Please let me know what you guys think about the changes to stats.

From what I can see it seems tanks will be forced to take more defense then they have in the past.

Just a quick overview of what I think the stats will end up like. Everything here is not definitive.

Click on this video for more information.

- Mastery

A rather irrelevant change for most of us, I actually do know a guildie who struggles with this (he gives me and others many headaches) but for like 99% of the game it wont be a change

- Crit rating / Multiplier

(surge / crit rating) is a bigger change than anything else, how it will affect us is hard to say but it technically can allow us to reduce our stat investment into both or it might simply be the same

- Accuracy

not exactly getting changed that much but I heard that people will need roughly 1 or 2 accuracy pieces less compared to now (altough the ranged / melee accuracy change with 110% accuracy means the rare free cast fillers wont miss)

- alacrity vs crit

I think that they will be even pound for pound with depending on how they scale the crit chance / crit multiplier actually favoring alacrity (yes even for DPS)

Crit was (in 3.0) way too plentiful in gear vs power and maybe bioware caught onto this and overdid fixing it. But since crit affects both chance and surge that might mean crit might end up having a really low diminishing return, so like maybe at 300-400 crit rating so 4 enhancement pieces it'll be too bad to stack vs alacrity.

- Defense / Power mods.

Im not sure what to think about this. Its possible that defense / power mods will only appear on things like: Gear drops / Operations / Flashpoint / PVP / Comm gear but that people can craft absorption / crit mods?

As for defense I think that most tanks (minus juggs) could rely entirely on defense mods for their minimal amount of defense rating. In pvp however (currently) defense rating is useless so people would literally be better off putting power mods in their mod slots lol.

But stat for stat a lot of changes on alacrity vs crit will depend on the class.

As for defense I think that most tanks (minus juggs) could rely entirely on defense mods for their minimal amount of defense rating. In pvp however (currently) defense rating is useless so people would literally be better off putting power mods in their mod slots lol.

I would have to agree. I think Defense will be too plentiful when 4.0 drops probably the same scenario that we had with the abundance of critical rating pieces DPS had to contend with.

On the one hand, I hated in the past having to get like 2 full sets of token pieces to optimize one class. Anything that allows me to get optimized quicker means I can use subsequent tokens on alts and not end up with 5 unused head piece set bonus armorings. On the other, I enjoy reading the theorycrafters and empirical testers results on min/maxing.

The shift to Mastery helps the first point. Currently if I need an extra power mod for my Vanguard (due to all that crit), I have to trade in a 2nd headpiece (for example) and waste the armoring (since I don't play either commando spec). They're knocking out both by having only one mod and removing the class specific main stat. So those extra head pieces can go to alts I do have.

Regarding stat crunch, I would have preferred they eliminate accuracy since it's no fun. Min/maxing has been fun and I've felt a requirement for the most difficult content, but as I note above leads to a lot of wasted gear that I could have used elsewhere.

So it's a tradeoff. Easier/quicker to min/max vs. the level of possible customization. I'm in favor of easier/quicker to min/max since I have multiple alts that I could have ready for the more difficult content.

Regarding things like stacking defense it really just comes down to fight and tank-to-tank balance. I don't know but I'm sure the theorycrafters could model their mean mitigation pretty easily forcing minimum defense like they do with minimum shield currently. Assuming no changes to how defense works on f/t attacks are coming unannounced with 4.0.

i like the mastery change, makes it easier to legacy gear if you dont mind not having the set bonus.

never thought of getting rid of accuracy, i like that idea a lot. in the goblin lackey numbers, he never tried to optimize for accuracy, which made the script much easier (getting rid of an entire dimension of a hypersurface makes optimization problems much faster), but in my toy model i was finding that 97.5% accuracy gave good numbers, but this was assuming that someone was just spamming one ability.

i like that autocrit abilities are getting buffed by critical

from my preliminary numbers, the tank gear changes (assuming current passives etc.) makes gearing much simpler. for the pt i see no change in gear between melee heavy vs. force heavy. even for the jugg, there is no need to swap in more defense. the relic of choice will now be absorb for most fights (after the warding).

paired with the crafting changes, gearing is going to be a breeze even for smaller guilds it seems like. also, the way that gear drops are changing (everyone gets a piece now right?).

paired with the crafting changes, gearing is going to be a breeze even for smaller guilds it seems like. also, the way that gear drops are changing (everyone gets a piece now right?).

Yeah, I thought that was interesting. I've been wondering how that would translate into actual gameplay.

Would it be like "Kill Colonel Vorgath and all 8/16 players in the instance get a belt with a set bonus armoring"? Or something else?

I'm quite curious to see how they implemented the gear drop change.

In the goblin lackey numbers, he never tried to optimize for accuracy, which made the script much easier (getting rid of an entire dimension of a hypersurface makes optimization problems much faster), but in my toy model i was finding that 97.5% accuracy gave good numbers, but this was assuming that someone was just spamming one ability.

The main reason behind that is because RNG Misses are the worst, especially in cases such as the Revan fight if you miss an interrupt on one of the meatbag droids it can cause wipes - and going back to old content that issue is also there for multiple other bosses including Styrak, Draxus, and Corruptor Zero (The gold droid could very well stun everyone in an anti-grav field)

i like the mastery change, makes it easier to legacy gear if you dont mind not having the set bonus.

never thought of getting rid of accuracy, i like that idea a lot. in the goblin lackey numbers, he never tried to optimize for accuracy, which made the script much easier (getting rid of an entire dimension of a hypersurface makes optimization problems much faster), but in my toy model i was finding that 97.5% accuracy gave good numbers, but this was assuming that someone was just spamming one ability.

Yeah, removing the need to check accuracy augments and enhancements allowed me to reduce the number of calculations by a large factor. This let me reduce the time to calculate down to 30 seconds per discipline from more than 5 minutes (incidentally, 5 minutes is the max run length for free google scripts files so this was a key thing). The goal I arbitrarily set was to always use the combination of augments and enhancements that resulted in closest value to 100%. That was the technical reason.

The practical reason is that misses are not just damage losses. They also require the recast of the ability to apply the dot or get the applied benefits such as ICD triggers and energy regen. This also makes cooldowns misaligned and could possibly cause rotations to fall apart. Since this DPS and energy loss is hard to quantify and calculate versus a straight repeating rotation, 100% seemed like a solid goal that eliminated this complication. I did however include the accuracy loss as a function of straight total damage loss that is applied separately to the mainhand hit and the offhand hit.

The result is that while sub 100% accuracy may and does result in maximum dps, It is hard to figure out and annoying when RNG doesn't go your way at a critical moment. I value constituency more than maximum output.

its only good knowing accuracy gets buffed to 100% by default

You'll still need 9% accuracy from gear (with companion buff). What the 4.0 buff does is that it just ensures that your basic attacks will hit 100% of the time (if you're rolling with 110% acc).

From a PVP perspective.

Mastery - irrelevant change. I'm pretty sure set bonus will still be class specific

Crit rating - Probably the most important change. I'll wait and see. it might be a nerf to auto-crit spec such as combat though.

Power/defense mods - Unless they rework the defense everyone including tanks are going to go for power.

Same reasoning for enhancement unless high endurance is specific to "defensive" enhancement.

Mostly irrelevant changes to give casual player a hand.

Crit rating - Probably the most important change. I'll wait and see. it might be a nerf to auto-crit spec such as combat though.

You obviously missed the other crit change - Auto-crits will add your base crit chance as extra surge. So, if you were running ~32% crit chance (which is ~62% surge), and had a 30% surge boost on Devastating Blast (which is an auto-crit), you'd actually end up with ~124% bonus damage.

You obviously missed the other crit change - Auto-crits will add your base crit chance as extra surge. So, if you were running ~32% crit chance (which is ~62% surge), and had a 30% surge boost on Devastating Blast (which is an auto-crit), you'd actually end up with ~124% bonus damage.

Laze Target + Ambush = Lol

Laze Target + Ambush = Lol

Recklessness + Thundering Blast = Where is your god now?

Recklessness + Thundering Blast = Where is your god now?

Hey folks!

I parsed my dot merc a few times with different crit stats and i think that now you need a much higher amount. Currently i am running about 1250 points. I stayed at the same alacrity rate as at the end of sor. I also think that you need about the same amount at the burst pt with also the same alacrity rate. What do you think about it?

Draufhauorr

Nightfall

T3-M4