Let's look at the breakdown in a recent downing of HM Firebrand:

First column is the number of times an ability was activated (or ticked). Second column is the ability, third column is average damage, and the fourth column is the miss percentage. And yes, I do use Double Strike a lot. I'll post a new thread soon detailing why, don't bother hijacking this one. :-)

Here's the important thing to realize: discounting Saber Strike, almost nothing missed to a significant extent. This is with only 91% accuracy (the 1% is from maxing my companion). We can determine the DPS we lost according to the following formula:

dmg / (1 - miss%)

Thus:

• Saber Strike: 238.11 ==> 0.647 DPS (1.294 TPS)
  
• Double Strike: 526.21 ==> 1.430 DPS (2.860 TPS)
  

Of course, we're forgetting that Double Strike procs Particle Acceleration. Thus, we need to fudge up the DPS loss by 13.77% and the TPS loss by 15.51%. (drawing on the numbers I'm assembling for my longer post on Double Strike) This gives us a net DPS loss (from Double Strike misses) of 1.627 and a net TPS loss of 3.304.

Neither of which are game-breaking, or indeed even noticeable in the face of all of the other statistical variance we see in a raid boss that is more dynamic than a straight tank-n-spank. Even looking at things from a "non-variability" of threat and damage, we're still not losing anything noticeable. A miss on my Double Strike means a very small, momentary loss of threat on a short rolling average. Even multiple misses in a row isn't a serious issue. 4.55% of 88 hits is exactly 4 misses, which is two GCDs. Assuming the worst possible RNG, that's 3 seconds of zero threat. Chances are, I still won't notice it. In the worst case, I have to pop a taunt.

Looking at this another way, lets look at the abilities I used on Firebrand and their exact accuracy (note that I have absolutely no points in Accuracy on my gear):

• Force Breach: 101%
  
• Combat Technique: 101%
  
• Spinning Strike: 96%
  
• Saber Strike: 91%
  
• Slow Time: 101%
  
• Double Strike: 96%
  
• Crushed: 101%
  
• Project: 101%
  

Note: Double Strike and Spinning Strike are both "special attacks". Among other things, this means that they get a bonus 5% accuracy boost. This is why they have 96% accuracy overall.

As you can see, even without any accuracy whatsoever, nearly all of my attacks are guaranteed hits, and the ones that aren't are still at a very high probability. Adding accuracy would improve this, certainly, but not in a way that's actually worthwhile.

At my current gear levels, 50 more points in shield rating is worth 0.3693% m/r mitigation, which is about 7.936 DtPS on HM Kephess (much higher on high damage bosses like Foreman Crusher or Fabricator). 50 points in accuracy is worth 1.7933% accuracy, which is less than a third of what I would need to make my Double Strike hit 100% of the time. Thus, playing a bit of rough napkin math, we can say 50 points of accuracy is worth 0.858 + 0.1941 = 1.0521 TPS.

Now, 8 DtPS is almost nothing, but I think we would all agree that trading 1 TPS for 8 DtPS is significant improvement.

Every tank is different, no question, and Guardians/Juggernauts are certainly going to be more accuracy-dependent than Shadows/Assassins and Vanguards/PowerTechs (due to a lower percentage of special attacks). However, I think these numbers show pretty conclusively that even using a Double Strike-heavy rotation (which is more accuracy-dependent than the popular low-Thrash variant), accuracy is an extremely low-value stat for tanks. It's not worthless, but very close to it.

Nice article. I've never really understood the need for accuracy on my tanking gear.

On a side not, I'm interested to see why you use double strike so often. I also use to it activate particle acceleration but not with the frequency that you do. I'm also wondering whether you use harnessed shadows and telekentic throw at all, but that's not really relevant to the thread.

Thanks for sharing!

On a side not, I'm interested to see why you use double strike so often. I also use to it activate particle acceleration but not with the frequency that you do. I'm also wondering whether you use harnessed shadows and telekentic throw at all, but that's not really relevant to the thread.

I'll definitely go into that in another post. Short answer: I absolutely use Telekinetic Throw. Cutting that from a shadow tanking rotation would be absolutely unthinkable. The frequency on Double Strike is actually not quite as much as it appears, since I only use it at >55 Force. My Project is delayed slightly, and therefore also my Telekinetic Throw, but not by much.

I'm really just hopeful that the developers will take note of the community's efforts in the area of theory crafting w.r.t. accuracy. The new Dread Guard gear is just silly, and they need to change it. It almost seems to stem from a misunderstanding of their own game, since assertions like "10% accuracy is beneficial to everyone, including tanks" are demonstrably false.

Nice article. I've never really understood the need for accuracy on my tanking gear.

There isn't any "need" for accuracy on tank gear. The devs know this, or at least should. The only reason I can imagine why the developers put it on tank gear is because they would feel weird putting a more useful DPS stat on there (since everyone wants to hit more often, even if it's got a truly terrible return rate compared to *absolutely everything else* and is the only stat that can actually be rendered completely redundant, right?). I can only assume that the developers are still using itemization tables and concepts that operate under the beta assumption that redudant accuracy provides increase arpen (which, honestly, would make accuracy somewhat useful for tanks and other casters since it would increase K/E damage and provide for a direct tank anti-stat).

I'm also wondering whether you use harnessed shadows and telekentic throw at all, but that's not really relevant to the thread.

TK Throw doesn't list as "Telekinetic Throw" in parses. It lists as "Crushed". You'll also need to keep in mind that the 59 uses are listed as the individual ticks (of which there are 4 per TkT full channel). As such, he used TkT at least 15 times during the fight, which groks with the 22 Slow Times and ~24 Project uses (with Upheaval, you'll see 1.45 times as many Projects as you actually use).

Honestly, I would be curious to see the reasoning behind the Typist-Assassin's massive use of Double Strike though (which would also explain the very heavy use of Saber Strike). Personally, I don't really see much point in it. I net better damage and survivability out of largely ignoring it.

Honestly, I would be curious to see the reasoning behind the Typist-Assassin's massive use of Double Strike though (which would also explain the very heavy use of Saber Strike). Personally, I don't really see much point in it. I net better damage and survivability out of largely ignoring it.

I'm still working through that reasoning for a subsequent post. The glib answer is that I've actually tried both rotations (the commonly-glorified low-thrash, and my non-strict PA rotation), and I find in parses that my rotation gives me more DPS (by about 12%), more threat (by the same scalar), and about the same amount of HPS as low-thrash. That's a glib answer because I could just be not executing correctly on low-thrash, but it's where this whole quest started for me.

Quick note: Saber Strike is a flurry of 3 hits, so I actually only used it 28 times. I generally see a much heavier use of Saber Strike when I try low-thrash, since I'm constantly saving up to allow Project on CD.

The longer answer is that I don't use Double Strike blindly. The truth is that on this particular fight, I was spending a lot of time making corrections to the raid mid-combat, so I actually derped my rotation quite a bit. Whenever I derp my rotation, it shows up as over-use of Double Strike (and poorly-timed use of Project). My priority queue cuts out Double Strike when below 55 Force, or below 40 Force if FP is active. If it's a frequently-hitting m/r boss (e.g. Foreman Crusher), I go down to 45 Force. If it's a force/tech boss (e.g. Soa), I almost drop Double Strike altogether (closer to 70 Force is the minimum).

I haven't finished working out all of the math here, but the preliminary results indicate that a lot of the early math which devalues Double Strike was actually failing to properly account for some of the indirect procs. That math also seemed to assume only 90% accuracy on the ability, which is 6% shy of what it actually has. The threat gen from Double Strike is actually quite good (145.7339 TPF, compared to just 95.3759 TPF for Project). So far, it really looks like the only thing you give up in using it (carefully) is a slightly delayed 3 stacks of HS (in practice, delayed by about 2 cooldowns per 3-stack).

Anyway, as I said, I haven't finished working through all the math yet, so I could be missing some things. So far though, the numbers I'm running seem to agree with my practical experience, which is that Double Strike *is* a force dump, but not as valueless as everyone seems to think.

I wouldn't say it's actually harmful so much as it is valueless. But yeah, I see similar things on Blayze. Here's my most recent HM EC run, which jibes with basically every other parse I've ever looked at:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/3440e78f-f32f-449e-9c9b-7d4561fe2cc9/player/6#d=0,b=1

Zero accuracy rating, I miss about 9% of my High Impact Bolt across the whole raid, and one or two hits out of every Hammer Shot (which is just filler anyway). Nice stat.

I wouldn't say it's actually harmful so much as it is valueless. But yeah, I see similar things on Blayze. Here's my most recent HM EC run, which jibes with basically every other parse I've ever looked at:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/3440e78f-f32f-449e-9c9b-7d4561fe2cc9/player/6#d=0,b=1

 

Zero accuracy rating, I miss about 9% of my High Impact Bolt across the whole raid, and one or two hits out of every Hammer Shot (which is just filler anyway). Nice stat.

It's harmful in that it reallocates stat budget to something which is, as you say, valueless. In any case, the title was a quote from Edsger Dijkstra (a famous misquote, actually).

In any case, accuracy really is quite silly. A 9% miss rate on HiB is almost getting to be annoying, but still not to the point where I would consider it a problem. It's certainly not worth sacrificing survivability to fix.

Good and interesting thread. I felt like chipping in but when thinking about it, it just made me tired. Thanks guys for showing with some math what everyone with a clue knows by heart. The only problems I see with it is:

a) how can Bioware have senior developers who does not understand their own game to begin with?

b) given that they do not understand; they have never, ever acted on constructive math heavy explanations, ever. I fear all this will just fly over their head unfortunately.

a) how can Bioware have senior developers who does not understand their own game to begin with?

b) given that they do not understand; they have never, ever acted on constructive math heavy explanations, ever. I fear all this will just fly over their head unfortunately.

First off, you're predicating the conclusion of your second point upon the first point being true when there are substantially more likely explanations. BW *knows* how the various stats operate. If they didn't, the tanks wouldn't be as balanced as they are now (they're within a tiny margin of incoming damage difference). The more important question to ask is why, if the developers *know* about the terrible contribution of accuracy, which is both more likely and more sensible, why they keep putting it on gear?

Secondly, the developers are substantially more likely to respond to math intensive explanations and suggestions than they are to anecdotal evidence or simple player protest. Math is something concrete that can be proven or disproven. Every developer in every game that I have ever played has responded to math when the math is appropriate and a legitimate suggestion is given. Since developers make most balance decisions based upon the accuracy and legitimacy of in-house modeling, using math is an excellent way to demonstrate with a high degree of certainty that whatever model the developers were using is flawed.

Now, the models the developers are using for tanks and mitigation are relatively spot on. If they weren't, the cross class mitigation balance between the tanks would be off, like they were when the game was first released before the various tank buffs that brought everything where they are now (a lot of the reason for the tweaks to the developer models is actually due to the *loads* of mitigation and tank comparison math that was done within the first couple months of the game's release). The only real problem that *could* be within the models is that the developers could be using a threat generation model that overinflates the value of accuracy for any number of reasons.

So either the problem is that the developers are using a fundamentally flawed model for tank damage and/or threat gen (and potentially for DPS threat gen as well which might indicate a reason why larger discrepancies between DPS classes exist in anecdotal and parse based evidence than the developer statements would suggest) or the developers are purposefully putting sub-standard stats on tank gear (which rewards gear customization but makes the baseline gear less useful, especially when gear only becomes useful when customized, as was true with Rak gear and as what looks like is going to be true with Dread gear). In the former, it's a problem that can be fixed with math; in the latter, it's pretty much WAI that can only really be addressed by demonstrating that the differentiation between baseline and properly customized gear is a larger discrepancy than should be allowed (which, honestly, would be easier if we could get a decent baseline for how large of an increase the developers *want* to have from customization as opposed to having to wonder while different tiers vacillate between marginal and massive improvements from customization).

First off, you're predicating the conclusion of your second point upon the first point being true

Well I read that they agreed to that Rakata was badly itemized. This was changed for Campaign. Now a "senior" designer state facts which they already smacked themself as something bad. So has the mechanics of the game changed? No. So he is a senior designer who is clueless and wrong both according to Bioware and just about everyone here. So yes I base it on the first statement beeing correct.

Also I have never seen them care anymore about cases with math. I have never ever even seem them reply to them in anyway or discussed them. Oh, sorry I saw one thread once when one guy were stating some crap that were not correct. So I do not understand how you can type something like "substantially more likely" and try to push it like a fact. It is an oppinion based on nothing more than that you seriously hope that this should be the case as it should be because what they are doing is just horrible.

20 guys screaming OP NERF without anything but a screenshot of a wz summary in the pvp forum are alot more likely to get some knee jerk out of this company than some brilliant facts will ever do. Not unique for BW but still worthless. This is what I would post as facts since they are based on empirical evidence not on how the world should work.

Also I have never seen them care anymore about cases with math.

Just because the devs don't post in a thread doesn't mean that they don't pay attention to it. My experiences with using math to get developers to reevaluate models and design decisions is based upon my personal experiences in other games, wherein I've actually seen math from players explicitly added into the game (it's explicitly happened to me with my math on several occasions). Rarely is it ever expressly mentioned (other than by a developer saying "Well look at that."), but it occurs. Lack of an explicit response to a post in an industry that is notoriously close mouthed (there is a reason that none of the developers are allowed to post on the forums and everything goes through the community managers; execs and people in charge realize how bad community backlash can get when the people working on the back end aren't regulated and end up contracting a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease) is not evidence that there was no response. You're never going to get a determinative causal relationship. The best you can hope for is a decent correlation, which, while not allowing you to explicitly determine a cause-effect relationship, you can make a reasonable conclusion that it happens. Unless the developers in BW are of a completely different breed than every other band of game developers out there, they react to player commentary, and they react much better when players speak to them in their native language (and math is the native language of all balance-minded folks).

I don't follow your math.

Your first part says you hit with 68 saber strikes and missed 16. The average hit was 192.75 (not sure if this average includes zeros). Therefore you missed out on a potential 16*192.75 = 3084 damage. The elapsed time of your experiment was 368 seconds which means 3084/368 = 8.38 dps. You instead report 0.647 dps lost which is 13 times too low.

I didn't check the rest of the math but I think you should do a review of the numbers.

In addition, do not assume that spinning strike will not miss! It can and does miss, with a very high variance because of the low number of strikes per fight. Missing one spinning strike of 2000 damage over 5 minutes is 6.66 dps! (not to mention < 30% is often critical phase in some fights).

Please note: I am not advocating accuracy for tanks.

Quick guide to 1.4 gearing for tanks:

1. Get Dread Guard gear.

2. Replace accuracy enhancements with your campaign enhancements.

3. Get more Dread Guard gear.

4. Customize your hp and mitigation stats to your liking.

Just because the devs don't post in a thread doesn't mean that they don't pay attention to it. My experiences with using math to get developers to reevaluate models and design decisions is based upon my personal experiences in other games, wherein I've actually seen math from players explicitly added into the game (it's explicitly happened to me with my math on several occasions). Rarely is it ever expressly mentioned (other than by a developer saying "Well look at that."), but it occurs. Lack of an explicit response to a post in an industry that is notoriously close mouthed (there is a reason that none of the developers are allowed to post on the forums and everything goes through the community managers; execs and people in charge realize how bad community backlash can get when the people working on the back end aren't regulated and end up contracting a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease) is not evidence that there was no response. You're never going to get a determinative causal relationship. The best you can hope for is a decent correlation, which, while not allowing you to explicitly determine a cause-effect relationship, you can make a reasonable conclusion that it happens. Unless the developers in BW are of a completely different breed than every other band of game developers out there, they react to player commentary, and they react much better when players speak to them in their native language (and math is the native language of all balance-minded folks).

You sound like the average religious person here. God listens, I know it because, well... he does. But yes other games have reacted to feedback that is true. This game is not other games unfortunatly. But lets hope your faith is not missplaced and that I am just a cynic that is dead wrong. Amen.

You sound like the average religious person here. God listens, I know it because, well... he does. But yes other games have reacted to feedback that is true. This game is not other games unfortunatly. But lets hope your faith is not missplaced and that I am just a cynic that is dead wrong. Amen.

I'm actually a cynic as well and I do not simply blindly trust. I trust my own personal experiences and simply trust the developers to actually work to amend any problems they discover. In all of my experiences, math is *substantially* better at making an argument that the developers are willing to listen to than simple words.

It's not a question of behaving in a manner more befitting a religion; there is direct evidence that the developers exist and plenty of evidence that the developers actually read the forums. The only "leap of faith" is that the developers specifically read the forums and posts in question and that the developers behave as *every other set of developers* that I have ever interacted with. I find both of those to be reasonable enough conclusions: programmers and number crunchers (categories which the developers happen to both belong to) respond much better to math as opposed to simple argument and, even though the developers do not respond to individual threads in these forums, it's obvious from their statements and actions that they read them regardless.

You may claim to be a cynic, though, in reality, the more appropriate moniker would be "pessimist". It's hard to make the claim that the developers are somehow interested in demolishing the game (any degree of self interest would countermand that argument purely upon the merits of their job relying upon the game's continued success) or that they specifically act to contradict your goals. At best, the developers are too slow and/or make decisions that some people (you among them) disagree with. That's pessimism, not cynicism.

Personally, I'm a realist. I believe that people are idiots but most of them try to not be so (keep in mind I said *try*; most people outright fail). When confronted with sufficient information to counter their claims or beliefs, especially when they are not being directly confronted (which is how the forums operate since the developers don't post in the class forums), most people are willing to accede that they were wrong in the past rather than continue on in the belief that they are right, regardless of the data in front of them (assuming we're not talking about something as psychologically schematic as religion or politics).