Aim or Power? -- My Dilemma!

[anarchythreeotwo]

I am a V80 Pyro Powertech. I have no trouble at all getting 5k crits, and dropping any class..

 

But I dont understand power and aim!!!

 

Here are my current stats buffed with a rakata aim stim, and no 9% in tree:

 

1437 Aim

1437 Endurance

Bonus DMG = 447.9 (698 Power)

 

I have always been about stacking power/surge, but I am starting to think that I should be stacking aim as my primary stat, then power (beacuse all of the enhancements need to be switched to power).

 

I am about 4 augmented peices with 4 power augs, gun, chest, legs, boots. all my mods are 37 power in gear.

 

The reason I am thinking of changing, is I noticed the following things:

• Aim Adds Direct Damage (Under Damage Pri on your stat list)
  
• Aim also adds bonus damage
  
• Aim also adds crit
  

 

As far as I can tell, power only adds bonus damage... And it doesnt affect the # listed under (Damage: Pri)

 

Any ideas?

 

Also with some simple math, power adds the following:

 

.22 bonus damage per point

 

Aim adds .20 bonus damage per point

 

Also, what is Damage (PRI) used for? I have heard it just applies to our rapid shots and nothing else, could anyone elaborate? lol

Edited April 23, 2012 by anarchythreeotwo

[KBSIP]

pretty sure damage (pri) is for primary weapon damage

[anarchythreeotwo]

pretty sure damage (pri) is for primary weapon damage

 

Yeah, thats what I thought, if so, its way better to stack aim than power.

 

I did a test with my war hero gun, took the aug out completely, railshot dmg was like 1491-1825, then I put an aim aug in it, and it boosted to 1498-1832.

 

With this logic, it makes more sense to run aim augs, and aim rich mods in my gear.

 

Currently all my gear is modded with (48aim/29end/25exp/37power). I am going to switch that out to the 61 aim bm/war hero mods I think.

 

Need moar DAMAGE!

[Agooz]

The reason we use Power/surge is that it's 2 stats the are on the same enhancement mod that can help us. As far as augments I always go for the Aim/End.

[OlosBC]

Aim should be preferred over power due to inquisitor buff (and 9% aim from talents) affecting aim and not power, but they are very close to equal. If it' a choice between 10 aim and 10 power, go with aim (as for augments). If it's between 9 aim and 10 power, advantage prob goes to power.

[thrakkemarn]

9 Aim > 10 Power. Although Power adds SLIGHTLY more bonus damage (.22 from Power vs .20 from Aim), Aim also adds to Crit with barely noticeable diminishing returns. At anything close to equal values, Aim > Power.

[exphryl]

Augments you will want AIM.

 

For Mods I like the lower aim higher power ones if i have the option.

[Veldt_Hie]

As I see it the bonus damage to both tech and primary can be established as (bonus damage/total stat number)*100. Using some in-game numbers this can be established as:

 

Power – 426 bonus damage+98, therefore a percentile of 23% or 0.23 damage per point.

Aim – 1373 bonus damage +274.6, therefore a percentile of 20% or 0.2 damage per point.

 

Aim also provides crit at a rate (without diminishing returns applied) of 0.68% or 0.0068 per point.

If we assume a total of 6 augmentable pieces with a total stat of 108 (either power or aim), the total damage for this can be established as:

 

Power - 108*0.23 = 24.84 bonus damage.

Aim - 108*0.2 = 21.6 bonus damage and 108*0.0068 = 0.73 crit rating.

 

Now I do value crit, but to an extent that it does not overvalue damage done as this also directly effects the crit damage values that are affected by surge. As a class that values burst damage I much prefer the potential that the extra damage provides and not the small crit rating achieved as a result of going for aim.

 

All this being said, I am still not at a position where I am totally happy with my numbers and I am also aware of the 9% aim buff, however this would still only provide 108*1.09 (provided 9% talented)* 0.2 = 23.54 damage.

 

As I often run without this bonus or only with 2 points I still value power augments above aim. I would love to hear constructive feedback on this with actual proof of values, rather than replies stating info they have taken from elsewhere.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Veldt_Hie

[OlosBC]

Make sure you also count the 5%aim boost from the inquisitor buff, which should pretty much be taken for a given since 1.2 to be on basically always.

[ShiroRX]

Make sure you also count the 5%aim boost from the inquisitor buff, which should pretty much be taken for a given since 1.2 to be on basically always.

 

Maybe if you have a Sorc alt *cough cough*.

[OlosBC]

Psh, so many inq's running around everywhere, seems like everyone does

 

And you only gotta get to like lvl 40 to get the buff.

[Anavarra]

You can resolve this one mathematically.

AIM provides +.2 Damage Bonus per point and (assuming level 50 and you have at least 1200 AIM already) <+.0058% crit.

POWER provides +.23 Damage Bonus per point.

 

However, AIM can be talented to provide up to a 9% buff, + the Inquisitor buff for another 5%. So, assuming you have a +14% buff to AIM, it now provides:

+.228 Damage Bonus per point and (assuming level 50 and you have at least 1200 AIM already) <+.0066% crit.

 

In which case the difference between them is that the point of power gives +.002 more Damage Bonus, and the AIM provides +0.0066% crit. I'm fairly comfortable taking the crit % over damage bonus there.

 

So, the short version is, if you have a +9% talent, take AIM. If you don't...POWER might be a little better.

[dardack]

You can resolve this one mathematically.

AIM provides +.2 Damage Bonus per point and (assuming level 50 and you have at least 1200 AIM already) <+.0058% crit.

POWER provides +.23 Damage Bonus per point.

 

However, AIM can be talented to provide up to a 9% buff, + the Inquisitor buff for another 5%. So, assuming you have a +14% buff to AIM, it now provides:

+.228 Damage Bonus per point and (assuming level 50 and you have at least 1200 AIM already) <+.0066% crit.

 

In which case the difference between them is that the point of power gives +.002 more Damage Bonus, and the AIM provides +0.0066% crit. I'm fairly comfortable taking the crit % over damage bonus there.

 

So, the short version is, if you have a +9% talent, take AIM. If you don't...POWER might be a little better.

 

Yea reason I leveled my inq before 1.2. Working on War now but maybe should do agent. Sigh.

[anarchythreeotwo]

I think a majority of you are missing the points I tried to make, so please let me reiterate.

 

Aim Provides the following Benefits:

• Bonus Damage @ 0.23 per point of aim
  
• Critical Rate @ 0.068 per point of aim
  
• Primary Damage at an unknown rate, Individually increasing the base dmg of all attacks (Shown as Damage:PRI under character sheet)
  

 

Please pay special attention to bullet point #3. Aim directly boosts the dmg of all of your attacks with every point. If you take an augmented piece of gear, and stick it on, then read your railshot damage, it will say one thing. Then you stick a reflex augment in that piece, the damage will be higher.

 

Personally, based on this fact alone, I feel that this fact alone makes aim a better choice. It not only adds bonus damage and crit, but also increases the direct damage of each attack.

 

Thats more and less what I was debating, so going forward, lets talk about your thoughs on that

Edited April 25, 2012 by anarchythreeotwo

[OlosBC]

Power does the same thing...

 

Only difference between the two is that aim gives a tad bit of crit and power gives a tad more bonus damage per point (difference in bonus is effectively removed with inquisitor buff and 9% aim talent).

 

Aim should always be preferred over power. If you dont have talent or inq buff they're basically interchangeable. If you do, aim is about 10-15% better than power.

 

What it boils down to however:

 

On augments, ALWAYS choose aim.

On mod slots, choose high secondary as it nets you more dps stat points, even thoughyou lose some aim.

[TirjacShiki]

People are neglecting to mention that aim suffers from diminishing returns, power does not.

 

Stacking power is much more effective than stacking aim.

[Gornie]

People are neglecting to mention that aim suffers from diminishing returns, power does not.

 

Stacking power is much more effective than stacking aim.

 

Where did u get that info ?

 

As far as i know, and from spreadsheets tests from sithwarrior.com, primary stat (and power) doesnt have diminishing returns.

[me_unknown]

I think a majority of you are missing the points I tried to make, so please let me reiterate.

 

Aim Provides the following Benefits:

• Bonus Damage @ 0.23 per point of aim
  
• Critical Rate @ 0.068 per point of aim
  
• Primary Damage at an unknown rate, Individually increasing the base dmg of all attacks (Shown as Damage:PRI under character sheet)
  

 

Please pay special attention to bullet point #3. Aim directly boosts the dmg of all of your attacks with every point. If you take an augmented piece of gear, and stick it on, then read your railshot damage, it will say one thing. Then you stick a reflex augment in that piece, the damage will be higher.

 

Personally, based on this fact alone, I feel that this fact alone makes aim a better choice. It not only adds bonus damage and crit, but also increases the direct damage of each attack.

 

Thats more and less what I was debating, so going forward, lets talk about your thoughs on that

 

i don't think this is true. the direct damage increases due to adding the bonus to the weapon damage. there is no other increase from aim.

[bglodt]

Greetings all! Dropping by from the Vanguard Forums, but i can shed some light on your topic and clarify some questions that you have raised. First to the OP the guy two threads answered your question about aim vs power and primary damage as it is generally accepted.

 

Aim DOES... let me repeat DOES suffer from diminishing returns BUT ONLY for its crit addtion. Its power benefit scales linealry and it is 0.2 per point. At 1400 Aim each point adds 0.0068 crit (if you round up to the second digit).

 

As you all know power scales linearly at 0.23 per point, not 0.22.

 

If you have both the 9% power talent and the inquisitor buff, adding 108 Aim to 1400, provides 24.6 damage and 0.83 crit, vs 108 power which only adds 24.8 damage. by going aim you lose 0.2 damage but gain 0.83% crit. Aim is thus better for this.

 

Now for math simplification and not including any buffs, just looking at aim and power, we can see which is better. We will say you do 1000 attacks for a base 1000 damage (again for simplification). by using power you get a total damage of 1,024,840. With Aim you do 1,021,600 damage. However that 0.73 crit increase means you get 7.3 additional crits, and assuming 75% surge you would add the additional damage, 750 since you already included the initial 1k in the base, which works out to 5,475 additional damage. Now power provides 1,024,840 damage and Aim with crit accounted for does 1,027,075. This straight damage. In this simplified scenario aim does 2,275 more damage. Now this does not account for crits on high power attacks or on low power attacks. thus aim has the potential to be much better than indicated... or slightly worse. BUT based on this Aim will always be better than power UNTIL the DR on its crit value per point is 0.00432 which should not occur until you are well over 2k aim (thats my guesstimate based on the log plots, but to be honest I havent extrapolated out that far).

 

Sooooo, mathmatically speaking aim perfoms better than power.... and if aim is lower than power...depending on the degree of difference it is still better..

 

Hope this helps!

[thrakkemarn]

Crazy Vanguard! You dare to trespass???

 

In all seriousness, that's one of the best breakdowns of Power vs Aim I've seen. Aim is far better than Power until EXTREMELY high levels of Aim. And the more Surge you have the more valuable each point of Aim becomes!

 

So stack that Aim. Stack it high.

[ShiroRX]

Don't let Augments fool you, Aim and Power are good friends, and usually stay out of each other's mod territory. Appreciate both!

 

I was mainly gonna use Aim ones because I have an Armormech lol. Saving 175-250k per augment helps.

[bglodt]

Don't let Augments fool you, Aim and Power are good friends, and usually stay out of each other's mod territory. Appreciate both!

 

I was mainly gonna use Aim ones because I have an Armormech lol. Saving 175-250k per augment helps.

 

Armormechs are good for the aim augments for sure! However the point of the math was to show that given the choice of equal aim or power (or even slightly less aim than power), aim is the better option for overall DPS.

 

Some will argue that power gives more consistent damage.... but if you look at the actual numbers.... not by much. In fact the differences are so small 0.2% difference that you could argue that they are basically the same.... unitl you add the 9% aim bonus and the 5% sorc buff.... then it gets a little bigger. However picking one over the other is not gamebreaking at all. No one could reasonablly tell you that you are gimped because you took power over aim. Shoot I'd like to be so good that the 0.02% damage increase is noticeable... but sadly i am not. BUT if you want to be a real min/maxer.... pick aim.

[ShiroRX]

Armormechs are good for the aim augments for sure! However the point of the math was to show that given the choice of equal aim or power (or even slightly less aim than power), aim is the better option for overall DPS.

 

Some will argue that power gives more consistent damage.... but if you look at the actual numbers.... not by much. In fact the differences are so small 0.2% difference that you could argue that they are basically the same.... unitl you add the 9% aim bonus and the 5% sorc buff.... then it gets a little bigger. However picking one over the other is not gamebreaking at all. No one could reasonablly tell you that you are gimped because you took power over aim. Shoot I'd like to be so good that the 0.02% damage increase is noticeable... but sadly i am not. BUT if you want to be a real min/maxer.... pick aim.

 

Oh I know. Aim's influence technically gets double buffed too. It's buffed directly from consular/inquis buff, and indirectly when all dmg is boosted by the knight/warrior one. Power is only boosted once.

[anarchythreeotwo]

Greetings all! Dropping by from the Vanguard Forums, but i can shed some light on your topic and clarify some questions that you have raised. First to the OP the guy two threads answered your question about aim vs power and primary damage as it is generally accepted.

 

Aim DOES... let me repeat DOES suffer from diminishing returns BUT ONLY for its crit addtion. Its power benefit scales linealry and it is 0.2 per point. At 1400 Aim each point adds 0.0068 crit (if you round up to the second digit).

 

As you all know power scales linearly at 0.23 per point, not 0.22.

 

If you have both the 9% power talent and the inquisitor buff, adding 108 Aim to 1400, provides 24.6 damage and 0.83 crit, vs 108 power which only adds 24.8 damage. by going aim you lose 0.2 damage but gain 0.83% crit. Aim is thus better for this.

 

Now for math simplification and not including any buffs, just looking at aim and power, we can see which is better. We will say you do 1000 attacks for a base 1000 damage (again for simplification). by using power you get a total damage of 1,024,840. With Aim you do 1,021,600 damage. However that 0.73 crit increase means you get 7.3 additional crits, and assuming 75% surge you would add the additional damage, 750 since you already included the initial 1k in the base, which works out to 5,475 additional damage. Now power provides 1,024,840 damage and Aim with crit accounted for does 1,027,075. This straight damage. In this simplified scenario aim does 2,275 more damage. Now this does not account for crits on high power attacks or on low power attacks. thus aim has the potential to be much better than indicated... or slightly worse. BUT based on this Aim will always be better than power UNTIL the DR on its crit value per point is 0.00432 which should not occur until you are well over 2k aim (thats my guesstimate based on the log plots, but to be honest I havent extrapolated out that far).

 

Sooooo, mathmatically speaking aim perfoms better than power.... and if aim is lower than power...depending on the degree of difference it is still better..

 

Hope this helps!

 

Well written, and thanks for the thorough explanation. This sums it up for me.

 

So my new build will be:

 

• Aim augments
  
• War hero Mods with less aim, but mega stack of power -- I know bm variant is 48aim 37power, blah blah. Seems better than getting a boost to end for me.
  
• War hero enhancements with power/surge.
  

Edited April 26, 2012 by anarchythreeotwo

[Retro_Chrome]

personally what i did is i went about this the really long way , previous to 1.2 i had a full tank and full dps set of BM gear and 10 extra BM comms. i bought 5 BM combat tech helms as with the research i did it seemd to be the best enhancement and mods i could get to stack, so i started the grind for rwz comms and bought my wh helms and put the mods and enhancements in all the armor pieces+gun. and because aim adds crit and power i stacked aim augs. when i was done i was like man this is awessome!

 

but then it wasnt, i had 92% ranged accuracy and i saw myself missing on my HiB, also my crit was dismally low, so i picked up the accuracy implants and got my acc to around 97% whihc eliminated misses all together with the exception of "dodge" via smugs/ops. ended up getting my companions maxed and my acc is now at 98.9% which is perfect.

 

now i still wasnt critting as much as i wanted too so i swapped out some of the aim augs for crit and got my crit to a natural 30% with only an AIM stim. 30% is to my understaning the soft cap for crit chance before smuggler buff. so witha few other tweaks(legacy belt/ bracers with expensive rank 58 mods off the gtn and wh enhancements) i currently have around 450 power 30% natural crit and 76% surge rating.

 

with 1.3 right around the corner i will be stacking the endurance/pwr augs on the other 8 pieces. this will give me a total of 20k hp (without the end talent) 96 more power.

 

the best thing to know is that anything over 30% natural crit and you are sacrificing other stats you could be using. there is also a soft cap on surge which i believe comes to around 75% crit multiplier. so regardless on how you get to the 30% be it through mod swapping or crit augs, once you have it power becomes more efficient than Aim. Since power gives more bonus damage per point, and you have hit Diminishing returns on the crit aspect of AIM.

 

anyhow hope this helped:)