Amen Dsafana...amen. Some people just don't get it. It has been this way since I have started playing swtor.

We know because of live parses guy; live parses. And for the last time we know because of live parses.(Hopefully he gets it). Its not rocket science. I am not getting touchy feely over a preferred spec, the "hardcore" community has simply been stating this forever. Who cares what spec one considers more difficult to play and be competitive? We are in the subject matter of min/max'ing. I as well as many others will play the spec with the highest possible output. Hopefully this game will actually require this mindset in future NiMs. And congrats on your personal best, but you can do much better if you apply yourself.

@Shecrazy Don't even bother arguing with him. People have been telling him for months that lethality is the best spec for pve dps output. Now he is saying that it takes more skill to play MM or a variation of MM and be competitive because he prefers it. Its honestly pointless. This simulation craft experiment has just proven to him what most of the min/max community has been saying for months. Congratulations on proving us all right.

@Shecrazy Don't even bother arguing with him. People have been telling him for months that lethality is the best spec for pve dps output. Now he is saying that it takes more skill to play MM or a variation of MM and be competitive because he prefers it. Its honestly pointless. This simulation craft experiment has just proven to him what most of the min/max community has been saying for months. Congratulations on proving us all right.

MM is the best sustained dps spec, here is a dummy parse and an ops parse reflecting that. ....oh wait.

I have to agree with Rischardo on practically all points made. Nice write up! Tibbel I certainly respect your hard work on all the simulationcraft for the sniper community, and greatly appreciate it, however I have yet to see ANY proof that MM ENG or any variation hybrid of the two can sustain lethality's numbers in an actual raid setting, only on paper. It may look good on paper but so many things are unaccounted for in regards to a sustained rotation in a live raid setting that make these claims somewhat silly. As far as precluding ourselves from proof, the parses from live raids speak for themselves. Also my brain hurts just thinking about calculating all the caveats for lethality dps such as energy refunds via dot crits, the increase damage to target sub 30%, etc...Way too many variables for me to even think of modeling. Currently no raid encounter pushes anything but lethality to the top of the food chain, or else I would be running it. All it would take is one parse to show it, but I have yet to see one, or produce one. And good god I have tried. I ran MM forever when I first starting playing. After testing and experimenting countless times over, Lethality is it. No contest. That being said thanks for the stat calc. You cant argue with a stat scaling model that is accurate.

No it doesnt. It will proc 2 clusters refunding 10 energy and leave the other 2(specd) untouched. Unless of course you don't take the talent, which you would have to in a pve setting. We are trying to figure out a baseline "rotation" for lethality hybrid. I cant maintain energy levels after about 1.5m + into a fight without starving myself. If clusters didn't proc off only white damage this hybrid would crush pure lethality, but the energy gains are too unreliable for it.

Nevertheless my statement is still accurate. And easily @75% most definately does as pure lethality. I can imagine only more of it will be with ENG/Lethality hybrid since you are adding another abil that has no miss chance/mitigation possibilities. @peter The 1.5 minute parse has to do with speculation of ENG/Lethality hybrid potential, and is just a reference as to how long I can burst and sustain well over 2k without having energy problems even with using probe and the TA set bonus for energy returns. A 1.5 minute parse would obviously benefit or prove nothing in regards of the builds play ability/sustainability overall. @JC yes but it only refunds 10 during duration of sos cast which would make me use another white to proc the remaining 10 making it unreliable for my purposes of having a steady energy regen since the only other attack would be rifle shot, since ambush would require a cast and only proc one cluster making it not ideal imo. If IP ticks procd it, then it would solve my problem. I am sure designers noticed the potential and stealth nerfed it, or it is a bug (which wouldn't surprise me in the least.) I'm pure lethality unless I can find another build that pumps out more, consistently. I am so glad that there are others out there finding similar results and opinions about lethality. I have always felt that it was superior from a numbers perspective, but MM and ENG players have yet to convince me they can topple Lethality. That being said I could care less about which spec I am as I personally will always pick the build I can pull higher numbers with. That is just my playstyle. An active community who cares about pumping out big numbers helps everyone play there class better. Thank you for this discussion, and future discussions we might have in regards to playing and understanding our class better.

Shortened your quote to give reference to response. I know how to check for miss percentages, but I am still unsure as to how the logs register misses. One tick? First tick? Whole cast? Even that said I'm sure there may be a sweet spot, but its too much work for me to find it. @80 percent is probably right on the money. I am getting over 70 percent on poison(tech) damage just from cull and dots. Double check your parses. Remember that OS is also unmitigated. These are in regards to accuracy remember. Try not to get out of context. Also I am referring to ENG/Lethality hybrid, not pure ENG. So basically dropping WB for EP cluster and IP. I am pulling insane burst with this spec over 1.5 minutes but cant balance energy regen. I think there is potential here I just cannot iron it out. Someone else proccing my regen from clusters is not something I am willing to rely on. Bonethrasher is the closest as I stated to real OPs training dummy. While you have a point about the cats, for testing purposes in a raid setting I find it pretty ideal. Also TrueScopes you have much more cunning and crit than me. Alot of people have more cunning than me. WHERE IS IT COMING FROM SO I CAN GET IT?! (I do know actually but still you have @150 more cunning than me)

Why on earth would I do a 16min parse. That just sounds a bit excessive.

Typically I parse for 3-4 minutes when ironing out a rotation. That is about the uptime you get on bosses during ops encounters before a mechanic requires time off target or movement. The crit is strictly from dot damage. My sos and other attacks that are not labeled poisons have a much lower crit percentage. Strictly off observation. I cannot tell from ACT or SWMoniTOR if the parser registers the cast as missing or one tick of the cast as missing. So I have actually witnessed no internal damage pop off target while casting cull other than CG and CD damage but like I said I have only witnessed it maybe a handful of times in many months. I just felt that since @80 percent of our damage comes from attacks that cannot miss or be mitigated it makes no sense to worry about stacking accuracy to make sure a percentage of the remaining @20% actually never misses. Thats my stance on accuracy with this spec and it has payed off quite well for me. I can pull quite consistently over 1900 dps on 16m bonethrasher which I consider an OPS training dummy. Also I would like to add I am currently trying lethality/eng hybrid which has AMAZING damage potential if only the energy refunds from imp methodology weren't reliant on white attacks to proc it. If the cluster bombs went off on a set timed interval instead of on white damage this spec would blow full lethality out of the water. If anyone can experiment with this and find a somewhat baseline rotation that doesn't energy starve I would like to work with them and maybe spitball. I am currently pulling well over 2k dps on target dummy with 1.5min parse but find myself energy starved unless I throttle hard enough to decrease damage below lethality. So its def a work in progress but showing potential.

I pull over 1800 on dummy with crit buff and skill stim only. The Talent adds 12 percent flat increase to crits on dots. 33.5 (ranged)+12 percent from talents=over 45% crit rating for dots. That's not even tech crit rating which will be a tad higher pushing my crit from dots @ 50% on the average log. Energy regen is not an issue with the rotation if you use probe and 2piece set bonus correctly while also making decisions on the fly on whether to use ambush or sos depending on energy levels just like Truescopes stated earlier (I think he gets it!). The rotation he is using is what I have been telling people for days. It really is that simple. After that its all about time on target and lining up relic, and adrenal with bloodthirst. As for the internal damage portion of cull not proccing if the first tick of white damage misses, you are correct, but statistically the odds of the first tick missing are waaaaaay out there, so I have found it a non issue. I have seen it happen 3 times since I have ran lethality in raids. Im also pretty sure that its a bug, and the internal portion is not intended to miss at all. I have only been beaten in a parse once by a skilled mara and only by 17k damage on karagga. Everyone has an off night.

I rarely use a third cull before reapplying dots. The only time I use a cull paired with lingering toxins is if movement requires it otherwise CD and CG are allways in line to be refreshed before the third cull without skipping a beat. The rotation is really simple and quite natural. Apply CG- CD- WB- Cull- NOW HERE'S THE FILLER. You use TWO of these abilities on priority OS>SOS>AMBUSH (energy permitting-this is where the skill comes in) since they are 3 seconds apiece cull comes off cooldown again right before strong versions of your CD CG expires. Then you repeat. Its really that simple.You never need to watch any dots with that rotation due to the cast times of your fillers. What base stats are you using for this model? I am seeing a significant difference with my stats. The 30 percent buff to cull from WB paired with the 145 increase to dps from cull itself for each dot on target crush IP. Napkin math is amazing for figuring out stat values and scaling, not for rotations imo. This is very solid advice. If you dont care about min/maxing and can still be competitive with YOUR raiding partners in output, then do what feels good. If you want to push out the most, pick lethality.

My crit percentage is @33.5 fully buffed and stimmed in raid. Still too high If you are running full lethality, but not by too much. I have only power/surge,power/cunning mods and enhancements. My implants and earpiece are also power surge. ALL of my crit comes from raid buffs, cunning, crew buff from completing their storyline, aim datacrons, and that's all. Your surge will be extremely high, but my cull internal ticks with WB debuff hit for @1600 with all that power and surge and your dots crit alot due to talents so even though you are hard into DRs you still benefit some. If I could squeeze more crit from anywhere else without gimping my cunning and power I would.

"(It) isnt all that bad" is relative to opinion. I have read this breakdown and while on paper it sounds reasonable but in game I have seen losses of over 200 dps playing naturally, and rotating one persons WB to boost another is ridiculous. The stat values of the snipers will more than likely vary considerably and thusly affect the actual benefit from the WB application. I for one would not allow one player to gimp anothers performance unless we were going for a gimmick parse. Get snarky if you want I have paid attention to this issue for some time now and have adjusted raids accordingly. It is not necessarily needed with this games content but that is just the way my crew works. It all depends on how hard you want to push, and if you are comfortable throttling your output.