I haven't been able to accumulate enough gear to really start playing around yet, nor have I had the time to start number crunching this stuff, but I am up to date on the work of Keyboard Ninja, Kitru, et al.

 

A lot of people are saying no crit at all now but I'm not sure if I fully buy into this. As I've mentioned before, we DEPEND on crit structurally due to the surge bonus of two of our most important abilities (Full Auto and Demolition Round). This HAS to affect the equation somewhat as we get slightly more out of crit than a class wtih no surge bonus. Off the top of my head, about 50% of my dmg comes from these two abiltiies. a 30% increase in surge, on 50% of our abilites makes crit worth about 15% more than the baseline DR curve would suggest. Again, I haven't done the number crunching to see if this pushes crit ahead of power for part of the DR curve or not, but it could certainly influence it. My gut says we should take at least some crit, but again not sure.

 

The other complicating factor here is the amount of surge we end up carrying on our gear. Obviously the more surge we carry, the more helpful crit will be. The surge/alacrity/accuracy debate is largely unsettled but if we do end up stacking surge, that would shift the crit curve even more.

 

Wanted to check in with others and see their thoughts.

Edited April 15, 2013 by SafeJungleFever

The reason for no crit is that it will take so much crit to get close to DR that you will have to rely on RNG to get good numbers. If you end up having bad luck with your crits, your dps will be extremely low. Similarly, if you are lucky with your crits, you can put up massive numbers. Since stacking power will generate consistent number, the general consensus is to stack power and surge so when you do crit it will be big.

All classes have at least a 30% boost to crit multiplier to some ability or another in their DPS trees with the exception of smash which has a 15% crit multiplier bonus to ALL abilities. The ones that would possibly consider crit are the ones with larger bonuses, i.e. Infiltration Shadow which gets a 50% crit multiplier to both Force Breach and Project.

 

Right now I'm using the 69 mods and enhancements that I've gotten with crit on them because their other stats push them above, in my opinion, but I honestly haven't done the math so I may be being foolish. Still, I don't plan on maintaining more than about a 26% Crit rate when fully buffed. Everything else into power.

After getting some of the new pieces and playing around a little I to have been reducing my crit rating. Main Stat right now is giving way more to everything than any of the secondary stats. I also pulled my Dread Guard Relics for my WH Power relics. I am up to 2829 Aim with a lot of my suit left to go and almost 1100 power. I only 2 pieces I will keep that are not new will be 2 63 armorings for the 2 piece set bonus.

 

With crit being hit like it did, getting 4k+ crits from GR does make up for it. Right now I only plan on keeping 4 pieces with accuracy, and 3 pieces with crit rating, I may drop that down depending on what numbers look like with my suit being finished.

 

I'm still not completely sold on alacrity, and that is only because of ammo management, especially with losing the free HIB with the set bonus. I do have it talented though with AP Cell it's 5%.

Alacrity increases anno regeneration for the same amount that it reduces cast time. At least down toiniscule rounding error which makes you come out slightly behind, but that's only relevant on extremely long parses and does mot account for much at all.

Alacrity increases anno regeneration for the same amount that it reduces cast time. At least down toiniscule rounding error which makes you come out slightly behind, but that's only relevant on extremely long parses and does mot account for much at all.

One of the complaints about alacrity for a Gunnery commando, is that it doesn't impact Cell Charger , which is a key part of ammo management for that build.

 

A small amount of alacrity is not likely to have a noticeable problem, but larger amounts would result in an energy-negative rotation requiring more uses of Hammer Shot than a 0 alacrity build.

 

I'm sure more will come to light once enough gear is available at the higher levels to actually try different things out. But for now, for my initial gear build, I'm planning on 0 alacrity.

That is true but you have to remember if in 10 seconds (6.6 global cool downs with no alacrity) you can fill 2 grab rounds a full auto a demo round and HiB. But if you had alacrity and you would have more time at the end to throw in extra abilities in there so if in that same 10 seconds with some alacrity you were able to do the same rotation but with a hammer shot on the tail end, you would still come ahead with more DPS

Just my thinking, I may be wrong but I certainly wouldn't go with zero alacrity.

It all depends on the point at which the rotation would be come ammo negative because with a moderate amount of alacrity if it causes your rotation to be slightly ammo negative than this may be remedied with 1 or 2 hammer shots throughout a boss fight (which in many fights your forced to do more than that in high mobility portions of the fight)

So i should be taking power over crit ?

Just my thinking, I may be wrong but I certainly wouldn't go with zero alacrity.

It all depends on the point at which the rotation would be come ammo negative because with a moderate amount of alacrity if it causes your rotation to be slightly ammo negative than this may be remedied with 1 or 2 hammer shots throughout a boss fight (which in many fights your forced to do more than that in high mobility portions of the fight)

It will be interesting when we have enough gear pieces to swap things around and actually try various combinations.

 

Remember, adding alacrity into your stat budget will be at the expense of accuracy, power, crit and/or surge. I really hope that alacrity and crit can be more useful, as a power-only build is pretty boring (and there is a TON of alacrity gear at the vendor).

 

When I was on the PTS I stacked enough alacrity to get to +10% cast times, and it was fun, but when I swapped that all for power, I did more damage over a 5-minute parse as each attack was doing more damage.

...Remember, adding alacrity into your stat budget will be at the expense of accuracy, power, crit and/or surge. I really hope that alacrity and crit can be more useful, as a power-only build is pretty boring (and there is a TON of alacrity gear at the vendor)...

 

Alacrity shares with accuracy and surge

power, crit and I think endurance share

Endurance has its own slot, though ofc it's counted with the other stats against the total stat budget of an item.

 

That said, preliminary testing (lots and lots of parses) on the PTS showed that mantaining a healthy amount of crit gave the best dps results. I'd say that 250, 300 crit is a safe bet, pending a detailed analysis.

Please do get back to us on that. I'm maintaining around a 25% crit rate, but as more gear comes in I'm probably gonna start replacing these enhancements with power over crit. Just the nature of things.

Please do get back to us on that. I'm maintaining around a 25% crit rate, but as more gear comes in I'm probably gonna start replacing these enhancements with power over crit. Just the nature of things.

 

Easiest way to do it is keep the replace enhancements and when you have a bunch try different configurations against the dummy. 5 minute parses should be stable enough to see what's better, at least roughly.

Whats the word on accuracy? Do we still need to be sitting at close to 100% ranged? From what I understand bosses now resist more tech damage so Charged Bolts, HiB, and FA are going to be more important. Also, and this is purely from a pvp perspective, 10%+ alacrity is a must. PVP has a lot of downtime in between bursts, having better 10% better ammo regen lets you burst for more, more often, and with less reliance on reload/reserve powercell.

Whats the word on accuracy? Do we still need to be sitting at close to 100% ranged? From what I understand bosses now resist more tech damage so Charged Bolts, HiB, and FA are going to be more important. Also, and this is purely from a pvp perspective, 10%+ alacrity is a must. PVP has a lot of downtime in between bursts, having better 10% better ammo regen lets you burst for more, more often, and with less reliance on reload/reserve powercell.

 

Alacrity is very useful in pve as well, though to get 10% alacrity you will have to forego a considerable chunk of surge, once hit 100% accuracy. 7%-8% is a more realistic number with the available gear. Maybe full underworld can get you to 10% alacrity (not sure), doubt full conqueror can get you there though.

 

100% accuracy was almost mandatory (within certain limits) before. Now bosses resist tech too so it's even more important than before, there is no dps class that can ignore accuracy, though some classes can get considerable bonuses in the form of talents.

Honestly I'm not wasting a point on alacrity until I see pretty conclusive evidence that it's better. I'm not made of credits, and surge also took a pretty huge hit.

Endurance has its own slot, though ofc it's counted with the other stats against the total stat budget of an item.

endurance competes for power and crit in that when one is higher, the other is lower.

 

for a lot of enhancements endurance + power OR crit = ~the same across all enhancements of the same name (such-and-such 30, 30A, 30B, etc.)

of course the mods take a slightly different route by buffing main stat as well as endurance, but it still competes for power and crit in that sense as well.

 

 

 

also, on alacrity, for commandos, we get the same extra regen at 9 that we do at 10 (basically every odd percentage)

Edited April 18, 2013 by oaceen

endurance competes for power and crit in that when one is higher, the other is lower.

 

This is partially inaccurate. All stats compete. Items have a predefined "pool" of stats. Each point of stat goes against that pool, with its own weight. In the case of modded items, the combinations only come in limited, named variations.

unmoddable items are more varied in that, and can even have multiple different stats and slightly more free distribution.

 

End game gear though is only modded so the overall distribution is predictable.

In particular, regardless of specific stat pool and named variation, any type of "modification" has specific "slots" for attributes: main modifications (Armorings, Barrels, Hilts) have Mainstat + Endurance, Mods have Mainstat + Endurance + Secondary Stat (optional, doesn't appear in low level mods), Enhancements have Endurance + Secondary + Tertiary (optional, doesn't appear in low level mods).

 

Now, every stat, with its own weight, will be subtracted from the overall stat pool, but due to the slot system, barring bugs, you can't ever have a mod with two secondary stat (there is one notable exception, which is often thought of as a bug as it only happens in 2 tiers of a specific enhancement). That's what I meant when I said that Endurance has its own slot: you can only ever have endurance there. The specific amount will vary depending on the variant of the mod (-, A, B, tanking mods, etc), but nothing can ever be taken instead of endurance, while you have tradeoffs between secondaries and tertiaries (and if the game was made in a way that more than one mainstat was actually useful, you could have tradeoffs there as well).

Being one of the main raiders in a guild has its upside. I'm overflowing in gear currently and by this weekend should have enough to test out some different configurations. Not surprised that some people are finding SOME crit worth it. As I said, I suspect that the unfactored in surge bonus shifted the curve.

 

Arch, I get that most classes get a talent like that, but i'm talking about the raw math btwn power and crit.

Being one of the main raiders in a guild has its upside. I'm overflowing in gear currently and by this weekend should have enough to test out some different configurations. Not surprised that some people are finding SOME crit worth it. As I said, I suspect that the unfactored in surge bonus shifted the curve.

 

Arch, I get that most classes get a talent like that, but i'm talking about the raw math btwn power and crit.

 

Well crit and power are tied too, though normally we don't space enough of the curves to make it matter much. Basically more power you more more crit becomes valuable... Even if power is linear, adding the same amounts of power ends up being less and less of an improvement in %. As crit does have dimishing returns BUT is % based, there is a point of balance where some crit will be more valuable than power. The problem ofc is that power and crit share the same item slots and given the curves, crit gets "capped" early due to the diminishing return curve, while power, given the total stat pool available, remains on top for quite a while over the initial amount of crit.

 

There is also the fact that we can only add power and crit in discrete amounts, and big chunks of that too, so we can't really say something like "for the first 1000 points of power you want in average 3 points of crit", as that can't be done with this itemisation system.

This is partially inaccurate.

 

here's a better explanation for you.

 

61 enhancements

 

unlettered

pool A: 45 endurance

pool B: 22 crit / power

pool C: 47 accuracy / surge / alacrity

 

A + B = 67

 

modA

pool A: 27 endurance

pool B: 41 crit / power

pool C: 47 accuracy / surge / alacrity

 

A + B = 68

 

 

67 ~= 68

 

so, in that sense, endurance competes for power / crit (almost 1:1)

the disparity is larger with the newer enhancements, but the mechanic is the same. if you have an enhancement with higher endurance, it will have lower power / crit

these do NOT affect surge / alacrity / accuracy. it has the same static value across all enhancements of the same level.

Edited April 18, 2013 by oaceen

This thread seems to be focused on DPS, but I am curious about crit and power from a Combat Medic (healer) perspective.

 

My experience has been that high crit and surge for us are very important in keeping the raid up. Personally, I'd be happy to sacrifice some power to have high crit because its a lot more useful to hit a big heal than a bunch of smaller ones.

 

For example (I'm totally making these numbers up and its not this severe by any means)

 

High Power senario: 3250 + 3250 + 3250 + 3250 = 13000

High Crit senario: 2500 + 4500 + 2500 + 2500 = 12000

 

At times, I will prefer the High crit scenario. Even if it means less HPS overall, having big crits provides a lot more utility and enables me to keep my raid up better then stacking power. I get 1 good crit in on somebody and then I move on the the next person. I just want to see somebody figure out where the DR starts to really hammer on Crit. Prior to 2.0 I had a huge crit rating (like 39% tech) and was still stacking some power. Now (I'm level 54) my crit is down to 31% and will no doubt get worse when I hit 55. I plan to drop those power Mods for Crit at least in the short term. That might change as I get better gear and mainstat which will help with the crit rating.

 

TLDR - I plan to stack Crit and Surge for the most part at least in the short term.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Wanchope

here's a better explanation for you.

 

61 enhancements

 

unlettered

pool A: 45 endurance

pool B: 22 crit / power

pool C: 47 accuracy / surge / alacrity

 

A + B = 67

 

modA

pool A: 27 endurance

pool B: 41 crit / power

pool C: 47 accuracy / surge / alacrity

 

A + B = 68

 

 

67 ~= 68

 

so, in that sense, endurance competes for power / crit (almost 1:1)

the disparity is larger with the newer enhancements, but the mechanic is the same. if you have an enhancement with higher endurance, it will have lower power / crit

these do NOT affect surge / alacrity / accuracy. it has the same static value across all enhancements of the same level.

 

If you bothered to actually read my post you'd see that it was already covered, and it still doesn't change the fact that what I meant, perhaps not too clearly, in the first post was that you can only ever have endurance (in varying amount) in an endurance slot, while crit and power are directly competing as you can't have both on the same mod.

I have been wondering about combat medic also. It always seemed like medic was set up for big crits but now with the change to crit and alacrity I dont know where I should stop on either. Now its starting to look like going for power and alacrity might be the better route if its true that crits DR cap is low. I was also wondering if we should stay away from crit in our talent trees.