SWTOR Scoundrel and Operative DPS Guide

SWTOR Scoundrel and Operative DPS Guide by Sol

Thanks go to the following people for providing insights and information

Alratan, Master Killer, Kaladris, LB_Storm, DarthGwarr & Kore.

Thanks must go out to all those who have helped with various tools like the Terminology Mirror and database.

Based on the Sith Assassin Tanking Compendium by Alratan. I will shamelessly admit that I copied large amounts of information/layout from Alratan’s guide, as it is excellently presented and there was no need to re-invent the wheel.

Table of Contents

I. Skill Trees, Abilities and Rotation – Dirty Fighting/Lethality
I.a. Energy
I.b. Skill Tree
I.c. Abilities
I.c.i. DPS Abilities
I.c.ii. Situational Abilities
I.d. Ability Priority Order and Rotation
II. Skill Trees, Abilities and Rotation – Scrapper/Concealment
II.a. Energy
II.b. Skill Tree
II.c. DPS Abilities
II.d. Ability Priority Order and Rotation
III. Stats, Gear, Consumables and Crew Skills
III.a. Stats
III.b. Gear
III.c. Consumables
III.d. Crew skills

The Scoundrel/Operative is the close-mid range dps and healing Advanced Class for the Smugger/Imperial Agent. For the purposes of this guide I will be focusing on both the Dirty Fighting/Lethality and Scrapper/Concealment trees, as most of the class information is relevant and only the trees, skill & abilities, and priority/rotations are different.

The Dirty Fighting/Lethality tree focuses more on buffing and keeping bleeds/poisons on the targets and utilises other abilities that do increased damage per bleed/poisons on the target.

The Concealment tree focuses on primarily on Kinetic damage (some energy and weapon damage as well) with backstab attacks that are also buffed by armour penetration.

The Scoundrel/Operative utilises many different style of attacks from blasters, carbines, grenades, probes, mines, vibro-blades & scatterguns. It is predominantly a close range fighter (4m-15m range) with some minimal long range (30m) abilities as well.

I. Skill Trees, Abilities and Rotation – Dirty Fighting/Lethality

a) Energy

Scoundrels/Operatives use energy similar to rogues in World of WarCraft with one major difference; the rate at which we regenerate energy changes depending on our current energy levels. The less energy we have, the slower it regenerates. This creates a very different mechanic and will have an extreme impact on our ability priority/rotation. Our main focus will be juggling energy regeneration with the need to keep up sustained dps, along with situations where burst is required and will drain our pool below optimal levels.

We start out with a base of 100 energy as a Scoundrel/Operative and our base energy regeneration rate is 5/second. While you will never have more than 100 energy, we do get access to Pugnacity / Stim Boost, which increases our energy regeneration by 1 per second. It will always be a priority to keep this effect up no matter what spec you are, as faster energy regeneration = more ability spam = more DPS.

As stated the less energy we have, the slower our rate of energy regeneration is, as shown in the following table:

I have written a separate thread regarding tiered energy regeneration and the effect that it has here.

b) Skill Tree

For PvE Raiding I currently recommend the following build:

• Scoundrel – 7/3/31
• Operative – 7/3/31

The main thing I noticed in was that we have 4 points that are required in the Dirty Fighting/Lethality tree that are optional and can be shifted around based on your preferences. I placed mine in Feelin’ Woozy/Adhesive Corrosives and Smuggled Defenses/Escape Plan as one offers a snare when adds come up and the other a reduction on the CD of our defensive CD.

The reasons for my other placements this is that with the changes to Wounding Shots / Cull it will now be mandatory that we keep Pugnacity / Tactical Advantage on our targets. This will now ensure that Blaster Whip / Shiv will be used and possibly Shoot First / Hidden Strike as well. Furthermore, due to the rather long DoT applied with Corrosive Grenade / Shrap Bomb, we could also be using Back Blast / Backstab in our rotation as well.

As these things become clearer I’ll update the guide to reflect the current best practise.

c) Abilities

Below is a list of all abilities which will be predominantly used for Dirty Fighting/Lethality DPS. Those with only situational uses are at the end.

c i.) DPS Abilities

• Blaster Volley / Carbine Burst – A frontal cone AE attack that requires the Upper Hand/Tactical Advantage buff.
• Blaster Whip / Shiv – This provides the Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage buff, which allows other key abilities to be used.
• Flurry of Bolts / Rifle Shot – Our default attack that costs no energy and will be weaved into the rotation to keep our energy regeneration in the top tier.
• Hemorrhaging Blast / Weakening Blast – Our T7 ability and will be used on CD to refresh the buff and ensure our bleeds/poisons are gaining the 30% increased damage.
• Quick Shot / Overload Shot – A moderate damage ability that may sometimes be used in burst situations.
• Pugnacity / Stim Boost – Requires Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage and increases energy regeneration. This will be one of our highest priorities to keep this buff up at all times.
• Shoot First / Hidden Strike – A very high damage ability that grants Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage and can only be used from stealth. This will probably be our opening shot as it will give us Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage to immediately use Pugnacity / Stim Boost and can be followed up by Blaster Whip / Shiv for using / Cull.
• Shrap Bomb / Corrosive Grenade – Our T3 ability that will only be used to refresh the bleed/poison on a target for heavier hitting Wounding Shots / Cull . This is also an AE ability to be used appropriately.
• Thermal Grenade / Fragmentation Grenade – Our main AE ability to be used every CD with 4 or more enemies.
• Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage – This is a buff that allows us to use other key abilities such as Wounding Shots / Cull and Pugnacity / Stim Boost and provides a blanket 2% damage increase.
• Vital Shot / Corrosive Dart – We will want to keep this on the target at all times as it increases the damage of Wounding Shots / Cull.
• Wounding Shots / Cull – This will be the mainstay of our of rotation and will be used whenever possible, providing all bleeds/poisons are on the target.
• XS Freighter Flyby / Orbital Strike – AE ability to be used on CD with more than 4 targets. More investigation is required to see if this is good for single target as well.

c ii.) Situational Abilities

• Cool Head / Adrenaline Probe – To be used in moments when you are required to dip into your energy for burst to prop you back into the upper tiers of energy regeneration. More testing will be required for exact applications.
• Defense Screen – Defensive CD that will be used to mitigate damage in high damage situations.
• Dirty Kick / Debilitate – Most likely won’t be usable on bosses but may be useful on some adds.
• Disappearing Act / Cloaking Screen – A great defensive CD that will most likely reduce all threat to 0 as well.
• Distraction – Useful for interrupting powerful abilities to mitigate damage or effects.
• Dodge / Evasion – Another defensive CD.
• Flash Grenade / Flash Bang – Great for controlling adds.
• Headshot / Cheap Shot – A free attack at that is only usable on incapacitated targets. Most likely of no use against bosses, as they are rarely incapacitated. These abilities share the same CD, however one has a 30m range and the other 4m so use as appropriate.
• Heartrigger Patch / Resuscitation Probe – Battle rez, enough said.
• Slice Droid – Great for controlling droid adds.
• Tranquilizer / Sleep Dart – Rogue sap from wow.

d) Ability Priority Order and Rotation

The priority/rotation for this build is actually quite complex and requires management of several CD’s, buffs and debuffs. Firstly you are going to want Pugnacity / Stim Boost up for increased energy regeneration and damage. You also want to try to have Hemorrhaging Blast / Weakening Blast up at all times to ensure your dots tick harder. Wounding Shots / Cull is only going to be viable with both bleeds/poisons on the target. This will mean that you’re going to have to make sure Shrap Bomb / Corrosive Grenade and Vital Shot / Corrosive Dart are always on the target. Wounding Shots / Cull and Pugnacity / Stim Boost also require the Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage buff, which is applied by Blaster Whip / Shiv so you need to keep your eye on those CD’s as well.

All this needs to then be juggled with energy regeneration. I sincerely recommend that people ask themselves whether they will enjoy this type of game play, as I know from past experiences that it can cause me to watch my action/buff bars more than the fight itself and at the end of it I’m like ‘Hey, what actually just happened in this encounter?!’ and not enjoying the actual fight.

I recommend the following priority rotation:

• Blaster Whip / Shiv (Need UH/TA for Pugnacity / Stim Boost)
• Pugnacity / Stim Boost (to refresh or need 10 energy)*
• Flurry of Bolts / Rifle Shot (below 90 energy)
• Hemorrhaging Blast / Weakening Blast (to refresh)
• Vital Shot / Corrosive Dart (to refresh)
• Shrap Bomb / Corrosive Grenade (to refresh)
• Blaster Whip / Shiv (need UH/TA buff for Wounding Shots / Cull)
• Wounding Shots / Cull

* Pugnacity / Tactical Advantage will provide you with a 10 energy and isn’t on the GCD, so using this ability above 90 energy is a waste.

As you can see it is very specific and to keep everything in the optimal tier of energy regeneration you’re going to have to watch everything extremely carefully. I do not recommend using any of your major abilities sub 90 energy as you will push your regeneration into the second tier. While it may not seem like much, over the course of an encounter it will have a snowball effect and decrease your DPS significantly.

Also remember that Upper Hand/Tactical Advantage also grants 2% increased energy, so we are always going to want at least 1 stack up at all times in a perfect scenario. When you wish to use abilities that require UH/TA, you Blaster Whip / Shiv just before using them, increasing your stacks to 2 and then burning 1 to maintain 1 stack at all times. I’m actually going to investigate this further to see just what the numbers turn out like. Once I have some solid data, I’ll share it for review.

The AE rotation for 4 mobs or higher will be simply:

• XS Freighter Flyby / Orbital Strike
• Shrap Bomb / Corrosive Grenade
• Thermal Grenade / Fragmentation Grenade
• Blaster Whip / Shiv (need UH/TA buff)
• Blaster Volley / Carbine Burst

II. Skill Trees, Abilities and Rotation – Scrapper/Concealment

a) Energy

The Scrappers/Concealment spec gains access to the talent Underdog/Meticulously Kept Blades, which increases the effectiveness of Pugnacity / Stim Boost , as shown in the table below:

I have written a separate thread regarding tiered energy regeneration and the effect that it has here.

b) Skill Trees

For PvE Raiding I currently recommend the following build:

• Scoundrel – 3/31/7
• Operative – 3/31/7

I really can’t see there being any room to move as far as DPS talents go, but there are certainly a lot of utility talents that can be shifted around to suit your style of game play. I prefer a lot of mobility for my melee toons, as in movement heavy fights it decreases the amount of time off the target. I also like survivability talents where possible to make encounters easier for healers. As such, I took Sneaky/Infiltrator for 15% increased movement speed, Brawler’s Gift/Inclement Conditioning & Surprise Comeback/Revitalizers for the extra health and heals and Fight or Flight/Energy Screen to be able to continue receiving heals in when I vanish. The rest of the talents are no brainers really and the only semi-valid argument I see would be to take 1 point from Open Wound/Lethal Injectors and max out Mortal Wound/Corrosive Microbes. I’m not certain that this will provide a greater benefit though as Vital Shot / Corrosive Dart is our most expensive ability at 20 energy and having to apply it less may make up for the lower damage by allowing us to use other harder hitting abilities. I’ll be testing this further and will update accordingly.

c) DPS Abilities

Below is a list of all abilities which will be predominantly used for Concealment/Scrapper DPS. Please refer the Dirty Fighting/Lethality section for the situational abilities.

• Back Blast / Backstab – An extremely hard hitting ability that will be always used in conjunction with Flechette Round / Acid Blade. Due to this Back Blast / Backstab while is free when talented, will still cost the 15 energy required by Flechette Round / Acid Blade. Something to note is that it has a positional requirement to be behind the target, which may not always be possible. Another thing that was mentioned to me was that sometimes this move was fickle when targets where grappled by a companion or tank. It can give an “effect condition not met” error even though the button is lit up, and it will cost a GCD and do no damage. Most times moving to the side solved this, but if you don’t notice it not working you can be sitting there for a while doing no damage – Thanks Tactician
• Blaster Whip / Shiv – This is provides quite good damage and also the Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage buff, which allows other key abilities to be used.
• Flechette Round / Acid Blade – Our T7 ability that will buff our next Shoot First / Hidden Strike or Back Blast / Backstab
  to apply a powerful DoT over 6 seconds and increase armour penetration by 50% for 15 seconds, which will significantly boost our DPS as most of the damage for Scrapper/Concealment is Kinetic, Energy or Weapon. As stated you will always be using this in conjunction with Back Blast / Backstab.
• Flurry of Bolts / Rifle Shot – The default attack that costs no energy and will be weaved into the rotation to keep our energy regeneration in the top tier.
• Sucker Punch / Laceration – Our T3 ability that requires the Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage buff. This ability also has a 50% chance to proc a second free attack that also refreshes the UH/TA buff if a bleed/poison is on the target. As such, you want to keep this ability on CD whenever possible.
• Pugnacity / Stim Boost – Requires Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage and increases energy regeneration. This buff needs to be kept up at all times.
• Shoot First / Hidden Strike – Our highest damaging ability that grants Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage and can only be used from stealth. This will always be our opening shot combined with Flechette Round / Acid Blade as it will give us UH/TA to immediately use Pugnacity / Stim Boost and can be followed up by Blaster Whip / Shiv for Sucker Punch / Laceration.
• Thermal Grenade / Fragmentation Grenade – Our main AE ability to be used every CD with 4 or more enemies.
• Upper Hand / Tactical Advantage – This is a buff that allows us to use Sucker Punch / Laceration and Pugnacity / Stim Boost.
• Vital Shot / Corrosive Dart – We will want to keep this on the target at all times as it allows Collateral Strike to refresh Upper Hand/.
• XS Freighter Flyby / Orbital Strike – AE ability to be used on CD with more than 4 targets. More investigation is required to see if this is good for single target as well.

d) Ability Priority Order and Rotation

I recommend the following priority rotation:

Always open with Shoot First / Hidden Strike; and

• Flurry of Bolts / Rifle Shot (below 90 energy)
• Blaster Whip / Shiv (Need UH/TA for Pugnacity / Stim Boost)
• Pugnacity / Stim Boost (to refresh)
• Back Blast / Backstab (always in conjunction with Flechette Round / Acid Blade)
• Vital Shot / Corrosive Dart (to refresh)
• Blaster Whip / Shiv (Need UH/TA for Sucker Punch / Laceration)
• Sucker Punch / Laceration

The Scrapper/Concealment rotation is more forgiving that the Dirty Fighting/Lethality one. We start with Shoot First / Hidden Strike. It hits like a truck and applies UH/TA. Keep Pugnacity / Tactical Advantage up at all times (this will also require you to Blaster Whip / Shiv for UH/TA). Try to keep Back Blast / Backstab with Flechette Round / Acid Blade on cool down as much as possible for damage and the armour penetration debuff. You will also need Vital Shot / Corrosive Dart up before you Sucker Punch / Laceration (through Blaster Whip / Shiv) so that your Flying Fists/Collateral Strike reapplies UH/TA if it procs. As you can see there are several High energy cost abilities that you simply won’t be able to keep on CD 100% of the time. Realistically, your chances to use Sucker Punch / Laceration will only be occasionally, as it requires 30 energy, and then another 15 if you Sucker Punch / Laceration again when Flying Fists/Collateral Strike procs.

Also remember that Upper Hand/Tactical Advantage also grants 2% increased damage, so we are always going to want at least 1 stack up at all times in a perfect scenario. When you wish to use abilities that require UH/TA, you Blaster Whip / Shiv just before using them, increasing your stacks to 2 and then burning 1 to maintain 1 stack at all times. I’m actually going to investigate this further to see just what the numbers turn out like. Once I have some solid data, I’ll share it for review.

The AE rotation for 4 mobs or higher will be simply:

• XS Freighter Flyby / Orbital Strike
• Thermal Grenade / Fragmentation Grenade
• Blaster Whip / Shiv (need UH/TA buff)
• Blaster Volley / Carbine Burst.

III. Stats, Gear, Consumables and Crew Skills

a) Stats

The base stats at the moment are Aim, Cunning, Endurance, Presence, Strength and Willpower.

• Aim improves ranged/blaster attacks, and is an inferior stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, increasing by 0.9 Aim per level on average. It is the dominant stat for Bounty Hunters. Note: Aim is not to be confused with Accuracy, a wholly different stat, which is discussed below.
• Cunning improves tech attacks, and is the dominant stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, increasing by 4 Cunning per level on average.
• Endurance improves health, and is an auxiliary stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, increasing by 3.5 Endurance per level on average. Every point provides 10 health points, and every 5 points provides 1% health regeneration.
• Presence improves Companions, and is an auxiliary stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, providing 3.5 Presence per level on average. Every 1 point provides 2 health points to Companions, and every 20 points provides a 2% bonus to Companions’ damage.
• Strength improves melee attacks, and is an inferior stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, increasing by 0.9 Strength per level on average. It is the dominant stat for Sith Warriors.
• Willpower improve force attacks, and an inferior stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, increasing by 0.9 Willpower per level. It is the dominant stat for Sith Inquisitors

For damage calculations, every 10 points in a stat provides 1 bonus damage to the appropriate type, and every 140 points provides 1% crit chance to the appropriate type. However, the dominant stat of a class provides this bonus to all abilities, not just the one indicated above, so a Smugglers/Imperial Agent, and therefore a Scoundrel/Operative, gains both bonus melee damage, tech damage and crit chance from Cunning.

Furthermore, the dominant stat also provides some measure of healing increase, currently believed to be 0.5 +healing per stat point, although the amount is not yet known. Presence previously provided 1 bonus healing per 5 Presence points, so 1 bonus healing from somewhere between 5 and 10 points of the dominant stat would seem likely.

The secondary stats of interest are Accuracy, Alacrity, Critical Chance and Surge. (Note: Armour Rating is an indication of the relative worth of an item, analogous to the item level/ilvl, not the amount of armour provided by the item.)

• Accuracy is improved by Accuracy Rating, and determines the chance for our melee and force abilities to hit the enemy. After a certain breakpoint (when 100% hit is achieved), it instead reduces the likelihood of deflection and resists. If we do not have perfect Accuracy (which seems likely), then Accuracy Rating will be the most valuable stat on gear until we reach the breakpoint. After that I’m inclined to believe we will be better off stacking other stats such as crit and power/tech power, unless there is a small universal amount that helps with boss fights. Similar to Spell Pen helping against Mark of the Wild in WoW.
• Alacrity is analogous to Haste in World of WarCraft, reducing activation and channeling times. This stat will be of no value to us unless it also reduces the Global Cooldown (GCD) & increases energy regeneration (which have both been confirmed to currently not do), as all of our abilities are instants and even if we could get our abilities off earlier, we would still be waiting the same amount of time for energy to regenerate.
• Critical Chance is the chance to score a critical strike, which improves the damage/healing of an ability by 50%, and is improved by Critical Rating and the dominant stat. Critical Chance very useful to the Dirty Fighting/Lethality spec as crits bleeds proc 2 energy regeneration. Crit will also be useful for Scrapper/Concealment specs as Underdog/Meticulously Kept Blades increases our crit damage for Back Blast/Backstab, Shoot First/Hidden Strike & Flechette Round/Acid Blade.
• Power increases both melee and ranged power. After a certain point of crit and surge, I believe it could possibly be beneficial to start stacking this stat as well. Once stat weights/breakpoints become available I’ll be able to know for certain.
• Surge increases the magnitude of critical effects, improving their extra damage/healing beyond +50%. Given that we will stack crit this will also be an important stat to us for either spec.

Our stat priority (for either spec) from gear is most likely along the following lines, not taking relative item weighting/value and coefficients into account, nor the possible weighting of Accuracy Rating past the breakpoint:

Accuracy (until breakpoint) > Cunning > Critical Rating/Surge Rating > Power > Alacrity

b) Gear

I will be linking the BiS gear once it comes available however I won’t be discussing best in slot gear in this thread, as I believe that it should have a separate thread of its own as it usually provokes a much different line of discussion. I will, however, link the appropriate thread once it has been created.

• Head:
• Implant 1:
• Implant 2:
• Ear:
• Chest:
• Gloves:
• Wrist:
• Waist:
• Legs:
• Boots:
• Relic:

c) Consumables

As in other games and especially MMO’s, there are consumable available that will provide short term buffs with a high stat increase, in addition to ones that provide longer term buffs with smaller stat increases. In swtor, these are called Adrenals and Stimulants. Adrenals provide a 15 second buff with a 180 second CD, whereas Stims provide a 2 hour buff. Another available consumable that could be used is a Medpac, which restores health and has a 90 second CD.

The following consumables may be of use, depending on the official stat weights:

• Exotech Critical Adrenal
• Exotech Force Adrenal
• Exotech Attack Adrenal
• Exotech Skill Stim
• Exotech Medpac

Additionally, if you are decide to take Biochem, you will be entitled to the following recipes:

• Rakata Critical Adrenal
• Rakata Force Adrenal
• Rakata Attack Adrenal
• Rakata Skill Stim
• Rakata Medpac

d) Crew Skills

The following Crew Skills known going to be the likely choices for Smugglers/Imperial Agents in general:

• Scavenging – Important for gathering materials for any of our chose crafting skills;
• Bioanalysis – Important for gathering materials for Biochem;
• Armormech – Allows us to craft armour;
• Armstech – Allows us to craft weapons;
• Cybertech – Allows us to construct earpieces, grenades, amour over and underlay’s, electro weapons, generators as well as feet and wrist items for all non-force users; and
• Biochem will provide you with Adrenals/Stims, the wow equivalent of flasks and potions – see above consumables.

Depending on your crafting crew skill chosen the following would provide you with the best affection/gathering counterpart:

• Investigation provides materials for Armormech;
• Treasure Hunting provides materials for Armstech and Cybertech; and
• Diplomacy provides materials for Biochem and also increases LS/DS points.

As only one crafting profession may be chosen, the decision between Armormech, Armstech, Cybertech & Biochem will be heavily influenced by the end-game suitability of these crafting skills. Cybertech may pull ahead of the other 2 due to the various socketed components crafted likely having use for longer, by being used to upgrade gear acquired from Operations. Biochem may also be favoured as it provide Adrenals/Stims that will be greatly sought after by raiders. All this is yet to be determined and as no crafting skill provides bonuses like they do in wow currently, I think it will come down to personal choice as to what you feel provides the best benefit to you.