Taugrim's MMO Blog

The 0/12/29 spec for Bounty Hunter Powertech / Trooper Vanguard is a heavy DPS spec with good CC capability.

Here are links to the spec: Powertech | Vanguard

I did not take the 31-pt talent Thermal Detonator (Assault Plastique). TD (AP) is an excellent ability and hits for ~50% harder than the base Explosive Dart (Sticky Grenade). That being said, keep in mind the ability has a 15-sec cooldown and I decided to go with the interrupt talent instead.

As Powertech and Vanguard Advanced Classes are mirrors, I reference the corresponding Vanguard talents and abilities in parentheses below.

Spec Strengths

1. Strong sustained and burst damage mechanics:
   • +6% total Tech Crit Chance
   • +6% Crit Chance for fire (Elemental) attacks. Keep in mind all of our fire attacks are Tech attacks, so this stacks with the previous bullet point
   • 60% armor penetration and 30% armor penetration for the talents for Rail Shot (High Impact Bolt)
   • The proc-reset talent for Rail Shot (High Impact Bolt)
   • +9% damage to burning targets for key abilities including Rail Shot (High Impact Bolt), Rocket Punch (Stockstrike), and Rapid Shots (Hammer Shot)
   • +30% Crit damage bonus for Rail Shot (High Impact Bolt), Incendiary Missile (Incendiary Round), and Combustible Gas Cylinder (Plasma Cell)
2. Good CC capability:
   • Interrupt with a 6-sec cooldown instead of the base 8-sec default. This is very helpful for shutting down healers / casters
   • Ranged pull on a 35-sec cooldown instead of 45-sec. In Huttball I use the ranged pull to disrupt EFCs and to pull people into the acid and fire pits

Spec Weaknesses

Spec’ing is all about tradeoff decisions. As such, here are the things you give up with this spec:

1. Limited mobility. This spec lacks Charge capability from the tanking tree and the passive movement buff and on-demand unstoppable sprint in the middle tree
2. Guard capability, since this spec is most effective at DPS’ing when running Combustible Gas Cylinder (Plasma Cell)

Narrated PVP Footage

The following video contains gameplay footage of my Vanguard with this spec and includes real-time commentary from me and my team mates:

http://www.twitch.tv/taugrim/b/305733320

Our <Maven> premade consisted of:

• Ris’ek 26 healing Sage: this is Justin Lowe, co-founder of darthhater.com and my co-host on GAMEBREAKER’s SWTOR The Republic show
• Tamgros 38 Shadow: this is Matt, my co-host on GAMEBREAKER’s RIFT The Sanctum show
• Talac 42 healing Sage, later replaced by Liral a lowbie healing Sage not from our guild, later replaced by Swartz 43 DPS Commando

We won 10 consecutive matches (including a lame 11v8 in Alderaan) as I completed my 50 warzone weeklies for the first time. Speaking of gear, in the video I started with 3 pieces of Champion gear, and during the stream I acquired another 2 pieces. So far I’m 5 for 11 on bags

If you are looking for more in-depth information on Powertech / Vanguard, check out my Guide on Powertech / Vanguard Mechanics and PVP.

Let me know your questions and feedback.

UPDATE (2012/01/19): based on exphryl’s (and others’) feedback I swapped out Degauss for the Infrared Sensors (Nightvision Scope), as the talented Stealth Scan ability provides far more value than the movement-breaking effect from Degauss.

Follow Me

Twitter: @taugrim
Stream: http://twitch.tv/taugrim
YouTube: http://youtube.com/taugrimtaugrim
Facebook: http://facebook.com/taugrim
GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/category/the-republic/

http://www.twitch.tv/taugrim/b/305231415

We won this match in 4:59.

Both sides had 50s:

• Republic had 2
• Empire had 2+

The 50 Sages from <Vendetta> said this was the fastest win for their guild ever. Ditto for me.

To top things off, I had some DIAF- and acid-pull kills

I’ve been streaming all day – either PUG or sub-50 premade – and things have gone well. Right now 50s have a faceroll advantage, but sub-50s can still make a difference and outplay 50s.

EDIT (2011/01/12): OK, this wasn’t the fastest Huttball I’ve been a part of. We won in 4:40 in a guild premade back on Jan 1st when I was level 31. But that was a premade and we likely didn’t face multiple 50s.

Today I launched the first “show” on my TwitchTV channel.

Here is the link to the recorded broadcast:

In this episode, we cover:

1. The most frequently asked questions for me from Beta
2. Schwag & Giveaway announcement
3. Live Q&A and discussion

Please let me know what you think – positive and constructive feedback is welcome and appreciated.

I will be streaming SWTOR game footage (PVP and PVE) once I get into Early Access and my guild Irony gets sorted out as far as where we’re playing. You can expect a lot of ad-hoc streams this week, and hopefully by next week I’ll have a regular schedule.

Information about our guild is in the broadcast, so I won’t say more – watch the recording.

As discussed in the episode, my CafePress store is now up at cafepress.com/taugrim. Let me know what products I’m missing that you would purchase.

I’m going to order a t-shirt and hoodie tomorrow, just need to pick the designs / colors I want to wear.

Follow Me

Twitter: @taugrim
Stream: http://twitch.tv/taugrim
YouTube: http://youtube.com/taugrimtaugrim
Facebook: http://facebook.com/taugrim
GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/category/the-republic/

I wanted to share with y’all an exciting milestone. During my 15th session of streaming, my TwitchTV channel cracked 100k views and 1k followers:

With the NDA lift for SWTOR on November 18th, I’ve been streaming SWTOR PVP action every day with live commentary.

Much of the traffic is due to my having access to General Testing, which is a limited pool of people compared to the Weekend Tests – i.e. there are a limited number of people who can even stream at this time.

That being said, viewers have been providing very positive feedback for my stream, and this has been a huge encouragement to me

Being a resource to the gaming community has been my passion for 6 years, but until recently it’s been a hobby not a vocation – what I’ve been able to do has been limited to free time outside of work. Recently I made the leap to “give it a go” as a full-time job.

Your support is essential in making this a financially viable and sustainable job transition, and to the extent I do this full-time the more content I can contribute to the community. Therefore here are my asks of you:

1. Spread the word on social media and on the SWTOR forums, and tell your friends and guildees
2. Stick around through the commercials on my stream. I want to create a positive viewing experience so I won’t be spamming them
3. Keep giving me the constructive feedback. In just a week I’ve learned so much from you about streaming and SWTOR

Thank you!

Taugrim

Follow Me

Twitter: @taugrim
Stream: http://twitch.tv/taugrim
YouTube: http://youtube.com/taugrimtaugrim
Facebook: http://facebook.com/taugrim
GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/category/the-republic/

Here is a highlight reel from my Twitch.TV World PVP stream from yesterday morning:

http://www.twitch.tv/taugrim/b/299424299

You can also check out the video on YouTube, but note that the video quality is lower due to codec conversion loss when transferring from Twitch.TV to YouTube. The video on YouTube is annotated so it provides additional information compared to the Twitch.TV recording.

Focus Fire Macro

We use a simple but awesome macro to coordinate focus-fire for PVP:

#show Toggle Ranged Attack
suppressmacrofailures
mark 1
rw Focus fire #1: %t (%r)

What this macro does is mark the focus-fire target with “1″ and call out the target name in a Raid Warning.

My Approach to Streaming

My stream is basically a real-time version of my narrated guides and gameplay videos on YouTube.

My approach to streaming differs from typical streams in that:

1. I narrate my streams in real-time with commentary, tactics, mechanics, etc
2. If I’m in a group/raid with Vent, the audio from Vent will be included in the stream so that you can hear our interaction. Please note we’ll keep swearing to a minimum. I play with level-headed people, and while you might hear the occasional f-bomb, for the most part our Vent chatter is profanity-free
3. Between fights and during breaks, I answer questions from the Chat Room and interact with my viewers, to the extent possible

Questions to the Viewers About My Streaming

I’m new to streaming and am in the learning process, so I’d love to hear your feedback on the questions below.

1. What kind of streaming footage do you prefer?

A. a full stream (e.g. 90 minutes), which includes not just the intense fighting sequences, but all the in-between time where we are running around the map, looking for opponents, discussing tactics, picking off smaller numbers, and cracking jokes in Vent, or

B. just the highlights of the intense fighting sequences, the in-between stuff puts me to sleep, or

C. both the full stream and the highlights

2. Do you find that my real-time commentary on what we’re doing or the directions I’m giving (when I’m the raid leader) clear / valuable / interesting?

3. To what extent do you find the Vent audio turned on valuable, so you can hear our raid members interacting?

4. To what extent do you find my interaction with Chat Room during the Stream (Q&A, talking mechanics, etc) interesting / engaging, etc?

5. How balanced is the game volume vs the player voice volume?

If you can think of any other suggestions, let me know.

P.S. I’m ordering a new webcam that I can affix to my monitor, so once I have that the camera angle will be level with my noggin.

Twitter: @taugrim
TwitchTV: http://twitch.tv/taugrim
YouTube Channel: http://youtube.com/taugrimtaugrim
Facebook: http://facebook.com/taugrim
GAMEBREAKERTV Host: http://gamebreaker.tv