Why Creeping Terror Needs a Buff (until then you may want to steer clear of it)

[Nilxain]

*For the purpose of this analysis we will assume the encounter is 18 sec long.

 

So, as Creeping Terror is a DOT and the encounter is 18 sec long then I will treat Creeping Terror as having only the cost of 1 GCD, and will be comparing it to Thrash.

 

Why Thrash vs. Creeping Terror(CT)?

 

Since without any crits involved both crushing darkness and discharge are more DMG than either thrash or creeping terror, this eliminates the question of whether they should be put on equal footing with Thrash and/or CT. But, once discharge is up you need to thrash to get crushing darkness up, and once crushing darkness is up, the question is:

At any point do you want to spend a GCD on Creeping Terror or do you want to just Thrash your heart out? I believe the answer, from a pure damage standpoint, is Thrash.

 

This is why:

 

My Thrash = range of 528 – 624 x2

My Creeping Terror (CT) = 1443

(Will use the average of the numbers my thrash does, 1152, non crit).

 

Now, at first look one might say that Creeping terror is more damage, because my CT is 291 more damage than Thrash, but let’s take a closer look.

 

Exploitive Strikes: gives Thrash a 9% extra chance to crit, where creeping terror gets no added crit chance. The argument may be made that creeping terror will help proc Exploitive Strikes therefor increasing its uptime. But, I can tell you that shock, discharge, Crushing Darkness, and Death Field are more than enough to keep up your 9% crit.

 

Claws of Decay: gives thrash a 50% crit damage multiplier, where Creeping Death gives your periodic damage (CT) a 30% crit damage multiplier. If for a moment we assume that all of CT’s ticks are crits and both of Thrash’s ticks are crits (with no other multipliers factored in aside from the standard 50% and the talents) Thrash now crits for 2304 and CT 2597, a difference of 293. But, what is the chance that each Thrash tick will crit vs. each of CT’s ticks, and how many times does a CT tick have to crit to be equal to or greater than one thrash tick crit (remember that thrash ticks twice per GCD)?

 

Thrash = 576 x2 (one tick’s crit = 1152)

CT = (206 x6) + 207 or ~206 x7: (one tick’s crit = 370)

1152/370 = ~1:3

(370 * 3 = 1110)

So you need 4 CT tick crits to be greater than 1 Thrash tick crit.

 

Now, each tick of Thrash has a 44% chance to crit (for me, unbuffed) and CT has a 35% chance (also for me, unbuffed). So, without more math, each tick of Thrash has a 44% chance to crit and does 1152 DMG per crit where each tick of CT only has a 35% chance to crit and only does 370 DMG per crit. This makes it likely to get 1 crit out of 2 ticks of Thrash, but only 2 crits out of 7 ticks of CT (when you need 4 crits to exceed the damage). And, if both ticks of Thrash crit (which I see often), then all 7 CT ticks need to crit (which I have never seen). Even at an equal crit chance (as long as your crit chance is less than 100%) 1 crit is more likely than 4, and in turn 2 is more likely than 7. So, by this logic Thrash > CT.

 

This is where the Talent “Deathmark” comes up, which “places a deathmark on affected targets, increasing the amount of damage the targets suffer from your next 10 periodic damaging abilities by 20%, lasts 30 seconds.” Since discharge and Crushing Darkness can easily consume all 10 charges within the 6 sec CD of death field (Crushing Darkness ticks 6 times in 6 sec, and Discharge ticks 5 times in 6 sec), not only does it not matter that you aren’t applying CT, but it would be a DMG loss since both discharge and Crushing Darkness tick for more than CT (therefor yielding greater damage from the 20% increase).

 

So, not only is CT less damage than Thrash, it also has a chance to steal Deathmark charges from Discharge and Crushing Darkness making it a bad idea to use at all.

 

This leaves us with its utility. Don’t let me understate things, utility can be every bit as strong as damage, and even stronger in some cases. But, at some point you have to ask, what are you paying for? And, is it worth it? And, right now with CT you are paying for a damage decrease and a 30 meter, 2 second root that really only has a few questionable uses in PVP (which could very often be replaced by Force Slow, Electrocute, and/or Whirlwind). This point is probably better spent anywhere other than in CT.

 

Dear BW,

Please bring Creeping Terror in line with our other DOTs in order to make it a 31 point talent worth specing into.

 

Sincerely, Myself and anyone who bumps this thread.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Nilxain

[GFreeGamer]

Actually you seem to doubt it's utility quite a bit considering it gives no Resolve, and works on people with full Resolve bars.

 

It needs a buff, but the root is quite frankly its saving grace.

 

30m unlike Slow.

 

No Resolve/Works through Resolve unlike Electrocute and Whirlwind

Edited February 28, 2012 by GFreeGamer

[Nilxain]

Actually you seem to doubt it's utility quite a bit considering it gives no Resolve, and works on people with full Resolve bars.

 

It needs a buff, but the root is quite frankly its saving grace.

 

30m unlike Slow.

 

No Resolve/Works through Resolve unlike Electrocute and Whirlwind

 

Far too situational to be a 31 point talent though. It does have some utility, but there are alot of things that you can do to limit its uses since there is so much overlap in its specific utility.

 

I do agree that its root at 30m is a saving grace (with no resolve)... it's just not enough to make it really worth while. You should not be using it in PVE where you can have discharge rolling, and it has VERY few uses in PVP that can't be done with a different ability.

 

As a 31 point talent you should want to have it, not just take it because you feel you have to or because you have 1 left over point so you guess you'll just stick it there. It really feels like they phoned it in on this talent.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Nilxain

[dnoisette]

I gotta agree on that point. Wither and Voltaic Slash offer amazing opportunities whereas using Creeping Terror in PvP I usually end up thinking Electrocute/Low Slash/Whirlwind (if talented to be instant cast and stun) would have done the job.

[Astarica]

I don't know why people always bring up Electrocute, because every class has access to an ability that's exactly the same so if you say 'use Electrocute' I can always say 'they can use the exact same ability to counter it'.

 

Whirlwind gives the enemy 3/4 of a resolve bar which may have some undesireable side effects. It's also on a long cooldown (60) instead of 9. Force Slow suffers from range limitations, and it costs 15 Force too with a very short duration.

 

I don't think Creeping Terror is that great but it's clearly there for the ability to root and get extra heals from dots, not a damage powerhouse. I don't know if root is worth that much, but that's its primary purpose.

[Nilxain]

I don't know why people always bring up Electrocute, because every class has access to an ability that's exactly the same so if you say 'use Electrocute' I can always say 'they can use the exact same ability to counter it'.

 

Whirlwind gives the enemy 3/4 of a resolve bar which may have some undesireable side effects. It's also on a long cooldown (60) instead of 9. Force Slow suffers from range limitations, and it costs 15 Force too with a very short duration.

 

I don't think Creeping Terror is that great but it's clearly there for the ability to root and get extra heals from dots, not a damage powerhouse. I don't know if root is worth that much, but that's its primary purpose.

 

Just by reading the talent it is pretty clear that it roots, and I do believe that people understand that.

 

People bring up electrocute because it is a 30m range and does a 4s stun, as opposed to a 30m 2 sec root. The trade out, in its use, is resolve for a longer duration stun.

 

A similar scenario can be stated for Whirlwind.

 

It is clear that these are different talents/abilities and therefor do different things, but they are not enough different to justify a 31 point talent that shouldn't even be spec'd into for 1/2 of the game (PVE). And, since I don't see a viable utility increase that would Benefit both PVP and PVE, it seems to me that it needs a damage increase or an added Benefit that works with other talents/abilities that are valuable to the spec for both PVE and PVP if a damage increase is off the table. (maybe a debuff on the target that increases crit chance or something to that effect)

 

Fortunately, it also seems clear that everyone so far agrees that it does need a buff. BW I hope you're reading.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Nilxain

[Nilxain]

Now, in fairness the point was brought up that the extra DOT brings extra heals from Parasitism/Devour which is a valid proposal. But, lets look at that for a moment:

 

As stated above in the orginal post, CT steals Deathmark charges from Crushing Darkness and Discharge. Also, using a GCD for CT is a damage loss from not thrashing. And, without looking at the usage of a GDC for CT and its affects on Crushing Darkness's uptime (which as it ticks per second and does damage instantly in theory it would be another noticeable damage loss), here are the numbers from damage loss vs health gain.

 

If Deathmark charges are all consumed by Crushing Darkness and Discharge, then it is a theoretical gain of 1995 damage (6 ticks of CD with a 20% increase and 4 ticks of Discharge with a 20% increase). So, being 1 dot of 3 we will assume it uses 1/3 of the Deathmark charges for a damage loss of 542 (figured from the difference of the loss from CD/discharge and the 20% increase gained on the CT ticks).

 

And, the average damage loss (as shown in the original post) from spending a GCD on CT instead of Thrash is 412.

 

542 + 412 = 954 (total average damage loss from using CT over an 18 second period).

 

Now, as stated above, on average I am likely to see 2 out of 7 ticks crit which would equal 2% of my HP times 2. Or:

 

330 * 2 = 660 (total average health gain from CT tick crits over an 18 second period).

 

So, I lose 954 Damage (or -954) and gain 660 (or +660) health over CT's 18 second duration for a result of -294. This is a mode of logic I like to use when weighing mitigation talents vs damage talents when spending "free" or "floating" talent points. And, since I am losing more Damage than I am gaining in health/mitigation I would not see this as an acceptable trade.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Nilxain

[Enexemander]

Creeping Terror is a situational ability. Its use is involved in strategy, not straight damage.

 

For example, you're fighting a marauder or DPS jugg. Do you really want to go toe to toe with him? Or would you rather dot him up, stay out of his melee range as much as possible to negate his damage and win the battle that way? From experience, option B is a winner. Option A doesn't work very well against geared Sith Warriors.

 

A force stun that ignores resolve on a 9 second timer is GOLDEN. You stop the march in huttball (sometimes over fire traps. Heh). You cut off a healer from the ball carrier. You catch the sorc that just blew sprint to get away from you (He's dead now).

 

In straight PVE, what you say has merit. It's also important to note, however, that you will not proc Raze every Thrash swing and you may not use all your deathfield procs if you're unlucky. That's not what you want to happen.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Enexemander

[Nilxain]

Creeping Terror is a situational ability. Its use is involved in strategy, not straight damage.

 

For example, you're fighting a marauder or DPS jugg. Do you really want to go toe to toe with him? Or would you rather dot him up, stay out of his melee range as much as possible to negate his damage and win the battle that way? From experience, option B is a winner. Option A doesn't work very well against geared Sith Warriors.

 

A force stun that ignores resolve on a 9 second timer is GOLDEN. You stop the march in huttball (sometimes over fire traps. Heh). You cut off a healer from the ball carrier. You catch the sorc that just blew sprint to get away from you (He's dead now).

 

In straight PVE, what you say has merit. It's also important to note, however, that you will not proc Raze every Thrash swing and you may not use all your deathfield procs if you're unlucky. That's not what you want to happen.

 

And that is really the heart of the issue. Not so much that CT has no use at all, but that it has limited use in PVP (however valuable it may be) and is actually counter productive in PVE leaving you better off with 8/3/30. And as a 31point talent, is that really acceptable? is that really intended?

 

And as far as raze goes, that is exactly why you need a good reason to stop thrashing, and CT simply doesn't offer that reason.

Edited March 10, 2012 by Nilxain

[Alwaysx]

And that is really the heart of the issue. Not so much that CT has no use at all, but that it has limited use in PVP (however valuable it may be) but is actually counter productive in PVE leaving you better off with 8/3/30. And as a 31point talent, is that really acceptable? is that really intended?

 

And as far as raze goes, that is exactly why you need a good reason to stop thrashing, and CT simply doesn't offer that reason.

 

I completely agree with you. Having done the math myself (but not spending the time to explain it to anyone else), I find CT to be pretty useless in PvE and quite situational in PvP. PvE-wise though, I do end up using it (and Death Field) whenever I have to exit the melee range of a boss and re-enter (Annihilator Droid, Gharj, etc.), but it's pretty rare that I can't just Death Field and Force Speed in.

 

More and more often, I would only use CT when running towards an enemy or while kiting them, using its 30m range and rooting utility. But damage-wise, it's all about Thrash. Even with CT to be maybe 100-200 damage more than Thrash, I find myself wondering whether that additional damage is worth it if it takes 18 seconds to dish out.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Alwaysx

[Forduc]

Call me stupid and I'm probably missing something...

 

CT is internal and should ignore armor, Trash/Discharge/Crushing Darkness are kinetic/energy and are affected by armor. Even measly light armor users should have 15%+ reduction from armor so I think it should be factored in the OPs calculations. Or atleast educate stupid people why it's a non-issue.

[deusBAAL]

You are seriously comparing a long range DOT to a melee dps ability? Seriously?

 

Thats like comparing apples with plums and contemplating while one is bigger the other gut the harder core.

 

 

If you dont want that extra DOT and shortduration root, that you obviously use on range, then dont spend the point on it.

 

(BTW thrash dps on 30m is ZERO, no matter how many points you spent on it.)

 

 

If you want to analyse CT ask why you would want it to cast it instead if crushing darkness (which has a long cast time and very short duration) and any other 30m spell you got.

[Darth_Xzygy]

Lets not fail to mention the force return from DoT ticks, which is useful in pve. Or the self healing.

 

In pvp, this thing lasts 18s. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have dotted an attacker on one of the side cannons in Alderaan, gotten on the side speeder, and been back well before the DoT was finished ticking, thereby preventing the guy from capping and saving the game.

 

This ability is neither situational, nor is it useless. Assuming 100% uptime in any scenario is foolish for melee dps.

 

Should it do more damage as a top tier ability? Yes. It is still worth both speccing into and casting as part of a normal rotation.

[Chushingura]

Just so I'm straight on everything, is this what we're saying:

 

PVE

1. Underwhelming considering alternatives that could be used in melee range

2. Underwhelming as it eats Death Marks that would be better reserved for the harder hitting dots (lightning discharge/crushing darkness)

3. Nice when running away from the boss mechanics and nothing else needs refreshing

 

PVP

1. Very useful for the snare since it ignores the resolve bar

2. Clutch to throw up to prevent nodes/doors from being captured (much like tab spamming lightning discharge)

Edited February 28, 2012 by Chushingura

[Forduc]

Hmm, according to my tooltips and calculations CT should start doing more damage than discharge when target has 30-40% armor (depending on internal resistance). Tell me what I'm doing wrong?

 

30-40% armor seems to be well withing range of "tanky" pvp classes or some bosses, assuming that internal resistance doesn't grow at the same rate.

 

So, it would appear to have roughly the same damage, 3x range and extra root than "obviously" better discharge.

 

So? Tooltips lying? I've misunderstood some game mechanic?

[Kurfer]

I use the hell out of it, doesn't affect my overall damage at all even though it's weak for it's force cost.

 

It's so great because of it's range...if I see a ball carrier out of reach i'll throw it on to help out . It's #1 use is for when someone is capping a node or planting a bomb on a door you can cast it from far away to stop it.

 

I can't tell you how many times I was able to melee healers away from the door in Voidstar while still being able to keep people off door with CT.

[Nilxain]

Lets not fail to mention the force return from DoT ticks, which is useful in pve. Or the self healing.

 

In pvp, this thing lasts 18s. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have dotted an attacker on one of the side cannons in Alderaan, gotten on the side speeder, and been back well before the DoT was finished ticking, thereby preventing the guy from capping and saving the game.

 

This ability is neither situational, nor is it useless. Assuming 100% uptime in any scenario is foolish for melee dps.

 

Should it do more damage as a top tier ability? Yes. It is still worth both speccing into and casting as part of a normal rotation.

 

Ok, this is the easiest one to go over since it is delt with in the original post and a follow up post:

 

As mentioned you want Crushing Darkness and Discharge consuming Deathmark charges (read the orginal post for more information on this) therefor CT also returns ZERO force.

 

And, as for the healing, with a little math and logic I don't believe it is a worth while trade for what you lose from Thrash, Crushing Darkness, and Discharge. (I have posted the math and logic in a previous post if you would like to review it)

 

Now, I'm gonna go have some coffee and I'll come back to talk about these other variables later lol :-)

Edited February 28, 2012 by Nilxain

[Nilxain]

You are seriously comparing a long range DOT to a melee dps ability? Seriously?

 

Thats like comparing apples with plums and contemplating while one is bigger the other gut the harder core.

 

 

If you dont want that extra DOT and shortduration root, that you obviously use on range, then dont spend the point on it.

 

(BTW thrash dps on 30m is ZERO, no matter how many points you spent on it.)

 

 

If you want to analyse CT ask why you would want it to cast it instead if crushing darkness (which has a long cast time and very short duration) and any other 30m spell you got.

 

In the original post there is a section on "Why Thrash vs Creeping Terror". There is very good reason to compare the two abilities, which I'm not going to go over again unless you demonstrate an understanding of why this is done.

 

Aside from that, in a Boss encounter it is not often long enough that you are out of melee range that you could not just get creative and minimize damage downtime. And, even on the encounters that you are out of melee you have to compare the damage difference from taking this talent for a situation that you can normally find a workaround vs not taking other damage talents such as Duplicity.

 

As Maul does not suffer the same problems that CT does (stealing Deathmark charges, stealing thrash damage, and reducing Raze procs since Maul does proc Raze) and it gains the 9% crit from Exploitive Strikes, Duplicity is the ideal candidate for for point shifting.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Nilxain

[Nilxain]

I'm going to address A few of the PVP additions with an over all statement.

 

I am a BM on my sin and love PVP :-) However, there is a whole other side of this game. I have cleared 8/10 HM on my op, 9/10 HMs on my sin, and 10/10 HMs on my merc, so I also love PVE. As a PVE sin, and in comparison to the other classes that I have exp. with, CT is a bit of a disappointment as a 31 point talent. There are alot of strengths to sin, and out of the 3 classes, sin is by far my favorite (though Medicine op is pretty fun imo) :-).

 

The PVP uses are well stated, and well received. I agree that in the situations where you would tactically use CT in PVP, it is a strong asset. If PVP were the only endgame content in this game then I would still be disappointed with CTs damage output, but its situational utility in PVP has merit as I my self have used it to root someone in fire through resolve and/or keep distance on a warrior to gain the health advantage, in addition to just keeping an extra person from going where they want to go. As with any tool, good players will find good ways to use them. This is why I said "may" want to steer clear of it, because if you don't find yourself utilizing it in these situations due to playstyle differences, then its use diminishes greatly and there are alternatives that could replace it.

 

Still, from a PVE standpoint its value begins to break down, so I believe it does need a buff to make it no longer an overall loss.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Nilxain

[Nilxain]

Just so I'm straight on everything, is this what we're saying:

 

PVE

1. Underwhelming considering alternatives that could be used in melee range

2. Underwhelming as it eats Death Marks that would be better reserved for the harder hitting dots (lightning discharge/crushing darkness)

3. Nice when running away from the boss mechanics and nothing else needs refreshing

 

PVP

1. Very useful for the snare since it ignores the resolve bar

2. Clutch to throw up to prevent nodes/doors from being captured (much like tab spamming lightning discharge)

 

The only thing I would add to this, which had not been mentioned when your post was made, is that by placing a point in CT you are taking it away from filling out Duplicity or Electric Execution.

 

From a pure damage standpoint (which in a raid that is what you are mostly there for) my Maul is a base damage increase of 833 over CT (using my average numbers for maul, 1736 non crit, and the same analysis as the original post). And, Electric Execution is in theory a damage gain of 978 over CTs 18 second duration. It is important to note that Electric Execution's direct contribution to this is only 24 damage and if CTs failures did not occur with the other mechanics in play this would not be an increase.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Nilxain

[Nilxain]

Hmm, according to my tooltips and calculations CT should start doing more damage than discharge when target has 30-40% armor (depending on internal resistance). Tell me what I'm doing wrong?

 

30-40% armor seems to be well withing range of "tanky" pvp classes or some bosses, assuming that internal resistance doesn't grow at the same rate.

 

So, it would appear to have roughly the same damage, 3x range and extra root than "obviously" better discharge.

 

So? Tooltips lying? I've misunderstood some game mechanic?

 

Ok, this is the most difficult of the variables, because it bring in quite a few points and counter points. Not only can Kinetic/Energy damage reduction increase and decrease, but independently Internal/elemental damage reductions can increase and decrease aswell. And, in PVP, each has counter measures.

 

So, without getting into all of that, lets step back. Its not so much that an internal damage DOT doesn't have positive effects, but that Creeping Terror's Base damage is a bit low for a 31 point talent especially from a PVE standpoint. I believe that there is quite a bit of balancing left in this game, some would even say it is perpetual. And, in its current state Creeping Terror still leaves a bit to desire.

 

It would be interesting to compare Creeping Terror To other similar DOTs in this game to see where it stands. I'll see if I can get some #'s from some equally geared 50s from other single point DOT abilities.

[Hyppyrotta]

please give dps sin viable pvp set bonus, what we have now is completely useless

[xengist]

The problem is dot scaling is horendous. There isn't much difference wearing tank or dps gear with how hard the dots hit.

[Fetal_]

totally agree that creeping terror needs a buff of some sort, maybe reduce the duration to 10 seconds and increase the dmg per tick so it benefits from death field a bit more

[Cowflab]

totally agree that creeping terror needs a buff of some sort, maybe reduce the duration to 10 seconds and increase the dmg per tick so it benefits from death field a bit more

 

I disagree. The ability works just fine the way it is. It should be used more for the root than the damage, IMHO.