Annihilation - Power vs Crit

[Aurojiin]

This question gets asked a lot - when should I start stacking Power over Critical Rating? The problem is that the token answer is generally useless: something along the lines of "oh, when unbuffed crit chance is ~30%". This doesn't really tell me much, because spec choices/companion legacy bonuses/mainstat quantities mean that it can take quite different amounts of critical rating to achieve that target. After all, with complete BiS gear and three points in malice, you can reach 30% force crit (which I figure is the more relevant figure since most of our damage comes from DoTs) with zero crit rating on your gear

 

So is there any sort of consensus on how much critical rating you should stack before switching to power?

[Drator]

I did some reading through the sithwarrior forums, and it seems like for pve, maras stack very little crit (28-29% fully buffed). That leads me to believe that adding much more crit in lieu of power would likely be an overall dps loss, but as anyone who's pvped knows, burst is very important as well, so adding at least some crit IS necessary. While there really is no hard and fast rule, I think aiming for between 32-34% crit, fully buffed, with the extra 1% crit from the companion, is a good balance between high dps and burst. Edited July 6, 2012 by Drator

[Quantemoq]

I did some reading through the sithwarrior forums, and it seems like for pve, maras stack very little crit (28-29% fully buffed). That leads me to believe that adding much more crit in lieu of power would likely be an overall dps loss, but as anyone who's pvped knows, burst is very important as well, so adding at least some crit IS necessary. While there really is no hard and fast rule, I think aiming for between 32-34% crit, fully buffed, with the extra 1% crit from the companion, is a good balance between high dps and burst.

 

this is quite the answer that you can ready everywhere.

saying 32-34% crit chance without saying anything about whether it is force or meele or how much of it is from strength or crit rating doesn't tell you anything . could be he has 300 crit rating or almost 0.

 

crtitical rating has a soft cap around 350 (meaning the curve is almost linear until then) but if you compare it to power it usually gives you less damage per point once you are over the 250 mark

 

(not against tanks though due to the fact that crit overrite shieldchance)

 

a lot of people say one doesn't need crit because of berserk's auto crit. but you will be surprised how little impact berserk actually has on your overall dps. (do a parser test over 4 min once without and once with berserk and you will see) .

 

i right now have 300 crit rating and around 1000 power and i use predation as a default instead of berserk. and i seem to do more damage in wz then people with 250 crit and berserk.

Edited July 8, 2012 by Quantemoq

[Drator]

this is quite the answer that you can ready everywhere.

saying 32-34% crit chance without saying anything about whether it is force or meele or how much of it is from strength or crit rating doesn't tell you anything . could be he has 300 crit rating or almost 0.

 

If it will help, I can link my gear setup again:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/ee18cbd6-7caa-440d-b9fe-5cf966ea4c05

Edited July 8, 2012 by Drator

[Sanshiro]

Drator I noticed you use Expertise Crystals. Do you find they work better than power even with all the expertise you have?

[Drator]

Drator I noticed you use Expertise Crystals. Do you find they work better than power even with all the expertise you have?

 

It really comes down to trading a very small amount of damage for a very small amount of survivability. I honestly think it makes little difference either way.

[TradeLA]

Carnage pve marauder, here is my set-up:

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/fa91eb4e-024b-405a-b063-c6b4dd6b9ef2

 

and my best results fully raid buffed on the operations training dummy: 1724.3 dps.

 

I got my best results with almost no crit. Found dumping 80 points of power for 80 points of crit dented my dps.

 

FYI, the ops training dummy does not defend, so accuracy doesn't do you any good against the dummy, might do a little more in combat, but a carnage marauder's accuracy is already so high, it seems pointless. Surge is a teeny bit better, but not the great gift some make it out to be. Biggest jump in improvement I found was dumping +61str/+11pwr rakata mods for +53/+41 black hole ones, more important than the power/surge enhancements that so many people covet.

[Drator]

Carnage pve marauder, here is my set-up:

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/fa91eb4e-024b-405a-b063-c6b4dd6b9ef2

 

and my best results fully raid buffed on the operations training dummy: 1724.3 dps.

 

I got my best results with almost no crit. Found dumping 80 points of power for 80 points of crit dented my dps.

 

FYI, the ops training dummy does not defend, so accuracy doesn't do you any good against the dummy, might do a little more in combat, but a carnage marauder's accuracy is already so high, it seems pointless. Surge is a teeny bit better, but not the great gift some make it out to be. Biggest jump in improvement I found was dumping +61str/+11pwr rakata mods for +53/+41 black hole ones, more important than the power/surge enhancements that so many people covet.

 

Exactly how much dps did you lose when you switched out 80 power for 80 crit rating?

[TradeLA]

20 to 30 points. It was like giving up the power for nothing. Haven't been able to best my score without getting rid of any more crit though, so I've kept the last bit.

[Thundergulch]

and my best results fully raid buffed on the operations training dummy: 1724.3 dps.

 

Over what amount of time did you get this dps? a minute? 5 minutes?

Not doubting you, just saying that time is a huge factor when getting dps scores.

[TradeLA]

698 seconds.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/41b06f50-b5da-4468-9b92-53b943a9aee9/overview#d=0,f=1,t=1,b=1