100+% Accuracy, is it worth it for Sentinels?

[Tchaktuli]

As the title states, is it worth pushing more points into accuracy once you hit 100% or do the other stats such as power and crit and surge do more for us? More than 100% accuracy is suppoed to reduce the armour value of our target but does it do enough to make it worth taking?

 

Those out there with the mad math skills and charts please enlighten me. ^_^

[LagunaD]

As the title states, is it worth pushing more points into accuracy once you hit 100% or do the other stats such as power and crit and surge do more for us? More than 100% accuracy is suppoed to reduce the armour value of our target but does it do enough to make it worth taking?

 

Those out there with the mad math skills and charts please enlighten me. ^_^

 

Accuracy over 100% does not "reduce the armour value of our target". It reduces the target's *defense*, which means chance to avoid (melee/ranged) or resist (force/tech).

 

In PvE, bosses have 10% avoidance to melee attacks and 0% avoidance to force attacks. Therefore, once you have 110% main-hand accuracy with special attacks, there is essentially no benefit to increasing your accuracy further.

 

Eventually, you will reach the point where diminishing returns on the only alternative stat available (surge rating) render it equally useless, after which it really doesn't matter either way.

Edited July 16, 2012 by LagunaD

[SalBasss]

Accuracy over 100% does not "reduce the armour value of our target". It reduces the target's *defense*, which means chance to avoid (melee/ranged) or resist (force/tech).

 

In PvE, bosses have 10% avoidance to melee attacks and 0% avoidance to force attacks. Therefore, once you have 110% main-hand accuracy with special attacks, there is essentially no benefit to increasing your accuracy further.

 

Eventually, you will reach the point where diminishing returns on the only alternative stat available (surge rating) render it equally useless, after which it really doesn't matter either way.

 

Technically, if you reach the point where getting surge becomes obsolete, more accuracy could help your Strikes hit more often (since it is the only non-special attack, i believe). But some would argue that is fairly obsolete as well.

[Samoth_Nomad]

Technically, if you reach the point where getting surge becomes obsolete, more accuracy could help your Strikes hit more often (since it is the only non-special attack, i believe). But some would argue that is fairly obsolete as well.

I think that's totally legitimate. It's at the point with lvl 61 gear and augments, where it's very easy to be at DR for surge and accuracy, 30+% crit, all while having 1100+power. Until the day comes when we have greater options in enhancements(+str+crit+power, etc), you almost have no choice but to be above 100% accuracy. And like the post above states, it's not a bad thing. A little extra dmg when you are focus drained and have to use strike.

[Cindarstorm]

Dual-wierders' off-hand accuracy is base 66%, so accuracy is also a bit more useful for us than other classes there as well.

[LagunaD]

Technically, if you reach the point where getting surge becomes obsolete, more accuracy could help your Strikes hit more often (since it is the only non-special attack, i believe). But some would argue that is fairly obsolete as well.

 

Yes, but you shouldn't pretend it's helping you much.

 

At my Sentinel's gear level (Rakata/BH mix, with full augments and enhancements improved over what comes from the vendor), I have about 78% Surge Rating bonus (= 15:1 DR), and a point of Surge still increases my DPS by 3x as much as a point of accuracy (based on a full combat simulation). Off-hand attacks and Strike just do not make up a significant part of our damage, so buffing them by 1% is pretty much irrelevant.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Alacrity (assuming it works with Master Strike, which I've never checked) was competitive with additional Accuracy, actually...

[SalBasss]

Yes, but you shouldn't pretend it's helping you much.

 

At my Sentinel's gear level (Rakata/BH mix, with full augments and enhancements improved over what comes from the vendor), I have about 78% Surge Rating bonus (= 15:1 DR), and a point of Surge still increases my DPS by 3x as much as a point of accuracy (based on a full combat simulation). Off-hand attacks and Strike just do not make up a significant part of our damage, so buffing them by 1% is pretty much irrelevant.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Alacrity (assuming it works with Master Strike, which I've never checked) was competitive with additional Accuracy, actually...

 

I've certainly never done the test to check it, and I certainly never will. In my own opinion, it really doesn't matter which useless stat you take once reach that level of stats, so I'd agree with your previous post. I do believe alacrity works on Master Strike, though.

[Samoth_Nomad]

I read a post where devs confirmed that master strike is not affected by alacrity. And it makes sense. It's not really a channeled ability. The attack starts the moment you activate it. The cast bar is really just showing the length of animation. Alacrity won't speed up the animation.

[LagunaD]

I read a post where devs confirmed that master strike is not affected by alacrity. And it makes sense. It's not really a channeled ability. The attack starts the moment you activate it. The cast bar is really just showing the length of animation. Alacrity won't speed up the animation.

 

Yes, I did the test with an adrenal, and this is correct - Alacrity doesn't reduce the channel time of Master Strike.

 

So that leaves Accuracy and Surge Rating as the two secondary stats that do anything, and eventually they will both do next to nothing...

[Samoth_Nomad]

Yes, I did the test with an adrenal, and this is correct - Alacrity doesn't reduce the channel time of Master Strike.

 

So that leaves Accuracy and Surge Rating as the two secondary stats that do anything, and eventually they will both do next to nothing...

Yep and at the current tier of gear mixed with full augments, it's relatively easy to get to that point(I'm currently at 106% accuracy and 285 surge(76% multiplier). Like I posted above, I'm hoping we eventually get a revamp of enhancements(Crit/power combo).

 

One thing we have left out of this discussion is Secondary weapon accuracy, which is much lower than our mainhand. Given the fact that in a combat build, we rely heavily on ataru, it makes sense to buff up accuracy on our offhand. I'm not at 100% on my secondary weapon, but i'd wager a fairly substantial dmg increase if it were(considering I spam Blade Rush during CDs)

Edited July 17, 2012 by Samoth_Nomad

[LagunaD]

Yep and at the current tier of gear mixed with full augments, it's relatively easy to get to that point(I'm currently at 106% accuracy and 285 surge(76% multiplier). Like I posted above, I'm hoping we eventually get a revamp of enhancements(Crit/power combo).

 

Yes, that would be nice.

 

One thing we have left out of this discussion is Secondary weapon accuracy, which is much lower than our mainhand. Given the fact that in a combat build, we rely heavily on ataru, it makes sense to buff up accuracy on our offhand. I'm not at 100% on my secondary weapon, but i'd wager a fairly substantial dmg increase if it were(considering I spam Blade Rush during CDs)

 

Off-hand damage and Atarus are included in my combat simulation, and in spreadsheets I have done that model a realistic rotation. I am at +12% Accuracy, and 78% multiplier, and even with huge DR, Surge is still worth about three times as much as accuracy rating (~0.3 Strength vs. 0.1 Strength), according to both methods of estimation.

 

The ICD on Ataru limits what you can gain (if you keep the Blade Rush buff up, it is already proc-ing at pretty close to the limit), and off-hand weapon damage is not increased by Strength or Power, so it diminishes in relative importance as your gear improves.

 

Consider: with a Rakata weapon, 35% critical chance, and 80% multiplier, an off-hand attack does 382.5*0.66*(1+0.35*0.8) = 323 damage on average, regardless of your other stats. If you make 1 off-hand attack per GCD (the maximum possible), that is 215 DPS if every attack hits. But around 60% of those attacks are already hitting, so you stand to gain at most 86 DPS (if you had 110% off-hand accuracy, which is essentially impossible). But even getting a +20% Accuracy bonus requires about 1000 points of Accuracy Rating...

 

So, Accuracy above the soft cap at +10% is just not a very good investment.

[Samoth_Nomad]

^awesome write up. I really appreciate you breaking it down. If it's not too much trouble, could you break down the DPS increase of a surge increase from 75% to 80%? I'd like to see how it stands against the info you posted on accuracy.

[CivicTiger]

Basically, if you're Combat spec you want at least 103-105% accuracy.

 

If you're Watchman spec you don't need above 100% cause your offhand doesn't really matter you just want to increase your burn damage so stack power/surge/crit.