I was doing some parses on the ops dummy with my (tk) sage which show that my APM is 36. Best parses seem to have an APM of 40. I estimate that this translates to about 100-150 dps loss which is quite significant. I have my ability q at 1s so not sure how to increase my APM. Any advice and hints would be most appreciated. Thanks. Edited June 16, 2014 by MusicRider

I would start with checking if you have any lags (I found myself that a bit low fps can affect APM). Also knowing what abilities to hit at exact time, having alacrity bonus set, using alacrity buff, and probably having 1 or 2 pieces of alacrity enh.

Thanks. My lag is about 40-60ms usually and my gear is oriconian, so no bonus set, with definitely 1 maybe 2 alacrity enhancements. Haven't checked my fps tbh....

 

EDIT: What alacrity buff do you mean?

Edited June 16, 2014 by MusicRider

there is skill called mental alacrity which grants you 20% alacrity 2min. Bonus set gives you every now and then few % of alacrity after using weaken mind. Since alacrity has impact on castings and GCD it will improve your APM.

If you really wish to investigate, compare parts of your parse with the top DPS ones, ability for ability, activation time for activation time and you will notice if you were just slow on reaction, or if you had another rotation which made your APM become lower. When I am learning a new specc for a class I am not really good at, that is how I roll, I read up on it, I make a few parses and then I compare it to the benchmark log, row for row. It takes quite a bit of time, I admit that, however you learn a lot about rotations and your DPS will improve, you will also be able to see where your "lower" DPS comes from. Edited June 16, 2014 by RikuvonDrake

there is skill called mental alacrity which grants you 20% alacrity 2min. Bonus set gives you every now and then few % of alacrity after using weaken mind. Since alacrity has impact on castings and GCD it will improve your APM.

 

Thanks. Just wanted to make sure what alacrity buff you were mentioning. Yes I know of mental alacirty ofc.

If you really wish to investigate, compare parts of your parse with the top DPS ones, ability for ability, activation time for activation time and you will notice if you were just slow on reaction, or if you had another rotation which made your APM become lower. When I am learning a new specc for a class I am not really good at, that is how I roll, I read up on it, I make a few parses and then I compare it to the benchmark log, row for row. It takes quite a bit of time, I admit that, however you learn a lot about rotations and your DPS will improve, you will also be able to see where your "lower" DPS comes from.

 

Hmmm... yes that is a good point. I have seen the rotations and they are quite close, also the percentages of damage contribution for each ability are fairly similar, but I haven't checked activation times. Certainly something to look into. Thanks.

Hmmm... yes that is a good point. I have seen the rotations and they are quite close, also the percentages of damage contribution for each ability are fairly similar, but I haven't checked activation times. Certainly something to look into. Thanks.

 

TORParse counts all clicks in their APM calculations including offensive CDs as well as adrenals, relics, bloodthirsts etc. The best parsers are using every trick in their bag as well as some that have no impact to damage. Be sure you understand what number you are actually aspiring to.

TORParse counts all clicks in their APM calculations including offensive CDs as well as adrenals, relics, bloodthirsts etc. The best parsers are using every trick in their bag as well as some that have no impact to damage. Be sure you understand what number you are actually aspiring to.

 

Came here to say this (yeah, aggro dumps aren't going to improve DPS, only APM). Better places to look may be the rotation used in these parses (definitely the opening, of some classes) and gear of the parser. I understand that not everyone will have a gear profile linked to their parses but it's just a suggestion.

Thanks for all the replies.

Dont worry about APM. I dont get why people get so excited over having absurdly high actions per minute. This isnt Starcraft where you have to look like youre doing 6 or 7 things a second the entire time.

 

That being said, the GCD is 1.5 seconds. That means, coincidentally, that you should be at 40 "actions per minute," give or take. Some specs, like carnage, or anything with abilities that activate off the GCD should probably have more. Others, like say vengeance or advanced prototype, that rely on hard casting some 3 second ability as the vast majority of their dps, are going to have less.

 

As a TK sage, your abilities are either instant or have cast times equal to the GCD (when used appropriately, IE, not hard casting TKT or TKW) except for your versions of crushing darkness and thundering blast. Since youre going to be using those roughly 4 and 6 times each every minute, respectively, that will account for approx. 10 seconds of lost time per minute equaling about 6 GCDs that you just have to give up. Your version of Polarity Shift will alleviate this somewhat over the course of a fight, but youre looking at less than 40 either way.

 

So, Im gonna say that instead of trying to boost the number of things you do, work a bit more on figuring out where you should be doing something differently. Quality over quantity, always.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Dras_Keto

Thanks. Well the reason that I am looking into APM is because 3-4 attacks per minute count for a significant dps loss... looking in my parses my average damage per hit is about 2-2.1k, which means that 4 attacks more is 8k more damage per minute or an additional 133 dps... which is quite significant. Here are some parses with a 3/7/36 builds (some are with 3% crit and some with 2% alac + 1% crit).

 

Refreshing weaken mind in sync with every third turbulence:

http://www.torparse.com/a/699394/1/0/Damage+Dealt

http://www.torparse.com/a/699416/1/0/Damage+Dealt

 

Maintaining weaken mind as much as possible on target (still though 36 APM):

http://www.torparse.com/a/701136/66/0/Damage+Dealt

 

So it seems typically my dps is just under 3.1k, and my gear is nearly full oriconian with pvp brutalizer relics, blue nano stim, and reusable purple attack adrenal. It is far from bis I know that. Will try to add an AMR profile at some point but I assume it might be more appropriate to post in the sage/sorc subforums....

 

A lucky parse with 3.25k was (3% crit build):

http://www.torparse.com/a/699394/2/0/Damage+Dealt

 

However, in all of them my APM is 36... which if I could push it to 40 APM then based on my quick calculations above it could go on this gear at reliably between 3.2-3.3k, lucky would jump to just under 3.4k. That's I'm trying to see how can I increase my APM....

Thanks. Well the reason that I am looking into APM is because 3-4 attacks per minute count for a significant dps loss... looking in my parses my average damage per hit is about 2-2.1k, which means that 4 attacks more is 8k more damage per minute or an additional 133 dps... which is quite significant. Here are some parses with a 3/7/36 builds (some are with 3% crit and some with 2% alac + 1% crit).

 

Refreshing weaken mind in sync with every third turbulence:

http://www.torparse.com/a/699394/1/0/Damage+Dealt

http://www.torparse.com/a/699416/1/0/Damage+Dealt

 

Maintaining weaken mind as much as possible on target (still though 36 APM):

http://www.torparse.com/a/701136/66/0/Damage+Dealt

 

So it seems typically my dps is just under 3.1k, and my gear is nearly full oriconian with pvp brutalizer relics, blue nano stim, and reusable purple attack adrenal. It is far from bis I know that. Will try to add an AMR profile at some point but I assume it might be more appropriate to post in the sage/sorc subforums....

 

A lucky parse with 3.25k was (3% crit build):

http://www.torparse.com/a/699394/2/0/Damage+Dealt

 

However, in all of them my APM is 36... which if I could push it to 40 APM then based on my quick calculations above it could go on this gear at reliably between 3.2-3.3k, lucky would jump to just under 3.4k. That's I'm trying to see how can I increase my APM....

 

So while this would have been better addressed in the actual class forums, you're not getting in nearly enough disturbances. Disturbance should be roughly 28-29% of your damage output.

 

Opener

 

MC > WM + Adrenal + MA > TB > DB > FP + TkT > TW > DB x4 > TB > DB > MC > TkT >TW > DB > mini rotation

 

Mini rotation

WM > TB > DB >High priority fillers > DB spam > TB > DB > high priority fillers > DB spam > repeat

 

Priorities

1. Weaken Mind before every third Turbulence

2. Turbulence

3. One Disturbance after every Turbulence

4. Mind Crush

5. Telekinetic Throw with Psychic Prjection

6. Telekinetic Wave with Tidal Force

7. Disturbance

 

Mind Crush can float a bit in the rotation, but don't delay a Turbulence or Weken Mind application to get it in there.

 

It looks like you only got two extra disturbances in between the first two Turbulences and only one in the following block. This means you're either waiting, not queuing up abilities or some combination of the two. When in doubt just spam Disturbance.

Hi thanks for the input and the time taken to look in one of my parses. Much appreciated.

 

So while this would have been better addressed in the actual class forums,

I wanted to investigate firstly the general for all classes "rules" for APM before I move to class specific ones which I agree are better addressed in the class subforums.

 

you're not getting in nearly enough disturbances. Disturbance should be roughly 28-29% of your damage output.

I think that 28-29% is kind of an outlier. If you look at these two parses with 28-29% you will see that dist has a whoopping 45+% crit on disturbance which is unusually high.

http://www.torparse.com/a/689890/1/0/Overview

http://www.torparse.com/a/692037/1/0/Overview

 

Another high parse with more down to earth dist crits is

http://www.torparse.com/a/661933/1/0/Damage+Dealt

 

And ofc, you have this which uses shock in the rotation hence having dist damage contribution at 18%.

http://www.torparse.com/a/682087/1/0/Damage+Dealt

 

So it is kind of difficult to look into damage dealt and the contribution of each ability particularly when there are surge talents. I knew that my dist was a very little bit low (something like 3-5 attacks more I should have so instead of 75 they should be 79 or smth), by looking in the number of turbulences (easy way to get an idea of normalised values) and disturbances.... and I suspect it is because sometimes out of habit I was casting mind crush during mental alacrity phase.

 

Opener

MC > WM + Adrenal + MA > TB > DB > FP + TkT > TW > DB x4 > TB > DB > MC > TkT >TW > DB > mini rotation

My opener is pretty much that with one difference:

MC > WM + Adrenal + MA > TB > DB > FP + D -> TkT > TW > DB x4 > TB > DB > MC > TkT >TW > DB > mini rotation

 

Basically if you do that you can get 3 potencies from 2 charges. You can see in this parse of mine for example that after the first turbu that I have a tk-throw tick, then a dist hit, then the rest 3 ticks of tk-throw and a crit wave follows. This is not a lucky cause it happens pretty much all the time (within the limitations of potency as it is still not an auto-crit). Others also experience the same behaviour from what I have seen in the forums.

 

Mini rotation

WM > TB > DB >High priority fillers > DB spam > TB > DB > high priority fillers > DB spam > repeat

 

Priorities

1. Weaken Mind before every third Turbulence

2. Turbulence

3. One Disturbance after every Turbulence

4. Mind Crush

5. Telekinetic Throw with Psychic Prjection

6. Telekinetic Wave with Tidal Force

7. Disturbance

 

Mind Crush can float a bit in the rotation, but don't delay a Turbulence or Weken Mind application to get it in there.

Yes pretty much what I am doing except if there is mental alacrity I try to avoid using mind crush during its duration. I also prefer refreshing weaken mind before third turbulence as it bring a nice sync to the weaken mind/turbulence/dist and the wave/psychic procs. Plus it is easier for raids if there is another dotter. However, it is a dps loss. There is more dps if weaken mind is maintained 100% on target with lower priority over turbulence, due to its 100% uptime and also getting psychic on its normal rate. However, everything is out of sync and extra caution must be taken with turbu either being delayed or missing an auto-crit which would nullify the dps gain from keeping wm 100% up.

 

It looks like you only got two extra disturbances in between the first two Turbulences and only one in the following block. This means you're either waiting, not queuing up abilities or some combination of the two. When in doubt just spam Disturbance.

Not sure which parse you looked at... There is in every parse I think, 4 disturbances between the first two turbulences and 2 between second and third due to mind crush and applying weaken mind.

 

EDIT: typos

Edited June 18, 2014 by MusicRider

...

Basically if you do that you can get 3 potencies from 2 charges. You can see in this parse of mine for example that after the first turbu that I have a tk-throw tick, then a dist hit, then the rest 3 ticks of tk-throw and a crit wave follows. This is not a lucky cause it happens pretty much all the time (within the limitations of potency as it is still not an auto-crit). Others also experience the same behaviour from what I have seen in the forums.

...

 

if this is true i would consider it as an exploit that needs to be fixed... i will test it later.

 

edit: it seems as long as the first TkT-tick hits before the disturbance, both attacks will crit because of force-potency but will just consume one stack of potency, as MusicRider said.

Edited June 18, 2014 by johnbgood

Hi thanks for the input and the time taken to look in one of my parses. Much appreciated.

 

 

I wanted to investigate firstly the general for all classes "rules" for APM before I move to class specific ones which I agree are better addressed in the class subforums.

 

 

I think that 28-29% is kind of an outlier. If you look at these two parses with 28-29% you will see that dist has a whoopping 45+% crit on disturbance which is unusually high.

http://www.torparse.com/a/689890/1/0/Overview

http://www.torparse.com/a/692037/1/0/Overview

 

Another high parse with more down to earth dist crits is

http://www.torparse.com/a/661933/1/0/Damage+Dealt

 

And ofc, you have this which uses shock in the rotation hence having dist damage contribution at 18%.

http://www.torparse.com/a/682087/1/0/Damage+Dealt

 

So it is kind of difficult to look into damage dealt and the contribution of each ability particularly when there are surge talents. I knew that my dist was a very little bit low (something like 3-5 attacks more I should have so instead of 75 they should be 79 or smth), by looking in the number of turbulences (easy way to get an idea of normalised values) and disturbances.... and I suspect it is because sometimes out of habit I was casting mind crush during mental alacrity phase.

 

 

My opener is pretty much that with one difference:

MC > WM + Adrenal + MA > TB > DB > FP + D -> TkT > TW > DB x4 > TB > DB > MC > TkT >TW > DB > mini rotation

 

Basically if you do that you can get 3 potencies from 2 charges. You can see in this parse of mine for example that after the first turbu that I have a tk-throw tick, then a dist hit, then the rest 3 ticks of tk-throw and a crit wave follows. This is not a lucky cause it happens pretty much all the time (within the limitations of potency as it is still not an auto-crit). Others also experience the same behaviour from what I have seen in the forums.

 

 

Yes pretty much what I am doing except if there is mental alacrity I try to avoid using mind crush during its duration. I also prefer refreshing weaken mind before third turbulence as it bring a nice sync to the weaken mind/turbulence/dist and the wave/psychic procs. Plus it is easier for raids if there is another dotter. However, it is a dps loss. There is more dps if weaken mind is maintained 100% on target with lower priority over turbulence, due to its 100% uptime and also getting psychic on its normal rate. However, everything is out of sync and extra caution must be taken with turbu either being delayed or missing an auto-crit which would nullify the dps gain from keeping wm 100% up.

 

 

Not sure which parse you looked at... There is in every parse I think, 4 disturbances between the first two turbulences and 2 between second and third due to mind crush and applying weaken mind.

 

EDIT: typos

 

The 28% on Disturbance I pulled from a few of my more average parses. I prefer not to use record parses whether they be mine or the ones on the leader board for comparison purposes. Remember, the parses you looked at with lower Disturbance percentages had anomalous crits on other abilities, specifically TkT and TW, so that point is kind of moot. Also, that parse with Shock in it...just wow. He'd do much better using Lightning Strike.

 

Next up, for as long as your parse took, you should have used about 15 more Disturbances minimum, not just 3-5. Casting Mind Crush during Mental Alacrity is perfectly fine because it has a naturally high chance to proc Mental Momentum and for its cast time hits very hard. Ideally use it as the last attack affected by MA, but if not, it's not that big of a deal.

 

As far as the 3 charges of Force Potency, I'm well aware of this but have found it unreliable at best and best to ensure you use it on TkT and TW. If you're going to use it (and I do on occasion although I think getting the third crit is luck not a bug) you don't need to throw a second Disturbance in before the TkT > TW. You can just queue FP during the first Disturbance cast and go straight into TkT. What this does is helps get the hits from TkT and TW under your relic procs by not delaying.

 

Maintaining Weaken Mind at all times is actually a slight DPS loss. Think of it this way, by letting it fall off between Turbulences you are missing out on at most 2 ticks. Add up the average damage from those two (~1000 each) and get 2000 damage versus the average damage from Disturbance (~3000 or more) and you can see that the GCD you've used to maintain WM is better off spent on a Disturbance.

 

And I looked at a few of your parses. You were getting in at most 3 Disturbances in the opener apart from the required one immediately after Turbulence.

Maintaining Weaken Mind at all times is actually a slight DPS loss. Think of it this way, by letting it fall off between Turbulences you are missing out on at most 2 ticks. Add up the average damage from those two (~1000 each) and get 2000 damage versus the average damage from Disturbance (~3000 or more) and you can see that the GCD you've used to maintain WM is better off spent on a Disturbance.

True. I was thinking more of that when syncing WM with TB the maximum number of potential psychics is not achieved. Still I prefer also to sync WM with every third TB.

 

And I looked at a few of your parses. You were getting in at most 3 Disturbances in the opener apart from the required one immediately after Turbulence.

Hmm. You are right on this one, I didn't realise. On my calculations with gcds I should be fitting 5 DB as you describe between the first two TB, but I am only fitting four.... Seems like that is one of the main reasons that accounts for 1 APM less. Will need to parse again and see why this is happening.

if this is true i would consider it as an exploit that needs to be fixed... i will test it later.

 

edit: it seems as long as the first TkT-tick hits before the disturbance, both attacks will crit because of force-potency but will just consume one stack of potency, as MusicRider said.

 

Yes .