I have no real understanding of how the diminishing returns in this game works and was wondering whether anyone could tell me if i should install the overkill augments for power or the resolve augments for willpower to get the most dps.

 

I have a lvl50 Sith Assassin with 1431 willpower and 266 power (and 32% crit, 72% crit multiplier).

Power gives slightly more bonus damage, but the added crit chance from Willpower (which is on a separate curve from critical rating with much lower diminishing returns) outweighs that. Use the resolve augments.

The way the Diminishing Returns on Crit Chance work in this game is a bit odd. Your Crit Chance comes from two places: Willpower and Crit Rating, each of which have a SEPARATE DR curve. Each has a theoretical ability to give you 30% Crit Chance, but there isn't enough itemization to actually get that high. Crit Rating has huge gains when it's low, but it diminishes very steeply, becoming not really worth taking over Power around 300. Willpower has a much shallower curve, which means it gives lower gains to Crit Chance, but diminishes at much higher levels, which makes it worth taking all the time.

 

Willpower stays better than Power in all currently available levels of gear (there is a point where Power becomes better because there is no DR on it, but it isn't possible to get that much Willpower right now) because of that. Power will give around 3% more damage and about 9% more healing (not exact and I'm tired and don't feel like looking it up, but that's close enough) than Willpower, but the Crit Chance increase outweighs that because you get to increase your Crit Multiplier in this game and getting 170% of the effect fairly often is better than getting a few points higher on everything.

 

Unless you're a tank, in which case take Defense, Absorb or Shield.

From what I have read, they have instituted DR on power now. Everything points to the DR starting to get really crappy around 600 but have yet to see hard proof on this. I am currently a healer and have conflicting reports on what to stack at now for my end game gear...power or willpower.

Link to post regarding DR on Power?

From what I have read, they have instituted DR on power now. Everything points to the DR starting to get really crappy around 600 but have yet to see hard proof on this. I am currently a healer and have conflicting reports on what to stack at now for my end game gear...power or willpower.

 

It was always best to stack your main stat, even without Power having a DR (if it even has one which no patch notes mention). So obviously it still is.

willpower is increased by around 11% due to buffs and skills. willpower is better than power until youre around 9000 willpower.

 

what you want is for the willpower+power to be as great as possible for any mod. so a 61 willpower, 12 power mod is not as good as a 54 willpower 45 power mod.

willpower

If you want to compare how much bonus damage you get from each stat, you have to look at how much one point adds at the amount you currently have. Power adds a static 0.23 bonus damage, and willpower adds a static 0.2 damage, + how much you get from crit rating. Here is where it become a bit tricky. Take the % gain to crit chance from willpower, devided by how much willpower you have, then multiply that by your foce bonus damage, and finally add that to the 0.2 pure damage increase to see the actual output. it should end up somewhere around 0.24-0.27, dependent on how much you have.

 

You might have to factor in the buffs (5% to main stat) and eventual gain from build (like 6% more to main stat from spec), but that can simply be done by multiplying the output by 1.05 respectively 1.06.

The short answer to your question is that you pretty much always want willpower over any other stat.

 

There is no DR on bonus damage granted by willpower or power, however because bonus damage is additive, the more damage you are doing the less power increases your damage as a percentage. This acts as a kind of soft DR, because every point of power is a point not in crit, which increases your damage multiplicatively.

 

There are also other considerations, which have to do with your spec and other itemization: As a madness specced DPS sorc, alacrity does me very little good, it doesn't increase GCD or speed of DoT ticks, so it really only helps with force lightning, which accounts for about 30-40% of my total damage. Because of this I have itemized surge wherever possible (over 500 in almost full lvl 61 gear). Also I have in my tree +30% crit damage to 4 of the 5 spells in my rotation. All this increases the value of crit%, and after doing a fair amount of math, I have figured out that, at least for my spec, the 300 crit thing is a myth, and I am gaining better returns on total damage/point from crit than from power even though I am over 500 crit.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Beddlam

hi !, very interesting read, I am a shadow Infiltrator (I know) I came to spy on your forum but I was told by an experienced player with MMO's that I needed to stack power, I have been told this several times, as it supposed to be better for use playing in the dps specs.

 

I find what you guys are saying really, very much a surprise, and the expense you go to to install power or willpower augments is like a money hole in the end. I'll certainly might look at Augment replacements though to see if this is fact better than my currently stacked power.

to sum it all up, Willpower (can never have too much) > crits (to 30-35% otherwise willpower or power)> surge (75% only) > power (can never have too much) > alacrity (10% if ya lightning spec)

 

there is no way in the world you can hit dimmishing return with willpower atm and power (there is no dimmishing returns for power) the numbers are way to high to reach with current gears that is out there.