Let's STOP the spread of misinformation about operative DPS (high OR low!)

[dcgregorya]

Dangerous way of trying to prove something.

 

Target dummies don't take circumstances in content (e.g. but not limited to operations) into account such as but not limited to player skill, raid buffs, debuffs on boss, AoE, movement, target switching, (partial) downtime due to range, utility, RNG (e.g. crit). To be fair, it does factor in relevant circumstances a sim would generally not such as UI lag (tho one could argue this is player skill which SimC does take into account).

 

To quote Elitistjerks shadow priest 4.3 FAQ:

 

Perfectly valid here, so you should take the parses with a huge grain of salt.

 

Besides, if a screenshot proves to you what a text quote does not then the obvious flaw is your misplaced trust in a screenshot. Newsflash: screenshots can be manipulated.

 

I'm far more interested in raw logs tho they'd require a log parser which is a complex piece of software. Target dummies are far too unreliable to provide any meaningful numbers.

 

Training dummy is about as ideal as it gets. There's nothing about a marauder that indicates that you can outperform them during bursts or on the move or whatever. I've never had a boss fight where I could ranged DPS the boss but not melee the boss for extended periods of time. Just the fact that marauders have a gap closer tends to lead me to believe that an equally played marauder should outperform an operative.

 

That being said, I don't need to outperform a marauder. I just want to come close in terms of raw DPS enough to convince myself I'm a paper tiger rather than a paper kitten.

[Kukulkan]

I ran a couple parses as lethality spec. They were pretty much identical. I'd love to be able to get to 1100 - 1200 DPS, but any input you guys have to help me maximize my output would be appreciated. (I'm looking in your direction Ryemfoh

 

I'm fully Rakata minus the head piece which is exotech. I ran these parses with no stims or adrenals or trinkets, only my Op class buff.

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/j402/BombaFett/Screenshot_2012-05-15_22_43_53_320972.jpg

 

http://www.fryingtime.com/?filename=combat_2012-05-15_20_15_41_640404.txt#20_23_43_853000

[Ryemfoh]

I ran a couple parses as lethality spec. They were pretty much identical. I'd love to be able to get to 1100 - 1200 DPS, but any input you guys have to help me maximize my output would be appreciated. (I'm looking in your direction Ryemfoh

 

I'm fully Rakata minus the head piece which is exotech. I ran these parses with no stims or adrenals or trinkets, only my Op class buff.

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/j402/BombaFett/Screenshot_2012-05-15_22_43_53_320972.jpg

 

http://www.fryingtime.com/?filename=combat_2012-05-15_20_15_41_640404.txt#20_23_43_853000

 

I would love to, but unfortunately I'm less familiar with Lethality so I find the parses fairly difficult to interpret ... E.g. Which of the 2 poison tech damage values is for grenade, and which for dart (I assume the higher damage one is 'nade?)

 

There's also no way to tell how many times you applied Stim Boost during the parse (I can guess based on the number of TA's generated and the number of Cull's performed, but I might be wrong ). For Lethality, the CD is reduced which means you can consume a significant number of TA's that could otherwise be used for Cull if you're refreshing too early. I know that for Concealment, TA's falling off target or being overwritten by a Shiv at 2-stack has fairly big impact.

 

DoT uptime and overwriting is another thing that I can guess at, but can't really be sure of. Refreshing dart early can mean that you have up to 6s (well - like 5.9 if you're very unlucky) between ticks. Refreshing too late means you can lose applications over the course of the fight. If I assume that the lower damage Tech Poison was Dart I can guess that with 147 ticks you applied Dart 20 times (147 / 7.5 = 19.6) - in a 7:16 fight (taking off 1 GCD for HS) you could have applied Dart 24 times which means you definitely had some down-time.

 

I'm also interested to know whether the "weakened corrosive dart" DoT keeps ticking on your target even after you refresh Dart, or whether the refresh removes the weakened version... This will obviously effect Cull and makes the penalty for refreshing dart early even higher. The same can be said for Corrosive Grenade (don't get me started on 'nade .. the 6 applications can't possibly be right in a ~7min fight).

 

I'm also not that familiar with Cull - I believe it's like rifle shot in that you get multiple applications each time it is used (1 per poison effect). Is there a base application when there are no poison effects on the target? Looking at the raw number (116) if I divide that by 2 I get 58 Cull's which is impossible given your number of TA's (52 + 1). Dividing by 3 gives 38.6 which means that either the weakened dot(s) do stay on target, or that sometimes you were hitting cull for 2 ticks and sometimes for 3 ticks (114 / 3 = 38, so it could be 39 culls total?). If the weakened dot's do stay on target, this again messes up the Culls calculation though. (FYI 39 Culls would mean that you consumed or overwrote 3 TA's to Shiv / Stim Boost unnecessarily ... or they dropped off)

 

If you could upload to a site that allows us to view the actual log file I can put some time into going through the actual events. I know torparse allows you to do this.

 

I can do some very basic things like checking uptime and DPE:

1. Weakening Blast = 22 out of a possible 29 applications
   
2. Shiv = 52 out of a possible 72 applications (88 DPE)
   
3. Backstab = 21 out of a possible 36 applications (136 DPE)
   
4. Overload Shot = 61.29 DPE (pretty terrible, and you seem to use it a lot - does Lethality really need to Energy Dump that often?)
   

 

I can also say that your gear has way too much Accuracy and not nearly enough Power / Surge. Your crit level is probably fine for Lethality since higher crit rating == more energy, but you're losing out by not raising your Surge to the 75%+ range.

 

Sorry I can't give you anything more useful

 

Edit: On Corrosive Dart .. if you were unlucky on double-ticks, then 144 / 6 = 24 (+ 3 extra ticks, or 2.1% instead of 25%). This would have given you 100% Dart uptime, and really really bad luck

 

Edit2: If you do another parse - try using Orbital Strike on CD (make sure your dot's won't expire, and your energy won't cap during the cast) - it is actually one of our highest DPE abilities. Also, use Explosive Probe > Overload Shot as your energy dump - it hits harder.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Ryemfoh

[Kukulkan]

Which of the 2 poison tech damage values is for grenade, and which for dart (I assume the higher damage one is 'nade?)

I think so, Corrosive Grenade is 2189 dmg over 21 sec while Dart is 2018 dmg over 18 sec

There's also no way to tell how many times you applied Stim Boost during the parse (I can guess based on the number of TA's generated and the number of Cull's performed, but I might be wrong ).

You're not wrong. I only used TAs on Cull or Stim Boost

I'm also interested to know whether the "weakened corrosive dart" DoT keeps ticking on your target even after you refresh Dart, or whether the refresh removes the weakened version... This will obviously effect Cull and makes the penalty for refreshing dart early even higher. The same can be said for Corrosive Grenade (don't get me started on 'nade .. the 6 applications can't possibly be right in a ~7min fight).

The weakened poison DoT effects are replaced when a new DoT is cast. Since Cull's dmg is based on how many poison effects are on the target, I figured I could be using the weakened DoT time/energy on getting off more Culls, however, the ability info says that the weakened versions only hit for 15% of the original. So I recast once the original DoT ended. It got confusing at times cause I after checking multiple times, since the icons are the same, I would forget which DoT is active

I'm also not that familiar with Cull - I believe it's like rifle shot in that you get multiple applications each time it is used (1 per poison effect). Is there a base application when there are no poison effects on the target?

Yes, if you use Cull by itself, it only hits once, similar to Overload Shot. When there are two poison effects, it'll hit for three.

 

I can also say that your gear has way too much Accuracy and not nearly enough Power / Surge. Your crit level is probably fine for Lethality since higher crit rating == more energy, but you're losing out by not raising your Surge to the 75%+ range.

 

Edit2: If you do another parse - try using Orbital Strike on CD (make sure your dot's won't expire, and your energy won't cap during the cast) - it is actually one of our highest DPE abilities. Also, use Explosive Probe > Overload Shot as your energy dump - it hits harder.

Took care of the gear issue today. This is actually something I've been meaning to do for a while, and I ran a few more parses using your suggestions and torparse

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/j402/BombaFett/Screenshot_2012-05-16_23_30_44_484089.jpg

http://www.torparse.com/a/37656

 

Thanks again for all your help.

[Ryemfoh]

@Kukulkan: Your parses are fascinating to me as a Concealment spec, so I decided to spec Lethality for the weekend and try out a few things. Unfortunately, for some reason ToR stopped outputting log files after my first couple parses - I still need to investigate why. In the meantime I'll post some assumptions and an initial priority list and maybe others can post some more logs if they're able to.

 

Assumptions:

1. Lethality is a melee spec
   
2. Shiv is the only TA generator (ok, HS is also a TA generator, but I ignore that TA as you want to keep it at all times for the damage boost anyway)
   
3. Backstab is still your biggest single-GCD hit, so position appropriately
   
4. Multi-target dotting is not required (i.e. PVE boss fight, not PVP team weakening)
   
5. This spec*
   

 

Rotation Priorities:

Weakening Blast (at least 1 dot up) > Hidden Strike (0xTA) > Shiv (0xTA) > Rifle Shot (e < 80) > Orbital Strike > Corrosive Grenade > Corrosive Dart > Backstab > Hidden Strike (1xTA) > Shiv (1xTA) > Cull (2xTA + both dots on target) > Cull (2xTA + 1 dot on target) > Explosive Probe > Shiv (2xTA)** > Overload Shot > Cull (2x TA + no dots on target) > Frag Grenade

 

I find this tree really interesting and suspect I will stick with it for a while. Here are a few things that I'm toying with which I think might have a fairly significant impact on parse performance:

• Pre-queue Orbital Strike on the pull. I know some people already do this through co-ordination with their tanks (myself included in Conc spec). It should be noted that it is possible to re-stealth after casting OrbS before the damage hits and combat starts, but the timing can be tricky
  
• Apply DoT's then vanish+open. This is something I need to try in real combat not just against a dummy because of movement. The idea is this: OrbS > CD > WB > CG > Vanish > HS (+ AP) > rotation... The idea is that you can get your damage rolling on the boss while closing at the start, and then get your vanish and AP CDs rolling ASAP (vanish is less important than in Conc spec, but Hidden Strike is still stronger than Shiv for Lethality).
  
• Burn energy hard. Energy management is very different to Concealment. In particular, the penalty for dropping into the mid-range regen zone seems to be significantly lower with the energy gained from DoT crits, free WB, and the reduced AP cooldown. I even toyed with saving Stim Boost to use only when I needed the +10 energy, rather than keeping it rolling, and my rotation actually felt smoother (less need to use Overload Shot to prevent capping == more predictable energy burn rate == less delay on higher priority abilities). You can also get off more Cull's if you don't need Stim Boost, but I can't analyse this at all yet since my logs stopped writing before I tried this rotation.
  

 

* Note: There are 4 optional points in the Lethality tree. I chose to put 2 into Deadly Directive (decrease cast time for Orbital Strike) and 2 into Adhesive Corrosives for trash pulls. My reasons for not including Precision Instruments is that it only effects 1 of our damage abilities - and then only efficiency - whereas the Concealment talents effect multiple damage abilities and are actual damage increases, not just efficiency gains.

** It should be noted that Shiv is better DPE than Overload Shot, however losing the TA to overwriting is never worth it unless you otherwise won't be able to refresh your TA stacks before they drop off.

[Ryemfoh]

Bump back to P1, but also an update on my Lethality trial.

 

I respec'd back to Concealment yesterday because I was finding the solo play of Lethality too slow - but it is definitely a fun and viable spec from what I experienced. My parses were fairly close behind my Conc parses (in the mid-1200 dps range), and I suspect with the 15% boost below 30% they would have been on par.

 

The energy game is very different as Lethality - definitely harder, but slightly more forgiving of minor mistakes. Damage-wise the devil is in the detail with Lethality. Optimising cooldown use has a big impact on this spec, and trying to stick to a fixed priority system is almost impossible when multiple cooldowns collide. This is what annoyed me the most with the spec - even more than the energy issues which forced me to use way more RS, but also way more Overload Shot than I'm accustomed to as Concealment.

 

So some tips to dedicated Lethality players (I'm looking at you Kukulkan ):

• Apply CD before CG. In my various trials and paper+pen scribblings it appears that CD > WB > CG is the best way to get those three CD's rolling. The resulting pattern avoids cooldown conflicts for something like 108 seconds.
  
• Try to line up WB > Cull > Shiv > Cull as often as possible. Cull gets boosted by WB, so if you can get 2 off during the debuff it is quite a significant DPS gain (I didn't manage to perfect this, but when I started trying my DPS went up by 70 - 100 over a 15 min parse).
  
• Keep Backstab on cooldown as much as possible - it is still awesome.
  
• It appears to be better to cap energy for 1 GCD than to use Overload Shot when you have >1 high priority ability coming off cooldown in < 3 seconds. Cull > Shiv > Cull for example is a major energy drain but you can stay in the top regen zone if you are above ~92 energy at the start
  

 

There's some good info in this thread which was bumped recently (I had forgotten about it). My DPE values came out slightly differently, but this is possibly just due to gearing differences.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Ryemfoh