Is aim really always the best stat?

[krahar]

Aim gives a little less bonus damage than power, and a tiny amount of crit. What is the argument that makes aim better than power if you are going for power, and that makes aim better than crit/surge if you are going for that? It seems like aim is just always going to give you less of what you are looking for while giving you a little bit more of what you are not looking for. Everything I've seen takes it as a foregone conclusion that aim is better than all other stats for DPS and everything else. What is the basis for aim being the best stat always?

[lendarya]

point for point aim provides more for BH and Trooper than any other stat you should be collecting crit and surge on your armor aswell as other stats but aim raises bonus healing and damage aswell

[krahar]

point for point aim provides more for BH and Trooper than any other stat you should be collecting crit and surge on your armor aswell as other stats but aim raises bonus healing and damage aswell

 

How do you know? As I understand it, 1 points of aim gives the benefit of x points of crit plus y points of power. The extra power is where the bonus healing and damage comes from, effectively, though it is reported as separate from power in the ui. Both x and y are lower than 1 as far as I can determine. If you know what values x and y should have, or if you know that the actual mechanic is different, feel free to provide that information.

[NoFishing]

The reason is because nobody actually cares about stacking power or crit or surge. What we are all looking for is maximizing the damage or healing we put out. Aim is better because it provides both bonus and crit, and the combination works (slightly) better than an equivalent amount of power or crit.

 

There are a few spreadsheets around that have these formulas built in, or you can craft your own, from the thread here:

 

http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/Thread-SWTOR-formula-list

[krahar]

The reason is because nobody actually cares about stacking power or crit or surge. What we are all looking for is maximizing the damage or healing we put out. Aim is better because it provides both bonus and crit, and the combination works (slightly) better than an equivalent amount of power or crit.

 

There are a few spreadsheets around that have these formulas built in, or you can craft your own, from the thread here:

 

http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/Thread-SWTOR-formula-list

 

Thank you. That was very useful. As far as I can see, 1 point of aim has a similar effect to 0.1900 point of crit and 0.8696 point of power. The sum of those are 1.0596, so if crit and power are all the same to you, you should go for aim, but it's actually better than than since the added crit chance for aim and crit rating have separate diminishing returns. By the same token, at high levels of aim, the added crit chance from aim becomes worthless and without that aim is just a worse version of power. From these formulas the exact most desirable amount of aim, crit, surge, power and alacrity to get within a given budget is hard to figure out analytically. Since the crit effect of aim is so low, I suspect the diminishing returns of aim are low enough that the simplistic rule that aim is just better is good enough in most circumstances that it's very unlikely to really hose you. Especially since it's impossible to put the whole point budget into aim. I'm somewhat at a loss as to why Bioware felt they needed such a complicated system. Anyway, I'm off to replace some +crit augments with +aim augments thanks to your excellent reference. Thanks again.

[Aritok]

Aim give a fixed damage and heal bonus (same as power, just a bit lower).

In addition Aim give a crit bonus. In this low range for the crit bonus that aim give, its nearly linear.

 

At around 2000 Aim each 100 aim will grant 0,44-0,46% crit chance (i know its not correct to project a e-funktion to a linerar funktion, but easier in this low range of the curve).

Basicly 100 aim are equal to 18 crit. But not to forget that crit and aim dont share the same diminishing returns (DR), and can be each get up without much trouble to reach the DR.

And 100 aim are equal to 87 power for bonus damage and 82 power for bonus healing.

 

Now, if you want to find out what is better for you (aim or power), you will have to take your current bonus (damage or healing), and take crit and surge to this for a modified bonus value.

 

Example: Bonus healing: 593,8; Crit chance: 34,18%, Crit damage: 72,78.

This give a modified bonus healing of: 593,8 * ( 1+ 0,3418 * 0,7278) = 741,51.

 

Now, if you want to check if another item is better for you, you have to take the new stats, and calculate a new modified healing bonus.

Now we replace a Advanced Agile Mod 25B (61 Aim, 11 Power) with a Advanced Agile Mod 25 (48 Aim, 37 Power). This will reduce the aim by 13 and increase the power by 26.

This will change the bonus healing to: 596,3, crit change to: 34,11%. Surge remain the same.

So the new modifided bonus healing is: 596,3 * (1+ 0,3411 * 0,7278) = 744,33.

 

Result: the new mod is better than the old one. The gaining in the power is bigger than the gaining in crit.

 

To be absolute sure what stat is the better one, you have to check it always with your gear. But as the crit bonus is getting lower and lower as higher the aim goes, it will be always come down to the pure power bonus.

 

To reduce it: 100 aim are nearly equal to 100 power (taking crit into account as well). So as long as you get at more power compared to the lose of aim, you will improve .

[Glorionn]

Yeah i stack the power augments over the aim. I run with 506 power currently. Ideally I'd like my crit to be around 40%, but that wont happen until I get campaign weapon, so Im sticking with 35% raid buffed.

[Echouza]

honestly what else are you gonna pick? what options are you seeing where you can actually pick a stat over aim (other than cunning willpower and strength) aim and endurance are included on all trooper armors because aim is the BH/trooper specific stat. the others stats like power, crit, surge, alacrity, defense and what not are all for bonuses. so i'm not trying to be a troll, but how is this even a question when there really isnt any other way for you to go?

[Rigsta]

honestly what else are you gonna pick? what options are you seeing where you can actually pick a stat over aim (other than cunning willpower and strength) aim and endurance are included on all trooper armors because aim is the BH/trooper specific stat. the others stats like power, crit, surge, alacrity, defense and what not are all for bonuses. so i'm not trying to be a troll, but how is this even a question when there really isnt any other way for you to go?

 

Augments.

[Aritok]

honestly what else are you gonna pick? what options are you seeing where you can actually pick a stat over aim (other than cunning willpower and strength) aim and endurance are included on all trooper armors because aim is the BH/trooper specific stat. the others stats like power, crit, surge, alacrity, defense and what not are all for bonuses. so i'm not trying to be a troll, but how is this even a question when there really isnt any other way for you to go?

 

It is really important for augments.

But it is as well important for Mods. There are two kinds of mods. One with high Aim and low power, and one with low aim and high power.

I would take these with high power, even if it means to lose a bit aim.

Same with the augments. Seems the power augments are better than the Aim augments.

[Delaoron]

Don't forget the 9% bonus on Aim what you have hopefully skilled. 100 Aim through Augments means 109 while 100 Power stays 100 Power.

[Aritok]

True, i forgot as well about this bonus. So the augments with aim are better than the power ones. Checked it out with the AMR char builder. I replaced the 18 aim augments with 18 power augments, and lost a little bit of modified healing power (went from 771,95 to 771,83).

 

Even though the AMR is not 100% accurate (its missing the combat support cell bonus for example), its really good for trying around some items and mods.

[Glorionn]

For healing yes, but for Damage power augments still give the most.

[NoFishing]

For healing yes, but for Damage power augments still give the most.

 

No, it's exactly the same boost for both healing and damage. Actually the percentage difference is slightly bigger for healing:

 

Healing bonus is 0.14 for aim, 0.17 for power, 0.03 bonus per point, and a 21% difference.

Damage bonus is 0.20 for aim, 0.23 for power, 0.03 bonus per point, and a 15% difference.

[krahar]

Does criticals also affect bonus damage or only base dmg? Because if it also affects bonus damage, we have quite a complicated function for average damage to optimize: (base dmg+bonus dmg) * (1+crit chance*crit multiplier). Each of the components in there are complicated just on their own. Then you've got abilities that proc off of criticals and the impact of alacrity is hard to quantify too. A lot is also going to depend on talents and the choice of rotation and how much movement is needed. I don't see how to get any kind of definitive answers without either tremendous time spent on the training dummies or implementing a swtor simulator where you can plug in different loadouts (including rotation) and see what the average DPS really becomes after taking everything into account.

[Arzoo]

It's really not as hard as you think to simulate all the variables at once.

[Glorionn]

No, it's exactly the same boost for both healing and damage. Actually the percentage difference is slightly bigger for healing:

 

Healing bonus is 0.14 for aim, 0.17 for power, 0.03 bonus per point, and a 21% difference.

Damage bonus is 0.20 for aim, 0.23 for power, 0.03 bonus per point, and a 15% difference.

 

Aim bonus = 0.2 per point of Aim.

Power bonus = 0.23 per point of Power.

 

Lets look at the Power you recieve from 100 Aim.

 

With talents, 100 Aim is equal to 109 Aim.

 

Therefore 100 (109) Aim is: 109 x 0.2 = 21.8 Damage

 

Now lets look at the power you recieve from 100 Power.

 

100 x 0.23 = 23.

 

23 > 21.8, therefore power gives you more damage per point than aim.

 

If you want to argue that aim also provides crit, I'd like to see the mathematical proof, that proves the pseudo damage is enough to close the gap between Aim and Power (please not DR for aim/crit).

[Aritok]

Aim bonus = 0.2 per point of Aim.

Power bonus = 0.23 per point of Power.

 

Lets look at the Power you recieve from 100 Aim.

 

With talents, 100 Aim is equal to 109 Aim.

 

Therefore 100 (109) Aim is: 109 x 0.2 = 21.8 Damage

 

Now lets look at the power you recieve from 100 Power.

 

100 x 0.23 = 23.

 

23 > 21.8, therefore power gives you more damage per point than aim.

 

If you want to argue that aim also provides crit, I'd like to see the mathematical proof, that proves the pseudo damage is enough to close the gap between Aim and Power (please not DR for aim/crit).

 

Mathematical proof:

+100 Aim on items give you more than 109 aim in stats. There is as well the Knight buff, that give 5% Aim.

Ff you add the knight buff to this as well, your 109 Aim will go to 114 Aim. And this result in a damage bonus of 22,8. So the difference goes down to 0,2.

 

114 Aim will grant you: 0,6% crit chance at 1500 Aim and 0,46% crit change at 2500 Aim (simple said).

 

Lets take the 0,46%. And assume we have 55% crit damage and 700 bonus damage (low vaules to make it extreme).

 

046% crit chance, with 55% crit damage at 700 bonus damage will grant you:

( 1 + 0,46/100 * 55/100 ) * 700 - 700 = 1,77 bonus damage.

(just for compare: 80% crit damage and 900 bonus damage will give around 3,3 bonus)

 

So: 22,8+1,8 = 24,6 > 23.

 

This result in Aim has a better modified bonus.

Even without the knight buff you get around 1,5 more modified bonus. And 21,8 + 1,5 > 23. But way closer.

And if you want to say there is a DR for aim on crit: yes, thats true. We can talk about this when we reach 8000 Aim, then you might notice it .

 

Just because of the crit, combined with the Aim increase from buff and skills, i would always take aim over power as long as the change is the same. On some mods you get 2x the power compared to the lost aim. These are worth it.

[Glorionn]

Cheers for that. Im sold.

[krahar]

It's really not as hard as you think to simulate all the variables at once.

 

Great! Have you made a SWTOR simulator that we can all use to check out different rotations and gear loadouts? That would be awesome.

[NoFishing]

Great! Have you made a SWTOR simulator that we can all use to check out different rotations and gear loadouts? That would be awesome.

 

Have you heard of this new thing called "the google"?

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character

[krahar]

Have you heard of this new thing called "the google"?

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character

 

If you are going to be snarky, you should make sure you are right. As far as I can tell, that tool just shows you the same thing you'd see in-game. It is a simple-minded calculator like the one the game has, it is not a simulator of an encounter which takes all of the factors into account such as amount of movement needed, which is what I was stating is not so easy to do.

[krahar]

046% crit chance, with 55% crit damage at 700 bonus damage will grant you:

( 1 + 0,46/100 * 55/100 ) * 700 - 700 = 1,77 bonus damage.

(just for compare: 80% crit damage and 900 bonus damage will give around 3,3 bonus)

 

Are you saying that a critical only affects the bonus damage of an ability and not the total damage done by an ability? So if I had 0 bonus damage, then crits and non-crits would deal the same amount of damage? The in-game tooltip says "Critical hits increase the damage dealt by this percentage", which to me reads as saying that critical hits apply their bonus to all the damage of the ability, not just the bonus. Are you sure it's only the bonus damage that gets critted? If not, that increases the usefulness of crit above what you calculated. It also makes the bonus damage different for every ability, so it becomes more complicated.

 

There are also 2 talents from the Gunnery tree that increase the value of crit and surge above your calculation:

 

- Cell Charger: crits add 1 ammo (at most once per 3s)

- Deadly Cannon: critical bonus damage from Full Auto and Demolition Round increased by 30%

 

With crit being worth more like this, the question becomes if crit might be better than aim for reasonable values of crit and aim. I don't know!

 

We get back to the point that you can't ignore the exact rotation used when calculating the value of crit, because it for example depends on how much of the damage is coming from Full Auto. In gunnery, if you do less grav rounds, you also get fewer Full Auto's. The value of crit through triggering Cell Charger is also significantly different depending on whether you are using an ability that hits just once (high impact bolt) or something that hits many times (full auto). So it really just gets very complicated to figure out

[krahar]

Mathematical proof:

+100 Aim on items give you more than 109 aim in stats. There is as well the Knight buff, that give 5% Aim.

 

The knight/warrior bonus is actually a 5% bonus to bonus damage and healing. The counsilor/inquisitor bonus is 5% to aim. However, the bonus damage from +5% aim also benefits from the +5% bonus damage, so aim benefits twice from these buffs while power only benefits once. These bonuses then indirectly affect crit as well since it now applies to a larger number.

[Boufsa]

Are you saying that a critical only affects the bonus damage of an ability and not the total damage done by an ability?

 

That is disturbing me as well. I would have done this calculation:

0.46% crit chance, with 55% crit damage at 700 bonus damage will grant you:

((1+0.55)*0.46/100+1)*700 - 700 = 4.99

Edited May 11, 2012 by Boufsa