Any help would be greatly appreciated ! I for the life of me can not figure out what am I doing wrong ? Here is my current build and gear , however I am only hitting around 1500 - 1650 dps and from many post people are hitting in the 1700 to 2k range using the same spec , same gear , even the same rotation .... so what am I doing wrong ? What am I missing ? What do I need to change to increase my dps and hit those 1700 - 2k parses ?

My rotation and gear / build is :

Crushing Darkness / Affliction / Force Lightning x 2 / Death Field

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/834ddab6-8ccc-4d23-b540-895dee48158b

Well most refer to that build as a hybrid build not madness/ balance. Using simulations pure balance has slightly higher theoretical than hybrid though you lose out on some burst potential.

R u referring to dummy parses? Whoever is claimin they are parsing 2k on an ops dummy, without the use of an armor debuff or sent/Mara buff they are most likely exaggerating. Your numbers look about right to me though I haven't parsed a dummy for months. Parses on actual boss fights are tough to compare as mechanics between encounter favor different specs. For example,I have been running mostly tele/lightning though recently switched to balance/madnes for 16 man tfb. However, only puzzle boss and final boss favor the dot specs imo.

I haven't run hybrids since double dipping and Pom were nerfed. I feel it is inferior for both pve and pvp but there are others that strongly support the opposite view.

As for the rotation, that hybrid probably has the easiest and most boring rotation. Clipping dots or prematurely ending your channel are common mistakes. Latency/ lag maybe another reason you feel you are falling behind in dps. Lag and the horrible queuing system can really be detrimental to a heavy channel spec. Keeping deathfid and crushing darkness sync'd as much as possible will help your number a bit (with the rotation you posted your death field and CD are already unsynced by about 6-8 seconds)

No offense, but your rotation makes no sense at all!!

Start off with Affliction, Force lightning till wrath procs, crushing darkness instantly followed by death field force lightning till affliction needs to be renewed then repeat.

Never use crushing darkness unless you got a proc.

Oh and get rid of all that Alacrity - madness are only instant casts and it doesn't affect your force lightning ^^

I assume he is precasting crushing darkness. Other than that yeah you should only cast cd with wrath proc.

Alacrity does affect FL. Since your channeling it 50-60% of the time some alacrity is better than pushin your surge extremely high because of dr with surge. Daelia posted the exact ratio of surge : alacrity for bis somewhere in this forum

Crushing darkness is your weakest dot on a tick for tick basis, why would you want it synched with DF, eating all your charges? Its not really a huge deal in a raid like mine with several sorcs doing their dots, as it gets ate right away anyway, but there's no reason to specifically try to sync it.

My opener is affliction -> creeping terror (remove for hybrid spec of course) - cool downs (double crit and adrenal if using) - death field - FL till wrath - Crushing darkness - FL till stuff comes off cool down.

I use tor assistant to help track my dots due to the aforementioned several sorcs in my raid. Plays a sound when aff and CT come off cool down. You want to always apply dots right after they come off, not before, so the sound is a nice reminder.

I think last time I dummy tested I was around 1550 to 1600 without stim, adrenal, agent buff or armor debuff. Not sure what I can get on a dummy test with all that stuff.

Edit: and yes, alacrity absolutely does affect your DPS as madness/hybrid. The bis setup on mmomechanics has 240 alacrity vs 360 surge (4 items with alac vs 6 with surge, all low endurance)

I did 1657 (according to mox) on the whitering today until I had to go stand in the pool, as a madness minus CT (I use those points on crit instead). It has a lot to do with your ctits, they can make or break your dps which is why a longer parse is better.

I only did 1245 on the entire Kephess TfB fight but I had nanoids and had to run around quite a bit.

This is how you should parse on a dummy.

1. Open with affliction (yes, you should save the CD cooldown).

2. Creeping Terror

3. Force Lightning, gain wrath proc

4. Recklessness

5. Crushing Darkness

6. Death Field

7. Force Lightning spam

8. Refresh DoTs and immediately pop power relic and adrenal after both have 18s left.

9. Force Lightning moar

10. Reapply CD/DF

11. Moar unlimited power lightning

If you're *really* looking into getting a high parse you can also consider weaving in Shock after each two Force Lightnings. It has higher DPCT than FL, but is regularly not used in raid scenarios due to it's force cost. But hey, the goal here is to get the highest DPS over an x amount of time here.

After that, reapplying DoTs should be your first priority; make sure you do not clip your DoTs. Generally the first refresh should be CT -> Affliction, after which they will start going out of 'sync'. Recklessness should be used on CD and DF (in that order, due to DF taking both charges if you accidentally hit two targets). Use your power adrenal and relic only right after both DoTs have been refreshed.

Crushing darkness is your weakest dot on a tick for tick basis, why would you want it synched with DF, eating all your charges? Its not really a huge deal in a raid like mine with several sorcs doing their dots, as it gets ate right away anyway, but there's no reason to specifically try to sync it.

This is just flat wrong. Crushing Darkness is your strongest DOT tick-for-tick, especially with a 20 percent buff from Wrath. You should absolutely synch it with Death Field if possible.

This is just flat wrong. Crushing Darkness is your strongest DOT tick-for-tick, especially with a 20 percent buff from Wrath. You should absolutely synch it with Death Field if possible.

Umm.....No?

Go hit a dummy. CD ticks for like 350 and aff/CT each tick for like 7-800 (all noncrit)

CD packs 8 ticks into 8 seconds, so while it is the fastest damage, and our hardest single target ability, each individual tick is smaller than a tick of aff or CT.

Also the wrath process only affects the initial damage of CD, and doesn't buff the dot.

Umm.....No?

 

Go hit a dummy. CD ticks for like 350 and aff/CT each tick for like 7-800 (all noncrit)

 

CD packs 8 ticks into 8 seconds, so while it is the fastest damage, and our hardest single target ability, each individual tick is smaller than a tick of aff or CT.

 

Also the wrath process only affects the initial damage of CD, and doesn't buff the dot.

It buffs the dot as well. It didn't used to, but it was fixed in a patch.

It buffs the dot as well. It didn't used to, but it was fixed in a patch.

Oh sweet. Haven't kept up with most of the patch notes I guess. I'll have to smack a dummy a couple times tonight and see how much of a difference it makes.