Crit vs power for Arsenal

[Mokbar]

I've been playing arsenal since launch but I've been wondering these past few weeks if Arsenal is better off stacking crit or power on gear (aside from the tier gear because of the bonus).

 

I ask because of Terminal Velocity's proc that eliminates 8 heat for every crit with an internal cooldown of only 3 seconds which is only like 2 GCD, I think and I've seen its tick help make unload my main heat reducing ability. Most gear named "Eliminator" has power on it and power is all well and good but I wonder if I shouldn't be trying to keep that 8 heat drop occuring as often as possible because I'd rather another tracer missile or something rather than have to do a rapid shot.

 

So the question to be specific is: Greater power overall or try for better heat management for special abilities?

[Cobblars]

Have been wondering the same thing myself.

 

Take the Columi Eliminator's Vambracers (what Arsenal Mercs should be buying I suppose) ... they have:

 

80 Aim

69 Endurance

34 Power

 

Where as the Merc healers bracers, Columi Combat Medic Bracer's have:

 

80 Aim

69 Endurance

34 Crit Rating

 

Since lvling and since getting gear from FP's etc I've tended to lean towards the Crit and not the power. So the choices above surprises me somewhat.

 

Just a good job that these do not go towards the set bonus, ie so that if I do choose to go with the healer bracers I will not get penalised for doing so.

 

Personally though, I'd prefer the crit and at over 30% crit right now I'm finding my dmg is pretty acceptable. However, power will buff the white dmg and that of crits, so perhaps crit isn't the right way to go.

[Statsvalk]

I'd say: keep them all balanced

 

at the moment my BH is sitting at a very acceptable 33.5% crit which makes the heat dump on my tracer go off more than enough to avoid major heat problems in bossfights (most off the time) i'm not 100% sure but i did think there were diminishing returns when stacking more crit rating just like it does on surge (which i keep around 80%)

 

how i look at power: it affects all damage you put out and even multiplies on crit making it the best tertiary stat out there. when one simply collects a full set of pve gear one can expect to be fairly balanced in these areas

 

just to sum up: Aim > Hit (untill 110%) > crit/surge > power

[ManiacalShen]

I think the standard reply to this thread is something like:

Crit to 30 or 30%, depending on who you ask (there's a soft cap for diminishing returns)

Surge to 80

Power all the way after that

[jin_ga]

Just remember the 15% TM/unload crit from 2s bonus and the IA's 5% crit (which you should have for operations). So if you've got 30% crit unbuffed, which is easy to get, that would equal 50% crit on your Tracer Missiles and Unload. The effect can only occur every 3. sec and TM has a 1.5s cast.

Personally I expect TM to be my main Terminal Velocity proc. I spam TM and use Unload only on Barrage proc. I usually dont have any heat issues except using e.g. fusion missile and explosive dart on packs of adds, but then I try to have a thermal sensor override ready.

[McGarnagle]

I think the standard reply to this thread is something like:

Crit to 30 or 30%, depending on who you ask (there's a soft cap for diminishing returns)

Surge to 80

Power all the way after that

 

That surge is way too high and crit slightly low.

 

Surge has severe diminishing returns at about 75% (diminishing returns start before that, but above 75 it takes a ton of surge). So that should be about the max. As for crit, anywhere from 30-34% (for tech).

 

You will find gear plays a major role and the makeup of enhancements in the gear. I forget all the high level enhancements, but the only dps with power and surge (the rest are power/alacrity or power/accuracy) are columi level with low levels of power and high levels of endurance. IIRC, the columi tech helmet has the enhancement with low endurance and high crit/surge (it's also in the IA gloves IIRC). That is a nice one to keep putting in other gear, even if you have rakata since all rakata dps enhancements have accuracy (which becomes useless to stack, and Bioware really needs to change). not sure if there is a low endurance, high power/surge enhancement. I know I have one with power/surge, but it's a much lower amount of power than the crit in the crit/surge one I mentioned.

 

So you can't just straight up replace crit with power (at least not in a 1:1 ratio). Perhaps I am missing an enhancement though that is in another classes's gear or pvp gear. If you do have a 1:1 exchange (like the bracers) I go with power since I can stack crit/surge through the enhancements.

 

Just remember, the more crit you have the better your heat management. So stacking crit up to 34% is still good even if overall attack numbers dip slightly vs. power. Add in the IA buff, the 2 piece PVE bonus, and tracers crit 54% of the time. That really keeps the heat reduction hitting all the time.

Edited March 11, 2012 by McGarnagle

[bahdasz]

I've been playing around with it and I can't really decide on the happy medium. Probably concentrating on crit and surge is the best way to go for PVP. The only way I can see that screwing you is against a target with heavy defense where your accuracy rating would be a key factor. Right now I'm stacking aim first, then power then surge, then crit, which is leaving me in the high-mid 20's for crit and making my non-crit attack damage hella high (which makes the crits hit harder also). Unfortunately I've only got to do much with it in PvE.

 

In PvE I actually think it's at least comparable if not a little superior to stacking crit and surge; but, I don't know how it will work out in PvP yet. I don't get to PvP enough to make a good comparison, beside the fact that I am by far not the world's champion PvPer. It would be a good experiment for a full time PvPer to try I think, because they can no kidding see when there's a difference in their performance. There are too many variables and no matter how good something looks on paper, without a combat log it's friggin near impossible to get solid data.

[Dreamerii]

I tested playing with 35,6% crit for a couple of days just to compare the heat problems and criticals with the other abilites apart from TM against what i have now, 31,2% and i cant see any big difference in critical hits or heat problems. I think i crit just as much with UL, HSM and RS also so in my opinion going much above 30% isnt worth it. Get crit to 30-32 and leave the rest to surge/power. But of course the aim should be 110...

[McGarnagle]

I tested playing with 35,6% crit for a couple of days just to compare the heat problems and criticals with the other abilites apart from TM against what i have now, 31,2% and i cant see any big difference in critical hits or heat problems. I think i crit just as much with UL, HSM and RS also so in my opinion going much above 30% isnt worth it. Get crit to 30-32 and leave the rest to surge/power. But of course the aim should be 110...

 

Is that ranged or tech. If that is ranged, yeah, around 31-32 is a good spot (making tech 32-33). 34 should be about the top end. After that you run into the fact you can only reduce heat every 6 seconds IIRC, so there are diminishing returns there too.

 

BTW...I stated above I was not sure there was a power/surge enhancement the same as crit/surge. There is. So it can be swapped 1 for 1.

 

Anyway, what I have gone with is tech crit around 33% and accuracy around 107% (for special and tech). Once you are to that point, stack power (surge comes along for the ride). Of course in order to get surge instead of accuracy on PVE gear, you need to use columi enhancements in some of your gear. Rakata enhancements all have accuracy, and a full Rakata set takes accuracy way too high.

 

Of course aim is king of them all, so any time you can gain aim do it (assuming you are not giving up a ton of other stuff). Some combat tech gear comes with more aim and less endurance (like the helm), and it's the base stats not mods. So having 1 piece of that is a plus too (some go for 3 and give up the 4 piece which is a 8 reduction in heat for railshot).

Edited March 11, 2012 by McGarnagle

[Dreamerii]

Yeah, its ranged i am talking about.

 

What is that 107% Accuracy you talking about? Shouldnt it be 110% (+220)?

I think the Rakata gear gives perfect accuracy (i only have 3/5 and both implants and earpiece tho). I have atm +230 Accuracy, i know its 10 too high but better that then too low i think...

[Diddley]

Arsenal is all about burst damage so start with surge > crits > power in that order. As an arsenal merc you should be screwing accuracy, gutting it out of your gear for surge, crit chance and power instead. I hardly ever miss with ranged weapon attacks except off hand, and tech is over 100% at base level so that never misses in my experience. Accuracy is NOT your stat. Just because its in the gear dished out by BW doesn't make it right.

 

Anyway I would aim for about 32-34% chance, and 75-77% surge as you start to hit hard diminishing returns. Then stack power. Power does not hit diminishing returns in the same way, therefore if you stack a power adrenal and relic you will crit for 5k plus in PvP with heatseeker if you've got your heat sigs up. With those stats a crit/surge adrenal will not get you very far at all.

 

So to conclude, surge> crit > power. Use power cool downs

 

Don't forget you get 15% TM crit chance in your first tier bonus too!

Edited March 12, 2012 by Diddley

[Yazule]

Arsenal is all about burst damage so start with surge > crits > power in that order. As an arsenal merc you should be screwing accuracy, gutting it out of your gear for surge, crit chance and power instead. I hardly ever miss with ranged weapon attacks except off hand, and tech is over 100% at base level so that never misses in my experience. Accuracy is NOT your stat. Just because its in the gear dished out by BW doesn't make it right.

 

Anyway I would aim for about 32-34% chance, and 75-77% surge as you start to hit hard diminishing returns. Then stack power. Power does not hit diminishing returns in the same way, therefore if you stack a power adrenal and relic you will crit for 5k plus in PvP with heatseeker if you've got your heat sigs up. With those stats a crit/surge adrenal will not get you very far at all.

 

So to conclude, surge> crit > power. Use power cool downs

 

Don't forget you get 15% TM crit chance in your first tier bonus too!

 

this is a pvp point of view, for raiding and end game pve content it is all about throughput...

 

so crits are #1 (due to venting in arsenal from crits) and the more crit you have the better surge works for you, but i have set my surge limit to around 70% then stack power (no diminishing returns on power)

 

we basically agree, you just put more emphisis on surge than I do, after about 72% power and surge seem to have about the same effect, and 77% surge is way into diminishing returns, and aim is IMPORTANT in pve to 110% and aim is IMPORTANT in pvp if you want to hunt tanks...

Edited March 12, 2012 by Yazule

[Diddley]

See, I feel confident ditching accuracy knowing the majority of my abilities are tech which is 100% at base level. In fact there only a few abilities I use which are ranged and even then it is very rare that I miss in either PvP or PvE at 94%. It is of course subjective but my in game results are at odds with the belief that accuracy is important.

 

I would say 77% is at the cusp of what is still useful (though of course diminished), however my reasoning is that you can't get enhancements which have just crit and power, only crit/surge, surge/power so it just ended up that way raising the other two stats. I have kept my rakata/bm accuracy enhancements in case I decide to respec but I honestly don't see the point. The benefits I've gained from stacking everything except accuracy gives me excellent burst damage.

 

Bottom line, this is why we need dps meters!

 

P.S. I'm actually more into raiding than pvp anyway. The power cooldowns still apply to raiding and are still more useful than crit adrenals etc.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Diddley

[Yazule]

See, I feel confident ditching accuracy knowing the majority of my abilities are tech which is 100% at base level. In fact there only a few abilities I use which are ranged and even then it is very rare that I miss in either PvP or PvE at 94%. It is of course subjective but my in game results are at odds with the belief that accuracy is important.

 

I would say 77% is at the cusp of what is still useful (though of course diminished), however my reasoning is that you can't get enhancements which have just crit and power, only crit/surge, surge/power so it just ended up that way raising the other two stats. I have kept my rakata/bm accuracy enhancements in case I decide to respec but I honestly don't see the point. The benefits I've gained from stacking everything except accuracy gives me excellent burst damage.

 

Bottom line, this is why we need dps meters!

 

P.S. I'm actually more into raiding than pvp anyway. The power cooldowns still apply to raiding and are still more useful than crit adrenals etc.

 

oh i hear you about dps meters, my assumptions are based on the curves from sithwarrior.com and before the surge purge (i love that little saying) i would have said 80 surge but after i lowered its value what I *think* is appropriate.

 

just a combat log, dps meters are just a lazy mans combat log after all, i will DL a out of game parser to check my data... 1.2 will be a good thing