Well, thank you for redoing this thread, i think it gives us all something to work towards on the DPS front. I dusted of the ACT and did a bit of parsing today, here is my latest: http://www.torparse.com/a/134534/time/1361053736/1361054110/0/Overview FYI I am using the 7-3-31 Balance build.

My you son of a ***** lol, me and you are going to have to get on the dummy sometime soon.

I too have to disagree with the 37% Crit Percent claim made here. I am a firm believer in using the rating, not the percent, and I have the DPS to back it up. Do you have any parses that show the lower crit % is the right way to go?

It might be your rotation, and yeah I don't think that project has any place in a Balance parse. Uses too much force for not enough damage. It ultimately lowers your DPS.

Chukles!!! We need an update bro, want everyone to know im getting closer to you and My . I linked it the other day, but here it is again: 1919 DPS 7-3-31 http://www.torparse.com/a/114862/time/1359511645/1359511955/0/Overview

Sorry, here is the link to the BOE one: http://www.torhead.com/index.php/item/76xAgyl/hazmat-strikers-mk-2-chip It's the same thing, i figured people would get the general idea.

Looking for a crafter for Hazmat Striker's MK-1 Chip. http://www.torhead.com/item/cs3yWU4/hazmat-strikers-mk-1-chip

Yes, lazy enough to manually go into a combat log and change things around.

On the cut log: 23:54:47.512 Beastfury enters combat. On the original one you just pointed us to: 23:54:44.765 Beastfury enters combat. You just proving that not only did you just cut some seconds out, but you manually changed the enters combat time, does not help your credibility. If you could go in there and cut out a couple of seconds, who is to say you couldn't of found all of the berserk notes and changed them.

Well if you were able to edit out the first part of it, it wouldn't be too hard for you to edit anything else.

To be fair, he had my help

Well, here is my latest parse. 7-3-31 Balance Shadow: http://www.torparse.com/a/114862/time/1359511645/1359511955/0/Overview Edit: DPS is 1919

Last time I checked, I didn't present myself as an expert. But hey, you seem like the kind of guy who likes to fabricate ideas, so lets just let that one go. Like I said, the double rock approach parses lower for me. If I am doing something wrong with my rotation, I would be happy for someone to let me know, but nobody has said anything to me so far about it. I think my DPS is pretty damn good, and so do most other people. You obviously think you are the know-all of shadow knowledge, since you look down on my posts as being "bad for the community and bad for the game", so please, put your "massive amount of knowledge" to use, and tell me what I'm doing wrong, how I'm "terrible at playing my class competently". Just because you are a smug *** doesn't mean you know everything.

Here is highest I parsed today, Balance 5-5-31: http://www.torparse.com/a/85520/time/1356802982/1356803521

So, I have been screwing around with Balance a bit for the last day or so, just to see what it can do (with alot of help from My). Got on this morning, did a few dummy runs. Still getting used to the build, definitely have to pay attention alot more, but am starting to get a little used to it. Here is the one I am most proud of: http://www.torparse.com/a/85520/time/1356802982/1356803521 This makes me think that once I get up to your gear level My, I may be able to catch up to you DPS-wise .

Dang, realized when I was getting off tonight, that run was done with my PVP earpiece (Battlemaster). Same thing with the run I did with you My. Guess I will have to retry tomorrow. Good news is, it should be higher

No debuffs, inspiration, or adrenals

First parse of the day: http://www.torparse.com/a/84381 On Infiltration of course, not quite that 1900 though :/. Good job My, kinda jealous, lol. Anyways, I may do a couple more dummy fights, maybe not...If i parse significantly higher, you will hear from me lol. Almost forgot, actual DPS in that parse is 1725, Torparse is always weird with me, always puts in extra seconds at the end, but shows up normal in ACT.

I have no problems with a little friendly argument on DPS. I do believe that most here know what they are doing, and certain people do things differently. I do not use solely math in the way I play my character. I use experience in the hard boss fights. I am of the opinion that math definitely takes a huge role in the DPS, but that certain things change with different fights and different situations. Once again, the reason I do not like about upheaval is that it is very shaky, whether or not you will hit that second rock (I assume this is still what we are arguing about). I am not putting down the math completely, I am just saying that it is not the ONLY factor. I am not trying to put down anyone's way of playing. I am a DPS, which means if someone shows me a better way, I will try it out. I have tried out the upheaval build, and used to be a firm believer in it. If I were to hit that second rock more often, then yes, it would most likely be worth it. From what I have seen, I am still of the opinion that this is the best Infiltration build as of now: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601bc0MZfuMRkfbRroZc.2 Maybe it's the way I play, maybe it's just dumb luck, but from my experience, that is what hits better. Balance will beat Infiltration every time in sustained fights, but not by much. In a six minute fight on the dummy, I was only 3% away from a very good Balance spec Shadow with an increased gear level. TLDR: I may not sit there and crunch the numbers for hours on end, but don't think that I don't know what I am talking about. I go by what I see, and what parses better. If the upheaval build parsed better for me, I would be in that build.

Ok then, you do your thing with just math, and I will go with the higher DPS

Math doesn't mean everything when it comes to DPS, and if you base your DPS on ONLY math, you are going to have a problem. On another note, there is a reason you are talking about THEORYcrafting. I couldn't care less if you don't want to listen to me, my opinion is there for those who choose to use it.

I will say that I usually do not have the armor debuff on when i am parsing a dummy fight, just because I don't want to drag a tank with me every time I want to go for a dummy run. With the 7-31-3 build that I am in, you can get the technique mastery, applied force, and the expertise, which in my opinion, more than makes up for the loss of upheaval. Trust me, if I could have both, I certainly would. My problem with the upheaval is that it is not stable, you may hit more sometimes, but in my experience, you hit less alot of times. (This is just us nitpicking though, because the difference isn't that noticeable to people who don't pick apart their DPS piece by piece like us.) http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=549442 That is the forum, which you posted on also, that I first started thinking about it. It sparked my interest, so I tested it out a few times on both specs. For me, it came out to be better with the 7-31-3. I think that we started out on the wrong foot. As we are just talking through text, sometimes things are misinterpreted. I did not mean to insinuate that was fact, it was merely my opinion, and what I had seen with my experience, and heard from the people I had spoken too. I am not trying to start a fight, I am just saying that it works better for me. The same thing with the argument on vigor over celerity. With the people that I regularly play with, that interrupt does not have to be 2 seconds shorter, as it doesn't matter, because everyone knows what they are doing. I did not mean for this to become an argument, and did not mean to come off as an ***, as it may be construed by someone who doesn't know me, my apologies.

I don't pretend to know anything about balance, or kinetic spec. And we are not just talking about expertise here, we are also talking about technique mastery. I am not just going off of my experiences here, but every shadow I come across, some of the best shadows on the server, and the forums. And yes, I still stand by the fact that the extra 10 force still is better for DPS than celerity. I will agree that celerity is useful in some situations, but not most. I was just posting my opinion on the subject, and you became testy, the way a whiny little schoolgirl does. Have fun with your "knowledge" on everything.

Ok, maybe a made a mistake on the force regeneration, I have never actually researched it, but in the game, it looks like it takes a little longer, I am just going off eyeballing it, but I am anything but inexperienced. This is especially coming from the guy who says that you use project on every cooldown, which is just foolish. Oh, and to your math, sometimes math isn't the only thing that matters, that's why we do dummy tests. If you do everything in this game by the pure math, then I will laugh at your low DPS. I'm done talking to some idiot who thinks he knows everything about everything, and gets all pissed when someone disagrees with him. It's people like you that give a bad name to shadows.

Actually, you are wrong. The lower your force, the slower it regenerates. I absolutely recognize the usage, but compared to other skills that you can spec into, it is less important. Force speed's CD is short enough on its own for most fights, now that basically everyone has an interrupt, it is pretty hard to miss one, even with our high CD. Example, on the Kephess fight (in HM), I usually play with a Sentinal as the other mDPS. He gets the first, I get the second, he gets the third, and we don't hit a fourth..problem solved. A mDPS rarely gets stunned during a boss fight. They are wasted points compared to what else you can put them in. I have done the tests on this many times, and I used to think exactly how you did. I use project on on every proc, not just on the CD. If you are using project on the CD, whether it's procced or not, you shouldn't be playing Infiltration.