OK seriously. You need to stop making **** up. You test something, which is very useful, but then you jump to a wild conclusion which has nothing to do with what you tested. Stop pretending to know more than you do. It gets in the way. It DOES NOT set the GCD to 1. It is NEEDED for gcd_lag to have any affect whatsoever. If it is unset, then gcd_lag is completely ignored. Hence if you want gcd_lag to have any affect, you also need to set strict_gcd=1. You can easily see that by experimenting with strict_gcd=1 and gcd_lag with varying values. But I'm also telling you that's exactly how it works in the code. That isn't up for debate. If you don't believe me, look at the code yourself. It does, however, have a side effect of working around the restriction of instant casts being locked to 1.5s GCD. It removes 0.032 from instants. That's a bug. Albeit a minor one.

He, and other threads, are not talking about the same kind of lag you're talking about. You're suggesting there is constant lag that increases the average cast time of tracer missile by some 20%. From 1.45 to over 1.7, so constant that it's responsible for severely reducing your dps. He's talking about lag spikes - often multi second delays that everyone experiences which can cause wipes and make ops impossible. And we all get them regardless of server, and I wouldn't' be surprised at all if server population directly impacted that. anyway if you don't want to supply any evidence to back up your claim that's fine. But it's pretty silly of you to get offended when people choose not to take your word for it. Most posts that make claims in these forums are wrong, which is why most involved in providing tools that model the game demand, and provide, evidence along with claims.

You started it. Haha. You haven't updated your post with evidence. You're just offering a bunch of conclusions and opinions on how good you are. Nobody cares. Evidence buddy, is where it's at. I've run it on Dalborra and posted my results above. If you doubt them I'm more than happy to supply the raw logs rather than the summary. edit: updated with a test on The Harbinger (my first server it turns out). Not a great test. It's a new character so I'm really only testing the 1.5 GCD on auto attack, and mobs die very quickly. Picking a group of 3 mobs and spamming flurry of bolts, with in game latency of 208 (from australia) and a 0.5 ability action queue window, the first action was at 41.505 and the 9th at 54.056. That's a difference of 12.551 which when divided by 8 gives 1.568. Which is only marginally higher than the GCD, but certainly less than 1.7, and considering my considerable latency of 208 demonstrates the action queue window appears to be doing its job. But it was a small sample size. Someone with access to a dummy could perform a much more valid test. Oh, and with gcd_lag you need to set strict_gcd_queue=1. It works then. If you think anything else isn't working feel free to specify what and I'll check that out too.

Why would I trust you? You're making a claim that nobody in the theory community has ever claimed. That the server latency is 5 times that of actual in game latency. That's an extraordinary claim that requires evidence. I asked you for your testing methodology and you said you looked at the first three hits in a dummy combat log. I pointed out how that methodology is flawed. Now you claim to have used different methodology as well. So please tell us what you did. I suggested 40-60 sequential hits. Is that the test you did? Can you post your raw log then that shows this extreme and consistent additional latency? And what server? For example. Here's a test on Dalborra. 10 sequential tracer missiles on a target dummy. From the raw logs. The "abilityactivate" is at 22.584. The 10th is at 36.068. The time between that is 13.384. Divide that by 9 gives us 1.487 per cast. With my alacrity that theoretically could be 1.44 I think. So it's pretty darn close. It's also a very small sample size. Don't be an idiot. That's not what I said.

I've used several before and they behaved as expected. I believe Ancoj also has used some and observed they behaved as expected. That is increasing latency decreased dps, and vice versa. I'll run the test you suggested and see if it behaves incorrectly. Your methodology of testing your lag is flawed. Looking at a sample size of 3 hits from combat is going to be heavily subject to variability, not to mention confirmation bias since we all want to blame lag. And otherwise looking at the intervals of hits from actual operation combat is not purely a factor of server lag. One test you could be doing is spamming tracer on a dummy non-stop until you hit a heat cap. Reset and do it again. Do this several times and then take the average time across all 40-50-60 however many you did to see what the real time inbetween attacks is. Also you want to pay attention to what your ability action queue window is set to.

Actually it's quite good. It's just that the default settings seem to not apply to you. There are numerous lag options you can use: They're documented here: http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/wiki/Options#Latency gcd_lag : your basic server latency channel_lag: generally double server latency, and is the delay loop in channel bar updating between client/server queue_lag: how the server queues your action default_world_lag: again basically server latency. This one is used to mimic cooldowns being extended due to server lag. That is, your client won't let you use an ability because it is on cooldown, but on the server the cooldown has already finished and that notification is in transit still. and each of those have a _stddev option to allow the values to be varied during the simulation. strict_gcd_queue basically mimics the queue option in game reaction_time is documented elsewhere. But this is used in .react action lists so you can mimic the time needed to react to an event such as a buff or proc. And as you state, these options can have a noticeable effect on the value of alacrity especially at smaller values. I am sceptical of the values you suggest. I doubt you have a 2 second cast time on your tracer missile if you sit there and spam it. The queue option in the interface should allow for that. I have mine set to 25 since I get very good latency. How have you determined the 0.230 value?

No, I did not mention the PVP 4 piece set bonus. Furthermore you can't trade 4pc pvp for 2pc pvp. That makes no sense. My entire post was about the PVE set bonuses, and how the 2pc PVP would be silly to swap for 4pc.

Actually I was replying to Sookster, not you. And I made no mention of the pvp 4 pc bonus.

This is the value of the eliminator pve set bonus in BiS gear: http://goo.gl/yWK7i They are both of equal value and add about 45 dps. Which is quite significant when compared to other classes. Take Concealment Operatives who have a 4pc bonus that due to regen being the restrictive factor adds no sustained dps at all. giving up 4pc for pvp 2pc which reduces the cooldown of a knockback is a bit strange.

Sure agreed. I'll also use TSO on HSM sometimes when moving. Sometimes I'll use TSO/PS/FM but again it's situatoinal as in many fights PS is already used for repositioning that can't be done inside the usual HSM/RS breaks. Yep. It's easy to sit back and nitpick as I have. The hard work is creating the guides in the first place and getting the eyeballs on it that you have. And of course once you do that everyone hits you with questions and requests for personalised advice. Good luck with that

Where can we read this advanced guide of yours?

A few points of clarification. 1) (i expanded this after reading some of your posts on the issue) Fusion Missile is by far the best damage when heat is not considered so using it with TSO is far better than say HSM or anything else. The only time you would use TSO on something else is if the target will die or otherwise negate the 6 second duration. Your claim that if one is using fusion missile they are doing it wrong, is wrong. I suspect the reason you have reached the wrong conclusion there is you compare DPH, when the whole point of TSO is it takes H out of the equation. But even if you use DPE or DPET you're calculating it wrong. Here's why. Because you will use HSM on cooldown regardless, you need to compare the damage difference between FM and rapidshots, versus the damage difference between tracer missile and rapid shots. Crazy, isn't it? I can even demonstrate this clearly in the sim. If I set HSM to hit for 10k and crit for 20k, it's still better to use TSO on fusion missile. Why? Because using it on HSM won't increase the HSM count in that fight. It effectively just lets another TM be used instead of rapidshots. But using it on FM adds a FM into the fight where there otherwise would have been a rapidshots. 2) using Power Surge on Tracer Missile is a dps loss. Given you have points in System Calibrations and are guaranteed to have a cast time of 1.4x seconds casting it will allow you to use your next ability 1.4x seconds later, versus 1.5s if you use Power Surge and make it instant since the GCD triggered by instants is not reduced by alacrity. 3) Barrage is no more likely to proc from TSO+FM PS+TM than it is from any other TM. It certainly doesn't "nearly always" proc after that. Talented it remains 45%, which is "usually not" if we're translating to general terms. 4) I agree with you, that throwing out a sim link with no argument is not a very useful contribution. But you may also want to weigh that you have thrown out numbers without any evidence. In comparison, the sim provides mountainous evidence for it's conclusions which anyone is free to assess review and confirm for themselves. and in fact it has been constantly reviewed by leaders in the swtor theory community. In comparison, we can't review your numbers because you supply no evidence. 5) Your suggestion to only use rail shot on 5 stacks, only use HSM on 5 stacks and only use unload on barrage procs is demonstrably wrong. They should be used on cooldown, as even without their bonuses they do more damage than tracer missile which is the alternative. The question then comes down to is the dps difference worth delaying getting their cooldown ticking, and the answer is no. That is even more evident with unload given a barrage proc resets the cooldown. Points like these that increase dps while decreasing complexity are worth paying attention to. Of course, all of those are relatively minor points and the guide is otherwise very useful and will get people performing near maximum, and these points are more the difference between first and second place in the olympics, rather than the difference between first and not qualifying. It's a great addition to the merc community. Bravo.

I'd be happy with a 5 second cast that puts us into stealth. We are /meant/ to get out of combat after no combat activity for 8 seconds, but we all know there are plenty of times we are stuck for 20-30 seconds inexplicably, with no acknowledgement from devs on the issue. A long cast stealth would be a perfect workaround for their broken combat mechanic.

Nobody is suggesting you are making up the mechanics. What we are telling you is that you are making up the weightings. To value one as 2, and another as 5 is completely subjective. Take your exact example. on a 1 on 1 fight debilitate is far more useful to burst someone down. But then if a person has used their CC breaker and you don't have dots on them and you have heal utility, flashbang is better since it allows you to get 2-5 heals off. If your goal is to stop a group of people from capping flash bang is more powerful. If you want to stun a ball carrier so he can't pass until he dies, debilitate is better. Any weighting you give is going to be subjective, even within like abilities. But you've also gone and weighted debilitate against a personal shield cooldown, force sprint, and single target and aoe knockbacks! When it's impossible to accurately weight two similar abilities, what chance do you have to weight stark utility. None, is the answer. There is absolutely no question. your numbers are made up. they are subjective. the numbers themselves are actually useless (other than telling us how you personally generalise the value of utility). It's useful as a list of the utility classes have for sure. And what would be more useful would to indicate on like abilities which ones are unquestionably stronger (say a 1.5s stun versus a 4 second stun), or in the cases like debilitate vs flashbang strengths and weaknesses. It's not math though, and it doesn't prove anything. It's opinion with made up numbers next to it.

The problem is the whole comparison is subjective. You're putting a number on opinion. Take evasion, which was raised as an example. If you play an operative in PVP you will know evasion is good for 1 thing: using right before vanish to remove dots, so that the dots don't pull you out of vanish. My subjective view of that as far as utility goes is a negative. -1 utility. It's an added layer on top of a core ability of the class, which itself is on an incredibly long cooldown. I've already raised why your valuing of 45 second HOTS is way out of whack. You aren't proving anything. You're just putting a number to subjective opinion. But here's the thing. Even if you accurately weight every bit of utility. The right result should have arsenal merc right down the bottom. Because they are a heavy armor high single target dps range class. Every other class *needs* more utility.