Power vs. Critical

[MrSchmo]

As a Senntinal, which is more important? Power or Critical?

 

I know critical increases you crit chance, what does power do? Just add to strength? Also whats Alitricty (sp) do?

 

Thanks in advance

[Jaerion]

This is taken from the Primer stickied in the Sentinel forum:

 

Power

Power is a flat 0.23 damage increase. If you add 1 point of power your base damage will go up by 0.23 points. It is important to note that your base damage is the damage modifier used when calculating the Critical multiplier as well as the amount of damage your normal attacks.

 

Power Scales linearly at a 0.23 rate. For each point of power you add, you gain an additional 0.23 primary damage.

 

Power	Damage Primary
41		9.6
94		21.6
138		32.2
172		40
225		52
236		54.4

Critical Strike

Critical strike increases your chance to get a critical hit thus triggering your critical multiplier damage. Given a large number of attacks, you will get a critical strike this percentage of the time. This stat is affected by diminishing returns pretty heavily.

 

Critical chance Scales Logarithmically with critical. For each point of critical you add it will return less and less critical strike chance. In the following table you can see that as you increase your critical it takes more critical per 1% crit chance:

 

Critical	Crit Chance	Critical / 1% Crit
44		1.92			22.9166666667
88		3.73			23.5924932976
136		5.56			24.4604316547
184		7.26			25.3443526171
194		7.6			25.5263157895
414		13.92		29.7413793103

 

 

Which I'd paraphrase as "Power makes you go pew pew (vwoom vwoom?) harder"

 

I hope that clears it up a bit.

[Fascion]

It should also be noted that Strength gives you 0.2 damage per point, as well as critical chance. Power, IMHO, is a last resort stat for a Sentinel.

[MrSchmo]

It should also be noted that Strength gives you 0.2 damage per point, as well as critical chance. Power, IMHO, is a last resort stat for a Sentinel.

 

Well now I'm confused. Obviously strength is number 1. But if I have mod choice of +strength and a sencondary stat of either Power or Critical, I should choose Critical?

 

Just a little lost in what I should be concentrating on. I thought power should be the 2nd stat to shoot for.

[Lomerell]

Power will increase your base damage whereas critical will increase your burst damage unless it becomes high enough to be considered "base damage".

 

At 30% crits on Ataru form hits and Blade Rush (Combat), crits are a major part of my build.

 

So I'm less interested in how to make my base (not critical) hits harder, which is Power, and more interested in seeing even more crits and making THEM hit harder.

 

My primary stat is strength followed by crit/surge.

 

What's interesting about the math is that crit (apparently) gives you diminishing returns, so there might be a point at which you're getting less bang for the buck for the next point of crit, and Power would be good instead.

 

I don't know what that point would be.

[MrSchmo]

Thanks for the info. I was just not understanding the math. But what you said sort of makes sense. I'll make sure I focus on Critical first.

[Jhayden]

it kinda sucks cause you don't have a combat log to look at, but from the primer description, i kinda feel like power might be more effective.

[Talyndor]

Just to muck things up a bit....b/c I am STILL not clear on this point (and I suspect there is no clear answer....that is a matter of play style and preference) I am actually mixing it up. and choosing both power and crit as a secondary stat with a slight edge to power.

Or....am I totally wrong doing this????

[MrSchmo]

Just to muck things up a bit....b/c I am STILL not clear on this point (and I suspect there is no clear answer....that is a matter of play style and preference) I am actually mixing it up. and choosing both power and crit as a secondary stat with a slight edge to power.

Or....am I totally wrong doing this????

 

Well since I didn't know, I've been doing a little of both. At lvl 31 I'm blowing mobs away sonic assume I'm doing something right.

[Jhayden]

it kinda sucks cause you don't have a combat log to look at, but from the primer description, i kinda feel like power might be more effective.

[Baradin]

Each Sentinel tree gives its most important attack a guaranteed crit. Focus auto crits on force sweep, combat auto crits on blade storm (every 9 secs no less), and watchman can activate Zen for 100% burn crits every 12-20 secs. Anyone that played a frost deathknight in WoW might remember that the frequent crits on obliterate/frost strike made the crit stat the worst stat to gear for by far.

 

I myself am gearing for strength > power > surge > > > crit.

Edited January 17, 2012 by Baradin

[DarrkLore]

Just to muck things up a bit....b/c I am STILL not clear on this point (and I suspect there is no clear answer....that is a matter of play style and preference) I am actually mixing it up. and choosing both power and crit as a secondary stat with a slight edge to power.

Or....am I totally wrong doing this????

 

That's what I do with my secondary stats. They all have a point of diminishing returns so you wouldn't want to go all-out on any one of them anyway.

[Fascion]

Each Sentinel tree gives its most important attack a guaranteed crit. Focus auto crits on force sweep, combat auto crits on blade storm (every 9 secs no less), and watchman can activate Zen for 100% burn crits every 12-20 secs. Anyone that played a frost deathknight in WoW might remember that the frequent crits on obliterate/frost strike made the crit stat the worst stat to gear for by far.

 

I myself am gearing for strength > power > surge > > > crit.

I feel this is a very common logic-leap being made by Sentinels (and others) which may not hold as much weight as one might think. The thing you have to remember is that all of these guaranteed crits are on a cooldown. What do you do in the interim?

 

At best, as a Combat, you have 7.5 seconds in between guaranteed criticals; five potential skill uses. With Focus, 10.5 seconds or seven GCDs. Watchman, at the absolute best, 8 (9, I think, figuring in the time it takes to burn off Zen under an ideal rotation) GCDs, if not many more.

 

If you are already invested into Surge for your guaranteed crits, wouldn't you want to crit more on the rest of your skills as well? Power just feels so... meaningless. The gains are just a hair above those gained from Strength, but lack the benefits of additional crit. At least with crit rating you are still pulling usefulness from another stat (surge.)

Edited January 17, 2012 by Fascion

[Lomerell]

I feel this

 

((str > power > surge >>> crit))

 

is a very common logic-leap being made by Sentinels (and others) which may not hold as much weight as one might think. The thing you have to remember is that all of these guaranteed crits are on a cooldown. What do you do in the interim?

 

At best, as a Combat, you have 7.5 seconds in between guaranteed criticals; five potential skill uses. With Focus, 10.5 seconds or seven GCDs. Watchman, at the absolute best, 8 (9, I think, figuring in the time it takes to burn off Zen under an ideal rotation) GCDs, if not many more.

 

If you are already invested into Surge for your guaranteed crits, wouldn't you want to crit more on the rest of your skills as well? Power just feels so... meaningless. The gains are just a hair above those gained from Strength, but lack the benefits of additional crit. At least with crit rating you are still pulling usefulness from another stat (surge.)

 

Agreed.

 

I'm Combat; it really doesn't matter to me that I can autocrit Blade Storm, for several reasons.

 

1. I can barely read the little buff icon for it and haven't detected a visual cue for Combat Meditation (or whatever the buff is that causes Blade Storm to crit)

2. There are times to use Blade Storm in my "rotation" regardless whether it crits; for instance, as an interrupt. Or to set up Pommel Strike versus trash. The crit, if it happens, is a bonus.

3. It's nice that my CD-laden Blade Storm is guaranteed to crit, but my staple abilities, mashed several times EVERY fight, are Blade Rush, Zealous Strike, Precision Strike. Blade Rush gets boosted crits, but no guarantees. Upping my crit can only help boost it from 30% to 50%.

4. I'm a light-and-fast combatant as a Sentinel. If I can make half my hits hit twice as hard (Crit) and then make them hit 1.8 times as hard instead (Surge) that's a lot of extra damage. Possibly comparable to what I could get from stacking power.

 

Nobody really knows for sure. I like big hard hits, so I stack crit/surge and I have no trouble with trash. I have yet to try much PvP or end game. I can also outDPS my Watchman friends in the short term.

 

A note about Watchman: Not sure about SWTOR mechanics, but in every other MMO, crit is usually a poor stat for dots because traditionally, dots couldn't crit. Since there's a talent that actually makes burns crit (the main hit or the actual ticks?) this might not be true. But if your ticks aren't critting, a good portion of your investment is wasted.

[Seriasx]

In pve power is better

In pvp crit is better

 

Both are good

[Storf]

Through testing of both power and crit rate setups with a level 50 (Combat Spec), i have found that i prefer the Crit setup. And here's why: I know a lot of people would say that since we have an attack that grants 100% crit chance with our best attack (Blade Storm), that crit rating is useless... But here's why i think your wrong.

 

Through testing, i have found that where Crit Rating shows the highest benefits is with Blade Rush. I was ripping through enemies with Blade Rush criting constantly for 1600-2200 damage (not including the ataru strike and offhand damage that follows). The thing with power is, that the only attack that benefits from it is Blade Storm. With crit, you see benefits with every attack. So i think the stats to aim for are Strength as high as you can get it>Accuracy to 100%>Crit to 30%>Surge to 90%>then power.

 

The best way i found to take advantage of Blade Storm with a crit setup is to use power relics and adrenals to temporarily maximize Blade Storms damage (doing this i was able to crit for 4400-4600). And then, once Blade Storm is on cooldown, spam Blade Rush.

 

So a good rotation would be (Against elites, first activate Inspiration, Power relic and adrenal) Force Leap, Opportune Strike, Zealous Strike, Precision Slash, Blade Rush, Blade Storm, Master Strike, then spam Blade Rush. Using this rotation, strong enemies will usually go down during Master Strike for me. If they don't, then usually all it takes is 1 or 2 hits from Blade Rush to finish the job.

Edited January 17, 2012 by Storf

[Ravrohan]

Through testing of both power and crit rate setups with a level 50 (Combat Spec), i have found that i prefer the Crit setup. And here's why: I know a lot of people would say that since we have an attack that grants 100% crit chance with our best attack (Blade Storm), that crit rating is useless... But here's why i think your wrong.

 

Through testing, i have found that where Crit Rating shows the highest benefits is with Blade Rush. I was ripping through enemies with Blade Rush criting constantly for 1600-2200 damage (not including the ataru strike and offhand damage that follows). The thing with power is, that the only attack that benefits from it is Blade Storm. With crit, you see benefits with every attack. So i think the stats to aim for are Strength as high as you can get it>Accuracy to 100%>Crit to 30%>Surge to 90%>then power.

 

The best way i found to take advantage of Blade Storm with a crit setup is to use power relics and adrenals to temporarily maximize Blade Storms damage (doing this i was able to crit for 4400-4600). And then, once Blade Storm is on cooldown, spam Blade Rush.

 

So a good rotation would be (Against elites, first activate Inspiration, Power relic and adrenal) Force Leap, Opportune Strike, Zealous Strike, Precision Slash, Blade Rush, Blade Storm, Master Strike, then spam Blade Rush. Using this rotation, strong enemies will usually go down during Master Strike for me. If they don't, then usually all it takes is 1 or 2 hits from Blade Rush to finish the job.

 

What are your stat numbers/% for this? I'm also a combat spec and use a rotation like that, but I'm not 50 yet (43) I just want to get an idea of what to shoot for

[MrSchmo]

Through testing of both power and crit rate setups with a level 50 (Combat Spec), i have found that i prefer the Crit setup. And here's why: I know a lot of people would say that since we have an attack that grants 100% crit chance with our best attack (Blade Storm), that crit rating is useless... But here's why i think your wrong.

 

Through testing, i have found that where Crit Rating shows the highest benefits is with Blade Rush. I was ripping through enemies with Blade Rush criting constantly for 1600-2200 damage (not including the ataru strike and offhand damage that follows). The thing with power is, that the only attack that benefits from it is Blade Storm. With crit, you see benefits with every attack. So i think the stats to aim for are Strength as high as you can get it>Accuracy to 100%>Crit to 30%>Surge to 90%>then power.

 

The best way i found to take advantage of Blade Storm with a crit setup is to use power relics and adrenals to temporarily maximize Blade Storms damage (doing this i was able to crit for 4400-4600). And then, once Blade Storm is on cooldown, spam Blade Rush.

 

So a good rotation would be (Against elites, first activate Inspiration, Power relic and adrenal) Force Leap, Opportune Strike, Zealous Strike, Precision Slash, Blade Rush, Blade Storm, Master Strike, then spam Blade Rush. Using this rotation, strong enemies will usually go down during Master Strike for me. If they don't, then usually all it takes is 1 or 2 hits from Blade Rush to finish the job.

 

Truly thanks for your input. But why does power only effect blade storm?

 

Still up in the air which Is better.

[BenRislove]

your offhand can crit, your Ataru form can crit, as far as I can tell neither is affected by power, at all.

 

Crit is stronger PVP, because big burst damage is the goal. Helps you outstripe the healing

 

For combat it seems like crit to 30%>Surge to 90ish>power. Obviously you want as much strength as possible.

 

Crit is basically the only way to increase your offhand damage, or your Ataru damage, if your combat, that is very helpful.

[Storf]

What are your stat numbers/% for this? I'm also a combat spec and use a rotation like that, but I'm not 50 yet (43) I just want to get an idea of what to shoot for

 

My current gear is mostly Crafted and Custom gear, (No raid or champ pvp gear yet) so there is still lots of room for improvement. My Current Stats are:

 

Strength = 1533 (With Biochem Stim, 1429 without)

Accuracy Rating = 154

Power = 152 (With Biochem Stim, 109 without)

Critical Rating = 494

Surge = 354

 

Damage (Pri) = 637-776

Damage (Sec) = 183-275

Bonus Damage = 358.6

Accuracy = 101.19%

Critical Chance = 30.95%

Critical Multiplier = 88.04%

 

Hope this helps.

Edited January 29, 2012 by Storf

[MBirkhofer]

dont we have a sticky for this?

 

Go over it over and over.

 

Crit and surge have soft caps. 50%. it is impossible to have more then +50% crit and +50% surge from crit and surge rating alone.

(Str crit and will crit are on a separate diminishing returns, as well as any talent.)

 

I don't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head. So I'll use examples.

Lets say at 10 surge rating, that gives you +5% crit damage

Well, 20 surge rating gives you +9%.

40 surge rating gives you +15%

80 gives +20%

160 gives +30%

320 gives +35%

640 gives +40%

100038439867439086 surge rating gives +49.5%

 

Same goes for crit.

 

So, at +25 crit, or +25 surge, or +25 power, if you don't have any surge/crit, surge and crit are way more powerful then power.

As that surge is multiplying against your weapon damage, ability damage, and str damage.

if 20 surge is giving 9% of a 1400 damage skill for example, clearly more then +6 damage that 25 power would give.

But, how much surge is 25 surge giving when you already have 300 surge? +.1%?

14 damage, with how much crit chance? 30%? 4.2 averaged.

While the 6 damage from power is going the other way. its 6 damage multiplied by 30% chance for criting for 110%. 10 average damage.

 

The exact point where diminishing returns is too much changes with skills, and your exact gear. Higher damage weapons mean higher value for crit and surge.

Leveling, str>surge>crit in that order. Do try to keep surge and crit fairly balanced of course. 120% crit damage with a 20% crit rate is silly.

 

Talents are separate from dimishing returns. adrenals are not.

So, you can get +100% crit damage from a silly amount of surge, and +30% from talents to various abilities.

I recommend 300 surge, and 400-500 crit as the point where power starts being useful.

Str augments are probably always best.

Get will datacrons. they totally buff force crit quite a bit. (damage as well)

 

Acc is fairly terrible.

strike is the only "normal" skill with 90% mh, and 57% offhand acc.

Rest are either special with 100% mh, and 67% offhand. or force attacks which are just plain 100% (sweep, bladestorm, stasis, crush, ataru)

Ones that are outright force, are not mitigated by defense at all. so straight up ACC does nothing for them.

Specials can be dodge/deflected by defense stat. Trans, sabreward, defense, 5% equal level defense. so in pvp, +5% acc is reasonable. going over, is fairly pointless. Raid bosses appear to have 0, though 5% is possible.

Acc does increase strike hit chance, AND offhand. but when considering how minor each of those uses are. If falls far far behind every other stat in gains. Take it, when you can't take something else.

Absolutely rip those +41 acc t2 enhancements out however. Those are awful.

[Storf]

Truly thanks for your input. But why does power only effect blade storm?

 

Still up in the air which Is better.

 

Power only benefits Blade Storm because Blade Storm already has a 100% chance to crit. Yes with higher power you may hit harder using blade storm, but all your other attacks will suffer for it. For example: Lets say you use blade rush 3 times. (Not including the ataru and offhand) With higher power, you might hit something like 700, 1,000, 900. But with Higher Crit, you will hit 1,800, 900, 2,100. All that matters during combat is getting your critical hits. They will do much, much more damage overall. Thats why i use power relics and adrenals specifically for blade storm, and then I let my crit rating take over for all my other attacks. That way you can have the best of both. Temporary high power for the one trick pony that is Blade Storm, and then sustained high crit for all other attacks.

Edited January 18, 2012 by Storf

[Deelow]

So I'm confused:

 

Strength>Power>Crit>Surge>Acc?

Explain which enhancements I should be taking please, 3 people saying different things and now I'm confused.

[Deelow]

Did my post cause a time space rift? Can someone simplify this?

[kakL]

As watchman with all the +crit for burns from my talents and stuff I'm going power, although at 50 PvPing the only option is what relic to take...the set is a mix between accuracy and power and surge and crit favoring none, also expertise of course.