Hey guys, quick question here. I wanted to know, as a Sith Marauder, which should I prioritize over the other: Power or Critical? Also, I'm more of a PVE Flashpoint/Operation player, in which tree should I specify my character? I'm a 31 Maurauder, but I can always respec my char.

 

Sorry if those questions were already answered previously, I've been an occasionnal player for a while (since the game first came out actually) but I'm trying to play more seriously since I have more time on hands right now. Anyway, any help would be greatly appreciated!

I tend to split the difference. I have 148 points in Power (I am a level 30 Marauder). Most of that comes from one of my two Lightsabers and the enhancements on my Armor. On the other hand I have a 66 Critical Rating, the vast majority of which comes solely from my Main Hand Lightsaber which I equipped with a level 10 Dual-Color Lightsaber Crystal netting me +41 Crit Rating. Additionally I equipped 4 Augments on my Armor with +7 Surge Rating each, this allows me to have a total of 28 Surge Rating allowing me to have a 57.5% Critical Hit Multiplier. Meaning when I do score a Critical Hit on those 16.84% of my attacks, I am doing a bit more damage than a typical Marauder.

 

Power by itself is all well and good, but it only augments the damage you do on a normal hit. Increasing your Critical Hit Rate and Critical Hit Multiplier (especially if you are primarily oriented towards PvE) is incredibly useful. Now on the otherhand, if you are going to focus on PvP, then you may want to focus primarily on Power and Expertise. This is because in PvP Critical Hits are going to have significantly less impact due to character optimization. Where as in PvE all you are doing is trying to kill the monsters as fast as possible, so spike damage is an important part of that.

 

That said, with regards to the Skill Tree you want to use for PvE, that I will leave to the more high level players to explain.

So basically at 50(I know you are only 31, but this may help) it all depends on your spec. Pve I would suggest anni, and at 50 you want 30% or a little higher for your crit, so your dot ticks crit more often. In carnage and rage you stack power and surge all the way, except in carnage you have to have 100% acc, so it's actually a little less power/surge than a rage spec'd marauder. But at your level I would go for power probably, but that;s mainly because I don't enjoy playing anni.

On live there is currently no reason for carnage to not take the first 120-180 points of crit, the dr is to low and the benifit is to high. This all goes out the window with 2.0.

They just changed the crit DR on PTS this week, (unnerfed it supposedly), anyone see by how much? Will crit be useful for other specs now?

30-35% crit chance is a good range to aim for with either carnage or anni for pve on live. I've even heard it said that some crit is even beneficial for rage (if you'd ever run that in pve..) to a certain degree because you want your other attacks critting more for more single target dmg in pve. Another thing to note is that high end pve gear has loads of primary stat which adds some crit so you won't need that much rating to reach the 30%.

 

2.0 well they've changed crit around again so nobody really knows now again. From what i've read its somewhere in the middle between the old pts curve and whats on live..

 

BTW don't worry about stat prioritys too much until end game just get the best lvl gear you can thats the most important while leveling.

Edited March 15, 2013 by AngusFTW

Not to thread jack but lets assume L50 Annihilation. Lets talk ratings here on which is actually going to be more DPS for us.

 

310 Crit Rating = 30.91% Melee / 38.09% Force on my Mara Unbuffed (Buffed just add 5%)

850 Power

or

228 Crit Rating = 28.44%3 Melee / 35.61% Force on my Mara Unbuffed (Buffed just add 5%)

932 Power

 

Which would be the better assuming all other stats (Surge/Accuracy are gtg).

Not to thread jack but lets assume L50 Annihilation. Lets talk ratings here on which is actually going to be more DPS for us.

 

310 Crit Rating = 30.91% Melee / 38.09% Force on my Mara Unbuffed (Buffed just add 5%)

850 Power

or

228 Crit Rating = 28.44%3 Melee / 35.61% Force on my Mara Unbuffed (Buffed just add 5%)

932 Power

 

Which would be the better assuming all other stats (Surge/Accuracy are gtg).

 

I want to correct a few points:

 

Melee critical chance is a function of strength and crit rating as well as buffs. Force critical chance is a function of those same factors plus willpower.

 

Strength of 2100 - not including the Sith Inquisitor buff - equals 13.5% crit %. You should also have +1% to all crit from max affection with Vette and +5% from the Imperial Agent buff. Finally, Malice will provide +6% to force crit.

 

In reality 310 crit rating equates to a crit chance of 11.2%, while a 228 crit rating equals 8.72%.

 

Now to answer your question, the two scenarios are nearly identical. There should be less than 1% difference in damage for either of those. Personally, I would go for the 228 crit & 932 Power.

Well currently on pts, rage is the go to spec for mara in both pve and pvp. There is so much aoe on boss fights, and rage is actually parsing close to anni and carnage on single target, so basically rage is going to be top dps. That means stack power for 2.0.

Rage the go to on all raid fights? I doubt it. You'd need to have 2 targets in range most of the time. Boss 1 though..definitely - since AoE is in high demand. Otherwise, if your raid stacks too much AoE..you may get that high burst thus a high parse due to add spawns, but boss dps is gimped. IMO, Agents and BH's can handle those quick add spawn phases while keeping their solid single target dps.

Guess I gotta toy with it some more to see how the single target ends up stacking up. But I don't think Bioware is going to intentionally allow the AoE awesomeness to be 'almost as good' as the others for long. I think long term..they probably want it 400 dps lower, or more (in a strictly single target fight).

Edited March 23, 2013 by Airwolfe

Well currently on pts, rage is the go to spec for mara in both pve and pvp. There is so much aoe on boss fights, and rage is actually parsing close to anni and carnage on single target, so basically rage is going to be top dps. That means stack power for 2.0.

 

if you think rage is the way to go it simply means you are terrible at both annihilation and carnage simple as that... Rage is the spec for people not good enough to play something that require more then face rolling.

When you level up you pretty much balance between the two, with a little more incentive for crit at lower levels. By 30-40, you'll want a little bit more power, and then at 50-55 you'll pretty much prioritize Power > Crit.

 

Level 50 Efficient Crit Value:

31.50-33.50%

 

Level 55 Efficient Crit Value:

22.00-24.00%

Edited March 27, 2013 by Gorband

Power. period. with just enough crit to hit the minimum needed.

After 2.0 I can't say, but until then the more power the better.

This goes for Augments too.

Edited March 27, 2013 by Thundergulch

I have run the math. A balance is required between power and crit. DPS peaks in the middle of the spectrum and drops sharply on either end. You will want to use main stat augments (I have run the numbers with overkill and might, and might comes out better), put basic accuracy at exactly 100%, the rest in surge. I use Annihilation, and the best possible outcome I have found it 78.75% surge, 99.97% accuracy, 2146 Strength (before the 5% increase from Mark of Power, and including Exotech might stim), 880 power, and 280 crit. If you use carnage, you will be able to sacrifice some accuracy for surge, but your power and crit balance should not be too far off from this. I'll run the numbers for that condition to make sure.

 

If my claims that this balance is optimal are disputed, I will happily post my math. I've just done it once today on another post and it gets tiresome.