Hi guys,

Age old discussion, sorry if it's been discussed before, I've done some research but nothing seemed to answer my question clearly. I understand that willpower takes priority over power while still pursuing 30% crit while building healing power., but what I'm asking specifically about is if that's relevant after you're at 30% crit. I've always assumed that power becomes more important than willpower once you reach or pass the 30% crit point, is this correct? I'm currently power stacked, but recent discussions about the potency of WP have left me feeling unsure. Am I better off stacking WP instead of Power?

Cheers,

Ulantees.

As much as people like to debate willpower vs power, you don't actually get much choice to try trading one for another on even terms.

The first place you can trade off is aptitude mods as they provide endurance, willpower, and power. The base, A, and B variants provide different amounts of each. For these, I recommend the non lettered variant. This is the high power + high willpower variant. Point for point, willpower is little better than power due to your +% from your skill tree and +% from your class buff. However, the amount of power gained from the base version of an aptitude mod is significantly higher than the A variant compared to the difference in willpower between the two and this is enough to make the base version superior in my mind.

The other place you can trade off is in your choice of augments. You might as well take willpower here. Once you get very high (2100+) willpower, the diminishing returns on willpower start making power more attractive. I keep trading back and forth here to keep my crit change right at 40% with smuggler buff. Some people like lower crit, but I've been very satisfied with this is working out for me.

Willpower will pretty well always be better than power (at current and near-future gear levels at least) by a small factor for overall throughput, like 5-10%

The Dr on crit from willpower is separate from crit rating, and quite relatively flat. So 2% crit from willpower will be the same (very very marginally less because crit% DR's itself outside of game formula) whether you are at 25% crit or 35% crit.

But yeah, the only place to really make this change is in augments.

Unlettered mods are unequivocally better than A-type or B-type mods. Always use unlettered, even if a grade (or maybe 2) lower.

Also, the difference is minor enough on augments that you can probably feel completely safe just sticking with the power augs you already have, unless you care about being totally optimized.

OP you're question is irrelevant

you're asking if you should stack a secondary stat over a primary - the game does not give u this option, as your gear will always have [willpower] and then [power or crit rating] and then [surge or alacrity]

except augments I guess, in which case it's a very easy answer for you - willpower > power

The ability to mod swap isn't really a valid argument to me here. The reason people don't try to push the crit chance beyond 35-40% is because of the diminishing returns on the crit rating stat. The DM from crit gained from WP is separate from the DM of crit chance gained from crit rating. So at the end of the day, you're still just stacking power instead of crit rating and not power over WP.

As an aside, bonus healing, crit chance, and surge rating all have synergy with each other. The higher your crit chance, the more value you get out of your bonus healing and surge rating. The higher your bonus healing, the more value you get out of crit and surge. So on and so on. You're best off continuing to gain some of each than you stacking just one. Crit rating and surge rating have some pretty nasty DM at end game levels, but are still worth gaining because of the synergy with bonus healing. You'll just put less focus into adding those stats than you would further back the DM curve.

The ability to mod swap isn't really a valid argument to me here.

Is your hair a bird?

Take WP augments = Have higher crit chance from WP = Need less crit rating = Replace mods with crit rating for mods with power = Have more power. Simples.

It also doesn't matter massively where you change your stats, be it a crystal, mod or an enhancement. And 40% is indeed absolute recommended maximum for a Sage healer.

Discussed to death already. Consider willpower and power to be equivalent, so for mods, you want the highest combined number, ie, the unlettered versions. If you are considering augments, the willpower augments come up /slightly/ better in the math due to the extra crit rating. Power adds more to your baseline bonus healing number than willpower does. Assuming 14 augments, the 6% boost to willpower from skills and 5% from buffs:

willpower: 252 * 1.06 * 1.05 = 280 * 0.14= 39.2 bonus healing

power: 252 * 0.17 = 42.8 bonus healing.

The bonus healing difference is 3.6, or ~9% in favor of power. But the willpower will also add 1.1% to your crit chance...so if we assume a baseline healing bonus of around 800 and a surge around 75%, that gives an equivalent bonus heal of (800 * 0.75 * 0.011) = 6.6. It is the extra crit chance, on a very shallow DR curve, combined with the buffs and skills that boost willpower, that push willpower /slightly/ ahead of power.

...the diminishing returns on willpower start making power more attractive.

There are no soft or hard caps on primary stats so I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

There are no soft or hard caps on primary stats so I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

There's a slight curve to the crit % chance gained from primary stat. WP is more valuable than power because it makes up for the bonus damage/healing difference with added crit chance. So, my point basically boils down to there should be some fixed point in which the .3 more bonus damage/healing from power outweighs the crit % gain from WP. One of these days I'm going to have to break out all the damage/healing formulas and find that point. Hasn't been high priority for me because I expect we might get DR changes or other changes to how stats work in RotHC.

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Go with what works for you. Personally, I went mostly with willpower since I tried it both ways and the difference to bonus healing was very small and I gained more crit and healing power from going with willpower.

There's a slight curve to the crit % chance gained from primary stat. WP is more valuable than power because it makes up for the bonus damage/healing difference with added crit chance. So, my point basically boils down to there should be some fixed point in which the .3 more bonus damage/healing from power outweighs the crit % gain from WP. One of these days I'm going to have to break out all the damage/healing formulas and find that point. Hasn't been high priority for me because I expect we might get DR changes or other changes to how stats work in RotHC.

For a 35% crit chance (base+class buff+wp comp+crit rating comp+companion bonus), the break point comes to around 3400 main stat, which also does not consider any main stat talent buffs.

There's a slight curve to the crit % chance gained from primary stat. WP is more valuable than power because it makes up for the bonus damage/healing difference with added crit chance. So, my point basically boils down to there should be some fixed point in which the .3 more bonus damage/healing from power outweighs the crit % gain from WP. One of these days I'm going to have to break out all the damage/healing formulas and find that point. Hasn't been high priority for me because I expect we might get DR changes or other changes to how stats work in RotHC.

The theorycrafting I saw a while back indicated Willpower would be better than Power well past current gearing levels to somewhere in the 9,000 range. Someone else suggested 3,400 without any main stat talent buffs. Regardless, it is well past the current gear range. The DR curve for crit on your main stat is just so low that it is always going to be worth stacking it.