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This Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Guide for SWTOR’s Onslaught 6.0 expansion is suitable for new players as well as those who seek to improve their performance! It focuses exclusively on PvE. The guide features an introduction to the class, gearing and stats priority, abilities descriptions of how they work and how to use them for best effect, utilities break-down, rotations and ability priorities and tips

This guide is written for VULKK.com by Kyranar

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INTRO TO DIRTY FIGHTING GUNSLINGER

As a Gunslinger our main role is – not surprisingly – to dish out large amounts of damage from afar. And as of the current Patch 6.0.2 we have all the tools we need to excel in this role. If there is a decent Gunslinger in your ops group – you will usually see them rather far up in the DPS ranking for any given encounter.

Since we were granted a 35m range of attack we are rarely forced to stay in certain spots and enjoy a vast freedom of movement to relocate out of damage or into range for AOE heals.

Whether it is a “simple tank and spank” where we can just follow through on our rotation on a single target with minimal movement or a fight with a multitude of adds that need to be taken care of. We can tackle both challenges with a minor switch in the rotation and a swap of our tactical.

On top of providing raw damage, we also bring our Scrambling Field to the table which is a valuable add-on for healers to keep the group alive during high stress phases. If you are new to playing Dirty Fighting or just need a refresher for 6.0 you have come to the right place with this guide, it will serve you as a solid knowledge basis for harder content.

If you are already doing Nightmare difficulty content, chances are good that you will not need a guide anyway and have already found your way of Dirty Fighting but you might still pick up a thing or two.

GEARING

Since 6.0 we have a lot of freedom and flexibility when it comes to gearing. There are countless variations of mods and Enhancements available to us that dilute the loot pool.

The good news is, that we do not need to worry all that much unless we are doing specific content – namely Dxun or the Meridian Flashpoint.

Every other type of PvE content will be downscaled. This means that we will not have the full value of our stats available and Mastery, Endurance and Power are capped to maximum values.

Here are some examples of the downscaled stats:

Capped Stats Build

Uncapped Stats Build

Set Bonus

1x Amplified Champion (with a 0.88% Periodic Intensity roll)

6x Established Foothold (2) +2% Mastery (4) The cooldown of Hunker Down / Entrench is reduced by 10 seconds. You gain 2 energy per second while Hunker Down / Entrench is active. (6) While Hunkered Down / Entrenched, you build stacks of Entrenched Offense, increasing damage by 3% per stack while you remain Hunkered Down. Stacks up to 5 times. Breaking cover or Hunker Down being removed removes this.



Note on the setbonus: reapplying Hunker Down just before it runs out via Bag of Tricks will keep you at 5 stacks of Entrenched Offense. If you leave cover at any point, your stacks will be reset to zero but if you re-enter cover while Hunker Down is still active you will start building stacks again.

The Established Foothold set serves two purposes:

It allows us to be Hunkered Down A LOT. Together with the Holed Up utility we can shrug off tons of AOE damage. The damage boost is also a very nice feature of course. It renders energy management for the Dirty Fighting spec almost non existent. As long as we frequently use Hunker Down, we have lots of energy to spare and even disruptions like forced movement etc. will not bother us all that much. The only situation where I found myself needing to use Cool Head any more was after prolonged use of Sweeping Gunfire.

Amplifiers

9x Periodic Intensity (up to 2.20% damage increase for our dots per amplifier and 0.88% on an Amplified Champion piece for a total of 20.68%).

Periodic Intensity is the mathematical ideal but if you are in the process of gearing up, use whatever is available. Alternatives that come close to Periodic Intensity are Weapon Expertise / Tech Wizardry.

However – that is not an excuse for Slacking. Every little bit counts in NiM mode

Stats

1590+ Accuracy (110.0%)

Just like any other DPS spec.

Alacrity

When it comes to Alacrity however, there are two schools of thought in the Gunglinger community and I will try to cover them both.

3208+ Alacrity (1.3s GCD)

Essentially a 1.3s GCD will make everything tick faster and allow for a more “fluid” gameplay. It pretty much feels like 5.x days where we got accustomed to a certain speed. This is why it’s my personal preference. The downside of using this high Alacrity build is that you will have next to no Critical rating – about 1270 which results in a Critical chance of only 33% (this is a result of changes made to the tertiary stat thresholds (Accuracy / Alacrity / Critical rating) in 6.0)

We have a passive buff that increases the chance for our dots and Wounding Shots to crit so in reality with relic proccs etc. we will end up somewhere in the 37% + range.

While most other specs do not benefit from a high Alacrity build like this one, Dirty Fighting is a special case. The reason that it does not harm but instead even increase our DPS under certain conditions is our Hemorrhaging Blast. The debuff lasts on the target for 10 seconds and is not affected by Alacrity. That means the more abilities we can fire off in that window the better and the more dot ticks we get in, the higher our damage.

With a 1.4s GCD, the debuff on the target will run out just before our second Wounding Shots hits. This can be prevented by clipping the first Wounding Shots just before it ends to shave off a few ms and have your first hit of the second Wounding Shots fall into the Hemorrhaging Blast window. Doing this reliably on a dummy takes a bit of practise, doing it in a raid environment even more so. The danger of clipping Wounding Shots like this is that if you clip it too early – it will be a DPS loss rather than a gain.

With a 1.3s GCD, the first few ticks of our Wounding Shots will be under the effect of the buff without any effort.

1213+ Alacrity (1.4s GCD)

1.4s GCD will feel a bit more “sluggish” but you can get used to it as well.

It is especially convenient if you also play lots of other classes with a 1.4s GCD as there is no impression of them being “slow” when swapping.

As mentioned above, we will get less dots to tick in the Hemorrhaging Blast window if we do not successfully clip Wounding Shots but this is made up for by a higher base crit rate.

The damage for both choices is very similar, although I am personally able to perform better using the 1.3s GCD. My advice is, just give it a try and see which of the two alternatives feels right for you.

An added benefit of running the 1.4s GCD is that you can simply switch your spec to Engineering should you want to, without making any changes to your gear at no DPS loss. The ideal setbonus / amplifiers carry over.

Crit

Every remaining slot in your Enhancement / Implant / Earpiece setup will go into Critical rating.

How to get these stats

The above stats will be achieved by using:

Lethal Mod 80-R2

The R2 variant is mathematically best, it offers 22 more power at the cost of 21 mastery which will ever so slightly increase the damage output.

12.120 mastery and 9.800 power or 12.000 mastery and 9.920 power is a minuscule difference though (approximation, not exact values).

On top of this – you will notice the difference (if you notice it at all) only in non scaled content – which is for now: Dxun.

Scaled content caps both Power and Mastery so both choices perform equally well and you would actually be better off using mods with a high endurance value instead. Wait, that is capped too. So you see what I mentioned earlier about “we have more freedom in gearing”.

Nimble / Initiative Enhancements for Accuracy / Alacrity

Use numbered / lettered mods to hit as close to the targeted values as possible.

Do not go below the thresholds of 1590 Accuracy and 3208 or 1213 Alacrity but try to overshoot by as little as possible. Every point not “wasted” in these two stats can go into Power instead. (If an Enhancement has a lower tertiary stat value, it will compensate by giving you more power)

Again – this choice is only relevant for Dxun as of now. Even if you are running the old Nightmare content, your stats will be capped so it does not matter if you drop 50 Accuracy to hit the exact right threshold and gain 50 power instead.

While it does not hurt to optimize your gear in general of course I would not lose any sleep over it unless you are currently progressing through Dxun or trying to set a world record for parsing on your ship’s Target Dummy.

Superior Adept Enhancements 80 for Crit

Critical Rating is another matter entirely. Crit is not capped in scaled content so there is no excuse to use anything else than the Superior Adept Enhancements 80 (+431 Crit rating).

Sha’Tek Earpieces and Implants

Use Quick Savant, Initiative or Adept (431 tertiary stat) as needed to reach your skill values. These will grant you the best possible combination of stats needed.

Crystals – Eviscerating

In your weapons you will use Eviscerating Crystals (+40 Crit rating).

Stim – Proficient

Stim wise – Proficient Stims (Accuracy and Critical rating) are your friend.

Adrenals

Again, due to mastery and power caps, the type of adrenal depends on the content.

For LVL75 content Attack Adrenals (Power) are the preferred choice. For scaled content, use Critical Adrenals (Crit).

Augments

Ideal for all content: Advanced […] Augment 74 (rating 286)

144 Endurance

144 Power

108 Stat (Crit / Alacrity / Accuracy)

A followup that comes very close on non lvl 75 content: Advanced […] Augment 45 (rating 228)

65 Endurance

96 Stat (Crit / Alacrity / Accuracy)

Do not use anything else especially not the Augment 46/48. These are worse than the 228 rating ones since they add power (which is capped anyway) at the cost of other stats.

If you do not plan to progress through Dxun at this point – keep in mind that in scaled content the difference between 228 and 286 rated augments is 12 tertiary stat per piece. Endurance and Power will be capped.

If this gain is worth several millions to you, by all means – go for it.

If you do go for Dxun however – absolutely save up for the 286 rated augments as they will add both survivability and damage to your character.

Relics

Relics vary for different scenarios:

Scaled Content

If you are doing scaled content (so everything that is NOT Dxun or Meridian) – Power, Mastery and Endurance will be capped so Focussed Retribution / Serendipitous Assault relics are useless.

Sha’Tek Relic of Devastating Vengeance (Crit rating proc chance) Sha’Tek Relic of the Primeval Fatesealer (Alacrity on click) are the preferred choice for these cases.

Use the Fatesealer Relic just before applying dots to the target so they will gain an Improved tick rate for their duration.

Approximation:

@ 1.5GCD Corrosive dart lasts 24s

@ 1.4GCD it lasts 22s

@ 1.3GCD it lasts 21s

@ 1.3GCD it lasts 20s if activated under the influence of the relic (these durations do not get updated on the tooltips)

In all four cases the overall damage and number of ticks will be the same, but the faster GCDs will result in higher DPS of course.

For lvl 75 Content

For Lvl 75 Content (Dxun and Meridian) you will use

Slot 1: Sha’Tek Relic of Focussed Retribution (Mastery rating proc chance)

Slot 2: two options 1.3 GCD: Sha’Tek Relic of Devastating Vengeance (Crit rating proc chance) 1.4 GCD: Sha’Tek Relic of Serendipitous Assault (Power rating proc chance)



The reasoning to drop the SA relic and use DV instead with a 1.3s GCD is that our Crit rating will be very low (1270ish) and more Crit will be more beneficial to us.

Tacticals

Exploited Weakness Exploited Weakness

Absolute No-brainer for single target damage

It increases our Hemorrhaging Blast’s damage and has Dirty Blast put another dot on the target. This tactical will greatly buff your single target damage, so if you are in the process of gearing up, do not wait until it drops somewhere but invest the tech fragments and buy it off the vendor.

Airborne Agents Airborne Agents

If your target brought lots of friends and your raid group is in need of massive AOE damage use that one.

It makes Shrap Bomb spread our Hemorrhaging Blast’s debuff and Dirty Blasts will now do splash damage. The splash damage is so good, that 2x Dirty Blast will replace Sweeping Gunfire for AOE damage in tight quarters.

With Airborne Agents the rotation becomes less static and you need to watch

what is happening a bit more, but the damage potential in big groups of adds is huge.

Instead of using:

Vital Shot Shrap Bomb Hemorrhaging Blast

We will change that to:

Vital Shot Hemorrhaging Blast Shrap Bomb to spread DoTs and the blast Dirty Blast spam

Reapply the dots / Hemorrhaging Blast as needed.

If a single target affected by Hemorrhaging Blast dies, its cooldown is reset so keep those debuffs up as long as the adds keep coming.

A word of caution though: Keep your defences ready and scream your lungs out for the tanks to taunt if you keep doing this for prolonged periods (Dxun 3rd boss eg.)

A more “tame” version of using the Airborne Agents tactical is to basically follow the single target rotation as outlined below (while still using Shrap Bomb after Hemorrhaging Blast to spread its effect). This will result in decent splash damage while still doing your part in getting that bosses HP down.

ABILITIES

About Cooldown Times: Some values are given in seconds / minutes. These are absolute values and not affected by Alacrity.

Some values are given as raw GCD durations. These are affected by Alacrity but do not respect the usual .1 second rounding.

A short example – Laze Target:

3239 Alacrity – 52s (exactly 40x 1.3s GCD)

2345 Alacrity – 53.4s (38.14x 1.4s GCD)

0 Alacrity – 60s (exactly 40x 1.5s GCD)

The 2345 Alacrity value overshoots the threshold to reach a 1.4s GCD of 1213 by more than a thousand. You can see that the cooldown of Laze target is affected by the higher than necessary Alacrity but the raw GCD for ability activation is not.

You will see the exact activation time if you mouseover the ability on your bar.

It is not useful or recommended to overshoot your Alacrity target just to reduce cooldowns on certain skills.

Offensive

ABILITY NOTES

Vital Shot Cooldown: -

Energy: 15



Description and Notes:

Lasts about 16GCDs

Keep on the target at all times and do not refresh it too early. When it runs out it will be replaced by a “passive” version that lasts 5 seconds and only ticks with Wounding Shots

Shrap Bomb Cooldown: -

Energy: 10



Description and Notes:

Lasts about 16GCDs

Keep on the target at all times and do not refresh it too early. When it runs out it will be replaced by a “passive” version that lasts 5 seconds and only ticks with Wounding Shots.

Also spreads your Vital Shot to adjacent targets.

Wounding Shots Cooldown: 6GCD

Energy: 6 / GCD, 12 total



Description and Notes:

Deals Weapon damage and ticks each of your dots currently on the target.

Thermal Grenade Cooldown: 4GCD

Energy: 20



Description and Notes:

Lacklustre AOE ability, can be used in rare cases when there is nothing better to do and you need an instacast while moving.

Smuggler's Luck Cooldown:40 GCDs (1min, affected by Alacrity)

Energy: -



Description and Notes:

Increases the critical hit chance of your next Wounding Shots by 100%.

Leg Shot Cooldown: 10 GCDs

Energy: 12



Description and Notes:

Ranged root. Breaks on damage after a few seconds.

Dirty Blast Cooldown: -

Energy: 15



Description and Notes:

Deals weapon and poison damage to your target. Also places another dot on the target.

This is your main Filler.

XS Freighter Flyby Cooldown: 30 GCDs (45s, affected by Alacrity)

Energy: 20



Description and Notes:

Long cooldown,only cast pre fight or when there is nothing else to do than prepare damage on a spawn point.

For AOE DPS it is usually better to use Sweepingbbbbbb Gunfire unless you need the knockdown effect of Orbital.

Speed Shot Cooldown: 10 GCDs

Energy: 10/GCD, 20 total





Description and Notes:

2GCD channelled ability that has become obsolete in our PvE rotation due to the Exploited Weakness Tactical.

The only use I can think of is the knockback when used with the Re-establish Range Utility.

Flourish Shot Cooldown: -

Energy: 15



Description and Notes:

Reduces healing received on target. Outside of scripted mechanics where bosses heal up not very useful in PvE.

Sweeping Gunfire Cooldown: -

Energy:15/GCD, 45 total



Description and Notes:

Sprays an area, hitting up to 8 targets. Can only be used from cover. Energy cost will add up so when using multiple consecutive Sweeping Gunfires, have your Cool Head ready.

Quickdraw Cooldown: 8 GCDs

Energy: 15



Description and Notes:

Single shot, usable at targets below 30% or after each Wounding Shots (passive skill).

Illegal Mods Cooldown:80 GCDs (2min, affected by Alacrity)

Energy: -



Description and Notes:

The Accuracy bonus will not affect our Mainhand attacks, but the Offhand hits will hit more during Illegal Mods. It is of course also useful for the Armor Penetration as that increases the damage of our Quickdraw as well as the Weapon Damage parts of WoundingShots / Hemorrhaging Blast / Dirty Blast.

Hemorrhaging Blast Cooldown: 12 GCDs

Energy: 5



Description and Notes:

Deals Weapon Damage on initial hit and places a debuff on the target. With every dot tick, they take additional damage while it is active.

Defensive and Utility

ABILITY NOTES

Cool Head Cooldown:1m45s (affected by Alacrity)



Description and Notes:

Gives you back energy. Rarely used nowadays but still useful to cover your back in case you made a mistake or lay down a lot of Sweeping Gunfires.

Scrambling Field Cooldown: 3m



Description and Notes:

Raidwide 20% damage reduction in a 10m radius. Lasts 25s. I cannot stress enough how much this will help your team if used at the right time. Use either when healers ask you to, during predictable high damage phases, or when you see things going south – depending on your team. Communication is key.

Hightail It Cooldown: 20s



Description and Notes:

Roll forward 18s. Purges movement impairing effects and lets you dodge everything while you’re travelling.

Very useful for repositioning and cheesing big spikes of damage (when timed right).

A very good example fight for this are the Dread Guards in Terror from Beyond. You can dodge the Lightning Field as well as the Doom debuff on you – which would otherwise be an instant kill – by timing your roll correctly.

With Dirty Fighting you also leave a poison cloud behind, damaging and slowing enemies in it.

Pulse Detonator Cooldown: 30s



Description and Notes:

Knocks back enemies around you and roots them briefly. On itself kinda “meh” in operations, it can be used for mobility reasons and a small buff in defensive chance with the right utilities. Main use of this however is to knock NPCs off ledges.

Diversion Cooldown: 40 GCDs (1min, affected by Alacrity)



Description and Notes:

Reduces Accuracy for enemies in the area by 45% for 8s. Cannot be used on operation bosses, but useful for adds nonetheless.

Hunker Down Cooldown: 1m(35s with Setbonus and utility)



Description and Notes:

Fortifies us in cover, boosting our damage dealt (Set bonus) and reduces our damage taken (utility).

Escape Cooldown: 2m



Description and Notes:

Our Stunbreaker

Dodge Cooldown: 1m



Description and Notes:

200% chance to dodge melee / ranged attacks for 3 seconds. Can help cheese some mechanics like Orbs at Brontes.

While active also reduces our Force / Tech Damage taken by 75%.

Hideout Cooldown: -



Description and Notes:

Places a homing beacon you can teleport back to by activating the ability a second time.

Bag of Tricks Cooldown: 3m



Description and Notes:

Bag of Tricks will reset the cooldowns of Dodge, Surrender, Defense Screen, Pulse Detonator and Hunker Down. What's not to love ?

You can either use this offensively (Hunker Down, Bag of Tricks. Another Hunker Down when the first one runs out) or save it if you know you will need a lot of cooldowns spread out over the next segment of the fight.

Defense Screen Cooldown: 30s



Description and Notes:

Gives you a small shield that absorbs some damage and when it ends, you gain 15% damage reduction for 6s. Short cooldown so use it often.

Notable Passive Skills

ABILITY NOTES Hold Position 20% increased ranged defense, Dodge reduces Force / Tech damage taken by 75% Crack Shot Vital Shot marks its target for 45s, marked targets take 5% more damage from ranged weapon attacks Extra Shrapnel Spreads your Vital Shot to all targets it hits. If target #1 has the Vital Shot debuff and you throw your grenade at target #2 right next to it, both targets and anything else close by will have both Dart and Grenade on them Black Market Equipment Increases critical chance of our periodic effects by 5% Feelin' Woozy Shrap Bomb reduces the target's movement speed by 30%

(this does not apply to targets with boss immunity obviously) Fighting Spirit Reduces the cooldown of Cool Head by 15s and dealing damage with a poison effect restores 1 energy. Mortal Wound Vital Shot has a 10% chance to tick twice every time and Shrap Bomb makes the target assailable for 45s (they take 7% more internal and elemental damage) Nice Try When Vital Shot and Grenade end they will place lingering versions of themselves on the target that only tick when activated by Wounding Shots. Reopen Wounds Increases Critical Chance of Wounding Shots and Speed Shot by 10% Cold Blooded Your poisons deal 15% more damage to targets below 30% of their maximum health. If a target under Hemorrhaging Blast dies, its cooldown is reset. Dirty Shot Damage dealt by Wounding Shots has an 80% chance to finish the cooldown of Quickdraw and makes it usable on targets above 30% health. Concussion You take 30% reduced damage from periodic effects and when Defense Screen ends you gain a 15% damage reduction for 6 seconds. Incendiary Mine Increases the duration of our Scrambling Field by 5s and Hightail It leaves a poison cloud behind, slowing targets by 70% and damaging them while inside.

UTILITIES

Skillful

Must Have

Ballistic Dampers – Gives you three charges of dampers. Each charge reduces an incoming hit by 30%. Can happen every 1.5s. Make time to pop out and back into cover when Hunker Down is not active to refresh these charges. 30% damage reduction on three hits is a huge boost to survivability.

Situational

Hot Pursuit – Lets you cast 4 Dirty Blasts while moving after you exit cover. Huge mobility boost.

Snap Shot – Entering cover makes the next Dirty Blast cast instantly. This is not a DPS increase, it will still take up a full GCD for the Dirty Blast. The difference is that the shot will go off at the beginning of it rather than the end. This can be useful for movement phases instead of Hot Pursuit. If there is constant damage incoming, your Dirty Blasts under Hot Pursuit suffer from pushback whereas a Snap Shot will cast instantly if you pop into cover, shoot and get out.

Cool under Pressure – Heals you for 2% of your hp every 3s. May not sound much but it can help in fights with constant incoming damage. Even if it is only 15k healed over 10 seconds, that 15k may be the difference between life or death.

Efficient Ammo – Increases Damage dealt by Sweeping Gunfire by 25%.

Useful when there are some adds at some stage of the fight but not enough to warrant the use of Airborne Agents.

Useless

Trip Shot – Reduces cooldown of Legshot

Crippling Diversion – Slows targets affected by your Diversion

Lumbering Impact – Flourish Shot applies a snare and Flash Grenade applies an Accuracy debuff

Masterful

Must Have

There is no clear “must have” in this tier, a lot of options are available that can be used to fit various fights.

Situational

Heads Up – Speedboost when Hunker Down ends or you leave cover while Hunker Down is active. Situational as a secondary speedbost. Reset Engagement is my first pick due to the fact that that it is available exactly when needed. With the setbonus we will be Hunkered Down a lot of the time so the speedbost will be available semi-on demand if we need to leg it, but there still is a chance that it will not be. The benefit of Heads Up is that we will also be immune to movement impairing effects for the duration.

Reset Engagement – 75% speedboost after Surrender. This is our on demand speedbost.

Augmented Shields – Increases your Defense Screens absorbed damage by 30%

Pandemonium – Activating Pulse Detonator makes your next Dirty Blast activate instantly and increases your chance to resist Force/Tech damage by 20% for 6. If there are no adds I can knock out of place with this – a small additional defensive boost as well as another instant cast of Dirty Blast. Again this is not a DPS increase but a mobility buff.

Hold your Ground – Reduces the cooldown of Pulse Detonator and Defense Screen by 5s and your Stun Breaker by 30s. Additionally you get a 20% increase for ranged defense after leaving cover. This defense screen is only active while out of cover so if you peek and pop back into cover, the buff disappears.

Useless

Kneecappin’ – Prolongs Flourish Shots debuff and Below the Belt applies a snare when the root ends

Compounding Impact – Each hit from Speed Shot snares the target more.

Evacuate – Reduces the cooldown of Below the Belt and Flash Grenade

Heroic

Must Have

Lay Low – Reduces cooldown of Hunker Down and Pulse Detonator knocks targets back further. With a set bonus that increases our damage during Hunker Down this is a clear favourite.

Holed Up – Reduces AOE damage taken by 60% while Hunker Down is active. Since Hunker Down is active a lot this is very useful. Do not take it if there is no AOE incoming of course. For operations this is pretty much mandatory.

Since I can hear a thousand healers scream in pain as I am writing this:

This does not give you a free pass to sit in stupid. There will still be damage and you will want to stay on the good side of your healers. You will need to get some experience on your own with your raid group to see if you can safely sit something out and when it is better to not put any more stress on the healers.

If you can get out of an AOE in most cases it is useful to do so. This utility can help mitigating the first hit until you are out

Situational

Riot Screen

Reduces cooldown of Scrambling Field by 30s and reduces damage taken while in cover by 5%.

Opportunity Knocks – Increases Armor penetration for every target affected by Diversion. A lot of our damage is internal and does not benefit from it so there are better choices available in most cases. It will still buff parts of your Wounding Shots / Hemorrhaging Blast / Dirty Blasts damage.

Shield Reserve – Makes you immune to pulls / knockback, heals you while under your Scrambling Field and grants you damage reduction for every enemy under it.

Bait and Switch – Hightail It heals you, Dodge lasts 2s longer. Can be useful in some fights where you use Dodge to mitigate damage that can be predicted.

Perfect Scheme – Reduces Bag of Tricks’s cooldown and gives you a 15% damage reduction after activating it. While More Defensives / Hunker Downes are always good this utility only shines during very long fights. You will get an additional use of Bag of Tricks out of this utility in fights that are 7 minutes or more.

Useless

Guile and Guns – Flash Grenade and Below the Belt let you use Quickdraw on targets above 30% That’s what Wounding Shots does already without taking up a utility point.

Template Build

This is my “one size fits most” approach:

That gives decent movement, defensives and overall flexibility.

It is a starting point only, specific fights require different setups.

Example given: There is no point in Efficient Ammo if there’s nothing to AOE down so for fights like that, Cool under Pressure may be a better choice.

ROTATION AND ABILITY PRIORITIES

The single target rotation is fairly straightforward and we do not need to pay close attention to procs etc.

Opener

(Pre-Cast) XS Freighter Flyby (Pre-Cast) Smuggler’s Luck + Hunker Down

(wait about 1 second) Hardcasted Dirty Blast Vital Shot Shrap Bomb + Adrenal Hemorrhaging Blast + Bag of Tricks Wounding Shots Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Wounding Shots

The idea behind the “wait about 1 second” followed by the Hardcasted Dirty Blast is that the first tick of XS Freighter Flyby and the impact of Dirty Blast hit your target at the same time.

If you want to squeeze out every drop of DPS possible – equip a Relic of Boundless Ages before the fight. Click it and immediately swap back to your normal relic right after placing the Orbital. This will give you a power burst for the initial hit, but potentially leave you with a wrong relic equipped for the whole of the fight in case you get an overeager tank or a fellow DPS player with a twitchy trigger finger.

Main Rotation

Dirty Fighting follows a very basic priority system – so basic that it is hardly a priority system but a fixed set of various blocks chained together.

The step by step guide is below, the reasoning behind it is:

Reapply DoTs ( Vital Shot and Shrap Bomb) when they are about to run out and no Wounding Shots is available immediately (you want all Wounding Shots hits to hit a target that has both poisons or their grey “follow up” versions Use Hemorrhaging Blast before Wounding Shots when it is available (every 12 GCDs) Use Wounding Shots whenever it is available (every 6 GCDs) Dirty Blast Quickdraw (if Hemorrhaging Blast is not active on the target)

Sounds complicated but it is actually very simple.

After the Opener continue with:

BLOCK 1

Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Quickdraw Hemorrhaging Blast Wounding Shots

BLOCK 2

Vital Shot Shrap Bomb Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Wounding Shots

BLOCK 3

Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Quickdraw Hemorrhaging Blast Wounding Shots

BLOCK 4

Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Wounding Shots

BLOCK 5

Vital Shot Shrap Bomb Quickdraw Hemorrhaging Blast Wounding Shots

BLOCK 6

Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Wounding Shots

And we go back to Block 1 and repeat until the target has achieved deadness.

Cooldown Usage

(unless you need to save it for a burn phase)

Smuggler’s Luck

Use this on Cooldown – even if the next Wounding Shots activation is 4 GCDs away.

The buff you get will last 19 seconds so there is virtually no chance of it falling off.

Illegal Mods

Use just before the Quickdraw in Block 5

Dart and Grenade have just been applied and we can squeeze in as many Dirty Blasts / Wounding Shots as possible

Usage in Block 3 is also an option, we just lose a single Dirty Blast that would be buffed by the Illegal Mods effect.

Hunker Down

On cooldown unless you are expecting mechanics to get in the way (a lot of forced movement)

Multi Dotting

If you are facing multiple targets that need to die you can increase your overall damage by applying your dots to additional targets. If the targets are grouped together this will happen automatically with the Shrap Bomb’s spread but if they are far apart it will be a conscious decision to do so.

Multi Dotting is not only a convenient way to fluff your damage but can actually do something meaningful in certain encounters.

Good examples would be the Dread Masters, the Mutant Trandoshan Squad etc.

The way we Multi dot ideally – referencing the rotation above – is:

BLOCK 2

Vital Shot on target #1 Shrap Bomb on target #1 Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Wounding Shots

BLOCK 3

Vital Shot on target #2 Shrap Bomb on target #2 Quickdraw Hemorrhaging Blast Wounding Shots

BLOCK 4

Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Dirty Blast Wounding Shots

By always replacing these exact two Dirty Blasts in Block 3 with our dot applications we can easily keep track of when they need to be reapplied on target #2.

These two spots in the rotation will also not fall into a Hemorrhaging Blast window so we do not reduce our damage dealt to the main target.

Another optional increase for increased damage on target #2 would be to have the odd Dirty Blast hit on it as well (for the dot placed due to our Exploited Weakness tactical)

MOVEMENT

A significant part of mastering the Dirty Fighting Gunslinger is the movement. In an ideal world we could just sit in cover, happily going through our rotation.

It is easy to fall into this trap that gets laid out for us by the setbonus. If it grants me more damage while I am in cover, surely that is how the class is supposed to be played, right ? Well, kind of. While our DPS gets boosted during Hunker Down you might notice a very sharp drop when you hit the floor because you did not get out of an AOE.

We absolutely need to get away from avoidable damage as this lets the healers focus on keeping everyone alive. The Holed Up utility only protects us from 60% of avoidable damage after all.

At the same time we also do not want to limit our damage output too much so there is always a pro and con in each and every given situation. The main thing to keep in mind is that dead Gunslingers do no damage at all, so even if you have to break cover during Hunker Down – do so if it keeps you alive.

Hightail It

The undoubtedly quickest way to relocate is our Hightail It – available every 20s.

This will let us roll 18m in whichever direction the camera is currently facing. This is an important distinction.

The game does not care in which direction your character is facing when you try to use an ability while stationary. You can have your back to your target and as soon as you fire off an ability, your character’s torso will automatically turn and fire off the shot.

If you attempt to do this while walking away from the target however, you will get a red text saying “Not facing Target” and nothing will happen. In order to fire a Shot or any other ability at the target you need to stop moving – even if it is an instant cast.

With Hightail It on the other hand, you can keep on shooting, turning the camera where you need to go and then starting the roll exactly when you need to get out.

The downsides of using Hightail It this way are:

It will use a GCD in which we will not do any damage (If we start our roll on top of a target / a group of adds we at least leave behind the poison cloud for a bit)

It will use one of our defensive utilities simply for relocating.

We may move further than needed.

If you need to move while damage is incoming, Hightail It is a very good choice though.

Walk

Sometimes this is the best available option.

The ideal points in our rotation to walk are:

While reapplying Vital Shot / Shrap Bomb

While you fire off a Quickdraw

With the matching Utilities you can also move during a Dirty Blast Phase.

Snap Shot

You can walk, pop into cover to get the buff, fire off your instacast Dirty Blast and walk on.

A big benefit of using this utility is that – as you take cover briefly – you will refresh your Ballistic Dampeners as well. Since it is an instant ability activation, the whole process of cover-shoot-walk can be done in less than half a second with practise. Leaving you a bit of time to walk to a new position before the next GCD to resume shooting without losing a lot of time. An added bonus is that instant casts do not suffer from pushback (if you get damaged while casting, your cast time gets extended) so if you are looking at a fight with constant incoming damage, this utility is the way to go.

Pulling this move off with Accuracy in a boss fight takes some practice, so do not be discouraged if you cannot get it right at first.

Pandemonium

This will give you a buff that turns your next Dirty Blast into an instant cast as well (lasts 10s) The difference to Snap Shot is that you can preload the buff by using Pulse Detonator while in cover in the old position. Pop out, walk to wherever needed and us the Dirty Blast on the move. Again, being an instacast there is no pushback.

Snap Shot and Stroke of Genius can also be combined:

Pulse Detonator Walk Dirty Blast Pop into cover Dirty Blast Walk

Hot Pursuit

This one works a bit differently. After exiting cover we gain a buff that lets us cast up to four Dirty Blasts while moving. These are not instacasts so they are susceptible to pushback. This downside is compensated by the fact that we have four Dirty Blasts at our disposal to use while relocating.

If you are looking at a fight where you have frequent incoming damage, calculated pursuit is not an ideal option and picking either or both of the two others is more viable.

Hideout

Activating Hideout for the first time will drop a beacon at your current location for 10 minutes. This has a short activation time of 0.50s and cannot be done while moving.

If you are within 60m of it when you activate the ability the second time you will be teleported to the place where you dropped it instantly. If you are in cover while activating it you will appear out of cover at the other location but you will not gain benefits like the calculated pursuit buff.

If you know you will need to move to a specific spot at one point during a fight you can place the beacon there in advance to reduce walking time.

CONCLUSIONS

Thanks and Shout Outs

The guys putting in the work on the Theorycrafter Discord

Without you guys and the discussions on the server SWTOR just wouldn’t be the same. Whenever you read “mathematically best” in this guide (or pretty much all of the guides out there) it’s because these guys crunched the numbers.

Also, thanks to Reshari for proofreading this guide and reassuring me that I wasn’t making everything up.

Of course, thanks to Vulkk for hosting this guide among many others.

About the Author

I’m known as Kyranar or “Ky” for short and have been maining a Gunslinger for most of my SWTOR career, spanning back to the days of the Red Eclipse.

I rarely dabble in PVP and my main focus has always been raiding.

While I’m not a member of the top 1% of that particular community, clearing Nightmare Ops (I’m old school and refuse to call it Master Mode) while watching Telly and solving a Rubik’s cube with my off hand, I do believe I picked up a thing or two over the years in various Hard and Nightmare mode clears that I can share.

I am always open to reasonable discussions and talking shop. Currently I’m raiding with Wraith Squadron on Darth Malgus.

From Vulkk

I would like to thank Kyranar for reaching out to me and offering to write this detailed Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Guide for SWTOR’s newest expansion Onslaught and update 6.0+.

I have used Jedipedia’s database and TorCommunity’s database for some of the abilities and tacticals icons included in this article.

If you are skilled with a Class and Discipline that has not yet been covered with a guide on VULKK (check the Guides List here), and you want to provide one for the SWTOR Community, contact me via email or wherever you see Vulkk present.