I don't know about the tool-tip but you can calculate the exact damage with the info from sithwarrior.com. Assuming: 1. Top end damage of your main-hand and off-hand is 486. 2. Your bonus melee damage is 590. 3. You have the talent to increase off-hand damage by 36%. 4. You have 5 stacks of Juyo. 5. Your opponent has 20% DR. 6. You have 1158 exp and your opponent is in recruit gear. 7. You crit. Merciless slash: AmountModifierPercent = 0.9 StandardHealthPercent = 0.285 Coefficient = 2.85 The damage range for a merciless slash crit is (5788 to 6633) before DR and exp. After DR and exp this comes to (4786 to 5485). Maybe the tool-tip is factoring in an average damage for your weapons and crit %? A rough average calc with 40% crit gives an average damage of 4609, which is sort of ballpark to your tool-tip.

Yeah this looks correct. So it's really only the execution phase that benefits from this change. I am now worried that the changes won't be enough to bring deception up to par dps-wise in PvP or PvE.

I'm not an expert on deception but I think the idea was to improve sustained dps without giving crazy burst. You can still do the old 2xVS + shock or you can trade some VS for saber strike in order to get more force for shock, maul, and discharge. I think this will greatly improve dps after the first ~15 seconds out of stealth regardless of rotation and a smaller boost inside the first 15 seconds. It also improves execute sustained dps *and* burst. If I'm reading the notes correctly, deception also gets 25% damage reduction for 6 seconds after losing stealth, and at any time when using blackout. This is a really good effect, especially with blackout always being ready when coming out of stealth. I am actually wondering if this might be a good pickup for darkness tanks. You lose wither, chain shock, and melee crit for a 25% DR on a minute cooldown + some force regen. It could be quite powerful if a fight has ~1 min periodic burst damage phases.

The changes look pretty good to me. Most likely there will be some other, smaller adjustments that didn't make the article. The change to resolve is a good one. It was quite frustrating to see the ball carrier unnecessarily get full resolve before walking across a fire trap or heading to the score line. I think the change to inquisitor/mercenary stun range will cut down a lot of the "stun wars" stuff being talked about. I know as an assassin the 30m range was absolutely huge. It meant I could stun someone when on a different level of the catwalk, or across two fire traps. This simply won't be possible anymore. It's a nerf to me, but I'm more than happy to cut down some of the critical stun opportunities (it's often me getting stunned and frustrated anyways). The new overload is ok, I guess. I agree with Austin that there were a lot of times when I didn't want to hit people 360. This often happens of the catwalks - the primary target gets knocked off and everyone else gets punted back a few yards on the same catwalk. So in the end I just added a bunch of resolve to someone I wasn't even trying to knock off. The only really important thing for me is the change to instant knockback. This is going to make control a lot better. Merc/Sorc changes look really well done. Barely any negative effects to PvE performance. Mercs are going to love interrupts and lightning sorcs are going to love *not* being interrupted. Healing sorcs get to clear roots/snares plus get immunity. The buff to backlash is really helpful too. Please don't say overload is a critical PvE skill - the uses for it are pretty rare and really not affected by the change. Deception finally gets some much needed buffs. I believe that the changes will bring deception more in line with other classes in both PvE and PvP (can't say for certain without analysis though). Edit: Misread the deception changes. It won't be as big a dps boost as I thought. Overall what I see in these notes are: 1. Reduction in stun/knockback frequency. 2. Some of the worst PvP specs (deception, corruption, lightning, arsenal, bodyguard) get buffed. 3. One of the worst PvE dps specs (deception) gets a buff. I am hoping that the top performing specs in PvE and PvP get a slight nerf in 1.4. Operative dps needs a few more changes to make it effective.

Still not seeing any crits from bosses. Care to share these logs?

I looked through some ops logs and never saw a crit. Do you know for certain whether bosses or trash have a crit chance?

That's fine, but there was an opportunity cost to going F2P. It's obviously been in the works for a while and probably using resources that could have been spent on more content and bug fixes. Could those resources have been used to get 1.3 out a month earlier? Could HK-51 already have been released a few weeks ago? Could nightmare EC have been on the PTS right now? How many subscribers would have stayed if news of this content had been available earlier? No one will ever know. Maybe enough subscribers would have stayed to avoid the whole F2P thing altogether. I don't want this post to be too negative so I will say that I don't really care *how* I pay for content (subscription, or "cartel coins"). I don't expect to be given anything for free. But if they are serious about getting content out quicker, now is the time to prove it.

Apologies for the wrong information. I was not aware of this - would have been great to have at launch!

You will want a focus for two reasons: 1. Without tank gear or talents/stance you will be stuck at 5% shield chance and 20% absorb. So basically < 1% damage reduction - not worth the loss in force power IMO. 2. (Note: read next post to see why this is wrong) There are no recipes for willpower shields. In practice your shield will almost always be behind your level. I would recommend saving an inventory slot for the best shield you can find. This is handy in case you decide to switch to darkness at any time.

14 absorb augments would bump up your absorption to 55.8%. Remember that your actual shield chance is 65% with dark ward. So after augments you would be missing a few percent in absorption and a few percent in defense. Upgrading all you gear to bh/campaign would probably account for the rest of the difference. If it doesn't, check the relics of the other tanks - they may be using PvP trinkets which have static stats. It's also possible that they are rounding up to 60% from say 58% or 59%. Hope this helps.

Coltu is correct. Unfortunately at max level thrash is too much force for too little benefit. It's still somewhat useful if you can't aoe due to CC or other reasons. With the way the talent tree is set up, shock is pretty weak until ~30 and even then it's hardly worth it until 40+. It's still worth using for the stun on weak targets and getting some practice with thrash/energize/shock.

Madness relies quite a bit on DOTs for damage, but when fighting low hp mobs (i.e. leveling) you hardly ever get the full effect. If you are leveling with a friend I would recommend either deception or darkness. Deception benefits greatly from the short fight lengths (burst damage) and ability to stealth between pulls (regen force). In addition, with 2 players and 2 companions you will be in position to maul more frequently/easily. The spec in the link is just fine. If you plan to run any flashpoints or heroic 2/4 missions, darkness will save a lot of time. You won't have to bother with searching for a tank or the frustration of companion tanking. It's quite possible to do all the flashpoints with a companion tank but certainly not nearly as good as a player tank.

A hard cap would be the point at which a stat gives no benefit. I don't believe it is possible to hard cap any stat in SWTOR at the moment - maybe accuracy but it seems unclear if it provides any benefit over 100%. A soft cap would be a (downward) discontinuity in the benefit of a stat. For example, if a talent gave a temporary increase to alacrity, the soft cap would be the point where the GCD was lowered to 1 when the talent was active. At this point additional alacrity only benefits the portion of time where the talent is not active. If it was graphed there would be a clear point where the benefit of alacrity takes a sudden dip. An actual example would be an assassin. At 40% crit chance, recklessness guarantees a critical strike. Any crit rating above 40% provides benefits at all times except when recklessness is used. So 40% would be the soft cap for crit. It's not a very sharp drop but I can't think of any other soft caps in the game. If there is no sudden jump in the value of a stat, then there is no hard or soft cap. The point at which you decide to stop stacking such a stat is completely arbitrary (or you could simulate the best distribution of stats given a certain gear level). Pretty much every stat in SWTOR falls into this category.

Is your 135 hps before or after 1.3? Edit: I see where you calculate that. The heal on dark charge scales with level not hp. I believe it is 228 at level 50. 5.2 seconds per proc seems a little generous. Can you upload your logs to Mr robot?

Hi KeyboardNinja, Thanks for putting in so much effort. I would take a look at the data but I only have Internet through my phone atm. Your overall mitigation number looks good. War hero relics can push that up a bit higher. How do you calculate self-healing? It depends on your rotation, maximum healing would be a thrash-less rotation. Do you have any logs of fights with only 5% overheal? That seems unusual - I have only seen about 17% overheal minimum.

Just killed NP. I took 220k damage from TFTS in 1.2 and 145k in 1.3. Seems about the same number of attacks on both fights. Max damage on melee hits was 13% higher in 1.3 (but average was way lower). I don't know, maybe I had some kind of epic dodging tonight or something. Edit: Healing was about 65% of pre-nerf.

Those numbers include dark ward + 4pc set bonus for shield chance. The damage reduction includes 2pc set bonus. Also using a prototype endurance stim (+43 defense). No other temporary buffs are included. The base ratings from equipment are: 438 defense rating 550 shield rating 536 absorption rating I am also wearing the absorb proc relic, which I believe grants about an additional 9% absorption when it procs. I am thinking that the shield/absorb clicky relic might be better overall though.

This can happen when double destruction and defensive systems line up. You can either re-balance dps if Firebrand is ahead or just get more dps and beat the timer. If you can't beat the second double destruction, have the two soakers run to the tank, while the tank steps back as far as possible. The lightning spire will land on the tank and not the dps. Note 1: Not beating the second double destruction is a sign you will probably hit the enrage. It's quite possible to kill them well into the enrage however. Note 2: The first phase is the hardest to beat the double destruction. After the first phase, the tanks will be at 78% or so and ranged dps can bring that lower making the next phase easier.

Ok, just wanted to clarify that. It sounds like we are talking about the same thing. If all goes well I will have some data soon. I don't have all my augments in yet but I am projecting: 40.25% damage reduction 29.5% defense 65% shield 59% absorption This is with one war hero defense relic. I was lucky to have just enough commendations to pick it up. I have done some PvP after the server transfers but before that it was nearly impossible to get a queue to pop.

Maybe I am misunderstanding but when I tank TFTS I have 0 stacks. As soon as I get a stack (strangely can sometimes go through a whole bloodmark phase without getting one) the other tank taunts. When that tank gets a stack I taunt back and my stack has at most 1 second or so left. I should be killing NP on Friday so I can compare the damage from pre-1.3.

When tab targeting your camera has to be rotated so that the other boss is on your screen. This can be an issue if you had to reposition during the fight. I like to keep the opposite boss on focus target. After the jump I use the focus target to select, taunt, and then sometime before the next jump switch focus targets. I just do that because I tend to forget after the jump which one I should taunt.

I don't raid until Friday so I won't be able to see the effects until then. One strange thing I noticed is that you are trying to tank TFTS with 2 stacks! The debuff is only applied about 1 second before the previous expires so it's possible to always have a clean tank on TFTS (well outside that 1 second). IIRC the debuff increases damage taken by 75% per stack.

I would rather not have restrictions put in place. "Need" has a lot of different definitions and ranking them is not easy. The main deterrent will be vote kick and ignore. People that regularly abuse the need roll will soon find themselves with longer and longer queue times. In addition, the tool is server-only so reputation will matter. If there is a particular item you are looking for I highly suggest negotiating before it drops to prevent any drama. One thing that would be nice is a 1 hour window to trade bound items. This goes a long way to correcting mistakes and (if BioWare is listening) cutting down the number of CS tickets.

Eye of the Storm grants a 20% bonus to armour even when not using dark charge. This is additive with dark charge for a total bonus of 115% + 20% = 135%. In your case you have 2090/1.2 = 1742 armour from gear. Without dark charge this is increased to 1742*1.2 = 2090. With dark charge armour is increased to 1742*2.35 = 4094. Hope this clarifies the issue.

I think you should use 200 hps pre-nerf and 120 hps post-nerf in your model. Does that sound reasonable?