Crtical on sentinel

[Threjyan]

Good morning dear fellow players.

 

I was in need of some advice on the amount of crtical that is good or bad for a combat sentinel.

The question is that yesterday i received the token of implant on trasher HM on darvannis, and when i went to the vendor i decide to buy the weapons master one that has power and surge, but the problem , which i am not sure it is a problem, is that it replaced the one i can buy with comendations, and my critical dropped from 20.38% to 18%. I had a huge improvement on bónus damage, with the weapons master, But i was trying to see where is the % of critical is in a good zone.

 

I can only raise it again, with the mkx or MKV packages from token that drop on titan 6 hM só it will take sometime to LVL up crítical again.

 

So basicly my question is: 18% is an acceptable number to be with?

 

Thx for feedback

Edited July 9, 2013 by Threjyan
bad english

[Leafy_Bug]

While critical is not as important as before, you need to stack 50-100 crit rating on your sentinel. Mine has a funny 88 number and seems to be okay in both specs. If your 18% crit is melee, that is too low imho. I have 26 force and 21+ melee.

[JediMasterSLC]

For combat and focus, crit rating should be 0.

[DarthAlgus]

Good afternoon. I've seen your question yesterday JediMasterSLC but wasn't able to answer. I am playing with my sentinel over 6 months now. I've started as a watchmen at end-game PvE but i switched to Combat 3 weeks before 2.0. As a combat spec sentinel you wont be needing any crit rating other than the very few that you get from a piece or two. The stat prio after 2.0 didn't chage. Str>Power>Surge>Alac=Crit given that you are over %100 acc. I am also playing with a crit percentage of 18 and with the power&surge i got from trading the crit is giving me a very nice dps increase. Since the hard hitting abilities we have as combat sentinel are already getting crit from talent tree ( assuming that you give valor 1/2 and take the additional %7.5 crit on Dispatch & Blade Storm being a %100 chance crit with opp. strike) we really don't need much of a crit rating.

I hope I was able to help you and other combat sentinels out there. May the force be with you.

[JediMasterSLC]

Good afternoon. I've seen your question yesterday JediMasterSLC

 

I wasn't aware I was asking a question lol.

[Righness]

I wasn't aware I was asking a question lol.

 

I think he got the names wrong from who posted and your accurate reply lol, not that you didn't know this already...

[AidanLightwalker]

Good afternoon. I've seen your question yesterday JediMasterSLC but wasn't able to answer. I am playing with my sentinel over 6 months now. I've started as a watchmen at end-game PvE but i switched to Combat 3 weeks before 2.0. As a combat spec sentinel you wont be needing any crit rating other than the very few that you get from a piece or two. The stat prio after 2.0 didn't chage. Str>Power>Surge>Alac=Crit given that you are over %100 acc. I am also playing with a crit percentage of 18 and with the power&surge i got from trading the crit is giving me a very nice dps increase. Since the hard hitting abilities we have as combat sentinel are already getting crit from talent tree ( assuming that you give valor 1/2 and take the additional %7.5 crit on Dispatch & Blade Storm being a %100 chance crit with opp. strike) we really don't need much of a crit rating.

I hope I was able to help you and other combat sentinels out there. May the force be with you.

 

Why would you only put 1 pt into Valor just to get to the 7.5% on dispatch? You already have to waste points in the first tier just to get there, why waste even more? Extra crit on force attacks? Waste. Its been a waste since they changed atura procs to weapon damage. Blade storm already auto crits, I fail to see any logic in that. Factor in that extra damage on sweep and cyclone, again, who cares? I see nothing but wasted points trying to get the 7.5% for a combat sentinel.

[JediMasterSLC]

Why would you only put 1 pt into Valor just to get to the 7.5% on dispatch? You already have to waste points in the first tier just to get there, why waste even more? Extra crit on force attacks? Waste. Its been a waste since they changed atura procs to weapon damage. Blade storm already auto crits, I fail to see any logic in that. Factor in that extra damage on sweep and cyclone, again, who cares? I see nothing but wasted points trying to get the 7.5% for a combat sentinel.

 

In PvE, it comes down to whether or not gaining 7.5% crit chance on dispatch is worth losing out on 1 centering generation after every focus-costing attack, and 15 sec longer CD on Valorous Call. Having to spend points in tier 1 of focus tree is irrelevant, because you only need 36 points in combat tree for PvE, and 2nd tier of watchman doesn't offer you anything. You'd be wasting most of those points on PvP talents in combat tree anyway, if not on those tier 1 focus talents. I haven't done any hard math on the issue, but my intuition tells me that it's not worth it if you have the 4 piece set bonus that increases your damage after popping zen by 4% for 15 secs. Only 1 point is valor means less Zens. Again, I haven't done hard math on the issue, so I could be wrong.

 

Honestly, keeping 2/2 in Valor and only taking 2/3 in focused slash while still getting Swift Slash, seems better.

Edited July 12, 2013 by JediMasterSLC

[tman_ac]

With the current gear and DR crit is 100% useless on sentinels. I tested all possible variations and what I can tell is you should always favor power > crit!

[BlznSmri]

Honestly, keeping 2/2 in Valor and only taking 2/3 in focused slash while still getting Swift Slash, seems better.

 

In a raid environment with incoming damage and Defensive Forms talented (as opposed to Jedi Crusader) you're still going to be able to activate Zen frequently enough (ideally every time master strike is off CD, if not faster) to get use out of the 4 pc bonus with 1 point in Valor. Not taking that third point in Focused Slash could hurt your dps more so than not having 2 in valor because it allows RNG to really affect your Focus generation for the worse, and since you only build Centering off of abilities that cost focus it could lead to fewer Zens than the other method.

[JediMasterSLC]

since you only build Centering off of abilities that cost focus it could lead to fewer Zens than the other method.

 

Didn't even think about that, that makes sense.

[Dawginole]

For combat and focus, crit rating should be 0.

 

Someone just grabbed my vote for Forum rep.

[Dawginole]

Str>Power>Surge>Alac=Crit given that you are over %100 acc.

 

Negative. You will not drop below 100% ACC on mainhand even if you cut your hand off. Your concern with ACC is on the offhand, and the main ability you have to worry about here is Master Strike as offhand ACC is calculated into this ability. You can actually drop ACC in favor of power/surge/alacrity UNTIL you start missing Master Strike. Master Strike procs has three separate hits. You can watch carefully and see if any of those proc a miss. If so, you've gone down too far. I'm currently operating on "97%" ACC and am not missing any Master Strike hits. Being that I was comfortable with my damage and slight variations would be minuscule I've opted to test out power/alacrity 72 enh's in place of my normal power/acc 72 enh's this week in ops to see how it goes. But test for yourself.

[Ardarell_Solo]

With the current gear and DR crit is 100% useless on sentinels. I tested all possible variations and what I can tell is you should always favor power > crit!

 

Not as watchman! The extra focus gained via melee critical hits on burning targets is a significant DPS gain. I admit this parse has lucky crits on top of the gear, but it was done with 126 crit rating and couldn't have been done without it if you look at the critical hits in it: http://www.torparse.com/a/331796/1/0/Damage+Dealt

[Ausgelebt]

Negative. You will not drop below 100% ACC on mainhand even if you cut your hand off. Your concern with ACC is on the offhand, and the main ability you have to worry about here is Master Strike as offhand ACC is calculated into this ability. You can actually drop ACC in favor of power/surge/alacrity UNTIL you start missing Master Strike. Master Strike procs has three separate hits. You can watch carefully and see if any of those proc a miss. If so, you've gone down too far. I'm currently operating on "97%" ACC and am not missing any Master Strike hits. Being that I was comfortable with my damage and slight variations would be minuscule I've opted to test out power/alacrity 72 enh's in place of my normal power/acc 72 enh's this week in ops to see how it goes. But test for yourself.

 

 

Yes you will. I am at 97% without accuracy enhancements. Don't make up stuff.(that is with 72 BiS gear)

[oofalong]

Not as watchman! The extra focus gained via melee critical hits on burning targets is a significant DPS gain. I admit this parse has lucky crits on top of the gear, but it was done with 126 crit rating and couldn't have been done without it if you look at the critical hits in it: http://www.torparse.com/a/331796/1/0/Damage+Dealt

 

You had 88 Merciless Slash hits which means 44 HM and 44 OH. Your MH hits, which are our highest hitting direct ability, crit 16 of these 44 times. This is a crit rate of 36%. This far exceeds the expected crit rate even with 126 crit; I am guessing you had ~21% melee crit. In other words, you got incredibly lucky with this parse.

 

As a general rule crit chance introduces more volatility into your expected damage. Thus, when the stars align you can see really high numbers. That said there may still be a place for crit in Watchman/Annihilation.

[oofalong]

Yes you will. I am at 97% without accuracy enhancements. Don't make up stuff.(that is with 72 BiS gear)

 

There are technically 5 different Accuracy measures to be aware of, and you can find all of these in the Character Screen if you hover over the Accuracy percent in the melee and force tabs. In order they are:

 

Melee

• Basic Accuracy: This is the default value listed on your Character Screen. It has a base value of 90%. The only ability that considers this accuracy is Main Hand (MH) hits from Strike/Assault; there are three of these per activation.
   
  
• Secondary Weapon: It has a base value of 57%. The only ability that considers this accuracy is Off Hand (OH) hits from Strike/Assault; there is one of these per activation.
   
  
• Special Attacks: It has a base value of 100%. Every other melee attacks uses this as the MH accuracy to determine a hit or not.
   
  
• Secondary Weapon: It has a base value of 67%. Every other melee attacks uses this as the OH accuracy to determine a hit or not.
  

Force

• Accuracy: It has a base value of 100%. Every Force attack - Burns, Blade Storm, Sweep and Stasis - rely on this accuracy to determine a hit. Notice how this has the same base value as melee Special Attacks' accuracy.
  

 

In addition to your accuracy, Operations bosses have a chance to dodge melee attacks or resist force attacks. This rate is 10%. Thus, you want to target 110% Special Attack and Force Accuracy to overcome this dodge/resist chance. In order to do this, you should have +3% Accuracy from Steadfast and +1% Accuracy from max affection with Lord Scourge and any melee companion tank in your legacy. In addition, you will need ~400 Accuracy rating from your enhancements or implants. Based on 72 quality gear, 5 pieces with Accuracy will give you a rating of 395 which is +5.51%. This should be your target.

[vdbswong]

In addition to your accuracy, Operations bosses have a chance to dodge melee attacks or resist force attacks. This rate is 10%. Thus, you want to target 110% Special Attack and Force Accuracy to overcome this dodge/resist chance. In order to do this, you should have +3% Accuracy from Steadfast and +1% Accuracy from max affection with Lord Scourge and any melee companion tank in your legacy. In addition, you will need ~400 Accuracy rating from your enhancements or implants. Based on 72 quality gear, 5 pieces with Accuracy will give you a rating of 395 which is +5.51%. This should be your target.

 

This only adds up to 99.51%

 

Which looking at other classes, seems to be enough to hit 100% of the time (on Special Attacks) on a 5min parse?

[Ardarell_Solo]

You had 88 Merciless Slash hits which means 44 HM and 44 OH. Your MH hits, which are our highest hitting direct ability, crit 16 of these 44 times. This is a crit rate of 36%. This far exceeds the expected crit rate even with 126 crit; I am guessing you had ~21% melee crit. In other words, you got incredibly lucky with this parse.

 

As a general rule crit chance introduces more volatility into your expected damage. Thus, when the stars align you can see really high numbers. That said there may still be a place for crit in Watchman/Annihilation.

 

Oh yes this IS a lucky parse, I'm totally aware of that. And I need something like this to beat Dreadguards. Crit makes DPS possible (albeit not likely) that would otherwise be simply impossible.

 

Thing is, I have 21.72% melee crit chance and though this parse is extraordinarily high in crit, it's by no means an exception: My average melee Crit is always much higher than those 21,72%. The funny thing is: If I go for zero crit rating (which has me sittin on something like 19,75% melee crit chance) , the crit percentage in parses is about exactly that: around 20%. I get the feeling, and I've been having it since 1.2., that the game "rewards" investing at least some points in a stat more than your character screen and math actually say.

 

I know this is an extremely subjective statement and the exact opposite of your theory crafting approach, but that's exactly why I'm posting it here, to see your take on it.

 

What I can definitely say, is that focus management is WAY easier with 126 crit. While that's not that big an advantage on the dummy, where you can solely focus on rotation, it does come in extremely handy when you just return from add duty in a boss fight and want to dot up the boss again and renew your Merciless, thus needing 9 focus or so on the spot.

Plus, the effect is double: More focus means you're not as severely punished for mistakes in your rotation. Best trick: When I have Merciless come up in 2,5 or so secs I can do Master Strike with only 3 (or if I'm lucky 2) focus, as there are 6 possible crit hits in it, giving me enough focus by the end of that channel. If I time Merciless right, I can get it in without using a GCD either (compare my post in the Combat Discussion). That's a truckload of dps in 3 secs for just 3 focus.

 

On a different note I'd like to share a nice way of keeping Merciless up in Titan 6 fight in S&V: Before Launch do Twin Saber Throw on a Titan probe add: It will come to your safe position and you can fight it there while in cover behind your rock - that doesn't break protection from Launch and allows you to keep up your Merciless Stacks. Then just Force Leap to Titan and do next Merciless Slash and you shouldn't lose your stacks. Worst thing that can happen is, that you have all the adds' aggro when Titan reappears -> Just inform offtank and healers and pull the probes to the boss for AoE, then do force camouflage. So much for "Titan is for Combat Sents only" ;-)

[oofalong]

This only adds up to 99.51%

 

Which looking at other classes, seems to be enough to hit 100% of the time (on Special Attacks) on a 5min parse?

 

I believe 99.51% provides to the maximum overall damage output. The trade off is to cut surge.

[Ausgelebt]

I believe 99.51% provides to the maximum overall damage output. The trade off is to cut surge.

 

For sentinel middle tree you need 3 Initiative Enhancement 31 to reach 100,34.

[oofalong]

Oh yes this IS a lucky parse, I'm totally aware of that. And I need something like this to beat Dreadguards. Crit makes DPS possible (albeit not likely) that would otherwise be simply impossible.

 

Thing is, I have 21.72% melee crit chance and though this parse is extraordinarily high in crit, it's by no means an exception: My average melee Crit is always much higher than those 21,72%. The funny thing is: If I go for zero crit rating (which has me sittin on something like 19,75% melee crit chance) , the crit percentage in parses is about exactly that: around 20%. I get the feeling, and I've been having it since 1.2., that the game "rewards" investing at least some points in a stat more than your character screen and math actually say.

 

I know this is an extremely subjective statement and the exact opposite of your theory crafting approach, but that's exactly why I'm posting it here, to see your take on it.

 

What I can definitely say, is that focus management is WAY easier with 126 crit. While that's not that big an advantage on the dummy, where you can solely focus on rotation, it does come in extremely handy when you just return from add duty in a boss fight and want to dot up the boss again and renew your Merciless, thus needing 9 focus or so on the spot.

Plus, the effect is double: More focus means you're not as severely punished for mistakes in your rotation. Best trick: When I have Merciless come up in 2,5 or so secs I can do Master Strike with only 3 (or if I'm lucky 2) focus, as there are 6 possible crit hits in it, giving me enough focus by the end of that channel. If I time Merciless right, I can get it in without using a GCD either (compare my post in the Combat Discussion). That's a truckload of dps in 3 secs for just 3 focus.

 

Truthfully, I added some crit rating as well despite my math telling me not to. I too felt like resource management was much easier although I did not notice an increase in damage. My sample size is far too low to have any conclusive thoughts. I also spec'ed as 36/10 for NiM S&V so I could imagine that the crit rating helps offset this DPS loss from 0 points in Insight/Malice.

[oofalong]

For sentinel middle tree you need 3 Initiative Enhancement 31 to reach 100,34.

 

Ahh yes, good clarification point, perhaps this was the cause of all of the confusion. When you are in Ataru form you gain an extra 3% Accuracy. For Watchman (and probably Focus) you need 5 pieces with Accuracy and for Combat you only need 3.

[tman_ac]

Oh yes this IS a lucky parse, I'm totally aware of that. And I need something like this to beat Dreadguards. Crit makes DPS possible (albeit not likely) that would otherwise be simply impossible.

 

This makes no sense at all. Power and/or surge combined WITH critical hits makes dps possible: If you are lucky to get more crits even without more crit rating this will be the best. In all my parses my dps varies from 2700 to 2950 (BiS 72) whereas the lowest parses are the ones with least crits and the highest ones with extraordinary luck on crits. (note: not a single point in crit rating)

 

If you for example only use pieces with crits and have no power/surge at all, your dps will be laughed at.

 

After doing like 200 parses with and without crit rating I came to the conclusion that using a single crit mod/enhancement/implant/earpiece is a net dps loss. If I get 30% crits with 1900 power and 0 crit rating is more dps than if I get 30% crit with 1800 power and 79 crit rating. And overall I never noticed a significant raise in critical hits, no matter if I used one, two or 3 pieces with crit rating.

 

In the end it seems with the current ratings you are to much dependent on luck - which is really bad in my opinion. Pre 2.0 in BiS 63 my dps difference in 50 parses was never more than 50 dps while I now face a difference of like 250-300 dps in my parses.

 

What I can definitely say, is that focus management is WAY easier with 126 crit.

 

Dunno what you are doing, but I never have any problems with my focus management. The trick is to not rely on luck and have a plan B in your mind for all possible scenarios. That's what I have after playing this class for nearly 2 years now.

Edited July 18, 2013 by tman_ac

[Ardarell_Solo]

I did 10 parses each, with 3 different setups:

0 crit

64 crit

126 crit

 

The last one had the highest average. Oofalong would probably say that this is still too low a sample number to mathematically prove anything, but it seemed good enough for me. Main difference between trys is proc luc with Cauterize reset and Critical on Merciless Slash and I think this fairly evens out with 10 parses.

 

BTW: More Focus basically means just that: More Slashes instead of Strikes to force Cauterize reset if needed. In a lucky parse, Merciless Slash will always reset Cauterize, then it's a "free" Blade Storm now and then. Otherwise I can "force" Cauterize reset better.

 

But as I said, I see the main advantage of crit in actual boss fights rather than on the dummy, when there's a lot more to watch out for than rotation management. Would you maybe share some parses from Styrak, Dreadguards, Dash'roode or Titan to compare? I'd be interested if there are differences in rotation, Zen usage and such. I've been playing and focussing on my Sent since 1.2. and always thought I had the optimal rotation in my finger tips even if you woke me up at 3 am, but one is always willing to improve!

 

Thanks for your effort :-)