AP vs expertise Adrenal PVP

[SinnedWill]

1. EXP adrenals adds 15% to what ever EXP points you have. So you are at around 27% EXP when you hit one...

 

2. 15% EXP is LOWER than the gains from a Rakata Attack Adrenal. For any attack bonus you are adding ~130 more points on top. 15% expertise will never outpace this, regardless of what your base bonus damage is.

 

3. Healing is closer, but still outpaces it until you get to ~700 BASE heal bonus (is that even possible?).

 

4. Damage Mitigation: EH? Personal preference, but I would still use Rakata. If you want less heal/damage use the Rakata Triage to get 50%(!!) damage reduction, while still increaseing your heals/damage (Force/Tech Power contributes less to the damage/heal bonus than Power does).

 

I don't think you fully understand the mechanics of Expertise. Yes, your Damage/Healing bonuses will be higher with a Rakata AP stim. Yes, your sheet will display to appear that you would be gaining more. Unfortunately, Expertise is an UNSEEN modifier that does NOT factor into your bonus damage/healing/mitigation/defenses, etc. Expertise adrenal will increase the damage of your attacks/abilities/heals and diminish incoming damage from enemies' attacks/abilities by 15%. Thus, bonus damage/bonus healing are relatively moot by comparison to a flat increase - remember, every skill (and rank of skill) has its own innate damage/healing value, to which bonus is applied as a combination of willpower/power/force power (for force-based attacks, as an example). Therefore, if you have around 12% expertise from gear and pop a warzone expertise adrenal, your skills will deal 27% more damage (from what is displayed when you mouse-over the ability) to a target that has 0% expertise.

 

You may have come to your false conclusion by testing against people in duels, which would explain a lot.

 

To OP: Warzone Expertise Adrenal is best if you MUST CHOOSE, but... if you grab an expertise buff from one of the warzone spawns and want to be super-powered, then use a Rakata Adrenal in conjunction - unfortunately, your super-powers will be more brief compared to grabbing the warzone buff and using a warzone expertise adrenal right when it expires.

[Nemectic]

To OP: Warzone Expertise Adrenal is best if you MUST CHOOSE, but... if you grab an expertise buff from one of the warzone spawns and want to be super-powered, then use a Rakata Adrenal in conjunction - unfortunately, your super-powers will be more brief compared to grabbing the warzone buff and using a warzone expertise adrenal right when it expires.

 

The expertise buff from powerups doesn't stack with ANY adrenal, including the power one. That was changed a long time ago.

[xNonphixionx]

The expertise adrenal increases your expertise by 15%, leading to a not very noticeable gain. Its much more effective to use power adrenals or crit/surge adrenals.

 

 

 

Using the warzone expertise is a waste of an adrenal cooldown.

 

Actually it increases your PVP mitigations by 15%. Use an adrenal and look at you "PVP" percentages. The damage buff and mitigations actaully increase by 15%, not just your expertise stat.

[L-RANDLE]

I don't think you fully understand the mechanics of Expertise. Yes, your Damage/Healing bonuses will be higher with a Rakata AP stim. Yes, your sheet will display to appear that you would be gaining more. Unfortunately, Expertise is an UNSEEN modifier that does NOT factor into your bonus damage/healing/mitigation/defenses, etc. Expertise adrenal will increase the damage of your attacks/abilities/heals and diminish incoming damage from enemies' attacks/abilities by 15%. Thus, bonus damage/bonus healing are relatively moot by comparison to a flat increase - remember, every skill (and rank of skill) has its own innate damage/healing value, to which bonus is applied as a combination of willpower/power/force power (for force-based attacks, as an example). Therefore, if you have around 12% expertise from gear and pop a warzone expertise adrenal, your skills will deal 27% more damage (from what is displayed when you mouse-over the ability) to a target that has 0% expertise.

 

You may have come to your false conclusion by testing against people in duels, which would explain a lot.

 

To OP: Warzone Expertise Adrenal is best if you MUST CHOOSE, but... if you grab an expertise buff from one of the warzone spawns and want to be super-powered, then use a Rakata Adrenal in conjunction - unfortunately, your super-powers will be more brief compared to grabbing the warzone buff and using a warzone expertise adrenal right when it expires.

 

Not in duels. Just stats and formulas.

 

 

PS: You can't stack them dude, and last I knew the base attack stat has nothing to do with it. Even if it does then, the gains are still SO minor that using a consumable is NOT the must choose (use a rakata reusable). Buy medpaks, they are the only must choose PvP item...

Edited April 3, 2012 by L-RANDLE

[Remulan]

4. Damage Mitigation: EH? Personal preference, but I would still use Rakata. If you want less heal/damage use the Rakata Triage to get 50%(!!) damage reduction, while still increaseing your heals/damage (Force/Tech Power contributes less to the damage/heal bonus than Power does).

 

This is very, very bad advice. The triage adrenal lowers YOUR damage output by 50% making it completely obsolete because the power adrenal has no negative side effects. It does nothing to lower incoming damage, you have to use the armor adrenal for that.

[Astarica]

The Power adrenal will actually give you >15% tooltip increase in most cases.

 

However even if you're not concerned with the duration aspect (WZ adrenal last longer), this makes a very crazy assumption that nobody will attack you while you use your burst.

 

In fact, the easiest way to stop someone's burst is to kill them. The 15% damage reduction is invaluable unless for some reason you never get attacked.

[Astarica]

Sorry to burst your bubble but the rakata power adrenal only gives around 470-475 power. The tooltip wasn't changed after the nerf.

 

Ofc this is a moot point considering 1.2 is just around the corner and if the big increase in overall expertise goes through the dmg bonus of the expertise adrenal will also plummet.

 

Hmm, I did my numbers back when it was 565 power and I didn't notice the tooltip wasn't updated to reflect the nerf and just assumed it's still the same.

 

There's a nerf in how Expertise rating translates to %. For example before it might be say 800 Expertise = 15% damage/heal/mitigation. Then they reduced the contribution of Expertise to certain stats do you might end up with 15/12/10 or whatever Bioware feels is right. However, the Expertise buff/adrenal still should just add a flat 15% to all your modifiers. With higher overall Expertise %, the effect of the adrenal/buff is increased because the gains on defense is exponential. If you have 85% PvP modifier, for example, gaining another 15% would make you completely immune to damage. A flat 15% increase is more powerful the more base PvP damage reduction you have. Conversely a flat 15% increase is weaker the more base PvP damage increase you have (i.e. going from +100% to +115% isn't the same as going from +0% to +15%). Still, not dying tends to win you fights more than doing more DPS (all the strong classes excel at not dying).

[L-RANDLE]

This is started to get confusing...

 

 

One person is saying it's affected by your overall expertise.. another is saying it doesn't make a difference....

 

 

 

WHO IS RIGHT!?

 

Did more testing for you and myself last night.

 

Rakata Power Adrenal is +475, even though the tooltip still says +565. If you look at your any of your power stats after you pop one you will see this change.

 

The only real way to test which one was more effective was through self-healing because that does not include factors from other players. So I took my skill Deliverance baseline which is 2899-3014. According to some, +15% expertise adrenal should have made this range 3333-3466, which was not the case. After testing 10EA Exp adrenals, all heals fell between 2992-3045; crit heals were less than 5k(4978). This tells me that my initial thought that expertise ONLY affects your heal/damage bonus stat is true.

 

My Healing Bonus: 517------->517*1.15(+15EXP)= 594.55 or +77HP

2899+77=2976<--------------min

3014+77= 3091<-------------max

This calculation shows my assumption has a firm basis, as my testing landed in this range.

 

The Rakata Adrenal also affects the bonus stat, but the HP gain is higher: +475=~ 80HP

2899+80= 2979

3014+80= 3094

This is what the tooltip said and all my heals landed in this range (this can also be tested outside of PvP).

 

If this holds true for healing, then damage follows it as well. The gap is slightly larger though because Power damage bonus has a .23/pt HP add, while the healing bonus only has a .17/pt HP. So I conclude that until you get your toons bonus numbers over ~800, you will always be better off using a Rakata.

 

As for the defensive aspect, IDK. I mean the increase in mitigation could save your hide, but since the numbers are not even more muted than I thought, a Rakata Absorb will be better is you really want to increase your defenses...

 

 

 

The factors of "how hard" something hits change frequently, but the potential is still greater with Rakata AND it is reusable! Spend your comms on WZ medpaks.

[SinnedWill]

Did more testing for you and myself last night.

 

Rakata Power Adrenal is +475, even though the tooltip still says +565. If you look at your any of your power stats after you pop one you will see this change.

 

The only real way to test which one was more effective was through self-healing because that does not include factors from other players. So I took my skill Deliverance baseline which is 2899-3014. According to some, +15% expertise adrenal should have made this range 3333-3466, which was not the case. After testing 10EA Exp adrenals, all heals fell between 2992-3045; crit heals were less than 5k(4978). This tells me that my initial thought that expertise ONLY affects your heal/damage bonus stat is true.

 

My Healing Bonus: 517------->517*1.15(+15EXP)= 594.55 or +77HP

2899+77=2976<--------------min

3014+77= 3091<-------------max

This calculation shows my assumption has a firm basis, as my testing landed in this range.

 

The Rakata Adrenal also affects the bonus stat, but the HP gain is higher: +475=~ 80HP

2899+80= 2979

3014+80= 3094

This is what the tooltip said and all my heals landed in this range (this can also be tested outside of PvP).

 

If this holds true for healing, then damage follows it as well. The gap is slightly larger though because Power damage bonus has a .23/pt HP add, while the healing bonus only has a .17/pt HP. So I conclude that until you get your toons bonus numbers over ~800, you will always be better off using a Rakata.

 

As for the defensive aspect, IDK. I mean the increase in mitigation could save your hide, but since the numbers are not even more muted than I thought, a Rakata Absorb will be better is you really want to increase your defenses...

 

 

 

The factors of "how hard" something hits change frequently, but the potential is still greater with Rakata AND it is reusable! Spend your comms on WZ medpaks.

 

How exactly did you go about testing? Were you in a WZ? or did you just randomly pop a warzone expertise adrenal in a random location in the game world? Either case, you should know to factor in the likely heal debuff (trauma) if you had been engaged in combat in a WZ and expertise only applies in pvp warzones and I'm not 100% certain, but possibly Ilum's pvp area (I know you can use warzone heals there) and expertise wouldn't affect your healing elsewhere.

[L-RANDLE]

How exactly did you go about testing? Were you in a WZ? or did you just randomly pop a warzone expertise adrenal in a random location in the game world? Either case, you should know to factor in the likely heal debuff (trauma) if you had been engaged in combat in a WZ and expertise only applies in pvp warzones and I'm not 100% certain, but possibly Ilum's pvp area (I know you can use warzone heals there) and expertise wouldn't affect your healing elsewhere.

 

 

The PvP testing was on ships and @ spawns in the filler time between loads/starts, and before cage releases(as to try to not affect the WZ too much). I would think having 100% health should not affect what the values are. It took about 13-14 WZ to come up with the numbers I have. I did not try open world PvP locals, but that is a good idea that I will try as well (especially since they are dead zones:rolleyes:).

 

 

I hope some others try this to see that expertise is only boosting your heal/damage bonus, and the difference is so minor that the Rakata is optimal due to the reusability.

 

[EDIT] It also does not increase your surge rating at all, and crit rating either as far as I could tell(crit rating is tougher because there are probabilities involved). So to the guy who said it is a waste of a adrenal CD... I have to agree....

Edited April 4, 2012 by L-RANDLE

[SinnedWill]

The PvP testing was on ships and @ spawns in the filler time between loads/starts, and before cage releases(as to try to not affect the WZ too much). I would think having 100% health should not affect what the values are. It took about 13-14 WZ to come up with the numbers I have. I did not try open world PvP locals, but that is a good idea that I will try as well (especially since they are dead zones:rolleyes:).

 

 

I hope some others try this to see that expertise is only boosting your heal/damage bonus, and the difference is so minor that the Rakata is optimal due to the reusability.

 

[EDIT] It also does not increase your surge rating at all, and crit rating either as far as I could tell(crit rating is tougher because there are probabilities involved). So to the guy who said it is a waste of a adrenal CD... I have to agree....

 

Well, personally I play a 31 madness Sorc. with no points into healing. My crit rate is around 33.5% with force abilities and surge rating of ~72%. I notice a drastic difference with WZ expertise adrenal when I have the healing debuff (from being engaged in combat) and using Dark Infusion (3s cast heal). My crit heals from Dark Infusion are between 3400-4200 with the pvp heal debuff without an expertise adrenal and they're about 3800-5000 with the expertise adrenal active (reason I can remember this is from prior to the removal of the 5k heal medal). I don't heal much/often, but I certainly notice a much larger increase in damage for my big damage skills (shock, force lightning, crushing darkness, and Death Field - Death Field, of course, being my strongest attack - with which I can pop recklessness to guarantee having a crit). I typically deal ~3k damage to a non-tank/AoE damage reduction specced target with a normal Death Field crit and 3800-4200 with an expertise adrenal crit. AP adrenals will noticably increase my DoTs' damage more than the expertise adrenal, but my stronger damaging abilities benefit far less from them. Not sure exactly how that might factor in for you, but that is my experience. This also seems to be the same situation when I'm on my carnage marauder - expertise > power adrenals, most likely due to abilities having higher damage values.

[MrXen]

If you are at 10% Damage Increase, the adrenal bumps you to 25% Damage Increase (Look at your PvP Tab)

 

 

Video I made a bit ago (Basically to show adrenals don't stack with warzone buff) but you can see how the Expertise gain effects the PvP Stats on your char sheet and it is a flat 15% Increase in Damage/Healing/Reduction

 

That is not the warzone expertise adrenal. That is the warzone powerup, though I admittedly did not know the powerup added 15%.

 

 

The adrenal specifically says "increases your expertise by 15%" meaning subject to DR. And when I test this myself my numbers don't increase whatsoever (maybe due to UI glitch, dunno) but if you post a video proving otherwise then i'll shut up.

Edited April 5, 2012 by MrXen

[SinnedWill]

That is not the warzone expertise adrenal. That is the warzone powerup, though I admittedly did not know the powerup added 15%.

 

 

The adrenal specifically says "increases your expertise by 15%" meaning subject to DR. And when I test this myself my numbers don't increase whatsoever (maybe due to UI glitch, dunno) but if you post a video proving otherwise then i'll shut up.

 

I don't bother to check my character sheet after using a warzone expertise adrenal, but I perform IDENTICALLY to the way I perform when I snag the buff in a warzone. If it were subject to DR, I wouldn't be putting up anywhere near the same numbers since I am fully BM geared out (therefore, I'd be gaining the least benefit possible from the warzone expertise adrenal). I realise I'm not the person to whom you're directing your post about, but this response should suffice in his defense.

[Astarica]

I wonder if all the guys saying the adrenal is subject to DR ever used one, because if you did and checked your tooltips, it's pretty clear it doesn't do that.

[ZDProletariat]

I use the Rakata adrenal since that gives you the ability to have the adrenal PLUS the WZ powerup.

Since the expertise adrenal and the WZ powerup don't stack, I find more use with the power adrenal.

[L-RANDLE]

Well, personally I play a 31 madness Sorc. with no points into healing. My crit rate is around 33.5% with force abilities and surge rating of ~72%. I notice a drastic difference with WZ expertise adrenal when I have the healing debuff (from being engaged in combat) and using Dark Infusion (3s cast heal). My crit heals from Dark Infusion are between 3400-4200 with the pvp heal debuff without an expertise adrenal and they're about 3800-5000 with the expertise adrenal active (reason I can remember this is from prior to the removal of the 5k heal medal). I don't heal much/often, but I certainly notice a much larger increase in damage for my big damage skills (shock, force lightning, crushing darkness, and Death Field - Death Field, of course, being my strongest attack - with which I can pop recklessness to guarantee having a crit). I typically deal ~3k damage to a non-tank/AoE damage reduction specced target with a normal Death Field crit and 3800-4200 with an expertise adrenal crit. AP adrenals will noticably increase my DoTs' damage more than the expertise adrenal, but my stronger damaging abilities benefit far less from them. Not sure exactly how that might factor in for you, but that is my experience. This also seems to be the same situation when I'm on my carnage marauder - expertise > power adrenals, most likely due to abilities having higher damage values.

 

Are we still talking about Rakata versus WZ adrenal here? Sounds like you are not a Biochemist and have not used the Rakata one...

 

They didn't remove the 5k heal medal. My sage is 2/11/28 DPS and geared fairly well. I can get it with a rakata attack adrenal (like 5100 on a crit heal), with WZ..... nope.... Only 49xx.. or maybe I been unlucky, but 100-200HP is a swing between easily getting the medal and not, and is not in the direction of the WZ one (plus its not reusable). Your numbers seem a bit off though because if you were at 3400 minimum w/o a WZ one, your lowest, according to your calc should have been 3900+, where does the 3800 come from? Same thing with the max. ~4200 w/o versus 5000 with, when 4200 with WZ 15% is ~4800. I am not questioning your experience, but if we are talking Rakata here, the numbers are WAY to similar to waste spending WZ comms on when the Rakata is reusable..

 

 

There are too many factors involved with attacks to be able to quantify the difference between the two. Your damage numbers also insinuate that the WZ one increased your damage more than 15% (????) ~3000=~3450, not 3800, and lol @ 4200(40% increase?). are you giving this increase due to surge/crit increases? I have found more times than not the game follows the formulas on Jedilace.com

http://www.jedilace.com/2012/02/01/when-is-too-much-surge-bad-for-digestion/

So if you were at 72% Crit multiplier, your WZ adrenal add would have only help it up to 80% effective rating. Given the same ~3000, you are in the 3700 (8% for surge increase and 15% Exp) realm because of the surge cap.

 

The differences in damage probably are due to other players setup/speculation more than actual testing attempts, since WZ damage testing requires two players, maybe get a imp/pub player to duel you on Ilum (Can same faction duel? I only duel Imps riding around on my side of the map ).

 

I wonder if all the guys saying the adrenal is subject to DR ever used one, because if you did and checked your tooltips, it's pretty clear it doesn't do that.

 

If you hit the WZ one, your exp rating in the PvP stat sections does go up, but none of your attack/heal rates on the tooltip change.

 

Conversely, if you hit a Rakata, the attack/heal stat on tooltip does change.

[Astarica]

Expertise never affected tooltips since it doesn't work on everything and it'd be misleading to factor it in (the numbers would be completely wrong on any PvE targets). If you check the PvP stats the increase in Expertise is rather obvious. It might be possible that Expertise is somehow bugged, but to prove that would go far beyond the scope of this argument. If you have a 10% PvP bonus mod, you clearly get 25% PvP bonus mod with an Adrenal/Buff. Whether that's what actually happens is very hard to verify without logs, and the offensive stuff would be hard to verify even with logs because you don't know the stats of your enemy.

[SinnedWill]

I use the Rakata adrenal since that gives you the ability to have the adrenal PLUS the WZ powerup.

Since the expertise adrenal and the WZ powerup don't stack, I find more use with the power adrenal.

 

Yes, that is typically what Operatives/Scoundrels do so as to guarantee a quick kill; however, I prefer getting the powerup and using the WZ expertise adrenal once the buff timer is down to 3s if I'm still in the thick of it so as to get a longer duration of enhancement. But that is certainly a very nice alternative for quicker kills over sustained ones.

[L-RANDLE]

Expertise never affected tooltips since it doesn't work on everything and it'd be misleading to factor it in (the numbers would be completely wrong on any PvE targets). If you check the PvP stats the increase in Expertise is rather obvious. It might be possible that Expertise is somehow bugged, but to prove that would go far beyond the scope of this argument. If you have a 10% PvP bonus mod, you clearly get 25% PvP bonus mod with an Adrenal/Buff. Whether that's what actually happens is very hard to verify without logs, and the offensive stuff would be hard to verify even with logs because you don't know the stats of your enemy.

 

On damage yes, but healing (specifically self-healing), no and easily verifyable with logs. I guess this discussion will need to be tabled until 1.2, but try it out guys. I heal and hit harder with my Rakata Power versus my WZ adrenals.

[Modtx]

...or you can just test for yourself like Shin did.

 

FF to 2:30:

 

[fungihoujo]

Not quite...noone has 100% expertise. 15% is added to the score you have for expertise, each point of expertise adds a very microscopic boost in PvP matches, feel free to hover mouse over Expertise to see what yer actually getting and the 15% is simply added to THAT score, not 15% to damage and heals...

 

Oh ok, so pre-50 WZ when you have zero expertise, getting the expertise buff is pointless since 15% of 0 is 0 right?

 

Glad you cleared that up for us.

[Fenomen]

You want to think the Power Adrenal is stronger in PvP.

 

/waves hand

[MrXen]

I don't bother to check my character sheet after using a warzone expertise adrenal, but I perform IDENTICALLY to the way I perform when I snag the buff in a warzone. If it were subject to DR, I wouldn't be putting up anywhere near the same numbers since I am fully BM geared out (therefore, I'd be gaining the least benefit possible from the warzone expertise adrenal). I realise I'm not the person to whom you're directing your post about, but this response should suffice in his defense.

 

 

I don't know, my results ( I haven't sat down and actually crunched numbers here so bare with me) are typically that when using the warzone adrenal that says "+15% increase to expertise" my damage doesn't change noticeably whatsoever (as far as I can tell) and i assumed up to this point it was due to DR. But when I use a power adrenal my damage is very noticeably increased, and using the power adrenal+power relic my crits can push 4.3k (only comparable to a power adrenal + crit/surge relic). Whereas normal crits and warzone adrenal crits tend to both be in the 2-3.5k range.

 

 

Also my tooltip shows literally 0 increase in pvp stat from adrenals, and I'm not sure if this is a glitch associated with it or what not.

 

 

And for gear comparison I'm a champion/battlemaster mix balanced for maximum power (I have yet to finish re-modding all the BM gear for power because I see no point to any of it before 1.2 now).

 

 

And my spec is a deception assassin. (infiltration shadow equivalent I believe)

 

 

 

If anyone can post a screenshot or video proof of some kind on this matter one way or another I'd appreciate it because I'm going to feel like an idiot if I could have been doing +15% damage to people this whole time. I just think I would have noticed that kind of steep increase by now since i've tried the wz adrenals out more than a few times.

Edited April 6, 2012 by MrXen

[Modtx]

And my spec is a deception assassin. (infiltration shadow equivalent I believe)

 

If anyone can post a screenshot or video proof of some kind on this matter one way or another I'd appreciate it because I'm going to feel like an idiot if I could have been doing +15% damage to people this whole time. I just think I would have noticed that kind of steep increase by now since i've tried the wz adrenals out more than a few times.

 

Take a look at the vid I linked 3 posts above?

 

Since you are also a shadow/sin, you might want to check out his other vids/tutorials as well.

[MrXen]

Take a look at the vid I linked 3 posts above?

 

Since you are also a shadow/sin, you might want to check out his other vids/tutorials as well.

 

 

His tutorial is pretty good, and although his wz adrenal vs rakata power adrenal test was only 1 hit the fact that the damages were similar (with wz being better in the video) make me wonder. Obviously my previous thoughts were wrong, but which one is better on average is another story.