I can't seem to get a straight answer here.

 

It seems like everyone agrees that power is better so should I just stack power and ignore crit/surge or get Crit/surge to the soft cap (30% i think) and then stack power?

for pvp or pve?

Pve. I dont do very much pvp so far

I would suggest crit/surge to cap (or at least surge) and then power. You can talent force scream to auto-crit, but the crit% will help your ataru procs to crit.

I can't seem to get a straight answer here.

 

It seems like everyone agrees that power is better so should I just stack power and ignore crit/surge or get Crit/surge to the soft cap (30% i think) and then stack power?

 

What i tend to do is have all my enchantment slots with crit/surge and mod slots go for power

There is no such thing as a softcap for crit or surge.

Max Surge first, then focus on power. With decent gear (especially PvP), your crit will be be at 25% just from your strength anyway....for Carnage you dont need more than that.

 

Getting Big Force Scream hits is really your primary goal. So in order of importance at level 50:

 

Surge to 70%

Power as much as you can get

Crit to 25%

Accuracy to 100%

 

Keep in mind that Strength is essentially a 2 for 1 (+Damage +Crit)

The same holds true for Rage and smash hits.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Garroda

Str is 1.1 for 1.

 

1 str = .91 pow

1 str = .19 crit rating, before DR

Crit bonus vs. surge chart:

 

http://www.jedilace.com/2012/02/01/when-is-too-much-surge-bad-for-digestion/

 

People have varying opinions about how much surge is too much, but seems to pretty much fall in the 150-250 range, as far I've seen. If your crit multiplier is 70.98 percent, sounds like you have too much surge in your implants.

 

I don't know why anyone is recommending under 100% accuracy endgame. Most guides I have read suggest 108-110% is best for endgame bosses. The Mach 5 guide and this one for instance...

 

http://swtorhumanrelations.com/2012/01/18/sith-marauder-guide/

 

...seem to agree. Check out the section about "the accuracy debate".

I don't know why anyone is recommending under 100% accuracy endgame.

 

I don't see anyone recommending accuracy UNDER 100%. I did say get it to 100%.

 

I stand by that Surge 70% > Accuracy 100%. After those numbers, the debate will continue... I would not recommend going under 100% accuracy to get 70.5% Surge.

In fact, after 70% Surge, I would argue gains in accuracy would be preferred...but not over gains in power.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Garroda

70% surge seems about right, though diminishing returns lowers the value of the last 5% points worth. Definitely would not want more.

 

From what I've read, a simple power over accuracy rule is probably the best course up until level 50, as before that point, you're facing mostly normal mobs and most people are soloing. But the number crunchers seem to agree that at endgame, it's wise to value accuracy over power up to 108% or so for endgame bosses--that's the do-or-die point in ops and flashpoints, which is all you really do after 50 (besides solo dailies for little bit, and those are so easy, it doesn't really matter).

what about for pvp?

what about for pvp?

 

For PvP +Power > +Accuracy (Over 100%) For PvP, you really want expertise in the 600ish range too, so I would put Expertise to 600 before accuracy or power.

 

For end-game PvE Bosses, you will favor Accuracy gains up to 108% over Power or Surge increases.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Garroda

I don't know why anyone is recommending under 100% accuracy endgame. Most guides I have read suggest 108-110% is best for endgame bosses. The Mach 5 guide and this one for instance...

 

There hasn't been confirmation on whether different enemies (or different difficulties of FPs/Ops) have the same or differing needs for player accuracy.

 

The only useful test I've seen done (posted at SithWarrior.com and conducted by Style & friends) was limited in scope and after some statistical modeling indicated that the greatest likelihood of accuracy cap, at least on Bonethrasher on Ilum, was 8-9% over base. More likely in the 8-8.5% range, but not certain.

 

To make things there even more confusing, if monsters are coded with Defense Ratings (like players) rather than straight Defense Chances, there is a neat-ish statistical fit for Bonecrusher where 275 Defense Rating would require 8.6% accuracy over base to cap main hand attacks.

 

Most guides recommend 108-110% special accuracy because that's the range where there's some confidence the cap generally lies.

 

If someone is recommending 98% accuracy, they're taking the low end of the Bonecrusher model and referring to basic accuracy rather than special accuracy.

 

Given the lack of blatantly visible outliers (e.g. large numbers of misses on particular mobs @ above 100% basic accuracy), I think at least for current encounters it's safe to say that the effective cap of accuracy is between 98-100% basic and 108-110% special.

 

I would recommend towards the high end of that range, but even at my current ~98.25% basic accuracy, I cannot recall the last time I saw a main-hand attack miss. That's not to say it hasn't happened, but it's such an irregular occurrence that it's not noteworthy. I also am not currently engaging in Ops due to schedule, and very few HM FP bosses have sufficient HP or fight length to regularly highlight slightly-uncapped accuracy.

 

Given the overall stat interaction in this game and sliding scales on everything, it's very difficult to identify precise ideal values for each stat, beyond noting points at which strong diminishing returns begin to be encountered.

As far as I can tell, the guides refer to 108-110% for the overall accuracy stat, not special. But I do see where the Mach 5 guide says:

 

 

 

<<All Special attacks (everything but Assault) have a base 100% chance to hit. It is currently theorized that bosses have an 8% Defense chance (parry/deflect). By increasing our Accuracy to 108% we negate the Defense chance for our special abilities (Ravage, Gore, Massacre, Scream, etc, can no longer be dodged/parried/resisted). Any Accuracy over 108% only increases Assault's chance to be dodged/parried, and is therefore quite lackluster compared to other stats.>>

 

Omophorus, are you saying it should actually read "...increasing our SPECIAL Accuracy to 108%..."?

 

and where it says

 

<<Accuracy to 108% > Surge/Crit > Power>>

 

It should again specify "Special accuracy to 108%"?

 

EDIT: The guide at SWTOR-Human Relations guide also specifically says OVERALL accuracy....

Edited March 12, 2012 by TradeLA

As far as I can tell, the guides refer to 108-110% for the overall accuracy stat, not special. But I do see where the Mach 5 guide says:

 

 

 

<<All Special attacks (everything but Assault) have a base 100% chance to hit. It is currently theorized that bosses have an 8% Defense chance (parry/deflect). By increasing our Accuracy to 108% we negate the Defense chance for our special abilities (Ravage, Gore, Massacre, Scream, etc, can no longer be dodged/parried/resisted). Any Accuracy over 108% only increases Assault's chance to be dodged/parried, and is therefore quite lackluster compared to other stats.>>

 

Omophorus, are you saying it should actually read "...increasing our SPECIAL Accuracy to 108%..."?

 

and where it says

 

<<Accuracy to 108% > Surge/Crit > Power>>

 

It should again specify "Special accuracy to 108%"?

 

EDIT: The guide at SWTOR-Human Relations guide also specifically says OVERALL accuracy....

 

Yes.

 

Everything other than Assault is based on Special Accuracy, and more than 110% Special Accuracy is wasted (except on tanks in PVP... who really should be wearing DPS gear anyway, even with a tank spec).

 

Assault is not a frequently-enough used ability in a normal priority rotation to be worth worrying about capping Accuracy on. Its primary use is as a rage builder when resource-starved, which it does regardless of how many hits land. The DPS loss of missing 10% or less of swings during Assault is not noteworthy compared to the loss of Crit/Surge/Power required to hit 108-110% base Accuracy.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Omophorus

Ok, I'm willing to buy this, but do you have some links to the tests/guides you're referencing?

 

And are you saying this guy--

 

http://swtorhumanrelations.com/2012/01/18/sith-marauder-guide/

 

--has it wrong in his "accuracy debate" tests saying bosses currently have a defense of 20%?

Ok, I'm willing to buy this, but do you have some links to the tests/guides you're referencing?

 

And are you saying this guy--

 

http://swtorhumanrelations.com/2012/01/18/sith-marauder-guide/

 

--has it wrong in his "accuracy debate" tests saying bosses currently have a defense of 20%?

 

I am saying that he does, yes.

 

The main thread in question is here: http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Softcaps-discussion

 

Primarily pages 2 and 3.

 

You can see Surge did his testing on the same exact mob as Lythknight, and they have a >10% observed difference in the Acc cap. What I believe Lythknight is not taking into account is that his sample size is relatively miniscule, and that even vastly over the softcap, 3 misses in a 500 swing sample size is entirely plausible.

 

I do not know how he came to the conclusion that Ops bosses appear to have a 20% defense chance, his data does not support that conclusion. All his data supports is that at 117% main-hand Acc he is effectively capped (99.5%). There is no indication that he tested at lower values and saw differing results.

 

I am most inclined to believe that Lythknight's methodology is incomplete, and he jumped to a conclusion prematurely, without data to really support the veracity of that conclusion.

 

And, if I'm honest, there are several other things about that guide which would dissuade me from using it, but they're primarily a matter of preference.

 

1) Only touching on Carnage PVE. Carnage is currently a terrible Ops PVE spec due to large boss hitboxes and Ataru form bug. Not even mentioning Annihilation is doing the class and its players a disservice. He mentions both Annihilation and Rage for PVP, so he has to have some experience with Anni spec, which makes me wonder why he doesn't even present it as an option (nevermind a superior one given current encounters and bugs).

 

2) His PVP specs are... unusual. Really frickin' unusual. Unusual to the point where I would never recommend them to anyone else in a guide intended for mass consumption. He bypasses skills of incredible utility in favor of skills with next to none (Cloak of Pain talents).

 

3) He downplays Crit/Surge. Both Annihilation and Carnage specs derive a goodly chunk of their damage from crits (esp. forced crits). Power is a very useful stat, but there's no way in hell I'd prioritize it for either spec above hitting 70% Surge at a bare, BARE minimum.

 

4) He talks about universal BiS gear for PVP and PVE without making any mention of how valuable re-modding both sets are. BiS is debatable at best (in terms of which mods are ideal for which builds/situations), but not making any mention of how much Marauder benefits from re-modding and throwing that BiS term around really gets under my skin. For bonus points, he doesn't even bring up purple Mastercraft crafted implants as a PvE option, despite the fact that they're superior to Tionese/Columi/Rakata (understandable, as not many people have made an effort to get 49 Mastercrafts).

Thanks for taking the time to read and write. You make some good points. From looking around, seems the 108% for SPECIAL accuracy is confirmed by other classes, though many guides either have it wrong or are written poorly.

 

The remaining question that still seems up for debate is how much crit/surge to pile on before power becomes the better option and surge especially becomes as useless as the accuracy, alacrity and the other fubar stats...

I would also throw out: Carnage for pve?

 

Not a good idea, if you want to maximize dps. Carnage is a bit weak right now and Anni is really the only way to go if you wan to be your very best in DPS. Just my two cents. Play how you want to, but Anni WILL give more bang for your buck. In equal gear, equal skill, a carnage marauder will NOT out dps an Anni marauder in PvE.

Columni exceptional > ur mastercraft 49.

Try alacrity.

 

Be bold.

 

Be different.