenaries and Specialist) but in Prototype specialization, it lasts 4 seconds longer which is not negligible. Long story short, when under the effect of this spell, you run faster and you are mostly immune to any knockdown or slowing effects. For example, bosses cannot bump you while you are under Hydraulic Manipulation. So when you know the boss is going to bump you and you need to cram your Flamethrower, your best bet is to use hydraulic manipulation and cast the spell. Thus, you troll the boss and you burn his face (or the posterior, it will depend on your position) at the same time.
- Unloading: fate known to Bounty Hunters, it allows you to do damage from a distance. If I put it here, it's just so that, if you're wondering whether to use it, the answer is NO except in one special case: if you're blocked remotely for X or Y reason, you can use it, and it is recommended.
- Explosive dart: pretty much the same topo as unloading, it's a spell to use when you're moving or stuck and more than 10 yards from the target. If you are between 4 and 10 meters you have the Immolation, Flame Burst and Flamethrower which will do more damage, and if you are between 0 and 4 meters, the question does not even arise.
- Flame sweep: the use of this spell is very situational. I would say its greatest use in this specialization is being able to mount your Prototype Flamethrower charges without hitting the target or doing area damage.
Equipment optimization
Here, we will talk a little about the statistics of the equipment and all that is related to it. Concretely, it is necessary to follow an order of priority at the level of statistics as follows:
Aim> Critical (150/180)> Potency> Accuracy (up to 110%)> Surge
Why this order of priority? So quite simply because we need a little criticism all the same in this specialization (moreover the equipment will be the same whatever the specialization), and that once reached we only take power. For the accuracy, I noted 110%, so it is in techno of course and it is COMPULSORY, it is not 109.5% but 110%. Namely, just because you don't see your spells fail when you do them that doesn't mean it isn't. Only a fairly fine analysis of your logs can prove it and believe me, from experience, it is better to have a little less influx but that all your spells pass rather than to miss from time to time a Critical Immolate at 8 / 9K or a charge of the Flamethrower at 5k which will lower your damage.
To give you an idea of what optimized gear looks like, here's a picture of my stats while buffed, without any proc:
Obviously, I still have excellent equipment (almost full 78, except the barrel, an implant and a relic and some sophistication which is still in 75) but it allows you to see a little what to aim.
For you as I said, the most important thing is to get the criticism at the beginning and the precision, the power and the flow will come with the equipment.
Besides, it also seems important to me to specify it, but in terms of improvements you must always take Aim / Stamina improvements, because we have a 9% bonus and an additional 5% with the inquisitor improvement. I don't want to go into the math and confuse you when you've already read the whole tutorial, but in short, at the damage bonus level, the targeted buffs are equivalent to potency buffs, except that they give you more passive criticism and therefore become more interesting.
In terms of the set bonus, you must take the Combat Technician set since the 2 pieces decrease by 15 seconds the cooldown of the Explosive fuel and the 4 pieces increases the damage of the Aligned shot. Good thing we use both spells.
Besides in relation to that, the equipment Combat Technicianis not necessarily super optimized, but we have no choice but to do with and remodel it to obtain the balance of the statistics requested.
In terms of relics, I personally use a relic with automatic power activation and a power use. However with 2.5 approaching I think the best will be an automatic power activation and an automatic main statistic activation.
Tips and final word
I'll give you some tips that will allow you to increase your damage even more:
- Always sync your Explosive Fuel with the Shoulder Cannon, like that you can benefit from 25% of critical strike on your spells and at the same time on the missiles that must fire out of global cooldown. As a result, you get a full return on your Explosive Fuel because even the times of the GCD are used.
- Do not rest the Retractable blade if the debuff is still present on the target, it is a loss of damage. Wait for the debuff to go away.
- Always use your Explosive Fuel and Shoulder cannon as soon as they are available, unless the combat requires another use, such as a specific burst phase.
- If you have a relic in use or dopants, also think about using them as soon as they are available, obviously with the same reserve as given previously: if the combat requires it, keep your spells under recharge for this moment there.
Here is the guide coming to an end, it was entirely written and directed by myself, and like I said at the very beginning, this one is just the first in a trilogy, so stay tuned for others will follow?
