Best pve dps spec?

[xIphonex]

..... Edited December 27, 2012 by xIphonex

[xIphonex]

I'd also like to sympathize with Frerbear. Leave the guy alone. It seems like your only trying to harrass the fellow for somethings he may not fully understand. There goes a saying, there are no dumb questions. I respect the questions and thoughts he had to ask. Let's just end this discussion and move on. If you want some help man PM me I'm more than willing to help you out.

[Frerbear]

I have no problems with a little friendly argument on DPS. I do believe that most here know what they are doing, and certain people do things differently. I do not use solely math in the way I play my character. I use experience in the hard boss fights. I am of the opinion that math definitely takes a huge role in the DPS, but that certain things change with different fights and different situations. Once again, the reason I do not like about upheaval is that it is very shaky, whether or not you will hit that second rock (I assume this is still what we are arguing about). I am not putting down the math completely, I am just saying that it is not the ONLY factor. I am not trying to put down anyone's way of playing. I am a DPS, which means if someone shows me a better way, I will try it out. I have tried out the upheaval build, and used to be a firm believer in it. If I were to hit that second rock more often, then yes, it would most likely be worth it. From what I have seen, I am still of the opinion that this is the best Infiltration build as of now: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601bc0MZfuMRkfbRroZc.2

 

Maybe it's the way I play, maybe it's just dumb luck, but from my experience, that is what hits better. Balance will beat Infiltration every time in sustained fights, but not by much. In a six minute fight on the dummy, I was only 3% away from a very good Balance spec Shadow with an increased gear level.

 

TLDR: I may not sit there and crunch the numbers for hours on end, but don't think that I don't know what I am talking about. I go by what I see, and what parses better. If the upheaval build parsed better for me, I would be in that build.

[Kitru]

@Kitru

 

The points in Twin Disciplines and Upheaval are largely "wasted" points, at least for PvE. Personally, I would put them into 2/2 Containment and 1/2 Pinning Resolve rather than Twin Disciplines and Upheaval because the buffs to Force Lift are marginally useful on trash. A case could be made for Twin Disciplines in "precast" scenarios like the walker in the Warlord Kephess fight, but, the biggest problem, as I see it, is that 10% additional melee bonus damage is an almost negligible improvement to your DPS (it'll add maybe 5% to your Double Strike/Saber Strike damage for the duration when most of your damage comes from Force attacks). Casting Project at just the right time that you'll be able to regen back to full Force while still having the buff active for the entire burst phase is going to require some tight timing, which could end up screwing up your actual rotation.

 

As to Expertise v. Shadow's Respite, it depends. Shadow's Respite provides you with a possible extra 24 Force every 2 minutes (via Force Cloak). 24 Force essentially equates to an extra Double Strike rather than a Saber Strike. Expertise for Balance equates to ~5 DPS (173 damage w/ 50% proc, 1.5 sec GCD; thanks to attacks/second from DoTs, it's close enough to 1.5 to not matter appreciably, so that's ~115 raw DPS; factor in 30% K/E DR on ops bosses and it gets reduced to ~81 DPS; 6% of 81 DPS is ~5 DPS). For Expertise to be more valuable than Shadow's Respite, your Double Strike needs to, on average, deal only 600 more damage than your Saber Strike, which is pretty attainable considering the 50% crit bonus on DS for Balance. This is, of course, predicated upon you actually using Force Cloak on cooldown. The longer you wait to use it, the less benefit you get out of it, so, in reality, sometimes you might actually get *worse* returns out of Shadow's Respite unless you're actually using it consistently. Expertise is a static benefit, but Shadow's Respite varies but can be potentially better if you actually use Force Cloak on CD; it's much like the difference between the passive PvP Power relic and the DG Power use relic for DPS (the DG relic provides a good deal better DPS, but it's predicated upon you actually using the relic on CD, which many people don't).

 

Now, personally, I don't recommend taking either Shadow's Respite or Expertise. The gains in DPS are single digit when you're dealing in excess of 1700-1800. Those 2 talent points are going to provide a less than 1% improvement, which is going to be so little as to be unnoticeable and, most likely, beneath the luck variation threshold (crits either occuring more or less often than they "should" assuming the law of averages) or lag variation threshold (lag causing your DPS to lower) or the skill variation threshold (whether you're "on fire" for that run or not making your DPS worse or better). Essentially, they're such small factors that things we take for granted are going to have a larger impact. As such, I actually recommend taking Shadowy Veil: 30% armor might not seem like much, but it's going to provide a noticeable decrease in K/E damage taken, which means your self heals count for more and your healers have to heal you less. It's not a direct DPS improvement, but it eases the burden of healing, which is always a good thing.

[SoonerJBD]

I don't think anyone minds people asking questions. What bothers me, and I think many others, is when people give out bad information and then refuse to listen or back down when people correct them. We are all trying to be helpful.

[TheNegotiator]

I don't think anyone minds people asking questions. What bothers me, and I think many others, is when people give out bad information and then refuse to listen or back down when people correct them. We are all trying to be helpful.

 

The agenda of the elitist is not to be "helpful".

[SoonerJBD]

The agenda of the elitist is not to be "helpful".

 

That is bull. It's not elitist to correct bad information. It's not like anyone has said an alternate build isn't viable or insulted anyone for playing it. They just took issue with someone saying a build was "higher" DPS when it was factually not.

[nosmos]

I use my sin as my main for raid PVE these days, fully hazmat / 63's and I run with basically no Accuracy enhancments and the hazmat itself has no accuracy (whereas black hole did).

 

For PVE operations Deception (inf) I run: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#2000MZfMrRkfbRroZf0c.2

 

Now whether you want the 1 point in 10 more force, or 1 point in increased movement speed is up to you. Having a lowered cooldown on Force speed IMO is a must for catching up to the boss during heavy movement phases...

 

For Madness PVE I run: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#2000cZcMbZfMdRrbkrfz.2

 

I don't bother putting 3 points for the chain shock using madness, since I rarely EVER use shock with that build. Madness has less survivablity then deception, so taking any damage mitigation is nice - along with a lowered cooldown on force speed of course.

 

I also change between deception and madness depending on the boss fight. For TFB HM I run madness on the Writhing Horror / Dread Guard / Kephess and Deception on the Droid Puzzle and TFB (usually deception for trash in between). For NIM / HM EC, madness is a good choice for Toth and Zorn, however in NIM EC I find deception quite nice for the damage reduction on toth and his jumping. Being able to use blackout more for damage reduction, and the reduction from critical hits is just nice....On Firebrand and stormcaller, I use deception, the minefields, deception, and kephess, deception.

[Omophorus]

I'd also like to sympathize with Frerbear. Leave the guy alone. It seems like your only trying to harrass the fellow for somethings he may not fully understand. There goes a saying, there are no dumb questions. I respect the questions and thoughts he had to ask. Let's just end this discussion and move on. If you want some help man PM me I'm more than willing to help you out.

 

This care bear BS has to go.

 

If you're going to wade into a thread and present yourself as an expert, you should have more going for you than a "butt dyno" and a healthy dose of offended sensibilities.

 

Especially when your anecdotal evidence is easy to prove sub-optimal with a little math (since software is, by definition, just a bunch of fancy math).

 

The only guy being berated is the guy who is inadvertently leading others down a path of mediocrity because he is giving bad advice. He is staunchly defending his advice without real evidence to support it, and denigrating nay-sayers who have empirical evidence to support their conclusions.

 

His posts are bad for the community and bad for the game. They will directly make other players worse. The fact that his wacky choices work for him just illustrate that he is terrible at playing his chosen class competently, and makes him even less of a credible authority.

[Frerbear]

This care bear BS has to go.

 

If you're going to wade into a thread and present yourself as an expert, you should have more going for you than a "butt dyno" and a healthy dose of offended sensibilities.

 

Especially when your anecdotal evidence is easy to prove sub-optimal with a little math (since software is, by definition, just a bunch of fancy math).

 

The only guy being berated is the guy who is inadvertently leading others down a path of mediocrity because he is giving bad advice. He is staunchly defending his advice without real evidence to support it, and denigrating nay-sayers who have empirical evidence to support their conclusions.

 

His posts are bad for the community and bad for the game. They will directly make other players worse. The fact that his wacky choices work for him just illustrate that he is terrible at playing his chosen class competently, and makes him even less of a credible authority.

 

Last time I checked, I didn't present myself as an expert. But hey, you seem like the kind of guy who likes to fabricate ideas, so lets just let that one go. Like I said, the double rock approach parses lower for me. If I am doing something wrong with my rotation, I would be happy for someone to let me know, but nobody has said anything to me so far about it. I think my DPS is pretty damn good, and so do most other people. You obviously think you are the know-all of shadow knowledge, since you look down on my posts as being "bad for the community and bad for the game", so please, put your "massive amount of knowledge" to use, and tell me what I'm doing wrong, how I'm "terrible at playing my class competently". Just because you are a smug *** doesn't mean you know everything.

[Andar]

I typically run 3/31/7 for PvE. Can't sustain high numbers for 5+ minutes, but is still a large contributor. Has the potential to top out approximately 1700-1800 in sustained fights when mastered and optimized. Is very underwhelming without the gear. Extra survivability from kinetic field, and shadowy veil are nice when paired together with 30% aoe reduction. Can be a very helpful tool in certain boss fights and trash mobs.

 

I recently tried out a few parses as 5/5/31, once your rotation is down, it's easy to sustain stupid dmg.

Pulled 1924 dps tonight on a 5 minute fight, which is a record for me. (adrenal and stimmed) no armor pen debuffs

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/9516d563-b250-4b17-9fa8-050b35813c76/overview#d=0,b=1

.

Edited December 31, 2012 by Andar

[Shadowseve]

The agenda of the elitist is not to be "helpful".

 

 

There is a difference in being an elitist jerk and appreciating good theory crafting. I was in beta and I've seen Kirtu post many times and learned to trust his judgment on a lot of stuff. I took a very long break and came back just recently, even though I'm not as fond of the consular class kirtu has been very kind in answering my post and questions. What he and other top theory crafters are trying to do is give sound advise based on fact (games are based on fact and math). They don't want newer people getting bad advise.

 

 

The class you play should be researched. You should want to know your abilities and how to use them properly. I have never, ever understood people who just want to log in mash any button and throw crap anywhere and expect to do good. There are people who are "elitist jerks" and are very rude. There is also the other side of the pie. There are some people for some reason so against sims and theory crating they attack anything math related and have become "anti elitist elitist jerks."

 

I am a musician who sings, plays piano, guitar, and violin. I have researched and studied and pored sweat and tears into learning my instruments. Anything worth doing is worth taking the time to research, learn from past mistakes, and actually put effort into what your doing. Other wise why are you doing it?

 

/ end rant on anti theory crafting.

 

tldr version

Why play if you don't want to play to your best?

[MantorokTwelve]

That is bull. It's not elitist to correct bad information. It's not like anyone has said an alternate build isn't viable or insulted anyone for playing it. They just took issue with someone saying a build was "higher" DPS when it was factually not.

 

This. These theorycrafters are sharing their numbers and experience with the community, which is a lot more than real elitist ***holes would do. They do a service to the community by testing specs, tweaking gear, and telling us what works. They do hours of work and spend millions of credits to find out what is the absolute best they can do.

 

So I think it makes sense when they take offense when someone is adamantly against what they say, and belittles their labor. You say your experience has shown you something, but the theorycrafters have much more experience than you. Which isn't to say they can't be flawed, that's why it's called theorycrafting.

 

So by all means, criticize, ask questions, debate with people. Just never explicitly reject something when it is backed with empirical proof.

[feliix]

If you look over time, there is a ton of absolute garbage information

presented on this forum. If someone wants to spew out "feelings"

based opinions in a game built from math, it's ok. But it is clearly

not anywhere near optimal. That kind of post is always going to

draw flack in a thread looking for "best".

 

I really, really appreciate kitru, and other math based posters that

provide informed opinions, and have taken the time to bolster

those opinions with math.

 

Even if I'm a player that can't be in a guild that is clearing top end content

easily, it's nice to optimize my balance dps or tank shadow as best I can.

That simply would not be possible if everyone posted their wild hair notions

with no supporting math. Or well spoken, reasoned opinions as to why

certain optimizations work better than others.

 

Providing math, and detailed analysis, is simply fantastic. Kitru and keyboardninja

come to mind, but there are also others.

 

Thanks. For being patient. Your well written and informed posts are a boon

for the swtor community.

[Shadowseve]

If you look over time, there is a ton of absolute garbage information

presented on this forum. If someone wants to spew out "feelings"

based opinions in a game built from math, it's ok. But it is clearly

not anywhere near optimal. That kind of post is always going to

draw flack in a thread looking for "best".

 

I really, really appreciate kitru, and other math based posters that

provide informed opinions, and have taken the time to bolster

those opinions with math.

 

Even if I'm a player that can't be in a guild that is clearing top end content

easily, it's nice to optimize my balance dps or tank shadow as best I can.

That simply would not be possible if everyone posted their wild hair notions

with no supporting math. Or well spoken, reasoned opinions as to why

certain optimizations work better than others.

 

Providing math, and detailed analysis, is simply fantastic. Kitru and keyboardninja

come to mind, but there are also others.

 

Thanks. For being patient. Your well written and informed posts are a boon

for the swtor community.

 

Could not have said that better myself.