i feel 35% is a bit much, while 30% is a bit low. currently, i'm at 32.22%, and i really haven't noticed a difference in crit occurance when compared to 35%.

i recommend around 33%. with that, you'll be able to invest in more power, make you strong like bull.

We talking with or without the Agent/Smuggler buff?

Without I guess.

i feel 35% is a bit much, while 30% is a bit low. currently, i'm at 32.22%, and i really haven't noticed a difference in crit occurance when compared to 35%.

 

i recommend around 33%. with that, you'll be able to invest in more power, make you strong like bull.

Again, percent has no relation to diminishing returns, which is what you should be concerned with. Ask what your crit rating should be, not your %.

guess i wasn't specific enough. we're talking crit chance with the smuggler buff. 30% buffed is a bit on the low side while 35% buffed is a bit much. you would get better results with 33%~ buffed and invest in a few more power mods.

if you're built up properly, then your strength should be contributing a fair amount to your crit chance. this results in needing less crit rating to achieve the desired %. also, your crit rating will be quite safe from diminishing returns.

guess i wasn't specific enough. we're talking crit chance with the smuggler buff. 30% buffed is a bit on the low side while 35% buffed is a bit much. you would get better results with 33%~ buffed and invest in a few more power mods.

 

if you're built up properly, then your strength should be contributing a fair amount to your crit chance. this results in needing less crit rating to achieve the desired %. also, your crit rating will be quite safe from diminishing returns.

Again, crit rating is entirely, completely, 100% independent of crit % when it concerns diminishing returns. That is to say, you have diminishing returns based on what your crit rating is, and based on what your Cunning is, and neither interact with each other.

For example, if you are in Columi, your crit % with 250 crit will be around 32%. If you are in fully optimized dread guard, and have 250 crit, it will be 35%. The extra crit % comes from cunning, which is on its own diminishing return curve. 250 is still a good number to hit at both gear levels, because of the DR's associated with the stat.

Don't go by crit %, go by crit rating. And please stop trying to confuse people. There is no such thing as a desired magic number of crit %, you want as much as you can get without hitting diminishing returns too harshly from the crit stat, and that number is 350. I suggest more around 250 for Vigilance because unlike most other DPS trees there is no surge bonus on any of the skills (making crit less valuable) and you also have a skill that leads to 2 of your moves almost always critting (again, lowering the value of crit).

how am i confusing ppl? the op asked what % he should shoot for as a vigilance guardian. i replied with what i've found to be an acceptable crit chance, that is all.

People are just trying to be difficult. We all know strength + crit contribute to crit %. And we all know that crit rating is different.

The end goal here is to target a % chance.

That said, I'm not really a PVE'er (only ever tanked), but in PVP, I target ~30% (with smug buff). The rest into power/surge. My surge rating is 79.86%, Crit is ~30%, Accuracy is 102%, and force power is like 960.

I can flip-flop between Vigilance (my preference) and Derpsmash with these stats & see no drop off in terms of Vigilance performance.

In fact, I will often out DPS many of my guild's best derpsmashers, when in vigilance (single-target DPS).

I'd rather hit like a truck guaranteed on dispatch/blade storm/master strike (last of the 3 ticks will hit for 4500-6140) instead of thin out my DPS across a 2% better chance to crit, but for weaker values.

People are just trying to be difficult. We all know strength + crit contribute to crit %. And we all know that crit rating is different.

 

The end goal here is to target a % chance.

 

That said, I'm not really a PVE'er (only ever tanked), but in PVP, I target ~30% (with smug buff). The rest into power/surge. My surge rating is 79.86%, Crit is ~30%, Accuracy is 102%, and force power is like 960.

 

I can flip-flop between Vigilance (my preference) and Derpsmash with these stats & see no drop off in terms of Vigilance performance.

 

In fact, I will often out DPS many of my guild's best derpsmashers, when in vigilance (single-target DPS).

 

I'd rather hit like a truck guaranteed on dispatch/blade storm/master strike (last of the 3 ticks will hit for 4500-6140) instead of thin out my DPS across a 2% better chance to crit, but for weaker values.

Except he's right, the goal SHOULDN'T be to find a desired %, because it's much more beneficial to find a desired amount of crit rating, which is what diminishing returns are based on.

While I do find that critical rating is good to shoot for, I happen to find more success in achieving a certain critical chance percentage. I found that basing percentage solely on critical rating is often misleading (at least for my commando in gunnery spec or combat medic spec).

For instance, My critical rating is below what people recommend and I am sitting at 33% Crit Chance unbuffed.

Crit chance is affected by these values in the Tech area for my commando:

• Aim (Main stat)
  
• Cunning (still don't know where this comes from, but is it in there)
  
• Critical Rating (obviously)
  

A good critical chance % to be at unbuffed is around 32-33%.

I also have not seen a huge difference at 35% unbuffed vs 33% unbuffed.

Hopefully this helps.

While I do find that critical rating is good to shoot for, I happen to find more success in achieving a certain critical chance percentage. I found that basing percentage solely on critical rating is often misleading (at least for my commando in gunnery spec or combat medic spec).

 

For instance, My critical rating is below what people recommend and I am sitting at 33% Crit Chance unbuffed.

 

Crit chance is affected by these values in the Tech area for my commando:

 

• Aim (Main stat)
  
• Cunning (still don't know where this comes from, but is it in there)
  
• Critical Rating (obviously)
  

 

A good critical chance % to be at unbuffed is around 32-33%.

I also have not seen a huge difference at 35% unbuffed vs 33% unbuffed.

 

Hopefully this helps.

I'm curious what math you used to decide Crit % is what should be the determinant factor.

Also, if you shoot for crit rating, its rather easy to compare even with 2 different classes.

Most classes you want probably like 150-300, based on what that class has for crit affecting talents. As urge buff will increase the value of crit. A crit buff will (very very marginally) decrease the value of crit and increase the value of surge. Autocrits will decrease the value of crit and increase that of surge.

So my sorc and powertech, who both have a surge buff on substantial amounts of their damage, both really like crit andhave ~280 (though the ptech gets more crit% for tech through talents and cunning than the sorc gsets, and their %s are quite different). While my focus guardian also has a surge buff, 30% of his damage is autocrit, so he likes to get more power and sits around 130-140 crit.

Diminishing returns only matter when you are trying to get as close to the cap as you can, with crit you are not trying to do that because many of your abilities have added chance to crit, so you want to put more into power or surge.

Say your three main abilites have 40% to crit from your talent tree and you have 70% crit that is a waste of points that you should have in power or surge.

Just use the focus spec for example, your primary source of dmg is from an ability that will always crit, so you dont want any cirt on your character.

Diminishing returns only matter when you are trying to get as close to the cap as you can, with crit you are not trying to do that because many of your abilities have added chance to crit, so you want to put more into power or surge.

 

Say your three main abilites have 40% to crit from your talent tree and you have 70% crit that is a waste of points that you should have in power or surge.

 

Just use the focus spec for example, your primary source of dmg is from an ability that will always crit, so you dont want any cirt on your character.

Diminishing returns matter the instant you have more than 1 point in any stat that is affected by diminishing returns. The optimal amount of a given stat to have (crit in this case) is the amount at which it is of equal value to other stats (power in this case). Really in this game right now, it's more of a sliding scale, and there's a range of like 50-80 points of crit (which points are dependent on what AC/spec you play) where crit and power are effectively equivalent in value.

As for your examples: Getting to 70% crit is impossible in current gear, and I don't see it ever happening in the game.

Getting to 40% crit with abilities that add 60% IS possible, on vigilance guardian (blade storm and dispatch, though you won't get to 40% crit on dispatch) and madness sorc, with the 2 auto crits every 1.5 minutes. There may be others, I don't know them off the top of my head.

On both of those classes, there is a certain % where the value of additional crit drops somewhat, due to those cases, though it's very minor for sorc/sage, and at current gear, to be honest is past the point where diminishing returns makes crit worth less than power.

For Focus Guardian, 30% of your single target damage is from sweep. It is your biggest damage dealer, but is still only a third of the overall picture. (bigger on aoe obviously, but who gears for aoe?) This does indeed push down the value of crit for Focus spec, and in pve you want ~125ish, give or take a mod's worth. This is a bit lower in pvp, as in pvp you get more mileage out of sweep since it's your burst. However, even in this case, it is not entirely beneficial to run with absolutely zero crit rating.

And you are correct, there is not all that much noticeable difference between 35% and 33% crit. Just the same as there isn't much of a noticeable difference between 33% and 31%. Crit does marginally DR itself, as a 1% increase at, say 50%, is a smaller percentage increase to overall dps than a 1% increase at 20%. However, with the number variations we are talking about here, this effect doesn't really come into play.

Diminishing returns matter the instant you have more than 1 point in any stat that is affected by diminishing returns. The optimal amount of a given stat to have (crit in this case) is the amount at which it is of equal value to other stats (power in this case). Really in this game right now, it's more of a sliding scale, and there's a range of like 50-80 points of crit (which points are dependent on what AC/spec you play) where crit and power are effectively equivalent in value.

 

For Focus Guardian, 30% of your single target damage is from sweep. It is your biggest damage dealer, but is still only a third of the overall picture. (bigger on aoe obviously, but who gears for aoe?) This does indeed push down the value of crit for Focus spec, and in pve you want ~125ish, give or take a mod's worth. This is a bit lower in pvp, as in pvp you get more mileage out of sweep since it's your burst. However, even in this case, it is not entirely beneficial to run with absolutely zero crit rating.

notice that these two paragraphs are completly contradictory. on the one hand you say its crit raiting and diminishing returns that matter. on the other you say obveously because Sewwp is 30% of your damage the value of crit is less than the value of power.

Actually the value of power is more when the value of crit is less. So asking what percentage buffed crit produces the highest DPS makes a lot of sense.

The idea that crit and power increase your dps at an equivalent rate when diminishing returns are not a factor is not true - as you have shown with your foucs guardian doing sweep. Vigilance produces the best dps at around 32-33% buffed crit because the lower cirt means more power and this is beter than crit after about 33%. However as you say the difference is tiny and you probably wont notice it much.

Similarly if you have no crit from crit raiting (about 28% buffed crit in blackhole gear) you dps will go down noticibly. But if crit and power where truly equivalent then your dps would be the same. Power has no diminishing returns so if its true that they are qeuivalent it would be fine to stack no crit....

go with 32 - 33% crit if you are a vigilance guardian.

notice that these two paragraphs are completly contradictory. on the one hand you say its crit raiting and diminishing returns that matter. on the other you say obveously because Sewwp is 30% of your damage the value of crit is less than the value of power.

 

Actually the value of power is more when the value of crit is less. So asking what percentage buffed crit produces the highest DPS makes a lot of sense.

 

The idea that crit and power increase your dps at an equivalent rate when diminishing returns are not a factor is not true - as you have shown with your foucs guardian doing sweep. Vigilance produces the best dps at around 32-33% buffed crit because the lower cirt means more power and this is beter than crit after about 33%. However as you say the difference is tiny and you probably wont notice it much.

 

Similarly if you have no crit from crit raiting (about 28% buffed crit in blackhole gear) you dps will go down noticibly. But if crit and power where truly equivalent then your dps would be the same. Power has no diminishing returns so if its true that they are qeuivalent it would be fine to stack no crit....

 

go with 32 - 33% crit if you are a vigilance guardian.

The word you're looking for is "complimentary", not "contradictory".

You need to look at both the DR curve and spec effects.

While the autocrit sweep lowers the comparative value of crit, its still beneficial to have some crit due to the low DR on low amounts of it.

You are correct though that in your gearing you want power and crit to be equal at your gear level.

33% may very well be the correct amount for big, but its still easier to use the amount of rating, as that doesn't fluctuate as much based on gear level, is still mostly true whether using power or str augs(yes I know star is better for vig), actually translates between classes/specs, and is true whether you mean melee crit or force crit.

OK good we pritty much on the same page.

my underlying point tho is that at the beginning of this thread several people said raiting not percent that matters.

This in actually incorrect i suspect for every class but certinally for focus and vigilance. The reason is that as your gear inproves giving you more crit from strength you are able to reduce the amount of raiting you need and increase power.

the most noticible DPS improvements i have seen are when i am able to swap out a crit mod for a power one while keeping my crit % the same.

OK good we pritty much on the same page.

 

my underlying point tho is that at the beginning of this thread several people said raiting not percent that matters.

 

This in actually incorrect i suspect for every class but certinally for focus and vigilance. The reason is that as your gear inproves giving you more crit from strength you are able to reduce the amount of raiting you need and increase power.

 

the most noticible DPS improvements i have seen are when i am able to swap out a crit mod for a power one while keeping my crit % the same.

Mostly on the same page except for this. There is no logical reason why 32% is arbitrarily better than 35%. DR for crit from crit rating and from strength are completely separate.

Maybe at some point you were a little high on crit rating which is why you saw benefits in dropping it for power, but it makes no sense to me to say that 32% is just flat better than 35%. In any case I doubt you'd see noticeable differences in upgrading just a mod or two, especially on a spec as proc-based and streaky as vigi.

Mostly on the same page except for this. There is no logical reason why 32% is arbitrarily better than 35%. DR for crit from crit rating and from strength are completely separate.

 

Maybe at some point you were a little high on crit rating which is why you saw benefits in dropping it for power, but it makes no sense to me to say that 32% is just flat better than 35%. In any case I doubt you'd see noticeable differences in upgrading just a mod or two, especially on a spec as proc-based and streaky as vigi.

you will - try it for your self get 35% crit use the rotation Plasma Brand - Strike - Sunder - Overhead strike - Blade Storm - Sunder test for 6 min 3x you will find you dps output is within 30 dps each test if you do it correctly (not using masterstrike avoids the influence of proc chance). Then lower you crit to 32% and test 3 times for 6 min same simple rotatoin. you DPS will go up.

if you spec Inisght only 1 point instead prefering Momentum you will find 34% is best.

As you say this is to do with the value you get from specific skills critting vs the blanket value of damage increase from power. Its the same with Sentinals - all the best ones spec 30% crit not 35%. crit and power are not equivalent in all regards except for the diminishing returns of crit as you claim - although im sure this is by far the biggest factor. you do say this your self in your post regarding force sweep so im not sure what else to say.

you will - try it for your self get 35% crit use the rotation Plasma Brand - Strike - Sunder - Overhead strike - Blade Storm - Sunder test for 6 min 3x you will find you dps output is within 30 dps each test if you do it correctly (not using masterstrike avoids the influence of proc chance). Then lower you crit to 32% and test 3 times for 6 min same simple rotatoin. you DPS will go up.

 

if you spec Inisght only 1 point instead prefering Momentum you will find 34% is best.

 

As you say this is to do with the value you get from specific skills critting vs the blanket value of damage increase from power. Its the same with Sentinals - all the best ones spec 30% crit not 35%. crit and power are not equivalent in all regards except for the diminishing returns of crit as you claim - although im sure this is by far the biggest factor. you do say this your self in your post regarding force sweep so im not sure what else to say.

That level of crit may very well be optimal, I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that if that is the case at campaign/dread guard level, then whatever amount of crit rating gave you that would be roughly about right at Columi/rakata level, and thus its easier to just quote the amount of crit rating that gives you that crit %, instead of telling someone in lower gear they need to get to a specific crit%, which would cause them to over itemize crit.