Stats and Damage Calculation (5.10a)

 

Despite having played SWTOR for years, there were a lot of gaps in my knowledge about damage calculation, etc. I wanted to remedy this and figured other players might be in the same boat. To that end, Hottie and I set about writing a comprehensive guide that would be useful to newcomers and seasoned players alike.

 

This text is the result of several weeks of reading, testing and pestering our more knowledgeable friends. I’d like to thank doc and Puddlejumper for their insights and give all due credit to Bant, dipstik, KeyboardNinja and multi, whose excellent work is referenced throughout the guide.

 

It’s important to me to put out good information but I’m only human. If you spot any errors or if anything is unclear, please let me know.

 

Revisions

 

2018-12-21: Updated to reflect that critical hits can be shielded against in PvP as of game update 5.9.3. Minor edits throughout. Layout/visual improvements throughout.

 

2018-03-13: Originally published.

Edited December 23, 2018 by rambolnet

Excellent write up and very easy to follow formatting. This will be something I share to anyone who wants to learn more about how stats work, especially about tank stats since a lot of people don't fully understand how they work.

" Therefore, you want to aim for values of Alacrity Rating that correspond to either ≤7.15% Alacrity (a 1.4s GCD) or ≤15.41% Alacrity (a 1.3s GCD). Any Alacrity Rating over these breakpoints is wasted."

 

what about energy regeneration?

" Therefore, you want to aim for values of Alacrity Rating that correspond to either ≤7.15% Alacrity (a 1.4s GCD) or ≤15.41% Alacrity (a 1.3s GCD). Any Alacrity Rating over these breakpoints is wasted."

 

what about energy regeneration?

 

Not worth the loss of gcd reduction, io is the only exception due to how important tiny energy differences can mean.

great work.

 

did you do testing to see if your alacrity assumption is correct, in that the gcd resolution is 0.1 seconds and that the game processes do not reflect in-between values? I ask, because it is common for the background to have higher resolution than the reported values. I also remember channeled abilities having a resolution of 0.01 seconds, which would also go into optimization calculations.

In terms of testing the assumption of time resolution, you may be able to use the logs, if you haven't already.

edit: i see you reference someone who did the testing.

 

The link in the article to your alacrity article leads to the relic article.

 

again, great work.

Edited March 14, 2018 by dipstik

great work.

 

did you do testing to see if your alacrity assumption is correct, in that the gcd resolution is 0.1 seconds and that the game processes do not reflect in-between values? I ask, because it is common for the background to have higher resolution than the reported values. I also remember channeled abilities having a resolution of 0.01 seconds, which would also go into optimization calculations.

In terms of testing the assumption of time resolution, you may be able to use the logs, if you haven't already.

edit: i see you reference someone who did the testing.

 

The link in the article to your alacrity article leads to the relic article.

 

again, great work.

Thanks very much! Means a lot coming from you.

 

Re. Alacrity: yes, I probably should explicitly reference their work in the guide. As good science is all about replicability, I ran some of my own tests, which are recorded in this spreadsheet (includes links to the combat logs on Parsely).

 

I couldn’t figure out where the variance in my initial parses was coming from till doc pointed out my Ability Activation Queue Window was set to 0s. Enabling a queue window greater than 0 greatly reduces the variance—what is left is presumably attributable to input lag, etc. I left that data in the sheet for those interested.

 

I also fixed the link—thanks for pointing that out.

No matter how bad the damn brick wall seems to be in swtor currently (it’s massive at times). There are STILL individuals trying, maybe in stupid hopelessness, but at least putting in the effort to help out the swtor community.

My hats off to you SIR!

GREAT JOB!

No matter how bad the damn brick wall seems to be in swtor currently (it’s massive at times). There are STILL individuals trying, maybe in stupid hopelessness, but at least putting in the effort to help out the swtor community.

My hats off to you SIR!

GREAT JOB!

My coauthor and I are women and we thank you for your kind words. It’s really important to us to put out good information. Better-informed players mean better, more competitive matches.

Edited March 16, 2018 by rambolnet

Not worth the loss of gcd reduction, io is the only exception due to how important tiny energy differences can mean.

 

Yeah, I can pretty much confirm that my average IO parse is slightly higher at an alacrity rating between the 1.4s and 1.3s tiers. Fewer rapid shots, more thermals, no issues with procs, etc. It's the only instance where it's beneficial, I think.

 

Great writeup! A couple suggestions:

 

"Melee disciplines (e.g., Carnage Marauders) typically have a lot of melee-type attacks; ranged disciplines (e.g., Marksmanship Snipers) typically have a lot of ranged-type attacks. Mechanically, however, melee and ranged attacks are identical. Similarly, Force and tech attacks are treated the same."

 

I would mention that the two groupings are color coordinated within the flytext (e.g. white for range/melee damage, aka weapon damage; and yellow for force/tech). I'd also mention that mechanically they aren't quite identical: for instance, priming shot applies a debuff for ranged damage only, not melee.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Hoppinswtor

Yeah, I can pretty much confirm that my average IO parse is slightly higher at an alacrity rating between the 1.4s and 1.3s tiers. Fewer rapid shots, more thermals, no issues with procs, etc. It's the only instance where it's beneficial, I think.

Appreciate you and shyroman pointing that out! Is the key just not to drop below a 1.4s GCD or is there an optimal Alacrity value between the 1.4 and 1.3s breakpoints?

 

Great writeup! A couple suggestions:

 

"Melee disciplines (e.g., Carnage Marauders) typically have a lot of melee-type attacks; ranged disciplines (e.g., Marksmanship Snipers) typically have a lot of ranged-type attacks. Mechanically, however, melee and ranged attacks are identical. Similarly, Force and tech attacks are treated the same."

 

I would mention that the two groupings are color coordinated within the flytext (e.g. white for range/melee damage, aka weapon damage; and yellow for force/tech).

Thank you for the feedback. There’s a note under Damage Types mentioning flytext colours for M/R and F/T attacks but on reflection, it belongs under Attack Types.

 

I'd also mention that mechanically they aren't quite identical: for instance, priming shot applies a debuff for ranged damage only, not melee.

Thanks for the correction. I’ll revise the paragraph under Attack Types to reflect this.

Edited March 16, 2018 by rambolnet

Appreciate you and shyroman pointing that out! Is the key just not to drop below a 1.4s GCD or is there an optimal Alacrity value between the 1.4 and 1.3s breakpoints?

 

I haven't done enough parsing to really figure out the optimal point yet, but it's probably in the range of 1200-1300 rating. I just came back to the game after taking a few months off to focus on IRL stuff, so I haven't had much time to test it out.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Hoppinswtor

Very nice work to whoever made these calculations, but from my experience I need around 1980 crit on my Fury mara to make sure that I crit 25-28k frequently with Raging Burst and damage increase buffs.

 

If I lower my crit to 1790 as it is presented here, my crit is still ok, but the frequency of 25k-28k crits with raging burst is lower. I am a full mastery build with 5%.

 

I am not saying what has been stated here is wrong, but this is what I have observed.. Maybe for other classes it's different.

Very nice work to whoever made these calculations, but from my experience I need around 1980 crit on my Fury mara to make sure that I crit 25-28k frequently with Raging Burst and damage increase buffs.

 

If I lower my crit to 1790 as it is presented here, my crit is still ok, but the frequency of 25k-28k crits with raging burst is lower. I am a full mastery build with 5%.

 

I am not saying what has been stated here is wrong, but this is what I have observed.. Maybe for other classes it's different.

 

You basically came in here to tell us that when you dropped 190 crit you crit less often? Well duh? Working as intended.

 

The optimal amount of crit provided is the point where you get more DPS out of mastery than crit because of crit DR. It has to with dps output not the amount that you crit. At 1790 is where masterys crit + bonus damage becomes more valuable point for point than pure crit in increasing damage over time.

 

Also dropping from 1980 to 1790 crit and getting more mastery, the difference would be hardly noticable eyeballing (it’s like roughly 1% or under crit difference). I will also repeat what I said in this guide when it comes to dps in pvp. You can go over the optimal amount of crit for pvp (I’m assuming that is what your referring to). In pvp is less about your overall damage and more about getting a kill in a window for majority of classes. Crits have more value.

Edited March 17, 2018 by kissingaiur