Thread Opened to fix HEGC

[TheOpf]

After getting a request to run some numbers on CGC with a 31 point AP build, I ran the numbers, and 8 points in Pyro for CGC is a net gain of 60-100 dps, and the perma slow is better than a 15 percent in combat speed gain. So, I posted a thread in the Customer Service Forums. I have been running tests over the last few weeks on a spreadsheet and no matter how we calculate it. Using HEGC instead of 8 points in Pyro for improved CGC is a 60-100 point dps loss.

 

Which means you gain 100 dps to get rid of passive venting and instead use Rapid Shots to vent because Rapid shot s uses buffed CGC.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4107520#post4107520

 

Please help me keep this thread up and let's get some changes to help AP become better.

Edited April 24, 2012 by TheOpf

[BlazingShadow]

I'll keep that in mind while I'm steamrolling as an AP spec.

[exphryl]

It's a hard thing to compare, the passive venting is very nice and something I'm sure any Pyro would want.

 

I think in this case, while I hate to use this terminology, this is an Apples vs Orange scenario.

 

In PvP having better resource management to continue doing damage far exceeds a burst build that overheats in a lot of situations.

 

I also feel if they gave Pyro great heat venting, it would be a big issue with the spec.

Edited April 24, 2012 by exphryl

[TheOpf]

It's a hard thing to compare, the passive venting is very nice and something I'm sure any Pyro would want.

 

I think in this case, while I hate to use this terminology, this is an Apples vs Orange scenario.

 

In PvP having better resource management to continue doing damage far exceeds a burst build that overheats in a lot of situations.

 

It's not apples vs. oranges it's 100 dps lost. That's just under 10 percent to weave in Rapid Shots more often then we already do.

[exphryl]

It's not apples vs. oranges it's 100 dps lost. That's just under 10 percent to weave in Rapid Shots more often then we already do.

 

In PvE yes.

 

In PvP it's not practical to weave in Rapid Shots in a lot of battles if you want to survive and/or kill the opponent.

 

You than can make the claim well AP has HO and Pyro has nothing similar. Or damage reduction while Stunned.

 

While it's great to compare single abilities and look just at DPS, there is much more to the trees you actually have to consider.

 

It's basically saying "We want all these tools, and the same damage as Pyro while we are at it"

Edited April 24, 2012 by exphryl

[Anavarra]

Do you have any in-game data to back up your findings, or is this purely based on spreadsheets?

 

Admittedly, I'm probably not the best DPS player, and my gear is certainly lacking, but just looking at parses taken off training dummies between Full AP (with HEGC) and 2/31/8 (with CGC), I'm seeing significantly less DPS from the CGC build.

[TheOpf]

Do you have any in-game data to back up your findings, or is this purely based on spreadsheets?

 

Admittedly, I'm probably not the best DPS player, and my gear is certainly lacking, but just looking at parses taken off training dummies between Full AP (with HEGC) and 2/31/8 (with CGC), I'm seeing significantly less DPS from the CGC build.

 

What's your rotation like?

Are you weaving in an RS whenever your heat exceeds 30?

 

The dps is based solely on spreadsheets, and I have been worki on it in pvp and pve. I don't like it. I still like the Norse build better.

[dardack]

What's your rotation like?

Are you weaving in an RS whenever your heat exceeds 30?

 

The dps is based solely on spreadsheets, and I have been worki on it in pvp and pve. I don't like it. I still like the Norse build better.

 

It's been proven that CGC is better cylinder, just because of how it works. The only difference for AP would be the passive heat reduction getting us more FB's/other abilities then RapidShots in. If you can manage your heat tho, CGC will always be better.

 

I have to decide weather to take the points out of the tank tree and go into pyro for the 50% slow. However, not being able to spam FB like before is meh. Because the slow is 2seconds right, 1.5 GCD, so you only have a .5 before you have to spam FB again, if you spam another ability that's 1 sec with no slow. Then with having heat issues because of no HEGC passive.

 

For now because of passive heat and spammable FB in pvp situations sticking with HEGC. In pve CGC would be king tho.

[Hizoka]

It's not apples vs. oranges it's 100 dps lost. That's just under 10 percent to weave in Rapid Shots more often then we already do.

 

but its not.. its 100 DPS you see on a parser, you do not see the effect of 8% more damage with everything elemental.

[TheOpf]

but its not.. its 100 DPS you see on a parser, you do not see the effect of 8% more damage with everything elemental.

 

That is with the 8 percent factoring in. I did rotations with HEGC and without HEGC it adds approximately 8 percent damage, but the total damage is stil 100 dps less with HEGC.

 

I ran around today with CGC, and despite the micromanagment of heat and rotation issues, the damage increase in pvp is noticeable. The downside is you don't use PFT on Demand so your burst is longer to get too, the positive is you can melt just about anyone. Tanks, Marauders, Healers as long as you manage your threat.

 

HEGC's problem is by using it you fall at least 5-7 percent behind dps in terms of pve and pvp usage. The upside is you get passive venting. Outside of that, and if I can manage my heat there is no incentive to use HEGC. 8 percent damage increase is offset by the total damage that CGC applies.

[Anavarra]

What's your rotation like?

Are you weaving in an RS whenever your heat exceeds 30?

 

The dps is based solely on spreadsheets, and I have been worki on it in pvp and pve. I don't like it. I still like the Norse build better.

 

Yeah, basically, I'm running 5+ minute parses against the training dummies, trying to maintain as aggressive of a DPS cycle as possible, while not heat-locking myself. For sanity's sake, I've omitted the use of Relics, Adrenals, Heat affecting cooldowns and all buffs.

 

I tried two different rotations with CGC with a (2/31/8) build, the first was just a Flame Burst focus where, heat permitting:

Flame Thrower w/ 5PFT

Immolate

Flame Burst

Rocket Punch (If Flame Barrage up)

Rapid Shots

 

Trying to keep Heat <40, but occasionally spiking over to hit Flame Thrower.

With that rotation, I was averaging about a 1000 DPS on the target dummy.

 

Then I tried to cycle in Rail Shot and RB so, heat permitting:

Flame Thrower w 5PFT

Immolate

Rail Shot (if Charged Gauntlets up)

Retractable Blade (if DoT not on target)

Flame Burst

Rocket Punch (if Flame Barrage up)

Rapid Shots

 

I didn't do so hot with that one, hitting about 960 DPS. I could probably have done a bit better with that, since I overheated a little a one point.

 

With an AP spec (8/31/2) and HEGC, and using this rotation:

Flame Burst

Immolate

FILLER

Flame Thrower

Flame Burst

FILLER

Retractable Blade

Rail Shot

FILLER

<repeat>

 

Where FILLER is Flame Burst (heat permitting), Rocket Punch (if Flame Barrage up) or Rapid Shots.

With that I was able to maintain about 1050 DPS.

 

Now, it's entirely possible that I'm just doing it wrong with the CGC builds. Heat management is more tricky, and you have to use rapid shots a lot more (since your optimal heat dispersion is 26.67% higher with HEGC). Perhaps someone more comfortable with maximizing these builds could spend some time beating on target dummies to compare their numbers.

[TheOpf]

Nice Testing! I am hoping that the spreadsheet is just missing some calculations. I didn't create it. It was created by a Pyro/Assault spec trooper. I ran the spec last night in pvp and pve, and it is a beast to handle in terms of heat management. It may not be worth the 100 dps increase to deal with the pain in the neck heat management. This conversation might be best suited for the BH guide, but I will post what I ran into here as well.

 

You have to weave Rapid shots or Free Rocket Punch every 2-3 Attacks. I will do some dummy testing and compare it to a standard AP rotation and see how it fares. It took me all day to figure out how to manage heat.

 

Here was the basic rotation I used to manage heat best while optimizing my dps uptime.

 

Immolate/Fire Pulse - Retractable Blade/Gut - Rocket Punch (Free)/Stock Strike (free) - Flame Burst/Ion Pulse x 2 - Rapid Shots/Hammer Shot - Flame Burst/Ion Pulse - Rail Shot/HiB (Crit) - Rocket Punch/StockStrike (free) - Flame Burst/Ion Pulse - PFT/PG - Rapid Shots - Repeat

 

BTW on your standard AP rotation. Immolate should be priority number one when it comes off CD unless PFT is up.

Edited April 24, 2012 by TheOpf

[Anavarra]

Well, the thing about the AP rotation is that, after looking at my damage numbers, I don’t really think the “standard” AP rotation in the AP guide is actually right. In order to get 5 PFT you have to delay hitting Flame Thrower in favor of Flame Burst. Doing this makes it harder to hit Immolate on cooldown, means you’ll end up losing uptime on RB, etc. So, in order for it to be worth it, it better be the most important thing you can do, right?

 

Looking at my numbers, it’s not. I’m using a 6-minute parse I did with a full AP build, using the 15-second rotation. http://www.torparse.com/a/14676?q=MXwxNDY3NngxMTE2MzQ3NzJhMTExNjM1OTM0eDE=

My Immolate hits on average for around 2300 per GCD, Flame Thrower is right there with it (average is 1100 per tick, 4 ticks over 2 GCDs means it’s about 2200 per GCD). Rail Shot is up over 2300 too, simply because it crits all the time. Fighting something that could dodge would probably drop that to around 2100 if we factor out 10% misses (assuming no accuracy). Retractable Blade is also a lot of damage. The upfront portion of the damage is middling (~700 average), but then the dot ticks for 300 (average) 5 times (1500+700=2200). So, for 1 GCD and 16 heat, it’s right up there with Rail Shot/Flame Thrower in terms of damage generated per heat per GCD.

 

Based on these numbers, these 4 abilities are all very high priority, because they do the most DPS for their heat. Immolate is a little more important because it’s less heat, but as long as we’re cycling all of them every 15-seconds, we’re not losing anything.

 

Then we have Flame Burst. The value of Flame Burst is its average damage (about 1400) + 10% of Flame Thrower’s base damage per GCD (being charitable with my numbers, we’ll assume I only ever got to 3 stacks of PFT, so 10% of the base damage would be about 85 per tick, or 170 per GCD). Total, that makes it about 1570. Which makes it a significantly worse use of a GCD than any of our 15-second abilities. It's less damage per GCD than Flame Thrower, unbuffed.

 

Which brings us back to the rotation. Based on those numbers, there’s no reason to ever use Flame Burst when you could use Immolate, Flame Thrower, Rail Shot or Retractable Blade. The goal of the rotation then, is to keep all of the above on cooldown (or when needed in Retractable Blade’s case) and fill everything else with as many Flame Bursts as possible, while weaving in Free Rocket Punch and Rapid Shots to keep your heat down. And the most effective way to do that that I can tell, is to follow this formula.

 

Flame Thrower

Retractable Blade

FILLER 1

Flame Burst

Flame Burst

FILLER 2

Rail Shot

Immolate

FILLER 3

<repeat>

 

That's exactly 15-seconds of ability usage. It's a little different than what I previously posted. I realized that there’s a small increase in the amount of useful Flame Barrage procs by putting the two rotational Flame Bursts together. The FILLER remains the same, Flame Burst if you have the heat for it, Rocket Punch (FREE) or Rapid Shots if not.

 

Since the rotation is 15-seconds exactly, it doesn’t really matter where you start it (since it’s going to repeat exactly). I like to start off with Flame Burst -> Immolate -> Rocket Punch -> Begin Rotation.

 

If performed correctly (i.e., don’t go bananas with Flame Burst filler), this rotation is functionally heat neutral with HEGC. Technically, it’s only sustainable for 2 minutes without cooldowns before heat-lock in a perfect simulation. However, adding a 3% delay in ability activation (i.e. 15.5 seconds to complete the rotation instead of 15), makes it heat neutral. In my experience with the target dummies, I was never ability to achieve a perfect rotation due to ability lag (and the more I tried to clip my GCDs as tightly as possible, the more I started seeing weird issues were my abilities would start to lag behind, and I’d lose GCDs). In fact, the best I’ve managed so far was only 88% of the theoretical maximum (my APM in the linked parse is 32, limit for this rotation would be 36 (9 actions every 15 seconds)).

 

The long and short of it is that it seems like, in order to get to 5 PFT without overheating, you have to delay more damaging abilities, one of which is Flame Thrower, regardless of how many stacks of PFT you have. So it seems to make more sense to just burn everything every 15-seconds. This would obviously be different in a PvP environment, if you were relying on the PFT slow, or trying to generate a big damage burst, but for judging sustained DPS on target, this seems better.

[TheOpf]

It's actually the 12 second rule if you count the cast time of PFT. The 12 second rule refers to the time between when PFT is finished and when it is ready to go again.

 

The rotation that actually manages your heat and damage best is along this line:

Immolate - RB - FBx2 - RP - FB - RS - FB - PFT. The rotation is exactly 15 seconds counting the cast time of PFT. However you are missing the crucial element. PFT is your most important dps so you have 12 seconds from the last PFT to the next one. RP_Free is your next most important tool because it's your heat management and should be used on CD unless it conflicts with PFT.

 

The big problem you have with your rotation is you are using Rocket Punch right after Immolate which is a really low ability. Also your rotation starts with Flamethrower x2 this is a dps loss at this point as you are wasting the amount of time on lower hitting ability than what could fill those spots before PFT x5.

 

The Free Rocket Punch should be used best case after a heavy use ability such as FB or RS.

 

You are correct, you have two full rotations before you need to either vent heat, use Thermals Sensor Override on PFT, or start weaving rapid shots. Mapex is actually the better guy to give the full ap rotation. The only problem with the full ap rotation is yes once you begin weaving Rapid Shots in to manage heat you are pushing PFT further down the line. Which is why many AP/Tactics guy go with the Norse Build and rotation. Getting rid of RS all together to stick to the 12 sec rule a little tigher.

Edited April 24, 2012 by TheOpf

[Anavarra]

It's actually the 12 second rule if you count the cast time of PFT. The 12 second rule refers to the time between when PFT is finished and when it is ready to go again.

 

The rotation that actually manages your heat and damage best is along this line:

Immolate - RB - FBx2 - RP - FB - RS - FB - PFT. The rotation is exactly 15 seconds counting the cast time of PFT. However you are missing the crucial element. PFT is your most important dps so you have 12 seconds from the last PFT to the next one. RP_Free is your next most important tool because it's your heat management and should be used on CD unless it conflicts with PFT.

 

The big problem you have with your rotation is you are using Rocket Punch right after Immolate which is a really low ability. Also your rotation starts with Flamethrower x2 this is a dps loss at this point as you are wasting the amount of time on lower hitting ability than what could fill those spots before PFT x5.

 

The Free Rocket Punch should be used best case after a heavy use ability such as FB or RS.

 

You are correct, you have two full rotations before you need to either vent heat, use Thermals Sensor Override on PFT, or start weaving rapid shots. Mapex is actually the better guy to give the full ap rotation. The only problem with the full ap rotation is yes once you begin weaving Rapid Shots in to manage heat you are pushing PFT further down the line. Which is why many AP/Tactics guy go with the Norse Build and rotation. Getting rid of RS all together to stick to the 12 sec rule a little tigher.

 

A couple of things.

- First, the main contention I have is that, for PvE DPS purposes, getting a 5-stack of PFT isn't as important as you seem to think it is. Replacing Retractable Blade or Rail Shot with a Flame burst is a net DPS loss, and delaying Flame Thrower to Flame Burst for more PFT stacks is also a net DPS loss. That's what the actual in-game numbers I linked are showing me.

- Second, the rotation isn't really functionally any different. The one you've listed is a max heat rotation that can't be sustained without 2-minute cooldowns. You can achieve the same thing by replacing the FILLER with more Flame Bursts.

- Third: for rotational sustainment purposes, Immolate -> FILLER -> Flame Thrower makes a lot of sense. Flame Thrower is your biggest heat spike, and thus, represents the greatest danger of spiking into sub-optimal heat dispersion. Preceding it in the standard rotation with a lower heat setup ensures that doesn't happen.

- Again, I'm looking at this more to set a benchmark for PvE DPS (which is all about sustained damage), not determine what the best burst order for PvP is.

[TheOpf]

A couple of things.

- First, the main contention I have is that, for PvE DPS purposes, getting a 5-stack of PFT isn't as important as you seem to think it is. Replacing Retractable Blade or Rail Shot with a Flame burst is a net DPS loss, and delaying Flame Thrower to Flame Burst for more PFT stacks is also a net DPS loss. That's what the actual in-game numbers I linked are showing me.

 

It's a bigger net loss in dps and heat management to use Flamethrower without PFT. I never said replacing RB or RS with FB was a dps gain. I said it makes managing heat and PFT easier. No one ever stated that the Norse build gave better dps than Full AP. We said it's competitve which means within 5 percent of Full AP, and there hasn't been a single sim, or damage meter chart that showed RB and RS to be a significant dps increase. 40 dps is not gamebreaking.

 

Using rail shot without the Rail Shot crit is a dps loss. I am not sure where you think we are disagreeing. My contention in this thread is about CGC being a 100 dps net gain over HEGC. If you wish to discuss semantics of a rotation for full ap than please bring it over to the Guide. Discussing it here in relation to CGC usage is only going to confuse and muddy the subject matter.

 

 

- Second, the rotation isn't really functionally any different. The one you've listed is a max heat rotation that can't be sustained without 2-minute cooldowns. You can achieve the same thing by replacing the FILLER with more Flame Bursts.

 

I was not going to illustrate a five minute rotation that would be ridiculous and extremely long. In the thread I listed fillers, and noted how heat management is going to be needed which will push your PFT back over time. Also it's not my rotation. It' s Mapex's. I run the Norse Build or the Tibetan Candle.

 

- Third: for rotational sustainment purposes, Immolate -> FILLER -> Flame Thrower makes a lot of sense. Flame Thrower is your biggest heat spike, and thus, represents the greatest danger of spiking into sub-optimal heat dispersion. Preceding it in the standard rotation with a lower heat setup ensures that doesn't happen.

- Again, I'm looking at this more to set a benchmark for PvE DPS (which is all about sustained damage), not determine what the best burst order for PvP is.

 

Again this should be posted in the guide where it can be discussed a little more easily as you have derailed the thread from issues with HEGC to Rotational issues. Please move this to the Guide post.

 

I will grant you the point that running a rotation of using FB first and using Immolate right before PFT x5 would be judicious heat management. However the priority list still remains the same. PFTx5 should be used when it's up. The rotation list is a priority list along with a "basic" rotational outline.

 

If you could do me a favor and move your reply to the guide in my signature it would help.

 

Thanks,

 

The Opf

Edited April 24, 2012 by TheOpf