Surge Nerf Theory Crafting

[Rehsals]

For those interested in the numbers

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkYvaEVpHsu-dG1kYjFkMUpTcU5MOHdGeGV4Mk1oT3c#gid=0

 

Enormous nerf at the HIGH END (the opposite of what I expected)

 

This is another nice graph of the data.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ajq2cQXn3ZWAdFJ4YXQtbzRFdmVLYUVnd21Ga2FRWmc&output=html

[Rehsals]

Well please lets have a guide so we can all be leet like you ..

 

PvP Daily's.

They made getting both Centurion and Champion gear extremely easy to get.

 

Ilum/Belsavis Daily's.

Doing the dailys on these 2 planets grants Daily Comms.

Armoring/Mods/Enhancements are 8 each from the vendors on Ilum.

 

Getting the armoring should grant you 15k HP.

[Yescek]

PvP Daily's.

They made getting both Centurion and Champion gear extremely easy to get.

 

Ilum/Belsavis Daily's.

Doing the dailys on these 2 planets grants Daily Comms.

Armoring/Mods/Enhancements are 8 each from the vendors on Ilum.

 

Getting the armoring should grant you 15k HP.

 

Yep. What this dude said.

 

15k is a dime a dozen

[apeik]

Where are the vendors at that sell 23 mods and enhancements in ilum? Ive only been able to find armoring and hilts/barrels. Thanks.

[AngryBuddhist]

PvP Daily's.

They made getting both Centurion and Champion gear extremely easy to get.

 

Ilum/Belsavis Daily's.

Doing the dailys on these 2 planets grants Daily Comms.

Armoring/Mods/Enhancements are 8 each from the vendors on Ilum.

 

Getting the armoring should grant you 15k HP.

 

I got 200 daily comms I need to spend. Never bothered to look for the vendors though.

 

Anything there better than Champ gear?

[Rehsals]

Where are the vendors at that sell 23 mods and enhancements in ilum? Ive only been able to find armoring and hilts/barrels. Thanks.

 

Haven't been there in a while it's possible that they only sell the Armoring/Hilts/Barrels.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Rehsals

[Rehsals]

I got 200 daily comms I need to spend. Never bothered to look for the vendors though.

 

Anything there better than Champ gear?

 

Buy the Rakata implants/earpieces with those comms.

[Fugitivelama]

The surge nerf is honestly the last thing on the list bioware should have addressed. I play Imperial but looking at some of the inconsistencies in the "mirror" classes I know that they should have been way higher on the list than the surge rating nerf. How about fixing the stupid imperial quests on ilum that you can pretty much only finish on a tuesday before someone comes and bugs them. How hard is it to put a reset timer on a mission objective? GET YOUR Priorities straight here, Surge was not ruining anyone's game play experience but your millions of bugs cause by poor programming skills (causing Lag, DCs, poor framerate) are driving away your paying subscribers more and more everyday.

 

Just because people figured out surge was the best stat and went about getting surge enhancements in ways you didn't foresee does not mean it needed nerfing. This is how MMO's work , we figure out the best way to gear our character and do the most damage don't nerf every solution we have. Now everyone will stack power how long do we have till you nerf the DPS gain from Power?

 

It is very difficult to get 5k crits now, I will only get one if someone is a fresh 50 with 0 expertise and even then I usually drop them with 3 tracers before being able to use my 5k capable heatseeker missile. If the 5k hit medal exists stop trying to prevent us from getting it. It was never a given medal for any class, if you faced a decently geared group you probably were not going to get it no matter how hard you tried.

[Fugitivelama]

Where are the vendors at that sell 23 mods and enhancements in ilum? Ive only been able to find armoring and hilts/barrels. Thanks.

 

The vendors only sell armors/hilts/ and barrels. Save your daily commendations for the rakata implants and earpieces from the vendor on ilum. If you wanna grab two hilts or two barrels thats not so bad but purchasing all the armors you would need is kind of a waste of comms.

 

The mods and enhancements come from daily quests. On ilum Poisonous strategy gives you lvl 50 enhancements. On Belsavis Freeing the Fallen gives you level 50 mods and I can't recall which quest gives you the armors but it is a Heroic on belsavis.

[Tyrias]

From the point of view of my Sage in mostly champion gear, it's made one hell of a joke of the 5k single-heal medal.

 

At the moment, the only way I can get it is to wait till I'm out of combat and I've lost the Trauma debuff (or do it at the very start of a Warzone). Pop a +Power adrenal, a relic to bump up my surge, then pop Force Potency for a more-or-less guaranteed Crit, and THEN cast a Deliverance. For me it goes up to around 6k sometimes (which would mean that with Trauma, "maybe" as high as 4.2k).

 

Oh, and I've got to have are least 5k health lost that needs healing too (Although this can be easily achieved by just spamming Noble Sacrifice till you're low enough) for it to count.

 

I have no idea how I'm actually supposed to get it playing properly, and I'm 31 points specced into Sage, missing only talents that don't add extra healing.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Tyrias

[Boissi]

Responding to the hp debate: I'm in full centurion with champ implant, weapon, and a chest, and I've only got 14k hp on my sorc, hit 50 last week. It takes good gear, not just decent, to hit that 15k on some classes. Could go columi and lose expertise in exchange for hp, but I'll pass.

[Renlotho]

For those interested in the numbers

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkYvaEVpHsu-dG1kYjFkMUpTcU5MOHdGeGV4Mk1oT3c#gid=0

 

Enormous nerf at the HIGH END (the opposite of what I expected)

 

Hey Ammit this is Nai'Rillian (Sentinel) always have good fights with you cheers!

[Renlotho]

Responding to the hp debate: I'm in full centurion with champ implant, weapon, and a chest, and I've only got 14k hp on my sorc, hit 50 last week. It takes good gear, not just decent, to hit that 15k on some classes. Could go columi and lose expertise in exchange for hp, but I'll pass.

 

Psst...PVE gear is better than PvP gear after you hit 8% expertise.

[KKraken]

Im Full Champion, Full.

 

Never EVER ive had the 5k medal, NEVER.

 

Dont know where you guys play or against who but my bigest ever crit was arround the 4.6k

 

Was suprised to read all this whining about not geting 5k crits in pvp.

 

Tbh 5k crit I find it too much. A very well geared pvp tank has arround 21-22k? 25k the best geared ever (have not seen that but lets make the guess).

 

You are seriously whining because u cannot, with a single spell, take 25%-20% of their hp? you are serious? Rofl

[Zamm]

It's not even QUALIFIED to be a nerf.

Anyone that thinks it is please look at the actual numbers, and not the idea that you crit for less than you did.............

........

.............

 

 

Let's start with the basics.

Straight Percentage Increase - This is not affected by DR, that does not mean it isn't affected by caps. I.E. Talent for 30% Increased Critical Damage = 30% Straight Surge Increase....

 

Surge Rating - THIS is what was nerfed, this was ONLY nerfed if you hard stacked surge RATING. If that was you, I will leave my obscene comments out of this post.

 

Surge Cap - NOT. NERFED. Need explanation? I currently have 91.10%. I have 75 Surge Rating.

 

 

How to move on, instead of dwelling and complaining/OVER EXAGGERATING..

 

1) Find your favorite elitist website and copy their stuff.

 

2) Take the independant creative route. What did Surge do? Increase the POWER if your critical hits. Even before the nerf straight POWER had the potential to be better than Surge.

 

What it depended on was your chance to crit.

If you crit more times per second than you didn't crit, Surge was for you.

If you DID NOT crit more than non-crit and you hard-stacked Surge, then you've been gimping yourself since the beginning UNLESS you were INTELLIGENTLY calculating in your automatic critical abilities.

By intelligently, I mean an auto-crit every 9 seconds when your crit chance is at 10% is NOT WORTH stacking Surge for.

Ultimately YOU CHOOSE.

 

Here are two things you can mess around with for those of you that don't want to theorycraft:

 

1) Exotic Stats: Crit, Surge, Power, Your Choice.

It's not about having one super high, or them all super high.

It's about having them all at a GOOD level.

This means if you DO NOT happen to crit, you still have a nice amount of Power and your choice of a 4th stat that is supporting you.

 

It is time to stop stacking something if the amount it takes to raise it even 1% can be used to raise something else double or even tripple that.

 

2) Exotic Stats: Crit, Surge, Power, Accuracy

This is my personal preference.

How is it different other than the above?

How it's written here, it isn't.

But in application it is VERY different.

 

It's about how you balance out the stats, especially WITH the grain of your class's natural abilities/talents.

Accuracy does so much more then anyone gives it credit for, NOT TO MENTION those that don't actually know anything over 100% reduces the enemy's defenses.

 

Accuracy does more than that, but some of it may be false and only theory so I won't state it here.

 

The difference between 1) and 2) save the accuracy is the balance you choose.

1) Balance everything 1:1.

2) Pick your priority PAIR. With the nerf to surge that ONLY means you should hard stack it less and others more.

Keep in mind that Power can virtually be very similar to Surge.

If your ability's overall damage is increased, the amount of extra damage done on a crit is also higher due to 50% being more than it was...

With a decent crit chance, decent Surge, and decent power, you can be more devastating than you ever were with specifically Crit and Surge, but only if you do it RIGHT.

 

 

 

TL;DR:

 

Work past your weakness!

ily.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Zamm

[Asurai]

^ yep not a real nerf /log his guardian tank to play some huttball.

[LoL-K-Noob]

For those interested in the numbers

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkYvaEVpHsu-dG1kYjFkMUpTcU5MOHdGeGV4Mk1oT3c#gid=0

 

Enormous nerf at the HIGH END (the opposite of what I expected)

 

I was wondering, do you have any links for the other stats that is similar to that chart? It was nice seeing at 300 you should stop stacking surge because the next column is only 1% gain.

[Zamm]

^ yep not a real nerf /log his guardian tank to play some huttball.

 

o_O

 

Next you say something like you were hard stacking it because you depend on others for your stat weights and saw it as EASY MODE....

guardian tank?

lol'd.

Not a guardian, not a tank.

[Asurai]

o_O

 

Next you say something like you were hard stacking it because you depend on others for your stat weights and saw it as EASY MODE....

guardian tank?

lol'd.

Not a guardian, not a tank.

 

Im the one playing a guardian tank; and my post was sarcasm.

you are forgetting a very important in your analysis of other stats vs what surge did; while you can the same dmg or even more with power; it is "constant/average" damage which is king in pve but in pvp it does not trump burst damage even if the damage on average may be lower.a 10%+ surge crit nerf is huge and no amout of power(without sacrifing obviously) will give you the same buff in burst term but I agree its not as big as people are making it out to be.

[Talizzar]

Played lots of WZ's today and I never noticed a difference to be honest. Damage numbers seemed very similar to what they had been prior. Maybe it affect some classes more than others or those that speced surge over everything else.

[zugumbamamba]

I'm full champion with my MM sniper and I never crit for 5k before the patch. my highest critical was 4.5k. After this patch I only had one 4k critical. my criticals are roughly 3.8k now. if bioware wants longer fights then give snipers survivability to endure it.

[Zamm]

Im the one playing a guardian tank; and my post was sarcasm.

you are forgetting a very important in your analysis of other stats vs what surge did; while you can the same dmg or even more with power; it is "constant/average" damage which is king in pve but in pvp it does not trump burst damage even if the damage on average may be lower.a 10%+ surge crit nerf is huge and no amout of power(without sacrifing obviously) will give you the same buff in burst term but I agree its not as big as people are making it out to be.

 

Then I apologize, that was my misunderstanding!

 

In my opinion, you can get back to the burst damage that you were doing before this Surge nerf if you balance out Crit, Surge, and Power.

Where Surge begins to turn too diminishing, turn to Power.

 

Power is more lethal than Surge ever was or will be for classes that aren't one hit wonders.

If do your damage through MULTIPLE abilities, power is amazing.

 

I suspect you already know this, others likely do as well..

But maybe they need to really SEE what they know

 

Surge was NOT a global increase to damage.

It was a CONDITIONAL increase to damage.

 

Power IS a global increase to damage.

The more abilities you use to wreak havoc on someone the MORE of a benefit power is.

 

Let's say you do 100 increased damage from power.

Simple as that.

 

Attack 1: 100 more than normal.

Attack 2: 100 more than normal.

Attack 3: 100 more than normal.

Attack 4: 100 more than normal.

Attack 5: 100 more than normal.

 

That's 500 more damage you just did in 5 attacks.

Power works better than that, and is MUCH MORE potent than 100 more damage depending on how you balance it.

 

Now Surge at 75%.

 

Attack 1: *If you crit, you did 175% damage of your attack*

Attack 2: *If you crit, you did 175% damage of your attack*

Attack 3: *If you crit, you did 175% damage of your attack*

Attack 4: *If you crit, you did 175% damage of your attack*

Attack 5: *If you crit, you did 175% damage of your attack*

 

If your crit chance is 50%, then logically speaking you just crit on 2.5 of those attacks.

That means you did 175% damage of your attack 2.5 times.

The rest of them only did 100%.

 

But who ACTUALLY has a 50% chance to crit on all of the attacks they hit in that chain..

Who has that everytime they hit the chain AND 75% Surge.

 

Now, last chain.

 

Surge 75%.

Power 100.

Due to this all being stupid numbers to demonstrate the theory, we will say 100 power is equivalent to 100 extra damage. Your abilities normally do 1,000 damage.

Attack 1: 1,100 Damage. *If you crit, you do +75% of 1,100, not 1000.*

Attack 2: 1,100 Damage. *If you crit, you do +75% of 1,100, not 1000.*

Attack 3: 1,100 Damage. *If you crit, you do +75% of 1,100, not 1000.*

Attack 4: 1,100 Damage. *If you crit, you do +75% of 1,100, not 1000.*

Attack 5: 1,100 Damage. *If you crit, you do +75% of 1,100, not 1000.*

 

At greater numbers, not to mention the REAL multiples that power works by, AND that power affects heavier attacks much more than lighter attacks...

You not only deal more damage with EVERYTHING that is increased by your power, but you also deal more damage on a crit.

75% of 1,000 is 750.

So without the power you deal 1,750 damage on a crit under the stupid circumstances above.

 

With the power, on a crit you deal 75% more of 1,100.

Which is around 1,925 damage.

 

Power UNIVERSALLY increases damage along it's specified tree (tech, force, melee, blah blah.)

Surge is not universal, and neither is it chance. You will deal more damage on a crit, CRIT relies on chance.

 

Following the dummy values of power, if you didn't have that extra 100 power.

You would need a Surge Percentage of around 92% to deal 1,920 damage.

This is off of the 1,000 damage.

 

What is easier to stack?

100 Power?

17% Surge?

 

Even before the nerf, 100 Surge did not equal 17% Surge even if you didn't have ANY Surge Rating.

It came up to roughly 16%..

But at 75% Surge, that 100 Surge Rating was around 8-10%.....

The small nerf changed that even more...

 

 

Time to end this stupidly long post that no one will read, but it makes me feel good to end it in a way that can be argued with.

None of this information is based on ACTUAL data.

It is based on made up data.

SPECIFICALLY the amount of damage power provides.

If you would like to turn this very LOOSE theory into a good stat weight proportion, then by all means feel free to go find out how much power you want/can achieve and how much damage it will give your abilities.

 

Other than that.

I'm tired.

[ericdjobs]

Then I apologize, that was my misunderstanding!

 

In my opinion, you can get back to the burst damage that you were doing before this Surge nerf if you balance out Crit, Surge, and Power.

Where Surge begins to turn too diminishing, turn to Power.

 

Power is more lethal than Surge ever was or will be for classes that aren't one hit wonders.

If do your damage through MULTIPLE abilities, power is amazing.

 

I suspect you already know this, others likely do as well..

But maybe they need to really SEE what they know

 

Surge was NOT a global increase to damage.

It was a CONDITIONAL increase to damage.

 

Power IS a global increase to damage.

The more abilities you use to wreak havoc on someone the MORE of a benefit power is.

 

Let's say you do 100 increased damage from power.

Simple as that.

 

Attack 1: 100 more than normal.

Attack 2: 100 more than normal.

Attack 3: 100 more than normal.

Attack 4: 100 more than normal.

Attack 5: 100 more than normal.

 

That's 500 more damage you just did in 5 attacks.

Power works better than that, and is MUCH MORE potent than 100 more damage depending on how you balance it.

 

Now Surge at 75%.

 

Attack 1: *If you crit, you did 175% damage of your attack*

Attack 2: *If you crit, you did 175% damage of your attack*

Attack 3: *If you crit, you did 175% damage of your attack*

Attack 4: *If you crit, you did 175% damage of your attack*

Attack 5: *If you crit, you did 175% damage of your attack*

 

If your crit chance is 50%, then logically speaking you just crit on 2.5 of those attacks.

That means you did 175% damage of your attack 2.5 times.

The rest of them only did 100%.

 

But who ACTUALLY has a 50% chance to crit on all of the attacks they hit in that chain..

Who has that everytime they hit the chain AND 75% Surge.

 

Now, last chain.

 

Surge 75%.

Power 100.

Due to this all being stupid numbers to demonstrate the theory, we will say 100 power is equivalent to 100 extra damage. Your abilities normally do 1,000 damage.

Attack 1: 1,100 Damage. *If you crit, you do +75% of 1,100, not 1000.*

Attack 2: 1,100 Damage. *If you crit, you do +75% of 1,100, not 1000.*

Attack 3: 1,100 Damage. *If you crit, you do +75% of 1,100, not 1000.*

Attack 4: 1,100 Damage. *If you crit, you do +75% of 1,100, not 1000.*

Attack 5: 1,100 Damage. *If you crit, you do +75% of 1,100, not 1000.*

 

At greater numbers, not to mention the REAL multiples that power works by, AND that power affects heavier attacks much more than lighter attacks...

You not only deal more damage with EVERYTHING that is increased by your power, but you also deal more damage on a crit.

75% of 1,000 is 750.

So without the power you deal 1,750 damage on a crit under the stupid circumstances above.

 

With the power, on a crit you deal 75% more of 1,100.

Which is around 1,925 damage.

 

Power UNIVERSALLY increases damage along it's specified tree (tech, force, melee, blah blah.)

Surge is not universal, and neither is it chance. You will deal more damage on a crit, CRIT relies on chance.

 

Following the dummy values of power, if you didn't have that extra 100 power.

You would need a Surge Percentage of around 92% to deal 1,920 damage.

This is off of the 1,000 damage.

 

What is easier to stack?

100 Power?

17% Surge?

 

Even before the nerf, 100 Surge did not equal 17% Surge even if you didn't have ANY Surge Rating.

It came up to roughly 16%..

But at 75% Surge, that 100 Surge Rating was around 8-10%.....

The small nerf changed that even more...

 

 

Time to end this stupidly long post that no one will read, but it makes me feel good to end it in a way that can be argued with.

None of this information is based on ACTUAL data.

It is based on made up data.

SPECIFICALLY the amount of damage power provides.

If you would like to turn this very LOOSE theory into a good stat weight proportion, then by all means feel free to go find out how much power you want/can achieve and how much damage it will give your abilities.

 

Other than that.

I'm tired.

 

The problem is that power isn't just a linear increase in damage point for point. There's no diminishing returns on power, but power has different coefficients for both ranged/melee/tech damage, and abilities also all have different coefficients from their perspective bonus damage increase (melee, ranged, tech)

 

You'd have to factor in all this data, becuase it seems you are equating 100 power to a straight 100 damage increase. This simply is not the case, not even close.

[Slashtwo]

The amount of raw power you have is used in a function to generate another power stat that is used to modify ability damage depending on ability

 

Side note, I guess it will be slightly more interesting dealing with guarded healers and tanks in pvp.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Slashtwo