I’m making this community thread so people can ask and hopefully answer any questions regarding amplifiers.

I know there is a discord channel for theory crafting and I’ve got the spreadsheet, but theory crafting against target dummies and actual playing in pvp can often be a little different.

So if you have questions, please ask and hopefully some of our more experienced players can help out. All are welcome

My own question has to do with dot spec classes like Madness Sorcs. There is the amp called Periodic Intensity.

I recently played against and with Hoppin in mids on Star Forge (At least I think it was the real Hoppin. For those who don’t know who Hoppin is, they are one of the best Sorc players in the game).

Anyway, Hoppin was using Madness spec and the dots were globalling people faster than DCDs and self heals could mitigate.

I didn’t get enough time to ask questions because I was on the opposite faction. The only thing I found out was rotation being used.

One thing that I know in lowbies and Mids is you are limited on how much you can change your stats due to bolster doing most of that for you. So I’m assuming Hoppin also had amplifiers applied to increase the how damaging those dots were.

If Hoppin is reading this (or someone else who knows), I’m really interested to know if you were using the periodic intensity amplifiers or the force sensitivity ones or some other Amps?. I personally use the force sensitivity amps because that’s what the theory crafting spread sheet says to use. But I’ve never seen dots do so much damage so quickly before using force sensitivity (I should add that I’m use lightning spec and I know that’s different).

Here a link to the Amp spread sheet I mention : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14ZjAq6mflbXgHSle4BVjYtrSqfKQrWeXjtAHEuSDZwI/edit#gid=567879846

The BiS amps for PvE is mostly the same for PvP, just use the spreadsheet for picking BiS amps for pvp.

Yeah, I’ve been doing that with good success on juggs, maras, assassins, snipers, etc.

What I was looking for is more of an “insiders” point of view, specifically on madness dots.

I’m also interested in any info regarding the defensive Amplifiers. If anyone has actually done any theory crafting on them because I can’t find any.

IE, say you come up against someone like Hoppin who is smashing dots out like tactical nukes, will force protection amps help etc.

Yeah, I’ve been doing that with good success on juggs, maras, assassins, snipers, etc.

What I was looking for is more of an “insiders” point of view, specifically on madness dots.

 

I’m also interested in any info regarding the defensive Amplifiers. If anyone has actually done any theory crafting on them because I can’t find any.

IE, say you come up against someone like Hoppin who is smashing dots out like tactical nukes, will force protection amps help etc.

Well even for DoT specs, periodic intensity will out-do force sensitivity or tech wizardry almost every time, even on players. So the spreadsheet is still correct for those as well.

Defensive amps are trash unless you are using En Garde and are specifically an Assassin or a Powertech/Marauder.

From my understanding, periodic intensity and force sensitivity are going to end up having nearly the same impact for madness sorcs. Even if periodic intensity is slightly better, I wouldn't expect any big difference if you make the switch. Perhaps limited uptime would also point to periodic intensity being better, because at least your dots will be ticking while you kite, etc. Granted, I have no personal experience playing madness since 6.0.

The bigger conundrum for amps is armor penetration, which is undoubtedly the best amp for pve for certain specs, but I've seen significant doubts raised about it for pvp, because players have lower armor ratings than pve bosses.

From my understanding, periodic intensity and force sensitivity are going to end up having nearly the same impact for madness sorcs. Even if periodic intensity is slightly better, I wouldn't expect any big difference if you make the switch.

 

The bigger conundrum for amps is armor penetration, which is undoubtedly the best amp for pve for certain specs, but I've seen significant doubts raised about it for pvp, because players have lower armor ratings than pve bosses.

So, with ArPen it's not good to go full ArPen over weapon expertise usually, but there is a sweet spot where you want 2-3 ArPen amps and the rest wep exp, that will usually deal more overall DPS than full wep exp or full arm pen.

I have yet to understand why this is, but based on testing that's what myself and others yielded.

So, with ArPen it's not good to go full ArPen over weapon expertise usually, but there is a sweet spot where you want 2-3 ArPen amps and the rest wep exp, that will usually deal more overall DPS than full wep exp or full arm pen.

 

I have yet to understand why this is, but based on testing that's what myself and others yielded.

I've seen that alluded to, but haven't seen any firm stuff on it. I wonder if it makes any difference if it's assassin or say, merc. Either way, maybe preseason is a good time for people so inclined to do some more testing.

So, with ArPen it's not good to go full ArPen over weapon expertise usually, but there is a sweet spot where you want 2-3 ArPen amps and the rest wep exp, that will usually deal more overall DPS than full wep exp or full arm pen.

 

I have yet to understand why this is, but based on testing that's what myself and others yielded.

That’s good to know. I’ve mainly been running with full AmorPen on my Rage Jugg and MM sniper.

Do you know which classes/specs the sweet spot between ArmorPen and weapon expertise applies too? And is it the same mix of 2-3 ArmPen vs 6-7 Weapon expertise for each?

I've seen that alluded to, but haven't seen any firm stuff on it. I wonder if it makes any difference if it's assassin or say, merc. Either way, maybe preseason is a good time for people so inclined to do some more testing.

I’d love to see some testing on the defensive amps because there are situations where staying alive longer will be more beneficial for your team than doing more damage.

ie, I’ll use me playing against someone like Hoppin as an example. I’ll never be that good or be able to kill Hoppin and I’ll never play with the excellent ping they obviously have. But if I knew I’d be playing against them a lot, it might be better if I could load up on defensive amps when facing them so that I can stay alive longer to help my team.

I've seen that alluded to, but haven't seen any firm stuff on it. I wonder if it makes any difference if it's assassin or say, merc. Either way, maybe preseason is a good time for people so inclined to do some more testing.

For context, I was on an Assassin, using Maul on a Powertech and then on an Operative.

Myself and two other players, named Shinra and Furkai, tested this back in November. Our methodology was using full 1.2% Weapon expertise amps, and then maul 10 or 20 times on the PT and then later Operative (heavy and medium armor users. After doing a sample size of about 20 mauls, we would then divide by 20 to get the "average" maul hit. After we got our average hit, we would replace 1 Weapon expertise amp for one 2.5% Armor Pen amp, and replicate this test over and over until all of the amps were eventually Armor pen.

What we found was that as we replaced Weapon Expertise amps with Armor pen amps, maul damage went up on both the PT and Operative, up until about the 3rd amp. After that, each Weapon Expertise amp that was replaced with an Armor Pen caused maul damage to start going down.

The "sweet spot" so to speak was 3 Armor pen amps and the rest being Weapon Expertise for maximum damage mauls.

This test can be replicated for similar results, for anyone wanting to try it out.

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We also did a test on Alacrity to see if it was possible to fit 3 GCDs into a simple 4 second Hardstun. This was important to figure out because at the time, it was the difference between fitting a triple maul into a single hardstun or only fitting 2 mauls in a stun before the target could recover and use a DCD. There was some really crazy results with that test, which to this day are still unexplained. But the tl;dr of that test is that alacrity appears to not work in thresholds but instead has a weird effect where it seems to work and not work as you gain more and more rating. I really want to get back to testing Alacrity, but have also been asking the devs to just release their combat formulae since that would make theorycrafting easier and it wouldn't require as much 'feet on the ground' work, so to speak.

For context, I was on an Assassin, using Maul on a Powertech and then on an Operative.

Do ranged attacks work differently from melee, or does all white damage work the exact same way? If these were your results on sin, I'm assuming the same principal would apply to mercs, correct?

For context, I was on an Assassin, using Maul on a Powertech and then on an Operative.

 

Myself and two other players, named Shinra and Furkai, tested this back in November. Our methodology was using full 1.2% Weapon expertise amps, and then maul 10 or 20 times on the PT and then later Operative (heavy and medium armor users. After doing a sample size of about 20 mauls, we would then divide by 20 to get the "average" maul hit. After we got our average hit, we would replace 1 Weapon expertise amp for one 2.5% Armor Pen amp, and replicate this test over and over until all of the amps were eventually Armor pen.

 

What we found was that as we replaced Weapon Expertise amps with Armor pen amps, maul damage went up on both the PT and Operative, up until about the 3rd amp. After that, each Weapon Expertise amp that was replaced with an Armor Pen caused maul damage to start going down.

 

The "sweet spot" so to speak was 3 Armor pen amps and the rest being Weapon Expertise for maximum damage mauls.

 

This test can be replicated for similar results, for anyone wanting to try it out.

 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

We also did a test on Alacrity to see if it was possible to fit 3 GCDs into a simple 4 second Hardstun. This was important to figure out because at the time, it was the difference between fitting a triple maul into a single hardstun or only fitting 2 mauls in a stun before the target could recover and use a DCD. There was some really crazy results with that test, which to this day are still unexplained. But the tl;dr of that test is that alacrity appears to not work in thresholds but instead has a weird effect where it seems to work and not work as you gain more and more rating. I really want to get back to testing Alacrity, but have also been asking the devs to just release their combat formulae since that would make theorycrafting easier and it wouldn't require as much 'feet on the ground' work, so to speak.

Thanks for the info and easy to understand methodology. I’m assuming this will be similar with all melee specs who would usually rely on ArmPen.

I’ll try swapping some of mine with weapon expertise on my Juggs.

Also a little tid bit I worked out to make this “cheaper”. Do it on a lvl 70 character using the 252 Ossus gear. You can still buy and sell it back with a refund timer. Sure it’ll take a bit of time to get two sets that have ArmPen and Weapon Expertise, but it won’t cost 90k to rip out armoring and then you can resell it all when you’ve finished

And Kre’a, any chance you guys would consider testing the affects of the defensive Amps this way. I would try myself, but I don’t have the social network in the game anymore to get the help and my wife flat out refuses to be a parsing dummy (except in the sack )

Do ranged attacks work differently from melee, or does all white damage work the exact same way? If these were your results on sin, I'm assuming the same principal would apply to mercs, correct?

Ranged/Melee works the same, there would only be a difference when you take into account certain passives that allow Ranged defense to be greater than Melee defense. Off the top of my head, Predation gives increased ranged defence, as does that one utility for Snipers, which gives increased ranged defense by 20%.

Thanks for the info and easy to understand methodology. I’m assuming this will be similar with all melee specs who would usually rely on ArmPen.

I’ll try swapping some of mine with weapon expertise on my Juggs.

 

Also a little tid bit I worked out to make this “cheaper”. Do it on a lvl 70 character using the 252 Ossus gear. You can still buy and sell it back with a refund timer. Sure it’ll take a bit of time to get two sets that have ArmPen and Weapon Expertise, but it won’t coast 90k to rip out armoring and then you can resell it all when you’ve finished

 

And Kre’a, any chance you guys would consider testing the affects of the defensive Amps this way. I would try myself, but I don’t have the social network in the game anymore to get the help and my wife flat out refuses to be a parsing dummy (except in the sack )

The issue with defensive amps is that there isn't "one size fits all" amp, so to speak. For example, if you use Reinforced Armor, that's not gonna help you at all vs force/tech damage. Likewise, if you use Tech Aegis, that does nothing vs white damage or force damage. In PvP, the comp of the enemy team changes every game, so it's impossible to have the correct defensive amps at any given time. The only amp that works vs ALL damage types is En Garde, but that only works in the first 10 seconds of combat, which is why it's only good on classes like Sin/Mara which can reliably break combat multiple times, or Powertech/Jugg, who die so fast that the 10 seconds that En Garde provides is legitamtely worth it for the 20% damage reduction in the opener of the match, which is when they will take the most burst damage.

So, with ArPen it's not good to go full ArPen over weapon expertise usually, but there is a sweet spot where you want 2-3 ArPen amps and the rest wep exp, that will usually deal more overall DPS than full wep exp or full arm pen.

 

I have yet to understand why this is, but based on testing that's what myself and others yielded.

Thanks for sharing your findings! I wish people would be more upfront with what they are finding. There's such a limited amount of info out now about the finer details of stats.

I am sure there are some really weird things going on where it's not fully understood, I mean the wacky way bolster works, I will never believe BW is capable of adjusting and making all stat types work 100% as they are intended in the WZs. I just can't give them that benefit of the doubt.

So, with ArPen it's not good to go full ArPen over weapon expertise usually, but there is a sweet spot where you want 2-3 ArPen amps and the rest wep exp, that will usually deal more overall DPS than full wep exp or full arm pen.

 

I have yet to understand why this is, but based on testing that's what myself and others yielded.

Well the theory behind it is quite simple. The exact mathematics require a bit more time.

But let me try to make it easy to grasp:

By building up your Weapon Expertise you exponentially also increase the value of Armor Penetration.

Because your weapon attacks now hit harder ArP amps will now have a higher base damage to work with.

The 9th weapon expertise amp adds 1.2% to make 110.8% of base weapon damage.. but that 9th percentage doesn't hold the same value as the first percentage that makes 101.2%.

Because it adds 1.2% to 109.6%, that 1.2% is only worth 100/109.6*101.2=92.3% of the first 1.2%.

So basically the value of weapon amps exponentially reduces and the ArP amp is still at its original value.

Meaning that if weapon amps are 5% stronger than ArP amps, ArP amps will be worthwhile roughly around the time you have 6 weapon amps. Still following?

Its basically the same concept as any other stat. Many people refer to it as "Diminishing Returns" although its really just a natural occurrence of additive percentages. It wouldn't be the case if the percentages were multiplicative but they aren't.

I’m making this community thread ]

What's difficult to understand? Each spec has a specific amp that will multiply dps, heals or defensive abilities.

DoT specs use periodic intensity to multiply dot damage. Gear and stats do not provide any additional mitigation besides what you can get with the Periodic Resilience amplifier. This is assuming your dots run their full duration.

in 8v8 periodic intensity is best for dot specs. Due to dot spread on more targets and dots running their full duration.

In 4v4 its somewhat complicated. DPS games that are short duration, i would say tech wiz for my lethality is better as the burst for lethal strike is higher and opposition die faster, so dots dont tick as much.

But add a healer and games last longer, so dots tick more. But a good healer will remove your dots, so you waste dps re-applying.

Tank/healer games, dot dps is king. Ive done 19.8k dps on my lethality OP using periodic intensity amps.

Ultimately its down to the situation. The rotation you use and the amplifier that best ramps up your damage for that specific game.

This is why BiS chars, dont have one set. They have several. I have the 2 of the same min/max (80-r2 mods/80-r20 enh)set with full gold periodic inten and the other gold tech wiz.

The set i use is determined on my oppo, but only determined by "what set will do the most dps". Amps are supposed to be SWTOR’s sandbox, but like everything else. You are forced to run BiS amps for your spec to be competitive

For context, I was on an Assassin, using Maul on a Powertech and then on an Operative.

 

Myself and two other players, named Shinra and Furkai, tested this back in November. Our methodology was using full 1.2% Weapon expertise. Etc etc .

Your methodology?? A scientific breakthrough!!!

You weren’t in a laboratory mate. You were nothing more than a group of sins trying to amplify their maul spam so they could global a target in a hard stun. It’s probably the most thought you could of put into sin in that patch.

Thank god you got nerf’d

Your methodology?? A scientific breakthrough!!!

 

You weren’t in a laboratory mate. You were nothing more than a group of sins trying to amplify their maul spam so they could global a target in a hard stun. It’s probably the most thought you could of put into sin in that patch.

 

Thank god you got nerf’d

Play nice, Kre’a does more for this community than most. You don’t have to like him, but you should respect the fact that he takes the time and cares enough to help the community.

Well the theory behind it is quite simple. The exact mathematics require a bit more time.

 

But let me try to make it easy to grasp:

 

By building up your Weapon Expertise you exponentially also increase the value of Armor Penetration.

Because your weapon attacks now hit harder ArP amps will now have a higher base damage to work with.

 

The 9th weapon expertise amp adds 1% to make 109% of base weapon damage.. but that 9th percentage doesn't hold the same value as the first percentage that makes 101%.

 

Because it adds 1% to 108%, that 1% is only worth 108/100*109=92.6% of the first 1%.

 

So basically the value of weapon amps exponentially reduces and the ArP amp is still at its original value.

Meaning that if weapon amps are 5% stronger than ArP amps, ArP amps will be worthwhile roughly around the time you have 6 weapon amps. Still following?

 

Its basically the same concept as any other stat. Many people refer to it as "Diminishing Returns" although its really just a natural occurrence of additive percentages. It wouldn't be the case if the percentages were multiplicative but they aren't.

Damn, that hurt my head, but it makes sense. Thank you for sharing.

Play nice, Kre’a does more for this community than most. You don’t have to like him, but you should respect the fact that he takes the time and cares enough to help the community.

Well if I had to guess, it's someone who harbors envy, jealously, and/or dislike for Krea because he beats them regularly in ranked. People never show respect to those better than them they just spew hate.

Well if I had to guess, it's someone who harbors envy, jealously, and/or dislike for Krea because he beats them regularly in ranked. People never show respect to those better than them they just spew hate.

Yeah, they don’t like me much either as I was abused in another thread by the same poster.

Well the theory behind it is quite simple. The exact mathematics require a bit more time.

 

But let me try to make it easy to grasp:

 

By building up your Weapon Expertise you exponentially also increase the value of Armor Penetration.

Because your weapon attacks now hit harder ArP amps will now have a higher base damage to work with.

 

The 9th weapon expertise amp adds 1% to make 109% of base weapon damage.. but that 9th percentage doesn't hold the same value as the first percentage that makes 101%.

 

Because it adds 1% to 108%, that 1% is only worth 108/100*109=92.6% of the first 1%.

 

So basically the value of weapon amps exponentially reduces and the ArP amp is still at its original value.

Meaning that if weapon amps are 5% stronger than ArP amps, ArP amps will be worthwhile roughly around the time you have 6 weapon amps. Still following?

 

Its basically the same concept as any other stat. Many people refer to it as "Diminishing Returns" although its really just a natural occurrence of additive percentages. It wouldn't be the case if the percentages were multiplicative but they aren't.

But by this logic, it would be worth taking a few armor pen amps on every class, no? Has anyone actually tested that?

But by this logic, it would be worth taking a few armor pen amps on every class, no? Has anyone actually tested that?

Well not necessarily. It just depends on how strong ArP is for you.

It won't be as good if you already have a lot of it out of your spec.

But thats where the mathematicals get really complex. Because the value of the stats change when you add or subtract to any of it. This is why people in WoW use simulations to figure out their statweights. Because stats have a dynamic value.

But the same concept also applies for for example Periodic Intensity vs Tech Wiz for example.

After you've got 8x 2.20% PI the 9th PI is only worth 100/117.6*102.2=86.9% of the first PI.

Meaning that if PI was originally 13% stronger than Tech Wiz, 8x PI and 1x Tech Wiz is BiS.

The thing is that I don't actually know how much better Weapon Expertise or PI are than their counterpart stats.

It might be well over that 7%/13% mark. And then it isn't worth mixing them up.

Well not necessarily. It just depends on how strong ArP is for you.

It won't be as good if you already have a lot of it out of your spec.

 

But thats where the mathematicals get really complex. Because the value of the stats change when you add or subtract to any of it. This is why people in WoW use simulations to figure out their statweights. Because stats have a dynamic value.

 

 

But the same concept also applies for for example Periodic Intensity vs Tech Wiz for example.

After you've got 8x 2.20% PI the 9th PI is only worth 100/117.6*102.2=86.9% of the first PI.

 

Meaning that if PI was originally 13% stronger than Tech Wiz, 8x PI and 1x Tech Wiz is BiS.

 

 

The thing is that I don't actually know how much better Weapon Expertise or PI are than their counterpart stats.

It might be well over that 7%/13% mark. And then it isn't worth mixing them up.

I wish I understood the maths part better to do it myself, but I don’t. So sorry to be a pain and asking what probably seem like self explanatory questions to you and some others.

Im still trying to get my head around how this works for the different class specs and Amp mixes.

How would you do that for say a madness Sorc? A mix of Force sensitivity and Armor pen or a mix of force sensitivity and Periodic intensity or Armor pen?

And for that matter, how would you set up an Engineering sniper?,