Combat Medic PvE Guide (Updated for 1.2)

[RuQu]

Ah I see, thanks for the clarification, and of course the guide and spreadsheet.

 

Been trying to weight Alac/Power against Crit/Surge but Crit/Surge always seems to come out on top. Only major way to boost Power I can find is with Quick Savant enhancements, but they carry Alacrity too unfortunately.

 

So I just boosted the cells from 89 casts to 300. I was going to go for 500 or 1000, but I ran into the formula limit in Google Docs and had to scale it back. The idea with super long rotations like that is to smooth out the spikes (doubt anyone heals for 7.4 minutes straight with zero downtime, which is what 300 casts comes to).

 

The hope was that over a long enough time window, one extra Hammer Shot wouldn't matter much. Before increasing the cast count, 25 alacrity looked like a gain and 30 a loss. Now both look like a loss. The issue is that our hard hitting heals aren't really limited by alacrity, they are limited by cooldowns or ammo. So making AP and MP cast faster does let you slip in an extra Hammer Shot every now and then, which might seem like it should be an improvement, except that Hammer Shot is so weak in comparison that you actually gain more by increasing pretty much anything else and just having the AP/MP/BI hit harder.

 

Everything works artifact free...except alacrity. I'm open to suggestions, but I think it just is how it is. It's the nature of alacrity in this game and how it only effects a few of our abilities and doesn't effect ammo regen. Let's look at the Base vs +25 alac data:

 

At 300 casts, Base has had 446.17 seconds elapse, and the HPS is 1030.564.

At 300 casts, +25 Alac is at 444.80 seconds elapsed, and HPS is 1029.85.

 

So what if we give it an extra couple of casts, to catch up to Base in time?

At 301, time is 446.29, HPS is 1027.57.

 

Note that this is now more elapsed time than Base, but the HPS is even lower because it was another Hammer Shot.

 

Allowing one more cast...

Cast 302, Time 447.49, HPS 1030.07. This is our first non-HS, and the HPS is still below the 300 cast HPS of base.

 

It seems really counter-intuitive, but it is likely tied to the lack of interaction with regen. Ammo regens while you cast, which is why Full Auto is almost free, but if you speed up the cast time, you are actually making the spell more expensive, because the real cost of a spell is Cost-Regen*CastTime. So as cast time goes down, cost goes up. There is also the interaction of that extra Hammer Shot with cooldowns. If your AP and BI aren't off of cooldown, and ammo isn't nearly full, you toss in an extra Hammer Shot, but the 1.5s is longer than the cooldown time remaining, which can lead to a net HPS drop, especially if AP and BI come off CD together. Every second that they aren't on CD is HPS loss. Ideally if they come off of CD together you should cast AP, then BI, then MPFT, but the logic in my rotation does AP, MPFT, then BI because Excel gets a bit cumbersome if you try and do too complex of logic and telling it to do AP, BI, MPFT if AP is within x seconds, etc requires a bit more work and I'm already close to the formula limit.

[RuQu]

I looked into it a bit more, and here are some cast counts for 3 sets: Base, Base +25 Alac, Base +30 Alac.

 

Base:

• Casts: 300
  
• Elapsed Time: 446.17s
  
• HPS: 1030.56
  
• AP 43
  
• MPFT 43
  
• MP 43
  
• BI 20
  
• HS 151
  

 

Base +25 Alac

• Casts: 301
  
• Elapsed time: 446.29s
  
• HPS: 1027.57
  
• AP 43
  
• MPFT 43
  
• MP 43
  
• BI 19
  
• HS 153
  

 

Base +30 Alac

• Casts: 302
  
• Elapsed Time: 447.04
  
• HPS: 1021.37
  
• AP 44
  
• MPFT 43
  
• MP 41
  
• BI 19
  
• HS 155
  

 

Note # of casts was increased on +Alac to get as close to the Base time as possible.

 

Note what we see: The cooldown interaction causes one, just one, BI to get delayed (looking through the rotation it appears to be 4s delayed) while AP/MPFT gets cast, over the course of 300 casts, which is the primary cause of the drop for +25 Alac, the trade of one BI for 2 HS. For +30 Alac we see something different, and that is the ammo interaction. In addition to the BI loss due to cooldown interaction, here we see 2 MP get lost, and traded in for 2 HS. This rotation has MP casting if Ammo is at 10, but due to the slower regen, if MP is cast too close to an AP/MPFT cycle it can drop you into a lower regen level, thus causing a HS to have to be used in place of a MP later in the rotation. This is why alacrity is so bad for us.

 

I may try and change the logic to assume BI is used first, which would lead to a 1.5s delay on AP usage instead of the 3-4 second delay on BI, or alternatively try to do AP then BI, then MPFT if either of the two above were AP...honestly it probably won't make a huge difference. It will cause +25 to probably go back into a minor positive upgrade, but that won't change the Regen clipping issue observed by the +30.

 

Until they make Alacrity decrease GCD for instants and have it effect regen and/or cooldowns, these problems with alacrity will remain. Until then, get enough that people don't die waiting for MP to cast, and then put your points elsewhere.

[RuQu]

I was concerned I might be undervaluing alacrity due to not modeling SCC and RC usage...so I did.

 

There is now a version 2.0 of the calculator that assumes intensive burst healing within SCC followed by a recharge phase. You can change the rotation assumptions about RC usage and full cost MP usage from the front page.

 

Alacrity still has strange effects. At the default assumed stats it has a slight upgrade at +1, but negative at +2-30 (all I tested). This is likely due to all the reasons it produced negative value during the steady state assumptions: lack of effect on instant GCD, and lack of interaction with regen leading to greater effective cost of abilities, thereby necessitating either downtime or HS usage, which decrease HPS.

 

Unfortunately, I think that version 2.0, while cleaner, is a little less reader-friendly (in the calculations and rotations, not the results), because I had to resort to using VLOOKUP to cleanup a lot of my code. It made it a lot easier on me, and got me away from the formula cap I was hitting, but it left the rotations a little harder for the user to read.

 

 

Feedback and any bug reports are appreciated.

 

Edited February 1, 2012 by RuQu

[Ellie_]

I have a couple of questions.

 

Is it possible to get the First Responder proc uptimes modeled properly to get a more accurate understanding of the value of crit?

 

Does the spreadsheet use any kind of formulas for grasping things like diminishing returns on surge?

 

Is there any way to simulate a short burst-healing rotation(like healing a person from 5% to full ASAP) to get another perspective on the applications of crit and surge?

 

Would it be possible for the spreadsheet to figure out the average healing per ammo spent?

[RuQu]

I have a couple of questions.

 

Is it possible to get the First Responder proc uptimes modeled properly to get a more accurate understanding of the value of crit?

 

Does the spreadsheet use any kind of formulas for grasping things like diminishing returns on surge?

 

Is there any way to simulate a short burst-healing rotation(like healing a person from 5% to full ASAP) to get another perspective on the applications of crit and surge?

 

Would it be possible for the spreadsheet to figure out the average healing per ammo spent?

 

Considering First Responder lasts 6 seconds, and our crit rate sits around 30% (mine is 24.76% unbuffed 29.76% with a Smuggler around), , and Hammer Shot has 3 chances to crit (each heal of hammer shot is calculated separately), 100% up time is a very safe assumption.

 

Average Healing Per Ammo isn't overly meaningful, in that you could easily do a rotation that starts at 12 and ends at 12, and then would your HPS be infinite?

 

You can calculate the HPA for each ability individually, but again what do you do for the free heals? Is Bacta Infusion infinite HPA or negative HPA? This was what I was originally going to calculate when I made the Theorycrafting section and then realized that modeling rotations was the better way to assess these things. Over the long-term, all rotations should be ammo-neutral, either sustained lower HPS rotations like the first calculator, or higher HPS burst-recover rotations like 2.0 uses.

 

To look at a 5% health to full situation is probably easiest to do by hand.

 

My 50 Commando has 12k HP.

At 5%, I would have 600HP, and need 11,400 Healing done to me.

 

I will assume you have all of your tools available, so you would probably do something like this: (Format: Ability: Healing / Healing Remaining)

BI: 2272 / 9128

AP: 2343 / 6785

MP: 2710 / 4075

 

At this point we are at 66%, and have only spent 3 Ammo, while regen has returned 1.68 Ammo, leaving us with a net cost of 1.32 Ammo, or 10 displayed. This is a perfectly reasonable level to cast a full cost MP, for another 2710, bringing us to 1365 left over and they are now at 88%. Two Hammer Shots will have them at 95%. If you don't want to do that, or don't have time, or were lower on Ammo to start, you can always pop SCC and move one AP/MP combo will have them back over 100% for the same price as that MP above.

 

So I guess if you really think that sort of super short burst modeling is valuable for you, you could create a copy of my spreadsheet, then manually set the first 5 rows to BI, AP, MPFT, AP-SCC, MP-SCC and delete the rows below. You would then need to change the first Results table to call cell number 8 (or whatever the last one ends up being) instead of cell 303 for all occurrences of 303. Personally, I think that high burst would almost always be followed by some slower recover, since most fights don't last 10 seconds, so I think the 2.0 rotation covers what you wanted to know.

[RuQu]

Interesting result I just stumbled upon.

 

My gear isn't particularly great at the moment (what, you thought I had time to do all of this modeling AND gear a character? This is what I do when I can't play.)

 

My stats are:

• Cunning 108
  
• Aim 1170
  
• Crit 32
  
• Surge 92
  
• Alacrity 75
  
• Power 1253
  

 

At this itemization, I tried seeing how changing my Alacrity from skills effected the HPS of the rotation.

 

Best: 2/2 FR, 2/2 WC.

Next: 0/2 0/2

Next 2/2 0/2

Worst: 2/2 1/2

 

Alacrity produces very strange results, as we've seen before.

 

Anyway, mileage will vary based on gear, so don't take that as gospel for all builds, just reporting an interesting artifact.

Edited February 2, 2012 by RuQu

[RuQu]

Another change: Increased the stat weight rotations to 450 Casts by reducing the number of columns needed to do my calculations. Unfortunately, the Upgrade calculations had to stay at 300 because I again hit the Formula limit, so slightly different results are produced, primarily, as always, with Alacrity. However, more casts should more accurately reflect the value of Alacrity, so I'd trust those values.

[maxbaby]

RuQu, thank you for new version of calculator.

Yesterday I was comparing two items Xenotech helmet with surge and Rakata helmet with alacrity. Rakata helmet had -2 Aim, -6Power, -39 Surge and +51 alacrity but increases HPS by 9.74.

 

Here is my stats:

Cunning 130

Aim 1634

Crit 205

Surge 258

Alacrity 213

Power 1531

(plus buffs)

 

I decided to add:

A. +100 Alacrity and -100 to sugre and got +1.87 HPS

B. +100 Alacrity -100 to crits and got -1.14 HPS

C. +100 Alacrity -100 Aim and got +1.06 HPS

D. +100 Alacrity -100 Power and got +1.93 HPS

 

So according to calculator alacrity is not a wasted stat and is worth more than was perceived?

Edited February 3, 2012 by maxbaby

[RuQu]

RuQu, thank you for new version of calculator.

Yesterday I was comparing two items Xenotech helmet with surge and Rakata helmet with alacrity. Rakata helmet had -2 Aim, -6Power, -39 Surge and +51 alacrity but increases HPS by 9.74.

 

Here is my stats:

Cunning 130

Aim 1634

Crit 205

Surge 258

Alacrity 213

Power 1531

(plus buffs)

 

I decided to add:

A. +100 Alacrity and -100 to sugre and got +1.87 HPS

B. +100 Alacrity -100 to crits and got -1.14 HPS

C. +100 Alacrity -100 Aim and got +1.06 HPS

D. +100 Alacrity -100 Power and got +1.93 HPS

 

So according to calculator alacrity is not a wasted stat and is worth more than was perceived?

 

I plugged in the same values and got different results than you.

 

Cunning 130

Aim 1634

Crit 205

Surge 258

Alacrity 213

Power 1531

Level 50

 

Crit from Skills AND Buffs 14

Alacrity from Skills 9

Surge from Skills 15

Aim from Buffs (not skills) 5

 

Full Cost MP Ammo Usage Level: 10

Recharge Cells Usage Level: 5

 

Aim -2

Power -6

Surge -39

Alac +51

 

I get a change of -170HPS.

 

Doing +100 Alac, -100 Surge I get -144.

+100 Alac, -100 crit = -145

+100 Alac, -100 Aim = -142

+100 Alac, -100 Power = -141

 

In fact, leaving everything equal, and just doing +100 Alac I get -109.97.

 

To look at the reason why, I added in a little counter back on the Upgrade1 tab. Unfortuntaly, I ran out of allowed number of formulas and couldn't add it to the Upgrade2 so you could do concurrent comparisons, but here were my results.

 

Your Base Stats: 300 casts, 463 seconds

AP 86

MP 111

BI 18

HS 85

 

+100 Alac, all other stats equal. 300 casts, 450seconds

AP 81

MP 89

BI 17

HS 113

 

You got through the 300 casts 13 seconds earlier, but at what cost? The increase in Effective Cost of AP and MP made you have to sub out 22 whole Medical Probes and 5 Advanced Probes and replace them with 28 Hammer Shots. That's a huge loss in overall healing.

 

I'm not sure why you were getting different numbers than me. Please confirm that the other settings were the same.

[maxbaby]

You know, I downloaded the sheet in Excel format and I think that's why I got absolutely different result.

I entered the numbers into google spreadsheet and got the same results as yours

I am sorry for misunderstanding.

Edited February 3, 2012 by maxbaby

[RuQu]

As a second test, because the stat weight rotations do 450 casts and the Upgrade do 300, I tried just changing the value of alacrity by 100 in your stats and manually finding the difference in base rotation HPS. They were very close to the upgrade result, with no significant change.

 

I may reduce the other rotations to 300 to eliminate the confusion, which would also allow me to add in the cast count comparison for Upgrade 2.

[RuQu]

You know, I downloaded the sheet in Excel format and I think that's why I got absolutely different result.

I entered the numbers into google spreadsheet and got the same results as yours

I am sorry for misunderstanding.

 

No worries. That's odd that it would change things, though that is probably a Google-Microsoft issue, such as differences in format or implementation of VLOOKUP or something. Very odd.

 

You can do 'File' -> 'Make a Copy' to create a private version with full access on Google Docs. I maintain a copy of my own that I use for experimenting with changes before modifying the Public one.

 

Besides, your question lead me to add a Cast Count table to the Results page, which is something I'd used in my own investigations but is now available for all to see to help clarify alacrity oddities.

[maxbaby]

No worries. That's odd that it would change things, though that is probably a Google-Microsoft issue, such as differences in format or implementation of VLOOKUP or something. Very odd.

 

You can do 'File' -> 'Make a Copy' to create a private version with full access on Google Docs. I maintain a copy of my own that I use for experimenting with changes before modifying the Public one.

 

Besides, your question lead me to add a Cast Count table to the Results page, which is something I'd used in my own investigations but is now available for all to see to help clarify alacrity oddities.

 

Thank you for the tip. That helped a lot.

[Jay_Stocker]

fantastic guide. only just come across it, havent really been on the forums much since launch.

 

its good to see i seem to be doing everything right on my medic

[RuQu]

fantastic guide. only just come across it, havent really been on the forums much since launch.

 

its good to see i seem to be doing everything right on my medic

 

Thanks, and welcome to the forums. Look out for trolls, and don't leave food out where they can reach it.

[Tajz]

Any comment on this spec?

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800rfRMobcdkqZRckZb.1

 

After doing some HM instances, i found out that the Kolto bomb rarely use. (Because weak heal and everybody move out all the time so just not worth to get one tank a 10%buff but i waste my global cooldown)

I decided to get rid of kolto bomb residue (although i keep a koltobomb), then go for rechargecell and Muzzle Flueting. With muzzle fluzeting, when SCC activate, it's like free spam of charge bolt.

 

Any idea? Or any better idea of spec if u decide not to use koltobomb?

[RuQu]

Any comment on this spec?

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800rfRMobcdkqZRckZb.1

 

After doing some HM instances, i found out that the Kolto bomb rarely use. (Because weak heal and everybody move out all the time so just not worth to get one tank a 10%buff but i waste my global cooldown)

I decided to get rid of kolto bomb residue (although i keep a koltobomb), then go for rechargecell and Muzzle Flueting. With muzzle fluzeting, when SCC activate, it's like free spam of charge bolt.

 

Any idea? Or any better idea of spec if u decide not to use koltobomb?

 

I personally do put a point in Muzzle Fluting, for the same reason. Until we get dual spec, it helps a lot with soloing. I remove the point from

 

Perhaps try something like this.

 

I personally find Kolto Bomb really useful in high mobility situations. Toss it down while you run, and then your Hammer Shot and Bacta Infusions also hit for an extra 5%. Since healing on the run is one of the harder things for us to do, since our only instant is on a long cooldown or super weak HS, that 5% can be really useful. And since you aren't spending ammo on anything else while running, you can use KB whenever it is off CD.

 

If you really don't want to use Kolto Bomb at all, and want to free up those points, try something like this. If you aren't going to be casting Kolto Bomb, not much reason to increase it by 20% when you could gain 2% alacrity and knockback immunity with reactive shield.

[Mooby]

So after going over all the Alacrity posts I could find (most of which were yours RuQu - so thanks!) for the past week, I've came to the understanding that Alacrity isn't actually bad (but nor is it great), but it's extremely hard to represent in an spreadsheet due to how... "weird" I guess, it works - such as not affecting the global cooldown beyond cast time abilities or affecting Ammo regeneration.

 

I came to this mostly because of this spreadsheet, as from what I can understand the HPS rotation is built on an intense Ammo constricted rotation where adding any Alacrity is detremintal for the most part because it would cause Ammo to drop faster and you're having to fill in more Hammershots to stop this, which would yield a HPS loss as HS is replacing other abilities.

 

Is this correct or am I still way off?

 

Also, I guess adding another rotation that isn't as Ammo intensive would be counter productive as you're not really finding the maximum HPS with it even though a slacker rotation would be more like a real situation?. Using the Ammo intensive rotation that you use in your spreadsheet isn't really a bad thing, it just seems incredibly hard to represent Alacrity properly because of how weird it works.

[RuQu]

So after going over all the Alacrity posts I could find (most of which were yours RuQu - so thanks!) for the past week, I've came to the understanding that Alacrity isn't actually bad (but nor is it great), but it's extremely hard to represent in an spreadsheet due to how... "weird" I guess, it works - such as not affecting the global cooldown beyond cast time abilities or affecting Ammo regeneration.

 

I came to this mostly because of this spreadsheet, as from what I can understand the HPS rotation is built on an intense Ammo constricted rotation where adding any Alacrity is detremintal for the most part because it would cause Ammo to drop faster and you're having to fill in more Hammershots to stop this, which would yield a HPS loss as HS is replacing other abilities.

 

Is this correct or am I still way off?

Less intensive calculator

Also, I guess adding another rotation that isn't as Ammo intensive would be counter productive as you're not really finding the maximum HPS with it even though a slacker rotation would be more like a real situation?. Using the Ammo intensive rotation that you use in your spreadsheet isn't really a bad thing, it just seems incredibly hard to represent Alacrity properly because of how weird it works.

 

Gonna respond in reverse.

 

The original calculator, still linked in the 3rd post after the Stat Calc 2.0, was a non-burst rotation. It didn't use SCC, and reflects largely how I end up healing on non-boss fights. I guess it is still Ammo restricted, since it makes assumptions about when MP gets used at full price and it tries to just stay in the max regen zone. Any time in a real situation that healing wasn't needed during a trash pull, you could replace any of the AP/MP or MP casts with a Charged Bolt, HIB, or Full Auto and that's about how I heal trash.

 

I'm assuming that's what you mean by a less Ammo intensive rotation. It exists, it's what we worked with originally, and I actually switched to the more intensive rotation because I thought it was devaluing alacrity. The intensive one lets us use AP/MP more often because SCC removes the cooldown, and, since those are our only abilities alacrity affects, the intensive rotation actually improves the value of alacrity.

 

The only thing I don't have modeled in there is movement. If I could, for instance, add in a 5 second move and run perhaps every 30-45 seconds. However, that is a) harder to code, b) the numbers would be completely made up for how often to run and how far, and c)it either assumes you don't heal at all while running or requires increasing the complexity of the IF loops considerably to allow for BI, HS, and maybe even KB while running (and does KB heal 1 or 3 people, since it doesn't smart heal, were any of those 3 at full health, do I now have to model the KB buff on them?). Standing still and casting for 7 minutes is a bit unrealistic, but I think it gives an idea of the numbers, you can assume you are free to move any time 2 instants are used in a row, etc.

 

Alacrity oddness

Your interpretation is pretty spot on, but I think the latest version of the calculator goes a long way to shining light on the situation for an individual. Let's look at my current (not too awesome, gear set):

• Cunning 108
  
• Aim 1275
  
• Crit 96
  
• Surge 264
  
• Alacrity 58
  
• Power 1366
  

with these buffs/skills:

• Crit from Skills AND Buffs 14
  
• Alacrity from Skills 7
  
• Surge from Skills 15
  
• Aim from Buffs (not skills) 5
  

 

Now let us look at the Cast Counts for +100 and +200 Alacrity.

Adv. Med Probe Med Probe Bacta Infusion Hammer Shot

Base 80 89 16 115

Upgrade 1 85 106 17 92

Upgrade 2 82 96 17 105

 

As we can see, when we allow for the bonus regen of SCC and RC usage, I can actually get a decent benefit out of adding +100 Alac, gaining an impressive 5 AP and 17 MP. However, that gets me near optimal, and the next +100 Alac actually starts costing me 10 MP and 3 AP. The frequency of RC and SCC regen is fairly static, tied to a 2 min cooldown and the speed you can build 30 charges, which, since HS is always 1.5 seconds, is also nearly unaffected by alacrity.

 

So the initial calculator assumed Ammo-neutrality with only natural regen. Allowing for our other regen tools adds in a reasonable, but essential fixed, amount of bonus Ammo per minute, and some initial Alacrity can exploit that for increased casting. However, once that bonus Ammo is used up, increased Alacrity doesn't generate more, and we see the same effect appear where increased Effective Cost results in a loss of high HPS abilities in favor of HS.

 

I've seen some people argue that a free Hammer Shot is still free healing, but it comes at a price. As we can see from Upgrade 2 compared to Upgrade 1 above, that price is trading out MP casts. Even if you are at a point where you don't actually lose a cast, but you simply speed it up enough to weave an extra HS in, HS scales terribly. HS has a coefficient of 1, compared to 2.72 for MP. In my gear, +100 Alac means I save 1.5s every 14 cycles, which could let me fit in an extra Hammer Shot for 555 Healing. If that was power instead, each of my MP would land for an extra 61 Healing, which, over 14 cycles, adds up to 831 healing from MP alone, not including AP, BI, or HS usage in those cycles.

 

I'll do some more work and see if I can't find a value where MP usage peaks. That is independent of the other stats, so if we can maximize MP usage, or the sum of MP and AP usage, we should be able to say "Alacrity is good to here, and no further."

[RuQu]

As the regular readers of this thread know, I've been working on the problem of Alacrity for a while now.

 

It occurred to me earlier today that while the exact HPS value from Alacrity will vary with all of your stats, the number of AP and MP casts you can get in during a fixed number of casts depends only on Alacrity. Since those are our heavy hitters, and the only abilities limited by our Ammo, we can expect our HPS changes to mirror the changes in total AP+MP cast counts.

 

So that's what I did. I ran my rotation simulator for every value of 0-400 Alacrity, in increments of 5.

 

The Results!

 

That table shows the change in HPS as a percentage of the 0 Alacrity HPS (HPS_X/HPS_0) in blue, and shows the total number of times either Adv. Medical Probe or Medical Probe were cast in red. You can see that the trends are closely correlated.

 

So where is the peak? Soft Cap? What number do I need?!

Calm down, I'm getting there.

 

Peak HPS occurs in the range of 140-165 HPS, with about 2/3 of casts as either AP or MP, 193-197 out of 300 to be exact. 140, 145, 150 are your best values at 197, 197, and 196 casts respectively, but really anywhere in that peak is where you should probably aim for.

 

There is also a soft cap, which occurs at 315 Alacrity. At this point you AP and MP make up 180 of the 300 casts, but from 320 to 400 it drops to 160 then down to 150 and does not return. Do not gear for over 315 Alacrity.

[Mooby]

Appreciate the hard work RuQu, thanks a lot. Going to go over the numbers properly tomorrow and run my stats through the spreadsheet again as my brain cope with math well past 10pm

 

It's going to be extremely difficult to hit 140-150 Alacrity in Columi/Rakata gear due to so much of it carrys Alacrity as a base Enhancement, unless we start replacing 56 - 58 Mods and Enhancements with 50 - 51 variants, which will probably be worse.

 

By the way, how would this affect a Bounty Hunter with the slight difference in mechanics? That's might not be the easiest answer, and this isn't the Bounty Hunter forum, but I tend to use this guide as the go-to one so thought I'd throw it out there.

 

Just some food for thought, but thanks again for the work you put in.

[RuQu]

Appreciate the hard work RuQu, thanks a lot. Going to go over the numbers properly tomorrow and run my stats through the spreadsheet again as my brain cope with math well past 10pm

 

It's going to be extremely difficult to hit 140-150 Alacrity in Columi/Rakata gear due to so much of it carrys Alacrity as a base Enhancement, unless we start replacing 56 - 58 Mods and Enhancements with 50 - 51 variants, which will probably be worse.

 

By the way, how would this affect a Bounty Hunter with the slight difference in mechanics? That's might not be the easiest answer, and this isn't the Bounty Hunter forum, but I tend to use this guide as the go-to one so thought I'd throw it out there.

 

Just some food for thought, but thanks again for the work you put in.

 

Well, in the next patch you will be able to all of the mods out of raid gear, not just the mod and enhancement as now.

 

Of course, that still puts us in trouble if there is alacrity bound to the armoring.

 

As for BH, my understanding is that the Ammo mechanic mirrors Heat, just inverted. As far as I know, the stat weights and Alacrity peaks should be identical.

[Raani]

I don't think Armorings come with any secondary stats - just Endurance and Aim, so they shouldn't be an issue.

 

Mods do have a tiny amount of a secondary stat, but I've yet to see one with Alacrity. The only ones I've seen have either Crit or Power. I'm looking at Rakata pieces right now, for example, and the mods are either End/Aim/Power or End/Aim/Crit.

 

It's only enhancements that would be problematic, but I don't see replacing them with a crafted enhancement as a downgrade, necessarily. A 58 which is either half or full wasted itemization is inferior to a 50-51 with fully usable itemization.

 

I put my trooper on the backburner to level some alts for crafting, but I'm waiting for my friend to grind out some Power/Surge enhancements for me. I'm pretty anxious to try out this new set and run my new stats through the sim. Alacrity felt comfortable for me, but you can't argue with numbers.

 

Thanks for writing the spreadsheet and doing the math, RuQu. I did a quick read the other night and I'll digest it over the next few days, but it seems mighty useful. Great work, especially considering that you don't even have access to a combat log.

[RuQu]

I'm starting to run into the limits of what a Google Docs spreadsheet can do for me, and Im not giving Microsoft a bucket of money just to do this calculator. I already paid them for a copy of Windows 7 because EA didn't feel like publishing a Mac Client.

 

So I've started work on a C++ version. Strangely, the numbers coming out of the exponentials are different, so I need to track that bug down before I can use it for stat weights. I'll look into what is needed to put it on sourceforge or somewhere similar for download once it is available.

 

I have changed some of the assumptions that those rating caps are based on, and fixed one bug. I think the bug lead to the existence of the peaks, as I'm not currently seeing them in my latest iteration.

 

This chart shows the results with my updated rotation logic, and, as you can see, it is a pretty stead decline in AP and MP usage as alacrity increases.

 

Alternatively, there is this chart. This is the output of my C++ code, using forced 0.5% increments to the cast speed reduction from 0 (no skills or rating) to 39% (all skills plus the limit of what rating can do). It is interesting in that it shows that the number of casts stays steady, which makes some sense considering the Ammo restriction shouldn't allow too many more regardless, and then the number plummets at 25% cast time reduction. Because the only results I see out of the code are what I tell it to keep, as opposed to a spreadsheet that keeps everything, I can only speculate as to the cause. Around 25% is where you can fit in starting that 5th AP cast during SCC, so the Ammo loss due to the increase EC of all of that AP/MP spam coupled with casting a 5th combo might drop the regen low enough to cripple the rotation. Of course, one could argue that you simply wouldn't cast the 5th one since it would reduce your ammo too low, but then why stack the Alacrity that high? Then again, all of this is moot until I can get a handle on what is producing odd values from my C++ code.

[dirtyfingers]

Completely disagree.

Any comment on this spec?

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800rfRMobcdkqZRckZb.1

 

After doing some HM instances, i found out that the Kolto bomb rarely use. (Because weak heal and everybody move out all the time so just not worth to get one tank a 10%buff but i waste my global cooldown)

I decided to get rid of kolto bomb residue (although i keep a koltobomb), then go for rechargecell and Muzzle Flueting. With muzzle fluzeting, when SCC activate, it's like free spam of charge bolt.

 

Any idea? Or any better idea of spec if u decide not to use koltobomb?

 

this is my spec any comments on it would be greatly appriciated...

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#300bfRRRbcdkqZrMoZb.1

i think healing is realy good and never get any complaints but then again if i tweak him to even be a better healer i'm ears.