Thoughts? Opinions? Any hard data out there that says "yes get crit this high up then stack power"?

 

Been looking at the DR curve of Crit and it's not bad at all unless you hit fairly high values like 500+ so I can't exactly eyeball a point at which I can say "ok, enough crit is enough".

Could you please tell me where you saw that DM curve?

http://www.jedilace.com/2012/02/03/calculating-critical-hit-chance/

 

Not sure if anything has changed in the meantime but as far as I know, crit DR has been the same since launch till now.

Shameless bump

I'm a Pyro DPS PvE, stacking mostly power, I'm up to just under 100% accuracy (tired of missing railshots), about 900 bonus damage, and buff/stimmed 36% crit. I've gotten depending on the fight up to around 1500+ dps..

I find that you get slightly better damage returns from power. Still crit isn't far behind power so I still gear for it, I run about 2:1 power:crit, so like 600 power and 300 crit.

 

Of course I was barely 50 the first time I did the math, I really need to sit down and double check that it still holds true now that I have full campaign gear.

So here's an interesting conundrum - the way black hole/campaign gear is itemized, I seem to have run into a weird choice: Surge vs Accuracy and Power vs Crit. This is as concerns BiS with Black Hole gear (I don't have access to Campaign for my DPS set as that is going to tanking or other guildies).

 

This is mainly due to the fact that the mods on gear are either 57 Accuracy or 57 Surge, and either 41 Power or 41 Crit.

 

So I have 2 questions:

 

1) Is it worth lowering Accuracy below 110% tech if it means stacking surge into the 300s-400s?

 

Otherwise, assuming a 5/5 split of 57 Surge/Accuracy (2x implants, earpiece, main hand, off-hand, 5 main armor pieces) - that would be 285 Surge and 285 Accuracy, putting me right below the 110% special Acc cap (with the companion 1%) and stopping before Surge gets too deep into DR. It seems to me this might be better than stacking Surge beyond 300.

 

2) Is it EVER worth taking Crit rating over Power? If so, how much Crit rating is worth it? Aside from my BH earpiece with 71 crit rating I could replace ALL the rest of my crit with power at a 1:1 ratio.

 

(Bear in mind I'm asking JUST about crit RATING. I am really sick of people saying stack to "35% crit buffed". What does that even mean? Ranged crit? tech crit? does it take into account extra tech crit abilities? crit from Aim? sorry rant over)

 

(p.s. Yes, I know the Simulator is up there but it's not been updated since 1.2 AND it gives very inconsistent results with my current stats.)

You can end up with 100% ranged accuracy and stay at about 340 surge by having a small amount of acc augments (I have 3 and I'm at 99.8% ranged acc). Alternatively, you can swap out 1 Power/Surge enhancement for a power/accuracy and so you'll drop surge but you'll be able to replace the augments with aim. To me, dropping 2% surge for a marginal increase in bonus damage (about 10) doesn't seem to be worth it but that is just opinion, not fact.

 

Here's my setup, hope it helps http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/335b9514-2442-4802-919c-d4be43d2bf23. Most of it was done through BH gear and the occasional campaign gear that I got and ripped the mods out of

 

As for 2), that's why I created the thread in the first place

Edited July 13, 2012 by Suryi

It is NEVER worth taking Accuracy or Surge over Power or Aim. The only viable BiS end-game augments are Aim or Power (which is a separate debate not relevant to this thread). While temporarily slotting an Accuracy augment MIGHT be worthwhile, you should always eventually replace it. That's not opinion, it's a fact (or at least, as close to a "fact" as you can get) based on end-game gearing options, parses and simulations ... but not super relevant to this topic either.

 

I mostly posted that whole thing in here cause it's relevant to the Crit vs Power question which I really would like to find out.

Well, yeah I keep hearing that acc augments are a waste of space but I'd have to sacrifice Surge before I could drop my acc augments for Aim so I'd drop 2% surge for 46 aim, not sure if worth it (probably is).

I mean, it's sounds to me like you may have overall gear issues that need to be resolved, but I have no idea what gear level you are at. In general Aim >>>>>>>>>>> Surge/Accuracy. But it's different for Tionese vs Campaign etc.

I posted an askmrrobot link earlier; I'm on fully 61 mods, just missing 1 reflex armoring and I'm done.

 

With that in mind, by swapping stuff around I can drop surge from 77.35 to 75.8 and gain about 15 bonus damage (by replacing 3 acc augments with aim). I'm really unsure if it's worth it or not. 1.5% surge vs 0.2% increase in ranged damage and even less in tech, it kinda seems to favor surge but this is just me eyeballing. Also I'm keeping in mind the high crit chances on rail shots -46%- and high crit chance on elemental attacks -40%-. Bah. Anyway, mission accomplished, thread sucessfully derailed, lol.

The goal of itemization for dps, because Bioware neglected to put in a crit/power mod would be to maximize power as a secondary stat. Power lacks any diminishing returns so it will always be better than crit when crit hits the soft cap. I define this "soft cap" as the point where the marginal dps of crit equals the marginal dps of power. Because of the way the mods work, power is only attached to surge, alacrity, or accuracy. This means you will have to give up some power for some crit. Because the marginal dps of power is higher than the marginal dps of crit once crit hits the soft cap, it is never wise to give up power for crit after you hit the crit soft cap. This is assuming you have maxed your surge to the soft cap, as well.

 

So, a good strat for itemization would be to get crit and surge to the soft caps with mods and enhancements. Because the soft cap of crit is higher than surge and they relatively are the same amount on each mod, you will have to get your crit to the soft cap by getting additional crit with crit/accuracy or crit/alacrity mods. Next, fill in everything with power/accuracy (if you need accuracy), or power/alacrity (if you need alacrity). Power/surge would not be very effective on an item because you used your crit to get surge already. I'm aware that there are some classes that do not really need accuracy or alacrity, but since your crit is soft capped, power cannot be attached to crit, and power will always be better than crit at the soft cap, you will have to itemize some accuracy or alacrity because it is better than nothing.

 

It is pretty much a game of opportunity cost. The two best secondary stats, power and crit cannot be equipped on the same item so you have to give up one to get the other. So a good strat would be to get the one that has a soft cap to its soft cap and then stack the other one on everything else. Keep in mind that power will always be better than crit after the crit soft cap so it is unwise to sacrifice power for crit at that point. Keep in mind that this may not apply to every class due to different specs/talents/etc... It is meant to be a generalization for itemization. Also, since it is very difficult to know exactly when power becomes better than crit, it is more of an eyeball test. My guess would be somewhere near 300 crit.

 

Last notes: 1. Because of the nature of the main stat, your augment slots should ALWAYS be filled with main stat augments. Your main stat will always be better than any secondary stat 1 for 1.

2. You should always use the attack adrenal.

3. You should always use your main stat stim over the endurance stim.

Edited July 13, 2012 by bbare

What is the crit soft cap then? In general I mean, for every class, ignoring benefits that crits may bring to various specs/advanced classes.

What is the crit soft cap then? In general I mean, for every class, ignoring benefits that crits may bring to various specs/advanced classes.

 

It really is a moot point where the so called "soft cap" is. Crit starts diminishing at 1 crit. What we need to know is the point where an additional point of crit gives the same amount of dps output as a 1 point increase in power.

It really is a moot point where the so called "soft cap" is. Crit starts diminishing at 1 crit. What we need to know is the point where an additional point of crit gives the same amount of dps output as a 1 point increase in power.

 

Uh ... no, it's not moot. Also you can't use the term then dismiss it lol. In fact, you DEFINED the term as the same thing you just said.

 

In my opinion, the "soft cap" for crit in FULL black hole 61 mod gear is 235 crit rating (71 crit from ear and 4 x 41 crit mods). This is what I have decided to gear towards. Simulations indicate that any less or any more is a DPS loss compared to Power, and it is a nice round number to use.

Cheers. I saw your post on mmo-mechanics as well about 235 crit - 285 acc - 285 surge and while I'm not convinced at all, it's the closest thing I've found to solid data so thank you