Accuracy for Sorcerers in PvP useful?

[dcgregorya]

Accuracy does literally nothing at all for sorcs. Ignore the tooltips. Force attacks can't get dodged or resisted, defense and shield rating are meaningless against force attacks and therefore accuracy is not even remotely useful for them. Edited March 8, 2012 by dcgregorya

[Cebby]

Read that sorc abilities are not mitigated by armor, in fact most are energy based which are mitigated.

 

If you hit a tank with lightning and he is taking half dmg, thats why. In these cases i think accuracy should help.

[dcgregorya]

Read that sorc abilities are not mitigated by armor, in fact most are energy based which are mitigated.

 

If you hit a tank with lightning and he is taking half dmg, thats why. In these cases i think accuracy should help.

 

Except, the tooltip is misleading and accuracy does nothing at all against armor mitigation. It helps against defense rating and it helps against shielding.

[EasymodeX]

Which is where it gets confusing. Devs, what RESISTS does accuracy over 100% lower for sorcerers/sages?

 

It penetrates force resist.

 

Players have 0% base force resist. One PvE tank set for BH/Troopers gives some force resist IIRC.

 

Your base 100% acc + enemy base 0% force resist = never resist.

 

Unless they debuff your acc -5%.

 

 

There have been several very rare reports of Marauders and Sentinels getting resists on Smash/Sweep on targets that are not "Assassins using their cooldown". This tends to happen because said players sometimes stack very low ACC (less than 5%) at mid gear levels (pre-BM/Rakata, which have ****tons of Acc), and said players take notice when their Smash gets resisted.

 

 

There's a possibility that this is not the case, but with no combat log it's hard to tell.

[dcgregorya]

I am not stacking alacrity for the befit of 10% of my repertoire.

 

And I'm sure you're one of those people that complain that sorcs have no burst .

[Monterone]

And I'm sure you're one of those people that complain that sorcs have no burst .

 

And we don't. That's why I created an Assassin and now I have burst.

 

I see what you tried to do and failed.

[EternalFinality]

There have been several very rare reports of Marauders and Sentinels getting resists on Smash/Sweep on targets that are not "Assassins using their cooldown". This tends to happen because said players sometimes stack very low ACC (less than 5%) at mid gear levels (pre-BM/Rakata, which have ****tons of Acc), and said players take notice when their Smash gets resisted.

 

Yeah, I've never had either my Force Sweep or Blade Rush get resisted like that.

 

What gives you "Force Resist" % increases? Not Defense Rating. So Accuracy does nothing for force attacks?

Edited March 8, 2012 by EternalFinality

[Monterone]

I expect there is little chance of a dev answering an important question like this, but I do not give up and will keep bumping this thread.

 

Give us clarification please.

[Khadroth]

Yeah, I'm running 105% accuracy on my sorc now in PvP and about 107.5% in Rakata, and I saw an immediate bump in damage once I did that after Surge got nerfed. I keep my Surge at 297, which gives me slightly over 75% multiplier.

 

I am not going to stack alacrity as a dps sorcerer (Madness) unless I absolutely have to. Alacrity would only affect ONE of my abilities, and that is Force Lightning. So out of my regular 7 damage spells that are part of every rotation (Creeping Terror, Affliction, Death Field, Force Lightning, proc Crushing Darkness, Shock, proc Lightning Strike) and various other utility abilities like, Slow, Electrocute and such -- Force Lightning is the ONLY spell that has a casting time.

 

I am not stacking alacrity for the befit of 10% of my repertoire. On top of that, with a VERY weak force regen system in the Madness tree, alacrity would just make you run out of force even quicker.

 

I don't know about the rest of you and how you feel, but alacrity has no room for a dps sorc. UNLESS, Accuracy shows to be completely useless, which I am not seeing, but would make it on par with alacrity.

 

So once again, can we get a dev to please clarify and tell us what, if anything, Accuracy does for a dps sorcerer (madness/lightning)?

 

Thanks.

 

Allow me to tell you and direct you to another knowledgible person here.

 

First, about your comments on alacrity. It's still moderately valuable to you as a madness sorc. It may only affect force lightning for you, but you spend 50% of your dps time casting that one ability, so it does come into play a lot more often than you think. It's by far the worst of any dps stat worth taking for a sorc, but it IS worth taking.

 

On to accuracy. Accuracy is a hit or miss mechanic, there is no penetration effect or increased dmg like people think. Accuracy is balanced against Defense for melee/ranged abilities and resistance for force/tech abilities. Accuracy above 100% will reduce the defense/resistance of the target, and again not cause you to deal any more dmg to said target.

 

Now here's the problem for Sorcs/Sages. You start at 100% accuracy on your abilities, and since you have no viable melee/ranged attacks the 90% you start with on them is meaningless. So that means you would only need accuracy if a target had force resistance or used an ability to lower your accuracy. This begs the question, how often does this come into play in pve and pvp? For starters, if you're a healer... never, accuracy doesn't effect heals.

 

PvE? Just about NEVER, no endgame bosses currently have resistance (in fact the only mobs I can recall having it are some of the Voss NPC's).

 

PvP? Very rarely. As far as I know there are 5 things which can affect this.

1.) A sentinel/marauder's pacify/obfuscate ability which can reduce accuracy by 90% for 6 seconds. Problem here is no amount of accuracy stacking can make a realistic dent in this (I've also only ever had it used on me as a Sage once, and it was by the best marauder on our server, most others don't seem smart enough to use it).

2.) Similarly Snipers/Gunslingers can talent to gain a 45% accuracy reduction for 9 seconds. Stacking Accuracy could make a dent in this, except that you probably already own most Snipers/Gunslingers, and they rarely use it against you like sents/maras.

3.) Shadow/Assassin Tanks have a talent that increases internal/elemental resistance by 3% in their tank stance. Problem here is, it's so small you shouldn't even care. Even if the Shadow/Assassin happens to be in tank stance, it's incredibly unlikely they'll get a resist against you. 97% Accuracy here just isn't a big deal.

4.) Shadows/Assassins all have a 1 minute cooldown to increase force/tech resistance by 100% for 3 seconds. Problem again is, no amount of accuracy stacking makes an effective dent in this. It's also only 3 seconds long and can generally be waited out while slapping them with your saber (it's melee) or kited for the duration.

5.) I've heard Operatives/Scoundrels have some form of ability that can affect resistance, I have no idea what it is.

 

Whole point being, you're stacking a stat which A.) Doesn't help your healing at all. B.) Doesn't even come into play in 90% of situations, and C.) Even when it does come into play might provide you no benefit at all due to RNG. It would be worth if it we had a viable ranged-type attack, but we're all force so it winds up largely being an itemization waste.

[Monterone]

Allow me to tell you and direct you to another knowledgible person here.

 

First, about your comments on alacrity. It's still moderately valuable to you as a madness sorc. It may only affect force lightning for you, but you spend 50% of your dps time casting that one ability, so it does come into play a lot more often than you think. It's by far the worst of any dps stat worth taking for a sorc, but it IS worth taking.

 

On to accuracy. Accuracy is a hit or miss mechanic, there is no penetration effect or increased dmg like people think. Accuracy is balanced against Defense for melee/ranged abilities and resistance for force/tech abilities. Accuracy above 100% will reduce the defense/resistance of the target, and again not cause you to deal any more dmg to said target.

 

Now here's the problem for Sorcs/Sages. You start at 100% accuracy on your abilities, and since you have no viable melee/ranged attacks the 90% you start with on them is meaningless. So that means you would only need accuracy if a target had force resistance or used an ability to lower your accuracy. This begs the question, how often does this come into play in pve and pvp? For starters, if you're a healer... never, accuracy doesn't effect heals.

 

PvE? Just about NEVER, no endgame bosses currently have resistance (in fact the only mobs I can recall having it are some of the Voss NPC's).

 

PvP? Very rarely. As far as I know there are 5 things which can affect this.

1.) A sentinel/marauder's pacify/obfuscate ability which can reduce accuracy by 90% for 6 seconds. Problem here is no amount of accuracy stacking can make a realistic dent in this (I've also only ever had it used on me as a Sage once, and it was by the best marauder on our server, most others don't seem smart enough to use it).

2.) Similarly Snipers/Gunslingers can talent to gain a 45% accuracy reduction for 9 seconds. Stacking Accuracy could make a dent in this, except that you probably already own most Snipers/Gunslingers, and they rarely use it against you like sents/maras.

3.) Shadow/Assassin Tanks have a talent that increases internal/elemental resistance by 3% in their tank stance. Problem here is, it's so small you shouldn't even care. Even if the Shadow/Assassin happens to be in tank stance, it's incredibly unlikely they'll get a resist against you. 97% Accuracy here just isn't a big deal.

4.) Shadows/Assassins all have a 1 minute cooldown to increase force/tech resistance by 100% for 3 seconds. Problem again is, no amount of accuracy stacking makes an effective dent in this. It's also only 3 seconds long and can generally be waited out while slapping them with your saber (it's melee) or kited for the duration.

5.) I've heard Operatives/Scoundrels have some form of ability that can affect resistance, I have no idea what it is.

 

Whole point being, you're stacking a stat which A.) Doesn't help your healing at all. B.) Doesn't even come into play in 90% of situations, and C.) Even when it does come into play might provide you no benefit at all due to RNG. It would be worth if it we had a viable ranged-type attack, but we're all force so it winds up largely being an itemization waste.

 

Thanks Khad, my thoughts are almost the same on this, but I have been testing accuracy lately so I came here and posted in hopes that devs will answer their own forums.

 

I have always been under the impression that the sage/sorc group buff, which also raises elem/internal resist by 10% creates a buffer that accuracy would go against. If this is true then accuracy would indeed be valuable in PvP since there is a sage/sorc in almost every warzone. But it's all guesswork until we get combat log and someone makes the ACT parser.

 

Alacrity -- my playstyle uses a LOT less force lightning than alacrity would make useful. I like to stay mobile, and if anything I will cast FL twice for the proc before moving into 5-6 other abilities before I get back to FL.

 

Healing -- unfortunately I haven't healed for a couple of months, otherwise I would replace all Acc for Alacrity.

 

Which brings up another issue for devs. If accuracy is completely useless for healers, and it is -- why does the corruption tree increase your accuracy by 3%, high up in the Corruption tree? Isn't this completely useless in a healing tree and is there a way this can be replaced with something more valuable to a healer?

 

As for Assassin tanks, I believe Darkness tree gives 3% resist per talent point, so total resist added would be 9%. While you won't encounter sin tanks every game, I can see how accuracy is helpful in this scenario.

 

Thanks for your post -- now if we can only get a dev to explain this to us definitively, so that we don't have to guess about what stats to use.

Edited March 9, 2012 by Monterone

[Surgin]

Everyone has 5% base resists so you need 5% acc to have 100% chance to land spells. Past 100% becomes armor penetration which is useless for us.

 

5% to help with CC. Otherwise we don't need acc. Do it with off pieces like ear/mod.

 

not everyone... sins/shadows get 10%