Intro to Gunnery Commando
I will use ‘simplified’ language sometimes, there is no sense to copy and paste original description text every time. I will explain utilities and abilities from Master (NiM) mode operations perspective and Veteran for the Ravagers and Temple of Sacrifice operations. I am playing all specs but this guide is made for Gunnery.
The Gunnery specialization is excellent at single-target and switching targets. It can do its full AoE damage potential without energy disaster. Commando’s heavy armor makes you more survivable, in additional you have Decoy on the aggro-drop which simplifies few combats.
With 5.0 Commando got minor changes. It got reflect ability called Echoing Deterrence and bunch of new utilities which I will explain for you below. Also, Energy Cells are now bound to specs.
Gunnery is currently considered as a strong raiding spec, while also being a powerful spec for PvP. Personally, I came to 5.0 to play Assault Specialist as it is the strongest single target spec but it wasn’t scaled to level 70 enough like in previous 4.0 patch so you can always stay on Gunnery and do high damage. But notice, it’s a single target spec and not the strongest one so you cannot be the highest damage dealer in the raid if there are multiple specs unless your groupmates are worse than you or you have a better gear. It’s definitely worth it to play Gunnery in 5.0 for both PvP and old PvE content
Single target is one of the highest (only below DoT specs). AoE damage is decent if you know your rotation. Group utility is one of the highest because Gunnery Commando is a basic unit of any raid group: raid buff, quick target swap, high survivability and armor debuff make it useful and welcome for any raid and any boss. Rotation isn’t hard, there is no tight energy management (if you aren’t Grav Round spam aggressor ofc). But it’s RNG dependent because Gunnery is a crit based spec, i.e. once your Demolition Round does 10k damage instead of 30k your burst is simply going down

Ratings
Single Target DPS: 7
AoE Damage: 7
Group Utility: 10
Rotation Difficulty: 5
RNG Dependent: YES
Burst: 9
Sub 30% Talents or Buffs (Execute): No
Strengths
High burst damage
Quick target swap
Decent AOE potential
Weaknesses
Low crit (RNG) can have a huge negative impact at any gear level
Mobility is somewhat limited by Grav Round
Gearing
The most important thing for PvE DPS in gear stats is accuracy. If you have below 110% of accuracy you have a chance to miss attacks. The new goal at level 70 is 737.
To reach it I would suggest you to use 2x Advanced Initiative Enhancement 51 (205 accuracy each, 410 in total), 1x Advanced Accuracy Augment 45 (96 accuracy) with Advanced Polybiotic Proficient Stim (240 accuracy). This set provides you 746 accuracy points in total. Or just use optimized sets from below.
The next important stats are Critical and Alacrity rating.
With removing ‘Surge rating’ by 4.0 update the size of your hits depends from critical rating. On “Star Parse” you can see it with percentages. For Commando Gunnery, high critical rating starts from 50%. The more critical rating you have the bigger are your chances improve a hit of Demolition Round from 10k to <30k.
What is alacrity rating for? The more alacrity you have the faster is your GCD (Global Cooldown), ability activation cast and ability channeling. The more alacrity you have the higher is your APM (actions per second). For example, let’s take Boltsorm, it does the same damage: with 0 alacrity, you do X damage during 3 seconds and with 1.2k alacrity points you will do the same amount of damage but during around 2.7 seconds.
So, stats you can modify as PvE Gunnery Commando are accuracy rating, critical rating and alacrity rating. Once you reached >736 accuracy points you should improve your alacrity and critical stats. Your target is to have critical points for 22-27% more than alacrity points (for example, 1600 critical rating and 1300 alacrity rating). When you reached ~1600 crit and ~1300 alacrity you can put 1-2 augments for Mastery. You don’t need to go in PvE for Power as you will be improving it by getting higher tier gear.
About assault cannon and generator crystals, you should use both “Eviscerating” +41 Critical Rating. And no, you cannot change color of the Med Shot
Set bonus name is: Eliminator.
If you want to read about more complicated gearing there is Bant’s document.
Below are optimized gear sets with stats from his document:
Gear legend: E = Enhancement or Implant or Earpiece; A = Augment; C = Crystal; Stim = Stim
Eternal Commander MK-3, Tier 1: Artifact (230 ilvl)
7950+-369 DPS @ 41.2 APM | 7372 Endurance | 5901 Mastery (Stim) | 3183 Power
1480 Critical (4xE, 6xA, 2xC) | 1119 Alacrity (3xE, 6xA) | 735 Accuracy (3xE, 2xA)
Eternal Commander MK-13, Tier 2: Artifact (234 ilvl)
8257+-390 DPS @ 41.3 APM | 7653 Endurance | 6128 Mastery (Stim) | 3337 Power
1518 Critical (6xE, 2xA, 2xC) | 1152 Alacrity (12xA) | 760 Accuracy (4xE)
Eternal Commander MK-15, Tier 2: Legendary (236 ilvl)
8703+-420 DPS @ 41.7 APM | 7962 Endurance | 6317 Mastery (2xA) | 3424 Power
1651 Critical (2xE, 10xA, 2xC) | 1296 Alacrity (6xE, 1xA) | 736 Accuracy (2xE, 1xA, Stim)
Iokath MK-3, Tier 3: Artifact (240 ilvl)
8987+-440 DPS @ 41.8 APM | 8106 Endurance | 6385 Mastery (1xA, 1xC) | 3506 Power
1689 Critical (7xE, 1xC) | 1370 Alacrity (2xE, 10xA) | 733 Accuracy (1xE, 3xA, Stim)
Iokath MK-5, Tier 3: Legendary (242 ilvl)
9359+-466 DPS @ 42 APM | 8439 Endurance | 6594 Mastery (1xA) | 3694 Power
1760 Critical (5xE, 4xA, 2xC) | 1436 Alacrity (4xE, 6xA) | 743 Accuracy (1xE, 3xA, Stim)

Utilities
Remember: Good player always takes the best utilities for fights.
SKILLFUL
Tenacious Defense – Reduces cooldown of pushback by 5s, Propulsion Round by 3 s and stun breaker for 30s.COMMENTARY: It’s useful for PvP and situational for PvE (for example, shorter stun break for Torque) but for last one you would prefer to take something better.
Concussive Force – Explosive Round (it was Stockstrike before 5.0) immobilizes target for 4s also makes your pushback effect stronger to it pushes 4 meters further away.COMMENTARY: Not that useful for PvP anymore, because Explosive Round cost is too high but situational for PvE (for example, saber push on Revan).
Parallactic Combat Stims – You recharge 20 energy cells when stunned, immobilized, knocked down or otherwise incapacitated.COMMENTARY: There is no hard energy management for PvP but you can use it for PvE as situational utility (for example, little add on DM Bestia immobilizes you or grenades on Master&Blaster can knock you down).
Cell Capacitor – Recharge Cells immediately recharges 15 additional cells and grants 10% alacrity bonus for 6s.COMMENTARY: Situational for PvP (if you like to spam Grav Round, AOE or dot spread on CD) and mandatory for PvE because of energy management.
Chain Gunnery – Increase the damage dealt by Hail of Bolts by 25%.COMMENTARY: It’s almost useless for PvP (if you aren’t fluffing aggressor ofc) and very useful for PvE in most of fights where are more than 3 enemies in its range (for example, DM Bestia).
Sticky Mods – Charged Bolt/Grav Round reduce the movement of enemy target by 40% for 9s.COMMENTARY: It’s mandatory for PvP because it just simply slows the target and useless for PvE because it doesn’t work against bosses.
MASTERFUL
Advance the Line – Increase the duration of Hold the Line by 4s.COMMENTARY: It works as basic utility for all fight in both PvP and PvE (extra useful for Revan).
Electro Shield – Your electro shield does X amount of damage to attacker once in a second during 12s Reactive Shield Cooldown.COMMENTARY: Useful for both PvP and PvE as your basic utility. I would even call this utility mandatory to use for PvE because it makes your Reactive Shield offensive cooldown instead of defensive.
Suit FOE – Self cleanse all periodic damage taken by 30% for 12s.COMMENTARY: It might be useful for PvP if you playing on a healer spec (i.e. Combat Medic). You can use it for the few PvE fights (for example, DoT on Dread Guards by Kel’sara or DM Styrak spines dot) but usually healers can over heal any DoT.
Charged Barrier – Charged Bolts/Grav Round and Medical Probe build a Charged Barrier that reduces damage taken by 1% next 15s, it stacks up to 5 times (i.e. 5% damage reduction with 5 stacks).COMMENTARY: Before 5.0 this utility was in SKILLFUL. You might sometimes you it for PvP but I wouldn’t recommend or as healer in PvE. 5% damage reduction almost never helps if you dying.
Efficient Conversions – Removes the energy sell cost of pushback, CC, cleanse and stun abilities.COMMENTARY: From my point of view it’s useless for both PvP and PvE.
Supercharged Reserves – Reduces the cooldown of cleanse and interrupt abilities. In addition, you can build up to 10 stacks of Supercharged while using Recharge and Reload (or any another out of combat health regen toy).COMMENTARY: NEVER use it with a target to build stacks! It’s almost useless for PvP and very situational for PvE on a healer spec (for example, tank cleanse on Cartel Warlords). The main reason why I like to use it is dummy parsing because it doesn’t proc relics to build stacks of Supercharged.
HEROIC
Reflexive Shield – When you take damage your cooldown of Reactive Shield is reduced by 3s (this effect cannot occur more than once in 1.5s).COMMENTARY: Finally! With 5.0 Commando, can use it as main utility. This utility makes you Vanguard. It’s extra useful for both PvP (if you use it with Trauma Stabilizers) and PvE (for example, Underlurker adds). For PvP it makes you more independent and grants more survivability, for PvE it ultimately makes your Reactive Shield as offensive cooldown.
Overclock – Reduces the cooldown of CC and Tech Override by 15 seconds each.COMMENTARY: For both PvP and PvE you would prefer to choose something more useful, it’s pretty situational on Gunnery.
Reflexive Battery – Increase the damage dealt by your pushback ability for 30% and heals you and 7 allies in its range for X health. In addition, while you taking damage it reduces CD of pushback ability by 1s (cannot occur more than once in 1.5s).COMMENTARY: Useless for DPS spec. You might use it for an extra healing on a healer spec in both PvP and PvE but there are more useful utilities.
Adrenal Surge – Heals you twice up to 70% of your total health and increase the duration of Adrenaline Rush by 2 seconds.COMMENTARY: Extra useful for PvP and situational in PvE (for example, DM Brontes burn phase). You would prefer to take AOE reduction instead of this one for the most of fights.
Combat Shield – Reactive Shield now further decreases ability activation pushback by 30%, increase all healing received by 20% and makes you immune to interrupts. COMMENTARY: Well, it might make you more survival for PvP with Reflexive Shield + Trauma Stabilizers combo but do you need it? For PvE you would prefer something more useful.
Shock Absorbers – Reduces the damage taken from AOE effects by 30% and you take 30% less damage while stunned.COMMENTARY: One of survival utilities for PvP and mandatory utility for the most of PvE fights (for example, Lightning Field on Dread Guards or the stab of Vilus Garr). In 4.0 you had to choose between Reflexive Shield and AOE reduction but now you can combo it to increase DPS and decrease DTPS.
LEGENDARY
Forced March – Allows Full Auto, Boltstorm and Successive Treatment to be activated while moving.COMMENTARY: One of the most useful utilities for both PvP and PvE. It’s makes you mobile. But if you need more defense and don’t need mobility you can choose something else.
One Man Army – Using Electro Net now grants 15% alacrity for 9 seconds. Additionally, Supercharged Cell reduces CD of Adrenaline Rush by 5 seconds.COMMENTARY: Works in PvP but not much useful for PvE to boost alacrity as you need to put it on target w/o ‘Boss Immunity’ (thrash).
Smoke Screen – When you use Propulsion Round it keeping you from being leapt to (charged) or pulled and making you immune against interrupts and pushbacks for the next 4s. In addition, taking melee or Tech damage within 4s resets its cooldown. These effects cannot occur more than once in 40s.COMMENTARY: Situational in PvP and useless in PvE.
Trauma Stabilizers – While your Reactive Shield is active, you generate a stack of Trauma Stabilizers (up to 15) each time you receive direct damage. When Reactive Shield expires, each stack heals you up for 5% of your maximum health.COMMENTARY: One of new 5.0 utilities. Extra useful as a personal DCD in PvP and situational in PvE (for example, if you get lost on Dash’Roode and saving/cannot use personal shield).
Supercharged Defense – Activation Supercharged Cell increases your defense chance by 15% and grants immunity to interrupts for 8s. In additional your Endurance and healing received are increased by 3% each.COMMENTARY: Useful for PvP (for example, activating combat node on Odessen Warzone) and useful for PvE if you like you like to have more HP than the rest (i.e. almost useless as you can choose something more useful).
Suppression Protocols – Stealth Scan Grants Suppression Protocols,increase the damage or healing dealt by your next non-channeled direct damage or healing ability by 20%. For each target, you revealed from stealth, you generate an additional charge of Suppression Protocols. This effect stacks up to 5 charges and lasts for 10 seconds.COMMENTARY: Almost useless for PvP (well, if you reveal 4 enemies in RWZ match and you can crit next Demolition Round you might do 50-60k hit but) and PvE (because it costs GCD).

Abilities
Offensive Abilities

Reactive Shield – offensive cooldown with Electro Shield utility. Must be modified with Reflexive Shield utility.
Echoing Deterrence – new Commando ability which is basically 50% reflect. Notice, it doesn’t work against AOE damage. You can do numbers like these if you know how to use reflect.
Hammer Shot – basic filler.
Explosive Round – execute ability on Assault Specialist spec. Can be modified with Concussive Force.
Electro Net – one of the highest damage abilities for a single GCD. It’s unique for PvP because itslows down, prevents leap, vanquish and phase walk. For PvE it’s like a DoT or alacrity booster with One Man Army utility.
Charged Bolts – basic casting ability for Assault Specialist and Combat Medic specs. Can be modified for with Sticky Mods utility.
Full Auto – basic channeling ability. Can be modifiedfor activation on the move with Force March utility.
High Impact Bolt – high damage ability.
Supercharged Cell – it increases your DPS, the way it increases depends from your current spec. You can modify it into DCD with Supercharged Defense utility.
AoE Abilities

Sticky Grenade – has a detonation time, does kinetic damage up to 8 enemies when it detonates.
Plasma Grenade – does kinetic damage up to 8 targets in 8m radius also dealing additional periodic damage to affected targets within 6s.
Mortal Volley – highest AOE damage ability which does kinetic damage within 5 meters of the target area over the duration.
Hail of Bolts – AOE damage ability which does kinetic damage within 5 meters of the target area over the duration. You can buff it with Chain Gunnery utility.
Defensive Cooldowns (DCDs)

Diversion – reduces the threat, does different effects on Gunnery and Assault Specialist specs. On Gunnery, it grants Decoy or Degauss for Assault Specialist. More info below.
Cleanse – cleanses friendly target up to 2 tech or physical negative effects. Can be modified with Suit FOR utility.
Reactive Shield – increase damage reduction by 25% for the next 12s. Can be modified with Electro Shield, Reflexive Shield, Combat Shield and Trauma Stabilizers utilities.
Hold the Line – grants 6s of immunity from all movement-impairing effects, knockdowns and physics and increase movement speed by 30%. The most useful ability for Revan. Can be modified with Advance the Line.
Adrenaline Rush – heals you up to 35% of maximum health for 8s. Can be pre-casted which makes it triggered automatically once you go below 35% of your health. Can be buffed with adrenaline Surge Utility.
Tenacity – your stun breaker.
Healing Abilities

Med Shot – basic healing ability, as DPS use it to build stacks of Supercharged as pre-cast.
Medical Probe – casting healing ability. Getting proced together with High Impact Bolt or Mag Bolt but only single ability can use a proc. Can be modified with Charged Barrier utility.
Bacta Infusion – heals up immediately. Useful for PvP self-heals.
Utilities

Emergency Medical Probe – combat revive.
Supercharged Celerity – raid buff.
Concussive Round – CC. Can be modified with Efficient Conversions and Overclock.
Disabling Shot – interrupt. Can be modified with Supercharged Reserves.
Propulsion Round – Commando’s “Force Speed backpedal”. Can me modified with Smoke Screen utility.
Concussive Charge – pushback utility. Can be buffed with Concussive Force utility.
Cryo Grenade – stun. Can be modified with Efficient Conversions.
Tech Override – makes next 1 (or 2 with Overclock utility) casting abilities activated instantly.

Discipline Abilities
Boltstorm– your main rotational ability on Gunnery. Cooldown of Boltstorm sticks to Curtain of Fire. Costs 16 energy cells.
Grav Round – your main filler ability. It’s also armor debuff which makes Gunnery spec welcome for any boss any raid. Also, it marks target, marked targets are vulnerable to high Impact Bolt and Demolition Round. Both armor debuff and mark stay on target for 45s but you refreshing it by using every time. Builds stacks of Supercharged. Costs 15 energy cells.
Demolition Round – highest single GCD damage ability on Gunnery. Use it if target is marked by Gravity Vortex. Costs 15 energy cells.
High Impact Bolt – seconds highest single GCD damage ability on Gunnery if it is used with 5 stacks of Charged Barrel.
Vortex Bolt – does a huge hit if crited. Allows you next Grav Round to be activated instantly. Cost 12 energy cells.
Supercharged Cell – recharges 10 energy cells and increase armor penetration by 10% for 8s. Abilities to build stacks: Hammer Shot, Grav Round, Med Shot and Medical Probe. Experienced players used to build stacks with Medshot before each combat.
Notable Passives
Armor-piercing Cell – before 5.0 you had to switch energy cells for each discipline but now it’s passive.
Charged Barrel–Grav Round grants Charged Barrel, increasing the damage dealt by the next High Impact Bolt by 6% or reducing the activation time and increasing the healing dealt by the next Medical Probe by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times (i.e. works only when you reached 5 stacks).
Blazing Barrel – Increases the critical chance of Hail of Bolts by 15% and it’s critical damage bonus by 40% (i.e. Hail of Bolts is buffed on Gunnery).
Cover Fire – Full Auto and Boltstorm slow the target’s movement speed by 70% for 3 seconds with each hit. In addition, the effects of your Supercharged Cell ability is modified (i.e. you slow players in PvP by using Full Auto/Boltstorm).
Gravity Surge – Grav Round now applies an additional stack of Charged Barrel (2 by a single ability use) and Charged Barrier (1), if applicable (Charged Barrier utility).
Ironsights – Vortex Bolt marks its target. Marked targets take 5% more damage from ranged attacks (i.e. it’s ranged attacks debuff).
Decoy – Diversion grants 5 charges of Decoy. Each charge of Decoy intercepts and absorbs an incoming Force or tech attack. Each time you absorb a Force or tech attack in this manner, Decoy loses 1 charge. Lasts up to 10s (i.e. you can avoid damage from some huge attacks, it’s your DCD. For example, you can “eat” orbs on DM Brontes by using Diversion and going into it at any time but only once in 45s).
Curtain of Fire – Grav Round and Hail of Bolts finish the cooldown on Boltstorm and increase the damage dealt by the next Boltstorm by 10% (i.e.you can use Boltsorm each 6s).
Rotations and ParsingRotation
Gunnery rotation has a priority system not like a stable one on Assault Specialist. But no worries, if you did a mistake you don’t need to spam Hammer Shot, you will just loose burst.
Opener is the same as in 3.0 Fascinate and Marisi guide but for the core rotation I use another priority system.

Basically, single Grav Round crits and resets cooldown of Boltstorm every 8 seconds; 3x Grav Round crit High Impact Bolt/buff and make instant Medical Probe; Vortex Bolt makes instant Grav Round.
I personally prefer to use High Impact Bolt + Demolition Round because it provides the highest burst in both PvP and PvE. Also, Demolition Round is out of cooldown almost every time when you already have 5 stacks of Charged Barrel so you don’t need to pay attention for its cooldown.
Priority list:
Boltstorm (proc’ed by Curtain of Fire every 8s)
Electro Net
Vortex Bolt
High Impact Bolt + Demolition Round
Grav Round
Hammer Shot
Why? You should use Boltstorm each 4th or 5th GCD so the highest burst in a row would be: Boltsorm -> Vortex Bolt -> High Impact Bolt -> Demolition Round -> Grav Round -> Boltstorm.
AoE Rotation
Keep in mind, Gunnery is a single target spec so you need to choose between single target or multiple (3 or more) targets burst. Of course, is has AOE attacks but not the best to be honest. But there is a way to fluff via using Tech Override + Plasma grenade if you have 2 targets near each other (for example, Dread Guards or Jarg&Sorno). Your highest AOE attacks are Mortar Volley and Hail of Bolts. The last one you can spam on cooldown. Use Supercharged Cell when spamming Hail of Bolts, it will increase armor penetration and help a bit with energy management.There is a basic example of burst AOE rotation (for example, it would perfectly work on DM Calphayus on seed defending and crystals fluff phases) but don’t forget to take Cell Capacitor and Chain of Gunnery utilities.

Maximizing DPS
On Gunnery, your DPS depends from APM (actions/abilities per minute) and crit %.
The key of a good Gunnery player is a cooldowns knowledge. You should already finish Grav Round cast once Boltstorm cooldown is ~4.9s. So, it gets proc’ed.Your main target is to use Boltstorm on cooldown and not to use Hammer Shot. If it’s not a dummy fight which is a simulator of a “perfect circumstances” you won’t have any energy issues on Gunnery. Basically, there are 2 ways of playing Grav Round on Gunnery: you spam it whenever you can or you waiting like 0.3s and proc’ing Boltstorm faster. Just play smart, it comes with experience.
A bit about Hammer Shot on Gunnery. You would prefer not to use this ability. I usually using it during sustain combat butit happens rarely or to finish low health target without cast. I prefer not to spam Grav Round and play smart so there are no energy issues to use it.
To do highest DPS you should keep your burst. While you casting Grav Round you doing no damage (if there is no E-net on target) so you loosing burst. That’s one of the reasons to use Tech Override ability (which can be modified with Overclock utility up to 2 stacks). But by using it on cooldown you risking to stay with no energy. There is no tight energy management on Gunnery but it’s possible to stay with 0 energy. You should use recharge abilities if there is a need. There is a combo of Supercharged Cell and Reserve Powercell, for example. Also, I would suggest you to take Cell Capacitor utility which buffs Recharge Cells.
Sample Parse & Video

I didn’t try to hunt high DPS combat log, dummy parsing is all about the luck. There is a sample. You can see character stats in the beginning.

http://dulfy.net/2017/01/02/swtor-5-0-gunnery-commando-pve-guide-by-damian/

最近发现Commando最好的是single target healing，sage最好的是AoE healing