Testing Relics

[Khevar]

I've finally gotten around to testing some relics on my Commando. I did 3 10-minute parses. Each with a simple, repeatable rotation to try and remove as much RNG as I could.

 

Rotation: GR-HS-GR-HS-GR-HS-DR-HiB-FA - repeat

 

My main relic (which I kept for each of the 3 parses) is the Underworld Relic of Serendipitous Assault. The second relic I swapped out for each fight.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/258131/1/0/Overview - 2349

This one was with the Dread Guard Relic of Kinetic Tempest.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/258131/2/0/Overview - 2305

This one was with the Dread Guard Relic of Boundless Ages. I made sure to click this on cooldown, and managed to get 5 clicks in on a 10-minute fight.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/258131/3/0/Overview - 2204

This one was with the Partisan Relic of Serendipitous Assault.

 

A few interesting things I noticed when looking at the details. My Underworld serendipitous proc'ed more on the second parse (28 times) compared to the first parse (21 times), and despite this, my overall dps was higher. The third parse both relics proc'ed a total of 47 times (!) and yet that had the lowest dps of all.

 

Each fight had exactly 840 Hammer Shots, 41 Demolition Rounds, 41 High Impact Bolts and 123 Full Auto casts. So this is a pretty accurate comparison.

 

Critical Hit % was higher on the first parse. Not sure what to make of that, other than the fact that Grav Wave made up a decent amount of the critical hits (27%).

 

Anyway, the next Underworld Relic I get is going to be the Cerulean Nova for the damage proc, sitting on top of the Serendipitous power proc. Anyone see any flaws in my analysis?

[Flying-Brian]

Taken from the Merc forum about relic use.

Relic Update (Thanks Keren):

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/1es8kl/pve_power_relics_dont_stack_with_pve_direct/

 

To sum up, PVE damage proc and power proc relics can't proc within the same window. Making the PVE Cerulean Nova and PVE Serendiptious Assault relics incompatabile. At least when it comes to BiS.

 

This could be working as intended or not, we'll see in 2.1.1. But I think it is working as intended which would mean that the possible BiS combinations would be either the Cerulean Nova w/ Boundless Ages OR Serendipitous Assault w/ Boundless Ages. Simulations show that the CN and SA are remarkably similar, meaning both could be quite viable. I have the CN right now, so my natural choice would be to go with the BA and call it a day and reassess with the next content.

[GeckoOBac]

SA relics don't stack anymore so the third result is unsurprising. The result of the parses of the OP though seem to contradict the fact that BiS is *not* having both SA and a proc damage relic.

 

The OP did use a dread guard relic though so it would be worth checking if the behaviour observed with the newer cerulean nova relics changed with the 2.1.1 patch or if the dread guard relics behave differently.

[Umbradomina]

Has anybody looked at this from a purely PVP perspective (i.e., relics available from the PVP vendors in fleet) for a Gunnery spec? I was running the Conq/Part SA relics. Am now kicking around keeping the Conq SA and going back to my old BM BA relic for the 2nd one.

 

Your thoughts?

[Khevar]

SA relics don't stack anymore so the third result is unsurprising. The result of the parses of the OP though seem to contradict the fact that BiS is *not* having both SA and a proc damage relic.

 

The OP did use a dread guard relic though so it would be worth checking if the behaviour observed with the newer cerulean nova relics changed with the 2.1.1 patch or if the dread guard relics behave differently.

The interesting thing on the double SA relics, is that I ran this parse last night (before the patch), and I got 47 procs in a 10 minute fight, which is one every 12.8 seconds. And despite this, it was the lowest parse. Weird.

 

The next relic I get will be Underworld Cerulean Nova. And at some point after that, I'll get Underworld Boundless Ages. Then I can do another set of comparative parses.

[GeckoOBac]

The interesting thing on the double SA relics, is that I ran this parse last night (before the patch), and I got 47 procs in a 10 minute fight, which is one every 12.8 seconds. And despite this, it was the lowest parse. Weird.

Not completely weird cause using a pvp + pve one worked in a weird way: the pvp one (IIRC) had to proc first for the double proccing to occur, otherwise the pve one woul trigger the CD for both. But in a long fight it didn't matter because as soon as the pvp one procced first, the pve one would proc in the "shadow" of the pvp cooldown, so they would then keep proccing together. In fact your 12.8 average cooldown fits well with this, as you'd expect some GCD for the relics to proc and half the internal cooldown, so anything over 10 seconds (whithin limits) is right.

 

For the fact that the parse was the lowest I can't really say, perhaps there was some other factor influencing the results. Doesn't really matter anymore.

 

The next relic I get will be Underworld Cerulean Nova. And at some point after that, I'll get Underworld Boundless Ages. Then I can do another set of comparative parses.

 

Yeah I'll be doing the same. BA will be the last I get cause I can't really bother with clicky relics outside of specific fights (like TFB kephess), and the dps difference is minimal.

[Edit: I will definitely see if the cerulean nova is better than my EWH BA though. In theory it should be, but we'll see]

Edited May 30, 2013 by GeckoOBac