I didn't see an answer to this after looking at several class forums, and it really involved all the classes, so I figured I'd ask it here. Is there any good theorycrafting on what the best DPS relics are for both PvP and PvE after 1.6? Now that we have the passive damage PvP relics, I am wondering if my best option is to use one of those with the elite WH power relic for PvP.

As for PvE, I have heard some chatter that the clickable relics are actually better than the WH ones now such that you would want the passive damage relic and the a clickable for PvE best in slot.

Can anyone point me to a thread where this has been addressed?

#1: Choose one Dread Guard Proc Relic:

With the passive power, and the increased effectiveness of the proc, these do the most damage. Choosing the right one for you is a little tricky, though.

Some of these are Tech effects and some are Force effects so they will be of different usefulness depending on what class you are.

Kinetic and Energy relics do more damage than the others, but are mitigated by boss Armor. With standard raid debuffs, the Internal/Elemental relics are better unless you are a class with Armor Pen (like a Mercenary's High-Velocity Cylinder).

The options are:

Dread Guard Relic of Elemental Transcendence - Elemental - Force Users without Armor Pen

Dread Guard Relic of Dark Radiance - Internal - Tech Users without Armor Pen

Dread Guard Relic of the Cerulean Nova - Energy - Force users with Armor Pen

Dread Guard Relic of the Kinetic Tempest - Kinetic - Tech users with Armor Pen

#2: Dread Guard Relic on Boundless Ages

On-use Power - use strategically during fights for high burst, and it is still more average Power when used on cooldown than the Elite War Hero relic.

I haven't seen the math on the DG proc relics yet, so I can't comment one way or the other on those. I can say for certain, though, that the DG Relic of Boundless Ages beats out the EWH relic. it has a static 47 power plus 350 more for 30 s on a 2 min CD. Worst case scenario the DG relic is 47+(350*(30/120)=134.5 effective power when used on CD while the EWH is 120 static power. It's not entirely accurate, but it is, IMO, a good approximation.

1. There are burn phases which you'll be saving the activation for. You won't have the full uptime, but the on demand burst is better.

2. A lot of fights have down time in which the DG relic is recharging while the EWH does nothing for you.

2. The math above assumes a fight length that is an exact multiple of 2 minutes. In a 5 minute (300s) fight you get 3 activations (90s) for an uptime of 30% and an effective power of 152. The longer the fight, the closer this falls back to the original value.

Pretty much no matter how you look at it, the Gread Guard relic is better for PvE than the EWH version.

They exist, but I believe they are subpar for PVP.

PVE proc relics have 47 passive power in addition to a greater proc effect.

For PVP, you are comparing a weaker proc with 120 passive Power. Power is generally better because it applies bonus damage and boosts all of your attacks , which can be crucial in PvP where burst is important.

Static Power works the same way for PVE (buffing every attack), but the damage per average GCD of a Dread Guard PVE relic is on the order of 200%-250% the bonus damage produced by the 73 Power from the PvP relic (120 - 47 difference).

BiS relic is the Elite War Hero Relic. None of the dread guard relics compare to the 120 constant power vs the dread guard 30 and 350 every 2 minutes.

Tested and confirmed that they actually outperform the PvP relics...

BiS relic is the Elite War Hero Relic. None of the dread guard relics compare to the 120 constant power vs the dread guard 30 and 350 every 2 minutes.

Can you support your claim?

Elite War Hero has 120 Power on it.

Dread Guard Relics have 47 Power + another effect on it.

So you need to compare 73 Power with the PVE effect:

* DG Boundless Ages - On CD, it's up 1/4 of the time, which is 87.5 average Power if you just push it on CD. There is an added advantage of controlling it for burn phases, Bloodthirst, Execute range, etc.

* Proc relics - The math gets a little complicated. The 30% proc can be triggered by offhand attacks and DoTs, so the uptime can vary. The uptime on the proc is between 15.79%-30% (if you count it as a buff that applies to 1 GCD). If you have 2 chances to proc per GCD (such as you attacking every GCD and having a DoT rolling that ticks every GCD), it's about a 21% uptime. This equates to bonus damage that is 250% or so the bonus damage you would get from 73 Power. Granted, buffing the bonus damage applied to individual abilities with Power can be beneficial due to skills (such as a skill that grants a % bonus to damage to Rail Shot, for example), but not to the point where it eclipses the proc's bonus damage.

From Tibbel on the Lethality Sniper subforum on MMO Mechanics (Thread is here. Post is #209):

Summary (for lethality specs anyway) is: EWH: 33.4 DPS. DG Boundless Ages: 49.3 DPS. DG proc relic: 49.4 DPS.

So yes. Dread Guard is BiS for PvE.

The options are:

Dread Guard Relic of Elemental Transcendence - Elemental - Force Users without Armor Pen

Dread Guard Relic of Dark Radiance - Internal - Tech Users without Armor Pen

Dread Guard Relic of the Cerulean Nova - Energy - Force users with Armor Pen

Dread Guard Relic of the Kinetic Tempest - Kinetic - Tech users with Armor Pen

Can you explain this list here? why would force users want elemental/energy damage and tech users want internal/kinetic damage? Is this just a typo? Or are you trying to vary your damage types more?

Can you explain this list here? why would force users want elemental/energy damage and tech users want internal/kinetic damage? Is this just a typo? Or are you trying to vary your damage types more?

The damage type is largely irrelevant to the reasoning. The relics listed as Tech use your Tech Crit and the relics listed as Force use your Force crit, so (with similar damage amounts), you'll get a better return on a certain type of relic.

For example, the elemental relic on a Bounty Hunter uses your Force Attack critical %. This is generally pretty low, as it only includes base Critical and gains from Willpower. Tech Crit is higher due to skills, Aim, etc, so the internal relic is a better choice.

Make sense?

The damage type is largely irrelevant to the reasoning. The relics listed as Tech use your Tech Crit and the relics listed as Force use your Force crit, so (with similar damage amounts), you'll get a better return on a certain type of relic.

 

For example, the elemental relic on a Bounty Hunter uses your Force Attack critical %. This is generally pretty low, as it only includes base Critical and gains from Willpower. Tech Crit is higher due to skills, Aim, etc, so the internal relic is a better choice.

 

Make sense?

Your explanation makes sense yes. Thanks.

But why does a elemental damage use force and internal use tech? Doesn't make any sense. My sage does all internal/kinetic damage. Don't those use force attack crit %? So then why would the kinetic/internal relics use tech crit %? Did I waste 300 daily comms on my internal DG proc relic? Is there a tooltip somewhere that explains this?

Your explanation makes sense yes. Thanks.

 

But why does a elemental damage use force and internal use tech? Doesn't make any sense. My sage does all internal/kinetic damage. Don't those use force attack crit %? So then why would the kinetic/internal relics use tech crit %? Did I waste 300 daily comms on my internal DG proc relic? Is there a tooltip somewhere that explains this?

Elemental and energy use force crit. Your sage should have the elemental proc, not the internal. You're missing out on about 15-20% crit on the proc. Not a huge massive difference, but definitely a noticeable one. I have heard that if you put in a ticket and ask for a swap they might grant it so long as it "hasn't been too long". And no tooltips. This was all learned by trial and error by parsers.

Your explanation makes sense yes. Thanks.

 

But why does a elemental damage use force and internal use tech? Doesn't make any sense. My sage does all internal/kinetic damage. Don't those use force attack crit %? So then why would the kinetic/internal relics use tech crit %? Did I waste 300 daily comms on my internal DG proc relic? Is there a tooltip somewhere that explains this?

There is no tooltip that explains it, it started to surface while people were testing the DG proc relics vs the wh pvp relic. There is no real rhyme or reason as to why it's that way, but it is. There is a thread in the ops forum and I know there is one in the commando forum as well.

SO for a Focus/Guardian or Rage/Jugg

Dread Guard Relic of the Cerulean Nova (energy) is the way to go due to Shi-Choo Mastery: +30% Armor Pen?

SO for a Focus/Guardian or Rage/Jugg

Dread Guard Relic of the Cerulean Nova (energy) is the way to go due to Shi-Choo Mastery: +30% Armor Pen?

Correct.

correct.

<3 tyvm!

Can you support your claim?

 

Elite War Hero has 120 Power on it.

Dread Guard Relics have 47 Power + another effect on it.

 

So you need to compare 73 Power with the PVE effect:

* DG Boundless Ages - On CD, it's up 1/4 of the time, which is 87.5 average Power if you just push it on CD. There is an added advantage of controlling it for burn phases, Bloodthirst, Execute range, etc.

* Proc relics - The math gets a little complicated. The 30% proc can be triggered by offhand attacks and DoTs, so the uptime can vary. The uptime on the proc is between 15.79%-30% (if you count it as a buff that applies to 1 GCD). If you have 2 chances to proc per GCD (such as you attacking every GCD and having a DoT rolling that ticks every GCD), it's about a 21% uptime. This equates to bonus damage that is 250% or so the bonus damage you would get from 73 Power. Granted, buffing the bonus damage applied to individual abilities with Power can be beneficial due to skills (such as a skill that grants a % bonus to damage to Rail Shot, for example), but not to the point where it eclipses the proc's bonus damage.

let's start from the beginning I am a full (63) lethality sniper. Just some basic stats with buffs/stims 2391 cunning, 101.52/111.52 accuracy, 38.32/37.35 crit, 77.49 crit multiplier and 1068.8 bonus damage. Now I use 2 elite war hero relics which would add a total of 240 constant power. Now its pointless to have two proc relics of the same kind since they share a cooldown. So you could possibly use the transcendence relics for 30% chance to do additional damage.

You don't need logs or log proof to prove that my method is correct. If you're looking at the big picture, for sustained DPS throughout an entire boss fight you need constant power stat. All you will do in a boss fight is have a huge spike in dps for 30 seconds and then it will have a huge decline in dps for 2 minutes for the cool down. Now depending on the boss fight you will only use this relic once or twice, especially in TFB SM/HM because you're moving around a lot.

The CD of the relic might not suit the situation you'd be in. For example on HM/NiM Zorn and Toth your relic might finish the CD during red circle phase and to maximize the benefit of the relic you would have to wait until that phase is over to use it.

If you want to maximize your SUSTAINED DPS in a boss fight use two war hero relics and exotech stims. stims have an additional minute on their CD but them combined with your 240 set power, you will do very well. Same goes for tanks and healers.

BiS relic is the Elite War Hero Relic. None of the dread guard relics compare to the 120 constant power vs the dread guard 30 and 350 every 2 minutes.