Why so much Crit (and little power) on campaign gear?

[Tasburath]

I did a stat check on the sentinel campaign set and what I saw was a total of 519 crit vs 75 power.

 

The Rakata main hand has more power (89) than the entire campaign set. The rakata set total (minus implants/earpiece) is 285 power.

 

With my current set of gear, I am just over 35% crit raid buffed (301 base crit rating).

 

If the 35% soft cap on crit is true, why am I going to have to yank half the mods out of campaign gear and replace it to optimize my stats? It doesn't make sense. Especially when sentinels get exactly one set of (PVE) gear

[LagunaD]

The itemization is terrible, to be sure, but there is no such thing as a "soft cap" on Critical Rating. Critical Rating decreases in value gradually as you add more of it, just like Surge Rating, Defense Rating, etc. The only stat with a "soft cap" in this game is Accuracy Rating.

[Tasburath]

I say soft cap as the diminishing returns on crit make it a DPS loss (or more correctly, less of a DPS gain) to keep stacking it over power or strength once you pass 35% Edited July 18, 2012 by Tasburath

[LagunaD]

I say soft cap as the diminishing returns on crit make it a DPS loss (or more correctly, less of a DPS gain) to keep stacking it over power or strength once you pass 35%

 

That is not a soft cap, nor is 35% any sort of cross-over point. For Sentinels, Strength and Power are both superior to Critical Rating, point for point, at any end-game gear level.

Edited July 18, 2012 by LagunaD

[Tasburath]

You are saying that having all Strength and power and having 0 Crit on your gear is superior?

 

That goes against pretty much what every person has ever said.

 

And which tree are you referring to?

[iakona]

For Watchman at least, the difference between power and crit is miniscule if you're anywhere in the 0-300 crit rating range with current best-in-slot, fully augmented gear. Around 150 is the sweet spot for maximum possible Watchman DPS. 0 crit rating and 300 crit rating are about equal (assuming a straight crit-for-power swap), but are still only about half a percent away from fully optimized DPS. Once you hit 400 crit, you're about 1% below optimal DPS, and it keeps going downhill from there. The extra crit also adds to Watchman survivability, since your burns will heal you more often, so you have to decide how much healing you want to give up for a tiny bit more DPS.

 

I have minimal experience with Combat or Focus specs, so someone like LagunaD is definitely more qualified to speak on those.

[TradeLA]

For Watchman at least, the difference between power and crit is miniscule if you're anywhere in the 0-300 crit rating range with current best-in-slot, fully augmented gear. Around 150 is the sweet spot for maximum possible Watchman DPS. 0 crit rating and 300 crit rating are about equal (assuming a straight crit-for-power swap), but are still only about half a percent away from fully optimized DPS. Once you hit 400 crit, you're about 1% below optimal DPS, and it keeps going downhill from there. The extra crit also adds to Watchman survivability, since your burns will heal you more often, so you have to decide how much healing you want to give up for a tiny bit more DPS.

 

I have minimal experience with Combat or Focus specs, so someone like LagunaD is definitely more qualified to speak on those.

 

I've been doing some extensive parsing tests as a carnage marauder (combat sentinel) and found that the numbers that Iacona are mentioning seem consistent with my spec. I think the main difference--if there is one--comes in the surge/accuracy balance for carnage/combat vs annihilation/watchman specs. With the "narrowed hatred" skill in the carnage/combat tree, we can afford to give up a little more accuracy and still stay above 108% special, and put the extra points into surge, though the difference there is also very minute. I suspect we have more the illusion of optimization than something that has real impact.

 

I thought the dodge/deflect issue with the dummy might make it a little bit inaccurate with regards to the value in actual raids of accuracy, but notice a few dodges on the dummy here and there...did it get fixed somewhere along the line?

 

Iakona, there's a thread in the marauder forum about annihilation vs carnage parses that I'd be interested to hear your comments on, if you get a chance...

Edited July 20, 2012 by TradeLA