Combat Medic PvE Guide (Updated for 1.2)

[RuQu]

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.

 

Fairly standard. Only thing I can see is that you are missing out on 1 point in Ironsights, for a loss of a 3% Aim buff. That's pretty huge. Do you use electro-dart and your knockback so often that the cost of them is a problem worth of that Aim loss?

[Fishcatch]

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?

Sorry if I come off an insulting, but getting rid of Kolto Bomb is rather ridiculous IMO- and yes, I run Hards too. The 10% damage redux buff and 5% incoming healing buff both make Kolto Bomb worth it- 10% hard damage reduction is huge. Like the difference between you keeping the tank alive through the last 5% of a Hard bosses' HP after enrage or having your party wipe kind of difference, not including the 5% increase to healing the tank receives. Of course, I tend to run with melee DPS, so I can usually hit all 3 with a KB. But still, even if you only hit the tank, it is well worth it IMO.

[RuQu]

Sorry if I come off an insulting, but getting rid of Kolto Bomb is rather ridiculous IMO- and yes, I run Hards too. The 10% damage redux buff and 5% incoming healing buff both make Kolto Bomb worth it- 10% hard damage reduction is huge. Like the difference between you keeping the tank alive through the last 5% of a Hard bosses' HP after enrage or having your party wipe kind of difference, not including the 5% increase to healing the tank receives. Of course, I tend to run with melee DPS, so I can usually hit all 3 with a KB. But still, even if you only hit the tank, it is well worth it IMO.

 

He said he kept Kolto Bomb, but ditched the residue. He said he used it rarely, and I think we would hope that hitting enrage timers was a rare occurrence. If you only heal 2 targets, KB isn't worth the cost. If you are the only healer, the residue isn't worth the cost because 5% boost to a MP that hits for 2785 (average with crit) is only 1392 gained, if you spammed MP for the entire duration, which is our biggest spell, but you can't afford to actually do. You would be better off spending that 2 Ammo and GCD on an extra 3 Ammo MP for 2785. The residue is absolutely worth it if you are in an Op with other healers, as 3 people will be getting bonus healing and you can make Sage AoE even better.

 

The value of the shield varies depending on if you have the residue or not. Without it, 10% of the incoming damage (which we don't have good numbers on since there is no combat log) needs to be greater than 2785, which means the boss needs to be doing 1857 DPS average for the 15s duration, or more. With the residue, you only need the boss to be doing 929DPS, which I'm pretty sure they do.

 

In the end, I think the math comes out in favor of speccing into the residue. While it isn't an ability we might use a lot, the ability to use it at the start of an SCC round to mitigate potentially huge amounts of incoming damage is great, and the math works out in its favor in those situations, even only on one person. That it can apply the shield to two others is just gravy.

 

However, considering it is a situational ability, it is to be expected that some people may rarely find themselves in those situations, and therefore rarely use it and feel those points are wasted. They may also be in that situation so rarely that when they suddenly are, they don't think to use it. While the latter will resolve itself with more experience, the former is a valid concern, and, while I recommend keeping those 3 skill points, is a valid reason to drop it if that fits their playstyle.

 

One final word of advice, if you ever feel like you need to add the phrase "Sorry if I come off insulting," you should consider rephrasing whatever you were going to follow that with. Instead of calling their stance ridiculous, and then simply stating that it gives buffs, you could say "IMO, KB is awesome. Here is the math that shows why."

[Rock_Spider]

Hello all... busy with an alt commando that I wanted to go up the healing route. Your guide has been an interesting read. Many thanks.

 

Just a quick question for commando healers....

 

How "desirable" are you for other PVE and PVP groups? Meaning... if a group is forming for a raid wouldnt they take a sage over you as a better group healer? Sure you can dps as well and are a semi tank but would dedicated dps/tanks/healers be better for most situations? Are we really as useful to groups as other healer specs?

 

Just dont want to level an alt where people think: "oh no not a wannabe healer".

[RuQu]

Hello all... busy with an alt commando that I wanted to go up the healing route. Your guide has been an interesting read. Many thanks.

 

Just a quick question for commando healers....

 

How "desirable" are you for other PVE and PVP groups? Meaning... if a group is forming for a raid wouldnt they take a sage over you as a better group healer? Sure you can dps as well and are a semi tank but would dedicated dps/tanks/healers be better for most situations? Are we really as useful to groups as other healer specs?

 

Just dont want to level an alt where people think: "oh no not a wannabe healer".

 

You will run into a little of this, mostly people who are uninformed or wandered into the Healer forums and saw the pile of "Sages are better than everything" threads and walked out without actually learning anything. If a guild refuses to take a Commando because they don't think they are "real healers," quit that guild with a smile because it is run by idiots and you will be better off in the long-run.

 

Currently, Commandos are considered the masters of MT healing, and a Sage/Commando setup is close to ideal. Sages might heal the group better (easier), but we can heal a single target better, and do it indefinitely. Feel for the Scoundrels, who are highly efficient healers but have zero burst healing capability, no cooldowns except their version of Recharge Cells, and no utility abilities.

 

I don't PvP, but my understanding is that we are in high demand. Just don't use Hammer Shot unless you want to be killed instantly. It is a giant green "Kill the Healer" beacon, and it doesn't heal for enough to be worth that. Otherwise, we live a lot longer than a Sage, Trauma Probe is awesome, your AoE dps is exactly the same as any other Trooper (Which is to say, the highest in the game), and your non-HS heals are powerful and discreet.

 

One correction to your post: we are not "semi-tanks." If you are getting hit, it's a problem. We may live slightly longer than a Sage, but we don't have any defense rating on our gear to avoid getting hit, and we can't use a shield to mitigate any of the blows that do hit. If something is hitting you, hit it with a Cryo Grenade to give the tank time to get it.

[dirtyfingers]

You will run into a little of this, mostly people who are uninformed or wandered into the Healer forums and saw the pile of "Sages are better than everything" threads and walked out without actually learning anything. If a guild refuses to take a Commando because they don't think they are "real healers," quit that guild with a smile because it is run by idiots and you will be better off in the long-run.

 

Currently, Commandos are considered the masters of MT healing, and a Sage/Commando setup is close to ideal. Sages might heal the group better (easier), but we can heal a single target better, and do it indefinitely. Feel for the Scoundrels, who are highly efficient healers but have zero burst healing capability, no cooldowns except their version of Recharge Cells, and no utility abilities.

 

I don't PvP, but my understanding is that we are in high demand. Just don't use Hammer Shot unless you want to be killed instantly. It is a giant green "Kill the Healer" beacon, and it doesn't heal for enough to be worth that. Otherwise, we live a lot longer than a Sage, Trauma Probe is awesome, your AoE dps is exactly the same as any other Trooper (Which is to say, the highest in the game), and your non-HS heals are powerful and discreet.

 

One correction to your post: we are not "semi-tanks." If you are getting hit, it's a problem. We may live slightly longer than a Sage, but we don't have any defense rating on our gear to avoid getting hit, and we can't use a shield to mitigate any of the blows that do hit. If something is hitting you, hit it with a Cryo Grenade to give the tank time to get it.

 

i basically just followed this guys information to build a healer and ran with it

http://www.swtor.com/de/community/showthread.php?t=181529

 

my build

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

Edited February 8, 2012 by dirtyfingers

[dirtyfingers]

and that person was u ru

[RuQu]

and that person was u ru

 

Yes, the moderators were kind enough to sticky it in both places, instead of locking one, because people looking for advice will often go to one or the other, not knowing the other exists.

[RuQu]

I am pretty confident with my new numbers for Alacrity, so I updated that section and the builds in light of the following:

 

I have done a great deal of work examining Alacrity for Combat Medics. In the end, I realized that our maximum benefit with Alacrity would correspond to our maximum usage of the only abilities that used it, AP and MP. Due to poor scaling, fitting in extra HS does not add enough HPS to offset the opportunity cost (HS scales at 1 * Bonus Healing, compared to 2.72 for MP).

 

I have been doing a lot of work trying to model Alacrity and how it benefits us. I eventually had to convert the Stat Calculator linked above into C++ so I could run multiple iterations. I am fairly confident of the results, but please, if you can point out problems, do so (politely) so we can get the best data possible.

 

The results of running a 300 cast rotation with 0-39% cast time reduction can be seen here. The blue line is the total number of AP and MP casts, which closely follows our HPS, as can be seen in this plot of HPS and Cast Count vs Alacrity. There are two spikes on these graphs, and it is worth pointing out that while the HPS value does depend on the rest of your gear, the Cast Count value does not, so these peaks should be universal.

 

The first peak is at 0-2.5%, and the later peak is at 14.5-16.5% (do not exceed 16.5, it plummets sharper on that edge!) 14.5-16.5% Alacrity is 165-230 Alacrity rating, with 9% from skill tree choices. Zero, Low, and High Alacrity builds are linked above. Depending on skill tree choices (0%, 2%, 9%) your Alacrity rating caps will be 70, 13, and 165-230, respectively. Do NOT exceed the caps.

[Fishcatch]

He said he kept Kolto Bomb, but ditched the residue. He said he used it rarely, and I think we would hope that hitting enrage timers was a rare occurrence. If you only heal 2 targets, KB isn't worth the cost. If you are the only healer, the residue isn't worth the cost because 5% boost to a MP that hits for 2785 (average with crit) is only 1392 gained, if you spammed MP for the entire duration, which is our biggest spell, but you can't afford to actually do. You would be better off spending that 2 Ammo and GCD on an extra 3 Ammo MP for 2785. The residue is absolutely worth it if you are in an Op with other healers, as 3 people will be getting bonus healing and you can make Sage AoE even better.

 

The value of the shield varies depending on if you have the residue or not. Without it, 10% of the incoming damage (which we don't have good numbers on since there is no combat log) needs to be greater than 2785, which means the boss needs to be doing 1857 DPS average for the 15s duration, or more. With the residue, you only need the boss to be doing 929DPS, which I'm pretty sure they do.

 

In the end, I think the math comes out in favor of speccing into the residue. While it isn't an ability we might use a lot, the ability to use it at the start of an SCC round to mitigate potentially huge amounts of incoming damage is great, and the math works out in its favor in those situations, even only on one person. That it can apply the shield to two others is just gravy.

 

However, considering it is a situational ability, it is to be expected that some people may rarely find themselves in those situations, and therefore rarely use it and feel those points are wasted. They may also be in that situation so rarely that when they suddenly are, they don't think to use it. While the latter will resolve itself with more experience, the former is a valid concern, and, while I recommend keeping those 3 skill points, is a valid reason to drop it if that fits their playstyle.

 

One final word of advice, if you ever feel like you need to add the phrase "Sorry if I come off insulting," you should consider rephrasing whatever you were going to follow that with. Instead of calling their stance ridiculous, and then simply stating that it gives buffs, you could say "IMO, KB is awesome. Here is the math that shows why."

Sorry, I'm not really a math person- I heal by observing what I feel works and what I feel doesn't. There are plenty of people who go all into the math theorycrafting, but I'm not one of them. I just have found from experience that my job goes a lot easier if I keep that buff up at all times on the tank, at the very least. When I was a noob healer, I rarely used KB, and I had to work a lot harder to keep people alive on bosses with lots of big spiky damage all over the place. After switching to using KB at the very least every 15 seconds when my ammo regen was at a respectable level, healing became much easier. Of course, my initial statement of incredulity only applied to my thought that he got rid of KB altogether- if it was simply the residue, that's less ridiculous.

 

In addition, I said I didn't mean to be insulting because I really didn't mean to be- I simply found it hard to believe someone could find KB un-useful. I was simply stating that opinion.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Fishcatch

[Uniclonus]

I am pretty confident with my new numbers for Alacrity, so I updated that section and the builds in light of the following:

Thank you for going to all the effort on this. Without all this crazy tracking and math you've done, I never would have realized I'd been unintentionally hindering my Commando by having dumped points into First Responder and none into Weapon Calibrations. I'll have to do some respeccing and gear adjustments soon.

 

Oh, I think you mixed up the labelling on the links in the Skill Tree Builds in the first post. I think you need to swap the names on the Zero and Low Alacrity build links. I could be wrong though.

[RuQu]

Thank you for going to all the effort on this. Without all this crazy tracking and math you've done, I never would have realized I'd been unintentionally hindering my Commando by having dumped points into First Responder and none into Weapon Calibrations. I'll have to do some respeccing and gear adjustments soon.

 

Oh, I think you mixed up the labelling on the links in the Skill Tree Builds in the first post. I think you need to swap the names on the Zero and Low Alacrity build links. I could be wrong though.

 

I think it was one of those calls of "Is it Zero because it takes zero alacrity skills, or zero because it has zero alacrity rating?" Honestly, I don't even remember which way I went.

 

I'm still engaged in vigerous argument with some people on a theory-crafting board as I try to get to the bottom of the alacrity question. I'm trying to keep this guide up to date with the current state of opinion, but nothing is quite settled yet. That's the joy of a new game.

 

Here is my latest plot from my C++ code. This was from a rotation that was far more ammo conservative, never letting you drop out of medium regen during SCC and never letting you cast AP or MP if it would drop you out of max during recovery,

 

While the peaks are far less noticeable in this one, you can see that at high alacrity levels your total AP and MP cast count decreases, in exchange for HS casts. Total HPS increases slightly due to slipping in more HS in the shorter total period (cast count was fixed, not rotation time). However, HS scales terribly, so that is a horribly inefficient tradeoff. On this plot, it is harder to see but I have the raw numbers, there is a small jump in the green line, which is AP and MP cast during SCC, at 5-5.5%. According to this plot, 2 points in First Responder and zero in Weapon Calibrations should be ideal.

 

This alacrity issue is still very much in flux, but trust me, I'll pass on any information as soon as I get it.

[Sheridyn]

How "desirable" are you for other PVE and PVP groups?

 

We are the best tank healers in the game - we can heal all day with no resource problems and have excellent flexibility in dealing with spike damage. That being said, Sage AoE healing is pretty much a necessity in raids. My guild's healing setup was 1 Commando healer and 3 Sages, and we cleared everything on Nightmare 16. Healing flashpoints as a Commando is fine from my experience, though you may be stretched with group healing at times.

 

As RuQu alluded to, Scoundrel is probably the weakest healer currently. I have one myself at level 50 and have raided on it several times. Scoundrel is very good at outputting a constant stream of healing, but requires a very strict rotation to manage Upper Hand, HoT stacks and Energy levels. It can't burst heal at all and you will energy starve yourself very quickly if you attempt to do so.

[Serialx]

Thanks for the great guide RuQu, I've been folowing your discussion about alacrity for some time now and just to make it clear: I was looking at that hps chart under the alacrity section and basically that means that we should try to keep our Activation Speed between 14.5% and 16.5% right? As of now i have 19.8%, 10.8% from gear, 9% from talents (rakata gear sux =| ). So i should drop that 5% talent and stay with 14.8%???

 

Thank you.

[RuQu]

Thanks for the great guide RuQu, I've been folowing your discussion about alacrity for some time now and just to make it clear: I was looking at that hps chart under the alacrity section and basically that means that we should try to keep our Activation Speed between 14.5% and 16.5% right? As of now i have 19.8%, 10.8% from gear, 9% from talents (rakata gear sux =| ). So i should drop that 5% talent and stay with 14.8%???

 

Thank you.

 

My philosophy is to toss out my current assumptions, results, and reasoning at every step of the process so people can correct me if I'm wrong. The plus side is getting corrected sooner, the downside is that the current best guesses may prove wrong.

 

Some people argued against those spikes saying that a good player wouldn't be as agressive with AP/MP usage during SCC if it put them in lower regen after it ended. I revised the algorithm to be more conservative, which is the plot linked above from the C++ code version. It isn't as easy to read, but there is a spike at 5-5.5%, which is, I believe when we can fit an extra AP into SCC, and another at 9-15%, where we can fit in an extra MP (I think). Because it is more ammo cautious, I believe these are slightly shifted versions of the previous peaks, and far less obvious because it so often chooses to use HS instead during SCC (the yellow line at the bottom). Any time you are casting HS during SCC, you have too much haste in my opinion, since that 10% buff to HS is wasted on such a terribly poorly scaling ability.

 

I'm sorry that it is impossible for me to not generate walls of text.

 

I would say that yes, according to my latest test runs you would benefit from reducing your alacrity to between 9 and 15%, and, since points spent to get higher alacrity are points not in other stats, I would say optimal is probably at 5%. Of course, you may have to wait until March to pull some of that extra alacrity out of your gear.

 

I am still learning C++, but once I have this calculator refined enough that I think someone who isn't me can use it, I will put it up on sourceforge for people to download, and it will have the same functionality of the current Google Docs one, only better.

[Serialx]

My philosophy is to toss out my current assumptions, results, and reasoning at every step of the process so people can correct me if I'm wrong. The plus side is getting corrected sooner, the downside is that the current best guesses may prove wrong.

 

Some people argued against those spikes saying that a good player wouldn't be as agressive with AP/MP usage during SCC if it put them in lower regen after it ended. I revised the algorithm to be more conservative, which is the plot linked above from the C++ code version. It isn't as easy to read, but there is a spike at 5-5.5%, which is, I believe when we can fit an extra AP into SCC, and another at 9-15%, where we can fit in an extra MP (I think). Because it is more ammo cautious, I believe these are slightly shifted versions of the previous peaks, and far less obvious because it so often chooses to use HS instead during SCC (the yellow line at the bottom). Any time you are casting HS during SCC, you have too much haste in my opinion, since that 10% buff to HS is wasted on such a terribly poorly scaling ability.

 

I'm sorry that it is impossible for me to not generate walls of text.

 

I would say that yes, according to my latest test runs you would benefit from reducing your alacrity to between 9 and 15%, and, since points spent to get higher alacrity are points not in other stats, I would say optimal is probably at 5%. Of course, you may have to wait until March to pull some of that extra alacrity out of your gear.

 

I am still learning C++, but once I have this calculator refined enough that I think someone who isn't me can use it, I will put it up on sourceforge for people to download, and it will have the same functionality of the current Google Docs one, only better.

 

Walls of texts are fine xD I'm a theorycrafter like you and I love to research and keep up with the math behind my skills and such.

So I'll try my best here to reduce this alacrity, I may be able to get some rakata pieces if no one uses them in my raid and get the eliminator's set enhancements, they have some power/surge enhancements to replace my alacrity ones, it will take a while tho.

 

But hey your spreadsheet is awesome, and I thank you again for bringing this to the community and for the help on the alacrity matter, looking forward to see how that c++ one will work.

Its been a while since I programmed in C but let me know if i can help you with something.

[RuQu]

Walls of texts are fine xD I'm a theorycrafter like you and I love to research and keep up with the math behind my skills and such.

So I'll try my best here to reduce this alacrity, I may be able to get some rakata pieces if no one uses them in my raid and get the eliminator's set enhancements, they have some power/surge enhancements to replace my alacrity ones, it will take a while tho.

 

But hey your spreadsheet is awesome, and I thank you again for bringing this to the community and for the help on the alacrity matter, looking forward to see how that c++ one will work.

Its been a while since I programmed in C but let me know if i can help you with something.

 

I'm in the process of teaching myself from a book, so this conversion is my sort of self-assigned homework project. Already it is proving more powerful than the spreadsheets. Every couple of chapters I learn a way to rework it and make it better.

[maxbaby]

Hi again, RuQu. Thank you again for all hard work.

 

I have another question in light of Patch 1.1.3.

What do you make out of this change:

 

Surge rating has been re-balanced. It now reaches diminishing returns the same way as other damage ratings, and its per point damage contribution has been reduced by approximately 10%.

 

Thank you.

Edited February 10, 2012 by maxbaby

[HellboundDrunk]

Just made level 10 last night, and it took me awhile to chose what AC & path to take, thx for all the good info, keep up the great work, you have made the chosing process alot easier.....now hopefully i dont blow donkeys trying to play a Combat Medic

[Xeon]

I have another question in light of Patch 1.1.3.

What do you make out of this change:

 

Surge rating has been re-balanced. It now reaches diminishing returns the same way as other damage ratings, and its per point damage contribution has been reduced by approximately 10%.

 

If that's true, then it pushes power higher on the stat list.

 

After 1.1.3, I rebalanced some of my gear towards power, dumping Alacrity and Surge and I noticed a significant increase in my effectiveness as a healer. Yes, my crits were not as large as before (in part because of the 1.1.3 patch) but my healing seemed more predictable.

 

Aim > Power > Crit > Surge > Alacrity

 

I got crit to 200, surge to 300, then I start working power into the mix.

[RuQu]

Hi again, RuQu. Thank you again for all hard work.

 

I have another question in light of Patch 1.1.3.

What do you make out of this change:

 

Surge rating has been re-balanced. It now reaches diminishing returns the same way as other damage ratings, and its per point damage contribution has been reduced by approximately 10%.

 

Thank you.

 

I just updated the calculator with the new Surge equations.

 

Nerf was pretty brutal. Cut surge value in half for the given gear values someone had set, and, of course, decreases the value of crit as well a bit.

[Raani]

I could use your help figuring out these results. I've been working on my Sage alt and my Gunnery set, so I haven't had the time to change anything about my healing set, although I've been following your thread daily. Hence, this gear set is loaded with Alacrity, since I just have the enhancements from dailies. My friend can make me different enhancements, but I'm trying to figure out which combination would give the most mileage.

 

My stats (yes, crappy gear, but that's what I have to work with for now):

 

Aim: 1418

Cunning: 100

Crit: 30.16% (of which 9% from talents - 6% from Field Training and 3% from Special Munitions; 142 Critical rating from gear)

Surge: 73.27%; 155 rating (I have 5/5 Potent Medicine, for a 15% Surge bonus)

Alacrity: 14.49% static (349 rating; 4% from Weapon Calibrations); 19.49% with First Responder up, which is most of the time.

 

Results - stat weights for my current gear

 

Power 0.29040570896177 ---> 1

Aim 0.29254716182163 ---> 1.00737400400122

Cunning 0.058598637517207 ---> 0.20178197504003

Crit 0.31944026697261 ---> 1.099979294879

Surge 0.18123433188612 ---> 0.62407289627345

Alacrity 0.21262979679614 ---> 0.73218187602547

 

The way I read this, and this is where I'd appreciate some assistance, is this:

 

1. My Crit is very low, to the point where its weight is higher than Aim's, so any further modifications or item replacements need to have Crit on them.

 

2. Aim is only slightly better than Power at this point.

 

3. Despite the fact that my Alacrity is at obscene levels, it's still better than Surge?

 

 

Questions:

 

1. How do I calculate exactly how much Crit I need?

 

2. I have no idea what enhancements to use instead of my Power/Alacrity ones. It seems like the ideal one would be Crit/Power, but I don't think it exists. I have some Crit/Surge ones in my DPS set, but they hardly seem ideal.

 

This Surge nerf messed up my plans to plug in some Power/Surge enhancements.

 

I feel like I'm missing something, since Alacrity should logically be bottom of the barrel for me, given that it far exceeds the caps you calculated.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Raani

[RuQu]

You didn't tell me how much Power you have, which affects how hard things hit and influences all the other stats.

 

I guessed 1400, which is probably low.

 

I was just checking this before bed after spending the last 8+ hours working on the C++ version of the calculator. It ain't exactly a GUI, but I have an easy to follow menu system running now, and it produces both tank mitigation weights (really easy) and Commando / Mercenary healing weights.

 

I think I've got most of the bugs out of the Commando rotation, so I might polish it up a little over the weekend and try to get it out there for people to abuse a little, make suggestions, etc.

 

Anyway, I figured I'd plug your values in and see what it spat out for weights.

 

• Power: 1 (obviously)
  
• Aim: 0.984 (Aim provides 0.14 bonus healing vs 0.17 from Power, so you are past the point in Aim's crit curve where the crit was worth more than 0.03. Not that you can ever really trade Aim for Power).
  
• Crit: 1.057
  
• Surge: 0.5662
  
• Alacrity: 0.6837
  
• Cunning: 0.2294
  

 

While this is all still a learn as we go, I'm more confident of the C++ numbers than I am of the spreadsheet. It might very well still have bugs, but I know the spreadsheet does (ie, it overvalues Aim because I accidently apply the Ironsights buff to all Aim calculations, when it should only apply to the Upgrade calculations because it is already reflected in your Character Sheet. Just haven't had time to fix it.) I'm also working on the C++ code more, so I'm more likely to catch things.

 

Both the public spreadsheet and the C++ calculator reflect the Surge nerf.

 

On to the specific questions:

 

The way I read this, and this is where I'd appreciate some assistance, is this:

 

1. My Crit is very low, to the point where its weight is higher than Aim's, so any further modifications or item replacements need to have Crit on them.

Yes, crit has become your best stat.

2. Aim is only slightly better than Power at this point.

That's a bug. I'll try and fix it soon. Easy fix, just a matter of finding the time between other projects and actually playing the game on occasion.

3. Despite the fact that my Alacrity is at obscene levels, it's still better than Surge?

My C++ numbers put it worse. As discussed, Alacrity is tricky, and it can fluctuate wildly over small changes, but in general I honestly believe it is pretty terrible for us. We are balanced around a 9s cooldown and a 21s cooldown. If you are finding yourself missing a heal by 0.25s, there was probably something else going wrong besides a lack of alacrity. I, myself, have 13 Alacrity on my gear (easier to avoid, my gear is pretty crappy at the moment).

 

Questions:

 

1. How do I calculate exactly how much Crit I need?

There is no exact answer. I am hoping to be able to set up my C++ calculator so it produces some .csv (comma separated variable) files that you can natively open in Excel or Google Docs, which will have the curves for different stats. Since Power is linear with no DR, we should hope that we could see where other stats cross that line, and that would be an optimal value for them.

 

I don't have this data yet, although I'm getting there. I produced a few tentative first attempts, but there are some questions about how to proceed. Do you plot the HPS of each stat over a large range, holding the others steady? Do you let the others shift as well, if so by how much? I can generate a plot, for instance, where nothing but crit changes, is that meaningful? I'm not sure.

 

What about a plot where I plot the stat weights (current), then increase all the stats by 10%, calculate their weights and plot them, then do it again? That would show a sort of changing of weights as item budget increased.

 

There's also the idea of simply coding an optimizer that tries to get all the secondary and tertiary stats as close together as possible. Since you can't generally trade crit for surge or power for alacrity, this might be easier or harder than it seems at first glance. Aim is constant, and the choice is really Power vs Crit and Surge vs Alacrity.

 

2. I have no idea what enhancements to use instead of my Power/Alacrity ones. It seems like the ideal one would be Crit/Power, but I don't think it exists. I have some Crit/Surge ones in my DPS set, but they hardly seem ideal.

 

I don't have the upgrade calculator working yet on my C++ code, but my current weights for you put Crit > Power and Surge > Alacrity, and those are really the two trades we are able to make. Off the cuff I'd say try and maybe swap out 40% of them for Crit/Surge, then rerun the numbers. I'll try and post this C++ thing online as a beta for you before the weekend is up.

This Surge nerf messed up my plans to plug in some Power/Surge enhancements.

Yup. Still better than Alacrity by my calcs, and I just don't trust alacrity. We can probably thank the PvP criers for this one as well, since it further reduces burst potential.

I feel like I'm missing something, since Alacrity should logically be bottom of the barrel for me, given that it far exceeds the caps you calculated.

 

Yeah, not sure what's going on there, but I'd start dumping that Alacrity. Part of it is that the rotation logic on the spreadsheet is a few iterations of date from the logic I use in the C++ one. In discussion of those peaks I produced, some people made the point that it should never produce a negative result because the player could always choose to not cast any faster even though they could, so at worst it should flat line. I made the algorithm a little more conservative, and now it is much more like a flat line, which, considering that there is an opportunity cost present, means it is a really poor choice. Interestingly, if I plot it over a large range of Alacrity values while holding the others all constant, even playing quite conservatively there are still some wild and crazy swings.

 

Alacrity is weird.

[maxbaby]

I found this enhancement

http://www.torhead.com/item/bPhxWY2/advanced-reflective-enhancement-22

(haven't found in game but if there is a green schematic then it is possible to progress to purple)

 

+27 power, +27 crit at the expense of surge with my stats gives +HPS

 

Cunning 130

Aim 1773

Crit 270

Surge 376

Alacrity 77

Power 1502

 

Crit from Skills AND Buffs 14

Alacrity from Skills 9

Surge from Skills 15

Aim from Buffs (not skills) 5

 

So sacrificing surge for power, crit combo gives better results. At least as I see it from calculator.

 

Also, Alacrity is still strange with me. The aforementioned 14-16% don't really sit well for me and I feel it's a waste of stat to invest so much into alacrity. I do feel though that 9% give a slight advantage in OMG burst situations with AMP/MP is but it's a gut feeling and nothing more.

[Raani]

Thank you for the reply, RuQu. I apologize about forgetting the Power value - it's about 1500 (1494? 1495? something like that; my pet is wearing my healing gear and she's on a mission, so I can't check).

 

I'm going to try Power/Surge enhancements then and see what I can do about getting some Crit on my non-moddable pieces.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible for a Power/Crit enhancement to exist, since they seem to consider Crit/Power/Defense as secondary stats, and Surge/Alacrity/Shield/Accuracy as tertiary stats. They always combine one secondary with one tertiary, so I think that Torhead has some datamined stuff that didn't actually make it to live.